Mobile marketing | Direct Marketing Observations

I dropped my Treo the other day, cracked the screen, and someone called me immediately after. I couldn’t hear them or see who the caller was. At that moment a couple of things flashed through my mind:

1. Oh Shit. I’m screwed. I’m totally screwed.

2. Sweet I get to get a new phone, what should I get? The iphone is cool.

3. What if I lose all of my contacts? I’m screwed some more.

4. I really don’t feel like forking over 3 hunge even if they give me a $200 rebate, it’s all bullshit anyway.

5. What If I get the call and I can’t talk??? That’s so professional. Hello? Hello? I said hello!

6. Maybe if I just take the battery out and blow on it, It’ll be cool.

7. If they can’t fix it, I’ll just get a free flip phone. I’ll simplify my life.

8. What do I really need in a phone anyways, I just need to talk right? Besides, email and web access are so overrated.

9. Blackberry’s are cool

10. I am so dreading going in the phone store. It’s like being in a freightcar of techno idiots.

Well, ultimately I did have to go in and the tech took my phone away. I was hoping they would just give me a new one, no questions asked. He even said, “let me see if we have a replacement”. Nope, he comes back 10 minutes later and says, “Good news, our tech guy was able to fix it, It’s not perfect but we saved you some money.”

I was pissed. I wanted a new phone. Even a new old one would have been cool, now I just have an old, new one. It looks like it’s been gnawed on by my neighbors dog. I admit, the emotions are raw. All of those thoughts and yet in the end, I’m still stuck with this cruddy piece o’ crap Treo. I’m complaining because my Treo seems so “old and antiquated”. I loved it once, now it’s like a set of worn out tires. They work, but they look like hell.

What has all of that flashy marketing done to me? What has marketing done to all of us? It’s a phone. How do you feel or how would you feel should something happen to your phone?

As mobile networks and devices continue to evolve and converge into all things digitally possible, doesn’t it make sense that the next big thing should be a social network that is solely dedicated to a mobile network?

It was a matter of time before social networks were destined to leave the confines of the pc. But with the advent of powerful new mobile devices, the ability to to send round-the-clock updates about what you’re eating, who you’re talking to, and what you just bought seemed inevitable. And of course, why not? These things are important in the fabric of our every day lives. We need to know these things.

Jaiku is one of the many sites that is now geared towards mobile social networks. What might make Jaiku formidable is that it is owned by Google. So it probably has a better than average chance at success.

Jaiku’s main goal is to bring people closer together by enabling them to share their activity streams. An activity stream is a log of everyday things as they happen: your status messages, recommendations, events you’re attending, photos you’ve taken – anything you post directly to Jaiku or add using Web feeds. Perhaps one of the most popular right now is Twitter, which allows users to let people broadcast short text messages from their phones and computers to those of friends and strangers. The gist of these networks is to offer a way to connect with the people you care about by sharing your activities with them via the Web, IM, and SMS – as well as through a slew of cool third-party applications built by other developers using propriatary API’s.

Another one that seems more geared towards a younger demo is Kyte. the difference is Kyte allows anybody to create their own interactive TV channel on their website, blog, social network or mobile phone

With kyte, you create your own live TV shows and broadcast them on your own interactive channel, on your website, blog, social network or mobile phone. You can share your kyte channel with your friends and collaborate with them so that they can also be a part of your shows, by adding their own content, by voting and by chatting live with other viewers. With kyte, you can share your experiences live with the world and be the star, director and producer of your own live TV channel, wherever you are and however you want.

At this point we need to coin a new phrase, “digital voyeuristic exhibitionism”. Where do you think we are headed as social networks converge with all things electronic and media related? Is any aspect of our personal lives off limits now with the broad acceptance of reality based programming? Where do we go from here?