Mobile Behavior: an Omnicom Group Company

• N.Y. Toy Store Mobilizes A Scavenger Hunt | MediaPost
  To promote their 2009 Dunny series of toys, Kidrobot is using QR codes as part of a five-day scavenger hunt in New York City. Called "Dunny Hunt," the "big game" requires participants to use their smartphones to scan QR codes on Kidrobot promotional items hidden around town.
• Bazaarvoice's ShoutIT app | Bazaarvoice (via Trendwatching)
  Product ratings and reviews provider Bazaarvoice’s ShoutIT app enables reviewers to have their reviews effortlessly appear on their Facebook, Digg or Delicious pages as well, while Netflix has hooked up with Facebook to allow users' reviews to be shared on their profile pages.
• Hearst Signs On in Beauty Contest | WSJ.com
  In September, Hearst plans to launch a site called Real Beauty, which will focus on makeup, hair care and other beauty topics. The venture is an effort by Hearst to create a one-stop destination for consumers who want to research and buy beauty products.
• Serial Entrepreneur Al Warms Debuts Appolicious, Hoping iPhone Apps Fans Will Find It Delicious | AllThingsD
  A new company called Appolicious is devoted to organizing and make sense of the app galaxy in the universe of smart phones. Using premium content, recommendations of friends and also people like you–as well as a variety of lists, feeds, popularity rankings, images and videos–the idea is to do what the iTunes store does not--make sense of the plentitude of apps out there, most of which are on the iPhone.
• Boku sees big growth in mobile payments — finally | VentureBeat
  Mobile payment enabler Boku is announcing today that it’s now handling more than a million transactions per month, a sign that mobile payments is finally taking off after years of anticipation.
• Wi-Fi Access Points Could Be Ad-Targeting Goldmine | MediaPost
  It appears that public Wi-Fi access hotspots can tell more about a person than some initially thought, according to a new study. Knowing the specific longitude and latitude of a person builds the foundation to serve up an ad, but integrating demographic data, data collected from local surveys, and prism clusters based on "ZIP-code-plus-six data" from Nielsen Claritas provides specifics. (Sense Networks, which gathers location from cell phones, operates on this same principle.)
• Negotiating with the mob: LivingSocial harnesses Facebook-organized buying | VentureBeat
  "Social cataloging" site LivingSocial is using Facebook to bring the Chinese phenomenon of team buying to the US. The premise: Get a local business to offer a deal only if a certain number of people sign up. Send it out on Facebook and if the crowd can round up enough people, the deal is on.
• Viacom hopes the Beatles: Rock Band game sets stage for rebound |  latimes.com
  When the Beatles: Rock Band hits stores Sept. 9, Viacom is betting that the new title from its MTV unit will end a slump in the market and vindicate the company's expensive and unprofitable entry into the music video game business over the last two years.
• How Demand For Digital Experiences Is Transforming Our Physical Spaces | Advertising Age
  In the past few years, a host of artists, programmers and marketers have melded art and science to create new, digitally driven experiences that are redefining the way we think about our urban and personal landscapes. Examples include Blinklights Stereoscope, 555 Kubik, YouTube Symphony Orchestra, and the Livestrong Chalkbot with Nike.
• Bobba scheduled for September launch | KZero
  After successfully developing it’s three year wireless research project, Mini Friday, Sulake - the parent company of Habbo- has confirmed that Bobba, a new mobile virtual world, is scheduled to launch in September.

The Tree Museum in the Bronx: The Talk of the Town [The New Yorker]
A public work of conceptual art in the Bronx called the Tree Museum consists of trees tagged with phone numbers. Call the number and get historic info about this tree, the neighborhood, and larger environmental issues related to the exhibition.

Smartphone Satisfaction Numbers [eMarketer]
The iPhone is leading the pack by all measures, but BlackBerry is putting up a fight. The two devices are way in front of other smartphones even in terms of usage numbers.

Download This [trendcentral]
TrendCentral picks out three popular apps for the iPhone 3GS:

>>iPhone 3GS Jailbreak: For those who want "more"
>>RunPee: Best times to go pee when watching a movie
>>12 Seconds: Think of it as twitter in a video format

Getting Noticed in Apple's iPhone App Store [WSJ]
A look at what it takes to actually succeed on the app store such as promoting your product through social networks and bloggers, understanding your market (in terms of age, and geography), and leveraging advertising power.

Meet the Mobile Phones of Tomorrow [PC World]
A compilation of innovation and patents that might affect the way phones evolve and their functionality. Top: Morph by Nokia, a nanotechnology based phone that actually cleans itself and can be reshaped at will.

Cross Reality: When Sensor Networks Meet Virtual Reality [ReadWriteWeb]
MIT expects that mobile devices will play an important role in future Cross Reality applications, think SecondLife -style virtual world layered on top of the real world.  The lab has already begun to experiment in this area, with a Star Trek-inspired device it calls a Tricorder and a newer device called the "Ubicorder" that provide a real time interface to sensor data.

Google Voice Goes Mobile [NYTimes]
The invite-only service from Google is offering a stand alone application for Android and BlackBerry users. The app allows calls directly from the phone as well as SMS and marks another milestone in the history of VoIP.

WhitePages.com Turns To Users To Build Up Listings; The Plan For A ‘Connectory’ [mocoNews]
WhitePages is opening up, allowing users to submit their personal info to their database. Already, the site lets people send text messages for free and those who create listings may soon have access to advanced voice mail accounts. Some additional functionality will be based on technology acquired via the company’s purchase of voice services startup Snapvine a year ago.

