Relayreact highlighted at retail business event

Relay Station has announced that it is to showcase Relayreact, its new text-to-voice messaging product, at the Retail Business Show, to be held on 28-29 January at the National Hall, Olympia.
Relayreact enables SMS replies from any marketing campaign to automatically trigger a follow-up voice message from a retailer's operations centre.
The message also gives consumers the option to be transferred to a sales agent at the end of the voice message.

http://bluespotmedia.ning.com/

Mobile applications to extend customer engagement

Rapid Mobile Media has announced an agreement with MSHK Group to deliver a range of mobile applications that capture the values associated with its music and entertainment brands.
The interactive applications will enable MSHK Group, which counts Ministry of Sound, Hed Kandi, Hard2Beat and Global Underground among its brands, to further extend its engagement with consumers through content designed to take advantage of contemporary handset capabilities.
Rapid Mobile said its Thinkphone delivery platforms and Ad360 mobile advertising server will maximise reach for MSHK Group's service and provide additional branding and monetisation opportunities, while delivering a good user experience.

http://bluespotmedia.ning.com/

Interview with Mitch Lazar GM Europe Yahoo! on mobile display advertising and mobile search

I was delighted to spend some quality time with the delightful Mitch Lazar from Yahoo! We didn’t have the longest time so I set out with my agenda and asked him some questions from the top down.
Bena: How is the business doing after the stress (I detailed the past 7 months of Yahoo! in about 10 words)
Mitch: We have a solid company and a solid business. Today we are perfecting on what we have announced in the past. With our very early mover advantage we have the experience to learn from our products and develop them into stronger missiles for mobile.
Bena: So you are saying that the products are evolving to the best of breed now as you have the early experience
Mitch: Most definitely. We are now open. We have a full suite of products and services and today we are announcing that they are open and can be completely controlled by the user. We love it if you use and want Yahoo! services but if you don’t – then go enjoy and really choose what gives you the most compelling user experience.
Bena: Yes. My biggest issue in the past with Go was that it was very monolithic encompassing Yahoo products only.
Mitch: Yes so we had great feedback on Go and now this evolution moves it to an open service.
Bena: I do believe mobile is very strong within Yahoo! Is the mobile business for sale?
Mitch: It is not my decision to sell mobile.
Bena: Are you the mobile display advertising leader?
Mitch: Yes.
Bena: So how do you continue to monetize in a recession?
Mitch: Great question as new business models will develop. Mobile advertising is still in the early stages and we simple in the best place to embark and move forward above and beyond our products and services. We do display well but new monetisation, affordable CPM that will make brands bite will drive the business through the next few months.
We are at a position where Overture became the accidental empire and Yahoo! mobile products once more can emulate this. There is no magi about the challenges ahead but lets be realistic and move forward together to build an eco-system.What we think?During the whole meeting with Mitch I was simply amazed thinking. Wow this man has a lovely, warming personality. He was convincing and personable as well as being very very formed in the way he addressed the question. I was impressed and more demos and infos on the new Yahoo! products coming soon.

