M:Metrics Survey: Mobile Content Consumption

A new M:Metrics survey: "M:Metrics data suggests that the age of the owner has a significant impact whether a popular device is used to access mobile content. According to M:Metrics' most recent monthly survey, Motorola has a healthy market share lead of 28.3 percent among 13 to 24 year olds, the age group representing the heaviest users of data services. Samsung ranked second with a share of 18.8 percent, followed by LG, which accounted for 16.2 percent. Nokia ranked fourth in this demographic group with a share of 15.5 percent."

US Mobile Subscriber Monthly Consumption of Content and Applications M:Metrics Benchmark Survey: November 2005
Activity	Projected Monthly Reach (000s)	Percent US Mobile Subscribers
Used Text Messaging	58,307	32.2%
Retrieved News or Information via Browser	18,552	10.2%
Purchased Ringtone	16,467	9.1%
Used Photo Messaging	15,550	8.6%
Used Personal E-Mail	12,298	6.8%
Used Mobile Instant Messaging	10,468	5.8%
Used Work E-Mail	6,991	3.9%
Purchased Wallpaper or Screensaver	6,616	3.7%
Downloaded Mobile Game	5,683	3.1%

Source: M:Metrics, Inc., Copyright 2005. Survey of U.S. mobile subscribers. Data based on the quarter ending November 30, 2005, n= 37,329 U.S. mobile subscribers.

Nokia NFC phones

Via elastic space, Nokia annouces plans for NFC phone and other NFC pilot projects.

From the article:

"Tom Zalewski, head of mobile payment and ticketing for Nokia Americas, which is supplying handsets for the current trial in Atlanta, says he can't give many details of the further tests planned for next year, but adds they will be considerably more ambitious. "It's fair to say you'll see in 2006 some trials where the phone is being used in commercial environments, in merchants that are frequented such as fast food and pharmacy," he says.

Zalewski also says Nokia will introduce another phone model for the tests, one that contains the NFC chip in the phone itself. The Nokia 3220, in use in the Atlanta pilot, has the chip embedded in its changeable cover. The new NFC phone, Zalewski says, "will be a fully integrated product."

Muni Wireless

Techdirt has a nice post up about an article about Andy Seybold called, "Why Google's WiFi ambitions will fail." The upshot is that Seybold says interferance will make MuniWiFi unusable. The techdirt guys agree but conclude:

"Where we disagree with the article, is in the fact that nothing stands still. Muni Wireless has many other wireless technologies from which to choose, some of which are better suited than WiFi. Also, future versions of WiFi will greatly improve the suitability of unlicensed spectrum for this task. We have doubts about Municipal 802.11b, but we don't see that as synonymous with Muni Wireless."

StickyShadows

StickyShadows by Socialight is another virtual graffiti project.

From the site: How is it used?

• I leave a note for all my friends at the mall to let them know where I'm hanging out. All my friends in the area see it.
• A woman shows all her close friends the tree under which she had her first kiss.
• An entire neighborhood gets together and documents all the unwanted litter they find in an effort to share ownership of a community problem.
• A food-lover uses Socialight to share her thoughts on the amazing vanilla milkshakes at a new shop.
• The neighborhood historian creates her own walking tour for others to follow.
• A group of friends create their own scavenger hunt.
• A tourist takes place-based notes about stores in a shopping district, only for himself, for a time when he returns to the same city.
• A small business places StickyShadows that its customers would be interested in finding.
• A band promotes an upcoming show by leaving a StickyShadow outside the venue.

Apple EasyPay

Via /., from Business Week, is this story about Apple's EasyPay, in the Apple Express part of retail stores.

From the article:

"But the best part was that the Apple "Geniuses" behind the table had wireless gizmos for scanning credit cards, and Apple had worked out a totally wireless, paperless checkout process, called EasyPay. Once scanned, they advise you that the receipt will be in your inbox within an hour (since I'm already a registered Apple customer, they didn't even need to take my email or other information)."

From /. (in response to the expected outcry)

"Yes, panic because WPA might be snooped, recorded and the encryption hammered off at an off site super computer by a l33t haxxor.

Or you can panic because, for the last 40 years, paper copies of your credit card transactions, with your signature, card number, exp date and purchase details, have always been available to the legions of underpaid service people who handle your retail/resturant/telephone purchases. Carbon copies were often left in the trash.

Seriously, if you think introducing wireless technology to the credit card transaction is opening things up for fraud, you are seriously shroomin. It's already fantastically easy to obtain your information.

But it is entertaining to hear such panic mongering from someone who has undoubtedly made telephone credit card purchases, and we all know how secure the POTS network is."

Yellow Arrow

Yellow Arrow is a digital graffiti project. They call it a "M.A.A.P" (Massively Authored Artistic Publication.) Their tag line, "Map your world, publish your life, create your journey."

Check out "The Secret New York."

FeliCa Survey

From the Japan Mobile Marketing Magazine, produced by D2 Communications, a study on users adoption and interest in FeLiCa.

From Wikipedia:

Sony FeliCa is a contactless IC chip smart card system. The technology is used by Singapore's EZ-link system and Suica from JR East railway company as well as the Nagasaki Smart Card system in Nagasaki, Japan. All these however use more updated versions of the technology, compared with the older Octopus cards system in Hong Kong where FeliCa technology first gained widespread acceptance and use.

From the report (back in March 2005):

• 55.2% of users don’t have an i-mode FeliCa phone but would like to try one.
• 79.1% of males want to use i-mode FeliCa to make payments at convenience stores and shops, 68.6% of females want to use them to accumulate loyalty points on membership cards.
• 89.5% are concerned about having trustworthy security when using i-mode FeliCa.

receiver

I just found receiver and wow, its pretty amazing (brought to you by Vodafone.) Just digging into it so I will post some highlights as I get them. Reading this article right now by Mark Pesce. I was a Pesce fanboy back in the days of VRML - heh. He references his article "The You Portal" (PDF.)

Fimoculous 2006 predictions (with humor!)

Yeah, I know the 2006 prediction thing was old last week but this one is funny. I pulled a few.

Fimoculous:

4) A new Pew study will reveal something about internet use that will be drastically over-cited by people who are reading this blog post.

6) Showtime will pick up Arrested Development. And then Showtime will announce a deal with iTunes in which the show becomes the first of its kind to have more viewers watching via portable player than on tv.

11) Someone in Seattle or San Francisco will get beaten to death at a dinner party after saying the words "Web 2.0" for the five-trillionth time before the first course.

22) Mary-Kate and Ashley will return. Where the hell did they go, anyway? Some upcoming indie film director will cast them in a "quirky New York film" with Parker Posey playing their mom. Gen-Xers suddenly realize they're the next Baby Boomers.

28) Ten major cities will release city-wide WiFi.

The other side of the Two Internets

Mark Cuban is good at stirring things up. His recent post called, "American Idol of Search - your search isn't my search," has gotten some traction. Responding to Om's post about Wink titled, "People Power Vs Google", Mark is basically saying that there already is a bifurcation of news and information and it conforms to a very political outlook of the world - either you get your news from FOX or from CNN.

Marks says, "I have zero doubt that in the future there will be sliders or some equivalent that represent “the flavor” of search that users will look for. Looking for information about the war in Iraq… push the slide rule to the right till you reach Bill OReilly flavored search, or slide it to the left for the Al Franken flavor. The results are then influenced by the brand you prefer to associate with."

