MaxxoMedia Digital Media and Entertainment Trends

Teens Cell Phone Habits

47% of US teens say their social life would end or be worsened without their cell phone, and 57% credit their mobile device with improving their life. Four out of five teens (17 million) carry a wireless device (a 40% increase since 2004), according to a study by Harris Interactive.

Via: Cell Phones

Written by Sarah Perez

At the recent Mobile World Congress 2010, Dutch app store analytics firm Distimo presented their findings on the six largest mobile application stores in existence today: the iTunes App Store, BlackBerry App World, Google Android Market, Nokia Ovi Store, Palm App Catalog and Windows Marketplace for Mobile. In their presentation, they analyzed everything including store size, store growth, the most popular applications and where you can find the best deal. They recently shared some of the highlights from that presentation by way of a slideshow embedded on their blog.

For mobile industry insiders, some of the findings won’t be all that shocking, just common knowledge paired with statistics. However, there were a few surprises that caught us off guard, maybe they will you too.

Distimo collects public application data from app stores and also offers developers an analytics tool which is used to monitor their apps and those belonging to their competitors. After examining and analyzing the data, the company releases market reports detailing their findings.

San Francisco – A federal court has ruled that a cell phone ringtone sounded in public does not constitute a “public performance” under copyright law, and therefore performing rights organizations like ASCAP are not entitled to additional royalty payments from ringtones. “When a ringtone plays on a cellular telephone, even when that occurs in public, the user is exempt from copyright liability, and [the cellular carrier] is not liable either secondarily or directly,” the court said in its ruling.

Groups including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Public Knowledge and the Center for Democracy & Technology had urged the court to reject ASCAP’s argument in a friend of the court brief submitted in the case.

Layar iPhone Example

Layar is a free application on your mobile phone which shows what is around you by displaying real time digital information on top of reality through the camera of your mobile phone.

Layar is a global application, available for the T-Mobile G1, HTC Magic and other Android phones in all Android Markets and now available for the iPhone. It also comes pre-installed on the Samsung Galaxy in the Netherlands

How do you use Layar?

Mobile social gaming community Cellufun is letting its eight million monthly visitors create discussion groups and advertisers can use this content to psychographically target their ads to members.

Each group has real-time chat and its own private forums as well as officers who get to decide membership criteria and review applications. Group affiliations also appear on users’ home pages, enhancing social ties throughout the community.

“Cellufun has become a social hub for millions of users all over the world, and they’re increasingly opting to spend time on our site rather than PC focused social networks like MySpace, Facebook, and hi5,” said Keith Katz, VP of Marketing at Cellufun. “We’ve always had informal groups popping up and posting in various forums, but one of our most frequent user requests has been to have a more formalized system for creating affinity groups, much like what’s available on various Web-based sites.

In a strange twist of events, Adobe (NSDQ: ADBE) has enabled developers to build Flash applications for the iPhone, even though it hasn’t yet persuaded Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) to integrate Flash into the popular phone’s browser. Adobe says its move is completely within Apple’s legal perimeters.

The announcement came this morning at the company’s developer’s conference in Los Angeles, where Adobe also announced that full Flash capabilities were rolling out to the BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Palm (NSDQ: PALM), Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Android and Symbian platforms over the next year or so. But this announcement is different because a Flash player is not being installed on the iPhone, meaning iPhone owners won’t be able to view Flash ads or videos in the browser. However, it does mean that developers will be able to convert content they already built for the web, like a game, and distribute it to iPhone owners via Apple’s App Store. More here.

Currently, the project, which is part of Adobe Flash Professional CS5, is in private beta, but they said they will open up the beta to the public before the end of the year. Already, some Flash applications are available in the store, including MTV’s “South Park Avatar Creator,” which allows you to dress the South Park characters from head to toe and even create hair styles.

via Adobe Has Figured Out How To Bring Flash Apps To The iPhone | mocoNews.

Adobe (NSDQ: ADBE) has secured relationships will Research In Motion, Windows Mobile, Palm (NSDQ: PALM) and Google (NSDQ: GOOG) to roll out full Flash capabilities to the various smartphone platforms. With such a complete line-up, the only obvious phone remaining is Apple’s iPhone.

At the company’s worldwide developer conference in Los Angeles on Monday, Adobe plans to announce that its Flash technology, which is commonly used on the PC to view videos or ads, will be rolled out to browsers on Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) Windows Mobile, Palm webOS phones later this year. In addition, public betas for Google Android and Symbian OS are expected to be available early next year. Finally, Adobe will also bring the Flash Player to Blackberry smartphones at an undisclosed date.

via Adobe Extends Full Flash To Just About Every Phone But The iPhone | mocoNews.

In only nine months, Apple’s App Store has proven itself a hot commodity. It features more than 35,000 applications available to consumers in 77 countries, enabling developers, including retailers, to reach tens of millions of iPhone and iPod Touch users. 24% of Smartphone users have spent anywhere from $10-$50 for a single application, while 28% have spent between $5-10 on a single app. iPhone owners are not spending more on individual apps, but 83% of these iPhone owners have downloaded at least six, according to TNS Media .

From KenRadio.com
The role of mobile internet access in evolving digital lifestyles is the cornerstone of the second typology of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) users. The typology places ICT users into 10 groups and, notwithstanding variation across the groups, the groups fit into two baskets, with the groups’ collective judgments on mobility being the pivot point.

1. Motivated by Mobility: Five groups in this typology – making up 39% of the adult population – have seen the frequency of their online use grow as their reliance on mobile devices has increased. For these groups, growth in frequency of online use is linked not only to increasing broadband adoption, but to positive and improving attitudes about how mobile access makes them more available to others. Across the groups, a lot of variation exists regarding what these changes mean to users. Some find this extra connectivity a platform for self expression. Others are not entirely positive about ICTs’ impacts on their lives.

As Mobile Marketer’s Outlook 2009 proves, marketers understand the need to integrate mobile into their multichannel branding, customer acquisition and customer retention plans.

Several trends are emerging as mobile matures into a medium that, while not without flaws, is a more palatable option than other marketing channels in use. The emphasis, however, should be on mobile’s complementary nature – it gives legs to other channels, including retail, online, television, print, coupons, radio, outdoor, direct mail and insert media.

Top of the trends list is the consumer’s growing comfort with consuming news and content on mobile phones, along with exchanging SMS text messages, shopping for products and services, checking email, playing games, conducting mobile banking transactions and searching for retail locations or driving directions.

Indeed, the mobile channel’s use as a location-enabling tool is quickly becoming evident to brands, ad agencies, retailers and, most importantly, consumers.