Stories abound about iphone users being charged excessively for data whilst they are travelling. A recent tale was of a US customer who took his iphone to Europe. Although he never made a call and checked his emails once or twice, he received a $3000 bill for his troubles as his phone was set to check his email every 10 minutes. At least with a Blackberry it only checks the headers rather than downloading the whole email.
Still interested in an iphone I called O2 in the UK:
'What are the datacharges if I take my phone abroad?' I asked.
'The roaming charges for calls and SMS are published on our site' the representative told me.
Me: 'But what about data?'
O2: 'It depends on which country you travel to' (really? I thought data roaming charges were standard apart from a few exceptions).
Me: ' I got to France a lot, how much is it to get my email there?'
After checking with her supervisor I was told: 'The charges are set by the local network, its up to them.'
Me: 'That's simply not true. You charge me and it's on my bill. Contractually you would have to advise me of the charges, or at least publish them on your website.'
I searched their website to see, whilst the operator put me on hold to talk to her supervisor again. Finally, using a google search I found a page, clicked the link and it was dead.
O2: 'We don't know how much it is to use an iphone in France.'
Me: 'Most people take their phone abraod, surely if I'm going to buy an iphone I'll need to know how much it costs to use it?'
The conversation ended shortly afterwards. They didn't offer to find out, and were completely unable to give me the costs of data. In short, much as I like the functionality of the phone (I am a Mac user) the restrictions from the networks means I will never buy one until they drop the roaming data charges.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
3 and T-Mobile share data networks
Maybe, just maybe, the networks are beginning to take data more seriously. After Orange and Vodfone joined forces, now 3 and T-Mobile are sharing their masts for data:
Read the article here
Maybe now they actually believe that there is value in providing a low-cost mobile data for all users?
Read the article here
Maybe now they actually believe that there is value in providing a low-cost mobile data for all users?
Monday, December 17, 2007
Vodafone reformatting the mobile internet
Many small developers are up in arms about Vodafone reformatting mobile content.
Essentially what has happened is this:
Every browser - PC or mobile based, will show a user agent that allows content specifically formatted for that device/browser. This is particularly important with the mobile internet as there are many devices of various ages and sending the correct content is fundamental.
Vodafone, as many operators have done, essentially reformats the internet for mobile. In this case it uses a reformatting proxy from a company called Novarra.
Now in doing so it also changes the user agent - it is no longer possible for a third party website to know what content to deliver to a specific phone.
Many industry experts feel that reformatting or adapting proxies are not actually beneficial to the end user. The user experience can be poorer than the original site.
So where does this leave us? Quite simply put, many vodafone users downloading content via their phones will have problems and won't be able to recieve or play things like video, music or ringtones. There is nothing like poor user experience to put a user off - especially on mobile. Whilst the content provider will get the blame from the user (naturally) it is entirely down to the network.
The likes of vodafone need to lay off content adaptation and allow websites and content to be delivered to mobile in the way it was intended. If not, the whole mobile content industry will fall flat on it's face before it's had a chance to take off.
Essentially what has happened is this:
Every browser - PC or mobile based, will show a user agent that allows content specifically formatted for that device/browser. This is particularly important with the mobile internet as there are many devices of various ages and sending the correct content is fundamental.
Vodafone, as many operators have done, essentially reformats the internet for mobile. In this case it uses a reformatting proxy from a company called Novarra.
Now in doing so it also changes the user agent - it is no longer possible for a third party website to know what content to deliver to a specific phone.
Many industry experts feel that reformatting or adapting proxies are not actually beneficial to the end user. The user experience can be poorer than the original site.
So where does this leave us? Quite simply put, many vodafone users downloading content via their phones will have problems and won't be able to recieve or play things like video, music or ringtones. There is nothing like poor user experience to put a user off - especially on mobile. Whilst the content provider will get the blame from the user (naturally) it is entirely down to the network.
The likes of vodafone need to lay off content adaptation and allow websites and content to be delivered to mobile in the way it was intended. If not, the whole mobile content industry will fall flat on it's face before it's had a chance to take off.
The Killer Application for Mobile
The question that I often hear discussed is 'what will be the killer application for mobile'? People have considered everything from content to location-based services.
However, the killer application already exists. I have heard some people claim that it already exists in the form of voice calls. I would argue that the killer application is, in fact, SMS.
With over 4.5 billion messages sent each month in the UK - more than voice calls - and growing all the time, you can only conclude that SMS is the most successful application for mobile.
Once again the strength of text messaging has been proven in the health sector, with a company claiming to have more than 10 million potential users receiving messages on everything from appointment reminders through to medication and health education information.
The business SMS market is still relatively small, but is bound to grow in 2008.
However, the killer application already exists. I have heard some people claim that it already exists in the form of voice calls. I would argue that the killer application is, in fact, SMS.
With over 4.5 billion messages sent each month in the UK - more than voice calls - and growing all the time, you can only conclude that SMS is the most successful application for mobile.
Once again the strength of text messaging has been proven in the health sector, with a company claiming to have more than 10 million potential users receiving messages on everything from appointment reminders through to medication and health education information.
The business SMS market is still relatively small, but is bound to grow in 2008.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Potential of SMS Revenues Not Reached
A recent study by Informa Telecoms and Media suggested that operators were missing out on around £2.5billion revenue a year from Premium SMS. Yet both the operators and business fail to see the potential of SMS as a revenue generating tool.
The advantage of SMS from a consumer's point of view is the usability - it's simple and everyone has it - and the low cost.
However, both operators and businesses have failed to see the potential in the simplicity of SMS. Their focus has been on MMS, WAP and now mobile WiFi.
The problem for the mobile user with these technologies is both usability and cost. I have blogged previously about these.
Obvious areas of commerce that can benefit both business and consumer are areas such as ticketing, auctions and information services. However businesses should consider taking this a stage further and incorporate SMS as a purchasing tool for their customers. With SMS the MSISDN can identify the user quickly and simply and whilst additional security measures can be taken, SMS can offer mobile users a fast simple and secure payment process. As the Premium SMS has severe limitations this may need to be linked to a credit card, but if done in a usable yet secure way the potential for businesses is massive.
There is more comment on this subject here: http://www.160characters.org/news.php?action=view&nid=2474
The advantage of SMS from a consumer's point of view is the usability - it's simple and everyone has it - and the low cost.
However, both operators and businesses have failed to see the potential in the simplicity of SMS. Their focus has been on MMS, WAP and now mobile WiFi.
The problem for the mobile user with these technologies is both usability and cost. I have blogged previously about these.
Obvious areas of commerce that can benefit both business and consumer are areas such as ticketing, auctions and information services. However businesses should consider taking this a stage further and incorporate SMS as a purchasing tool for their customers. With SMS the MSISDN can identify the user quickly and simply and whilst additional security measures can be taken, SMS can offer mobile users a fast simple and secure payment process. As the Premium SMS has severe limitations this may need to be linked to a credit card, but if done in a usable yet secure way the potential for businesses is massive.
There is more comment on this subject here: http://www.160characters.org/news.php?action=view&nid=2474
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Blowing our own trumpet
I rarely use this blog to promote our own services - we have systems for messaging to mobile, mobile markeing and mobile content delivery - however some recent conversations with both clients and potential investors has helped me realise the value of our service/applications.
What we have tried to do is to build web-based mobile communication systems that work really well and are easy to use. They should be low-cost to set up and use. But key to this is to provide an excellent level of customer service.
Time and again I am reminded by clients of the type of service offered by our competitors. Their systems, though apparently offering the same functionality are difficult to use, and often just don't work. And try getting hold of them on the phone! And when you do, try getting a straight answer.
A client pointed out to me yesterday that talking to other developers about their mobile content platform, the pound signs light up in their eyes and expect content creators to pay 1000s of pounds for systems that are poorly built backed by a poor service.
Maybe the reason is their background in the telecoms industry. The reputation there is of making a quick buck where they can and then moving on. Look at what happened with premium voice calls, then premium SMS and markets such as the ring-tone. Where possible they obsfucate informtion so the customer has no idea what things will cost. They charge as much as they can. Then when consumer pressure, or more likely, the regulators threaten to pull the plug they move on to the next quick buck.
Ping Corp, the company behind immedia24, txt4ever and txt4everywhere has a background of web and design. We are more service focussed. Our interest is not in the quick buck but developing a long term on-going relationship with our customers. What's the point in trying to fleece customers short-term, if there is no long-term relationship?
It's been hard to explain why our company is unique - sometimes it just takes a bit of experience in the market to see that. But on a regular basis our clients tell us that the decision to use our system was a 'no brainer'.
What we have tried to do is to build web-based mobile communication systems that work really well and are easy to use. They should be low-cost to set up and use. But key to this is to provide an excellent level of customer service.
Time and again I am reminded by clients of the type of service offered by our competitors. Their systems, though apparently offering the same functionality are difficult to use, and often just don't work. And try getting hold of them on the phone! And when you do, try getting a straight answer.
A client pointed out to me yesterday that talking to other developers about their mobile content platform, the pound signs light up in their eyes and expect content creators to pay 1000s of pounds for systems that are poorly built backed by a poor service.
Maybe the reason is their background in the telecoms industry. The reputation there is of making a quick buck where they can and then moving on. Look at what happened with premium voice calls, then premium SMS and markets such as the ring-tone. Where possible they obsfucate informtion so the customer has no idea what things will cost. They charge as much as they can. Then when consumer pressure, or more likely, the regulators threaten to pull the plug they move on to the next quick buck.
Ping Corp, the company behind immedia24, txt4ever and txt4everywhere has a background of web and design. We are more service focussed. Our interest is not in the quick buck but developing a long term on-going relationship with our customers. What's the point in trying to fleece customers short-term, if there is no long-term relationship?
It's been hard to explain why our company is unique - sometimes it just takes a bit of experience in the market to see that. But on a regular basis our clients tell us that the decision to use our system was a 'no brainer'.
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
hppy brthday 2 SMS
SMS is so ubiquitous these days, it's hard to imagine that the first message was only sent 15 years ago.
On 3rd December 1992 a young engineer at Airwide Solutions, Neil Papworth sent the world's first ever commercial text message to Vodafone Director Richard Jarvis at a staff Christmas party. It took a while before the txting language and smileys caught on though. The first message simply said: 'Happy Christmas'.
It was intended originally as a pager service, so it was some years before users discovered they could send SMS to each other.
What's Made SMS so successful?
Four main factors have been identified:
1. Every phone has SMS - installed and working and nothing is required of the user to activate it.
2. Interoperability - users do not need to know what network the other person is on.
3. Utility and ease of use - SMS certainly has utility and can in many cases convey a message better than a voice call and while not perhaps the easiest it is easy enough to use.
4. Affordability - it is cheaper than making a phone call
There is a fifth factor that I would add to that is brevity. The fact that an SMS is only 160 characters means that users open and reply to them quickly. An email can be of unlimited length and for many the process is delayed until a suitable moment. SMS elicits far quicker resonpses.
It has now moved beyond peer to peer messaging, with bulk messages system such as txt4ever offering a complete business and marketing tool.
On 3rd December 1992 a young engineer at Airwide Solutions, Neil Papworth sent the world's first ever commercial text message to Vodafone Director Richard Jarvis at a staff Christmas party. It took a while before the txting language and smileys caught on though. The first message simply said: 'Happy Christmas'.
It was intended originally as a pager service, so it was some years before users discovered they could send SMS to each other.
What's Made SMS so successful?
Four main factors have been identified:
1. Every phone has SMS - installed and working and nothing is required of the user to activate it.
2. Interoperability - users do not need to know what network the other person is on.
3. Utility and ease of use - SMS certainly has utility and can in many cases convey a message better than a voice call and while not perhaps the easiest it is easy enough to use.
4. Affordability - it is cheaper than making a phone call
There is a fifth factor that I would add to that is brevity. The fact that an SMS is only 160 characters means that users open and reply to them quickly. An email can be of unlimited length and for many the process is delayed until a suitable moment. SMS elicits far quicker resonpses.
It has now moved beyond peer to peer messaging, with bulk messages system such as txt4ever offering a complete business and marketing tool.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Mobile Flat Rate Data Pricing - is it the solution for mobile content?
You can hardly avoid the adverts for the various mobile operator's offers for 'internet on your mobile' assorted forms of flat rate data.
The concept is great. Pay around £7.50 a month and get 'unlimited' access to the internet from your phone.
Inevitably mobile customers will view this in a similar way to broad band - pay a flat fee and connect to the internet however you want, within reasonable download limits.
However when you look at the conditions there's always a catch.
Take T-Mobile's Web'nWalk. Aside from the terrible spelling/grammer of the name (!), the conditions state that:
Web'n'Walk - £7.50pm - 1GB monthly usage + "We do not permit use of this
service to provide modem access for a computer or for peer to peer file
sharing, internet phone calls or instant messaging."
So all you can do is connect to the web via their portal.
Similarly if you travel abroad, they will charge you £7 per megabyte of download. There is a news report where one of their director's even admitted this charge was excessive. However, the time that you need your mobile email the most is when you are away.
So far only around 20% of mobile users have taken up a flat rate data tariff. In terms of downloading content from web or mobile sites, that's still a lot of people, over 15 million. But what about the majority of mobile users who are not on a flat rate data tariff?
With home broadband you pay your monthly money and get a connection. If you don't pay, you don't get on the internet. Pretty simple.
