A switch to the smaller screen

It’s no secret that games consoles dating as far back as the Sega Mega Drive and Nintendo SNES have enjoyed pride of place in living rooms around the world, providing a welcome dose of entertainment and a brief escape from reality.

But, thanks to incredible advances in mobile technology – just look at the iPhone X and Google Pixel 2 – gaming on the small screen in your pocket is giving the latest consoles a run for their money. And that means big opportunities...

As would be expected of an event where it takes a solid 40 minutes to walk from one end to the other, there is a lot going on at this years Mobile World Congress (MWC).

Taking place in an uncharacteristically grey and gloomy Barcelona, this year’s event featured all the big players in the smartphone market.

Here is a rundown of all the major smartphone-related announcements so far on day 2.

Samsung

Samsung used MWC 2018 to showcase the latest version of its flagship Galaxy line of phones  in a big (and widely

Mobile first design is not a new concept.

It has been around for more than a decade and it’s used to refer to the strategy of designing and developing digital experiences for mobile devices at the very start of a project; rather than the traditional approach of first designing for desktop and consequently for mobile.

However, the term is possibly more relevant in the business world today than ever before.

As the information we consume online reaches us faster, wherever we are and as the growing use of...

Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) was initiated as a project to improve the performance of mobile web pages. The project has so far mostly focused on making loading and rendering for existing text-heavy articles such as those found on news sites or cooking blogs.

The company is now looking to extend the project beyond this with the launch of the AMP story format.

On mobile, users tend to browse a lot of articles, but only engage with a few in-depth. This is because the majority of articles on the...

In this discussion from Eurobest in London, Grant Munro: General Manager at Shutterstock Custom, Milton Elias: Head of Mobile and Video at News UK and Kat Hahn: Lead at Facebook and Instagram’s Creative Shop, talk about the solutions for brands to create vertical-specific video content both quickly and affordably.

A mobile world

Munro: “Mobile is by far the biggest driver of vertical video. Consumers spend around three hours per day on their mobiles, and check them on average 150 times a...

Many advertisers are now looking to internalise their mobile media buying processes, and numerous companies are being set up to offer advertisers a media buying service in the programmatic space.

There are two possible routes here, as in any decision that involves using technology: buy or build your DSP. But firstly, let’s define what a DSP actually is.

Because DSP stands for “Demand Side Platform” it should be intrinsically associated with technology-based companies that allow media buyers...

When people think of geomarketing — the integration of geographical intelligence into different aspects of marketing, like sales or distribution — they usually think of retailers. B2C companies can certainly target customers much more effectively when they know where those customers are. But location-based data can be used by any company, including those targeting businesses. Geomarketing can be used to book meetings, expand a company’s reach, or even find the best market.

Geomarketing opens up...

Mobile network giffgaff has released research estimating that average mobile data usage will climb to a mammoth 93 GB per month by 2025.

With 5G due to launch globally in 2020, giffgaff has based its estimations on theoretical speed increases. Research and advisory company Gartner believes 5G phones will begin to reach the market in 2019, when rollouts of 5G networks will start in select countries, such as the US and South Korea.

"We predict that, by 2021, 9 per cent of smartphones sold will support...

People are consumed by their mobile devices, with mobile usage continuing to grow. The question for marketers is what is the best mobile engagement marketing channel in order to reach out to customers for each specific purpose? In this article, I will look at when is it beneficial to use SMS, push notifications or in-app messaging.

Why SMS?

SMS still matters in the age of smartphones! SMS provides an easy and immediate way to interact with customers directly in their personal message application. But if done...

A feature of modern life so innocuous and widespread, the humble text message seems like it has been around forever. The first SMS (Short Message Service) was sent on 3 December 1992.

Which means the text message is now officially 25 years old.

With Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love you number one in the US and Home Alone 2 sitting on top of the Box Office, the first SMS was sent by 22-year old Sema Group software architect Neil Papworth.

The message said simply, ‘Merry Christmas’ and was sent over Vodafone’s...