Communities Dominate Brands

Location Is The Speedbump on Mobile Highway - Understanding how futile 'Location' is as a driver of any mobile service concept

I am regularly frustrated by the unwarranted hype and excitement around 'location' in mobile. The frustration comes from the fact that this issue has been studied ad nauseum and yet newcomers to mobile manage to reinvent the same tired ideas and peddle them as if they would shortly change the world. They won't. I have been writing the same article about why location is not the big opportunity in mobile for more than a decade now, and its time to do that again. Its not that location cannot give 'any' gains or benefits, there are some. But how to understand location's relevance, I think I now have the right metaphor. To use location in mobile services is similar to putting speedbumps for cars on the highway.

 

THE NUMBERS ARE NOT THERE

 

Location-based services (LBS) including LBS-based ads were launched in year 2000, so they are about 13 years of age. First LBS services included the apartment-hunter from Finland, the shopping mall LBS push ads from the USA and the LBS maps from Japan. The mobile data based media industry was invented only two years earlier, in 1998 when the first downloadable paid content for mobile was introduced. That was the ringing tone in Finland by Saunalahti (later Jippii, now part of Elisa). By year 2009 (12 years from launch), basic ringing tones were worth 5 Billion dollars according to Juniper Research. For context, the very basic ringing tones outsold global iTunes music by approximiately 2 to 1 that year.

Now lets look at location-based services. LBS based advertising was launched in year 2000. By 2012 total global LBS advertising services were worth 685 million dollars worldwide (ie 526 million Euros according to Berg Insight). So over a similar 12 year period, one service became 5 Billion dollars in value, the other only under 700 million in value. Basic, monophonic 'ploink-ploink' ringing tones managed to grow 7 times bigger than location-based advertisements.

So, lets be clear. Location-based advertising CAN grow. It HAS grown. But the average growth rate of non-messaging based mobile data (mobile media) is about 50% at an annual growth rate for the past five years. LBS is growing at perhaps 10% or 20% per year. It is THE worst-performing sector in all of mobile. If you do ringback tones. If you do MMS. If you do social networking. If you do music downloads. If you do coupons. If you do alerts. If you do augmented reality. Anything else in mobile grows more strongly than location-based services.

RISING TIDE RAISES ALL BOATS

Mobile has set the world record for fastest-ever growth from zero income to 1 Trillion dollars in annual value, achieved in only 29 years from the first commercial cellular mobile (car-phone) call in Tokyo Japan on NTT's network in 1979 (four years before the more famous Motorola phone was sold in Chicago by Ameritech). And 29 years later, the mobile industry breached 1 Trillion dollars in annual revenues (currently 1.4 Trillion). Note first, that many big industries we know well, like music, movies, gaming, radio, television, computers and the internet - have never grown this big. So yeah, mobile is far bigger than those industries. And that no Trillion-dollar sized industry has achieved it this fast, in only 29 years. So mobile has set the record, and is currently still, the strongest-growing giant industry on the planet.

Anything you do in mobile should grow. The point is, if you are not growing at the rate of the industry, you are underperforming! And LBS is consistently, chronically, dramatically underperforming. So yes, you can give me a stat of growth or of revenues. It may seem impressive by itself. But immediately when we compare it to any other forms of mobile data services, location-based services are exposed as pathetically bad.

Take advertising. The first mobile ad was served in 2000. It was an ad running on SMS text messaging, to fund the free headline news service on SMS (launched in Finland by MTV3 the television broadcaster). How did SMS text messaging based advertising do? eMarketer reported in 2009 that SMS text messaging based mobile advertising was worth 6.4 Billion dollars. Yes, you can do ads with LBS, in 12 years reaching a paltry 685 million, or you could do 9 times better in one quarter less the time, using SMS advertising. You see what I mean. A rising tide raises every boat. Even the worst, leaking, barely afloat boat will be raised by a rising tide. But you should not aim for the worst part of this industry, aim for strongest-growing parts.

LBS SPEED BUMP

So I think I have come up with a good analogy. LBS is like a speed bump in road-construction. Most of the time if you build a highway (to allow cars to drive fast from one town to another) you don't want speed bumps on it. Like cars, with mobile, most users will want the speed, they don't want to be slowed down. That doesn't mean there is 'no use' for speed bumps. We use speed bumps for example to slow cars down near schools, or other ways to slow down traffic, if for example there is road construction on our highway. In specialized cases, like race cars, some racing circuits insert 'slow-down zones' in terms of chicanes and hairpin turns, so that the race car drivers have more challenges, more opportunities to make mistakes and for good drivers to be able to pass lesser drivers, like they often do at Formula 1 race circuits, when the organizers notice that the cars are getting too fast for that circuit.

Yes, we can find specialized uses of speed bumps, but in most cases, most cases, they are a nuisance. Similarly LBS. If you give me a case example of any mass-market success of LBS, the success can be attributed to some other aspect, not the location. So LBS coupons? Yes. The gimmick here is coupon. You'll find that mobile coupons of almost any variety are growing at break-neck speed. You don't need 'location' to do successful coupons. Or the gamification of becoming the Mayor of Starbucks, via FourSquare. This is a game. Games are huge growth - just look at Angry Birds. Games are big, even location-based games can succeed (but at lesser rates than most popular mobile games that do not use the speed bumps of location). Or take Augmented Reality. Yes, plenty of AR is done with location information, but its by no means the only way to do AR. The powerful agent here is AR, not location.

PARCEL DELIVERY

So, lets take a perfect example. Parcel delivery. UPS has already launched the service that smartphone users can re-direct their package deliveries to where they are physically, at the time of delivery. So if you are not at home, because you are stuck at the office working late, or there was an emergency and you had to take one of your children to the hospital, etc, you can have the parcel delivered to where you are, not the original delivery address that was entered when the package was sent a few days ago. Brilliant, consumer-oriented service. And I think I saw a TV ad of FedEx doing something similar when I was in Toronto just now (only caught the end of the ad). This is a 'perfect' case of LBS. Obviously, parcels are physical items, and are delivered to a physical location. Isn't this a perfect location-based service?

No! No no no no no. Location is the speed bump again. Yes, its possible that I am at the intended location when the 'querie' is made as to where to deliver the parcel. Yes, its possible to use the GPS positioning on my smartphone to tell UPS or FedEx please deliver the parcel 'here' (wherever that may be, my home, my office, any other place). But its equally possible, that I am NOT where I want the parcel delivered!!! The power of mobile is to go beyond location! I could redirect that UPS package to where I am not now - I am now at home, but heading to the hospital, so 30 minutes later, I'd prefer the parcel delivered to the lobby at the hospital, not to my home. Or better yet, mobile can transcend location. I could re-direct the parcel to my sister's house on the same street, knowing she is at home. My smartphone cannot pinpoint my sister's location based on my phone's GPS sensor. But I can easily give the direction via an SMS or map, or simple mobile web address box, and type in my sister's house number on the same street. Why would you want to limit your 'service' to an explicit location, when mobile goes beyond location, to 'movement'. I can be freed from location, with mobile. Location is an artificial fence, an artificial jail for consumers. Mobile has the power to free us from borders and limits and locations!

 

And again, this may seem radically 'new' and bizarre to you, if you are relatively new to mobile, such as you discovered the mobile industry only in the iPhone era (year 2007 or after that). We have known. J-Navi, the location-based mapping and guidance service of J Phone in Japan (now Softbank) reported in 2001 that 30% of their map request by mobile phone users came for map information about some other location than where the phone was physically at !!! Guys, I am not inventing some new radical thought here! We've known this for more than a decade (those of us who bother to study this industry, not just spew some baseless drivel)

USE THE 9 UNIQUE ABILITIES

This is so frustrating to me. I know exactly where it comes from. It comes from the technology-geeks who look at the GPS sensor, see the personal location on a map, here is where I am. And next they think, hey, I could serve coupons and offers to the person near the store. This is so stupid. Mobile has 9 unique abilities that offer us the chance to deliver magical experiences, something never before possible on any tech including laptops and the legacy internet. Location is not one of the 9 unique abilities of mobile. Location existed in the third mass media - cinema. We can do location-based ads shown at the cinema 'after the movie if you want to have a nice dinner, come to Tony's Italian Restaurant two blocks from this cinema'. - these kinds of ads used to be very common back in the earlier days of movie advertising. And how supremely successful are they? Yeah. As trivial to cinema advertising as any LBS ad examples are to the overall mobile ad market. If Location-based ads were so hot and successful, we'd today see massive LBS ad market powering cinema and dwarfing television ads.

