Future Mobile

Taking it personally - engaging with mobile marketing

2009-03-05T04:29:00.000-08:00

Marketing to mobile can generate some good responses. With the current economic situation, mobile offers new opportunities to reach customers and reduced marketing costs. The results from mobile marketing can also be very effective, with response rates over 8% being generally measured.

However, anyone looking to run a mobile campaign needs to seriously address the way it is run, who they are contacting and the offer is.

Mobile phones are devices that most of us have with us most of the time. There is a strong sense of identity attached to our mobiles – the type of handset ('I have an iphone' etc), wallpaper or ringtone is as much a part of our identity as the clothes we wear. What’s more, it’s the device that we contact our family, friends and loved ones on.

Whatever the marketing campaign, be it SMS, mobile sites or Bluetooth proximity marketing, sensitivity to the mobile user is paramount. Imagine if you are waiting for an SMS from your partner and a marketing text arrives on your phone? It’s going to annoy the user and put the brand in a very poor light.

A recent discussion amongst technological savvy mobile users about mobile marketing generated many responses like these:

‘Its like the people in the street who try to thrust leaflets on us, except its just about possible to dodge them.’

‘I have received two text messages from businesses I was walking past, both offering immediate discounts. I can think of no other way to more effectively ensure that I will never do business with either establishment again.’

‘If anyone sent a message to my cellphone or other device just because I walked past their store, billboard, advertising poster, etc., they would lose my business forever.’

It is unlikely that a billboard, direct mail or TV ad could cause as much offence, purely from attempting to contact potential customers.

You may think therefore, that mobile marketing is likely to upset customers too much or it is too fraught with problems to run a campaign. However, the highly personal feelings about mobile can be used to great effectiveness. There are many examples of mobile marketing campaigns that have generated an excellent response.

The key is to ensure that it is permission based, highly targeted and offers a real benefit to the customer or potential customers.

Gaining permission often requires more than a simple ‘soft opt in’. It is important and beneficial to get a clear consent from a customer to send them marketing information to their phone. That consent should also be recent. If they opted in 12 months ago then you would need to get their permission again.

Well targeted campaigns means sending the right type of content on the right day at the right time.

The benefit comes from giving your users a clear offer – discounts, free products or mobile content are all examples of offers that work well.

So, mobile marketing has it’s benefits, but working with experienced professionals to deliver campaigns can ensure that you are effective in what you do.

Roaming data charges to be more transparent ...

2009-02-20T06:27:00.000-08:00

... but not necessarily cheaper!

Never ones to do things through self regulation, the mobile network operators in Europe are likely to be forced to provide transparency in charges for services such as MMS and internet access. The proposed legislation is expected to come into force in 2009.

Users can expect to be informed of the cost to use data, and even an ongoing total. This is a small step in the right direction, however, there are no moves to reduce the excessive roaming charges. Hopefully once users see how much it is costing them, the operators may decide to reduce the charges to a more reasonable level without futher legislation. But then pigs might fly.

Netsize Annual Survey is out!

2009-02-19T06:37:00.000-08:00

The excellent Netsize annual survey and guide is now out. It has some excellent information on phone usage in a number of countires, as well as well written articles on mobile entertainment, marketing and content.

You can download it here: http://www.netsize.com

Will Google and Apple Force the Mobile Networks to Rethink Their Business Model?

2009-02-18T09:31:00.000-08:00

For some years now, there has been a major division between the internet and mobile economies. The internet is largely free to user and the mobile isn’t.

Google has made an art form of the free model, releasing all kinds of apps, including mobile ones at no cost. On the other hand, the networks charge for almost everything. As one Orange executive once told me ‘We do not understand any customer unless there is a billing relationship’. In other words, unless the network is charging them for something they are not considered to be a customer.

The iphone has moved the mobile smartphone market forwards, by offering a genuinely seemless mobile internet experience. Just like your PC the internet is just ‘there’, it’s always on. As soon as that happens, adding all kinds of internetty applications – not just games, but maps, weather and so on, become standard.
The evidence of the success is from the iphone Appstore and the results which show that Apple’s users access the internet considerably more than others.

Whilst Apple’s entry into the phone market has been to produce a great handset and beautiful operating system, Google’s entry has been less glamorous, but potentially more significant.
Google started by building some excellent mobile applications – for example maps and email – and has now launched it’s own OS.
And now everyone’s doing it! Expect 2009 to be the year of the smartphone and the year of the application store … Microsoft will be launching Bazaar this year.

The problem for mobile networks is that the offerings from these companies challenge their traditional billing relationship. Why pay for a call when you can use Skype (available for both iphone and Google phone)? Why use SMS when you can use instant messenger? Why send an MMS when you can email your pictures, or upload them to your Facebook? Why SMS to Twitter when you can send it for nothing with a Twitter app on your phone?

Even location services, which were previously the (expensive) monopoly of the networks will be opened up with Google Latitude.

Apart from the basic data cost (typically around £7.50-£15 per month), users can do pretty much everything on their smartphones without having to pay for them. The money in mobile will be in paid apps and mobile advertising.

So the networks have a dilemma. Do they embrace the new free(ish) world of mobile or carry on regardless and make money while they can? Given their past form, I suspect it will be the latter.

Mobile Marketing News Service Launched

2009-02-17T04:47:00.000-08:00

OK, it's not the first, but our new
mobile marketing news service is intended to give another spin on what's happening in the world of mobile advertising and marketing.

Why are we different?
First of all, we come with no vested interests to a network, handset or membership. Secondly we are not tied to any particular medium, whether it is SMS, applications or mobile web, we are happy to report it. Finally, we are looking at the influence of general developments onto marketing. For example, the recent launch of Google Latitude may have no obvious marketing implicatations, however the expected launch of an API means that location based mobile advertising will become a practical possiblity.

The news service is here.

The Google Latitude Controversy

2009-02-08T06:13:00.000-08:00

In the UK this week many people have been up in arms about Google Latitude. If you have missed it, Google’s has launched a new location app, which allows you to publish your location based on the position of your mobile phone. The complaint has been largely one of intrusion and a compromise to personal freedom.

Personal Liberty

The issue of freedom is completely understandable. This is especially so in the current climate in the UK. These day’s Britain is the most watched country in the world – we have four times more CCTV cameras than the rest of Europe put together.

The problem for citizens in the UK is this:
We cannot move, drive our cars, stop our cars or do anything without being watched. And on the other hand we feel no safer, and it doesn’t appear to reduce crime. It seems that technology is used as a means of indirect taxation and population control. In short, people in the UK are understandably suspicious of anything that monitors and tracks our movements.

The idea that you can be tracked through your phone, naturally worries people. However, Google Latitude has not introduced a new concept. Mobile network operators have been able to trace people through their mobiles for years, by triangulating to the nearest base station. This has been offered as both (expensive) location based services, and the data has been of use to the Police during criminal investigations. Any unscrupulous government or agency can easily track your location through your mobile.
What’s more services similar to Latitude have been available for a few years: it has been quite possible to track your friend/partner/family member’s already.

Will Latitude Change Things?

The main change is that it is Google who has introduced this. That means that it is free and works (or will work) seamlessly with existing Google Apps. And being Google, most people are now aware of it’s existence.
The main question raised about tracking someone’s location, is why would you want to? The worry is that employers will track their employees movements, partners will spy on each other, parents on their children and so on. It is quite understandable to be suspicious of the motives of someone who wants to track other people’s locations.

In fact, simply as a location tool there is little point to Latitude and will not take off. The following post on Mobile Industry Review makes the point very clearly: http://www.mobileindustryreview.com/2009/02/latitude_the_trojan_horse_--_why_whos_nearby_is_not_a_business.html

The point is where Latitude will go. As the author states: ‘Be under no delusion, Latitude is Googles Trojan horse into the social networking space.’

And that is the key to this. Mobile Social Networking will allow users to ‘socialise’ with people who are in close proximity. Location based-dating could boom from this. But there are numerous other location services that could benefit from Latitude: security applications – I don’t mean spying, I mean ones where people at risk (whether professional or personal) can publish their whereabouts. Then there are applications, like travel, transport or weather.

Although many of these have already been tinkered with, they have not really taken off. There are two big factors as to why: cost and trust. Outside of phones with GPS, location based service providers must pay the networks for each hit. On the whole, users are not willing to pay for such a service, so there is no broad commercial model currently for Location Based Services. On the reasonable assumption that Google Latitude will publish an API (which they have already done with Maps and many other apps), then any developer can access location data for free and including it in their application.

Whilst there is no doubt that trust is a major issue for users of with LBS, Google are better placed than anyone to establish that trust:

‘Don’t be Evil’ is Google’s slogan. OK, there are times when they have not always been perfect (Google China being a point of this), but that overall principle seems to be intact.
Google has gone to great pains to ensure that it’s Latitude service is not evil. Only the most recent location is stored, making it difficult to track an individual’s movements. Each user has control over how their location is published with three settings:
Automatic, Manual or Hide your location … or as the Mobile Industry Review article aptly describes it, Honest, Lie or Paranoia.

