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Mobile Entertainment & Commerce
...the analyst view
Edition Thirty Six - 12th September 2007 | |
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WiFi-enabled iPod exposes the real problem with mobile content
The unveiling of a revamp iPod shouldn’t really trouble the content world, but Apple’s move to put WiFi in to its latest iteration of the device — and done a deal to allow free surfing of iTunes via that WiFi in Starbucks — is an interesting poser for the telecoms industry.
Hot on the heals of Nokia looking to leverage its brand identity with the kids by venturing in to becoming a content portal as well as device manufacturer, the new iPod and its new model for accessing music content makes serious inroads in to what MNOs do.
While Nokia’s Ovi approach will still require the user to generate traffic for the network operators, Apple totally bypasses this: offering over the air downloading of music, without having to touch an MNO’s network.
This adds to the growing issue that content — proper, hard content rather than services — are still largely being side-loaded on to devices, even phones, from PCs. Why? Because its cheap, its not time sensitive and users understand what they are doing.
A brief straw poll of my friends — unscientifically conducted in a pub, I have to confess — reveals that none would download music over the air to their phone. One would consider doing it with games. These guys will use the phone — and more specifically the mobile web — to find the location of things, look up things and generally cheat in pub quizzes. When it comes to hard and fast content to consume on the phone they will do it on their PC then pop it on the iPod or phone.
The reasoning seems to be that it is cheaper — no data charges — and that they look at the mobile device as an addendum to their PC, which is where they store their digital collateral: the mobile is just a handy way to also consume it on the move.
This will change, we are afterall at the beginning of the content revolution, but while Apple is exploiting this consumer confusion, MNOs — and handset makers for that matter — should look very closely at what consumers really want.
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Off portal and better search see 30% boom in cross-border content sales
The move to off-portal content services, coupled with far improved search and discovery tools — not to mention improving data charges and the implementation of WAP billing tools such as Payforit — are seeing a huge shift in cross border content purchasing in Europe, according to analysis of traffic and purchases by UK-based content aggregator Bango.
Bango has reported up to a 30 per cent shift in cross border purchasing, compared with just five per cent this time last year. The mobile web is helping businesses to reach overseas markets and with more people searching for content, this trend is expected to grow to 55 per cent or more within the next year.
“Businesses often start by selling mobile content in their own country," explains Anil Malhotra, Senior VP of Marketing at Bango. "But they soon realize they have visitors from all around the world with minimal promotional effort.”
This experience is markedly different from the Premium SMS model. With Premium SMS, content providers sold their content country by country, doing specific promotions and setting billing for each region they wanted to sell into.
"We drive traffic to our mobile sites using search marketing through Yahoo!, Google and other search engines as well as mobile advertising networks," says Giles Richardson, VP Consumer Marketing at Mobile Streams, whose sites, which include Ringtones.com, are engineered specifically to receive traffic in this way. "We see increasing numbers of visitors from across Europe, the US and Asia Pacific as access and use of the mobile web grows.”
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T-Mobile refines t-zone search capabilities across Europe through deal with Medio
T-Mobile International is to revamp the search capabilities of its t-zones mobile internet service across Europe to offer a service optimized for all handsets and which can support relevant and targeted mobile advertising and content services.
Powered by Mobio technology, the cutting edge t-zones mobile content search solution, which will be available to all T-Mobile’s t-zones customers in five European countries, has already been deployed in the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands. The service will also be rolled out in the Czech Republic later this month. Under the agreement, mobile advertising will also form part of the new T-Mobile service and is expected to start the rollout internationally before the end of the year.
t-zones mobile search has been specifically designed to overcome the physical constraints of the mobile screen by providing a simple, click-saving experience which returns relevant answers instead of links. Optimised to provide the best search experience possible on all handsets, the new t-zones mobile search allows customers to conduct searches for many types of information and mobile content from a single, easy to use search box on the t-zones portal.
“The mobile web is poised for swift expansion and growth as the popularity of online search shifts to the handset,” says Brian Lent, CEO for Medio Systems. “The ability to search intuitively on a mobile handset effectively changes the nature of search for the consumer forever and opens up a new era of access to time-relevant or location-centric information for use in daily life. Using our search solution, T-Mobile’s t-zones customers across Europe will be able to access a range of content types when and where they need it most. This signals the start of a trend that will eventually see mobile overtaking online as the preferred and most used search option.”
T-Mobile is planning to support mobile advertising in form of sponsored links based on Medio’s mobile search advertising solution that is connected to the open advertising market place. Medio’s mobile advertising solution is based on the same sophisticated analytics that drive the answers on the search platform. In addition, t-zones mobile content search will also learn individual subscriber preferences around recurrent search themes as a way to further simplify the mobile search experience and add value to the end user.
