September 26, 2010

Flavio: Now, on today's show we're going to talk about something that is only going to get bigger in the next couple of years. Remember when I talk about how computers have transformed our society and are rewriting the rules for business. Well, it is not stopping. The computers are getting smaller and more powerful and transforming into something that billions of people take with them everywhere along with their money and keys. Ten years ago, your mobile phone was used to make phone calls. Then around 2002, you may have upgraded your phone so that you could text your friends and receive messages from them. That opened the door for a new form of media called SMS or short message service.

Today, over 3 billion, yes, that's billion with a B, use SMS with their phones. That works out to three-quarters of the world's population that has a mobile phone. The SMS media business has exploded. Today hundreds of millions of text messages from companies are sent and received every day.

Around 2005, we saw the launch of the next generation of mobile technology, smartphones. Nokia and Research in Motion, best known as RIM, were among the first to allow people the opportunity to surf the web using their phone, look at video, and use their phone as a recording device and camera. Now, we all remember when Apple launched their iPhone. For the North American market, that changed everything. Apple is everywhere with their promotions. iPhones have been one of the fastest selling products in the history of electronics. It has created the app industry, which is an entire future show in itself. Then earlier this year, Apple released the iPad that has the potential to also revolutionize the way that we take out business and recreation out with us into the world.

On today's show, we have invited three guests, each an expert in mobile media. Today we're going to talk about where mobile media has come from, where it is today, and where it will be in just two or three years from now. I've seen the numbers for the future growth of mobile use and they are massive. Prices are coming down. The technology is getting more compact. You can do more things on your mobile today than you could a year ago. So, what is the future going to look like? Are we really going to be buying all of our transactions using our phones? How can business today get a jumpstart on the mobile wave with their efforts?

We're going to be talking about that in just a moment. Right now, we're going to take a quick break. Stay tuned for more about mobile media and your mobile future when "The New Reality" comes right back.

Flavio: Hi. Welcome back to "The New Reality." I'm your host Flavio Marquez, Chief Strategy Officer and cofounder of Snaptech. On today's show, we have invited three very special guests. They all have different areas of expertise in mobile media. Our first guest is Michael O'Farrell. He is a country manager of Canada Mobile Marketing Association and coauthor of "The Mobile Internet for Dummies."

Flavio: Hello, Flavio. Thanks for having me on the show. I appreciate being here. I'm looking forward to exploring opportunities and ideas on how your audience and all businesses can take advantage of the mobile channel.

Flavio: Great. Thank you for coming on the show. Perhaps, Michael, you can tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and your background.

Michael: Definitely. I've been in mobile since 1992. A little bit of an old dog in the space, as they say. I've been involved with everything from the first email to wireless devices in 1995, to the first lap browsers on phones or the first browsers on phones in 1988/1989. I helped build some of the first software development kits for smartphones as they are today back in 2000. I also got involved with one of the founders and cofounders of today's Mobile Marketing AssociationWorldwide.

The Mobile Marketing Association has over 750 member companies. Over, close to 4000 people worldwide looking on how brands, agencies, retailers, small, large, and medium sized businesses can take advantage of leveraging the mobile device and all its capacities and capabilities for promotion, advertising, and engaging clients, whether it is right on the street corner as well as anywhere around the world. So, I look forward to sharing some ideas and working with the rest of the people on the call to help explore how more businesses can take advantage of the mobile channel.

Flavio:Excellent. Thank you. For listeners, I apologize, but I forgot to mention that Michael is actually joining us via telephone from Toronto. We also have, in the studio, Tiffany Chester, who is the Director of Media for Tagga Media.

Tiffany: Hi, Flavio.

Flavio: Hi, Tiffany. Thank you for coming on the show. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about mostly yourself and your background?

Tiffany: Absolutely. I've been a professional marketer for about 15 years now, primarily in the digital and mobile spaces. I was part of the team that helped launch Lat49, which is an online ad network specializing in location-based advertising. More currently, I am now with Tagga Media, which is a mobile media company. We provide technologies and services to the advertising agency world. We work with ad agencies to help integrate mobile media across their brand strategies.

Flavio: Great. Well, thank you for coming on our show. We also have Jonathan Carrigan, who is the Product Development Manager at CBC. He is also the president and cofounder of MOBCOM Consulting Inc.

Jonathan: Hi, happy to be here.

