Historically Nokia have always been the leader in the mobile phone market. They have nearly always had the largest range of phones, and have catered for everyone's wants and needs from high-tech high-end smartphones to basic call and text handsets. Basically Nokia made a lot of really clever moves early on in the early days of the mobile boom. Not bad for a company who's primary business as rubber and lumber!
Then something happened. Something changed in the mobile market and Nokia started to lose that historic first choice preference and users started looking to other handsets. The best example of this is the US mobile market. The US mobile market is probably the largest mobile market in the west, and certainly the most important.
Most articles I've read lately would have you believe that Nokia's single major failing has nothing to do with handsets or technology. As a provider Nokia has a huge suite of mobile devices. Nokia is falling down in the US due to a failure to partner with the US mobile networks, and to be honest Nokia's relationship with US mobile networks is well documented. But there's more to it then that. People want smaller, smarter, faster and completely integrated devices. They don't want to have to carry a laptop, a phone, a music player, a camera, an organiser etc. They want to have a device that offers all of these things. Nokia, however, are still approaching their devices from the position of building phones.
The most exciting thing to come to the mobile market in some time, is with out doubt the iPhone. The most important thing to realise about the iPhone is that, contrary to what its name would have you believe, it is not in fact a phone at all. The iPhone is a mobile mini computer that offers the ability to make phone calls, among a host of features.
Building phones is what is truly holding Nokia back. So how will Nokia effect such a change? How will Nokia achieve their goal of becoming "the largest interactive media network in the world."
Nokia's campaigns over the last year have all aimed to grow social media presence, facilitated by conversation. Nokia want people to use their technology to express and broadcast themselves. To support this, Nokia launched a web service called Ovi. Ovi allows Nokia users to get apps like Facebook, Twitter and Bebo for their Nokia phone. While this is far more expansive for smartphones such as the Nokia N97, there are options for even the simplest handset. Nokia have also made major inroads to developing their music offering. Fast Company's article Nokia Rocks the World: The Phone King's Plan to Redefine Its Business gives an overview of Nokia's recent musical advance and the following interview...
So mission accomplished? An app platform in place, partnerships established, advertising ready, and a strategy thought out - Nokia stand poised to take over the world once and for all?
Well not quite. Unfortunately there is a lot of fine tuning still to do for Nokia to accomplish their goal. Nokia's platform, Ovi, is far from brilliant. It is unintuitive and lacks any sort of dynamicism. Coupled with this, the efforts that Nokia are making "to counter music piracy and offer an easy music access service", don't actually address the fact that people want to listen to music on a music player, not on a phone. This brings me back to the point that Nokia are failing to recognise exactly what their competition is really offering.
Once Nokia realise that they need to make more then just phones, they may stand a chance of regaining the premier position they once held for mobile devices.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Nokia and The Future
Friday, August 28, 2009
In The Twittersphere
Two interesting things popped up in the news yesterday involving Twitter. The first is news of the confirmed launch of a new book entitled 'Twitter Wit'. 'Twitter Wit' is a compilation of the funniest tweets posted to the service - essentailly a round-up of all the daft things that have been Tweeted since the sites launch. This of course includes Tweets written by a number of famous Tweeters such as comedian Stephen Fry. One of Fry's featured Tweets "London city airport. Where form meets function. AND THEY HAVE A FIGHT", gives a good insight into the comic yet clever messages that the site has delivered.
The book, which has been written by Nick Douglas (founding editor of Valleywag.com), has been fully endorsed by Twitter and even carries a foreword by the Twitter's co-founder Biz Stone. Stone commented that there was no financial arrangement with the publisher Harper Collins, but that they did love the book so much they bought copies for all their San Francisco employees.
Stone wrote on the company's blog: "The tweets [in 'Twitter Wit'] are irreverent, inappropriate, geeky, and pretty much hilarious. If you don't like one, you'll like the next."
As part of the books launch, Harper Collins have created a competition that challenges readers to perform one of five tweets featured in the book. Entrants will need to create a short video of their performance, with a winner being selected by Douglas. The prize is an iPod touch and a copy of the book.
In other news, another new publication (this time a website) pays tribute to Twitter. Woofer, which describes itself as a 'macroblogging' site allows users to boost their usual 140-character Tweets to gigantic 1,400-characters Woofs. Although Woofer is just a novelty site and openly bills itself as a homage to Twitter in the form of a Social Media experiment, it does already have 9,000 users.
