Xellular Identity - All About Mobile Content & Marketing

Pimp My Ringtones

You'd probably think "hey, what more can be offered in a bursting market of $9 billion of ringtones?!" But creativity has no limits -- my dear friend Russell Buckly of Mobhappy writes about a new personalized ringtone service called Singtones.

"Singtones offer the ultimate ringtone customisation, even more so than Orgasmatones (whatever happened to them?) with the added benefit that you wouldn’t be embarrassed if your Mum heard it.

Singtones offer you the ability to record your very own version of a well known song. Then the software “fixes” those with dodgy or tone deaf voices, so everyone can get a good result. The cost? A mere £1.50 ($3)."

So, what is next...?

Ringback Tones - some figures

"Personalization is what is really driving the mobile phone market right now," said Laura Merritt, spokeswoman for Verizon Wireless. "The cell phone has become an extension of people's personalities with ringtones, ringback tones and other customizable options."

"Verizon wouldn't give exact figures on how much money the company makes off of extras like ringtones. However, in the first quarter of this year alone, Verizon customers downloaded 106 million ringtones, ringbacks, songs, games and applications, Merritt said. Each one of these customizations costs anywhere from $1 to $10."Ringtones and ringback tones are certainly among our more popular offerings," Merritt said."

[via The news Herald]

Klonies at the NYT

As a fan of David Pogue of the NY Times, I was very proud to see his review of the Klonies mobile Caller ID:

"You know how young people are spending $10 billion a year on ringtones, just because it lets them express themselves? The next big thing, I'm convinced, will be avatars. This feature, too, was on display: You design your own little character, or avatar, choosing a hairstyle, clothes, facial features and so on. Then, whenever you call people, your character appears on their cellphone screens. I'll bet avatars will be the next huge teen fad in 2010 or so."

[via NYT]

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.

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! :)

The Push Ringer

Just got the word about a cool new mobile personalization service called “Push Ringer”:

Push Ringer reverses the common ringtone model. It enables a caller to push an outgoing ringtone to the receiving phone allowing the caller, not the called person, to set the tone. The chosen Ringer is transmitted to the recipient's handset and temporarily overrides the phone's pre-set ringer. The ringers can comprise audio, video, animations, avatars or flash files. Closing the loop, if the called person likes the ringtone, the service also enables him or her to instantly buy a copy of the ringtone for his or her own phone. Emotive's Push Ringer moves beyond traditional mobile personalization by both adding value to the ringtones users purchase for their own phones and providing content recommendation and impulse-purchase opportunities to the users' friends, family and coworkers. This new technology represents a vastly more active, expressive and compelling form of call personalization than exists in today's ringtone market which is otherwise showing signs of leveling off at only about 6% of mobile subscribers, worldwide, The Push Ringer leverages rapidly emerging broadband wireless telephone and wire-line VOIP networks.

[via Mobile Tech News]

This idea was actually presented here, at Xellular Identity, long time ago by Assaf Katan. Interesting how ideas spread around. So here is Tom Sella's comment given to Assaf at the time, that still should be taken into consideration:

"well, considering most (ok, i'm a nokia nut, so strike that "most" and read as "nokia", since that's almost all i've used for the past 10+ years) already have profiles (with timed activation) and groups to which you can assign a ringtone, and yet, most people (i know) don't bother with them, i'm not so sure you'll be able to find a justifiable market size to support such an application.

that, coupled with the fact that the phone maker actually manages the ringtone app (with the possible exception of the smarter phones), i have to say i'm a nay-sayer."

A Jump Into the Future - Multimedia Ringback Tones

Hi everyone,

Today I wanted to share with you a new and sexy service that according to one of the Product Managers at Comverse will be the natural evolution of the ringback tones. To do things right, I'll begin at the top :)

Once, there was no choice but to hear a dull ‘ring ring’ when you waited for your friend to answer the phone. Now, follow this carefully: Tomorrow, you place a video call to your friend. Suddenly the amazing top hit by the new hip-hop group The Beatz will fill your mobile screen. You are enjoying a great top 10 video clip until your friend answers the phone. Wouldn't that be a better way to wait?

The Multimedia ringback tone takes the very popular musical ringback tone service to a whole different dimension, from the audio space to the visual video clip arena. It allows you to enjoy watching a video clip while placing calls, as well as to entertain your callers with video clips to watch while calling you.

Sounds great? I haven't said the final word yet, which is content. There are 3 types of optional content:

• Users' content - music clips, Klonies customizable avatars, self generated content, corporate content... All depending on the segment.
• Operator content - branding (logo), promotion info, operator prompts.
• Advertisement - advertisers fund phone bills in return to placing ads at the multimedia ringback tones space. Less desirable for the callers, but it's an option.

We all know that personalization is a key growth engine to mobile services and applications and it will probably keep being a key factor in the future. Having said that, the multimedia ringback tone leverages the ringback tones' success and promotes the video arena\ tusage of 3G. It harnesses the human need to self express and provides a new and creative outlet for that. Smart!

What are your reactions?

Ringback Tones TV Commercials

Hi everyone,

Today I decided to address another aspect of marketing, a mass communication marketing activity, i.e.TV commercials. To me, it is very interesting to see commercials from different mobile operators from around the world and look which aspects of the ringback tones service each one chooses to present.

For your convenience and fun, I'm adding here each commercial as I cover it, so you're welcome to read, watch and enjoy :)

The first commercial comes from Orange Israel:

What I liked here is that Orange presents how an ordinary and dull 'ring ring' sound can be replaced with a much more fun tone (which is actually Orange Israel's name for the service). The commercial doesn't take us to the mobile arena literally, rather displays a metaphoric example of anther dull 'ring ring' situation of a young guy pressing the door's buzzer and waiting to be answered.

The second commercial comes from T-Mobile Czech Republic:

Here, T-Mobile empowers the ringback tones subscriber - he can change the caller's mood by playing a fun dial tone...

The third commercial comes from Hutch, India.

Here, Hutch emphasized personalization. As a ringback tones subscriber (or Caller Tunes) I can set different tunes for each of my friends, so they all enjoy while waiting for me to answer. Like the first example of Orange, Hutch doesn't place the commercial at the mobile arena and we get to link the metaphoric example to the Caller Tunes service later on.

The fourth commercial comes from Cosmote Greece:

[For some odd reason, at YouTube there's no sound, so you can download the video from here as well]. What I liked here is the suspense the commercial puts you in. Everyone calls Yargo - but why? This commercial also empowers the ringback tones subscriber, he\she becomes popular since everyone wants to dial his\her number...

