Xellular Identity - All About Mobile Content & Marketing

Mobicious: One Part iTunes, One Part Google

Back in January, Michele MacKenzie of Ovum, addressed the key challenges wireless players are facing when growing the wireless content market:

“The market place for mobile content was dominated, in earlier years, by the closed portals of the mobile operators. Those days are over now. We estimate that in Europe 50-70% of content revenues are driven from outside the operator-branded portal. […]An on portal and off portal strategy are not mutually exclusive, they complement each other and are both needed. The walled garden is no longer viable: a single portal will not meet all of consumers’ growing demands. And operators benefit from off-portal content too: it drives revenues from data traffic, and we believe it will also help open the way for advertising revenues going forward.

Mobicious, who just launched this week, try to put the described above into practice; “Mobicious” (a name that came  about by squeezing “ambitious,” “delicious” and “mobile” together) hopes to be the best place for mobile phone users to discover mobile content and services.

How? Mobicious offers a diverse listings of mobile content like mobile services, ringtones, wallpapers, weather alerts and video games. By “diverse listings of mobile content” they mean both on-portal and off-portal mobile content.

Having the mobile consumer in mind, Mobicious wants to be the one place to find everything for your mobile phone, including paid-for and free content, on-deck and off-deck. When particular item costs money to download, Mobicious sends the user directly to the company’s own online store. By This, Mobicious actually addresses the mobile content discovery problem and tries to simply it. Things are simpler when all content is under one directory which includes support, forums, ratings, reviews, and help. Mobicious also copes with consumers fear from hidden phone bill charges when downloading content from off-portals - by deep linking into the content owners’ download pages in case the item has a price tag.

To put things to the test I searched Mobicious for “Madonna” (note that the service is currently available only to US users). As you can see at the screenshot below, I can download pictures and ringers of Madonna, some for free and some require a plan:

 

You can also try the Mobicious mobile web page by pointing your mobile browser to www.mobicious.com.

And last thing, on the business side,

"Mobicious’ business plan is twofold: selling ads on its Web site and taking a cut, about 10 percent to 15 percent, of purchases made that originated from its site. Since the company won’t charge upfront fees, and will make it easier for people to buy features, cell phone carriers are mostly welcoming the idea of sharing revenue, Chang said. “It’s a really easy sales pitch,” he said."

[via the Boston Hearald]

Carnival of Mobilists at VisionMobile Forum

This week’s edition is brought to you by Hampus Jakobsson and Andreas Constantinou at the VisionMobile Forum. Lots of good reading this week si head over! :)

 

Invent Yourself

Doing some spring cleaning at my files I've run into this cool video we made a while ago in order to present the Klonies concept.

Let me provide some background info for those of you who are not familiar with Klonies; Klonies is a new service of personalized avatars by the mobile solutions provider Comverse, that enables the creation of avatars from a big content library of body types, eyes, hairstyles, hats, glasses, moods, clothes, branded accessories, etc., which can be used in traditional web forums, as well as to extend this experience to the mobile arena. Comverse has created a mobile Caller ID service, by which a user can create his Klonie either on the Web or on his mobile handset. Klonies let youth segment do something they could never even dream of doing before: create expressive avatars that represent them on other people’s phones. Klonies give the users extended means for self expression: they define how they are seen by their friends, on their phones.

What I liked in this video is that it literally presents the idea of 'inventing oneself' that usually is happens online, when the information about one's identity is very limited. Enjoy! :)

Sprint Offers Pandora Personalised Radio Stream on Mobile Phones

American mobile operator Sprint announced another agreement to eiden its mobile content offering:

In their first mobile deal, Pandora, a personalized online music service provider, is offering to stream radio stations on a number of Sprint handsets via pre-installed or downloaded software. Pandora, which enables its 6.5 million online subscribers to enter a favorite song or artist and listen to streaming content with the same sound and style, will offer the same service to Sprint's mobile customers.

To download the client, take your Sprint phone browser to Pandora.com and you will be prompted to download it. This offer is free for 30 days. After that you must have a Pandora premium account, which costs $3/month with a Sprint data plan (this also removes ads from Pandora.com when you listen there). The service will work initially on five phone models but will expand to all high-speed data phones sold by Sprint by the end of June.

