Although I have not yet visited one myself, the Walmart-owned Sam’s Club, is planning to add mobile services to it’s in-store experience; cool! First, they will be adding WiFi into their stores (powered by AT&T), and then in September, they will be rolling out applications designed for the iPhone, Android and BlackBerry devices.

“Our goal for the apps is also to enhance members’ shopping experience,” he said. “Mobile is a bridge between our traditional dot-com site at home and the bricks-and-mortar experience, and these apps bring something new to members at their fingertips.

“Mobile is a fast-moving evergreen channel that is driven by what members tell us they want.”

- Jason Jackson, senior director of member innovation at Sam’s Club, Bentonville.

The apps will feature the usual: product information, reviews, store locator, and eValues discounts (coupons) which are loaded directly into a Sam Club member’s membership card – that is pretty cool. It’s nice to see this kind of integration between devices/systems.

It’s amazing to me that there are not more stores following this strategy. Personally, I do not enter any kind of store without my iPhone ready to pull up product reviews or search for better deals or nearby stores. I was in Blockbuster the other day, and used my NetFlix app to pick a movie!

I love apps that have a real utility and purpose. If they can “subtly” support the brand of the company providing the service, it becomes a great example of where a lot of the interactive/marketing biz is headed: creating service, utility and components of daily life verses passive, experiences and market awareness (pure advertising).

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/10/maybe-one-ipad-recipe-begins-dip-apple-in-kraft-caramels/

The app, which went live on Friday, is called Big Fork Little Fork, and is aimed at parents in their 20s and 30s with young children. The app includes more than 300 recipes, video clips and games.The iPad app costs $1.99 and is available at the Apple iTunes App Store at itunes.com.The interaction between Kraft and consumers with iPads is going to be “a lot more robust” than what took place in the days when consumers “would send away for recipe cards” after listening to or watching radio or TV shows like “Kraft Music Hall.”

All this is cool, but the big question I have is: When was there a TV show called Kraft Music Hall?

It looks like Nissan will be using Apple’s iAd platform to market their new Leaf electric car. There is already a video demo of the ad up on YouTube. I must say, the ad does looks amazing! However, I can’t help but question the uniqueness if this execution; it looks like a fancy Flash web banner to me (heck, it even reminds me of an old banner I built myself 10 years ago!)

There is not much about this ad that speaks to, or takes advantage of, the mobile medium. Instead, it appears to be another example of taking an experience designed for the desktop, and repurposing it for a mobile device.

Do users really want this type of distraction built into the apps they purchase? Personally, while I’m on my phone, I don’t think I want to be taken away from my current application process, and transfered (fullscreen) into a car ad where I’m suddenly busy exploring a new interface with a new objective (learning about a product). Although, to be fair, this type of explore and discovery experience could be nicely suited for the iPad (vs. iPhone in this example).

Don’t get me wrong, this is still really cool, and I’m sure that innovation will develop over time as designers become familiar with this new platform and what types of experiences work best for it. Thinking of this brings me back to those exciting, pioneering days of the early web. Nissan is one of the first to explore this new territory, and they deserve a lot of credit for taking the plunge!

 And now there is a real name: Revue (code name “KA”). I’ve been waiting to see this! Now, I want one even more. Looking forward to seeing one in person, and looking even more forward to creating some apps for this thing! Note the use of iPhone for remote! The incorporation of Logitech’s whole Harmony remote, where a single device (in this case, an iPhone) could control all the devices in your entertainment system. This is pretty cool as it moves us in the direction of owning the whole digitally conntected living room!

Found this bit of news the other day; surprised that it’s not getting more attention considering all the noise out around Flash and Apple these days. To be clear, this app, Cloud Browse, is not actually installing the Flash runtime on the iPhone; so it’s not really Flash on the iPhone. It sounds like it works like VNC by allowing an iPhone to connect to another machine in order to see the content. Highlights from the USA Today post is below:“Here’s how it works: you download the free Cloud Browse App and install it. Then you direct the App to the website of your choice. Here’s where the interesting part comes in: the site is called up on another computer, which streams it back to your iPhone. The app, Cloud Browse, is free, has been out for a few weeks, and so far has picked up 150,000 downloads….it had already been approved by Apple by the time Apple CEO Steve Jobs penned his “Thoughts on Flash essay. Personally, I’d be concerned about the performance of this, but according to this report,  it’s apparently pretty darn good on the iPhone! I’m surprised Steve isn’t blocking it!http://content.usatoday.com/communities/technologylive/post/2010/05/flash-comes-to-iphone–sort-of/1

I’m hoping the performance will improve as people learn to optimize for this new device. Then again, wasn’t that the point of HTML5? It’s supposed to be open and run everywhere (HTML5 is supported).

Thanks to Mike Chambers for posting this interview with Kevin Lynch at Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco. Kevin talks about Adobe, Flash, innovation, HTML 5, thoughts on the direction the web is moving, competition, and Omniture and he does so in a very open and down-to-earth way that I personally appreciate. I’ve been meaning to comment on all the recent hype going on between Apple and Adobe, specifically around Flash, but I’m also a bit sick of all the silly talk; most of which is just nonsense and not even based in reality. Hopefully it will calm down in a while and I’ll have some strength left over to dedicate to some thoughts.<br />

One of the great things about the job I have, is that I am truly technology agnostic – I use everything and I’m loyal to no one! Therefore, I am able to see technologies for what they are: tools to help me create. How do I choose which tool to use? Based on what is most appropriate for the job. This evaluation could include:

(1) Pure capabilities: can it do what I want it to? And at the fidelity I require?

