Facebook announced yesterday that it was launching not a phone, nor an operating system but a family of apps called ‘Facebook Home’.  According to Zuckerberg we spend 25% of our time on mobile using Facebook and Instagram, so we should design a phone around people and not apps.

Home is a collection of apps that will dominate your phone. Coverfeed takes over your locked screen, giving you constant updates on what your friends are doing. You can even like and comment without unlocking the screen.

Messaging, through the dubiously named ‘Chat heads’, is a big focus of Home. No matter where you are within your phone if a friend sends you either a Facebook message or an SMS, their face will pop up. Then to view or reply to the message just poke them in the face!

The interface is very gesture-led “there’s no chrome, no nav – it’s about the content first”.

Home will eventually include ads but not when it first launches. When they do bring these in, Facebook inventory will become more powerful with even greater scale and targeting capabilities but also far more complicated. This will be another thing to consider in the already highly complex and fragmented mobile media landscape. Get in touch if you have any further questions.

Facebook Home will be available from April 12^th, initially on the HTC One and One X, Samsung Galaxy S III, S4 and Note II and of course the new HTC First.

See what different Somo’ers had to say about Facebook Home:

Carl Uminksi, COO, was quoted on The Drum:

“Facebook Home has finally achieved what nobody else has managed since Zi’s attempt with Qix on Symbian back in the mid 2000’s, that is; take ownership of the home screen. This real estate is gold dust and allows Facebook to completely own the mobile experience. Many chat companies have tried for years to achieve a people-centric view and with the new “chat heads” messaging, Facebook has beautifully designed a mobile experience that puts your friends first and foremost.

Facebook’s commitment to frequent updates is fantastic to hear. I’m expecting integrated voice calling (voice head?) and monetisation opportunities – the home screen is a premium. While Home is available on all Android handsets, AT&T and HTC have partnered to market a Facebook ready handset, great for those obsessed with Facebook and a really great marketing partnership. I think Facebook have approached this in the right way, focussing on building upon the open OS. This will definitely encourage more Android sales.”

Naji El’Arifi, Product Innovation Manager:
“It is interesting how Facebook will be making an Android Launcher app that will essentially make any phone a Facebook phone. However I am unsure if I will always want to have Facebook photos appearing on my lock screen. Plus I have a feeling that once installed users will have a hard time reverting their phone to how it was.”

Joel Blackmore, Senior Innovations Manager:
“Facebook Home won’t launch on all Android phones – so whilst I love the ambition of essentially ‘taking over’ an important part of the phone, I fear it is just more fragmentation of the Android experience. Chatting with friends using Chat Heads (say it quickly) regardless of the app or experience you are in seems like a good concept (it works wonders for Xbox Live) but I believe this will cause countless UX frustrations in real world scenarios. Also, with Facebook’s social share dropping 5% to 60% from Dec 12 to now and -8% YoY in the UK, is this slightly too late for Facebook?”

Max Willis, Innovation Lab Manager:
“Facebook has spent nine years vying for the information and attention of over a billion users, and is arguably a communications superpower today. Facebook was expected to take an aggressive and disruptive stance by releasing its own operating system, but this is not the case; choosing instead to intertwine itself with Android is a boon for the platform. With a saturated 64% of HTC owners also using Facebook, the inclusion of Facebook Home on HTC’s phones may swell this number even further.”

 

40 years ago today the first mobile phone call was made by Martin Cooper at Motorola, who called a rival at another telecoms company to gloat that he was first to call from a cellular phone. Well done Motorola, you kicked off something huge!

Fast-forward 40 years and mobile phones have come a long way – today, a mobile ‘phone’ means more to us than a way to make phone calls. Modern smartphones are super-computers in our pockets with a phone antenna attached. Smartphones allow us to communicate in new ways – we text, we email, we post to social media, we communicate via pictures and video, we read, we consume. We look to our smartphones to entertain us; we play games, listen to music in new ways, and even augment traditional pass times such as TV or magazines. Our smartphones are widely considered our most personal device and we trust them to hold our most personal details – our memories, our bank details, even the keys to our homes.

Just as Martin Cooper and co. would no doubt have trouble predicting where their mobile phone would end up in 40 years, we too have the same trouble (I’m going with something to do with lasers), however, we can make some good guesses on where mobile will be in a few years.

