Reports of an emerging mobile advertising revenue market globally worth $US 150 billion by 2011 seem outlandish until you realise that the number of mobile social networking users is predicted to grow to almost a billion worldwide. Now with the launch of the much anticipated iPhone, user expectations of application mobility have been raised further, so providers of mobile applications will be searching for new and creative ways to drive revenue models to support those aspirations.
New Zealand undoubtedly has a chance to position itself as a global leader in mobile applications development. We already have pockets of creativity emerging. Zodal in Christchurch has arisen as both a market leader and industry evangelist on the mobile games and marketing front. In Wellington, Instinct Entertainment and Run the Red are successfully pursuing their own particular niches and ideegeo is developing an Internet domain asset management tool that will have an iPhone interface. Open Cloud also grew up in the ICT Capital and, after a successful VC fund raising effort, is off to conquer the world with its acclaimed application server platform for provisioning Java based telco services. With mobile devices becoming even more ubiquitous than computers, it seems like we should be doing all we can to promote businesses like these as part of “transformative” efforts to improve the breadth of the economy.
On that note the next Unlimited Potential event is the annual “Geeks, Games and Gadgets” (GGG) showcase to be held in Wellington on 13th August. Because we are into promoting homegrown innovation, we’d love to have New Zealand mobile developers front up to demo and talk about their applications, especially games or edutainment. GGG ’08 will be bigger, brighter and marketed to a much wider audience than ever before. There will also be some surprise guests and lots of giveaways from our friends.
If you would like to share your clever games and gadgets, or position as an event sponsor, please get in touch as soon as possible. Post a reply on this blog article or use paul [at) up (dot] org [dot] nz.
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Events Epilogue
The roaring success of last week’s Start-Up.co.nz / Silicon Welly launch event underlines my comments about how Unlimited Potential is rapidly emerging as the event manager of choice within the Wellington technology networking scene. Building social capital within knowledge sharing communities is something I am personally very passionate about because of the natural multiplier effects of networks that especially assist new or smaller ventures to grow.
The underlying reason for these effects is explained by research suggesting the importance of social networks in supporting entrepreneurship and innovation through facilitating capital flows, enhancing technology transfer and sourcing talent. In particular, networks assist with the settlement and retention of skilled migrants. At a time when New Zealand’s ICT businesses are constrained by a shortage of human resources, networks have a critical role to play. On that point….watch this space for further developments.
Speaking of social events, I was roped into helping run the bar at the aforementioned Unlimited Potential event last week and noticed that Epic Beer was the most popular drink in the house. We gave away several dozen within minutes. Thanks Epic for your support! Kind of appropriate when you consider the entrepreneurial story of Epic brewer Luke Nicholas and how he is developing the brand through Web 2.0 marketing techniques. We smell success in the wind.