Monthly Archives: March 2011

British Leisure Show launch apps to connect exhibitors & visitors

Welcome to the British Leisure Show who have launched there first apps to help promote their event and will be using Bluetooth location based broadcasting throughout the event to drive visitors to exhibitors stands.

By Diane Shawe

Click on the image below to Download the British Leisure Show Apps and find out more about the event.

This exciting, three day family friendly festival, provides entertainment and interaction for visitors of all ages. It’s packed with an exciting variety of things to SEE, TRY AND BUY, with the latest product models and accessories, competitions and demonstrations to watch and activities to try.

i-send will be holding a meeting designed to help business learn about apps and how it could help improve mobile marketing.

On of many events will be held throughout the year with the first one on the 10th March 2011 in London. Click to register

For a growing number of UK shoppers, the difference between off-line and on-line shopping will be no line at all.

What does this mean for retailers, sole traders, enterprise business and the retail sector?

Come join us at this free event when you will be able to listen, learn and ask.

With an inundation of new smart phone apps these hand held shopping tools are redefining the shopping experience and blurring the distinction between the in-store experience and the virtual world of information now available in the palm of your hand.

Advances in location-based technology, price-comparison apps, bar-code scanning apps and social-networking tools have turned the mobile device into a real-time third channel of commerce, empowering consumers while challenging retailers to rethink the way they do business.

The appetite for new apps seems voracious. A recent survey by comparison-shopping site PriceGrabber revealed that 36 percent of consumers plan to use their mobile phones for shopping-related activities this holiday season.

Around 4.2m of us in the UK are already using our mobiles to access the internet and browse retailer’s eCommerce sites.

This event will look at the pros of cons about introducing a apps into your business and all the pointers one should consider.  Specialist speaks will be available to give you golden nugget advise.

Introducing our Panellist Speakers

Andrew Lamont

Cllr Andrew Lamont ‘Access Champion for the Royal Borough of Kenisigton & Chelsea’

Topic:  Why Access & Apps go together

Partially sighted as a result of optic atrophy, Cllr Lamont is a seasoned campaigner on behalf of the blind and partially sighted. As a trustee of the charity BlindArt he has worked to remove barriers to the visual arts for all, inclusive of visually impaired people.

Andrew is currently the Access Consultant for i-send proximity and plays an important role in advising local authorities and Town Centre’s on managing the implimentation of Access.

Andrew is concerned about the new technolgy and feels that Apps and the new type of Smartphones should take into consideration access for over 2 million people throughout the UK

Diane Shawe

Diane Shawe Author of ‘How to Cyber kiss your business to Success’

Topic: Discovering the Pros & Cons for implementing Apps into your business

Project Director for i-send proximity, Diane has over 16 years experience in the Telecoms Fibre Optic and Microwave technology. Smartcard and internet audience measurement solutions.

Diane is often a guest speaker and training in business development and is currently working on several City and Town Centre Projects who want to build a PWAN Bluetooth Broadcasting Network.

The world of promoting your business has pivoted in a way that could leave a lot of  businesses behind if they don’t implement a structured apps program.

Jason Cobine

Jason Cobine Founder of  Beyond Networking runs a series of revolutionary, unique, branded workshop.

Topic: Apps & Profit and protecting infringed intellectual property rights.

Jason Cobine for the last 20 years have helped organisations around London with business insurance, indemnity insurance and reputation protection.

Jason has also helped businesses reduce the time and money spent finding new opportunities through business networking.

Jason is often a speaker and trainer at business related events and is going to shed some light on the protection of Intellectual property rights when using apps to promote your business.

Jason come’s highly recommended and will help you navigate yourself through this complex arena.

Abel Hussain Author Speaker

Abul Hussain Author of Grow your business with Internet Marketing

Topic:  Why SEO don’t work so for some businesses

A Managing Partner at the Middle Man Marketing Group,  Abul is an experienced marketing consultant, who consults with the marketing departments of many FTSE 100 companies.

His specialities include SEO, Pay Per Click Marketing, Social Media Marketing, amongst other marketing areas.

He often is a guest speaker at business association events and a guest author around the marketing blogosphere.

Abul will discuss the importance of implementing certain strategies to insure that localised and regionalised businesses can make better use of the SEO online strategy.

Jonathan Greensted

Jonathan Greensted Founder and CEO  of Sentient

Topic:Apps defining the shopping experience

Sentient has help many large organisations such as AstraZeneca, Virgin Holidays, Pfizer, Commerzbank, Microsoft, MCI and Centrica leverage IT to increase profits, optimise costs or increase their business agility.

Sentient’s innovation incubator has pioneered retail energy management (1995), web content management (1997), teleco billing (1999), social networking (2002), mobile software (2004), GPS tracking (2006) and Software + Services (2008).

