by Chilldor

John Strand, the main speaker at the Nordic Mobile Media Conference said the following in his speech and the subsequent interview:

* Mobile operators are facing more difficult times than ever as price pressure is enormous. Operators must find new sources of income and be more efficient.
* At the moment most of the operators try to do everything by themselves, manage the whole value chain on their own. The smarter ones will start using subcontractors and only do those things they are really good at. Hence, the role of those mobile service creators will increase who offer added value.
* The operators who do not subsidize phones will become more successful.
* Operators will still try to handle most of the clients in the same way, offering them one or at best a couple of brands. Actually one should go deeper: in Denmark Telenor has created a brand for women, in Belgium BASE has created a brand directed at Turks, in Denmark there is even a mobile brand for gay people. People’s needs and wishes are different and with the help of branding the operators get more clients to whom it is easy to offer services that are meant for them. Such “fragmentation” will continue and become more active.
* Operators should introduce a different taxation policy: for example, you pay a euro or two per megabite for reading your mail and much more for downloading files; at the same time, when you order a video from a service provider, its megabite will cost you only a few cents.
* Mobile TV in its present state is a stillborn child. No one wants to watch the news at 9 p.m. on their mobile phone. Mobile TV is meant for ordering video clips so that people can watch them at a suitable time.

by Chilldor
2 open-source mobile-phone platforms, which may have a great future are OpenMoko and Symbian foundation. Both of those are currently not as famous as Android but this will probably change in near future.

Symbian foundation is lately announce mobile phone platform. It is based on Nokia S60, and targeted to give user or developer more options and control over the system. This platform is planned to be released with new devices in 2010. It is a general platform, all major mobile phone companies ( Nokia, SE, Motorola ) can use it in their mobile phones. For developers it means more easier work, since there is no need for separate API-s anymore, and for end user it means no more compatibility issues any more. When all devices are based on same platform, you can run same programs on them, and you don´t have to worry about if this program is going to work on your mobile device or not. When released, SymbianFoundation OS is “closed” but it becomes Open-source after 2 years from release date. But it is a still innovative idea in that field.

Second platform – OpenMoko, is a bit older and with longer history.

OpenMoko is a open-source platform with its own hardware. First device was released in 2007 and it was “developer only” device, So you had to have some programming skills to play with it. Next hardware platform ( GTA2 ) was released in 2008 summer, and it is available to general public, end users. Programming skills are not needed anymore to use that phone, but general knowledge of Linux might come handy if you want to “hack” or customize that device as you like. So what makes that device so special ? It is not just an hardware platform made from scratch, but it is almost entirely open-source and Linux compatible. OpenMoko operating system is based on real Linux, not stripped down kernel, you can easily port any Linux application for it, as long as it can run on low hardware specs. Also you can install your own favorite Linux distribution for it, or make one yourself, if you have enough experience with Linux. OpenMoko has a wide community, people all over the world share what they know about it, how to get the most out of your device, how to install some new programs and so on..

You can get more information about that project from OpenMoko Wiki page

Although OpenMoko has still some HW issues since it is quite new hardware platform, and Symbian Foundation is not public until 2010, these 2 things should definitely something worth being watched for.

Neo Freerunner booting linux

Today we can see businesses using SMS for different purposes – marketing, notification, news, text to win campaigns and so on. In those cases usually SMS is a small part of a big project. However, there are plenty of businesses where SMS is in the middle of the business case and sometimes gives the competitive advantage. I will introduce four innovative SMS-based business cases that have been extremely successful in Nordics during the past years.

1. SMS-auction

An SMS-auction is where user’s text in a bid for an advertised item. The system can be set for “highest bid wins” or “lowest unique bid wins” mode. Either way, the user receives a reply message acknowledging the bid and advising them of its position. There are different variations on that business model, which all have their own advantages. Get a general idea of SMS-auctions.

