The story has been big news across the mobile content, marketing and messaging industries over the past 24 hours and is still unfolding as we speak this evening.

As most of you know, mBlox, the world's largest mobile transaction network, is a client of mine so I have kept up to date with developments throughout the day. Here's a few articles to give you a little more insight into this developing, and most interesting, story.

From RCR Wireless News:

The off-deck content world reacted with shock to Verizon Wireless’ plan to impose a drastic new fee for vendor-generated text messages. However, it’s unclear whether the carrier will actually follow through with the charge.

The nation’s No. 2 carrier this week informed partners that it plans tack on a 3-cent charge for every MT (motile terminated) message processed on its network beginning Nov. 1. MT messages typically include text alerts, interactive voting notifications and SMS search responses, and have become increasingly popular as SMS has become mainstream in the United States.

“There’s absolutely a sense of panic, and it has to do with the immediacy of the move,” said Steve Livingston, CMO of mBlox, a dominant player in the message-aggregation space. “We really haven’t had time to discuss it. There are a lot of questions that we’re trying to assess."

From Wireless Week:

A Verizon Wireless spokeswoman characterized the move as something the company needs to do as part of business, but content providers and aggregators are concerned the rate increase will cause brands and marketers to ditch mobile in favor of cheaper, more traditional alternatives, like e-mail.

“This recent announcement from Verizon is very significant because a large number of market segments will no longer be able to participate in off-portal SMS services. Although we understand the carrier’s need to monetize, the immediacy, the market timing and level of cost will create a shock to the system,” said Steve Livingston, chief marketing officer at SMS aggregator mBlox. “The mobile channel will quickly become unattractive to many companies, small and large, that have been investing in new innovative programs and services.”

From the New York Times:

Verizon Wireless this week told companies that send out text messages that starting Nov. 1 it will impose a fee of 3 cents for each message it delivers to the phones of its subscribers. The plan prompted waves of protest among many of the companies that use text messages, and Verizon has backed off the details.

Steve Livingston, the director of marketing for mBlox, which processes text messages for companies including News Corporation’s MySpace social network and The New York Times, said the volume of messages it handles could fall by more than half.

“Alert services and social networks don’t work at 3 cents,” Mr. Livingston said.

Mr. Livingston and Zaw Thet, the chief executive of 4Info, a company that sends messages on behalf of Yahoo and USA Today, said Verizon had sent them information that was much more specific than what Mr. Nelson described.

“We received a formal notification of a rate change,” Mr. Livingston said, adding that the short time frame would be disruptive for mBlox’s customers.

“We have a lot of companies that have been working on their fall marketing campaigns,” he said.

Mr. Livingston and Mr. Thet said Verizon was discussing alternative pricing plans with big senders of text messages. And they said that some payment to the wireless carriers was appropriate, given the growth of text-message advertising.

From CNET:

The blogosphere has been up in arms over the past 24 hours as news spread that Verizon Wireless is planning to increase the per-message fee it charges companies that send text alerts.

My colleague Matt Diaz at ZDNet said he'd stop using Twitter if the charge was passed along to him.

"Certainly, as someone who updates my own Twitter account somewhat regularly, I'm not inclined to start paying for users to receive my notifications via SMS. If that were the case, I'd just stop using Twitter."

But Jeffrey Nelson, a Verizon Wireless spokesman, said the price hike has not been finalized. Still, he acknowledged that Verizon Wireless has been discussing ways to offset increased costs associated with heavy volumes of SMS text messaging on its network.

"We are currently assessing how to best address the changing messaging marketplace, and are communicating with messaging aggregators, our valued content partners, our technology business partners and, importantly, our friends in the nonprofit and public policy arenas," he said in an e-mail. "To that end, we recently notified text messaging aggregators--those for-profit companies that provide services to content providers to aggregate and bill for their text messaging programs--that we are exploring ways to offset significantly increased costs for delivering billions upon billions of text messages each month."

From InformationWeek:

On Friday, a Verizon Wireless spokesman said the message was not the final world on the increase, which is still under consideration. "That draft was intended to stimulate internal business discussions and in no way should have been released to the public and represented as a final document," he said in an e-mail.RCR reported that companies sending text messages and other content today typically pay from a fraction of a penny to a few cents a message, a rate that Nelson did not challenge. The spokesman said an increase, which would be the first since the service began in 2003, was under consideration "to offset significantly increased costs for delivering billions upon billions of text messages each month."

A fee boost could be particularly difficult on startups entering a crowded market for providing mobile services. Large Internet companies, such as Google and Yahoo, are unlikely to enjoy paying more to reach users, as well as traditional media companies that send news alerts and other content, such as CNN or ESPN.

When I read about Verizon potentially moving forward with a new SMS rate structure for marketers last month, I had no idea that it would be such an abrupt roll out. Today I learned that the new rate structure, a flat $0.03 per outbound SMS, which in many instances doubles to quadruples the costs of a marketer's SMS program, (depending on scale) will roll out on Nov 1st!