Flavio: Great. Thanks, Jonathan.

Jonathan: I do product development and strategy at CBC in the areas of mobile, digital, audio, video, and digital advertising. I do a lot of the scout that goes around the corner for the organization to see what's happening, what are some of the key trends, where is digital media going within those three areas, and what does it mean in terms of how we need to adapt to that change. One of the big things that has really caught my attention over the last few years has been just the explosion of mobile media consumption. So, that's really what tweaked my interest to start doing more of a deeper dive in this area.

Last year I launched the iPhone forum, which was held here in Vancouver and in Toronto. That was an opportunity to bring a real diverse group of people to come together and do a knowledge share. This was in terms of, if we looked at the iPhone at the time as an indication of where the industry was going as a whole, let's try to understand that space as much as possible so that as the other platforms start to catch up, we are in a good position to take advantage of the opportunities that presents.

This year, in recognition of the advancements, everything is changing so quickly that it really doesn't make sense to just focus on one platform anymore. So we recently launched MOBCOM speaker series, which is all about mobile computing, much more generally. It targets a business community that may not have been following the trends that are happening right now in the mobile space to help them get up to speed and understand what the shift in mobile means for their business. Regardless of what sector you're in, if you have any kind of presence online, you need to have a mobile strategy because within the next three years, the majority of Internet traffic is going to be coming through mobile devices.

Flavio:Well, thank you very much. What I'd actually like to do is, this is all great information. But most of our listeners are probably sitting right now at home or in their cars driving and they are just thinking, "Great. I am just starting to catch up with computers and Internet. Now you're throwing this whole new thing at me, mobile media. I mean, what is this all about?" So, what I'd like to do perhaps is maybe take our listeners back in time a little bit so that we can bring in a little bit of background and history of mobile devices and where things have been, and then we'll go from there.

Tiffany: Perfect.

Flavio: So, Jonathan, perhaps, since you've been around for quite a number of years on this, do you want to answer?

Jonathan: Yeah. I was actually going to say, "Michael's probably in the best position."

Flavio:All right. Michael, go ahead.

Jonathan: Having such a long history, you would know where the industry has come from.

Michael: Yeah, the industry has definitely grown over the years, especially in the Canadian marketplace. We had, with text messaging, which is one of the, of course every phone has a voice channel available to it since mid-1985 when the first cellular networks came up. Then we got the next generation of technology that included text messaging capabilities that people can receive and send text messages on their phone. That started to come around in, I guess, the mid-'90s to late '90s in the Canadian marketplace. People started to take a look at how they could take advantage of sending messages, not only in between people, but also how to send messages to maybe engage a coupon or an offer or a way to promote a product or service to people via the phone because they were carrying them with them everywhere at that time. So, we went from a couple of million users between the '80s and '90s to now Canada has, I believe, just under 25 million mobile subscribers. Pretty well in every urban area, pretty solid penetration of anywhere between 80% to 90% of the consumers are carrying a mobile device now, which is just a great, great opportunity for any retailer, any small business, any large business, or brand to engage in leveraging the channel.

Mobile phones have gone from a strictly voice communication device to a full multimedia minicomputer that people are carrying around with them. If you look at what they can do, you know, not only can they take pictures, they can upload pictures, they can surf the mobile web. The mobile web is a smaller form factor or built for the smaller screen size. That's been around for about 10 years and has evolved quite nicely with the iPhone factor, as well as the other smartphones that are out there where the displays get a little bit larger. People can now read more information on those screens. You have text messaging. You have mobile web. You have applications that now you can download onto your phone.

You have a mixed opportunity through this little device that people carry with them seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. It is in their purse, it is in their pocket, and they even take it to bed with them. It is a great device and people are really, it is interesting that a lot of people think that mobile over the generations is for the younger generation and they're using all these services. What we've found globally and through the members of the Mobile Marketing Association in Canada, we have over 50 members in Canada, is that it is every generation that is taking advantage of the mobile phone. You have the older people, if you want to call them the Boomers, they really like receiving coupons and different promotions through the phone. You have the younger generation that is looking at social media and web applications that can be delivered on the phone. So there is a great mix of opportunities. The common thread through the whole networks and phones across Canada and around the world is text messaging.

I think, you know, Tiffany from Tagga, you have some great service and opportunities that happen from a text point of view. Is that correct?

