We have been waiting…anticipation has been building…internet geeks stood side by side with industry giants, commercial MD’s and those weird guys who hang out in the local Starbucks but never buy anything…all waiting for the arrival of the next big thing- The mobile revolution!! And then…nothing…
Nothing? Well, not exactly.
A strong argument can be made that while we were all looking for the “Godot of online marketing” over the roof-tops and through our CCTV screens, it simply snuck in the back door and is now lying comfortably on our living room couch, eating away food from our corporate fridges. While we were all waiting for the mobile revolution to arrive with the sound and fury of a 4.5 scale tornado it simply intertwined into our life with the ease of a breeze.
Today, more and more people are performing a wide array of daily functions through their mobile phones. In major parts of Asia and Africa mobile phones have completely replaced landlines as the major form of communication since they require less infrastructure investment and are cheaper to operate. In Scandinavia and Eastern Europe parking your car involves paying for the meter via a mobile phone. In Israel there are actually more mobile phones than people and in addition to texting and calling, people are using their mobiles to shop, search, pay, play and interact with the rest of the world.
In the gaming industry, operators are now far more open to the idea of mobile gaming than they were in the past, both in terms of offering on portal services and in accepting advertising from industry leaders. According to Google global gross winnings specifically from online gaming will rise from $193 million in 08 to $3.4 billion in 2013.
On portal betting is forecast to push mobile gaming wagers to $27.5 by 2013 and the US and UK are in close competition over market share domination.
Mobile applications have taken another major step forward with the recent introduction of Android. Open source betflik functionalities are going to open the market and negate limitations in the same way that open source programming did a few years back for content management systems, design and programming functionalities. The proliferation of widgets, tools, functionalities, channels and security will force the market to overcome security restrictions, permission and identity concerns.
The potential of mobile online functionality is just too big. With seven out of 10 people sleeping next to their mobile phone and mobile communications being such an entrenched element in our everyday life, it is just a question of time before almost every single part of our life, including finances, daily communication, social interaction, purchasing, gaming and perhaps even finding love will be placed in the palm of your hand.