While SMS marketing has certainly started to take off, in no way is it widely adopted yet, and many of those who have adopted it are still funding it with discretionary budgets. Amid the current economic crisis, this could not have happened at a worse time.

That being said - business is business and Verizon has the right to increase fees, and I do indeed hope that this is a warranted increase, as opposed to Verizon's means of increase revenue versus offsetting rising costs. Although if that is the case, I would assume that other carriers will follow suit. The billion dollar question is whether the new rates will decrease volume and thereby decrease the market? At the very least it will contribute to a possible decline in growth rates prior to the market hitting its tipping point.

Participate in My SMS Poll
Text the word OPTIONS to 75309 to participate in a poll on the subject. You will be prompted to answer the question: Do you plan on implementing mobile marketing in 2009? Reply with "A1" for Yes, "A2" for No, and "A3" for Undecided.

Live results can be found here
(courtesy of TextMeForBusiness.com)

“Call Friends” sorts your iPhone contact list by state (based on area code) and marks them all as called or not called on behalf of the campaign. It also reports this data back to the campaign in the aggregate. ("Your privacy is important: no personal data or contacts will be uploaded or stored. Only the total number of calls you make is uploaded anonymously.") It also allows you to see how many calls you’ve made compared to the total and the leader.

It seems to me, when it comes to the iPhone as a gadget, the campaign “gets it”. They have also made it clear through their fundraising efforts using email and SMS that they “get it” when it comes to new media (Biden announcement not withstanding). But this app is larger than that.

It takes social marketing techniques, those that are the hallmark of “Web 2.0” and applies them to a new platform. It’s an exciting convergence of phone, computer and web technology. Perhaps it’s “Phone 2.0.” Perhaps no one else will pick up on this after November 4. Or perhaps the next social networking app will get us all talking a bit more and typing a bit less.

The intention was to review both Obama and John McCain's iPhone apps. However, only the Obama campaign has released an iPhone app to this point. If/when the McCain campaign develops one, it will be reviewed.

En estos momentos la inversión en este canal de comunicación asciende a 28,6 millones de euros y las previsiones apuntan a incrementos anuales del 70% hasta el año 2012. Asimismo, el trabajo señala que alrededor del 4% de los presupuestos publicitarios del año 2009 podrían dedicarse a móvil.

El estudio, reaizado entre los miembros de MMA Spain, muestra que los sectores protagonistas de este nuevo medio son el financiero (3,6 millones de euros), las telecomunicaciones (3,07 millones) y la alimentación (2,4 millones de euros).

Os dejo dos videos. El primero con la presentación del estudio. El segundo con la mesa redonda posterior.

Apple es la marca más admirada por los jóvenes de medio mundo. En EEUU la admiración llega a cotas insospechadas. El poder de mercado de la manzana en este segmento de población crece día a día. Un segmento que más allá de ofrecer un alto cash-flow en estos momentos, supone una oportunidad de desarrollo futura tremenda. Ya se sabe, consumidores hoy, probables consumidores mañana. No olvidemos, además, el comportamiento social de este segmento. Un comportamiento que ejerce una notable influencia a través de recomendaciones vía móvil o redes sociales en otros consumidores, incluso fuera de su intervalo de edad.

Un reciente estudio llevado a cabo en EEUU por Piper Jaffray con una muestra de 769 individuos pone de relieve el poder de Apple entre los estudiantes de secundaria norteamericanos. Según dicho estudio, alrededor del 8% de estos adolescentes poseen un iPhone, el 22% espera adquirir uno en los próximos 6 meses y el 33% muestra preferencia hacia Apple en el próximo cambio de móvil.

Pero la cosa no queda ahí, la cuota de mercado del iPod llega al 84%, 2 puntos porcentuales por encima de los datos del año 2007. En el caso de la compra legal de música en Internet, del 40% de estudiantes que dicen comprar música (esto no me lo creo), el 93% lo hacen a través del servicio iTunes.

Por supuesto que podemos criticar los datos, yo el primero. Cuando hacemos encuestas a adolescentes la veracidad de sus respuestas está más influenciada por las opiniones del resto de adolescentes de la "pandilla" que en ningún otro segmento. Esto no quita validez a los datos sobre preferencia pero no pueden tomarse como compras probables porque la restricción presupuestaria no se tiene en cuenta en demasía, algo que en estos momentos de crisis debe pesar mucho.

Today we had an excellent first session on mobile media with a great presentation by Jerry Rocha, the Sr Director of Mobile Research at Nielsen Mobile (formerly Telephia). Jerry presented some great information on patterns, trends, usage stats on mobile media and mobile apps. Here are some highlights from the session :

Among major apps on the mobile data gravy train are SMS, mobile apps and mobile internet. We have to see which one comes out ahead in terms of user adoption but all are growing with heady growth rates compared to where they were before (of course we are only talking US market in this entire discussion, I know mobile data in Europe and Asia is a totally different ballgame and growth pattern).

