To fear is to fail

This article is from the master himself, Seth Godin… and very applicable to our current political climate and certain youth leaders…

I quote:

“Possibly the oldest human worldview is fear of strangers. And right next to that is anger as a byproduct of fear.

If a candidate wants to gain attention and possibly votes, then, it makes short-term sense to stir up fear of strangers and turn it into anger. It might even work (once). But it makes it virtually impossible to govern. It’s a short-term strategy that eats itself, because sooner or later, everyone is a stranger, and fear is no foundation for work that matters.

It seems as though we’re entering a season in which it’s easy to ostracize or become righteously indignant over someone’s national origin, skin color, religion or sexual orientation.

If this is the best a politician can do to organize and lead, then we all lose.”

Clarity on Mobile Internet Stats in South Africa

Courtesy of the World Wide Worx: http://www.worldwideworx.com/archives/247.

It seems there has been a lot of debate in the past over Mobile Internet stats in S.A… and now we have a framework for understanding them. Critical, if you think about it… as the usage patterns are very different.

I’m mostly a Tier-3 user…

The Mobile Internet is no longer a mystery in South Africa, after the announcement of a formal framework for defining the use of the Internet on cellphones.

For several years, the question of how many South Africans use the Internet from their cellphones has been veiled in confusion, with claimed numbers ranging from half a million to 15-million.

During the past year, representatives of two of the key players in the debate, World Wide Worx and the South African Mobile Marketing Association, agreed to a formal framework within which they would report the key statistics for Internet usage and access on cellphones.

The framework consist of three tiers, namely:

Tier 1: The WAP Internet (access to WAP gateways, which includes mobile versions of brand sites, mobile versions of traditional and new media publisher sites, downloads of ringtones, games and other content, which may only involve a single link from the phone; the typical user of the WAP Internet is not always aware of using the Internet).

Tier 2: The Mobile Application Internet (usage of “stand-alone” applications on the phone that rely on data feeds, such as Mxit, Gmail, and Maps; the typical user is aware of using data, but not of fully accessing the Internet)

Tier 3: Mobile Web Browsing (usage of a web browser to access the World Wide Web from the phone – understood by most users to represent full Internet access)

The framework was developed by World Wide Worx managing director Arthur Goldstuck and Mobile Marketing Association founding chairman Rick Joubert. It is intended to accommodate the main perspectives that usually emerge in debates around the makeup of the mobile Internet.

“It resolves the dilemma that some appear to hype up the mobile Internet while others appear to underplay it, when in fact everyone is talking about different elements of the mobile Internet,” says Goldstuck.

“Defining the mobile Internet is important,” says Joubert. “Neither one of the mobile Internet usage tiers is any more important than the other, but decision-makers and marketers should understand the nature of the end user experience as clearly as possible.”

According to the Mobile Internet in South Africa 2010 study, released today by World Wide Worx, almost all urban cellular users have WAP-capable phones, and a high proportion have used that WAP capability to access a variety of internet based content on a regular basis, but many without realising they were doing so.

Mobile web browsing is measured directly in the new study, and accounts for 3.36-million users at the end of 2009. The Mobile Application Internet is measured across several applications, including instant messaging, downloadable applications, Internet applications, and e-mail. The Mobile Application Internet user base is estimated at about 9-million.

“This does not mean marketers can target 9-million Internet users via their cellphones,” warns Goldstuck. “They would have to target the individual applications that make up that total, which means that the Mobile Application Internet is not a readily addressable market.”

“The media opportunity represented by the three tiers of the mobile web is quite fragmented and not easy to exploit, but that barrier in itself has presented a fantastic opportunity for early adopter brands who have embraced the medium,” says Joubert. “It has also offered opportunities for aggregators of the medium, such as application stores and advertising networks like AdMob and Buzz City, and for the very large publishers like Mxit, all of whom are able to offer marketers very significant reach.”

The Mobile Internet in SA 2010 study, backed by First National Bank, was conducted face to face among urban cellphone users aged 16 and older, representing 16-million South Africans.

Genius or Gimmick?

Sometimes in life you get a mental smack in the face with cold, wet fish –and this was my experience when reading this latest post regarding The Grid: http://www.vincentmaher.com/?p=946

Bottom line is, in mobile marketing terms, we now looking at being able to market products and services based on mood. Fascinating stuff – and a thought that breeds a whole family of related thoughts, spidering out rapidly and in various directions.

My primary concern here is that of relevancy to the receiver – if the message is relevant, it is awesome. If not, it is nothing short of invasion of privacy. Note that relevant in mobile advertising lingo must mean both requested and relevant.

Campaigns that are targeted at age, sex, location and mood will be a built on planned spontaneity - and fairly easily handled by an I.T system.

Overall - I would say genius.

Brain storming / crowdsourcing with Twitter

Have a peek at this idea as resported by the team at Springwise.com - http://springwise.com/weekly/2009-09-09.htm#ideasculture.

It’s awesome - giving a Team a tricky problem and waking up the next morning to a bunch of solutions!

From my side, I can think of using this internally for feedback from staff on how to improve a product / process flow or literally anything. Giving it a time limit is also very clever, as it creates a happening and immediate vibe around an issue.

More info on Crowdsourcing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowd_sourcing.

Will the potential applications for Twitter never end?

SportGator

I am a bit of a sports fan, and one of the things I wanted to be able to do from my mobile phone was to get the latest sports news - not the articles - just the headlines, and quickly.

So, I put SportGator together. What it does is aggregate sports news from 2 of the biggest providers, into various categories. (You can filter by clicking on the top or bottom category menus.)

This means I can get updated in under a minute - remembering that this is from my phone. When I want to read full articles, I’ll do so in front of my PC.

The site is still new, so if anyone has any suggestions - like adding another news feed - please let me know!