May I see your papers please?

Last week I flew out of ORD...on time no less.

Big deal, you say, so do 77 Million other people a year (though of course they don;t all leave on time)!

And this would be no special trip (they all are) except that I flew out after using an electronic boarding pass on my mobile device.

American Airlines launched a mobile boarding pass application the week of 11/23 that enables travellers originating out of OHare, LAX and LGA to download a boarding pass to their mobile device (full details here).

The way it works is that you recieve a message on your mobile device. The message enables you to download a data matrix image (A GS1 data matrix I beleive. see below). At the airport security screening station, you hold your mobile device screen over a scanner. The image you downloaded is scanned and confirms you as, if not trustworthy, at least in possession of a valid boarding pass. The TSA agent still wants to see your id of course, but no obscure symbols are marked on your device screen.

At the gate, you hold your mobile phone in front of the scanner that the gate agent uses for those possessing paper passes and...voila...aboard you go.

Boarding passes are small pieces of paper...which is precisely why the mobile device presents an advantage. No small piece of paper to misplace. Not world changing, but an incremental improvement that foreshadows completely electronic identification.

Why not a driver's license on my device? Or a passport? Based on a biometric key like retina scan or fingerprint, it would certainly seem at least as secure as our current paper-based approaches.

Here's my pass

Who needs an iPhone?

For those who would like their mobile devices to be a little more, um, human, there is Handsolo:

The best part is that this parody is brought to you by those who have an actual stake in the future of mobile devices: Qualcomm.

The call to action leads to a discussion of the wireless future at the Qualcomm site, wirelesslife.com

And though the gratuitous video of Marketing VP Dan Novak is worth skipping, the scenario-based narratives after the intro do a fine job of explaining innovation so close you might already recognize its presence. Handsolo uses humor and absurdity to engage your attention and then wirelesslife.com bring you just a step back from the fantastic to the possible.

My favorite is the boxer.

Mobile Video: an army of amateurs

Comscore has released its latest 3-month stats on mobile video use and the numbers are interesting for two reasons:

1. More than one-third of all mobile subscribers in the US have watched video on their device

2. Amateur video clips represent the most viewed type of video followed by music and comedy videos

While a single data point certainly does not equal a trend, the growing number of mobile subscribers accessing video supports the notion of anywhere, anytime, anydata connectivity becoming the expectation. 

It also speaks to the growing value that people are finding in their mobile devices, making the mobile device something most would have difficulty giving up (see here for data on wants vs. needs). 

The predominance of amateur and short form video, combined with the resistance to marketing on mobile devices, suggests marketers will have to find ways to engage amateur's (customers?)--either as content providers or as willing participants in the distribution of any mobile videomarketing effort.

Prior postings on mobile here and here.

Comscore press release here

Mobile is not a device

An interesting look at the evolution of the mobile phone handset in the video below (in what may be a Nokia video).

When people have the freedom of movement...and the power of taking their communications with them...it would seem that marketing communications must be as diversely mobile as the people it seeks to engage.

A few favs:

• I didn't get my first camera-enabled phone until 2002...a year after they were introduced in Japan.
• Text messages...more than 1.9 trillion were sent in 2007...up form 500 billion in 2004.
• The value of a consulting company's forecast? Well, in 1990 McKinsey and Company forecast a worldwide market of 900,000 phones in 2000...that many phones are sold every 3 days!