PR Vibes™ Interview Q&A with Mickey Alam Khan, editor in chief of Mobile Marketer
Welcome to PR Vibes™, created by Calysto Communications to provide you with key insights into the publications and events in the telecommunications industry. Today, we’re featuring a short interview with Mickey Alam Khan, editor in chief of Mobile Marketer. Previously the editor in chief of eMarketer and DM News, Mr. Alam Khan is based in New York.
What is the editorial mission of Mobile Marketer?
The mission of Mobile Marketer is to inform and educate marketers in mobile advertising, marketing, media and commerce.
What makes the audience unique? Do you have any breakdowns of readership? How has your audience evolved?
Mobile Marketer is the world’s largest mobile marketing publication whose readership comprises senior executives from brands, ad agencies, publishers, retailers and service providers. The publication is seeing good growth in its email subscriptions, Web traffic, Twitter followers and Facebook friends/fans. Mobile Marketer is what marketers need to read to keep themselves abreast on the medium that’s changing consumer and business behavior – mobile.
What sets Mobile Marketer apart from other media outlets that cover the mobile industry?
The publication is very focused on its area of coverage – mobile marketing and commerce. Gossip’s not for us. We break stories every day. We keep the format simple and the site and newsletter layout clean.
What “value-added services” do you offer?
We offer sponsored webinars and custom white papers, as well as targeted, focused conferences. Our editorial calendar section on the site lists the offerings for 2011. The goal is to offer a well-rounded supply of information and analysis to marketers making mobile decisions.
What’s one thing about Mobile Marketer that most people don’t know?
It’s one of the very few international publications that has grown so quickly since its launch in 2007. There are not many international trade publications that launched and thrived in these recessionary times.
Thank God we are where we are due to our focus, attention to detail, great team, responsive readers, loyal advertisers and a keen eye on the future.
What do you see as the most impacting technology/trend for the next year?
Obviously it’ll be mobile, and especially the iPhone and iPad, as well as Android and Windows phones. We see the tablet coming into its own as a permanent category alongside laptops and smartphones.
Social networking will evolve too, closely integrating with mobile. Already 220 million of the 550 million Facebook users access the service via their mobile devices. Unless there’s a privacy backlash, the future of social networking is bright.
What do you think has stood out during 2010?
The iPad tablet was, hands down, the winner in 2010. And then there’s the media’s favorite darling – Facebook. I guess the love affair with Google is on the wane, rightly or wrongly.
Is there anything in particular you think most people fail to realize about mobile marketing, in general?
Mobile marketing is key if marketers want to reach audiences where they are. By 2012, one out of two phones in subscriber hands will have Internet and application capability. Think what that does to content consumption and commerce transactions. Marketing has to be where the eyeballs are.
On a personal note, can you tell us a bit about yourself, your hobbies and interests?
I travel quite a bit for work and for fun. After hours and weekends I like to read, listen to good music and eat good food. Mindless TV is a great stress reliever. I collect coffee mugs from cities that I like – but I don’t drink coffee.
On the work side, I like launching new products each year, as long as I can justify them financially and via a gut-check. I’ve been a marketing journalist since 1992. I’m optimistic about the future of news, marketing, retail, luxury and the United States.
I run three publications — Mobile Marketer, Mobile Commerce Daily and Luxury Daily. Work is great fun since these industries are interesting to cover. No two days are alike and that’s what keeps me going — variety, spice and surprise.