Pandora is based on the Music Genome Project, a proprietary system that employs musicians to analyze songs one at a time, identifying musical qualities like melody, harmony, rhythm, arrangement, lyrics and vocals. Information about each current song, like title, artist and album, is displayed on the phone's color screen, and Sprint subscribers may scroll backwards to see the same data for recently played songs. Users may also rate songs to adjust Pandora's programming, pause and skip songs. In addition, Sprint subscribers may bookmark songs, saving title and artist for subsequent purchase at the Sprint Music Store. The Sprint service will integrate with Pandora's online service, enabling users to save up to 100 stations per account. Sprint customers can also create new stations directly on their phones.

[via Press release]

Sprint is the first mobile operator to offer Pandora, it would be interesting to see how other mobile operators will follow...

Carnival of Mobilists at Martin's Mobile Technology Page

The Carnival is online now at my dear friend's Martin's Mobile Technology Page. Martin has done an masterful job of reviewing this week’s best mobile blogging so head over and enjoy! :)

Thanks Martin for entering my post so late... (I was acctually 100% sure that I'm too late for this week and that it will wait for the next edition).

Mix Sherpa: A New Mobile Music Discovery Service

Hi all,

Today I wanted to review a very creative campaign done by Sprint to promote its new mobile music store called Mix Sherpa.

Sprint was looking for a way to create buzz and raise awareness for their recently launched Music Store in an already very crowded space with Verizon's, T-Mobile's and The New AT&T's (Cingular) music download stores. Also, the audience of "Advanced Connected", which Sprint wanted to reach, is extremely averse to traditional advertising and blatant promotion.

So how did Sprint manage these challenges?

The human\social angle - Sprint invented a whole story about 2 characters:
Ias Westbury, a washed up pop star from the 1980s running a record store on Melrose and DJ Supahboy5 who works at Ian’s store. To make the story seem more real, Ian even has his own myspace page and a music video for Ian’s one and only hit from the 80s called “Under the Moon” [which was directed by the music video legend Nigel Dick, (Tears For Fears, Guns N’ Roses, Britney Spears)].

The added value to the user - Sprint integrated a discovery and recommendation engine into the story about Ian:
Users engage with Ian and the DJ by creating their own playlists and in return getting an “expert” review of their choices. Users also get recommendations based on the newly created playlist. The added value for the users is the discovery of new music that fits their tastes and the reaffirmation of who they are and what their musical taste says about them.

Finally, piling a playlist and getting exposed to new music while interacting with a cool character will (hopefully) generate Sprint music downloads! Who wouldn't want to take the playlist to the mobile? Especially if the recommendations will prove themselves as precise, or in Ian's words:

"You go to the site and select your own custom playlist. Through the magic they call a “logic engine” - I'm able to analyze your playlist - and maybe analyze what's going on in that head of yours too. I'll offer you everything in my arsenal with humor, wit and charm - naturally. My longtime employee DJ Supahboy5 is also online to interject with his own opinions on songs and styles. We've got information on bands and songs, and links to download everything you need to take your mobile phone to the next level“.

As for the mobile part, Sprint offers "Sprint Music Manager" which is PC client that helps you sync your music from your PC to your mobile using a USB cord. As I don’t have a Sprint phone (I don't live in the US) I asked to get a demo account to try the new service. However, if someone gets the opportunity to play with it in the meantime, please share your experience and insights! :)

Ringback Tones: The Future Digital Music Distribution Channel?

"The overall value of the worldwide music industry has been in decline for several years, falling from a high-point of $39.7 billion USD in 2000 to just $32.1 billion USD in 2006." This is the main drive for the music labels to look for new outlets. One of them is the mobile music market. Lately, we have been witnessing a new marketing approach on behalf of the music labels; the ringtone and ringback tone have started to replace the old single played at the radio stations. Music labels now have been providing exclusivity for new singles mobile operators for a limited time, many times before the album has been even released.

