I asked the team to weigh in on the highlights from this year while the excitement is still fresh in our minds. From new features to on-site sessions, we’ve covered quite a bit of ground. Here’s what you need to know, from our team to yours, about the future of Android as shown at Google I/O 2018.

The new Material Sketch plugin, demonstrated.

“I enjoyed the inspirational sessions this year, especially ‘Designing for Inclusion: Insights from John Maeda and Hannah Beachler.‘ Seeing two leaders in the design field talk about their experiences and take on the industry was motivational. I am also excited about the new material theming as part of Material Design 2.0 as it enables us to push Android design and brands to better align with their brand guidelines.”

—Ivy Knight, Senior UX/UI Designer

Slices, demonstrated.

“I am really excited about the Navigation library and Slices. Navigation will eliminate a ton of brittle code that we commonly write for Android apps, and I am looking forward to updating Phunware’s App Framework to integrate with it. Slices is really interesting, as it will help our users re-engage with apps that they may have forgotten about. It also enables some really cool use cases such as searching for a doctor’s name and being able to offer the user routing straight to that doctor in a hospital app.”

—Nicholas Pike, Software Architect Android , Product VS

Alex Stolzberg & Nicholas Pike

“I was really excited about the new WorkManager that allows for easy background processes to be performed. You can also easily chain and sequence jobs to make the code very clean for a large amount of processes rather than having a cumbersome nested callback structure, reducing the possibility for bugs when writing features or making changes later on.”

—Alex Stolzberg, Software Engineer Android, Product

L to R, Nicholas Pike, Jon Hancock and Ian Lake. Ian is a former Phunware employee turned Googler who stays involved both with his former coworkers and the larger developer community.

“I’m very excited that Google is taking an opinionated stance on development architectural patterns. Writing apps for Android has been a wild west for years, and having some direction and guidance directly from Google will result in new Android developers entering the field with a greater understanding of how to build complete, stable apps. When those new developers find their first jobs, they’ll be more likely to be comfortable and ready to contribute quickly.”

—Jon Hancock, Software Architect Android

Ram Indani and Romain Guy, an Android Graphics Team Manager, at the in-person app review session.

“I really liked the app review sessions. It shows that Google cares about the applications being developed and is willing to work with the community to improve them. Feedback received from the reviewers is valuable and they ensured that the Googler reviewing the app had expertise in the apps they were reviewing.

—Ram Indani, Software Engineer Android

L to R, Alex Stolzberg, Ram Indani, Nicholas Pike and Duong Tran.

“I am excited about what the new Cast Application Framework has to offer. Some of the benefits of the new framework include simpler code implementation and ad integration as well as enhance performance and reliability. Also, new features such as Google Assistant with voice command are automatically included. I was amazed by the Cast Application Framework team’s willingness to work with developers to create unique solutions for our client’s business requirements, such as providing a custom framework and unique branding options.”

—Duong Tran, Software Engineer Android

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The post Phunware Team Takeaways from Google I/O 2018 appeared first on Phunware.

I don’t know about your office, but lunch is pretty important around here. A good lunch can make or break your afternoon, so you want to make the right choice. That’s how I often end up bringing the same food, every time—my infamous chicken and broccoli. But you know, there’s new stuff on the menu at the taco place by the office. Stuff that could be delicious, like pork belly tacos. But I stick with the tried-and-true, even if it sometimes gets old.

Brand advertisers do this all the time (with their strategies, not their lunches… although maybe those too.) These days, perhaps the most delicious opportunity they’re overlooking is mobile in-app advertising. According to eMarketer, advertisers are still spending more on newspaper advertising than on in-app advertising ($20.55 billion vs. $20.27 billion in 2016, respectively), even though consumers spend 80% of their mobile time (a daily average of 2 hours, 25 minutes) in apps.

So why the hesitation? And what can brands, their agencies and game publishers do to move forward?

In January 2018 alone, more than 14,000 new apps were submitted to the iOS App Store—and 21% of those apps were games.

1. Brands don’t fully understand the mobile gaming landscape

The mobile app landscape has exploded so fast, it can be challenging for brands to comprehend. Consider this: in January 2018 alone, more than 14,000 new apps were submitted to the iOS App Store—and 21% of those apps were games. It’s no wonder brands struggle to recognize popular or promising apps unless they are trending or topping the charts—there are too many types and categories of games to keep up with, and each one has its own loyal fan base.

Interested in mobile gaming as an ad format? Download our case study to learn about how Baywatch: Rules of the Bay partnered with Phunware to create a playable ad and drive real results and promote the movie.

DOWNLOAD THE CASE STUDY

2. Brands fail to appreciate the value of mobile gaming audiences

For decades, movies and pop culture told us that gamers were nerdy kids obsessively noodling over their computers and gaming consoles in the family basement. That wasn’t completely true back then—and it’s definitely not true now.

Mobile devices have brought gaming into the mainstream. Suddenly, people who wouldn’t normally think of themselves as gamers have a simple, intuitive gaming platform in their hands nearly all the time. By 2020, eMarketer estimates that 77% of mobile phone users and nearly ⅔ of the overall U.S. population will play games on their phones at least once a month.

Google Play has found that people who play mobile games tend to segment more along their gaming needs and behaviors than their age, gender or other demographics. In fact, most mobile gamers fall between 26 and 45—whether they are passive players, connected enthusiasts or something in between. Most brands are only just beginning to understand mobile gaming audiences, and have yet to wrap their heads around the different types of mobile gamers—let alone how or where to engage with them.

3. Brands don’t quite trust mobile yet (because it hasn’t fully met their needs)

There are three related issues to unpack here: brand safety, metrics and fraud.

• Brand safety: Programmatic buying offers many efficiencies but it leaves brands nearly powerless to know exactly where their ads are running at all times. Most big consumer brands don’t want their ads running alongside pornographic, violent or inflammatory content, which is definitely an issue on the larger web. That said, mobile apps all have to go through app store approval processes, which weeds out the most objectionable content. With in-app advertising brand safety, the issue is more about advertisers assuming that what happens on the internet occurs at the same frequency and intensity across the mobile app landscape—and that’s just not so.
• Metrics: Marketers need to show results for the money they spend. Unfortunately, mobile technologies, tactics and advertising formats are evolving so fast the industry hasn’t settled on standard metrics, best practices or even measurement technologies. Until that happens, brands are going to view any metrics they’re offered (attribution, viewability, fraud, deterministic location, etc.) with a certain amount of skepticism.

  For example, as recently reported by Digiday, “Ad buyers say they receive misleading mobile viewability reports because measurement vendors struggle to integrate into publishers’ apps. In effect, they know the figures reported aren’t true.”

  

• Fraud: Digital advertisers are rightly concerned about fraud, especially as they’ve seen an alarming number of reports about malware, bots and other schemes. Yet, in a recent Association of National Advertisers (ANA) survey, brands reported less than 2% fraud in app and mobile web display ad buys. That said, fraudsters will always strive to outsmart the “good guys.” Until the industry settles on and implements consistent safeguards—and continuously improves them—advertisers will likely continue to overestimate the threat and therefore, remain wary.

What’s the antidote to fear? Trusted partnerships.

The reality is that it’s going to take time for brands to catch on to the value of partnering with mobile games beyond the Top 5 titles in the app stores. And though the industry is evolving at a feverish pitch, it’s going to take a while for all the measurement challenges to be addressed.

In the meantime, what’s a savvy brand marketer or game developer to do? Look for a monetization partner that has:

• Experience and expertise in mobile in general, and mobile gaming in particular. Don’t simply check the platform’s website—call or email and ask questions. (You can’t get roped into anything just for asking questions. It’s their job to explain why you’d want to work with them, in detail.) Ask for real-world examples of successes and failures in mobile. You want a partner who’s been in it for the long haul, with a track record you can build on together.
• Clearly defined standards for games and other apps within its network, with brand safety controls that evolve over time to keep pace with the industry.
• Thought leadership and a commitment to developing and upholding best practices for measuring attribution, viewability, fraud and other metrics important to brand advertisers
• Strong partner services with dedicated account support.

The last point is particularly important. Brands need help understanding the value of mobile gaming and gaming audiences, and they need guidance in matching their target audiences to specific app user bases. At the same time, game developers need help understanding what brands want and need. What’s more, many measurement solutions require collaboration between brands, publishers and mobile platforms—including technology and data integrations across all players. All of that requires trusted relationships, and the right partner can help you broker those relationships and solidify that trust.

Looking for the right firm to work with? Download our info sheet, 6 Smarter Questions to Ask Your Monetization Partners, for insightful questions to ask your potential monetization partners.

DOWNLOAD THE INFO SHEET

At Phunware, we’ve been working in mobile since 2009—when only 17% of the US had smartphones. Because we address all phases of the mobile app lifecycle, from strategy and building through audience building, monetization and beyond, the Phunware team has deep understanding and expertise in what it takes to succeed in mobile today. Our industry-leading Multiscreen as a Service platform helps brands and publishers engage, manage and monetize their audience’s journey over mobile—while ensuring an optimal experience for users, brands and developer partners alike.

Want to learn more? If you’re an agency or brand advertiser, contact audience@127.0.0.1. Game developers and app makers, contact audiencemonetization@127.0.0.1.

The post Why Are Brands Afraid to Advertise in Mobile Games? appeared first on Phunware.

With the continued focus on mobile listed as one of Education Dive’s 5 Trends Poised to Shake Up Higher Ed in 2018, now’s the time for higher education to deliver more mobile utility and make the mobile experience more personal. The smartest approach capitalizes on mobile’s hybrid physical and digital nature to serve students, faculty, staff and campus visitors more effectively.

“A smartphone is a digital device, but it moves through the physical world and includes highly specific geographic location technologies that collegiate mobile apps can leverage.”
– Phunware CEO Alan S. Knitowski (Read more)

Start with Mobile Wayfinding

Because they travel around with users, mobile devices have always been the perfect platform for location-based technologies. Since higher education campuses tend to be sprawling and difficult to navigate, nearly every campus app features a map.

PDF maps aren’t enough any more. Integrating mobile wayfinding capabilities can turn your campus app(s) into an interactive digital guide for students, instructors, staff and visitors, providing turn-by-turn directions from any starting point to any location, indoors and out. If your campus doesn’t have a good mobile wayfinding solution, consider adding one ASAP.

Your campus wayfinding solution should be built on a flexible platform that can work with a wide range of hardware partners and configurations, and preferably integrates well with the existing campus wireless infrastructure. Advanced mobile wayfinding also requires location-enabled hardware like Wi-Fi access points and physical or virtual Bluetooth beacons to provide greater location specificity and implementation flexibility.

The good news is, incorporating mobile wayfinding doesn’t have to be a forklift. You can start with static wayfinding (wayfinding that uses pre-programmed routes, rather than moving with each user in real time) building-to-building or only in key complexes, and expand from there with greater beacon or Wi-Fi density and location specificity. The best solutions make it easy to adjust maps as needed to route users around construction, storm-damaged areas, etc.—and to add, change or remove points of interest at any time.

Learn more about wayfinding and other location-based solutions from Phunware here.

VISIT THE LOCATION-BASED SOLUTIONS PAGE

Adding mobile wayfinding to your campus app can do more than just help students get to class:

• It can enhance security. Use day / time rules to direct app users via paths that are lighted at night. Highlight emergency call boxes as points of interest so users can navigate to them easily.
• It can increase accessibility. With the appropriate user onboarding process, you can provide wheelchair-accessible routing for students who need it. You can even offer relevant verbal cues for users who are blind or visually impaired.
• It can streamline traffic during large events (move-in day, football games, graduation). Anytime there are large numbers of visitors on campus, there are large numbers of people feeling lost and confused. Mobile wayfinding helps these visitors find their way confidently and with minimum frustrated wandering. You can make things easier by installing permanent or temporary points of interest to help these big-day visitors—for example, recycling bins and unloading stations for move-in day, picture spots for graduation or big football games, etc.
• It can help coordinate maintenance, deliveries and equipment requests. Campus staff can utilize the same mobile wayfinding platform to navigate the most efficient routes and save valuable time. Mobile equipment can be outfitted with beacon technology to facilitate asset tracking as well.

