Mobile as 7th of the Mass Media: Cellphone, Cameraphone, Iphone, Smartphone

Tomi Ahonen's new book is a media mapping gift for organizational leaders world wide. He has outlined a rigorous and documented structure for publishers, governments, corporations, activists, and individuals to understand the 21st Century media maelstrom and to implement mobile strategies immediately. By enumerating all the unique issues with mobile, and its ability to cannibalize the power and effectiveness of the older 6 media types, Tomi is giving moguls and newbies alike a matrix to understand a world where a Twitter user with SMS is now 100000X more effective in 30 minutes than Reuters et al can be in the new 'user generated media' universe ---untracked by Google for 48 hours or longer it seems. Tomi's experience and sharing of deep market research in Finland and in Korea and with dozens of other mobile markets, is another gift for CEO's and CMO's in this book. With 3 billion and soon to be 4 billion mobile users messaging, receiving intelligent network based SAAS alerts, and navigating to local language websites configured for mobile; Tomi is giving SME's and desperate media executives the needed framework and linkages to coordinate the 7 media types seamlessly. As with many things with the world in tumult, the march of mobile as a 10 to the X political, economic, social, and educational bulwark continues with billions of messages per day etc and new business models. Tomi's book is a complete marketing and strategy class under one cover. I had to read it twice to understand many of the innovations bubbling quickly in the youth markets of Japan and Korea. Those who read it, and ponder its lessons for their affairs with mobile enablement will be enormously enriched and informed of leading trends and innovations. The media dinosaurs who will not read it, will continue their death spiral and their eclipse. This book is on the top shelf of my library and is equal in power to the Cluetrain Manifesto in its voice of authority and prescience. Basically, every MBA student in 2009 needs to read this book. Every CMO needs to roadmap the difficulties of this economic cycle with its principles. Steve Epstein CEO IDNoptions LLC International Domain Name development and brokerage.

Tomi is a great spokesperson for the mobile industry and this book reflects that. Building his case step-by-step, he puts forth the case for mobile as a compelling mass media channel detailing the evolution of media itself and how mobile differs, enhances, and excels. For folks looking to become familiar with the intricacies, it is a brilliant primer. For people already in the industry, it has stats and case studies that one can learn from. Highly recommended. Chetan Sharma