So what are the 9 unique aspects of mobile? The listing is:

1 - Mobile is the first (genuinely, and measurably) personal mass media
2 - Mobile is always carried

3 - Mobile is permanently connected
(these two are not the same, you can permanently carry a device that is not always connected - your wristwatch for example, and you can have a permanently connected device that is not always carried - like your home broadband internet connection)
4 - Mobile has a built-in payment system (note this includes both making payments and mobile can be a terminal for receiving payments)

5 - Mobile measures the audience most accurately

6 - Mobile is available at the point of inspiration

7 - Mobile captures the social context of consumption (ie our viral forwarding, our likes and follows, recommendations, which does not require purchase - I can recommend something even if I didn't buy it)

8 - Mobile enables Augmented Reality

9 - Mobile offers a digital interface to the real world

These nine abilities are the way to build successful mobile services. Location is not one of the unique abilities. Location is not even a 'useful' addition for most services. In many cases where location is used, the service could be better if location was abandoned, and in most cases where location is collected, the service would not suffer in any meaningful or measurable way, if location-collection was abandoned.

NICHE ONLY

Yes, there are niche uses where location is very important. The Blackberry Pocket Cop app, for example, allowing policemen to use Blackberries at work. It has all kinds of secure police uses including obviously secret messaging if the policeman is in a dangerous situation and cannot talk but needs to communicate. But yes, it also has the location-positioning of the police officer. This is very important if the police officer needs help, because he will not necessarily know the exact name of the street or cross-street or street number etc. But a location pin-pointing of his position can truly be life-saving feature, in a highly dangerous city like say Baltimore (one of the first where Pocket Cop was launched).

If you find yourself lost, then location-based accurate positioning is very useful. Yes, if you are driving your car in unfamiliar places, and find yourself lost - yes, an accurate positioning of your map is very useful. So specialized drivers - taxi drivers for example, who always drive to different places - will benefit from LBS based guidance on their car navigation systems. What about you and me? Did your office secretly shift to a new address last night? Did your children's school suddenly escape to another town? Did your home re-position to another suburb today while you were at work? No. Most of us do not find ourselves in unfamiliar places daily, weekly or even monthly. Once or twice per year we might go on vacation to an unfamiliar location. A few times we might venture to a strange part of town to some visit etc. But unless you are a jetsetting global James Bond, mostly we do not need the daily guidance in strange cities every day.

 

And if you set up a treasure-hunt type of game, like the rapper Jay Z's autobiography (released as a traditional printed book) where there were clues on every page for 300 treasure-hunt type of missions for fans to discover out of New York City, then yes. Locatino can make a difference. But thats about it.

SO LO NONSENSE

So we get SoLoMo, Social is great. Mobile is treat. But Location is sheer rubbish idea. If location was so powerful as a driver of commerce for example, why would retail worry about mobile. Traditional bricks-and-mortar stores are ultimately location-based. They say its all about 'location, location, location' in retail. Why would they worry about shoppers with mobile? Because mobile releases us from the binds of location! Because mobile frees us from location. Because mobile liberates us from the chains of location. Imagine being superman, able to fly, and then being chained to the earth. Thats what you get, if you force location to something that is mobile. You shackle it down like a prisoner.

Location only limits your business opportunity, it does not expand it. Take your location-based promotions. Say you are a florist and find yourself with sudden overstock of inventory of flowers. Flowers that don't last long. Someone had a wedding, but cancelled. You now have tons of flowers to sell. So you could blast the neighborhood with flower offers, get 12 roses for the price of 6, that kind of thing. And if you did use location-based ads, for example blasted to all within walking distance, no doubt you'll get some business out of it.

Here's the point. If you did the same ad - without the location-limitation - you'd get more sales. So why only limit sales to those who happen to be near you (but are not necessarily needing flowers). You annoy lots of people, to get some business. But why not rather have opt-in database for clients who shop with you? Now you can send the offer to all who already like your store, who have shopped with you before - and some happy Romeo can take his car, drive to your store, from quite far away, to buy say two dozen roses for the price of one dozen, to surprise his Juliet.

Location limits your reach. So its not just those within driving distance to your store. What about the James Bondian world traveller. He who has a nice secretary, his 'Moneypenny' back at the office. If he gets the alert while on a business trip to Germany, he could buy a bunch of roses, pay by credit card, and have them delivered as a spontaneous gift to the hard-working secretary back at the office. Location only limits your opportunity. Its like a speed bump on the highway. For most mobile services, location reduces your opportunity.

ORCA VS NARWHAL

I wrote at length about how the Romney vs Obama campaigns used data-mining. Romney did it the old-fashioned way, by zip codes, voting districts. His method was akin to location-based marketing. This voting district has a high proportion of Republican supporters, lets direct 'get-out-the-vote' type of activities like phone calls and reminders to that area.

Then there was Obama's campaign which yes, did of course know what district you were in, but its targeting was based not on location, but rather, on two scores of actual human behavior - the voter's preference ie supporter of Obama or supporter of Romney (individual voters identified and targeted this way) and get this - also each voter's likelihood to vote. So if you are a strong supporter of Obama (and have not voted yet on election day), you won't need the encouragement to vote. If you are very likely to vote that day (but have not yet voted) its no cause for concern at Obama headquarters, because they know you will (and any get-out-the-vote efforts would be wasted, because you would vote for Obama anyway). But the targets were the lukewarm supporters of Obama who were not sure if they would vote that day. Those types of voters would get calls and SMS reminders, even other Obama supporters would call them directly (as volunteers) with a nurse calling a nurse, a teacher calling a teacher, a military vet calling a military vet etc. This is the far FAR more powerful way to use (mobile) technology to achieve your ends.

Yes, Romney's campaign with location, could do something that was better than nothing. But what Obama did, with targeting, actual voter insights, and focused efforts (all to an opt-in database where voters had given permission to send messages from the campaign etc) gave Obama at least 3.5 million more votes than what he would have gotten if Team Obama had used traditional zip code/postal code/voting district type of - location-based - voter activation methods.

 

COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE

Mobile allows our service to be freed from tethering. Freed from the cable. Freed from the socket. Freed from proximity. Freed from short-range wireless even. Freed totally from location. Location-positioning is the very antithesis of what mobile can do. Its like building an airplane, then cutting off its wings. I am reminded of Gary Schwartz's excellent observation in his new book about use of mobile tech in retail: Fast Shopper, Slow Store. Gary explains why tablets are only ultra-portable digital devices, not as powerful as mobile phones and smartphones. Because mobile phones and smartphones can be operated single-handedly,.while doing other tasks. Tablets, on the other hand, in Gary's words 'immobilize consumers'. The tablet is very portable yes. But the moment you pull it out of your bag, and start to use the tablet, it will immobilize you. You want to be seated, you need to use both hands. Its very difficult to use a tablet while walking, and almost impossible to use it single handed. Most of the time with tablets, once we start to use them, we stop. We stop moving. We become immobilized. A tablet to mobility is like Kryptonite to Superman. The superpowers were there, but are now gone.

So, when you see millions (and even Billions) headed to some new start-ups and ventures that seek to revolutionize mobile through location, be warned. Tomi told you so, Tomi said years ago, that is not going to be big business. Be very careful and monitor the space.

If you see forecasts of huge growth projected for location, don't fall for the same trick! We had the exact same forecasts years and years ago. It never came. Don't be fooled by some clueless analyst promising a massive future. Look at his starting point data. What does the analyst say location is worth today. How many users today. How much revenue today. It is pitifully little. Then wait and see. If I am wrong, and suddenly after more than a decade of failure, location somehow does break free, then we must see real user and revenue numbers that are big. Revenues in the many Billions. Else, be smart. If the numbers are not there, learn the lesson, and put your money, your time, your project resources into any other part of mobile, where it will give you better returns than it would in location.

And please please please do not write that 'now' is somehow different. No, GPS on iPhones today in America is no different from GPS on early KDDI phones in Japan in 2002. Yes, Japan had GPS based location services a decade ago. Don't say maps make a difference or 3D rendering of cities. Japan had all that by the middle of the last decade, yet KDDI itself - who essentially invented and launched almost all modern LBS concepts from LBS-based ads to LBS-based treasure hunts to LBS-based maps - say that of their whole service portfolio, LBS is the worst-performing part.

Context is good. Context is useful. Context can include elements like time, and the users 'status' of being at work or at home. Context can have dozens of elements that can help us identify and target services to help our consumers. And within the area of Context, location can be used as one element (distinct from say, proximity). Location can be used as an input to derive other benefits such as movement. We can measure speeds of traffic based on the measured positions of individual phones on a highway, and measured over a few minutes of time. Across many phones (as those inside cars moving on that road) we can calculate very accurately the average speeds sustained on that road, to determine for example if there is road congestion this morning, etc. Context-based services I can see becoming big over time. And location may be one of dozens of inputs. But don't plan on launching location-based services for the masses. They never turn out big.

 

The James Bond Lifestyle? What do you collect, if you do live the 007 Lifestyle? Bond Locations of course

So? If you live the James Bond Lifestyle, what does that mean? What do you collect, if you do live the 007 Lifestyle? Well its pretty obvious. You collect 'James Bond Locations' of course. Duh.

