Novembers roundtable is focusing on “Mobile App Economy”  in which we will discuss the shifts in the Mobile App ecosystem such as the race to build a better smartphone, ways that legacy device manufacturers (like Nokia) are catching up, new advertising models, etc.

Can Anyone catch up to Apple and is the Android platform going to continue to grow or will it plateau? What about Blackberry, Nokia and yes even Palm where do they fit in all of this.

These topics and more will be discussed at the roundtable.

Participants Include:

Appsolute Media-Jon Kobrin, CMO
Mobiworx-David Hobeich, Founder & CEO
NeedAnApp-Antoine Trepant, Founder
Two Toasters-Rachit Shukla, CEO
Sonic Mobile-Jay Block, VP Business Development
Applico-Alex Moazed, CEO
Zip Mark-Jay Bhattacharya, Co-founder
MRM Worldwide, Louis Simeonidis, VP Digital & Tecnology Strategy
Fusion Creative Studios- Pablo Arenas, CEO
Mojiva-David Gowdz, CEO
Nokia-Pete Dragunas, Head World Wide Sales

The goal of the roundtable is to bring startups along with VC’s, angels, and industry experts to network, discuss, and help startups grow and succeed.

October 26, 2010
Comments by Guillermo Kopp / @GuillermoKopp
Chairman, GUAU Corporation / gk @ guauco.com

PLUGGED IN – FOLLOW UP THOUGHTS

1. Content contribution: Do people click on the “participate” button? Most people are busy and lack the time to do so, however, asking visitors to help create specific, unique content may attract contributions.

Comment: We find that facilitating content discovery will get people’s attention. Combining professional and user reviews will boost credibility and entice participation. People may like syndicated sites that combine similar types of content, such as status updates from Twitter and facebook.

2. Authenticity: Different than printed media, syndicated editorials lack clear labeling or regulations to verify the person (with his or her identity, affiliation, or field of activity) that is entering the content.

Comment: We believe that consumers deserve, and will expect, proper disclosure about the nature and source of online content. Consumer behaviors and rules of engagement to accept branded, peer, or professional content will take shape gradually based on the specific field of activity or industry sector.

3. Differentiation: As content proliferates, people find it harder to see the value. People would pay for exclusive, immediate, convenient, interesting, premium content and original points-of-view.

Comment: We believe that sites should mind the specific purpose of the content. Sites that help people make quick shopping choices will have a different style from those that feature entertainment, contextual information, or reference data, or specialized sites that influence more impactful decisions.

4. Video content: Advertisers want targeted audiences more than content, so TV programs get the biggest share of the budget. Online videos are more engaging and much shorter (around 1.5 minutes).

Comment: We envision a massive growth of short and instantly popular online video content that will ride on bandwidth availability and the proliferation of YouTube and media clips. As TV programs get saturated with commercials, personalized repackaging of media should put viewers back in control.

5. Paid content: Syndication may give visibility to content producers, but these may not get paid. Traffic expectations are overblown. Sites need to create revenue events and build customer loyalty.

Comment: Usage statistics will reveal what people value, and nurture content-centric relationships. Lowering the burden for people to make micro-payments for premium content items (e.g., iTunes, facebook credits) will lead to greater adoption by customers and much higher monetization rates.

October 7, 2010
Comments by Guillermo Kopp / @GuillermoKopp
Chairman, GUAU Corporation / gk @ guauco.com

Participants Included: Medialets, Jumptap, Greystripe, Percent Mobile, InMobi, Todacell, Ringleader Digital, Ogilvy, Microsoft, and Google.

1. ROI: Mobile gets 5% of the dollars and takes 85% of the effort. Agencies must prove the returns. Brands should pay for customer actions, not clicks. Advertising within the app is getting too expensive.

Comment: We find that the click rate from app to website is small; some apps inadvertently trigger clicks, and a significant portion of mobile display ads are delivered incorrectly. Besides improving the delivery and linking ads to customer actions, advertisers should invest in retraining people.

2. Impact of advertising: What are the right analytics and metrics of success for mobile? Should advertisers focus on ROI or quality? Online advertising took 20 years to reach 20% of the total.

Comment: Mobile advertising should be more impactful and leverage other media platforms. Successful investments in mobile will bring significant returns. For instance, location will enable advertisers to target the right message at the right moment to consumers who are inclined to act.

3. Evolving media: Marketers must connect with mobile consumers. Advertising content must tap offline data, get optimized for the fast changing mobile channel, and deliver a better customer experience.

Comment: We believe that different mobile solutions are still looking for a genuine business issue that is worth solving. Marketers should connect the dots and integrate traditional campaigns, such as discount coupons, thus unleashing the intrinsic and holistic power of mobile advertising.