With mobile, the majority of people can connect to mobile web. Unfortunately for 80% of users that means they will be paying up to £7 per megabyte to d so. Yet very few people realise the levels of the costs.
The problem for mobile content providers is that a music track, for exammple may cost £1 or less to buy but for 3 minutes, it may cost £21 in datacharges to download. As soon as a user realises this then they are unlikely to every download through their phone again.
There are a number of solutions to this. The simplest is that the operators should offer a fast data connection for all types of data at a single price to all their users. They should remove the 'pay as you download' tariff as it is unreasonably expensive.
Why should they change to this pricing model?
Currently the operators are only interested in users where there is a billing relationship. In other words they can charge money for some kind of transaction.
Switching to flat rate data will change this relationship - but ultimately for the good. Flat rate plans for everyone means that more web surfing and downloading will happen. The most popular round for payment on mobile is premium SMS. There will be more downloads and the operators make more money. Simple.
Another alternative would be to include the cost of the data in the download itself. That's effectively what happens with MMS but the size and formats are limited. The idea is that when a mobile user pays for their premium SMS for content, they should not have to pay any more to download it.
Poor user experience brought about by data charges has damaged the mobile content sector. Removing these charges will increase the downloads and ultimtely the revenues of the mobile operators.
The concept is great. Pay around £7.50 a month and get 'unlimited' access to the internet from your phone.
Inevitably mobile customers will view this in a similar way to broad band - pay a flat fee and connect to the internet however you want, within reasonable download limits.
However when you look at the conditions there's always a catch.
Take T-Mobile's Web'nWalk. Aside from the terrible spelling/grammer of the name (!), the conditions state that:
Web'n'Walk - £7.50pm - 1GB monthly usage + "We do not permit use of this
service to provide modem access for a computer or for peer to peer file
sharing, internet phone calls or instant messaging."
So all you can do is connect to the web via their portal.
Similarly if you travel abroad, they will charge you £7 per megabyte of download. There is a news report where one of their director's even admitted this charge was excessive. However, the time that you need your mobile email the most is when you are away.
So far only around 20% of mobile users have taken up a flat rate data tariff. In terms of downloading content from web or mobile sites, that's still a lot of people, over 15 million. But what about the majority of mobile users who are not on a flat rate data tariff?
With home broadband you pay your monthly money and get a connection. If you don't pay, you don't get on the internet. Pretty simple.
With mobile, the majority of people can connect to mobile web. Unfortunately for 80% of users that means they will be paying up to £7 per megabyte to d so. Yet very few people realise the levels of the costs.
The problem for mobile content providers is that a music track, for exammple may cost £1 or less to buy but for 3 minutes, it may cost £21 in datacharges to download. As soon as a user realises this then they are unlikely to every download through their phone again.
There are a number of solutions to this. The simplest is that the operators should offer a fast data connection for all types of data at a single price to all their users. They should remove the 'pay as you download' tariff as it is unreasonably expensive.
Why should they change to this pricing model?
Currently the operators are only interested in users where there is a billing relationship. In other words they can charge money for some kind of transaction.
Switching to flat rate data will change this relationship - but ultimately for the good. Flat rate plans for everyone means that more web surfing and downloading will happen. The most popular round for payment on mobile is premium SMS. There will be more downloads and the operators make more money. Simple.
Another alternative would be to include the cost of the data in the download itself. That's effectively what happens with MMS but the size and formats are limited. The idea is that when a mobile user pays for their premium SMS for content, they should not have to pay any more to download it.
Poor user experience brought about by data charges has damaged the mobile content sector. Removing these charges will increase the downloads and ultimtely the revenues of the mobile operators.
Mobile Toilet
'SatLav', 'Down the Toilet' and 'Council Caught Short' are all likely headlines for London's Westiminster Council's 'text a toilet' scheme.
Whilst some people are criticising the initiative as a waste of resources, I think it's a great idea.
Finding a toilet in central London is getting increaingly difficult and it's a service that is of obvious and genuine benefit.
Users text 'toilet' to 80097 - using a location, the service identifies the nearest public lav. The 'SatLav' system charges 25p for each text.
As well as the council's 40 public toilets, the locations include the Greater London Authority, London Underground and some major department stores.
Westminster City Council said that the location service is designed to cut down on the amount of "street urination".
The council said: "Up to 45,460 litres of urine is at risk of ending up in the city's streets and alleyways through irresponsible and antisocial behaviour," Lovely!
Whilst I doubt that the average Saturday night drunk will pay 25p to text this, the service will be useful all kinds of other people.
There has been some debte amongst mobile developers of the take-up of location-based services. So far they have been quite limited. However, there are specific applications, such as the SatLav that can prove to be of benefit. Our messaging system txt4ever will include facilities to set up and manage mobile location services.
On a side note, the best public toilets in London have to be the ones on Baker Street, next to Westminster University. They have flowers, classical music and are spotlessly clean.
Whilst some people are criticising the initiative as a waste of resources, I think it's a great idea.
Finding a toilet in central London is getting increaingly difficult and it's a service that is of obvious and genuine benefit.
Users text 'toilet' to 80097 - using a location, the service identifies the nearest public lav. The 'SatLav' system charges 25p for each text.
As well as the council's 40 public toilets, the locations include the Greater London Authority, London Underground and some major department stores.
Westminster City Council said that the location service is designed to cut down on the amount of "street urination".
The council said: "Up to 45,460 litres of urine is at risk of ending up in the city's streets and alleyways through irresponsible and antisocial behaviour," Lovely!
Whilst I doubt that the average Saturday night drunk will pay 25p to text this, the service will be useful all kinds of other people.
There has been some debte amongst mobile developers of the take-up of location-based services. So far they have been quite limited. However, there are specific applications, such as the SatLav that can prove to be of benefit. Our messaging system txt4ever will include facilities to set up and manage mobile location services.
On a side note, the best public toilets in London have to be the ones on Baker Street, next to Westminster University. They have flowers, classical music and are spotlessly clean.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
The Value of Social Kudos
Here's a simple, obvious, yet very interesting point about the value of mobile content.
A survey a young group of mobile users asked the how much they would pay to download a track to their phone. They all gave answers of around 75p to £1.00.
When asked how much they would pay for a ringtone, it was around £3.
In other words, they would pay around 3 times as much for something that represented just a few seconds of a complete song!
Why was that?
The answer was social kudos. It was important that they were heard with the right ringtone on their phone. So important that they would spend more than 3 times the cost of the full track.
This principle can be applied to all kinds of items, for example in social networking you may pay to send a virtual bunch of flowers. The price of something is always based on it's perceived value, it is significant though how much value can be added when it gives social kudos.
A survey a young group of mobile users asked the how much they would pay to download a track to their phone. They all gave answers of around 75p to £1.00.
When asked how much they would pay for a ringtone, it was around £3.
In other words, they would pay around 3 times as much for something that represented just a few seconds of a complete song!
Why was that?
The answer was social kudos. It was important that they were heard with the right ringtone on their phone. So important that they would spend more than 3 times the cost of the full track.
This principle can be applied to all kinds of items, for example in social networking you may pay to send a virtual bunch of flowers. The price of something is always based on it's perceived value, it is significant though how much value can be added when it gives social kudos.
Mobile Content Glossary
Mobile Content Glossary
The difficulty with any new technology or economy are the proliferation of terms and acronyms. The following glossary is intended to cover many of the main terms, but is by no means exhaustive.
3GP – The standard format for mobile video. 3GP stores video streams such as MPEG-4, H.263 or H.264, and audio streams as AMR-NB or AAC-LC formats. 3GP also describes image sizes and bandwidth, so content is correctly sized for mobile display screens.
Aggregator – in the context of SMS and PSMS, an aggregator, such as Mblox, works with the mobile networks to agree shortcodes and bulk SMS routes which are provided to mobile platforms (immedia24)and content providers as single IP connection through their SMS Centre.
Billing Message – see PSMS
Bulk SMS – a common term for text messages bought from aggregators/SMS Centres. These messages are bought in blocks of 1000s or many 1000s at a lower cost than those bought from networks. Bulk SMS is typically used for mobile marketing campaigns and other web-based messaging applications.
Content Platform – or sometimes referred to as a delivery platform, such as . This is software or a web-based application for managing SMS and content delivery such as handling requests from messages sent from handsets. A platform will also provide reports of messages sent and receiving and revenues earned from PSMS.
D2C – Direct to Consumer
Flat Rate Data – see Mobile Data Charges
ICSTIS – The premium rate billing regulator, who are now renamed PhonepayPlus. All providers of PSMS must be registered with them as a service provider. They have the power to raise fines for breaches of their regulations, but only against the service provider and not the content provider – hence the service provider for the Richard and Judy Scandal, Eckoh received the fine, not Channel 4 themselves.
IP – Internet Protocol – any data that is sent or received using the internet.
J2ME – Java-based development language used for many mobile applications, especially games
MMS – Multi Media Message Service – with the advent of colour screens and phone cameras, it was developed by mobile networks as a replacement for SMS. MMS allows the user to send and receive pictures, audio and short video content (around 250k files). The cost of MMS combined with limited user need has seen a relatively small take up, with 100 million messages per month being sent in the UK (around 2% of the SMS volumes).
Mobile Data Charges – refers to mobile operator charges for accessing the internet and email. In effect, to download anything from the internet the user is charged for data. This can be as high as £7 per megabyte and is additional to a PSMS charged by the content provider. Many users are not aware of the data charges until they appear on their phone bill. Recent flat rate data charges – around £7.50 per month for 1 – 2 gig of downloads has alleviated this, but mobile users not on a flat rate plan are likely to be put off downloading content due to the high charges.
Mobile Operating Systems – There are a number of mobile operating systems used by handset manufacturers – Symbian, Windows Mobile, Ajax, Linux. There are other systems specific to certain phones such as the Blackberry and the iphone. The battle for the dominant mobile OS is likely to develop in the next 12 months and the main players will probably be Symbian, Windows Mobile and Google’s Android.
Mobile Operators – are the companies that own and operate the mobile infrastructure – in the UK they are Vodafone, T-Mobile, O2, Orange and 3. Operators such as Virgin Mobile lease capacity from the main operators.
Mobile Portal – an entry point into the mobile web. The mobile operators run their own portals, and is typically the first point of call for a mobile user logging on to the internet.
MSISDN – the number of a mobile phone. The MSISDN is carried in all SMS and MMS and offers an ideal way to identify a specific user. It cannot be identified when the mobile user is browsing the internet.
Ofcom – The telecoms and media regulator. Any premium rate issues will be dealt with by PhonepayPlus (ICSTIS), but Ofcom will deal with non-premium issues such as SMS spam. Their site has excellent guidance on acceptable usage.
PSMS – Premium SMS – is a message that is charged to the users phone. The charge is on receipt of a message, sometimes referred to as a reverse billing SMS. In order to comply with the regulations, the user must send a request message to a shortcode (a 5 or 6 digit number).
The price of the PSMS is determined by the shortcode number used for the message. These shortcodes are priced at 10p, 25p, 50p, 75p, £1, £1.50, £3 and £5. Billings can also be multiples of the price eg 2 x £1, where the user will receive 2 messages at £1.
Shortcode – a five or six number code for both receiving SMS from and sending Premium SMS to mobile users. Each shortcode is owned by a service provider who aggregates the number across all of the major networks. Shortcodes are country specific and cannot be sent/received outside the country of origin.
SMS – Short Message Service – an SMS is 160 characters of text and 12 characters of header (such as a reply number). Unlike email, for example, an SMS cannot carry additional header information or picture or video content. There are over 4 billion text messages sent each month in the UK – more messages than voice calls made.
SMSC – SMS Centre or gateway. An SMS centre provides a connection between the mobile networks and the internet. They will typically act as an aggregator by offering a single IP-based connection across all networks. They will also set up and get the agreements for shortcodes across the mobile operators.
Subscription/Recurring Billing – is a revenue option that allows the content provider to accept a single SMS request from a mobile user and continue to send messages monthly, weekly or even daily until an opt out or ‘STOP’ message is received. This was commonly used in the ringtone market boom as a method of maximising revenue. However stricter controls have been put in place, particularly with regard to subscription billing from under 16s.
URL Sending – a common method for delivering content by SMS. The text message will contain a URL link, which, when opened will download the content.
WAP – Wireless Application Protocol – the protocol has been widely available since 2000 and was designed to offer a simplified version of web browsing from mobile phones.
Wap Push – or Wap Push Message is a method of delivering mobile content by SMS. The Wap Push is essentially a text message with a URL to the content and configured as a Service Message. It will prompt the handset user to open the URL or download the content. Due to abuse by unscrupulous companies Wap Push can no longer be used in Premium SMS.
Wireless – it used to be the word my grandparents used for their radio! These days it general refers to wireless computer networks, or WiFi. Confusingly ‘wireless’ tends to be the term used in the states for mobile networks.
WML – Wireless Mark Up Language – similar to HTML, WML was designed to be specifically used on mobile. As mobile handsets have developed WML has become less important for delivering web-type content, with XML, compact HTML and HTML also running on many mobile browsers.
© Mark Brill, Ping Corporation Ltd 2007
The difficulty with any new technology or economy are the proliferation of terms and acronyms. The following glossary is intended to cover many of the main terms, but is by no means exhaustive.
3GP – The standard format for mobile video. 3GP stores video streams such as MPEG-4, H.263 or H.264, and audio streams as AMR-NB or AAC-LC formats. 3GP also describes image sizes and bandwidth, so content is correctly sized for mobile display screens.
