If there’s one thing the beginning of the year is good for, it’s predictions, and there’s no shortage of them for 2008. The latest is from Bango, offering up 5 trends that they expect to see in 2008. Given that Bango is one of the leading mobile payment services, some of these ‘trends’ aren’t a big surprise.
1. An increasing number of people accessing the internet from their mobiles – Duh.
2. Mobile Advertising will surge ahead – Again, duh. As more people use the mobile internet, more companies will want to reach them.
3. Shift from messaging to mobile internet for data usage on mobile phones – I suppose I could agree with this one. As Bango points out, more portals offer search boxes, and search will become big on mobile handsets, rather than SMS for delivery.
4. Moble commerce of physical goods will come of age – I disagree with this. It’ll obviously increase, but as to ‘coming of age’, I think that’s a ways off, personally, at least for the mass market.
5. The PC and mobile will become more closely linked – Agreed 400%. One thing the iPhone really helped out with is educating consumers to the notion of connecting their mobile phone with their PC for syncing and content. This will only increase as they realize that other manufacturers offer this as well, but have been too ignorant to really promote/enable it.
So there you have it, Bango’s Mobile Trends for 2008 and my thoughts on them. Any questions? Do you agree/disagree?
I hate to simply agree with you across the board because it doesn’t make for very fun commenting, but I do. 🙂
Specifically about the mobile commerce of physical goods, there are still too many steps involved for a consumer to make that happen. And besides, if you’re out and about with your phone, you probably have your wallet with cash/cards. Maybe someone using their mobile to get ebay alerts, then jump on and post a last minute bid, but I just don’t see the masses this year buying things through their mobile. Will be very interesting to see what products and services pop up to cater to those who do though. Thanks!