Next Steps: 3 Ways College Mobile Apps Can Get More from Location Technologies

Once you have a mobile platform and infrastructure to support location-based use cases, there’s so much more you can do. Here are three smart ideas (and they’re just for starters).

1. Location Sharing. This functionality allows app users to share their locations with each other (with permission control). It really comes in handy for retail, healthcare, and hospitality brands—and a surprising number of use cases for college campuses.

• Shuttle bus drivers can make their location publicly available so riders can see exactly how long they have to wait for the next bus.
• Professors, TAs and tutors can share their location with students during library or office hours, allowing students to message them directly or find them easily to meet in person. Groups such as recreational sports teams, lab groups, etc. can enable location-sharing for events and easily find each other, even in crowded libraries or intramural fields.
• Students in a potentially unsafe situation can share their location with the nearest security officer, who can navigate directly to the student by the fastest possible route.

Want to know more about location technology? Download our Location Tech 101 eBook to learn more about different location technologies and how they can work for your strategic goals.

DOWNLOAD THE eBOOK

2. Mobile Engagement. Universities can use location-based triggers to send messages to individual users or groups of users, and even to customize their in-app experience. Messages can be segmented by user, location, behavior and events.

• On move-in day, the school can send informative messages to new students and parents and trigger a “welcome to campus” experience in the app.
• The school can set geo-fences around buildings to trigger messages to students the first time they enter that location, or on special dates (homecoming, graduation, midterms…)
• School PR and sports marketing teams can promote events to students who are likely to attend. For example, say the Athletics department wants to fill the student section for a women’s volleyball game. The university could geo-fence nearby dorms, restaurants, coffee shops or bars and send a message to students within those geo-fences offering free admission. Analytics can also capture the number of attendees who received this message, proving attribution for the marketing effort.
• Student Health Services can message all students with vaccination reminders and other important health updates. When students come within a certain radius of the health building, when they leave their dorms, at orientation, etc.
• Student Life can promote involvement and retention with targeted messaging based on student behavior. For example, students who visit the rec center five times in a month might receive notification of relevant sports clubs they could join, whereas students who attend multiple events in the fine arts complex might receive notice of upcoming art shows. This approach is much more effective than the usual paper flyer or email because notifications can include a link to more information and schedules within the app.

These messages can get even more targeted with additional mobile data. For example, the Phunware platform touches hundreds of mobile apps and a billion devices worldwide each month. If a given device ID uses your college app and, for example, is a frequent golf mobile gamer, you can target that user with a message about an intramural golf team.

Interested in learning more? Download our Mobile Marketing Automation eBook for a helpful overview and key considerations for getting started!

DOWNLOAD THE eBOOK

3. Analytics. By collecting data over time about app user traffic patterns, university administration can understand what’s really happening across the campus. This data can assist in event planning, construction decisions, building updates, climate control and lighting decisions and more. It can also help the school better understand its student body and faculty.

Phunware can help you make the most of your mobile strategies.

Our team has years of experience with indoor and outdoor mobile wayfinding across all kinds of large facilities, including hospitals, airports and mixed-use developments. What’s more, Phunware’s expertise in mobile app lifecycle management and our full suite of mobile solutions means we’re an ideal partner for any organization’s mobile-first future.

To learn more about our offerings, download Phunware’s Higher Education Feature Sheet.

DOWNLOAD THE FEATURE SHEET

The post 4 Ways Higher Ed Can Get More from Mobile and Location Technology appeared first on Phunware.

But AR is just one interesting technology. Shopping isn’t the only use case for mobile retailer tech. And a smart mobile strategy isn’t purely about the app. So what is it about then?

Smart mobile strategy is goal-oriented.

If you start by selecting your favorite shiny mobile use case, you’re putting the cart before the horse. Instead, you must start with your business objective in mind. For example, if you want to improve the shopper experience, there are multiple mobile use cases that can enable you to do so—and some of them are actually driven by mobile capabilities built to empower store associate’s, not the shopper’s.

How can both customer- and associate-facing apps enhance the shopper experience? Download our on-demand webinar, “Redefining Retail: Surprising Mobile Use Cases Keeping Retailers Competitive” to find out.

GET THE ON-DEMAND WEBINAR

Smart mobile strategy is platform-based and user-agnostic.

When it comes to mobile retailer tech, Software-as-a-Service mobile platforms provide strong, scalable backbone that is flexible enough to support a wide range of use cases for many different kinds of users, from customers to store employees to warehouse teams and even back-office staff. The app experience and capabilities may be different for different users—obviously, shoppers aren’t going to have the same mobile needs as store associates—but the underlying platform can and should be the same. This synergy enables integrated data collection and reporting across all user groups, rather than creating another set of silos.

Smart mobile strategy is integrated throughout the business.

When e-commerce first started, it was on its own little island, separate from the rest of store operations. Eventually, retailers realized that e-commerce had to be central to the business. More recently, many brands have thought of mobile as a channel, primarily residing under marketing’s umbrella. That’s starting to change as savvy retailers recognize that the best mobile approach eliminates siloes and affects every aspect of the business.

Roughly half of the retailers surveyed in Boston Retail Partners’ 2017 Digital Commerce Survey reported that they are aligning digital commerce initiatives with the store organization, overseen by a C-level exec who manages anything and everything affecting the customer experience. Because mobile uniquely affects not just marketing and revenue teams but also operations, facilities, fulfillment and even product, Phunware CEO Alan S. Knitowski would take this a step further. As he outlined last year, the companies seeing global success with mobile align their mobile application, media and data science teams under one leader who is responsible for all digital transformation across the organization and manages all of these groups as an integrated unit.

Retail’s mobile-first transformation is a marathon, not a sprint.

By taking an iterative, lifecycle-based approach to mobile, retailers can initiate a continuous cycle of positive change that moves them closer and closer to achieving their business goals.

Phunware has helped many of the largest brands in North America develop smart mobile strategies all across the app lifecycle, and retail is just one of our areas of expertise. Want to learn more? Check out our case study of a Fortune 500 department store to learn about how Phunware’s solution helped expand their use of mobile solutions to improve store productivity and employee performance.

DOWNLOAD THE CASE STUDY

The post Mobile Tech in Retail: Shiny Objects vs. Smart Strategy appeared first on Phunware.

Everybody’s story is different. What nearly all passengers have in common, however, is a mobile device in their hands. In fact, according to SITA’s Passenger IT Trends Survey 2017, almost all passengers (98%) carry at least one mobile device when traveling—and 70% carry two or more!

SITA’s survey also found that passengers want to use their smartphones and tablets to make the travel experience better. For example, three-fourths of those surveyed would opt in to flight and gate push notifications and 57% would use mobile airport wayfinding if those features were available. That “if available” is the tricky part.

The Gap Between Passenger Demand and Current Passenger Airport App Strategies

To empower mobile-savvy travelers, airports must have passenger-facing mobile apps with sophisticated location-based services. Unfortunately, many airports are lagging behind. 77% of airports surveyed in SITA’s Air Transport IT Trends Insights 2017 say they plan to trial or R&D location-aware passenger apps in the next five years. Five years is a long time—consider the fact that in 2013, we were all super excited to find out “What Does the Fox Say?”

Mobile moves fast. If your airport hasn’t yet launched an advanced mobile app for your passengers, you’re already falling behind.

Making the Connection to Accelerate Mobile Strategy

Airlines have lots of resources to drive their mobile strategies—72% use in-house development teams to create passenger mobile apps, as opposed to only 46% of airports (SITA). But if you don’t have a team of mobile development experts sitting around Terminal B waiting to build your mobile app, don’t worry. In most cases, licensing solutions and working with an outside development partner will get you better results in less time.

Here’s what airports should look for in a mobile development partner:

• Industry experience: With super-high ceilings, TSA checkpoints, terminal construction and complex parking, implementing a passenger wayfinding solution at an airport is challenging, to say the least. You need a partner that has seen and solved it all.
• Modular solutions for scalability and faster time-to-market: Your app doesn’t have to be built entirely from scratch. Find a mobile partner with a library of mobile experience building blocks (known as SDKs, or software development kits) you can customize to suit your unique needs.
• Mobile app lifecycle expertise: Building an app is really just one piece of the puzzle. Airports must also launch their app, build an audience, monetize it, engage with app users, maintain the app and continually advance mobile strategy for new use cases and changing business needs. Taking a lifecycle approach to mobile means building an app for the long haul, with future success in mind.

Learn more in this eBook: Mobile First: Harnessing the Application Lifecycle for Transformative Business Success

DOWNLOAD THE eBOOK

Phunware has worked with some of the leading airports in North America—including Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and Toronto Pearson. Want a peek at our innovative passenger app solution? Watch our quick video.

WATCH THE VIDEO

The post Passenger Airport Apps: Is Your Airport Missing the Connection? appeared first on Phunware.

“Smart hospitals are those that optimize, redesign or build new clinical processes, management systems and potentially even infrastructure enabled by underlying digitized networking of interconnected assets to provide a valuable service or insight, which was not possible or available earlier to achieve better patient care, experience and operational efficiency.”
–Frost & Sullivan, Future of Smart Hospitals

Recently, Frost & Sullivan published research demonstrating how digital transformation in hospitals will be increasingly mobile-first. Mobile technology exists at the intersection of physical and digital, moving through hospital corridors with patients, visitors, caregivers and medical devices. In such a highly fluid and ever-changing environment, mobility unleashes greater flexibility, productivity and efficiency.

How Hospitals Can Build a Smarter Mobile Strategy

Digital transformation is rarely achieved in a single step. Hospitals can start moving toward a mobile-first future by addressing achievable wins today while laying a solid foundation and single point of integration for future use cases.

From a technology point of view, hospitals need an adaptable mobile platform that can work with a variety of hardware partners and configurations—especially those of their existing wireless infrastructure. A location-enabled hardware infrastructure (be it Wi-Fi, physical or virtual Bluetooth beacons or even cutting-edge smart LED lighting) is the key to being able to create contextually relevant mobile experiences and effective workflow optimizations.

Learn more by watching our on-demand webinar: Mobile at the Intersection of Hardware and Software.

WATCH THE WEBINAR

From a strategic perspective, a patient / visitor wayfinding app is the logical first use case for testing the power of location-enabled mobile engagement. Wayfinding issues are common to nearly all hospitals (who hasn’t been lost in a maze of corridors?), and a mobile app offers a relatively easy and ideal solution. As users begin interacting with the hospital’s mobile platform, they start to generate a wealth of contextual mobile data. This mobile data can be captured and analyzed to yield operational insights, such as where traffic patterns could be optimized and continuously improve the patient experience.

Want to know how wayfinding can benefit your facility? Download our eBook to learn about the importance of a smart and multi-formatted wayfinding solution.

DOWNLOAD THE eBOOK

Expanding Use Cases and Value through the Mobile App Lifecycle

Moving through the mobile app lifecycle, we always come back to Phase 1: Strategy. The same mobile platform and location technologies that enable wayfinding can be leveraged for additional use cases. By building upon a scalable mobile platform, hospitals can start to expand mobile’s impact in multiple directions:

1. Patient / visitor engagement: Appointment reminders, parking service integrations, concierge services such as nearby hotel/restaurant information, etc.
2. Hospital process automation and workflow optimization: Express check-in, patient / physician dwell time reporting, automatic patient status updates, etc.
3. Equipment, personnel and asset tracking: Real-time location systems (RTLS)

Selecting the next use case(s) to implement will depend on each hospital’s unique goals, infrastructure, budget and timeline. With each new use case, more valuable contextual data can be harnessed to keep improving patient engagement as well as hospital operations. In this way, the mobile app lifecycle is like a spiral—expanding outward in opportunities as well as value over time.