He ends with a memorable statement: "The Web 3.0 - You stay on your side of the web and I will stay on mine."

Om and Niall podcast transcript: Two Tiered Internet

Om and Niall have a transcript up for one of their recent podcasts. They dive into the discussion of the two tiered Internet and what that might mean if it happens. Go read the whole thing because this issue is really important. Highlights to follow:

Niall: "So to give a little bit of a background, the general idea behind the two-tiered Internet is being able to, on the service provider level, select certain services or certain websites to packet prioritize or be able to give better performance to a certain application or degrade performance of another, competing application, for the benefit of your own networks, your own pocketbooks.

Some examples may be to just cut off Skype entirely to keep your own VoIP products alive and running, to drop iTunes Music Store or podcasts from your service to make sure your own music service is alive and well, or it could be someone working out a deal, for example a search engine, where a network operator could prioritize Yahoo! over Google some payments. That's what we're talking about: the ability to use traffic shaping or packet prioritization to build a different tier on the Internet and to control what services flow across the pipe."

Om: "I cannot stress enough that they will not go out of the way to degrade somebody's service. They will go out of the way to upgrade their own service, which are two different things. But the end result is pretty much the same. You know, it's like, "Hey it's my car. If I drive it at a hundred miles an hour, who are you to say anything?" So that would be their argument, but that's a valid argument though."

Om: "The biggest concern right now is, what if we go back to the same argument I made earlier, what if they start shutting down access to IP services, which do not pay them at all? That's wrong."

Lost Remote on Digg Spy

Cory at Lost Remote points to Digg Spy, a new Digg service that let's you see, in realtime, how stories are doing on the service.

Cory says, "Each time someone posts a story, posts a comment or "diggs" a story (people "digg" a story to try to "promote it" to the home page), it pops up in real-time with the author's screen name attached. So in essense, you're seeing live ratings of news stories with a social twist. Mark my words folks, Digg is a phenomenon and should be watched very carefully as it helps define the future of citizen media."

Robin Good's Four "P" of 2006

Robin Good posting about the coming deluge of user created content points to four principles of the next cycle. "Investing in users in 2006 will be revolving around four trendy "Ps" that are shaping content today:

• packaging
• platform
• premium and
• personalization."

"Packaging content for optimal search engine placement and performance was an important key to profitable electronic publishing in the early 2000s, but 2006 will find publishers and content technology companies moving towards more effective contexts in which to organize and monetize content usefully.

The platforms emerging for publishing and using content in 2006 will be both far more diverse and far more focused on what individuals and institutions need to do as both publishers and users of content.

Even as a proliferation of user-generated media and open archives of books and other newly digitized materials challenges the value of content produced by mainstream publishers there will be greater investment in 2006 in ways to accommodate both open access to content and value-add levels of content that require subscriptions or other premium access schemes.

2006 will see an explosion of services aimed at capitalizing on more personalized and localized publications and publishing for users."

Mobile Art

Rudy at gotomobile has a nice article up about mobile art. The gist is that art is an important part of technology adoption. The best part is a quote from Quality of Life producer Brant Smith:

“… Our audience doesn’t care about print and TV ads. They’re on-line and on their mobiles. We need to reach them where they are and do it in the most cost-effective way possible. Our audience appreciates ingenuity in marketing. They know we don’t have any money. And most are down to support us in any way possible and help us get the word out about the film.”

2006: The Unbundled Awakening

Terry Heaton has a great post up about local broadcasters in the coming year.

The pull quote:

"I believe history will look back at 2006 as the year of an unbundled awakening in the media world, ushering in an era of creativity the likes of which we've not witnessed in recent history, especially in the advertising community. Unbundled media is clearly what people want, and when that kind of energy bubbles up from the bottom, media companies of all sorts have no choice but to respond. This is currently happening in the worlds of entertainment, education and information and one day will be realized in every institution of our culture."

Cellfire: coupons on your phone

I just saw Cellfire, coupons for your cell phone. Though its only on Cingular and only in California it looks like one of the first easy ways to get coupons you want on your cell phone. Check it out.

Mobile users in China

Smart Mobs points to this article on China's mobile growth.

Highlights: "the number of mobile phone subscribers in China reached a record 388 million at the end of November,said the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) on Monday.This is an increase of 53.3 million over the end of last year.The number of new mobile phone subscribers in China grew by an average 4.84 million per month in the first 11 months of the year,said the ministry in a press release.At the end of November,there were 29.1 mobile phones for every 100 Chinese.Along with the increase in mobile phone subscribers, short message volume climbed 40.1 percent year-on-year.More than 274.3 billion text messages were sent in the first 11 months,said the ministry."

MobHappy's 06 predictions

More predictions for next year from MobHappy. My favorite quote:

"It's always been the case that marketing departments tend to be led by people in their late 30's and 40's. Senior agency people in charge of selling campaigns were around the same age. This meant that that 5 years ago, these people weren't even using sms and needed to have it explained to them."

Ringtones Revenue Breakdown

MocoNews points to this article on the revenue break down for ringtones.

Highlights: based on a retail price of $2.50:

• A carrier like Verizon typically receives about $1.12, or 45 percent.
• The parent label receives about $1, or 40 percent of the total, and out of that pays the artist a royalty. At an estimated 18 percent royalty, 50 Cent would receive about 29 cents.
• The publishers collectively receive about 25 cents, or 10 percent. From that share, the writers are each estimated to receive between 9 cents and 11 cents.
• Performace societies like the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, would receive an estimated 3.5 percent of the total, or roughly 9 cents.

Alltel youth site

Here is a new site my company just launched for Alltel. It is still early but there are a number of cool things including the 3D phone demo. If you get a chance take a look and let me know what you think.

Flipping over Flipping

The VC bloggers are all chatting about Dare Obasanjo's post about Building a company to flip. Don Dodge weighs in as does Rick Segal and David Beisel. I guess it started with Om talking about Meebo. Om now also points to Greg Yardley and Will Hsu.

Dare: “That leaves the people, according to the Meebo team page there are three people; a server dev, a DHTML/AJAX dev and a business guy (likely to be useless overhead in an acquisition). The question then is how many million dollars would Google, Yahoo! or Microsoft think is worth for the skills of both [most likely excellent] developers?”

Don: “One superstar engineer/visionary like Ray Ozzie is worth 100 really great engineers. And, one really great engineer is worth another 100 good engineers. This is the normal order of things, yet few CEOs understand this. The truth is you need all levels of talent to build out a team, but without the superstar it will be tough to win.”

Firms predict big growth in Online Advertising

Via Lost Remote, from Yahoo News:

"JMP Securities on Tuesday raised its global advertising forecast for not only this year but for next year and beyond. The firm now expects the global online ad market to grow at a 25% clip annually for the next five years, up from a previous forecast in the low 20% range.

In the next year the Wall Street firm expects the online ad market to grow to $26.4 billion worldwide and to $33.2 billion in 2007.

Forrester Research, meanwhile, said that those who have the Internet are spending more than 30% of their media time nowadays online, a metric that prompted JMP to increase its market share expectations for Internet advertising in the U.S.

JMP now expects online advertising at $13.2 billion in the United States this year, or 4.7% of total advertising revenue, to soar to $35.9 billion in 2010, when the Internet will command 11.1% of all ad dollars spent."

Clickz's the coming year in Online Marketing

Clickz has a number of quotes from folks about the coming year in online marketing. Here is one:

RSS :: Dick Costolo, CEO of FeedBurner

First, the tools for managing and measuring RSS subscription and reach will get far more sophisticated, providing marketers with a more detailed understanding of feed consumption.

