How Mobile Saved My Life
Steve Jobs was still alive and relatively healthy 10 years ago today, when he debuted the first iPhone.
While it was a momentous occasion in Silicon Valley, it wasn’t as big here on Madison Avenue. I can’t say I would remember the exact date of the iPhone’s launch. Truthfully, I only know it’s today due to the media attention it's getting on my mobile phone. :--))
What I do remember though is the day I inked a deal 2 years and 8 months later to get into the mobile space and launch “Mad Ave Mobile,” a new newsletter that would focus on covering the then-nascent mobile advertising industry; which saved my life, and continues in small and large ways even today.
So much has changed in that period of time. Needless to say, life is no longer the same as it was for almost everyone reading this, since you are most likely viewing this article from what was then called a “handheld device.”
Cell phones had been around for decades. What made the iPhone so irresistible was that it added an internet browser to it, which would ultimately launch thousands of new businesses, hundreds of industry sectors and change the daily flow of each of us individually, who now carry a smart phone with us.
I know of only one person on the planet personally that still to-date does not still have a cell phone, but that person’s identity will remain a secret. He’s in the business and has actually been a featured speaker at a couple of Apple Stores in NYC, on modern communication. But forgive me, alas, I digress.
The two points that I think are worth highlighting here are that:
- Life seems to move much faster today because of how our mobile phones equip us to easily carry more info “on the go” than we have ever had, only preceded before by the invention of school bags/backpacks.
- I still have great appreciation for our original newsletter tagline “Your Brand’s Calling” that we created, which no doubt came out of finishing a few bottles of bubbly. I know that if you have to explain the pun, that’s a sure sign it’s not funny. However, at the time, brand advertisers were anything but aware of mobile and how it would change their personal and business lives. Blackberry’s were all the rage.
My own mobility has changed a lot since then, yet the mobile phone has offset my own physical, immobility in so many ways.
And now, brand’s are calling, texting and posting more than ever before, such that Mobile now accounts for the majority of digital ad spending, according to IAB, https://goo.gl/PDN7aU.
Happy birthday, iPhone!