Mobile Behavior: an Omnicom Group Company

Disney Takes Web Surfers to the Lab to See Which Ads Work [NYTimes]
By tracking eye movement, heart rate, skin temperature and facial expressions, researchers are attempting to decipher how people consume media on emerging platforms, including the web and mobile.

Text Mining Provides Marketers With the 'Why' Behind Demand [Ad Age]
In other consumer research news: 7-11 and other brands are turning to text mining of conversations on blogs, Twitter or other social-media sites in order to identify the emotional aspects and reasons--the "why"--behind consumer behavior.

The ‘Mayors’ of Manhattan Meet and Compete [NYTimes]
Demonstrating how passionate they are about the new location-based service, top Foursquare users ("Mayor" status in the game) staged a bar crawl meet-up across Manhattan bars they called the "Town Holler," inspiring other cities like San Francisco to do the same. Meanwhile, Mashable calls foursquare, who we interviewed back at SXSW, the next Twitter.

Booyah Will Capitalize On Giving iPhone Users Sense Of Achievement [moconews]
Like Foursquare, Booyah is a new example "prescriptive social software", i.e. an application that encourages certain user behavior and turns life into one big game. The app, (from the team behind World of Warcraft) rewards users for doing things like updating their status, which they hope to brand as a "Booyah Moment" (good luck with that.)

Nissan Unveils IT System, iPhone App for New Networked Car [GigaOM]
In a move towards the "car 2.0," Nissan has unveiled the ultimate "mobile" vehicle. The electric, fully networked car has an iPhone application and a system called EV-IT, which will connect the company’s upcoming plug-in vehicle to a global data center via mobile networks.

Sprint Buying Virgin Mobile USA For $483 Million To Boost Prepaid Offer [mocoNews]
A huge industry move today, as Sprint is buying Virgin Mobile to extend its prepaid offering and reach. Sprint hopes to cross-sell its products as well to the Virgin customer base.

Why is Apple Stifling Google Voice for iPhone? [Fast Company]
Third-party Google Voice apps have been removed from the App store, and Google's own GV app has been rejected by Apple. It seems that Apple/Google rivalry is to blame, but AT&T is probably defending its turf as well.

Stay Tuned for Bluetooth on Your TV [GigaOM]
The movement to put Bluetooth into television is gaining momentum. LG just announced a new line of Bluetooth-enabled TVsets, joining Sharp and Samsung. The technology gives consumers the ability to use their mobile phones as a remote control, connect wireless headsets to the TV, and stream music from an MP3 player to their TV, all without a wire.

Age Demographics of Top Social Networks [BitBriefs]
The age demographic data for 2008 clears some misconceptions about social networking sites. The most popular amongst 13-18: MySpace. 65+? Facebook.

Mobile Spam Very Discomforting for Three in Five Japanese [What Japan Thinks]
Data from Japan shows that 93% of Japanese hate mobile spam (wonder who that 7% is that like it). The data highlights the personal relation that users have with their cell and how intrusion creates a vivid response.

69% Of Adults Don't Know What Twitter Is [The Business Insider]
LinkedIn and Harris report that 69% of adults do not know what Twitter is. 12% of those surveyed also said that twitter was only for young people, and 50% of advertisers think it will grow (12% of consumers think that).