Facebook finally files to go public: did we ever have any doubt?

We all new the day would come, though no one was ever able to predict when. But, it seems Mark Zuckerberg finally got tired of everyone speculating about the value of the Book, and decided to put a price tag on it himself: $5 billion! Not too shabby.

The new speculation, of course, is does that dollar figure over-value the social networking phenomenon, or will it follow the path of the Google’s before it and prove everyone that Zuckerberg and team were actually airing on the side of conservative? Only time will tell!

The decision to go public may have been prompted by the expectation that Facebook will probably hit its 1 billionth users this year, and that they turned a tidy profit of $1 billion last year. Another very interesting fact to come of the filing for an IPO, is that about 80% of the Facebook fan fare is based outside of North America. Weird? We at Plastic Mobile were positively baffled by this stat, since no one we know isn’t sharing, posting and chatting on Facebook – except for one guy. But, he still uses Explorer as his web browser.

One final tid bit of interest we read in PCWorld stated Zuckerberg is not only chairman and CEO, but he has also included a clause to allow him to name his successor if he is still the company’s controller upon his death: “In the event that Mr. Zuckerberg controls our company at the time of his death,” Facebook’s S-1 filing says. “Control may be transferred to a person or entity that he designates as his successor.” Reports from The New York Post and Bloomberg Businessweek suggested that analysts found this mighty strange, but one thing is for certain; Mark Zuckerberg is, and will remain, Facebook’s reigning king.

We’re standing by to learn more about the over-under value debate and to see where this major moves takes the world of Zuckerberg, err, Facebook.

Two days, 3,469 Canadian Marketers and one remarkable event. That was this year’s Dx3. On January 25 and 26, the Toronto Metro Convention Centre was filled with tonnes of engaging conversations around Canada’s digital advertising, marketing and retail landscape.

Plastic Mobile was very proud to be a participant in the inaugural forum for Canadian digital innovation.

For me, some of the highlights included, Visa’s touchless payment transaction ice cream exhibit, which not only kept my team full of delicious ice cream, but also demonstrated to attendees the future of NFCs. Visa’s Derek Colfer gave a session on the future of NFC in the Canadian mobile industry, saying that it’s still going to take awhile for things to get going. He cautioned his audience to consider that it took nearly a decade to get the credit card chip and PIN rolled out in Canada, so we shouldn’t expect to see mobile payments rolling out in 2012. Nevertheless, the Visa booth allowed visitors to practice using NFC technology to get some ice cream. Pretty awesome.

Also, Doug Stephens, President of Retail Prophet Consulting, and Candice Faktor of ShopCatch began the second day of Dx3 with an interesting keynote on the retail space. Stephens was a man of the future, looking ahead into retail 20 years from now, whereas Faktor focused on present-day retail. Both speakers concurred that mobile has shaken up the retail industry unlike anything ever before seen.

Another exciting event was the startup “pitch-off” at the Intertainment Media Incubation Zone. Five contestants were given five minutes each to pitch their plan. The winner was the Toronto-based startup, Stylsize, who showcased their very cool online retail mobile solution with its advanced apparel-fitting technology.

Two interesting mobile-related myths that were actively debunked at the show were about group buying and broadcasting apps. There was a charge to make attendees better understand that the emphasis for group buying is not about “will I make a profit?”, rather customer acquisition. And that broadcasters are missing the mark by creating apps that just copy their TV experiences without adding value and making them “Mobile friendly.”

And of course Plastic Mobile was there, bringing the mobile-retail relationship to life with our interactive candy shop, which was the talk of the Dx3 highlight list.

After such a great forum this year, we can’t wait to see what’s in store for 2013.

This week RIM announced that CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis will step down from their positions, though they will maintain majority of their shares and stay on as board members.

Thorsten Heins will take on the daunting role as RIM’s new CEO. In spite of seriously declining share prices, Heins has signalled that he will largely stay the course set by Balsillie and Lazaridis.

