The Official blog of Dark Matter, Inc.

Who will be the number two player in the smart phone category? Well, right now it looks like a three-way race. iPhone, with the lion’s share of the market (approx 50%) is by far the leader. But the real question is who will take the number two slot; and why? From what I can tell, you really have three contenders, each with an advantage and disadvantage.

Contender 1: Research in Motion.
These guys have been in the number two slot for quite some time, but the arrival of android and more robust enterprise applications could threaten their position.

Contender 2: Nokia
While not known for their smart phones, these guys are still the largest mobile manufacturer worldwide. They’ve got some early traction with their app store and also have a slew of new models due out throughout the next year. The fact that they are starting to deploy new models with Android will surely help them.

Contender 3: Motorola
Granted these guys have had a slew of bad luck, but the fact that they are running Android, the only true rival to the apple iPhone OS, makes them a contender. And as we’ve seen before, when it comes to technology, there’s always room for something new.

The rest of the players e.g. Palm, HTC, LG etc I really dont’t see making the cut. Sure they have some decent devices, but have all failed in acquiring a strong enough customer base to propel them much further.

Some 83% of U.S. consumers say their favorite brand has yet to market to them via their mobile phone, even though 37% say they would be interested in participating in a mobile customer loyalty program from a brand they trust, according to recent research by Hipcricket.

Despite this apparent lack of mobile marketing by ‘preferred’ brands, however, the firm’s second-annual mobile marketing study [pdf] did find that mobile campaigns are becoming more prevalent and memorable.

From econsultancy.com

Mothers of young children are a rapidly growing segment of the smartphone population, and considering how important the demographic is in household purchasing decisions, marketers should take note of how they’re using their phones and the mobile space generally.

According to mobile ad network Greystripe, “iPhone moms” (female iPhone owners with young children) use mobile media more than other iPhone users. But from previous studies, we know that moms also don’t take to iPhone ads. What’s a marketer to do?

For starters, consider utility when marketing in the space — and a specialized iPhone app.

Greystripe found that iPhone moms comprised 29.5% of the iPhone market in August. According to their most recent survey, 59% of iPhone moms say they let their children use their iPhone. And 41% of iPhone moms download apps for their children.

There are also plenty of obvious findings. Almost 90% of iPhone moms use their phones to listen to music, browse the Internet or use entertainment apps. 79.6% of iPhone moms surveyed use their phones for email. And the 64% of iPhone moms who use their phones to manage their calendar and schedule is 9% higher than the overall iPhone community.

What about their shopping habits? Close to 60% of iPhone moms use their phone to locate the nearest store around them, and 41.9% of moms use the iPhone to keep track of shopping lists. In addition, 39.4% use the iPhone for comparison shopping, 19% download coupons and 22.9% keep track of sale items.

Young mothers are a powerful purchasing source. But the problem arises from recent information that says female iPhone users are more likely to tune out mobile advertising.

Mobile-marketing shop Brand in Hand, recently found that in both trials and more than 60 mobile campaigns run over the past two years, female iPhone users are less interested in mobile advertising than females who use phones with conventional features.

Brand in Hand found that moms are task oriented and don’t spend time on their phones reading advertising. But they do spend time with applications. And according to AdMob, the “vast majority” of iPhone traffic occurs within applications — not the mobile web.

For many brands, the number of moms on the iPhone (only about 18% of women age 18-49 currently own a smartphone) lacks the scale to deploy a full fledged marketing strategy aimed in their direction, but it is a growing and engaged demographic. For the right brand, targeting iPhone moms could be very important. But with either a branded iPhone app or marketing on an app frequented by moms, success in the space is going to be all about brand relevance.

Nice to see that Yahoo gets this basic principal, unlike many other companies (eh hem Google) that don’t. Good article today from Sam Diaz, senior editor at ZDNet who talked to some of the higher-ups at Yahoo about their overall strategy. Full article here What’s good about Yahoo’s approach is that they have figured out two critical parts of good mobile experiences.

1. Mobile is meant to compliment the PC experience, not cannibalize it. Admittedly, I think that this only reflects the current state of mobile, as just about everything that is PC-based will become mobile based. But let’s go with this for now.

2. You have to start with the user in order to figure out their needs, then wrap technology around that. Not the other way around.

Christine Barry, Research Director at Aite Group LLC has some new learnings on the ways that banks and financial institutions are using mobile. While traditional lines of communications like email and print advertising are still the norm, some companies have adopted the use of newer mobile technologies to better their customer experience.

For example by using twitter, banks can alert customers as to the lengths of teller lines. Others have adopted Facebook as a way of informing many customers at once without relying on a slow to market email program. And apparently some are even beginning to experiment with “remote deposit capture” whereby a customer can take a snap shot of a check with their smart phone (made possible by a company called Mitek and then send that image to the bank via MMS. Christine also reports that small business’ will benefit from mobile by allowing small business owners to approve and monitor transactions via mobile device.