How a decade of mobile marketing innovation created ‘the year of the unicorn’

The following is a guest post from Mike Herrick, SVP of technology at digital customer engagement company Urban Airship.

This year is being billed as the “year of the unicorn IPOs” because as many as 100 companies valued at $1 billion or more reportedly plan to go public in the coming months. Many of the biggest names involved, such as Uber, Airbnb and HotelTonight, are mobile-first businesses. They regularly connect with billions of smartphone-toting consumers globally by offering a relatively frictionless, on-the-go customer experience.

These companies aren’t creating an entirely new consumer market from scratch. Before Uber — which filed for IPO this week — there had been taxi and black car services for decades. Prior to Airbnb, there were online classifieds like Craigslist where people advertised homes rentals during their locale’s tourist seasons such as the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C., or South by Southwest

Article source: https://www.mobilemarketer.com/news/how-a-decade-of-mobile-marketing-innovation-created-the-year-of-the-unicor/552382/