http://bluespotmedia.ning.com/

Mobile World Congress Kicks Off Next Week In Barcelona

The biggest conference of the year for the mobile industry - the GSMA Mobile World Congress - is almost upon us. Every year some 50,000+ mobile aficionados spanning 219 countries come to Barcelona for 4 days of conferences, deal making, product announcements, and lots of networking.
MobiAd will also be also be heading to Barcelona for the full week, and will be moderating the panel on “What Makes A Great Mobile Campaign“ on Thursday the 19th. If you are planning to be there, we’d love to meet you. Send an email to mailto:barcelona@mobiadnews.com?subject=Coming%20To%20Barcelona and let us know.
There is clearly a lot more happening at the MWC than any one person can hope to take in. But here are some highlights that might be of interest:
Mobile Back Stage- Mobile Entertainment
Entertainment on the mobile is clearly linked to the future of mobile advertising. Not only is mobile entertainment one of the largest advertiser categories on mobile, but also the growth of ad-funded content is expected to continue.
Mobile Backstage will bring together leading music executives, filmmakers, broadcasters and gaming industry insiders in a program that will also feature innovative case studies and panel sessions that explore the role of mobile entertainment within the vision of a mobile lifestyle. Get more information here.
Two-time Academy Award-winning actor and director Kevin Spacey will host the Mofilm Short Film Festival, award-winning musician and front man for the band Black Eyed Peas will.i.am, and social networking entrepreneur Chris De Wolfe, founder and CEO of MySpace will lead the speaker line up for the one-day conference.
Mobile Advertising Track
On Thursday afternoon, from 12:00 to 16:00 there will be a special set of sessions entitled Mobile Advertising - Moving to the Strategic Level where MobiAd is also involved. The conference will feature sessions such as “Brand Discussion - Crossing the Chasm to Strategic Spend”, “What Makes a Great Campaign” (moderated by MobiAD’s Jim Cook), and “Linking Consumer Attitudes and Activities - the Science of Measurement”. Plus there is a series of presentations from new technology companies that will impact the mobile advertising market.
Speakers come from a wide variety of companies including: BMW, AKQA, Nielsen, comScore, Jumptap, Blyk, Turkcell, BBH, Joule, NeoMedia, Qualcomm, Telstra, Mobile Acuity, Amobee, Gypsii, and Microsoft.
Following this conference, there will be a Demo and Networking session where the participants can get a closer look at some of the technologies and innovative campaigns that are driving user engagement. Not to be missed!
Mobile Innovation Marketplace
This is a competition that has been in progress throughout most of the year. Entries from all over the world have been narrowed down to find the very best innovators from each region competing in five categories:
Most Innovative Carrier Infrastructure or Platform
Most Innovative Consumer Application or Service
Most Innovative Mobile Application in a Vertical Market
Most Innovative Wireless Device Centric Technology
Most Innovative “True Mobile Start-Up”
The winners will be honored at the black-tie GSMA gala dinner on Tuesday the 17th.
Find out more information about the Mobile Innovation Market.
General Conferences & Keynotes
There is a very full conference program that runs on all 4 days featuring the leaders of the global mobile industry. Some of the keynote speakers include the CEO’s of Vodafone, Telenor, Microsoft, Telefonica, and Nokia. There are also sessions on Location Based services, mobile money, and many other topics.
You can go here to download a full conference brochure. There is a lot going on, we hope you have a great time in Barcelona!

http://bluespotmedia.ning.com/

The Terminator: A Killer Campaign Using Mobile Location

Last year, when UK television station Virgin1 launched the new action series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, they wanted to do something special to create excitement and buzz around the launch episode.
In the TV series a Terminator can locate its victim no matter where they are. What if that could be done in real life as well? Agencies 20:20 London and Incentivated did just that, putting together a campaign with a great use of mobile location plus video that has won numerous awards in the past months.
The Target & Strategy
Due to the enormous popularity of the Terminator films, there was a huge fan base ready for a TV series based on the same storyline.
The main target audience for this series is male, aged 16 to 39. These fans love the Terminator, and everything about Terminator. They are in general very internet and mobile savvy, but perhaps a bit skeptical about mainstream advertising. So the campaign needed to fit with the futuristic style and feel of the film series, and also be a bit tech oriented.
According 20:20 London, “we knew we could generate positive PR by using mobile in a completely new way. We blurred the lines between the marketing and the product, giving our audience a real experience that didn’t feel like advertising.”
The Campaign
The essence of the campaign was that it allowed fans to send a “Terminator” directly to terminate one of their friends.
Using either a special WAP site or the web, a subscriber could enter the phone number of one of their friends. The friend was then sent an SMS warning that the Terminators had hacked into their phone and were near by.
If they gave permission for their location to be revealed by their network (necessary for regulatory reasons), a special Terminator video was generated and sent to their mobile. The video was very much in the style of the Terminator films, and basically told them that the Terminators had found them and they were being terminated!
What made this campaign special was that the video was custom generated each time. First of all, the friend’s actual physical location was determined by the mobile operator network. Using this information, a segment of the video was generated which showed their current location on a map. The video was also customized to include the person’s own name and mobile number. This customization made the effect much more real - it seemed to people as though the Terminators really had tracked and found them!

Also, once someone had received a video and had been “terminated”, they were given the chance for revenge: there was a direct link so they could in turn enter the phone number of someone else to send a Terminator after them! So there was a very high viral component to this campaign.
The campaign was publicized by seeding it into popular fan websites, placing ads in high traffic sites that were frequented by members of the target audience. Ads also ran in some of the UK daily tabloids, primarily avoiding mainstream advertising media.
Here is a short video that gives a good overview of the flow and feel of the Terminator campaign.

