Mobile Web in Africa 2011 – Day 1 Highlights

By Tefo Mohapi

As All Amber put it, Mobile Web in Africa 2011 – Africa’s most progressive and innovative mobile focused conference – was back for a 3rd year at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Rosebank on the 23rd and 24th of November 2011 (Main Conference) and it lived up to the marketing and expectations (if not out-do them).

Below is a snippet and some of the highlights on what some of the speakers had to say on the 1st Day of the main conference.

Toby Shapshak
Editor – Stuff Magazine

During the panel discussion Toby had this to ask in reference to agencies being obsessed with developing smartphone based campaigns (apps):

Are you alleging that marketing departments / (marketing) agencies are out of touch with reality?

Tim Bishop
Founder – Prezence Digital

“Why putting the consumer and understanding the sector needs to be at the centre of your planning”

Target audience for mobile is EVERYONE!

Know what users (mobile) are using. In South Africa, the order of phones (feature and smart) is Nokia, BlackBerry, Android, iPhone and iPad

Priorities when developing for mobile are: Relevance, Usefulness, Ease of Use and accesibility

 

Paul Stemmet
COO – World of Avatar

“Origins of Ad Networks”

The Internet – Search Engines – Sales Houses – Ad Networks

Shinka – First African Ad Network / Platform leveraging the World of Avatar user base (e.g. Mxit)

Samsung E250 is the AK47 of mobile phones in Africa

Africans spend 45 hrs / month on Mxit and only 15 hrs / month on Facebook

 

Robyn Milham
Head of Enterprise Sales for Southern Africa – RIM

“Determining the key elements of the next phase of evolution”

Africa – 500 million plus mobile phone users

The coming trends are Near field Communications (NFC), Cloud Computing, Location based services, Apps in the enterprise and augmented reality

The challenge is in monetising apps

 

Musa Kalenga
Managing Director – IHOP World

“Connecting, impressing and behaving properly with the mobile consumer”

If you are not fast, you are food

Technology comes 2nd to a kick-ass strategy

Consumers don’t need you!

We live in the age of collaboration

 

Marc Smith
Chief Social Scientist – Connected Action Consulting Group (USA)

“Bringing the social media swarm into focus – how to reveal key people, topics and sub-communities in the conversations that matter to you”

Find brand champions – i.e. people who love your product (service) and are loved themselves (Influencers)

Crowds come in clusters and are not a monolith

66% of people on twitter post ONE tweet and never return

Twitter is powerful once you see the graphs of connections

 

Matthew Angus
Research Director – Kaufman Levin Associates

“The Mobile Device as a consumer insight portal”

Mobile Market Research is feasible in Africa

Close to 600 million mobile phone users

Currently, 1 in 32 Africans use a smartphone

 

Mark Kaigwa
Partner – Affrinovator (Kenya)

“Is the Silicon Savannah label justified yet or part of an excellent PR campaign?”

Konza Technology City (Kenya) is a public / private partnership aiming to further grow Kenya’s booming tech sector

Kenya possibly at the “coal face” of Arican technology innovation

Local (Kenya) M-Pesa transactions now surpass global transactions by Western Union

 

Dave Erasmus
Founder – Cubate (UK)

“The Social Web Paradigm”

Social, mobile and localisation go hand-in-hand to drive innovation at the moment, but data is still the most valuable asset

Databases are stand alone but only add real value when crossed referenced. Relationships

 

Adam Holtrop
Creative Director – Vidamo (Norway)

“What’s the missing link in marketing?”

Advertising (Marketing) should be about getting the customer into the store (or to purchase something)

Too many advertisers making Ads for awards

We make coupon codes or bar codes on mobile – a solution for coupon redemption via mobile phone. This can be used in ticketing too

 

Alan Knott-Craig Jr
CEO – Mxit

“MXit – Past, present and future”

MXit is adding 50,000 users / day compared to Facebook ading 100,000 users / month in Africa. I don’t know where these people are coming from!

We handle 700 – 800 million messages a day competing with some operators

BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) is eating our lunch but it’s the only thing keeping RIM in business

I expect RIM to go out of business soon