Obama’s Ghana Speech Highlights Delivered Live via SMS [Mobile Marketer]
Live speech highlights were sent via SMS to Africans and international/non-US residents in both French and English. Recipients could also respond with the chance of being featuring on the US government's site.

3,700 Tweets And 480,000 Characters Later, There Will Be An Original Novel On Twitter [TechCrunch]
Matt Stewart was unable to find a publisher for his " The French Revolution" novel, so he is now tweeting the book 140 characters at a time.

iPhone Musicians Invited to Perform Live with Indie Legends Good Night, States [engadget]
People who create beats with the Noise.io app, a synthesizer for iPhone, are invited to plug their iPhones/iPods into the sound system and jam with indie rockers Good Night, States at Mr. Small's in Pittsburgh this Friday.

Wow, the iPhone is Now the Most Popular Camera on Flickr [hey, it's noah]
According to Flicker's camera graph, the iPhone was momentarily the number one camera on Flickr, inching ahead of the Canon EOS. The sharp spike likely coincided with the launch of iPhone 3GS with its much-improved 3 megapixel camera.

2009: The Year of LBS (Location-Based Services) [ReadWriteWeb]
This is the year for location. No, really, THIS year. I know we said that last year (and the year before) but this is it for real. Well, according to Gartner it is. They predict that the LBS market is going to double in revenue and size in the next year thanks to decreased cost and wider availability of user-friendly apps.

Cellphones Leave Electronic Tracks for Investigators, Raising Privacy Concerns [NYT]
As LBS become more mainstream, issues of safety and privacy will take center stage. This article cites two murder cases that were partly resolved thanks to cell phone tower tracking.

Maps of Subway Platforms, Now on Your Mobile Phone [NYTimes]
It's a favorite pasttime of New Yorkers to strategize what subway car will drop them nearest to an exit. Now even tourists can act like seasoned subway riders with this new app for the iPhone called Exit Strategy that maps subway exits. Just be sure to cue it up before heading into the subway -- reception is still required.

Video: Nearest Tube iPhone App Augments Reality with Directions [Engadget]
If you thought Exit Strategy was hot, check out Nearest Tube. The "augmented reality" app uses the new  iPhone 3GS's camera, compass and GPS to show you where the nearest tube stop is just by tilting it. (You just have to watch it.)

AOL Instant Messenger Begins Life As A Twitter, Facebook App [BusinessInsider]
AOL has just released a beta version of its new AIM client that integrates Twitter and Facebook so you can follow your friends, plus Youtube and Delicious so you can bookmark/send links to videos and sites. All these feature are found under the "Lifestream" tab, and the feature promises to hold even more social sites.

Finally, A Decent Website To Browse Android Apps [TechCrunch]
Facilitating user interaction and involvement with a product or platform is as crucial as the design of the product itself. This is where Google's Android market falls short. Androlib takes a stab at the problem with a full-fledged searchable and rateable directory of Android apps.

Christian Dior Makes Fashion Statement with Mobile Marketing [Mobile Marketer]
Fashion is slowly getting its feet wet on the mobile platform, perhaps understanding that they can reach their clients in other ways that TV and magazines. Following Chanel and Style.com, Dior just launched an iPhone app showcasing their latest ad campaign called "Lady Marion".

Research Roundup: Pew Social Trends, MobileYouth & More [Ypulse]
Our friends at Ypulse give you the latest report on youth media awareness, age perception, and more.

• Industry Pitching Cellphones as a Teaching Tool [New York Times] - CTIA is making the case for cellphones in the classroom and, you know, it makes sense. By pitching them as a viable educational tool due to their inexpensiveness (relative to laptops) and convenience, they're also tagging a trend that's been sweeping developing countries like India and Brazil, where mobile users have essentially skipped computers and gone straight to handsets.
• Surgeons send 'tweets' from operating room [CNN] - We mentioned surgery tweeting awhile back and it happened again the other day. Let's just hope no one @'s your surgeon that hilarious kitten video during your appendectomy.
• Shazam Seeing 1M Song Tags a Day [Media Bistro] - Shazam seems to be a hit for Apple's App store, generating about one million song tags a day. It is not to be confused with its semantic cousin, Kazaam, which did not generate millions of anything.
• Microsoft targets its own smartphone store [Financial Times] - Microsoft is hoping to borrow some application thunder from Apple and Android by putting out the news that a Windows Mobile storefront is brewing.
• Mobile Web Becoming a Necessity [Media Bistro] - Mobile data plans are a necessity. If you're on this site, you probably already know that. However, in a recent survey by Nielsen, for Tellabs, they found that 71 percent of those surveyed agreed. Internet is the most popular reason (duh), followed by e-mail and messaging. :D
• Implementation of Universal Phone Chargers [Mobile Burn] - Universal phone chargers! It may seem minor, but if you've ever been to a friend's house and found your phone gasping for air and about to go under - only to discover that your friend doesn't have a charger to fit your set - then you know why this is hot.
• Twitter Triumphant [Mobility Site] - In this great piece by Zealot, Twitter is positioned as the horse on which to pin our colors in the race towards actually connecting the world via web. It's not that it's doing anything essentially new, it's simply doing it in a unique, easy and engaging way. It requires only a matter of seconds to drop into someone else's world and, in turn, bring them into ours.
• The Cellphone, Navigating Our Lives [New York Times] - As John Markoff points out in this piece, social map applications are quickly turning us into Sims-esque characters on a grid, with flashing green lights above our heads.