With all the excitement and hype surrounding mobile research technology, this is a good time to step back and think about where mobile and qualitative market research stand.  

The introduction of the iPhone (and its accompanying app model) ushered in the beginning of mobile’s second act—Mobile 2.0, if you will. Regardless of your opinion of the iPhone and Apple, it is hard to deny that the iPhone has changed the nature of the mobile experience. Before the iPhone, the data side of mobile experience centered on text messaging (a surprisingly efficient way to communicate and the forbearer of Twitter), push e-mail (again text-based), and clumsy, slow WAP browsing. 

The iPhone broke the mold by providing an expandable pocket computing experience, delightfully unifying in one device the functions of communication, entertainment, and information consumption. With the iPhone setting the pace for this new mobile experience, others quickly joined in: Google’s Android, RIM’s Blackberry Storm, Palm’s Pre and, more recently, Windows’ Mobile 7. It’s a brave new world for mobile—and for research.

Given mobile’s pervasiveness and its possibilities as a research platform, there is a lot of excitement in the research community. Revelation is no exception. We think research through mobile represents the opportunity to access the “final 5 yards” of the customer experience—whether it is at the checkout line, the camping trip, or the office.

But before we get to this new utopia of research there are a few important challenges to explore. Like any medium, it takes time and tinkering to understand what mobile is good at and good for. Because research via mobile apps is still so new, there's a lot about it we don't understand quite yet. Things like distributing apps, understanding the participant experience, and best practices are for creating research activities that fit the limited bandwidth and less than snappy performance of mobile devices.

There’s a lot to explore and discover, but no matter where mobile takes us, I think the most important thing to remember is that technology is not methodology. Technology is merely a medium through which we can express methodology to ultimately serve the mission of understanding people to answer business questions. That was true of the telephone, the Internet and now mobile. Ultimately, it's the strength of the methodology more than the technology, something we here at Revelation always keep in mind as we begin to explore the brave new mobile world.