Textopoly Mobile Blog » CTIA

CTIA in stacks

Naushad — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 18:56:51 +0000

The CTIA is an international nonprofit membership organization that represents the wireless communications industry. Membership in the association includes wireless carriers and their suppliers, as well as providers and manufacturers of wireless data services and products and everyone in between. CTIA organizes 2 wireless trade shows each year that everyone who does anything related to the word “mobile” attends. (If you want mobile antennas, find a Aggregator, see new mobile marketing technology or even need a new fuzzy cover for your blackberry, you attend the show!)

Over the years our team members have attended the show (Vegas one always rocks!) and each year, before the the upcoming show we get reminder pamphlets. This year the number of pamphlets for the Fall show just exploded and we thought it was hilarious that the wireless association who advocates the use of wireless would send out so much paper to us! Couldn’t they just send us a text message with a link to a mobile site for me to get info on the show and a way to register! Here are some fun snapshots of the stack we got in the mail last week!

Do you wish some of the paper you get in your mailbox would go mobile with an App or mobile site?

CTIA Round Up and Why does Everyone have an App Store?

Naushad — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 20:32:42 +0000

We’re back from CTIA and overall is was pretty meh….

What’s up with everyone having their own app store? iPhone has it’s iTunes App Store, Blackberry has App World, Nokia has Ovi, Erikson has an App Store, Windows has an App Store, and the list keeps on going. Just about everyone has their own app store today and the benefit of having all these stores is that you get to program for each one! If you want to build for the iPhone it needs to be in Objective C, Flash lite for Nokia’s Ovi, and Java for Blackberry’s App World.

Someone should set up a group like the MMA, but for mobile apps. Something like this would help make the industry more unified and organized, let alone cause less complaints among the end users and developers. The only people the current system is benefiting are the handset makers. The rest of us are getting the short end of the stick. Check out this interesting article from last June that I recently found – What if…Microsoft Had a Windows App Store? An interesting read about what if Microsoft in ‘95 was like Apple today.

Getting back to CTIA, Nokia’s Ovi store was not too impressive, plus how many people are rockin’ Nokia’s nowadays? They do have a pretty cool map feature, where you can overlay an application over their built in maps, but the graphics seemed dated.

Motorola Cliq – one word – ‘meh….’ This was the phone everyone was talking about, that’s probably because it was the only phone or tech that was being hawked. The UI was clunky, boring, and confusing. If you can’t figure it out instinctively, then you have a problem. You know what does really get me to dig on a phone? Dance Dance Revolution. Really Motorola? A little late to the game. Rock Band or Guitar Hero would’ve been a better option – no one wants to play DDR at your booth, give it up.

Overall, there wasn’t much new technology. Sure Microsoft released it’s Windows 6.5 Mobile, but that wasn’t very impressive either. Again, clunky with useless social networking integration that no one really needs. Who uses the Window’s Live Social Networking functionality anyways?

The other big thing that everyone one seems to be doing is geo-tagging one’s location and updating it through one social network or another. Whether it’s a propriety network or Facebook, they all have a ‘unique solution’ that let’s your friends know where you are at any given time. Maybe it’s just me and I’m an old fuddy-duddy (with a word like that I sure am), but I don’t want everyone to know where I am. What if I have some crazy stalker and they’re always wondering where I am? How much easier is it for them to find me know? No thanks! You can keep your geo-tagging, hopefully this is a fad that won’t take off.

Otherwise, I can be fairly confident in saying that the show seemed pretty thin. The floor was empty on Thursday and Friday and the offerings were slim pickings. What about you guys? See anything that impressed you?

CTIA – and it begins. .SMS vs. iPhone

Naushad — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 17:54:53 +0000

I’m on the train down to SD from OC as I write. I don’t know why more people don’t use this mode of transportation, it’s convenient, quick, comfortable and has power outlets for road warriors. Anyhow, I’m monitoring the various news feeds and short messages being flung around about the mobile convention (CTIA) this very second. The conference starts tomorrow, but the pre-show events are in full swing. (Anyone know what happened with the Verizon / Google teleconference this morning?)

The big sentiment from many who are attending the panel on mobile marketing and adverting is that the panel hates iPhone but loves SMS! I can’t wait to dig deeper into this and find out what’s really going on – come on train, move faster!

Many of us who have been in mobile for several years now understand the power of SMS and how it can be a driver to deeper engagements such as iPhone apps, WAP sites, Social Media sharing, etc. The power of SMS is in its simplicity and reach; unless you’re sportin’ a Motorola Star Tac from ‘99 your phone as the ability to send and receive SMS message! The reach with iPhone is much smaller of course, but the consumers ability to interact on a more meaningful level is high. The fun thing about SMS is that it’s a technically simple channel, but when injected with a high dose of creativity it can be very cool (yes, we can start the engine of a car via SMS!).

CTIA here I come!