Adam Broitman, Director of Strategy and Ringleader for Crayon Marketing

Adam Broitman, Director of Strategy and Ringleader for
Crayon Marketing

In this podcast Lon Safko speaks with Adam Broitman, Director Of Strategy and Ringleader for Crayon Marketing where Adam discusses the importance of open source hardware, software, and platforms.  Adam also explains how mobile marketing is becoming more than just a WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) page, and how the mobile telephone has become our “Remote Control For Life”.In this 39 minute interview Adam speaks about the power of mobile technology and about the new Google Android Cellphone.  Adam also shares his views on what Verizon is calling their “4G’ or “4th Generation” of cell phone technology and the prevalence and success of the “Freemium” business model and how cell phones are creating a personal “Presence” in social media.

These interviews and other content have been released in anew book “The Sparks That Ignited The World” available on Amazon (http://amzn.to/2jPo0DQ).  For a CD containing all 50 audio interviews totaling more than 24 hours of historic conversations, go to www.ExtremeDigitalMarketing.com.

“The Sparks That Ignited The World” Series

This blog is part of the series “Sparks”, which contains transcripts and links to the audio podcasts from the more than 50 historic interviews I did with the founders, pioneers, inventors, authors, and visionaries who who set the world on fire by creating something that change the lives of everyone on the planet.  We now call innovation “Social Media”.  They were the “The Sparks That Ignited The World”.

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An Interview with Adam Broitman, Director of Strategy and Ringleader for Crayon Marketing

An Interview With Adam Broitman, Crayon Marketing, Director of Strategy and Ringleader

Hello, my name is Lon Safko, co-author of The Social Media Bible, published by John Wiley & Sons, the most comprehensive book every written on the subject of Social Media. Today we are here with Adam Broitman, wow! This guy has been out there doing Mobile Marketing and Mobile Advertising, we are going to talk about that, and we are going to talk about Social Media.

So Adam, it’s awesome to have you here today, thank you. AB: Great to be here, Lon.

LS: This is cool! Can you tell our listeners a little bit about what your background is and who you are?

AB: Sure, so I work for Crayon, which is a strategic-marketing consultancy. We help brand and leverage conversational marketing at a very high level. I have actually only been there for about a month now. I was previously at Morpheus Media, which was an

interactive ad agency. So I have been doing this quite a while.

LS: Okay. In our earlier conversation, you made a distinction between mobile advertising and mobile marketing. Can you explain what each one of those are, and what the distinction is?

AB: Sure. Since I have been hearing about mobile, at large, I have been hearing people talk about mobile advertising. People are saying that 2005 was the year of mobile; 2006 was the year of mobile; 2007 was the year of mobile; and we keep hearing this from people in reference to mobile advertising. When I think of mobile advertising, I largely think of putting banners on a WAP page (Wireless Application Protocol) or just a mobile phone; and I do not think that that is necessarily where it’s at.

I think Mobile Marketing (using the mobile phone, which is central to all our mediated experience) is much more palatable and much more likely to become the next big thing. When I refer to Mobile Marketing, I am referring to using the mobile phone for Social Networking and using QR codes (Quick Response Codes) which is very big in Asia right now. This is where users can see a print ad and actually take a picture of it; and the optics of their camera gives them feedback from that ad and it continues the experience (which would otherwise be a very two-dimensional marketing experience).

LS: Can you explain a little bit about what you just said about taking a picture of an ad and….

AB: Sure thing! This is the same way that a barcode works. A lot of what the carriers and mobile manufacturers are looking to do now is (and this is actually very big as of last week with the announcement of the G1, the new Google android phone) have the optics of your camera actually read a two-dimensional (2D) barcode which has information embedded in it; so a URL, for example. So I take my camera and let’s say, I am looking at an ad for Kraft and I see a little code at the bottom and it says, “Take a picture with your camera for more information,” so I snap that picture and it can bring me to a coupon, it could bring me to a mobile webpage, it could bring me to any number of destinations that were laid out by the brand.

So it is a really cool way to engage consumers. And I do not really consider it the push advertising of years’ past; it’s more of that pull advertising, where users can actually gain more information, when and how they want to gain that information.