Aggregator – in the context of SMS and PSMS, an aggregator, such as Mblox, works with the mobile networks to agree shortcodes and bulk SMS routes which are provided to mobile platforms (immedia24)and content providers as single IP connection through their SMS Centre.
Billing Message – see PSMS
Bulk SMS – a common term for text messages bought from aggregators/SMS Centres. These messages are bought in blocks of 1000s or many 1000s at a lower cost than those bought from networks. Bulk SMS is typically used for mobile marketing campaigns and other web-based messaging applications.
Content Platform – or sometimes referred to as a delivery platform, such as . This is software or a web-based application for managing SMS and content delivery such as handling requests from messages sent from handsets. A platform will also provide reports of messages sent and receiving and revenues earned from PSMS.
D2C – Direct to Consumer
Flat Rate Data – see Mobile Data Charges
ICSTIS – The premium rate billing regulator, who are now renamed PhonepayPlus. All providers of PSMS must be registered with them as a service provider. They have the power to raise fines for breaches of their regulations, but only against the service provider and not the content provider – hence the service provider for the Richard and Judy Scandal, Eckoh received the fine, not Channel 4 themselves.
IP – Internet Protocol – any data that is sent or received using the internet.
J2ME – Java-based development language used for many mobile applications, especially games
MMS – Multi Media Message Service – with the advent of colour screens and phone cameras, it was developed by mobile networks as a replacement for SMS. MMS allows the user to send and receive pictures, audio and short video content (around 250k files). The cost of MMS combined with limited user need has seen a relatively small take up, with 100 million messages per month being sent in the UK (around 2% of the SMS volumes).
Mobile Data Charges – refers to mobile operator charges for accessing the internet and email. In effect, to download anything from the internet the user is charged for data. This can be as high as £7 per megabyte and is additional to a PSMS charged by the content provider. Many users are not aware of the data charges until they appear on their phone bill. Recent flat rate data charges – around £7.50 per month for 1 – 2 gig of downloads has alleviated this, but mobile users not on a flat rate plan are likely to be put off downloading content due to the high charges.
Mobile Operating Systems – There are a number of mobile operating systems used by handset manufacturers – Symbian, Windows Mobile, Ajax, Linux. There are other systems specific to certain phones such as the Blackberry and the iphone. The battle for the dominant mobile OS is likely to develop in the next 12 months and the main players will probably be Symbian, Windows Mobile and Google’s Android.
Mobile Operators – are the companies that own and operate the mobile infrastructure – in the UK they are Vodafone, T-Mobile, O2, Orange and 3. Operators such as Virgin Mobile lease capacity from the main operators.
Mobile Portal – an entry point into the mobile web. The mobile operators run their own portals, and is typically the first point of call for a mobile user logging on to the internet.
MSISDN – the number of a mobile phone. The MSISDN is carried in all SMS and MMS and offers an ideal way to identify a specific user. It cannot be identified when the mobile user is browsing the internet.
Ofcom – The telecoms and media regulator. Any premium rate issues will be dealt with by PhonepayPlus (ICSTIS), but Ofcom will deal with non-premium issues such as SMS spam. Their site has excellent guidance on acceptable usage.
PSMS – Premium SMS – is a message that is charged to the users phone. The charge is on receipt of a message, sometimes referred to as a reverse billing SMS. In order to comply with the regulations, the user must send a request message to a shortcode (a 5 or 6 digit number).
The price of the PSMS is determined by the shortcode number used for the message. These shortcodes are priced at 10p, 25p, 50p, 75p, £1, £1.50, £3 and £5. Billings can also be multiples of the price eg 2 x £1, where the user will receive 2 messages at £1.
Shortcode – a five or six number code for both receiving SMS from and sending Premium SMS to mobile users. Each shortcode is owned by a service provider who aggregates the number across all of the major networks. Shortcodes are country specific and cannot be sent/received outside the country of origin.
SMS – Short Message Service – an SMS is 160 characters of text and 12 characters of header (such as a reply number). Unlike email, for example, an SMS cannot carry additional header information or picture or video content. There are over 4 billion text messages sent each month in the UK – more messages than voice calls made.
SMSC – SMS Centre or gateway. An SMS centre provides a connection between the mobile networks and the internet. They will typically act as an aggregator by offering a single IP-based connection across all networks. They will also set up and get the agreements for shortcodes across the mobile operators.
Subscription/Recurring Billing – is a revenue option that allows the content provider to accept a single SMS request from a mobile user and continue to send messages monthly, weekly or even daily until an opt out or ‘STOP’ message is received. This was commonly used in the ringtone market boom as a method of maximising revenue. However stricter controls have been put in place, particularly with regard to subscription billing from under 16s.
URL Sending – a common method for delivering content by SMS. The text message will contain a URL link, which, when opened will download the content.
WAP – Wireless Application Protocol – the protocol has been widely available since 2000 and was designed to offer a simplified version of web browsing from mobile phones.
Wap Push – or Wap Push Message is a method of delivering mobile content by SMS. The Wap Push is essentially a text message with a URL to the content and configured as a Service Message. It will prompt the handset user to open the URL or download the content. Due to abuse by unscrupulous companies Wap Push can no longer be used in Premium SMS.
Wireless – it used to be the word my grandparents used for their radio! These days it general refers to wireless computer networks, or WiFi. Confusingly ‘wireless’ tends to be the term used in the states for mobile networks.
WML – Wireless Mark Up Language – similar to HTML, WML was designed to be specifically used on mobile. As mobile handsets have developed WML has become less important for delivering web-type content, with XML, compact HTML and HTML also running on many mobile browsers.
© Mark Brill, Ping Corporation Ltd 2007
Monday, October 29, 2007
The Mobile Goldmine?
The predictions are that mobile content - pictures, audio, video and games - will be a massive market within the next few years. What are the opportunities and threats for developers of that content? Mark Brill from Ping Corporation Ltd looks at the issues for mobile content, and what the future may hold.
The Opportunities
All of the research shows that mobile content is going to be massive in the next five years. Screen digest estimated the value of this content to be £5.46bn a year by 2011. A 2006 Gartner Survey estimated that mobile content would be worth a less conservative $78 billion within the next 5 years.
We have already seen a 'first wave' of mobile content, largely dominated by ringtones and backgrounds. However the predicted 'second wave' of mobile content is almost upon us and it is expected to generate greater revenues, with a longer lifespan than the first wave.
What will bring about this second wave?
The growth in mobile content will be driven by improvements in technology such as higher resolution screens, better software and improved data connections, such as 3G.
Handset technology is converging with internet technologies through the introduction of devices such as the I-phone and the impending Google Phone. The line between phone, music or video player and PDA is becoming seamless.
At the same time the mobile phone operators are reviewing their pricing policies for data. Until recently, the cost of downloading was a few pounds per megabyte. This was a major barrier to downloading content. Most of the operators in the UK are now offering a flat rate for data, following a similar model to home broadband.
Premium SMS offers a simple revenue model allowing micro payments to be taken quickly. Identifying a phone number through SMS also allows for easy user and age verification with content restriction to unregistered phones.
The growth of 3rd party developers will continue. Many industry observers regard D2C (direct to consumer) as the most likely area to succeed with the most engaging content and the best user experience.
With over 3 billion phones worldwide, mobile technology is in wider use than PC-based internet access or television. As such it has the potential to become an enormously powerful tool for selling and distributing http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifcontent. A goldmine for mobile content providers.
Selling onto mobile
Typically the route to market is as follows:
* Content is created - pictures, video or audio
* The content provider sells through a distributor - such as Player-X or direct to the consumer via a platform such as .
Distributors will generally work with operator portals, such as Vodafone Live or T-Mobile's T-Zones. This is always operated on a revenue share - the content is not bought outright, but the revenue from Premium SMS is shared between the portal, distributor and content developer.
A D2C platform, such as immedia24 offers considerably more control over the content and a larger revenue share. Potentially it has a higher audience than the operator portal simply because many operators insist on exclusivity for content. The disadvantage is that there is no existing mobile customer base. D2C works well where there is already an audience through the web or other media, or where there is an advertising budget to see the content.
The Threats
In spite of some great opportunities, there are still many problems with creating and delivering mobile content.
Mobile Internet is accessed by only 23% of mobile users in the UK. Although at over 15m people that is still a considerable market, it is not as ubiquitous as SMS.
Whilst there are many people who can create great mobile content, the route to delivery is problematic. The mobile operators have generally regarded themselves as the key providers of mobile content, assuming that most people will want to download through their portals. However, it has been shown that the mobile users do not regard their operator as a trustworthy content provider. Operator Interference The operators have tried to restrict 3rd party content in many ways. Unlike an internet service provider, the mobile operators' online connections are made via their portals. Not only do they restrict which sites can be accessed, but they often alter the content itself. Ostensibly this has been under the guise of formatting the content for mobile, however there are examples of operators altering the display of 3rd party sites to remove much of the functionality and ruin the user experience.
Poor User Experience
The problems with poor user experience also relates to both the handsets themselves and the route to delivery. Whilst screen resolution, memory and functionality have improved on many handsets, usability can still be poor. The I-phone for example has been plagued with problems - everything from the battery life to high data charges. In the UK the I-phone will be locked to the O2 network. So if you want to change networks you will simply be left with a £400 brick!
At the point of download user experience has been equally poor. For example 3g in the UK is not as fast as broadband and is not always available. Poor pricing policies have compounded these problems. High profile Premium Rate rip-offs combined with confusing charges has resulted in many mobile users steering well clear of anything that may involve a premium rate SMS for downloading. Although flat rate data pricing is common place in the UK, the charges for accessing data abroad are still over £7 per megabyte.
Compatibility
A variety of operating systems, screen sizes and screen ratios make delivery of pictures, video and audio somewhat problematic. This is largely a technical issue for developers rather than the content creator. However the fact that there are few standards in mobile operating systems means that in the end the user will suffer. One poor experience with mobile content can put a user off for a very long time.
Low Premium Rate SMS Payouts
Whilst Premium SMS (PSMS) offers some great opportunities for both micro billing and non-credit card billing systems, the payouts offered by the networks are very low. For a £1.50 PSMS that the user pays (£1.26 after VAT), the operator and aggregator will take over 30p. This figure can be much higher on some networks. This leaves little over 90p for the content provider, creator or developer.
It means that the content provider can be forced into a position of charging considerably more for mobile content than when it is delivered though credit card billing on a web-site.
The Possibilities
With all these draw backs you may be thinking that there is little point in pursuing the Mobile Goldmine. However the potential of the mobile content market clearly exists. The issue, as with any new information technology, is to ensure that the needs of the user are understood and clearly met.
The convergence argument suggests that as we adopt more I-phone style handsets the line between mobile and web will disappear. Simply put, there is no need for developers to worry about mobile content specifically as we will all have the web on our phones.
Looking at the threats outlined above, it is clear that a division will remain between the internet and mobile. Inevitably small screen sizes and keypads will always create a different experience for the user. If I look at my own usage of mobile internet, I will acknowledge an email, but not write a lengthy reply. Whilst I may search for a film showing time or check an address on my web connected phone, I would not use it to book a flight or make a bank transfer. That is, as much as anything else a practical consideration of what it is possible to do with a small keyboard or screen.
Understanding the Technology
The key to accessing the Mobile Goldmine is to understand the relationship between a user and the technology. For example, we relate to our TV quite differently to our PC and the web, even though these days the technologies are similar.
What is the relationship between a user and their phone?
* Primarily it is for SMS (over 4 billion are sent each month in the UK) and phone calls
* It is a means of storing phone numbers - over 60% of people use their mobile as their main, often their only address book
* It is a means of killing time - playing games or sending messages while waiting for a bus, train or friend
* The phone is linked to personal identity
This last point is significant. For many people, the phone that they own, the ringtone or the background are all statements about how they see themselves. It is a highly personal item that is with them almost of the time. We have seen this in our studies with teenage mobile users, where their phone is now more significant to their peers than the clothes or the trainers they wear. Two years ago the Motorola Razor was the best selling phone, even though it performed the worst in usability tests. It was sleek, flat and came in bright pink. These factors were more important than the practical considerations.
Thus the key to successful mobile content is to develop specific content that meets the needs of the user. The first key to success is good usability. It is estimated that for each additional click required to access content, the provider will loose 30% of it's potential audience.
It should then engage the user in a way that supports their identity. In some areas, such as music or sport it is quite straight forward to engage at this level. In sectors such as the film or television, it may prove to be harder requiring more creative skills and ideas. It is also important to view mobile content not as an end in itself, but as a tool to enhance the user's experience across many platforms, such as the web, television or cinema. There are numerous examples where the web has successfully been used to enhance and support more traditional media and mobile may be used in the same way.
Ultimately the best approach to developing mobile content is not to be driven by the capabilities of the technology, but rather to understand the user's relationship with their phone and produce clever and engaging content.
The Opportunities
All of the research shows that mobile content is going to be massive in the next five years. Screen digest estimated the value of this content to be £5.46bn a year by 2011. A 2006 Gartner Survey estimated that mobile content would be worth a less conservative $78 billion within the next 5 years.
We have already seen a 'first wave' of mobile content, largely dominated by ringtones and backgrounds. However the predicted 'second wave' of mobile content is almost upon us and it is expected to generate greater revenues, with a longer lifespan than the first wave.