In a Star interview, Heins notes that RIM is still a solid financial performer and that it is the number one smartphone in many countries outside of the US. He goes on to say the their problem isn’t technology, it is in their communications and that is where they need to focus their efforts. “The perception just doesn’t match the reality,” Heins told the Star. “We’ve got $1.5 billion in the bank, and virtually no debt. We’ve also got a 75 million subscriber base.”

Regardless of this assurance, shares dropped even further after the announcement of the RIM pioneers’ resignation. Ugh. Sorry RIM, we can’t help but think the future looks grim.

What do you think? Will Heins be able to pull RIM out of its US despair? Tweet us with your thoughts @plasticmobile.

…as well as about 750 other execs, media personnel and tech enthusiasts, but, whatever.

At 7:30 this morning, this odd pastiche of professionals piled into the SONY Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto, ON, to hear Duncan Stewart, Director of Technology, Media and Telecommunications, entertain and educate about Deloitt’e annual #TMTPredictions.

The tech arm of the professional services giant put together some very interesting facts and advice on what’s in store for our evolving industry in 2012. Among the most interesting prophecies were:

• continued growth of the ever-surprising TV
• the advent of data caps in many leading countries (i.e. the death of unlimited ISP deals. Le sigh.)
• the metamorphosis of our smartphones and tablets to “little PVRs”; and
• the immediate future of NFCs (hint: it’s not what you think).

One mobile prediction that really stood out was the hypothesis that the purchase of tablets would continue to increase, but that it would be less by new buyers and more concentrated by a secondary tablet in the home – apparently we’re not very good at sharing with our families.

Likewise, while the creation of apps continues to surge, Duncan Stewart pointed out that a great number of them are not unique - meaning that, while a number of new apps are being developed, so are existing apps being expanded to cover other operating systems. So, an app that was made last year for iOS, may this year be added to the Android and Microsoft markets.

According to Duncan Stewart, developing a mandate (like we have here at Plastic, not to brag, but we’re just saying) to develop cross-platform apps as often as possible, or as often as makes sense for our partners, will be crucial to increasing efficiencies in the future, and staying competitive in the mobile game.

The Plastic Mobile elves are working hard to create a real treat for anyone attending Dx3′s showroom floor. The Plastic Mobile booth is shaping up to be a one-stop-shop for a peak into how mobile really works – more specifically, how it can work for brands in the rapidly evolving world of commerce.

While we are certainly not about to divulge our top-secret booth plan (that’s classified intel), we are happy to give you a little something to nibble on while you wait in bated-breath suspense for January 25th and 26th to arrive so you can burst through the doors of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre and hurry to see what Plastic’s got in store. The tidbit? Don’t sugar coat your mobile initiatives – quality is key to ensuring the best user experience and repeat usage. Stay tuned for more info on Plastic’s presence at Dx3. Are you getting excited? Tweet us @plasticmobile and tell us what you’re most looking forward to.

Also, take advantage of our exclusive Plastic Mobile Dx3 giveaway!

Mobile has been under the thumb of skeptics ever since it arrived on the scene. It’s been a long time coming, but we think Mobile Marketing is finally being taking seriously. Consider these top three examples that support our hypothesis:

1. Brands bringing mobile in house – According to an article in Mobile Marketer, Walmart and e-bay, are following in Amazon’s footsteps and bringing their mobile markting development and management in house. This major move indicates they are ready to take the mobile space seriously: “These acquisitions are a welcome validation that competent mobile executions are critical to a healthy marketing program, and that expertise is in short supply,” said Brennan Hayden, vice president of WDA, East Lansing, MI.

While other big-name brands, like Lexus, who are outsourcing to agencies are still doing it right, these stores are being super-savvy in preventing their competitors from using the same tools. This bodes well for the future of mobile, but has the potential to be bad for business. Thankfully, we know that our quality work validates itself.

