Excited to see that as we conclude 2009 and move to 2010, I feel my predictions were correct that 2010 will really be a pivotal year of cross-screening.  Besides Neilsens and now AT&T coining the phrase 3 screen strategies,  I am still a believer that this is not limited to 3 screens but a holistic mix of all screens linked together to Mobile.  The 3 screens of  TV, Online, Mobile seem to be this starting point of convergence, but the big one’s for me that have been overlooks are the OOH and in-Car and mobile.  Yes it takes forever to get a strategy and product in-place with the Automotive industry, but Japan has proven that in-car systems and mobile are inextricably  linked.   Below is an article by Sindre Lia of Infosyncworld based on the recent press by AT&T.

Interesting that AT&T went after a mobile company that goes cross-media.  My feeling is that the Gigya’s and Clearspring’s of the world have already established a strong base with unique cross-media platform and will now be aggressively going after mobile and widgets for mobile. Given the fact that  Facebook will soon  be launching a mobile platform similar to online,   I am trying to figure out why the strong incumbent mobile players are building strategies that have been to acquire mobile and then try to go cross-media.  If you are already strong in mobile already, why not go after the ubiquitous online guys and balance that out with mobile.  To me it seems like the direction is correct, but potentially the wrong play to be strong-cross-media leaders. Given that Google/ Apple have been strong in the online space and now mobile, it only makes it more challenging in the future with just a silo’d mobile strategy. Excited to follow this progress in 2010.

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AT&T Acquires Mobile App Framework

http://www.infosyncworld.com/news/n/10543.html

By Sindre Lia, Wednesday 30 September 2009

AT&T is gearing up to offer its third-party developers an easier way to create and offer widgets and mobile apps on AT&T phones and other AT&T enabled products.

AT&T today announced the acquisition of Plusmo, a provider of cross-platform application solutions, bringing to AT&T an open standards technology that will simplify mobile application development for its third-party developers. The Plusmo mobile application development platform is expected to be used by multiple AT&T subsidiaries, including AT&T Mobility.

According to Plusmo, the company will help AT&T in accelerating consumer adoption of mobile applications as well as expand the opportunity for publishers, media brands, service companies and developers to reach AT&T subscribers across a broad range of devices.

The acquisition of such a mobile app and widget framework doesn’t come as a surprise, as AT&T at one point said it was aiming to make it easier for developers to create cross-platform content for its phones. Of course, we ran a story on it where we explained how AT&T would soon start competing with Apple’s App Store. AT&T then denied that such was the case, perhaps because they were thinking in much larger scale:

AT&T Interactive and other AT&T subsidiaries will also explore using the technology to create other applications and widgets that work on the three platforms that consumers use the most: mobile, the computer and TV.