What will bring about this second wave?
The growth in mobile content will be driven by improvements in technology such as higher resolution screens, better software and improved data connections, such as 3G.
Handset technology is converging with internet technologies through the introduction of devices such as the I-phone and the impending Google Phone. The line between phone, music or video player and PDA is becoming seamless.
At the same time the mobile phone operators are reviewing their pricing policies for data. Until recently, the cost of downloading was a few pounds per megabyte. This was a major barrier to downloading content. Most of the operators in the UK are now offering a flat rate for data, following a similar model to home broadband.
Premium SMS offers a simple revenue model allowing micro payments to be taken quickly. Identifying a phone number through SMS also allows for easy user and age verification with content restriction to unregistered phones.
The growth of 3rd party developers will continue. Many industry observers regard D2C (direct to consumer) as the most likely area to succeed with the most engaging content and the best user experience.
With over 3 billion phones worldwide, mobile technology is in wider use than PC-based internet access or television. As such it has the potential to become an enormously powerful tool for selling and distributing http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifcontent. A goldmine for mobile content providers.
Selling onto mobile
Typically the route to market is as follows:
* Content is created - pictures, video or audio
* The content provider sells through a distributor - such as Player-X or direct to the consumer via a platform such as .
Distributors will generally work with operator portals, such as Vodafone Live or T-Mobile's T-Zones. This is always operated on a revenue share - the content is not bought outright, but the revenue from Premium SMS is shared between the portal, distributor and content developer.
A D2C platform, such as immedia24 offers considerably more control over the content and a larger revenue share. Potentially it has a higher audience than the operator portal simply because many operators insist on exclusivity for content. The disadvantage is that there is no existing mobile customer base. D2C works well where there is already an audience through the web or other media, or where there is an advertising budget to see the content.
The Threats
In spite of some great opportunities, there are still many problems with creating and delivering mobile content.
Mobile Internet is accessed by only 23% of mobile users in the UK. Although at over 15m people that is still a considerable market, it is not as ubiquitous as SMS.
Whilst there are many people who can create great mobile content, the route to delivery is problematic. The mobile operators have generally regarded themselves as the key providers of mobile content, assuming that most people will want to download through their portals. However, it has been shown that the mobile users do not regard their operator as a trustworthy content provider. Operator Interference The operators have tried to restrict 3rd party content in many ways. Unlike an internet service provider, the mobile operators' online connections are made via their portals. Not only do they restrict which sites can be accessed, but they often alter the content itself. Ostensibly this has been under the guise of formatting the content for mobile, however there are examples of operators altering the display of 3rd party sites to remove much of the functionality and ruin the user experience.
Poor User Experience
The problems with poor user experience also relates to both the handsets themselves and the route to delivery. Whilst screen resolution, memory and functionality have improved on many handsets, usability can still be poor. The I-phone for example has been plagued with problems - everything from the battery life to high data charges. In the UK the I-phone will be locked to the O2 network. So if you want to change networks you will simply be left with a £400 brick!
At the point of download user experience has been equally poor. For example 3g in the UK is not as fast as broadband and is not always available. Poor pricing policies have compounded these problems. High profile Premium Rate rip-offs combined with confusing charges has resulted in many mobile users steering well clear of anything that may involve a premium rate SMS for downloading. Although flat rate data pricing is common place in the UK, the charges for accessing data abroad are still over £7 per megabyte.
Compatibility
A variety of operating systems, screen sizes and screen ratios make delivery of pictures, video and audio somewhat problematic. This is largely a technical issue for developers rather than the content creator. However the fact that there are few standards in mobile operating systems means that in the end the user will suffer. One poor experience with mobile content can put a user off for a very long time.
Low Premium Rate SMS Payouts
Whilst Premium SMS (PSMS) offers some great opportunities for both micro billing and non-credit card billing systems, the payouts offered by the networks are very low. For a £1.50 PSMS that the user pays (£1.26 after VAT), the operator and aggregator will take over 30p. This figure can be much higher on some networks. This leaves little over 90p for the content provider, creator or developer.
It means that the content provider can be forced into a position of charging considerably more for mobile content than when it is delivered though credit card billing on a web-site.
The Possibilities
With all these draw backs you may be thinking that there is little point in pursuing the Mobile Goldmine. However the potential of the mobile content market clearly exists. The issue, as with any new information technology, is to ensure that the needs of the user are understood and clearly met.
The convergence argument suggests that as we adopt more I-phone style handsets the line between mobile and web will disappear. Simply put, there is no need for developers to worry about mobile content specifically as we will all have the web on our phones.
Looking at the threats outlined above, it is clear that a division will remain between the internet and mobile. Inevitably small screen sizes and keypads will always create a different experience for the user. If I look at my own usage of mobile internet, I will acknowledge an email, but not write a lengthy reply. Whilst I may search for a film showing time or check an address on my web connected phone, I would not use it to book a flight or make a bank transfer. That is, as much as anything else a practical consideration of what it is possible to do with a small keyboard or screen.
Understanding the Technology
The key to accessing the Mobile Goldmine is to understand the relationship between a user and the technology. For example, we relate to our TV quite differently to our PC and the web, even though these days the technologies are similar.
What is the relationship between a user and their phone?
* Primarily it is for SMS (over 4 billion are sent each month in the UK) and phone calls
* It is a means of storing phone numbers - over 60% of people use their mobile as their main, often their only address book
* It is a means of killing time - playing games or sending messages while waiting for a bus, train or friend
* The phone is linked to personal identity
This last point is significant. For many people, the phone that they own, the ringtone or the background are all statements about how they see themselves. It is a highly personal item that is with them almost of the time. We have seen this in our studies with teenage mobile users, where their phone is now more significant to their peers than the clothes or the trainers they wear. Two years ago the Motorola Razor was the best selling phone, even though it performed the worst in usability tests. It was sleek, flat and came in bright pink. These factors were more important than the practical considerations.
Thus the key to successful mobile content is to develop specific content that meets the needs of the user. The first key to success is good usability. It is estimated that for each additional click required to access content, the provider will loose 30% of it's potential audience.
It should then engage the user in a way that supports their identity. In some areas, such as music or sport it is quite straight forward to engage at this level. In sectors such as the film or television, it may prove to be harder requiring more creative skills and ideas. It is also important to view mobile content not as an end in itself, but as a tool to enhance the user's experience across many platforms, such as the web, television or cinema. There are numerous examples where the web has successfully been used to enhance and support more traditional media and mobile may be used in the same way.
Ultimately the best approach to developing mobile content is not to be driven by the capabilities of the technology, but rather to understand the user's relationship with their phone and produce clever and engaging content.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Mint's SMS Payment Service
Mint, the credit card company, has launched an SMS alert and payment service for their customers. It works by sending the balance and minimum payment to their customers to coincide with the monthly statement.
They can reply by text giving the amount they wish to pay.
Customers signing up for the mobile service register their debit card and mobile phone details before agreeing a security code word, which is transmitted in all messages.
Mint offered this service after research showed that 27% of UK adults say they are too busy to pay by traditional methods.
Too often SMS based systems, especially for banking and finance are over blown and complex. This is a good example of a simple application that will benefit the customer and reduce costs to the bank.
They can reply by text giving the amount they wish to pay.
Customers signing up for the mobile service register their debit card and mobile phone details before agreeing a security code word, which is transmitted in all messages.
Mint offered this service after research showed that 27% of UK adults say they are too busy to pay by traditional methods.
Too often SMS based systems, especially for banking and finance are over blown and complex. This is a good example of a simple application that will benefit the customer and reduce costs to the bank.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Avoiding SMS and Phone Scandals
With the recent scandals involving phone and text lines in the media, public confidence has been damaged and the reputation of companies providing these services has been tarnished.
Recent scandals were: Richard and Judy Phone-In, Blue Peter Phone In, voting for ITV programmes by SMS.
Inevitably this is a small number from many phone-based transactions that are correctly carried out. However, it has led to a 20% drop in ITV’s revenues and BBC removing these from their programmes.
This paper looks at what the issues are for companies providing these services and how txt4ever and immedia24 systems and service avoid such problems.
Why Has There Been Problems?
Firstly it is important to take a look at why some of these errors occurred:
Richard and Judy Show, Channel 4
The problem was that the winner had been chosen some time before the lines had been closed. In effect people were paying to enter a competition which they could not win.
This problem had occurred because the team at their telecom provider, had made a decision to do this.
The biggest issue with this seems to be one of accountability. Who, at a senior level at the telecoms company or for that matter, Channel 4 was ensuring that the competition was complying with the regulations?
X-Factor, ITV
In this instance viewers were charged 50p rather than the advertised 35p giving a reported £200,000 of additional income.
ITV uncovered the problem during their own audit and responded quickly by making a sizable donation to charity. They were not fined by Ofcom.
The reasons for this error have not been reported, but it is likely to be human error where the systems were set to bill at the wrong price. Each ‘price’ is linked to a specific PSMS number – a 5 digit short code. It is quite possible that operators could have mistakenly chosen the wrong 5 digit number.
The BBC Blue Peter scam was connected to a phone-in, but it was not a telecoms error. The TV producers picked a ‘winner’ from the studio audience, not the voters.
Prevention
Built in Systems
It is important that systems prevent the possibility of human error or fraudulent activity as much as possible.
For example, with the problems at Channel 4, it would have been relatively simple to design the system so that the winner was picked out from the database of entrants. Once this had been done the system would no longer allow entries.
With the incorrect price setting in the X-Factor scenario, it is impossible to do this within immedia24 or txt4ever. All of our premium rate systems work on the basis of replying to an incoming message from a user.
The cost of the reply is clearly shown when it is set by the user, rather than simply showing the 5 digit number used. There is a further confirmation once this has been set.
The system also generates the necessary copy to add to any publicity or announcement (eg texts cost 25p + 1 message at your standard rate).
Thus the only way to make an error with the system is to act either fraudulently or negligently by ignoring the published rates and changing the price shown on the copy.
Open Accounting
Aside from improving systems, the human error or even dishonest side cannot be ignored. To prevent many of these problems there should have been better checking at a more senior level. Better accounting on the side of the TV companies may have helped prevent these problems.
Our systems are designed to give clients complete accounting on a real-time basis. So, for example if an SMS was advertised at 35p but was charging 50p the end client could view the live messages and see that there was an error.
All of our message reports and transaction reports can exported as a data file, which can be used by clients for accounting and further analysis.
On our customer support side, we monitor all of our systems throughout the day and test each new campaign set up by our clients.
Our own back end accounting system will also highlight any anomalies in the billing system. An example of how this has been managed is with fraudulent credit card transactions relating to our personal SMS product. We discovered a number of transactions from non-UK users that were clearly fraudulent in spite of the fact that they passed checks by both the bank and online processor. The system that we designed eradicates the fraud problem by checking the user details along side the username, password and even some message content. This is something that the credit card processing companies have been unable to do.
We are therefore confident that we can initiate other fraud checking and prevention facilities for other areas in our system.
Terms and Conditions Penalties
Along with providing good systems and accountability, we have included penalties in our Terms and Conditions which requires our clients to ensure the good management of their campaigns. Where conditions have been breached, for example a premium SMS campaign where the advertised price is different to the actual price, we would have the right to both suspend and account and to retain outstanding monies to cover any losses. Even though an out-payment to a supplier would be around 90p for a £1.50 premium message, we would retain all of the £1.50 in order to facilitate a refund to the mobile user – something that would be impossible to do via the mobile phone networks.
Conclusion
TV voting and phone-in’s have been seen as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow by both broadcasters and telecoms providers alike. This gold-rush by some telecoms providers has not necessarily been matched by good technology or accounting systems to manage this. This is not surprising in an industry which is characterised by hidden and expensive charges.
The profits of the last few years from TV-based voting are set to drop. Channel 4 has halved the price of Big Brother Voting and the general decline in viewers to reality TV will see fewer voters.
The focus of our products and our service is very different to this. Our underlying ethos is not about gaining a quick buck from a TV campaign. What we are doing is creating an ongoing and beneficial relationship with our customers and the end mobile user.
Recent scandals were: Richard and Judy Phone-In, Blue Peter Phone In, voting for ITV programmes by SMS.
Inevitably this is a small number from many phone-based transactions that are correctly carried out. However, it has led to a 20% drop in ITV’s revenues and BBC removing these from their programmes.
This paper looks at what the issues are for companies providing these services and how txt4ever and immedia24 systems and service avoid such problems.
Why Has There Been Problems?
Firstly it is important to take a look at why some of these errors occurred:
Richard and Judy Show, Channel 4
The problem was that the winner had been chosen some time before the lines had been closed. In effect people were paying to enter a competition which they could not win.
This problem had occurred because the team at their telecom provider, had made a decision to do this.
The biggest issue with this seems to be one of accountability. Who, at a senior level at the telecoms company or for that matter, Channel 4 was ensuring that the competition was complying with the regulations?
X-Factor, ITV
In this instance viewers were charged 50p rather than the advertised 35p giving a reported £200,000 of additional income.
ITV uncovered the problem during their own audit and responded quickly by making a sizable donation to charity. They were not fined by Ofcom.
The reasons for this error have not been reported, but it is likely to be human error where the systems were set to bill at the wrong price. Each ‘price’ is linked to a specific PSMS number – a 5 digit short code. It is quite possible that operators could have mistakenly chosen the wrong 5 digit number.
