April’s TCTHH event was sponsored by Five Technology and I presented on Mobile Web Design basics.  Lisa Foote, founder of MixMobi also presented on mobile marketing and their great service.

Here is my slide deck from my presentation:

The night was full of great Twin Cities professionals connecting with new people, sharing ideas, laughs, winning some gift cards and eating some awesome food from the Shorewood.

I want to say thanks everyone who came out last night, thanks to TCTHH founder Jeff Nolan, the Shorewood (client), Aaron Darling and numerous others for their support.  There are too many to name, but you know who you are.

Here are a few photos from the night, starting off with a few people enjoying their Twitter-tini’s!

Paul Jahn also posted a great photo set to his Flickr account.

• Limited space, Register now – FREE

Mobile Web Design & Marketing
I will be giving a short presentation on mobile web design covering the basics of the why, how and some of the technical aspects involved. Delivering information on your business to consumers via their iPhone, Blackberry, Android and even basic cell phones is an exploding area of marketing.

We’ve also invited Lisa Foote, founder of MixMobi to speak on their mobile marketing service that any business can leverage with ease.  Lisa is an expert in the mobile marketing industry and brings knowledge and passion to this exciting topic of mobile coupons, offers and consumer engagement.

Bottom Line: Great People, Free Food, Drinks & Mobile
The Twin Cities Thursday Happy Hour has earned great reputation as a fun and dynamic event.  You can follow them on Twitter at @TCTHURHAPPYHOUR.

You’ll connect with other great Minneapolis & St. Paul area professionals, eat some great food, get one more check-in on your Foursquare account and get some great insight in the mobile web and marketing landscape.

Make sure you reserve your spot and we’ll see you there! Drop us a comment below if we’ll see you on April 15th.

Mobile March

It’s no secret the continued rise of mobile in every aspect.  In many ways it is the new darling in marketing, and has the touch of “the Internet 10 years ago”.  Challenges, opportunities and ideas all coming together in this unknown but rapidly evolving space.

Five Technology developer Travis Neiderhiser and myself managed to cover both the business/marketing and development sessions of the event.  The mobile development side offered technical insight, code basics and overall approach for the iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry.

iPhone app development session with Aaron Kardell

The business track offered great looks into consumer mobile objectives, marketing integration and even the types of consumers and their behaviors by mobile device.  On the strategy end of things the thoughts were very general, but that’s what you get with a young medium I guess.

My two favorite sessions of the day were the development session (pic above) that walked through developing an iPhone app and the creative show and tell provided by Jamey Erickson of Seventhsin.  Jamey’s firm has handled mobile projects for the likes of JC Penny’s and others and he shared some great mobile projects and led an open discussion.

It was a solid first time event and it was great to focus on strictly mobile.  Both Travis and I were hoping for a bit more discussion on mobile web design, but hopefully that will happen at future events.

+ Mobile Web Design
As a small business, maybe you have given little or no thought to this point on your website on a mobile device. Just as you might have eased into this whole Internet thing, you should probably start dipping your toe in the water here. It is very easy to start small with mobile web design. I recommend putting together just one “mobile friendly” page on your website that delivers the type of information a user might be most interested in when accessing your info from their mobile phone. Consider these areas:

Mobile Devices

• Many different devices, features
• Mostly small screens, no room for big graphics
• Code with standards of W3C, xHTML

Mobile Content

• Little or no graphics
• Consider users want specifics, they are not browsing
• Display content like location, directions, hours, main services/products

My Mobile Web Recommendations

• Build a mobile friendly page at yourdomain.com/m
• Examples of using a /m directory or sub domain:
  Google.com/m or m.bestbuy.com
• Make your customers/users aware your mobile page exists
• Start small, track and make adjustments

Yes, there is a lot to consider in the mobile web design arena, but there is a better grasp on it now then 2 years ago and it will only improve. At Five, we are working on getting a /m page up to show as an example, so stay tuned. I also think we are not far off from designing a mobile page or section as a standard when creating new web projects.

+ Mobile Marketing
The ability for users to search on their mobile phone will also expand. With search engines refining their display, content and offering in the mobile web, there will be new and different opportunities. The same way Google Maps or Yahoo Local change up their algorithm for local search, mobile search has it’s own formula. The search engine results for Google mobile display only 6 results on page one. You also have to consider Google 411 and other local mobile search services.

The limitation of visual banners and ads on mobile devices will make search and link advertising the mobile marketing methods of choice for now, but who know what the future will hold … but speaking of the future, this next service is attacking it.

+ Nabbit.com, A Mobile Marketing & Tagging Service
Have you ever heard an ad on the radio and wanted to remember to call that company, or wanted a reminder buy that new song on iTunes when you returned home? Nabbit is a service that enables radio, Internet and mobile to connect to give you the ability to tag content.

Bringing Media Together
For me the beauty of Nabbit is the connection of various mediums, all for the benefit of the user. Signing up for Nabbit is quick and easy, you then set the stations you listen to, then you use your phone after a quick download to tag songs or ads. When you “nabb” a favorite song or an advertisement, it pushes the details back to your web account for you to review later and can send you a reminder to your email that you added to your playlist.

Marketers have to love the features Nabbit offers from coupons and callback features to significantly add to their radio ads. The songs you nabb give you options to buy and download from your favorite online store/service. Very cool.

As you can read above, there is a lot going on and advancing in mobile web. The good news is there are many small ways you can start to explore your capabilities and options. The worst thing to do at this point is to ignore it.