Here are some visuals of  the Trews and their mobified site. As you can see below, the main site has been streamlined to the smaller view for mobile.

Now what is so unique about the mobification process with Mobify.Me is that these two views are the same site! This is what makes this so special.

For CanadianMusicFest there are the artists and venue listings on the festival website that have been mobified.  When you click on the website link in the CanadianMusicFest mobified landing page, the mobified site for the band is the site that you get from your device.  This auto-redirecting completely in mobile with all the right domains  http://m.thetrewsmusic.com unique.  Could you imaging if all 600+ Bands had all theirs sites mobile?

This year ADO had the great opportunity to be the mobile consultant for the event. We decided to first focus on the Canadian Music Fest with the CMW team by mobifying their website- see http://www.mobify.me and also added the text search functionality for any artist, venue at the event.  The way it works is to TEXT ” Venue or Artist Name” to 898 898 ( Standard-Rates apply, no additional cost service).   This service will only work in Canada, but it is a fully functional service for over 600 bands and 50 venues linking them back to the CanadianMusicfest.com mobile-view of the online website from your mobile phone. By texting “CMF” to 898 898, you will get a link to the home page of the mobile-view.

The mobify.me product is unique in that there is no mobile website created. The service works so that a web designer is in full control of the lay-out of the site when it is hit by different mobile browsers. This enables a one-web/two-view of the site ( Online view, and mobile view). We also added a mobile-tab page in the main Canadianmusicfest.com site to for users to get the mobile-view as a Text-push and also register for alerts during the event. We do not plan on having many alerts this year unless there is a sponsor. If you are interested in sponsoring, please contact Mary Simon’s Sponsorship@cmw.net.   Below is an example of the mobile site.

I was completely blown off my chair when I searched on Google for Facebook, Barak Obama came up as #2. I was even more surprized when I searched on Google for Twitter Barak Obama came up #2 again. It is amazing on the ability to embrace SEO for common social media products and services such that a single participant can get such powerful results. I wonder how these links will continue to remain in that position, but are we dealing with pure link-matching here?

Barak Obama and facebook SEO

So when we think of mobile marketing and facebook, Barak Obama comes out ahead of Facebook’s mobile service, Facebook News, Facebook in Wikipedia.

As I have been an early adaptor for just about anything mobile, when Google launched this new product, http://www.google.com/latitude [PCWorld] I thought about giving it a try.  For me, I have always felt in control with Facebook and others, and when it is about user opt-in and control- that is my motto.

I slept on it, and decided to go for it and install Google-Latitude.  As it installed, it gulped my contact book in my Google Gmail account and before I knew it, many friends and not so close friends were getting pinged left and right with the invitation. I felt in control, but the ease with which it spreads is a bit nerve racking.  Once they were invited, I kind of asked myself- this is a bit creepy, is it not, even my picture is a bit strange the way they show it.

Before, i knew it, I was getting acceptances from a variety of different people and the application was now in action. What I found interesting is that it only just tells you where your friends are?

I have not found the real value in an application that just tells you where your friends are with such precision.

For me, I have started to become an active user of Facebook’s instant messaging presence application. What is so powerful is to know that certain people are now online and I can have a quick chat with them. There are many of my friends that are just as busy as I am, and they are hard to reach in real time with email. However, with this app on facebook, we are connected when we are both in that mind-frame to connect ( why else would be be looking at Facebook to begin with?).   However, with Google latitude, I can see where my friends are now but can not connect.  This is where I see the total flaw in this application.  If you are going to launch a social media application where you can connect with friends, there needs to be the ability to connect with those friends…… not just follow them around like a stalker.

Why did they not include GTalk or somekind on IM capabilities in the application? Why is only a reference and directions to getting to your friends?

The other question I ask, is why now at this time and on many devices ( my Nokia E71) but not on Android yet? I guess they are just testing the market.

As Google has been a platform company where many companies have been building thier own mash-ups on top of the Google API, why go head-to-head withthe many of the companies that already have social media applications that use a similar methodology? Take Loopt for instance?  The were one of the first true Social Compasses.  Is Google trying to disintermediate  Loopt? http://www.loopt.com

When I tried to download Loopt  to compare the user experience, I found that Loopt is not available in my region of Canada.  Carriers do not yet support it.  So Google did go independent from the carriers now globally with this Location product and especially in Canada.  However, one of my friends in Japan said they were unable to install the application. So I guess they have not found a way to get into Japan as easy as Canada.

I think the application works great, and another great release for Google, but the product does not make sense yet to me at this time. Why are they coming out with products of this type when others are looking to Google as the platform to build on top of with these kinds of services.  If it is about user data and advertising, to make better recommendations to the friends around me, then this is an interesting opt-in and ad sales proposition I am very excited to see how they do it.

Well for all those folks out there that got my invitation- please note, I am just trying this out, nothing more.  If I find it useful, I will let you know, but in the mean time if you have a problem with my ping, Sorry about that.

-MS

In today’s Fortune online there was an article on ” Why are there so many iPhone games” , I found the discussion of pricing of games very interesting to note as a major disruption that has now also affected the Games Publishing business. For as little as $10, a user can get a similar quality game on the large screen as if they were to purchase the same game on the PSP. A downgraded experience for Nokia’s high-end devices costs $20 USD and even the low- mass volume device versions for $10. Not only did Apple get the User interface right, they build a business model of halves. a business model of halves is when you enter the market with a pricepoint half your competitors for services, 2X the quality, and twice as easy to use and aquire. Apple- hat’s off to grabing this opportunity even in a very crowded difficult market such as the Game business.

What still amazes me is that they were able to get that product out, build a business of over 500M downloads and mass-market penetration of services with out a single cent of that download tarriff going to AT&T. With over 22% of the downloads as games and over 18K available application titles, there is truly a new meaning to the concept of developing and application for a device and not build it through the browser.

As it is rumoured there will be an explosion of Android devices soon to hit the market, it is curious how Google will now embrace this content community to play catch-up with Apple. My gut tells me at this point the the ecosystem built up of applications for apple may tend to be more webcentric with Google.

As we enter 2009, I wanted to get back to blogging. As you can see we have slightly revamped the ADO website and the blog. I just got back from Munich where I participated now for the 3rd year in a row at DLD 2009 ( www.DLD-Conference.com).

As it was a great conference and good to be back in the middle of the debates around the future of media, I would have to say that mobile was absolutely missed from the event.  The event was really about social media this time as a core underlying theme.  I missed many of the presentations in order to meet and discuss with friends and new friends, but knew I could get the entire program online once I got home.

I particularly liked Yossi Vardi’s session on ” How to get 100M eyeballs” . He distilled it down to the few things such as 1) emotional attachment 2) viral and flat 3) platform capable.   What I felt was missed from the dialog,  as it was mainly Yossi speaking while the panelists were holding back with an explosive force to get to thier turn,  was the idea of User Interface.  Getting to the 100M users really means that there is absolute magic in the user interface of the product.  Take Google for instance- The magic of the one-box and lightning fast results. Youtube created the simular phenomena.  When I see killer User interfaces in a product, I feel they have a greater chance to succeed.  Look at what made the iPhone- Its killer User interface.  Nokia is still struggling these days with getting this right even though they were the best in class on the 90′s of User interface.

Other sessions and dialogs I had will come a bit later, when I get back online….