Tomorrow’s Smart Hospital Starts Now

Frost & Sullivan’s report found that by 2025, hospitals worldwide are poised to spend billions on remote patient monitoring, patient flow solutions and mobile asset tracking. A robust mobile solution like we’ve outlined above could help trim that expense through efficiencies of scale and strategic leverage of the mobile app lifecycle—but only if savvy hospital decision-makers get started soon.

For more information about how mobile act as the hub of digital transformation in healthcare, come see us at HIMSS 2018! We’ll be on-site in the Intelligent Health Pavilion at booth #11657 and I’ll be giving a presentation at the Leadership theatre diving into details about building a mobile strategy on 3/6 at 12PM.

BOOK A MEETING

The post Tomorrow’s “Smart Hospital” Needs a Smarter Mobile Strategy Today appeared first on Phunware.

But times change, and some recent developments are posing new challenges to airports’ retail and parking revenue. Today’s travelers are less affluent, with many demands on their wallets and time. E-commerce gives them more retail options than ever, and widespread duplication of retail outlets across (and even within) airports makes in-terminal shopping less compelling. And of course, travelers have less time to shop and dine because they’re spending more time in security.

Airport parking faces similar challenges: off-site parking, public transportation and—increasingly—ridesharing compete for travelers’ dollars. According to OAG’s North American Market Report, ridesharing is now the preferred third-party method of transportation to and from the airport—and roughly two-thirds of all travelers (and 70% of business travelers) wish it were available at more airports. The Economist also points out that environmental regulations are pushing airports to encourage public transportation and off-site parking as a way to reduce on-site air pollution.

With these new and intensifying pressures on their retail and parking revenues, airports must look for fresh solutions and competitive strategies. Here are four ways mobile technology can help airports maintain non-aeronautical revenue, even as outside forces threaten it.

1. Leverage Location to Drive Retail Sales in the Terminal

Partnering with retailers and concessionaires, airports can leverage mobile apps and location technology (GPS, beacons, etc.) to send targeted promotional messages to airport app users, right when they’re most likely to act on them. Let’s say Passenger Q is a frequent traveler and airport app user who has visited Airport News n’ Brews three times in the last two months. The next time she heads to the airport, she receives a personalized push notification as soon as her car enters the parking garage. The airport welcomes her back and offers her 10% off a magazine purchase with her coffee at Airport News n’ Brews.

To learn more, download our eBook: Mobile Marketing Automation: Why It Matters and How to Get Started

DOWNLOAD THE eBOOK

Or consider Passenger Z. He just downloaded the airport app for the first time and heads off to catch a midday flight. As soon as he exits security, he receives a push notification reminding him to pick up lunch from Bistro to Go and get a free cookie. Where do you think he stops next?

These kinds of timely, relevant messages can be powerful enticements for passengers who appreciate helpful suggestions to make their travel smoother and more comfortable (especially when they can also save money). According to SITA’s Air Transport IT Trends Insights 2017, however, only 18% of airports have implemented location-based food and beverage promotions, and just 19% have implemented location-based duty-free ads and offers via mobile. There’s a clear opportunity here for airports that are forward-thinking enough to take it.

2. Improve Traffic Flow and Increase Shopping Time with Location Tech and Airport App User Data

An airport mobile app can act as a passenger’s personalized digital guide to and through the airport terminals, directly to their gate. And while they use mobile turn-by-turn navigation to speed their route through the concourse, the airport collects valuable (and previously unavailable) data about where bottlenecks occur and how passengers move through the terminal. This data can be leveraged to streamline operations, eliminate bottlenecks, optimize locations of mobile retail carts and much more.

3. Make Your Airport App Your Parking Hub

Smart parking guidance systems like Park Assist® can help airports streamline garage traffic flow while driving revenue through sophisticated pricing strategies. An airport mobile app can (and should) integrate with these systems, enabling app users to find the closest open parking space with a tap and find their way back to their car just as easily. (Check out our Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport Customer Snapshot to see how it works.)

DOWNLOAD FT. LAUDERDALE AIRPORT CASE STUDY

4. Create Additional Revenue with In-App Advertising

In-terminal advertising is used to generate valuable non-aeronautical revenue, and in-app ads can do the same. The right app development partner can help you select ad units that won’t disrupt the app user experience and should be able to connect you with advertisers and campaigns that are relevant to your brand and the passengers who typically frequent your airport. According to App Annie, worldwide in-app ad spending shot up 37% from 2016 to 2017. That’s revenue that could be contributing to your bottom line.

Clearly, mobile and location-based technologies give airports many new options to address challenges to their main non-aeronautical revenue sources, retail and parking. The four use cases above are only the beginning. As mobile and location technologies continue to permeate the consumer and business landscape, the opportunities for airport mobile apps will continue to expand. Getting in on the ground floor now with a scalable mobile solution will position your facility to capitalize on those opportunities as they arise.

Learn more about how you can take a strategic approach to mobile in this eBook: Mobile First: Harnessing the App Lifecycle for Transformative Business Success

DOWNLOAD THE eBOOK

The post 4 Ways Airport Apps Solve Retail and Parking Challenges appeared first on Phunware.

The proliferation of home automation devices is in part responsible for this app explosion. Consumers can now download apps for monitoring and controlling practically everything in their homes, including security cameras, doorbells, thermostats, pet feeders, lights, robotic vacuums and more. Amazon’s Echo and other Alexa-enabled devices have apps, as do their counterparts made by Google and Apple. That “Home” folder can get pretty crowded.

Importantly, consumers aren’t just stocking up on smart home devices for their own personal use—they want their places of residence to offer built-in smart capabilities as well, even if they have to pay a little more for them. So how can residential property developers and managers meet residents’ expectations for a convenient, connected community—without cluttering their home screens?

Many multi-unit residential communities offer an app for paying rent, making maintenance requests and managing package deliveries. An easy place for them to exceed residents’ expectations without upping their app count is by integrating smart locks into these resident mobile apps.

Business Benefits of a Keyless Door Lock and Secure Mobile Door Access

Resident Satisfaction

Integrating secure keyless door lock and entry into a resident app makes the living experience more convenient—and consumers increasingly make home purchase and rental decisions based on convenience. A staggering 86% of Millennials say they’d be willing to pay about 20% more for a smart apartment that includes automated or remotely controlled devices like smart locks. Meanwhile, 61% of Generation Y say they’re likely to rent an apartment specifically because of its electronic-access features, including keyless entry doors. And 55% of Generation Y are likely to pay more for an apartment that has “high-tech” door locks.

In an era of explosive multi-unit residential development, brands are looking for any competitive advantage they can get. Paying attention to (and accommodating) consumers’ mobile preferences can make a big difference and set your brand apart in this critical time.

Download our eBook to learn more about how a branded mobile app can help differentiate your property and keep your residents satisfied.

DOWNLOAD THE eBOOK

Property Management Security and Efficiency

Staying competitive isn’t only about making residents happy, however. It’s about making property operations as efficient as possible—and fortunately, smart locks can assist in the efficiency department as well. Managing keys and locks used to consume a significant amount of property managers’ time (and still does at many properties), but smart door locks and access systems are changing all that.

With a smart lock system in place, no more time is wasted on finding lost keys or helping residents locked out of their homes. Confusion about who has key copies is eliminated, as are security concerns about access and permissions. Risk is reduced as well, as there’s no longer a need to leave keys under doormats for housekeepers, pet sitters, maintenance workers or guests. Property managers can even free up resources once devoted to changing locks between tenants. Who knew a small change like smart lock access could have so many operational impacts?

Consolidate Functions for a Smoother Experience

More than a superficial add-on, smart lock integrations can be big business for multi-unit properties. They are enticing to residents and helpful to property managers and staff. That’s why Phunware has partnered with electronic access control leader SALTO Systems to make integrations with their smart locks available in our brandable, pre-built residential property apps. SALTO’s wireless access control system combines a locking device with online, real-time capabilities that eliminate the need for wires or mechanical keys. While residents can gain entry and control access to their doors right from their Phunware-powered property apps, property staff can create and manage keys from the web-based staff portal. The result is a smooth and frustration-free daily experience for both staff and residents—not to mention competitive differentiation and an operational efficiency boost.

Download our case study to see how Phunware’s residential mobile solution is working for Jade Ocean in Miami to improve staff efficiency and satisfy resident needs.

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Contact a Phunware residential expert to learn more about providing keyless door lock access capabilities for your property.

TALK TO A MOBILE EXPERT

The post How to Lock Down Resident Satisfaction in the Internet of Too Many Things appeared first on Phunware.

The latest cool tech making new experiences possible in the mobile space is virtual BLE beacon technology, which essentially “virtualizes” physical beacons. Mobile platforms like Phunware use beacons as sensors to trigger all kinds of cool mobile experiences—from providing indoor blue dot navigation to sending you a personalized push notification with 25% off those boots you’ve been wanting when you’re just outside the shoe department.

A virtual BLE beacon is essentially an imaginary beacon that can do the same job as a real one. From a tech standpoint, the virtual beacon works differently than the physical one. From the marketer or user perspective, they’re the same. They can both be used to trigger engaging mobile experiences and to gather location, time and other contextual data that marketers can use to understand and target their audiences.

To learn more, check out the eBook Location Technology 101.

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Virtual Beacon Systems Are Easier to Install, Maintain and Manage

Physical beacons are awesome. They’re small and affordable, and they can be placed discreetly in any number of locations in a given environment. But like any physical device, they have to be installed and maintained by a person. Someone has to put them in place, change the batteries and move them around when needed.

Because multiple virtual beacons are enabled by one piece of hardware, however, they require installing and maintaining far fewer devices. The vast majority of the management and maintenance happens through a simple software dashboard. That saves time and hassle.

Virtual Beacon Systems Are Incredibly Flexible

You may not be able to stick a physical beacon on an incredibly high ceiling, but you sure can slap a virtual beacon up there. They can be added easily to an existing Wi-Fi infrastructure or physical beacon implementation. You can even create a hybrid solution that combines physical and virtual beacons to help balance costs.

Making Location-Enabled Experiences More Attainable and More Awesome

Flexibility and easy management mean that virtual BLE beacons bring location-enabled experiences within reach of more organizations—and more people. These same qualities make it viable to install more virtual than physical beacons in any given space. As a result, you get much greater accuracy and performance. And thanks to machine learning in the software backbone, the more a virtual beacon system works, the smarter and more accurate it becomes.

It’s Exciting Here at the Tipping Point

When people first got smartphones, nobody really imagined all of the different ways we’d use them—and there are still possibilities to uncover. As technology matured, use cases grew exponentially, and suddenly we don’t know what we’d do without our smartphones.

Virtual BLE beacon technology is poised to be the innovation that makes location-enabled mobile experiences ubiquitous. But for the average Joes and Janes among us, it might be hard to imagine all the ways organizations can use vBLE technology. Let’s take a look.

