If there is one thing that the presence of smart phone technology is affecting heavily, it is the consumer industry. In the past few years, internet retailing has strongly changed the way consumerism works. Moving full circle from individual marketing, to mass media and back to targeting specific individuals, the consumer industry has seen a large change in the direction it has been taking.
But internet technology is not just limited to the households and offices like it used to years ago. The presence of better netbooks and more importantly, smart phones with 3G and 4G technology has pushed the limits of online access to new heights (the proliferation of WiFi technology also contributed to this as well).
So what has the consumer industry turned into after the arrival of devices such as the Apple iPhone 4 or the HTC Desire?
Consumers now shop and browse online -with one practice heavily affecting the other. Some people would use the internet to look for new products and then purchase then from brick and mortar stores. Others would roam around stores looking for good items and try finding a cheaper price through online sales. While there is no direct correlation as to whether mobile shopping access is a competitor or a complement for real life stores, the fact that the two heavily affect each other is there.
Take augmented reality applications like Google Goggles. One can take this to the local hardware store, point a smart phone at the local merchandise and get quick online results on where one could buy the same item (or a similar one) at a cheaper price. At the same time, loading up location based services such as Google Maps (or even Foursquare) to look up professional or consumer reviews of nearby restaurants and help you make that choice on where to eat.
Tags: 3G, 4g, Google-Goggles, Internet