Tuesday 30 September 2014

The Mobile Browser Is Dead, Long Live The App

Tech 4/02/2014 @ 6:25AM 33,137 views http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2014/04/02/the-mobile-browser-is-dead-long-live-the-app/

The Mobile Browser Is Dead, Long Live The App

Analytics firm Flurry has published data on mobile usage by US consumers during Q1 2014. While users are spending more time on their devices (an average of 2 hours and 42 minutes per day, up four minutes on the same period last year), how they use that time has changed as well. Only 22 minutes per day are spent in the browser, with the balance of time focused on applications.

Looking at breakdown of that time, users are living in their smartphone’s applications. That gaming requires apps is a given, but almost every other area provides the user with a choice – go for an app to access the data or go to the web.

Users are turning away from the browser and relying on applications. Anyone who relies on reaching out to users should be paying attention to these numbers, and have a strategy to deal with the app issue.

Time Spent In Mobile Apps (image: Flurry.com)

It’s also an area that the disruptors in the mobile market should be paying attention to. New platforms that are putting an emphasis on the web and web based services will find themselves at a disadvantage both in presentation to users and in development by web services. if the focus is on building apps rather than mobile friendly HTML5 sites and services, then the advantages of choosing iOS and Android over another mobile platform are clear.

One of the goals of Firefox OS is to give developers a simple and cost-effective tool set that is readily available, without the need for app store support or complicated SDK’s. HTML5 is their chosen route. While the vision of being able to search online, run apps directly from the cloud, and essentially have ‘web pages as apps’ does lower the cost of entry for all, it is not as flexible as a pure app play, and as people move towards apps the environment on an Firefox OS powered device will become less attractive.

Jolla, with their Sailfish OS, is also looking at the web as a driver of apps and information on their platform. Speaking previously to co-founder Marc Dillon he explained Jolla’s view on apps vs the web to me:

Dillon believes in ‘the internet’ and a web-based approach, “but I understand the utility of having applications. But they contribute to a tunnel vision of what a smartphone can do. They provide a good user experience, but poor integration. A smartphone is smart if it helps users day to day.

Which is all very admirable, but the almost overwhelming viewpoint today is that information comes to a mobile user through applications. As Flurry’s details show, use of the mobile web is dropping. The methodology of Android and iOS is the dominant viewpoint.

Where a mobile web promotes access for everyone to everyone, the app model hands the gatekeepers the power of access and discovery, leaving the service providers beholden to their policies, their platform tools, and their rules, which can change with little notice.

If you follow the principle that you need to be where users are, then you need to be building and distributing apps, which leaves you no choice but to accept that Google and Apple will always be the third party in any relationship with your customers.

Stats That Every Business Should Know About Mobile

Mobile is the hottest thing around and is something that business owners simply can't ignore.

Mobile has beaten desktop.

This year, mobile Internet traffic exceeded desktop traffic. What has surprised people, however, is that
people continue to use mobile devices once they get home.

Mobile is growing fast, and continuously.

Traffic on the mobile web is growing at 3.5% each month!

Smartphone users are now in the majority

Most people who have a mobile device have a smartphone, which means that they have mobile Internet
access and are hungry for apps.

Mobile devices don't get left behind.

85% of people are never more than 2m away from their mobiles. If you want to meet consumers where they
are, a mobile device is the surest channel available to you.

Mobile is local

94% of smartphone owners are looking for local info on their mobile, and 70% of these searchers have
connected with a local business after a search.

Mobile leads to sales.

70% of the people searching on a mobile device will make a purchase soon. If your business has a mobile-
optimized website, you're probably going to generate more revenue.

Mobile is overlooked by business owners.

Sadly, less than 5% of business websites are mobile-optimized, let alone have an app to comm
unicate with
clients. If you want an easy way to pull ahead of the competition, mobile is it.

