Always Connected: The New Business Paradigm

How is the mobile landscape changing and how is this affecting the way business is done? This was the focus of the fist business session I attended. Rick Segal Co-Founder of Fixmo, Aaron Rallo CEO of PNI Digital Media and Gary Symons, CEO of Vericorder Technology were the panelists listed. Some of you may know Rick Segal from his days at JLA Ventures. Rick has H1N1 so the panel was a little thin, but still informative. Lindsay Smith, CEO of Massive Media moderated the event. 

Some stats you might not have known?

• 8 million downloads on mobile phones and only a 1/4 are free downloads, this means the rest are paid-for apps so it's a big deal for monetization of applications
• Nokia is the #1 smartphone in the world. Then it's RIM and Apple. Apple has only 17% of the marketshare. Is this strange to you?
• The iPhone is generating 67% of total mobile traffic

The session went fast and there was a 10 minute Q&A at the end. The panelists discussed their own experiences with creating mobile applications. The main message? Customers want information immediately. For retailers, they want to make sure their name is associated immediately with the product. Giving feedback mechanism they can monitor is key. Monitoring social media and giving customers applications for services they can use as a feedback tool is also important. Application and mobile technology has to be geared to our lives.

How has the iPhone changed the way you do business? Has it?