mLearnCon News and Updates

All this week, I've been talking about how amazingly useful mind-mapping is for a variety of creative and business tasks. In my last post, I looked at a few of the best mind-mapping tools for Windows. Today we'll check out some of the coolest mind mappers for smartphones and tablets.

Mind mapping is an awesome activity for mobile devices, because it's inherently quick and requires very little typing. You can pull out your phone and tap up useful mind maps as you ride the train, wait to order lunch, or while you're standing in line at the airport. It's precisely this low-friction simplicity that makes mind maps such a powerful tool for productivity.

Here are a few of my favorite mind mapping apps for the most popular smartphone platforms.

SimpleMind+ for iPad/iPhone

SimpleMind+ is about as easy as mind mapping gets on iOS.There's no terrible shortage of mind mapping options for iOS, and some can set you back as much as $50. But for my money (which is about $0), it's hard to beat SimpleMind+. The basic version is free for either iPad or iPhone, and as of this writing the manufacturer offers an upgrade to the full version (which supports both iPad and iPhone) for $2.99 as an in-app purchase.

SimpleMind+ is simplicity itself. Tap a little plus sign next to any node on your mind map to add a subnode. Tap in a label and then create more nodes. Tapping and dragging instantly rearranges your maps, and you can drop one node onto another to reassign it as a subnode. In all my years of mind mapping, I've yet to find a mind mapper as cheap, easy, and insanely useful as SimpleMind+ on the iPad. The iPhone version runs a close second.

See more from PCWorld here

Question No. 1: Can you do it yourself?

For many small companies, apps are turning into a valuable marketing tool.

As more people come to rely on smartphones, entrepreneurs are cooking up mobile software that offers a quick way to connect with the business or learn more about it. The apps cover a bunch of jobs, from scheduling appointments and dishing out discounts to giving information about the company.

Take Danny Abrams, owner of Manhattan's Mermaid Inn restaurants. He was looking for a new way to educate and excite seafood lovers about oysters—a potentially confusing food with lots of different varieties. So, he launched Oysterpedia, an app that lets users learn the taste profiles of specific oysters, from beausoleil to bluepoint, and note the ones they've tried.

"I wanted [customers] to come into the Mermaid, and if there are oysters they're unfamiliar with they can learn," he says. "Or they can look back at the last time they were here to see their favorites."

The app has been a smash. It has more than 5,000 downloads, says Mr. Abrams, and he hasn't been able to measure the number of times people have used the software to share "I just had a bluepoint oyster at The Mermaid Inn" on Facebook and Twitter. He adds that diners have created a game—trying to eat their way through the app's database.

Read the full article here from the Wall Street Journal.

Google's Marisa Mayer revealed that more people will soon be accessing Google Maps from mobile devices than from desktop computers. 

Google Maps for Mobile has been downloaded and installed on more than 200 million devices worldwide, according to Marisa Mayer, Google's vice president of maps and local products, speaking at TechCrunch's Disrupt conference in New York City.

The huge success of Google's Android platform has surely played a role in Google's success with mobile mapping. Google Maps is an integral part the Android experience. Remember, though, that Google provides the mapping powers of the iPhone, and it also makes its mapping software available to other platforms, such as BlackBerry OS, Symbian, and more. Google has been aggressive at making its mobile map program accessible from a wide number of devices.

If you think Maps for Mobile is being downloaded, used once, and then forgotten, think again. Mayer said mobile use of Google Maps is exploding. Mayer revealed that 40% of all Google Maps use comes from mobile devices. Mobile use of maps leapfrog's desktop use from time to time over the weekends. Google expects that by June, the percentage of mobile maps users will exceed desktop users--and stay that way.

Google updates Maps for Mobile frequently, especially the version for Android, and adds new features constantly. Mayer said that one of her goals in her new role at Google is to streamline how users access information. For example, the company recently combined several individual products (Hotpot and Places), and also made it easier to access different Google services from within other Google services.

Read the full article here drom InformationWeek

One of the primary beneficiaries of the smartphone (and now tablet) boom is the mobile commerce space. Mobile commerce revenues may still pale in comparison to their ecommerce brothers, but we’re already seeing signs ofmobile commerce’s potential.

Companies like eBay and Amazon are bringing in billions of dollars a year from their mobile apps and mobile commerce sites. Marketing firm Performics reported that 49% of “heavy mobile web users” have made a purchase using a mobile device.

For merchants, it’s no longer enough to have an ecommerce strategy — businesses need to embrace a mobile commerce strategy as well. For most businesses, that means making a choice of creating an optimized mobile commerce website or a native mobile application.

Choosing Between Mobile and Native Apps

One of the resounding themes for mobile software developers in 2011 is the debate between building a native app or building a mobile web app. While some developers are looking at ways to build hybrid solutions, this is a topic that continues to become more complex.

This is especially true for mobile commerce sites, where the conversion rates between browsers and purchasers can vary dramatically based on the platform and the method of presentation.

David Eads, the vice president of product marketing at Kony Solutions recently wrote an article for Mobile Commerce assessing the mobile channels brands need to support.

Eads makes the argument that it is “critical” for brands to seek to support as many mobile devices as possible. That said, deciding how to allocate resources can be difficult.

Read more here from Mashable

On your next visit to the Hammer Museum, don't be surprised to find more people fiddling with their iPhones than actually looking at the art hanging on the walls. That's because the Hammer has joined the growing list of art institutions to launch their own mobile applications.

The Hammer's app, which is available for free download for iPhones and Android devices, provides audio guides, videos, interviews, images of artwork and more for visitors to the museum.

The Hammer said that the content provided on the app will be expanded in future versions. The present version features content about the current exhibition on artist Richard Hawkins, as well as upcoming shows devoted to Ed Ruscha and Paul Thek.

In addition, the app provides background information on the Armand Hammer collection.

Other museums that have already launched mobile apps include the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago and New York's Museum of Modern Art.

The original article appears here from LATimes.com