Until now, location based services have been the Cinderella of mobile applications. However, the whole point of mobile is that it is, mobile. Including your location into services or apps, is the obvious next step. With Google Latitude the ‘where am I’ service is pointless and unlikely to take off. We must look to the applications that can come out of it, bringing us real benefit.

Mobile and Technology Usage Figures

2009-02-04T09:25:00.001-08:00

I am asked, probably on a daily basis, 'do you have any figures for the number of people who ...'.
Maybe my answer should be 'If you give me £3000 I can get you the report(s)' as that is how much they cost.

However, cobbling together various sources, the following is a general summary of the UK view mobile and technology attitudes and usage:

General UK mobile information:

There are over 64 million mobile handsets in the UK. More than one per person.
Most users, around 60%, are on pay as you go.
Just under 30% of users have a flat rate data plan for the internet. And around 40% use the mobile internet.
There are nearly 6.5 billion SMS sent each month in the UK (peak time is New Years).
There are around 5.5 million MMS sent each month in the UK.
Smart Phones account for less than 20% of the market. The ihpone is less than 1%.
Around 30% of people have their Bluetooth turned on all the time.

From a June 2008 study by Mintel:

I will only by an upgrade if there is an obvious benefit 53%
I wait to buy until the price comes down before buying 52%
I wait until I’m absolutely sure which is the best to buy 47%
I only buy something when I need to (ie replacement) 43%
I sometimes feel overwhelmed by the sheer choice of new technology on offer 24%
By the time I’ve bought something, it’s already out of date 20%
With new technology, it’s best to stick to the most popular brands 17%
When I buy something, I sometimes worry I made the wrong decision 17%
I tend to buy new things I want as soon as they come to market 5%
None of these 4%

Digital items personally used are highlited in the table below,
June 2008 Base: 2,001 internet users aged 16+

Digital items personally used All

Mobile phone 90%
Broadband internet at home (via high-speed, always-on connection) 88%
Digital TV 62%
Portable digital music player, eg iPod, Zen, MP3 player 50
Wi-Fi (wireless internet connection) 44%
HD-ready TV set 34%
Personal video recorder 32%
Interactive services on digital TV 28%
Digital radio, ie DAB 27%
Podcasting (downloading audio from the internet for playback on your computer or MP3 player) 15%
PDA or other handheld computer, e.g. Palm, HP iPAQ or Dell Axim 10%
Internet dial-up at home 6%

According to the Mobile Life European Report, the British population tend to use the full range of mobile features:
(LSE, 2008)

used Bluetooth 50+%
recorded video using a mobile handset 37%
downloaded a music track 27%
accessed the internet using their mobile 46%

So there you have it. Some useful base line figures. Clearly we are a nation of texters (more than voice calls) and although things like mobile internet have a place, they are a smaller proporation of users.

iphone's impact out-weighs it's marketing share

2009-01-27T04:58:00.000-08:00

There are a number of stats coming out that show the iphone and iphone users as having a significant impact on mobile content and advertising.

According to Getjar.com, the iphone represented just 0.04% of the mobile handset market in Dec 2008.
Admob, the mobile advertising network, reported that 16% of their users were on iphones, and 48% of the Smartphone market.

We are also seeing numerous reports of the success of Apple's App Store and iphone developers making bucket loads of money:

'Consumers downloaded more than 10 million iPhone applications within the App Store's first three days and 60 million in the first month, a $21 million windfall for Apple's developer partners'

So what is the significance of all this? In spite of iphone's small market share and in spite of the fact that their users tend to be a bit smug, there is no doubt that users are genuine early adopters. They both browse the web and download more than any other phone user. And if you are looking to develop mobile apps, there is a greater chance of success by developing for the iphone.

SMS is still the killer app

2009-01-21T02:52:00.000-08:00

It's something I have been saying for a while, but a recent report shows that SMS is still the killer application for mobile and set to double in the next four years.

In their report‘Mobile Messaging Futures 2008 – 2013’, Portio Research found that the mobile messaging industry was worth $120bn in 2008, but set to grow, even in the current economic climate to over $220bn by 2013.

As well as the significant peer to peer marketing, the growth in SMS has been boosted by business messaging, such as mobile marketing or customer service applications. Another factor is the growth in the US. From a slow start, American mobile users have finally realised the benefits of SMS. It remains 'king' as it is cheap, simple to use and available across almost all phones and networks.

Whilst many in the mobile marketing and advertising sector have been talking about fancy applications, the impact of the iphone and so on, I am of the strong opinion that SMS will continue to drive any mobile campaign as it is such a killer application.

Users 'baffled' by extra phone features

2009-01-19T06:10:00.000-08:00

This comes as no surprise, but a survey carried out by Mformation and reported on the BBC stated that 61% of users found setting up a new phone harder than moving bank accounts. And 85% of people said it was extremely difficult.

Whilst the handset manufacturers keep telling us that we want new features all the time, it would appear that most users are not that interested. 61% of people said that they did not bother using an application if they couldn't use it straight away.
We know that people are impateint when it comes to their phone. It also show that there is not sufficient reward in using extra features to bother with learning them. This supports my own view that most people want SMS and voice form their phones, and just aren't interested in other features.

Top Ten Mobile Marketing developments for 2009

2008-12-17T09:54:00.000-08:00

Around this time of year it seems as though everyone is in the business of making predictions. Sticking your neck out these days can leave yourself open to ridicule later on, but never one to shy away from a bit of controversy, here’s my Top Ten Mobile Marketing Developments for 2009:

SMS will grow continue to grow
This may come under the heading ‘no shit Sherlock’. However, it is worth pointing out that in the current climate there will be a move away from mobile internet advertising and ad led content towards SMS. Even in 2008, some ad agencies were declaring that SMS was still the killer app for mobile marketing. With the current climate the move will be towards more direct and functional campaigns, such as Swift Cover’s vehicle insurance quotes by SMS.
Bluetooth marketing will grow
With the change last year in the Ofcom regulations, which saw Bluetooth as a broadcast, not a personal medium, a number of companies started to offer this as a proximity marketing solution. With the growth in these companies and the potential from Bluetooth we will see many more campaigns in 2009.
QR
My scepticism to QR (Quick Recognition) Codes, or 2D Bar Codes has changed this year. Whilst they have been around for some time, I tended to believe that they were useful only in Japan and were too niche for the European market. In the last year, however, the use of QR codes has made the idea more accessible to the public. For example, the newspaper City AM has a QR code on the front page in every issue. Pepsi also ran a QR campaign this year.
The advantage of using the codes is that it provides the user with very fast access to further information – this could be anything from an SMS to a mobile link to an application download. This offers an ideal way to use mobile to enhance a print campaign.
The real killer app in the QR world will be when handsets have the readers as standard. Top end Nokias have then as standard, and Google intend to include one in their next release of Android. Although this will represent a tiny percentage of the mobile market, it is likely that other handset manufacturers and mobile networks will follow suit.
MMS will grow … but it will continue to remain niche
MMS has a place in mobile. It is considerably less important than SMS - on a peer to peer level, most people use it very occasionally. However in the advertising and marketing area there is real potential. It offers a neat way of delivering pictures and video to handsets. This is particularly the case with couponing and ticketing (see below), so expect to see a growth in this area in 2009.
Mobile Couponing and Ticketing will increase
The potential in coupons and tickets sent to mobile has not been realised. The biggest opportunity for it’s increase comes from the current economic climate, where the drive to reduce costs will be the overriding factor for many companies. Add to this the need to reduce carbon emissions, and it becomes clear that mobile tickets are an obvious choice. One example of a form of ticketing is the mobile airline check in being offered by British Airways and some other companies. This delivers the 2d barcode that is on web tickets and boarding passes, but offers the advantage of not requiring a print out. If it’s safe enough for airports then it is easily safe enough for any type of event. The barcodes will have to be delivered by MMS of course.
Location Based Services (LBS) will NOT take off
Whilst I have always liked the idea of services that are linked to, or based on the user’s location, I have never been convinced that they will take off for one simple reason. Cost. In the UK the two issues are the charges made by the networks for location hits and the cost of converting postcode to Lat and Long data. Unlike most other countries in the world, in the UK the postcode to Lat/Long data must be bought on a yearly basis.
For both companies and individual users the cost of LBS versus the benefit is not significant enough. If you add to this the fact that Google, for example offer good mobile mapping and location services for free, it hardly seems worth developing your own.
Mobile internet overtakes PC based internet use
OK, maybe not in the UK as a whole, but a combination of flat rate tariffs, better handsets and mobile USB ‘broadband’ will see a significant increase in the number of mobile internet users. Worldwide there will be more people connecting through their mobile network than a land-based ISP.
Why is this significant for mobile marketing? With more internet users, propositioning content, and especially ad content for the mobile market becomes much more important. Whilst things like ‘mobile search’ will remain limited, applications that use the mobile internet will increase, along with the opportunities for ad funded content.
Mobile security will become a bigger issue
With more mobile applications such as banking and payment, along with an increase in mobile internet and marketing, expect to see more debate about security on handsets. An independent survey found that 5.6 million people in the EU already access financial information from their mobile phones, a 23.6 per cent jump from 2007. And with this jump expect to see an increase in scams such as phishing.
On the marketing side, network operators may also introduce spam filtering for SMS if the levels of marketing increase.
Targeted and Niche Advertising will grow
… just as untargeted mobile advertising will fail materialise. Sticking a banner on a mobile portal is not the way forward for mobile advertising. Neither will the way forward come from PPC (Pay Per Click) models such as Google’s Adwords. The fact remains that the mobile internet experience is not one of search and browse in the same way as a PC.
Targeted advertising, such as Blyk’s service will be the way forward. Blyk have around 200,000 UK subscribers under 24 years old who receive free calls and SMS in return for receiving advertising content. It’s a clear, simple relationship that both advertisers and the Blyk users know and understand.