Nine key Take away points when considering developing an APP

Nine
Takeaways

Ingredients for a successful app. Know who you’re building your app for. Understand trends in app stores to get a sense of what’s popular with users.
App funding. Before building your app, consider all existing costs and anticipate as many future ones as possible. This will steer you towards the type of funding you’ll need.
Building your app. Users love quick-to-open apps with high quality graphics. But regardless of polish, beta test your app with a small group of people willing to give honest feedback.
Choose the right business model. Choosing the right business model is one of the most important aspects of creating an app. It should be fully considered before you begin development work, and it should be complementary to the design. Changing business models after your app is released can mean significant extra development work and ultimately lead to a poor user experience.
Maximize revenue with ad mediation. Ad mediation is an essential tool for many developers. It enables more than one ad network to show ads in your app, creating competition for your ad space, and increasing revenue in the process.
Marketing your app. Browsing app stores is the most common ways users discover new apps. So invest time in your app store listing with a crisp description, great images and a video. Then focus on driving viral downloads of your app by getting great reviews and ratings.
Design for global users. Many users choose to uninstall an app they like because it’s not well localized. Don’t skimp on localizing an app because you won’t retain users. Do a great job and your app can have far broader appeal and earn you more income.
Optimize for success. Analytics data for your app is useless unless it helps you to take action and improve what you’re doing. Start out by knowing what data is most valuable for you then choose an analytics package that can give you the insights you need.
Innovate. There’s no easy way to ensure each of your ideas is a hit. But thinking logically about capitalizing on your user base can help; if your users like your current set of apps it would be a gamble to offer them something that’s radically different.

Source:AdMob

What are the ingredients for a successful app?

INGREDIENTS FOR A SUCCESSFUL APP --SOURCE

Who's your audience?

Before building your app consider who your ideal user would be. Are you building a game for a certain demographic? Is it for people in a particular country or region, or do you want your app to have global appeal? Knowing your user before you build your app will help you make strategic decisions from the beginning. And it will make the design process easier because you’ll be building the app to a narrower criteria.

We spoke to Polish app developer Szymon Klimaszewski whose Blood Pressure app has become one of the most downloaded health apps from the Google Play Store. He set out to build a blood pressure monitoring app that was quick and easy to use. He expected the app to be popular with older users and this influenced his approach to design.

“When I thought about building it I knew I wanted an app that can be used quickly, in five seconds. I considered who the users would be and this led me to create a simple design that doesn’t have a lot of hidden features or buttons. For most people the app is very intuitive and quick to use.”

Do you know the market trends?Knowing what’s popular in the app stores is an important part of coming up with a winning concept. Of course, the idea here isn’t to mimic successful apps, but rather understand the overall direction of the market and consumers’ tastes. You don’t want to spend months building a gaming app with a style of play that users grew tired of a year ago. Free services such as App Annie provide insights into what’s trending in the app stores, with info on many app subcategories, and also top download charts by country. You’ll be able to tell the relative popularity of puzzle games vs. shoot ‘em ups, for example. At the end of the day, it’s easy to get seduced by your own ideas and build apps based on your likes and dislikes, but make sure it’s grounded in what people want.

Tuyen Nguyen, Mobile Developer Advocate at Google, stresses the importance of knowing the market:

Developers should identify what makes their idea unique, and ask themselves what problem they're trying to solve. By focusing on these two things, they'll be able to concentrate on delivering a quality app that provides value to their users.TUYEN NGUYENMobile Developer Advocate,Google

Does your app offer something new?

With millions of apps available it’s important to differentiate your app from the rest. That’s something you’ll think about a lot before building your app, and careful analysis of the market can help you find a niche.

Artavazd Mehrabyan is the founder of PicsArt, an app development company with a passion for photography. Their wildly successful PicsArt Photo Studio app is the most popular photo-editing app on Android with over a million ratings. He set out to build a feature-rich photo app unlike any other - and with that came risks.
“Our team was having a discussion about the lack of a good photo-editing app on mobile. There was the perception of mobile as a limited platform with limited capabilities. At the time, photo apps were fairly simple and were being created to solve one or two tasks. But we believed they would become more powerful in a short amount of time, and we started development on our photo app in 2011. By combining multiple tools into one single photo studio it was risky, because we were developing a bigger application that takes a longer time to download, and we never knew if users would accept it or not. But it offered users something new, and eventually led to tens of millions of downloads.”

Toni Fingerroos is the founder and CEO of Fingersoft, the company behind Hill Climb Racing, the globally popular racing game with more than 100 million downloads across all platforms. When he set out to create a racing game it was extremely important to him to build a brilliant user experience; he concentrated on refining the physics engine which controls how the vehicles move and respond.