He often is a guest speaker at business events.

Jonathan wil discuss the changing face of the retail business as the inundation of new smart phone apps enter the market.

US Wireless Data Market Grows 23 Per Cent Year-on-year

All I can say is WAKE-UP SME’s and start smelling the COFFEE!

by Diane Shawe

I-send was sent a recent post from the the analyst, Chetan Sharma, who released its US Mobile Data Market Update for Q4 2010 and 2011.

The report reveals that the US wireless data market grew 5 per cent quarter-on-quarter, and 23 per cent year-on-year, to reach $14.8bn (£9.1bn) in mobile data service revenues in Q4 2010. The final tally for the 2010 year was $55bn, which the analyst expects to increase by 22 per cent to $67bn in 2011.

US mobile subscriptions officially crossed the 100 per cent penetration mark in Q4 2010. The connected device category (including tablets, M2M, telematics, eReaders, etc.), registered the highest growth at 55 per cent, while postpaid subscriptions grew by only 3 per cent for the calendar year. Connected devices now account for 7 per cent of the installed base.

Smartphone shipments overtake computers
The report notes that 2010 marked the milestone of the start of a new computing and communications era. For the first time in the US, smartphone shipments exceeded the traditional computer segments (desktops, notebooks and netbooks). In 2011, the smartphone segment, along with connected devices will not only exceed the computer segment in unit shipment but more importantly, in overall revenues as well.

While connected devices ARPU is low, Chetan Sharma believes this segment will prove to be the most profitable in the coming years, due to higher margins. By the end of 2011, connected devices will be commanding double digit market share.

However, not all sub-segments are going to be successful in the operator channel, until multi-device data pricing plans are introduced. Most of the tablets and eReaders can work well with only wi-fi most of the time. Monthly data plans make sense for enterprise users but not for consumers who might use these devices occasionally. As such, the report says, tablets will be more successful in direct and traditional retail channels. Operators who start to bundle multiple devices by single data plans and data buckets are going to see a better yield in this category. Similarly, OEMs who rely on operators for sell-through of tablets/eReaders will see low volumes compared to players who have more diverse distribution channels, such as Apple and HP.

As previously noted by Chetan Sharma, the iPad and other tablets are making Netbooks irrelevant. In fact, tablets are starting to eat into the laptop category as well. As expected, the device has been a hit with many enterprises with mobile workers. Many enterprises are giving out iPads to their workforce instead of laptops or Netbooks. The analyst expects iPad to dominate the space in 2011 as competitors will find it hard to compete across all dimensions – price, performance, ecosystem, distribution, and brand power.

Data traffic more than doubles
Mobile data consumption continued to grow across all networks, increasing by 2-5 times on major US networks. While average data consumption in the US at the end of 2010 was 350 MB/month, many of the superphones introduced in the second half of 2010 are clocking 1-1.5GB/month on average. Thus, while data revenues for the year increased by 23 per cent, mobile data traffic grew by 132 per cent.

The significant rise in smartphone sales and usage in the US market – over 50 per cent of devices sold in the US in 2010 were smartphones, almost twice the global average – means that by the end of 2011, in the US, the smartphones will consume more data than data cards for the first time. Chetan Sharma also expects the US to become the number 1 nation in mobile data consumption this year, edging out Sweden.

The report notes also that the center of gravity of the mobile market has shifted back to the US, which is also the most dominant market in terms of revenue generation for the industry. While the US represents less than 6 per cent of the subscription base, it accounts for over 21 per cent of data revenues, with Verizon Wireless becoming the number one mobile data operator in 2010, edging past the decade-long leader, NTT DoCoMo. AT&T also went past China Mobile to gain its current number three ranking. By the end of 2013, the US market will account for 25 per cent of global mobile data services revenues.

Wake-up call
Chetan Sharma calls the Nokia-Microsoft announcement “a wake-up call to many in the industry who were in denial”, and praises Nokia for decisiveness, and for moving quickly under pressure. But it concludes that the impact on Nokia remains uncertain, saying: “While there were risks with Android, going with Win7 is not an assured path to resurrection either. It all comes down to execution…Nokia has significant talent and it’s a proud company, but jumping into the shark-infested cold waters miles away from the shore will require all the stamina, good weather, and skill it can muster to make landfall before thanksgiving”.

Looking ahead, the report notes that Android and iOS are completely dominating the developer and ecosystem mindshare, and says the race to become a viable third option is on, with operators keen to see another competitive force emerge in the market. Chetan Sharma will be discussing how the  industry is going to evolve in the next decade at its mobile thought leadership summit – Mobile Future Forward, in September.

I-send proximity is launching a series of workshop/expert forums to discuss the implementation and road mapping of apps into any type of business, visit http://www.i-send.co events page for more information.