Number Crunching :

If we include all mobile data, it is growing at rate of 28%. In Europe, SMS was big but with falling rates of SMS, carriers are pushing MMS which commands higher revenues. There were 260 million mobile customers in USA at end of Q2, 2008. Of which 56 million were downloading mobile apps. 15 million customers have seem video on mobile - small percent of mobile population but growing. Of the 260 million mobile customers in USA, 102 million have access to the mobile internet. 77% of mobile subscribers can get SMS today. Mobile internet is now a 1.2 billion dollar industry. 43 million customers in USA use mobile internet regularly now.

Trends :

Nielsen Mobile has access to 80,000 customers bills for market survey and this is the primary source of market research for Nielsen Mobile.

Among data apps, audio is a big killer app. Games was popular but there is decline in mobile gaming. Many fringe mobile gaming firms are going out of business with big ones like Glu Mobile and Electronic Arts taking majority of market share in mobile gaming. Ringtones are powerful but see slower traction now.

Mobile apps have see a huge uptick this year - one reason is the iPhone and the awareness it created about mobile apps in general.

From a strategy perspective, media firms like CNN, ESPN and others have pushed mobile media in spite of lack of enough support from carriers. Media firms are pushing off-deck content.

Mobile Internet :

Mobile portals are most heavily visited area. Email is second most popular with 27.4 million users (Nielsen is not including POP3 email accounts). Among sites visited most, the order is : Yahoo (22.3 million users), Google (18.9 million), MSN (14.4 million), AOL (12.6 million), Weather Channel, CNN, FOX, Apple, Turner in that order.

iPhone has been a game changing device for mobile internet with each firm now forced to follow a three pronged internet strategy : Regular website, Mobile website and iPhone-optimized website. Many firms have device detection and render appropriate website based on source of access.

Mobile Apps :

These have seen a giant increase since Q1 of this year. Most popular apps are related to LBS (Location-Based Services) - an area for which we in CellStrat have written extensively and have a nice white paper on our company website (www.cellstrat.com). Top 10 mobile apps are (in declining order of popularity) :- Verizon Navigator,  Sprint Navigator, AT&T Navigator, Wireless Synch Email, TeleNav GPS Navigator, Sprint Family Locator, MySpace Mobile, Mobile Email, MapQuest Mobile and XM Radio Mobile.

Lot of firms like Nokia are buying up firms which have LBS offerings or technology.

Some of the big publishers of mobile apps are : TeleNav Mobile, Networks in Motion, Intellisync, WaveMarket, MySpace Mobile, AutoDesk etc.

It seems Location tracking is an app whic commands $5 per month revenue relatively easily. Same cannot be said for some of the other mobile apps though.

The top mobile app areas in order of popularity are (most popular first) :- LBS (69% of mobile apps are related to this), PIM Tools, Weather, Music, Maps or Directions etc.

iPhone :

This has shaken the mobile world as we report countless times now. Apple iPhone now as 1% of USA market share and 3.7% of AT&T mobile phones are iPhones. By Q3, Apple had sold 10 million iPhones worldwide easily hitting its goal of 10 million iPhones in first year.

iPhone AppStore is a breakthrough concept and has opened up the mobile application ecosystem to developers like never before. In the 4 months since its launch, iPhone AppStore has seen 100 million downloads of mobile apps, total number of mobile apps on iPhone available now exceeds 3000 apps.

iPhone dominates every category of mobile web usage.

Some cool iPhone killers like BlackBerry Bold, Storm and Google G1 are out or coming out soon and we will have to see how well they do against iPhone. One reason for huge app success on iPhone is its excellent developer support and ecosystem eg the iTunes store. Nokia scores well too on this front with its Symbian platform.

iPhone users skew towards male with 67% iPhone users being males and 33% females although in overall mobile world, 52% of mobile customers are females.

Mobile Advertising :

This one pays for it all.

Interestingly Atlanta is No 3 in mobile video usage (interesting..never thought Atlanta was that big on mobile web adoption). Among mobile email, gmail and yahoo email dominate.

Nielsen has tools to scrap 300 websites every 15 minutes and categorizes them for ad purposes. It turns out Eletronic Arts and Dunkin Donuts are bigger advertisers in mobile internet. On ESPN Mobile, Electronic Arts is the biggest advertiser.

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Promotional Currency offers so many services such as digital entertainment promotions, promotional ringtone cards, digital product promotions and so much more.

Check out Northern Kentucky's city guide2go by clicking here to see it on your PC. Then try it on your mobile phone by entering http://nkycvb.mobi.

Meeting attendees going to Northern Kentucky now have a concierge in their pocket!

Yet you need to bury that fondness for the spiffy copy you just wrote, and remain objective about every piece of marketing you put out there. Because it's real tough to get noticed by customers, and if you're in love with a message or a design or a strategy that isn't effective, someone is going to notice when your results are paltry.

In my current role, my main target audience is physicians. Do you know all the things physicians do during the day (besides save lives and make people better, that is)? Let's take a good, long look. Well, they have plenty of chances to interact with advertising...they check email, they access mobile devices, they receive mail, they access media. Just like many of your target customers do.

