Mobile Behavior: an Omnicom Group Company

Photo by Dean Isidro for The New York Times

In a recent New York Times piece, David Colman takes a look at the fine art of self-presentation. Once the realm of models, the proliferation of camera phones makes it a useful skill for the everyday person. Photography itself is changing.

“This really represents the shift of the photograph serving as a memorial function to a communication device,” said Geoffrey Batchen.

“The camera was used to record something that happened so it could be remembered. Now it’s used immediately. It’s uploaded to Facebook to say, ‘Here I am in Istanbul’ or whatever, so it also goes back and forth between personal and promotional use. It really represents the refashioning of the self for a semipublic view.”

The popularity of apps like CameraBag and Hipstamatic only go to validate the argument. So does the excitement over iPhone 4's front-facing camera. People care deeply about how they look to others and these tools give us control.

Like the #undergroundpuzzle campaign, McDonald's is using the ubiquity of camera phones to engage on-the-go consumers.

DDB Stockholm created this clever and simple interactive billboard game for McDonald's. Menu items bounce and fly through the screen. If you're quick enough to capture one in a cell-phone pic, it's yours free at a nearby McDonald's.

Using this ability to connect mobile phones with digital out-of-home, brands are providing memorable interactive experiences. Other recent examples of this include Nokia's Biggest Signpost, Motorola Droid in Times Square, and Locamoda's place-based social media.

Watch it in action here.

[via adweek]

The Iranian crisis put Twitter in the spotlight as an organizational tool showcasing how the online world could be used to communicate and unite people, despite government censorship. Armed with cell phones, Iranians were able to text, tweet, and send pictures and videos to the world community, focusing the spotlight on this world-altering event. Their efforts were not in vain; the international community rose in uproar to defend the democratic principles of Iran, forcing political and religious leaders to publicly discuss the issues.

The universal access and power afforded by digital tools is breeding a new kind of world citizen and establishing this type of “citizen journalism" as a crucial supplement to traditional media.  A couple years back we wrote about Dateline's citizen journalism on Facebook, and the trend has only been growing with the advent of enabling platforms and the increasing prevalence of mobile phones. From protests to war, anyone with a cell phone can become an automatic witness to history and participate in the process--even in a small way.

Speaking to Rachel Sterne, founder of citizen journalism site GroundReport, about the integration of citizen journalism and mobile devices, she emphatically linked the two: “Mobile devices are the perfect tool for on-the-ground reporting: they enable event documentation that is instant, rich and location-based. Tools like TwitPic, a photo publishing Twitter application, the iPhone's new YouTube video publishing feature, and the Nokia N97's video streaming ability, empower people to report wherever they are with multimedia capabilities.”

There is plenty of criticism around treating citizen journalism as news, and it has some legitimate grounds. The most prominent ones are the lack of verified sourcing, the often limited analytical skills found in many articles, and devaluation of the professional reporting. But criticism aside, this movement promises to grow as more people around the world connect using their mobile device. “As the trend of ground reporting grows, the challenge for citizen journalism organizations is to distinguish fact from fiction," says Sterne. "This need will only grow as the world becomes savvier in using mobile devices and content production tools to document events and share information. These are early days for the phenomenon. Eventually, citizen reporting will be just another crucial element of the mainstream news production process, an information source that is part of every journalist's toolkit”.

Beyond just reporting events, this trend highlights a redefined sense of “me” in the new generation. In the past, community participation often had to dominate the members’ individuality to exist. Within citizen journalism, both the indivudual and the group can coexist. It promotes individual activity and sourcing, while enabling the person to still take part in something bigger than them. It also proves the value of Twitter--and  the lifestreaming concept as a whole--beyond telling people what you are eating for lunch.

Free Gifts to Students Who Agree to Receive Ads on Their Mobiles [The Guardian]
Orange is launching a plan that will give concert tickets, accessories, and even bill discounts for 16-24 year olds who receive ads on their phones ( in form of texts and market surveys). The carrier hopes to attract more of Gen-Y, by going to their interests...and their wallets.

Camera Phones Can Help Diagnosis [E-Health Insider]
Camera phones can help doctors understand certain conditions a little better. By taking a picture of a visually apparent condition, users can offer doctors ways of knowing how the condition evolved and what it might be.

Pedal Power for Kenya's Mobiles [BBC News]
Two Kenyan students have developed a way of charging cell phones with bicycles. Looking to market the idea, the use for it in many countries around the world in undeniable, further integrating mobile into daily user life.

A Statistical Look at Urban Indian Mobile Users [Priyanka’s Blog]
Key mobile data from one of the largest mobile using nation. Noteworthy: Orkut is the favorite social network accessed through mobile, 45.6% use Google mobile, 86% have participated in SMS contests, and Internet and SMS are the two main factors in choosing a carrier in India.

Mobile Coupon Users Want More Junk [Marketing Charts]
New data from the U.K. takes a look at what mobile coupon users prefer to see when it comes to mobile ads. 30% said they don't enjoy drink promotions, 76% thought the redemption process was easy, and the whole survey was done via SMS.

French Government Building a Mobile Portal [Mobile Industry Review]
To offer all citizens access to public and general services, the French government is launching Proximamobile. The idea is to offer a mobile portal of applications and services for the public at large, developed by the community.

Well, That's the End of Flip: iPods to Get Cameras [Fast Company]
After the announcement that the iPod Touch will get a mic so it can call, it seems that other basic functionality of cell phones are coming to the whole gamut of iPods.

Twitter Takes a Step Toward Commercial Accounts [NYTimes]
Twitter released its Twitter 101 web pages and slideshow to show how businesses can profit from the service. It's a first step in eventually creating business accounts that will offer more features than normal ones and help Twitter monetize.

Image-recognition is a growing field of search for mobile. This technology allows you to skip the keyboard for information on products you encounter in the real world. Companies like Mobot, SnapTell, SnapNow and kooaba all offer variations on this service. For each, you can take a picture with any kind of camera phone on any carrier service and then send the picture to them via MMS or email. In return, you receive search results, promotions, videos, reviews, ratings, ringtones and so forth.

While the technologies are similar, the companies vary in the details and execution. For example, SnapTell is praised for working well even with poor quality images and for having one of the biggest databases. SnapTell also offers an iPhone app, as does kooaba, which eliminates the need to send the picture anywhere. Instead, simply open the app, snap a picture and await your results.

The newest player to the image-recognition game is Nokia, which recently released the beta version of its Nokia Point & Find service. One feature that differentiates Point & Find from its competitors is that you needn’t take a picture at all. Instead, users just point their camera phone at the image or bar code. From there, Point & Find uses the camera, the Internet and GPS services to evaluate the object and then rapidly searches through a database of virtually tagged items to identify it and return associated content. According to Philipp Schloter, General Manager, Nokia Point & Find:

"We believe that this first Nokia Point & Find-based service for movies will add something special to the cinema experience. Simply by pointing their camera phone at a poster for a new movie, people can watch the trailer, read reviews, and find the closest cinema where it is playing."

Because Point & Find is in beta, there are still kinks to be worked out. Some reviewers say the technology doesn’t work perfectly yet, and it’s also only available in the UK and the US. Additionally, the functionality is currently limited to movie posters. However, plans are in the works to expand into other services, such as product information and consumer reviews, as well as other countries. In the meantime, Nokia is inviting companies to discuss how Point & Find can help them with specific applications, campaigns or promotions.

It will be interesting to see if more flexible readers like this one increase consumer usage of QR codes and image recognition technology, or if advertisements need to increasingly place and promote calls to action.