Second, 2006 will be the year that RSS subscription gets shoved "down the stack". That is, more and more subscribers will not have to know that they are subscribing to something specific called an RSS feed. They'll just say "I want to subscribe to this thing with one of the apps I normally use everyday" and it will just work. People who subscribe to feeds will no longer need to know to look for the little orange button and right click.

Third, marketers will continue to trial a number of podcast efforts in an attempt to embrace this more immersive and high-bandwidth customer experience, and a breakout marketer will emerge that "gets" the time-shifted and subscribed nature of this new medium. This breakout campaign or approach will change the way marketers perceive what can be accomplished with podcasts.

British Airways using SMS

British Airways will use SMS:

"In the short term, BA's passenger disruption notifications, cargo logistics and staff communication will adopt the SMS technology.

However, BA has big plans for the medium, which will act as an instantaneous way to keep its customers updated about services and flights.

As such, throughout 2005, BA has been testing the willingness of customers to give out their mobile numbers through its website for future communications with them.

Julie Fleming, marketing manager at British Airways IT procurement, said: "Earlier trials proved the effectiveness of SMS communications and we look forward to rolling this out in all parts of the business."

Wired article on Digital Graffiti

Wired has an article up about 6 different digital graffiti projects.

PHONE TAG

Who: Troika artist group
Where: London
How: The SMS Guerrilla Projector - a Nokia cell phone attached to a miniature projector with a long-throw lens - can cast text messages more than 80 feet away onto street signs, buildings, and unsuspecting passersby; once it was even used to beam questions into people's living rooms. Troika members occasionally project a phone number - or hand it out to pedestrians on business cards - so that people can send the team suggested text messages. The artists then select phrases best suited for the location they have in mind: for example, "Where are we all going?" over a road sign, or, next to surveillance cameras, "You are being watched. CCTV monitoring."
Word: "It's a powerful way to exhibit your thoughts and make people react," says Troika member Sebastien Noel. "The effect can be as strong as the most thought-provoking kinds of graffiti."

Samsung's Mobile TV device

Mobile Mag has some information about Samsung's new Mobile TV device:

"So, Samsung is set to launch devices dedicated to mobile TV, sporting 4-inch and 7-inch screens for watching all your favourite DMB content, from late-breaking news to the hottest movies.

The DMB-T750 and DMB-T450 come with 7-inch and 4-inch LCD screens, respectively, and offer a battery life of up to four hours while watching mobile TV. They are designed for terrestrial DMB services, but if you get tired of mobile TV, both units have a couple other features for you to play with. They double as MP3 players and digital photo albums, but unfortunately only support USB 1.1."

Terrestrial DMB! I have no idea what that means...

Intel invests in Wifi positioning

From Daily Wireless, Intel is investing in Wifi positioning company Skyhook.

From the Telephony article:

Skyhook has developed a positioning system using the broadcasted media access controller (MAC) addresses of every Wi-Fi access point it can find. Instead of relying on cellular triangulation or GPS, Skyhook has created a nationwide map of Wi-Fi access points, gateways and hot spots, which it compiles into a database on top of which location-based services can be built. Every access point emits a unique MAC signature, which can be read by any Wi-Fi device regardless of whether it has permission to access the network. By pinpointing these locations on a map, Skyhook uses two or more Wi-Fi access points and the relative strength of their signals to extrapolate a devices location within 20-40 meters.

New Technorati features

David Sifry provides and overview of new stuff on Technorati. David says, "We just rolled out a whole raft of improvements and tweaks that are built to make Technorati easier to use and easier to understand."

Bill Burnham on Google Base

Interested in what a really smart guy thinks about Google Base and the end of walled gardens? Go here.

Bill writes, "In 1995, the average user couldn’t spell “Internet”, let alone figure out set up and run their own Internet site. Even if they did set up their own site, the lack of any mechanisms for other users to easily find a site made operating one’s own site a pointless exercise as it was like building a billboard on deserted island in the middle of the Pacific.

In 2005, things are a bit different. Not only has the average Internet user become much more sophisticated, but several trends are rapidly coalescing to deliver what could be a “knock out” blow to the Walled Gardens."

Little Springs Design LBS recommendations

Little Springs Design has a nice overview of LBS recommendations.

• Alert the user (replicates an Ortiz recommendation) that data is being collected - manage the privacy notice well
• Give the user control (expands an Ortiz recommendation) about whether to collect data
  • For safety applications, turning location tracking off should be difficult, with lots of confirmations
  • For convenience applications, turning location tracking off should be easy
• Ensure that there is a visual flag for ongoing data collection, especially for background applications (especially important if your application obscures the device’s status icons, but relevant regardless)
• Protect the data (replicates an Ortiz recommendation)
  • Data on device should not be discoverable by other applications (a determined hacker can take apart the data on the device, so go ahead and encrypt it)
  • Data transmitted should be encrypted
  • Data stored on server should be protected"

Enpocket and Internet Broadcasting Mobile Local News

Enpocket and Internet Broadcasting annouce plans to deliver local news to mobile devices.

From the press release:

"The new partnership gives consumers of Internet enabled wireless devices access to 32 of Internet Broadcasting's partner TV stations in major markets such as New York and Los Angeles. The service utilizes Enpocket's Mobile Content Engine to provide consumers with continuously updated local news from Internet Broadcasting on their mobile phones via the mobile Internet."

Amp'd Original Content

Amp'd annouces its first round of original content plans.

The partners from the press release:

-- Bunim Murray -- The originator of the reality television genre with MTV's "Real World," "Road Rules" and "The Simple Life," BM is working to bring existing reality shows into the mobile and blog space with Amp'd, as well as develop and produce original mobile series targeted for deployment in Q1 2006.

-- Donick Cary -- A writer/producer whose credits include head writer of "Late Night with David Letterman" and co-executive producer of "The Simpsons" and "Just Shoot Me" has an exclusive deal with Amp'd and is underway with development and production of six animated and scripted original programs set to debut in the first half of 2006.

-- QD3 Productions -- Quincy Jones' production company is providing documentary-style, behind-the-scenes footage from today's hottest hip-hop stars. Amp'd members will also have access to additional footage from top selling DVD documentaries "Beef" and "Beef II."

-- LivePlanet -- The production company co-founded by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, and headed up by Larry Tanz, is working exclusively with Amp'd Mobile to create an unprecedented location-based mobile game that brings together social networking and entertainment in the mobile space. The "Hunt & Capture" style competition-based game, slated to release in Q1, 2006, pits real players across the country against each other for cash and prizes.

2006: All about NFC

From Contactless News, an article by Christophe Duverne, VP of Sales and Marketing for Philips Semiconductors writes: "it (NFC) will change the way consumers use their mobile phones forever, enabling them to do things they never thought possible, like entering a sports stadium with an electronic ticket on their mobile phone, or pay for their groceries using their mobile phones at checkout. The possibilities are immense."

"Mobile payment and transactions with NFC exploit two basic principles of modern society: everyone needs to pay for products and everyday services and just about everyone carries a phone. Results from these worldwide implementations are demonstrating that consumers everywhere like the convenience of mobile payment.

The technology is there, the consumer interest is there, the infrastructure is there. All that’s needed now is more imagination to devise more innovative applications and operators to facilitate more roll-outs."

