MEGA (mobile enterprise growth alliance) is a programme that brings together industry & government with entrepeneurs to build our local mobile industry.  The supporters of MEGA reads like a who’s who of the mobile industry in Australia.   Dozens of local mobile practitioners with a broad mix of technical, creative and business skills have volunteered their time to teach and mentor MEGA participants over the duration of the 4 month programme. The culmination is a pitch day, when participants have the opportunity to lay out their business plans in front of potential investors and business people.

The closing date for applications is this Friday and participants will be selected based on their background, experience, project ideas and above all their passion and enthusiasm.   Passion was a key theme of the info session actually.  The inimitable Justin Brow is a walking advertisement for passion, and his enthusiasm had rubbed off on everyone by the end of the session.  I think this is a genuinely exciting programme and one I am proud to be a supporter of.

You can’t beat the opportunity to be guided by industry experts and introduced to high profile business leaders in your field of interest.  If you have a mobile idea, or just really want to get a foot in the door in the mobile industry, this could be the opportunity you’ve been looking for.

You’ve got til next Friday to apply, so get onto it ASAP!  And, if I can give you a little hint – I heard it said at the info session that if your application is overflowing with nothing but passion & enthusiasm – you’re a sure thing to be selected!

It’s now time to up the stakes and create a new, more professional home on the web.   So welcome to the brand new Mobilista, full of all sorts of mobile industry goodness for Australia!

The centrepiece to this site is my blog about mobile advertising and marketing in Australia, but there’s more to it than that.  I hope to provide a valuable resource to the Australian mobile industry by consolidating links, articles and information that will help businesses work with the mobile channel in Australia.

The launch of this site marks phase 1 in a rebranding of my consulting business as well.   Over time the blog has grown to become core to the business, and so “Mobilist” is in the process of becoming “MobilistA“ as well. No more confusion!

Take a look around and please let me know what you think.  The site and content are a work in progress and I am very keen to hear suggestions on what else to include.

I’m also open to hearing from contributors who have an opinion about our local mobile industry.  If you already write about mobile stuff, please drop me a line with links to your content – I’d love to reference it.  If you’d like to write about something that is relevant to the audience of Mobilista, get in touch and I’d be happy to invite you to write a guest post here.  And finally comments on all posts are very welcome, whether you agree with the opinions or not.  It would be great to get some discussion going on some of the current issues facing us all.

The site also includes  information about the consulting, training, speaking and mobile advertising services that Mobilista offers.

Thanks to everyone I have met over the last few years, and for all your encouragement and support in making Mobilista a viable business.  Getting to this point would not have been possible without the awesomeness of groups like Mobile Monday, the AIMIA Mobile Industry Group and all of the passionate individuals that make up our  strong and vibrant mobile community down under.

I hope to see, speak, tweet, comment, facebook, email, chat or hear from you soon!

Emily

Oliver, Jenny and I have been putting the finishing touches on the course materials and I am really  looking forward to the opportunity to work with a group of enthusiastic wannabe mobile marketers!  The course will cover the latest trends in mobile technology and marketing, and teach participants how to take advantage of them.

Course Content includes:

• how to engage consumers through the mobile channel
• the logistics of implementing a mobile marketing campaign
• how to integrate mobile into your overall marketing strategies

I’ll be running the show down in Melbourne on June 18th and will have a few guest lecturers there on the day to impart their wisdom and expertise.  Jenny Williams (IdeaGarden) will fire up Sydney attendees on June 11th with a little bit of support from yours truly (I’ll be making cups of tea)

I would love to see you there.  I know if you’re reading Mobilista then you’re already interested in mobile marketing – perhaps this is the perfect opportunity to take that interest and turn it into some really exciting mobile marketing activities before 2009 is out.

At the start of the year I predicted we’d see some great local examples of mobile marketing and advertising in Australia in 2009.  Will you be behind one of those great examples??

1. Everybody builds an App Store

Everybody will want an app store in 2009.  The iPhone App Store has had more than 300 million downloads globally, with more than 10k apps available as of early December 08.  

The appeal of the iPhone App Store is the large, consistent user base, the built in business model and the ‘one-click’ path to getting an application onto a mobile handset.