The Iphone will become ‘just another phone’
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been an Apple fan for years … Macs, Ipods etc. They have great products and superb design. The iphone is great too. Well, great for what it is. The fact remains that the iphone is just one product in a smartphone market that represents little more than 20% of users. And in that market there is stiff competition from Blackberry, Nokia and now the Google Phone.
Underlying this, is the fact that most people want a phone to make calls and send SMS. They don’t want to listen to music or watch videos. That, after all, is what you do at home! Many people do not want to be connected to their email all the time. They actually want to get a way from it.
I predict that the iphone will be like the Apple Mac – a great product for a niche of highly enthusiastic users. In mobile marketing terms it means that some of the high profile campaigns, such as the Guiness game, will fail to light the imagination of many people. ‘This will change everything’? I don’t think so.

Mobile Email bigger than SMS? I think not!

2008-12-10T06:53:00.000-08:00

A senior director at the independent mobile SEVEN has claimed that mobile email will be bigger than SMS. Isabelle Dumont, Senior Director, Marketing at SEVEN said: "email will be the main messaging application on the phone" she said "as users won't be able to use IM or SMS for all communications. This will result in a lot of consolidation around email in terms of user behaviour going towards email."

I totally disagree with this view.

Seven, who represent a small number of users in the UK mobile market, consist of highly active users and early adopters. Inevitably they are the most likely to use email.

Looking at the UK as a whole, the figure is much lower - less than 30% at the last count. It cerainly has grown in the last few years, but why won't everyone be using email instead of the more costly SMS?

There are two principle reasons:

Not everyone wants mobile email
For a majority of people, their phones are for calls and SMS. With the current range of tariffs and phones anyone who wants email on their phone can pretty much have it by now. There may be a few people where cost is the barrier, but unless mobile internet/email is universally free that will always be the case. The remainder have made a choice NOT to have email. I have heard people give all kinds of reasons: I don't need it, I don't want to be disturbed, the handsets are too small.

SMS is easy and contained
I have email on my phone, yet I still send SMS. The reason for that is simple, SMS is immediate. I look at them straight away because I know they will be short. What's more, all of my SMSs are for me - I have no spam (well very little at least).
Dealing with emails, on the other hand takes up much more time. I have to sift through things from Spam, to newsletters before I get to the ones I want. Many of my emails will take a while to download as they have attachments, and others will take a long time to reply to. So, even though I have an always on email connection, I only check it a few times each day, simply because dealing with emails is time consuming.
SMS is not time consuming in the same way. I can read and send them walking along the road. And if I send one I get a reply very quickly.

I am sure that many users feel as I do, which is why I think that email use will not increase that much. My guess would be around 30-35% of mobile users.

Flight Checkin by Mobile

2008-10-06T05:06:00.001-07:00

This is the kind of application I love. Lufthansa, the German airline are implementing a check in by SMS system.
Passengers will soon be able to have a complete check in service, including seat allocation and boarding card, through their phone.
The system uses a 2D barcode delivered to their handset which can be scanned to access the departure lounge or other areas.
Click here for more information on Mobile Ticketing.

DMA Mobile Marketing Guide

2008-10-02T02:27:00.000-07:00

As part of my role with the DMA (Direct Marketing Association) Mobile Council, I have contributed to a series of help notes which have formed a mobile marketing guide.
These cover all the current tools, such as SMS and Mobile Web as well as emerging tools such as QR (quick recognition), LBS (location based services) and Bluetooth applications.
Each help note explains what the tool or technology is, how it works and some examples of how it has been used.
The guides are free to everyone - click here to go to the DMA Mobile Council site

SMS helps call centres ..

2008-09-02T05:51:00.001-07:00

... to improve communicaton and cut costs.
No surprises here, but call centres have found that switching to SMS can greatly improve customer satisfaction. No more waiting in a queue, or navigating a complex IVR system to find out a simple piece of information such as a current balance.
A recent report states that:
'SMS efficiently replaces the need for live agents, as well as IVR systems, for many simple service inquiries including order status, payment reminders, account activity alerts, delivery notifications, security alerts, and more, allowing live agents to spend time on dealing with more complex customer inquiries.'
Systems such as our own txt4ever allow SMS Marketing and SMS Customer Relationships to be easily managed through web-based interfaces or IP-based systems.

Credit Crunch? What Credit Crunch?

2008-08-01T07:05:00.000-07:00

The latest figures form the Mobile Data Association (DMS) show a continued rise in SMS during the last quarter. Figure of 6.4 billion messages per month in the UK surpassed both the sector's expectations and the general economic trend. Some of this has undoubtedly come about with the grown in text messaging for business.
At the same time, mobile data - the mobile web - usage has increased to 16.5 million users in the UK, just over a quarter of mobile phone owners.
With greater business application as well, SMS is expected to rise by 30% in 2008.

Maybe it is either too soon or too tenuous to link to the Credit Crunch, however, it would appear that as with some other sectors, an economic contraction may increase SMS. Aside from the fact that many people are using bundles and thus have no opportunity to cut back, for both businesses and consumers SMS can represent a reduction in costs compared to phone calls.

Useful Links

2008-07-31T06:54:00.000-07:00

Payforit - mobile billing system
Bluetooth
Bluetooth Unit
QR (quick recognition) Codes

Location Based Services (LBS)

2008-07-29T07:28:00.000-07:00

One of the great advantages of mobile phones is that not only do they move around, but in general it is possible to tell where they are. Thus if the mobile user needs to know the local transport information, the nearest cash point, or even the local weather, a service provider should be able to tell them quickly and easily.
Location based services have been available on mobile for some time. But why haven't they taken off?

The answer, as is often the case, is MONEY. In order to get a location 'hit' the service provider must directly or through an aggregator, get an agreement to collect the LBS information from them. Unfortunately all the mobile networks want to charge a monthly minimum for this plus a cost per location hit.
More often than not this is passed on to the user through Premium SMS. The problem is that the users clearly do not value this information enough to pay for it on any grand scale. Even the TfL cabwise service, which allows you to text to recieve information of your nearest licensed taxi, charges 35p to cover their costs.

You may think that by providing this information for free the networks will benefit - better customer relationships, more mobile web usage, higher grade handsets sold etc.
Will the networks ever get to the point where they realise it is better to give away this information than charge for it? I very much doubt it. They only see revenue as the way forward.

There are, however a few examples of LBS which as been funded by advertising. Travel FC is a new LBS giving travel information of all things to Manchester United supporters. And it is sponsored by Manchester United themselves.

The thing that may throw the cat amongst the pigeons is Google. They are currently collection data from users about the position of each mobile mast and reverse engineering their own LBS. Of course Google WILL give this away for free and probably make an API available for anyone to do it. Where that leaves the networks it remains to be seen, but once again a web company has shown the mobile world how things should be done.

Payforit

2008-07-18T01:48:00.000-07:00

A great idea for mobile payments has been typically cocked up by the mobile networks money-grabbing approach.

What is Payforit
In short, it is a Wap-based mobile payment system. It works in a similar way to Premium SMS by deducting a payment off the user's phone bill, but is triggered via a wap site, rather than an SMS.

There are two key advantages of Payforit:
A simple click that can be built into a WAP browsing experience
Payments for up to £10 can be taken

This is exactly the kind of thing that I would love to include in our mobile content management platform, immedia24.com

However there are downsides:
The number of mobile users with WAP is small - the latest figures from text.it show WAP browsing levels at around 27% in the UK.
The cost to merchants of offering payforit and the amount that the networks take from each payment.