More NFC goodness

Touch, the blog: Touch is a research project at the Interaction Design department at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design, looking at user-centred applications for Near Field Communication (NFC). The project is led by Timo Arnall.

Riya: not selling yet

From TechCrunch, Riya to stay solo.

iPod Payment Terminal

From the MIT Advertising Lab's blog, this press release annouces that Ingenico has developed a payment terminal that integrated with Atlantic Radio System's FM data extraction module.

From the press release:

"One of the most popular and exciting iPod accessories is Griffin’s iTrip FM transmitter. iTrip is a technically simple yet ingeniously useful module that, when plugged to the iPod, transmits music via the FM band. Drivers can play music stored on an iPod through their car's FM radio.

Ingenico’s i5100 terminal integrates with Atlantic Radio System’s FM data extraction module, allowing it to communicate with the iPod via the FM band while enabling users to pay for goods using their MP3 player.

At this past Cartes exhibition, Ingenico demonstrated how, in a hypothetical future, travellers could book plane tickets and receive them via MP3 format by e-mail. He or she would then just need to store the MP3 receipt on an iPod before going to the airport.

When preparing to board, the traveller would simply play the MP3 ticket on the iPod to send all ticket information securely and in real time to the boarding gate. Ticket information might include passport, itinerary and price data as well as pre-encoded biometric features for passenger verification at the gate. The same intuitive, user friendly payment system can also be used for gift vouchers, tickets and virtually all other forms of prepaid transaction."

How to Podcast while mobile

The folks at Daily Wireless are thorough. They have some great posts today (with pictures!) about the pre-Wimax service from Clearwire, one on the closing down of SETI@Home and this one about Podcasting with a mobile device.

The post points to this wiki entry from tinyscreenfuls.com.

Virtual Meetings: HP and Dreamworks present Halo

In the "why is this taking so long" catagory, via SmartMobs, HP and Dreamworks recently annouced a virtual meeting product/service called Halo.

From the article: "Customers must purchase two rooms to start, and each room costs about US$550,000 to install. The installation prices decrease if the customer commits to a larger purchase. HP must maintain the network for a monthly fee of $18,000 per room for U.S. customers; service costs will vary in other countries."

From the HP press release: "This technology has profoundly impacted our ability to collaborate across geography, enabling us to bring people together without the cost and burden of travel. It has fundamentally changed how we run our business," says Ed Leonard, Chief Technology Officer, DreamWorks Animation SKG.

I really don't like to travel so as soon as the price comes down a bit, or you can buy it from eBay, I will be meeting virtually all the time.

Mobile Marketing things to watch in 2006

MocoNews points to a really good article by Debra Aho Williamson, senior analyst at eMarketer, called, "Mobile Video: Present and Future."

From the article: "If I had to make one prediction I would say that's going to explode, [it's] mobile media," said Charles Rutman, North America chief executive of media buying agency MPG, at Reuters' November 2005 advertising summit.

What follows is a good bullet point list of challenges written in a marketing person friendly manner.

I like this one: "Apple's iPod. With so many of its music players in the shirt pockets of America, can any mobile phone hope to mimic the success? And with the launch of the video iPod, where will media providers gravitate?"

MVNO mania

MocoNews has a number of MVNO links up today.

The first is a report called "MVNOs - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly." (PDF) From the report summary: "We distinguish seven grades of MVNO, and seven levels of segment-specific value-added they can bring, leading to at least 49 business models."

The second is an article by Bruce Meyerson called "A phone of their own." From the article: "JupiterResearch estimates that a virtual cell brand needs from 300,000 to 500,000 subscribers to be financially viable."

And finally one from the Red Herring on Amp'd's launch. The quote: “When we began this company, partnering with MTV Networks was our No. 1 goal, not only because of their unrivaled understanding of today’s young adults, but also because we share the same goal of delivering the most original and compelling content across the rapidly evolving wireless space,” said Mr. Adderton.

A few facts from the article:

• MVNO start-up costs: Virgin - $500m, Helio - $440m Amp'd - $300m
• According to the Yankee Group the global MVNO market will be $10.7b by 2010

Other Red Herring recent MVNO articles:

• Cell Firms Woo Gays, Pot Heads
• Q&A: Amp'd's Peter Adderton
• Helio Rises to Mobile Test

Identity 2.0

This is an amazing presentation by Dick Hardt, founder and CEO of Sxip Identity.

From the Sxip site:

Solutions

Sxip Access

• Single sign-on, provisioning, and deprovisioning for on-demand Web applications
• Delegated authentication for salesforce.com

Sxip

• Single sign-on
• Portable identity
• Open Standard and Open Source

Camera Phones and Bar Codes

The MIT Advertising Lab has a story on camera phones and bar codes in use for an ad campaing in Japan. From the Adrants article:

"In Japan, Northewest Airlines is running a billboard campaign which contains QR codes, small image tags on the billboards which contain an embedded URL. When a camera phone user takes a picture of the board, they are directed to a website that features a game where airline coupons can be won. A company called Semacode makes the technology behind the QR codes. Many phone manufacturers are adopting the technology which may make billboards finally serve a purpose other that simple brand awareness or physical directionals."

EMI Launchs Mobile Music Store

Netimperative reports on the launch of EMI's mobile music store called "The Raft." The store is built on Bango's TxT Trigge technology and users can access it via WAP or short code.

The Bango press release is here (PDF.)

Cingular 3G Launch

Darla Mack has a nice write up about the launch of Cingular's 3G service. From the press release:

“HSDPA/UMTS gives us the singular advantage of offering simultaneous voice and data services to our customers.For businesses and consumers, this means more feature rich services and content,” said Kris Rinne, chief technology officer for Cingular.“It also provides a lower cost method for carrying traffic and more efficient use of spectrum.”

Customers can purchase either a Sierra Wireless AC860 or Novatel U730 laptop modem card for $99.99, after rebate, when they sign up for a qualifying voice plan and introductory two-year $59.99 Unlimited Data Connect plan.A variety of monthly data plans are available starting at $19.99 for 5 MB.

An updated version of Cingular Communication Manager is included with the laptop modem cards.The software gives customers the flexibility to connect to BroadbandConnect, EDGE, GPRS or public and private Wi-Fi hotspots.

More Mobile Marketing from Helen Keegan

Helen has another great post following up on her 20 Mobile Marketing applications post. This dives into the "Text to Win" promotion. I don't understand what the copyright laws on her site mean so I am not going to pull any quotes. One of the main points is that if a person doesn't win they should still get a compelling call to action. Go read the post.

Helen is also profiled today on Mobile Marketing Magazine. Go Helen!

Amp'd launches

Today is the big day for Amp'd. As seen on Phonescoop and Russell Beattie. The plans are fairly straight forward but they all have 3 months fee data service for downloads and streaming. Well that's great right? Maybe - no word on what transfer rates will be after the first three months. That seems like a big deal to me. The whole deal with Amp'd is origianl(ish) mobile content. So if I sign up for a $99 per month for 2000 minutes and then the data transfer rates are out of control then what did I really gain from using Amp'd?

Maybe with the money Amp'd got from MTV they can do something about the terrible website.

Internet video services

Brightcove keeps popping up in the news. From Steve Safran at Lost Remote:

"I've been beta testing the new Flash video production tool from fledgling company Brightcove. I gotta tell ya - it's terrific. The Flash video is outstanding, especially when encoded with On2 Flix software. Its all-web interface couldn't be easier. Brightcove is far more than a Flash or production tool, mind you. They are offering advertising, paid content and syndication, and will roll out other streaming formats next year.

