This weekend I was at the second annual Blog World & New Media Expo in Las Vegas. Naturally, there was a heavy emphasis on blogging and talk of podcasting and video was not far behind. Mobile, the newest new media, only got mentioned a couple of times in the sessions I attended. (There were tons of sessions; and it is entirely possible I missed the ones that did.)
In the Microjournalism: Breaking News in 140 Words or Less panel it was noted by Laura Fitton (@Pistachio on Twitter) that mobile phones are with people where they are and that changes news. The panel was speaking essentially about Twitter and other microblogging platforms that allow people to break news faster than mainstream sources, often because they have mobile devices with them when something happens. They can then instantly “report it” to their network of people – faster than the big media outlets can get a crew on site.
During the keynote panel on Sunday morning that featured authors Rohit Bhargava (Personality Not Included), Tim Ferris (The Four Hour Work Week) and lead singer of Linkin Park Mike Shinoda got very close to mentioning mobile, but didn’t quite get there. They were discussing how online marketing could be used to build your brand. At one point they sort of open-endedly said they didn’t know what was coming next. Since it didn’t seem quite appropriate to jump up in the audience and yell out “Mobile is coming next!” I just Twittered it, hoping that when it went by in the Twitterstream people would get it. (BTW, to see what everyone else was Twittering at the conference, go here.)
On one hand I was a bit discouraged that more mobile marketing wasn’t discussed at a new media conference, but on the other I am confident that by the time the third annual Blog World & New Media Expo comes around it will be impossible to ignore it. Let’s make sure of that…