4. Successful campaigns: Agencies will take a long time to master the mobile channel. First, they must overcome an advertising culture that is rooted in traditional media.

Comment: Successful mobile content will serve as a media anchor and drive consumers to come back for more. Ads on search engines and other mobile advertising schemes that “convert” to actual purchases will bring incremental revenue streams and prompt brands to advertise more aggressively.

5. Security and privacy: Ads are being infected with malware. Enterprise CIOs are feeling “invaded” by mobile platforms. Privacy is becoming a social responsibility, and security is a much broader concern.

Comment: Notwithstanding a gradual adoption of selected mobile platforms for secure use within the enterprise, we see that devices, apps, and browsers still show significant vulnerabilities. To avoid compromising public trust, advertisers must be aware of the perils attached to makeshift mobile ads.

October 7, 2010
Comments by Guillermo Kopp / @GuillermoKopp
Chairman, GUAU Corporation / gk @ guauco.com

Participants Included: AppsSavvy, Socialight, Adenyo, Mobile Commons, Appular, Bravo Media, Joule, Razorfish, and MRM Worldwide.

1. Marketing apps: Mobile apps show tremendous growth. Similar to CPG, consistent and persistent marketing will promote loyalty and allow brands to pass on some of the value back to the customers.

Comment: Advertisers should uncover every stone, and collect contact information when apps are downloaded. As consumers check products and services through their social network, brands should connect people through apps that are commercially and experientially relevant to their target market.

2. Personalized dialogue: Mobile is an interactive media for direct marketing to customers that features rich, one-on-one relationships. As consumers take action, brands engage them and drive increased sales.

Comment: We find that brands are putting together location and identity features, and learning how to reach people at the right place and time. This will make the conversation more relevant, gather better experiential intelligence, and generate the right interaction and marketing opportunities.

3. Analytics: Patterns of people’s movement will help in predicting where they are going to be later in the day. Mobile produces a huge amount of data that may lack reliability or yield meaningful metrics.

Comment: We see customers using the mobile to pull background information about products when shopping at a store. Information services will represent a proactive way to learn about purchase intentions, and gain opt-in permission from consumers to access more granular data about them.

4. Experimentation: As mobile interactions become more sophisticated, marketing will follow a learning curve. An average app has a life-span of 3 months, and a small fraction of the apps are successful.

Comment: We believe that the composition and behaviors of the market are shifting. Mobile web, text, and messaging will converge into one integrated and more actionable customer platform. Mobile video will play a key role in engaging customers and improving their overall experience across channels.

5. Infrastructure: As more people access the mobile web, the back end infrastructure will become a big bottleneck. Robustness must improve. Networks should increase bandwidth to support streaming video.

Comment: Television is still a more effective media to reach all audiences. Mobile screens will become larger. Tablets and screens need better resolution. As infrastructure evolves, we envision richer and more engaging uses of mobile video, such as entertainment, sports, weather and live interactions.

October 7, 2010
Comments by Guillermo Kopp / @GuillermoKopp
Chairman, GUAU Corporation / gk @ guauco.com

Participants Included: eyeDip, WorldLiveMobile, Toura, MEDL Mobile, Appsolute Media, Fox Mobile, Time Inc.,  WSJ, MTV, Sony Music, Turner Broadcasting,  and Thomson Rueters.

1. Valued experience: A mobile device works as an extension of the person. It goes with the person and stays connected. Apps perform original functions, including location. Most of the top apps are games.

Comment: Smart apps should render better interactive experiences that are more creative, engaging, functional, social, utilitarian, and save time. We think that developers need to focus on producing groundbreaking content that will elevate popular apps as a pivotal consumer touch point.

2. Augmented reality: Apps should tap device features such as location, vibration, and video. When used to pull related data while watching television or sports events, apps will enhance the user experience.

Comment: We believe that games and enriched sports data will fulfill a most compelling role in engaging consumers. Brands and app developers should harness vast amounts of data that are available through the cloud platform, and integrate information seamlessly and timely into the live flow of events.

3. Business model: What is the core value proposition attached to mobile apps? Rather than advancing technologies that look for a viable use, apps must focus on solving actual business issues.

Comment: Consumers drive a lot of digital media usage that still has to be monetized. Besides charging competitive prices for premium mobile content, brands need to work holistically. Extra revenues from commissions and subscriptions from other platforms will support the case for mobile.

4. Usage: Consumers spend twice the time using mobile apps than browsing the mobile web. Phones are getting more powerful. There are too many apps and online information. It is hard to build critical mass.

Comment: To entice sustained use, apps must fulfill a productive purpose and have a reasonable lifespan. Successful apps that deliver practical value and connect to specific audiences will serve as a primary touch point. Successive generations of apps will upgrade the core functions and features.