What are the benefits of using this method?

• For the users - users are attracted to the exclusive and hot ringback tone and want to have the latest and hottest new song;
• For the operators - operators create more awareness to the ringback tones service, they generate more usage and hopefully more penetration of the ringback tones service. Also they are perceived as innovative, cool, updated with the current music… And, let's not forget that later on, after the exclusive ringback tone expires, they will notify the users and offer a new ringback tone and so on…
• For the music labels - music labels get the public to spread the word about and play the new release, i.e. increase awareness to the new song and drive sales later on when the album is out.

In Malaysia,

"pop singer Misha Omar released 2 singles as a digital single/truetone, some three months before the scheduled full album release. "This is the way the industry is moving. It looks like we will be doing it for all of our artistes," said Sony BMG managing director for Malaysia, Adrian Lim. Warner Music's new media development manager Wong Mei Chen said the company is also walking down the same path. "That's the trend that the business is going into. You'll be seeing more of that. You'll hear it as a ringtone before you hear it on radio." Wong cited examples like Linkin Park where the ringtone for the What I've Done single, which was released two months before the Minutes to Midnight album in May."

[via The Star Online, Thanks Gabi!]

However, this trend is not limited only to the more advanced Asian markets; some popular international acts are even beginning to sell more ringtones than albums: The Pussycat Dolls, for example, sold close to 80,000 ringtones of songs like "Don't Cha and Beep" while their album only sold about 50,000 copies."
[via The Star Online]

Also, In the past, I presented here another 2 international examples:

• American operator Sprint has used this marketing strategy when it offered, EXCLUSIVELY, Pearl Jam's "World Wide Suicide" single both as ringback tone (Caller Tone) and ringtone.

• And Orange France offered Johnny Hallyday's new ringback tone (Fun Tone) "La loi du silence" exclusively to its users. And here's the clip:

Seems like ringback tones might be the future digital music distribution channel. Any comments? :)

The Carnival of the Mobilists no. 73 Is Here

Photo by Honeycut07

Hi everyone,

Welcome to the 73rd Carnival of the Mobilists!

Sit comfortably and get ready for a blast of the best mobile writing of the week :)

Let's start with my pick for the best post of the week:

Tomi T. Ahonen from Communities Dominate Brands shares his thoughts around the 7 needs of mobile phones, or as he calls them "The 7 Deadly C's". Very interesting and worth the reading!

Mobile Content and Apps

The Ringback tone service has been highly successful in Asia ever since its early launching days back in 2002. Xellular Identity brings amazing ringback tones usage and penetration figures from a Chinese mobile operator. And as you can see, the ringback tones service still is a “cash cow” for Asian!

Alfie Dennen from moblog UK reviews using Fring on the N73 using 3's X-series package. Fring is a Series 60 application which supports Yahoo messenger, MSN messenger, Google Talk, Skype and SIP numbers.

Zach from the Nokia S60 3rd Edition Applications Review reviews a new Nokia S60 app called "Best Profiles" by Smartphoneware. Best Profiles gives users to automatic profile switching functionality according to schedules, calendar events and charging status.

Mobile Value Chain

Ricky Cadden, our Symbian Guru, brings the hottest news about one of the mobile manufacturers in the US (Nokia), which is starting to look past the carriers and explore its own channels of distribution.

Morten Hjerde, visiting at Ajit Jaokar's Open Gardens, shares from his (bad) experience as a small creator of mobile data services and mobile games the flaws of the mobile entertainment value chain. 

Mobile Consumer

Daniel Taylor from the mobile Enterprise Weblog raises one of the most urging question we all have asked ourselves, at least once or twice, whether the carrier handset subsidy is a good thing for the marketplace?

Dennis the editor of Wapreview covers the latest news about T-Mobile USA which is blocking Java applications and brings some helpful tips of how to update your phone settings to get it working, in the meantime.

Rod McLaren from Mobbu brings his insights of the MEX conference held in London last week, and in his words: "a note on the underlying and somewhat inconsistent themes (more openness! and more like Apple!) heard in discussing how to improve mobile user experience. As a bonus, there are some slightly inept drawings too!"

