Mobile Behavior: an Omnicom Group Company

• Social Shopping Takes on New Meaning With Newsfeed Purchasing | Advertising Age
  Individual e-commerce stores are being fragmented into "hundreds of millions." By placing retail stores into banner ads, and soon Facebook news feeds, Alvenda brings shopping to the consumer instead of expecting the other way around.
• Would you pay for the mobile version of the WSJ? | The Baltimore Sun The Wall Street Journal's Rupert Murdoch has plans to begin charging the publication's mobile users $2 a week. Online subscribers will have to pay $1 a week and those who do both print and online will have free access.
• Opera Mini 5 beta browser strikes it rich | cnet
  Introducing an update to their mobile offering, Opera has included tabbed browsing, a password manager, navigation overhaul, and a speed dial landing page.
• Domino's Pizza Launches New iPhone Optimized Ordering System | Reuters
  While not yet a local application, Domino's has launched a new mobile optimized ordering system. It brings the company's popular desktop Pizza Tracker to iPhones, the Palm Pre, and Android phones.
• Aardvark's iPhone App Is The Best Way To Use The Service Yet | TechCrunch
  Social search engine Aardvark has released its new iPhone app with push notifications making on-the-go crowd sourced Q&A  more possible.
• App of the Week: Turn Your Phone Into a Mouse | The NYTimes
  The New York Times has picked Mobile Air Mouse as their App of the Week. The software uses an on screen interface and the iPhone's accelerometer to mimic the functions of a traditional mouse.
• iTwinge: The Keyboard Sleeve That Turns Your iPhone into a BlackBerry | Mashable
  One of the top complaints about the iPhone is the lack of a physical keyboard. Although with a few obvious flaws, the new iTwinge keyboard sleeve offers to fix this problem for those craving a BlackBerry-like typing experience.
• It's time for Donut! Android v1.6 launched for developers | MobileCrunch
  For Android developers, the previous "Cupcake" has been updated to version 1.6 and named Donut, packing in some new features. Donut includes user interface fixes, a battery usage system, Android Market improvements, and CDMA support.

Yesterday we covered some of the latest startups at TechCrunch 50 conference that build upon human behaviors, here are a couple more worth a highlight:

• FanFeedr Aims to Hit a Home Run With Comments | GigaOm - FanFeedr aims to be a one-stop online destination for sports fans by aggregating news, photos, videos, tweets and scores for a variety of sports teams they choose to follow. The company just released a feature that lets people comment on status updates and user activity posted on its home page, which is intended to encourage virtual cheering and friendly banter among users about the latest happenings in the sports world.
• Reading bar codes with mobile phones: Snap it, click it, use it | The Economist - Good round-up of barcode technologies around the world.
• The Mobile App User Experience | Functioning Form (via EverydayUX) - The 1.5 billion downloads thus far from Apple’s App Store clearly demonstrate a user experience in high demand. But why are native mobile applications such a desirable user experience? LukeW outlines 3 factors.
• Zune HD's "Apps" menu item spotted in the Marketplace, still short on details | engadget - Footage from Best Buy's Zune HD preview of the "Apps" item that resides within the "Marketplace" section on the device. It's unclear what Microsoft's plans are for that functionality, but there's obviously a lot of implied competition with Apple's App Store that the word "Apps" on a touchscreen device conjures up.
• Nokia to use Windows in forthcoming Booklet 3G | FierceWireless - Nokia is skipping touchscreen phones and going straight after Apple's new Tablet. Just days after confirming plans to enter the netbook market, Nokia released additional details of the effort including the name of its forthcoming gadget: Booklet 3G.
• Mobile Gaming Wrap: EA, SocialDeck Stock Up The BlackBerry App World | mocoNews - Mobile social gaming firm SocialDeck just released Shake & Spell for the BlackBerry, creating its first game that shares info across Facebook, the iPhone and the RIM device. The game initially launched on the iPhone and Facebook last year; it amassed over 500,000 users. Now users can play with and compete against each other across all three platforms.
• AT&T to require smartphone data plans starting September 6th | Boy Genius Report - As of September 6th, AT&T will begin requiring that all smartphones sign up for a smartphone data plan.
• Are publishers heading for an ad-free mobile future? | Mobile Marketer - Mobile is not going to save publishing. Differentiated content is. But how much of the content we consume today in print, online, broadcast or mobile is unique? Commoditization is the real risk.
• Johnson & Johnson's BabyCenter gives birth to new breed of app | Mobile Marketer - 55% of moms today let their children play with their mobile phone regardless of handset model or price, according to “BabyCenter’s 21st Century Mom Report.” With this in mind, BabyCenter came out with the PhonyPhone application, which provides for an educational experience for the child and a mother’s uninhibited ability to let children play on.
• A Manifesto for Slow Communication | WSJ.com - A well-reasoned argument for slowing down the breakneck pace of the Information Age: "This is not a sustainable way to live. This lifestyle of being constantly on causes emotional and physical burnout, work­place meltdowns, and unhappiness. How many of our most joyful memories have been created in front of a screen?"

BMO Capital Markets Introduces 2D Barcode Ads [Daily DOOH]
The first advertisements sporting the 2D bar codes have begun running in The Wall Street Journal. Using the camera on their mobile phone, readers can use a special free application to photograph an ad’s barcode which links directly to a customized page.

Can Mobile Preserve Soc Networks As Gen Y’s Virtual Rolodex? [Ypulse]
In spite of the waning interest we've seen in social networking as a virtual hangout, Meredith believes their contact management function will hold up, perhaps in the form of a killer mobile app.