• A hospital nurse administrator could monitor and track every piece of valuable patient-care equipment that moves around departments—IV pumps, patient beds and more—right from her phone. She could know exactly where Doctor Adebayo is and how many minutes it’s going to take for her to get from the patient floor to the ICU. She could get an instant alert that Mr. Davis has been in recovery by himself for too long, and speed an assistant to make sure he’s all right.
• A regional outdoor store manager could quickly and easily move beacons around to gather data on shopper dwell time near a new display. When a seasonal summer department goes up, store marketers could install virtual beacons in the area to trigger highly targeted “Happy Camper” messages to shoppers right when they peer into that cool new tent, and trigger the mobile app to change over to a camping theme throughout. In the stockroom, temporary employees could use mobile to guide their re-stocking efforts, getting turn-by-turn navigation through the store and precisely to the exact rack where that flannel shirt needs to hang.
• An airport could install a dense array of virtual beacons to collect highly granular traffic data in baggage claim areas, leveraging all of that information to understand passenger traffic patterns in detail before a planned remodel. During the holidays, the airport could expand its beacon system throughout the terminal, enabling multiple marketing partnerships with retail and food / beverage concessionaires—and delighting app-using passengers with seasonal savings, or even a holiday-themed app scavenger hunt to help keep weary traveling families entertained.

These ideas are only a jumping-off point. As mobile continues to evolve and mature, location-enabled experiences and use cases will continue to expand. Personally, I can’t wait.

If you’d like to learn more about how connected mobile experiences are going to transform operations, management and the customer experience across verticals, watch our on-demand webinar “Mobile at the Intersection of Hardware and Software.”

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The post The No-Geek-Speak Lowdown On Virtual Beacons appeared first on Phunware.

So what steps can retailers take right now not just to survive in 2018, but to thrive?

1. Put Digital Front and Center

Your digital and mobile identity are now (or should be) integral to your brand. During Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2017, mobile (smartphones and tablets) made up 53.3% of traffic and 39.7% of revenue, according to Adobe. And Salesforce found that mobile accounted for 64% of shopping visits and 43% of sales orders the weekend after Thanksgiving, up from 54% and 33%, respectively, in 2016.

Despite these undeniably mobile-centric numbers, Boston Retail Partners (BRP) found in its 2017 Digital Commerce Survey that only 14% of North American retailers report having a mobile app that is working well, and a hefty 39% report having an app that needs improvement. BRP notes that “A customer’s smartphone is also the key to customer identification and personalization of the in-store shopping experience.” More than ever, today’s retailers can’t afford to sit on the sidelines and ignore the mobile app lifecycle.

To learn more, check out the eBook Mobile First: Harnessing the App Lifecycle For Transformative Business Success.

DOWNLOAD THE EBOOK

2. Engage Shoppers with Better Context and Personalization

As BRP points out, “Expansion of mobile capabilities represents a huge customer engagement opportunity for retailers.” Adding location-aware mobile engagement or analytics to an existing app (or integrating them from the start) is one of the best ways to expand engagement opportunities.

With a mobile app and location-based technologies, retailers can:

• Personalize the in-store experience and give customers the VIP treatment
• Engage shoppers with strong offers in real time based on who and where they are
• Guide shoppers through stores with an indoor GPS-like experience
• Target shoppers with messages delivered in the relevant context of their daily lives—even at a competitor’s door
• Leverage location data to build more granular customer profiles and target or segment ads more effectively

To learn more, check out the eBook Mobile Marketing Automation: Why It Matters and How to Get Started.

DOWNLOAD THE EBOOK

3. Use Mobile to Improve Efficiency and Empower Store Staff

Shopper engagement isn’t the only way mobile can help retailers compete. Mobile technology can help retail staff work more efficiently and get products in customers’ hands with the least amount of labor.

For example, some stores are testing location tech to speed restocking. Mobile indoor mapping and navigation can guide employees on the most efficient route to the proper location for restocking each item. This solution is particularly useful for seasonal workers who are not as familiar with store layouts and where products belong on store shelves and racks. In recent trials, store associate efficiency increased a minimum of 8%. Companywide, this efficiency increase result in significant payroll savings over time. And in the arms race against Amazon, every competitive opportunity counts.

As we recently explored, mobile is driving the transformation of physical stores into distribution centers, enabling highly efficient performance for options like “Buy Online, Ship from Store” (BOSFS) and “Buy Online, Pickup In Store” (which some writers are calling “BOPUS” or “BOPIS”). If 2 out of 3 shoppers have used BOPUS, it’s safe to say it’s more than a fad.

In retail, perhaps more than any other vertical, adopting a mobile-first mindset for digital transformation it critical for success. It’s time to harness mobile’s central role in consumers’ daily lives and take advantage of its hybrid digital / physical nature. Mobile can function as both a customer experience tool and a multifaceted business solution. Exciting times, to be sure!

If you’re planning for a more competitive 2018, come see us at NRF in January! We’ll be in Cisco’s booth (#2052), powering an on-site smart store they created for the event.

The post 3 Ways Retailers Can Act Now for a Stronger 2018 appeared first on Phunware.

The Gold Rush was precipitated by a few lucky prospectors striking gold in the untouched wilderness, and a similar situation exists today—but in the digital world. The precious commodity isn’t gold; it’s data-based insight, and marketers who understand the value of data are in a rare position to capitalize on their foresight, just like those early prospectors.

Surprisingly, one industry that is beginning to experience on the power of data is politics. With countless news headlines about the dangers of political advertising on social media, the questionable value of TV and direct mail campaigns and the need to be more relevant to mobile-obsessed voters than ever, savvy campaign managers are turning to mobile advertising for the targeting and attribution capabilities legacy channels simply can’t provide.

Source: The Center for Public Integrity

What are they doing? How are they making this work? Here’s how some political campaigns are taking a cue from big brand marketers and using mobile data to target voters based on their interests, demographics and even physical location.

Voter Mobile Engagement Step 1: Gathering Insights and Building a Profile

All political campaigns are familiar with what’s called their voter files, which are essentially profiles of registered voters with a known preference for the candidate’s political party. Voter files usually contain the voter’s address and election participation history, and may also provide other contact details, demographics or donation history information.

While voter files are extremely valuable, some campaign managers are beginning to realize that each voter’s smartphone is the ultimate voter file. Mobile data can tell them everything from the device operating system (iOS or Android) to what other apps are on the device, what Wi-Fi networks the device joins and much more. And that doesn’t even cover the information it’s possible to infer, such as gender, age, lifestyle preferences and so on.

Knowing who’s in their voter file, campaign managers can use mobile data and mobile advertising to identify and engage voters who give off similar digital signals to their identified supporters. In the cutthroat world of politics, campaign marketers now have access to more power and precision than they’ve ever had.

Download our eBook on Mobile Data to learn how to harness mobile data and turn it into actionable insights and successful strategies.

DOWNLOAD THE eBOOK

Voter Mobile Engagement Step 2: Targeting Ad Campaigns to Identified Audiences

Beyond identifying coveted voters, mobile data can also be used to define ad targeting parameters with incredible accuracy. Ads can be targeted by time of day (day-parting), device carrier or operating system, Wi-Fi networks and even weather. But one of the most powerful—and uniquely mobile—targeting capabilities is location. Because mobile devices go everywhere with voters and have location-aware technology embedded in them, political campaign managers have an unprecedented ability to target voters based on where they are (or have been).

There are two main types of location targeting for mobile ads:

• DMA Targeting: Designated Market Areas, or DMAs, are predefined location segments created by Nielsen Media Research (yes, the TV ratings company), originally for the purpose of selling TV ads and programming. DMAs can also be used to define areas for mobile ad targeting. Examples include zip code, county, city, region, etc. The implications of granular regional and local ad targeting for political campaigns are obvious.
• Geo-Fencing: Geo-fencing involves drawing a virtual boundary around sites or areas of interest, such as event appearances, polling centers, sporting events—even an opponent’s campaign rally. Devices that cross that virtual boundary can be shown mobile ads, resulting in powerful, concentrated exposure.

Moving Away from Social Media with Campaign Ads

Source: Columbia University Study, 2016

Social media is powerful, but also risky. Context and brand safety are hard to guarantee. Mobile users spend a lot of time on social apps, but not all of their time, and they’re growing skeptical of what they see in their feeds. Social networks offer limited ad formats and few creative ways to reach voters. Campaign effectiveness is also compromised. Facebook, in particular, does not allow real-time campaign optimization.

It’s no wonder many political campaign managers are turning to hyper-targeted mobile display and video ads for their candidates. Campaign and user data are more important than ever, and plenty of it is available outside of social networks.

As we head into the 2018 election year, we’re in the digital age equivalent of 1848—the year before the Gold Rush. As soon as the first few political campaigns realize the value of mobile ad targeting for voter engagement, the floodgates will open. Which campaigns will get there first and strike it rich?

For more information about voter engagement, contact us.

CONTACT US

The post Before the Gold Rush: A New Way to Reach Voters appeared first on Phunware.

Drilling down with specific questions can help uncover deeper truths about the extent of your partnership, future growth opportunities and more.

Whether you already have a monetization partner or are on the hunt for a new one, download this handy cheat sheet, 6 Smarter Questions to Ask Your Monetization Partner, to help you make your decision. (We especially like hearing your conversations around Question #3.)

DOWNLOAD THE CHEAT SHEET

The post Free Download: 6 Smarter Questions to Ask Your Monetization Partners appeared first on Phunware.

Internet Trends 2017 is a 355-slide behemoth. It’s nearly impossible to wrap your head around the whole thing in one shot. That’s why, in this blog post, we’ll take a look at some of the most striking takeaways regarding the world of mobile advertising.

There’s still a huge opportunity gap in mobile advertising.

An opportunity gap is a marketing scenario with substantially lucrative potential that is somehow going overlooked or unaddressed. Here’s how Meeker’s presentation sets things up:

• In 2016, American adult mobile usage hit three hours per day—for the first time.
  Meeker cites an eConsultancy stat where, just five years ago, this was under an hour per day.
• Mobile ad revenue in the U.S. is growing faster than internet ad revenue.
  Meeker’s data comes from an Internet Advertising Bureau survey conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers, which notes that mobile now—and for the first time—makes up more than 50% of all internet ad revenue.
• But when you compare how much of their media consumption time users give to mobile to how much ad spend brands allocate to mobile….you uncover a $16 billion opportunity gap.

Let’s unpack this for a minute. One of the great things about the Meeker report is how her team synthesizes data from disparate sources to expose underlying trends. This is a great example. The Meeker report shows that mobile represents 28% of media consumption time, yet only 21% of advertising spending in the U.S.. Both percentages have been increasing over time and advertisers have made up ground since the 2016 report— but they still have not caught up to how the public spends its time. This amounts to a roughly $16 billion opportunity gap. Brands are missing the chance to connect with consumers where they spend a great deal of their time—and publishers and app developers are missing out on a huge chunk of ad revenue.

User experience matters in mobile advertising. It matters a LOT.

Mobile ad blocking is skyrocketing
Citing data from PageFair, Meeker reports that number of people using ad-blocking software on mobile zoomed up more than 200 million users in just two years. In the US, this practice has only penetrated 1% so far, but it’s worth noting that users in India and Indonesia, which are both heavily mobile countries, ad blocking usage is at 28% and 58%, respectively. Generally, where these countries go in terms of mobile, the rest of the world follows.

At Phunware, we recognize that ad-blocking software has been around for ages on the desktop. It’s nothing new. As it continues to penetrate mobile, ad blocking will force publishers to be more selective about the ads they run and how those ads affect the user experience. It will also continue to spur the use of native advertising, which can offer a better user experience as well as higher performance for advertisers.

Remember: better user experience + better personalization and segmentation = ads that perform better (and don’t annoy people).

Users don’t want to give advertisers something for nothing.
Drawing from Millward Brown’s AdReaction Video study, one of Meeker’s slides highlighted the fact that more than 65% of respondents had positive attitudes towards online video ads that are incentivized with mobile app rewards. This makes sense because the incentive gives users something they find valuable in exchange for viewing the ad. The same report showed that 74% of users felt negative about social and in-banner autoplay video ads, and 80% felt negative about pre-roll video and mobile app video pop-up ads. This finding drives home the point that mobile ads need to provide some kind of value to the user and, overall, be less disruptive to the user experience.