Tiffany: That is correct, yeah. That is one of the features of our platform is to enable brands and small businesses to connect with their customers via the SMS channel and leverage text messaging to deliver coupons or updates or new product announcements.

Jonathan: Yes. It is also important to recognize, that while it used to be all about phones, that it is really much more than phones now. That's a great point that Michael was saying. Not just the young are grabbing onto these things, but a mix of all the different age demographics are starting to tap into these mobile spaces using the devices that make sense for them. While phones and smart phones is definitely the one we hear most about, there are other devices like the iPod Touch and portable game players that have connectivity to the Internet. Tablets are now starting to take off, eReaders, and so on. These all carry with them an opportunity for advertisers.

Flavio: That's right. What is amazing is the explosion and the growth of all this. To make a quick analogy before we take a short break, I remember in 1995, when Microsoft launched Windows 95, which really kind of launched the Internet, as we all know it today kind of thing. Although it has been growing at an enormous pace over the last 15 years, mobile has grown at an even faster rate. I have some statistics showing that the mobile subscribers will surpass 5 billion in this year alone, with half a billion people accessing the mobile Internet worldwide in 2009. The growth of this is just absolutely outstanding. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to continue this great discussion. We'll be right back.

Flavio: Hello. Welcome back to "The New Reality." I'm your host Flavio Marquez, Chief Strategy Officer and cofounder of Snaptech. If you're just joining us this morning on the show, we've actually been talking about mobile media. We actually have three guests on our show. We have Michael O'Farrell, who is the Country Manager of Canada Mobile Marketing Association. We have Tiffany Chester, Director of Marketing at Tagga Media, and Jonathan Carrigan, who is the Product Development Manager at CBC and the President and cofounder of MOBCOM Consulting, Inc.

I want to start right now to take this opportunity to answer a question from one of our listeners that was kind enough to send us this feedback through our website. This is from George Bell. He writes, "Enjoyed your show this morning. I'm curious if mobile media can be applied to or successfully marketed to people 50 years old and up. Any studies done on this age group?" George, we've actually done a little bit of research on your behalf. We actually have found some statistics in regards to this. We actually have a report from Nielsen Wire that basically reads that the report finds that women, teens, and seniors are adopting mobile at rates much higher than men. Also, the report finds that year over year seniors show the highest adoption levels at a 67% increase. Now, I know that, Michael, during the break you were actually going to share some information with regards to somebody you know that can relate to this?

Michael: Definitely. It is a very interesting anecdote to the conversation outside the stats. What we're finding is that the entity called the more senior generation or people, I'm almost there, over 50, 60, 70, are actually learning from their cousins, nephews, nieces, grandchildren, the power of text because that's how they're communicating. They're actually, my father-in-law, he has 13 grand kids. How he communicates with the grand kids is they don't call him anymore, but they all have mobile phones. He is learning text better than anybody I've ever seen from his device. His communication is so fluent with text because of the younger generation that he is trying to keep in touch with. That is a typical example of how the more senior community is leveraging mobile. As well as, mobile has been around for 10 to 15 years. If you take a look at the audience 10 to 15 years ago or the people who were using devices 10 to 15 years ago, they were all in their 30s, mid 30s, getting it from business, and that is where most of the people got the device to start with. You put 15 years and 20 years on that, now we have a nice mature audience with high spending capabilities that knows how to use every piece of their phone more than we can imagine.

Jonathan: Absolutely. And also, you've got to think about some of the new devices, especially the touch devices that are just so simple to use. Whereas people may have been intimidated to start using these devices to their full potential, that's just not the case now. People are grabbing hold of these things and they're immediately able to take advantage of all of the features. They're loving it. They're showing it off. They're telling their friends. As a result, this is spreading really quickly. While it has, maybe the number's been smaller in the past and they are growing quickly, the rate of growth has just been phenomenal. You can really start to expect that this is going to be the norm moving forward across age groups.

Tiffany: Yeah, Jonathan . . .

Flavio: So . . . oh sorry, go ahead.