5. Evolution: Apps are just a new form in the changing digital landscape. Media companies should employ apps as part of a multifaceted portfolio. Fragmentation of platforms results in duplicative cost.

Comment: We believe that carriers will continue to wield power in the mobile ecosystem, and will influence the consolidation and distribution of mobile app sources. Revenues from mobile usage should be less dependent on carrier models and focus more on the value of the services delivered.

October 7, 2010
Comments by Guillermo Kopp / @GuillermoKopp
Chairman, GUAU Corporation / gk @ guauco.com

Participants Included: Xtify, Buzzd, Facebook, Where, Loopt, Topguest, DoubleDutch, MyCityWay, The Hotlist, Philo, and Grouptabs.

1. Check-in culture: Social networks engulf hundreds of millions of people, and will be a formidable force to drive mobile transactions. As a new conduit, creative check-in dynamics will shift purchasing habits.

Comment: We think that brands and merchants should also mind the check-in benefits as perceived by customers. Rather than rehashing in-store promotions, active check-in dynamics should allow consumers to discover innovative interactions that will pinpoint emerging needs and opportunities.

2. Merchant benefits: The ability to bring customers into the store and sell more is the ultimate goal for check-in. Despite the adoption of mobile coupons, tangible economic benefits are slow to come.

Comment: We believe that merchants should tap the full potential of check-in workflows to boost the effectiveness and efficiency of store operations. Besides attracting and enticing customers, check-in information will serve to orchestrate seamless in-store interactions that boost sales and productivity.

3. Local Competition: Stores compete aggressively on discounts, and will pitch to consumers who are checking-in at a neighboring rival. If customers walk out from a store, it might lose the intended sales.

Comment: Price wars on existing products are zero-sum games, and lead to lower prices that benefit consumers. Merchants should better refine their segmentation and orchestrate vertical services that create new value and spur cross-selling, such as spotting the ingredients of a meal or recipe.

4. Innovative use cases: Skeptics point at flaws in location services, such as low conversion rates when passers-by get prompted to visit a rental, or are mistaken as fans of the sports team in a nearby stadium.

Comment: Comprehensive marketing analytics from other sources should result in better targeting. We see that airport shops will serve as a fertile ground for real-time location services. Many passengers have idle time between flights and will be willing to experiment with synergistic uses of mobile check-in.

5. Check-in metrics: Most people will have smart phones, but data on purchases is lagging. Brands would like to own the location history of their customers exclusively. Discounts will reach a point of saturation.

Comment: We find that tracking the actual purchase back to the source of the transaction will shed a better light on the role of check-in. Clarity on the mobile source will enable merchants to better understand the buyer’s intent and sell incremental products and services in a cost-efficient manner.

Thoughts from Ashley Heather a co-founder of dotbox and participant in the September roundtable.

This morning I had the pleasure of attending a Social Media roundtable organized by PluggedIn Ventures at Loeb & Loeb. I was invited to represent dotbox. Other experts included Maury Postal (CarrotCreative), Bob Troia (Affinitive) and many more — a dozen or so in all. The Loeb & Loeb moderator asked some fascinating questions and a great discussion ensued. Click the fold below to see what topics were discussed.

(1) What is social media? – I responded, “Social media is about leveraging everyday conversation about your brand, but there is no set definition.” Everyone agreed it is too early for just a single point of view on the subject. That said, one thing about which we all concurred: Mobile apps are NOT social media 

(2) How to measure social media? – The panel consensus was that social media is difficult to measure and that there needs to be a long-term, strategic initiative across business segments. Short term, 90-day efforts typically fail to gain any real traction. KPIs will differ based on what the exact execution is.

(3) How to use social media? – Panel response varied, but consensus again emerged—more than just “new” marketing, social media represents a more fundamental shift in doing business. It should be funded across all departments, and not just as a marketing initiative.

(4) Where do people look for influence or curation of content? – My summary of panel viewpoints: Typically there are 1) experts (who can be brands or people), 2) advocates (bloggers and people with a public voice) and 3) peers (people you actually know). Each of these 3 categories of curators are important to address in social media engagements

(5) What does success look like? The “Old Spice -Man’s Man” campaign was praised. It started with great creative and a vision, and then used social media to amplify that vision and to engage the tastemakers. Success metrics thrown out in the room were a 116% increase in sales year over year. Everyone should know this campaign was 3 years in the making.

(6) What are some of the “unseen” issues? The panel discussed the growing trend of “dual profiling,” where consumers set up multiple profiles on social networks to segregate their personal and business activity. Often their business profile is their real name, and they use a fake profile for their personal network. This can throw a wrench into targeting plans and can make it difficult to truly understand a consumer’s social footprint.