 

Welcome to my hobby. This is my first blog about this bizarre hobby I thought of a couple of years ago. As I love the 007 movies and I get to travel the world through my business - James Bond has been seen in 47 real countries and 2 invented countries (49 identified countries in total in the movies) - in my travels now totaling 84 countries lifetime, there is a lot of overlap, obviously. I have managed to hit 40 of the actual 007 countries in my lifetime. Not always the same city as Bond was in, certainly not been to all the specific places where the movie was shot (yet) and often, when I have been to a landmark location, I hadn't thought of taking a picture of me at that place. (For those who don't understand the words 'my hobby' let me spell it out: this blog contains nothing related to tech, media, mobile, smartphones etc. This is just a blog to share my hobby with those of my readers who happen to also be either Bond fans or who love travel).

 

Well, a few years ago, I decided I want to place myself into the exact scene where Bond was seen in the movie, and do that for every 007 movie. So I intend to 'collect' at least one Bond location from every single one of the 23 official Bond movies (well, 22 at the time obviously, that was before Skyfall had been made). But here's the rub, I decided, I have to have a picture of myself in the same shot! So for me to stand essentially in the same place where the Bond actor was, with the same iconic backdrop. You'll see in the pictures below, what I mean. Now, I am not about to try to capture every scene of every movie. Not even every country in every movie, but one clearly identified landmark shot out of every movie, so I can kind of pretend to have been in exactly the same places as we've ever seen James Bond in any of his adventures on the silver screen. Or no, not 'pretend'. To 'actually' stand in the same place as the Bond actor when that specific 007 movie was made. And one more thing - while Bond is based out of London, I won't accept any actual London landmarks to count in my final collection. Outside London, UK is fine, but inside London, no. That would be too easy. (So I mean 'London landmarks'. If its a location shot in London, which pretended to be some other country, that is acceptable).

While doing this, I will of course end up getting many extra locations out of the same movie. That is fine. But I will consider my collection 'completed' when I've placed myself into at least one exact scene out of every single James Bond movie (that was not showing London landmarks). And I have so far managed to do nine of the movies 'perfectly' and also a lot more landmarks partially (so the landmark is identifyable) or if we count London locations too, then I have so far 14 of the movies where I've been in the same shot as one of the six actors playing James Bond.

So lets get to the movies. First we start with the original 007:

SEAN CONNERY BONDS (first 5)

Dr No is the original first movie adaptation of Ian Fleming's original books about James Bond (but not the first screen adaptation, there was an even earlier USA television movie made of the 007 book Casino Royale back in 1955 in black-and-white featuring Barry Nelson as CIA agent 'Jimmy Bond'). Dr No was released in 1962, so the locations today would be over 50 years of age, and many are gone. I had been to Jamaica before, with our family for a vacation, and quite coincidentially, of the two family trip pictures I still have left from those years of global travel, one is of me at a beach in Jamaica. This is your HatRat, your T-Dawg, your DJ Tommy T, your Tomi T Ahonen 'guru' in mobile, back at age 15, sitting at a beach in Jamaica:

 

Now, I can't prove to you that its Jamaica, I can't even prove to you that it is me haha. But I know it is, and I know I've been to Jamaica as a child with our family, so I had been to a James Bond country back then. But recently when I was connecting through Miami, I burned a few frequent flier miles to spend a lovely weekend in Jamaica (and I utterly fell in love with the place, I can't wait to get back and spend a far longer vacation there). But yes. James Bond locations.

Dr No. Here is where it starts. The first kill that James Bond makes in the long series of assassinations by England's finest in 23 movies, started from this scene shot at Jamaica's airport in Kingston. If you remember the movie, there is a fake driver but actually sent to kill Bond. 007 proceeds to kill him on the journey in the convertible red car.

 

So here is the scene I want. This is a very young Sean Connery stepping out of the main lobby of Kingston airport, hat in hand, heading out the door. The airport had that iconic canopy you see, the roof over the walkway. For the Bond Locations collector, the lobby of the airport doesn't exist anymore with that peculiar wall. The airport has had several renovations and extensions, a new arrivals wing and lobby was added, and then an even newer departure lobby and wing. But, luckily for the collector, the iconic canopy still remains. This is the real Bond standing by that very same canopy, and you'll see the sign even says, 'Welcome to Jamaica'.




I found a location from the first Bond movie that still exists and can be identified, and placed myself into the same location as Sean Connery 51 years ago. How cool is that?

Next up is From Russia With Love. Sean Connery is becoming ever more comfortable playing Bond and we have the adventure taking Bond from Istanbul on the Orient Express through parts of Southern Europe to then take a speedboat to Venice. I've been to all those places, but have not many pictures of myself there. Early in the movie Bond was on the Bosporus when he first interviews the Soviet spy who wants to defect. I don't have a picture of myself in the exact right shot, but this press picture of me speaking in Istanbul a few years ago, places me on the same river but on the wrong bank.




The shot in the movie was facing the other bank haha. So I was almost in the right place, but not quite. So I have to go back to Istanbul at some point to get the appropriate picture.

But yes, at least I have proof I've been to Turkey (and Istanbul) where Bond was in From Russia With Love. Now to the masterpiece in the series, Sean Connery's third Bond:

Goldfinger. What is rated most often as the best Bond movie of all time, the third 007 introduced 'the car' Aston Martin, and jumped up the pace of the movie to become the prototype modern action movie - fights, car-chases, sexy women, more fights, killings and explosions. The most famous dialogue of all Bond movies when Goldfinger has strapped 007 into a laser slicing machine, Bond asks: Do you expect me to talk? To which Goldfinger replies: No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die. Classic! Well, how about your James Bond Lifestyler? Can I get myself into the Bond movie? Actually yes, and there's a story to this..

The movie starts in Miami, at the iconic glamour hotel Fontainebleau - the hotel right on Miami Beach which is in the shape of half a cylinder, and is featured in many famous Hollywood movies. This hotel:

 

(The picture was shot by me when on a flight about to land, Miami airport landings often overfly this hotel). Yes, Goldfinger is at this hotel playing cards - and cheating. Bond discovers his cheating, forces him to lose, and then Bond steals the girl of course. Goldfinger's revenge is to kill the girl by painting her body all in gold (and there is this myth that it somehow suffocates the skin from breathing, totally made-up way to die, courtesy of Ian Fleming's imagination). So yeah, the movie starts with 007 seen at the Fontainebleau, messing up with Goldfinger. So here am I in a convertible rental Mustang driving past the front of the Fontainebleau:

Yeah, I've been to the place. But bizarrely, Sean Connery has not. We see him in the movie, but if you look closely, we never see the curving side of the hotel with Sean Connery in the picture. When he is seen, it is very close close-ups of Connery in front of a pool cabana or being massaged by a pretty lady or talking to the CIA guy. Then we see Sean Connery inside a hotel corridoor - could be anywhere. And then he's inside the hotel room, looking through the binculars where we see Goldfinger cheating. But the truth is, when the movie was shot, they didn't fly Sean Connery from England to Miami at all. The other actors were in Miami, but for some reason, Connery wasn't there. His scenes were all shot with a fake backdrop. So I can't place myself into the right shot, it doesn't exist. But in a way, I have been to a 'James Bond location' where Bond himself has not been, haha. We see him in the movie clearly in this hotel, yet we also know, he wasn't there. His scenes were shot back at Pinewood Studios in England. This is pretty cool for a James Bond Locations Collector, but it won't qualify me for an iconic Bond scene. I still have to continue seeking a Goldfinger location to complete my collection.

Thunderball. Next we have Thunderball, an excellent Bond adventure but spoiled by too much action underwater, in the end. Thunderball was the stolen nuclear bomber and most of the adventure is in the Bahamas, much of it shot underwater. The Bahamas has changed very much in the past 48 years and when I went in search of my Bond Locations, several were gone. I did place myself at Love Beach - thats where Bond and the pretty lady walk out from the boat to the shore, but Love Beach has changed very much in the time and no identifyable landmark remains. I know this is Love Beach now. I know the original Thunderball scene was right here. But a picture will not prove it to you, unless you've actually visited Love Beach recently. So this didn't pan out. But not to worry, I found another Bahamas location. Sean Connery meets up with his local spy supporters on in the center of Nassau, at this building. The scene is not very significant (no pending murder attempts or killings or explosions or love scenes to follow immediately from this scene) but this is Sean Connery in the center of Nassau at the City Square:





And I went to Nassau to find that building. Nassau has kept the old city center very much as it was 50 years ago, with low historical buildings, no skyscrapers or modern hotels. And with that, I was certain, that this building I was looking at from the screen shot, was so big and prominent, that except for maybe some fire or natural disaster, it should still remain today. But I didn't know which building it was, nor exactly where. The records only tell us the scene was shot in downtown Nassau. So I spent an evening walking the old city back and forth, and honestly, past this building three times without recognizing it.

I was looking for the very obvious window shutters, and I thought from my screen-shot that we had two buildings here. The building on the left with the corners in the white stones, and then a darker building attached to it on the right. But after I didn't find this pairing, I started to look for the balcony. And then I found it.