This last point is the one that will prevent Payforit from being truely ubiquitous. In terms of setting up as a merchant I have been quoted between £250 per month and £1500 per month depending on who you ask. For a new payment system in a relatively new market this is nothing short of outragous. Who would be in a position to risk this, apart from large brands with money to burn?
Similarly the networks are taking a similar chunk of money to Premium SMS - it varies according to the amount taken, but merchants will see little more than 50 or 60% of the payment value after VAT and Network charges.

Compare this to online payments systems such as Paypal or Google checkout, as you will see that they take a relatively small fee for transactions. Even online credit card processors such as Worldpay or Protx charge a small amount each month to their users.

Once again, the networks just don't get it. All they have to do is charge a small amount per transaction and the Payforit system will become a genuine mobile payment system for all.

US starts to get SMS

2008-05-29T08:24:00.000-07:00

Has the US started to get the concept of SMS? Subways in the States are now offering discount vouchers by SMS.
Shameless Plug: Our own Mobile Vouchers system has been available through txt4ever.com for two years!
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Hello by SMS

2008-05-23T09:36:00.000-07:00

Celebrity news site hellomagazine.com is launching daily MMS and SMS news.
Subscribers to the MMS service will receive one each week day, containing a latest news story from hellomagazine.com including image. SMS subscribers will receive a latest headline to their phones.

To subscribe to the MMS service, users can text HELLO1 to 62233 and for the SMS, HELLO2 to 62233.

Each MMS messages cost £1 and the SMS alerts cost 25p. The service is only available to UK mobile subscribers.

Currently attracting over 1.5 million unique users per month, Hellomagazine.com Editor Verity J. Smart, said: “ A launch of a mobile service has been long overdue, and I feel that it will be an important addition to our digital canon. A natural extension of a web presence is a mobile offering. ”

Mobile Advertising - where next?

2008-05-23T09:15:00.000-07:00

The analysts, Gartner recently predicted that worlwide mobile advertising would account for revenues of nearly $3 billion in 2008. But is this just the tip of the iceberg? Can be more be made out of mobile advertising?

So far, much of the mobile advertising has been focussed along traditional web models. Yahoo and Googles applications have largely ensured that they have produced mobile version of exsiting web products.
However this fails to recognise that mobile is a very different medium indeed. It differs in the following ways:

Most people have their phone with them most of the time
For many, their phone is also about their indentity - it's a statement
It is used for relatively brief periods of time - snacking
It's location can be known
Screen sizes and lack of keyboards limits some of the fucntionality

The mobile is, arguably, far more suited to tracking individual behaivour than traditional interent - the devices are rarely shared and the mobile number can be used as a form of ID.
If this is matched with information the operator holds then a significant amount of information can be known about the user and their habbits.

That is the upside for advertisers. On the downside, surely users will feel intruded if marketeers use this information to create a form of highly targetted mobile marketing?
To a large extent, this is very much the case. In western Europe, at least, users shy away from anything that appears to be too 'big brother.'
However, there is also a case to be made that we are subject to highly targetted advertising already ... just not on mobile.
Loyalty cards allow retailers to collect detailed information about buying habits and direct mail is tailored to those habbits.
Gmail looks at the content of emails and delivers adwords accordingly.

In both cases however there is a clear trade-ohttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifff - reduced costs or other benefits from the retailer, or in the case of Gmail, a specific service.

So highly targetted mobile marketing can work if the users gain a clear benefit from it and they do not feel that it is unecessarily instrusive.

The advantage of targetting, is that users will not receive ads for irrelevant products and services - just those that are likely to be of benefit to them.

Mobile Glossary

2008-05-21T09:08:00.000-07:00

I've put a link here to a link to a glossary of common mobile terms that may be useful.

The links below are for the search engines to follow, so there isn't anything worth reading here (hey, we all need traffic):

Mobile Marketing
bulkSMS
Premium SMS
Online Text messages

The MMS Picture Frame

2008-04-16T05:03:00.001-07:00

Not all technology is good. MMS, for example, has never reached the full potential that the networks hoped. A combination of cost, compatability and need meant that most users didn't see the point, or used it rarely.

However, a neat new application of the MMS system has been employed in a new digital photo grame.It can receive pictures directly from a mobile phone to be instantly displayed on a mantlepiece.

The 7-inch Parrot DF7700 Digital Photo Frame claims to be the first to market that accepts photos sent to it via MMS.
The device has an integrated SIM card with a dedicated call number and a log-in or password is not required when sending photos to the Frame via MMS. It also features a USB connection and an SD card slot for more conventional methods of photo transfer.

Photos are automatically resized to optimize memory which has a capacity of storing over 500 photos in its internal flash memory. These can be displayed on its high-resolution TFT screen in slideshow mode, or as a single picture. It includes automatic image rotation and a built-in light sensor that adjusts the LCD’s brightness as room lighting changes.

Given that digital picture frames were one of last Xmas's biggest sellers, the MMS Frame may well capture people's imagination.

Most people aren't interested in social networking from their operator

2008-03-03T09:38:00.000-08:00

I could have said this for free, but after commissioning a survey with SSI for Martin Dawes systems, it turns out that over 70 percent of social network users said they wouldn’t join a social network launched by their mobile service provider.

'It suggests mobile subscribers aren’t fully convinced about the relevance of social networks to their personal or business lives.' As one report states.

The problem is that fundamentally, people don't trust their network. Roaming charges, data charges and other rip-offs means that people do not trust their mobile operators.

The ins and outs of mobile age verification

2008-03-03T09:28:00.000-08:00

One of the often touted advantages of mobile content is that, unlike say the internet, it has a built in age verification system. Although operators can control what goes on their portal, with the growth of third party content providers and delivery systems such as our own, immedia24.com, the process is more complex. How does it work? Does it ensure that minors do not access adult content?

Mobile age verification was established on a self-regulatory basis across all UK mobile networks in 2004. As with other changes in the MNO (mobile network operator), these were brought about by the threat of government intervention and not the altruism of the networks themselves.

The difficulty with understanding how it works on mobile is that the information is difficult to find. There is a copy of a document buried somewhere on the Orange website, but cannot be found anywhere else.

The principle of adult controls are that mobile users must prove that they are over 18 before they can receive content restricted by the MNOs. However, with the exception of chat rooms, they are not specific about what constitutes adult content – would, for example, the type of images found in FHM be considered adult? There is no clear definition for this, but instead, the policy makes a vague statement that the over 18 rule will be defined as ‘consistent with standards used by other media’.

Content, when delivered through MNO portals is monitored. Content delivered through third party portals, such as immedia24.com, needs to be controlled externally.

Shortcodes
Shortcodes, the five or six digit numbers attached to premium rate messages have been the focus of adult verification. The way a shortcode works, is that a user must send a text to this code and in return will receive either an SMS with a URL link (such as immedia24.com) or an MMS with the content. So codes starting with 69xxx and 89xxx are restricted to age verified phones. For shortcodes, phones are locked by default and age verification MUST be made before content can be provided. This is usually done by sending a message to the user asking them to contact customer services to verify their phone.

Proof of age is made using a credit card, where a small sum is deducted and then refunded by the network. This process can usually be done through a phone call, WAP or online.

Mobile Internet

The age verification process for the mobile internet differs from operator to operator, where some restrict sites by default, but others have an optional ‘parental lock’:

All MNOs have content filtering for WAP and mobile internet - the system varies depending on the operator:

- Vodafone - all content filtered with extensive controls in place by default
- T-Mobile and Virgin - all content filtered
- O2 - content filtering optional as part of parental controls
- 3 - Walled garden - adult content only available as paid content through their portal

The problem with this is that on O2, for example, unless a parent is both aware of the parental lock and how to set it, there is nothing to stop minors from accessing adult content.
On the other hand, with Vodafone or T-Mobile, the content blocking is something of a blunt instrument, where many acceptable sites are blocked simply because they are not known to that network’s filters. The more cynical observer may suggest that it is used as a means to block many third party sites and pushes the user into those sites which are accessible from the operator’s portal, such as Vodafone Live! Or T-Zones.

So should parents be worried that in spite of certain controls, the mobile web means that their children are accessing unsuitable content? The answer is that generally speaking they should not worry. Firstly, the shortcode numbers are tightly controlled. The mobile web does not represent a back door to unsuitable content for two reasons: firstly, it is only on O2 where content controls must be added. The other networks filter out adult content automatically. Secondly, very few minors access the mobile web – the primary reason being one of cost. Unless they are on a subscription, with a data tariff, the costs of surfing are almost prohibitive. Very few minors have a subscription and even fewer have a data tariff.

Whilst the MNOs have not dealt with the issue with the clarity and consistency that many would like, the age verification procedures are, generally speaking, highly effective.

Two Trillion Texts in 2008

2008-03-03T08:48:00.000-08:00

The latest report from Research and Markets predicts that over 2 trillion texts will be sent this year - that's two for each subscriber each day.