Yet, also like your customers, physicians do all that stuff in nanosecond spurts. Check 10 emails between patient visits. Visit a few websites during lunch, maybe for news. Maybe do a few Goggle searches. Grab the mail and give it a 5-second sort, then throw what looks good enough to stay in a pile for later. Come back to email for an hour or so, just to sort through and respond to what's important before the next appointment. Never mind all the external distractions and other messages that they're bombarded with throughout the day, and how they process those. Sound like that could be your customers too? Think a small business owner or high-level executive has the same kind of day?

That kind of day just doesn't make for a target that's gonna put any time into digesting a marketing message. At the time we decide to send them an email, or when a direct mail piece ends up in a pile. It may be days or weeks before they get to our messages.

We really need to ask a few questions, constantly, of our work as marketers.

That kind of oversimplifies it...there are dozens other questions to ask. We'll get to that later. The questions above are where you need to start if you're not there now. Charge ahead.

We have just launched the Location Innovation Awards. I’m hoping that if you are in New Zealand you will join in the fun and get your thinking juices flowing.

The background is that we know that LBS (Location Based Services) will become commonly used technology in 4-5 years and people will participate as if they have been doing it all their lives. GeoSmart has the tools to facilitate this type of technology now, so we have launched a competition to get people to develop concepts today.

There are four categories which are explained on the website (which went live today) and they have the potential to have a significant impact on people’s lives.

For example:

Imagine you are a tourist hopping off the plane at Queenstown Airport and as you head to the luggage conveyor area you see a billboard with a promotion offering you amazing deals on various local attractions. If you text ‘Queenstown Live’ to a short code, you will have $20 deducted from your account and will be offered a range of services at huge discounts. When you get to the main town pier in Queenstown you get a text message saying that if you get down to the ticket office within the next 10 minutes you can enjoy the 4P.M. jet boat experience for only $25, a saving of $70. Without the promotion, the jet boat might go out half empty. This way they sell more seats and make a profit on the trip and the tourist gets a great deal.

Or

You are a member of a jogging club on Facebook. You are in Nelson  on business and decide to stay over for the weekend. You are interested in finding a jogging buddy to go for a run with. Through an application on your phone or a map application on Facebook, you are able to locate someone to go for a run with who is also in the area.

The story we have sent to the media today is as follows:

Bringing the future forward with the Location Innovation Awards

In the near future, location based applications will be commonplace, with electronic coupons being sent to your mobile because you are near a service you have opted-in for such as a Happy Hour deal for the bar you are walking past, or a promotion from your favourite fashion retailer (with whom you have signed up and given your colour, style and size preferences) which knows that you are in the mall.

GeoSmart Maps Ltd wants to bring that future forward to 2009 and has established a competition to encourage people to come up with concepts in 4 categories, being Social Networking, Proximity Based Marketing, LBS Games and widgets for the AA MAPS website. There are prizes for each category and the overall winner will also win a trip to San Jose in the USA to attend the Where 2.0 Conference in May 2009.

The competition isn’t pitched just at developers, a proof of concept demonstration would be great, but a great concept document has just as much chance of winning great prizes from a list of sponsors including Geekzone, Tomizone, Sony Ericsson, TomTom, Vodafone new Zealand and the NZ Automobile Association.

The judging criteria are documented in the entry packs and on the official website at http://www.locationinnovation.co.nz. The judges themselves are well qualified and represent GeoSmart, Massey University, Geekzone and the Wireless and Broadband Forum.

The competition runs from 16 October 2008 and entries are to be in by 16 February 2009. The Awards will be presented at the annual Wireless and Broadband Forum Convergence 2009 event at the Alinghi Base in Auckland’s Viaduct Basin.

Auch heuer wird vom deutschen CommClub der renommierte "Mobile Marketing Award" vergeben. Nach einer Fachjurierung wurden nun neun Arbeiten auf die Shortlist der Preisträger gesetzt, darunter auch die integrierte Kampagne "Der Papst am Handy" zum Besuch von Papst Benedikt XVI. in Österreich im September 2007. Konzipiert, gestaltet und umgesetzt wurde diese Kampagne von Cayenne Wien für die Österreichische Bischofskonferenz. Die Preisverleihung findet am 28. Oktober 2008 statt.

Quelle: http://derstandard.at/?url=/?id=1220460281625

Giải pháp Mobile Marketing (Tiếp thị qua di động) trực tuyến Gapit Keywordz ra đời nhằm mục đích sẽ là một chương trình marketing qua điện thoại di động bằng cách truy cập vào website ww.keywordz.vn. Mobile Marketing cung cấp cho khách hàng 5 mẫu kịch bản: Kịch bản cơ bản; kịch bản khuyến mại; kịch bản bình chọn; kịch bản thông báo; kịch bản tải nội dung để khách hàng lựa chọn một hình thức phù hợp với mình để tạo lập kịch bản riêng.