The tallest building in downtown Nassau haha, yes, what is now the Scotia Bank building. This is that same shot. Note that the windows dont' have the iconic window-shutters anymore (modern times, building is air-conditioned of course). The flagpole in front of the building doesn't exist anymore. But now look at the achway, the corner-stones in white, the exact railings on the balcony, etc. Ok, you are still not convinced. Let me do some photoshop, just to change the colors a bit, and tell me isn't this the exact same building now:

This is most definitely the same place - and yes, it is one building, not two. I found my location, and I have been to another Bond shot.

You Only Live Twice. Then came the Japan adventure for Bond. This is the one with the hollowed-out volcano. Sean Connery is killed in the beginning of the movie by some hoodlums in Hong Kong, then buried at sea in the Hong Kong harbor, but he's not dead, he's wearing breating gear and is rescued to a British submarine, then sent to a secret mission in Japan. Cool. But yeah, I've been to Japan a dozen times, but hadn't thought of attempting to find the 007 locations. So this draws a blank. But just to prove that I have been to Tokyo, this is me at the hotels at Tokyo's Disneyland when we had a 3G telecoms conference there back in 2007.




So yeah, been to Japan, but the exact scene is still missing. Gotta go back to Japan again..

LAZENBY'S ATTEMPT AND CONNERY'S RETURN

So then we get to George Lazenby and his sole 007 movie, On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Telly Savalas (ie Kojak) played the villain and this is the Bond set in Switzerland with the villain's lair on top of the Alps. Bond gets married, his wife is killed blah-blah-blah. A middle-of-the-road Bond movie. I have been to Switzerland and to Portugal, the two countries where Bond visits in the movie but I don't have any pictures to prove that. But I did find a Bond scene from London. This is George Lazenby holding his hat as he walks into the College of Arms to set up his fake identity as an expert on heraldry. (Everyone remembers the white Rolls Royce in that shot.)
 

 

And here is the real James Bond at that same building, but with the shot taken from the ground level, 46 years later.




Yes, this is a genuine 007 scene, but as I said, I won't be satisfied collecting locations that include London, so this won't count in the final collection, but for now, at least I've also been also where Lazenby had been, in On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Disasters Are Forever. And we move swiftly to one of the most forgettable Bond movies, Diamonds Are Forever. This is actually the first Bond movie I ever saw, when my father took me to see it (I was too young actually, but since I was with my dad, they didn't mind). At the time I was so incredibly impressed - remember up to now I had only seen children's movies like Disney movies and Charlie Chaplin etc. This was glamorous cars, sexy women, a super-cool hero, gadgets, guns, fights, explosions (Diamonds is the Bond where he drives the Moon Buggy and the villain lives as a recluse on top of a hotel in Las Vegas). Early in the movie Bond goes to Amsterdam and is seen driving near the iconic Amsteredam landmark, the Magere Bridge or the Two Sisters Bridge. I am here at the Magere Bridge:

But this is not the right scene, alas. When I was in Amsterdam at a conference and took this picture, I didn't have the screen shot so I didn't take the correct angle. Darn.. So I have to go back to Hamsterdam to get my picture. But not to worry, I do already have a 007 location from Diamonds. James Bond smuggles the diamonds to America hidden in the casket of a guy he killed. He flies Lufthansa, lands in LAX, Los Angeles International Airport, and at that time in the 1960s it was still common for passengers to walk on the tarmac from the plane to the terminal. Here is Sean Connery in front of the LAX control tower:




And here is the real James Bond in front of the same iconic LAX landmark




Again, to be fair, my picture is shot from the other side, it is not technically the correct scene, but for now, its close enough. I'll go visit Hamsterdam to get the bridge picture for my collection.

MOORE YEARS

Live and Let Die. Then came Roger Moore. The Saint took over as 007 in 1972. And the first of the Moore Bonds was Live and Let Die, the 007 with the best title song. Moore's Bond was made to be quite different from Connery's, so we don't see the flirting with Moneypenny or 007 teasing Q. There is no scene in M's office, etc. Which Bond was this? Its the voodoo Bond, Tarot cards, the crocodile farm and the boat that jumps over the road. For the Bond Tourist, this is the first 007 that discovers an imaginary country, San Monique, placed somewhere in the Caribbean. Where was San Monique in reality? On the North shore of Jamaica, from Ocho Rios to Montego Bay.

 

The early part of the movie is shot in New York City (hey, its my old home town!). I've got tonsa pics of me in my fave city, even one with a 007 landmark in the background. But I don't need that. Since I started my collection, on my next trip to the Big Apple I took this picture of the Manhattan Bridge from the scene just before Bond's driver is shot and he has to play backseat driver. This is the scene just before the poison dart is shot:

So thats Roger Moore on Manhattan, alongside the Manhattan Bridge, in the backseat of an automobile. And here is your Bond World Traveller:

 

Yes, thats James Bond on Manhattan, alongside the Manhattan Bridge, in the backseat of an automobile...  Hey, I have another Bond scene.

 

But we ain't done with Live and Let Die. Then there is that imaginary country of San Monique. What about that? Well, as I was in Jamaica, I took a rental car from Kingston to the North Shore and in Ocho Rios I found this scene from Roger Moore, where he walked into his hotel in San Monique.

Yep. In reality it is the Couples Sans Souci resort in Ocho Rios. Thats a honeymooner hotel, and it really sells rooms only for couples. They were very nice, however, and I was allowed to take a picture in the lobby. Check out my second scene from Live and Let Die.




I've been to San Monique, thats a rare place most haven't visited haha and one you won't find on passport stamps even...

Man With The Golden Gun. Then we have one of the worst Bond flicks, Moore's second 007. The guy with the Golden Gun was a top assassin with a Bond fiction, who invited 007 to a duel on his island. Yeah, pretty lousy movie but it had the ultimate car stunt - the jump over the broken bridge, where the car actually does a 360 degree corkscrew turn in the air (to some very cheezy sound-effect). The car jump was real, not done with any hollywood tricks except that the car had accelerated for a long while to hit the right speed to make the jump. And it was shot in one take. It was the first movie stunt calculated by computer, to get the weights, rotation and speed exactly right. So early in the movie Bond checks into the Peninsula Hotel (and why not, one of the world's most ritzy, luxurious and expensive hotels, of course a 'secret' agent of the UK would use this hotel haha) and yes there's a scene of Bond driving to the hotel and here is me at the same hotel from the same angle:

 

 

But Hong Kong is not central to the movie, Thailand is. And that world-famous car jump is about the only thing worth seeing in this movie. The bridge doesn't exist anymore, pretty obviously, but the start of the car chase was at a Bangkok landmark, the Democracy Monument. Here is Roger Moore driving his little red AMC Pacer madly in traffic right in front of that big monument:




And here is James Bond at the same monument four decades later:




It is very cool to notice that you've found the exact same place, this is fun hobby, plus it makes you watch those DVD's far more deeply when prepping for the shot you are hunting haha... Like in Bangkok, in the movie, kind of 'conveniently' right after Bond sees the villain escape in a car, Bond happens to be alongside a car dealership, and he rushes in, and confiscates a car, with its test-driver still inside (that clumsy Southern sheriff from the previous 007 movie). When I saw the original movie, I did think, that was a bit too convenient, to find a car dealearship there. Except that its true. That street has several car dealerships right there, on that avenue, right near the monument...  Nice. They weren't faking it in the plot after all..

Spy Who Loved Me. Roger Moore's best Bond movie is Spy Who Loved Me, this is the one with stolen nuclear submarines eaten up by the giant oil tanker, and the female Soviet spy paired with Bond, and we first meet Jaws. And it had the white Lotus Esprit that becomes a submarine-car. For the Bond Traveller, Spy Who gives us the chance to travel to Egypt, to the Pyramids. I don't have the exact angle from where Moore was sitting in the night shot where the Pyramids are in the background, but here I am at the Pyramids:




So yeah, same location but not the exact shot.

Moonraker. Dear-dear-me. The worst in the series. The beginning of Moonraker isn't actually all that bad, but once the plot gets confused with Star Wars, space shuttles doing space-battle, etc, it really goes bad (and Jaws becomes Mr Nice Guy, really?). Moonraker takes us to South America, we get Rio and the battle on the cable car to Sugarloaf Mountain. I've been to Rio many many times, but hadn't taken many pictures there.

 

 

 

This is my picture taken of Copacabana Beach from the rooftop pool of the Marriott.

 

 

 

And here is a close-up of me, you can see the same background, the same mountains. Yes, I was there (and I won't be showing the rest of that picture, for personal reasons haha). Don't worry, I tend to get to visit Brazil about once per year, I should get an exact 007 scene rather easily and relatively soon.