“When we build apps our main focus is on gameplay. I realized something important as I went through the process of building Hill Climb Racing, I realized that everything should be kept simple. Everything started working much better from that point on. Keep it simple. To me, the fact that users like what you’ve made is key to the definition of a successful app.”

Aside from gameplay, making sure your app works flawlessly is important too. Untested and buggy apps just won’t cut it when users can uninstall apps and download an alternative in seconds. A well-honed user experience can be the difference between failure and success. AdMob research shows that 72% of US smartphone users believe an important characteristic of a good quality app is one which opens quickly, and 70% thought that ease of navigation was important to the overall app experience.^[7]

INTRODUCTION

Mobile device use is changing the way consumers shop for vehicles. Shoppers are researching vehicles
whenever and wherever they are, and arriving to dealer lots better informed than ever before.

To complicate the vehicle sale, consumers are using mobile devices while at the dealership to simultaneously shop competitive inventory, a practice commonly referred to as showrooming in other retail environments
where shoppers can competitively shop and buy online while in a brick and mortar retail outlet.

To better understand the impact of mobile adoption for automotive retailers, Cars.com partnered with
Placed Inc., the leader in location-driven insights and mobile ad intelligence. In this independent study
commissioned by Cars.com, Placed used its location based panel to survey shoppers who were visiting a
dealer lot, and to understand the role mobile devices played while shopping for a car.

The findings hold valuable insight for automotive
retailers, who must quickly adapt to rapid adoption of
smartphones as part of the car buying research journey,
especially on the lot.
SMARTPHONE ADOPTION IS DRIVING
CHANGES IN AUTOMOTIVE SHOPPING

HOW SMARTPHONE SHOPPING IS IMPACTING AUTOMOTIVE RETAILING

INTRODUCTION

Mobile device use is changing the way consumers shop for vehicles. Shoppers are researching vehicles
whenever and wherever they are, and arriving to dealer lots better informed than ever before.

To complicate the vehicle sale, consumers are using mobile devices while at the dealership to simultaneously shop competitive inventory, a practice commonly referred to as showrooming in other retail environments
where shoppers can competitively shop and buy online while in a brick and mortar retail outlet.

To better understand the impact of mobile adoption for automotive retailers, Cars.com partnered with
Placed Inc., the leader in location-driven insights and mobile ad intelligence. In this independent study
commissioned by Cars.com, Placed used its location based panel to survey shoppers who were visiting a
dealer lot, and to understand the role mobile devices played while shopping for a car.

The findings hold valuable insight for automotive retailers, who must quickly adapt to rapid adoption of
smartphones as part of the car buying research journey, especially on the lot.

SMARTPHONE ADOPTION IS DRIVING
CHANGES IN AUTOMOTIVE SHOPPING

Click here to go to the PDF Source

Mobile Apps Are Changing The Automotive And Cycle Industry

10:52 am March 11, 2014

Mobile app technology is changing industries faster than any time in history. Global cultures are becoming more mobile and have placed a value on anytime/anywhere access to information.

Industries are learning to embrace and adapt this transition and auto dealers that have embraced this technology are learning new methods of increasing sales as well as creating loyalty and customer retention. Let’s take a look at how this technology is being embraced by auto manufacturers and dealers, and how it is changing their relationship with their customers.

Automobiles are becoming platforms in themselves assisting drivers in numerous ways. It seems mobile apps have become the standard bridge between manufacturers and customers. The auto industry continues to embrace this trend more and more. Some of the big manufacturers like Ford (NYSE: $F) and General Motors (NYSE:$GM) are using mobile apps to market their automobiles.

Toyota (NYSE: $TM) started an aggressive campaign to build mobile apps in 2011. The company wanted to let consumers shop its 16 different types of vehicles with more than 130 different color options, and to find nearby dealers.

As companies were building these apps, early on they had to make a decision on which operating system to choose: Google‘s (NASDAQ: $GOOG) Android, Apple (NASDAQ: $AAPL) iOS, or some other operating systems. The pendulum for mobile apps is swinging towards multiplatform apps, which makes it even more adaptable for different types of phones in different countries.

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The use of smartphones is now being integrated into automobiles and it is estimated by Juniper Research that by 2016 there will be 92 million “Internet connected vehicles” on the road. The concept of the “intelligent car” is expected to generate revenues of about $14.4 billion by 2016.