Tiffany: That's all right. I was just going to say, I think the device design, the user experience, the UI interaction has really, really changed the landscape and made the adoption simple. I think I have a lot of similar personal anecdotes where you see older members of family adopting text messaging as a simple way to communicate. I think a natural progression for a number of families is that families become geographically distributed, right? People move. People go off to university. People take jobs in other cities. Communicating via text messaging makes it much easier for families and friends to stay in constant touch. I think that is really contributing to the uptick. Then from a professional standpoint, I think what we're seeing our businesses and our customers saying is, "You know what, communicate with our customers the way they communicate with each other." Text messaging really is the way people are communicating together today.

Flavio:Thank you. Yeah, and I mean that's actually one of the things I wanted to talk about because with this show we want to talk really about mobile media, the opportunities for businesses, and how can they capitalize on this. Really when I have mentioned to some people that we're going to be doing a show on mobile media, the first thing that they say is ,"Oh, yeah you're going to be talking about text messaging and all the junk that I get on my phone and stuff. There's no way that I am going to allow that to happen." The interesting thing is that mobile media goes far beyond just the text messaging. We are going to talk a little bit about text messaging, but also, just to let you know, we will be discussing other avenues of mobile media. In regard to text messaging, perhaps you can give us an example of how businesses are actually using text messaging to their benefit.

Tiffany: Absolutely. I'll jump in on that one. I'll give a local example here in Vancouver. The Global Restaurant Group has utilized the Tagga platform to stay in touch with its customers and build a loyal brand following there. They've included an SMS opt-in option. You can text Global to 82442 to subscribe to mobile updates. They've built quite a loyal following within the downtown Vancouver area. What they do is every once in a while, maybe once a month, they push out an offer. Come in this morning, buy a samosa and get a free brunch. Or buy one appetizer, get another one free. They've really seen an uptick in loyalty of business as a result of that.

Flavio:Now, if I'm a small business, let's say that I'm a listener right now and I am listening to this information but I happen to have a pizza restaurant or maybe I'm a plumber or something like that, and I'm intrigued. Thinking, okay, this is something perhaps that I should be looking into. How do I even go about creating a mobile text messaging campaign?

Tiffany: You call Tagga. [laughs]

Jonathan: [laughs] Perfect.

Michael: [laughs] What we're finding now is the, I'm going to say the smaller organizations, smaller media boutiques, and agencies know about companies like Tagga, know about companies that are available to help them. Mobile is moving at double Internet speed, and now Tagga and other companies like Tagga are really doing a great job of letting the smaller agencies, mid sized agencies, big agencies, or anybody that is looking for mobile media know that they are there. They are there to help, and they are there to actually simplify and jump through a lot of hurdles that weren't maybe around three, four, five years ago.

It is also the disposition of, not to be nervous, you know, I remember the first plumbing van that went by with a website on the side of their van. Everybody was like, "Why would you put a website on the side of your van?" Well, now, why would he put a website that goes to a PC on the side of your van? Why not make it work on a mobile phone? It is that same concept that came around eight to ten years ago about the Internet. People also, if you take advantage of having a made for mobile website, which is not too difficult to do, it is a very simple process. If you have a text campaign or a text short code or you leverage a text messaging service like Tagga Media offers, and they can offer both mobile web and text, you can really put together a very simple program as you did with the Internet a couple of years ago and have that displayed and advertised on all of your brochures, on your door front, on your van. It doesn't have to be just for the big pizza chains or the big plumbing chains. It can go right down to the grass roots and the local corner store. That's the power of mobile. It is there for everybody to take advantage of. It is really, Tiffany, I mean, it is very inexpensive to get a small campaign happening, is that correct?

Tiffany: Yeah, that is correct.

Flavio: What kind of results can an average business expect? You know, we know that we can get results from a web media campaign or a pay per click campaign or anything like that. From mobile media and from text message marketing, what kind of results do you think we can expect?

Tiffany: Well, I can think of three recent case studies that I have written for customers of Tagga where the response rate in comparison to the local population whether it was at the event or in the local area exceeded 10%.

Vancouver Web Design: Ten percent?

Jonathan: Wow.

Tiffany: Which is phenomenal.

Flavio: That's a phenomenal number, yes.

Tiffany: Yeah.

Flavio:Wow. Yeah, definitely that's an incredible number because there's, you know, I don't think there are other web advertising campaigns that you can do on other mediums that actually can yield those numbers.

Jonathan: Well, people respond better to SMS messaging as well, right?

Tiffany: Mm-hmm.

Jonathan: I read a stat that was something like more than 90% of text messages are read. Not only are they read, but they are read within three minutes of being received, which is by far much more effective than email.

