TrueLocal takes a swipe at the Yellow Pages

I believe in the imminent death of that big fat phone book and it looks like the folks over at TrueLocal do as well. Not only do they believe in it, but they’re using it to take a massive swipe at their largest competitor.

Here are some great pieces from the site:

(Talking about Sydney) The number of people who use the Yellow Pages print directory less than once a month or don’t use it all has increased by 48% between 2002 and 2008.

Latest Yellow Pages Print Directory Attitudes Survey where 58% of Australian’s, if given the option, would choose not to have the Yellow Pages Print Directory delivered to their home (Core Data Research).

91.4% said they search the Internet when looking for a business.

77.5% of Australians use the YellowPages print directory less than once a month or not at all.

Whether those 77.5% of Australians are turning to TrueLocal or YellowPages online is another question. They may just be turning to Google/Google Maps or not searching for businesses at all.

I wonder how well this tactic is working for TrueLocal…

MEGA kickstart your mobile idea

The Mobile Enterprise Growth Alliance (MEGA) is going to hold an information night on July 9th. MEGA looks like a great opportunity for people looking to turn their idea into a business or just take their idea to the next level.

mega is a workshop lab that incubates ideas for mobile content and applications and associated platforms. Working with many of Australia’s leading mobile and digital commercial experts, ideas are developed through a series of industry-led workshops before being pitched to a panel of investors, telcos, broadcasters, and industry mentors.

Our simple goal is to grow the entrepreneurial and creative capability of Australia’s mobile, digital and cross-platform industries.

You can read more about the information evening or you can checkout the mega site itself.

Unfortunately, I’d love to be attend and undertake the MEGA course but I will be quite busy with infome. Going off and trying to create another mobile startup at this point doesn’t seem like such a good idea! =D

Develop Sidewalk.com for up to $1m in funding

Citysearch (part of IAC) wants to crowd source the development of Sidewalk.com. Citysearch wants to create “the next hot local guide app for Web and mobile” for the domain Sidewalk.com.

The winner will receive $10,000 with the possibility of developing and managing the new business venture with the possibility of up to $1 million in funding. There is also the possibility of a 10% equity stake in the venture.

You can apply and read more about the contest at Sidewalk.com.

You can read more about Citysearch and this contest:

• IAC Wants You to Build Sidewalk.com
• Sidewalk Being Revived by Citysearch
• Relevant links about Citysearch

Optus Happy Place – iPhone place for people in Sydney

Optus is having the “Optus Happy Place” for people to talk about their iPhone and the things they do with their iPhone. Given that I recently broke my collarbone I’m undecided as to whether I will go down yet, but I may pop my head in tomorrow.

Optus has announced it will be opening an inflatable pop-up venue –The Happy Place – where all Sydney-siders will be able to find out more about the new Apple iPhone 3.0 software.

Open to all and free of charge to the public, the venue will host a series of interactive, intimate ‘HAPPlication Sessions’ where a range of leading experts and celebrities will share their stories on how the device has enhanced their work and life since its iconic launch.

…

The Happy Place, located at First Fleet Park, will provide a wide range of speakers conducting up to eight sessions daily from Monday 22 – Thursday 25 June.

You can read more about it here.

Engagement is key to mobile advertising campaigns

Amethon Solutions has published a recent report looking at mobile advertising. The key insight from the report is that mobile advertising must focus on high quality engagement with the audience.

This means:

• Engaging in a mobile friendly form. Simply converting content from other digital media isn’t good enough. Mobile users need mobile friendly solutions. It could be that you only ask your user to enter one field rather than five because filling out forms on mobile is difficult.
• Engaging with a mobile relevant message. Mobile messages must be suited to when people access their mobiles like when they’re out and about. So, you should be short, sharp and, if possible, local.
• Engage with something special for your mobile user. If you really want to get someone to engage with your mobile campaign, offer them something special. M-Vouch is a great example of this.

There is much more that can be taken out of the report and a lot of useful information for mobile advertisers and advertisers looking to exploit mobile. You can get all of that information by heading over to Amethon’s Mobile Advertising – Beyond the Click Through page.

Thanks to Amethon Solutions CEO Michael Stone for sending that through.

3 Mobile customers finally get iPhone

The Vodafone Hutchison merger means that 3 customers can finally get iPhones.

“It’s very exciting to be introducing it to 3 customers for the first time,” VHA’s chief Nigel Dews said in a statement.

You caan read more about it here.

Australian Mobile Internet Statistics

BuzzCity has just launched a mobile advertising campaign planner. The campaign planner gives you access to some high level mobile internet statistics for countries around the world. There are some important take-aways from a quick skim over the data:

The iPhone is only one handset in a portfolio of handsets

The first statistic that really stands out is that iPhone users make up less than 1% of the mobile internet market in Australia. Therefore less than 200,000 Australian’s own an iPhone, given that almost 100% of the 20+ million Australians and some percentage less than that would actually use the mobile internet. What does this mean? It means that the iPhone should only form part of your mobile offering, along with all the other available handsets.

XHTML services have viability

BuzzCity says 22% of mobiles accessing the internet have an XHTML browser feature. This would imply about 4.4 million handsets with the ability to checkout standard XHTML websites.

XHTML browsing may only make up 22% of handsets accessing the internet but if you combine this with figures indicating that iPhone users consume much more data than other users then you could assume that XHTML mobile users consume more than non-XHTML mobile users. This might be because those users are more savvy, have better phones, or just have a better browsing experience because of richer data or a richer browser.

So, it would now seem viable to develop straight XHTML services to suit your mobile users which will make development easier.

Further Information

Where it starts to get interesting is mixing this data up and being able to drill down from all different angles at once. Unfortunately, the statistics BuzzCity provides are just broad at the stage, but they do serve as a great starting point for mobile internet usage. Something that needs to be done is to verify these statistics against statistics from others.

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Keep your users coming back

When you put in the time and effort to attract users to your site, service or business you need to have something in place to make sure they stay and that they keep coming back. You can’t just rely on your service being a cool service.

With pickmylunch.com.au we pushed strongly through relatively inexpensive media to really get some early, relevant traffic.  We’re seeing continuing use but not at the levels I’d like (I tend to aim high…). So we’re about to add features and mechanisms that keep users coming back.

You should take this as a reminder to yourself or just as a chance to ask, “what keeps my users and customers coming back and what could I do to increase that level of return?”

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Broken my (other) collarbone

I’ve managed to break my other collarbone playing football. At least now I am symmetrical!

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Most male role models are pathetic

In today’s society it is hard to find strong male role models in the public arena (like on TV). You really need to look to your own circles, or look to expand your circle to include strong male role models. I’m lucky to have come across quite a lot of strong male role models. For man to be a Man (note the capital M) this is very important. (Furthermore, it must be that for a woman to be a Woman she should look to strong female role models).

It’s a topic I’ll write more about, but for now I just wanted to share this from ‘Role models: pathetic geeky men in bad relationships‘:

Men on TV are the butt of most jokes when it comes to comedy about marriage. Think Homer Simpson, Jeff Bingham (Patrick Warburton’s character) from Rules of Engagement, Peter Griffith from the Family Guy and Ray (Ray Romano) from Everybody loves Raymond. The common link between these shows is that each man has married a strong, smart and successful women despite being completely inadequate and/or geeky; his pathetic behaviour has been rewarded.

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