Although other mobile data and content services are starting to grow, SMS still represents the killer app for mobile. The authors of the report state: "This supports our claim that of the various new telecoms technologies and innovations over the last few decades, there can only be one conclusion drawn – the most popular services are usually communications-based – not entertainment, not information, but communications."

Banks and financial services sectors are beginning to take a greater mobile commerce, particularly m-payments and m-banking. Focus has also turned to the developing markets, where mobile phones are being viewed as an opportunity to reach the masses that would not otherwise use m-payment or m-banking services.

Link

2008-02-22T08:07:00.001-08:00

Mobile Apps still not popular with users

2008-02-18T04:47:00.000-08:00

A study by AppTrigger found that 57 per cent have not advanced their use of mobile phones in five years.

Despite 74 per cent believing that the services offered have improved more than half (57 per cent) of UK mobile phone owners use their phone for the same things that they did in 2003, according to a study by telecom application connectivity specialist AppTrigger.

According to the study, nearly half of the users said they have never received sports, retails promotions etc.

The producers of the study believes that mobile phone operators are largely locked into proprietary application suites and hindered by complex connectivity issues. However, an explination may simple be that most users just want to make calls and send SMS on their mobile.

Interestingly, those users who did download apps, the majority of 14-24 year olds were interested in games and ringtones. The 24-35 age group used more PDA style applications such as diary systems. The biggest surprise was in the 35-55 age group - these were the greatest users of mobile internet.

Quote of the Day

2008-02-04T04:56:00.000-08:00

Cyriac Roeding, the head of CBS Mobile, speaking at a conference said:
'How do we expect anyone to take this seriously as an advertising device… So let’s make it simpler–let’s talk about usability, let’s not talk about the next 15 menu items, and let’s not try to copy another medium … If you are trying to make this the next online page, you will fail…because this is a new medium in its own right.'

Absolutely spot on. When it comes to mobile, more is not better. It all comes down to the simple fact that most people are using their phones for calls, SMS and as a phone book. Packing it with other features only appeals to a small minority.

Useful Info

2008-01-31T08:04:00.000-08:00

In an attempt to shed a bit more light on the terminology of the weird and wonderful world of mobile, I have put together some glossary/explanation pages here:

Mobile Internet

Mobile Ticketing & Couponing

Mobile QR Codes

Mobile UGC

Mobile Social Media

Mobile Widgets

Mobile ad funded content and services

Mobile TV

Bluetooth Advertising

UK Regulator to Look At Roaming Data Charges

2008-01-31T05:09:00.000-08:00

About time too!
Following a recent report from the European Regulators Group, Ofcom, the UK telecoms regulator is too look at the charges for using data abroad.
The average price charged to UK users abroad was over £4 per megabyte, although prices of £7 per meg or more are charged to customers not on special tarrifs. The £4 also takes into account that some operators such as 3 have no roaming charges or lower charges where they have European partners.
Ofcom's Chief Executive acknolwedged that data roaming charges represented a significant barrier to business. With the growth of mobile email and smart phones, such as the i-Phone, it is the roaming charges that is ultimately the barrier to useage.

The report also noted that whilst calling and SMS roaming charges had come down, they are still over 3 times the cost of use at home. Not exactly a bargain.

Ofcom will be looking to see if it has the regulatory powers to deal with data charges

Young people don't trust their mobile operator

2008-01-24T10:41:00.000-08:00

Yes, shock horror! The surprise news is that young people have little trust in their mobile operator, little loyalty to them and will regularly switch networks.
In an extensive survey of 14-27 year old's in London, New York, Munich and Barcelona, many cited a 'lack of trust' as their reason for changing mobile operators.
Customers were nervous about the charges from using data services, and limited their mobile web access and wap downloads as a result.

Years of cynical pricing of data and for roaming has obviously put of many of their younger customers. The survey also showed that they are not attracted by fancy incentives such as mobile TV or other content. As with consumers of all ages they were interested in good customer service and clear, transparent pricing and billing.

It's not exactly rocket science, but once again, the networks have failed to understand how to keep their customers (in this case younger customers) happy.

ARTISTS AND LABELS INVEST IN FUTURE OF MOBILE MUSIC

2008-01-11T05:13:00.000-08:00

Immedia24 carried out a survey covering a cross section of the music industry - from artists to record labels - has shown a high level of interest in publishing music onto mobile phones. 90% said that they were offering, or intending to offer mobile downloads of music tracks.

The company launched the survey in order to understand why only some sections of the music industry were selling or distributing to mobile.

So far mobile music sales has been through operator portals in conjunction with major record labels. With a large number of artists and independent labels completing the survey (50% and 20% respectively) it is clear they are looking for a route to sell direct to their fan's mobile phones.

Companies like immedia24 allow artists and labels to deliver content directly to the mobile user, without the need to go through operator portals or the major music download site. Although this gives the artist more control and greater revenue, over 30% of respondents didn't realise that it was possible to do this.

Whilst over 70% saw it as a means to distribute tracks and videos, an equal number saw it as an important medium in which to build an artists profile.

Important factors for a mobile delivery system were the quality of service and ease of use and technical support, along with the quality of the end user experience.

Issues of concern were the download speeds available on mobile along with the return offered by Premium. One responded said 'mobile still seems a bit clunky', whilst another felt that they didn't want to 'alienate fans with spam'.

Although nearly 78% of respondents said they would use MySpace music as a sales route, over half were not aware of other mobile channels such as Numo, Kodime or Immedia24.

Significantly, over 16% said that they did not want to use MySpace as a means to sell to mobile.

Mark Brill, CEO of Ping Corporation explained: 'It's clear that many people in the music industry see mobile music as an important element in their sales and distribution. The independent labels and artists are looking to do that without having to tie into operators or major labels. It is also interesting to see importance that they also place on mobile as a means of promoting artists.' The survey was carried out online by immedia24 between May and August 2007. Of the 150 respondents, 50% were artists, 20% independent record labels and 8% from major record labels.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Immdia24 is a mobile content and billing platform developed by London-based company, Ping Corporation Ltd. The company has been developing systems for messaging to mobile and content delivery since 2003.

For more information contact: Mark Brill Pingcorp/immedia24 - mark@pingcorp.co.uk
Also published at http://www.mobilemarketingmagazine.co.uk/2007/10/survey-reveals-.html

Iphone flops at Christmas despite hype

2008-01-07T05:38:00.000-08:00

Maybe a bit of hype in the title, but no surprises that the iphone hasn't had the expected level of sales in the UK.

Although O2 enjoyed a major spike in iPhone sales in the week before Christmas, this was after disappointing sales from the much-hyped 9 November launch.

Most stores are believed to have missed iPhone targets by some distance, with a typical-sized O2 store selling just one iPhone per week.

There are probably a broad number of reasons for this - some are connected to the downturn in spending, others to their competitors (eg the LG Viewty). Ultimately, data charges not withstanding, and PDA style phone has a limited market and the iphone will never be as ubiquitous as Apple would want it to be.

iphone data roaming problems

2007-12-21T08:17:00.000-08:00

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.

3 and T-Mobile share data networks

2007-12-18T04:51:00.000-08:00

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?

Vodafone reformatting the mobile internet

2007-12-17T05:16:00.000-08:00

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.

The Killer Application for Mobile

2007-12-17T05:06:00.000-08:00

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.

Future Mobile: Potential of SMS Revenues Not Reached

2007-12-13T02:29:00.000-08:00

Future Mobile: Potential of SMS Revenues Not Reached

Potential of SMS Revenues Not Reached

2007-12-13T02:02:00.000-08:00

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

Blowing our own trumpet

2007-12-06T03:02:00.000-08:00

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'.

hppy brthday 2 SMS

2007-12-05T04:38:00.000-08:00

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.

Mobile Flat Rate Data Pricing - is it the solution for mobile content?

2007-11-30T09:37:00.000-08:00

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.

Mobile Toilet

2007-11-30T05:16:00.000-08:00

'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.

The Value of Social Kudos

2007-11-22T05:22:00.001-08:00

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.

Mobile Content Glossary

2007-11-22T05:20:00.000-08:00

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 Mobile Goldmine?

2007-10-29T03:57:00.000-07:00

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.

Mint's SMS Payment Service

2007-07-25T02:50:00.000-07:00

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.

Avoiding SMS and Phone Scandals

2007-07-24T07:50:00.000-07:00

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.

Keys Money Fags Phone

2007-05-25T09:38:00.000-07:00

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.

SEEKING THE INDUSTRY’S OPINION ON MOBILE PUBLISHING

2007-05-22T05:28:00.000-07:00

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.gif mmedia24.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.

Why people prefer SMS to email ....

2007-05-22T05:24:00.002-07:00

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.

2007-05-22T05:24:00.001-07:00

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. “

SMS now outstrips voice calls in UK

2007-05-22T05:19:00.000-07:00

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.

Free International Calls from Mobile

2007-04-02T08:14:00.000-07:00

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

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.