Mobile Marketing

Tim Trent from Marketing by Permission shares thoughts and insights about the complications related to deploying a valid and effective SMS campaign.

Mobile Design

David Beers from Software Anywhere presents how the following could mean to users - while everyone is focused on what will drive wireless data usage, mobile OS vendors have made some interesting changes in how your data may be stored on the mobile and what we will be able to do with it.

Barbara Ballard of Little Springs Design shares her views on brand management across devices & platforms; while brand owners talk about wanting a consistent user experience across devices, including computers and interactive televisions, there’s more into it!

Andreas Constantinou from Vision Mobile Forum brings detailed facts and figures on Flash Lite, from Adobe’s revenue figures, to Flash Lite device shipments, operator deployments, technology, Flash Home and Flash Cast.

Well, that concludes this edition. Have a great week and hope to catch up next week at my dear friend Martin's Mobile Technology Page!

Traveling Abroad? Try Steape Mobile Translator

If you have been traveling around the world, you may need some help with communicating in different languages of wherever you may be. So, here are some good news:

Another player has entered into the mobile translation apps scene this week, this time it is a Dutch company called Steape who brings to the US and UK markets a mobile translation service that has been very popular among Dutch travelers.

Steape offers three: Mini-Speaking Dictionary, Steape Travel and Steape Knowledge. The Mini-Speaking Dictionary consists of 500 traveller-related words. Steape Travel contains nearly 100 phrases covering travel-related topics: Chat basics; Travel & Go; Small Talk; Overnight Accommodation; Money; Shopping; Flirting & Dating; Going Out & Sightseeing; Eating & Drinking; Help & Health and Service & Communication. Steape Knowledge is composed of useful basic vocabulary, such as numbers, days of the week etc., and is free when another product is purchased. The translators currently work on 138 mobile phones types, and the list grows continuously.

As a traveler at unfamiliar language surroundings, all you need to do is find the particular phrase you want to say on your mobile phone, press the action key and the phrase is played through the speaker of your mobile phone.

Steape costs USD 5.00 or £4.00, a reasonable price if compared with a phrase book.

[Via press repease]

 

Coping With Law Enforcement: Second Life and Child Abuse

Over the past day, the issue of simulated and actual child pornography in virtual worlds has attracted the attention of mainstream media. The buzz was provoked by a report of a German TV news program which uncovered the trading group and members who pay for sex with virtual children at Second Life.

For those of you who haven’t heard of Second Life, it is a virtual world in which members create for themselves an avatar and use it to live out a separate existence at the virtual world of Second Life.

Now, Second Life is being investigated by German police following the allegations that some members were having virtual sexual contact between adult avatars and avatars with child-like appearances called "age play"; (which are groups that revolve around the abuse of virtual children);but also claims that photographs of real-life child sexual abuse have been made available in Second Life.

The incidents involving child pornography didn't stay within Second Life though, according to the investigator that carried out the report, Nick Schader, he was offered by this said trading group access to traders of real child pornography. Moreover, there were meetings within Second Life where virtual and real child pornography was shown.

Now, the police are trying to identify the Second Life members involved since under Germany law possession of "virtual" child pornography is punishable by up to three years in jail. In response, Linden Lab, creator of Second Life, said it would help identify users and pass on details to prosecutors.

[via BBC News]

Ever since the first allegation of sexual abuse at Second Life has been published, there is an ongoing debate whether “age play” is legitimate, and whether it is a healthy outlet for sexual fantasies. Virtually Blind states that -

“sexual age play practitioners are quick to differentiate themselves from pedophiles (who, they point out, are sexually interested in actual children, rather than in adults who role play children).”

One of the interesting things, apart from the debate about the legitimation outlawed behavior in virtual worlds is what measures Linden Lab has taken to law enforce within its jurisdiction. Virtually Blind states that

“several months ago, The Register, reported that a Dutch prosecutor was considering bringing charges against citizens of the Netherlands who engaged in sexual age play in Second Life.