LS: Holy Moly! So…wow! So I’m walking through a bus station or train station, an airport; and I see an ad that I think is interesting and I pull out my camera phone and I take a picture of it, and there’s an embedded (kind of) barcode. Then just by clicking on it, it then will take me to a URL that opens up a webpage for a coupon or more information?

AG: Exactly! This is something for which we often say that the U.S. is like a Third World mobile country; (and this is) because we are so far behind in terms of mobile technology. But if you go to certain parts of Asia, this has been commonplace for a while; and it goes so far to the point where the mobile phone is actually a payment device.

So you can take a picture of an ad, you can get a coupon and (when you actually go to shop for whatever it is that you got the coupon for), at the point of sale or the point of check-out, they can scan you phone and process that coupon.

LS: Oh my gosh! I never even heard of that. And that keeps coming up, the whole mobile phone craze that’s happening outside of the United States. When I was speaking with Kakul Srivastava, who is the Director of Flickr, she was saying that right now there are actually three cell phones for every human being on the planet.

AB: Yep!

LS: And then when I had a conversation with Amanda Vega, she brought up a really interesting point. Outside the United States (especially in Third World countries, Asia, Africa, Russia; some other parts where they are economically depressed), people do not have the resources to actually buy a computer. So everything they do, email, text messaging, web access; everything is done through a cell phone.

AB: Right. And it is the combination of the fact that there are more cell phones and the infrastructure in certain countries is simply not there. So the wires are not in place or the type of broadband access, which we have here in the U.S. (the wired broadband access). So for many countries, it is simply a better user-experience when their accessing the web from their mobile phone.

LS: So you think that’s part of the reason that we are a little bit behind the rest of the world in mobile marketing.

AB: I think that’s one of the reasons. I think there also has been a lot that has been going on with the carriers, because the carriers have not be able to adapt quickly to this new environment and they have not been able to monetize mobile marketing as quickly as they would have liked. So there are putting limitations on the types of things that you can do. The famous deck, the “Verizon” deck when you power up your Verizon phone, they have selected content that they have hand-selected. And what that has done is it has limited the types of content that users can get on a mobile phone.

So with the inception of android and open source mobile content development and platforms, everyone can now create to these platforms. Therefore, I think we are just at the beginning of the realization of mobile content, mobile marketing, and that space is large.

LS: You had mentioned WAP. Can you tell our listeners, again, what that stands for?

AB: Sure, that’s the Wireless Application Protocol, and I giggle a little when I hear that because I think that the web is the standard platform and there are many ways to access it; but what the carriers tried to do and what developers try to do was develop a protocol that was specifically for the mobile phone. So there are WAP pages that adhere to different standards than the web.

Now the problem starts when developers need to learn new ways to develop content and the same content is not available on the PC as it is on the mobile phone. So it becomes a little bit hairy and it is certainly not the best way to leverage the mobile phones, and I think we are going to see a decline in the usage of WAP and more web standards simply appropriated for the mobile experience.

FaceBook, for example. When I go on my computer, I have something that’s appropriated for my 21-inch monitor and it is appropriated for that experience.

When I go on my iPhone, have the same content (I’m looking at the same content) but it is appropriated for a much smaller screen and a much different experience.

LS: Okay, and many people, especially in the entertainment industry, are calling this the “fourth screen” which I only just heard recently. But it is making as much of an impact as television, computers, or movie screens.

AB: Sure, and it’s funny that a couple of years ago people were referring to it as the “third screen.” Actually, one of the first mobile marketing companies was Third Screen Media, which was then bought by AOL. Now they are calling it the “fourth screen.”

I personally feel that we are going to have five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten screens; all different screens, but it is ultimately going to be the same content, just accessed in different ways.

LS: I completely agree and I am absolutely shocked that with more and more cars getting LCD screens for GPS that we are not seeing a full computer/internet/interface built right into the cars with a complete operating system.