Đây là sản phẩm kết hợp giữa thương mại điện tử (E-commerce)và thương mại di động (M-commerce) có tính năng vượt trội chưa từng có một sản phẩm tương tự nào được đưa ra trên thị trường.

Trong số các sản phẩm phần mềm đã ứng dụng trong thực tiễn tham gia cuộc thi Nhân tài Đất Việt trong lĩnh vựcCNTT – TT năm nay, giải pháp Mobile marketing trực tuyến của nhóm Gapit Keywordz là một sản phẩm được chuẩn bị khá công phu, rõ ràng và hệ thống. Đặc biệt, đây là một dịch vụ trực tuyến trọn gói, sẽ mang lại nhiều lợi ích cho nhiều đối tượng khách hàng thực hiện công việc marketing với một kênh tiếp cận khách hàng mới và hiệu quả với tất cả các thuê bao di động trên toàn quốc.

Hình thức của giải pháp này trên thế giới gồm các bước cơ bản: khách hàng gửi tin nhắn để nhận được các thông tin về sản phẩm mới, chương trình khuyến mại, bình chọn; tham gia chương trình khuyến mại, tin nhắn đa phương tiện, WAP, gửi tin nhắn quảng cáo, xem video trên điện thoại di động.

Ở Việt Nam, hình thức này cũng đã được ứng dụng ở nhiều ngân hàng với hệ thống tin nhắn SMS để thông báo về tin tức như lãi suất tiền gửi, nhắc hạn trả nợ, dịch vụ tài chính… tuy nhiên là nó mới chỉ dừng ở mức thông báo và khách hàng tiếp nhận thông tin thụ động.

Trong khi đó, giải pháp Mobile marketing của Gapit Keywordz có khả năng đối thoại hai chiều với người tiêu dùng, có thể nhắm tới từng đối tượng cụ thể được phân loại theo tuổi tác, giới tính, xu hướng tiêu dùng…. Hiện nay, nó là một công cụ truyền thông có thể đo lường hiệu quả chính xác (theo thống kê, trên 75% khách hàng được gửi thông điệp quảng cáo nhớ tới thông tin).

Truy cập vào www.keywordz.vn, khách hàng có thể thực hiện một quy trình đặt mua Mã lệnh/ Đầu số nhanh chóng với cả hai hình thức thanh toán: trực tiếp (thông qua các loại thẻ được Gapit chấp nhận), trực tuyến (bằng séc, chuyển khoản, thanh toán tại Gapit); lập trình kịch bản cho các chiến dịch marketing trực tuyến một cách đơn giản; thực hiện, quản lý và điều hành các chiến dịch marketing trực tuyến; quản trị và cập nhật cơ sở dữ liệu khách hàng; hệ thống báo cáo trực tuyến giúp phân tích được cơ sở dữ liệu một cách tối ưu; tiết kiệm thời gian, giảm chi phí, tăng hiệu quả hoạt động marketing; dịch vụ hỗ trợ chăm sóc khách hàng 24/7.

Đối với doanh nghiệp trong và ngoài nước, Gapit Keywordz sẽ giúp tiết kiệm thời gian, chi phí, đem lại cho doanh nghiệp mối quan hệ tương tác hai chiều với khách hàng và mạng lưới phân phối mọi lúc mọi nơi, từ đó có thể thực hiện các chiến dịch marketing, nhận biết thương hiệu, khuếch trương sản phẩm, thực hiện nghiên cứu thị trường và tăng cường mối quan hệ với khách hàng.

Còn đối với khách hàng là cá nhân, Gapit Keywordz giúp họ thực hiện được những kế hoạch phù hợp với khả năng tài chính mà không cần quan tâm đến bất kỳ khoản phí nào cho hệ thống kỹ thuật.

Sản phẩm này hiện nay đã áp dụng trong một số lĩnh vực kinh doanh sản phẩm và thu được những kết quả rất khả quan như Chương trình khuyến mại kết hợp với nghiên cứu thị trường của Công ty TNHH Rohto – Mentholatum với sản phẩm Lipice; chương trình gửi thông tin cho các thành viên của Công ty CP Chứng khoán Kim Long; Viện tin học doanh nghiệp thuộc Phòng Thương mại và Công nghiệp Việt Nam (VCCI), Hiệp hội Marketing Việt Nam (VMA)…

Sản phẩm đã được đưa vào ứng dụng thực tiễn trong hoạt động thương mại từ ngày 27/03/2008.Sau 4 tháng, số thành viên đăng ký tài khoản đã lên tới 400 thành viên; tổng lượng truy cập vào trang web/tháng là khoảng 7.000 lượng; số lượng SMS thực hiện qua hệ thống là 77.637 SMS.

Trên thế giới, giải pháp tiếp thị trên di động (Mobile marketing) rất thành công tại Châu Âu, Mỹ, Nam Mỹ và nhiều quốc gia khu vực Châu Á. Việt Nam đang có hơn 40 triệu thuê bao di động, hạ tầng công nghệ cho phép thực hiện các ứng dụng trên điện thoại di động. Đây hẳn sẽ là một lợi thế cho các dịch vụ này ra đời và phát triển tại Việt Nam.

