UNTETHER.tv - Mobile strategy and tactics (video) | Pervasive Computing | Internet of things

Here's the hard truth: Relying on any app store as the platform to create awareness for your mobile business is crazy. It's a dog fight and the only ones winning these days are the ones that can afford to lose for a long time before they win. Have no fear, there are strategies that are detailed in this episode that will help you overcome this huge challenge. They aren't magic potions, they do take a tremendous amount of effort and the are deliberate in nature and require consistent evaluation. Sound good? Then dig in.

Alex Austin started a photo book company that, by all accounts, was succeeding. They managed to get featured on both major app stores at the same time, were being downloaded 1000's of times per day and were even processing tens of thousands of orders. Then, they weren't featured and much of that went away. This led his team down a path that brought them to their current incarnation. They sold the photo book company, raised $18 million and now help app developers with contextual linking to help them grow their businesses without a reliance on any app store.

This episode is so full of great ideas and case studies about mobile growth that if you don't listen to it, you will certainly fail.

Full show notes can be found here.

Now there is no excuse. Mobile payments are upon us as every major smartphone operating system and platform will have the capability to make a payment by years end. The latest is Google's announcement of Android Pay at Google IO. We take this opportunity to lay out the main players - both in software and hardware - as it finally looks like the earth will be blanketed by the tech to enable mobile payments. The question is when do the consumers latch on...

Welcome to episode #236. On the show: The contagious billboard; Ubimo and Autograph raise rounds; Apple acquires augmented reality company Metaio; Carrefour's 2.5km of LED location lights; XploR smart cane with facial recognition; Lenovo Yoga Tablet's #lightandseek; AdNear and Roy Morgan partner; Shazam everything; Tweeting potholes; Sell advertising in your home windows. Special guest is Trevor Longino of Kontakt.io

Full show notes can be found here.

A year ago beacons were the rage. Today they are a reality and the lessons that have been learned during the first real year of beacon implementations are many. Chuck had an opportunity to moderate a recent panel that featured 4 of the top beacon minds in retail and he summarizes what they have learned in this episode.

There are gaps in the way retailers implement their mobile strategies. Take, for instance, the results from the Mobile Payments and Fraud 2015 report highlighted in this episode. Chuck identifies where the opportunities exist between how merchants are using mobile and how consumers are interested in using mobile with those merchants. The gaps are wide and the opportunities are bountiful - provided it becomes a priority.

Fighting the tyranny of the average - that's how Lucinda Duncalfe describes our current mobile and digital state and she is not far off. At a recent event, Chuck had an opportunity to sit with the Monetate CEO to talk about her 5 levels of the path to personalization and here is the result.

Welcome to episode #235. On the show: Girl detection billboards; KFC's tray tapper; Project Lynx; Next generation QR codes; CHOZ app; O2 acquires Weve; Drink activated coasters against domestic abuse; Apple buys Coherent Navigation; Humagrams power Ticketmaster Canada.

Full show notes can be found here.

NFC hoopla reached a fevered pitch right before Apple finally announced support for the tap-to-do-stuff technology. Since then it seems to have hit a silent stride in the market beyond the initial feeling it would be yet another mobile payment platform. Chuck stopped by the NFC Forum in Boston and was treated to a number of seriously cool examples of what NFC can and will be doing for us in the near future.

This isn't new. The idea that time & location married with supply & demand brings untold opportunity has been around since long before mobile, the Internet, computers and electricity. What is different today is the fact all 4 of those things are at our disposal all the time and with it comes the ability to provide on demand relevancy. How does this work? Chuck explains it all in this episode. The key takeaways are that it does work and it does drive higher revenue. Period.

There is a word that keeps cropping up when it comes to mobile anything - density. It is such a great word unless there isn't any. There are 3 axis for mobile these days: Context, location and density. Context is easy to start with: Is it morning, noon or night? Is it raining, sunny or snowing? Location is getting easier (and VERY slowly getting more accurate): Standing in a stadium, restaurant or train station? New York, New Jersey or Philadelphia? Density is a little more challenging. It looks for the answer of how many people are nearby or in a shop or are using an app in a specific region. The problem is that to make key mobile marketing decisions you need accuracy on all three. Hence, the three axis of mobile.

Today's guest is Andrew Farah, founder of the aptly-named Density. They install in/out counters in the doors of small and medium-sized businesses to do one thing: Count people entering and leaving the business. Seems simple enough but the challenges and the impact of what they are doing are many and wide-ranging.

Full show notes can be found here.