The BBC Blue Peter scam was connected to a phone-in, but it was not a telecoms error. The TV producers picked a ‘winner’ from the studio audience, not the voters.
Prevention
Built in Systems
It is important that systems prevent the possibility of human error or fraudulent activity as much as possible.
For example, with the problems at Channel 4, it would have been relatively simple to design the system so that the winner was picked out from the database of entrants. Once this had been done the system would no longer allow entries.
With the incorrect price setting in the X-Factor scenario, it is impossible to do this within immedia24 or txt4ever. All of our premium rate systems work on the basis of replying to an incoming message from a user.
The cost of the reply is clearly shown when it is set by the user, rather than simply showing the 5 digit number used. There is a further confirmation once this has been set.
The system also generates the necessary copy to add to any publicity or announcement (eg texts cost 25p + 1 message at your standard rate).
Thus the only way to make an error with the system is to act either fraudulently or negligently by ignoring the published rates and changing the price shown on the copy.
Open Accounting
Aside from improving systems, the human error or even dishonest side cannot be ignored. To prevent many of these problems there should have been better checking at a more senior level. Better accounting on the side of the TV companies may have helped prevent these problems.
Our systems are designed to give clients complete accounting on a real-time basis. So, for example if an SMS was advertised at 35p but was charging 50p the end client could view the live messages and see that there was an error.
All of our message reports and transaction reports can exported as a data file, which can be used by clients for accounting and further analysis.
On our customer support side, we monitor all of our systems throughout the day and test each new campaign set up by our clients.
Our own back end accounting system will also highlight any anomalies in the billing system. An example of how this has been managed is with fraudulent credit card transactions relating to our personal SMS product. We discovered a number of transactions from non-UK users that were clearly fraudulent in spite of the fact that they passed checks by both the bank and online processor. The system that we designed eradicates the fraud problem by checking the user details along side the username, password and even some message content. This is something that the credit card processing companies have been unable to do.
We are therefore confident that we can initiate other fraud checking and prevention facilities for other areas in our system.
Terms and Conditions Penalties
Along with providing good systems and accountability, we have included penalties in our Terms and Conditions which requires our clients to ensure the good management of their campaigns. Where conditions have been breached, for example a premium SMS campaign where the advertised price is different to the actual price, we would have the right to both suspend and account and to retain outstanding monies to cover any losses. Even though an out-payment to a supplier would be around 90p for a £1.50 premium message, we would retain all of the £1.50 in order to facilitate a refund to the mobile user – something that would be impossible to do via the mobile phone networks.
Conclusion
TV voting and phone-in’s have been seen as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow by both broadcasters and telecoms providers alike. This gold-rush by some telecoms providers has not necessarily been matched by good technology or accounting systems to manage this. This is not surprising in an industry which is characterised by hidden and expensive charges.
The profits of the last few years from TV-based voting are set to drop. Channel 4 has halved the price of Big Brother Voting and the general decline in viewers to reality TV will see fewer voters.
The focus of our products and our service is very different to this. Our underlying ethos is not about gaining a quick buck from a TV campaign. What we are doing is creating an ongoing and beneficial relationship with our customers and the end mobile user.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Keys Money Fags Phone
A friend of mine bought me a badge from The Design Museum that said 'Keys, Money, Fags, Phone' ... it's highly appropriate because that is me!!!
It also highlights the point about today's living - your phone is as important as your keys or money. Primarily it's a communication device, but for many people it's also an alarm clock, calendar, organiser, camera or music player.
That has an important bareing for those developing applications for mobile or communication to mobile. It's the device that we have with us pretty much all of the time.
It also highlights the point about today's living - your phone is as important as your keys or money. Primarily it's a communication device, but for many people it's also an alarm clock, calendar, organiser, camera or music player.
That has an important bareing for those developing applications for mobile or communication to mobile. It's the device that we have with us pretty much all of the time.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
SEEKING THE INDUSTRY’S OPINION ON MOBILE PUBLISHING
Formation, a leading developer of web and mobile applications, are seeking the opinions of the industry to understand how they feel about mobile music. They have produced an online survey, which is now online at ihttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifmmedia24.com
The company would like to enable artist, independent labels and promoters to deliver to music to mobile users. immedia24 was launched in March 2007, and has been used by The Beats – Mike Skinners’ labels.
Marketing Manager Gunvor Overbye says “We have noticed that the industry is not taking advantage of the change in mobile usage and we are interested to find out why that is”
Formation is looking at getting a broad cross section of the industry to answer the survey and will conduct follow-up interview with anyone who has got more to say.
Gunvor Overbye added: We are trying to help the industry to understand what is going on. Many people in the music are often fearful of this new technology. This survey will enable us to get a view of where things are really going.
The survey can be found here.
The results will be published at the end of the summer on the website.
The company would like to enable artist, independent labels and promoters to deliver to music to mobile users. immedia24 was launched in March 2007, and has been used by The Beats – Mike Skinners’ labels.
Marketing Manager Gunvor Overbye says “We have noticed that the industry is not taking advantage of the change in mobile usage and we are interested to find out why that is”
Formation is looking at getting a broad cross section of the industry to answer the survey and will conduct follow-up interview with anyone who has got more to say.
Gunvor Overbye added: We are trying to help the industry to understand what is going on. Many people in the music are often fearful of this new technology. This survey will enable us to get a view of where things are really going.
The survey can be found here.
The results will be published at the end of the summer on the website.
Why people prefer SMS to email ....
The following article appeared in 160characters.org:
84% of users expect a SMS response in five minutes according to an online survey by 160 Characters that looked at how different messaging platforms elicit differing response times.
The survey looked at the messaging habits of end-users across email, instant messaging and SMS in personal and work environments.
The results highlight the ongoing preference for using SMS as a key communication tool, especially when an immediate or near immediate response is required. Most people would respond to a personal SMS (84%) in less than 30 minutes according to the results of the poll while only 56% would respond in that time to a work related message.
WAITING FOR YOUR EMAIL
26% of respondents would take between two and five hours to reply to a personal email and 31% would wait till the next day to reply.
With so many work related emails, one respondent noted that "The important ones get an immediate response; the others take about an hour."
However, 26% said it would take them two to five hours to reply and 22% would keep you waiting till the next day. At least this was better than the response time to personal email with 31% waiting for the next day.
MMS STILL TOO SLOW
No one admitted to not using SMS for personal reasons but 12% still don't use it at work. However this compares to 60% who would never use MMS for work related communications with long delivery times cited as the main reason.
Instant Messaging (IM)
Mobile IM still has some way to go for both business and personal use with 42% not using mobile IM for personal reasons and 54% not using it for business.
This compares to the PC where only 15% don't use PC based IM for personal and 27% not using in business.
For those that do use Mobile IM, 57% expect a reply within 5 minutes for a personal message while only 18% expect a business reply in that time.
IM IN SMS CLOTHING
There seems to be a trend to launch mobile Instant Messaging under the guize of an upgraded SMS.
In reality users will pick the messaging type depending on what it is for:
If you're running late for a meeting you'll send a text
If you want to chat/flirt you'll probably use IM
Announce your new boyfriend/girlfriend - MySpace or Face Book
Quiet chat with the boss - Email
People will tend to use different communication technologies depending on the context, where they are at the time and what they want to communicate.
84% of users expect a SMS response in five minutes according to an online survey by 160 Characters that looked at how different messaging platforms elicit differing response times.
The survey looked at the messaging habits of end-users across email, instant messaging and SMS in personal and work environments.
The results highlight the ongoing preference for using SMS as a key communication tool, especially when an immediate or near immediate response is required. Most people would respond to a personal SMS (84%) in less than 30 minutes according to the results of the poll while only 56% would respond in that time to a work related message.
WAITING FOR YOUR EMAIL
26% of respondents would take between two and five hours to reply to a personal email and 31% would wait till the next day to reply.
With so many work related emails, one respondent noted that "The important ones get an immediate response; the others take about an hour."
However, 26% said it would take them two to five hours to reply and 22% would keep you waiting till the next day. At least this was better than the response time to personal email with 31% waiting for the next day.
MMS STILL TOO SLOW
No one admitted to not using SMS for personal reasons but 12% still don't use it at work. However this compares to 60% who would never use MMS for work related communications with long delivery times cited as the main reason.
Instant Messaging (IM)
Mobile IM still has some way to go for both business and personal use with 42% not using mobile IM for personal reasons and 54% not using it for business.
This compares to the PC where only 15% don't use PC based IM for personal and 27% not using in business.
For those that do use Mobile IM, 57% expect a reply within 5 minutes for a personal message while only 18% expect a business reply in that time.
IM IN SMS CLOTHING
There seems to be a trend to launch mobile Instant Messaging under the guize of an upgraded SMS.
In reality users will pick the messaging type depending on what it is for:
If you're running late for a meeting you'll send a text
If you want to chat/flirt you'll probably use IM
Announce your new boyfriend/girlfriend - MySpace or Face Book
Quiet chat with the boss - Email
People will tend to use different communication technologies depending on the context, where they are at the time and what they want to communicate.
84% of users expect a SMS response in five minutes according to an online survey by 160 Characters that looked at how different messaging platforms elicit differing response times.
The survey looked at the messaging habits of end-users across email, instant messaging and SMS in personal and work environments.
The results highlight the ongoing preference for using SMS as a key communication tool, especially when an immediate or near immediate response is required. Most people would respond to a personal SMS (84%) in less than 30 minutes according to the results of the poll while only 56% would respond in that time to a work related message.
While it is true as one respondent commented that the response time "depends on the context and the person sending/receiving the mail", differences emerge between the broad context of messages and between business and personal use. For example:
WAITING FOR YOUR EMAIL
26% of respondents would take between two and five hours to reply to a personal email and 31% would wait till the next day to reply.
With so many work related emails, one respondent noted that "The important ones get an immediate response; the others take about an hour."
However, 26% said it would take them two to five hours to reply and 22% would keep you waiting till the next day. At least this was better than the response time to personal email with 31% waiting for the next day.
MMS STILL TOO SLOW
No one admitted to not using SMS for personal reasons but 12% still don't use it at work. However this compares to 60% who would never use MMS for work related communications with long delivery times cited as the main reason.
Instant Messaging (IM)
Mobile IM still has some way to go for both business and personal use with 42% not using mobile IM for personal reasons and 54% not using it for business.
This compares to the PC where only 15% don't use PC based IM for personal and 27% not using in business.
For those that do use Mobile IM, 57% expect a reply within 5 minutes for a personal message while only 18% expect a business reply in that time.
IM IN SMS CLOTHING
There seems to be a trend to launch mobile Instant Messaging under the guize of an upgraded SMS. Mike Grenville, chairman and founder of 160 Characters said: “There is a temptation for Operators to merge messaging types as networks become more sophisticated. These results show that consumers are well aware of the different features of each messaging type and that they are comfortable choosing the message type most suited to the context of the message. “
The survey looked at the messaging habits of end-users across email, instant messaging and SMS in personal and work environments.
The results highlight the ongoing preference for using SMS as a key communication tool, especially when an immediate or near immediate response is required. Most people would respond to a personal SMS (84%) in less than 30 minutes according to the results of the poll while only 56% would respond in that time to a work related message.
While it is true as one respondent commented that the response time "depends on the context and the person sending/receiving the mail", differences emerge between the broad context of messages and between business and personal use. For example:
WAITING FOR YOUR EMAIL
26% of respondents would take between two and five hours to reply to a personal email and 31% would wait till the next day to reply.
With so many work related emails, one respondent noted that "The important ones get an immediate response; the others take about an hour."
However, 26% said it would take them two to five hours to reply and 22% would keep you waiting till the next day. At least this was better than the response time to personal email with 31% waiting for the next day.
MMS STILL TOO SLOW
No one admitted to not using SMS for personal reasons but 12% still don't use it at work. However this compares to 60% who would never use MMS for work related communications with long delivery times cited as the main reason.
Instant Messaging (IM)
Mobile IM still has some way to go for both business and personal use with 42% not using mobile IM for personal reasons and 54% not using it for business.
This compares to the PC where only 15% don't use PC based IM for personal and 27% not using in business.
For those that do use Mobile IM, 57% expect a reply within 5 minutes for a personal message while only 18% expect a business reply in that time.
IM IN SMS CLOTHING
There seems to be a trend to launch mobile Instant Messaging under the guize of an upgraded SMS. Mike Grenville, chairman and founder of 160 Characters said: “There is a temptation for Operators to merge messaging types as networks become more sophisticated. These results show that consumers are well aware of the different features of each messaging type and that they are comfortable choosing the message type most suited to the context of the message. “
SMS now outstrips voice calls in UK
Two interesting articles:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/03/jd_power_survey/
http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/news.phtml/7619/8643/Phones-Mobiles-Research-Survey-Cost.phtml
These show that SMS now outstrips voice calls in the UK.
This follows from the Ofcom findings last year, which noted that the majority of the UK prefer SMS text messaging to making voice calls.
Overall SMS grew by 15% in the UK in 2006.
This is not a world-wide trend though, as the reverse seems to be true in Germany.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/03/jd_power_survey/
http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/news.phtml/7619/8643/Phones-Mobiles-Research-Survey-Cost.phtml
These show that SMS now outstrips voice calls in the UK.
This follows from the Ofcom findings last year, which noted that the majority of the UK prefer SMS text messaging to making voice calls.
Overall SMS grew by 15% in the UK in 2006.