Shortly after that story broke, the Second Life Herald reported that Linden Lab had begun quietly contacting residents who appeared to be running businesses related to sexual age play, with the following message:

"Dear Second Life Resident:

Linden Lab would like to inform you that your land or business is possibly not in compliance with Second Life’s Community Standards. The depiction of sexual activity involving minors may violate real-world laws in some areas, and the Second Life community as a whole has made it clear that it views such behavior to be broadly offensive. Linden Lab chooses not to allow the advertising or promotion of age play or related activities in any public forum — including in-world textures, classified ads, the Second Life forums, or parcel descriptions.

Advertisements, promotions, or descriptions of such activities must be removed to avoid account sanctions.

Any account asserting an age that does not meet Second Life’s minimum age of eligibility will be closed.”"

[via Virtually Blind]

Ringback Tones: The APAC Operators Cash Cow

The Ringback tone service has been highly successful ever since its early launching days back in 2002. The first introduction of customized ringback tones was made by the South Korean operator SK Telecom with its 'Color Ring' ringback tones service. SK Telecom generated over €80 million (US$100 million) in Q2 2002 and has reached 54% of SK Telecom's 18 million subscribers in penetration. In the Asian market in general, the ringback tones service has maintained an average of 20% service penetration across the board, with some operators reporting up to 50% penetration.

Ongoing content usage is a key success factor to the strong ringback tone business case, and content consumption is also very high in Asia. Operators in the region report that customers frequently change their content to fit their mood, style, musical taste and just for fun. Nevertheless, it is amazing to witness the amazing ongoing uptake of ringback tones in APAC today:

"A leading wireless internet company in China recently published its results for Q1 2007, among them its Colour Ringback Tones service results:

Out of total revenues of US$35.14 million in 1Q 07, the Colour Ringback Tones Service’s revenues were US$3.35 M, which are 10.5% of the total wireless Internet service revenues in the quarter. This figure is an up of 45.6% quarter over quarter and up 36.2% year over year. Colour Ringback Tones revenues made up.

The company also states that the Colour Ringback Tones business “continued to increase quarter over quarter due to Chinese New Year related and other event driven promotional activities with mobile operator partners. While Colour Ringback Tones revenues increased year over year due to our expanding relationship with China Mobile's centralized music platform and continued declines in the average unit price of Colour Ringback Tones, stimulating end-user demand."

[via Sys-con Media]

As you can see, the ringback tones service has been and still is a “cash cow” for APAC operators. Hopefully will see more European and American operators reaching these great numbers as well.

How Customer Service Changes The Picture

I wanted to share a horrible experience I had these last two days with customer service. This is not a mobile issue but it does affect my mobility - it is my car.

I am the owner of a Volkswagen Polo. For the last few days the car switches off when it standing (both in neutral and in first and second gear). Being a girl who is clueless when it has to deal with cars, I took my mechanic's advice and went to I went to the Volkswagen’s central garage called “Champion Motors”  to fix it, thinking this is a minor bug.

I was received yesterday morning (7th of May 2007) at 8:40 in the morning at “Champion Motors” garage and was promised to be contacted by the Service Customer Support of any progression. I was also promised that my car will be ready by the end of day.

Until now, more than 30 hours after I left my car in the garage, it hasn’t been treated, not even diagnosed! Even more severe is the fact that I wasn’t contacted at any point to be let known that my car is merely parking at the garage and it is not being taken care off and will not anytime soon!

Today I tried to call the garage several times to learn that they have a work load and cars that arrived 4 days ago haven’t been released yet. Knowing “Champion Motors” can’t provide the service it has committed to, why I was promised that my car will be ready by the end of the day? Why wasn’t I let known, at any point, of the status?

The reason I bought Volkswagen for starters was their image of a very reliable car manufacturer with good service. I believe that what happened to me is not a sufficient level of customer care required by Volkswagen. However, after this horrible experience, I am not going to return to any Volkswagen garages and am seriously planning to sell my car as soon as possible. Also I intend to let people know what a miserable service people receive at Volkswagen’s Central Garage, also known as “Champion Motors”. I heard that Japanese cars are very reliable and provide better customer service.

