Lenco Mobile

• The Tablet Craze
  

Lenco Mobile Top Trends for 2011

iPad’s mega success in 2010 inspired competition from Dell (Streak, Inspiron Duo) and Samsung (The Galaxy Tab) as well as others.  In February, Blackberry is set to release its much anticipated Playbook Tablet followed by Cisco with the Cius Tablet due in March.   Unannounced possibilities for new releases include a new iPad with a front-facing camera and Palm WebOS tablet from HP.

Of the 10 million tablets sold in the US in 2010, eMarketer research estimates that 90 percent will be accounted for by iPad and 80 percent of the predicted 24 million tablets expected to sell in 2011 will also be iPad.  Forrester Research predicts US tablet sales will eclipse desktop and netbook sales by 2015.   Expect to see trends like videoconferencing and moblogging (mobile blogging) as tablets grow more sophisticated.  A good example of this is the 720p high-def front-facing camera specifically for high-resolution videoconferencing built into Cisco’s new Cius tablet.

• Laptops morph into Netbooks

The line between what constitutes a netbook and a laptop will continue to blur as netbooks become as powerful as laptops and laptops are designed to look more like netbooks (and vice versa).  With the success of the MacBook Air, we may see many companies follow suit.

• Smarter Smartphones

Mobile platforms continue to grow more advanced and powerful like Apple’s iOS, Android and Windows Phone 7.  Near Field Communication technology will be implemented in forward thinking handsets like Google’s Nexus S.  It allows the device to communicate with other NFC devices within 4 inches.  This could be used for in store purchases, paying a toll at subway stations or to get handy info on a product quickly from a window sticker.

• Ubiquitous Smartphones

eMarketer predicts smartphone users will go from 60.2 million at 2010’s end to 73.3 million by the end of 2011 rendering smartphoner users 31% of the mobile population by year’s end and 43% by 2015.  Rumors have been swirling,l will Verizon release an iPhone?   If so, many existing Verizon customers may switch and an influx from other carriers is expected (especially if they offer to cover the early termination fees and play ball with unlimited data plans).  There has been interest in how both networks will hold up once this group rearranges itself in the event of the Verizon iPhone release.

• 4G Network Availability Expands

There are many measurements of 4G speed and it is becoming somewhat of a marketing buzzword.  Users will need to upgrade their phones to cash in on faster download speeds for rich media applications on smartphones with 4G.

• Mobile Marketing

The business community is beginning to take the mobile marketing world a great deal more seriously.  SMS and MMS campaigns will proliferate as well as custom .mobi sites designed for multiple platforms.

• Mobi Sites

A June 2010 ComScore study found that over 50% of browsing is done on a mobile device.  The study also reveals that among mobile users 54% of application usage is on a smartphone, 54% of social networking as well and video consumption is at 66% on smartphones.  It’s going to be increasingly important to optimize your website for mobile.  Because iPhone does not support flash, custom mobi sites must be developed that work cross platform.   From a Search Engine Optimization standpoint, mobile searching uses different, subtle algorithms that take into account whether search query results have been optimized for mobile devices.

• Mobile Social

Facebook reports that 200 million active users are accessing the site from mobile devices. Mobile users of the site are twice as active.  What an exceptional opportunity for eyeballs and exposure and a missed opportunity if you have not yet involved your business in an active social media presence.

• Location-based Marketing

Foursquare, Loopt, Yelp, Gowalla and Facebook Places will all become increasingly popular in 2011 as 75% of devices shipped in developed countries will include GPS technology.  Young consumers especially have shown an affinity for checking in at locations such as a store, restaurant or bar to receive offers.

• iAds

iPad video ads are robust and studies show they have a higher response rate in comparison to ads on other mobile devices.   Creating dynamic ads for the iPad that are video based or interactive may be a good area to invest in for your venture to take advantage of the higher response rates and the novelty of the nascent tablet craze.  Other tablets will be heavily adopted on the market this year as well so it’s key to stay current with this trend by getting your oar in the water.

To find out more about Lenco Mobile’s list of top trends, visit Lenco Mobile, a multinational technological solutions company.