Thiên Lam

Effectiveness of advertising is a key attribute which advertisers and marketers are interested in so firms like Nielsen Mobile are in a sweet spot.

Some key ideas he offered :

a) Sales : Sale of Nielsen services to carriers is automatic when firms like Nielsen partner with clients like AT&T in solution development and problem solving. Firms like Nielsen have compelling market intelligence data which they gather with user focus groups - this data is precious to mobile media firms, service providers and operators and sells on its own without a concerted sales efforts.

b) Data Generation : Nielsen actually has 30,000 customers across the US mobile landscape participating voluntarily in its surveys to provide access to their monthly bills. Nielsen pays a small amount to participating customers for this kind of information. These customers of mobile services span all carriers, demographic segments and geographies in all of USA. Data generated from these customers provides valuable insights into the customer buying patterns, usage patterns and success of data and content services.

c) Target customers : Mobile Media firms like ad agencies, service providers like AT&T and brand marketers are prime customers for firms like Nielsen.

d) Competition : Nielsen Mobile ends up competing with mMetrics, Yankee Groups, Gartner Research, J D Power and Assoc, AdMob etc which either have a strong research arms and or have tools to measure customer usage on mobile phones. AdMob is in the latter category and has a Mobile Analytics software to measure effectiveness of mobile advertising. Nielsen Mobile has the advantage of being an independent market research firm in mobile space.

e) Measurement techniques : For the most part, Nielsen has tools which parse sample customers' bills to extract intelligent pattern information. They also have tools to intercept customer web usage on mobile phones, sites visited and frequency of usage. They can measure ad Click-Thrus or eCPM (ad impression count). Nielsen has trucks operating around the country to test network quality and signal reception for various carriers.

Nielsen Mobile, formerly Telephia, is part of Nielsen research - the global online measurement giant.

Bill - Thanks for the opportunity and insights into mobile measurements. Had a great time and will talk again soon.

MT

Let’s see how companies all over the world are using this medium:
A two month mobile interactive ad campaign in Italy has resulted in a 9% increase in sales for Dunkin Donuts. As a result of an SMS-based marketing campaign, customers were able to get coupons for Dunkin Donuts goods by using their mobile handsets to respond to advertisements displayed on store notice boards, billboards and on the radio.

By sending a short message to the published numbers, users receive an immediate reply featuring a free gift coupon or special offer exchangeable at local outlets.

Trouble TV, a UK teen channel is using an SMS-based relationship marketing campaign. The campaign encourages viewers of Trouble TV and visitors to its web site (www.trouble.co.uk) to send in by text message, a promotional code that appears on screen every hour between 12pm and 5pm for a two-week period. Participants are entered into a daily draw, with prizes including mobile phones.

Petrol price monitoring group FuelWatch advertised an SMS competition to win $250 of free fuel on the back of delivery trucks. In 3 weeks 500 entries were received from just 10 trucks operating in Brisbane. In addition to the creation of a database, which can be used for further marketing, by asking respondents to enter a letter corresponding to the trucks regular route, the best routes could then be determined for future campaigns. Heightened awareness of the FuelWatch brand was also created as well as its website URL.

Nestle ran a "Grab. Gulp. Win!" promotion for Nesquik. Entry details were placed on 40 million bottles of ready-to-drink flavoured milk and milkshakes in the US, offering text-in giveaways ranging from a gaming house party to music downloads.

Lot more and unique mobile marketing ideas can be executed in Pakistan in fact some brands are already doing through Mobilius.com, the largest mobile marketing solution providers in Pakistan and I hope that our marketers start thinking about it before it gets all “houseful”.

MOBILE BUSINESS CATAGORIES

Best Start Up
Vringo
Zannel
EQO
Cha Cha Mobile

Best Comeback
Direct TV
Last Minute.com, FoneFood
FusionOne

TECHNOLOGY SERIES
Best Mobile Innovator, Mobile Technology
Recogmission
Alcatel-Lucent
Bango
2Ergo

Best Mobile Advertising
Jentro Technologies
GoTV Networks for Crescent Heights
Macrovision/TV Guide Mobile
Verve Wireless

Best Mobile Video
Intersport/Sprint Exclusive Entertainment
MediaFlo –Qualcomm
QuickPlay Media
Zannel

Best Social Network
Mobicious, Snap My Life
Juice Wireless, JuiceCaster 6.0
Zannel
Intersport

MOBILE ENTERTAINMENT CATEGORIES

Best Innovator Mobile Entertainment
GoTV Networks
Macrovision/TV Guide Mobile
Artificial Life
Transpera

Best Mobile Games
Hands On Mobile, Guitar Hero Mobile III
Sony Pictures TV International, God of War, Betrayal
EA Mobile, Monopoly
Hands On Mobile, World Poker Tournament, Texas Hold'Em 2

Best Mobile Music

GoTV Networks, Hip Hop Official
LiveWire Mobile, Integrated Storefront
eMbience
Gracenote

Best Original Programming, Mobile
Sony Pictures TV International, Afterworld
Fun Little Movies, Turbo Dates (Speed Dating Series)

Read more here.

