by Marino Bresciani

Deploy localized SMS services is a challenge that hasn’t found a clear winner. Anyhow, from the States there is a SMS that aims to consider the location of the final users. This means that your text message will only be received once the recipient reaches a certain location such as school or restaurant.

It’s simple yet amazing service which you can use to remind of yourself or others once they are in certain locations. First you need to sign up at JotYou.

The follow these simple steps:
Send messages from your computer or mobile phone. Send to one friend, many friends, or just yourself. Specify a location so your friends get a message when they arrive at school or the mall. When your friends arrive at the location you specify, JotYou alerts them by sending your text message to their cell phone, and delivering the message.

How does it work?
Actually you need a mobile phone that supports J2ME, Symbian or Windows Mobile. In this way, you need to keep the JotYou application switched on all the time, and this will permit you to track your position in the JoyYou server. Ah, you also need a GPS integrated, unless you use the Windows Mobile application; in this case, you can also use wireless positioning (similar to Google Mobile Maps’ “My Location”)

Despite the limitations of needing a continuos gprs connection, the applications deriving from localization services look promising.

by Marino Bresciani

Here’s a cool marketing idea from Nike: bespoke shoes based on your own mobile phone snaps.

This is a part of a mobile campaign called PhotoID. Buyers can take a cameraphone snap of “brightly coloured subjects, such as street graffiti or clothing”, MMS it off to Nike and get a message back showing a pair of Nike’s 1985 Dunk high-top customised using the colours in the photo. Anyone who’s really taken with their shoes can then buy the customised footwear.

You can see a video of the service in action over at The Guardian.

By Chilldor

Tanla Mobile published a quite extensive research on mobile marketing. It seems that the focus is on the UK market but there is definitely something useful also for the operators on the Estonian or Baltic market.
There are quite a few interesting bits of statistics in the research – one of them, for example, is about the services an average UK mobile user uses via the mobile phone.

Those who are more interested in the subject, can download the full research here. It doesn’t cost anything, but you’ll have to register. Takes about 20 seconds

by Chilldor

WAP has become the “silent success story” of additional value-added services of recent years – at last “the mobile Internet” has enough users, so that it pays off to offer services through it, at the same time as the theme of mobile search is becoming more topical – how to find WAP-pages? Is the operator’s WAP opening page really the only solution?

At a 3GSM information session an analyst asked a rhetorical question: “Why is it that we have to search for a mobile search?” At least the smarter phones could have it at the bottom of the screen all the time? You type in the word, the phone connects to the Internet and takes you to the desired page right away?

At 3GSM it seemed that next year we will probably see some changes, because providing a good search becomes important for phone manufacturers and operators. Unlike the web search, where it is clear that Google is No 1 and everyone else follows at a great distance, the things with mobile search are blurrier and two approaches dominate: one is that Google will be used also for mobile search, the other is that each operator will offer its own search engine brand.

What are the advantages of each approach? The advantage of Google is, of course, that it is a world-known brand and their search results (excluding the China-business) are neutral. Search engines offered by operators (supplied by companies like JumpTap) are different, as in their case those items are preferred, which can be used via the mobile phone right away: for example, ringtones- wallpapers-games of the operator’s partners, mobile TV clips etc. Although the results are not neutral, they try to ensure that the content corresponds better to the habits of the mobile search user. I wonder which approach will be adopted by our local operators?

by Marino Bresciani

If you know enough about Bluetooth technology, you would easily guess how his technology has always been underestimated so far. This is mainly due to the different approach of this technology, much more used as way of pushing objects/files (read: ringtones, pictures, etc) rather that technolgy in a multi-user context.

But multi-user contexts, al least in my opinion, are so cool
but to make them more clear and understandable to everybody, it is really necessary to go beyong Bluetooth and jump into physical computing and visible information spaces.

Have a look at this video clip – this shows a marvellous job done at the University of Toronto: a hand-held multiuser projected Information Space. The video is rather clear and there is no need to use words to understand the powerfull of this solution and the innovative approach of mobile information visualization.

Well, as you see, the device used by these people is not yet that hand-held but I am really looking forward to see something similar done with a mobile phone. Users would be really free to exchange information simply using their hands and approach to a more natural intraction.There is also the paper available online.

by Chilldor

SMS just turned 15 years old! According to wikipedia:

The first commercial SMS message was sent over the Vodafone GSM network in the United Kingdom on 3 December 1992, from Neil Papworth of Airwide Solutions(using a personal computer) to Richard Jarvis of Vodafone (using an Orbitel 901 handset). The text of the message was “Merry Christmas”.
The first SMS typed on a GSM phone is claimed to have been sent by Riku Pihkonen, an engineering student at Nokia, in 1993.

Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas, SMS!

by Martin Koppel

Consumer magazines have been realizing that mobile Web might be quite useful.

Experts say that mobile web is almost as sensational a the Internet 10 years ago, it is the Internet in peoples’ pocket. Mobile Internet comes complete with all the ads that consumers see on their desktops. Mobile sites provide a new platform for magazine brands to sell ad space. Unlike the paper, mobile magazine sites provide ad space that can be targeted to exact locations, respond to user requests, providing a dynamic ad platform.

Since phones are portable and personal devices, mobile ads can reach consumers quicker and more intensely than ads in other media. The frequency of return visitors to mobile sites outstrips Internet sites clearly. At the same time the Mobile Marketing Association keeps strict guidelines on phones, protecting them from spam. Consumers just have made clear how much they value their phone privacy.

