Marketing Technology for Growth

At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week, Facebook confirmed two things:

In my last blog I noted that, growing pains aside, the trend toward HTML5 for app development is unmistakable. In this post I’d like to share evidence of this growing support in six crucial tech industry segments: gaming (Zynga, playMobi), digital media and analytics (Adobe, Flurry), monetization (PaymentOne, appMobi), social media (Facebook), web browsers (Mozilla), and search (Bing, Google).

I once had a college history professor who would have us map out raw data from old archives. Though a laborious and often futile exercise, he argued that by doing so you can sometimes glean patterns from seemingly unrelated data. In addition to being a handy tool for would-be historians, the practice can be useful for spotting business trends. There have been a number of recent disclosures and initiatives that suggest tech industry leaders are pushing HTML5 for web and app development big time. Today’s blog will serve as an introduction to HTML5, and will be followed by a second post outlining the different ways the tech industry is promoting it. The third and final post will delve into the more complex questions of why tech industry leaders are embracing HTML5, and what this trend bodes for the future of app development.

With the number of smartphone users increasing daily, there is much (sometimes heated) debate in the developer community over whether Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android is the better operating system for mobile app development. As tech titans like Apple and Google fight over the hearts and minds of app developers worldwide, new technologies are emerging that may change everything.

The fusion of marketing and technology represents one of the biggest transformations in the history of business. The countless efficiencies of technology have forever redefined marketing practices. Yet the fundamental core of marketing has not changed. Marketing is about communication. Businesses forever strive to reach their audience and tell their story in a compelling manner.

The online community’s recent victory over US Congress’ efforts to institute SOPA and PIPA underscores the growing power of the Internet as an effective means of political lobbying. It also casts in bold relief the widening gulf between the political establishment and the under-forty crowd. Senator Christopher Dodd, a principle backer of the bills, recently expressed his incredulity, marveling at the technology industry’s “ability to organize and communicate directly with consumers.” He went on to call it a “watershed event” the likes of which he had not seen in over 30 years in politics.¹