 The ‘phone’ bit is most likely to go!

We know that smartphones are more like computers than phones. According to O2 only 9% of time is now spent using the voice functionality of the modern smartphone, with 11% time spent playing games, and 19% browsing the internet. Usage is shifting, and after getting 3G on my iPad mini, I can personally see how an ‘always connected’ device without phone functionality is still extremely useful. Plus, calls can be made using VOIP when needed.

 ’Mobile’ devices are more than phones

Whilst tablets have been around for a long time, the iPad’s launch in 2010 suddenly forced us to question the role of these new devices. Were they mobile? Now we consider tablets as a mobile device and have to plan experiences accordingly to work across different screen sizes and user contexts. With Google Glass coming, the rumoured iWatch / Android watch, even persistently connected cars, how do we treat these? They are certainly mobile but they offer new screens, new contexts, new ways to think about the term ‘mobile’.

All companies will think mobile

Whilst many companies have ventured into mobile, many have still not. Accessing content, sites, or experiences will happen away from the traditional desktop computer. Brands, content providers, and companies of all shapes and sizes will offer solutions to cater for this. Whilst there will be those that are better than others, I cannot imagine a world where companies are not offering content tailored to the mobile user.

We don’t know where exactly the mobile phone will be in the future, but be sure that we will keep you informed every step of the way.

Congratulations Mr. Cooper, we salute you! Without your first phone call Somo would not be here.

 

Missed the start of the contest? Catch up below, but make sure to read the rules first. Copy or RT the question, then earn 5 points for every correct answer. There’s even some extra credit!

PAST QUESTIONS

Q1: Who made the first ever mobile phone call in the UK? #SomoGlobal

Q2: Name this device? Now…retweet and answer to earn points. #SomoGlobal pic.twitter.com/XCs1WD9IWu

Extra Credit: For 10 extra credit points: visit our linkd.in/11Oer9U LinkedIn page and share our latest update! #SomoGlobal

Q3: In 2012 report, how many mins a day does the avg American spend on their mobile device? #SomoGlobal Want to join? bit.ly/14owyHB

Extra Credit: Head over to our Facebook page http://on.fb.me/14ywdCz and share our latest update for 10 bonus points! #SomoGlobal

Q4: Ipad,Huawei,Nexus,Iphone. Name the Facebook album this photo comes from: #SomoGlobal (hint visit our FB page) pic.twitter.com/DX3X9SFKVi

Q5: Name the best selling #mobile phone of all time. Now RT and be 1st to answer for 20 pts! #SomoGlobal

Turbo Extra Credit: Start video @ 7:15. Watch until 7:54. Answer question on site. Find video & Q here: bit.ly/10hwy5s #SomoGlobal RT first!

Q6:  Blackberry10. Tell us the number of sales reported*. RT and then answer! Goodluck! #SomoGlobal

 Extra Credit: Q6: Blackberry10. Tell us the number of sales reported*. RT and then answer! Goodluck! #SomoGlobal

 

All of us at Somo were excited this week at the news that our youngest ever client – Nick D’Aloisio – is selling his brilliant business, Summly, to Yahoo! Congratulations Nick!!

We worked with Nick and his team on the development of the Summly app which launched last November. It was a great project to be involved in – a truly game-changing venture with an inspiring group of people.

17 year old Nick came up with the idea of Summly when he was studying for his GCSEs and was frustrated by the way most web content was so difficult to consume on mobile devices. His project has been backed by a host of advisors and investors, including an impressive array of tech entrepreneurs and enthusiasts – Ashton Kutcher, Seb Bishop, Stephen Fry, Mark Pincus, Spencer Hyman, Troy Carter, Brian Chesky,  and Yoko Ono to name a few.

If you haven’t used Summly before, what the app  does is make the web more enjoyable for mobile users by presenting content in a simple and elegant way. It uses the very latest in summarization technology, developed with help from the Stanford Research Institute, to cleverly condense content into concise, coherent chunks so it’s easy to browse information and link quickly back to the original source. The app includes some really thoughtful, gesture-based navigation which means that as well as being beautiful to look at, the app also feels good to use.

We had a lot of fun (and a fair few sleepless nights) collaborating with the team to make the app as good as it could possibly be. And it worked! Summly’s been downloaded nearly a million times, and was chosen by Apple as one of the Best Apps of 2012.

