Author: Rebecca

AT&T is hoping that by working with are businesses, universities and tech organizations, it will be possible.

AT&T has now partnered up with Tech Valley universities, organizations, and businesses in its launch of the “AT&T Tech Valley Civic App Challenge”, in which it is seeking to pair up with innovative thinkers and creators that can come up with mobile apps that will be able to address and overcome local issues – particularly those on a social and civic level.

The challenge will continue for two months and it will end with the awarding of a total of $18,000 in cash prizes.

The goal is to encourage designers, thinkers, developers, artists, and businesspeople to come up with ways to “Solve Local” through the creation and development of innovative mobile apps. Those applications need to help with societal and civic issues that are being faced by people in the greater Tech Valley community. Among the partners in this challenge are: the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; the University at Albany; Center for Economic Growth affiliate, TechConnex; Tech Valley Mobile Developers Network; New York BizLab; Hudson Valley Tech Meetup; Saratoga TechOUT; Hack Upstate, Beahive; and Accelerate 518.

The hope is that the mobile apps that will result will inform citizens and engage them with their governments.

In this way, it could help to illustrate exactly how mobile applications and technologies can make a difference, and will accelerate the development of a new wave of tech jobs and investments as companies seek to get on the bandwagon once the effectiveness of this technology has been shown.

According to the AT&T New York president, Marissa Shorenstein, “AT&T’s commitment to technology innovation in New York grows out of our company’s multi-billion dollar nationwide investment in the mobile communications network of the future.” She also added that by providing both students and career technologists with encouragement within the region for the exploration of smartphone software development, they are also “spotlighting the enormous demand for developers and engineers needed to create the software that will drive our mobile economy.”

The mobile apps challenge was launched in front of over 200 entrepreneurs and technologists from the region and will continue until May 1.

According to a statement that has been issued by the director of digital strategy at Saatchi & Saatchi Los Angeles: yes.

The results of a recent study from Fleishman-Hillard Inc. revealed that throughout the next ten years, there will be a notable shift toward women as the primary consumers in the United States, and mobile marketing will be directly targeting that demographic.

The research showed that two thirds of American consumer wealth will be controlled by the female population.

This trend will represent one of the largest wealth transferences in the history of the nation. The implication that this holds for mobile marketing is that women will become a much more important target, as they will have a great deal more influence on where money is being spent. That said, within that industry, itself, there is a notable shortage of female employees.

Mobile marketing as an industry currently has a gender gap despite the direction that the target market is taking.

The latest research shows that mobile advertising has yet to find a solid place in the departments and budgets of most companies, as advertisers still don’t feel confident with the effectiveness of the medium or the strategies that should be used to best utilize it. In terms of building it as a part of standard practice, it remains in only the earliest of stages.

That said, mobile ad use is already increasing at an astronomical rate and that is only expected to continue in that direction. eMarketer’s figures have shown that adults in the United States spend one out of every four media usage minutes on their mobile devices. That said, only 9.8 percent of ad buys were directed at that channel, last year.

Moreover, an ExactTarget study that was published in the 2014 Mobile Behavior Report indicated that women are the group that are most likely to follow or like a brand over social media in order to obtain deals, offers, promotions and other types of savings. The figures from that report indicated that 71 percent of women will do this, compared to 63 percent of consumers as a whole.

Still, mobile marketing has not focused on women, specifically, and among the reasons for this, says Saatchi & Saatchi Los Angeles director of digital strategy, Kayla Green , is that there aren’t enough women actually working within this industry. A call has now been made by that director to include women in mobile advertising to a greater degree.