Fellow marketing writers, this is worth a look if you’re still locked into the black and white world of word processing.

Is “Competing with Creative” Making a Comeback?

Freelance web writing is my professional craft. But my roots are in advertising agencies working in creative teams. So I think conceptually and visually, and I’m delighted to see a very lively digital dance picking up pace. Somebody hit the accelerando button, and suddenly digital creative content is the new tune. It’s fast, colorful, engaging, and jumping out at us everywhere.

From what I can see, the power of creative communication “as a competitive factor” is coming back. But unlike all previous creative revivals, we now have the analytics to prove and improve its value. And Adobe is my new hero.

The accelerando button definitely has their fingerprints on it.

The integrated tools of Adobe CS5.5 (cloud subscription) software let me write copy within templates, retouch photos, create or add graphics, and edit video in a smooth, engaging workflow. Every tool is filled with new “Oh Wow!” surprises for creative folks.

Adobe Creative Suite (CS5.5) will definitely extend your horizons to see more of the digital universe clearly, in vivid color.

Business Catalyst for Full-Fledged Site Builders

Adobe Business Catalyst is also very interesting. It’s a complete, seemingly end-to-end business web site solution for web designers and small-to-medium size businesses. It integrates with Adobe’s other products nicely for planning, building, staging, and hosting live sites. That includes Adobe’s site hosting and world-class analytics.

Best of all, Adobe Business Catalyst comes with a growing, enthusiastic community of technical and digital content experts of every type.

That could make it much easier for freelance technical and creative teams to collaborate, plan, create, present, revise, publish, and track digital content for small business clients together. I have to check it out.

More later – JB

Just go to their page, toss a large company’s url in it and see how it works. The biggies have the traffic to activate all the charts you’ll see, but even the smallest site can be examined in text detail.

Hypestat.com aggregates several other web services I’ll discuss in the next few posts: Compete.com, Alexa.com, Quantcast.com, SEMRush.com, and Google Maps.

It’s just one of many free quick-analysis sites, but it’s a cool one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcfNC_x0VvE

Hoover’s Near Here app for the iPhone is a mobile, location-aware database of companies and contacts, anywhere you go. Read the write-up by the developers who designed the app itself at Mutual Mobile.

This new iPhone app from Hoover’s is full of promise, even for a $20 app. I just downloaded it and within one minute found the name of my wife’s boss.

If it happens again, it’s just temporary – gotta experiment on cool stuff:  Woopra

“…is the world’s most comprehensive, information rich, easy to use, real-time Web tracking and analysis application.”

Great interface, upcoming iPhone app: The First Sneak Peak at the Woopra iPhone App

Jon Byous

I know, there’s a hotter market for day-old doughnuts than for day-old news. But just scan the headlines below: major mobile marketplace eruptions that have occurred this week. We are entering an astounding time of “mobile value growth” in all corners.

Foursquare Courts Business Users with Checkin Analysis Features

All local retailers, read this one: Up-to-the-second IDs & stats on your in-store visitors, coming from Foursquare.

Thanks to Mashable’s Jennifer Van Grove:

At the end of the day, the business features further contribute to Foursquare changing the world as we know it.

iPad Pre-Orders Begin at 5:30 A.M. PT on March 12 (today)

Thanks to Mashable’s Samuel Axon

Google Mobile Product Search Now Does Local Inventory Check

Thanks to Mashable’s Christina Warren

Barnes & Noble to Launch E-Reader App for iPad

Thanks to Mashable’s Barb Dybwad

Twitter’s Website Now Attaches Location to Tweets [PICS]

Thanks to the reason I started reading Mashable The Social Media Guide in the first place, their Co-Editor Ben Parr

Google Apps Marketplace: 6 Great Apps to Try Now

Google launched the Google Apps Marketplace Wednesday night. This could become a significant enterprise app ecosystem connecting desktop and mobile. The evening of the launch, I counted just nine Financial apps. Hah. Just wait.

Thanks to Mashable’s Christina Warren

Google Fiber Sparks Online Competition Between Cities Nationwide

Thanks to Mashable’s Features Editor Josh Catone

YouTube Embracing Mobile Marketing

Thanks to Mobile Marketing Watch: Posted by michael on Mar 12, 2010 in In The News, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Marketing,Mobile Websites

Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare Face Off in Location-based Services

Thanks to Mobile Marketing Watch osted by Adena on Mar 10, 2010 in Mobile Marketing

Digital Ad Spend to Surpass Print in 2010 for First Time

Thanks to Mobile Marketing Watch: Posted by Adena on Mar 8, 2010 in Announcements, Content Publishing, Featured, In The News, Mobile Marketing

Alabama Represents the “State” of Mobile

Thanks to the good gang at Mobile Marketing Watch: Posted by michael on Mar 10, 2010 in In The News, Mobile Marketing, Mobile Resources,apple app store, iPhone

Target Stores to Bring Mobile Coupons Mainstream

Thanks to the good gang at Mobile Marketing Watch: Posted by Adena on Mar 9, 2010 in Mobile Marketing

And take your pick of great mobile announcement headline news for the last week at FierceWireless.