 

For Your Eyes Only is another excellent Moore vehicle, this is the one where a submarine tracking device is stolen and Bond tries to recover it, mostly on an adventure in Greece and Italy. It has the climax at the mountain-top with sheer cliff sides, and the young ice-skating girl who falls in love with Bond and Bond won't sleep with her haha (a first..) Its the movie I have been furthest from any of its locations. Not even close. Yes, I've been many times to Italy, love Italy, but not in or near the town of Cortina d'Ampezzo. Yes, I've been several times to Greece too, but not to Corfu or the Northern parts of Greece where the Meteora monastery is (the ending battle in the mountains). So the country? Yes. Here is me in Greece, picture from my hotel balcony in Athens:

 

So For Your Eyes Only am not really even close. Yes, been to the countries, but nowhere near the actual locations. Gotta go burn some frequent flier miles, and rent a car haha...

 

Octopussy. Then James Bond went to India. Octopussy had the rogue Soviet general trying to detonate a nuclear warhead at a US airbase in Germany. It had the intrigue with the fake Faberge Eggs and lots of India, elephants etc. I actually thought part of the movie was set in New Delhi, but just before a business trip there, I dug a bit deeper and found the nearest places were an airplane-ride away, at Udaipur. So I couldn't get my pictures then. But I have been in India, here I am giving away some awards at the mBillionth Awards gala in Delhi last year:

 

 

 

Now, for the Bond scene. Hey, there is a London scene I can show you for now. Early in the movie 007 bids for the Faberge Egg at Sotheby's. Here is the scene with Roger Moore stepping out of the doorway of Sotheby's:




And here is James Bond in front of Sotheby's 30 years later:




Ha! I do have a scene also from Octopussy, but its only a London scene, so it won't count in my final collection.

 

A View To A Kill. Then we have old Bond, really really old Bond. Roger Moore's last is A View to a Kill and he really should have quit before this disaster. It has the peculiar, very cinematic and masculine female lead. And what could have been, indeed should have been the ultimate villain of the 007 franchise, the perfect evil actor, Christoper Walken, in probably his worst role, ruined totally by a mindless plot and boring dialogue. The movie was the devious plan to cause an earthquake to cause California to slide into the ocean. Walken as Max Zorin has the zeppelin and they do the horse-racing in the early movie. This movie features two of the world's most famous landmarks, very prominently in the plot, not just backdrops. The Eiffel Tower is where Bond has a major battle scene with the villain escaping by parachuting - of course. And then the in the end, the movie is in San Fransisco, where 007 fights the villain atop the Golden Gate Bridge. I don't have the exact scene for either case, but I did love to take my Audi for visiting major global sites. When I owned it in the USA, I drove it across America and yes, took this picture of me and my Audi in front of the Golden Gate Bridge (back in 1994):

And then the Eiffel Tower? Yes, the same car. I loved it so much, I shipped it with me to Europe when I moved back from the USA to Finland, and took the long way around from England to Finland, showing my car a lot of Europe. One of the landmarks we saw together was:

 

The Eiffel Tower, very early in the morning, at a 'no parking allowed' spot, of course, took quickly the picture and ran away. (I trust the statute of limitations has passed for the French traffic police chasing me for that one haha)

 

DALTON YEARS

 

Then we get to Timothy Dalton. He was serious as the Bond, wasn't he? And not really James Bond, in either of his movies. But we did get very good action in both of his flicks.

 

The Living Daylights was Dalton's first 007. It starts with the scene on Gibraltar. Story is about a possible defector and probably best remembered for the blonde cellist and that Bond uses the cello case as a sled when they slide down the mountain. Have I been to a location for this movie? You betcha!

Here's Timothy Dalton on the roof of the Jeep running down the narrow road on Gibraltar, going through that opening in the wall. And look at me?



Here I am at that very same opening on Gibraltar. Another scene, another Bond movie!

 

(OK, gotta run again, they called my flight. I'll add the last pictures tonight from my hotel in Toronto)

 

Licence to Kill. If the Living Daylights was mediocre for a Bond movie, Licence to Ill was again bad. The plot was mindless. Like yeah, James Bond is going to resign? And leading into that. like M would not give his favorite spy the chance to go do his vendetta? Which 007 was this? This is the drug lord, the televangelist preacher, the car chase with the 18-wheeler truck-trailor. The movie only visits two countries, the USA and the imaginary country of Isthmus, located somewhere in Central America.

I generally don't like any movie that invents countries. Come on, be real. If you want to set the movie in a drug lord country, call it Colombia, don't invent Isthmus. Or if you want to do voodoo, then call it Jamaica, don't call it San Monique. But for the Bond Traveller, the imaginary countries are a pretty nice challenge. And you know what? I've been to Isthmus! All of Isthmus was shot in Mexico. The central bank of Isthmus is in reality the central post office building of Mexico City, right at the town center. And I've been inside that post office! Except, that I don't have any proof. So yes, I gotta go do some Mexico-travel some day again, to go get that Bond location.

But I do have a genuine scene from Licence to Kill. Here is the scene which leads to Bond resigning and running away. He is going to go meet M at the Hemingway House in Key West in Florida. Here Timothy Dalton is just inside the gate, looking to the right, as he walks to the house.

And here is James Bond at the Hemingway House in Key West.




It was night time so the historic building and museum was closed (and I had only a few hours between flights, took a rental car from Miami and drove down, so I couldn't stay to wait until morning).

BROSNAN YEARS

Then we get to Pierce. Brosnan's first Bond was Goldeneye, not his best Bond acting, but no Bond is perfect from the start. But the rest of the movie was just about picture-perfect, from a villain intent on using a satellite weapon to the hidden giant satellite dish inside a lake in Cuba, to the car chase with the tank, to the girl who kills people by sqeezing them to death between her thighs.. Goldeneye had parts shot in real St Petersburg (ie what once was called Leningrad), but parts of St Petersburg were actually shot in the UK. So here is Pierce Brosnan talking to the American agent, who is using the hit-it-with-a-hammer method of starting up an old Russian car, at a major square in St Petersburg:




And here is James Bond at that same square, obviously also in St Petersburg:

Except thats not Russia. Thats London. Thats Somerset House, on the Strand. But if they say its St Petersburg, and I have a picture of myself there, then yes, I've also been to St Petersburg. In reality, I have been to St Petersburg too, I spoke there at a conference (but don't have evidence). But to prove I have been to Russia, thats the point for the collection, to have been in a Bond country, here is me at Red Square in Moscow a few years back:




Now, what about Goldeneye then? The climax of the movie happens at that giant satellite dish supposedly in Cuba. The real dish where it was shot was never submerged inside a lake, that was done with movie trick photography, but the dish is real. Its not in Cuba, its the world's largest radio antenna, near by, in Puerto Rico. Its the Arecibo radio telescope which was also in the Jodie Foster movie. And guess what. Yes, your Bond Lifestyle world traveller has been to that Goldeneye dish as well. I wasn't allowed to climb to where the fight scene happened, but I got this close:




Tomorrow Never Lies, was actually the draft title for Tomorrow Never Dies. This is the story of the newspaper tycoon whose newspaper, Tomorrow, decides to cause a war between China and the UK, to boost media ratings. The movie with the Chinese spy, the motorcyle vs helicopter chase, the stealth boat. And set partly in Vietnam. First of all, early in the movie, Bond goes to check out the villain at his Hamburg headquarters, for a grand celebration at the launch of a media satellite. Here is the scene when Bond goes to the evening gala, he has just left his rental BMW to be parked by valet parking (don't touch any of the buttons):

 

And has James Bond been to Hamburg? Yep, check out the evidence:

 

And yeah. When Brosnan is shown at Hamburg airport picking up the rental car (BMW 7-series with remote control via smartphone), thats the real Hamburg airport in Germany. But this building in the two above pictures? It ain't Germany, baby. Its Feltham, near Heathrow Airport in England. In real life thats an IBM building. Now, have I been to the real Germany? For sure, spoken there many times. Have I been to Hamburg? Yes, a couple of times but have no evidence of that. But here I am in Berlin, at the Brandenburg Gate long long ago, at the dawn of the cameraphone haha, about a decade ago:

 

Now what about Vietnam then? So here is the scene where Pierce Brosnan and the Chinese spy have escaped down the side of the giant skyscraper in Ho Chi Minh City (ie Saigon) in Vietnam, they steal the BMW motorbike, and then ride it while handcuffed together. Check out the entrance to the building




And here is James Bond at the same entrance to that same building.




And here's the secret. Its not in Vietnam at all. That building is in Bangkok. Its the Sinn Sathorn Tower and you know what, that is not the main entrance either. Its the side entrance to the building, but its certainly the exact same location. And the location information for the movie confirms it, that the Saigon scenes were shot in Bangkok. Now, while James Bond never actually visited the real Vietnam, I have. Here I am at Hanoi

 

at night. Haha! I've been to a country where Bond pretended to be, but has not been! And I can prove it too. Ok, lets move onto the worst plot of the Brosnan Bonds

The World Is Not Enough. The most moronic plot overall in the series (in Moonraker, the ending half of the plot went idiotic) that somehow M would rush to comfort some billionaire Azerbaijan oil baroness after her dad has been killed. Come on. And that she'd somehow be in a position where she can be kidnapped there? Really stupid plot. Yeah, this is the one where Bond chases some stolen nuclear matter to find that the bad guys intend to detonate an old Soviet submarine to pollute the other oil pipeline routes for this girl to have a monopoly on oil delivery. M is captured. Bond is tortured in the train. The BMW is cut in half by the twirling blades from the helicopter. That one.