XO Communications : has a broadband VOIP service platform for corporate clients and uses BroadSoft platform. BroadSoft Platform allows SPs like XO launch service quickly and allow the configuration capabilities needed for an enterprise grade launch. According to XO Director of Product Management Nicola Jackson, feature packaging capability in the BroadSoft software was critical part of the successful launch.

TowerStream CEO Jeff Thompson participated in the panel "Service Provider of Tomorrow" and spoke about their Fixed WIMAX services and how launch of XOHM network by Sprint has validated the business case for WiMAX and has attracted the desired visibility from ecosystem partners to embed WiMAX in more devices and services. Jeff mentioned TowerStream mentioned by maintaining extreme focus on WiMAX services and not getting into VOIP or storage periphery services.

Tellabs was the lead sponsor for Telephony Live 2008 and presented a very interested use case on Latin American IP service provider Diveo. Diveo has launched a full IP MPLS compatible VPN service for business customers in South American nations. Diveo has 1500 customers including the Brazilian energy giant PetroBras and several financial majors in that part of the world. Tellabs exec mentioned that they are letting the core of the network continue to be an ATM/Frame Relay to allow the businesses to leverage existing investments. MPLS and IP functionality is being introduced on the edge to provide QOS and policy management functions.

The founder of NextGen Marketing group illustrated the success of one of their startup clients Sojern, Inc which has created an innovative business model of printing local advertising on internet boarding passes of various airline customers. The local advertising prints ad and event information based on the destination of the customer or flight layovers. NextGen Marketing Group is the "virtual Chief Marketing Office" where they provide strategy and marketing services in an outsourced manner to firms large and small. NextGen customers include Sojern, AirCell and NextGain.

City of Chicago CIO Hardik Bhatt mentioned how the city is tracking the city workers around the city and advising them on energy usage and route optimization. The city has an innovative IT dept and has introduced Mobile Asset Tracking and 311 VAS services. Unfortunately, state the city CIO, broadband is still not universal and 25-50% from low income families have no internet access limiting the scope of internet based services.

Ben Shin, VP Product Management of Sprint's XOHM business unit mentions that it is not always about technology. Technology must address social needs and social concerns and also make things easy for consumers. XOHM is an all IP service with no service contracts and open ecosystem to encourage developers and partners to develop products and services for this environment. XOHM DayPass cost just $10 and provides all you can eat access for one day.

All participants agreed that future of communication lies in things like content, Location-Based offerings, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Gaming, Business Process Outsourcing etc. There are 250 apps produced for Facebook every day and this shows an open developer friendly internet can attract scores of developers to develop innovative apps. Same environment needs to be encouraged in the mobile space to achieve similar growth patterns. Many participants agreed that devices like iPhone and Android will shift balance of power to content, internet and application firms from the typical service providers.

Empresas, como  a Nokia (N810) e outras já começam a informar sobre os próximos lançamentos no mercado, de seus celulares com capacidade de conexão pelas redes sem fio de longo alcance, através de frequências na faixa de micro ondas, o WiMax.

Informações deste aparelho estão disponíveis no site do fabricante.

Pelo visto, em curto espaço de tempo, teremos uma grande mudança na tecnologia e acesso das redes sem fio, termonando o problema de pequeno alcance e outros do genero.

Agora é só esperar, logo esta tecnologia estará entre nós.

……………………………………………………………….
Arnaldo Mefano
Computer Solutions
Prof. Universidade Estácio de Sá

Outras publicações do Mefano
Boletim de Dicas do Arnaldo Mefano
Blog do Mefano
Mefano´s Weblog

Ayer leía también los últimos datos del Instituto Nacional de Estadística que hablan de 19,57 millones de españoles que se han conectado al menos una vez en los últimos tres meses. De ellos, el 60,7% se conectan al menos 5 veces por semana y el 26% al menos una vez a la semana. Esto nos ofrece una población de usuarios habituales de Internet en nuestro país cercana a los 17 millones. Con respecto a compradores, los datos indican que aproximadamente 4,6 millones de personas compraron algún producto o servicio a través de Internet en los últimos 3 meses.

