Six unique benefits of mobile

Communities Dominate Brands has a great post on the power of mobile. With all the hype on the iphone, it's time for some strategic thinking on the real innovative power of the mobile medium for brands.

What YOU should do - is build a strategy for mobile - what is the POWER of the phone. Don't see the limitations of a small(ish) screen or small keypad. Think of the POWER of the mobile. As a Mass Media, mobile has six unique benefits, that are not able to be copied anywhere else:

1. Mobile is the first personal mass media (even the internet is only semi-personal).
2. It is the first always carried media.
3. It is the first always on mass media.
4. Mobile is the first mass media with a built-in payment channel.
5. It is the first media device available at the point of inspiration.
6. Mobile is the first mass media with near-perfect audience information. Not perfect, but as AMF Ventures reported, on TV you capture 1% of the audience data. On the internet, you capture 10% of audience data. But on mobile you capture 90% of audience data !

These unique features challenge us to try out new things. Not just copying stuff we already did on the web. Alan Moore gives some thought provoking examples in his post. One of them is Kamera Jiten, a mobile service that translates on the fly Japanese text into English from pictures you take. Another one is the UK service Flirtomatic.

http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2007/06/so-now-iphone-t.html