Well, I hope you enjoyed it. If you come across other commercials, feel free to send over the links or post them here as a comment :)

What Motivates Mobile Phone Buyers? Self-expression

Once again, self expression is one of the main motivations when buying a new mobile phone. According to NPD,

“What motivates buyers when they choose a new mobile phone? Many factors come into play, of course, but having the desired capabilities and a flip-phone form factor rise to the top most often.

With a couple of exceptions, buyers have ranked these two criteria highest (roughly 40 percent) over the past seven quarters. That’s testament to the fact that experienced phone buyers know what they want in a phone and make purchases based on these factors.
The third most often cited reason for choosing a particular phone is that it is a “good brand,” which again reflects a mature market. Buyers have obviously come to trust certain handset makers over others.”

Also, when drilling down, we see that self expression is rated the highest among the youth age group:

“Age can play a role as well in the purchase of a handset. Among the various age groups, different profiles emerge based on the top purchase motivator. For example, buyers 18 to 24 chose “it’s a cool phone” as their top motivator for buying a handset during the last year. Those 25 to 44 most often chose “had the capabilities I wanted.” And consumers 45 and older chose “flip phone / can be closed” as their top criterion for purchase.

Based on age and the top purchase motivator, three distinct target groups emerge:

• The youngest buyers seek a desirable device that reeks of “cool” (design is key, but the phone has to deliver on functionality, too).
• Young to middle-aged buyers want a wide range of capabilities. Getting just the right combination is the trick, so the device must strike a balance between popular must-have features and those that might just be nice to have.
• For people just past middle age and the older crowd, a solid flip phone will suffice; however, it shouldn’t lack basic capabilities and the brand is still important, too.”

[via NPD]

Mobile Phones as Multi-Functional Accessories

Based on a survey of U.S. users who have a wireless phone, comScore Networks, released yesterday a study that analyzes differences in behavior and attitudes among the following key wireless consumer segments:

• The Cellular Generation - Ages 18 to 24, these young adults grew up with cell phone awareness, experiencing cell phones as a part of their everyday lives.
• Transitioners - Ages 25 to 34, these people fall in between two distinct groups: those who grew up with cell phone knowledge and those who did not. Cell phones began to infiltrate everyday life during their teen years and early adulthood.
• Adult Adopters - Age 35 or older, this group was not exposed to cell phone until adulthood. Adult Adopters tend to have the most functional view of cell phones, with many requiring just the basics and showing limited interest in emerging technologies.

""During the past decade, cell phones have dramatically changed the communication habits of American consumers," said Serge Matta, senior vice president of comScore Telecommunications Solutions. "While the youngest consumers grew up with the technology, those just a few years older did not, resulting in some pronounced differences in attitudes and behaviors towards cell phone usage across the various user segments. As cell phones continue to evolve in terms of design, functionality, and features, it is vital that cell phone providers and manufacturers understand the differing needs and desires of these distinct consumer segments.""

Cellular Generation Views Their Cell Phones as Accessories

"Cell phones offer far more than simply a means of voice communication. They can provide entertainment, convey social status, and express one's individuality. While consumers in both the Cellular Generation and Transitioners are likely to view their cell phones as multi-dimensional devices, adult adopters tend to have a more functional view. Approximately one-quarter of both the Cellular Generation (26 percent) and Transitioners (25 percent) said that "trendiness" was of high importance when selecting a cell phone, as compared to just 10 percent of Adult Adopters. Additionally, 41 percent of Cellular Generation consumers strongly agree with the statement "I like my cell phone to be personalized" with options such as color schemes and ring tones, while only 19 percent of Adult Adopters feel the same."

[via Cellular News]

U-DOO - New Avatar Ringtones

I was tipped about the launch of the talking avatar ringtone application called U-DOO. U-DOO is a ringtone application for mobile phones that allows users to create talking animated avatars with their own voices and use the characters as ringtones on their mobile phones and send them to friends. In addition, U-DOO lets users publish the talking avatar to their MySpace web pages. The company behind the taking avatars is no other than web avatars provider Oddcast, which is looking for new partnerships to expand to the mobile arena.

How does it work? U-DOO users can create personalized ringtones and avatars with their own voice or from pre-recorded messages, and email them to friends, who can then download the ringtones to their phones. The phones can be set to sound the ringtone whenever the friend associated with the avatar calls. This means I create my avatar ringtone and I send it to you and hope you'd associate it with my profile, so whenever I call you, you'll see and hear my avatar. So I need my friends' cooperation in order to decide how do I look when I call them. Other thing is if I'd have several different ringtones, each associated with a friend, how would I know my own mobile is ringing? Each time I choose to change my ringtone it takes me a few seconds to realize that the mobile ring actually belongs to me... I guess more people will use U-DOO to make their own personalized avatar ringtone and leave the Caller ID function aside.

The email and MySpace options are free to end users, but the wireless download option is offered by subscription through wireless carriers under a 60-day free trial, with a $5 monthly charge after. Enjoy!

Thanks Katie! :)

 

Forgot Your Password? Try A New Identity

Danah Boyd has written a very interesting post about youth's tendency to forget things, like their login passwords etc and their approach when being locked out of mySpace/Xanga/Blogger happens:

"Sara created a MySpace using an email address that she made specifically for that purpose. After vacation, she couldn't remember her MySpace password (or her email password). She created a new MySpace page using a new throwaway email address. When i asked her if she was irritated that she had to do this after investing time in the previous profile, she said, "nah.. I had too many Friends that I didn't know anyways."

"Teens are not dreaming of portability (like so many adults i meet). They are happy to make new accounts on new sites; they enjoy building out profiles. (Part of this could be that they have a lot more time on their hands.) The idea of taking MySpace material to Facebook when they transition is completely foreign. They're going to a new site, they want to start over. [...] Some teens chew through IM handles like candy; their nicks are things like "o-so-funny" rather than the first name, last name standard that seems to pervade professional worlds. It's not seen as something to build an extensive identity around, but something to use to talk to friends in the moment."

[via zephoria]

Forgetting the password and creating a new account is a great opportunity to start over a new account with a new profile, i.e. a new identity. It is even more appealing for youth because adolescence is the age when many 'roles' are being tried/played with as part of the process of constructing an independent (from parents) identity.

in contrast, let's keep Cyworld with its 'real-name policy' and huge success among teens and young adults in mind...