Eric Elia at Brightcove tells LR: "It's our hope and intention for Brightcove to become an essential online service for building Internet TV businesses - with full choice and control for publishers over user experience, monetization and syndication." Nice to see "monetization" there, isn't it? Look for my beta to go public next week."

I have also been watching Veoh Networks:

"Using Veoh's free software, you can watch Full-Screen Internet Television, with access to shows that you could never find on traditional television networks. No matter what your interest or taste, chances are that you will find what you're looking for on Veoh. Give it a try, it's completely free.

Want to create your own TV show, or a whole TV channel? Veoh allows you to broadcast Full-Screen television shows to the world, free of charge, even if you get millions of viewers. Start broadcasting today, it's free and easy."

Veoh has an impressive team pulled together and provides updates about the company on its blog.

ConnexTo from Nextcode

In thinking about Digital Graffiti, I have been talking to Nextcode about their camera phone barcodes. Recenty Nextcode unvieled a consumer service called ConnexTo:

"Use your camera to take you to websites in a snap. Enter SMS messages without wearing out your fingers. Share detailed contact info with just a click.

ConnexTo makes your phone smarter, your life easier and your fingers a lot happier.

Just load application on your phone and you’re ready to do a lot more than take pictures. At ConnexTo.com you can create your own codes, share them and then connect with friends, co-workers, content and an entirely new mobile experience.

ConnexTo. It’s easy. It’s fun. And — best of all — it’s FREE."

From the Nextcode site:

"With Nextcode, a picture’s worth a thousand new ways to leverage the new generation of mobile services.

With Nextcode, you can turn traditionally passive marketing vehicles like ads, posters, collateral — even TV commercials — into active, revenue generating, data mining resources that capitalize on the new generation of mobile users and services. With a single click on any camera phone, users can bypass the entire key-in process and go straight to the information they seek. What were once daunting barriers to use — the constraints of the keypad and the small screen — are now gone which means users can easily scan a barcode to connect to product information, content, commerce or services. With Nextcode, you can:

• Leverage advertising into real revenue
• Extend traditional brands into mobile content and
• services
• Track effectiveness of specific campaigns
• Put a storefront into the hands of mobile users
• Deliver more mobile content faster to more users
• Improve customer service with one-click support"

Near Field payment comes to Atlanta

Cingular announces a trail in Atlanta for near field communications payment for Philips Arena.

"During the trial, Atlanta Thrashers and Hawks season ticket holders with Chase-issued Visa credit accounts and Cingular Wireless accounts can make contactless payments at concession stands and access mobile content from numerous locations throughout the arena. Users can purchase items by simply holding their Nokia 3220 mobile phones equipped with Philips' NFC semiconductor chips and ViVOtech software near a secure terminal. Approximately 150 contactless point of sale (POS) readers have been deployed by ViVOtech throughout Philips Arena."

"By 2010, we expect that over 50 percent of all mobile handsets will incorporate Near Field Communication chips to enable short-range, easy and secure transactions," said Erik Michielsen, director at market analyst firm ABI Research. "As a result, consumers will be able to download content by simply holding their phone close to a poster or advertising billboard. Users can purchase merchandise, food, tickets, and have these transactions charged to a credit card using account information stored in the mobile phone. The NFC implementation at Philips Arena demonstrates NFC stakeholders, including chipmakers, card issuers, device makers, mobile carriers, and content providers, are progressively more willing to collaborate on NFC solution development. This type of co-development is essential to NFC market growth and maturation.”

From Phonescoop:

"Near Field Communication (NFC) is a technology similar to RFID, but only works when the chip is within a few inches of the reader. It can work as a credit card, debit account, or a myriad of other functions such as train ticket or door key. FeLiCa, a technology based on NFC, has already been adopted as the standard contactless system by all Japanese carriers, banks, and many transportation systems as well. Previously Motorola conducted NFC trials in Florida with the help of Mastercard, which brands NFC as "PayPass."

Google buys Opera

In another big GYM (Google, Yahoo, MSN) purchase, Google buys Opera. Two reasons for the purchase from MobHappy:

"First, when Opera changed their business model and made their PC browser free, it was because they started taking search referral payments from the likes of Amazon, eBay and... Google -- the biggest and most important contributor to Opera's revenues. So, in some sense, it's relatively cheap for Google to buy Opera when it saves referral payments.

The second, and biggest reason, again, is mobile. There's a benefit to controlling such a powerful technology on what's becoming such an important medium -- and mobile is only going to get more important. But keep in mind what are Opera's most significant relationships: deals to get its browser on handsets from some of the world's top mobile phone manufacturers. That would be instant traction for Google on some very big real estate."

IGN Gamer study

IGN study says gamers drive wireless markets:

"IGN's report looks at the gamer segment to understand the subset of mobile gamers; the survey reviews what their purchasing habits are, as well as phone and game features they prefer. Early adopters, who will lead the way for all other cell phone users into the rapidly growing market for mobile gaming, spend 25% more on their hardware and are willing to pay 75% more than other gamers for mobile games.

IGN's survey cites the key opportunity of the wireless entertainment sector as the enormous installed base of cell phones. eMarketer data puts the current estimate at more than 160 million phones in the US."

How people use thier phones

Buogiorno release a survey report from 5,000 people in the EU, US and Africa that says 2/3 of people list downloading content as the tird favorite thing to do after voice and SMS. One thing that MocoNews pulls out is this:

"The release says “one unique finding is that younger users often sleep with their phones and use them as an alarm clock”…apparently a lot of people are surprised that the alarm clock function gets used — I’ve previously come across people saying it should be removed to make room for other things because no-one uses it. Personally, I was using the alarm clock function from the time I first bought my mobile — it was easier than my other alarm clock."

I have used my cell phone as my alarm clock for a long time. The big advantage is I always have it with me.

Ads in 06

The Online Spin Newsletter has seven predictions for next years ad market. It a subscription required link but the folks at MocoNews have it up for us:

The seven predictions are:

• User-generated content will be king
• Video-on-demand will start to incorporate advertising
• The topic of “Integration” is not going to go away
• Mobile advertising will come into its own
• In-game advertising is going to explode
• There will be some element of backlash towards product placement from the consumer
• An advertiser will publicly state that its strategic planning will be led by its interactive agency for all media

Amp'd gets MTV

From MocoNews, Amp'd gets 50m from MTV:

"It is investing $50 million in the much-hyped “edgy” mobile service Amp’d…this comes after MTV itself toyed around with the idea of launching its own MVNO, and decided it was too much of a financial and operational effort and risk, at least in U.S. And to add some perspective, being an MVNO is as cash intensive as you can get: Amp’d already had $67 million in funding and is in the process of raising an additional $100 million financing, according to CEO Peter Adderton, who believes the current round will be the last private financing round."

The other big announcement from MTV is that it is creating an "iTunes" product with MSFT:

"The service, dubbed URGE, will be integrated into the next version of the software maker's Windows Media Player and offer more than 2 million tracks for sale individually or as part of a subscription package.The service, dubbed URGE, will be integrated into the next version of the software maker's Windows Media Player and offer more than 2 million tracks for sale individually or as part of a subscription package."

I assume these two will go together.

EVDO rocks

The other Cory over at Boing Boing talks about his expereince with EVDO:

"This week, I've been experimenting with various bits of EVDO wireless Internet kit from wireless-internet-broadband-service.com and Verizon, and I've been really impressed (and depressed at the thought of going back to Europe, where the comparable equipment is all locked down, overpriced and metered).