The rise of “more than just an ad” ads.

Drawing upon the unique capabilities of mobile, brands and publishers are offering media formats that go beyond what we think of as an ad. In her report, Meeker highlighted the Gatorade-Snapchat partnership on “Serena Williams Match Point,” in which Snapchatters could swipe up on a Snap Ad to play a webview game, competing as an 8-bit Serena Williams in each of her Grand Slam victories. The engagement levels were impressive—users spent an average of three or more minutes playing the game.

Here at Phunware, we offer playable ad formats that deliver 2-3x higher engagement than traditional ads. These formats are available across a wide spectrum of apps within our advertising platform. We’ve also taken native and “authentically mobile” a big leap forward through our unique Phusion campaigns, which integrate uniquely branded mobile experiences and media within a native app environment. To learn more, check out our award-winning Phusion campaign for Paramount Pictures International’s Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation.

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For another example, Uber is adding third-party content to its rider app, such as a partnership with Foursquare to bring its user recommendations into the ride experience. Meeker’s slide suggests that it’s only a short hop from there to incorporating local offers that are contextually relevant to the rider’s location, route and time of day.

Phunware takes this one step further. Our Rewarded Visit solution entices gaming users to earn additional in-game rewards by visiting a real-world location after watching a specific video ad. For brands, Rewarded Visit is a great way to serve up in-store promotions and directly track attribution. So, for example, an adventure sports retailer might partner with a relevant racing game. After watching an in-game video ad, users might receive in-game currency (such as coins or an extra life), along with a coupon from the retailer that can be redeemed by visiting one of the retailer’s physical stores.

Keep your eye on the ball.

Technology moves faster and faster every year. That’s why it’s great to have big brains like Mary Meeker’s parsing the landscape and helping us stay on top of everything—especially in the world of mobile marketing, which is only beginning to show its full potential. While the big picture is important, it’s vital for brands, publishers and developers alike to stay focused on their own business goals and initiatives. Try not to get overwhelmed—look for the sweet spot where internet and mobile trends align with your objectives. And look for smart partners who can help you drive toward them.

Want to talk more about the Meeker report and what’s going on in the digital and mobile world? Drop us a line at info@127.0.0.1.

The post Grokking the Meeker Report: What “Internet Trends 2017” Means for Mobile Advertising appeared first on Phunware.

We were stoked to interact with and learn from the Android community, and especially to see the current and potential uses for new Google Assistant features. Here are some takeaways from our favorite sessions, things we’re looking forward to and a little Android-related “phun.”

What Excited You Most at Google I/O 2017?

We asked our group to weigh in on the announcements and products they were most inspired and excited by at Google I/O 2017. Here’s what they had to say:

“Apart from the new Android announcements (like Kotlin and Android Architecture Components), I was most excited about the other conference attendees. Seeing so many passionate developers in one place really gets me inspired.”
– Dustin Tran, Software Engineer (DT)

“I was most excited about Kotlin and the new Android Architecture Components stuff, but I am also very interested in the Google Assistant API and writing apps for that platform. Android Things was also really cool to see in action.”
– Alex Stolzberg, Software Engineer (AS)

“I was most excited about the incredible community collaboration focus this year. So many of the announcements came about because the Android dev community asked for specific things. Google recognized that and invited non-Googlers from the community on stage for the first time ever.”
– Jon Hancock, Software Engineer (JH)

“I really enjoyed talking to some of the Google design team and going to the sessions on the Google Assistant.”
– Ivy Knight, UX / UI Designer (IK)

“I was really excited to be a part of such a huge conference—and to hang out with the California-based Phunware devs I only see every couple of years.”
– Sean Gallagher, Software Architect (SG)

“What was I most excited about at I/O? The amount of code and time we can save with Kotlin and the new Architecture Components.”
– Nick Pike, Software Architect (NP)

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What Was the Most Impressive Session at I/O 2017?

Thanks to our ten-person Phunware team, we were able to attend a broad selection of the 150+ sessions offered at I/O this year. Which impressed us the most?

“I was most impressed by What’s New in Android, where we learned about many tools—like an official Android emulator with Google Play pre-installed, and Android Profiler which allows precise and real-time app monitoring—that will make Android development much easier. Equally impressive were the Architecture Components sessions. Google has realized that developers often have to solve the same problems: network calls to retrieve data through orientation changes and caching / persisting that data. Now, they’re providing easier-to-use and standardized components to utilize when implementing these common use cases.”
– DT

“My favorite session was probably the Android Things talk about Developing for Android Things in Android Studio.”
– AS

“My favorite session was Introduction to Kotlin because of the sheer number of jaw-dropping moments. “
– JH

“Building Apps for the Google Assistant got me excited to try building an Assistant app myself. API.ai looks great.”
– IK

“My favorite session was the Office Hours during which we got some really good one-on-one time with Android NDK team devs. They answered a lot of tough questions. Not only were they helpful, they were also great folks!”
– SG

“Life is Great and Everything Will Be Ok, Kotlin Is Here! (Pretty self-explanatory, right?)”
– NP

How About the Best I/O 2017 Puns?

One of the best things about attending conferences like I/O is the inside jokes. In case you’re feeling left out, here are some of the Phunware team’s favorite (terrible) Android-related puns:

“An Android app walks into a bar. Bartender asks, ‘Can I get you a drink?’ The app says, ‘That was my _intent_!'”
– DT

“Ok Google, give me an Android-related pun…”
– AS

“Android puns just require too much Context.”
– JH

“Can’t wait to check out all the FABulous Materials at I/O.”
– IK

“Need some space to store your app data? Google just gave us lots of Room.”
– NP

Interested in joining the Phunware Android dev team and possibly heading to I/O yourself next year? Check out our open opportunities and apply today!

The post Phunware Team Takeaways from Google I/O 2017 appeared first on Phunware.

That’s why we recently conducted a national survey of daily smartphone and tablet users to find out what mobile means to them now and what they want from mobile in the future.

In the 2017 Mobile Future Survey, we learned that daily mobile users are more—and more deeply—intertwined with their devices, with 82% reporting that having their phones with them makes them feel “safe and secure.” Three out of five admitted feeling anxious without their devices. And a few even admitted checking their phone during sex!

But it’s no real surprise that users are device-obsessed—on a daily basis, it’s likely that you unlock your own phone to interact with it tens (if not hundreds) of times. That’s why we used this survey to dig deeper into the types of apps daily mobile users turn to most often, what drives downloads and the truth about app dormancy. We also investigated what mobile’s biggest fans want from their devices moving forward. And finally, we explored the types of personal information daily mobile users will share with brands and app developers—and why.

As our CEO Alan Knitowski put it, “This study proves that mobile is no longer simply about competitive differentiation—it’s about survival.” Want to learn more? Download the full survey report and keep an eye on our blog and social media profiles in the coming weeks for a series of infographics featuring data from this survey.

DOWNLOAD THE SURVEY REPORT

The post Data Download: Phunware’s 2017 Mobile Future Survey appeared first on Phunware.

Recently, I was privileged to co-host a webinar called Using New Mobile Technologies to Enhance Patient Experience alongside industry leaders from Mist Systems, Mission Health System, Houston Methodist and HIMSS Media. We talked about untapped potential in the healthcare industry, where it’s no secret that indoor location technology has not even scratched the surface of all of its potentially transformative use cases. Let’s explore what’s getting in the way, and what the solution hospitals really need actually looks like.

Location Tech in Healthcare: The Big Picture’s Been Just Out of Reach

There are so many tantalizing location tech use cases for the healthcare industry—wayfinding, condition monitoring, equipment and patient tracking, workflow optimization, appointment reminders, patient engagement and more. But a variety of factors have prevented hospitals from realizing the full benefits of this technology.

• Hardware limitations: Health systems have tried many different hardware approaches, but none have achieved widespread adoption. Wi-Fi-based systems don’t always deliver the necessary accuracy, physical beacons require installation and ongoing maintenance, and any wayfinding solution that doesn’t leverage Wi-Fi or low energy Bluetooth (BLE) requires purchasing and deploying additional tags.
• Software limitations: Many forward-thinking organizations have deployed point solutions for wayfinding and asset tracking, only to end up frustrated. These point solutions suffer from limited functionality, lack of interoperability (barriers to integration), hardware compatibility limitations and a slew of other issues.
• Budget limitations: Many health systems have large investments in technology infrastructure (Wi-Fi, BLE, etc.), only to find that each new use case requires bolting on yet another costly single-use solution. They need a flexible mobile solution that can work with multiple hardware providers, integrate with other software as necessary and provide a platform to support future, sometimes unforeseen, use cases.

The Solution? Bringing Hardware and Software Together on Mobile

For hospitals, a flexible, future-proof mobile solution requires a complex interplay of hardware, software and humans. The ideal solution consists of:

• A scalable front-end hardware stack capable of generating extremely accurate location data for equipment, patients and staff.
• A flexible software back end that can fuse location data from any hardware provider and render on the map for the app user.
• The ability to integrate with hospital systems such as appointment scheduling, EMR/EHR management and others to meet the full spectrum of patient, visitor and business needs.

Up to this point, it has been very difficult for hospitals to find a single solution that addresses all three legs of this proverbial stool. Thankfully, technology advancements like Mist’s virtual beacon solution, announced last year, are beginning to break the ice. (Disclaimer: both Phunware and Mist are Cisco partners. Bonus: integration with existing Cisco infrastructure is seamless.)

In the webinar I mentioned above, I got to talk with Houston Methodist and Mission Health about how they’re using location technology today and their vision for the future with virtual BLE. Download the recording to hear their stories and get a closer look at the details of Mist’s technology and the ways Phunware’s platform can make the most of it in the healthcare space.

DOWNLOAD THE WEBINAR RECORDING

If you are looking for a scalable mobile strategy for the patient-centered hospital of the future, check out this on-demand webinar to learn how to do it at your facility.

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The post Untapped Potential: Hardware / Software Solutions in Healthcare appeared first on Phunware.

Increasingly, the only way to deliver that in-demand experience and journey is through “authentically mobile” experiences—those that are only possible on a mobile device. That means your organization must take a mobile-first, native-first and fully integrated-first approach to the mobile lifecycle. Mobile is the first screen today—not the second, the third or the companion screen—and experiences that fail to leverage the unique native capabilities of mobile fall short of user expectations. Mobile internet traffic has surpassed desktop traffic, and 85% of it is in native applications—not mobile browsers such as Apple Safari or Google Chrome. Your focus should be on native mobile applications first, mobile web second and traditional web last.

Because mobile has such transformative power, all functional areas should have a role in the success of mobile application portfolios—from Marketing to Facilities to Finance. Let’s explore where those functional areas fit into the mobile application lifecycle and what you could gain by structuring your organization for success in the mobile era.

Who to Involve in Mobile Application Lifecycle Management

In the early days of mobile applications, it was possible (not advisable, but possible) to treat mobile as an isolated tactic and channel. Before mobile use was ubiquitous and brands really understood how to make mobile data actionable, you could get away with treating mobile as another marketing avenue like PPC or direct mail.

Those days are long gone, however, and mobile applications are no longer siloed or set-and-forget. Even the simplest mobile application lifecycle now involves a complex interplay of mobile technology, media strategy and data science, and can impact areas of the business from marketing to operations to facilities planning alike. Here’s who you should always involve in your mobile planning and initiatives to ensure that you are always surfacing—and able to act on—all of the insights mobile can power.