Relevance Marketing - The Messengers

Sony Pictures is a great example of clever segmentation of target audience and a great example of leveraging segments’ needs and behavior to promote a new product; in this case, the upcoming thriller movie "The Messengers".

According to The Hollywood Reporter:

“To promote the upcoming supernatural thriller "The Messengers", Sony Pictures has included in its dossier of digital-marketing tools a ringtone only young consumers can hear.”

"The ultrasonic ringtone -- ringtones that are audible to teenagers but not adults -- are a featured aspect of the film's promotional campaign, which is geared toward a teen audience.”

Understanding youth’s need to belong to a peer group and the place the mobile phone holds in the lives of youth as a tool to make a personal statement about themselves, Sony Pictures is promoting its new movie through a ringtone that only teens can hear. Besides having a thematic relevance to the movie since “the movie's story line about a young female protagonist insisting she hears voices that her parents cannot hear”, the ringtone has huge relevance to youth’s psychological and behavioral needs.

And Sony Pictures don't settle down with just ringtones to promote the movie,

“Along with the thematically-integrated ringtones and online interactivity, Epstein [executive director, worldwide digital marketing strategy, Columbia TriStar Marketing Group] also noted a blog on the Weblog community Xanga and an eventual 1-800 number as other communicative features tied to the film's marketing efforts. The hope is that it feels like one continuous conversation with Jess [the main character in the film] -- you see her profile on a social networking site, you call her and IM her -- as she draws you into her current situation," said Epstein, noting the intent of the campaign is to have users transcend a couple of digital mediums.”

And if you're interested in more about relevance marketing and youth - here's a link and my previous thoughts about the ultrasonic ringtone.

MocoSpace

The other day Justin Siegel of JNJ Mobile shared that MocoSpace has just gotten a facelift. My test drive of this social software raised a few questions which Justin kindly answered and I decided to publish them here.

The first thing that intrigued me was the added value for MocoSpace mobile\web users, having other MoSoSo in the mobile neighborhood:

Justin: Today, there are no sites that offer people the combination of communication, self-expression & content sharing available on MocoSpace. The added value for MocoSpace users is that with MocoSpace they can now enjoy the benefits of finding friends (chat, browse profiles), staying connected to them (mobile email, messaging, guestbook), self-expression (personalized profiles, blogs, favorites, photos, videos, etc.), and content sharing (photos, videos, blogs, wallpapers, etc.) all on 1 great site available from virtually any device including mobile phones, smart phones, and personal computers. 

At MocoSpace, we think that it's crucial to incorporate several "best practices", which include

• safety features that allow members to protect themselves and allow site admins to monitor and address abuse issues
• a design that facilitates navigation and minimizes clicks
• broad handset support (wap 1.0, 2.0, xhtml)
• free and premium service options
• privacy levels for members
• customer support & help sections

MocoSpace’s competitors come mainly from 3 distinct areas. First there are the Web content competitors, ie MySpace, Youtube, Facebook, etc. These are sites with lots of content and big existing social networks. Second are the Web communication competitors MSN, Yahoo & Google.  These companies will continue to roll out mobile offerings that cover email, chat, and IM. Third, are the early mobile competition primarily led by WAP chat sites such as AirG and Jumbuck.

Regarding MocoSpace’s placement at the MoSoSo market:

Justin: MocoSpace is in an excellent position in the MoSoSo market thanks to the strength of its product offering and also its location, i.e. North America. In the US, unlike Asia for example, there are not many if any players really taking aim today at what we are doing in terms of breadth and depth of their offering. Some companies are offering photo sharing or chat, but none are offering a product that truly combines the notions of connectivity, communication, and content they way MocoSpace is today.

And some thoughts about the future:

Justin: MocoSpace will continue to enhance its existing features to further enable communication as well as content sharing & creation. Without giving away too much about our product roadmap, I would suggest that our next area of focus will be music.

Mososo is such a broad term that covers so much ground, it's practically impossible to try to predict it's future because the "it" is vague and continually changing. That said, the future of this category of sites and services is going to be huge, it's going to be ad supported, and it's going to obliterate the remnants of operators' walled gardens. I think it will take the idea of connectivity to a new level in terms of people always feeling plugged in to their friends, peer groups, etc. I'm not a big fan of the pursuit of the "killer app" beyond voice and email. However, I do think that MoSoSo is probably the closest we've come to a killer category. I sure hope our evolution as an industry didn't peak with Crazy Frog!

Don't Let Your Private Life Hang Up By Your Career

These tips for job applicants concerning your mobile self expression were caught in one of my news alerts:

"Your cell phone is ringing. If you are job hunting, the person calling may be your future employer. If it is, you have obviously impressed them with your application or stellar resume -- you don't want to ruin your chances by handling the call unprofessionally.

"In recent years we have found a majority of applicants list only their cell phone number for direct contact. However, some applicants are too casual when using their cell phones. Often, recruiters are greeted with voice mail messages that should never be heard by a prospective employer."

"While the latest trend is to personalize your ringback tone with the hottest music download, usually it does not reflect a professional image. Your friends and family may enjoy listening to your favorite song before you answer, but a prospective employer may not."

"Select an appropriate voice mail message. Keep it short and include your full name so the prospective employer knows they have reached the correct applicant."

[via KOTA]

The article describes the inevitable encounter of the professional and private spheres. While it advices to pretend that we don't have a private life, I think that if someone calls my personal mobile phone, it is only natural for the caller to be exposed to private aspects of my life\personality.

Very popular online news narrative is the story of applicants who weren’t hired due to facts\personal opinionswritten in their personal blogs\mySpace profiles etc'. Also, many experts advice us to be very careful with what we put online. While I agree that we should think before publishing personal content online -- if someone knocks on my door in the middle of the night, why would he\she be surprised to find me in my polka doted pajamas?! Should I deny having one or quickly change to my business suit? -- I hope you all agee that this is ridiculous; Likewise, if someone calls my private mobile phone, he\she have to realize that he\she is stepping into my personal world and that he\she will hear my personal greeting or my personalized ringback tone. We all have a professional persona and a private one at the same time. By no means it should disqualify an applicant from getting hired for the job.

Having said that, if this still bothers you, you don't have to get rid of your ringback tone. Today, you can have multiple ringback tones and multiple voice mail greetings set according to the person calling you. So you can set up “How I wish you were here” for your girl\boyfriend and “Work All Day” for your prospective employer. There's no need to hide.