One fun part of these sessions is hearing new lingo. “RetroSexual” is probably my favorite from this morning. Basically, it refers to the Man’s Man and Mad Men trend of being cool, more than brutish and testosterone driven.

I look forward to keeping in touch with many of the panelists from today’s session, and thanks to Eli Mandelbaum from PluggedIn Ventures for making it all happen.

August 27, 2010
Comments by Guillermo Kopp / @GuillermoKopp
Chairman, GUAU Corporation

1. Online Discounts/Coupons: Customers may not be inclined to buy, but pushing online discounts will motivate them. Coupons prompt impulse buying, but have low redemption (8-9%) and loyalty (20-40%).

 Comment: Proactive “on sale” outreach will offer targeted and more relevant discounts though massive electronic channels, thus creating genuine economic value. The end result will be increased volumes of more fruitful sales that shall benefit consumers with better goods and lower prices.

2. End-to-end Customer Experience: Consumers need to know what to expect when they show up at the shop. Online buyers of luxury goods are very likely to buy the same brand at a bricks-and-mortar shop.

 Comment: We see strategic value in capitalizing on the consumer’s delight with an online “bargain”, to deliver a more fulfilling experience. Customers will appreciate detailed information and advice about the goods, and also being able to pick them up at the store in a smooth and pleasurable manner.

3. Supply Chain Competition: Brands sell “in your face.” Group buying is losing ground. Wal-Mart can buy cheaper, turn around inventory faster, and pass on better discounts to consumers.

 Comment: Prepaid discounts will tap a $2 trillion market, and must close the loop by ensuring that the goods or services are ultimately filled by the retailer or provider. Beyond the discounts, eCommerce may get the brands to pay for promotional materials the way they pay retailers for catalogues, etc.

4. Advertising: eCommerce ads are exploding. Google ads present a cost effective opportunity for small businesses ($10K to $20K per day on commissions). New and old formats (and models) are overlapping.

 Comment: We find that eCommerce will create product awareness, connect sellers with buyers readily and effectively, and drive new customer acquisition (with life-time value). Retail will find intrinsic value in showcasing products, gathering marketing data, and probing for emerging customer needs.

5. Social Web: How much of social networks and video buying is for real? Referrals to friends, and friends of friends, yield 3 to 4 times better results. College students tend to chase online deals all day long.

 Comment: We believe that new media (especially video content), and location technologies show strong potential. Small retailers will enjoy significant growth, as social and digital channels expand their reach from “around the corner” onto large virtual neighborhoods and affinity markets with global span.

July 21, 2010
Comments by Guillermo Kopp / @GuillermoKopp
Chairman, GUAU Corporation

PLUGGED IN – FOLLOW UP THOUGHTS

1. Real-Time Value: Amid a proliferation of online information, publishers such as the Wall Street Journal operate two-tier business models that prompt customers to pay for premium content.

 Comment: We find that both businesses and consumers value the immediate access to creative and unique content. Live information, such as mobile location and real-time analytics, will provide dynamic insights on customer behaviors, enable a swifter online business flow, and optimize marketing.

2. Electronic Content: Companies monetize real-time data by delivering electronic transactions with intangible, time-sensitive items such as stock trading, and travel and entertainment reservations.

 Comment: Faster, smarter, and increasingly viral online multimedia content will converge with broadcast media, entertainment, fashion, music, movies, and games. Creative services will monetize real-time data such as location and time-sensitive pricing, yield management, and online prestige.

3. Social Media: As humans are inherently social, a properly managed identity and online presence will help in building relationships. Real-time habits (e.g., to mingle and share) will modify social interactions.

 Comment: The power to engage people in personal, as well as many-to-many online interactions, will drive cultural changes. As individuals opt in to share personal information, we believe that flat (one- to-many) electronic delivery models will give way to more participative and pervasive social dynamics.

4. Adoption: Changes to purchasing interactions entail massive learning curves. Promoting online services will require market segmentation that attends adequately to lifestyles and behaviors.

 Comment: Brands and advertising agencies should mind evolving online behaviors and shifting loyalty patterns. To capitalize on the accelerated take up of online commerce and viral growth of emerging niche markets, companies should also direct marketing resources to focused offerings.

5. Interaction: Opposite the mere automation of “back end” processes, real-time interactions will integrate live media such as voice and video, and presence information (e.g., mobile location).

 Comment: Real-time media will gradually transform social interactions. We believe that innovations in location-based content, context-sensitive information, and recognition of verbal and non-verbal cues will enrich broadcast and online channels and open new business as well as lifestyle dimensions.