I've had the use of an EVDO card that worked flawlessly and speedily (rates comparable to the Ethernet connection in my hotel room) in my Mac, and which also seamless interfaced with a WiFi access point that was literally plug-and-play: just connect it to the wall-power, stick in the card, and the EVDO wireless service was retransmitted to my whole hotel-floor."

EVDO really has the potential to disrupt a number of businesses.

The Pain of Local Broadcasters

Having spent some time messing around with local TV broadcasting, I have to say its a tough deal to understand these days. Cory at Lost Remote highlights one readers response to a recent Broadcasting & Cable artile:

"In fact, for 90% of the people in a typical TV station building, this whole 'internet thing' is something they're still in their heart-of-hearts hoping will go away, or at least be handled by 'somebody else' at the station. Maybe the web-geek or two we have off in that old converted closet downstairs will take care of it all, so we can continue to pretend the world revolves around producing a series of OTO 'shows' every day. The consciousness level is rising, but at a rate that is so slow that I still really think it's a race to see whether most TV stations will survive. The ad marketplace is reaching an inflection point fairly soon now, and from a pure bottom line perspective, this industry is not ready. Real pain (revenue/margin) is right around the corner now."

Go check out the comments on Lost Remote too.

For years I have been trying to figure out other uses for the alloted TV spectrum. With 3G and the new DVB-H and MediaFlo prodcuts it would seem that terrertiral television spectrum is getting pushed around even more.

Bob Dylan: XM DJ

Bob will begin hosting a weekly one hour show on XM:

Lee Abrams, XM's chief creative officer, said he had been courting Mr. Dylan for such a program for a year and a half, and that the program would offer fans a close connection to the rock legend. "We want to make it as comfortable for him as possible," Mr. Abrams said, adding that the show would emanate from "a combination of home and hotel rooms and buses. He'll really be in his element."

Bob has been in the public eye recently with the "No Direction Home" documentary by Martin Scorsese. I like pretty much anything Bob does so it would be cool to hear his radio show. I even liked Masked and Anonymous!

Earthlink: Paying for Press Releases

Earthlink buys Edge Networks for around 144 million:

“EarthLink had to do something,” said Brian Washburn, analyst with Current Analysis. “They have been holding steadier and better than an AOL or MSN, but the dial-up market is rapidly going way. EarthLink has to do something to evolve beyond being a dial-up provider that resells broadband for residential customers and tries to survive on those thin margins. This was a move they could make.”

"When we asked people the number one reason they didn't buy service from a VPN company like New Edge, they said it was because they didn't know if they were going to stay in business," Bill Heys, president of EarthLink’s value and small to medium enterprises business unit said. "This removes that spectre."

I am not so sure about that.

The Internets

I saw this yesterday but was in meeting most of the afternoon. One would think that Bellsouth would have enough to do fighting city hall but a week or so ago the CTO started talking about charging for access to certain sites:

"William L. Smith, chief technology officer for Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp., told reporters and analysts that an Internet service provider such as his firm should be able, for example, to charge Yahoo Inc. for the opportunity to have its search site load faster than that of Google Inc."

I admit i just don't understand that in so many ways but today - or yesterday - there is more:

"The proposal supported by AT&T and BellSouth would allow telecommunications carriers to offer their own advanced Internet video services to their customers, while rival firms' online video offerings would be transmitted at lower speed and with poorer image quality."

The guys at techdirt don't really understand it either, and other sites are chattering about it; /., Boing Boing and Broadband Reports. Luckily the folks at Boing Boing break it down for us:

Translation: "We like everything about the internet, except the way it keeps us from locking out the competition, so we want something just like the net, except less useful to the user, but with more pricing power for us."

Vonage F1000 Wifi phone

Via Engadget, Vonage annouces the UTStarcom F1000 wifi phone.

"They’re selling the F1000 for $79.99 after a fifty dollar instant rebate. Without a doubt there are better WiFi phones on the market, but the advantage here is that the F1000 is configured to work with Vonage right out of the box."

Sprint rolls out full length movie streaming

Via EVDO Info, Sprint and Mspot annouced that Sprint users will be able to stream full length feature movies on thier cell phones:

"Sprint believes MSpot Movies will be very popular with our customers, allowing them to watch some of their favorite movies whenever and wherever they go," said Dale Knoop, general manager of multimedia services for Sprint. "Offering the industry's first full-length streaming movie service demonstrates our continued leadership and commitment to bringing the best entertainment services to our customers."

I think this could be filed under "too early to tell."

Mobile RSS

Carlo at MobHappy has been thinking about RSS for mobile phones. He had a good article up last week that pointed out his thinking that RSS on mobile phones is not really about blogs. In that post he quotes Russell Beattie talking about the new Yahoo RSS service:

"Then there’s all these custom site feeds out there as well! Subscribe to a custom Simply Hired feed and you can know instantly when there’s a new job for you. Subscribe to an eBay Store, and know when a new item is available before anyone else does. Same thing for Craig’s list - be the first to hear about a new apartment available or car for sale. Subscribe to, um, I don’t know, a Surf Report Feed and you know when the tide is perfect for hanging ten right away. ANYTHING that can be made into a public RSS feed can now essentially be linked directly to your phone."

Well today Carlo is back with more thoughts on why Mobile RSS is not just about blogs. He thinks mobile RSS could be about Presence:

"At the most rudimentary level, users could upload status messages, like those in IM programs: away, busy, available, at the store, in the shower, and so on. Their contacts could check their status before trying to call or message, and tailor their communications accordingly. The info could be viewed by anybody with an RSS reader. On a higher level, perhaps the application could update the feed, which is then read by an element in the network that then controls how people can be contacted. If a user says they're in a meeting, it shuts off push email and sends calls to voicemail, or if they say they're at work, it diverts personal calls or something similar."

I think this is right on the mark. It seems to be a work around to LBS type services without the need for GPS or end users doing somekind of short code dance.

Amp'd with CBS and UPN

Amp'd annouced today that it will partner with CBS and UPN to provide video content for its cell phone service. The best pull quote comes via MocoNews:

"Amp'd is an exciting new entertainment destination in the mobile
world, and a great place to showcase our content to the younger
audiences and early adopters they are targeting," said Cyriac
Roeding, Vice President, Wireless, CBS Digital Media.  "Through
a variety of multimedia options that they offer, Amp'd has created
a very personal experience to link the consumer -- our audience --
to our shows.  The cell phone is the most personal medium; we see
great opportunities here to create personal connections that deepen
our viewers relationship to the program, or to creatively expose
new viewers to CBS and UPN content."

Amp'd is still saying that they are going to launch in 05 but we will see.

DVB-H making some waves

From /. via News.com, Philips is saying that it will ship chips sets to allow TV reception on cell phones (and maybe other devices.) From the News.com article:

"The company will show off the technology at the Computer Electronics Show kicking off on Jan. 5 in Las Vegas.

The company announced a similar chipset--which consists of a TV tuner, a decoder and peripheral components--for the European market earlier in the year. Three out of the six largest handset makers are currently building phones containing the chip for trials that will likely start soon. The U.S. chipset is essentially the same product."

To "ensure" that the content and service will be availible, Philips has partnered with Crown Castle who, back in 2003, acquired the rights to 5 megahertz of the L band specturm(see below). Crown Castle has said it would be luanching the multicast TV network in 2006.