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2007-03-04T09:17:00.000-08:00

Other than the need to find traffic, I have added some links here:

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2007-03-04T07:39:00.000-08:00

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.

And the latest estimate for mobile content is ...

2007-03-04T07:15:00.000-08:00

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.

Apple expects iphones to sell quickly

2007-03-04T07:08:00.000-08:00

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.

SMS aids democracy

2007-03-04T07:06:00.000-08:00

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.

Developing Countries and Mobile Content

2007-03-04T07:04:00.000-08:00

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.

Mobile Advertising in The UK

2007-03-01T09:14:00.001-08:00

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.

Cheating by Text (again)

2007-02-21T06:50:00.000-08:00

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!

Young Mobile Users Say 'No' to Mobile Internet

2007-02-21T03:21:00.000-08:00

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.

Unfaithfull by Text?

2007-02-20T06:13:00.000-08:00

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?

2007-02-20T06:11:00.000-08:00

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.

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.

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.

Web-based messaging system txt4everywhere offered special deals and timed messages for Valentines.

Mobile as an advertising medium

2007-02-10T04:08:00.000-08:00

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.

Increase in mobile content downloads

2007-02-09T05:20:00.000-08:00

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.

2007-02-06T05:03:00.000-08:00

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!)

2007-02-06T04:14:00.000-08:00

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.

Why I Hate Vodafone

2007-02-02T01:55:00.000-08:00

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!

Mobile as Web content

2007-01-31T07:02:00.000-08:00

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 content

e-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.

My own version of a mobile to web content management system can be found at immedia24.com

UK SMS Volumes still Rising

2007-01-26T03:57:00.000-08:00

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.

Immedia 24

2007-01-04T03:35:00.000-08:00

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.

MMS now quite popular

2006-12-25T04:13:00.000-08:00

Picture messaging reaches a respectable one million a day in the UK.

Although it is clear that the predictions that MMS would replace SMS are now best forgotten, operators have been slow to release figures for the number of MMS messages that users were sending. This led inevitably to conclusions that the number of messages was well below exectations.

Now the MDA has ben able to secure the agreement of UK operators to issue a combined total from them of the number of P2P MMS that are being sent.

Earlier this year the MDA revealed that over half of the UK’s phones are picture-capable with the UK’s first five megapixel camera phone now available from LG, and one and two megapixel cameras becoming commonplace in handsets

As the number of people using camera phones grows, more and more users are sending and receiving the photographs they take. It won't be overtaking SMS anytime soon, but we extend a warm welcome to MMS into the family of mobile messaging products.

An alternative to MMS is WAP Push or URL sending. It costs the same as SMS, and can be sent from web-based messaging system, such as txt4ever.

Nearly 4 billion texts per month

2006-12-25T04:09:00.000-08:00

November's figure of 3.8 billion text messages takes the annual total so far to a staggering 37 billion, according to figures released today by the Mobile Data Association (MDA).

Person-to-person texts sent across the UK GSM network operators last month show an incredible increase of 1 billion on the total sent during the same period in 2005. November’s total represents an average of 126 million text messages currently sent per day in the UK.

On 6th December 2005, the MDA forecast that text messaging figures would rise to deliver an annual total of 36.5 billion text messages for 2006. This estimate was revised in August 2006 to 40 billion which it is now clear it will slightly exceed.

On New Year’s Day in 2006 165 million SMS were sent,is the highest ever daily total yet recorded, a figure that is sure to be exceeded again this year.

Prevous years have been beset with message delays as the networks struggle to cope with the sudden demand. However, networks have increased their capacity to match the continued growth of SMS and hopefuly significant delays will be something in the past.

Backing Up Phones

2006-12-25T03:55:00.000-08:00

How many people back up their mobile phone contacts?
Very few. Yet for most people their mobile is their only source for their contacts. Gone are the days when people have a written phone book.
What are the solutions?
Sim card readers are cheap and easily available but have two main problems:

They only read the SIM not the phone memory
They can be lost or broken just as easily as the phone

The other option is backing up to PC. This is probably better, but the phone data connections do not always work - Mac users have problems with Nokias, for example and for many people the technology is too complex.
Data is held on your PC, which means it can't be accessed if you loose your phone when you're away from it.

We have developed a solution which gets around both of these problems. It's a Symbian application that backs up your phone book (memory AND sim) to your web-based messaging account, txt4everywhere. It doesn't require a data connection or Bluetooth and is fast and simple.

Mobile Data Charges

2006-10-07T10:19:00.000-07:00

(dodgy dealings in the world of the mobile operator ... yet again)

When you connect to the internet from your computer, the charges are pretty simple. With broadband, for example, you pay a flat rate per month and there may or may not be limits on that data transfer. None the less the charges are pretty clear.

When it comes to mobile phones, the cost of transferring data is more confusing. Most people have an idea of what they pay for calls and texts, although the networks have added confusion to this by exempting certain types of calls or texts from bundles along with the excessive costs of roaming. However when it comes to data – emails and downloading files, the mobile networks have taken advantage of the lack of mobile users by adding in additional and often exorbitant charges for transferring data.

What is Mobile Data?
Mobile data is anything that is moved around using the internet connection on your phone. This includes emails, the internet or downloading ringtones, backgrounds or games. This facility on the phone can be very useful for delivering additional information for users, and if it weren’t for data charges it could be done very cheaply. For example providers or games and ringtones commonly use a method called Wap Push to send you the file. Wap push is simply a text message that, when opened, connects to the file which is stored on the internet.

What is the cost of Mobile Data?
The exact cost of data varies widely from network to network and from package to package. If you buy a data card then there will be a reasonable allowance for data (typically 30 meg) within the monthly tariff. Standard monthly phone tariffs will include a few megabytes of data free. Most pay as you go users will be charged for all the data they download.
These charges are start at £1 per megabyte up to £7 per megabyte. And if you use your phone to download data while roaming the cost can be u to £20 per megabyte.
Worse still, this information is not easy to come buy. Look on your mobile operator’s site and see if they will tell you? For pay as you go users they don’t even see the cost on their monthly bills.

Opportunities
The great thing about the newest generation of mobile phones is their ability to offer games, music and even video. Your phone could quite easily replace your mp3 player.
With powerful devices carried around all the time by almost everyone, there is a great opportunity both for people to create music, videos or games and quickly and easily distribute them.
The barrier, however is the amount that mobile users will pay their networks to download it. If a 3 minute song is 3 megabytes, for example, then a pay as you go user will pay £21 to download it.

What’s the solution?
In an ideal world, we’d be paying the same as an internet connection on our computers. In fact this could be a perfect way to sell 3g phones. The networks offer a fast data connection for unlimited downloads at the same price as your home broadband.
However back in the real world, that isn’t going to happen just yet.
One option is to deliver via MMS, multi media message service. This is also problematic for the cost of delivery (30p per message), compatibility and most significantly, the file size. This is limited by the phone and may be as small as 100kb.
Wap push has a number of advantages over MMS. For example, opening a link to a wap site can identify your phone’s operating system and deliver a compatible file. There is also no limit on the file type or size.

Fair Data
The solution that we are looking for is pre-buying data from the networks. What that means for the user is the cost of the data can be included in the price of the item. At the moment it is possible for content providers to pre-buy data at around 30p per megabyte. Still not cheap, but much less than the £1-7 that a user will be charged.
We will be including pre-paid data within our Mobile Publishing System, Immedia24. It makes the possibility of sending full track music or even videos a reality.
As pre-paid data becomes more common hopefully the price will begin to drop. We have called this Fair Data, as what you are getting is completely clear.

Mobile Surveys

2006-09-10T09:14:00.000-07:00

Surveys by text are a simple and cost-effective way of gathering feed-back. We are now incorporating this into txt4ever, which provides all the tools to set up and run a mobile-based survey.

The mobile user will typically take the following steps:

Sedd an initial text message of the keyword to a shortcode number
Receive an automated reply with the survey questions and insturctions on how to answer.
Send a reply message which is stored in the system and can be exported as a datafile for further analysis.

The system can handle multiple keywords and sub kewywords. For example, if you think xxx reply with survey a. This can then generate a secondary question and so on.

All in all, mobile surveys are a great way to engage and get feedback - it's fast, direct and cheap

More on data charges

2006-09-10T09:09:00.000-07:00

Whilst the mobile phone networks charge between £1-£7 per megabyte of data to download, the actual cost to them is likely to be pennies or even fractions of a penny.
We can now pre-by data, which we can attach to content. The charge for this is around 30p per megabyte. Much less than the charge made to mobile users, but still not sufficient enough to include it in the price of a download.

Fair Data
The concept behind this is to charge mobile a users a fair price to receive data, which is reflective of the true cost to the mobile networks.
We are campaigning to make sure this happens, but until then it will be a case of charging users a small extra fee for receiving that data.