The integration improves the driving experience; there are numerous pieces of information that the driver can access. Here are a number of samples that mobile apps allow drivers to access using their smartphones:

Weather and traffic alerts
Dealer locations
Navigation directions
Fuel consumption calculator
Roadside service information

These are just a few examples of some of the mobile apps that are available, but by no means exhaustive being built into newer model cars.

The development of mobile apps in the future could also make consumers more loyal to car models since brand specific mobile apps are being developed. The most successful car manufacturers will now be operating like high-tech companies, focusing on helping drivers have more of a compelling experience than just getting from one destination to another.

Because they are faster and easier to use, apps have a better track record of getting people closer to a dealership and have become a necessity for all dealers in today’s automotive market.

According to Flurry Analytics, owners of tablets and smart phones spend an average of 94 minutes a day on apps. This is more than people spend browsing the web, which proves that people access information from apps more than any other means.

The automotive dealer focused app “Driver Connect” has the average user spending 21 minutes on the app for each visit compared to five minutes on the dealer website. Twice as many pages are viewed by an app than they are on the dealer’s website.

If dealers want users to come back, the apps have to be useful and create a reason for it to be used on regular basis. The “Driver Connect” app has return visitors 75% of the time. The true power of any app comes from repeat service.

The latest version of this mobile app, Driver Connect 2.5 by DMEautomotive, is intended to drive sales as well as enhance retention and loyalty for auto dealers.

The idea is to provide “user friendly functionality” to enhance the customer experience without having to dig into the app like some competitive automotive apps have.

The customer can set up an account on the app and pull the customer’s vehicle information straight from the dealer’s DMS without having to type in a vehicle identification number scan. When customers are shopping for cars, dealers can put as much information on the app for cars that they’re selling.

There are many more services that the Driver Connect 2.5 app has that will allow consumers easy access along with regular use.

Not only is the automotive industry turning more and more to apps, but so is the cycle industry.

Specialty Mobile Apps, a subsidiary of Sparta Commercial Services (OTC: $SRCO), is developing mobile apps for the motorcycle industry.

Like automotive dealers, its app helps the user perform single or multiple related tasks on a mobile handheld device like a smartphone. It provides a framework where clients can easily utilize and manage interactive customized mobile applications.

We all know the culture is going from desktop to mobile, so the cycle industry will continue to grow.

Automotive and motorcycle dealers like Harley Davidson know that the future to reaching their customers is through mobile apps. Specialty Mobile Apps is the preeminent provider of custom mobile apps for Harley-Davidson dealerships. Presently, there are more than 100 Harley-Davidson dealerships that partner with the company, as well as other Powersports, RV, Marine and Auto dealers and other industries.

The big thing about the mobile app industry is management and customer service. There are a lot of “mom-and-pop” mobile apps companies popping up, but as they grow, they realize they cannot properly service the larger businesses. These small app shops don’t have the revenue, time, nor the manpower, to properly service clients and manage the whole mobile marketing experience. This starts to consume their time and they don’t have the ability to sell or build anymore and it drives them out of business.

The future of the industry is in the commitment to the customer to provide training support and long term technology dedication. This is one of the reasons Specialty Mobile Apps continues to grow and bring on clients.

This is where dealers should be, and will be investing in the future. Traditionally, we have had radio, newspaper ads, TV and industry magazines. Even a website cannot compare to the power of “instant connectivity” to customers.

Benefits to Embracing the Mobile App Technology

With this move in technology, this is where the car and cycle companies will benefit:

Increased Sales

Sales staff will be able to communicate with interested clients, showing them new models and products while they’re on the go. What the industry calls “door crasher deals” are promotions, which can also be sent via a mobile app, that are also time and date sensitive. QR codes can also be created and used linking manufacturer promotions for clients.

Customer Service & Retention

With the app, customers can easily connect with departments like parts, service, body shop or even sales if they need to while they’re on the go. It a driver’s vehicle breaks down, they can easily contact the dealer’s service department for help. Society continues to go mobile, and it is very important to have this access for the consumer.

New & Used Sales Inventory

Customers can have access to showcased vehicles 24 hours a day, seven days a week on their mobile apps without having to drive to the dealership. A “dealer inventory feed” will make all information, including pictures, available to customers instantly.

