Mobile Snippet: Nokia Vs. Google. Round XXXXXX

The battle for market share, and bragging rights, continues between Nokia and Google.

Google has already captured the great wide outdoors with its Street View fleet logging outdoor spaces for Maps. Naturally, they’re now looking at documenting indoor arenas. According to today’s reports, the popular app 6.0 version is set to hit the android market in the US and Japan, including retail and airport floor plans.

And so, Nokia has apparently begun furiously preparing it’s own version of the mobile behemoth’s indoor maps for wireless users. They plan to use Bluetooth 4.0 for the indoor navigation and location service, with hopes to entice a gaggle of partners to outfit retailers, malls and other public spaces with inexpensive antenna arrays to track a user’s movements via device-embedded Bluetooth tags. They also mention equipping large stores with tagged carts to track and study consumer behaviour.

We can’t help wondering if this game of one-up-man-ship isn’t getting a little tired, but as mobile enthusiasts, we can’t wait to see what they’ll come up with next!

Take peek at the proposed equipment here.

In the News

Just some of the people who think we’re pretty cool (thank you!).

Bloomberg

Market Wire

Yahoo! Finance

Canadian Business Opportunities

Euro Investor

Reports listed in a Venture Beat article this morning state that Cyber Monday is set to kick Black Friday’s butt in overall sales.

This year, the two made-up shopping holiday’s book-ending the US Thanksgiving weekend will once again likely post dramatically different numbers. Cyber Monday sales are estimated to hit 1.2 billion, with 122 million Americans expected to participate in the online shopping extravaganza. While Black Friday sales were up 26 per cent from last year, they still fell short of the billion mark. Shucks.

The mania continued this year as news reports of pepper spraying moms, and dads and kids coming to fist-a-cuffs over Xboxes, hit the airwaves. In spite of that, the shopping holiday raked in $816 million in sales. But, thanks to e- and m-commerce, Cyber Monday is still expected to be the reigning champion.

Shopping chaos can be avoided via e-commerce

The physical experience of “shopping” continues to morph into an entirely different beast as the amount of consumers using their smartphones to shop is expected to double, according to a recent survey by BigResearch.

Cyber Monday’s rising popularity is, of course, directly correlated to the increase in e-commerce and mobile shopping in general. Andrew Lipsman from ComScore points out that Cyber Monday was just the 12th-biggest online shopping day back in 2006, but it steadily rose throughout the years, reaching the No. 1 spot for the first time last year.

It was shop.org that dubbed the Monday online shopping extravaganza with the moniker “Cyber Monday” back in 2005. They used the term to identify the noticeable rise in online shopping sales the Monday after US Thanksgiving when it was suspected that consumers followed up with purchases they didn’t make over the weekend.

This isn’t actually that peculiar once you consider just how dramatically Cyber Monday’s mobile shopping has exploded in recent years. In fact, 3.6 million consumers used their phones to shop for deals in 2009, a number which is expected to triple to 17.8 million for 2011 and is double last year’s figures (7.3 million).

Do you have a Cyber Monday wish list? if so, will you be purchasing any or all of your must-haves via your mobile smartphone? Let us know on Twitter, @plasticmobile.

The buzz continued to circulate over the weekend about RIM’s future in the mobile space. Research In Motion Inc. is currently meeting with a stock price that values the company at less than the by and large regard of its assets. After myriad product delays and an international three-day service outage, RIM’s stock price has fallen more than 68% this year and was trading this morning at about $18.61 per share.

However, two weeks back an article in the Los Angeles Times suggested that, although the faster iPhones and Android devices have been raking in market share from Research in Motion’s once-addictive and adroitly nick-named “CrackBerry,” analysts and executives are not ready to count the smartphone out just yet.

Further commentary over the weekend seemed to imply the that upcoming BBX operating logic, which will run on a new line of RIM’s BlackBerry tablets and smartphones, might just be the company’s salvation, bringing a third contendor back into the current two-man race.

BBX Photo Leaked on The Verge

As reported today, “People reckon it’s a melting ice cube,” Leon Cooperman told  Bloomberg. ”We reckon the new operating logic is going to surprise people.” BBX, which is set to launch early next year, will enable apps built for Google’s Android operating logic to run on BlackBerry devices. The new line of BBX phones will also focus more on touchscreens and less on physical keyboards, which have been a hardware trademark of BlackBerry phones. Those fairly lacklustre items aside, we still know very little about the BBX. But that isn’t deterring Leon Cooperman, RIM investor and hedge-fund manager slash founder of Omega Advisors Inc., which bought a sizeable stake of about $28 million in RIM last quarter.

According to the Dow Jones Newswires, he also recently reported a purchase of 1.43 million shares in RIM in a regulatory filing, betting that the BlackBerry-maker’s new devices are attracting customers. “We bought (the shares) because we think (the stock) is undervalued, and we will be proven right or wrong in a few weeks when they report results,” Cooperman is quoted as saying in an article in businessmobilebriefing.com.

While we at Plastic Mobile love a tale of the underdog rising to acclaim, we’re not convinced we’d bet our beer money on the new BBX operating system.