The app’s been taken out of the app store for the time being which is a shame – we’re sad to see it go! It was a privilege to work on such an ambitious and genuinely innovative project.

Best of luck to Nick and everyone at Summly. And congrats to Yahoo! on a great acquisition. Can’t wait to see what’s next!

Read more about Summly on their website.

Read Yahoo!’s statement about the acquisition of Summly.

Watch the Summly info video, with Nick D’Aloisio and Stephen Fry.

A nice little mention of Somo on the Summly website…

We’re sharing our birthday presents! Take part in our birthday contest and you could with a range of prizes, including an iPad mini!

Over the rest of the week we’ll be tweeting questions about the mobile industry, and about Somo. Followers must retweet (RT) the question and answer correctly. Those who do so quickly will be rewarded points accordingly. Whether you Google us, visit our website, or stalk our social media networks, we encourage you to participate because every answer gets a point! The contest will end on Friday, March 29th.

 

How to Play:

1) Follow us on Twitter @somoglobal

2) Retweet each question

3) Answer the question… but choose wisely, you only get one chance!

4) Follow the #SomoGlobal #4th hashtag for the rest of week (see below for best way to do this).

*You must be following us to participate in the contest

How to Earn Points:

20 points: Earned by the first follower to answer the question correctly and RT question.

10 points: Earned by the second follower to answer the question correctly and RT question.

5 points: Earned by any follower to answer the question correctly and RT question.

1 point: Earned by any follower who attempts the question and RT question.

 

TWITTER SEARCH: EASIEST WAY TO TRACK HASHTAGS

Since a hashtag is nothing more than a character string inserted into a tweet, it’s something that you can search Twitter for. Therefore, the most basic way to track hashtags through your web browser is:

1) Go to Twitter Search.
2) Search for “#SomoGlobal” hashtag. Include the “#” in your search query. Here’s a search for #SomoGlobal.
3) Keep that page open in a browser tab, and refresh it periodically to see the latest results. Or subscribe to the feed for your search in your feed reader, and check there occasionally for updates.

Since the contest will go until Friday, you may also want to use a third party application, like TweetChat, HootSuite, or TweetDeck. If that sounds too overwhelming, the above will work just fine.

Tweet us, Facebook us, or leave a comment with any questions, comments or suggestions!

Back in 2009 we launched Somo with a handful of people in a small London office. Our mission was to help clients make sense of the complex, fragmented and changing world of mobile to build customer engagement, increase sales and make businesses more productive.

Today, four years later, we have a team of over 120 people working across offices in London, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and Singapore (with more coming soon). We’ve designed and built some of the most innovative and creative mobile products in the market, and run some of the most successful campaigns, for brands all over the world.

We couldn’t be more proud to be celebrating four fantastic years in this fast-paced business. Mobile continues to change the world we live in, every day, and we’re excited to be working with you as part of it. Here’s to the next four!

Nick and Carl, Somo’s co-founders

 

See how far we’ve come in our snapshot of Somo aged 4.

To mark our fourth birthday we’ve put together some facts and figures that give a flavour of what Somo’s like in 2013…

Last night Apple announced on their website (https://developer.apple.com/news/) that from the 1^st May, new apps or app updates submitted to the App Store will be rejected if they try to access UDIDs. While this isn’t a shock (Apple said a year ago they would begin to deprecate the use of UDIDs), there are some important implications for app developers and mobile marketers.

How UDIDs are used

A UDID (Unique Device Identifier) is a string of alphanumeric characters that is unique to each Apple iOS device, including iPads and iPhones. The UDID is used by many companies, including mobile ad networks, game networks and developers, as an identifier to connect data to a device. It is used, for example, to understand how people interact with the apps they download, by tracking in-app actions such as registrations and purchases. This data is used to optimise campaigns for CPA targets and enable behavioural targeting, location-based advertising and frequency capping. The key thing is that all post install data can be mapped back to the UDID to power business reports.

What are the alternatives to UDID?

There are several other identifiers that can be used instead of UDIDs, including:

-       MAC address (a unique identifier used in connecting a device to the internet)

-       IDFA (Apple’s own identifier for advertising that they say will be the future standard)

-       Device Recognition (a picture of a device made up of multiple individual data points)

All of the above will have a role to play in measuring the success of advertising campaigns and we expect many networks and publishers that have been slow to move away from UDID to quickly adopt these alternatives.