2. Brands that aren’t, are going down – Those big names that are not taking steps to incorporate mobile into their marketing plans seem to be feeling the effects of their negligence. For instance, we recently blogged about how e- and m-commerce were partially to blame for the demise of a number of Sears and K-Mart stores after grimm holiday figures.

Furthermore, in 2008, Kate Spade New York was a strugglin,’ but, when Craig Leavitt came on board as CEO, he woke up a sleeping giant and changed its outlook on online marketing. The result? Kate Spade is now one of the strongest brands supporting m- and e-commerce.

3. Facebook hearts mobile – The social networking behemoth was one of the first companies to jump on board the mobile train. They continue to bolster their mobile platform at ever chance they get, and are careful to always listen to their users. Thus, Facebook recently announced a new Comments Box plugin for mobile websites – a feature in high demand by business owners and website proprietors. The new plugin will make it simpler for websites to engage consumers regardless of where they are. Essentially, if the Book is doing it, you probably should be too.

There are countless other examples of how Mobile Marketing has finally grabbed everyone’s attention, but the bottom line is, if you’re not going mobile, you really should be. What do you think? Is it mobile’s time to shine?

As we sat amongst our hacks/hackers peers and colleagues from the publishing world, we were giddy with anticipation to do a live demo our new platform Joomo. Joomo is an automated platform that enables anyone to create high-quality custom native mobile applications across all mobile devices. With a web-based studio you can create, edit, track and customize every aspect of your app, all for free.

When our host, Phillip Smith, told the audience that Plastic Mobile is going to build an application in the duration of our 8 minute presentation time slot, there were many skeptical faces in the crowd. Now I’m not going to toot the Joomo horn, and write about how unbelievably easy to use it is, or the incredibly engaging user experience, or how it’s simply visually stunning. And I’m certainly not going to get into the whole native back end discussion and the genius behind that, rather I’m just going to let you witness how Melody and Sep delivered as promised, and built an app for ’29 Secrets’ in approximately 5 minutes.

Warning: The quality of the video is not Oscar-worthy, but then again that’s usually how it is when something rare and awesome happens and we spontaneously try to capture it. Think of UFO videos-never great.

April 4, 2011 — Pizza Pizza and Plastic Mobile Delivered a One of a Kind Pizza Ordering iPhone App.

Plastic Mobile has joined Pizza Pizza, Canada’s leading pizza chain, as their mobile agency to help build and launch an iPhone application to make ordering and delivering pizza both convenient and fast. This free app is available for all iPhone models, the iPod Touch, and the iPad. The app will let users build the pizza of their dreams; a half order of ham & pineapple and the other half Italian sausage, extra mushrooms, no cheese, and easy on the sauce? Looking to order a gluten-free pizza? Pay through your application or when it arrives. It all can be done with the Pizza Pizza iPhone App.

This innovative application will fundamentally change the ordering experience, making it fast, visual and convenient for the customer. By using location-based services (LBS) to locate the nearest Pizza Pizza restaurant, as well as allowing users to simply pay within the application, the app provides a seamless experience.

The application, delivered by Pizza Pizza and Plastic Mobile, can be downloaded from the App Store on iTunes. For more information on this app visit http://www.pizzapizza.ca/mobile.

Check out our news release here.

It started out as rumors yesterday and before the day has even come to an end I am seeing “almost” official news that says the iPhone will soon be available on Bell and Telus.

It has been a known fact that both Bell and Telus have been advancing their 3G technology but the news that they will be ready earlier than anticipated is definitely a surprise to many.   My personal opinion is that both companies have seen what the iPhone has done for Rogers and the Canadian mobile industry as a whole and they knew that they had to get there fast.   This says a lot about Bell and Telus and their ability to speed through innovation when it seems necessary but it says more for Apple as a company that creates markets.   Apple is not a company that tries to gain market share, they are a company that creates their own markets and then enjoys the fruits of its work.  Congratulations to Apple for single-handedly developing a market for mobile data consumption.