* Bimbaso is a good sample of lowest unique bid auction

* sms2bid is an Australian version of highest bid auction

* Sendioksjon is an Estonian neat version of SMS-auction, where every SMS increases the price per 0,006 EUR and extends the auction by 2,5 minutes. Last person who sends the message gets the product.

2. SMS-loan

It is probably the most profitable SMS-based business, which has also raised some ethical issues. Many countries have already regulated their market for SMS-loans and some countries are doing it right now. Business case is simple – give out loans for small sums with big interests in a really quick and easy to use way. Before creating your own SMS-loan office, read those two stories as well: SMS-loan sharking and loanshark 2.0.

3. Browser based games

Browser based games are quite popular among youth. Believe me, there are plenty of people who want to do something besides shooting someone or playing flash games. Business case here is this – if you want to get advantage over other players, use paid services. Get cool widgets, more money, fame, train yourself etc. Many Fortumo clients have said that for micro-payments SMS is the best one. Every player has a mobile phone these days and they are using it impulsively.

4. Social Networks

Who isn’t a member of some social network nowadays. Some of them have a strong business case behind the solution; some of them don’t have a business case at all. Smaller local social networks have solved it really easily. There are 5 simple steps:

1. you have a social network where people love to spend their time

2. think what could be the extra feature for what users are willing to pay small sums

3. monetize these features with SMS

4. let people know about new opportunities

5. start earning revenue even while you are sleeping

Some things that have been monetized: sending presents, changing the background theme of your profile, getting fame, giving higher points to users, highlight your account/ad/picture etc.

by Lauri Kinkar

When J. Paul Peter and Jerry C. Olson construct in their book Consumer Behaviour & Marketing Strategy a so-called wheel of consumer analysis, they differentiate between two kinds of consumer reactions to advertisements: the cognitive one, which is based on rational thinking, and affective, which is based on emotional state of mind. Hence, each marketing message directed at a group of people should have a corresponding focus.

In marketing there have been plenty of more or less scientific studies which look closely at how different target groups react to advertisements. A more recent scientific one which connects to the theory by Peter and Olson was published by the university of Washington.

Relying on their study the authors claim that in case of those people who are rather sceptical about commercials and all kinds of marketing communication (thinking that it’s all a lie and manipulation anyway), a message directed at emotions works better. The reason for that is the active reaction that is created by the emotional undertone and therefore does not go unnoticed.

In the field of mobile advertisements which often work with a surgical precision it is a common belief that only highly informative messages serve their purpose. Now it seems that we should not forget the emotional side and why not just wish your customers a happy birthday once in a while.

by Martin Koppel
For most of the people Web 2.0 is just a buzzword – round corners, a bit childish web design but nothing too special. But there are some key elements that make Web 2.0 different from yesterday’s web (Web 1.0). Major difference is that Web 2.0 websites allow users to do more than just retrieve information – people are able to create their own content and be part of democratic and organic web.

Main keywords for Web 2.0 are openness, collaboration, dynamic, interactive, context sensitive services, third party content. Vast majority of the Web 2.0 doesn’t have a good business model behind it, although recently we have seen a bit more of the ones that do. There is also a tendency that services with a business model tend to move away from Web 2.0 ideology (openness, third party content, content sensitivity). I think that Google AdSense is the best example of Web 2.0 with a great business model.

But what comes next?

I’m not talking about major buzzword Web 3.0, but we may call it Web 2.5 at least . We are going to see business models behind wikis, podcasts etc, so that third parties would also be able to earn revenue. We already have some great examples in that field, but this will become a MUST feature in near future. I believe that creating opportunities for third parties is the next phase in the web and it is almost here.

Context sensitivity, third party content and long tail are creating opportunities for everyone who has ideas, knowledge and will to do something. Everyone will be able to benefit from their knowledge and experience, and what’s most important – the business doesn’t have any borders or limits. One is definitely sure, mobile services are involved as well.