The panelists agreed that testing directly with consumers is critical to the mobile development process because of all the moving parts the medium involves and the more personal nature of the technology. Chris Brown, VP, Product Management for Apartments.com, said that as the company builds out a new app for Android, it starting the wireframe, or prototyping process, by getting consumer feedback from the start, while trying to mimic the real world experience as much as possible in testing. Kraft's innovation director Ed Kaczmarek agreed, saying the company likes to put concepts in front of consumers early to make sure …

In the morning's first panel session including mobile innovators including FedEx, Intel, and IBM, Ed Kaczmarek, director of innovation for Kraft was skeptical about Augmented Reality, one of the more hyped mobile technologies of the last couple of years. He said too many AR executions he's seen are simply gimmicky with little use. If Kraft, which developed the popular iFood assistant app,  could figure out a way to "put utility behind it" and make AR relevant to customers, it will look at pursuing more aggressively. And when it comes to working with agencies on mobile advertising and initiatives, Kaczmarek …

Adam Brotman, vice president, digital ventures, for Starbucks told the OMMA Mobile audience that mobile is a growing part of the coffee chain's planning around advertising and promotions. Going forward, he said almost all campaigns will have a mobile component. He add that Starbucks, which has long positioned itself as the the "third place" to go (besides work and home) is now starting to think of a "fourth place" which is digital realm both inside and outside its stores. After rolling out mobile payments in January via its Starbucks Card app, Brotman said the company's been pleased with uptake and …

In an increasingly quantitative digital world, Starbucks is hugely concerned with qualitatively measuring its mobile campaigns. So said Adam Brotman, VP of Digital Ventures at Starbucks, during the morning keynote at OMMA Mobile. It’s “mostly qualitative,” said Brotman. More broadly, Starbucks wants to know “how we can use the digital sphere to extend and enhance that human connection,” Brotman said of Starbucks’ ultimate campaign goal. “Just like [the job of] baristas,” he explained. Meanwhile, regarding Starbucks’ decision to partner with Yahoo for a co-branded site, Brotman said the coffee maker picked the perfect partner. “When we formed the partnership, …

Kicking off OMMA Mobile, MediaPost's very own Mobile Insider in opening remarks sets out the day's themes as "maturity and integration" in the mobile world. That means going beyond talking about "going mobile" and "getting a mobile strategy" and learning from the most advanced brands on how they're integrating mobile into the conversation. So this morning we'll hear from a number of brands, starting with Starbucks. You know, the company that runs that nationwide Wi-Fi network and sells coffee on the side.

What environments are tablets unlikely to colonize? Don't expect to see mobs making use of tablets to facilitate revolutions in the Muslim world, says Michael Yonker, VP of Mobile at Rockfish. On a slightly more practical level, consumers aren't likely to take tablets into retail stores anytime soon, says Dan Neumann, Lead Strategist of Emerging Channels at Organic. We understand that tablets are a bit bulkier (and less elegant) than mobile phones, but with women now embracing tablets -- based on earlier comments from Michael Haggerty, SVP and Director of Research and Marketing Accountability at UM -- we wouldn't be …

So, are we still in the early tablet adopter phase, or has the market begun to mature? Well, it depends on the device you’re talking about, but the broader tablet market is indeed normalizing -- with older consumers and more women entering the space -- according to David Gill, VP of Mobile Media and Marketing at The Nielsen Company. The tablet market is actually starting to look a lot more like the mobile market, said Gill. That said, when new devices are launched into the marketplace, men still tend to dominate. As a result, the iPad market has begun to …

In terms of tablets (What else would we be talking about?), what do advertisers now see as success metrics? “It all comes down to ROI associated with that spend,” says Marcus Startzel, SVP of Sales at Millennial Media. That said, “I think you’ll start to see a lot more ‘online-ish’ metrics come into mobile.” Mobile advertising, Startzel added, “is very specific” -- although he didn’t differentiate between mobile phones and tablets. On either medium, “tracking through an ad server” isn’t going away. What about cross-channel attribution -- which allows advertisers to seamlessly measure campaigns across multiple platforms? We’re doing that, …

Mitch Oscar, executive vice president-televisual applications at MPG, did a nice job of setting the tone – and some context – for his "Second Screening: Making the Most of Television" panel at OMMA Tablet Revolution. He also used a lot of his cornball New Yorker-esque cartoons to make some points, including the "twin tablets" biblical reference to denote between the TV and the computer tablet. Oscar also noted that the seamless "televisual" experience has been tried before with other technology middlemen, like Goldpocket, but it never quite worked because people had to segue between the TV and the PC. …

Sheila Buckley, SVP of digital ad sales at Weather Channel Interactive says so many magazines have launched iPad app "We are finding that lots of ad agencies are grappling with 'where do I go to buy?' ad real estate on tablets: the print department? Digital dept? Or even the TV department?" James Smith, Flixter: our one take is that let's not just look at tablets. Let's focus as much energy on smart phones because the scale is there now and smart phones will be the most personal, so don't ignore one for the other. Sheila: I would just …