This is not a world-wide trend though, as the reverse seems to be true in Germany.
Monday, April 02, 2007
Free International Calls from Mobile
Here's quite a clever trick that someone told me about. A company called Speakeasy is offering international calls via low rate UK numbers.
These numbers are within your voice minutes so if you have enough minutes you can call internationally for free. If you don't have the minutes then its 5p per minute - still pretty good for international.
The access numbers are:
For Orange, T-Mobile and Virgin - 07744 787501
For O2 and BT Landlines (5p per minute) -
0844 8255001
These numbers are within your voice minutes so if you have enough minutes you can call internationally for free. If you don't have the minutes then its 5p per minute - still pretty good for international.
The access numbers are:
For Orange, T-Mobile and Virgin - 07744 787501
For O2 and BT Landlines (5p per minute) -
0844 8255001
As I understand it the way this works is that these numbers have not been exempted from call tariffs by those networks. All the company does is have a switching system that allows you to dial on to the international number once our through. They make their money on the call rebate cost.
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Mobile Links
Other than the need to find traffic, I have added some links here:
24 ringtone
3 mobile video phone
3 video mobile
3d mobile game
3g video mobile
3g video mobile phone
3gp mobile video
5 game mobile window
50 cent ringtone
accessory mobile ringtone
adriana download free mobile video
adult indian mobile phone video
adult mobile game
adult mobile phone video
adult mobile video
agnes download free mobile video
alltel ringtone
ambience download free mobile video
andrea download free mobile video
arcade game mobile phone
babe free mobile sexy video
background download mobile
background free for mobile phone
background mobile phone
background mobile phone wallpaper
background mobile theme
background mobile window
banner game gfx littlewoods.gif mobile
basketball download free mobile video
blackberry ringtone
bmx download free mobile video
bollywood download mobile song video
bollywood mobile song video
bollywood ringtone
bounce game mobile phone
bt mobile game
bulk sms gateway
buy game for a mobile phone
call mobile pakistan video
caller ringtone
24 ringtone
3 mobile video phone
3 video mobile
3d mobile game
3g video mobile
3g video mobile phone
3gp mobile video
5 game mobile window
50 cent ringtone
accessory mobile ringtone
adriana download free mobile video
adult indian mobile phone video
adult mobile game
adult mobile phone video
adult mobile video
agnes download free mobile video
alltel ringtone
ambience download free mobile video
andrea download free mobile video
arcade game mobile phone
babe free mobile sexy video
background download mobile
background free for mobile phone
background mobile phone
background mobile phone wallpaper
background mobile theme
background mobile window
banner game gfx littlewoods.gif mobile
basketball download free mobile video
blackberry ringtone
bmx download free mobile video
bollywood download mobile song video
bollywood mobile song video
bollywood ringtone
bounce game mobile phone
bt mobile game
bulk sms gateway
buy game for a mobile phone
call mobile pakistan video
caller ringtone
With mobile being such a personal form of communication it's hardly surprising that it should become a key channel for relationships.
A report in a US magazine gives a few examples of students being dumped by the their parterner by SMS ...
Sophomore zoology major Jessica Artl was getting ready for bed when her cell phone alerted her that she had received a text message - the words that ran across her cell phone screen were not the romantic sweet nothings she may have expected: "i think i just wanna b single right now."
Relationship rules and etiquette are seemingly shifting in an era of instant communication, making text message breakups a new and strikingly common reality for many estranged couples.
Another student Kyla Haywood said she was disappointed when her relationship ended in a text message.
"We were texting back and forth. I tried to call him but he wouldn't pick up, so I just said (text messaged) it was through," said Haywood. "It's unacceptable. I thought it was childish to text it, but he just wouldn't pick up the phone."
While some say they find that severing a relationship by way of text message is impersonal, if not downright cruel, others find that it's a practical and acceptable means of breaking ties. One male student said he has ended about three relationships through text messages, including one that simply read "i'm done w/u."
"You don't have to feel bad about it when you hear them crying over the phone or something," Upton said. "I don't really invest much into relationships."
http://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
Our worlwide SMS system, allows the setting up of message templates. Perhaps for the uncommitted students we should enourage some 'dump your partner' templates to reduce even more effort in ending their relationship!
And there was I thinking the whole was to invest in a relationship!
In Dubai a senior cleric has allowed the country's men to divorce women by text. The thinking being that it is no different than a written note. The Islamic law says that a man may divorce his wife by saying (or writting) 'I divorce you' 3 times.
The report is not clear whether they would have to say it three times in one text, or once over 3 texts for the divorce to be acceptable.
A report in a US magazine gives a few examples of students being dumped by the their parterner by SMS ...
Sophomore zoology major Jessica Artl was getting ready for bed when her cell phone alerted her that she had received a text message - the words that ran across her cell phone screen were not the romantic sweet nothings she may have expected: "i think i just wanna b single right now."
Relationship rules and etiquette are seemingly shifting in an era of instant communication, making text message breakups a new and strikingly common reality for many estranged couples.
Another student Kyla Haywood said she was disappointed when her relationship ended in a text message.
"We were texting back and forth. I tried to call him but he wouldn't pick up, so I just said (text messaged) it was through," said Haywood. "It's unacceptable. I thought it was childish to text it, but he just wouldn't pick up the phone."
While some say they find that severing a relationship by way of text message is impersonal, if not downright cruel, others find that it's a practical and acceptable means of breaking ties. One male student said he has ended about three relationships through text messages, including one that simply read "i'm done w/u."
"You don't have to feel bad about it when you hear them crying over the phone or something," Upton said. "I don't really invest much into relationships."
http://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
Our worlwide SMS system, allows the setting up of message templates. Perhaps for the uncommitted students we should enourage some 'dump your partner' templates to reduce even more effort in ending their relationship!
And there was I thinking the whole was to invest in a relationship!
In Dubai a senior cleric has allowed the country's men to divorce women by text. The thinking being that it is no different than a written note. The Islamic law says that a man may divorce his wife by saying (or writting) 'I divorce you' 3 times.
The report is not clear whether they would have to say it three times in one text, or once over 3 texts for the divorce to be acceptable.
And the latest estimate for mobile content is ...
Another week and another estimate of the value of mobile content ...
According to 2007 Global Mobile - Data and Content Markets, a study by Paul Budde Communication Pty Ltd., the global mobile content market is expect to be valued at excess of $1 trillion.http://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
Obviously, this will have a definite impact on how information professionals will work in the future and the tools that will be available online. In addition, demands on professionals may changes in terms of expectations from clients and colleagues.
... products like immedia24 and are designed to address that market and delivery SMS and content seamlessly from the web.
According to 2007 Global Mobile - Data and Content Markets, a study by Paul Budde Communication Pty Ltd., the global mobile content market is expect to be valued at excess of $1 trillion.http://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
Obviously, this will have a definite impact on how information professionals will work in the future and the tools that will be available online. In addition, demands on professionals may changes in terms of expectations from clients and colleagues.
... products like immedia24 and are designed to address that market and delivery SMS and content seamlessly from the web.
Apple expects iphones to sell quickly
Well they would say that ...
Apple has dismissed critics who claim that $499 is too much for a mobile phone. The argument appears to be that people don’t pay a lot of money for mobile handsets because those handsets are worthless, and doesn’t want to compare the iPhone to others in a similar price range: “That kind of analysis doesn’t make really great products...The iPod would not have been brought to market if we would have looked at it that way — how many $399 music players were being sold at that time?” As such, it expects 10 million people to pay $499 for the phone next year.
The iPhone may sell well, even at a higher price point, but when Apple Chief Operating Officer Timothy Cook comes out and says something like “if we offer something that has tremendous value, that is sort of this thing people didn’t have in their consciousness—it was not imaginable” ... hmm.
On the carrier side, AT&T Chief Financial Officer Rick Lindner said that up to 75 percent of people buying the iPhone will be first-time subscribers to AT&T‘s mobile service.
Apple may have produced a great device, but it will not be a killer app until the price is within the mainstream and compares to similar high end handsets. However if the trend of the ipod is anything to go by, cheaper models around the $100 mark will soon appear and make it genuinely mass market.
Apple has dismissed critics who claim that $499 is too much for a mobile phone. The argument appears to be that people don’t pay a lot of money for mobile handsets because those handsets are worthless, and doesn’t want to compare the iPhone to others in a similar price range: “That kind of analysis doesn’t make really great products...The iPod would not have been brought to market if we would have looked at it that way — how many $399 music players were being sold at that time?” As such, it expects 10 million people to pay $499 for the phone next year.
The iPhone may sell well, even at a higher price point, but when Apple Chief Operating Officer Timothy Cook comes out and says something like “if we offer something that has tremendous value, that is sort of this thing people didn’t have in their consciousness—it was not imaginable” ... hmm.
On the carrier side, AT&T Chief Financial Officer Rick Lindner said that up to 75 percent of people buying the iPhone will be first-time subscribers to AT&T‘s mobile service.
Apple may have produced a great device, but it will not be a killer app until the price is within the mainstream and compares to similar high end handsets. However if the trend of the ipod is anything to go by, cheaper models around the $100 mark will soon appear and make it genuinely mass market.
SMS aids democracy
The term 'Free SMS' takes on a whole new meaning ...
The African nation of Zimbabwe has a new take on mobile radio—via SMS, reports Al Jazeera. SW Radio Africa was closed down by Mugabe’s government within days of opening in the country, so set up a new base outside London. A few years later the broadcast was jammed, and SMS turned out to be the most economica method of distributing news. “Gerry Jackson, founder of the London-based station, said about 2,000 Zimbabwean mobiles are currently receiving the station’s news content via text – and interest is growing...The biggest challenge in using texts for news lies in condensing complex stories into a 160 character message.”
A similar approach has been taken with the Free Fiji campaign to end the military dictatorship in the country. SMS has been used to text citizens with information about rallies and other ani-goverment activities.
The African nation of Zimbabwe has a new take on mobile radio—via SMS, reports Al Jazeera. SW Radio Africa was closed down by Mugabe’s government within days of opening in the country, so set up a new base outside London. A few years later the broadcast was jammed, and SMS turned out to be the most economica method of distributing news. “Gerry Jackson, founder of the London-based station, said about 2,000 Zimbabwean mobiles are currently receiving the station’s news content via text – and interest is growing...The biggest challenge in using texts for news lies in condensing complex stories into a 160 character message.”
A similar approach has been taken with the Free Fiji campaign to end the military dictatorship in the country. SMS has been used to text citizens with information about rallies and other ani-goverment activities.
Developing Countries and Mobile Content
Mobile users in developing countries are more interested in mobile content and services than other countries, reports ClickZ. That shouldn’t be too surprising to anyone, but here are some figure:
A report revealed that 63.5 percent of people in Latin America want to access the internet on their mobile phones—In Asia that figure is 56.4 percent, in Eastern Europe it’s 53.9 percent, in Western Europe it’s 30.4 percent and in the US it’s only 22.6 percent. The accepted wisdom is that this is due to a lack of infrastructure in these countries. “The new mobile power user is really in emerging markets. There is a population in these markets that is interested in using and willing to pay for advanced services,” said Dave Murray, director of the CMO Council’s FAME Group.
A report revealed that 63.5 percent of people in Latin America want to access the internet on their mobile phones—In Asia that figure is 56.4 percent, in Eastern Europe it’s 53.9 percent, in Western Europe it’s 30.4 percent and in the US it’s only 22.6 percent. The accepted wisdom is that this is due to a lack of infrastructure in these countries. “The new mobile power user is really in emerging markets. There is a population in these markets that is interested in using and willing to pay for advanced services,” said Dave Murray, director of the CMO Council’s FAME Group.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Mobile Advertising in The UK
Mobile phones have become as indispensable as wallets and doorkeys. Most people won�t leave home without them, and if they do, they will more than likely go back to pick them up. So why is mobile advertising�sending promotions and targeted adverts to people via their handsets�not yet perceived as big business by advertising agencies in Europe?
The revenue for mobile advertising is set ot rocket to $11.5 billion in the next 5 years according to Informa, the research company.
The mobile marketing and advertising sector in the UK is currently dominated by smaller digital agencies rather than the big ad agencies.
So far mobile is being investigated, but not invested in, by the above-the-line agencies.
Many agencies are not famed for their forward-thinking, especially when it comes to technology. But there is another reason for reticence on the part of the above-the-line advertising agencies. Penetration of mobile in the UK may be high, but it�s still very early days when it comes to mobile multimedia use.
This is a combination of slow and poor technology combined with the data costs for mobile users.
�The big steps that need to be in place for any brand to seriously consider a new channel is to be able to reach as broad an audience as possible and to do so in a compelling way and to have the ability to measure its effectiveness,� he says. �Those aspects have not been in place in mobile.�
Indeed, even a basic issue like the cost to produce a mobile advert yields wildly different estimates, ranging from �100 to start a trial to �13,000 for a full-blown campaign.
On the plus side, there are signs that the building blocks are being put in place. For starters, mobile advertising platform vendors like Bango are bringing out new products to measure the response to mobile adverts. Systems such as immedia24 also hope to tap into that market.
There were reports that mobile operators, including Telefonica�s O2 and Vodafone, were in discussions to create a common search platform that could work across multiple mobile Internet portals. Their thinking is that a single platform would help ease the burden of larger companies investing in this still-emerging space. The operators are reportedly debating whether to create their own platform or to buy one in from an established search portal, such as Yahoo! or Google, which want to mark out their own advertising territory on the mobile Internet.
