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This a.m. we had a chance to stop by Marketing Magazine’s Mobile Marketing Conference in Toronto to catch on the latest on marketing and selling real stuff through mobile.

The big theme so far is that a) consumers are diving in to mobile b) brands, businesses, retailers are keen (and realize they have to) follow c) no one knows exactly what they are supposed to be doing yet. Overall it feels a lot like the early days of the web, marked by some interesting success stories, and some apps that sink without a trace.

Live blogging notes thus far:

Huge discrepancy between download rates and usage rates. Most apps get used only once. That indicates that people try before they buy but also that app makers haven’t figured out compelling apps yet either. Everyone reports downloads but the real stat is monthly unique users. Always ask about usage.

Apps need to drive real utility, simply “matching luggage” experience or “store finders” not necessarily enough.

It can be hard building a mobile channel as Canadian company or brand as your scale is much smaller than the US market. On the flipside, Imatiaz Jaffer of the European agency IcomMobile explained that they have expanded to Canada because it’s a great place to build mobile. He even repeated a line we’ve heard before “Right now, Canada is a hotbed for mobile development”.

For Canadian companies, getting visibility in app stores vs big US brands and retailers can be a challenge. But you can still be successful. One panelist “for a 20k app budget you’d want to spend another 100k in promotion of the app”.

Christopher Bennett (best buy) apps can be great for “unassisted sales” items that sell well are like iPads or products where consumers know exactly what they want already. [interesting not talking about mobile for providing extended product information in store]. A great retail app that works well in mobile “so they tell me” is also the victoria’s secret app .

@Pryl gave us an excellent keynote on the benefits of native apps vs. web apps from a marketer/business’ perspective.

Advantages of apps instead of mobile web:
- Apps are buzz worthy (fewer people get excited to pas on or buzz about a web app)
- Though webkit is closing the gap, still a richer experience
- You can use hardware features (camera, mic, accelerometer etc.) beyond just location
- Apps can work offline
- Good as an extension of your brand

The problems with apps
- Fragmented platforms building for every platform could kill your whole digital budget
- Driving consumers to your apps through QR codes etc. still a kludgy tough process
- For marketers: lag time and friction of the download and install process [hadn't thought about this]
- For in-retail environments a consumer can get to a mobile web page (or SMS) much quicker than an app install which can be very important for instant gratification

Web apps
- Better standardized much easier to support many phones (though still optimizations can be a pain)
- Quicker to first engagement with a customer than an app download and install
- You can update a mobile web page anytime without having to constantly push app updates

Not to mention Vancouver, Montreal and a lot of other great mobile development happening across the country, but it’s great to see Toronto (and Canada) earning some international recognition.

White boards abound, as groups of 20-somethings huddle around computers tweaking software that delivers CNN Money, Time and other tier-one news feeds to the BlackBerry and iPhone.

Only, Polar Mobile isn’t in Silicon Valley. It’s in Toronto. Conservative, cold, conventional Toronto — which is home to one of the world’s biggest clusters of mobile-application companies this side of Silicon Valley.

“It’s very much a hotbed,” said Michele Perras, director of the Mobile Experience Innovation Centre, a non-profit mobile-apps research and consulting organization. Perras estimates there are 200 mobile-apps-development companies in the greater Toronto Area, while another 750 GTA companies now have mobile-content offerings.

Proximity to several schools with world class computer-science and design programs, such as the University of Waterloo and the Ontario College of Art & Design, is one reason for Toronto’s emergence as a mobile-apps hub. Availability of public and private-sector funding is another, as is access to entrepreneurs and engineers who cut their teeth working at or with Blackberry maker Research In Motion Ltd.(RIMM), whose headquarters are just one hour west of Toronto in Waterloo, Ont.

just a few years ago, would you have expected such a headline?

LINK: Toronto Becoming A Hub For Mobile-Apps Companies [WSJ]
Non-paywall version: here