Terminator_vidUploaded by mobiadvideo
The Results
This campaign was very popular with the fan base, and generated thousands of video messages during the weeks it ran. And when the show itself launched, it had the largest audience of any show ever on Virgin1, in fact 400% higher than any previous show.
“Interaction and engagement is at the heart of every successful digital campaign and this initiative proves that mobile is fertile territory for innovative consumer experiences”, remarked Peter Riley, Creative Partner of 20:20 London.
This campaign was also recognized at the DMA Awards (Direct Marketing Association) in late 2008, winning 4 awards including:
Gold in the Mobile marketing category;
Gold in the Leisure, Entertainment & Media category; and
Gold in the Creative Solutions category.
Silver in the Digital Innovation category;
Robert Thurner, Commercial Director of Incentivated said, “It takes brave brands like Virgin to push the boundaries and exploit mobile’s immense potential to extend campaign reach by going viral. Personalised videos and mobile maps reinforced the Terminators message, and succeeded in capturing viewers’ imagination”.

11.02.2009 Tags: campaign, Location Based ads, Mobile Video

http://bluespotmedia.ning.com/

MWC 2009: New 'Google phone' launched in Barcelona

Mobile phone manufacturer Vodafone has unveiled its new HTC Magic smartphone, which uses the Android platform currently used by the T-Mobile G1.The device, called Magic, will be available to consumers in Britain, Germany, Spain and France and should be on sale by the spring.Handset owners will be able to take advantage of a number of functions, including a touchscreen interface and internet access.The device will also contain applications such as Google Maps, Google Mail and instant messaging service Google Talk.Patrick Chomet, global director of terminals at Vodafone Group, commented: "We are extremely careful not to produce products for a niche of geeks, but bring out a proper mass-market consumer device with a lot of attention to design and functionality."Meanwhile, it has been confirmed that paid-for applications for T-Mobile G1 phones are to be rolled out to consumers.This includes the Guitar Hero video game, which will require handset owners to use the device's touchscreen interface to play their favourite rock classics.

http://bluespotmedia.ning.com/

Bahrain mobile operator opts for Velti technology

Mobile marketing specialist Velti has been chosen by a mobile operator in the Middle East to manage future handset-based advertising strategies.Bahrain-based company Batelco plans to roll out a mobile marketing campaign this year, which will involve reaching consumers with systems such as SMS messaging and WAP banners.Hamza Ali, general manager of product development at the firm, said Velti's mobile marketing platform is a "great innovation" that should allow it to manage and measure campaigns for leading Middle Eastern brands.Alex Moukas, chief executive of Velti, added that it is "great" to see the company establish itself in the Middle East with a firm such as Batelco.He commented: "It will be terrific to see traditional advertisers in the region integrating the mobile channel into their advertising mix, to get directly into the pocket of the consumer."Velti was recently handed an industry award by market analyst Frost and Sullivan for its "exceptional growth" in the mobile advertising sector over the last few years.

http://bluespotmedia.ning.com/

Convergys - Mobile operators must meet customer expectations

Mobile phone operators could earn higher revenues if they offer excellent customer service, according to a new study.Research commissioned by Convergys found that nearly one in five people would be willing to pay extra if they were guaranteed a responsive and high-quality level of service from their provider.Respondents to a survey said they were not interested in personalised offers and deemed speedy access to clear information their priority.Hean-Herve Jenn, president of the international division at Convergys, commented: "This shows that customer service can drive operators' revenues from mobile content."The study also showed that mobile operators could potentially earn higher revenues by educating consumers about some of the handset functions, such as their wireless internet capabilities.Convergys is among the organisations taking part in this week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.The company is to make the quality of customer service one of the main themes of an address to industry officials at the event.
http://bluespotmedia.ning.com/

Blyk partners with Velti to launch new content portal

Mobile marketing specialist Velti is to collaborate with mobile operator Blyk to launch a new content portal for handset users.According to the two companies, most content providers are operating on the assumption that users will find it by browsing to it directly.However, this new service has been developed in response to the growing popularity of mobile messaging, as this could potentially prompt people to find content relevant to them personally.Alex Moukas, chief executive of Velti, said the project is a "great illustration" of how the company's technology can target communications to consumers on an individual level."As Blyk members use the portal we will be able to use this behavioural insight to deliver the most compelling, relevant and timely content to them," he commented.Mr Moukas added that Velti's personalisation technology will be a "key element" in identifying which content resonates most with users.Velti was recently identified as one of the top software firms in the UK by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

http://bluespotmedia.ning.com/

Yahoo! launches new mobile internet service

Yahoo! has confirmed that it is to launch a new and highly personalised service to mobile internet users.Handset owners will be able to enjoy a range of interactive features on the new mobile portal, allowing them to create their own starting point online.Marco Boerries, executive vice-president of Yahoo!, said this would allow consumers to better discover, connect to and stay informed about the issues which matter to them.This will include search engine capabilities, editor-selected content, access to email and social networking accounts and an individually-tailored news service.For example, users can have the latest updates on sports, stocks and even horoscopes displayed in one location.Mr Boerries commented: "We believe the new Yahoo! Mobile will transform the way millions of mobile users around the world will interact with the internet."This comes after a poll by the Nielsen Group found that consumers intend to increase their use of mobile data services "dramatically" over the next two years.