The World is Not Enough opening scene is the boat chase on the Thames with the woman in the powerboat, and Bond riding the tiny black jet-powered superboat. The boat leaps out of the building that is MI-6's real HQ, shown in more recent Bond movies (early Bond movies had two other London buildings pretending to be the HQ). Here is that boat leaps from the building towards Thames River scene:

 

And here is James Bond at that same building from the same side

 

Yep, been there, done that. Ok, not 'done that' as in leaping with a speedboat out of the side of the building, but yeah, been there at the foot of the MI-6 HQ building in London. I went by that building quite a lot actually when I used to live in London. I liked to walk in London and this was not that far from my home back then. although this picture is from just a couple of months ago.

 

And yes, like I said, London landmarks don't count. So I have to go hunt for more foreign pictures from The World is Not Enuf, but now lets move onto the ultimate Brosnan, DAD

 

Die Another Day. I personally think this is the best Brosnan, and as a movie is actually better than Goldfinger (Goldfinger is my number 2, Spy Who Loved Me is my number 3). Die Another Day is the one with Halle Berry, the chase with hovercraft, ice ballet with the duelling supercars, Iceland, Cuba, North Korea, and the swordfight watched by fencing instructor Madonna in the cameo role. It also had one of the most divisive gadget technologies ever in a Bond movie, the Aston Martin 'Vanish' the stealth car. Did you know, Top Gear actually recreated the illusion  but not using an Aston Martin, they did it with a van, and it worked - not perfectly but certainly for proof-of-concept, and using today's household tech. It is not as ridiculous as it may have seemed at the time, in reality, military scientists are working on that very technology for future weapons. But yeah, I love Die Another Day. Brosnan was robbed, he should have earned at least one more Bond after that exciting action-packed movie. But what of the scenes then? Well, Bond was captured in North Korea, he didn't escape, he was traded for another spy and then taken to a British secure hospital room in a warship, in Hong Kong harbor. And Pierce Brosnan escaped, of course, and jumped into Victoria Harbor, and climbed out, beard and all, in this night time scene, in front of the iconic Hong Kong skyline:




Here is James Bond standing at that very same spot in modern times, during daylight hours.

 

 

If you want to see my PC welcoming screen backdrop, I love the Hong Kong skyline view so much, this is what's on my PC (yes, my picture). Bears a striking similarity to the older Bond picture doesn't it?

 

Ok. That was Hong Kong. I've got my scene from DAD. Do I have more? Would you like to see Cuba? Here is 007 at that bar where Jinx, ie Halle Berry has just walked out of the sea?

 

And where am I? This is that scene. Note that the bar itself is fake, a hollywood set, but the castle in the background and the harbor is real. This is what it looks like normally, without the fake bar on the beach:



And while you might not be sure, let me show the close-up of the castle: Compare this to the scene with Halle Berry above, look at the boats, the castle, it is certainly the exact same beach:




Except, it wasn't in Cuba. Bond didn't visit Cuba (and so far, I have not visited Cuba either, its one of the 9 Bond countries I have yet to do). But yes, the Cuba scenes were shot across the Atlantic in Southwestern Spain, in Cadiz. Thats just West of Gibraltar.

 

And I want to show one more scene, even though I don't need to, I already have Die Another Day. This is one of my fave stories invented for Bond, that there is that secret underground train station that MI-6 uses as its base and that the entrance is this particular door right at the very heart of London, across Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, alongside the London Eye ferris wheel. Yeah, sure. But here is Pierce Brosnan about to step in the door to the secret entrance to MI-6's Tube station:

 

And see who is at that same door? James Bond that's who:

 

Yep, I found the exact door and spot. Thats the Southeastern corner of Westminister Bridge, those steps lead right to the London Eye

 

DANIEL CRAIG

 

Then we get to today's Bond. Daniel Craig took over with Bond movie number 21 and has given us three so far. His first, was the only Ian Fleming book that had not yet been turned into a proper Bond movie, and also, the very first 007 book authored by Ian Fleming, Casino Royale. Where it all began. And this is the Bond where the movie starts in Black-and-white, where he wins the Aston Martin in a poker game, and pretty much the whole movie is inside a casino or another. Bond doesn't know how to dress, doesn't know how to talk to women and doesn't even know how to order his drink. From Madagascar to the Bahamas to Miami to Montenegro to Italy, again Bond does some serious frequent flier miles again. Have we been in the same place? Here Daniel Craig has just landed on Paradise Island in the Bahamas, walking off the plane.

 

 

And here is James Bond at that very same spot where the plane landed, in front of the Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island

 

 

Yep, Casino Royale scene? Done

As to Quantum of Solace (the South American scheme to hoard water) which takes Bond from Italy to Haiti, Austria and Bolivia; and Skyfall (the weird dual plot mixture, early Skyfall is like a rejected plot of Die Hard, the disgruntled and distrusted cop chases computer geeky criminal with full help of British marines on helicopters who somehow fly into sovereign Chinese territory, mashed with the incompatible and also rejected plot for Jason Bourne, where the lone wulf spy captures his boss, then without any weapons of any kind, destroys an army of highly trained military killers, mostly with his bare hands, and yeah, the British marines stay away even though they train there in Scotland). But yeah, Skyfall? Travels from Turkey to China to Macau and onto Scotland. I don't have pictures of me in scenese from these last two movies, yet. But stay tuned. I may have pics from one (or both) quite soon, in fact.

Have I been to any of the countries in Quantum of Solace? How about Austria, here I am at the Hofsburg Gate in Vienna:

 

 

And what about Skyfall? Do I have any evidence of being in any of those countries? How about Shanghai? Here I am at the Shanghai Grand Prix last year:

 

Yep. Living the James Bond lifestyle. I do fly to James Bond destinations in my work and travels. I do get to experience the same lifestyle as James Bond, with perhaps a little less of the explosions and the killing haha (alas, also significantly less of the hot babes jumping into my arms). But yeah, a fun hobby. If any other Bond fans there have similar stories, please share. If you want to start your own Bond Locations collection, do remember you have your cameraphone always with you, if you are at a Bond city, you might be very near a real Bond location, go visit it, and take the picture...

I'll be posting more of my discoveries here, including the precise locations of where the shot was taken.

For the legal issues about copyright. I have already contacted the owners of the Bond movies and asked for permission to use these screen shots of the movies. I did that over a month ago, and I have not heard them saying I could not use the screen shots. I have of course purchased each of the DVDs. I am using this blog article only for research use - a reason which exists for exception in copyright law, allowing 'fair use'. I am researching and documenting the exact camera locations for these sites, and sharing, totally free and with no commercial or other gains to me, those locations for other Bond fans to also be able to find and enjoy. No such complete record exists as far as I know. I have no subscriptions, no registrations and no fees to this blog. I have no interest in selling anything Bond-related. My blog is about technology and as I am already rated by Forbes as the most influential expert of my field, I cannot possibly have any reason whatsoever to try to create more traffic to this blog (this blog is not for sale, will never be). This blog article cannot in any way be seen as damaging to the Bond franchise but can only be seen as a love-letter to the movies and one that encourages Bond fans to experience their passion even more deeply. But if Bond licence holders contact me and instruct me to take any of the screen shots off this blog, of course I will do so immediately. My contact information is tomi at tomiahonen dot com.

On a silly note. I love this hobby, I really do. I've been discussing this with many people since I started, and if the other person is a Bond fan, we've had lots of good discussions and I've often learned much more about the movies and locations and stories. If anyone out there among my readers happens to be a billionaire or multi-multi-millionaire, who is a huge Bond fan, and wants to visit real 007 locations and has the jet fuelled and ready to go, I'll be happy to be your guide. If there's a wife of such a rich dude, who knows her husband has already bought anything he might ever want, but the wife wants to give a once-in-a-lifetime experience to her Bond-fan husband, I've got the perfect week around the world, or two weeks, or how much time you can get your hubby to spare. And wouldn't you know it, while I might help your husband find the exact scene for Bond, you might prefer to spend your time in that town at the shopping malls in such shopping mecchas as Tokyo, Hong Kong, Paris, London, New York and San Francisco. Or if you prefer the beaches, then Bond's been to just about all the paradises from Phuket to Bahamas, from Rio to the Keys, from Cote d'Sur to Jamaica... Drop me a note.

A Mobile Marketing global update, after MMA Forum New York City event

So yeah, I had the honor of speaking twice at this year's MMA Forum event in New York City. And as the conference hotel was the Marriott Marquis, right on Broadway, I can say that I've 'done Broadway' haha...