The iPhone App Store works because:

• It’s dead easy for users.  They just get it.
  
• Apple’s marketing machine has guaranteed enough users to warrant the effort that goes into building an application
• All of the users have the same handset, which means the application only needs to be built once.
• The significant user base is distributed globally, so the development community that can be encouraged to build for the App Store is also large, and global
  
• There is a built-in revenue model for sales of applications through the App Store and plug-ins to immediately enable advertising revenue
  
• Apple controls the quality of the applications that are created AND provide the tools to make it easy to develop software to their standards
  
•  There is a comprehensive SDK (software development kit) including tools, simulators and an active developer community online, all of which make the iPhone easy to build for
  
• It’s cool, and companies / brands / developers want to be seen there!
  

2009 will bring a variety of me-too App Store experiences, some of which we will see in Australia.  Major handset manufacturers will launch their alternative, similar models. (Palm has already launched a software store, RIM is set to do so in March).  Some will fail, but others will find their niche.  In Australia one or more of the telco carriers will jump on the bandwagon, and depending on their approach, will almost certainly fail. 

No Australian telco has enough (any?) of the advantages described above to make a completely open App Store work.  Assuming the Telco can find local developers, provide sufficient incentives to build for a local audience in a fragmented handset market, while funding the internal resources needed to nurture the community and monitor, test & approve the applications being produced…. then some success may be seen.  But I doubt it!

2. Mobile Web Usage Tips Over (almost)

I’ve seen a number of articles about the Mobile Web explosion we had last year.  Maybe in the US or Europe, but I don’t think we saw it in Australia.   In 2009 we will finally see Australia reach the (almost) tipping point for mobile web.  It’s fair to say we won’t ALL be browsing the internet from our mobiles, but by the end of 2009 it will be at least as common as MMS is now.

We will see a rush of Australian online properties make their first forays into the mobile channel.  In the face of this increased competition, those who are already there (News, Fairfax, NineMSN, LP, ABC, CarSales, Sensis) will make a lot more noise.  The classifieds space will start to wake up to the possibilities and we’ll see a lot more from employment & real estate. Carsales & Drive are already there, and Sensis’ Trading Post mobile launched late in 2008. 

With local properties acting as a magnet for the channel, users will find themselves exploring mobile further and discovering the wealth of content & applications available globally.  Mobile search engines will contribute to this growth.  Where there are users there are opportunists, and we will see a barrage of content suitable for mobile being published in the latter half of 2009 to take advantage of this eagerly awaited surge in usage.

Applications will play a big part in this usage surge and mobile site owners will take advantage of the trend with ‘bookmarklets’ – pseudo apps that effectively place a button on your handset that loads a mobile website.

The iPhone and other smart devices won’t do usage any harm of course, and further improvements to data plans from Telcos will see us begin to drift away from the horrors of bill shock. 

2009 will see usage, content, devices & telcos all coming together to make the mobile web truly relevant in Australia.

3. We Hear a Lot More about Mobile Ad Networks

Users + Content = Advertising. 

In Australia to date a small number of major players have controlled most of the mobile usage and thus the revenue that can be earned from advertising.

The telcos (Telstra, Optus, Vodafone, 3) along with Fairfax, News & NineMSN own the properties that earn the bulk of targetable Australian mobile traffic.  Major brands like Google, Microsoft & Nokia pick up a fair bit and have their own advertising solutions.

The rest of the traffic is spread across the very long tail of global & independent mobile sites.

Each of the telcos sells advertising on their mobile portals as do the major publishers.  Advertisers can buy Google Mobile Adwords targeting Australia and at least one global mobile ad network (AdMob) can be used to reach a significant amount of off-deck / long tail traffic in Australia. 

With the exception of one or two independent mobile site publishers, these have been the Advertiser’s only options to reach mobile users in Australia to date.

With usage and content growth expected in 2009, we are set to see one or more of the following mobile ad network moves:

1. Telcos extend their mobile networks to include (more) independent mobile sites.

     Telstra’s MediaSmart has already tested the water, extending its mobile network beyond the Sensis & BigPond family.  I suspect we will see a lot more of this in 2009.