Bringing It Home

Mobile App technology allows consumers to travel and access information any time they like is transforming industries. Automobile manufacturers are adapting new methods of using mobile apps in the vehicles. Both automotive and motorcycle dealers are developing and using apps to help consumers access information for multiple uses instantly. The relationship between dealer and customer is becoming closer and more personal than ever before thanks to the mobile app movement.

Source: http://www.wallstplaybook.com/mobile-apps-changing-automotive-cycle-industry/

An Inside Look At The Starbucks App, The Most Successful Mobile Payments System In The US

While many mobile payment apps like Google Wallet have struggled to gain traction with consumers, the Starbucks mobile payments app stands out as a success.

At 6 million average weekly transactions in the U.S., it now accounts for a full 15% of transactions made at the U.S. Starbucks-operated stores.

In a new research note from BI Intelligence we take a deep dive into how the Starbucks app works, why it's so popular and whether other retailers could have success with a similar mobile payment model.

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Here are some of the key takeaways from the note.

A billion-dollar volume driver: The Starbucks app is on track to process over $1.5 billion in payment volume in the U.S. in 2014, according to our estimates. In the second quarter it accounted for 15% of the transactions in U.S. company-operated stores, averaging 6 million transactions per week.
Customer loyalty to Starbucks plays a role: Starbucks stores are everywhere, coffee is purchased habitually, the app incentivizes regular purchases through its rewards-loyalty program, and the app works on the majority of smartphones. The app's success is not due to the ease of payment with a phone. So it has succeeded despite the fact that it is not more convenient than credit or debit cards or cash.
Opportunities for growth: There are a number of features that could help reinvigorate growth including order-ahead capability and beacon-powered alerts and offers.
Other retailers could emulate Starbucks' success: These retailers include quick service restaurants, gas stations, grocery stores, and pharmacies. Starbucks has said it is in talks to license the app's technology as a white label solution.

In full, the research note:

Domino's Pizza's App takes community by Storm

DOMINO'S LAUNCHES WORLD FIRST

Written on the 7 July 2014 by Laura Daquino

DOMINO'S Pizza Enterprises (ASX: DMP) has launched Pizza Mogul, an app that could revolutionise retailing by literally putting the brand in the hands of consumers.

CEO and managing director Don Meij, the largest franchisee of the global brand, is further leveraging the ASX-200 company's digital advantage and going beyond etailing to position the brand as a 'metailer'.

DMP is delivering on its ‘People Powered Pizza’ mantra and giving itself wholeheartedly to its customers through the app, which is downloadable now on any smart device.

“This is about mobility, not just mobile – mobility being that the pizza store is accessible anywhere at any time to the consumer,” says Meij.

“The big thing is that nothing we are doing is based on novelty, instead it’s about enabling people, from the team members, to franchise owners, and customers.

“Homogenised products won’t cut it in the future – metailing is here to stay.”

ETAILING TO 'METAILING'

Pizza Mogul provides a platform for creativity, initiative, and the opportunity to build personal and social capital.
Consumers create their own pizza, brand it, and are given the opportunity to market it - even if this means handing out flyers outside a DMP franchise, says Meij.
It will grow DMP's menu to 1.4 million products large, possibly the biggest menu in the world.

The app essentially builds on Pizza Chef, a virtual pizza builder launched by DMP a couple of years ago, by enabling consumers to a greater extent through a social network. Meij cites popular social platforms Instagram and Snapchat as benchmarks for Pizza Mogul, but notes the advantage of its capital connotation.

The primary market sociable University-aged early adopters, who are pizza eaters, interested in innovation, and seeking out ways to make cash. An Australian University roadshow will even be kicking off next month to launch the app, potentially poaching innovative students along the way.

“One of our dreams is to have a young person using the app and making more money than their parents do for a living,” says Meij.

The monetary gain works on toppings, the customer able to gain back 25 cents to $4.50 every time Domino’s sells their creation, depending on the product range it falls under.

The best-selling Mogul pizza for the week also credits the creator $2500, the number two performing pizza scores $1500, number three $1000, and there will be a variety of other smaller monetary awards for creative merit.

According to Meij, the rates work out, considering it costs an estimated 25 cents to $2.50 for every customer the company brings on board through advertising.

“If you do something really cool in Mogul, we will pull it out, and advertise it through our own channels – it’s in our best interests to form a partnership with consumers,” says Meij.