If any of my readers knows someone at Volkswagen (headquarters, customer service, and other relevant people) - please let me know. Thanks!

And, to take something from this experience, it is not enough to have a great product or service. Providing customer care is very important! It is the taste left in users' mouth after taking a big bite! Make sure you hire the right people to do the job and that you have a suitable policy.

Carnival of Mobilists at 3Lib

Carnival of the Mobilists #72 is hosted by Steve Litchfield of 3-Lib. Head over for the best mobile round-up for this week's Carnival!

T-Mobile With A Music Offering For UK People

Hoping to captialise on its "Street Gigs"* events and Channel 4 music series  "Transmission", T-Mobile is extending its offering beyond T-Mobile customers for all music fans. How? T-Mobile is launching of a new music site named ARTISTdirect.com/uk. The site will go live on Monday morning and fans will be able to access exclusive content from StreetGigs artists such as The Fratellis, Mika, Badly Drawn Boy and the Arctic Monkeys.

T-mobile has teamed up with US-based ARTISTdirect.com, the largest site for independent music online. Based on the US version of the service, the UK partnership hopes to offer subscribers the chance to download content from its live music events 'Street Gigs' to the mobile and consume more mobile content. The new website will be dedicated to the UK market solely.

Music fans on T-Mobile will be able to download music via T-Zones, and non-T-Mobile customers will also be able to access news and get tickets to secretive StreetGigs and Channel 4's Transmission with T-Mobile.

[via press release]

What I like in this initiative is T-Mobile's understanding that as a consumer brand, it must have have an attractive offering to a wide audience; but even more important is to find the way to engage people which are not nesesarily T-Mobile's subscrubers. By providing them a reason to access the T-Mobile's website and incentivize them to visit recurrently, T-Mobile will build its public image and hopefully will draw more subscribers.

*For the non-UK readers, T-Mobile's "Street Gigs" is a unique series of live music events.

mobileYouth: A New Website

mobileYouth, a part of the Wireless World Forum, has a new look for their website. After getting the word from Josh I looked around and there are two things which are really worth the time to pay a visit:

• mobileYouth people now present videos from "on the street" interviews they run with teenagers. Many players in the mobile industry (and elsewhere) try to target this segment, but what do we really know about it...? This is our opportunity to watch, listen and learn.
• A series of podcasts covering the topics of teens, mobile, marketing and more...

And here is one of the videos about what youth think of mobile marketing. Enjoy!

Sprint: Leveraging Email Communication for A Successful Campaign

Hi everyone,

Getting back from the Fun Dial Marketing Seminar provides so many new topics to share with you :)

Today, I will review a very interesting and effective marketing campaign that basically don’t cost operators so much as above the line marketing activities (like mass advertising). The American mobile operator Sprint was facing a situation by which it had low ringback tones content downloads by existing subscribers, low awareness of people to the service and limited marketing budget.

Accordingly, the campaign’s objectives were
• To increase ringback tones downloads
• To increase number of ringback tones service users
• To increase awareness to ringback tones service

Sprint sent an email to a targeted group of 500K subscribers which constitute the ‘power users’\ heavy content services users. The reason for targeting only a certain group (and not the entire install base) was to intention to reach a critical mass of users - including “opinion leaders” – in a short period of time and leverage the viral nature of the ringback tone service. Having a core of users is what is needed to create a buzz.

This group of heavy users was offered James Blunts’ famous “You’re Beautiful” ringback tone (Call Tone) for free. The rational was to choose a famous musical track which is known to most people and “fit” wide range of ages and cultures. The drive to action was a click on link - “Try it - click on the “Download” link below” relying on impulsive buying behavior [see the image of the email]:

This simple button automatically activated the ringback tones service for those users.

The impulsive drive to action didn’t fail Sprint. In a matter of days it got an 8% of conversion rate out of the targeted recipients\population; meaning, Sprint pin pointed the “right people”. Also, Sprint witnessed an over 30% growth in weekly downloads.

In conclusion, choosing the right content and targeting to the right segment are key success factors. Also, with minor marketing investments substantial revenue can be generated.