Category: rhythm

Check out the article I wrote for Rhythm Interactive’s September 2009 issue of The Source.

I recently attended a week-long iPhone Training Boot Camp, during which I was reminded of an interesting fact – when the Apple iPhone originally launched in June of 2007 it did not have an App Store. It wasn’t until almost a year later in March of 2008 that a SDK (Software Development Kit) was released to allow developers to use anything besides the custom JavaScript library built into Mobile Safari to leverage the power of the iPhone. Of course, now the App Store is the basis of their whole iPhone sales campaign with its popular “We’ve got an App for that” tagline.

Of course, developing for the iPhone brings with it a whole new complicated set of processes. From ensuring that your application adheres to Apple’s strict Human Interface Guidelines, to guiding your Application through the time consuming App Approval Process. And, of course there is the whole issue of making sure you don’t step on Apple’s toes in the process, and duplicate any functionality that is built into the phone like the recent boondoggle with Google and their Google Voice application.

Now that the iPhone proved there is a market for apps, we are seeing the other mobile vendors launch their own App Stores. The Google Android phones are the next most popular, followed by stores for phones based on Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, as well as stores for Blackberry and Samsung phones. But Apple is the clear leader, having benefited from being first to market. Especially in light of the fact that the market for iPhone Apps was recently estimated to be in the neighborhood of $2.4 billion dollars per year.

With the iPhone’s constant Internet connection and the power of the iPhone SDK, we are finally seeing the mobile revolution materialize. You no longer need to have someone sitting in front of a television or computer to get your message in front of them. You can extend your brand experience to them in a relevant way when they are waiting for a train in the subway, eating lunch at a cafe, or even “answering the call of nature.” Now advertisers are beginning to see the amazing opportunity to have a regular, relevant presence in people’s lives while they are on the go, and many are asking themselves the question “Do we have an App for that?”

The original article is still preserved at archive.org

Check out the article I wrote for Rhythm Interactive’s Blog-A-Rhythm.

As Craig mentioned in our January 2009 issue of The Source , one of the latest trends on the rise is the Micro-Blogging platform called Twitter .  Micro-Blogging is a much more real-time way to convey to your “followers” what you may be doing at a given moment.  This is much like setting your current status on your Facebook or MySpace page, however Twitter is unique in the fact that this is the only function of your Twitter page.  Also, Twitter requires that your updates be no longer than 140 characters — thereby ensuring that your followers can get updates at a single glance to find out what you may be doing or thinking.  Into this mix add the ability to “re-tweet” an update posted by one of the people that you follow, so that your own followers can also benefit from a comment that you may have found intriguing or simply amusing.  This has created a unique community where you may find “tweets” that vary from something as simple as “Getting a Coffee at Starbucks” to something much more profound.

This platform has quickly risen in popularity (Barack Obama used it extensively during his campaign – @BarackObama ).  Even old-school media companies such as CNN (@CNNBrk ) and Reuters (@Reuters ) are starting to jump on board.  So, the big question many companies are asking themselves is “How can this tool benefit me?”  Popular business uses vary from using it like an RSS feed to let followers know when a new Blog or News article has been posted, or even when a new Product or Service has been added to their website.  To something much more complex like keeping people interested in an Alternate Reality Game like the recent London Dead Drop put together by the folks at Adobe.  By using Twitter, they could have allowed people all over the world to follow the progress of the game in real-time — even if they weren’t able to participate (i.e. stuck on a different continent.)

The original article is still preserved at archive.org

Check out the article I wrote for Rhythm Interactive’s Blog-A-Rhythm.

As you’ve probably gathered by now from reading some of the other postings here, we have a lot of iPhone addicts here at Rhythm.  So, when getting our new website together it only made sense that we would make sure that the customer experience of browsing the site would carry over to the iPhone as well as it does on a Desktop machine.

One of my least favorite oversights in the browsing experience presented by the iPhone is the lack of support for Adobe Flash.  It’s even gotten so bad that Apple had to pull a proposed TV Ad because of its claims that the phone has the “all the parts of the internet”, with its lack of support for Flash and Java being called out as the reason to call the claim a fraud.

But never fear, all of you fellow iPhone addicts, we took extra measures to ensure that the flash enabled features of our site will also carry over to the iPhone.  If you haven’t already checked out the Our Work or Demo Reel sections of the site and therefore haven’t seen the impressive video presentations our Design Team created to highlight some of our work — please do so.  And check them out with your iPhone or iPod Touch as well, since we’ve also enabled these devices to view this content using the QuickTime playback capabilities of those devices.