Interviewing Jan Kuczynski on Mobile Music and Youth Trends

Welcome to the second part of the mobile youth trends and behavior coverage. Today, Jan Kuczynski, Associate Manager at the Wireless World Forum, who is also the co-author of the mobileYouth 2006 report will be visiting here! Jan has been with Wireless World Forum for almost a year with a focus on emerging mobile trends and technology. Prior to joining W2F, Jan spent two years in snowy northern Japan and one year in the sunny south of France “I can personally recommend the Jurançon sec to anyone into their white wines”.

For those of you who missed the first part of the mobile youth trends coverage: Nick Wright, Jan's colleague, visited Xellular Identity last week and we had a great conversation - you can read it here.

Well, enough said... Jan, the stage is yours!

-Hi Jan, how are you?

Good thanks, Xen. Thanks for inviting me at Xellular Identity!

-How’s the weather in London?

We’ve been really lucky recently actually - it’s another bright and sunny autumn day!

-What got you interested in mobile?

I’ve always had an interest in the latest technology, but I suppose I really fell in love with my mobile when I spent two years living in Japan. There were some great handsets and services over there which kept me busy during my daily train commute. I would always be using my mobile to shop on Amazon, check maps using GPS or just browse around. Since I came back to the UK, I’ve stopped using my mobile so much. I still like to keep my eye on some of the new mobile developments back over in Japan - though sometimes it makes me just a little jealous…

-What takes up your time other than mobile?

Reading (I’ll have to look into your recommendation of Murakami’s “Wind-up Bird Chronicle”!), rugby league, skiing and getting out of London now and again to see the rest of the world. I’ve also been in big trouble with my housemate recently for repeatedly stealing their new Nintendo DS with tetris!

-Today’s topic is mobile music - do you use your mobile as a music player?

Actually, I don’t! The biggest deal breaker is that my handset doesn’t have a regular headphone socket. I really hate the standard headphones that come bundled with most ‘music phones’ these days so I would only use my phone as a music player if I could use my headphones. The other issue that holds me back is the lack of a good all-in-one music service that will let me use my mobile music on my PC and not cost me a fortune in data charges for OTA downloads from my phone.

-OK, not a mobile music convertee yet ;) but you’re a music fan, right?

Yes I am - and so it was fun to do research into the new trends in youth music consumption and try out some of the services that are so popular with today’s teens - in fact, I even went to two concerts of artists that I found out about on MySpace!

-Does music take a different role in the lives of teenagers and adults?

Yes, it does. As we grow older, we tend to have smaller groups of close friends, but for teenagers, friends, peers and social groups are the most important things in their lives. Music is a powerful social tool for teenagers - it gives them something to talk about, social status from knowing about the newest and coolest bands and the type of music you listen to can even define which social group you belong to (in my school you were either a metal-er or a raver based on your music tastes - I’ll let you guess which one I was ;) ).

-What are the key drivers for music’s appeal to youth?

Youth don’t just play music - they explore, display and share music. Firstly, youth can only use music as a social tool if it’s up-to-date, so unless youth constantly put feelers out to explore new music, they get left behind. Secondly, teens like to display their music tastes - whether it’s through their CD rack, their Coldplay t-shirt or simply by turning up their headphones so everyone can hear. Thirdly, youth like sharing music as it earns them social currency and reinforces peer bonds - that’s why teenagers spend time and effort burning compilation CDs for their friends.

-Has the way youth consume music changed over the last 10 years?

The key drivers haven’t changed - youth still want to explore, display and share their music - but the music industry itself has undergone a big transformation over the last few years. Music formats have shifted from analogue to digital and sources of new music have become more diverse. When I was younger, there was only one music chart, one MTV and just a handful of radio stations for youth. Now there’s the internet, a whole spectrum of music charts and channels and more and more specialist music genres (HipHopera or Neo-Rave anyone?).

-What music services are most popular among teens?

The most popular teen music services now are internet services which help youth best explore, display and share their music in the new fragmented, digital music world. Some services focus on improving one of these aspects (for example, Last.fm focuses on exploring, BBC’s Musicubes are a new way of displaying and Kazaa is mainly about sharing), whereas some enhance all three. MySpace, for example, is all about exploring for new music through a social network, displaying your music tastes on your homepage and sharing new tracks with a community of peers.

-How can we make mobile music more appealing to youth?

I think we need to move beyond the “mp3 playback” mindset to make mobile music a competitor for other popular youth music services. Just adding mp3 playback to a handset doesn’t exploit mobile music’s potential to let youth explore, display and share their music.

I’ve started to see some great new mobile products and services which do exactly that. For exploring, mobile technologies such as QR codes, image and audio recognition provide really interesting opportunities to use the mobile to discover new music. For displaying, there is a growing market for Bluetooth speakers which help youth make a display of their music collection, and there’s a great handset called “Neon” in Japan which shows the track title and artist in glowing LEDs along the side of the phone. For sharing, Vodafone have developed a DRM system where young people can swap music over Bluetooth, MMS, infrared and memory cards and there are some new music services that let youth share playlists with friends.

Mobile music has great potential, but I think it’s only by using mobile technology to build on the key drivers of exploring, displaying and sharing that we can make mobile music services more appealing to youth.

Thank you Jan! :)

* *** * *** * *** *

Next week there will be a new guest visiting here and talking about the art of marketing mobile services for the youth segment. Wanna know who??? - don't forget to tune in next Thursday to find out!

Cyworld Insight from Plus Eight Star

Just finished reading Alan Moore’s interview with Benjamin Joffe of Plus Eight Star, on a new report about Cyworld.

I wanted to highlight 3 interesting observations Benjamin made regarding topics that I’ve covered here many times in the past:

Personalization as a major revenue generator:

"You mentioned best practices, what is there to learn from Cyworld for
foreign community services / social networks?
To start with, the richness of the Cyworld service itself can support the product planning of foreign services. Among the most interesting aspects are Cyworld's business model relying on micro-customization, which concerns not only avatars but the whole page with music and many other functions. Also, the mobile aspects of Cyworld can certainly inspire companies who wish to step into this next 3-billion dollars industry'."

The use of ‘real name policy’ vs. anonymity online:

"The key point in Cyworld is its 'real-name policy'. Basically you need to use your real name associated with your official ID number to register. This has become more or less a standard among South Korean Internet services. It is a bit counter-intuitive, but real name policy does not damage free speech, it brings responsibility, courtesy and a lot of benefits for users themselves in terms of trust in the information they can find. We faced the same elements when doing a benchmark of best practices in online 'serious dating' services: trust and reliability brings a very high value to services.