http://bluespotmedia.ning.com/

The Network as a Service – and the walls started crumbling down...

by Alun Lewis at Mobile World Congress
OneAPI testing environment goes live with Aepona
Ever since the 1980s, parts of the telecoms industry have struggled to open up the switching infrastructure to third parties as a way of speeding innovation and creativity. All too often, those plans have crumbled in the face of technical challenges and opposition from both equipment vendors and operators keen to preserve the status quo.
With traditional mobile business models now under attack from a variety of directions, a number of service providers in recent years have introduced partnership programs with the application developer community - but with varying degrees of success. With a protectionist ‘walled garden' mentality seemingly an inherent part of much of the mobile establishment, it's only very recently that the explosive success of truly open platforms like the i-Phone has forced service providers to confront their destiny - hence the recent introduction of the GSMA's OneAPI programme.
While developer programmes have gone some way down the track to opening up network functions and assets such as location and charging- taking the internet's Web 2.0 vision to spawn the Telco 2.0 web-based services concept - those developers have had to confront great variations in different technologies and standards across those different networks.
To resolve these problems, the GSMA has partnered with open applications specialist Aepona to create a platform where developers can experiment with new functions and processes to rapidly create new applications. Currently, five mobile service providers are interconnected to the network - Telenor, Vodafone, Orange, Telecom Italia and Telus - with a number of others already expressing strong interest. The current infrastructure exposes messaging and location assets and its planned to soon add user and data connection profiles and charging functions to the set.
"If the last few years have shown anything, it's that the application developer community that really knows the end-user market," says Michael Crossey, VP marketing at Aepona (pictured above). "Aepona's been plugging away at realising this vision for a number of years now we're proud that the GSMA chose us as the proxy platform for this initiative. Which much good work had been done before by service providers and vendors, ultimately it was fragmented. These days, both project budgets and timescales need to be tightened and we've seen major interest from the whole community at the show in this approach."

http://bluespotmedia.ning.com/

Plumbing for disruption

by Alun Lewis at Mobile World Congress
For all the ‘disruptive' technology hype at an event like MWC, it's often forgotten that there's a huge amount of infinitely complex and vitally important plumbing in the background where the old telco disciplines of reliability and consistency still need to be applied - especially where money's concerned. For Telcordia Technologies, recently celebrating its 25th birthday and successful transition from its days as Bellcore, MWC was an opportunity to focus on both the new opportunities facing the industry ‘previously known as telecoms' and suggest some strategies that could help operators - and their ever widening range of partners - make a successful transition to the future.
High on their agenda - as for a lot of other companies and industry organisations like the TMForum and the GSMA - was mobile advertising. Already a key player in the TMForum's Content Encounter initiative, along with other seminal players like Microsoft, they were keen to highlight the potential that advertising-supported services could play in driving revenues in the rapidly emerging markets of India and South America.
"There are two main strands that operators need support with here," says Michael S. Wojcik, Telcordia's president of Service Delivery Solution (pictured above). "Firstly, there's the need to be able to carry out convergent billing in ‘real' real time. If service providers get that right, their horizons for innovation and experimentation with rich services grow immeasurably wider. That, in marketing terms, translates into more personalisation and customisation - all essential attributes for service providers in the crowded and very price sensitive markets that you find across the planet.
"Complementing this," Wojcik adds, "the ability to easily and securely introduce advertising content and, for example, sponsored calls - along with an obviously high degree of permissive control for the actual end user - opens the way for far more aggressive pricing policies or the chance to partner with powerful brands."
Another significant announcement from the company at the show was the news that it's been selected by the North American Country Code 1 ENUM LLC to build and then manage a Registry service to enable inter-carrier VoIP, multimedia, SMS, MMS and similar applications amongst the service provider and content communities. This essentially allows service providers to map and route subscribers' phone numbers to IP gateways, offering new IP-based services while keeping subscriber telephone numbers as the basis for ubiquitous addressing.