“Today, Australia has approximately 520 Domino’s franchise owner-managers trying to sell pizza – tomorrow; we could have tens or hundreds of thousands of Domino’s Australia pizza entrepreneurs.”

It is metailing to the utmost, with it being completely up to these “pizza entrepreneurs” where they will take their initiative.

“The consumer chooses where to go with the initiative, making a little bit of cash, working on creations every day of the week to earn true Mogul credence, boosting a company’s voice, or driving a charitable campaign,” says Meij, who adds that a primary advantage of the app is giving consumers the ability to donate any percentage of their profits to a Pizza Mogul affiliated charity.

Pizza Mogul has launched with four charity affiliates, and the company has put the call out for others to come on board. Meij will personally donate 100 per cent of profits from his own Pizza Mogul creations to the Starlight Foundation.

THE EVOLUTION OF MOGUL

Meij says the app evolved from three seeds – the story behind the company’s product Spicy Island Pizza, the launch of its virtual pizza builder Pizza Chef, and a personal Facebook awakening.

“It’s often not a single thing that produces an idea, it’s a journey of things that intertwine and lead to the golden idea,” says Meij.

October 2011, a Facebook fan posted Spicy Island Pizza, to the Domino’s Australia Facebook page.

The team invited the creator to the Domino’s Love Lab – tried, tested and loved the recipe – paid the creator $1500 to brand the pizza Domino’s, and a revolution was thus born.

In less than a week, Spicy Island Pizza went to number eight on a menu which lists products that typically can’t break into the top ten most popular items without spending of dollars on advertising.

“The big insight for us was that customers like buying from customers,” says Meij.

A couple of years later, Pizza Chef was launched for iOS and Android, which led to the realisation that people not only liked the idea of metailing, but would also spend significantly more when metailing was an option.

“We found people would spend 25 to 30 per cent more on their order when using Pizza Chef,” says Meij.

“This is the Masterchef generation, and when you give people tools, it’s amazing what they will build for themselves.”

The last ingredient to form the base of Pizza Mogul was an awakening on Meij’s behalf which led to a separation of his public and private Facebook profiles.

He started giving his voice to the brand, through a two-way channel that is worlds apart from regulated releases and scripted talks.

“For a couple of thousand dollars, I can reach hundreds of thousands of people, while it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars for the same reach on television,” says Meij.

“It’s putting the hands completely into the hands of the consumers – it can rip you apart but it’s powerful.”

MOGUL'S FUTURE

Meij isn’t sure where the app will be down the track.

It is licensed to DMP and currently only available to Australian customers, but he isn’t ruling out its entering into other countries.

Meij says Mogul products could be added to the traditional menu on a profit basis.

He is aware the app exposes the brand to criticism, consumers able to develop and share any kind of creation using Domino’s branding. However, he has safeguarded against this with a round the clock social media team.

DMP is trading up 9.38 per cent today at $22.15 per share.

Source:http://www.brisbanebusinessnews.com.au/articles/domino-s-launches-world-first.html

Innovating Automotive retail

Automotive retail is changing fast around the world as disruptive new technologies enter the fray and customer expectations rise. McKinsey’s 2013 Retail Innovation Consumer Survey describes the forces driving these changes and offers advice to OEMs and dealers alike for coping in a more turbulent future.

Source: http://www.mckinsey.com/client_service/automotive_and_assembly

Download full report

World Bank report indicates that mobile technology

World Bank report indicates that mobile technology -- now in the hands of three-fourths of the world's population -- is creating economic growth opportunities on a historic scale.

More than any economic trend or program seen in modern times, mobile phones have become a force lifting many parts of the globe into a new realm of entrepreneurial opportunities.

That's the conclusion of a new report released by the World Bank and infoDev, its technology entrepreneurship and innovation program. Overall, the report states, about three-quarters of the world’s inhabitants now have access to a mobile phone and the mobile communications. The number of mobile subscriptions in use worldwide, both pre-paid and post-paid, has grown from fewer than 1 billion in 2000 to over 6 billion now, of which nearly 5 billion in developing countries. Ownership of multiple subscriptions is becoming increasingly common, suggesting that their number will soon exceed that of the human population.

