Live Blogging Mobile Monday NY

At Mobile Monday NY at the Samsung Experience
in the Time Warner Center, Columbus Circle. Okay, so there are too many
panelists on stage (seven white guys) that I can’t associate everything
said here to the right person. But I’ll at least try to cover it.

• Huge factor determining mobile web usage: low-priced unlimited data plans; once people have them, usage skyrockets
• Mobile search accounts for #1% of search volume of major engines even as mobile web users rival web users
• Taptu: How many search queries are for mobile-specific content?
  Content’s different on mobile. Lots of adult searches, reflecting early
  stages of mobile web, similar to early days of desktop internet. Lots
  of content search – entertainment. People are using mobile in social
  situations where the content’s relevant.
• Dean’s question from Amethon: What are you not getting out of
  Omniture you want to see from mobile? Dan from ESPN: Omniture will give
  you a whole lot of empty slots but won’t populate them. Our challenge:
  we want FRM – “fan relationship management.” We want to know what
  people are doing on all platforms. We want ‘this is what you did, what
  you care about, who you are.’ He wants to tell advertisers, here’s a
  guy who’s this demo, lives here, loves the Yankees.
• White guy #6: Issue: 500-1,000 web browsers – different screen
  sizes. ESPN can’t tell what % of clients are mobile, and if they can,
  what % support streaming video. ESPN: they actually can track it but
  had to build it.
• White Guy #5: location-based is huge differentiator from desktop to mobile
• WG #2: Google analytics has heavy pageload, tough for mobile pages
• These chairs… not the most comfortable… tempted to live blog
  this standing up. it’s egalitarian though – the speakers don’t have
  better chairs either
• Dean – Amethon (#7): Now 5% of handsets run javascript. In a few years it’ll be 95%.
• WG 6: As Omniture, others can integrate, some just want mobile analytics API, pulled from there into Omniture dashboard.
• WG 1: Uses carrier, device database for mobile-specific analytics.
  Centralized dashboard important. On ad front, lots of ad players now.
  For clients, they’re an ad aggregator. Based on eCPM, tries to find
  best ad service.
• WG 6: Google not transparent if you’re a publisher. Analytics
  issues carry over here for publishers, advertisers. Integrating
  networks and comparing performance is tough. People are blind right
  now. With ad networks, it’s very important.
• 8pm now, one hour in. A number of people took off.
• WG 7 – Amethon: Packet-sniffing technology. Only vendor at the
  moment. A positive – they see all the traffic. A negative: if you
  implement it, you need a dedicated server. Greg from Mobilytics uses
  Amazon (according to Dean).
• WG 6 – Greg: You need actual log files.
• Moderator: Bryson: How does Google’s mobile search compared to
  Taptu? Stephen from taptu: we’re only certain searches, content and
  entertainmentt. We measure # of clicks to get to good result. Our
  target: good result in 30 seconds or less. Now 35-37 seconds. For
  competitors, best competitor is 1:07, others approaching #3 minutes. But
  Taptu’s only entertainment, so easier job.
• Taptu: links less relevant on mobile web. They use different
  algorithm. Cross linking not prominent on mobile. Especially true for
  social-related searches. Taptu’s approach: looks at popularity of pages
  as measured by social scores. Take MySpace – ton of user-generated
  content. Popularity of artist page can be measured by artist profile
  views, popularity of song by measure of song. 10 artists on MySpace
  call themselves U2 (tribute bands, etc). Only one has the real U2’s
  social scores. That leads to more precise relevance, better performance
• WG 2: Not a big fan of voice driven search. Performance not great.
• Dean from Amethon (WG 7): Download Microsoft Tellme. Great
  quality. (Figures – doesn’t work on my Verizon Samsung, while he plugs
  it at the Samsung store).
• WG 3 (Adam, Bango): You could only promote via SMS 2 years ago. Now mobile search enabled wider audience.
• WG 3 (Bango): Carriers control most location-based info.
• ESPN: Instead of targeting location, can, say, target NYers by targeting Yankees box scores.
• WG 5: Wants opt-out mechanism for location based targeting.
  Amethon: Who cares? Most in this room don’t care. WG 6: Would you
  rather see relevant ad, or would you want a cosmetics ad when you’re
  watching the Yankees game? [Bonus of live-blogging – you capture all
  the sexism. WTG, Greg. But hey, we get the point.]
• WG 7 – Mobilytics: Percent of browsers supporting cookies: 3% Greg
  from Mobilytics: MUCH higher – 40%. All over the map. WG 2: 30-40% of
  browser sessions can take cookies – 3% is ludicrous. Nice, conflict!
• ESPN (WG #4): What % of browsers THAT MATTER support cookies? 90%+.
  Most of the mobile web apps now do assume some use of cookies.
• WG 2: 80% of browser traffic in 20% of browsers. I think I got that right.
• Where’s WG 1? Just happy to be there, I guess.
• My 3 kvetches: the chairs, lack of food (a 7-9 event and no food?
  what’s rationing coming to?), and internet cutting out every 10 minutes
  (though a big plus that samsung store has free, fast wifi)
• WG 1 must have heard me typing, finally spoke. Said something
  about the iPhone, which I missed. But also unusual that it’s a mobile
  panel and the iPhone was barely mentioned tonight. Yes, kids, there’s
  more to mobile than the iPhone.

On that note, we’ll wrap it up.

• Nevermind. Bryson’s asking more questions. Doesn’t he know I’m
  hungry? I hope my text got through to my wife to order dinner for me.
  I’m going to skip out, so check Bryson’s blog tomorrow for coverage to get his take, and to see what I missed when I went to get dinner.
• Okay, not much was missed. I held out for a few minutes and we’re finally wrapping to network and then go. Great panel all around. I hope you found the live blog useful.

Event Details:
Moderator:

• Bryson Meunier, Resolution Media

Panelists:

• Dean Collins, Amethon
• Joe Cuccinelli, Quattro Wireless
• Dan Mason, ESPN Mobile Web
• Adam Kerr, Bango
• Greg Harris, Mobilytics
• Stephen Ives, taptu
• Stan Wiechers, TigTags

Your Hosts:

• Lubna Dajani, Stratemerge
• David Harper, Winksite

When:
Monday, April 28 2008 at 7:00 PM (until 9:00 PM)