The idea is not taking magazines to mobile, it is taking brands to mobile by taking the core user of each brand and translating it to mobile. Magazines are not reproducing the content, they are looking at what customer needs on the go. It is an effective way for marketing the brand and bandage people even more with the magazine.

What comes next?

by Martin Koppel

I was reading emarketer’s newsletter and found an interesting writing about Google’s plans and why they decided to come out with so called gPhone.

At the moment there are at least twice as many cell phones than pc’s. It is obvious that Google cannot grow fast enough focused only on the PC’s. Idea is that Google should extend search marketing to new interactive platforms.

The chart below shows money today and in the future that Google can and can’t reach with classic pay-per-click Web advertising.
However, Google can reach those offline companies by pay-per-action (pay-per-call) over the mobile phone. Mobile search, maps and other applications enable Google to push search marketing principles into areas where the PC-Internet just can’t reach.

At least for me it seems logical step to make. Google has managed to become a real market leader and pioneer in Internet (for PC’s), they have ideas, knowhow, money and courage to do something crazy. I don’t want to predict anything, but i would buy Google’s stocks with hurry

by Martin Koppel

It seems that Google has taken the world domination as their next goal. At the moment they have tonnes of information about what people are doing in Internet. They know what people are searching, mailing, looking in YouTube, writing to their documents, information about websites and they even can see your daily, weekly plans and schedules but this isn’t everything. Soon they will know much more – gPhone is coming.

To be honest I have never thought that gPhone is the next great super phone, but it is much cooler to say gPhone than Android- open source operating system for mobile phones by Google.

Well at last Google revealed some information and presented finally their new system. If you pay attention then you’ll also find out how are they going to send ads to mobile users. Small hint – see how can they use the notification function. As always it is wise to hear what Steve Ballmer has to say about new products, since he always has something sensible to say.

Watch the videos and find out what Android looks like and what Steve thinks about it.

by Martin Koppel

Recently I wrote why Google is moving to mobile business and it seemed so obvious. Today I found an interesting survey that says that the number of worldwide mobile phone users is expected to grow from 2 billion in 2005 to approximately 3.3 billion in 2010. Currently, there are over 2.8 billion mobile phone users. At the end of 2006 there were 233 million subscribers in US, which is over 76 percent of the population. While people are already used to the e-mail and other internet based spam, mobile phones could be a great way to reach the right audience, since mobile marketing has the potential to be the next big thing in interactive marketing.

At the same time managing a mobile marketing campaign can be a challenge since there are many different entities contributing to a successful campaign. We have at least the carriers, advertisers, and consumers. But at the same time we have industry organizations like The Mobile Marketing Association, the CTIA Wireless Association, and the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which provide resources and guidelines for setting the standards to help move the industry forward. Like always we don’t have just perfect things, everything has its own advantages and disadvantages, so has mobile marketing. Marketers just have to think through what is their purpose and whether the selected methods are sustainable.

Positive side:

* Preliminary data shows good response rate for mobile campaigns (5% click rates vs. 1% for conventional web ads).
* New tool for brands and advertisers to reach new customers and target specific audiences.
* Smartphones and iPhone to enhance mobile surfing, promoting mobile marketing success.
* Messages sent to a mobile phone are more likely to be read than email sent to a PC, which can get caught in the spam filter.
* Mobile marketing campaigns are highly targeted and are opt-in, making them more effective than other forms of advertising.
* Mobile marketing can help build a customer database. Once customers opt in to receive an ad, you can use the information for loyalty marketing and customer retention.
* Mobile marketing can help generate buzz about your products/services because your offers will reach consumers while they are actively shopping, socializing, and making buying decisions.
* High penetration of devices with twice as many cell phones as PCs.
* Web searches on mobile devices will eventually exceed searches on PCs.

* Access to many international consumers who can’t afford PCs
* Mobile phones can receive input anywhere-anytime, enabling location-specific and behavioral targeting for local businesses.
* A cell phone is a very personal device that people take with them wherever they go, making it easy for marketers to develop a relationship with customers through this medium.
* Carriers have customer data and location information potentially available for targeting.
* Personalization, immediacy, and interactivity of mobile ads encourage response by consumers on the go.

Negative side:
* Trial and error period required for mobile marketers to learn how to succeed in mobile marketing, which differs from the traditional web marketing.
* Advertisers are wary of consumer privacy issues.

* FCC yet to rule on limiting use and release of customer data, including location information.
* In April, FCC released order requiring mobile marketers to obtain express consent from customers before carriers can release data and to make it easy for customers to opt out.
* Mobile marketing is fragmented and complex because of many different handsets and carriers, different types of functionality, and different preloaded apps (i.e. Google Maps on iPhone).
* Currently, reach is low because consumption of mobile content is small (10% of subscribers), and penetration of 3G devices is still low in most countries.
* Current WAP technology inadequate, discouraging web searching and surfing.
* General intolerance of advertising messages on a personal device.
* Current carrier-imposed “walled garden” approach prevents unfettered mobile web access.

* Adaptation of content and messages to the mobile web results in poor user experience.
* Scarcity of mobile web sites (only 8% of 1,000 top U.S. brands offer a mobile site).
* Current low usage of WAP-based mobile search doesn’t support investment in creating mobile sites because traffic volumes are low, except on search portals and other high-volume sites.
* Establishment of reliable measurement and metrics for advertisers to measure mobile ad effectiveness is needed.