For companies that are looking to move away from UDID to run user journey and purchase behaviour analysis then the MAC address or IDFA will enable them to do this.

How Somo can help

We’ve known for some time that Apple was planning to make this change, and so we’re ready to help! For brands and developers that already capture MAC address or IDFA the impact will be minimal. For those that don’t, we can work on a plan for mapping these data points against their UDIDs so that there is a limited impact to their business.

Somo’s Apptimiser^® tracking product has been developed to be identifier agnostic. This means that we are already supporting a number of other identifiers as described above (MAC address, IDFA, device recognition) as well as UDID.

There’s a short window of opportunity to make changes, so we’ll be working with our clients to ensure the continued success of their apps and mobile advertising.

Additional news… app design

Apple has also announced that from 1st May new apps and app updates submitted to the App Store must be built for iOS devices with Retina display and iPhone apps must also support the 4-inch display on iPhone 5.

At Somo we’ve been designing for Retina since the release of the iPhone 4 and iPad 3, and have produced a range of apps for iPhone 5.

If you have any questions or concerns about the changes Apple are making then please get in touch and we’ll do our best to help.

Naji El’Arifi shares his insight from the interactive stream of SXSW, outlining some of the key trends from this enormous event.

 

Meet Paula Sordini, a campaign manager in our media operations team, based in our London office. She is responsible for managing the budgets and planning, implementing and optimising her clients’ mobile media campaigns.

Tell me three interesting facts about yourself?

I’m a really good baker.

I’m 5ft 1 and my boyfriend is over 6ft, my face only comes up to his chest!

I’m half Argentinian and half Italian but I don’t speak any Italian.

What do you like best about your role at Somo?

I really enjoy building relationships with clients, earning their trust and imparting my knowledge. I also really like presenting.

What would you be doing if you weren’t doing this?

Definitely a travel writer. It would be amazing to get paid to visit the world.

Where’s your favourite place you’ve visited?

My favourite place at the moment is Thailand – it’s so beautiful. I wouldn’t want to live there though. I love Bangkok but it’s too crazy, and the beaches are beautiful but too quiet.

What’s the next big thing in mobile?

It should be rich media, or interactive media, but clients aren’t always that keen to put their budgets there. A lot of clients are focused on performance and unwilling to run brand campaigns, which means they are missing out. There are some really great performing interactive formats, we have seen some incredible results from mobile video for example.

I also think we will see the Windows Phone and the new BlackBerry becoming more important in our media plans.

If you were a brand, which brand would you be?

Marmite – a little bit of me is good, but not too much! Marmite is also a bit special, it’s much better than jam.

What’s great about Somo’s media team?

It’s a brilliant team! There is a great camaraderie, we all work really long hours and socialise a lot so we spend a lot of time together. There were only six people in the campaign team when I started nearly two years ago, there are now over 30 in London alone. But because our recruitment is so great and everyone embodies our values, we all still get on amazingly well. There is a great culture of sharing our knowledge so we all learn from each other.

Which device(s) do you use?

When I first started I had a BlackBerry, but everyone laughed at me so I switched to the iPhone, I’ve not looked back! I now have an iPhone 4s, an iPad and an iPad mini, and I’m planning to get an iPhone 5.

If you could have any super-power what would it be?

To just click my fingers if I want something and for it to appear in front of me.

What would be the first thing you did with your new powers?

Get tickets to the Maldives.

The faces of Somo is a series featuring our fabulous and talented staff. Read the last interview with Haikal Mohamed here.

We partnered with US ad agency Team Detroit to deliver the Emerging Tech Lab, a space dedicated to showcasing the latest in emerging technologies.

Our Global Innovation Director, Maani Safa, also took part in a panel discussion focused on ‘using emerging tech to reach your audience’, in conjunction with Team Detroit, Hip Cricket and Iconmobile.

People queued around the block to try and get in, all eager to see innovation in action.

500 made it, but the session was so oversubscribed that they had to repeat it again on the Sunday in the huge ballroom at the Hilton Hotel, where there was an amazing turnout of nearly 2,000 people!

