The London bombings and the execution of Sadaam Hussein were just two of many examples of how the ubiquitous cellphone in the hands of amateur citizen journalists caught moments of drama that no news agency could ever hope to achieve.
But, while the cellphone in the hands of ordinary people will become the most-used coal face news gathering device in future, it is also proving to be the world most definitive interactive device. It snoops, surfs, spies, reports, exposes, purchases, messages, videos, photographs and even makes phone calls.
Chatting a few days ago to Russell Atkins, GM, mobile at 24.com, usage by mobile device owners to access the web has grown like topsy.
Quoting statistics from the Online Publishers Association in Europe, Atkins said that in the US and Europe, as many as 75% of mobile device owners had access to the web.
He said recent research showed that the US was at the forefront of global mobile web growth, with a 300% increase in usage over the last year.
And most remarkably, South Africa is not all that far behind. Bango.com, which created the first global exchange for the mobile web, reports that the top five countries accessing the web via Bingo in April this were the UK at 27%, the US at 21%, South Africa at 11%, India at 9% and Indonesia at 3%. In total, Bango detects mobile web users from over 190 countries.
The most popular content in Europe and the USA is weather, sports, news and stocks/entertainment and the most purchased content is technology, product info and lifestyle.
Most interesting of all, Atkins pointed out, was that mobile web users seem happy to receive free content in exchange for watching advertising.
He added that research showed that web access via mobile devices was not replacing access via PCs but rather increasing web usage.
It seems quite clear that the cellphone and other mobile devices will become increasingly important to marketers as the world takes to using them to get instant information and to create instant information and news.
And most pleasing is that not only do users seem happy to have ads interrupting their information flow in exchange for getting information for free but a recent study in Europe showed that 11% actually ended up making product and service purchases as a result of that advertising.
But the real beauty of mobile is that while it is growing faster than many of us imagine, it is actually not threat at all to conventional media. Because research has shown quite clearly that whether it is information of actually watching television, it is all short term stuff. Content for mobile is generally packaged into maximum three minute tranches.
Because of this, it complements rather than replaces radio, TV, newspapers, magazines and PCs.
And best of all, it might just be that much sought-after conduit for reaching the unreachable 17 – 25 year-old target market.