AB: Right, and I don’t think we are very far off from that. I think that there are a lot of politics involved and many people who do not stand to benefit from it. As I said earlier, Verizon has not figured out the mobile marketing or the mobile advertising landscape just yet, but they are beginning to. In addition, I think some of these platforms are going to open up from the mobile phone, in automobiles, etc., etc. We are going to see a much more open landscape in terms of media in general.

LS: Yeah, and I think that is getting back to some of the stuff that Google OpenSocial is pushing towards; and I use the word “Google” where everybody is actually involved in that. And I was actually quite pleased in the interview with Kevin Marks in which he talked about OpenSocial and how all of these, even seemingly competitors, are actually coming together to try to form a standard for transmitting this information back and forth, either between applications or in this case, between technologies.

AB: Right, well it is amazing how quickly we forget lessons of the past. When AOL came on the scene a number of years back, at the inception of the internet, it was a walled garden, similar to the way that SpaceBook is a walled garden and MySpace is a walled garden. The model simply doesn’t work. People want to own their own data; they want to bring it wherever they want, which is a total beta-portability movement. In addition, the walled-garden model simple does not work.

Therefore, I think that this movement towards open standards is inevitable. The fact that Google is pioneering it and some people are not happy with that (because they feel like Google is trying to control information) is preposterous, in my opinion. This is because it really is an open system, and Google is not controlling anything. They just happen to have the largest “reach” in terms of the ability to monetize all of this content and all of this activity online.

LS: That open garden, open source, I think is a great point. Being involved in the computer industry as long as I have, looking back at the first Apple II and Franklin stealing all of their ROM codes; and then of course Steve Jobs freaking out and locking up the Macintosh and almost destroying Macintosh because he closed it up so much that the developers, and other people, had to actually buy a special wrench even to open the plastic case.

Then when, finally, they did open it up to developers, that is when Macintosh began to flourish. That is a hardware example and I think we also see that with Linux or even WordPress where we have open source.

I think you are absolutely right. The more people you have involved developing for you, the greater the strength of that platform.

AB: Sure, which speaks purposely to the point where as OS 10 is so successful. You just mentioned Steve Jobs; he did a 360 when he came back to hassle and he opened up the platform that now everyone is developing. Now you have an operating system that is enjoying, I think is 7-8% market share in the U.S., I’m not sure.

LS: Yeah, I think it is even 9%.
AB: Nine percent? Well, that’s up from a meager percent a couple of years ago, which is indicative of what it

is we are talking about in terms of opening up and allowing the wisdom of crowds to take over.

LS: Absolutely! I think back in the 90’s when I was doing sever reports I think we just about hit 1% total market share for Apple; and now they are actually pushing 9%. And if they keep going, I think Microsoft is really going to have a run for their money.

AB: Yeah, and I…the scary thing for Apple is what is going on right now on the iPhone with the APS Pro Store. I hope they don’t go back in this direction. I’m sure you have heard that some of the applications that have been kicked out the APS Pro Store, that Apple has said they was a application called “PodCaster” and they said, “No, that’s too close to our iTune’s application” and they are not allowing it in the APS Pro Store.

So I just hope that Apple continues along the road of open source and allows application developers in the APS Pro Store; because if not, everyone’s going to move to the android marketplace which is completely open.

LS: Absolutely, and sometimes there is a fine line between complimenting and non-competing. Sometimes you actually have to be really careful with censorship. Once you lose that integrity, you’re going to lose your customer-base.

AB: Sure.

LS: Tell me a little bit more about the Google android.

AB: Sure. So this is something that has been obviously a very big deal in the last couple of weeks, and something that I feel many people were pooh-poohing and saying it was going to eclipse Microsoft and that it would never come to fruition; but the notion that anyone could develop for this platform and anyone could develop applications… I am actually looking through the marketplace now, and there are already tremendous amounts of applications that are developed and the thing has not even been released yet.

So the potential for the android platform is really tremendous and I think over the next two years the mobile landscape is going to look nothing like what it does today. I think the iPhone certainly was a game-changer but android is, in my opinion, going to be the new game.