Tiffany: It is. I actually have a stat sitting in front of me here that 37% of 18 to 24 year olds checked their mobile in the last five minutes. 44% of all mobile users checked their mobile in the last 30 minutes.

Flavio: Wow. Those are incredible numbers. We're going to take a quick break. You're listening to "The New Reality." We'll be right back.

Announcer: You're listening to "The New Reality" with Flavio Marquez.

Flavio: Hello. Welcome back to "The New Reality." I'm your host Flavio Marquez. We've been having a discussion today about mobile media. We've already talked a little bit about the history of mobile devices, where things have gone. We're touched, talked a little bit about short message text or SMS. We want to now expand a little bit more in other areas of mobile media because most of our listenersare probably under the perception that mobile media is all about text messaging. We want to show you and educate you on other ideas that are out there. Hopefully, also, how you can actually use this to your advantage for your business. Now, to get started with that, I'd like to actually really learn a little more about users and what people are using their phones for today. We know that they are obviously using it to make phone calls. We know that they are using it for text messaging. Now with the introduction of all these mobile devices, smartphones, and everything else, what are people using their phones for today?

Jonathan: Okay. You know, it is important to realize that they're much more than phones. People's behavior is changing as a result. A lot of people that have either some of the leading smartphones or tablets they're really treating them much more like computers. They are doing things that you would traditionally see them doing on the computer. They're browsing the web. They're interacting with content and so on. As a result, it really does open up a lot more doors for advertisers. It is much more than just text. It is much more than just your basic advertising. You have display ads and a range of formats. You have in-stream audio and video advertising. More importantly, it is important to realize that this is starting to take over people's time in terms of how they're interacting with digital media. They're using their mobile devices in place of their computers. In many cases now, they're using their mobile devices in place of more traditional radio or television. In terms of accessing your target audience, mobile is becoming increasingly important. As I talk to a lot of different counterparts in other media organizations, they're basically saying that mobile is well on its way to becoming the primary digital channel and that's happening very soon.

Tiffany: That's very true, Jonathan. I think in terms of some of the stuff that has been done traditionally on some of the channels that you've spoken about they're shifting, those usage patterns, are shifting to mobile. Things like getting the latest news. That was something that people would turn to the TV for. People are doing it on their mobiles now. Weather updates. Social networking. A lot of social networking is being done through the phone. Photo sharing, which goes back to that social scene. Taking photos on your phone and sharing them with your group. A lot of these things are happening through your mobile devices today.

Flavio: Now that we know that users are obviously using the phone for, like we said, calls, SMS, the mobile web, applications, games, social networking, music, photo sharing, and so on, what are the opportunities for businesses? How can they capitalize on this? How can they actually use this to their advantage from a mobile media and advertising experience? Perhaps, Michael, you can share some ideas with us.

Michael: Sure. The one thing that we want to be aware of is what I call the iPhone factor. The iPhone factor was similar to what "American Idol" did for text messaging. The iPhone coming around in the last couple of years made every consumer aware that they can do more with their phone than text and voice. The simplicity of just that message and the common knowledge of everybody on the street is they now looked and they can find a browser. They found that they can use Bluetooth, which is another feature that is in pretty much every handset. There is also a camera to take pictures or shots of QR codes or 3D bar codes that are available now. You can tag an item or tag a store to get information back. There are multiple channels that are available to everybody that wants to leverage touching over 23 million mobile consumers in Canada.

The thing I just wanted to mention is it is not only about the app. The apps that you're hearing about through iPhone or through the Android phone or the BlackBerry phone, those are creating excitement and awareness for people. But you have to have a little but more budget to engage or have some more funds available or know a developer that knows how to build on those platforms where the ubiquity of the mobile web enables you to do websites that are made for mobile phones. As Jonathan said, you can have browsing capabilities with, banner capabilities. You have advertising capabilities, call to action capabilities that are very, very simple for any business to bring to market.

Flavio: And . . .

Michael: The other thing that is coming around is social media and social media capabilities through a device. If you are leveraging any social media on your web or Web 2.0, it is very simple to enable that to a lot of subscribers that are using mobile phones. That is one of the prominent areas that a lot of people are leveraging. If you're looking at Foursquare and all the social media and location-based capabilities, the remote control that everybody is accessing to leverage those types of services is right in the palm of your hand. There are agencies out there to help and support you. There are mobile marketing associations, like our group, that can help educate you. If you go to MMAGlobal.com, it gives you a lot of information on the different ways that mobile and the mobile channel can be leveraged as well.

