How to Create a Mobile Content Marketing Strategy

When was the last time your checked your mobile device? Ten seconds ago? A minute? An hour? (Wow, you have strong willpower.) Whatever the case, you know that mobile is already a significant influence in our lives. For businesses, it’s fast becoming a necessity for content marketing: 57 percent of mobile users wouldn’t recommend a business with a poorly-designed mobile website.

However, creating an effective mobile content strategy involves more than repurposing desktop content to fit on a smaller screen. The magic formula, according to MobileMixed podcast host Greg Hickman, involves a restructuring of control between businesses and customers.

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8 Ways Tech Has Completely Rewired Our Brains

Technology has altered human physiology. It makes us think differently, feel differently, even dream differently. It affects our memory, attention spans and sleep cycles. This is attributed to a scientific phenomenon known as neuroplasticity, or the brain's ability to alter its behavior based on new experiences. In this case, that's the wealth of information offered by the Internet and interactive technologies.

Some cognition experts have praised the effects of tech on the brain, lauding its ability to organize our lives and free our minds for deeper thinking. Others fear tech has crippled our attention spans and made us uncreative and impatient when it comes to anything analog.

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Tribune Puts Customized News Right in Your Ear

The Tribune Company has launched an app that allows the user to read or listen to news articles. The app has an emphasis on customization including story length and areas of interest. 

Users can customize the selections by media outlet, topic and keyword, and the app will then generate a playlist of stories that you can either read or listen to.

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As Desktop Declines, Mobile Search Boosts Google Revenue

Google’s revenue from search ads on U.S. computers fell for the first time last year and will decline another 7% this year, according to a new report, but overall U.S. advertising revenue will continue to rise due to the rapid growth of the mobile ad market.

The report by research firm eMarketer underscores how dramatically the rise of smartphones and tablets is reshaping Google’s business.

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Three Ideas Wearable Designers Should Steal From This Smart Medical Device

Designers often talk about doing good, but Artefact actually backs it up.

In between crafting elegant set top boxes and mobile UIs, the Seattle studio dedicates time to healthcare concepts that could literally save lives. The latest is Dialog, a wearable platform designed specifically for treating epilepsy.

Current solutions for epilepsy–which afflicts some three million people in the U.S. alone–fall roughly into two categories: wearable sensors that can detect seizures and alert family members, and journals, both paper and digital, that patients use for logging daily data points like mood and medication.

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Augmented Reality Finally Starts to Gain Traction

Augmented reality—a technology that enables mobile devices to recognize live objects and then activate video or graphics—has been stuck for years in new-tech purgatory, where ideas loll in the hope of finding mainstream applications.

That may be changing, at least in the eyes of marketers, print publishers and retailers, who are testing new ways to promote their brands on ever-present mobile devices.

Startups like Blippar, Layar and Daqri are beginning to make inroads, offering technology that lets people point their smartphones or tablets at objects—whether a can of soda, a magazine cover or an in-store display—and then watch video or high-tech graphics unfurl on top of the objects on screen.

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6 Sites That Nailed It On Mobile

It is quite an art to make a web site look good on your much smaller phone screen, but it is absolutely essential for any site or business. A website’s degree of responsiveness – in other words, ability to recognize their environment (such as tablet vs. phone) and adapt to the screen in which they are being viewed – can make or break a company.

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Mobile, user-generated content unlock millennial marketing potential

Coca-Cola, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Urban Outfitters are among a growing number of brands tackling mobile and user-generated content to connect to marketing-averse millennials.

With more marketers leveraging mobile to hook millennials when they are sharing and accessing content with friends, user-generated content is generating significant buzz with brands in building brand affinity and loyalty. At the same time, these campaigns can have the reverse effect if millennials feel like they are being marketed to.

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With Its New App Paper, Can Facebook Overcome the Burden of Being Facebook?

Paper, Facebook’s new iPhone app, is a confident product from a company that’s been slow to master the nuances of creating a fine mobile app. Out today, it’s probably the best Facebook has ever looked. But behind those looks lies a smart strategy to turn Facebook into a publisher of original content. Maybe, like Facebook Home, it will crash. But it’s still a fascinating window into how the company might eventually face off against media brands and content publishers.

Created by a small group of star designers and engineers operating as a sort of startup within the company itself, Paper isn’t a replacement for the official Facebook app so much as an alternative to it. Nevertheless, it’s far more polished and satisfying than Facebook’s other offerings, letting status updates and pictures luxuriate in a fullscreen layout instead of relegating them to a cramped vertical feed.

