BigShinyThing

Almost 80% of the young people who took part in the research said they felt safer having a mobile and that they had a better social life as a result. On average, participants said that they send or receive up to 10 text messages a day — three times more than their parents.

The research forms part of the Carphone Warehouse’s Mobile Life Survey, which asked over 16,000 people about the role of mobile phones in their lives.

Other stuff that we found interesting in the report:

• For people 18-24 years old, their mobile phone matters more to them than television suggesting that the ad industry had better crack on with marketing via mobiles and content owners need to continue to explore stuff like mobisodes.
• When asked if they have ever used, or would consider using, the camera or video facility on their mobile phone to snap a celebrity [behaviour that is actively encouraged by gossip mags and blogs] or other newsworthy event, more than a third said they would. Half of people said they would use the camera or video facility on their phone to record evidence of a crime, 50%, or to actually record a crime, 47%. Because of this, mobile phones are rapidly becoming society’s self-inflicted panopticon. Sod worrying about who’s watching the watchmen, we’re too busy watching [and recording] each other.

Story courtesy of the BBC.

The charming Designers are Wankers are holding a video-phone portrait contest. How very modern. They say:

We want you to flex those artistic muscles and create a film all about you. The objective here is to sell yourself (and not your soul) to a potential employer/client by illustrating how your services are of benefit to their organisation. The duration of the video is to be no longer than 30 seconds, but the quota of imagination on how you approach it is limitless. The winner will be awarded the prize of £5,000, and in addition, job vacancies in various areas of design will be offered at competitive salaries.

The best footage will then be distributed via DVD. How very anachronistic — why not on YouTube? This project is very much like Showstudio’s recent Amaze Me but hopefully with more interesting results. We’ll see.

1. As iPod sales start to slow down, we’re betting on a fierce brand-extension war between Apple and the other online music brands. Competitors have already started to emerge — see MTV’s tie up with Microsoft, Urge.
2. In the same sector, we tip Napster to learn from Google and Yahoo’s mapping successes, and to offer a programming interface (API) for subscribers, so people can build their own software systems using Napster content — expect customised jukeboxes, recommendation systems and music-based games to flourish online. The benefit to Napster? Kudos to the brand which accrue from others’ innovations, a wider audience, and increased advertising opportunities.
3. We’re waiting for a Friday night TV show which features real-time ’stupid shit’, news and interviews contributed live via 3G mobiles by amateur viewer/reporters out and about around the UK and worldwide — the trash culture flipside of OhMyNews. Expect flash celebrity for a few contributors to follow, and a big spike in phone sales.
4. Still on TV, we expect at least one channel to broadcast experimental blocks of ‘ad-free’ prime time programming to test the waters of post-interruptive-advertising television — probably initially sponsored by a major car brand.
5. Flyposting will be banned in London as Ken sides with the Government on a ‘respect‘ agenda.
6. Sophisticated services offered via Skype will be the surprise eCommerce success story of the year, with third-party developers exploiting the ubiquitous telephony provider’s APIs to provide simple, effective voice access to information, retail and search services in exactly the way that screen-based systems thus far haven’t, for the mobile multitudes.
7. Namecheck BST when territorial disputes over mining rights in polar regions recently exposed by global warning become a major news story, and a source of growing international tension.
8. And a big ‘we told you so’ if Interpol reveals that an unlikely counterfeiting alliance of criminals and ‘just because we could’ hackers has adopted open source development methodologies to make undetectable fakes of a major currency, which subsequently has to be completely withdrawn from circulation, redesigned and reissued.
9. Long odds but not impossible: Sony’s launch of non-Sony-branded hardware or media, in an attempt at a fresh start after the horrors of 2005.
10. We will be saddened but not surprised if a PC virus takes out one of the emergency services for at least a day.
11. 3G. Finally. Yes we’re surprised too.