Flavio: Great. Do you have an example of a company that has used mobile media and advertising to expand and grow their business?

Michael: I think, Tiffany, you had some nice local examples. And Jonathan.

Tiffany: Absolutely. So, I believe I mentioned Global earlier. We're doing a lot of work in the United States as well. There are a number of retail shops, sort of Walmart equivalents that have over 12,000 subscribers to their mobile updates lists right now. They're driving coupons and increasing street traffic as a result of this program. Another example that jumps to my mind right now is the downtown aquarium in Houston, which drove 3,000 additional guests to their location via a text messaging campaign.

On the advertising side, to try to get away from text messaging for a little bit, we recently ran a health awareness campaign actually on the benefits of breastfeeding for young mothers. That was geotargeted to the state of Texas. The mobile advertising portion of that campaign outperformed the online portion by more than double, which was quite a phenomenal statistic. The health authority in the State of Texas was pretty happy with the results of that campaign.

Flavio: Wow.

Michael: And, Jonathan, you probably can share, you know, how the mobile advertising and sites and services can come up with properties like CBC and some of the other media properties that are out there. Correct?

Jonathan: Yeah, absolutely. One of the exciting things, you just touched on it when you were talking about some of the new opportunities that are introduced is these calls to action, right. Initially, we talked about convergence and it was happening on TV, and then no, it's happening on the computer. Now, I think we're realizing it is happening in the mobile space. You can take that immediate action to either make a purchase, or if you click on a display banner, you can control what happens. It could trigger a call. It could play a video. It could launch a website. There are so many different things that could be attached to that one ad that we really have never been able to do in any other medium.

Tiffany: You know, it's true. One of the things that we like to talk about at Tagga is how mobile is the connective tissue between all of the various elements within your entire media mix, the campaign strategies that you lay out. Mobile is the way that you are able to connect each and every one of those experiences.

Flavio:Great. Thank you very much. We're going to take a quick break right now. For those of you listening, you're listening to "The New Reality." If you want to learn more about Snaptech you can visit our website at Snaptech.com or you can actually find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/SnaptechMarketing or on Twitter at Twitter.com/SnapMarketing. You can also give us a call at 604-677-0742. We'll be right back.

Snaptech is a web development, and web design company located in Vancouver. Find talented web designers, copywriters, search engine marketers, social media gurus at Snaptech – a Canadian web design firm. Request a quote for our web development services here.

Announcer: You're listening to "The New Reality" with Flavio Marquez.

Flavio: Hello, and welcome to "The New Reality." I'm your host Flavio Marquez, Chief Strategy Officer and cofounder of Snaptech. Today we've been talking about mobile media and the different applications of mobile advertising and communication in businesses. We've had a great conversation with our three guests in regards to really where mobile technology has been in the last few years, where it has come from, some opportunities in regards to mobile media ideas from text messaging to some other ideas from location-based services and so on. Right now, I want to talk about a couple of other quick things. One thing is that some people are really asking questions about the whole world of m-commerce. What is m-commerce? Are people actually making transactions online? Those kinds of things. Perhaps Tiffany can share a little bit about your ideas on m-commerce.

Tiffany: M-commerce is very interesting to me, and I think it is definitely where we are moving. I think we're going to see mass adoption. The adoption is not there quite yet. Forrester just recently released a report on this very topic that showed that currently only 2% of all mobile subscribers are actually using their mobile phones to make purchases. Where a lot of mobile usage in the retail space right now is in comparison shopping. People are standing in the aisles and they are researching products when they are actually in store. They are actually doing price checking. Right now, that is where m-commerce is at. The actual purchase piece is not happening. I think we're moving there, and we're moving there quickly as technologies are getting better and better. The one click to payment is making things a lot easier for people who actually buy on the mobile web. I think, truly, from a user experience perspective as soon as m-commerce or any of these swipe pass pay type technologies become as easy as using cash, that's when we're going to see mass adoption.

