Great stuff from Phil Barrett of Canada’s bStreet, who adovcates having both a mobile site AND a mobile app:

Five advantages to having an app
1. Allows brand to build a richer experience without affecting data speeds
2. App takes advantage of native phone features such as GPS, camera and voice
3. Features can work offline when consumer is not connected to mobile Web
4. Integrates with other services such as Facebook Connect
5. Can become an extension of brand attributes

Six advantages of having a mobile Web site
1. Mobile site can work on 100 percent of devices that have browsers
2. Experience can be optimized to highlight common denominator
3. Brands can publish when they want – no approval from manufacturer app store is necessary
4. IPhone and new BlackBerry, Palm and Android phones have same Safari open source app framework Web kit
5. Easier to drive to mobile Web versus drive to mobile apps from mobile advertising networks
6. Content from mobile Web is searchable and search-friendly

Ten tips for designing a mobile Web site
1. Define specific purpose for experiences
2. Make the most important information instantly findable
3. Ensure that there is relevance to users
4. Don’t try to create wired Web experience
5. Have intuitive navigation
6. Think about leverage location-based services and other social tools in overall experience
7. Avoid frames, Flash, heavy graphics and horizontal tool
8. Leverage free online tools to check for mobile readiness
9. Design for high common denominator
10. Optimize for creative excellence

From MobileMarketer.com.

I’m just upgrading now so I can’t really comment just yet…

It has been a crazy night trying to download the latest iPhone update, with many reporting that they are unable to access Apple’s servers due to unusually high traffic. But Apple’s servers are now up to scratch and everybody should have the 3.0 software update installed on theiriPhone and iPod Touch…

I’m thrilled to pieces that the supermarkets themselves are seeing the value of the mobile coupon, and even more excited that some of them are using tag-reading technology to implement.

 Unilever and ShopRite are conducting a program in conjunction with mobile marketing firm Samplesaint, Chicago.

In this initiative, consumers use their cell phones to select coupons with “rich images” for a range of Unilever products, and the coupons are scanned at the front end directly from shoppers’ phones. The on-phone scanning capability is what makes this experiment different. ShopRite is limiting the test to a single New Jersey store whose customers are relatively young and affluent professionals likely to have cell phones capable of texting and connecting to the Internet….

…How will we know if mobile marketing and couponing meets its promise? The rates of consumer sign-ups and usage will be key indicators.

Another important factor will be the ability of mobile coupons to support both supplier and retailer needs. The Unilever-ShopRite venture makes good progress on this front by offering not only coupons from the supplier, but also private label ones from the retailer.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Mobile couponing, in our opinion, is one of the most promising opportunities within the mobile channel. Redemption is an issue, as the infrastructure of many supermarkets may not be able to support it – those scanners can’t always read a mobile screen – but per this article, it may not affect all stores.

We’ll be looking for the results of these trials…

eMarketer Mobile Texting Opportunity

BrightKite puts the number of texters even higher, stating that 83% of the younger group and 85% of the elder were texting at the end of ‘08.

The table above shows that 65% of mobile users are texting overall. BrightKite raises that overall number to 68%, while Yankee Group estimates it’s as low as 45% and Scarborough Research places it at around 48%.

So…with everyone’s favorite target age group so actively engaged with their mobile devices….why are so many marketers slow to adopt mobile?

Train’s leaving the station. Get on board, people.

Read the eMarketer report.

…an average of 2,272 text messages per month in Q4 08, per Nielsen. 

(And that’s why parents of New Jersey are rejoicing that MetroPCS has entered the game.)

The work is by Jorge Columbo, who displays a gallery of his iSketches here. All works are for sale (and no, we don’t get a cut).

Mobile TV—that is, live TV on your cellphone—is still sorta “meh,” it’s fair to say. That’s why the news that the   2010 World Cup in South Africa is seen by some, including Nokia, as the event that will bring the technology to the forefront, is certainly welcome. After all, nothing attracts eyeballs quite like the World Cup—sort of in the same way that the 2006 World Cup in Germany was HDTV’s mass audience debut.

So…that gives you exactly ONE YEAR to get your mobile plans in order.

Though it may come as no surprise, mobile internet adoption and overall usage is still steadily increasing.  A survey conducted by PriceGrabber.com outlines some new trends in mobile Internet shopping and purchasing behaviors in its new “Consumer Behavior” report dubbed “Mobile Internet Shopping Trends.”

The online shopping portal conducted the survey in March which included 3,305 online consumers with mobile phones in the U.S.  The survey concluded that online consumers have made considerable progress in Web-enabled phone adoption and mobile Internet usage, especially in relation to shopping via mobile devices.

Survey: Mobile Internet Adoption Continues To Rise : Mobile Marketing Watch – The Pulse Of The Mobile Marketing Community.

And yet, according to Business Week (via ZDnet), the Apple app store generates that much revenue for Apple, which means that it could bring in $365 million this year.  

Oh, and did I mention the title of the article? Report: App Store to Generate $US 25B in Sales. Who knew SmartPhone apps could be recession-proof?

The bullish forecast is based on not only penetration of smart phones in the market, but the fact that the app stores haven’t seen a wide adoption yet. While the article states that 17% of smartphone users spent $100 or more on apps, there were far fewer smartphone users last year — and far fewer app stores (see my comments below). With the opening of app stores for both BlackBerry and Microsoft handsets, we should see a lot more purchases. 

And let’s also consider the number of available  apps. About 9 months ago, the app store opened with 500 apps. Now there are more than 30,000, (although growth appears to be slowing slightly). And downloads – free or paid – are on the rise:  more than 800 million applications were downloaded as of last month, and there was a 60% rise in downloads during February and March of this year. And that’s just in Apple’s app store.

To return to my previous point (yes, I actually had one) the opening of app stores for other platforms should encourage adoption of apps by the smartphone-wielding masses. Assuming the apps stores created by RIM and Microsoft provide a decent user experience and a good selection of apps, the $25 billion number seems almost attainable.

Of course, it will take users like me to decide what’s actually worth paying for.  Or paying more than $.99 for, anyway.

One pressing question that comes to my mind: Who’s going to build all those apps? 

Let me shout that to the team across from me: “Who’s going to build all those apps?”