As always, Maani smashed it out of the park delivering very compelling arguments and views alongside a series of app demos live on stage. Two of the demos demonstrated the latest iterations of augmented reality and the third was a live video editor.

You can watch Team Detroit’s video of the panel session here, or if you’d like to see the demos for yourself, get in touch to book a tour of the Somo Lab.

The Emerging Tech Lab also proved to be a resounding success. We had five Somo’ers, from our offices in London, New York and LA, all demonstrating products pretty much non-stop for the entire day.

As for the rest of SXSW, the event was packed but I managed to make it to some really inspiring talks, including ‘A Robot in Your Pocket: AI Powered Applications’ by CEO of Gravity, Amit Kapur, and CEO of Xobni, Jeff Bonforte. They made the interesting point that our devices may be increasingly powerful, but they still can’t understand what we want. Software innovation needs to focus on that to really meet our needs.

I also watched Joshua Topolsky from The Verge interview the CEO of Ouya, Julie Uhrman. The conversation centred mainly on what it was like to be a hardware startup going through the Kickstarter route. Interestingly enough Julie said they didn’t use Kickstarter solely for sourcing funding, but also to research and validate ideas by gauging interest in the product.

The most important talk for me by far though was by Timothy Jordan, Google’s developer advocate for the Glass, who delivered an excellent presentation about the future API for Google Glass. He talked through the UI and how Glass will work, and showed how apps like The New York Times, Path and Skitch will function. The interesting thing about this was that Glass is all about snacking on information and not reading full articles. Glass is positioned above your line of sight so isn’t something to use for long stints. So in the NYT demo, for example, you could see the headline, share it or have it read aloud.

Google Glass is some of the most exciting technology around at the moment and I can’t wait to own one. I had a quick chat with the Google guys after the presentation, and got the chance to play with the device. I can honestly say I was shocked by how light it was compared to my glasses. Only slightly heavier, but because of the way they are weighed they feel even lighter on your head. Very easy to wear!

Another piece of technology that I was able to get my hands on was the Leap, a little USB powered device that allows you to perform 3D gestures similar to the Microsoft Kinect but far more accurate. Here’s me playing around with it:

Watch it in action below:

Overall, SXSW was an excellent experience. If you want to hear some of the smartest people in the world speaking all in the same city I would recommend it every time. And if you want to party every night like a madman then it is also the place to be. Let’s just say, after SXSW, jet lag isn’t the only thing you wake up with….

If you couldn’t make it to Austin, Texas for SXSW earlier in the month you missed a great panel discussion on how to utilise emerging technologies and devices to reach your target audience. The event was run by ad agency Team Detroit and featured our Global Innovation Director, Maani Safa, as well as speakers from iconmobile and Hipcricket.

Luckily, Team Detroit filmed the whole thing so you can watch it now!

Our VP Media Operations, Ed Chater, based in New York is speaking at LeadsCon today at 2.20pm  in Las Vegas. LeadsCon brings leaders and innovators from the world of lead generation under one roof to share their insights into direct response marketing.

Ed is taking part in a panel with Brenden Lane from Groupon, Shawn Scheuer, Co-Founder of Moolah Media and Alexander Tsatkin from MobAff, to discuss the mobile sales funnel and how to drive leads using mobile advertising.

Mobile has evolved from a third screen to, in many cases, a primary screen. And today’s mobile devices can not only mimic their larger connected counterparts, but in many ways have increased engagement possibilities. The session will highlight what this means for brands and how they can make mobile advertising work for them. See his blog post based on this session.

Check out photos from the event: 

See more photos on our Facebook Page.

Our Chief Strategy Officer, Ross Sleight is a judge for the inaugural MOMAs (Marketing on Mobile Awards) run by The Drum, he was asked for his opinion on this exponentially growing sector that is mobile.

Read Ross’ views on wearable technology, playing the long game with mobile wallets, and cars becoming the world’s largest smartphones.

Having spent 20 years in digital and seeing the industry grow what was the game changer and is there anything of that ilk in the offing now?

Digital has seen many new game changing platform and service cycles over the past two decades; from the growth of the Internet itself, to search, social media and now mobile with smartphone and tablet devices. Each cycle has been characterised by the introduction of ground breaking technology which in true Gartner Hype cycle is embraced by the early adopters. Mass market adoption is usually accompanied by an increase in speed of delivery – the jump from dial up to broadband at home at the turn of the century drove Internet penetration and usage into mass market for example.