As I mentioned in my previous article, mobile is rapidly becoming a large enough market that it will need to be addressed by any new marketing initiative. Not only does it provide new capabilities, but I believe it will soon demand as much attention in the area of Cross-Browser Compatibility as any of the other three major browsers in the Desktop space.

The original article is still preserved at archive.org

Check out the article I wrote for Rhythm Interactive’s Blog-A-Rhythm.

In Japan, Keitai is a popular buzz word which is short for Keitai Denwa, or “portable telephone”; and, the Japanese are crazy in love with their mobile phones.  Since broadband internet never took off in Japan like it has in the rest of the world, most Japanese rely on their trusty Keitai for their daily dose of news, gossip or even their latestmanga.  During past business trips to Japan, while taking the train I would notice just about every single person transfixed on their phone, oblivious to everyone and everything around them.  Just imagine how many potential new customers are out there and looking for a way to pass the time while they are in the middle of their boring morning commute.

Now the US is finally starting to catch up with Japan on the technology front, thanks to devices such as the Apple iPhone and the recently announced T-Mobile G1.  These devices represent a quantum leap in functionality over the phone you had in your pocket a year ago, and now is the time to take advantage of the possibilities they bring.  So, the question you should be asking yourself is, “How can I take advantage of this powerful new medium to grab the attention of my customers?”  Here is a quick look at some of the technologies that empower these devices so that you can start answering that question for yourself.

What is 3G?
3G is an acronym for Third Generation, and what this means to you is that these new phones can finally access the internet at speeds that surpass old fashioned dial-up.  While 3G isn’t as fast as DSL, it is still fast enough that a properly designed website can seem almost as snappy as if you were viewing it over a broadband connection.  Also, most of the new phones that utilize 3G technology have much larger screens.  Where in the past phones were limited to a 240×320 screen or even smaller, both the iPhone and the T-Mobile G1 have a screen that is double that at 480×320.  Plus these new phones use displays that have a higher DPI range (which means that they can fit more Dots Per Inch than your computer monitor) which brings a pleasing crispness to any displayed content; and, as a bonus these devices have the ability to quickly and easily zoom in on the content to make it even more readable.

Microsites for Mobile
One of the easiest ways to take advantage of this new technology is to create a Microsite that provides a “bite size” version of the content from your “hungry man size” corporate website.  Also, since you know the person visiting your site is a bit more technology savvy, you can better target your messaging in order to take advantage of that fact.  Additionally, you can provide fun takeaways like wallpaper images and videos specially designed for their phone.

SMS (Short Message Service)
I recently was trying to get my hands on Wii Fit, the latest offering from Nintendo that you just can’t seem to find anywhere.  My wife is addicted to DDR (Dance Dance Revolution), and I thought this would be a perfect birthday present for her.  After calling all over town to see if I could find a store that had it in stock, or could even tell me when they expected their next shipment, I took my search online and found that Amazon now has a feature for some of their top selling items where they would send me an SMS message when the item was in stock.  I was in nerd nirvana, as now my phone will tell me when the item is in stock, and with the built in web browser I can log on to their site to immediately purchase the item.

Location Awareness
One of my favorite applications that I have installed on my iPhone helps me decide which local restaurant to go to for lunch.  I shake my phone and it unlocks slot-machine-style wheels that begin spinning to randomly pick a City, Cuisine and Price Range that are cross referenced against the built-in GPS and an online database to find a dining option.  With Google’s work on their Android platform, these capabilities will soon be available in phones from any service provider.  And, with the W3C forming a working group to add this functionality to all browsers, soon even your laptop computer will have this functionality.

The examples above describe a few of the new capabilities mobile will bring to the advertisers arsenal. By using one or more of these new technologies, you will be able to tailor the user experience to ever better target your customers and provide a personalized experience. As pointed out in Tony’s recent posting some of the best brand-building opportunities in the foreseeable future will be centered around offering valuable online and mobile services related to your product and service category. Hopefully this will get you thinking about ways in which your customers might like to interact with your brand while on-the-go and how new mobile phone technologies can extend your presence and help you build brand loyalty.

The original article is still preserved at archive.org