Apple iPhone Includes Widgets – Potential for Marketing?

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Mobile marketing will be huge in 2007.

Widgets will be huge in 2007.

iTunes will continue to be huge in 2007.

The iPhone will be huge in 2007.

Put it all together and you’re on to next-gen marketing.

The Apple iPhone is already legendary and has just been announced this morning. Expect this thing to fly off the shelves. With the popularity of the iPod firmly established, this device could be just as successful.

Interestingly enough, the iPhone will run OSX and use widgets.

Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

Marketing…widgets…iTunes…mobile…killer ap?

11 Replies to “Apple iPhone Includes Widgets – Potential for Marketing?”

  1. Ok Sam, that’s it!

    Just as the meme overload was diminishing, you had to go and post a retro annoying buzzword: killer app

    That said, I do have to join the ridiculous parade of people that think it’s one beautiful gadget.

    Reply

  2. Yep, it’s gorgeous.

    Sorry for “killer app.” I contemplated that one, but Engadget used it, so I figured it was kosher.

    And of course I have Verizon and not AT&T/Cingular.

    Reply

  3. wow.

    Another Verizon customer here, always on the trailing end of phone tech. Goes against every thread of my being. The US is a few years behind Europe in mobile tech. Verizon is a year behind the US.

    I’ve stayed with Verizon for like 15 years now. This is the first thing that could make me jump. Hell, I’d get another phone number just to get my hands on that.

    Reply

  4. Exactly what I’m thinking, Scott. I just bought a smart phone from Verizon and it is shoddy at best.

    I’ve been needing a business line for all of those merchants, affiliate networks and cpa networks that have been calling recetnly to hire me as a Scoble-esque strategic blogger and vlogger as the public face of their company.

    Oh…wait. maybe I don’t need another line.

    *Cough*

    Reply

  5. > Shawn Collins is also encouraged to answer these questions.

    Which questions?

    I think there is a future in mobile phone marketing for affiliates, but I don’t profess to be one with experience in the mobile phone space and I am not familiar with the regulations of telcos.

    All I know if that i found the experience of trying to buy through my Blackberry browser to be frustrating, and I wouldn’t bother with it again.

    If this iPhone truly enables me to interact with a browser as I can on my desktop, I think it could be a new frontier for affiliates.

    By the way, Steve Denton is giving a presentation in a couple weeks at Affiliate Summit titled “Mobile Phone Affiliate Marketing”.

    I’ll be looking forward to LinkShare’s experience on the issue.

    Reply

  6. Sam swears I can comment now… so let’s see.

    I agree mobile phones are huge in 2007.

    I’ll concede the widgets point in 2007.

    I argue that we will all have difficulty, however, getting this phone until 2008. (demand)

    I think a grand total of 4,425,004 people emailed me today about the phone, and I concur with all of them – looks like a hell of a product.

    It might make me actually buy a product put out by Apple, with actual Mac software like Safari. That’s how impressive the thing looks.

    By the time anybody can actually go to a store and buy the thing, SJ will have released the iPhone pico which fits entirely in your ear. (sat. night live anyone?)

    Internal drumroll sounds, as I attempt my first comment on CPN that hopefully will not be caught by Sams unweildy filters.

    Reply

  7. Yay.

    Brian can finally join the conversation.

    “It might make me actually buy a product put out by Apple, with actual Mac software like Safari. That’s how impressive the thing looks.”

    SO does that mean you’re a Linux fanboy like myself? There’s no way someone as forward thinking, talented and intelligent as yourself still uses Windoz, right? In a world without walls, there’s no place for Windows!

    It’s all about early adopters at this point. Granted it will take some time for the supply to get out to the eager demand for the iPhone, but I can’t imagine Apple Inc (just announced their new corporate name today as well) haven’t lined up the resources to get these things rolled out faster than lightning.

    Apple is a lot smarter than Sony (ie the PS3 debacle).

    And, as Scott and I have proven, not everyone is a Cingular customer. Those stupid 2 year commitment deals lock too many people in to using a specific service (reminds me of CJ or Linkshare) so that will hold some people back from purchasing.

    Nonetheless, as is always the case, it will be the early adopters and influential bloggers who determine the destiny of this device. The iPod took a year or two to get off the ground, but when it did, it changed the way we all think of music buying and playing. I have a feeling the iPhone is going to do the same thing for communication.

    Gosh, what an exciting time to live and be in the marketing/tech world!

    Reply

  8. As of now, anyway, Apple isn’t opening up the iPhone to third-party developers. But you can start lobbying them:

    “The only two iPhones at the show were under glass, and Apple representatives said it is a ‘closed platform’, refusing even to identify the specific processor it uses, and there’s apparently no developer kit for it, though ‘developers who want to do applications [for the iPhone] are welcome to contact Apple developer relations.'”
    http://www.macintouch.com/specialreports/sf2007/

    Reply

  9. Scott: Did you see this on TechCrunch?

    http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/01/11/cellswapper-is-like-magic/

    Scoble says the iPhone is flawed b/c there is no GPS and texting will be difficult… but I just can’t resist the Jobs Mojo factor.

    Reply

  10. That is very cool, Sam.

    I agree 100% with Scoble. GPS is the one thing that’ll keep me from switching, though maybe not being so obsessed that I just get a second phone number. I can totally see myself doing that. Very sad.

    The one thing that I absolutely love about my fairly new Treo 700p is the GPS with TomTom. Killer.

    I don’t love the Treo as a phone device. it’s too unreliable (freezes up, battery life, clumsy.) But I don’t use it as a phone enough for it to be a major problem. I rarely leave my home office.

    Reply

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