But apart from my presentations - you may enjoy 'Around the World in 80 Slides' about the status of mobile marketing outside of the USA (the slideshare presentation has had over 6,000 views, wow, in just over one week!). Lets talk about what else happened at the MMA Forum. Here is my update of the latest thinking from many of the best marketing and advertising minds of Madison Avenue, and how they now see mAd as in Mobile Advertising, and the more broad term, Mobile Marketing, in the context of other modern marketing tools and methods. The mAd industry is maturing nicely. I was very VERY impressed with what all is being discovered, discussed and disseminated.

This blog is a collection of my notes from the MMA Forum. As the event ran mostly on three threads, I could not obviously attend all presentations, so please take this not as a comprehensive review but rather a sampling of what we learned. And in no particular order, lets see what brands were saying what about mobile.

MACY'S DEPARTMENT STORE

Jennifer Kasper, the VP of Digital at Macy's, yes the world's largest department store, gave a keynote to the MMA Forum. She said that if Disney can turn from an entertainment company into a retailer, why can't Macy's turn from a retailer into an entertainment company. And she pointed out that in New York City, the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade is truly an institution, one that is covered nationally on TV. Jennifer made a wonderful observation about mobile phones in the stores: before we consumers were being yelled at for using our phones in the stores, now we are being encouraged to use them. And as to mobile marketing, how about this innovation - we all know that TV shows can be interactive via SMS, like American Idol and Eurovision etc, what about TV ads? Macy's has introduced TV ads that invite TV viewers to respond live, and even make purchases straight off the live TV advertisement. 

ANNHEUSER-BUSCH INBEV

We had the privilege of hearing Winston Wang give a keynote too. And boy, was that packed with all the right things to say, and just about everything you ever wanted to know about mobile when used in marketing. Winston was like a rapid-fire quote machine. My notes about his keynote ran 20 separate items and honestly, I could write a long blog just about what all he said, and the insights his comments reveal and contain. Also, as already wrote on Twitter when Winston was speaking, I could use a Winston Wang beer quotation at the end of just about every slide I show about mobile marketing, haha, they were all totally the right message and totally up-to-date and so comprehensive they truly covered the whole moblie marketing spectrum. But let me try to summarize it to a few of the best lines and examples.

To start with, a lovely beer quote: Physical social is beer, digital social is mobile; innovation opportunity lies in the middle. Winston also said everyone's attention is going to mobile. Mobile will connect marketing and sales. Mobile is measurable like nothing else before. Mobile amplifies events. Mobile is not just B2C, its C2C (Tomi comment: Cool !!! truly in the spirit of Communities Dominate Brands the book and the origins of this blog). And get this, Winston ended his presentation advising the audience to use 'Tomi Ahonen's 9 unique aspects of mobile' to create winning mobile concepts. Thanks Winston! The beers are on me!

But I'm not done with Winston Wang. Those were selected pearls of his many quotes. What is Annheuser-Busch Inbev, the world's largest beer brewery doing in mobile? Well, as Winston is their Director of Innovation, you can guess its plenty, across all their brands. Like Stella Artois, which has an advergame about pouring the beer correctly (using the sensors of the smartphone). This game is also a virtual tutor/mentor to train the proper speed to pour Stella Artois (which is obviously VERY slow and STEADY to ge the right head on the beer). They have an AR app to find the nearest bars and pubs that serve Stella Artois.

Or how about the Bud Light Sports Fan beer app. It is designed for second screen use (ie simultaneously while watching a live sports game on the TV ie first screen, you pull up the Bud Light Sports Fan on your smartphone or tablet for your second screen experience as you watch the live game). The app poses relevant questions about the live game for fans to react to, giving away prizes for the best answer or best guess. Some questions ask for predictions of game results and game events for that live game. Other questions are trivia about that sport and the teams involved etc. Very engaging.

HOME DEPOT

Yet another brilliant presentation was by Trish Mueller the Chief Marketing Officer of Home Depot, the world's largest tool (and garden furniture) retailer. She gave tons of examples and said that whereas a real bricks-and-mortar superstore of Home Depot can only stock 35,000 items to sell, the mobile phone has an 'endless aisle' and they currently stock 400,000 items for sale on the phone screen. Home Depot has found that more searches already come from mobile phones than traditional PC based internet.

The Home Depot shopping app has several brlliant ideas, including an on-screen measurement tool for measuring bolt sizes, to an Augmented Reality furniture virtual tester, using the cameraphone to place garden furniture into your yard or balcony, to see how it looks and fits. Their app includes the 'talk to the hand' option where shoppers can talk directly to Home Depot advisors rather than sending questions. The Home Depot app has been downloaded 3.5 million times  

UPS

UPS the package delivery company has deployed a solution to let consumers decide where the final delivery of the package will take place. They want to deliver only once, to the best address. So if you will be home, thats fine. If you prefer the package delivered to your office, thats fine. If you're at the hospital today because your child is suddenly ill, have the package delivered to the hospital reception, etc... It saves UPS tons of money from not having to make unncessary delivery attempts.

STATS STATS STATS

And we heard a ton of new stats. Many were familiar to my readers and/or nicely quoted my stats, from the 'more mobile phones than toothbrushes' to the 150 times per day stat. But here were new stats for us to now quote in our presentations and articles about mobile marketing:

Time Inc: People check news on their phones 40x per day

MMA: 91% of mobile phone users have their phones 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (ie also sleep with the phones)

The Weather Channel: most mobile users of their service spend more than 1 hour per week on weather news

AT&T: 88% of US consumers watch the 2nd screen (mobile) while watching TV

MMA: 43% of Americans use mobile as their primary search tool

Nielsen: USA has 89 million mobile shoppers

Rovio: Angry Birds has passed 1.7 Billion cumulative downloads

Millenial Media: There are now more mobile phone connections than humans alive

Mondelez: Mobile increases impulse buys inside shops by 18%

MMA: 49% of US consumers have changed their purchase decision inside a store because of mobile

Google: 8 in 10 smartphone shoppers use their phone in the store to help them shop

3Seventy - Brands see a 25 dollar return for every 1 dollar spent on SMS

MMA: Mobile coupons get 10x better redemption rates than eCoupons

MORE MOBILE FIRST COMPANIES

We heard several more companies embracing 'Mobile first' for their digital strategy (ie design for the small screen first, before designing for the old-fashioned PC based legacy internet). Home Depot said they are a mobile first company. JP Morgan Chase bank said you have to have a mobile first strategy. Starbucks says nothing is more important than mobile. Rovio said Angry Birds would not have been possible had Rovio not been a mobile first company. (and its nice to see my thinking from my 2002 book m-Profits now embraced so widely by such a diverse range of giant companies, as the right way forward..)

QUOTES

There were so many good quotes that came from the event. Here is a sampling of my faves:

Geo-fencing is so 2012 - Saatchi's Media Director, Gabriel Chang

Phones have taken the place of the cigarette break - Google Head of Mobile and Social Tim Reis

Mobile is augmented humanity - Google Head of Mobile and Social Tim Reis

Shoppers who use mobile more, buy more - Google Head of Mobile and Social Tim Reis

We want to tell stories across multiple screens - Time Inc Advertising & Sales Manager Cyrus Beagle 

There's a severe talent gap in the industry, it all changed in the past 5 years - MMA Managing Director Michael Becker

The science fiction of one-to-one marketing is now a reality - Flurry CEO Simon Khalaf

You can change behavior in malls: with mobile - Flurry CEO Simon Khalaf

Nobody likes banner ads - Rovio VP Advertising Michelle Tolbin

Smartphones are used like a digital swiss army knife - AT&T Digital Media Director Julia Plourde (and Tomi comment - exactly as I predicted in my 2002 book, m-Profits)

Nobody walked into this room carrying a TV set - AT&T Digital Media Director Julia Plourde

SMS AND MMS

This event heard the mantra that the best way to reach your whole audience is SMS text messaging. We had continuously SMS examples and stats (most very familiar to those who follow my writings) but this was very refreshing to me, as in the past there was plenty of the misguided view that one should do a smartphone app for example, rather than use SMS. Now it was a near-unanimous view by all speakers that anyone in the audience had to do SMS first.

And many then also mentioned that the next thing to do after SMS, was MMS. Like Gary Schwartz the author said at the event, if you include purchase uption to a marketing SMS, your response rates shoot up 3-fold. But if you use MMS and include purchase option, compared to basic SMS informational/advertising/branding messages, MMS will get you a 6-fold increase in response rates. Like I say, MMS is the ultimate wet dream for anyone in marketing and advertising, its everything you ever wanted SMS to be, if you are in advertising, marketing or media. No, MMS is not the perfect picture-sharing method for consumer-to-consumer communications (although we can use it for that as well). But MMS is indeed the ultimate brand messaging tool for their marketing communications, and increasingly the MMA Forum speakers held this view too. Very nice to hear.

PIZZA BUTTON

Finally a truly brilliant idea from Dubai. Red Tomato Pizza has deployed a very simple fridge magnet, that includes a GSM chip and data connection to their pizza ordering system. Your fridge magnet looks like a pizza slice, and lets you configure your pizza exactly as you like it, pepperoni or tutti-di-mare or vegetable or extra cheese etc, and when you're ready? Just press the button. Your pizza is delivered in 30 minutes to your door. Just press the button. Gotta love it!