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Facebook Paper Has Forever Changed the Way We Build Mobile Apps

Mike Matas was sitting on an L-shaped couch inside one of the largest offices at Facebook, holding an iPhone that plugged into a Mac laptop through a long, black cord. It was the early afternoon, and he was surrounded by several Facebook colleagues, including Chris Cox, who oversees the development of new products at the social networking giant as one of the top lieutenants to CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

The office belongs to Cox, and it often hosts meetings like this one, where Matas was about to reveal something he’d hacked together earlier that morning, after the idea came to him the night before. As the others watched, Matas tapped on his iPhone and opened a digital photo of Niagara Falls. The phone zoomed in on the heart of the image, showing the glistening falls in sharp detail, and then, simply by tilting the phone back and forth, he could explore other parts of this high-res photo, panning across the image as if he was moving through a virtual world or a 3D game.

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Android Makes Up Nearly 80% of Global Smartphone Shipments

There is no end in sight to the Android versus iPhone debate, but while we can all argue over the pros and cons of each, the numbers don't lie: Android is still the most popular operating system in the world.

According to data from market intelligence firm IDC, Android's dominance in the mobile market is still growing. In 2013, Android devices comprised 78.6% of global smartphone unit shipments — up from 69% in 2012. Compare that to iOS, which made up only 15.2% of smartphone shipments in 2013 (down from 18.7% in 2012).

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The 20 Best Apps for a Big Night Out

Instead of standing in line to get into bars, clubs or restaurants, there's a whole range of apps that help pave the way for a stress-free and interesting night out. We've rounded up 20 of the best apps to give you one of the best nights of your life (and many more).

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Mobile Internet Subscriptions to Triple by 2019

If it seems like everyone around you is constantly glued to their smartphones, you haven't seen anything yet. According to Ericsson's 2013 mobility report, the number of global mobile Internet subscriptions will triple by 2019.

In 2013, the number of mobile subscriptions around the world clocks in at 2.2 billion. Six years from now, that number is set to reach 6.4 billion.

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Caroline Issa imagines The Future of Fashion Magazines

Because magazine is now published on paper. In the era of the Internet, the new technologies and digital devices, the little sister of Tank combines, since this autumn, the two formats. It might be a paradox, but it is not. We chat with its editor in chief, Caroline Issa, about Because, about magazines and it’s new app Fashion Scan. But, above all, we talked about the new ways of consuming fashion.

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Louis Vuitton embraces print-to-mobile with PASS app

French fashion house Louis Vuitton is layering its print campaigns with a new mobile application that brings together exclusive advertising content and mobile commerce.

Louis Vuitton’s Pass app allows consumers to experience ads in new ways with behind-the-scenes content, featured product information and a store locator. The interactive elements of Louis Vuitton’s Pass app engages consumers by curating a personal experience that fleshes out familiar ads.

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Vogue explores Celebrity in the Digital Age

Sally Singer, Vogue’s creative digital director, discusses the thinking behindVogue Original Shorts, a new series featuring the magazine’s cover stars in scripted video content.

Vogue is officially announcing the Vogue Original Shorts series with the release of the short “Scripted Content,” starring Jessica Chastain, who is on the cover of the magazine’s December 2013 issue. Kate Winslet appeared in the first video of the series, “Best Actress of All Time,” released in October to coincide with her November 2013 cover turn.

Both shorts, directed by Matthew Frost, find the actresses playing themselves, coping with the challenges of celebrity in the digital age. While Winslet fears being caught Googling the phrase “Best Actress of All Time," Chastain is seated on a park bench next to a fan who is texting his significant other about the close encounter.

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Do People Want to Build Their Own Customizable Smartphone?

Motorola’s idea for the ultimate smartphone looks more like a set of Legos that make up a smartphone.

The company announced on Monday that it was moving forward with an experimental phone called Project Ara, which it says is a modular smartphone platform.

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Toys “R” Us mobile site delivers best user experience

Toys “R” Us made numerous improvements to its mobile site in the past year, including streamlining the checkout process. As a result, the toy store chain now delivers the best mobile site user experience with a score of 83.5 out of 100, according to a new report from the e-tailing group.

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PayPal Testing Face-Verification System for Mobile Payments

While we're not quite scanning retinas à la Mission Impossible and Minority Report, PayPal is now testing face verification for mobile-payment transactions.

The ecommerce company's app has a tab labeled "Local," which helps users find nearby stores and restaurants that accept mobile PayPal payments. Once customers check in to a venue online, their name and photo appear on the store's PayPal app. Shoppers can then use the app to pay for items (cashiers complete the transaction by clicking on their profile pic).

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In-store Mobile Platform for Grocery Retailers

Catalina, best known for the technology that lets supermarkets print coupons related to a shopper’s purchases, is extending its loyalty expertise into the mobile realm.

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