Mobile Data Charges

2006-09-07T12:35:00.000-07:00

Sending an SMS to a mobile phone is pretty straight forward. All mobiles can accept them and send them.
When it comes to pictures, sound or video the situation is somewhat different. They can either be sent by MMS or via a link to the file or a wap site.
The link/wap site option is the most straight forward on a technical level - it can be sent in an SMS so it is almost universal for mobile users. The problem comes when the mobile users tries to access the link. Some networks (such as 3) do not automatically enable their phones for wap links, and most require an 18+ registration for non-portal sites.
However once that wap/internet connection is enabled, the problem is the cost of the downloads. On some monthly rental tariffs they allow some data transfer within set limits. Above a few megabytes they start to charge. The networks charge between £1 and £7 per megabyte of download.
So to download a 3 minute song - which is around 3 megabytes the user could pay £21 to their network for the privilage. Of course this is not made clear in contracts or tariffs.

Is there a solution? Well I think there is. In an idea world the networks should offer their data connection in the same way as home internet - just a simple flat rate. In fact if the mobile phone operators wanted to sell shed loads of 3g phones the best way would be to offer the data-connection at a home broadband price - £17 per month with high download limits.

Until then, the option that we are exploring is pre-paying for the data - it is a few pence per megabyte and can be incorporated into our existing system.

Mobile Data Charges

2006-08-30T05:30:00.000-07:00

One of the major issues for mobile downloads, such as videos or music is that users are charged by their mobile operator for their data. I
Take a 3 minute song - it will be just under 3 meg in size.
The operators have blurred the issue, but if your on a basic contract, there will be a monthly allowance of a few megabytes after which they start charging.
If you're on pay as you go you'll be even worse off. Networks charge up to £3 per megabyte of download even though the cost to them is pennies. And because you don't get itemised bills you will never know how much a download has cost you.
Essentially this is a complete scam by the mobile phone operators but it presents a major problem for content providers.
Take our 3 megabyte song - lets say you buy it on a £1.50 premium SMS charge. You will then pay another £9 in data charges if you're an unfortunately pay as you go user.

Is there a solution? Well there are two:
1. Use MMS for delivery. The problem with this is two-fold. Firstly not all networks support MMS and all file formats in the same way - it doesn't always work. Secondly for it will cost the content provider up to 30p to deliver the MMS.
They could use a video shortcode (or MMS shortcode) - but currently the costs of this are very expensive and only likely to be used for the largest content providers.

2. Pre-pay for the data
The system works like this: you send a link to the file, or a wap link to the mobile user in the reply to the PSMS request.
That link is to a URL which does not incurr data charges to the networks - the data has been prepaid. The cost of this data is a few pence per megabyte and can be included in the cost of the download.

Right now, the second option is not widely available, however we have managed to incorporate this in our mobile content management system, immedia24.
My plan is to promote this 'fair data' policy so that mobile users understand that we're not ripping them off but that the mobile operators are doing that.

Paypal Mobile

2006-08-27T02:06:00.000-07:00

After some months of chasing I finally got to email someone at Paypal Mobile about how we can integrate their product into our SMS/Mobile Content Management system.

Unfortunately they are not remotely interested. I was told that:
"Paypal Mobile is focussed on the retail sector for real products and macro payments, rather than mobile content, text messages or downloads."

OK, fine, so how about using mobile phones to pay for these 'real' products then?

I was told:
"We can only take payments via a website. WAP payments will not be enabled until early 2007 at best." And I believe there are no plans to allow payments by SMS.

I find this all very disappointing. Developers such as ourselves are looking for mobile payment systems that don't have the costs and problems of network based PSMS. Here are Paypal, with the ability to provide a killer application for mobile payments but they're not interested.

FREE 'DONATION BY TEXT' SERVICE, txt4giving

2006-08-25T03:29:00.000-07:00

txt4giving a new text messaging and donations system for charities, is being offered free by London-based innovation company Formation.

The system is accessed through the web - so there's no need to install any software - and no charge is made for setting up the keywords and shortcodes for taking donations by SMS. Mobile phone users can donate to any charity set up on the system by texting to a premium rate number.

The donations by text will attract Gift Aid, because a clear audit trail is automatically stored.

This flexible system allows campaigns to be set up quickly, including the choice of sending an automated reply message to thank donors, provide more information about the charity, send relevant weblinks, as well as providing unique, numbered receipts to users.

The charity advertises a shortcode number for donations.

The donor texts a keyword to the shortcode number 60300. The texts cost the donor ��1.50 plus the standard network charge*, taken automatically from the existing credits on their mobile.

The donor receives an acknowledgement which is composed by the charity - for example: 'Thankyou for your donation, please visit our website to see how your money is being put to good use.'

Of the 150 pence donated, 17.5% (26.25p) is paid in VAT, the mobile phone networks take 39p This leaves 84.75p Formation take 4p, and 80.75p is received by the charity GiftAid of 28% (22.61p) is claimable. So each text donation is worth 103.36p

'Charities should be freely given the benefit of systems which have been developed for business. Text messaging is a powerful tool, ideal for generating charity donations. These donations can qualify for GiftAid as there's a clear audit trail. It's important that there's a system that both charities and donors can trust, which follows good practice. Transparency is vital as charities need to know exactly what happens with every penny donated, and we are completely open about the costs.'

*This procedure conforms to ICSTIS regulations

Note to editors
Formation has been developing web and mobile applications since 1994. The company provides messaging systems for business and the education and health sectors.

Mobile Micropayments

2006-08-25T01:18:00.000-07:00

There has been a debate on one of the mobile forums recently about the best way to take micro-payments on mobile phones.

Micro payments are becoming more important as mobile users need to pay for small items - ringtones, wall papers or even content, such as music.

There are essential 3 options:
Premium SMS
Credit Cards
Non-operator billing

Premium SMS
Pros
It's easy, seamless and fast - you can take a payment and deliver content in a single message
Cons
The operators take a large chunk of the money (around 30% depending on the tariff)
It's not world wide (you need codes for each country)

Credit Cards
Pros
Fairly universal and you can take from small to large amounts
Cons
Difficult from a user perspective on mobile. It requires either web access or a difficult and time consuming WAP site

Non-operator billing
These are systems where mobile users will purchase some kind of 'credit' using credit cards or paypal
Pros
Can be universal, better payouts for content providers
Cons
Require pre-registration

All in all, in spite of it's problems, premium SMS is the best method for delivering content, simply because it's the one that mobile users will actually use.

There are additional problems, however:
in the UK premium SMS does not support WAP push
UK mobile networks additionally charge for the data

Premium SMS

2006-08-25T01:17:00.000-07:00

Using PSMS
The mobile user must first make a request by text from their phone to the charging number. A reverse charge SMS is sent back -� it is this action which actually deducts the fee from the users phone.
Both the price and process limits how mobile content may be charged � it cannot operate in the same way as credit cards on a website, where a user selects items into a shopping cart and the sum is billed at the end. It also means that charging an existing customer for further content is more complex. For example if you want to charge for access to more content which is accessed from a web or wapsite the user will have to send a new text message.
On the plus side for providers (but not necessarily for the user), reverse charge billing does have a recurring options � so the content provider could, for example, charge a user �1 daily. This starts from a single message requested by the user and ends when they request it to stop.
Inevitably this type of billing system dictates the pricing model for mobile content. In other words, you need to think about how you charge for things. Subscription models lend themselves well to mobile content � the ideal type of application is content that regularly changes.
Although some mobile content is clearly successful � ringtones is now a larger market that CD single sales � there are still massive opportunities for developing new content that will catch the imagination of mobile users.

Delivering Content/Media/Information
There are a number of options for getting information/media onto phones: SMS, MMS, WAP, WAP push or HTML.
Although much maligned after its first introduction, WAP is a very useful tool for delivering content to phones. Most modern phones have WAP/GPRS which it makes it easy to access any type of content: text, pictures, video or music. The increase in 3g phones should make this easier.
Building and hosting a WAP site is relatively straight forward and there are even content management systems available that can manage it. The only downside is that it may be a pain for users to access a bookmark through GPRS.
Once you have your content then its simply a case of sending the URL of the WAP site with the SMS billing message.
Alternatively for text content, it can be sent as an SMS � either with the billing message or as a separate SMS. If it is a small bit of information then this is the easiest method.
MMS has the advantage of being able to deliver any type of content directly to the users phone. The problems with MMS are cost � 30p per message � and compatibility.
Increasingly, HTML � a website � is a an option for many content providers. Many phones can now browse HTML and can provide information in a stripped-down form. Still, HTML (or compact HTML) are really only useful for users with larger screens and PDA-style phones.

