You focus on where the audience is going

Anyone contemplating a journalism start-up should think of getting a mobile presence first and then think of a computer application that plays off the application.

That's according to Geek Squad founder Robert Stephens,who says that if he were starting the Geek Squad today, it would not be providing support for computers, it would be all about tablets and mobile devices.

He adds

you focus on where the audience is going. They might not be there today, but the audience is going mobile first. So making it compatible with mobile. I’m amazed at the number of sites that I go to or I used to go to, that their sites look crappy on a Blackberry. They look crappy on an iPhone. So adapt for that first. Instead of expecting the phone to convert your website into a mobile version, go pure mobile.

You can see the interview here



Ht-Nieman Lab

Mobile and social media hard at work on aid to Haiti

Besides producing coveerage of the disaster in Haiti,social media is also making a significant contribution to the aid programme.

According to the New York Times,

many Americans are reaching for their cellphones to make a donation via text message. And plenty of them are then spreading the word to others on sites like Twitter and Facebook.

adding that

The mobile donations are part of a larger surge of money flowing to the relief effort. The Red Cross said it had collected nearly $35 million as of Thursday night, surpassing the amounts it received in the same time period after Hurricane Katrina and the Indian Ocean tsunami.

Like films-here's an APP

If you are a film buff especially for those made in the UK,then there is an APP for you as the advert says.

Kat Barns reports that

VisitBritain have announced a free British Film Location App for iPhone and iPod touch is now available from the App Store. The app allows iPhone and iPod touch users to discover and photograph the most iconic British film locations in cinematic history. It also shows the most famous film scenes on Google maps and allows users to search by film title.

and the demand is there,according toJustin Reid, Head of Online, VisitBritain

“The VisitBritain message is clear, wherever you are in Britain you are never far from a British film location. This app will give visitors the opportunity to recreate their favourite scenes from some of our most iconic British films,Users can take pictures on location or make their own short films posting them on Facebook, Twitter or any of their social networking pages. 2010 is going to be a massive year for film tourism to Britain and we are making sure our digital campaigning is at the forefront of these events.”

Look around an airport lounge now. You'll see more people looking at their phones than holding newspapers

If mobile is going to be the next platform then media organisations need to start thinking about unique ways in which they can command the attention of the audience.

Over at Poynter online Steve Buttry takes an in depth look at the issue,(Ht-Judith Townend )and as he recalls

Look around an airport lounge now. You'll see more people looking at their phones than holding newspapers.

Here are some of his pointers

1.The mobile-first strategy needs to embrace new relationships with the community,

2.a crucial question will be whether mobile opportunities should be the responsibility of a separate operation focused exclusively on mobile or whether the full operation needs to share mobile responsibilities.

3.Journalists will need to change how they gather, process and distribute information.

4.In a mobile-first operation, design may be both a journalism function and a technology function, or it might be a separate area of the operation, combining both skills. However you organize, you need to make mobile service the priority of those involved in design.

5.Priorities need to be set to ensure that technology experts, whether part of a central IT staff or assigned to a department such as a newsroom, have the training and time to help other departments execute an effective mobile-first strategy.

6.Sales staffs need to listen to consumers and businesses and learn how to help businesses serve the mobile audience

But maybe his most poignant thought

An innovation doesn't have to be perfect to launch; in fact the cost of pursuing perfection can doom a project to failure. "Good enough" performance along traditional lines is sufficient for launch, if it is providing a distinct advantage over existing products in some new approach.

It's a Google day

Yesterday was certainly a google day across the world.

The organisation announced that it had agreed to acquire AdMob, the fast-growing mobile advertising start-up, for $750 million.

Ad Mob,it may not surprise you is one of the leading developers of mobile apps in the US and its acquisition could help establish Google as an early leader in the small but rapidly expanding mobile phone advertising business.

Meanwhile the compnay was on the end of a tirade from Rupert Murdoch who threatened to remove stories from Google's search index as a way to encourage people to pay for content online.