2. Online Ad networks extend coverage to include mobile properties.

Online Ad Network Max Interactive have launched Max Mobile, initially only offering advertising on the 3 portal – for now.  This is the start of things to come though.  After all, if online networks do not embrace the mobile versions of web properties they represent – who will? 

3. Global Mobile Ad networks look at Australia

Globally there are a number of big mobile ad players (Yahoo, Google, Microsoft) and numerous niche mobile ad networks (eg. AdMob, DeckTrade, Smaato, AdModa, Buzz City) many of which already offer targeting of Australian mobile traffic.  To date
ion st=”on”>Australia has seen little focus from these global players, other than AdMob who has a significant amount of Australian traffic already.  In 2009 will see some activity here.  Google will add more Australian publishers to their mobile content network and some of the niche networks will pick up local partners or publishers.

4. Local Mobile-specific Ad Networks emerge

In 2009 we will see one or more start up companies launching in Australia with the goal of aggregating ad serving within mobile content.  More mobile content means there could be a genuine need here, but the real opportunity is in building the network, thus becoming an acquisition target for the larger global mobile or local online ad networks.

4. Australian Ad Industry puts Mobile on The Radar

With all this activity and advertising opportunity, 2009 will be the year our local agencies start to take mobile seriously.  The advertising industry will start to consider mobile more often and earlier in the planning process (but not yet often enough or early enough for my liking!).

Digital agencies will realise they are not truly digital if they don’t offer mobile services, and we will see mobile experts being hired and trained with increasing frequency.

Media planners will be expected to know what’s available in mobile media buying and mobile specific agencies will flourish while digital and traditional agencies figure the space out.  Mobile specialists will either do well or be absorbed / acquired.   Advertisers will start to ask for mobile and in some cases will even know what it is they are asking for!  

Unfortunately 2009 will also be the year of the “Epic FAIL” mobile campaign.  Agencies & advertisers will go it alone, believing they know what works (It’s just the web on a small screen right?) and spend money on campaigns that don’t deliver. 

Tacking on mobile at the last minute will be rife and we will see horrible mistakes like SMS campaigns pushing full screen web URLs, QR codes that are too big/small/fuzzy to scan and downloadable apps that cost $150k to build and get no usage. There will be talk of mobile being all hype and no reality. 

But we’ll also see some really smart & innovative mobile advertising. This will be the year we move beyond ‘banners and brochureware’ and see mobile integrated across digital & traditional channels and applied in scenarios where it’s undeniably perfect – direct, targeted, measurable, interactive conversations. 

The global economic downturn will be good for mobile advertising, as it costs less to reach the right people via mobile. Where the target audience makes sense, many advertisers will sacrifice broadcast media for direct, targeted campaigns with mobile integrated.

There will be a mobile story in every issue of every advertising & marketing publication in Australia in 2009.  Yes, everyone will jump on the mobile bandwagon (and don’t I love it!)

All in all 2009 will be an industry defining year for mobile advertising in Australia.

Thinks I’d like to see, but probably won’t just yet:

- Everyone stops caring about getting on the carrier / telco deck

- Consistent Mobile Advertising Guidelines are adopted by all the major publishers & carriers

- Brands start building content & sites for mobile first, and not the other way around

- Mobile Search becomes as ubiquitous as online search and takes over from portals

- Australian mobile content developers make a lot of money (sorry it’s not this year guys)

What other people think

 I put the word out and got some input from a few other notable Aussie Mobilistas.

Shane Williamson, Founder, Mobile Monday Sydney

• 2009 will not see a decline in mobile sales overall in Australia as the GFC will not effect the market greatly. Mobile devices are too important to people to get the chop.
• With the maturing of Unified Communicatons, smartphones will be the driving force of higher end mobile data use into the enterprise.
  
• A key factor to uptake will be fixed to mobile convergence (FMC) of voice services to mobile devices. This is the ability to use mobiles to access traditonal enterprise PBX services and applications.
  

 Tim Parsons, Founder, Mobile Monday Sydney

• channel confusion, some people will be e-mailing from their iPhone/Android/WindowsMobile/Blackberry, while others will still be SMSing. Expect some missed rendezvous while we decide what asynchronous messaging channel we should be on to connect with each person.
  