The site itself looks almost identical to the Twitter homepage, with the exception of the huge 1,400 character countdown for your Woofs. Woofers (users) can send messages attributed to their Twitter names. Unlike Tweets, the site asks that Woofers "Be eloquent, use adverbs and DEA (don't ever abbreviate)."
The site does distinctly distance itself from Twitter, confirming a number of time that it has nothing to do with Twitter and even goes as far as to feature a link in the top navigation 'Is this Twitter?'. Clicking on this leads users to page that simply reads "No" in giant letters.
The site has been created by digital agency Join the Company.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Top 50 UK/Irish Marketing Blogs
The following list has been compiled from the AdAge Power150 Blog List. Shown is the blog's position both within the British Isles and globally. All Blogs highlighted are especially worth visiting. I am also delighted to add that Digitology comes in at 42 on the list.
this list is correct as of 2am 27th August 2009
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
The 5 Hottest Location-Based Apps
The guys over at Revolution have written a great post on the The 5 hottest location-based apps (so far). I have to say, each of these are spot on and I'd have to agree, seriously cool. If you're an iPhone user I hope you already have them but, if not, get over to the iTunes Store now!
1. Twitter
Twitter's location tags will let users view tweets by people in their city, neighbourhood or building or follow tweets from a particular event, concert or area of breaking news such as an earthquake zone. Small businesses could use the feature to target users in the immediate area offering deals and discounts.
Find out more
2. JustBought.It
JustBought.it is a social shopping app that lets you share photos and tweet about great shopping deals as you find them. The service is also used by shoppers looking for bargains in a particular area, or to ask other users for shopping advice.
http://justbought.it/
3. Wrrl v2.0
iPhone app Whrrl encourages users to combine photos, stories, and their location with the photos and stories of their friends to form a collective experience with greater depth than Twitter conversations and Facebook updates. You can see what's happening in your network, view your friends' updates on a map and add comments.
download Whrrl here
4. Wikinear
Wikinear figures out where you are and tells you the five most interesting locations near you using entries in Wikipedia and Google Maps. Useful when you're travelling or have moved to a new area and are keen to learn its history.
http://wikinear.com
5. Yowza!
Founded by Heroes star Greg Grunberg, Yowza! Capitalises on our eagerness to save money in the recession, using your location to automatically find and download exclusive discount vouchers from a range of retailers. Although only available on the iPhone in the US, the app will eventually roll-out to the UK.
http://getyowza.com
Censorship #FAIL
It wasn't so long ago that a number of NFL teams made the decision to stop their players from using Social Media (specifically Twitter). There is a fairly universal consensus that this is just nuts. Why would you feel the need to tell a professional football player that they weren't allowed to . I mean why stop there, why not ban them from using text messages? Well it would seem that college football can do them one better!
The NCAA's South Eastern Conference (a college football division) issued a new set of rules prohibiting fans from using any sort of Social Media at any game events - no Twitter feeds, no Facebook photos, no YouTube videos. The rules effectively banned Social Media from all its stadiums, prohibiting fans from recording video, audio or taking photographs. The policy was specifically designed to clamp down on bloggers and amateur sportswriters.
The official policy, which was released last Monday, set out that fans could not "produce or disseminate (or aid in producing or disseminating) any material or information about the event, including, but not limited to, any account, description, picture, video, audio, reproduction or other information concerning the event."
As you can imagine there was swift and immediate outrage with hundreds of fans going straight to the web to discuss the madness of the decision.
Thankfully the SEC had not consider the implications and impact that such a policy would have on the professional media organisations who cover the SEC season and drive large amounts of revenue. Less then 24 hours later the SEC received a letter of protest from three of the largest of these organisations. Unsurprisingly, the policy was very quickly withdrawn. What may have come as a surprise was the SEC's apology.
The SEC posted the following Tweet (I know, Tweet!!): "To our Twitter fans, we have heard you. We're working on clarifications to our policy and should have something done soon."
An SEC spokesman also commented, saying "The intent of the policy was never to eliminate social media" adding, "Twitter fans, please share the great times you have at our stadiums with your friends. We probably took traditional media rights language and tried to apply it in a new media world."
That may be the only smart thing that has come out of all this - "We probably took traditional media rights language and tried to apply it in a new media world". If only others would learn this.
So the revised policy now reads "personal messages of scores or other brief descriptions of the competition throughout the event are acceptable." However, games still can't be recorded on video, but pictures are allowed to be taken for personal use.
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