LS: Yeah, I cannot wait to see it. It was a tough thing for me to decide whether to go switch carriers over to AT & T and go with an iPhone. I eventually stayed with Verizon and went with the Dare, which is kind of a knock-off of the iPhone. A really great platform, but with the android coming out and Google behind it, Apple will really have a run for their money on the iPhone.

AB: Yeah.
LS: Is there any conversations leaking out about whether or not it is going to be non-platform related, or is it

just going to be for one carrier?

AB: Well, from what Google has said, the platform is completely separate from any hardware or carrier. So the Open Handset Alliance aims to create this platform, much like Linux or Uniex, where is it not dependant on any specific type of hardware, and in the mobile arena, any carriers.

So I do not think that they could actually go back on that, because Google does not actually own it. It is a product of the Open Handset Alliance, which is pretty interesting. And I think the play there is Google knows the more access they have to putting their ads next to relevant content, the better off they are. Since they have such penetration online now, they’ll be able to parlay that into many different arenas; which is why they were bidding on the 700 MHz spectrum a few months back, because they didn’t want someone else to purchase that block and own those airwaves.

So the more open the world is, the more that Google can monetize the world of content, and this is because their technology is so far superior than anyone else’s, which we see in the fact that Microsoft and MSN only have such a small percent of search share, and Yahoo also has a very small percent. They think we do not have the targeting capabilities that offer that advertising solution that Google does.

LS: Yes, that is absolutely true. Over the last four years, I have taught SEO/SEM and every couple of months, I have to update all of my charts, and this is because Google’s market share just keeps getting larger and larger, while Yahoo and Microsoft…Microsoft has always had around 12%, but even that seems to be dropping. With the skill that Microsoft has on duplicating other companies’ products I am quite surprised that they really have not taken some of Google’s ideas and implemented them themselves.

AB: Yeah.

LS: And I know that sounds cynical.

AB: Yeah, well I was actually out in Seattle about a year and a half ago, just around the time that the ad-center platform was launched. I was talking to product managers and they were saying that things were in queue and that it would become easier for agencies; and I was an agency and we did a lot of paid- search, and it was simply not worth the time it took to run these campaigns. This is because even if they are allied there, it was so small and it took so much time to implement, that for certain clients we would just put all of budget into Google. It was simpler, [19:03.7] and it was scalable.

LS: Yeah, and that is what I am seeing in the industry, too. And actually I have to, kind of, teach it. If you’re looking at 50% market share and everybody else is splitting up the 50%, really, what does it pay to start your campaign with the company that’s going to get one out of two of your customers.

AB: Right!

LS: In your blog, you talk about Social Networking 2.M. What does that mean?

AB: Well, as much as I hate to profligate nebulous phrases like that, I felt the need to tag it as something. I think that Social Networking is all the rage these days and, obviously, so is Social Media. Everyone is talking about it and everyone is….

LS: ….and writing about it!

AB: ….even writing about it… and developing models, and marketers are jumping in and trying to figure out how to monetize Social Media; it’s my opinion, however, that we are really just at the beginning. The reason that I say that is because Social Networking online is a very virtual, impersonal experience. However, when you ad the mobile phone into the equation is makes it much more adaptable to real-life situations and much more personal.

An example would be that online, (again going back to when I was talking about FaceBook before) I am simply in front of a screen and I am reading what my friends are doing; I can comment, I can respond. On my iPhone, I have a location-aware device with a camera, so not only can I say, “Here’s what I’m thinking, but here’s what I’m doing right now in front of my computer.” However, if you are typing on your computer, chances are you are not doing anything other than working in front of your computer.

But on the mobile device I can say, “I’m at the park, it’s beautiful out, a bird just flew by.” You can take a picture of it. It adds much more real life elements to the Social Networking, and elements like me being out at a bar and I can crowd source and say, “Okay, let’s all get together now,” and have them meet up and talk about something. And it adds a much more human element to Social Networking. It is something where companies like Whirl, or Where, or Loop, art starting to see all of these Social Network tools that take advantage of the location of the device; and I think that’s going to become more and more ingrained in the entire Social Media space.