http://bluespotmedia.ning.com/

NEC develops efficient mobile base station amplifiers

NEC announced today the successful development of one of the world's most efficient transmitter amplifiers for mobile base stations, a 2.1GHz model that produces 45W of output power per 100W of power consumption.
Transmitter amplifiers are devices that increase the strength of RF signals transmitted from base stations to remote terminals. NEC produced these latest amplifiers by adopting high performance and highly reliable RF transistor technologies, in addition to independently optimizing Doherty RF circuitry with harmonic tuning. These innovations are accredited with NEC's successful creation of amplifiers with one of the world's highest efficiency levels, 45%.
Transmitter amplifiers are essential to the performance of mobile　base stations, and telecom operators may now anticipate meaningful cost reductions from the introduction of this new technology. Mobile base stations fitted with the latest transmitter amplifiers are expected to be significantly smaller and to consume less power than existing equipment, which decreases the space required for storing units, time needed to assemble the stations, and simplifies maintenance.
NEC plans to begin shipment of the new transmitter amplifier, installed within LTE equipment, by the end of 2009. Looking forward, NEC also aims to provide the transmitter amplifier for W-CDMA, LTE and WiMAX base station vendors throughout expanding global markets.


http://bluespotmedia.ning.com/

China Mobile, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone trials said to confirm LTE as a next generation candidate for seamless global mobile services

China Mobile, Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone, and Vodafone has said that they have taken significant steps in developing the next-generation technology LTE as a truly global radio access technology, following yesterday's LTE FDD/TDD Convergence Summit at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
As part of their ongoing three-way trials, the operators have successfully demonstrated in laboratory conditions the time division version of LTE (TD-LTE) showing that the technology is capable of operating effectively in both unpaired as well as paired spectrum.
In addition to these initial results, a range of chipset suppliers including ST-Ericsson and Qualcomm are developing equipment capable of supporting both Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) and Time Division Duplex (TDD) flavours of the LTE technology in a single device.
The trials are a step towards the goal of developing a single device capable of operating on TD-LTE technology in the case of unpaired spectrum or LTE FDD technology in the case of paired spectrum
The availability of a converged LTE FDD and TD-LTE system is set to enable an effective solution for both paired and unpaired spectrum. This also raises the prospect of providing greater interoperability between different global operators offering customers greater levels of convenience.
The TD-LTE portion of the trial, which involves seven vendors, will progress to full field trials in the second half of 2009. The locations for these field trials have been agreed in China, Europe and India.
The corresponding LTE FDD trials are progressing as planned and are now well into the final field trial stages where peak download speeds of up to 50 to 60 Mbps using 10 MHz bandwidth have been demonstrated. These field trials, which will also be introduced for the TD-LTE trials, create real-world loaded network conditions by using multiple base stations and terminal devices.
LTE's potential as a flexible global technology with a strong eco-system was the core theme presented at yesterday's LTE FDD/TDD Convergence Summit. The event attended by regulators, operators and vendors, was jointly hosted by China Mobile, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone with an endorsement from the GSMA and TD Alliance.
LTE technology is designed to deliver a range of customer benefits including higher speeds and enhanced throughput performance and lower latency thanks to improved spectral efficiency.
LTE is an evolution of existing 3G (WCDMA, TD-SCDMA and CDMA) cellular networks and has the advantage of offering inter-working with existing 3G technologies.

http://bluespotmedia.ning.com/

Vesta Corporation and Mobiun partner to launch new mobile Top-Up application

Vesta Corporation, a specialist in virtual payment solutions, has partnered with Mobiun to develop a mobile application that allows the prepaid customer to Top-Up their account wherever they are, whenever they want.
The Top-Up application allows full customization of the user interface for each Operator, and is supported on over 700 handsets. The technology supports dynamic content and can be updated with new tariff and customer offers in real-time or at scheduled times, and supports all major languages and character sets.
The application allows a customer to complete a top-up transaction using a credit card or debit card, and enables the gifting of credit to another prepaid phone. Vesta's expertise in top-up payment processing, fraud detection and integration with billing platforms allows for a seamless, real-time transaction. This results in increased convenience for the consumer, and increased revenue for the mobile operator.
"Because of the simplicity and 24/7 availability, we've found that customers using these handset-based top-up channels consistently deliver the highest ARPU for mobile operators," says Lorcan Burke, Vesta's Vice President, European Sales and Marketing. Tom Montgomery, Mobiun's CEO adds, "We are delighted to combine our mobile application expertise with Vesta's industry-leading mobile top-up services to deliver a market defining product."
In addition to the Mobiun collaboration, Vesta works with top mobile operators worldwide to enable electronic top-up transactions via SMS, USSD, WAP, IVR, Web, and through automated services like scheduled and low-balance top-up.

http://bluespotmedia.ning.com/