Thats my quick view to the best MMA event yet. If you see an MMA event near your neighborhood, come there and meet the industry leaders and learn about the best ideas in this, the most creative dimension of the best age of innovation, with the most powerful digital platform ever deployed: mobile.  And if you want to see my Around the World in 80 Slides survey of mobile marketing outside of the USA, check out my slides of my MMA Forum presentation via Slideshare.

 

Q1 Numbers in Bloodbath Year Four: Smartphones Galore

Time for the Q1 numbers. I'm posting this from the airport and only can do the top-line numbers now, but want to post them at least, so my readers can find the numbers they are waiting for. I'll update this soon and add all the usual detail you expect. For those who want to see the previous period numbers ie Q4 of 2012, they are here.

 

Note, I had reported that Blackberry has fallen out of the Top 10 being replaced by rapidly growing Yulong ie Coolpad (ie China Wireless). The growth of Yulong is true, but in the end it wasn't Blackberry that fell out, it emerged that HTC has had an even worse quarter. Blackberry stayed in the Top 10 by the skin of its teeth, its HTC that fell out of the Top 10 smarpthone manufacturers. Here's the Top 10 for Quarter 1, 2013:

BIGGEST SMARTPHONE MANUFACTURERS BY UNIT SALES IN Q1 2013

Rank . . Manufacturer . Units . . . Market Share . Was Q4 2012 . . OS systems supported (coming)[ending]
1 (1) . . Samsung . . . . 69.0 M . . 32.4% . . . . . . . ( 29.4% ) . . . . . . Android, bada, Windows (Tizen)
2 (2) . . Apple  . . . . . . 37.4 M  . . 17.6% . . . . . . . ( 22.0% ) . . . . . . iOS
3 (3) . . Huawei  . . . . . 10.5 M . . . 4.9% . . . . . . . (   5.5% ) . . . . . . Android (Tizen)
4 (7) . . LG  . . . . . . . . 10.3 M . . . 4.8% . . . . . . . (   4.0% ) . . . . . . Android
5 (5) . . Lenovo  . . . . . . 8.9 M . . . 4.2% . . . . . . . (   4.3% ) . . . . . . Android (Tizen)
6 (4) . . ZTE  . . . . . . . . 8.6 M . . . 4.0% . . . . . . . (   5.3% ) . . . . . . Android, Windows (Firefox)
7 (6) . . Sony . . . . . . . . 8.1 M . . . 3.8% . . . . . . . (   4.0% ) . . . . . . Android
8 (11) . Coolpad/Yulong . 7.1 M . . . 3.3% . . . . . . . (   2.8% ) . . . . . . Android
9 (10) . Nokia . . . . . . . . 6.1 M . . . 2.9% . . . . . . . (   3.0% ) . . . . . . Windows, [Symbian], [MeeGo]
10 (9) . Blackberry . . . . 6.0 M . . . 2.8% . . . . . . . (   3.2% ) . . . . . . Blackberry
Others . . . . . . . . . . . 48.1 M
TOTAL . . . . . . . . . . 213.0 M
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Analysis 17 May 2013, based on manufacturer and industry data
This table may be freely shared

(More analysis coming soon, just posting the numbers now from the airport)

BIGGEST SMARTPHONE OPERATING SYSTEMS BY UNIT SALES IN Q1 2013

Rank . OS Platform . . . . Units . . . . Market share . Was Q4 2012 . . Manufacturers in Top 10
1 (1) . . Android . . . . . . . 159.0 M . .  74.6 % . . . . . ( 68.5 %) . . . . . Samsung, Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo, Sony, LG, Yulong/Coolpad
2 (2) . . iOS  . . . . . . . . . . 37.4 M . .  17.6 % . . . . . ( 22.2 %)  . . . . . Apple
3 (4) . . Windows Phone . . 6.3 M . . .  3.0 % . . . . . (  2.7 %) . . . . . . Samsung, Nokia
4 (3) . . Blackberry . . . . . . 6.0 M . . .  2.8 % . . . . . (  3.2 %) . . . . . . RIM
5 (5) . . bada  . . . . . . . . . . 1.8 M . . . 0.8 % . . . . . (  1.4 %) . . . . . . Samsung
6 (6) . . Symbian  . . . . . . . 0.5 M . . . 0.2 % . . . . . (  1.0 %) . . . . . . Nokia
others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.0 M . . . 0.9 % . . . . . (   1.0 %)
TOTAL . . . . . . . . . . . . 213.0 M
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Analysis 17 May 2013, based on manufacturer and industry data
This table may be freely shared

(Analysis coming shortly)

INSTALLED BASE OF SMARTPHONES BY OPERATING SYSTEM AS OF MARCH 31, 2013

Rank . OS Platform . . . . Units . . . Market share  Was Q4 2012  . Main Manufacturers of current base
1 . . . . Android . . . . . . . 823 M . . . 57 % . . . . . . ( 53 %) . . . . . . Samsung, Huawei, Sony, ZTE, LG, Lenovo, Motorola, SonyEricsson 
2 . . . . iOS  . . . . . . . . . 277 M . . . 19 % . . . . . . ( 19 %) . . . . . . Apple
3 . . . . Symbian . . . . . . 165 M . . . 11 % . . . . . . ( 15 %) . . . . . . Nokia, Sharp, Panasonic, Fujitsu, Samsung, SonyEricsson
4 . . . . Blackberry  . . . . . 97 M . . . . 8 % . . . . . . (   8 %) . . . . . . RIM
5 . . . . Windows Phone . . 28 M . . . 2 % . . . . . . (   2 %) . . . . . . Nokia, Samsung, ZTE
6 . . . . bada . . . . . . . . . . 27 M . . .  2 % . . . . . . (   2 %) . . . . . . Samsung
7 . . . . Windows Mobile . . . 5 M  . 0.3 % . . . . . . (   0.5 %) . . . . . . HTC, Samsung, LG, SonyEricsson, Palm, Motorola
Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 M . . .  1 % . . . . . . (   1 %)
TOTAL Installed Base . 1,439 M smartphones in use at end of Q1, 2013
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Analysis 20 May 2013, based on manufacturer and industry data
This table may be freely shared

(more data coming soon, gotta go board my plane now..)
(ps - Thanks 'Winter' for spotting the typo. cheers!) 

Future trends in mobile

My (Alan Moore) keynote on how our societies, organisations, cities, lives and economies are being dramatically reshaped through mobile communications, based on my book No Straight Lines.   

As Kevin Kelly asked, what does technology want? And he answers, it wants what we want. The point being there is a deep relationship between humanity and technology.             

 

Society, organisations, economies reshaped by mobile from SMLXL Ltd

Now Android Also Biggest Tablet OS - iPad share eroding gradually, with Samsung looming

My competence is not in the tablets/PC space but I know many of my readers are interested in that area too, and obviously tablets are increasingly relevant in the overall digital convergence space. They don't compare in scale to smartphone sales or mobile phone handset sales, but tablets are very significant in the far smaller PC industry, and there is some overlap in usage. So for my readers, if you missed it, IDC has just reported tablet sales today for Q1. The moment has arrived when iOS no longer powers most tablets sold, Android has passed iOS. Apple's iPad still remains the bestselling single tablet brand, with Samsung the strong number 2. Here are the numbers as per IDC:

 

Top 5 tablet makers as per IDC in Q1:
Apple . . . . . . 39.6%
Samsung . . . 17.2%
Asus . . . . . . . 5.5%
Amazon . . . . . 3.7%
Microsoft . . . . 1.8%
Total tablets sold in Q1: 49.2 million units
Android powered 56.5% of all tablets, iOS powered 39.6% and Windows 1.8%

Source: IDC May 1, 2013

So ever more proof first, that Android is the dominant computing platform on the planet - as I reported here last year - and here are the total computer sales stats for year 2012 when all types of computers from desktops to smartphones are counted. 

Secondly, what is obvious to many tech analysts but not obvious to iFanatics, is that Apple cannot hold the majority of any market with its high-priced products, that is obvious, but some keep holding onto the fantasy. Apple can make the biggest profits, yes, but it cannot hold the market share, it is destined to become a niche player over time, and thus it needs to seek to discover more untapped market spaces (like portable music players, touch-screen smartphones and tablet PCs in the past 12 years). So we await the iWatch or whatever iCool next comes our way from the iBrains at the iCampus.

Lastly, Microsoft? Yeah. Windows ruled the computer worlds for three decades but under Ballmer it all has gone wrong (as I explained here last year) and the Windows era in computing is over. They have 1.8% in tablets - the future of portable computing - where they owned over 90% of all portable computing four years ago. Microsoft has 3% market share in smartphones, whereas under Bill Gates they held 12% in smartphones just six years ago. And all PC makers have said that smartphones are computers and smartphones are the future and the bulk of the mass market of consumer use of computing. So all Microsoft has left is the ever-shrinking piece of the pie that is the desktop. Good luck with that...