LS: Yes, I agree. With the phenomenal success of Twitter and people Tweeting all over the place…I interviewed Francine Hardaway, and she uses her mobile phone with Twitter to, say for example….”I’m at the intersection of 24th and Camelback, and I’m heading into Houston’s for dinner. Anybody in the area like to join me?” And people from all over the place just pop in and have dinner with her.

AB: Yes, it’s amazing! I have been using Twitter since it came out, and when I got my iPhone it added a whole new dimension to Twitter; because not only was I Tweeting thoughts, I was Tweeting “presence” like you said. So the concept of “presence” is added in, but it is also the concept of life-blogging. So wherever I go, even if I am Tweeting a thought, I’m taking a picture, I’m getting a location-stamp; it’s even for my own benefit because I can look back on my life and I can say, “Here’s what I was thinking, here’s what I was seeing, here’s what where I was.”

People can tap into the lives of other people in a much deeper way now than ever before, and it’s really profound, in my opinion.

LS: It really is profound. If you look at the people (as followers or that they are following), and the number of Tweets that they do per day, you see how much we count on this technology. For example, like Jott. I count on Jott an awful lot; where I pick up my cell phone, record something into it and by the time I get back to the office it has been transcribed into text and shows up as a text-message and an email. I mean, we are really counting on our cell phones. I cannot imagine what would happen if we ever lost them.

AB: Yeah. My cell phone is by my side from morning to night and (dare I say) I think I fall asleep with it in my hand at certain times.

LS: Let’s talk a little bit about marketing and advertising. Really actually, I use Verizon and I am really quite surprised that I do not get any advertising of any sort on my cell phone. I mean, I get the Verizon that says, “Your account, you bill is ready, the invoice is ready for the month.” But I really do not see advertising. Where is the advertising and how come I don’t see more of it?

AB: Well, it is actually surprising that you haven’t seen it. A lot of times, they, themselves, will stay on the deck itself. So when you actually power up your Verizon phone and there is the menu of the different things you can do, a lot of times they will insert an ad there or on any number of WAP pages that you might go to. Now, I do not know what type of user you are, but a lot of people who are operating from the deck will be more exposed to the small-banner ads that sit at the bottom or the top of the page you are looking at.

LS: Okay. Is cell phone advertising, mobile advertising somewhat affective? How does it compare to some of the banner-advertisements on a website?

AB: Well, again, it’s like at the beginning of the web. I remember running a campaign a couple of years ago for one of our clients, actually the New York Times. We were running a campaign and the click-through rate was phenomenal. The click-through rate was triple any click-through rate that we had been seeing online. The conversion rate, however, was abysmal. We had spent a whole lot of money and there was very little return.

So I still think we’re at a time where people are clicking on these ads just because they are curious. They want to know what on the other side of a mobile banner ad. I think that when people realize that they have to wait for the page to load and it simply is just more advertising, I think they abandon very quickly. So from what I have seen, the results are not phenomenal unless it is incredibly contextually cognized to that person. Due to the fact that there is not that much inventory out there, or not as much as there is online, it’s kind of hard to do.

Mobile marketing, on the other hand, SMS short-codes and the ability to use the mobile phone for CRN, to follow up with consumers with relevant messages; with that I’ve seen much greater success and much more response.

LS: That makes a lot of sense. So it is like the early days of the internet. People really don’t completely understand it and know what the landscape is, so they are more curious and exploring, rather than converting.

AB: Right.
LS: That makes sense. Then the good news is that as people become more experienced users, that conversion

rate should go up significantly.

AB: In theory, yes. And I think also with the free proliferation of the third generation networks and Verizon’s saying that it will have its 4g Network out, too; I think the speed at which we are able to traverse the mobile space will aid in people’s ability to convert. So I, oftentimes, in sitting and waiting for the bus (which I do not actually take, but I always use that example) but someone, for example is waiting for the bus and that’s their downtime and that’s when they’re looking at the web on their mobile phone; an ad pops up and they click on it and the last thing they want to do is wait. So if it’s not a seamless experience like the one they’ve gotten accustom to online, I think people oftentimes people will simply abandon the effort.