Another very important aspect that sets Cyworld apart from 'western style blogs' is that minihompy are about social and emotional presentation of the self, while Western blogs tend to be rather intellectual. It is very different to have an 'online self' and a 'public journal'. This has an important impact on economics as users want to present the most attractive online self for their friends, and friends and emotions do not have a market price!

Users' value in Cyworld:

"In Cyworld we found the following drivers:
a). Not being left behind
b). Their creations
c). Their relationships
d). Their image"

[via Community Dominate Brands]

I really encourage you to read the full interview, it's a worth reading so don't miss it!

Interviewing Nick Wright on Mobile Youth Trends

For quite some time I was thinking about covering a wider scope of the mobile youth trends and behavior. Reading and looking for a body of knowledge, I got to know Nick Wright, a Research Associate at the Wireless World Forum, who is a co-author of the mobileYouth 2006 report. Nick has a BA in English and has worked in film journalism, English teaching and publishing. He joined Wireless World Forum in 2006 after a year living and working abroad in Russia and Turkey. Having made an incredible gesture, Nick will be my special guest at Xellular Identity during the month of November. First, I will be publishing the email interview conducted earlier, and later on Nick has agreed to answer your questions(!)

Well enough talking, let’s give Nick a worm to the stage!

Getting to Know Nick

-Hi Nick, how are you?   
Great, great to be here :)

-What brought you into the world of mobile?
What appealed to me when I joined Wireless World Forum 2 months ago was the consumer focus inherent in their approach to research. I had just finished a period teaching English to kids in Russia and Turkey and I knew the importance of appealing to young people and getting their attention. When I joined I knew as much as the next person about mobiles but within a very short time I discovered that this was an area where huge leaps in development were possible on a daily basis. It’s an exciting area to be involved in and it’s rare to see an industry so passionate about the possibilities that their medium offers. What we are trying to do with the mobileYouth report is refocus that passion to keep it relevant to the youth consumers so that all that energy isn’t lost.

-Other hobbies, fields of interest?
I’m an avid film buff but I temper the long time spent sitting in front of the screen by keeping active though running, rowing and yoga. Recently, it’s been an exciting time for me since the London Film Festival has been showing all over the city. The new, the strange and the classic jostle for attention around London and I’m frankly spoilt for choice. Last Sunday it set a world record for showing its much-anticipated, completely unknown “Surprise Film” on 50 screens at the same time (including a hospital, a prison and some lucky person’s living room). It turned out to be Robert Altman’s hilarious and touching new film “A Prairie Home Companion”, his first for 5 years. It was worth the suspense!

-3 birthday wishes?
1) A solution (or a basket of solutions) to solve the climate crisis we’re facing right now. Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth comes at an all-too convenient time.
2) The persistence to train for the London marathon for next year
3) The Complete Stanley Kubrick Collection on DVD.

-What did you get for Christmas last year?
A Russian chapka from my parents: I was in Moscow teaching English and the benny hat wasn’t doing the trick any more!

mobileYouth

-High influence of the peer group, the need to build an independent personality, search of identity… adolescence was always about those burning questions, so what has mobile to do with it?
The relationship between youth and their mobiles is not necessarily based on being “fun, cool, or entertaining”. It’s a key social tool employed in the dynamics of the peer group. Youth consume mobile products - as they do others - to make statements about themselves and their relationship with their peers.

Self-expression is such a key aspect of young people’s lives that they would rarely choose a non-branded alternative over an identifiable brand. 98% of teens for example would choose a brand/logo designed T-shirt over a plain one.

Mobile is most importantly a symbol of belonging to a group, both as a physical product (you must own a phone to be part of our group) and its communicative possibilities: texting is essential to youth not because of the content (very limited) of the texts themselves but because each text is a reaffirmation and a reminder that “I’m with you”.

If mobile operators are to make the most of this underlying desire for social interaction amongst youth peer groups, then they need to ask how they can benefit youth and improve their communication. So far the emphasis has been more about giving young people things to play with on their phone which don’t enhance or build on existing behaviour. The result is, at best, small-scale adoption and faddish blips but no long-term successes beyond texting.

-How is the mobile phone changing the lives of teenagers?
A pretty broad question! I think it’s fair to say that it’s allowed youth to remain hyper-connected at all times, to the extent that 14% of US mobileYouth surveyed admitted that they couldn’t live without their phones. Other surveys point to the fact that an increasing number of young people are bing admitted to clinics as “text-addicts”. Overall, youth may be building up a dependency on mobiles which have increasingly become a sign of social status and self-esteem: many admit to feeling depressed if they pass a whole day without receiving a text.

We found something similar in the recent vox pop survey we caught on camera last week. One person admitted that he didn’t know “how people survived before mobile phones” and almost all admitted that they loved texting. If you’d like to see what other information we gathered from the video interviews please visit this link.

However, overall it is fueling the more extrovert and allowing shyer teens to communicate more easily. One of the more interesting findings is that mobiles have come to take the place in youth culture traditionally held by cigarettes. They provide or allow private communication, the activity is carried out largely unsupervised and they effectively create a rare private space for youth to interact in.

The most popular aspects of the mobile are features that can be adapted to suit the needs of youth. Texting is easily understood (though it needs practice to reach the blurry speeds of some of the more proficient) and adaptable to the stage where adults find the language unintelligible. Wallpapers and handset choice allow for personalization which allows youth to express themselves and advertise their identity as part of their peer group.

One of the reasons for the low adoption of new mobile services is because youth cannot access the service easily either due to budget or the difficulty of setting up the service to begin with. One of the key factors in reaching the youth mass market is the ease of use of a service which allows it to become widely accepted across peer groups.

- Is there a special usage of the mobile phone when it comes to youth? Usage patterns? How youth’s usage/consumption of mobile services differ from other segments?
Youth are compulsive texters, as I have explained. Globally they spend four times as much  on texting  as the average mobile phone user (US$ 6 a year compared to US$ 1.5 across all ages). 29.8% of their ARPU is on data services, compared to 11% across all age ranges. There is a lot of room to exploit future data services for the youth market as long as operators exploit existing youth behaviour rather than churning out technological features that have little relevance to kids’ lives.

-What is the market size of mobileYouth?
Currently youth from 5-24 make up 28.1% of the mobile phone ownership market. They spend US$ 130 million on mobiles which is 24% of the total spend on mobiles for all ages. Youth spend on data services is US$ 38 million and, importantly 80% of that spending is on texting. Youth spend on data services is 43% of the total, which shows just how heavily they rely on text as opposed to voice to communicate.