What’s fascinating today is the extreme velocity of adoption of new platform and services. We now have over 60 per cent adult smartphone penetration in the UK after just five years, and approaching half of this for tablet penetration in around 2.5 years. The mass market are adopting new technologies faster than ever before, and this means marketers are playing catchup to even keep up with consumer behaviour and attention.

In terms of new game changers in platforms we see wearable technology and machine to machine engagement (the Internet of things) being the key developments in the next five years, but it will be in the world of services that we will see the most development. Services will respond to the context of users. Contexts such as in-store or in-front of TV require services that blend the digital and physical worlds to help the customer. We will see existing mobile platforms as the delivery methodology for the majority of these context relevant services.

What is the main factor in preventing the mass adoption of mobile wallets at the current time?

Well, the first is really roll out – we’ve yet to see a full roll out of a mobile wallet in the UK like Weve or Google Wallet with full functionality, a big fanfare and associated marketing. Secondly, we see two different aspects to mobile wallets. There’s the transactional element, both for distance purchasing and for NFC or scanning in store. We’re already using mobile wallets for distance purchasing albeit in name (e.g. paypal mobile, or pingit) but physical scanning/NFC will take a lot of time and money for roll out of in store equipment to facilitate universal scanning, and it will depend on who is prepared to fund this significant capital investment.

Then there’s the promotional aspect of mobile wallets – the vouchers, coupons and other promotional activity that will be informed by both the user profile and the wallet transaction usage. I think here we are already fairly sophisticated with existing loyalty schemes like Nectar and Clubcard, and impulse promotional services like Vouchercloud or Groupon. So the promotional element will have to offer something really significant if this is used as the primary reason for behaviour change.

Ultimately I’m long on mobile wallets – in a decade they will be mass market, but I’m short on the hype that surrounds specific areas of transaction like NFC.

What phone/tablet do you own and what do you like / not like about it?

I have a variety of devices – currently an iPhone5 and a Nexus4, and have recently switched from an iPad to an iPad Mini. As I make fewer phone calls every year, I feel I’m close to switching over to an iPad Mini as a sole device – the size for content consumption and for light touch content creation (e.g. Evernote in meetings) is absolutely perfect and I’m doing a lot of presenting off the mini as well.

What is the most exciting development around mobile at the moment?

Having just returned from MWC 13 in Barcelona, aside from the huge opportunity for mobile products and services in the developing world, for the UK I was most interested in the role of mobile in the context of in-car. Providing navigation, location context and entertainment services either through a phone or sim – cars will become the worlds largest smartphones.

I think “in-car” joins “in-store” and “in-front of TV” as the three most interesting areas of mobile today. All three are very much about the role of mobile in linking a physical world to a digital world. No longer is it just about what is consumed on the mobile device itself, its the ability for mobile to augment the physical world to help the customer and create enhanced experiences. The same will go for sensor driven and wearable technology. This is the real disruptive power of mobile – freeing the digital world from a set location to help consumers navigate and augment their real life experiences.

Read the article on The Drum here.

 

We had to share this. The first photo was taken in 2005, when Pope Benedict XVI was elected. The second was taken during the recent election of Pope Francis. The impact of technology is evident even in the historical Catholic Church. Wonder if this new Pope will have a Twitter account, too?

[Update 3/18] Turns out Pope Francis will continue the trend of a papal Twitter account. Read more from Mashable on what it’s like to be Pope Francis’ social media intern. Now…..the most important questions: Will he get a smartphone? Will it be an iPhone or Android?

Thanks to Naji, our Innovation Manager, for sharing this photo with us. See his latest post on MWC here. 

As a proper owner of an iPhone, it is your duty to show off the beautiful device and all its latest applications to the uncouth non-iPhone believers. The creeping condescension faced if you didn’t bite the Apple was more evident in Singapore, which had the highest iPhone penetration rate in the world. Not belonging—or worse denouncing ownership— to the group of iPhone users (aka: “the cool kids”) left you subject to ridicule and the sneers that followed could haunt you for life. Well, maybe not for life, but at least until the next generation release.