(2) Audience reach: it may be an amazing tool, but can anyone else actually see what I create?

(3)  Speed to deploy: how fast can I get something moving? This is perhaps the most controversial. The process of creating traditional (boxed) software was one of slow moving teams; perfecting every single line of code in order to get it in the box before the shrink wrap stuck. In the digital world today, as companies like Google and Facebook have shown us, this type of software life-cycle/philosophy is potentially a detriment to your business. Today, it’s about getting ideas in front of users fast, collecting feedback, and iterating on your masterpiece; it’s not about spending 5 years to get it perfect the first time.

Interestingly, not as important of an evaluation point, to me anyway, is whether or not my tool of choice is necessarily deemed an “open standard.” Perhaps this decision point could relate to #2, Audience reach….someday maybe….

However, certainly in the case of HTML5, THE open standard of the hour, it is also the tool with the smallest audience!

Of course, as Steve Jobs would argue, we should be thinking of the future – when one day open standards will rule everywhere (unless you want to develop a native app for a Mac product, in which case you’ll need to live in the closed world of Apple native app development). PLEASE NOTE the distiction between the two very different uses of “open”:

1). Open standards apply to WEB technologies. HTML(x) is an open standard and supported by Apple. Flash is not because it is a plug-in (ironically, it is also the most prevalent piece of software on the planet, more than any single operating system or browser, which one could argue makes it a Standard!)

2) Open (development) environment points more to how you create your work (software). Apple’s environment is CLOSED – while Flash is OPEN. You won’t hear Steve Jobs talk up this point.

I do agree with Steve about WEB open standards, and I’m excited about HTML5, and the future of our biz. I feel that over time, this will be the direction where we will see the industry moving – and it could be a relatively quick move. However, it’s important to remember that the people creating and using these experiences….don’t really give a crap if a technology is considered open or not, and certainly are not interested in waiting around for another 10 years for the next improvements on their tool spec (I believe that HTML4 was ratified in 1999??.…which means it has taken over 10/11 years to get HTML5 going…..and it’s still not even here!) This doesn’t even account for how long it takes these open standards to make their way out into the “working world.” Ask any employee of a large corporation which browser they are using right now – chances are it is IE 7 – a non-HTML5-ready browser. Many of my clients, who work for huge corporations are still using IE6 because their IT departments have not yet upgraded them yet. IT departments for huge corporations don’t just upgrade thousands and thousands of computers just because someone is excited that HTML5 is out.

I hope I don’t sound too harsh on open standards, because I truly do believe this is the way to go, and I’m excited to start focusing much of my attention in this directions. However, putting all the hype and dirty talk aside, I’m realistic to know that (a) it will take time for any “standard” to become adopted, and (b) in the meantime, certain tools (including Flash) are far more ubiquitous and continue to make significant improvements every single year – not every 10 years. This is important to me too.

I enjoyed watching Kevin’s talk because he seems to be more in-line with my thinking: It’s not about the tool (it’s not Flash vs HTML5), it’s about allowing users the freedom to choose and create what they want in the tool of their choice. Perhaps that is the ultimate Open Standard.

The current issue of WIRED has an interesting article about Tablets, focusing mostly on the iPad of course. It talks about the game-changing positives: revolutionizing the GUI and the impressive creative potential (advertising being one). It also points out some potential flaws in the dream: the learning of new standards, a new development environment and the closed world of Apple (contrasted with the open world of Google/Chrome).

When talking about some of these future ideas, and in viewing some the demos others have produced (2 are listed below), it’s amazing to see how these new executions are virtually identical to what we’re already doing on the web. Therefore the question becomes: is the move to a new “touchable”, more mobile GUI,  THAT much of a difference? Did we need a new device and a new way of interacting with the device in order to realize the potential of these interactive ideas? Don’t we already have magazines online? One of my personal favorites is.

How the Tablet will change the world  (WIRED Article).

The Future of Advertising on the iPad (thanks to Rick Mathieson for the link)

The future of Magazines. First, watch these ancient prophecies from 2007, 2008.

And now, on the iPad

VIV Mag Interactive Feature Spread – iPad Demo from Alexx Henry on Vimeo.

I meant to post this last week, but got distracted again. This BIG news from Google could be a good thing in the sense that it may put needed boundaries around what could quickly become a reckless (spam) use of a cool technology.

While time will tell how Google will wield its patent rights, the scope of the patent effectively gives the company a hold over most location-specific advertising efforts, meaning it could potentially stand in the way of rivals seeking to roll out their own geo-targeted efforts. Google has made no secret of its belief in the promise of location-based advertising: During the firm’s Q4 earnings call in late January, Google product SVP Jonathan Rosenberg called local services hugely important to the future of the mobile user experience, adding that Google anticipates location-based services more deeply integrating with mobile advertising and commerce services in the “not too distant future.”

Meanwhile, just 1 month ago, Apple issued warning to iPhone developers: Don’t use GPS for pushing ads.

Read more here.

And then it was all Webkit! RIM just announced that it will be using Webkit-based browsers for the new BlackBerry devices. This was a smart move; seems obvious and will certainly excite the competition with the iPhone. Thinking about this from my POV, this makes web-based mobile development twice as simple as now, there is almost just one browser to support: Webkit. However there are very distinct user experience and interface elements for iPhone-based applications (in all Apple products for that matter!) I’m not a BlackBerry user, so I’m not sure how those UX elements would translate, but I suspect they will not. Therefore, in many instances, we may still be up against two separate codebases for the app interface.