-Do culture and orientation influence mobileYouth behavior? How?
Although we argue that the underlying social drivers behind youth consumers are broadly similar, there are superficial cultural differences that have often been given too much emphasis when, for example, some industry professionals dismiss Korean and Japanese youth markets as “gadget-obsessed”.  These markets are far more developed in their adoption of the mobile internet and the uses of camera phones but these are all easily explained in other terms that the Japanese being obsessed with technology.

Japanese and Korean youth have even higher levels of mobile data service ARPU than youth globally: 47.6% of mobileYouth ARPU was data, compared to the global average of 29.7%. One of the most popular mobile services in Korea is a mobile social networking site named Cyworld, which is essentially an extension of MySpace in that it allows youth to create their own virtual rooms and literally buy furniture to decorate it. It’s hugely popular (90% of Koreans in their 20s have used the service) and provides a perfect environment for youth to fulfil five of their basic social needs, as we identified them: Social Networking, Communication, Status display, Personalisation and acting as a Behavioural Platform.

To explain: Social networking essentially allows youth to keep connected to all their friends, reconnect with older friends (as in the case with Bebo, a UK-based social networking site for school students, for those children forced to move school) and meet new people with similar interests.
Communication is simply the ability to communicate via as many routes as possible: text, voice, IM, PM, e-mail etc. Cyworld allows consumers to interact in all these ways.

Status Display and personalisation are shown by the ability to adapt and personalize in a way that shows off the young author’s identity, likes and dislikes (specifically related to music), friends, profile and the customizable room. As in real life, the virtual world holds virtual objects that convey status in the same way as branded Nike trainers or ownership of the latest music does in real life.

Ultimately, since so many youth are on Cyworld, it essentially forms a behavioural platform for youth as well. By this I mean it presents a set of rules, perameters and structures for youth to interact around. A great way for youth to advance their status is to become a master of a certain behavoural platform. Specific sport varieties are also behavioural platforms so, for example, if you are a great skateboarder you will be given a higher status amongst your skater peer group. In the same way, collective familiarity with a certain platform, when everyone has access to it and understands the “rules”, tends to strengthen peer group bonds and the attachment to the platform itself.

Thank you Nick! :)

* *** * *** * *** *

For the second part of the interview and more insights about the mobile youth behavior, the mobile music market, and the future of this market - don't forget to tune in next Thursday!

Exploding Anonymity

The IHT reports that the Chinese government

“intends to require its estimated 17 million bloggers to register under their real names, the official Xinhua news agency reported Monday.

“Under the system, bloggers would be allowed to continue using their online pseudonyms, but must register with the authorities under their real names. The requirement is an "unavoidable choice" if China wants to properly develop its blogging community, Xinhua quoted Huang Chengqing, the head of the Internet Society of China, as saying.”

[via IHT]

It is clear that the Chinese government is afraid of freedom of speech, which lies in the essence of anonymity. Anonymity sets people free from inner restrains... Anonymously, users can be what ever they want to be.

However, expressing ourselves is a basic human need, so it will find the way to come out. If blogging isn’t the ‘right’ or ‘safest’ mean, people will find other means for communicating what is in and needs to come out… Here are a few ideas for other means of expressing oneself: the MMORPGs (massively multi-player online role-playing games), forums, chats, comments… It’s like a natural dam in a river - eventually the water will create a new path, a detour, and keep on streaming to the ocean...

Korean Avatars Market Review - Part I

Recently I was asked to give a presentation about the Korean avatars market, trying to understand the craze and predict other mobile markets’ behavior. Knowing it might interest some of you, I’ll be publishing the content of the presentation at this blog. Due to the length, I’ll be posting it in a few parts every Thursday.

***
Email, IM, VoIP, P2P file sharing, online social networks etc’... we all use these to communicate with other people. It makes our lives easier, it extends our availability (and our working hours) and it makes us manage more "mediated" relationships than we used to have in the past; meaning we communicate more through emails\mobiles\IM and less in person, face to face. Having said that, we should examine the influence of these medias on our lives and what we gain from them.

One of the key attributes of the internet is that users are liberated from their body, age, sex and occupation. For many, this is a major attraction while others loathe the lack of boundaries. Either way, users need to supplement information that otherwise can be gathered easily, like age, sex, personal traits etc’. To do so, users adopt a personal referent that stands for them over the web. It can be a screen name, a user ID number, an email address… Yet many users find that a graphical representation provides a better service for this purpose.

That graphical representation is what we call an avatar. An avatar can be based on the user’s physical appearance as close as possible, if not identical, to how he\she is seen in real life or, in contrast, present a desired but imaginary appearance; a manga fairy, a medieval warrior, cute Hello Kitty... Anything or anyone. Thus, avatars empower users. Avatars are users’ alter ego.

Also, users can change their avatars frequently to better fit their mood and the actual settings.

Scholars have found major interest in the self-representation over the web mechanism, and dealt a lot with the following questions:

• Does web self-representation resemble to the real-life self-representation?
• How users manage consciously and unconsciously their self-representation over the web?
• What message users want to promote about themselves?
• How users read and decode this visual information?

Moving to South Korea...

South Korean users were the first to adopt avatars as their web representation and very rapidly it has turned to be a very prosperous market for avatars providers. To understand this phenomenon we should look into the South Korean connectivity culture. So don’t forget to tune in next Thursday for the second part.

WeeWorld Now on AIM

Congratulations to WeeWorld people for steping into AIM with their WeeMee avatars. Now AIM users can have their personalized WeeMee as their AIM expression. This is great news for the entire world of avatars. :)

And here is my Weemee:

 

Mod Your Mobile

As a personalization evangelist, I've been familiar with ringtones, wallpapers and screensavers, colorful shells, Klonies as your Virtual mobile persona, mobile jewelry... Also I've been familiar with the fact that this is a major personal need of adolescence. But this is something I haven't seen yet... (and thanks Darren) :)

"'Mod' is short for modification, it's big in Japan and it's going to be massive over here. Show us what you can do with a tube of glue, some paint and a bit of imagination."

[via Orange UK]

To encourage users to express their creativity (ahm ahm...), Orange UK even has a prize winning competition for best 'modders'. Having my unique handmade mobile HS might make me want to keep it longer; yet if the modding didn't turn out as I wanted or I accidentally spilled too much glue on the screen - mom+dad are gonna need to buy me a new one...

