The 2008 Brand Keys Customer Loyalty Engagement Index has been announced.  This is the link to the site.

Thanks to the tectonic shifts in media, marketing and branding are undergoing sea changes that affect the customer-loyalty.  Here’s something interesting from the Wireless/Mobile point of view:

Who Makes The Best Cellphones?

1. Samsung
2. BlackBerry
3. Treo
4. Motorola
5. Nokia
6. Sanyo
7. LG
8. Panasonic, Sony Ericsson (tie)
9. Siemens

This is interesting, considering that Nokia, being the market leader is way down in the 5th position.

Who Gives The Best Wireless Phone Service?

1. Verizon, AT&T (tie)
2. Sprint PCS
3. T-Mobile

It would be interesting to find out how much of a push AT&T got from the iPhone.

Brand Keys has this to say about its research:

Frustrated by the inadequacies of the traditional research toolbox to meaningfully differentiate brands or show any correlation to sales, Dr. Robert Passikoff developed a proprietary system, grounded in clinical psychology, that provides brand equity metrics that accurately predict future in-market consumer behavior and correlate highly with sales and profitability. Brand Keys, Inc. — the New York-based independent boutique Dr. Passikoff founded in 1984 — is the only research consultancy in the world that specializes in customer loyalty engagement.

Chetan Sharma is hosting this week’s Carnival of the Mobilists #114.  As usual, he has made a very delectable selection of the best writing in this area.  Click here to go to the post.

Forum One Communications is hosting their popular Mobile Communities Unconference in the Sheraton in Palo Alto on Thursday, 20 March 2008.  Bill Johnston, Forum One’s Director of Community and Research says:

The intention of the Mobile Communities Unconference is to explore the opportunities with building community via mobile devices.

To register for the Conference, click here.  Readers of this blog can get a $25 discount by entering the discount code “nextnow”.

I will be there and look forward to some stimulating discussions.

This is coming a little late in the week from me.  Mark van ‘t Hooft is hosting the Carnival of the Mobilists #113 on his site Ubiquitous Thoughts.  He is done a great job in selecting some of the best writing in this area.  Thank you Mark.  You can access the link here.

Wireless expert Chetan Sharma’s new book is out.  Look forward to reading it.   It is co-authored by Joe Herzog and Victor Melfi and is published by John Wiley.  Joe Herzog is the Senior Director, Search Products, InfoSpace.  Victor Melfi is the Chief Strategy Officer and Senior Vice President, VoiceBox Technologies.  You can check out the Table of Contents and even download the first chapter here.  You can buy the book here - Amazon has a special deal on it.

Congratulations Chetan Sharma!

The Carnival of the Mobilists #111 is up on the VisionMobile blog.  Great work by Andreas Constantinou as usual.  Thanks for hosting it.

The 2008 GSMA Mobile World Congress is being held in (hey, where else?) Barcelona from 11-14 February this year.  I did not attend this time.

Here are some links to coverage of the event:

  - Infoworld summarizes the top 10 trends at the Mobile World Congress. 

  - VC Richard Wong has a very good post on Venturebeat about the possible end of an operator-dominated era. 

  - Junko Yoshida of EE Times describes how Android prototypes are stuggling against Nokia’s latest. 

  - Rudy De Waele provides the details of the Mobile Jam Session he co-organized as a side show of the Mobile World Congress. 

  - Engadget talks of Dolby and SRS Labs bringing surround sound capability to mobile phones. 

  - Textually.org has the story about Nokia’s Remade concept phone which will be made of recycled materials. 

  - Earlier, Engadget talked of TI chips for pico projectors and HD recording on mobile phones.

  - Businessweek has a slide show of the new handsets unveiled at the show. 
 

Thanks to Debi Jones at Mobile Messaging 2.0, the Carnival of the Mobilists #110 is live.