4 Hot Social & Mobile Technology Trends for 2013

Technologies have a great impact on marketing and as we begin the new year.Let’s take a look at technologies that are going to sway marketing decisions in 2013.

1. Social Gamification

Social Gamification typically involves applying game design thinking to non-game applications to make them more fun and engaging. E.g. Badgeville, Gigya, Bunchball, and BigDoor Media. (Via Gamification Wiki)

Astounding results brought about by social gamification will continue to make marketers add it to their marketing agenda.

Example of Gamification: Dropbox

Dropbox uses Gamification – by offering additional storage space if users complete certain tasks – to promote Dropbox usage. A free account gives you access to 2GB of storage, with an extra 250MB just by taking a tour of Dropbox’s services. Additional 125MB for connecting your account to either Twitter or Facebook. And there are rewards for referring friends – 500MB for each referral up to a maximum of 16GB. With 100 million users, DropBox can surely give credit to its great, interactive user interface for the success.

2. Solomo

SoLoMo, short for social-local-mobile, refers to a more mobile-centric version of the addition of local entries to search engine results. SoLoMo emerged as a result of the growing popularity of smartphones, and provides greater local precision to search engine results than what’s available via a PC. (Via Techopedia)

With a surge in demand for ‘personalization’, SoLoMo is bound to make inroads into marketers’ arsenal.

Example of Solomo: New York Magazine

New York Magazine on Foursquare covers city-specific culture and earns an added value of location through this approach. The magazine posts tips on retail stores, bars, food, and public spaces along with details on pricing and other events on Foursquare. These posts link back to the magazine’s website for more insights.

3. Augmented Reality

Augmented reality (AR) is a live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data. With the help of advanced AR technology (e.g. adding computer vision and object recognition) the information about the surrounding real world of the user becomes interactive and digitally manipulable. (Via Mashable)

With more people using mobile device to stay connected and augmented reality now becoming an integral part of mobile phones, there is no dearth of how marketers can use this technology to their advantage.

Example of Augmented Reality: WikiTude mobile phone App

This app allows users to access any information from wikipedia about a place using augmented reality.

4. Near Field Communication (NFC)

NFC is a form of contactless communication between devices like smartphones or tablets. Contactless communication allows a user to wave the smartphones over a NFC compatible device to send information without needing to touch the devices together or go through multiple steps setting up a connection. (Via nearfieldcommunication.org)

NFC is everything that QR couldn’t be. From drab black and white dots to impressive, interactive creatives NFC can be a blessing for marketers.

Example of NFC: Pepsi

To launch Pepsi Special in Japan, its main distributor used NFC tags in a very creative manner. NFC tags, offering travelers the chance to win free samples and access information about the new “fat-busting” soda drink, were placed on two Tokyo railway lines. Passengers, who read the tags with their NFC phones, were taken to the Pepsi Special website that offered games, freebies and more information about the product.

Read our blogpost on Importance of Gamification for Engagement.

photo credit: The PIX-JOCKEY (= pictures retoucher) via photopin cc