From MocoNews, here is a quote from an interview with Michael Scheppert, President of Crown Castle Mobile Media:

"Really, the biggest challenge for us is figuring out exactly the right content to carry. Some people think that it’s all about news. Some people think that it’s all about sports. Some people think that it’s all about cartoons.

Some people think that you’ve got to have existing channels that people already know and love, and may know the schedule. Just take that existing channel and put it on the mobile broadcasting platform. Other people think, no, no, you’ve got to have a whole new channel that has content formatted [for mobile], and shorter form factors and shorter programming and less advertising.

Some people think it’s all about live content, some people think it’s all about cache content that’s played out on demand."

More from the article (which is a fantastic read) about the L band spectrum:

How did Crown Castle have the foresight to bid for 5MHz of U.S. L-band spectrum?
We were the only ones who even participated in that auction. I think others weren't interested, because it was a block of unpaired spectrum. All the cellular technologies-whether GSM or CDMA-need a paired spectrum, where you have some block of spectrum for up-link and a block of spectrum for down-link. I think because of our experience in broadcasting, we were able to see an opportunity there in the spectrum that perhaps other people overlooked.

More Digital Graffiti

Textually.org points to the new service offered by Loca Moda called Wifiti. From the Loca Moda website:

"Wiffiti allows users to send text messages from their mobile phones to large flat TV displays in locations where people socialize such as cafes, bars and clubs and on the web. Its purpose is to extend and empower public expression and creativity in a socially responsible way, fostering an open and strong sense of citizenship and community.

KEY BENEFITS

For end-users, Wiffiti enables you to:

• Be a part of a local community, where you can be heard – on the street and on the web
• Use your mobile phone to interact in a new channel for expression, ideas, thoughts, flirting, fun and politics

For our partners, Wiffiti provides:

• An alternative channel to communicate and engage with a mobile/web audience
• A platform to foster and aggregate communities and relationships that are potentially more meaningful and sustainable
• An environment that supports, builds and sustains interaction between you and your audience
• Targeted and/or broad opportunities for you to extend your reach to new locations
• A measurable closed-loop platform that improves the effectiveness of your marketing and communication strategies
• Ability to dynamically update and target offerings
• Scalable, robust and secure location-based interactive marketing"

Sprints creates mobile consulting company

From Vicki Warker, Sprint announces a new company, Sprint Enterprise Mobility. Targeting large business and government organizations SEM provides:

Consultation — identifying, creating, and defining the opportunity, and planning and designing the business solution.

Solution design, development and integration — developing the solution and integrating hardware, software, services, business processes, and organizational factors.

Operation, service and support — supporting, maintaining and — where appropriate — operating the solution or delivering a managed service.

Project and program management — end-to-end management of the delivery process for individual projects and the most complex business programs.

Enpocket: MMS use up in UK

An Enpocket report from Mobile Marketing Magazine:

"The Q4 2005 results show 36% of mobile owners using their phones to send and receive picture messages, up from 21% in Q4 2004. While 33% of males use their phones for picture messaging, among females, usage stands at 40%. MMS usage levels have increased dramatically in 18-34 age groups over the past 12 months, and have doubled in all age groups above 34 years old."

College Students will watch Mobile Ads...for money

The J school at Ball State conducted a survey of 669 students and shockingly found that students would be will to watch ads on thier call phone in exchange for money.

From Celluar News:

"Students are showing less resistance to receiving ads on their cell phones, but they still want to be able to control the amount and type of ads they receive," Michael Hanley, an assistant professor of advertising in the journalism departmen,t said. "When we asked them what it would take to accept ads, they told us freebies or money. The pay-per-ad option got the best response."

Also from the survey:

• About 96 percent have a cell phone.
• Nearly 70 percent have cell phones with Internet access.
• Twenty percent have received a cell ad from a person or business they did not know.
• Only one-third of students who received cell phone ads were annoyed to get an advertisement, down from 92 percent from the previous study.
• About 55 percent are less likely to purchase a product from a business sending a cell phone ad.
• Nearly 66 percent of the students would accept cell phone ads if they were paid to receive them.

China Watch

Gold mining from the NY Times:

The people working at this clandestine locale are "gold farmers." Every day, in 12-hour shifts, they "play" computer games by killing onscreen monsters and winning battles, harvesting artificial gold coins and other virtual goods as rewards that, as it turns out, can be transformed into real cash.

"It's unimaginable how big this is," says Chen Yu, 27, who employs 20 full-time gamers here in Fuzhou. "They say that in some of these popular games, 40 or 50 percent of the players are actually Chinese farmers."

Rich driving mobile growth from the BBC:

China's increasingly wealthy middle classes and tech savvy youngsters are the main reasons why companies, including Nokia and Motorola, have invested billions of dollars in establishing manufacturing and distribution networks across the Chinese mainland.

In 2004, the Chinese purchased 92 million mobile phones, an increase of 15.8% over 2003, making China the largest mobile phone market in the world.

Bear Sterns initiates coverage of Chinese Gaming companies:

• Bear’s top pick: NetEase (ticker: NTES).

• Maintains “Outperform” Rating on The9 (ticker: NCTY).

• Downgrades Shanda Interactive (ticker: SNDA) to “Underperform”.

20 Mobile Marketing Applications

Helen Keegan at technokitten has an exhaustive list of 20 mobile marketing applications.

Look back in Anger

I don't know if you were around for the fun that was 2000, but check out this passage from the book Hackoff.com by Tom Evslin. Its available online and will be publish in early 2006.

“I was just explaining,” says Larry, “that we are going to talk to several firms before we decide who will manage our ‘personal wealth’.”

“Well, certainly, dear, you ought to do that,” says Hattie. “But time’s awasting and, as they say, time is money. You won’t find any better than Merrill. There are several investment opportunities that will close just this week and I’d hate for you two to miss the opportunity—”

“We’re going to have to pass on those,” says Larry. “We’re not going to make our minds up that quickly.”

“I’m not sure that’s wise, dear,” says Hattie. “You have a big responsibility now to manage all that liquidity wisely.”

“I also have to manage my company,” says Larry. “Remember, most of our net worth — the vast majority of it — is tied up in the stock we still own. We haven’t even sold five percent yet.”

“Well, dear, of course; but that’s something we can help you with as well. I’m not the expert in this, but Merrill has put together programs for other executives to assure that they will realize most of that locked-in value. We know you can’t sell all of that stock now but you should be protected against a possible decline. We could arrange synthetic ‘put options’ or various kinds of ‘straddle’ or ‘collars’ I think they’re called. We could lend you money using the locked up stock as security. These are the discussions we need to be having.”

“Why in the world would we want to be in debt when we’re rolling in cash?” asks Larry. “I just paid off our mortgage this morning.”

“You what? Oh, no. You see, this is just the kind of thing we can help you with. That’s not a good use—”

Louise interrupts before Larry can: “That’s something we both wanted to do. We don’t like being in debt.”

Coke talks about Mobile Marketing

David Murphy, editor of Mobile Marketing Magazine, attended the 2005 MobileMarketing conference in the UK. He pulls a highlight for us:

But for my money, the most telling comment of the morning came from Coca-Cola Marketing Manager James Eadie. He sounded an optimistic note, saying:

"Mobile marketing could be phenomenally important, if you look at the penetration figures for handsets, and the passion for it. As a way of connnecting with our audience, it ought to be phenomenally powerful, and through that lens, we ought to be spending 50% of our budget on it."