Group 1: Mobile Team

Your Mobile team (it may be called the Digital or Virtual team at your organization) will define the value your brand will deliver to users through its mobile portfolio—entertainment, utility, information, etc.—and how that value will be brought to life in a mobile application experience. They will determine the devices (smartphone, tablet, watch, TV, etc.) and operating systems (iOS, Android, both, something else) your application should run on. Presumably you plan to achieve some business goal with this mobile initiative, such as generating revenue, increasing brand awareness, driving foot traffic, engaging Millennials, etc. Your Mobile team will be responsible for figuring out how your application will achieve that goal.

Now, you could feasibly stop here. It would be woefully misguided to do so, but you could actually build and launch an application with only your Mobile team. How would you build, engage and monetize your audience, though? How would you develop and act on the insights and data available through your application, both indoors and outdoors? By involving your Media and Data teams from the outset.

Group 2: Media Team

Your Media team should be there from day one to make sure you have appropriately strategized how you will build, engage and monetize your application audience. With literally millions of other applications to catch their eye, you can’t depend on your users to randomly discover your app on their own. Organic, viral application discovery tends to happen by accident. You should assume that mobile audiences are overwhelmingly built through paid user acquisition (UA) campaigns and tactics and expect to invest in performance-based audience building campaigns to acquire your app users. It will be critical to understand the lifetime value of each user so you can determine what you are willing to pay per user for your expected return on investment (ROI).

Post launch, it will be up to your Media team to monitor which of these campaigns is performing best so that you can then optimize your ongoing spend accordingly. You don’t just want to drive app downloads or brand awareness as part of this process—you want to acquire the users most likely to engage and spend in and through your application.

Group 3: Data Science Team

Your Data Science team should be there to plan what data you will collect through your application and how you will use it not only to optimize future versions of the application, but also business processes, marketing strategy and a host of other initiatives not traditionally thought of as “mobile.” Data is key to preserving and expanding the mobile revenue streams associated with your application audiences over time. Your ultimate goal for these mobile engagements and interactions should be to deliver the right action at the right time to the right user based on who and where they are and what they like and don’t like, on a 1:1 basis, indoors or outdoors, in real time. The key to these insights is data: their usage behavior and value to your brand.

Learn more! Download the eBook Mobile Data: the Missing Link in Your User Acquisition and Engagement Strategies.

DOWNLOAD THE EBOOK

A smartphone is a digital device, but it moves through the physical world and is embedded with technologies, like GPS and accelerometers, that mobile apps can leverage for richer experiences. Additionally, mobile apps generate valuable data as users interact with them. Each interaction (or “event”) results in a data point—complete with location—you can use to improve and tailor the mobile experience. The Phunware platform, for example, grows by 40 billion events per month, thanks to the 700+ million unique devices touching it through more than 5000+ application portfolios.

These mobile events and data points are actionable far beyond the mobile channel. They can (and should) impact marketing strategy as a whole, media investment, operations planning—even real estate decisions. For example:

• Operations. Leverage data from mobile location-based technologies like beacons to streamline inventory control in a retail environment, monitor and manage patient traffic patterns in a hospital, or speed the flow of passengers through an airport or cruise terminal.
• Marketing. Use data from your mobile campaigns and app engagement to understand what offers your users care about, what app features they value, and where they live, work and play. Optimize your entire marketing approach based on these deep insights.
• Revenue. Mobile is a powerful channel for e-commerce, of course, but can also serve as revenue-generating platform through in-app media monetization and mobile engagement campaigns that drive real-world purchase conversions with full attribution at retail point of sale (POS).

Finally, your Legal team plays a role in brand protection, privacy and intellectual property enforcement, while your Facilities team plays a role in physical infrastructure investments needed to support authentically mobile user experiences—such as high and low density Wi-Fi, virtual and physical beacons and bandwidth.

Mobile as a channel goes far beyond the device in your users’ pockets…but it’s up to you to make sure you are tapping the right teams at your organization to take advantage of mobile’s reach.

Structuring Your Team for Mobile Application Lifecycle Management

Now that you know which groups to involve in mobile application lifecycle management, let’s take a minute to discuss org structure. Your Mobile, Media and Data Science teams are likely separate and siloed under these leaders:

This is normal—companies don’t set out to exist in silos, but unless you make a concerted effort to merge them, application, media and data science teams will likely remain separate. This separation is something you will want to address quickly, however, if you want to create and maintain a competitive advantage at that high value touchpoint between your brand and your anytime, anywhere audiences and communities on mobile. Importantly, the companies seeing global, enterprise-level success in mobile have these same three teams, but roll them up under one person who oversees and manages them as an integrated unit:

Every company aspires to have a CDO, CMO and CRO, but even without these roles, it’s critical to have one executive at the top of your organization with direct or dotted-line oversight of those controlling mobile, media and data. If you’re not working in synergy and driving towards the same goal through every stage of the lifecycle, you’re leaving significant money on the table.

Check back soon for the next installment in my blog series, where I’ll cover how to structure an RFP to find the best mobile lifecycle management partner.

To learn more about best practices at every stage of the mobile lifecycle, check out this eBook: Mobile First: Harnessing the App Lifecycle for Transformative Business Success.

DOWNLOAD THE EBOOK

The post Organizing for Digital Transformation: The Role of Mobile Application Lifecycle Management in Maximizing the Customer Experience and Customer Journey appeared first on Phunware.

Across the U.S., mobile app usage continues to expand, accounting for the majority of internet users’ digital media consumption (comScore). Brands are starting to get on board—73% of U.S. marketers surveyed in August 2016 said they plan to increase their spending on mobile within the next 12 months.

Unfortunately, investment in mobile still fails to match consumers’ interest in the platform, a gap that represents a $22 billion opportunity in the US alone.

As mobile reaches maturity, organizations must stop thinking about it as a menu of isolated tactics like monetization, mobile app engagement, location-based marketing and so on. Instead, by thinking about mobile in terms of a lifecycle, we can understand and capitalize on it much better. Let’s explore why that is, what the mobile application lifecycle entails and how you can take control of it at every stage for maximum benefit.

A 1000-ft View of the Mobile Application Lifecycle

Regardless of the purpose it’s intended to serve, every mobile initiative has a four-stage lifecycle. The sooner you can understand these stages, embrace them and begin to organize your team and processes for success in the era of mobile (more on those topics in my next blog installments), the more handily you will be able to crush your competitors. The four stages of the mobile application lifecycle are:

1. Strategize

In this phase, you define the amazing experience you want users to have with your app. You outline use cases and determine the feature sets your app should offer.

You decide which devices (Smartphone? TV? Watch?) and operating systems (Android? iOS? Other?) you want to serve.

It’s also important to identify early on the infrastructure and bandwidth needed to support the experience you want to create. For example, if you know you want to build a patient wayfinding application for your hospital, do you have the wireless infrastructure in place to support this experience? If you want to provide proximity-triggered in-app promotions to users at your retail store or stadium, do you understand the hardware requirements for these use cases?

Finally, it’s critical to involve the right groups from across your organization as early as possible.

• Your Mobile team (it may be called the Digital or Virtual team at your organization) should drive the definition of the mobile experience and how it will be brought to life in your app.
• Your Media Buying team should be there from the outset to make sure you have appropriately strategized how you will build, engage and monetize your application audience (more on this below in Step 3: Launch).
• Your Data Science team should be there to plan what data you will collect through your application and how you will use it not only to optimize future versions of the application, but business processes, marketing strategy and a host of other initiatives not traditionally thought of as “mobile” (more on this below in Step 4: Engage and Monetize).

2. Create

In this phase of the mobile application lifecycle, you bring your app to life in the way that makes the most sense for your budget, timeline, inclinations and capabilities. At a high level, these are your options:

• If you have the capability to build your app in-house, you will likely want to license app components (usually in the form of SDKs, APIs and portals) and use your own engineering team to incorporate them into your application. Licensing application components is also the most budget-friendly option.
• If you don’t have the inclination or capability to build your app in-house, licensing a pre-built, brandable application is an excellent choice. Customizable app solutions are relatively inexpensive and offer quick time to market and low total cost of ownership. And if you choose the right partner, they don’t look pre-built at all.
• Of course, if you have the budget to do it, you can work with a partner to build a custom app from the ground up, with all of the bells and whistles you desire. At this point, it’s only a matter of picking a partner with proven expertise, stability and scale. (More on this topic to come in a future blog post about best practices for writing mobile RFPs.)

3. Launch

This phase of the mobile application lifecycle is where you facilitate application discovery and user acquisition to build the audience that will consume your mobile application. Your Media Buying and Data Science teams will play critical roles here, as performance-based audience building campaigns will be one of your main tactics. Finding the right—read: high-value—users for your app requires a thoughtful, data-backed media buying strategy.

4. Engage and Monetize

Finally, plan for how you will drive revenue with your mobile efforts. This may be as straightforward as charging for your app or offering in-app purchases of physical or virtual goods—but you should also plan to explore other techniques as appropriate, such as:

• Monetizing your app’s real estate through banners, interstitials and other paid media units.
• Leveraging the native capabilities of users’ smartphones to power contextually relevant messaging that drives foot traffic and purchases, both online and off.
• Using the data that accumulates as users engage with your app to inform and optimize engagement, integration and monetization approaches as well as future iterations of the app.

Many businesses successfully complete steps 1-3, but stop at step 4 because they think the work is done after the app is in the app marketplace and downloads are trickling in. This line of thinking is akin to devoting significant time and resources to design and build an automobile and get it to the dealership, then neglecting to service or maintain it after the buyer drives it off the lot. Will that buyer feel compelled to purchase a vehicle from you again? Will they get as much out of that car—and feel as positively about your brand—as they would have if you had helped them maintain it? Probably not.

Thinking about mobile in terms of a four-stage lifecycle will set you apart from your more shortsighted competitors and prepare you to play—and win—the long game.

What Makes the Mobile Lifecycle Unique?

The idea of a technology lifecycle is not new—it comes to us from the software development world. What makes the mobile lifecycle different is the hybrid digital / physical context in which mobile operates.

Think about it:

• Mobile bridges the physical and digital worlds. A smartphone is a digital device, but it moves through the physical world and includes highly specific geographic location technologies that mobile apps can leverage.
• Mobile straddles the line between customer experience and business solution. An app can serve users with entertainment, wayfinding, shopping, etc. while also delivering value to the business through third-party monetization, process optimization, user data collection and driving real-world outcomes like foot traffic or appointment compliance.
• Mobile use is immersed in the very personal context of the user’s daily life. People carry their phones wherever they go and they interact with apps throughout the day. Each of these interactions results in a data point—complete with location—brands can use to improve and tailor the mobile experience.
• These mobile data points are actionable far beyond the mobile channel. They can (and should) impact marketing strategy as a whole, media investment, operations planning—even real estate decisions. Mobile is not a digital-only channel. It’s an everywhere channel.

Learn more and download the eBook Mobile Data: the Missing Link in Your User Acquisition and Engagement Strategies!

DOWNLOAD THE EBOOK

How Mobile Permeates the Business

Because of the context inherent to mobile data, the mobile lifecycle can positively impact multiple aspects of your business. Here are a few examples:

• Operations. Leverage data from mobile location-based technologies like beacons to streamline inventory control in a retail environment, monitor and manage patient traffic patterns in a hospital, or speed the flow of passengers through an airport or cruise terminal.
• Marketing. Use data from your mobile campaigns and app engagement to understand what offers your users care about, what app features they value, and where they live, work and play. Optimize your entire marketing approach based on these deep insights.
• Revenue. Mobile is a powerful channel for e-commerce, of course, but can also serve as revenue-generating platform through in-app media monetization and mobile engagement campaigns that drive real-world purchase conversions.

Learn more and download the eBook Bring New Life to an Underperforming App with Location Technology!

DOWNLOAD THE EBOOK

Mobile affects many parts of your business, so you can’t keep it in a silo. Mobile strategies must be integrated with the rest of your marketing and digital efforts and managed accordingly. Those who still approach mobile on a per-project or per-feature basis are missing out on the full benefits—and are leaving money on the table.

