Standpunkt zum Artikel: Mobile Media // Apps und Augmented Reality
By Tomi T. Ahonen, Consultant and Author

Over the past two years, however, new and very exciting media formats have started to appear on our phones, in the form of applications and even augmented reality. It seems that every day we hear of yet another major media brand launching an ‘iPhone app’ which range from just copying their websites to very innovative media experiences. A good example is Britney Spears‘ fan club which allows fans to shoot their dance moves on the camera phone and then insert the dance moves into Britney‘s music video.

With augmented reality, ever more advanced media experiences are now becoming possible. The view in our phone can be more than what is physically possible, to be beyond reality.

There already are augmented reality games and services that will allow you to see monsters of every kind from little critters crawling into view, to giant Hollywood style monsters on the skyline of big cities, in the style of Godzilla eating up Tokyo. In the realm of advertising, Ikea has taken the idea on their iPhone app and allowed users to sample augmented reality versions of real Ikea furniture in their home, by viewing them through their iPhones. And new enttypes of services become possible, such as EZ My Styling out of Japan, which asks women to take a picture of their face with their camera phone, upload the picture to their website, and then sample different hair styles to see which haircut would look best. And these can then be shared with friends to ask their opinion before any hairdresser has cut one hair.

The mobile phone is a wonderful instrument and it can deliver magical experiences for us. And recently all major media brands have ‚discovered‘ the application for smartphones and seem to be in a race to create ever more amazing apps, in particular for the Apple iPhone. Here I have to inject some sanity to the situation. The total of all iPhones ever made is fifty million. Even if we add the iPod touch devices and the new iPads, the total cumulative shipments of any iPhone compatible device is about 80 million worldwide. That compares with 4,6 billion active subscribers of mobile phones of any kind.

For a media brand to obsess about smartphone applications means abandoning most of the addressable market. Because most of the mobile phone users are an accessible market for mobile media.

Not with apps, but using HTML websites and Java based applications – more than half of all mobile phones on the planet can view HTML pages and download Java apps. That means a reach of over two billion mobile phones in the world. Far wider reach is possible with SMS, MMS and WAP which reach almost everyone. For example in China all major newspapers offer headline news services via SMS and MMS, delivered twice a day. These paid premium news services are already used by forty percent of all newspaper readers. A far more wide-reaching audience is possible with the simpler mobile media than using apps or augmented reality. The world‘s total installed base of smartphones is only 450 million according to IDC and not all of those will download apps. But the active user base of nonmessaging data on mobile phones is 1,35 billion people according to Chetan Sharma Consulting. That’s three times as many as the installed base of all smartphones. Media brands would be smart to bear in mind what is in the pockets of most of their readers. It is not an iPhone for 95 percent of us.