There are over 230 million American mobile phone subscribers aged 13 and up in the U.S, according to a report by ComScore. The Mobile Access 2010 report by Pew Internet and American Life Project notes that, about 1/3 of the total U.S population accessed the mobile web this past year. Couple this with ABI Research noting mobile commerce purchasing power from mobile devices already in the billions and you can see why mobile ready websites are critical to any business growth. The Pew report also noted that those Americans accessing the mobile web this past year do so at least once per day. Daily mobile Internet visits will only continue to grow.  Whether your business is retail or lead generation, with the reported mobile Internet explosion, can you really afford to pass up traffic like this? With more people accessing the Internet from mobile devices, it becomes essential for a website to establish its mobile presence in order to stay competitive. If you’re ignoring the mobile web, now’s the time to stop. If the trend in mobile Internet access amongst Americans continues, half of the population will be accessing the Internet via their mobile phones and other mobile devices.  See infographic of these statistics at the end of the article.

So, the questions become how do you get your website in front of the millions of mobile Internet visitors and how do you keep them coming back? Step one will be a minimalist approach. To give your visitors a great user experience, you need to design for a much smaller screen. Even with the limited amount of screen space on mobile devices, mini versions of your existing website may not cut it. When making the transition from web to mobile, a good mobile site strategy is to focus on the core marketing goals and brand definition of your site by keeping the color scheme, logo, and optimizing it for mobile devices by reducing the number of images and conforming to the mobile development rules for mobile sites. When your site is optimized for a mobile screen experience, you lessen the risk of customer dissatisfaction and improve your chances for repeat mobile visitors. Step two will be to get in front of mobile visitors via search results. Google has a separate index for users searching mobile content from a mobile device and because it is still in its youth, there are fewer sites out there to compete with! If you start optimizing your website for mobile, the opportunity for your mobile site to rank for the targeted keywords you want is increased and better still, as the competition grows, you may have the authority to maintain your ranking.

Lenco Mobile customizes mobile sites

Lenco Mobile designs and builds custom mobile sites that best suit the needs of their customers’ audience. Lenco Mobile understands the needs for mobile Internet users differ from online users and tailors mobile sites to meet these needs to ensure an optimal user experience. The success of mobile websites depends on the sites view and ease of use by the visitor. Lenco Mobile builds mobile websites to enhance any brands mobile presence.

During the past several months, there’s been some high visibility positioning between the large mobile carriers on who has the fastest network. In particular, T-Mobile and AT&T have tried to position themselves as having the “fastest broadband mobile network” or the “America’s largest 4G network” in the marketplace, effectively leveraging the term 4G. This next generation advance over the current capability of 3G download speeds is not only being technically sought after, but also prematurely marketed as well.

Apparently beside the point is the fact that none of the wireless providers, including not only T-Mobile and AT&T, but also Verizon (LTE) and Sprint (WiMax) can deliver the 100 megabits-per-second required download to be considered “4G” by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). However, the ITU does permit the term to be applied to ‘advanced’ 3G networks as the technology continues to be defined (obviously taking a Swiss based neutral approach – they’re located in Geneva after all).

Lenco Mobile

What does this all mean? Well, right now it’s just marketing-based semantics as consumers won’t see an exponential change in service since all of the large operators are only delivering speeds from 3 to 5 times that of their previous 3G networks (think around 20 Mbps). Verizon, however is claiming that its LTE network can deliver speeds ten times faster than its earlier generation. With nearly double the speed advantage, Verizon hopes to be the clear winner at least for this round. Verizon is the number one carrier in the US with more than 93 million subscribers (and is partially owned by Vodafone.)

A more interesting question will be how this affects data pricing plans. Increase speeds will mean that more data will flow through the wireless network plumbing and more traffic means more cost. With mobile apps becoming more complex and, video & gaming consumption on the rise, the requirement for richer experiences (ads included) will only continue to increase. Therefore, we’ve already seen carriers doing away with the unlimited data plans in favor of a tiered pricing structure. AT&T was the first to feel this pain when App usage exploded in 2009. And with rising smartphone ownership contributing compounding the effect, both the debate on what to call it and its necessary growth will continue. To learn more information about how this new technology will affect you, visit Lenco Mobile.