But the big story isn't how many phones are out there -- rather, it's how they are being used, and the impact on societies. For example, there's the rise of the "app economy" -- the report observes that more than 30 billion mobile applications, or “apps,” were downloaded in 2011 – software that extends the capabilities of phones, for instance to become mobile wallets, navigational aids or price comparison tools.

"Mobiles can stimulate entrepreneurial activity, as the demand for mobile industry hubs and mobile incubators has shown, and it can create many more opportunities for self-employment, part-time work, and flexwork. In a mobile-driven economy, second and third jobs will become much more common—and much more important."

In the United States alone, the mobile app industry provided an estimated 466,000 jobs in 2011 with annual growth rates of up to 45 percent from 2010 to 2011. Mobile money applications have also proved to be net generators of jobs. For example, Safaricom’s M-PESA system supports 23,000 jobs for agents in Kenya alone. Airtel Kenya, the second-biggest mobile operator, plans to recruit some 25,000 agents for its mobile money service, Airtel Money.

The report observes that the global mobile industry is today a major source of employment opportunities, through direct jobs, indirect jobs, and jobs on the demand side.

In developing countries, citizens are increasingly using mobile phones to create new livelihoods and enhance their lifestyles, while governments are using them to improve service delivery and citizen feedback mechanisms. As the report puts it: "in some developing countries, more people have access to a mobile phone than to a bank account, electricity, or even clean water." Mobile communications "offer major opportunities to advance human and economic development – from providing basic access to health information to making cash payments, spurring job creation, and stimulating citizen involvement in democratic processes," says World Bank Vice President for Sustainable Development Rachel Kyte.

The World Bank report cites examples, such India's state of Kerala’s mGovernment program, which has deployed more than 20 applications and facilitated more than three million interactions between the government and citizens since its launch in December 2010. Kenya has emerged as a leading player in mobile for development, largely due to the success of the M-PESA mobile payment ecosystem. Nairobi-based AkiraChix, for example, provides networking and training for women technologists.

The report also highlights how mobile innovation labs – shared spaces for training developers and incubating start-ups – can help bring new apps to market. For instance, infoDev, in collaboration with the Government of Finland and Nokia, has established five regional mobile innovation labs (mLabs) in Armenia, Kenya, Pakistan, South Africa, and Vietnam. infoDev is also using mobile social networking to bring grassroots entrepreneurs together with other stakeholders in mobile hubs (mHubs).

There's an irony here as well: "The simple cell phone has probably done more to reduce poverty globally and promote economic growth around the planet than all of the efforts of the World Bank," commentsUniversity of Michigan economist Mark Perry.

Valerie D’Costa, Program Manager of infoDev, sees a parallel to the growth of the 1980s tech sector:

“Most businesses based around mobile app technology are at an early stage of development, but may hold enormous employment and economic potential, similar to that of the software industry in the 1980s and 1990s. Supporting the networking and incubation of entrepreneurs is essential to ensure that such potential is tapped."

Collaboration is also being enhanced, and opened up, thanks to mobile technology. "In today’s open innovation model, partners, customers, researchers, and even competitors are finding new ways to collaborate in the product development process," the report states.

The report also notes that in the developed world, "mobile communications have added value to legacy communication systems and have supplemented and expanded existing information flows." However, in the developing world, "new mobile applications that are designed locally and rooted in the realities of the developing world will be much better suited to addressing development challenges than applications transplanted from elsewhere. In particular, locally developed applications can address developing-country concerns such as digital literacy and affordability."

The report sums it up nicely with this observation:

"Mobile applications not only empower individual users, they enrich their lifestyles and livelihoods, and boost the economy as a whole. Indeed, mobile applications now make phones immensely powerful as portals to the online world. A new wave of 'apps,' or smartphone applications, and 'mashups' of services, driven by high-speed networks, social networking, online crowdsourcing, and innovation, is helping mobile phones transform the lives of people in developed and developing countries alike. The report finds that mobile applications not only empower individuals but have important cascade effects stimulating growth, entrepreneurship, and productivity throughout the economy as a whole. Mobile communications promise to do more than just give the developing world a voice. By unlocking the genie in the phone, they empower people to make their own choices and decisions."

Mobile phones have truly become the lever which lifts the world.

Source:http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/business-brains/mobile-phones-creating-entrepreneurial-culture-across-globe-report/

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