   

Dolls' Peronalization

Idan sent me these pics from “Boyds Personalization Center” in NY (correct me if I'm wrong about the store, dear). As you can see, girls are now offered to personalize their dolls and choose from a wide selection of color and hairstyles (no need to make improvised haircuts that end up in tears), color of skin tone, color of eyes, and of course many clothes etc’… (If I was given this task of choosing as a little girl it would have taken me ages to decide which items to buy or even worse, all of my spending money; because a girl needs a wide wardrobe to select from...) ;)

I don’t know if this is influenced by the wide world of personalization that rules the world of virtual identities (MMOGs, IMs, chats, forums and even mobiles) or vice versa. Yet in both, “the user” identifies with the doll\avatar during “the playing time” and is willing to invest money in the looks of the subject of identification.

[Thanks dear! :) ]

     

Itzle - Nice but Lacking (a lot of) Sex Appeal

Tom pointed me to this social tool I wasn’t aware of. Itzle is a new tool that gives you a visual presence while visiting at a webpage “as if it were an actual, physical place”. The aim is to meet other people in the same virtual location and communicate. Tom also points out that He sees it

“as the reincarnation of Odigo's base idea: while being able to IM with your friends, how do you make new friends?

the idea was that you would see on the Odigo 'radar' people being on the same web page as you (you could further drill down to sex, age, spoken language, etc), as well as leave notes for other to see on the web page.”

My criticism is about the visual appearance: the Itzle avatar is nice yet very schematic. The personalization options are very basic and only allow you to change the colors of the hair, shirt, pants and text. The user can't even change the most basic option of all customizable web identities - determining his/her gender. Today, with a huge market of web avatars, this is just not enough. If this seems redundant, just think how would someone attract others into initiating communication while visiting the same webpage when they all look the same??! Would you just try avatars randomly? I don’t think so.

It’s nice, yet this browser add-in will have a tough time gaining popularity with the proliferation of social apps in the online neighborhood and with its avatars' low sex appeal…

Girls, Throw Away Your Diamonds (and Get A Plasma)

Girls, if you haven't already done so, throw away your designers shoes, diamonds and romantic vacations in favor of plasma TVs, digital cameras and personal gadgets...! Cuz these days, tech replaces diamonds as girl's best friend. Also, according to a new U.S. study, commissioned by cable television's Oxygen Network,

"the next five years women see themselves increasing their activities in six tech areas: digital cameras, cell phones, e-mail, camera phones, text messaging and instant messaging."

[via Reuters, InformationWeek]

I say this tech mania is a replacement, to a certain extension, of the fashion mania. Both are a personal statement of skills, knowledge and status; And both function as a language of signs, symbols and iconography that visually communicate meanings about their users/ owners. However, since at the internet era our communications is more mediated and less direct/ F2F, we need new  and reliable signs which would indicate (to others) our skills, knowledge and status, as fashion always has been doing.

Music To Your Ears

Mobhappy covers a new mobile self-expression trend in India - the background tones, which are music that plays in the background while you are talking on the phone.

I think it's a great idea since different conversations need different background music - so mobile users would probably change the music pretty often, I know I would...

Gender & Self-expression - Burning Questions

According to survey results presented by Sprint:

"Ringtones are more popular among women - 54 percent compared to 42 percent of men. Personalized ringtones also are more appealing to women."

"Women have unique needs and preferences when it comes to the features and look of their wireless phones and accessories," says Alana Muller, Sprint's director of marketing."

[via Wireless Week]

• How come women use the mobile phone as a utility for self expressing more than men do (ringtones as well as mobile accessries)?
• Do women have a stronger need to express their uniqeness than men? If so, why?

Technorati Tags: women, gender, self-expression, personalization, ringtones, mobile accessries, user survey, sprint

Stardoll: An Avatar Or A Doll?

Successful consumer brands allow customers to assign their own meaning to a product or service. This gives them the opportunity to project themselves to others, to get a feeling of self-expression. To provide greater added-value, consumer brands usually use celebrities to promote themselves.

Stardoll has taken the power of celebrities being brands themselves. Instead of dressing your avatar or paperdoll - the way it's called there - with brands you can choose Brad Pitt, Halle Berry or any other celebrity out of a list of 400, and get them dressed from a very limited collection. [I don’t know how they got the approval of all these celebrities to use their faces... Anyhow, copyrights and royalties aren’t my issue here].

The celebrities are a sure attraction no arguing here. Yet, instead of using the power of consumer brands and engage it with the need for expressing the personal identity on the web, these avatars are taken to the childish world of play and fantasy. I’m offered to play with my favorite celebrity’s paperdoll, dress it up, identify with it and become the celebrity during the playing time, just like when girls play with their Barbie dolls or boys play with their action figures. This is why they’re called “dolls” rather than “avatars”: you can play with it for certain time and that’s about it(!). There's no other outlet for your paperdoll, like different messengers, web communities and in the future - the mobile… Having this restricted outlet, this service can only be targeting the segment of 5-13 yrs girls, during the dolls' period of glory, and therefor the sweet pinkish tones of the website.

Anyhow, it is an interesting example of combining web identities and consumer brands.

Technorati Tags: stardoll, avatars, paperdolls, celebrities, consumer brands, self expression, marketing, web identities

Homemade Self Expression

Motorola has a new self-expression outlet for you - stickers!

"Phone Tattoos for the Motorola RAZR V3 and Motorola SLVR line-up, allowing customers to  change the look of their handsets to reflect their mood, style, and interests. Additionally, customers can create their own designs with Phone Tattoos By You! Offering blank tattoos and complete instructions on how to design and print customized tattoos, Phone Tattoos By You! allows users to show off family photos, other favorite images, or just create a unique design. To create tattoos."

[via MOpocket]

This reminds me that a few years ago there was the stickers fashion in Israel: everyone had a cool sticker on the back of the mobile shell. I also liked the "do it yourself" thing, why should Motorola invest time and money in creating content, if users can do it on their own? Plus, that is being truely artistic (=self expressing). Nice.

Technorati Tags: Motorola, phone tattoo, mobile, personalization, self-expression

World Cup - A Gold Mine...

"Football fans will spend a combined total of EUR36.5m on mobile calls, text and video messages during this month's FIFA World Cup, according to the latest research from Telecoms.com's parent, Informa Telecoms & Media."

