February 2011

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Who would like to be in a market whose device base is larger than the currently installed base of PCs and is set to grow by 4.5 times in the next 3 years?

I attended the Mobile Cloud Computing Forum last week thanks to Chinwag (apologies for the delay in posting this - Ed), and these predictions, based on a
Gartner paper made me sit up and listen.

There are currently close to 5 billion mobile phones in the world, this is going to rise to 6 billion in 2013. In 2013 there will be 1.82 billion smartphones on the planet, up from 400 million today, and surpassing the 1.78 billion PCs predicted for then.

Advertising globally is worth some $368 billion with $1 billion being spent on mobile. This is set to rise to $30 billion in 2013. Machine to machine communication has a potential for up to 60 billion devices. This market is yet to take off but does have some interesting applications within vending, gaming and smart monitoring, so one to watch for the future.

The social gaming market is predicted to reach $1bn in 2011, a result of investment by big brands using games to engage consumers. One of the drivers for this investment is the development of technology leading to a deeper integration of social technology and online gaming, making it more attractive to a wider audience (as shown in both US and UK research).

Branded social games and virtual world environments can provide consumers with the chance to immerse themselves in an online environment dedicated to their favourite film franchise (such as Lord of the Rings Online) or book (like Scholastic’s upcoming Horrible Histories world, based on our HuzuTech platform).

But the most important development that’s opened up the market is the ability to include a social element to games. This stops the game becoming the domain of a single player and opens it up to allow players to chat to each other, share scores and information, and effectively market the game on the brand’s behalf by bringing friends in and posting updates to their existing networks (like Facebook).

Some brands are actively scared about using their social channels to provide customer services, but they don’t realise the opportunity they’re missing.

In general the thinking goes something like this:

• If we let people leave negative remarks, then they will put off other potential customers.
• It’s impossible to solve every problem through social channels – so why try?
• If someone has to answer all the queries, that will mean having to hire more staff.

Let’s look at each of these in detail.