• on-deck revenues continue to rise, for perhaps another 18 months – 2 years, and then sharply decline as all the fun off-deck becomes too much to ignore
• the rise of uncapped data-plans and simultaneously super-social apps like ‘instant chat’ and xumii
• brands are starting to get serious about targeted marketing; mobile marketing will probably grow a bit faster and be more innovative this year.
  

Luke Janssen CEO TigerSpike

• Companies will go bust..
  
• Mobile Internet will become a no brainer..
  
• and much more on Luke’s blog
  

Tim Elwin, CEO, ToyPhone media

• MIM (Mobile Instant Messaging) is going to get bigger
  
• Mobile measurement will finally be a reality in Australi
  
• and a hot tip from Tim….. “..ensure that all staff, especially client facing staff in agencies are properly trained up on general mobile interaction”
  

A Few More Opinions with a Global Perspective 

MobHappy- Russell Buckley’s 2009 Predictions (1, 2 and 3) (4, 5 and 6) (7, 8, 9 and 10)

From MocoNews - How the big mobile stories of 2008 will play out

MTrends – Rudy de Waele’s Mobile and Wireless Predictions for 09

Chetan Sharma’s Mobile Industry Predictions 2009

MoMo London founder Daniel Applequist’s 2009 Predictions

The good news is that 48 people have signed up to the Facebook group for Mobile Advertising in Australia. That’s a great start and I plan to fulfil my part of the deal in the coming weeks, and share some of the recent mobile advertising activities in our industry.

My head is buzzing with future blog posts and I’ve made a commitment to keep them coming, short and sweet but far more often, as I do have a tendency to write an essay!

Watch this space in the next few days, and if you have any news to share, campaigns you’ve seen or run, products & services launched or companies doing interesting things, please drop me a line at emily@mobilist.com.au

Don’t forget there are many mobile people already ‘micro-blogging’ every day on twitter. My twitter name is emilyfreeman if you’re keen to join the conversation. If you’re already up there, why don’t you pop over to the Facebook group and add your twitter ID on the discussion board so the local community can find you (otherwise I may be forced to ‘out’ a few people on here for the benefit of all!)

I plan to leave the ‘industry association’ stuff to the experts but I think we can all benefit from an ongoing conversation in a more informal way.

I’m the first to admit Mobilista is pretty low-tech and doesn’t offer the best tools to enable this kind of interaction. For this reason I suggest using a couple of the popular social networking tools to get things moving along.

Facebook

I’ve created a Facebook group called Mobile Advertising in Australia. I realise many of you (myself included) are a little ‘facebook fatigued’ but I don’t know another more widely used platform that provides the same ease of interaction and involvement, with simple tools for establishing a community. Consider it a starting point. Please drop in and make yourself known.

Twitter

I’ve found Twitter to be an invaluable tool when used as a business & information resource. I follow people in the mobile industry globally and locally, and get to hear first hand about the daily experiences they have working on mobile sites, campaigns & products. It would be great to connect with more local operators and start having conversations about our mobile advertising industry.

If you already use Twitter my username is emilyfreeman . If you don’t, why not give it a shot. ‘Follow’ me, and then drop me a line to introduce yourself. I’ll put you in touch with some other people I think are worth following.

From little things big things grow. First, lets start talking.

MEGA (Mobile Enterprise Growth Alliance) started in Adelaide last year and is now rolling out in Victoria & NSW. It’s an industry led programme in which leading mobile industry experts guide participants through the development of new business ideas over a 2 month period.

Each session is run by a local mobile professional with industry experience. Participants learn all there is to know about the Australian & Global mobile environments, and work together on business plans for their ideas. The course culminates in an opportunity to pitch to investors.

The list of sponsors & presenters in Melbourne & Sydney is a who’s who of the mobile industry locally. The lucky participants will have access to the best & brightest this country has to offer and I really look forward to seeing what comes out of the 2008 series.

The programme is open to individuals, teams & corporates. Organisers are keen to see people from all skill backgrounds apply – from programmers, content producers & artists to entrepeneurs and business professionals. They’re looking for enthusiasm & creativity more than anything else.

If you have an idea based around mobiles that you’d love to get off the ground, this is a fantastic opportunity. Applications close May 5th. Go to www.mega.org.au to apply or email justin@mega.org.au