Judging 250 entries and registrations for the Smaato Mobile Advertising Award gave the judges the opportunity to list some "top trends". There's nothing particularly surprisign here, except perhaps the prominence given to location.
Having sat in on Mobile Monday London's event this week on Location which was surprisingly downbeat, it might be said that it's pushing it to claim, as Smaato's release does, that "the app enthused public is demonstrating that they are curious about socializing with other people using the same app, in the same geographic region."
Still, Smaato's team has produced these findings from its judging process, see what you think.
1) Location, location, location
With success seen from location-based apps from Smaato Award Finalists such as Waze, Aloqa, Lucky Magazine (NearbyNow) and Yoose, the app enthused public is demonstrating that they are curious about socializing with other people using the same app, in the same geographic region. People who use these apps are engaging with local promotions or meeting up for coffee, even saying hi to each other as they pass in the street.
2) Brand building with apps
Among the thousands of apps available, many brands have stepped into the arena, extending their reach to involve the app hungry audiences around the world. We see GAP, Lufthansa, Barclaycard (by Award Finalist Fishlabs) and more leading brand marketers worldwide, all as excellent examples of how to connect with brand fans by developing useful apps that reflect a brand’s mission or extend their services to ubiquitous mobile devices and smartphones.
3) Profitable Fun
At the heart of the more successful app developer’s mission is increasing attention toward how to build sustained growth and profitability with different monetization options, such as SPB TV. For added monetization mobile developers are turning to mobile advertising solutions.
4) Apps are the new fashion accessory!
Pop cultural media is increasingly paying attention to what apps fashionable people are downloading, and often feature interesting apps that are on-trend. At trendy bars in cosmopolitan cities people can be seen exchanging tips about the best apps to use in daily life, or just to have fun. Among the most popular we see Twitter applications such as Zensify and MoTweet, and urban guides like Buzzd or Geodelic Sherpa taking center stage. Greatly designed mobile utilities can be real life helpers like “Little Helpers” for tracking expenses.
5) Beyond the app
Increasingly, mobile publishers are building social networking and other conversational features to add value either within apps or on the mobile web, like itsmy or Flirtomatic. We see examples of API platforms being widened to build a bridge that takes an app beyond being something you only use on a mobile phone, to integration with the traditional online world. In the advent of the 2010 soccer world championships, reach on the mobile web is achieved either globally by goal.com <http://goal.com> or locally by Lance! in Brazil.
The winners. Smaato's winners were:
• Overall iPhone category winner: Waze
• Overall Mobile web category winner: Flirtomatic
• Overall Apps category winner: Aloqa
• Microsoft Phone category winner: SPB TV
• Motorola Android category winner: Aloqa