Some major brands have already seen early mobile advertising success. Last November, Coca Cola launched its newest campaign, The Happiness Factory, on mobile before doing so on traditional media. Over the Christmas period, the drinks giant reported 579,000 page impressions for a mobile campaign it ran with operator 3, with a conversion rate of 9.5% for click-throughs on the advert.
Typical conversion rates for mobile adverts are between 1.5% and 6% - �Coca Cola now considers mobile media just like any other media in the mix,� an agency insider said.
�You can see agencies wanting to get involved and move into the space, which is being driven by the tightening of ad budgets across the board�. �In the last year, we�re seeing a lot more budget coming into digital.�
Countries in Asia have stolen a march on mobile advertising, by far. In fact, in Japan advertising has become the primary way that mobile content companies make their revenue. Anderson at Bango believes the US, too, has huge potential.
Back in Europe, the market could be at a tipping point this year. If increasingly sophisticated devices and high penetration can be accompanied by new mobile advertising initiatives, from operators and Internet portals, it could be the opening that agencies and their large media clients have been waiting for.
The revenue for mobile advertising is set ot rocket to $11.5 billion in the next 5 years according to Informa, the research company.
The mobile marketing and advertising sector in the UK is currently dominated by smaller digital agencies rather than the big ad agencies.
So far mobile is being investigated, but not invested in, by the above-the-line agencies.
Many agencies are not famed for their forward-thinking, especially when it comes to technology. But there is another reason for reticence on the part of the above-the-line advertising agencies. Penetration of mobile in the UK may be high, but it�s still very early days when it comes to mobile multimedia use.
This is a combination of slow and poor technology combined with the data costs for mobile users.
�The big steps that need to be in place for any brand to seriously consider a new channel is to be able to reach as broad an audience as possible and to do so in a compelling way and to have the ability to measure its effectiveness,� he says. �Those aspects have not been in place in mobile.�
Indeed, even a basic issue like the cost to produce a mobile advert yields wildly different estimates, ranging from �100 to start a trial to �13,000 for a full-blown campaign.
On the plus side, there are signs that the building blocks are being put in place. For starters, mobile advertising platform vendors like Bango are bringing out new products to measure the response to mobile adverts. Systems such as immedia24 also hope to tap into that market.
There were reports that mobile operators, including Telefonica�s O2 and Vodafone, were in discussions to create a common search platform that could work across multiple mobile Internet portals. Their thinking is that a single platform would help ease the burden of larger companies investing in this still-emerging space. The operators are reportedly debating whether to create their own platform or to buy one in from an established search portal, such as Yahoo! or Google, which want to mark out their own advertising territory on the mobile Internet.
Some major brands have already seen early mobile advertising success. Last November, Coca Cola launched its newest campaign, The Happiness Factory, on mobile before doing so on traditional media. Over the Christmas period, the drinks giant reported 579,000 page impressions for a mobile campaign it ran with operator 3, with a conversion rate of 9.5% for click-throughs on the advert.
Typical conversion rates for mobile adverts are between 1.5% and 6% - �Coca Cola now considers mobile media just like any other media in the mix,� an agency insider said.
�You can see agencies wanting to get involved and move into the space, which is being driven by the tightening of ad budgets across the board�. �In the last year, we�re seeing a lot more budget coming into digital.�
Countries in Asia have stolen a march on mobile advertising, by far. In fact, in Japan advertising has become the primary way that mobile content companies make their revenue. Anderson at Bango believes the US, too, has huge potential.
Back in Europe, the market could be at a tipping point this year. If increasingly sophisticated devices and high penetration can be accompanied by new mobile advertising initiatives, from operators and Internet portals, it could be the opening that agencies and their large media clients have been waiting for.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Cheating by Text (again)
It's interesting to note that the vast majority of our users in our personal SMS to web messaging,txt4everywhere are texting their loved ones.
Typical users are where their partner is in a different country and they can use the flat, worldwide rate to their advantage.
However our most active user is a man who is messaging more than one woman - cheating by SMS!
Typical users are where their partner is in a different country and they can use the flat, worldwide rate to their advantage.
However our most active user is a man who is messaging more than one woman - cheating by SMS!
Young Mobile Users Say 'No' to Mobile Internet
Well here's a surprise. The Times Online reports that young phone users are not using the internet on their mobile phones.
Clearly they are competent with the technology, but why are they so slow to embrace internet services on their mobiles?
The answer is simple and obvious. Money. It costs to much to get data on your phone. At £7 per megabyte on PAYG it's not surprising. Vodafone typically charges £2 per meg for contract customers. web n walk system is an example of a good way forward - 7.50 for around a gig of download, but it is still not applicable to PAYG custoemrs.
The networks are desperate to increase mobile internet usage, and tie-in's with MySpace and Google are attempting to help this. But cynical attempts to increase interest in IP-based services cannot address the fundamental financial and functional issues - it's too expensive and too slow.
Interestingly the average young customer spends €25 (£17) a month on their bill — about 20 per cent more than the €21 (£14) spent by the wider population — and the majority of additional spending after the monthly contract goes on text messages, ringtones, picture messages and television voting.
The growth of mobile internet use, by comparison, remains slow. More than half of those surveyed said that they never browsed the internet, and only 8 per cent said that they used it once a week or more.
A separate study by Q Research shows only 3 per cent of young people aged 11 to 25 had downloaded music directly to their mobile phone, with the high cost of doing so the main dissuading factor. By comparison, two thirds of those aged 20 to 24 spend up to £10 a month on music downloads to their computer, and nearly half of those under 16 spend a similar amount.
Ben Wood, an analyst with CCS Insight, said: "Phone operators have gone from believing they can deliver everything themselves to realising that if a teenager wants to share photos, they're going to do it on Flickr, not via a Vodafone picture gallery."
Michel de Lussanet said: "Mobile phone companies have always been keen to offer internet services, but they’ve forgotten that people don't interact with their phones the same way that they do with their computers.
"Mobile TV, for instance, was a common offering early on — largely because it was technically possible — but operators didn't consider that the image wasn't like the one customers were used to in their lounge."
Exactly. It's pretty simple in fact - how many people use those tiny portable TV's? Very few. It doesn't take months of research and millions of pounds to know that!
The future is undoubtedly user generated content. No one trusts the phone networks to do it, and MySpace and YouTube show the future. Systems for mobile and web sharing such as immedia24 show where things are heading.
The customer, however, remains to be convinced. Despite 61 per cent of young people surveyed saying that they had internet on their phone, only 34 per cent wanted it on their next phone — in comparison with 65 per cent who wanted an MP3 player and 44 per cent who wanted Bluetooth.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Unfaithfull by Text?
It's that age old question that crops up at parties ... is being flirty by text cheating on your partner?
David Beckham has allegedly done it with his former PA. Shane Warne has been exposed doing it several times with nurses and glamour models ...
A worldwide study of 8,500 people has shown that one in seven people in Britain have admitted to sending flirty text messages to someone other than their partner.
The global study conducted in November 2006, by Ipsos MORI research of 8,518 consumers in the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Russia, Italy, UK and Germany found that Brits are amongst the biggest 'text cheats' in the world, second only to Malaysians. The UK are also the most suspicious - seemingly with good reason - with one in six people checking their partner's phone for 'suspicious messages'.
Suspicious Minds
Worldwide it seems that Malaysians are the most likely to send these kinds of texts, with nearly 40 per cent of people sending flirty messages behind their partners' back.
However Germans reputation for letting it all hang out and walk around in the all-together perhaps proving they have nothing to hide and are the most text-trusted, with barely 7 per cent of people checking their partner's mobiles.
By contrast, millions of 'Latin lover' Italian men use SMS as their primary tool for wooing lovers. One in ten relationships in Italy started with a text invitation for a first date, and nearly a third started with text-flirting. This is backed up by mobile phone penetration in Italy which runs at 138%.
And breaking up?
Nearly one in ten Singaporeans have used SMS to break up with someone. Germans are the least likely to be text-ditched, while 3 per cent of Brits have been dumped in this way.
Over in the text capital of the world, men in the Philippines could be said to have the easiest Valentine's Day, with more than a third of women preferring a romantic text message to chocolates or a card. Likewise 40 per cent of Russians make do with a text message on Valentine's Day.
Unfaithfull by Text?
It's that age old question that crops up at parties ... is being flirty by text cheating on your partner?
David Beckham has allegedly done it with his former PA. Shane Warne has been exposed doing it several times with nurses and glamour models ...
A worldwide study of 8,500 people has shown that one in seven people in Britain have admitted to sending flirty text messages to someone other than their partner.
The global study conducted in November 2006, by Ipsos MORI research of 8,518 consumers in the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Russia, Italy, UK and Germany found that Brits are amongst the biggest 'text cheats' in the world, second only to Malaysians. The UK are also the most suspicious - seemingly with good reason - with one in six people checking their partner's phone for 'suspicious messages'.
Suspicious Minds
Worldwide it seems that Malaysians are the most likely to send these kinds of texts, with nearly 40 per cent of people sending flirty messages behind their partners' back.
However Germans reputation for letting it all hang out and walk around in the all-together perhaps proving they have nothing to hide and are the most text-trusted, with barely 7 per cent of people checking their partner's mobiles.
By contrast, millions of 'Latin lover' Italian men use SMS as their primary tool for wooing lovers. One in ten relationships in Italy started with a text invitation for a first date, and nearly a third started with text-flirting. This is backed up by mobile phone penetration in Italy which runs at 138%.
And breaking up?
Nearly one in ten Singaporeans have used SMS to break up with someone. Germans are the least likely to be text-ditched, while 3 per cent of Brits have been dumped in this way.
Over in the text capital of the world, men in the Philippines could be said to have the easiest Valentine's Day, with more than a third of women preferring a romantic text message to chocolates or a card. Likewise 40 per cent of Russians make do with a text message on Valentine's Day.
Web-based messaging system txt4everywhere offered special deals and timed messages for Valentines.
More Operators looking at 3rd party content
More and more mobile operators are looking to content providers to increase their revenues according to new research from technology intelligence firm ABI Research. They have revealed that WCDMA subscriptions have increased by 102 per cent over the past year and that operators are looking to capitalise on this by improving their mobile content services.
They also noted that most mobile traffic will be data-orientated within the next seven years.
'Operators are now looking to YouTube Mobile, Jamster and Warner Music for content to excite and entertain consumers,' commented Jake Saunders, Asia-Pacific research director for ABI Research.
He added that messaging platforms such as Blackberry devices, as well as enterprise applications, are also helping to increase data traffic.
Earlier this month, Vodafone announced its impending rollout of YouTube Mobile for subscribers, closely following a similar mobile deal with social networking site MySpace.
They also noted that most mobile traffic will be data-orientated within the next seven years.
'Operators are now looking to YouTube Mobile, Jamster and Warner Music for content to excite and entertain consumers,' commented Jake Saunders, Asia-Pacific research director for ABI Research.
He added that messaging platforms such as Blackberry devices, as well as enterprise applications, are also helping to increase data traffic.
Earlier this month, Vodafone announced its impending rollout of YouTube Mobile for subscribers, closely following a similar mobile deal with social networking site MySpace.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Mobile as an advertising medium
This is a subject that I'll be blogging about more.
The concept is this: ad agencies and brands find it harder and harder to reach their audience. There are dozens of digital tv and radio channels. New magazines appear each week yet people get their entertainment and socialise through YouTube and MySpace. The point is that there is no mass media for advertising anymore.
The one thing that everone owns, and has with them most of the time is a mobile phone. There is a massive potential for these devices to be a channel through which information, entertainment and advertising can be sent.
When I say advertising onto mobile, I'm not talking about spam texts. As with spam mail, sending unwanted messages is not going to benefit brands. Fortunately because there is a cost to sending a message there is a limit to SMS spam, and the return would have to be pretty high.
When I talk about advertising to mobile, I'm talking about the kind of opt-in messages that will benefit the consumer in the form of useful information or offers. The advantage for the advertiser is that they are using the most powerful 1 to 1 marketing available. The mobile phone is the thing that most people have with them most of the time. To be able to get their attention through a mobile device is extremely powerful.
The concept is this: ad agencies and brands find it harder and harder to reach their audience. There are dozens of digital tv and radio channels. New magazines appear each week yet people get their entertainment and socialise through YouTube and MySpace. The point is that there is no mass media for advertising anymore.
The one thing that everone owns, and has with them most of the time is a mobile phone. There is a massive potential for these devices to be a channel through which information, entertainment and advertising can be sent.
When I say advertising onto mobile, I'm not talking about spam texts. As with spam mail, sending unwanted messages is not going to benefit brands. Fortunately because there is a cost to sending a message there is a limit to SMS spam, and the return would have to be pretty high.
When I talk about advertising to mobile, I'm talking about the kind of opt-in messages that will benefit the consumer in the form of useful information or offers. The advantage for the advertiser is that they are using the most powerful 1 to 1 marketing available. The mobile phone is the thing that most people have with them most of the time. To be able to get their attention through a mobile device is extremely powerful.
Friday, February 09, 2007
Increase in mobile content downloads
Reports from mblox, one of the premium sms providers, was that off portal transactions were 1.4 billion last year. Off portal means downloads and premium SMS that were not through the networks (Vodafone Live! T-Zones etc).