Discover what it takes to close the mobile opportunity gap. Download Mobile First: Harnessing the Mobile App Lifecycle for Transformative Business Success for a strategic and tactical model with actionable items at every stage.

DOWNLOAD THE eBOOK

At Phunware, we understand mobile application lifecycle management intimately. We’ve been working in this space since 2009, with deep experience and expertise in leveraging mobile context for business gain. Our Multiscreen as a Service (MaaS) platform is built to provide effective solutions across every stage of the mobile lifecycle.

For more information about how Phunware provides strategic partnership across every stage of the mobile lifecycle, contact us. And don’t forget to check out the next installment in my blog series: Org Structure in the Mobile Era: How to Organize Your Team for Success.

The post Why You Should Be Paying Attention to Mobile Application Lifecycle Management appeared first on Phunware.

Brands like Ikea, L’Oreal and McDonald’s have seen amazing results from their mobile-first strategies and continue implementing innovative ways to engage their audiences. Ikea uses augmented reality to help shoppers visualize how items would look in their home. L’Oreal uses advanced facial mapping technology to turn customer smartphones into a virtual mirror so they can “try on” various beauty products before making a purchase. And McDonald’s recently used geolocation functionality by sponsoring a Pokestop at the height of the Pokemon Go craze. Combined with new ways to capture, process and analyze data, these authentically mobile technologies don’t only deliver the experience users want—they help brands keep improving their products, solutions and services.

Let’s take a look at some of the other “authentically mobile” trends that will shape 2017 and influence which brands come out on top.

Apps Continue to Bring Home the Bacon

Back in 2014, Gartner predicted over 268 billion app downloads generating approximately $77 billion in revenue for the year 2017. And market researcher App Annie projects that by 2020, gross revenue across all app stores could exceed $101 billion.

While some sources have warned against the death of the app, it’s clear that apps—and app revenue—aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Video is on the Rise

Mobile video has grown faster and bigger than expected! Variety notes that today, more than half of all video viewing is happening on mobile, representing a whopping 233% increase since Q3 2013.

Of course, the growth of mobile video wouldn’t be possible without the growth of data usage. Initiatives like T-Mobile’s Binge On are doing away with mobile data limits for streaming video so users can binge to their hearts’ content. Good thing, because 70% of Americans (and over 80% of Millennials!) are binge watching, according to Deloitte’s 10th Digital Democracy Survey.

The rise of video autoplay is another signal that video will be a force to reckon with in 2017. Apps like Facebook now start playing videos instantaneously—no play button clicking required. Although video autoplay is still in its infancy, it’s clear that companies are eager to to remove obstacles to higher data usage so video, the new king of content, can reign supreme.

Location Tech Makes Mobile Smarter

GPS and beacon technologies continue to evolve and will invade diverse industry segments in 2017. Last November, to coincide with the eagerly anticipated reboot of the TV show Gilmore Girls on Netflix, Connecticut’s board of tourism launched a major marketing campaign with a “selfie map tour,” successfully integrating social media with location-based mobile tech. This year, we’ll see more examples of how location-based solutions can replicate the successes that the retail sector has already seen. Retailers like Macy’s and GameStop have already undertaken high-profile experiments with location-triggered messaging, and brands in the personal care space, like Nivea, have even begun to add location awareness to their apps.

As location technology continues to proliferate and become more sophisticated (see: the advent of virtual beacons), we can expect additional industries to start leveraging the power of location to engage users.

Mobile UX Design in 2017

User experience is one of the major driving forces in the mobile space. Today, brands must focus on providing users with visually appealing apps. In 2017 we’ll see more creative mobile design elements, like splash screens, parallax graphics, split screens, micro interactions and grid-based design. But the best UX design must integrate with technology that creates a seamless, intuitive, and enjoyable experience for users. That’s why many brands are demanding custom design services and working with UX design expert partners to create a distinctive look and feel for their mobile solutions complemented by back-end technology that powers the UX flow.

Security and Privacy

Despite sensational headlines about information security and hacking, consumers express ongoing concerns about their privacy but do not always act on those concerns. According to 2016 findings from AARP, nearly 30% of US adults access the internet via public Wi-Fi once a week or more—even though only 4.8% rate public Wi-Fi as “very safe” (with another 39.1% giving it a tepid “somewhat safe” grade).

This isn’t to say Americans are reckless with their privacy online, however. A recent McKinsey survey of car buyers and users of shared-mobility services showed that Americans are more sensitive about their data sharing when compared to their Chinese or German counterparts. But for all locations, users were increasingly willing to share their personal data if they saw value in return.

The main takeaway: as long as users get something significant in return (Wi-Fi access, an app that provides tons of utility, customized notifications and promotions, etc.), they are willing to share their data. To learn more, download our eBook, Mobile Data: The Missing Link in Your User Acquisition and Engagement Strategies.

DOWNLOAD eBOOK HERE

Something for Everyone: SMB Mobile Adoption

The introduction of standalone app modules and template-like app framework structures now provides quick, effective and budget-friendly ways for small businesses to launch their own mobile strategies. That’s one reason small business trend forecasters now estimate nearly half of small businesses will have a mobile app by 2017. More affordable pricing and increasing competitive pressure are sure to encourage small businesses to incorporate mobile into their marketing initiatives as one of their top New Year’s resolutions.

Brands are aware of what we expect as consumers. In 2017 they just need to exceed all our expectations and use the power of mobile to really wow us.

Consumers have already shown a clear preference for accessing the internet via mobile devices rather than desktop computers, and in 2016 mobile internet consumption increased around 28%. Brands that launched mobile-first initiatives must now focus on authentically mobile experiences, which don’t merely prioritize mobile over desktop experiences, but go above and beyond to harness the characteristics and technology unique to mobile devices to deliver something truly new and awe-inspiring.

As for brands who have yet to dip a toe into mobile? Well, the timing couldn’t be better.

CONTACT US

The post 6 Mobile Trends to Watch in 2017 appeared first on Phunware.

AUSTIN, TX [August 2, 2016] – Phunware, whose Multiscreen as a Service platform helps brands engage, manage and monetize their users anytime, anywhere, today released findings from a national survey, uncovering an overwhelming shift to mobile for media and content consumption, as the gap between consumer content preferences and broadcast coverage widens. The study, centered on the 2016 Summer Olympics, shows mobile has become much more than a second-screen experience, with smartphones and tablets playing the roles of primary devices as fans’ demand for live coverage and customized content continues to increase.

“Today’s consumers want more control over their media experiences. They expect access to the content and information they want, when they want it, and traditional television and even web viewing just doesn’t align with those expectations,” said Alan S. Knitowski, Chairman and CEO of Phunware. “Mobile gives them that level of customization and on-demand accessibility, so it’s no surprise that we’re seeing consumers turn off the TV and turn to mobile to stay connected, especially when it comes to some of the biggest media events of the year like the Summer Olympics.”

Key highlights from the survey include:

• Primetime coverage no longer enough: While networks have traditionally depended on pre-taped, primetime coverage to drive viewership, 86% of consumers prefer live coverage. 3 out of 4 consumers said they were bothered by the lack of live event coverage during past Olympics, with 61% saying the events are much less compelling/exciting to watch when they’re not live. When it comes to their Olympics coverage wishlist, 75% of respondents want the ability to choose which events to watch, with 63% wanting the ability to watch any event live, not just the most popular.
• Mobile more than second-screen: 77% of consumers say they’re likely to access this year’s Olympic events and content on a mobile device. Of those who will turn to mobile, more than half cited the ability to watch live coverage as a primary reason, with one quarter saying mobile provides more or better content than watching on TV. What’s more, 70% say they plan to watch the Games directly on a smartphone or tablet, compared to just 23% who will be using mobile as a second-screen experience.
• Increasing demands for control and customization: More than half of consumers said their Olympics experience would be more enjoyable if they had more control over which countries, athletes and events they can watch. 74% of consumers said the ability to receive customized, real-time notifications and reminders about the events they care most about would make them more likely to download Olympics-related mobile apps, with 75% saying they would opt-in to receiving customized notifications about scores and events.

“Mobile can no longer be an afterthought or an add-on, but must now be at the center of every media company’s content and engagement strategy,” said Knitowski. “Brands have to think long-term. How do you create an experience that’s compelling enough to get and keep consumer attention? More importantly, how do you take the incredible amount of data every mobile interaction provides, and use those insights to better understand your audience and ensure you’re delivering the most relevant, impactful experience possible?”

For more information on how media and entertainment companies are effectively using mobile to create compelling experiences for connected devices, visit https://www.phunware.com/services/entertainment/.

About Phunware

Phunware is the pioneer of Multiscreen as a Service (MaaS), a platform that lets brands engage, manage and monetize their users anytime, anywhere. Phunware creates category-defining mobile experiences for the world’s most respected brands, with more than 650 million devices touching its platform every month. For more information about how Phunware is transforming the way the world interacts with connected devices, visit www.phunware.com and follow us on Twitter @phunware.

The post Second-Screen No More: New Data from Phunware Signals Media’s Mobile Future appeared first on Phunware.

Each Mist wireless access point includes an array of Virtual Bluetooth Low Energy (vBLE) beacons that give it hyperlocation capabilities. Because the access points are managed and enabled by the Mist Cloud, they have significant advantages over traditional battery-powered beacons. For companies looking to set up a new location infrastructure, Mist delivers the benefits of both Wi-Fi and BLE. Those with an existing Wi-Fi network can still use Mist’s vBLE devices to efficiently add location capabilities.

Why are virtual beacons exciting?

There are myriad location technologies, as we’ve explored before. Beacons are especially good for indoor short-range applications, such as indoor navigation and in-store proximity marketing. Instead of installing multiple small physical beacon devices, Mist’s virtualized solution enables businesses to create and “install” multiple beacon zones within any given floorplan using far fewer physical devices. And those devices can be managed and even repositioned with a few mouse clicks.

Ultimately, this technology makes beacon-enabled location services much more flexible, manageable and cost-effective, which means they’re a more viable option for more businesses and organizations.

Virtual beacons and the user experience

Combined with next-generation mobile apps (like the ones we build here at Phunware), virtual beacons will enable more businesses to take greater advantage of location and context. Instead of being limited to a beacon at the front door, for example, a store could implement multiple beacon zones to deliver context-appropriate messages and gather behavioral data via their customer mobile app. The store marketing team could even move those beacon zones around as seasonality and customer traffic patterns dictate.

I can see opportunities for virtual beacons across all kinds of industries, from healthcare to retail to airports, entertainment venues, museums, multi-unit residential properties and many more. For example, the next time I go to a convention like Cisco Live!, the Mist solution could be used to log me in to the conference’s wireless network, allow me to download the event app and prompt me to stop by the registration table (with turn-by-turn navigation).

There’s a great story about how Mist’s founders got their inspiration. As Julie Bort reported in Business Insider, CEO Sujai Hajela’s daughter wished there was a way for networks to “simply put information about wherever she was at her fingertips.” With virtual beacons, brands can not only make contextually-relevant information available, but create a contextually-relevant experience.

The post News from Cisco Live and Mist Systems: Virtual Beacons Are Here! appeared first on Phunware.

Experts agree that we’re headed for a bright future where virtual assistants with artificial intelligence act as intermediaries for our mobile and digital lives. When even USA TODAY is publishing articles about personal digital assistants, you know the tipping point is nigh.

Text-based intelligent “bots” are already proliferating across messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, enabling users to order flowers, book plane tickets and even do their banking within their platform of choice. (In China, the messaging platform WeChat is already an everyday tool for ordering meals, making doctors’ appointments and even donating to charity). As Leonard Kie recently put it in CRM Magazine, bots are “making the basic email and messaging tools people use every day smarter.” They offer a convenient way for users to interact with brands without leaving their preferred environment to visit a website or download an app.