Why Handset Makers and Social Networks Need Each Other, Take Two [GigaOm]
On that note... This article talks about how cell phone makers and social networks need to partner to design devices tailored for social networking, from the camera to the address book.

What Do Cellphone Users Want Most? Cheap Service [NYTimes]
Nielsen reports that call quality and network availability are slipping down in terms of what consumers look for in a carrier. Top 3? Price, family plan, and payment options.

Facebook Takes FriendFeed To Take On Twitter [TechCrunch]
Media analysts are seeing the acquisition of Friendfeed by Facebook as an attempt to silence Twitter's rise. Facebook has also added live status search capabilities and is rolling out its new iPhone app soon.

SMS PhD: 'Pointless' Text Messages Analysed [Telegraph]
Caroline Tagg, awarded a PhD in text messaging, discovered that people text in the same way as if they were talking, using unnecessary words such as 'oh', 'erm' and often use grammatical abbreviations like 'dunno'.

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, To Stage First Twitter Opera Made Up Of Tweets [Sky News]
The Royal Opera House is set to create the first opera entirely created by Twitter fans. Once the fans have created the story line via Twitter, the opera house will compose the music and stage the performance.

Penalties Ordered for Dirty Texting [China Daily]
The Henan province in China is banning erotic, insulting, or threatening messages. The SMS ban carries a fine of $73 and up to five days imprisonment. So much for sexting...

Mobile Marketers Must Look Past The iPhone [Silicon Alley Insider]
Thinking of the iPhone as the end-all be-all of mobile devices is a short-term play for marketers that might hurt their long-term competitiveness.

Will Smartphones Help Crack the Economy's Secrets? [Fast Company]
Flurry suggests that observing the mobile market (e.g., app creations, mobile social networking updates, SMS interactions, data plans) is similar to looking at the real estate market to get a sense of the economy.

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.

It's just what you've been looking forward to all week: Our staff members' compendium of fun finds.

Andrea D.

TED Conference Clip

Thanks to Mike Denton, FH Digital, for this pick of the week. We all know the rules of mobile use are still being defined and this video clip from the TED conference is a funny look at how we’re adjusting to mobile in public:

I personally like the “our reality right now is less interesting than the story we will tell later” part. So true! Nearly everyone I know (full-disclosure: I’m guilty too) would rather record an event for later (or instantaneous) sharing than just ENJOY an event. Lifestreaming everywhere!

Vikram

aSmart HUD
You know when you fly an F-18 and there is a heads-up-display (HUD) that shows you all the important information like airspeed, altitude, fuel status, and where that bogie is? Well, the aSmart HUD is a HUD for the car that helps you see your speed and other information without looking away from the road. The best part is that you don't need to install anything in your car because it's an iPhone app. All you have to do is start the app, put it in HUD mode, put it on your dashboard, and the reflection from your phone will show up on the windshield.

Melvin

phoneSCREAM app
Straight out of a lab in sunny Singapore comes phoneSCREAM, a handy application that prevents anyone from picking up your iPhone/iPod touch if left unattended. This video explains it best, but in a nutshell, the app makes use of the built-in accelerometer to detect any motion after your iPhone has been set down.

A lot of us worry about recovery issues like backing up our data, but we don’t pay nearly enough attention to the repercussions of identity/data theft. (Yes, I did watch the Apprentice last week.) Prevention is better than a cure so let your phone scream when it gets manhandled with phoneSCREAM.

Samantha

Locale Android G1 App
There are certain places your phone just shouldn't ring: school, the movies, etc. But with everything going on in your life, you can't be blamed for accidentally forgetting to silence your phone every once in a while. The Locale app takes the responsibility out of your hands and prevents you from earning dirty looks from the guy sitting  behind you. Just set up addresses of places you don't want your phone to ring, and Locale will do the silencing for you. It will even remember to turn your ringer back on when you leave that address... something I know I always forget to do.

Laura

Flights to Friends Facebook App
Next to “LOL”ing over last weekend’s photos, urging long distance friends to “come visit!!!” is probably my second most commonly expressed Facebook sentiment. This new app allows you to input your local airport information as well as that of selected friends. When applicable airfares are on sale, you receive an alert… while relinquishing an excuse for not visiting.

Sam

WSJ iPhone app
The newest app to hit the iPhone comes from our beloved banking brethren over at the Wall Street Journal. The fact that WSJ developed an app for the iPhone should come as no surprise. However, what is moderately shocking is the fact that the app (which offers financial news headlines, editor's picks and browsing across multiple categories as well as video and radio content) is being offered for FREE. This is after WSJ editor Robert Thomson was quoted saying that firms providing aggregated media content without premium fees are "parasites or tech tapeworms in the intestines of the Internet.” Also, contributing to the shock factor is that annual subscriptions to the print edition still cost $140. So, for those of you who are WSJ subscribers it seems as though downloading the app would be a wise…investment.

Andrea F.

Earth Day Apps to Live By [MSN]
In honor of Earth Day (April 22)…everyone should do their part!

Allison

If it’s possible for robots, plants and fetuses to tweet, why not toddlers? Using touchatag, Richard Ting at R/GA’s 20-month-old daughter could trigger tweets by swiping books and toys near a reader. These objects contain RFID chips that make them “smart,” as well as QR bar codes that when read by a camera cell phone can launch a browser and connect with a Web page.

The potential for “smart” or “linked” objects is huge for retail. These tags can be scanned with a phone and show shoppers more product information, branded content, peer reviews and recommendations, coupons...and yes, even send a tweet.