Sharing Contact Info Via SMS

Feeling “green” (save the trees!) or if your “that guy” (or gal) who never remembers to bring your cards to the big meeting or networking event Contxt may be the solution for you. Here are three reasons you may want to consider SMS contact sharing as a solution for you.

1. It’s FREE

2. Once they txt you, you have their (cell) contact info. (this may be valued more in bars as opposed to business

3.You don’t have to worry about looking cheap for choosing a wimpy (inexpensive) card stock that looks (and feels) like you printed them yourself. Try it: www.contxts.com

FUTURBLOG: Mobile Web Apps

Hello, this post is actually from the year 2012.  Some computer trickery was required to display it on this site in your current time.  I’m retro-posting this to give you a taste of how mobile development happens in the future…

Currently, if you’re building an iPhone or iPad app, you’re way too late.  If you’re planning an Android app, you’re close, but missed the bandwagon a bit.  If you’re building an Android app, awesome!  Hurry up and finish it, though.  The future is in mobile web applications built in HTML5, CSS3 and any of the numerous back-end languages and databases available to developers.

Don’t get me wrong, app stores aren’t going to fall out of the picture any time soon, but the chance of your brand’s application penetrating that market is becoming less and less.  Instead, start with a mobile web app, then create iPhone or Android apps if there is time and money left over.

Multiple Devices, Multiple Technologies
Not only will your app work on every smartphone that comes with a browser (all of them), but all of your developers can use all of the web development languages they already know!  No having to learn device-specific development languages or having to hire a developer specifically for the device.   

No More App Approval
The days, weeks and possibly months of waiting on getting your app approved (or possibly rejected) by Apple or Google are over!  Now, you can just publish to your own server and distribute the app and updates to your users instantaneously.  

Sharing your App

Wow, I remember the old days of trying to share an application with others.  Your friend had to search the app store, enter their password, and then wait for it to download.  By the time your friend had the cool app you shared with them, you were already bored with it.

Nowadays sharing web apps is as easy as sending someone a URL, and then they can choose whether to bookmark it on their home screen or not.  When they open up the URL that houses your app, the download happens seamlessly in the background instead of waiting on a progress bar.

There are all sorts of fun ways to share the URLs now, also… like bumping phones and flicking icons back and forth between devices.  Or a QR code that both links to the app and adds it to your home screen with one camera snapshot.

Examples
Here’s some links to some people that are the first to be doing it right.  All of these sites are robust Internet applications that work with touch phones and are platform-independent.  Be sure to load these links in a browser on your phone… (Are you really reading this on a desktop or laptop?  That’s so 2010).

GMail: http://mail.google.com
Facebook: http://touch.facebook.com
Toyota: http://touch.toyota.com
YouTube: http://m.youtube.com

Feel free to email me with any questions, and I’ll get back to you in a couple of years.

Social Media and Holiday Shopping

While some of us were still recovering from our Thanksgiving food comas, millions of Americans spent their first day back in the office shopping online. This year’s Cyber Monday was the biggest online shopping day ever, reaching $1 billion and surpassing last year’s sales by 16%, according to the latest comScore data. In conjunction with a 15.9% increase in online Black Friday sales (exceeding $648 million), consumers are increasingly using the internet to shop.

This shift in consumer behavior reflects an overall progression from using the internet as a resource that influenced purchase consideration, to a medium that houses the entire shopping experience from start to finish. The immediate nature inherent to the Internet brings consumers directly to the point of purchase that is now simply a click away rather than at the end of a crowded line.

So what does all of this mean? Since it’s becoming increasingly convenient to shop, and with so many online retailers available, users are starting to consider other factors in their shopping experience—specifically the opinions of their friends. Online shopping is just one more thing that has become victim to the sprawling and endless choices afforded by the Internet, which makes friend-sourcing a necessity. How do you know what you should buy? Ask your friends.

In response to the emergence of socially-connected online shopping, retailers are taking the initiative to accommodate for these trends. Facebook’s “Like” button social plugin is currently integrated on over 2 million sites. Furthermore, Microsoft and Facebook recently announced an additional integration in the Bing search engine that allows users to add search items to a shopping list then share those shopping lists with their Facebook friends.

It will be interesting to see how shopping behavior changes with the evolution of technology and convergence of desktop and mobile Internet usage. Opportunities exist for brands to leverage this consumer behavior and drive earned media by adding a shareable, social layer to their sites and using their Facebook page as a hub for social activity.

How do you plan to shop this holiday season? Will you be sharing your wishlists on your social networks?