This is significant because both my prediction and the evidence is that mobile phone users do not trust the content or service provided by the network portals.
Looks out for an increase in non-networked sanctioned transactions over the next year.
This is significant because both my prediction and the evidence is that mobile phone users do not trust the content or service provided by the network portals.
Looks out for an increase in non-networked sanctioned transactions over the next year.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Chiltern Railways has become the first train company in the UK to sell mobile phone tickets to their passengers.
Passengers can buy Chiltern’s £5 online Eday ticket for journeys between London Marylebone and Birmingham Moor Street or Stratford –upon-Avon via the website www.chilternrailways.co.uk. The Eday ticket is available only on certain off peak trains.
Passengers receive their ticket in the form of a barcode sent directly to their mobile phone by an MMS. Staff on board the train and at the station will be able to check the ‘mobile ticket’ with barcode scanners. If the phone can't display the barcode then the journey details can still be read in text only format.
Commercial Director for Chiltern Railways, Neil Micklethwaite said: “We are happy to be leading the industry as the first train company in the United Kingdom to sell this new format of mobile phone ticketing to our passengers. We have listened to our passengers and what they want is a simpler and easier way to purchase tickets for their travel. "
“The next step is to install new scanning gate technology at Marylebone station which will allow passengers with mobile phone tickets to scan their own ‘mobile tickets’ as they walk through the ticket gates,” Mr Micklethwaite said. Cubic Transportation Systems is supplying Chiltern Railways with the new gate technology, due for installation next month.
Mobile phone ticketing is now available for Chiltern passengers for the next three months with the aim of develop this as a service permanent. Ticket purchases on the move from mobile phones will be possible at a later stage, as well as through the internet .
For more mobile ticketing see txt4ever
Mobile Content Revenues on the Increase (again!)
SMS and multimedia messaging services will account for more than half of total revenues for worldwide mobile operators in 2011, a research firm has forecast.
Based on the latest research, SMS and MMS will represent more than 50% of the total revenues for operators from 2010.
Mobile access to the Internet will be the driver for the explosive growth expected in this market. The research company Informa Telecoms & Media, has predicted the market for content will be $150 billion by 2011.
In 2006 revenues for SMS etc was $60 and $67.4 in 2007.
Content management systems, such as Ping Corp's immedia24 will help drive the increase.
In particular, revenues from music, TV, games, gambling, adult content, together, would more than double - from $18.8 billion made in 2006 to $38 billion over the next five years.
The returns from this huge growth would be shared by new players – content providers, publishers and associated technology and service providers, which would become part of the industry over time. User-generated content and user communities, expected to eventually become common features on the mobile space, would also account for $13.2 billion over the period, the report said.
Music would continue to be a major revenue earner in the mobile entertainment market but its role would be diminished by growing demand for mobile TV and video services. Informa estimates music, which last year enjoyed a 40 percent share of this market, would decline to 36 percent in 2011.
A large part of this growth can be credited to the arrival of broadband mobile services and technologies like the High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) which allow users to enjoy surfing and watching online videos while on the move. The download speed and streaming experience made possible by these technologies are comparable to those seen on desktop PCs and notebooks.
Based on the latest research, SMS and MMS will represent more than 50% of the total revenues for operators from 2010.
Mobile access to the Internet will be the driver for the explosive growth expected in this market. The research company Informa Telecoms & Media, has predicted the market for content will be $150 billion by 2011.
In 2006 revenues for SMS etc was $60 and $67.4 in 2007.
Content management systems, such as Ping Corp's immedia24 will help drive the increase.
In particular, revenues from music, TV, games, gambling, adult content, together, would more than double - from $18.8 billion made in 2006 to $38 billion over the next five years.
The returns from this huge growth would be shared by new players – content providers, publishers and associated technology and service providers, which would become part of the industry over time. User-generated content and user communities, expected to eventually become common features on the mobile space, would also account for $13.2 billion over the period, the report said.
Music would continue to be a major revenue earner in the mobile entertainment market but its role would be diminished by growing demand for mobile TV and video services. Informa estimates music, which last year enjoyed a 40 percent share of this market, would decline to 36 percent in 2011.
A large part of this growth can be credited to the arrival of broadband mobile services and technologies like the High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) which allow users to enjoy surfing and watching online videos while on the move. The download speed and streaming experience made possible by these technologies are comparable to those seen on desktop PCs and notebooks.
Friday, February 02, 2007
Why I Hate Vodafone
A bit like banks, all mobile networks are rubbish. However I reserve my greatest distain for Vodafone.
I've had two contracts with them: one for voice and one for my Blackberry email.
Firstly with the voice, the tarriffs are very poor. Other networks such as T-Mobile, Orange and even 3 have far more generous offers.
Having called them (it took 3 frustrating calls to find someone who could help) I gave them the chance to match an offer that I found on T-Mobile. Most of these offers involved charging more than the other operator for LESS minutes etc. In the end they admitted that they couldn't get near the T-Mobile offer.
Then there was the issue of data. I was paying £15 per month for data only on my Blackberry. except that it is only email data. If I click on a link in an email I'm charged for it. How can anyone separate data? It's just bits flying about the internet. Whether it ends up in my browser or my email is irrelevant in terms of charging.
Vodfafone did offer an SMS/data package. In this they treated them as the same bundle and you could use x amount of data or x number of SMSs. The allowance was stingy but at least there was one.
Except they have now separated the two. You have to buy internet data on it's own. And the cost is £2.35 per megabyte. Totally outrageous. Even worse, try finding this information on their website. It's only after some considerable grilling that I found this out.
T-Mobile charge a more reasonable £7.50 for 1 gig of data. That's more like a fair price.
The bottom line is that Vodafone are restricting downloads, particularly third party downloads with their ridiculous policy. We have systems that can easily deliver full track audio - it's around 3 meg for a standard song using AAC encoding. So over £6 to download if you are on a vodafone tariff. with T-Mobile it's a more reasonable 75p per meg (not fantastic, but not outrageous).
With the advent of the Iphone, we need networks to allow mobile users to download data at a reasonable rate. The cost is probably less than a few pence per meg. So how about 10p per meg for a download? They're still making money and more people will use it.
Better still more people will go onto the 3g network and they can make even more out of premium billing.
My next campaign will be for Fair Data for mobile users!
I've had two contracts with them: one for voice and one for my Blackberry email.
Firstly with the voice, the tarriffs are very poor. Other networks such as T-Mobile, Orange and even 3 have far more generous offers.
Having called them (it took 3 frustrating calls to find someone who could help) I gave them the chance to match an offer that I found on T-Mobile. Most of these offers involved charging more than the other operator for LESS minutes etc. In the end they admitted that they couldn't get near the T-Mobile offer.
Then there was the issue of data. I was paying £15 per month for data only on my Blackberry. except that it is only email data. If I click on a link in an email I'm charged for it. How can anyone separate data? It's just bits flying about the internet. Whether it ends up in my browser or my email is irrelevant in terms of charging.
Vodfafone did offer an SMS/data package. In this they treated them as the same bundle and you could use x amount of data or x number of SMSs. The allowance was stingy but at least there was one.
Except they have now separated the two. You have to buy internet data on it's own. And the cost is £2.35 per megabyte. Totally outrageous. Even worse, try finding this information on their website. It's only after some considerable grilling that I found this out.
T-Mobile charge a more reasonable £7.50 for 1 gig of data. That's more like a fair price.
The bottom line is that Vodafone are restricting downloads, particularly third party downloads with their ridiculous policy. We have systems that can easily deliver full track audio - it's around 3 meg for a standard song using AAC encoding. So over £6 to download if you are on a vodafone tariff. with T-Mobile it's a more reasonable 75p per meg (not fantastic, but not outrageous).
With the advent of the Iphone, we need networks to allow mobile users to download data at a reasonable rate. The cost is probably less than a few pence per meg. So how about 10p per meg for a download? They're still making money and more people will use it.
Better still more people will go onto the 3g network and they can make even more out of premium billing.
My next campaign will be for Fair Data for mobile users!
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Mobile as Web content
This is an interesting article, which I have copied here. The full version can be found by following this link:
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2007/01/as_web_content_.html
Mobile as Web contente-mail and mobile
Then consider the other big application currently on the internet: e-mail and thus person-to-person messaging. Here we have a legacy messaging system which is cumbersome, tedious and slow - e-mail. On the mobile phone we can have e-mail (such as on a Blackberry). Many smartphones from the Treos to the Nokia E-Series do e-mail. So again, while it won't kill e-mail, the mobile internet can readily replicate the e-mail experience. And if you've ever seen the addiction of a Blackberry user (who call it the Crackberry for crack cocaine the drug) - then they DEFINITELY prefer e-mail on their smartphone than on a PC.
But the mobile phone has its own messaging platform, SMS text messaging. This is now the first of the new applications, like talk shows, game shows, music videos and reality TV were to cinema. Something that does not work in the old format, but is very compelling on the new. We ALREADY have a bigger service - by users and by revenues - than anything on the fixed internet. There are 1.1 billion people who use the internet, but out of 2.7 billion mobile phone users, 1.8 billion people use SMS text messaging. We have our first new web content category, which has only emerged on the mobile internet, and cannot even be replicated on the traditional internet (yes yes I know we can do it, but practically, it is very rare to find people using SMS on a PC. If not e-mail, on the PC they then tend to use IM Instant Messaging, not SMS text messaging)
Music and mobile
Remember iTunes? So yes, we can buy music - MP3 songs - on the current lecacy internet. We already can buy MP3 songs directly to mobile phones. The IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry, the global umbrella organization for the music industry) - just released its music report in January and found that half of all digital music in 2006 was sold directly to mobile phones. So yes, we can consume the "identical" or very similar experience of MP3 song purchases and downloads on the legacy internet and the mobile internet.
But again, the mobile internet has already innovated in this music area. Ringing tones. They are worth over 6.5 billion dollars (already over six times larger than the size of digital music downloads such as iTunes). Please don't turn snobbish at me now, and claim ringing tones are not real music. Fifteen years ago when the internet came, a lot of old fogies suggested e-mail was not legitimate communincation because it did not transmit on paper and could not have a signature. All kinds of music innovations have been dismissed by older generations as "not being real music" such as rock n' roll which was supposedly not music, and rap which many said was not music, and the recent innovation of sampling and mashing existing music, etc. Ask the person forking over the money. If that teenager spends two dollars to put Shakira's music on the cellphone, who cares if it is of lousy sound quality, and extremely short duration. It is music.
And ringing tones were a content format invented for the mobile internet, not the legacy PC based internet. We have another of our new service categories, optimized for the mobile internet.
Social networking and mobile
Then look at MySpace, the massively successful social networking site online. With 90 million active users. 19% of Americans maintain a profile on MySpace. But look at Cyworld in South Korea. It offers similar profiles like MySpace (and much much more) - but offers access not only by broadband (South Korea is the world's most connected society, with highest penetration of broadband) but also access via 3G mobile phone (South Korea has highest penetration of 3G phones). On Cyworld today, 43% of all South Koreans maintain a personal profile. Can web content migrate to the mobile internet and if optimised, become a BIGGER success there? Of course it can.
YouTube? The massively successful video sharing site with 120 million users worldwide. Cyworld's 22 million 3G cameraphone users upload more videos daily than YouTube's users. The mobile internet is inherently superior, because we have the content creation device (cameraphone/videophone) in our hand - and in our pocket - all the time. AND it has permanent connectivity at high speed.
Oh, and let me show how the mobile internet is already influencing the fixed internet. We've written about SeeMeTV here at our blogsite. The 3G mobile video sharing service, where every time when someone looks at your video, YOU get paid a royalty. A radical innovation in user-generated content. Invented on mobile. Now consider yesterday's announcement by YouTube that they will start to pay the content producers of the most-viewed videos. This concept was invented on the advanced internet, the mobile internet, and now copied onto the legacy internet.
Friday, January 26, 2007
UK SMS Volumes still Rising
The UK text messaging total broke through the 4 billion barrier for the first time during December 2006.
December’s total of 4.3 billion takes the overall figure for 2006 to 41.8 billion (issued by the MDA), surpasses their prediction 40 billion text messages. Before to December 2006, the highest recorded SMS total was for 3.8 billion for October 2006
Person-to-person texts sent across the UK networks throughout December of the year show a growth of 38% on the 2005 figure of 3.1 billion, and represent an average of 138 million messages per day. On Christmas Day this leapt to 205 million texts, an average of 8 million per hour, with the figure for New Year’s Day 2007 even higher reaching a record breaking 214 million, the highest daily total ever recorded by the MDA.
When compared to the mere 42 million messages sent per day five years ago throughout December 2001, it becomes clear just how far the UK has come in embracing text messaging technology which has emerged from a popular craze to becoming an essential communication tool, inclusive to all age groups. The forecast is that figures will continue to rise this year to a total of 45 billion text messages for 2007, with an average of 3.75 billion messages being sent per month and 123 million messages per day.
The prediction is also for a similar growth in business text messaging. Although not measured in the same way, web-based text messaging systems such as txt4ever.com have shown a rise in volumes throughout the year.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Immedia 24
Our new site, Immedia 24 is up and running. The aim of this is to allow anyone to publish content to mobile phones, quickly and easily.
It's a web based system that manages keywords, shortcodes and the files themselves. It also creates web previews for users to browse.
It's a web based system that manages keywords, shortcodes and the files themselves. It also creates web previews for users to browse.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)