Tweet us @plasticmobile with your verdict – will Cooperman and RIM be high on a much-needed success, or will they live to eat their BlackBerries?

We like a healthy yin and yang here at Plastic Mobile, so we wanted to follow up on our September blog post (slash mild rant) on the abuse and misuse of QR codes in marketing campaigns, with a look at how QR codes can be used effectively to bolster, and even lead, a good campaign.

In the previous post, we suggested three simple steps to approaching a QR code campaign that are both sensible and straightforward:

1. Review your objectives – why choose the path of the QR code?

2. Explore the possibilities – how will you present the QR codes?

3. Know your audience – who are you targeting?

These three points can help you get your strategy grounded so that you don’t make silly errors like the billboard campaign.

After establishing the groundwork, forecasting and then managing the outcome and analysis is just as important to consider and document. Our friends at Mashable.com picked up where we left off, developing five results-oriented “Steps for a Successful Code campaign.” They look at the burgeoning fad/phenom from the perspective of quality creating longevity and enhanced user experiences. Here are their five tips for success:

1. Define Your Purpose
2. Call on Your Customers
3. Design and Usability are Key
4. Measuring Scans
5. Social Metrics

With the above steps in mind, we look at the recent success of the Chili’s Grill & Bar QR code campaign in a quick scan vs. call to action review.

The popular North American restaurant chain launched their eighth annual Create-A-Pepper to Fight Childhood Cancer fundraising initiative. According to Mobile Commerce Daily, who reported on the event, the campaign raised more than $5 million in support of kids receiving lifesaving care at St. Jude. Children’s Research Hospital. For the first time Chili’s used QR codes to increase donations while raising awareness of the campaign. The codes appeared on colouring sheets and table tents created specifically for the effort. The result was 291,000 scans.

Chili’s Grill & Bar identified that the new trend in mobile technology offered a unique way to engage restaurant guests in the fundraiser. It also gave the restaurant the opportunity to relate to their tech-savvy audience while giving St. Jude supporters another, easily accessible way to donate to the charity.

Ultimately, the marketing gurus at Chili’s headquarters were able to use mobile codes to review, define, explore, engage and measure their charitable campaign with a great deal of success. Hats off to you, Chili’s!

While Plastic Mobile has known the title of this blog post to be true all along, it seems the general population is also warming to the sentiment. According to the October 28th Career Mashup survey results, the popularity of a tech career is on the rise! In fact, 47% of those who were previously unsure about a tech career are now interested. The same applies to 24% of those who were previously not interested in the tech industry. Meanwhile, CareerMash also takes credit for driving the interest of those who were already inclined towards a tech career up by 64%. Plastic Mobile attended the event to showcase our Joomo program, and we can attest that the energy was amazing and was seemingly able to lay the foundation for changing perceptions around ICT-related careers.

CCICT launched CareerMash.ca for high schoolers and influencers on September 15th of this year, with TechnoCompétences launching the complementary MaCarrieretechno.com shortly thereafter. Between the two programs, outreach in Ontario and Quebec has exceeded all expectations and the message is apparently resonating with students. Consider the following metrics:

• Students at Roy Thomson Hall event October 28: 1650 (target: 350)
• Today’s careers mash up tech with anything you imagine
• They come in 4 categories: leader (jobs have doubled in 10 years from 100,000 to 200,000), innovator, builder and problem solver
• Tech jobs are in demand (only 2.5% unemployment) and lucrative (25% pay over $85,000/year), with many opportunities for personal growth
• Young women can find fabulous and challenging careers in tech

The great news is that the CareerMash campaign now plans to live long for the next few years. Hurrah! Plastic Mobile is excited and in full support, and will be participating in this important initiative to raise Canada’s performance and competitiveness in the digital economy of the 21st century.

This week, Royal LePage launched an innovative new mobile website, created by Plastic Mobile, which promises to change the way that users engage in real estate.

Using advanced HTML 5 solutions, Plastic Mobile employed GPS technology to access real estate location-based services and identify nearby properties. With a Canada-wide, cross-platform property search, users can simply and conveniently find available properties for sale in their neighbourhood of choice. This full-service, full-profile mobile website enhances the user interactivity, taking the house-hunting experience to a ground breaking new level.

Using their mobile devices, users can now locate nearby Royal LePage offices, as well as neighbourhood interests and amenities including schools, banks, grocery stores, restaurants and cafes. Essentially, Plastic Mobile’s website solution allows users to find everything that is relevant to making a purchase or sale decision as they stroll through the neighbourhood.

Prospective purchasers can then share, forward, bookmark and even add notes to the listing right on the spot. In addition, the mobile website features helpful resources such as Walk Score or Yelp, to provide a neighbourhood’s walkability score, user ratings and reviews.

This new mobile website makes it possible for Royal LePage to meet the users demands for time-sensitive information and conveniences from service providers, making them a leader in the industry, and bringing real estate as a whole to the forefront of the mobile space.

Visit http://www.royallepage.ca/en/mobile/index.aspx to take a look at some of the mobile website’s highlights and features.