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VeriSign unveils multi-screen platform to deliver digital content in Europe
Digital infrastructure company VeriSign has combined its expertise in digital services with international digital media technology solutions firm, ioko’s reach within media companies, to enable companies to provide consumers with a compelling digital experience across multiple screens.
VeriSign and ioko have already enabled successful mobile and broadband content delivery solutions, including Channel 4’s 4oD, Sky Anytime on PC and for other telecommunications, media and entertainment leaders in Europe, Asia and North America.
Now the pair are launching their Three-Screen Solution for Media and Entertainment Companies in Europe to offer a cross-screen media management offering to extend these media on demand services to a variety of consumer devices, from PCs to mobiles to TV and beyond.
“With a trend toward high-quality, long-form content and a consumer that is more mobile and demanding than ever, media and entertainment brands are having to rethink and retool their approach - developing new digital distribution channels and experiences that fully embrace today’s connected consumers.” says Stephen Condon, vice president, media and entertainment, VeriSign. ”With VeriSign’s digital content delivery platform fortified by ioko’s trusted consulting and integration expertise, we will deliver solutions that enable our customers to economically harness this rapid pace of innovation.”
“The world of digital content is rapidly evolving and there is a requirement for increasing sophistication in the delivery of digital content to consumers”, says Mark Christie, managing director, ioko. “ioko’s experience with VeriSign, delivering digital media across multiple platforms to diverse devices, means that together we can deliver business advantage to our clients and VeriSign’s Three-Screen solution for media and entertainment companies provides us with the flexibility to do this.”
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400 independent record labels worldwide go mobile
Mobile music is no longer the preserve of the major labels, thanks to a deal between distribution agency Indie Mobile and Wall of Sound imprint owner [PIAS] – and, yes, the parentheses are part of the name – which will see some 70,000 tracks from 400 independent record labels worldwide being available to mobile network operators.
The deal creates a truly international service, one that is able to support Indie Mobile’s multi-territory deals with local language resource, relationships and expertise via the [PIAS] network of offices. Both existing Vital:PIAS Digital and Indie Mobile labels will benefit from this combined approach with immediate effect.
Indie Mobile will also benefit from the use of [PIAS] Group’s significant investment in digital accounting and royalty payment infrastructure.
‘‘Mobile is already a significant part of our business” says Adrian Pope, [PIAS] Group’s Director of Digital and Business Development. “The deal was borne out of a mutual recognition that the synergies between Indie Mobile and [PIAS] were such that in combination we can create the definitive, professional mobile solution for independent labels and artists in what has historically been a confused and fragmented market.”
Nick Hartley, CEO [PIAS] UK Group, adds: “The deal with Indie Mobile represents another important step in [PIAS] Group’s continued strategy to provide our labels with a comprehensive range of services and routes to market throughout the UK, Europe and the rest of the world.”
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Warid Mobile to offer live and on-demand mobile TV across 2.5G across Pakistan in a matter of weeks
Pakistan is to get streamed mobile TV services over existing 2.5G networks “in a matter of weeks” following the signing of a deal between Singtel owned Pakistani operator Warid Mobile and UK-based mobile applications developer ROK Entertainment Group.
ROK is in the midst of a global deployment of it's streamed mobile TV service to more than 30 mobile operators worldwide.
As part of it's global deployment, ROK already powers mobile TV services for such companies as Avea in Turkey, AIS in Thailand, Telenor in Pakistan and Vodacom in South Africa - as well as offering it's service direct to subscribers in conjunction with Nokia Eseries devices across Europe.
Commenting on the announcement, Laurence Alexander, CEO of ROK says that "We're absolutely thrilled to be working with Warid as they are a highly innovative and fast-growing mobile operator who quickly realised the massive potential of mobile TV streaming live and on-demand channels over it's existing network across Pakistan and we are confident of significant up-take of the service when we launch in a matter of weeks."
"The significant advantages of ROK TV include the fact that live and on-demand TV streamed to mobiles has a much higher perceived value in the eyes of subscribers than linear TV channels broadcast in full to mobiles," adds Alexander " as well as the fact that through streaming over existing networks there is no need for investment by our partner telcos in new broadcast infrastructure."
ROK and Warid will announce the channel line-up and the subscription cost for the new mobile TV service in October.