LS: Yes, and you are absolutely right there. We have become spoiled with broadband on the internet, where you just click on something and instantly the page loads. Mobile is a little bit slower. Now you had mentioned the 4g Platform; I’m not familiar with that.

AB: It is the 4g right now. So AT&T and Verizon are both deploying their 3 g Networks. And Verizon has said that they’re forging ahead (I cannot remember off the top of my head when, but I believe they have said next year) with the 4th generation mobile network that would be deployed. So it will be online, it will be emailing; all the things that we do in front of our home computer’s, on our mobile phones, much quicker. I think that will also spur the adoption of mobile content and mobile marketing and advertising.

LS: I totally agree! I don’t see that any of these cell phone companies are suffering much from selling music and video. That seems to be a huge industry and that seem to be working out pretty well.

AB: Sure. I speak to people all the time, and in selling music, now Verizon has their new service where they actually did an experiment with Pearl Jam. Right after the show was done you could actually download the concert you just saw, which is so far ahead of where we were even a year ago. I thought that was the most amazing thing; you go to a concert and you want the bootleg, and maybe an hour after the concert’s done and you are driving home you can actually download that concert over your mobile phone. Pretty amazing!

LS: Yeah, talk about a call-to-action at exactly the right moment! I would imagine the conversion rate on that would be really high.

AB: Right and that opens up the ability for them to insert marketing messages and for marketers to be able to message consumers. So maybe they are giving that content away, but their content is ad-supported. I think that that is another way marketers will be able to insert themselves into the conversations that are going on in the mobilescape.

LS: And you mentioned ad-supported, too. And I just have to mention that comes up continuously throughout all the these interviews. It gets back to the old television; you can watch commercial television where they interrupt you every eight minutes with four minutes of commercials, or you can buy your way out of that by going to cable. At least that’s what they sold us.

AB: Right!

LS: And nowadays, it seems that the Freemium model has really become the standard business model in the industry; where you can get stuff for free, but you are going to be barraged by advertising. If you are willing to pay a little bit, then we’ll remove the advertising and you can have it branded by yourself or your own company.

AB: Right, I think the Freemium model is really the only model for start-ups, for start-up content companies. When I talk to anyone or I am consulting and speaking with people who are starting a new venture, I think you have to give people a little taste of the value that they will be getting; then let them gauge their ability to stomach all the advertising. Then you can up-sell them with their area’s services. And it is not just taking away the advertising, but their ability to up-sell certain services. So on my iPhone I downloaded Twitterlator for free, and it’s a great Twitter application, but I read that there were even more services on Twitterlator Pro and I think I paid maybe $5 for those services. It was a great model, I am very happy with that purchase, and I really enjoy the Freemium model because I was able to try it and use it and then upgrade.

LS: I totally agree and I like what you also said about the different stages. If you have a limited budget you can get in and tolerate the ads, but you can do pretty much everything for free. You can buy your way up through by first eliminating some advertising, then eliminating more advertising and then actually branding the website.

Ning had a great Freemium model where you can totally brand everything; the URL, the website, remove even the Ning logo; and you are still only looking at $33 a month. Even then it is still reasonable.

AB: Right, I think the Ning model is great and the viral loop, as they call it (I was reading one of the Founders and they were referring to the viral loop), has created so much traffic and so much usership around Ning that $33 a user adds up very quickly.

LS: Yes, when you have 500,000 users that’s not to shabby. (Laughter)

AB: Yes!
LS: Is Mobile Marketing/Mobile Advertising only for the Fortune 500’s, or could smaller companies consider

it?

AB: I would say at this point I really, I only see Fortune 500 brands using mobile marketing; many entertainment companies are using it. I really do not see any (I don’t want to say Mom & Pop’s) mid-sized companies using mobile marketing. I think that when I was at Morpheus Media, some of our smaller clients were experimenting with mobile-search via Google; but we weren’t doing a whole lot of mobile advertising because it was simply not cost-affective. Therefore, the CPN’s for a mobile banner are much greater than they are online, because there is simply not as much inventory and there is more demand.