According to Guardian media,Murdoch said that

newspapers in his media empire – including the Sun, the Times and the Wall Street Journal – would consider blocking Google entirely once they had enacted plans to charge people for reading their stories on the web.

However as Charle Arthur points out

The threat to exclude Google from News International websites won't have caused much lost sleep over in the search engine's headquarters in Mountain View in California.

adding that his threat

is akin to a runner at a sports event threatening to shoot himself in the foot: the ticket-seller, noting that all the other entrants aren't making the same threat, isn't going to be worried.

Economist set to launch mobile app

More news of the media concentrating more on the mobile platform.

Paid Content reports that

Economist.com is about to launch a paid-for iPhone app to accompany its global business-school league-table data and its annual spin-off print magazine Which MBA?.

and adds that

MBA data is free but a search feature that creates personalised rankings is for subscribers only—the iPhone app, developed by Zone Content, also has the search feature but will be available to non-subscribers for a one-off fee. It’s the Economist’s first mobile app and a clear sign of the company’s approach to monetising online data.

Did Marx predict twitter?

An interesting argument from Chris Gillow who asks

Does the Trafigura/Carter-Ruck case vindicate Marx? ie
Marx argued that technical change was a powerful force behind social change, so technology influenced power relations between people:

Would Trafigura have got away with it without the new media?

In the pre-web age, they might well have gotten away with trying to suppress free speech. But thanks to technical change - the emergence of the web and twitter - their efforts backfired spectacularly and inadvertently led to one of the most effective viral marketing campaigns of recent years.

Is this the next big thing-Augmented reality

According to Neville Hobson

it’s a great illustration of how augmented reality could be of distinct use in a pragmatic way: you’re in a new city, you can interactively find out information about your surroundings with your mobile device, in real time – tourist spots, historical sites, museums and parks, photo galleries and videos at the points of interest.

No mobile web

Is their such a thing as the mobile web and should we make the distinction between it and the static version?

Steve Yelvington thinks not and give seven reasons why not.

His main argument is that

Mobility is about interests and utility, not technology. Feeding your crappy old shovelware website is not a mobile strategy. Easy mobile access to the entire Web opens a broad field of opportunity. Pursue it.

and that

We are mobile people. There is no Mobile Web, but in our mobility we will expect simple, direct, easy tools that meet our mobile needs. Those who provide them will win.

First WiFi now MiFI

Not that I want this blog to become a technology blog but I was interested in the latest WiFI development,the MiFi.

Being technically challenged I will let Lidija Davis explain.

a portable wireless router that will deliver wireless 3G data network access to multiple users in a small area. Much the same size as a credit card, the sleek looking MiFi will let users select access to EVDO or HSPA high speed data networks.

Twenty five years is a long time

Great post from Richard Sambrook who remembers the equipment that was needed to broadcast from China in the Mid 1980's




and what would be needed now

Mobile coverage in the "South"

I heard a report yesterday that said six out of ten people across the world now own a mobile phone.

It is a staggering figure even though the numbers are inflated by the more affluent parts of the globe where there are more mobile phones than people.

Nevertheless think of these figures in terms of the developing world where in 10 years they have jumped from no communication to unlimited mobile communication.

What effects will that have on their society?

Over at media shift,one of its consequences is discussed in the potential and the challenges for mobile media by John West in his report,the promise of ubiquity.

more than 20 million people in the 50 least developed countries have a mobile phone but no television. He also notes that mobile phones are a classic "Bottom of the Pyramid" industry and he even goes so far as to call them "poor-centric" -- in that they work by collecting small subscription fees, that poorer subscribers can more easily afford, from a huge customer base. This makes mobiles a good way to reach an audience often shut out of the media landscape.

The potential for mobile media is great but there are also threats that come with this technology,especially in areas where democracy is not established

new technologies could enable new forms of surveillance and censorship.