Before any of the agency personnel present had time to mob Eadie, however, he added:

"Until such time as the digital platform can help us connect emotionally with consumers,in the way we can with a 30-second TV commercial, we are always going to struggle."

When Mobile Marketing asked Eadie when this emotional connection he seeks might be achievable via the mobile channel he told us:

"It could be next year, it could be next decade, it could be never."

EA Buys Jamdat

Big story. ERTS buys JMDT for $680 million.

From M:Metrics via MocoNews:

• Jamdat's titles occupy the most premium "“deck placement"” or real estate on the browsers of the major U.S. carriers. MForma follows Jamdat in the number-two slot.
• The most heavily-promoted Jamdat titles include: Bejeweled, Jamdat Mahjong, Jamdat Solitaire Deluxe, Tetris, DOOM RPG, MLB Baseball 2005 by Jamdat and SOCOM: US Navy Seals.

From the ERTS 8-K:

"Pursuant to the terms of the Merger Agreement and subject to the conditions thereof, each issued and outstanding share of JAMDAT's common stock, other than shares owned by any stockholders who are entitled to and who properly exercise dissenters' rights under the Delaware General Corporation Law, will be cancelled and converted automatically into the right to receive $27.00 in cash, without interest. In addition, Electronic Arts will assume JAMDAT's stock options which are outstanding immediately prior to the effective time of the Merger. Each option will be converted into an option to purchase a number of shares of Electronic Arts common stock equal to $27.00 divided by the average closing sale price of one share of Electronic Arts common stock for the five most recent trading days preceding the closing date of the Merger as quoted on the NASDAQ Stock Market. This transaction will be taxable to JAMDAT shareholders."

From MocoNews, highlights of the conference call (4.8mb 25min):

"In the conference call EA Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Larry Probst was asked why EA decided to buy into mobile content rather than build their own. His reply: "Obviously this is a build or buy decision, we have very carefully examined this space over a couple of months, and we're impressed with Jamdats job in North America, its a clear market leader in that geography… We could be build it over time but over that period of time Jamdat is not going to stand still and wait for us to catch up… We like to be the market leader and this allows us to do that quickly."

• Mobile games are a big deal..this is north of $1 billion globally and will reach $5 billion in the next few years.
• Trend towards mobility is undeniable. And it is affordable as well, compared to the $300 consoles
• We love the Jamdat team…Mitch will lead our combined team.
• Jamdat has proprietary expertise..will allow us to scale globally
• Expands our carrier relationships

Among the interesting things to watch unfold will be whether or not the Jamdat brand gets swallowed up thus avioding current tradmark issue with Jamster. Either way it seems like this will mean more focus on the mobile game sector in 2006. ERTS has already said that Holiday sales would only be up 3% to 10% from last year. As of this morning: Shares of Jamdat were up $4.23 to $27 in after-hours trading, while shares of Electronic Arts fell $1.51, or 2.7%, to $54.24.

Mobile Gaming Market doubles in value

Screen Digest release a report that says the mobile gaming market has doubled in value over the last 12 months. From MobileIndustry.biz:

"According to the report, 2005 has seen a tremendous growth in Western markets, now accounting for 52 per cent of mobile download revenues. During 2004, major players Jamdat (US) and Gameloft (EU) accounted for 30 per cent of games download revenues in the US and Europe, while traditional videogame publishers entering the mobile market have faired considerably less well.

Revenues for mobile gaming are expected to reach EURO 1.7 billion by 2010, with over 2 billion games enabled handsets reaching market. The potential for growth in this rapidly emerging area has prompted significant venture capital investment, as more than EURO 425 million has been invested since 1999."

GaTech Mobile Technologies Group

Across the street the kids at GaTech are bringing it. Check out the projects page. I like this one: Storyscape.

"News! This project has officially been selected for and funded by the Art in Freedom Park public art exhibition, and will be exhibited in Atlanta beginning May 1, 2005.

Storyscape is an unique urban experiment in community storytelling. From October through December, 2004, hundreds of orange stickers bearing the question "You are here... Why?" were placed throughout the city of Atlanta, from coffeehouses to park benches to public restrooms.

We invite the greater Atlanta community to share their stories with us using their cellular phones, either via SMS or voicemail. By dialing in, you will be contributing to a unique, dynamically growing collection of stories being generated by hundreds of people all over the city of Atlanta."

WiMAX unleashed

Om Malik points to this IEEE post today on the approval of the WiMAX 802.16e standard. Short story is this is the easy part. Upgradability and adoption issues still to be overcome.

Update: For more geeky goodness (with graphs!) check out this post from Dialy Wireless:

"The key difference between the fixed and mobile WiMax standards is a more-efficient OFDM modulation called OFDMA. OFDMA (orthogonal frequency division Multiple Access) can assign a subset of sub-carriers to individual users. By using different subcarriers multiple people can connect at the same time on the same frequency without interference."

30 Golden Rules

Business 2.0 has a great article up with 30 statements from big time "business visionaries" about guiding principals for how they run their companies. Here are a couple of my favorites:

• Surround yourself with people smarter than you - Chris Albrecht, CEO, HBO and George Steinbrenner, owner of the New York Yankees
• Reinvent Yourself. Repeat. - Alex Bogusky, executive creative director, Crispin Porter & Bogusky
• When people screw up, give them a second chance - Richard Branson, chairman, Virgin Group
• Learn to trust your gut - Paul Pressler, CEO, The Gap
• Be the person who steps up - George Shaheen, CEO, Siebel Systems

They are all really good - go check it out.

MuniWifi Madness!

Sunnyvale CA and MetroFi have launched a advertising supported, free Wifi service.

"We're proud to be the first city in the United States to implement free advertising-sponsored Wi-Fi service for the benefit of residents and local businesses," said Otto Lee, vice-mayor of Sunnyvale. "We think it's fitting that one of the major cities in the Silicon Valley, home to headquarters of leading high-tech companies, be the first to get advertiser-sponsored service off the ground."

It seems like the genie is out of the bottle on this one and that no matter who fights it, cities are begining to see MuniWifi as a service they need to provide. It will probably compete with other wireless broadband services that are still going to be very expensive for unlimited plans.

Limelife studies on women, cell phones and games

Limelife has released a study on what women want from mobile content. Highlights from MocoNews:

• The mobile phone initially serves as a “private line” for girls 16-17 then evolves to an “always with me connected buddy” during college years, gradually becoming more functional and ultimately beginning to serve as a “command central” for working moms and women pursuing careers.
• Games are second only to ringtones for desired mobile downloads among women.
• 67% of those surveyed showed strong interest in wallpapers made from “Photos I Take.” Further, the use of ringtones as “caller ID” identifiers is also representative of the importance of customization and personalization in mobile content for younger women. 69% of women surveyed, aged 18-22, have already downloaded one or more ringtones.
• Women have a very strong interest in mobile applications that function as reminders, such as alerts, and help them be more productive and efficient as they multitask throughout their typical day. 70% of those surveyed were interested in reminders for things like doctor’s appointments, beating out even birthday reminders with 66% interest.

Lifelime CEO, Kristin Asleson McDonnell tells Dean Takashi of of the San Jose Mercury News, why she started the company: "The fact was, none of us was inspired by the mobile games and applications available. While we appreciate technology, it’s got to be fun and useful - it should entertain us and make us laugh, connect us with friends, manage our time, and help us live better."