Future Mobile

Monday, April 02, 2007

Free International Calls from Mobile

Here's quite a clever trick that someone told me about. A company called Speakeasy is offering international calls via low rate UK numbers.
These numbers are within your voice minutes so if you have enough minutes you can call internationally for free. If you don't have the minutes then its 5p per minute - still pretty good for international.

The access numbers are:
For Orange, T-Mobile and Virgin - 07744 787501
For O2 and BT Landlines (5p per minute) -
0844 8255001

As I understand it the way this works is that these numbers have not been exempted from call tariffs by those networks. All the company does is have a switching system that allows you to dial on to the international number once our through. They make their money on the call rebate cost.

Sunday, March 04, 2007

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 ...

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

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

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

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.