Sobre el acceso a Internet a través de dispositivos móviles el INE nos habla que de los 19,5 millones de personas que han accedido a Internet en los últimos tres meses, la mitad lo hecho en alguna ocasión a través de un dispositivo móvil, especialmente un móvil 3G (11,2%) o un portátil con conexión wireless (20,9). Si eliminamos el acceso a través de notebooks el acceso a través de móviles, smartphones o similares alcanza el 24,8% de los accesos. Dicho de otra manera, en nuestro país tenemos más de 4,8 millones de personas que han accedido a Internet a través del móvil en los últimos tres meses. Este es por lo tanto el mercado potencial con el que contamos en nuestro país para el m-commerce. Otros datos que me parecen significativos son los siguientes:

• El 26,3% de la población activa ocupada que se ha conectado al menos una vez en los últimos tres meses lo ha hecho a través de un móvil/smartphone/PDA. Este mismo concepto alcanza el 18,8% en parados y el 29,5% estudiantes . Ojo pues con el segmento de estudiantes.
• El 27% de los trabajadores por cuenta ajena y el 23,1% de autónomos que se ha conectado al menos una vez en los últimos tres meses lo ha hecho en alguna ocasión a través de un móvil/smartphone/PDA. Se rompe pues el esquema de algunos por el que este tipo de acceso a la Red es sólo cosa de ejecutivos de grandes empresas, aunque sí es cierto que el 68,1% son trabajadores relacionados con actividades TIC. Este es el dato que más me preocupa porque supone una concentración enorme del usuario profesional de Internet móvil.

• El 32% de los hombres que han accedido a Internet en los últimos 3 meses lo han hecho alguna vez a través de un móvil/smartphone/PDA, con respecto a sólo el 16,3% mujeres.
• El 30,2% de las personas que han accedido a Internet en los últimos 3 meses a través de un móvil/smartphone/PDA tienen entre 16 y 24 años, el 33,2% entre 24 y 34 años.
• El 22% de los extranjeros que se han conectado al menos una vez en los últimos tres meses lo ha hecho a través de un móvil/smartphone/PDA. Este dato me parece especialmente relevante porque se sitúa al mismo nivel que la población española (24,9%). Estamos viendo pues que el comportamiento de uso es el mismo en ambos grupos.

• Los servicios de Internet móvil más utilizados son, por orden, la navegación, el correo electrónico y servicios de información de pago.

En mi opinión los resultados son mucho mejores de lo que cabría esperar, incluso para alguien tan optimista como yo en esto del m-commerce. Hay datos muy interesantes, como la baja participación femenina, la concentración en trabajadores TIC o la similitud entre españoles y extranjeros. Los próximos meses van a ser cruciales por varios motivos. Por un lado, la llegada de tarifas planas que van a abaratar el acceso móvil y sobre todo clarificarlo. Por otro lado, la próxima disponibilidad de terminales adaptados a una experiencia internetera muy satisfactoria (e.g. T1, HTC HD). No es la primera vez que lo comento en este blog: es el momento de crear servicios útiles. Hay gente, hay tecnología. Falta promoción y servicios.

SiteSpect's Mobile Web Optimization enables mobile website owners to test and track user behaviour across their mobile site allowing them to make continual improvements and refine text, links, layouts, images and content to produce the best conversion rates.

Bango Analytics enhances these conversion rates by measuring the success of mobile marketing activities including advertising, search and text campaigns and target marketing spend accordingly. Each campaign can be monitored so that future marketing spend can be allocated to the most successful target areas based on campaign type, country, network and handset.

"The ability to quickly determine which content has the greatest influence on a visitor's behaviour and establish the best ways to effectively influence and persuade visitors to take the desired actions is key in maximizing the user experience and ROI," said Kim Ann King, Chief Marketing Officer, SiteSpect. "Optimization is continual and greatly complimented by the ability to measure the most successful routes in via mobile marketing activities with tools such as Bango Analytics."

SiteSpect's solution works across all devices and does not rely on JavaScript or cookies to be able to track user behaviour. It's available as a hosted ASP solution or Enterprise solution and can be up and running without having to make a single change to a mobile website.

Bango's ability to accurately track unique visitors provides a clear picture for mobile website owners. Visitors are assigned with an individual ID and information including network, country and handset are presented along with the ability to identify repeat visitors.

Bango Analytics operates as a hosted service, allowing mobile website owners anywhere in the world to connect their sites to the Analytics service in minutes and start getting results free of charge for up to 10,000 page visits per month. Customers simply register their service online, set up their tracking links for their mobile marketing campaign and view the results in real-time within their account.

"Measuring the results of mobile marketing campaigns adds additional insight to help optimization. Piecing together the whole view is essential to enable success on the mobile web - with SiteSpect and Bango the picture becomes clear" said Beccy Asplin, Channel Marketing Manager at Bango.

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India has a large number of Distance education program in Undergraduate and Post-Graduate levels. The trend was started originally by private institutions that offered distance education at certificate and diploma level. By 1985 many of the larger Universities recognized the need and potential of distance education in a populous country like India and launched degree level programs through distance education. The trend caught up, and today many prestigious Indian Universities offer distance programs. Two such universities are;

Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, centered in Bangalore, India, is a unitary university set up in 1996 by the government of Karnataka, for the regulation and promotion of higher education in health sciences throughout the state of Karnataka. About 276 colleges throughout the state are placed under the Rajiv Gandhi University in order to establish uniform standards in academics and administration.

MGR Medical University, Chennai, India deals with all medical and paramedical degrees. Both of these and many private and public, non-profit and for-profit institutions offering courses and degree programs through distance education.

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