Therefore, I think at this point, mobile advertising is largely Fortune 500. In terms of Mobile Marketing, it is a little more complex to get the short code; not that it is that expensive but that it takes a little more time and a little more knowhow. I think that we will begin to see services for advertisers (and I’m sure they are out there already) that allow smaller marketers to take advantage of XMS and QR codes. I know there are a number of companies right now that are working on this. There is a company by the name of Blog Me that does these QR, these 2D barcodes; Scan-by… there is a number of them out there. I think we are going to see smaller marketers or marketers with smaller budgets being able to take advantage of some of these newer technologies.

LS: So as the technology broadens a little bit, as we get into our 4th generation- faster downloads, the bar probably will be lowered from the Fortune 500, Fortune 1000, to eventually even medium-sized companies. What do you think?

AB: Yes, certainly. And I do not think we are really that far away. I think that it is going to take a shorter period of time, this time around. I say, “This time around” in reference to the web, and I am paralleling the onset of mobility and the web because I do not necessarily see them as virtually exclusive. I see the mobile web experience as an extension of the web at large. I think that it’s going to take a much shorter time for the cost of these things to come down, and smaller marketers being able to take advantage of it.

LS: Excellent! So basically, what you are saying is that, actually, 2009 is going to be the year of the mobile.

AB: Well, you know we really laugh about that one, The Year of the Mobile. I think that we are certainly going to experience a jolt in Mobile Marketing. I think that 2009 will certainly be more significant for mobile marketing than 2008. I don’t think there’s going to be a year of mobile, or any one period in time, when we are going to say, “This is it! This is Mobile Marketing.” I think it’s going to be iterative over the next couple of years.

LS: Of course, of course. Is there anything else that you would like to add to this conversation about mobile advertising, mobile marketing?

AB: Well, I think that it’s just a very exciting time. I often refer to the mobile device as our remote control for life, because it really has the ability to control everything. I control my Calendar, my Contacts; and quite literally, there is a program on the iPhone that can control my television set. So more and more, the mobile phone is becoming the centerpiece of everything that we do in our mediated lives. So that’s why I’m interested in this space, both professionally and also from an intellectual standpoint, and that is because it is moving so quickly and it is really changing the way human beings interact with one another. It is just absolutely fascinating!

LS: And speaking to that, just to close here, where can people find out more information, first of all about you. How do they get to your blog? And secondly, what are some of your favorite websites? Where can you send them so they can learn more about mobile technology?

AB: So my site is www.mediacirc.us, not mediacircus.com, and that’s where you can find more information on me and my company, Crayon. And it is www.crayonville.com. In terms of my go-to blog, there are a number of them. I certainly rely a lot on Read-Write Web, and while they are not specifically talking about mobile all the time, they do often touch upon mobile. There is text-crunches, mobile-crunch, there are a number of other resources that I can certainly share. Anyone who wants to share my OPML file and get some of the other mobile blogs that I read, feel free to shot me an email at adam@crayonville.com and I would be happy to share that file with you. You could see a more extensive list of some of the mobile blogs that I have in my RSS reader.

LS: Well, that’s really useful. Thank you very much for sharing that with our listeners.
I would really like to thank Adam Broitman for being here with us today and talk about Mobile Marketing,

Mobile Advertising, and Social Media.

This has been Lon Safko, the co-author of The Social Media Bible. Be sure to check out our other valuable Social Media tactics, tools, and strategies that can be found in The Social Media Bible book, or at its companion website, www.thesocialmediabible.com.

For more information about me, Lon Safko or to learn about how I can speak to your company, please go to over to my website at www.lonsafko.com.

And Adam, truly thank you for sharing that great stuff with us today. AB: Lon, it’s been a real pleasure!
LS: It was our pleasure, thank you.
AB: Allright, thanks so much, Lon.

Lon Safko

www.LonSafko.com

Bestselling Author & International Keynote Speaker

Tags: Lon Safko, Bestselling Author, International Keynote Speaker, Innovative thinking, innovation, creative thinking, The Social Media Bible, The Fusion Marketing Bible, founders, Matt Mullenweg, Gary V

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