Michael: The other thing we want to keep in mind is that mobile commerce is also, the device is leveraging the consumer. I mean, to leverage the consumer to draw them into that final commerce transaction is through coupon-ing, offering loyalty programs, offering ways that you can engage with that brand or with your product or service that will bring them to your cash register. We want to make sure that is understood in the equation as well. It is a great tool that everybody carries around with them. It is their wireless wallet. They're going to carry coupons. They're going to carry promotions. They're going to carry what you've sent to them as a loyal customer to your brand right in their hip and right in their pocket when they walk into your store.

Flavio:How fast do you think the adoption is going to take for this? I know that 10 years ago, if you told somebody that you put your credit card on the Internet they'd have thought you were nuts. It really took, you know, a number of years before people started to learn that they can actually trust making transactions. Now with mobile devices, I know that a lot of people are nervous about, "Well, how do I know that people are not reading this information because it is so new?"

Jonathan: It's going to go incredibly fast. I think this is the perfect time to look at the app stores and the success of the app stores. Four years ago, it was a real challenge trying to push the paid application business. Apple really changed that with iTunes App Store. Now we're seeing successful app stores across all the platforms. What the space has done is it has one, proven that people are definitely willing to make payments through their phones because they are actively doing so on a regular basis through these app stores. And why it is so successful is because of what you were talking about, the convenience. It is one click away and you get instant gratification when you make that purchase. As soon as that starts to expand out beyond the app stores yet still be as easy so that you can make these simple transactions, then it is going to be adopted very quickly. It won't be a matter of years. It will be within a year or two. As soon as that technology is out, it will be adopted very fast.

Tiffany: That is absolutely true. I think you hit the nail on the head with the instant gratification piece. The ability to convert on a want or a need at the moment, you know. My girlfriend just told me about a great pair of shoes or recommended a movie and I can now buy it on Netflix or order it right away. Whatever that product is I can do it know and I can do it with the click of a button.

Jonathan: Yeah, no matter where you are.

Michael: The other thing that we want to realize is that any business can do this. A small business can have a call to action. I'm just going to stage it into what Jonathan just said and Tiffany just said, you've got to start now. Your consumers are expecting it. If you have a text message code that offers them a coupon; if you have a mobile website that before they walk into your store they can download something; if you have a simple app that you put on one of the app stores; what you want to draw them to is your brand and engage them right now. Because the next step, while you are exploring that that is available today, the next natural step is they're going to make that transaction right from their device instantaneously within the next one to three years.

Jonathan: Absolutely.

Michael: So, you want to get involved today. Don't sit back on your heels. Get involved today on all aspects of leveraging mobile media to draw and engage your customer.

Flavio:Thank you, yes. Based on that, I mean, maybe if . . . we're almost out of time, but perhaps you can, one of you, share quick ideas on what can we expect in the next year or two in regards to mobile technology and mobile media.

Tiffany: Well, I personally think that we're going to see everybody, and I think this is the way it should go, jumping into developing out their mobile optimized websites. People are, consumers are coming and looking for your business on their phones. You need to give them a good experience. Otherwise they are going to scoot off to your competitor.

Jonathan: Yeah. I have to echo what Michael was saying. You have to get in now because the space is changing so rapidly that what we call mobile today is not going to be recognizable in a year, two years, three years down the road. Where the mobile space is going is really taking computing and integrating that computing into everything. Whether it is going to be a small handheld device, whether it is connected dashboards in cars, glasses that you wear, you are going to see computing capability built into everyday devices that are just with you wherever you go. That's what mobile will be.

Flavio: One of the, an article I was reading, I remember that I was talking about that. Most companies are actually starting to shift some of their marketing dollars and in some cases up to 10% of their promotion and adveriting dollars to mobile media to try to take advantage of and leverage this incredibly fast changing technology.

I want to thank all of our guests for coming on the show. Jonathan, Product Development Manager at CBC and President and cofounder of MOBCOM Consulting. Thank you so much for joining us. You can learn more about MOBCOM at MOBCOM.ca. That is M-O-B-C-O-M-dot-C-A. Thank you, Jonathan.

Also, I want to thank Tiffany Chester, who is Director of Marketing at Tagga Media. You can learn more about Tagga Media at Tagga.com, that's T-A-G-G-A-dot com.

Michael, joining us via telephone from all the way back east. I know it's a little bit late over there. Thank you for joining us. Michael is the Country Manager of Canada Mobile Marketing Association. You can learn more about the MMA at MMAGlobal.com.