Mobile

360i’s 2011 Digital Marketing Summit ended with a featured presentation on A Mobile Day in the Life, looking at the role mobile devices play in every hour of someone’s day. Marketers have constant opportunities to reach people anytime, anywhere, so it’s important to know the evolving ways people are consuming, interacting with, and creating media.

The slides from SlideShare are below (a few slides are a little fuzzy, but you can get the gist). Links to all the apps featured are included below.

Sleeping / Getting Ready

4am: Sleep Science

5am: WakeMate

6am: Lark

7am: FitFu

8am: Go Try It On

The 9-5 Workday

9am: NeoReader (one of the best mobile barcode readers)

10am: Summify, Aurasma

11am: Pinterest

12pm: Foursquare

1pm: Dokobots

2pm: Rosetta Stone

3pm: TaskRabbit

4pm: Google+

Drinks, Dinner and Unwinding

5pm: TabbedOut

6pm: Kraft iFood Assistant, Coupons.com’s GroceryIQ, CheckPoints

7pm: Barcode Hero

8pm: Snooth, MealSnap

9pm: IntoNow, GetGlue

10pm: Fashism

11pm: Localmind

Out for the Night

12am: Google Offers

1am: Sonar

2am: Alfred

3am: FoodSpotting

Group texting is having a moment. Apps like GroupMe, Disco and Beluga (recently acquired by Facebook) are exploding in popularity, and brands are quickly following suit. In fact, MTV and Oxygen have already joined the conversation by creating sponsored communities within GroupMe and facilitating fan connections.

Within GroupMe’s new “Featured” tab, users are able to create and join conversations about TV shows, artists and events of sponsors. Through this space, brands like MTV and Oxygen will be able to message users, answer questions and deliver exclusive content (such as chats with cast members).

Screenshots via Mashable

One way to assess these trends is to take a closer look at how group texting platforms might play out among the Hispanic audience. Why? Overall, Hispanic consumers are earlier adopters of technology and digital behaviors than their general market counterparts, especially when it comes to mobile phone usage.

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The 21st Century Mobile Mom Report published last week by BabyCenter sheds some light on smartphone usage among mothers — and to marketers looking to reach mom on her mobile device, that light is bright and shiny.

Moms are 18% more likely than the average consumer to have a smartphone and more than half (51%) of moms surveyed for the report identified themselves as “addicted” to their smartphones. Moms are constantly on-the-go, and a smartphone provides a handy way to help them stay organized and connected.

Image via Geek.com

Some of mom’s key mobile habits highlighted in the report are:

She users her smartphone at the point of sale: 68% of moms with smartphones use shopping apps to research or compare prices and nearly half say that the most convenient time to receive product information is while she is in-store.

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You may be checking into locations – but are you checking in to experiences yet? If not, you should definitely check out GetGlue.

GetGlue is a social network which allows users to check in to TV shows, movies, music and books, and see what their friends are consuming in real time. And though it has just under 1 million users, it’s growing fast. Now, GetGlue is stepping it up a notch by not only integrating with Foursquare, the popular geo-location platform, but also by  giving users the ability to check in to sporting events.

Sports check-ins have already proved their popularity through test programs like Foursquare’s 2011 Super Bowl Sunday check-in, where over 200,000 people checked in, but have not been widely utilized until now. This new GetGlue function not only allows users to watch sporting events, but in a sense attend.

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Today at SXSW, 360i’s David Berkowitz spoke about how tech advancements such as Near-Field Communication (NFC) and RFID will change the face of mobile forever. You can view the complete presentation below.

For more on mobile strategy, read our Mobile Marketing Playbook.

When Foursquare first started making headlines, back when its users numbered in the hundreds of thousands rather than millions, a lot of people didn’t like the idea of broadcasting their locations to all their friends. The naysayers proved prescient here, as this year’s South by Southwest (SXSW) event underscores how the social focus of check-in apps has died.

The timing is ironic. Last week, I told a friend who’s nominally on Foursquare, “These will be the only five days you’ll find Foursquare useful.” It’s an event where people shift where they’re going based on what’s buzzing on Foursquare and where their friends are checking in. I knew Friday night I was at the best party in Austin solely because every other Foursquare friend was checking in there.

And yet Foursquare chose this event, of all times and places, to launch a program with American Express that offers users $5 discounts at dozens of merchants in downtown Austin. Days earlier, Foursquare allowed merchants to create new kinds of special offers. Points are also now more prominent, offering a form of social currency or bragging rights. It’s not hard to imagine Foursquare later converting the social currency to hard currency, offering better deals to its point-leading power users.

Continue reading over at AdAge’s DigitalNext blog.

As Foursquare’s 2nd anniversary approaches at this week’s SXSWi conference, we think it’s safe to say the startup has certainly made a name for itself. In that same amount of time, the iconic app has successfully accumulated a user base of 7.5 million (and growing). Even with the launch of Facebook Places, Foursquare is still marching up and assuming the role of #1 location based service in the US market.

Image via Silicon Alley Insider

But what once was a platform is now evolving into a community. While Foursquare previously asked the question ‘Where are you,’ it now seeks to answer ‘What are you doing’ and ‘Who are you with?’

The launch of Foursquare 3.0 came yesterday to eager super-users worldwide – and it certainly made a splash on its first day. Writes Foursquare in a blog post: “One of the big ideas kicking around Foursquare HQ these last few months has been the idea of ‘every check-in counts.’ Regardless of whether you’re checking into the same ol’ coffee shop or some far-away beach, we want every check-in to add value to every Foursquare user.”

With this new ‘every check-in counts’ mantra, the updated platform allows for a much more user and business friendly service fostering a richer exchange of value and conversation. Here’s a breakdown of some new features, and how businesses can make the most of each component.

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