SMS Gateways
So youve worked out how youre going to deliver the content, the next thing is to get that from the internet to the mobile phone network. For this youll need an SMS gateway. These are provided by the reverse SMS billing provider and is essentially a gateway through which http requests can be sent and received. The gateway will consist of a series of servers with gsm modems which deliver the information to the networks and then each user.
Although its not necessary to need to know about the way that the gateway talks to the networks, there will be an issue with how you integrate your content with the SMS gateway.
This varies depending on the provider � some only give a raw communications package. They simply deliver the request on to your server and you need to set up your server to with the appropriate response.
Other gateway providers will take a more user-friendly approach whereby you provide them with a simple URL and they will manage the integration to ensure it gets delivered to the user.
Protecting your content from non-paying users is another complexity that providers of wap-based content will need to deal with. There are a number of methods of doing this such as issuing each user with a name and password (time consuming for the user) to generate an individual URL for the user sent as a bookmark.
This is where delivering content by SMS (or MMS) may be easier. The gateway will still need to collect the content from a place on your server (usually with a simple password protection) and sent it directly to the mobile customer.

PSMS Payouts
The advantage of reverse SMS billing is its simplicity. That and the fact that mobile users accept the principle of premium rate charges on their phones. The disadvantage for the content provider is the amount taken by the networks. For a start all billings are including VAT, so the government will take 17.5% for starters. The networks also take a much higher percentage than, say a credit card processor. Then the billing providing company will also take a small share. The revenues offered by each network varies and many processors average this out across all of them. So after everyone has taken their wedge the most a content provider can expect to receive is 55%. Where the billing provider provides a lower set-up and monthly cost along with easy integration then the share of the revenue will be lower.

Other payment options

It is possible to use premium rate voice calls as a method of charging for mobile content. IVR, as it is known, can operate whereby so that the customer phones the premium rate number and will be given a reference code to log-in to a web or wapsite. The problem is that this method of billing is not popular with customers � the extra problems with making the call and then noting a reference number is off-putting. If IVR was a successful method for charging for content then it would have been successfully used on the internet.
The most obvious alternative to Reverse SMS billing is credit cards. Whilst this it is entirely possible to process credit card details by a secure WAP connection it is fairly cumbersome to the mobile phone user. Generally most mobile phone content is relatively cheap � pretty much a micro-payment � credit cards are a complicated and expensive way to handle these. Although a number of providers outside the network operators are looking at electronic wallets that will enable micro payments to be made quickly and cheaply these are far from a reality for most users.
One great advantage of reverse SMS billing by a shortcode is that it has a built-in marketing function. Typically advertising will state text KEYWORD to SHORTCODE and thats it � both the payment and content can be taken care of through one simple point of entry. With mobile content directories still in their infancy, asking users to type in a URL is probably too complex to be effective.

Paypal Mobile
One system that could become the killer application for mobile payments is Paypal Mobile. They now allow users to attach a mobile number as well as an email address to make payments to and from their account. However, the biggest problem with this, is that Paypal are not interested in SMS or mobile based billing systems. The latest word is that it wont be for some time to come!

Regulations
The telecoms business and phone billing in particular is a tightly regulated area and content providers need to be prepared to abide by these.
Already mentioned is that you can only send a reverse charge to the same number that the users request has come from.
Certain short codes must be used for adult content. Last year the networks agreed to restrict certain content to ensure that it could not be viewed by minors. These numbers are the ones that begin with 89. In order for a mobile user to get content from these numbers they must first register their phone as belonging to someone over the age of 18.
Reverse charge billing can only be used to charge for content that is delivered to the users phone or available on the web. You could not use it for mail order items, for example.
The price and frequency of the numbers must be correctly advertised. There are certain statements that must clearly be made on any publicity material, and where this includes recurring charges, the stop keyword must also be stated. ICTIS the telecoms regulatory body has more details covering this on their website.

Premium SMS and Mobile Content Explained (part 1)

2006-08-25T01:15:00.000-07:00

The facility to charge mobile phone users for content (PSMS) has seen a new market spring up over the last few years. The biggest use has been by media companies - TV and newspapers, along with ringtones, backgrounds and games. Some ringtones have multi-million pound advertising budgets.
So what is the future for mobile content? What do users want and is there money to be made from this?

What is Mobile Content
The term 'mobile content' refers to anything that is available to users through their phones - ringtones, backgrounds and games were the starting point, but this is becoming more diverse. With the latest generation of phones, any type of media (text, pictures, music or video) can be delivered to a mobile phones and a charge made for it.

I don't think that content is the most appropriate term for it. Something like Mobile Media or Mobile Information Services is more relevant to users.

Mobile Payment Systems
The most common way to charge users for the media received on their mobile is through reverse charge SMS. Simply, the user makes a request by SMS and the message thats sent back to them deducts a fixed charge from their phone.

Shortcodes
Reverse charge billing is done via a five or six digit numbers as these are easiest for the users - commonly known as shortcodes. In order for a short code to work, there needs to be an agreement by all of the networks to accept this number (unless its a number specifically for one networks users). To own that short code number generally costs £�1000+ to set up and around £�750 each month. For larger organisations such as TV companies this is a small cost and its common to have a dedicated short code for a specific TV programme.
For someone just starting out, or for smaller content providers this may not be viable, so short codes may be shared across a variety of services.

Keywords
In order to distinguish different services on a shared code, keywords are used. So for the number 86122 may have many different users whose particular content is identified by their keyword: ringtones, backgrounds. There are no limits to the keywords for a shortcode number � its simply method of identifying which content the user wants. Unlike an email which has a subject line and a header, this cannot be altered in SMS. Therefore the data must be contained in the text mesage itself.

Reverse SMS Billing or Premium SMS (PSMS)
Each shortcode has one price attached to it - these prices can be 10p, 25p, 50p, 75p £1, £1.50, £3 and £5. This price is set when the number is initially set up. It is possible to charge multiples of the shortcode price by sending more than one message. So if the content provider wants to charge £2, for example, then the user would receive 2 £1 messages.

Payouts
One problem facing mobile content providers are how little actually ends up in their pockets.
If you take a £1.50 message the break-down is as follows:
26.25p VAT
up to 45p to the networks
Obviously this is a barrier and it limits the content that can be delivered. This is particularly unfortunate for charity donations by text as they do not get the VAT back from the governemnt. The only small consolation is that in a system such as txt4giving.com, the message reports allow them to show an audit trail for Gift Aid.

... continued

Future Mobile

Taking it personally - engaging with mobile marketing

Roaming data charges to be more transparent ...

Netsize Annual Survey is out!

Will Google and Apple Force the Mobile Networks to Rethink Their Business Model?

Mobile Marketing News Service Launched

The Google Latitude Controversy

Mobile and Technology Usage Figures

iphone's impact out-weighs it's marketing share

SMS is still the killer app

Users 'baffled' by extra phone features

Top Ten Mobile Marketing developments for 2009

Mobile Email bigger than SMS? I think not!

Flight Checkin by Mobile

DMA Mobile Marketing Guide

SMS helps call centres ..

Credit Crunch? What Credit Crunch?

Useful Links

Location Based Services (LBS)

Payforit

US starts to get SMS

Hello by SMS

Mobile Advertising - where next?

Mobile Glossary

The MMS Picture Frame

Most people aren't interested in social networking from their operator

The ins and outs of mobile age verification

Two Trillion Texts in 2008

Link

Mobile Apps still not popular with users

Quote of the Day

Useful Info

UK Regulator to Look At Roaming Data Charges

Young people don't trust their mobile operator

ARTISTS AND LABELS INVEST IN FUTURE OF MOBILE MUSIC

Iphone flops at Christmas despite hype

iphone data roaming problems

3 and T-Mobile share data networks

Vodafone reformatting the mobile internet

The Killer Application for Mobile

Future Mobile: Potential of SMS Revenues Not Reached

Potential of SMS Revenues Not Reached

Blowing our own trumpet

hppy brthday 2 SMS

Mobile Flat Rate Data Pricing - is it the solution for mobile content?

Mobile Toilet

The Value of Social Kudos

Mobile Content Glossary

The Mobile Goldmine?

Mint's SMS Payment Service

Avoiding SMS and Phone Scandals

Keys Money Fags Phone

SEEKING THE INDUSTRY’S OPINION ON MOBILE PUBLISHING

Why people prefer SMS to email ....

SMS now outstrips voice calls in UK

Free International Calls from Mobile

Mobile Links

And the latest estimate for mobile content is ...

Apple expects iphones to sell quickly

SMS aids democracy

Developing Countries and Mobile Content

Mobile Advertising in The UK

Cheating by Text (again)

Young Mobile Users Say 'No' to Mobile Internet

Unfaithfull by Text?

Unfaithfull by Text?

More Operators looking at 3rd party content

Mobile as an advertising medium

Increase in mobile content downloads

Mobile Content Revenues on the Increase (again!)

Why I Hate Vodafone

Mobile as Web content

UK SMS Volumes still Rising

Immedia 24

MMS now quite popular

Nearly 4 billion texts per month

Backing Up Phones

Mobile Data Charges

Mobile Surveys

More on data charges