An Overview To South Asia Mobile Conference 2012

South Asia mobile conference was an indeed success. And it was a great opportunity to gather knowledge for all mobile application developers, Telecommunication partners and also marketing people, business people, venture capitalists to make their future decisions. At the conference there was lot of discussions on mobile technologies using   many different perspectives and many sub topics.  Modern world now focus on Mobile than any other technology in recent past. What would be the reason for this? Well, the opening key note speaker of the conference Mr.Tomi Ahonen (Author, Consultant and Motivational speaker, Hong Kong) answered this question very well.  As he explained the fact “Why Mobile takes this much attention these days?”  He introduces Mobile as an enormous filed of information under some facts, those include that it is the 7th Mass media of marketing, which defeats TV, Radio, Press, Cinema and most surprisingly ‘The Internet’. 

 •1st mass media Print 1500: Buy-to-Own, Advertising, Subscr.

–books, pamphlets, newspapers, music scores, magazines

•2nd mass media Recordings 1900: Sound
–vinyl, tape, CD, DVD: music, software, videogames, movies
•3rd mass media Cinema 1910: Multimedia, Pay per View
–silent, b/w sound, color, cinemascope: newsreels, movies
•4th mass media Radio 1920: Streaming, License
–AM, FM, stereo, digital: news, music, sports, drama
•5th mass media TV 1950: (no innovation!)
–b/w, color, cable/satellite, digital: news, drama, soaps, reality
•6th mass media Internet 1995: interactive & search
–narrowband, broadband: email, search, browsing, downloading
•7th mass media Mobile 2000: pers./always-on/carried/payment
2G SMS, WAP, 2.5G, 3G: messaging, browsing

( reference : Mobile as the 7th Mass Media Channel by Tomi Ahonen)

And also it is always connected through the sim card. And It has a built in payment mechanism.  Apart from this it gives a Digital interface to the user.  All these facts were focusing on whole mobile phone industry. Means all feature phones, smart phones other phones. He points out a very interesting fact here. That is marketing people should be aware of ‘i-syndrome’ (or we can use the word Android-syndrome if we prefer), which is having the attitude, only smart phone application are included in Mobile marketing. Or we might say ‘building a smart phone application to each and every product is mobile marketing’ in simple words.  And he says ‘NO’ to this attitude. According to him SMS, MMS, technologies are not dead yet. We could still use these to   distribute, market, even to buy a product. This became highly doubtable fact throughout the day after that. As Mr.Harsha Purasinghe mentioned Samsung has defeated and taken away the authority of the mobile industry that NOKIA had over a decade, which implies Feature phones and other phones are dying, (with Nokia?).  So what are feature phones, what are limitations we have in feature phones and what are smart phones what would be the Pros and Cons of a smart phone? Which is the biggest market? SMS, MMS based applications or Smart phone applications? Find out answers to these questions in our next Post.

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Android Forum kicks in Colombo for 2nd Time

After successful first ever Android Forum in Sri Lanka last year, Etisalat yet again organizing another Android Forum in a massive manner. This time its gonna be three segment forum for freshers, advance developers and business community. Etisalat Head of Value Added Services Channa Munasinghe confirmed that there gonna be Google mobile application developer from Singapore and he will be the focal point of the developer forum. The Developer Forum will be held in Cinnamon Lakeside Hotel on 27th January 2012. Advance Developer Forum is scheduled from 8.30AM to 1.30PM and the freshers forum will start at 3.30PM.

First Ever Android Forum In Sri Lanka

For the first time in the history Android expert team from Google Inc. going to be in Sri Lanka. This will be mainly focusing on installing an Android Developer Forum here in Sri Lanka.

Date : 8th of November 2011
Venue : Sri Lanka Exhibition & Convention Center (SLECC) Colombo 01.
Time : 3.00PM Onward.

This Event is fully sponsored by Etisalat Sri Lanka, one of the leading cellular networks in Sri Lanka.

Etisalat's CEO, Dumindra Ratnayaka, commented on the Forum saying, “The goal of the Android Forum is to give the public a chance to see the limitless possibilities that will be available to them through using Android powered hand held devices. We understand that the role of Mobile Telecommunication provider is changing, today people are looking to satisfy an ever increasing amount of their computing needs using mobile devices, and understanding the way that application based operating systems such as Android work, will be key going forward.”
Etisalat's Senior Marketing Manager Postpay & Mobile Broadband, Gamika De Silva, expressed Etisalat's proactive approach to dealing with the evolution of telecommunication technology, “The days of mobile-service operators simply marketing products to consumers have passed. Today's consumers are themselves the driving force behind technological evolution globally, application based operating systems like Android need tech savvy users to not only maximize their potential but also to become app developers themselves  and develop the applications that will address the needs of customers. What we have always been striving for, first with the AppZone and now with the Android Forum, is to provide the platforms and knowledge base required to empower local technocrats to be driving forces in IT development, on par with their international counterparts.” (http://www.itpro.lk/node/9163)