Mobile News & Articles

With smartphone sales booming, the latest research shows Samsung and Apple leaving the rest of the pack standing. A trend that could leave Microsoft and BlackBerry in the wilderness, before they even launch their next-generation products.

Let's play a game! I'll talk about three current trends that span business and technology and you try to guess what is at the heart of all of them. The first one who guesses wins a pat on the back and a deeper level of insight into how our litigious society is stifling both innovation and growth along with spurring a whole new industry.

A recent Adobe survey sees tablet Internet use overtaking smartphones by next year, with tablet-originated data usage running some ten times faster than that of phones. Will the tablet become the dominant form of web access, and what will the upcoming Olympics do to shake up viewing habits?

Consolidated cloud-services system stalwart Zoho has launched a website builder to go along with its suite of other tools for CRM, DAM and mobile apps. Zoho Sites is available now in the Google Apps Marketplace, and the two main levels are a free version, and a US$ 40 per year option for up to six websites.

Channel shift is a term ascribed to the business driver of moving transactions to the most effective and efficient channel of engagement, often the web. By serving customers in the medium that is convenient for them, businesses can create satisfying customer experiences while delivering savings for the enterprise.

This month we focus on the mobile customer experience. It's a topic that is discussed everywhere from the boardroom to the water cooler. While many organizations think mobile is a key channel for their online customer experience strategy, there are still a number of challenges that prevent them from being successful.

We want to know:

Our poll is open until May 29th, when we'll pull the results together and provide you with a look at the biggest challenges organizations face with their mobile strategies today. Vote now to help us get the process started.

While you are waiting for the results, check out some of our expert views on the topic of mobile customer experience.

iPad and even Android users have to wait on the new Google+ app update, but Apple iPhone users can get the free app now and the update seems to be a winner.

Social, mobile and cloud technology are each having an enormous impact on enterprise computing. But the technologies aren’t just having big effect independently: they are converging and providing organizations new opportunities to deliver information and services. With the many benefits also come challenges.

The Ponemon Institute has released the results of a global study into the risks presented by the use of mobile devices, which they define as including “laptops, USB drives, smartphones, and tablets.”

The term "cellular" may have gone out of fashion with the prevalence of smartphones, tablets, and various mobile data technologies. However, Apple is taking one step back in terms of branding and marketing, due to complaints over its "4G" moniker on its new iPad.

This article focuses on how corporate websites and web channels are being affected by various factors such as the ubiquitous presence of smartphones and the influence of social media. It also suggests possible actions CXOs can take to retain their customers and if possible, to also attract new customer segments. Finally, it points out the birth of a new sibling to web channels, namely, the mobile channel.

Creating great mobile experiences is our focus this month. While it's one of the most discussed topics for external web experience strategies, it's also something we need to consider for our employees and partners. To guide some of your thinking consider these discussions:

For the internal customer:

• The Dark Side of Mobile
• What is Really Driving Mobile in the Enterprise?

For the external customer:

• Why You Need a Mobile E-Commerce Strategy Now
• Mobile CXM: How to Leverage Mobile Solutions to Meet Customer Experience Expectations

Also this week, we checked out the new DAM Maturity Matrix and some cool vendors in content management and enterprise collaboration.

Most Popular

• SharePoint 15: 8 Things to Help You Prepare
• The Real Reason Why Intranets Aren't Working
• Facebook Acquires Glancee: Now Everywhere You Go, There's Someone You Sort of Know
• Gartner's Cool Social CRM Vendors Feed Information Into Business Processes
• Using SharePoint to Communicate Organizational Structure Effectively

Editor's Picks

• UX is Destroying the World! Will UX Come to the Rescue?
• The Dark Side of Mobile
• Plone Open Source CMS Project to Adopt HTML5, CSS3
• Gartner's Cool Vendors in Collaboration, Social Software: harmon.ie, MangoApps Listed
• Providing Exceptional Customer Service Through Social Media

Around the Web

• 3 Lenses For Innovation
• Social Business: Where It's Been & Where It's Going
• Three Things They Don’t Tell You About Community Management
• Social Business In The B2B Ecosystem
• Pinterest: Top 100 Digital Marketing Boards

Featured Events (all events | post your event)

• May 17 -- Web Experience Management Lunch Seminar in Boston
• May 30 -- (Webinar) How to Drive Innovation, Productivity with a Social Intranet
• Jun 03 -- Semantic Technology & Business Conference San Francisco
• Jun 18 -- Enterprise 2.0 Summit Boston
• Jun 26 -- Forrester's Customer Experience Forum New York

Featured Jobs (all jobs | post your job)

• Senior Digital Content Strategist in Virginia at Siteworx
• Director of Product Marketing in Palo Alto at Kapow Software
• Executive Editor -- Technology in San Francisco at IGN Entertainment
• Software Project Manager in Wisconsin at Widen
• IT Business Applications Analyst in Massachussetts at Autonomy

I have a confession: many of this week's features reminded me of Rockwell's 1984 hit "Somebody's Watching Me."

The anytime, anywhere access that our mobile devices provide our workplaces; social software that tracks our every move; the crumb trail that social data leaves: our experts explored the positives and the negatives of the digital, social and mobile world we live in. They also offered up some practical advice on how to encourage employees to adopt new technology (it's like riding a bike!) and proposed a new standard for brands and the products they represent to aspire to.

Intrigued? Read on.

Our relationship with technology is constantly evolving. From the emergence of computers as consumer devices to the growth of the Internet as an information resource and then as a channel for communication and interaction, we have a more personal relationship with technology than at any other point in human history. It might have seemed that Web 2.0 was final step in our personal technology transition, but then came mobile.

Apple's work on iOS 6.0 continues at speed, ahead of June's WWDC event with new snippets of information suggesting some big changes. Meanwhile those stories about the mini iPad refuse to die down.