Ultimately, these voice- and text-based virtual agents will be pervasive across devices and across your home, the office, your car and your purse or pocket. They’ll be able to coordinate solutions from multiple apps, web services and platforms. Forrester Research says this evolution will move through a four-stage trajectory, as we go from single-device app and web experiences all the way to fully blended ecosystem experiences. These are heady times, my friends.

I was reminded of all of this through a recent TUNE webinar on The Future of Mobile. Guest speaker Julie Ask, Forrester VP and Principal Analyst, made two points abundantly clear:

1. Large players like Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Google are sprinting down the path of virtual agent / meta-platform dominance.
2. This doesn’t mean mobile apps are dead or dying anytime soon.

Phunware and the Future: We’re Already Ready.

Here at Phunware, we talk a lot about mobile apps. They’re our bread and butter. But we’ve always had our eye on the horizon. Technology evolves. So do people. The way we use technology changes, along with the way we feel about it.

The Phunware platform is built to weather all of these changes.

• It’s device-agnostic. Phunware’s platform features can be delivered across multiple devices—smartphones, tablets, wearables and so on. They’re built for interoperability, just like the “experience components” Forrester recommends.
• It’s designed to deliver exceptional user experience, now and in the future. Phunware has been creating category-defining mobile experiences for brands across industries since 2009. When this expertise is coupled with data from the 800+ million devices touching Phunware’s platform every month, we can continually build and optimize audiences and campaigns.
Read More: Download the eBook: Mobile Data: The Missing Link in Your User Engagement and Acquisition Strategies.
• It surfaces contextual data across all the apps your customers use—and makes it actionable. Context is critical for understanding your customers and creating positive user experiences, and you need data to understand context. But just as the TUNE webinar pointed out, it’s unrealistic to think users will spend most of their time in your branded app. Phunware Data allows you to gain visibility across the “walled gardens” of the different apps your users are using to understand what they’re doing, when, where, how and why.

Sometimes, it’s fun to watch all the drama unfold. People naturally worry that they’re getting left behind as one technology disrupts or displaces another. But when you start from a data-driven, interoperable, user-first premise, you can ride all of these waves with relative serenity.

Here are our recommendations:

1. Start with a good solid app if you don’t have one.
2. Make sure you’re using flexible building blocks.
3. Gather every scrap of data you can.
4. Keep the user experience first and foremost.

Now, let’s go make truly useful and really cool stuff.

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The post Smart Talk about Artificial Intelligence: Bots, Virtual Agents and the Future of Mobile appeared first on Phunware.

As developers and owners plan new communities—or revamp existing ones—many are recognizing a growing shift in their resident populations. We’re talking about Generation Z here, born in the late 90s and after.

The eldest are already in the middle of college, and their fellow Gen Z-ers are in high school and starting to think about what they want and need from their college experience.

“Gen-Z” will be larger and more influential than Millennials. —Goldman Sachs & Co.

While there have been a lot of finger-wagging articles talking about resort-style pools, tanning beds and fitness centers, there’s another amenity that can make a real competitive difference for communities. By implementing a resident mobile app, properties can serve their increasingly Gen-Z resident population better and more meaningfully—with no construction or renovation required.

Let’s take a look at why resident mobile apps make so much sense for student housing.

For Gen Z, mobile convenience is table stakes

Today’s college students—and tomorrow’s students even more so—have never known a world without Google. They don’t remember a time before social media. They’re driving the sharing economy with services like Uber and Lyft. Gen Z expects to use their smartphones to manage their busy lives. According to The Center For Generational Kenetics, Gen Z (or “iGen”) “has a different experience with technology than Millennials, which will affect every area of their life—from healthcare and dating to education and shopping. What is most interesting is that what worked for Millennials does not seem to be working as well with iGen…”

According to a recent study by Common Sense Media, 67% of all US teens have their own smartphone. Among higher-income families, that figure rises to 78%. Teens who use a smartphone spend an average of 4.38 hours per day using it. As <href=”#2e3acbf71588″ target=”_blank”>Forbes contributor The Hartman Group put it, “Technology is central to every aspect of their lives, from socializing to schoolwork, entertainment to exercise, relaxation to reference.”

Why should their living environment be any different? With a resident mobile app, properties can make it easy for students to receive package deliveries, check the availability of study rooms or gym equipment via video feed, book services and reserve amenities, manage visitor lists, submit work orders and much more. Every service offered to residents can be immediately accessible through the app.

Gen Z craves community and suffers FOMO

As the first generation to grow up with social media, today’s teens are exposed to a barrage of exciting images of other people’s adventures. It’s easy to feel like everybody’s having an amazing time but you. That’s FOMO (fear of missing out) in a nutshell. However, as youth expert Kelly Lovell explains in Inc., brands can “use the desire of youth to be part of a community to create an environment where they feel special, proud, and [a] sense of exclusivity.”

For student housing brands, a property mobile app can keep residents in the loop about community activities on a daily or even hourly basis. Push notifications can provide timely alerts of evening activities the moment residents walk in the door. Daily or weekly digests can provide an overview of upcoming events, such as pool parties, mixers, study groups and game nights. Engagement can be personalized to who the resident is, where he or she is within the property, and what he or she might be doing. All on the platform Gen Z most prefers (their phones).

Mobile apps for property management

Keeping in mind that much of your on-site staff may be Gen Z or Millennials, mobile apps are just as compelling for management and operations needs. Look for built-in resident communication tools like SMS, push notifications and email options, with the ability to integrate with any existing data sources (like your CRM). Consider a branded sales and leasing app with floor plans, amenities, pricing and online applications.

Phunware has developed and built solutions for some of the world’s leading residential developments—including mobile apps that serve multi-property owners with different branding and features for each community. Our expert team is here to help you provide a more connected and empowering learning/living environment for Gen Z, while streamlining management and operations. See how these properties are using mobile apps to deliver convenience and efficiency:

Download Jade Ocean Customer Snapshot

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Here’s the real problem: expectations are changing because the clientele for luxury living is starting to skew younger, with Millennials now accounting for 13% of the affluent population. According to a UBS Investor Watch report, affluent Millennials (people born ~ 1980-2000) are seeking to enjoy their wealth in real terms.

In the past, success in life was measured in financial and career terms. In recent years, Millennials have expanded this definition of success to include emotional and experiential factors—they want to feel good about their experiences, not just their bank balances. Luxury residential marketers: ignore these trends at your peril!

Learn more in this eBook: A Day in the Life with App-Enabled Luxury.

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Here are some examples of how Millennials’ expectations impact the luxury property world:

EXCLUSIVITY

Affluent Millennials seek to live in an environment that’s distinctive, engaging, and stands out from the crowd. According to recent research, wealthy Millennials are less driven by blind brand loyalty and more attracted to unique experiences, stories and adventures—which makes a curated living experience more important than ever before. They’re expected to dominate the luxury marketplace within the next few years, so it’s time to rethink old approaches now.

TECHNOLOGY

Because Millennials have grown up with easy access to lightning-fast technology innovation, they tend to be early adopters and have high expectations. The average Millennial American internet user uses a whopping SEVEN devices. Technology that seems dated or complicated is an immediate turn-off.

EFFICIENCY

Affluent Millennials don’t just want brands to act resources to them—they expect it. They’re looking for high-tech automation in their exclusive living environments. They want to get more done in less time and with greater ease.

Learn more in this infographic: How Daily Mobile Users Live Now & Where Mobile Goes Next.

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ENGAGEMENT

Luxury property developers and managers must balance fulfilling a resident’s need for exclusivity and efficiency with the right level and quality of engagement. They may just need to rethink the engagement medium: many residents today prefer digital self-service to phone or in-person engagement. After all, 26- to 35-year-olds check their phones an average of 91 times daily, and 17- to 25-year-olds check 123 times. That’s plenty of engagement opportunity!

Millennials are looking for a distinctive way to use technology for better experiences. And a mobile app, integrated into your property management systems, is one way to give your residents what they want.

A mobile app can put luxury lifestyle management at your residents’ fingertips. With it, residents no longer need to waste time waiting for calls to be answered or returned just to reserve an amenity or request maintenance. Every service your property offers is immediately accessible through the app and satisfaction happens in real time, day or night. And luckily for you, over half of millennials (51%) will download a new app if it will connect them with a service they want to use.

An app can enhance the personalized luxury services you are already providing and make residents happy. Happy residents pay their rent on time, stay at your property longer and spread positive word-of-mouth to friends about their experience.

Imagine an app that enables these experiences and more:

• Push-button access to amenities
• View cameras around the property
• Convenient instant messaging
• Direct line to the concierge
• Package delivery alerts
• Request valet parking services
• Manage visitor lists
• Submit work orders
• Browse community calendar and news
• Explore neighborhood points of interest
• Integrate with smart home systems

The usefulness of a custom app for your property is virtually limitless. It gives your residents the experience they want, reinforces your brand and makes engagement with potential residents unique, dynamic and efficient.

For more information on how an app can differentiate your property in the eyes of prospective residents—not to mention streamlining property management—check out our eBook: Redefining Luxury LIving: Branded Apps for High-End Properties.

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Mobile Trends and Predictions for 2015

1. Focus on Innovation and Time to Market
   The innovation bar for mobile apps will continue to be raised as app time-to-delivery windows approach zero, according to Forrester Research. To meet the dual demands of innovation and speedy app creation, developers will move away from “a mentality of creating everything in-house” (Forrester). Brands will increasingly turn to mobile app development platform providers to help them create more innovative apps within a shorter timeframe.
2. Mobile-First Approach
   Mobile will continue to grow in importance. Gartner predicts that by 2018, more than half of users will grab a tablet or smartphone first when going online. Meanwhile, 2014 Flurry research shows that mobile users greatly prefer apps to the mobile web.As a result, in 2015 “brands that decline to invest heavily in mobile…are bound to get surpassed by competitors,” predict execs from The Nielsen Company and Mobile Majority.
3. Loyalty Spotlight
   The combination of Apple’s iBeacon, TouchID, and Apple Pay will help advertisers and brands increase customer loyalty in 2015. Starbucks has been an early leader in this regard, according to a senior Nielsen Company executive. Connecting “commerce to loyalty is where I’d put my efforts for 2015,” he said.
4. Location Targeting
   To increase engagement (and to avoid irritating users) advertisers and brands will need to use geo-fencing and geo-targeting judiciously next year and beyond. For example, retailers “have to not only adopt beacons into their stores, but must clearly articulate the benefit consumers will get” (Computerworld).
5. Event Enrichment
   Mobile event apps will continue to grow in popularity, predicts meeting/technology consultant Corbin Ball. Organizers will increasingly use iBeacons, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), geo-fencing and other wireless technologies to increase event engagement through gamification, scavenger hunts, navigation assistance, personalized welcome messages and other location-based notifications.

How Can Mobile Marketers and Advertisers Leverage These Trends?

To maximize these trends and be successful with their mobile app efforts in 2015, advertisers and brands should ask themselves the following questions:

• Who are my app’s target users? When building out your mobile advertising plans, develop customer personas, complete with needs and interests.
• How will my app make consumers’ lives better or easier? Always keep in mind how your app will benefit your customers—not just your brand.
• Which features and capabilities should be included in my app? The possibilities are virtually endless. But if you cram in too many features, you might sacrifice usability—the kiss of death for apps.
• How quickly do I want to release my app? While time to market is critical and there’s pressure to release apps and features ASAP, it’s better to be awesome than early.
• How should I market my app to drive downloads and recurring usage? Consider press releases, social media and other strategies to stay top of mind with target customers.

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