Recently however, there’s been a gradual and quiet swarm of green bots sweeping across the Apple-verse. Even the most ardent iOS fanatics have converted into the Android faith, and they’ve not looked back.

According to Thomson Reuters, data from StatCounter indicates that in Singapore Apple’s share of mobile devices dropped from a peak of 72% in January 2012 to just 50% a year later. Correspondingly, the Android swarm has grown to 43%, up from 20%. A similar pattern is taking root in Hong Kong as well.

Better specs (particularly from Samsung), greater affordability, massive manufacturer adoption and production and iPhone fatigue are all contributing factors to this rising green tide.

It seems set to gather even more steam too. The Bots are getting more advanced as we speak – the spotlight is now on Samsung’s newly-launched Galaxy S IV. It’s stacked with top-tier specs and cool tech features.
To add, such developments in advanced markets like Singapore and Hong Kong are usually deemed as harbingers of what’s to come in other Asian markets.

All this means that Apple has got a bigger game to play and the stakes are getting higher.

What then does this Rise of the Bots imply for marketers? It starts pulling away from the outdated yet common mindset that iOS is THE dominant smartphone platform, particularly for the likes of the Hong Kong and Singaporean

markets. With the clamour for Androids getting rising to fever pitch, brands must now give equal an emphasis on launching and enriching brand experiences on Android not just with iOS. If your brand has an Apple-first policy when it comes to debuting an app, then step back and reconsider. If you can, execute both App Store and Google Play launches with similar timeframes. If not, you may risk alienating a growing and increasingly sophisticated group of Android followers.

It goes without saying that it’s not at all the end of the road for Apple. There’s hardly any other brands that have enjoyed the same blinding amount of consumer loyalty. This no doubt will continue to be a force to be reckoned with as long as the good folks at Cupertino continue to strive in aesthetics, content and performance.

However as the Smartphone Wars play out in Asia and elsewhere, it’s always best to keep abreast of when, where and how the scales have tipped.

Check out our round-up video of all the shiny new devices announced at Mobile World Congress this year.

Fresh off the plane from last week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the Somo team is jetting off again for the next big event in the digital calendar, SXSW® in Austin, Texas.

South by Southwest® (SXSW®) is pretty difficult to describe. It’s a conference, a music and film festival, a party, a trade show, a networking event, and a lot more. In their words, ‘”SXSW® Conferences and Festivals offer the unique convergence of original music, independent films, and emerging technologies. Fostering creative and professional growth alike, SXSW® is the premier destination for discovery.” The Interactive stream of the event focuses on emerging technologies and lasts for five days from March 8th to 12th.

For this year’s event we’re proud to be partnering with Team Detroit to deliver the Emerging Tech Lab on Friday March 8th 2013. This four hour event will feature three panel discussions and a space dedicated to showcasing the latest in emerging technologies.

Each of the three panels will be led by industry influencers from Ford Motor Company, Hipcricket, iconmobile, and of course Somo and Team Detroit. After hearing the panellists’ views on what the future holds, attendees will be invited to explore the Tech Lab, where the Somo team will be on hand to demonstrate some of the latest and most innovative mobile technologies.

The Somo SXSW team – Carl, Maani, Jason and Naji – are looking forward to an inspiring, vibrant, brilliant few days in Texas at this vast event. So if you’re going to be there too, make sure you pay a visit to the Lab, based in the Wanderlust Yoga Studio, and come and hear Maani speak on Friday afternoon at 2pm (details below).

For more information, or to arrange to meet with the Somo team at SXSW, just get in touch.

Using Emerging Technologies to Reach Your Audience

Friday March 8th

2.00pm – 3.00pm

In an increasingly fragmented landscape, how do you navigate through all of the new technology and keep your message from getting lost in a sea of communication? This discussion focuses on ways to utilize emerging technologies and devices to not only reach your target, but to also engage and excite them, focusing on practices in digital and social media through an integrated multi-device approach.

A Team Detroit event.

An encore presentation of this session will take place on Sunday, March 10 at 5PM at the Hilton.

Presenters

Maani Safa, Global Innovation Director, Somo

Glenn Stansbury, VP of Sales, Hipcricket

Nicholas Oliver, Creative Technical Director, Team Detroit

Thomas Fellger, CEO, Iconmobile

 

For more information, please visit the SXSW schedule.

*Image sourced from SeatGeek