Look around and one of the interesting things we’re starting to see in the land of mobile commentary, discussion and viewpoints, is the slow but real emerging era of the questioning of the relevance of mobile applications. I’m beginning to suspect that by the time we arrive at making our 2012 mobile trends predictions (that will be in less than ten months!) we’ll see some very interesting viewpoints emerge along this particular line of thought.

I myself have already begun going down this path: With mobile devices and mobile apps, the old metric – 20% of features handles 80% of all needs – is quickly becoming 5% of all features handles 95% of all needs! It isn’t a shift in core functionality that’s driving this – it’s simply a never-ending and seemingly always escalating heaping on of superfluous capabilities – and apps – that are changing this dynamic!

Now that we’ve spent a few years being indoctrinated with the virtues of the mobile app store (or really, app supermarket), the rapidly approaching 500,000^th mobile app, the 30 billionth download of a mobile app, and many other related albeit utterly useless measures of the value of mobility to the world at large (regardless of consumer, workforce, road warrior, mobile soldier or mobile general, mobile social networking maven or mobile gadfly, etc. etc. etc.) I come to the following grand question:

Where exactly will we find the longer term value of mobility to the world at large?

I began to search for some answers to the question I pose above in my blog post, The Antenna and HP Mobile Visions – Innovation at Work & Why Mobile App Developers Should be Happy. Developers are now being offered a new world of multiple, disparate and interconnected mobile devices, as well as access to cloud-based mobile computing power. We’re entering the next generation of mobility, and developers – especially those involved in all facets of enterprise mobility, need to focus on this.

I can add to this that I believe Joe Balfiore (right, Microsoft’s WP7 main guy) has figured some of this out as well – although Steve Ballmer does a poor job of articulating it, what he tries to get across (and what Balfiore does a good job of communicating through actual demos) is that WP7 is working very hard to deliver, through its Metro UI, the simplification of the user experience – and trying to factor out the noise – getting to the point where there is a strong balance and interaction between features and desired functionality – so that the entire mobile device feels to the user like a cohesive and optimized whole – instead of a bunch of mobile app icons.

This user experience and UI effort is THE key area of mobile innovation from Microsoft, and has been THE major stumbling block for Nokia. I like that Nokia is now engaged with WP7 as I believe it will help Nokia find a path towards building a beautiful and cohesive Nokia hardware-based user experience. It offers a real opportunity to move ahead of Android and iOS here. Nokia would have been completely lost trying to innovate on Android from a UI perspective – a notion that escapes most though not all pundits. Microsoft already has this mostly right, and it is the main reason I myself am glad that WP7 is where Nokia chose to go.

[[Update, 02/18/2011: A complete non-sequiter - While it is no secret that Microsoft must have deeply feared Nokia going to Android (that would have been a significant kiss of the deadly type for WP7), it isn’t entirely common to think of the numerous financial incentives behind Microsoft’s Nokia deal. The Wall Street Journal does a very good job of looking at this: Nokia's Flirtations Put the Fear of Google Into Microsoft. Highly recommended reading.]]

HP, in the meantime, has done its own impressive job, through WebOS, of delivering a more uncluttered and more cohesive user interface that extends to both tablets and smartphones. And let’s not forget Dell, which is currently playing in both the Android and WP7 camps. My very strong prediction is that Dell will find more compelling ways to innovate, differentiate and deliver on the cohesive user experiences through WP7.

The next generation of mobility is now emerging and offers developers a far richer environment to create mobile services (note, I don’t say applications). These mobile services in turn will give consumers and workforces a far cleaner, and much more unified and seamless mobile experience.

This experience will encompass multiple channels (mobile Web + mobile application services) operating in the cloud and across numerous mobile devices, where the term ‘mobile devices’ extends entirely beyond smartphones and computing peripherals, to become every type of electronic gadget one might own – including IPTVs, music servers, high end music systems, video, your car multimedia and navigation sysems, digital photography, guitar playing, one true universal, wirelessly connected mobile remote control…I could add here the smart electric grid and Internet-connected (and therefore ad-ready and marketing-ready) home kitchen appliances as well.…the list runs on and on and on.

This is what we can look forward to over the next several years. It won’t be yet another ‘Android phone variation on similar themes’ (someone please shoot me if that is still the case!) that CES will be showing off next year – it will be integrated mobile systems delivering a cohesive, customized and unified set of mobile services spanning numerous mobile-connected devices that will begin to dominate.

Marketing, Advertising, Gen X and Gen Y

The first place we’ll see it is in marketing and advertising – those two things that have been with us since the dawn of media and consumer electronics (that would be radio and TV). It’s no surprise that all of the major ‘brands’ – as well as the classic, big time, Madison avenue advertising and marketing agencies – are now getting their heads around the urgent message that in order to continue to foster brand loyalty, to foster brand recognition, to increase brand visibility and to insure brand integrity, a brand must have a crystal clear mobile strategy that functions seamlessly with what will soon emerge as the mobile user’s ‘multi-device set of customized services’ as I’ve sketched it out  above.

I’ve noted elsewhere why Gen X and Gen Y are the critical targets for advertisers and marketing teams to truly understand from a mobile perspective. More specifically, for marketing and advertising, we need to consider the following:

Gen X and Gen Y represent a unique and possibly strange mix of both me-centric and we-centric mindsets.

The immediacy of mobility – the always-on, anytime-ness and  anywhere-ness of mobility – has fostered a powerful sense of the mobile individual constantly focusing on himself or herself as being at the center of a three dimensional social web. A mobile user inside of this social web is always either in the process of receiving or diseminating information.

Today’s Gen X and Gen Y mobile users DEMAND that the entire external world that is relevant to them always knows where they are and what they are doing, and most important, what the actual context is around where they are and what they are doing – ‘I’m in a store, I’m looking at new shirts, anticipate my context and send me relevant information to make my shopping experience delightful.’ This is the highly individualistic me-centric aspect of today’s mobility, in which the mobile user is constantly receiving valuable information, or hoping to receive valuable information.

Today’s Gen X and Gen Y users are also highly social – today’s social networking is all about sharing information in real time – ‘Here is something I think is interesting, here is where I am, here is what I’m doing, here is an idea for us to do something – let’s gather.’ And so on. This is the we-centric aspect of today’s mobility, in which the mobile user is constantly diseminating information that the individual hopes is valuable to others.

What I find particularly interesting here is that every individual thinks they are at the center of their social mobile-based web. And yet this social web has no actual center. (OK, I admit a little Einstein and relativity helps in coming to grips with this.)

The mobile challenge for today’s brands is to figure out how to tap into both the me-centric and we-centric aspects of  Gen X and Gen Y. Preferably before your competitors do. The challenge is to become a key part of the mobile user’s integrated mobile system and unified set of mobile services. Figure this out and you will have the keys to today’s new mobile kingdom.

Next time I’ll take a closer look at what retailers and ad agencies need to consider from the me-centric and we-centric mobile user perspective.

Jump to Part 2.

∞

Tags: Enterprise Mobility, Human Centered Mobility, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Apps, Mobile Marketing, Mobile Observatory, Seamless Mobile Services, Social Media, Social Mobile Web, Tablets, Tony Rizzo