But here’s my Favorite of the week’s announcements for mobile app developers: The relaunch of AppBoy – Dashboard, Apps, Ideas:

Appboy is a social outlet for mobile app lovers. Got a great app or a unique idea? Get feedback and use our community to get the word out.

Thanks to Mashable’s Christina Warren for her Appboy update coverage.

In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It.

Yesterday’s post from SmashingMagazine.com was about marketing tactics for boosting mobile app sales. Today’s featured article from TechCrunch.com takes one big step back to consider your actual platform strategy.

• http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/04/mobile-fragmentation-forever/
• By guest author Richard Wong
• TechCrunch.com
• 3.5.2010

This light, upbeat video from comScore gives us a glimpse at the awesome customer data we’ll soon be able to access. It’s a big step in finding your most profitable customers.

GSMA Mobile Media Metrics (MMM): Next Generation Media Measurement for Mobile

I’ve been an advertising guy for the high tech industry since 1979, and I’ve got to say: Nothing like the last few months of tech announcements has ever happened before. The landscape of “who owns what” has changed significantly in the last few months, weeks, and even days. Consider the five-year impact of these moves just on mobile developers:

Android phones could/will outnumber iPhones. Google has the fastest PC web browser, Chrome. It’s developing a (presumably game-changing) operating system, also called Chrome. Google and Apple are at war on brands, platforms, operating systems, browsers, phones, mobile application stores, mobile advertising, development communities and employees.

Now, let Google drop a 4G Gpad on the table, maybe one with an Android/Chrome combo OS.

Gpad or iPad, when the sleek, high-speed mid-size screen comes to mobile computing, you will never again find an empty seat at a sidewalk coffee shop.

Oh yes, as you may have heard last week, for some, Google will offer the fastest desktop PC fiber connection to the home – many, many times faster than our current snail-pace home speeds. You won’t be able to resist it for the PC. And, while Google’s there with fiber and boxes and stuff, why not wire up the TV and a wicked-awesome droid desk phone? One service, one bill, one company. One pissed off Comcast.

Or maybe Google is just trying to spur the others along to run faster.

Either way, it’s a big deal, opening the opportunity for much more sophisticated data-packed desktop, TV and desk phone apps with mobile components.

SoMo – Social Mobile

Oh yeah, and have you seen the brand new Google Buzz? I love Twitter, I love Buzz more. And I know I’m not the only one. They will coexist as fierce competitors for both features and app developers.

What else? One observer noticed that Microsoft has called off its war with Apple, finally upgrading Microsoft Office for Mac to full capabilities. Does this look like a Survivor’s alliance with Microsoft and Apple make-nice to join forces against Google? I see Microsoft attacking Google with Bing/Yahoo search, a mobile OS upgrade, and now augmented reality mapping. By upgrading Mac Office with an improved Excel (finally), Microsoft was pulling Apple closer and protecting its Mac Office base from defecting to Google Apps. Big tag-team fights, on a scale we’ve never seen, are on the way.

Then, let’s add the whole mobile movement, more people accessing the Internet on phones than PCs. This feels like a volcano. The World Mobile Congress was held this week in Barcelona. You just wouldn’t believe the major alliances and communities happening from this, right now. And the magnitude of mobile traffic growth is off the page. Again, mobile app developers are the coveted resource.

The desktop web-only business world is going to get left out, big time, very soon. Caught unaware and late to join, they are going to have to scramble to acquire mobile marketing intelligence and a sense of “who is where” in mobile audiences. Ads are being turned into mobile applications. And mobile applications are delivering ads from within. Google bought a mobile ad company, Apple bought a mobile ad company, Microsoft already has one. And new, advanced mobile analytics are a money-making machine just waiting to be turned on.

Flurry PercentMobile Bango

Businesses are already jittery about what they’re missing by avoiding the topic of “Social Media.” They have no idea of what they will be missing in “Mobile Web Browsing” by the end of 2010.

Yeah, things are changing quickly, things that will have  an enormous impact on our world as techies and tech consumers.

One more thing. Toss all that into the very beginning of an economic recovery cycle. Mobile app developers, your time has come.