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Flirting becomes the UK’s most popular mobile service as Flirtomatic surpasses 100 million monthly WAP page impressions
The rise of mobile as a social networking tool is not confined to getting MySpace or YouTube, flirting is proving to be one of the most popular services, with UK-based mobile and online service Flirtomatic recording a sharp rise in mobile usage, gaining more than 100 million WAP page impressions for the month of August — making it one of the UK’s most popular mobile destinations.
This represents a 100-fold increase since November 2006. In line with this, Flirtomatic’s mobile advertising revenue has also grown rapidly within this period as a direct result of the influx of new users and page impressions.
Mark Curtis, CEO of Flirtomatic says, “The capabilities and potential of online entertainment services, combined with the feature of mobility, can unlock a wealth of opportunity for new brands - provided you get it right. “The company launched in the UK last year as the first cross-platform flirting network and has quickly built a registered user base of over 400,000. The free service, of which 75 per cent of users are between 18-30 years of age, enables members to connect, meet and flirt.
The number of Flirtomatic visitors per month has swelled almost 100 times since August 2006 and this surge in consumer take-up can be largely attributed to tailored initiatives established by Flirtomatic to drive usage to and from the mobile. The introduction of Value Added Services (VAS) in April 2007, have resulted in a six-fold increase in Flirtomatic’s monthly revenues since March 2007.
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GSMA Mobile World Congress 2007
12th - 14th November 2007, Venetian Macau
The only place where the best converge. The GSMA Mobile Asia Congress 2007, formerly known as 3GSM Mobile Asia Congress, is THE place to connect to the Mobile future! Mobile Asia Congress is a unique environment for leading companies to showcase the latest in mobile products and solutions, a place for the industry's innovators to develop new ideas and for its leaders to set out their visions for growth.
Contact us today to register for the most highly-regarded event in the mobile industry.
Hong Kong: + 852 2593 1286
UK: + 44 2077 592 315
Make the greatest, most effective investment in yourself and your company by being part of the most highly-regarded event in the mobile industry, the GSMA Mobile Asia Congress.
For more information please click here
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Sales, Mobile Content Solutions
England / £40000 - £50000 per annum Bens car allowance
A leading provider of communication solutions to businesses across the UK are currently looking to fill positions in both Account Manager and Business Development. As part of the International sales team, you will be based in the South East focusing on selling their content solutions into the media/corporate sector.
The main focus will be seeking and promoting new business opportunities, managing the contractual and commercial terms, promoting margin expansion and the position of our client as a quality provider of Mobile content services in line with the business plan to either new clients or existing accounts.
Candidates will have a solid sales track record in either new business / account management with experience selling to companies in the media/corporate sector. In return our client can offer excellent remuneration package and a chance to join a leading player in the market.
For more information and to apply please click here
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Lucky O2 Customer Wins Starring Role in Upcoming Crash of the Titans Mobile Game
Vivendi Games Mobile and O2 UK today announced the that Stephen Massart from London will have his likeness immortalized in the new Crash of the Titans game to become Crash Bandicoot’s new and menacing foe, DIMBO.
“We are thrilled to award Stephen Massart this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to become a major video game character,” said Paul Maglione, president of Vivendi Games Mobile. “Working with O2 on this innovative activity was a great experience, and shows how the mobile game platform has evolved to the point where we can actively involve consumers into gameplay in the context of iconic video game brands.”
The competition launched in April and O2 customers were invited to enter the contest by playing Crash Bandicoot Mini Games. The new Crash of the Titans game will be available to mobile subscribers across Europe in October 2007.
Mobile Interactive Group selected as high speed billing partner to Ministry of Sound
Mobile Interactive Group (MIG) has been selected by The Ministry of Sound (MoS) to power the WAP billing solution on its mobile portals within the UK.
Leading mobile media publisher, MoMac, has integrated the MIGPay™ solution in to its GoMedia platform, used by Ministry if Sound to deliver a raft of mobile content including club news, videos, games, ringtones and graphics as well as the latest interactive services.
Commenting on the deal, Rob Weisz, director of wholesale products and services, MIG said: “We are delighted to have been selected to deliver this service and are confident that our sister company, 4th Screen Advertising, will help drive new users to the portals that will enjoy these services.”
Price: £1490 (Single User) £1990 (Multi User) £2990 (Enterprise Wide)
This detailed report offers a complete analysis of the mobile user generated content market whilst providing vital forecast data on subscriber numbers and revenues up until 2012.
It segments the UGC market into three main categories including, Social networking, Dating/Chatrooms and Personal Content Delivery. The report also comprises interviews with key players, focused case studies and analysis from representatives of some of the leading organisations involved in this promising sector.
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