One of my colleagues at work prepared a wonderfull report about Mobile Trends in 2009. I wanted it from her to put on my blog. I want to thank to Ceyla Kutukoglu for this awesome article, now she is writing a sports marketing blog in Turkish, if you want to visit, adress is www.sportsmillenium.com. 

Here is the article;

Future Trends in Mobile Market

It’s expected that in 2009 and 2010, the Internet will play increasing role in mobile application design, development and supporting infrastructure.

There are many trends that will shape the mobile market and mobile internet usage in 2009 and 2010. Following trends and mobile technologies that will evolve significantly through 2010, will impact short-term mobile strategies and policies

1. Mobile User Interfaces: Mobile user interfaces allow users to display web pages in a mobile friendly way. These interfaces gain more importance since mobile Internet may be more popular than access from PCs and the trend may maintain throughout 2009. This has major effect on both device and websites usability and supportability. Companies which have mobile interfaces should expect more user demands for support of specific device models driven by interface preferences. Companies should also expect consumer interfaces to drive new expectations of application behavior and performance. Better interfaces will make the mobile Web more accessible on small devices, and will be a better channel to customers.

2. Location Sensing (Location Based Services): Location awareness makes mobile applications more powerful and useful; in the future, location will be a key component of related applications. Location sensing will also enhance mobile advertising and mobile social networking. Local search applications and Google Latitude are the good examples of good use of location sensing. Organizations delivering business or consumer applications should explore the potential of location sensing; however, exploiting it may create new privacy and security challenges.

3. 802.11n (New Wireless Technology in Wi-Fi): Wi-Fi (Wireless internet connection) connection is a very important part of mobile internet connectivity. Devices with wireless connection enables user to connect to internet without using GSM network. 802.11n is an advanced wireless connection technology which also effect computers wireless connections. 802.11n boosts download and upload rates to between 100 Mbps and 300 Mbps, and the multiple download and upload of 802.11n offers the potential for better coverage. It’s not known when 802.11n started to be used widely since it requires new infrastructure investments. It’s expected to replace old 802.11a/b/g systems in late 2009.

4. Display Technologies: Displays (mobile phone screens) constrain many characteristics of both mobile devices and applications. During 2009 and 2010, several new display technologies will impact the mobile world.. Display technologies also extent the battery life of the mobile phones. New display types enable images and information to be shared more easily. For example touch screens like screen of the iPhone increased the ability surf in the net.

5. Vertical and Horizontal applications: Vertical applications such as utilities, field-service dispatch, health-care, courier, personal financial services and field data collection will continue to be attractive business opportunities and will develop. More and more turn-key vertical industry solutions will emerge from third party application houses. These solutions will be based on software application components designed for a specific industry but capable of being customized for a specific customer. Horizontal applications, especially internet-based wireless messaging will emerge.

6. Mobile Web and Widgets: The mobile Web is emerging as a low-cost way to deliver simple mobile applications to a range of devices. It has some limitations that will not be addressed by 2010 (for example, there will be no universal standards for browser access to handset services, such as the camera or GPS). Widgets (small mobile Web applets like IBB Trafik and Garanti Şifrematik) are supported by many mobile browsers, and enable to display simple feeds to handsets and small screens. Mobile Web applications will be a part of most B2C mobile strategies.

7. Cellular Broadband: Wireless broadband usage increase in 2008 in the countries were 3G networks operates, because of the availability of technologies such as high-speed download packet access The performance of 3G networks provides a megabit or two of bandwidth in upload and download.

8. Near Field Communication (NFC): NFC provides a simple and secure way for handsets to communicate over distances of a centimeter or two. NFC is emerging as a leading standard for applications such as mobile payment, with successful trials conducted in several countries. It also has wider applications, such as “touch to exchange information” (for example, to transfer an image from a handset to a digital photo frame, or for a handset to pick up a virtual discount voucher). It is not expected much of the NFC payment or other activities to become common, even by 2010, in mature markets, such as Western Europe and the U.S. NFC is likely to become important sooner in emerging markets, with some deployments starting by 2010.

9. Web Analytics for Smart Phones: Some web analytics tools specially Google Analytics shows visitor numbers connected through iPhone. For now, analytics tools don’t analyze users connected with other smart phones but yet Google Analytics iPhone segmentation is very helpful for the companies who are willing to create a mobile interface. Mobile interface visitor performances can be followed and analyzed mobile analytics tools such as Bango. With the increasing usage of web analytics in mobile platforms, both mobile interfaces and mobile marketing applications will develop.

10. Mobile Marketing: 3G smart phones with large screens, such as the iPhone, BlackBerry Storm and G1 all allow mobile users a normal web-browsing experience. Mobile usability improves so will mobile. Therefore mobile internet became a great platform to run good ad campaigns. Google is one of the companies who want to benefit from mobile advertising and moving fast to develop, exploit and control mobile advertising by dictating the platforms and mechanisms we use to browse the web on smart phones. In 2009 mobile advertising through text messaging and multimedia messages will grow, and that Bluetooth marketing is also expected to see an increase.

*www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=867012 Gartner Inc.: Worlds Leading Market Reseach Company on ICT and Mobile. Based on article published in January 28, 2009. And Comscore reports, January 2009
*Vertical applications: Soft wares specifically designed for one industrial purpose.