[via Telecoms]

I personally hope that fans will also spend some change on personalizing their Skype Caller ID... ;)

Technorati Tags: world cup, skype, mobile, research

"The Mobile Perimeter" - Taken in Consideration in Sweden

No more lack of self expressiveness, no more tacky ringtones deafening delicate ears, and no more fights and loud disputes over the mobile, turning all the passengers around into innocent victims… A precedent in Europe, a new law in Sweden takes in consideration the mobile perimeter and brings the 'silent mode' (and tranquility?) to public transportation. From August 2006, the use of mobile phones in the Swedish public transportation would be allowed only in restricted areas. Needless to say that Swedish people are furious as hell...

One of probable outcomes - if only voice services are prohibited - would be content services’ thrive together with the already very popular SMS…

Technorati Tags: the mobile perimeter, mobile, sweden, mobile culture, legislation, ringtones, public transportation

"Share" Your Personality

Yesterday I had a very interesting conversation with a new friend who shared some of his views about the future of mobile personalization. For Gilad, mobile personalization is all about presence and content sharing. You probably ask – what those have to do with personalization… I’ll explain :)

Remember the days, when the mobile was a newborn, batteries had very short life and we had mentality of wired communication? Oh, we used to turn on the mobile to make a call and then turn it off right away… funny. Thanks to technological changes and improvement of battery life (we still complaint, and yet, they’ve improved…), today we carry it everywhere and always available, sometimes switch to ‘silent’ (still available for SMS) but always ‘on’. It’s interesting to follow how it influences our mobile culture, how our grasp of ‘availability’ changed. First we used the mobile only in emergency, then we demanded everyone to be reachable 24-7 (“why didn’t you answer me when I called? Ha?”). Feeling unpleasant when screened and feeling intruded being called on all hours, we realized availability is fluid and has more then 0-1 sub categories.

BUT… tatatata - imagine that you could get the status (available or unavailable) of friends you want to call without initiating any kind of communication (call or send sms), just like we do today on IM? Even better – imagine that we could get the ‘emotional status’ of them: busy, on the phone, driving, on a date, tired, or maybe pissed off (pls call)… whatever they would want to share about themselves. There’s no doubt that end users would benefit from sparing wasted money on unsuccessful calls, for operators, it’s more complex…

All communication relies on personalization: all I need to do is personalize my profile, express my availability and emotional status and choose who can see/ be subscribed to my profile. As my friends/buddies/contacts, you will probably be moved to see my status changes from ‘cool’ to ‘pissed off’ or even from something very ordinary like ‘at work’ changes to ‘back home’ and initiate communication. Next you could subscribe to my list of 5 last downloaded ringtones/realtones/ ringbacks, learn that I’ve changed my wallpaper and see it, see my location, my last moblog rss… the sky is the limit! Sharing this info with friends is far more reaching self-expression, since more people get to see this mobile content. And from operator’s perspective it could be beneficial too - it urges users to get and share mobile content (the best sales agent is your friend).

Last thing to bear in mind – this is self expression in a non-invasive way, because my friends/buddies/contacts need to subscribe in order to view my content, and I can determine the access or restrictions to it. I guess some of you think – “it’s too much of exposure”… hey, look around at today’s teenagers, the MySpace etal generation, this is how they socially communicate… Be prepared.  :)

Technorati Tags: Gilad De Vries, mobile, personalization, presence, connectivity, availability

IM Goes Mobile - Avatars Too!

"there are currently slightly more than 2.5 million wireless IM users worldwide, about 0.6% of the 400 million Internet IM user base. It pegged wireless IM worldwide revenue at $54.9 million in 2005 and predicts this will grow to $265.2 million this year, $580.9 million next year and more than $3.6 billion by 2009."

[via telecomasia]

wow!!

You're probably guessing my thoughts... mobile avatars, that's right! :)

Technorati Tags: IM, mobile, mobile avatars, avatars

Teen BuzzTones

we all agree that the mobile is more than just a mobile... it's also a personal statement about us, about our tastes, fashion, lifestyle etc… and not just the mobile itself; ringtones have played a major role in this trend as well. If you think about it, music is actually a fashion and personality statement as well, so the combination of mobile and music as means of conveying a message - turns the ringtone into a powerful tool for self expression purposes.

Having said all that, how can the latest teenage trend of using a high-pitched sound which can’t be heard by adults as a ringtones* (so they can use phones during classes) fits in this equation?

This high-pitched ringtone, a.k.a. TeenBuzz, is a personal statement as well. A teenager who uses it conveys the following message:

• I’m cool
• I’m tech savvy
• I’m very in - I’m familiar with all the latest trends
• I’m part of a social group - the group of teens who use the mobile in class (= I’m not a geek)
• I’m reinforcing my belonging to that social group
• I’m more interested in my friends than in the class/teacher
• I’m willing to take risks in class, but in a smart/sophisticated way

All that in a single action of changing the polyphonic ringtone to the high-pitched ringtone during class!

I wish that in my school days I had a cool toy like that! :)

*Mosquito

Technorati Tags: mosquito, teen buzz, youth, mobile trend, mobile behaviour, ringtones, self expression

Bug Found - Mobile Operators As Brand

For quite sometime, my mom’s mobile battery was sending its last vital signs… realizing there’s no other option but going to Orange’s service center to get it fixed/replaced after spending hours of waiting for her turn and later – spending hours for the repair… armed with a heavy book and assertiveness she did it. She planned to spend time but she didn’t have an intention of spending money on a new HS. And yet, Nokia has its own magic on people, *including* on my mom, and she went home with a new one.

But there was another thing she didn’t plan… After opening the box and starting to play with her new toy, she saw that it has an Orange icon on the top right corner of the HS. Unwillingly, she was turned into an Orange walking ad. Yay! I’m not talking about the money issue of buying something for your own use and self expression while in return you become an ad - because in other areas of life we’re actually WILLING to pay more for the visibility of the brand name (on cars, clothing, fashion accessories, personal electronic gadgets, etc); While having your Gucci or Nike brand name visible is a totally wanted thing by many people, being a walking ad for Orange (or any other operator for this matter) is not.

What troubles my mind about this issue is  - why? what’s the difference between clothing/ car manufacturer and mobile operator brands? Why fashion/car brands provide an added-value for self expressing human needs while mobile brands don't? There's probably something operators are doing wrong when it comes to their existence as a brand...

Thoughts are very welcomed! :)

Technorati Tags: brands, mobile brands, orange, nokia, mobile operators, self expression

Another Step into Self-Expression

Noted: another step into self-expression - Skype's Ringtones. Express yourselves!

Technorati Tags: Skype, ringtones, personalization

Good Old Consumer Marketing

Hi everyone,
As you probably know, these days we’re working on our upcoming Klonies Blog. Part of this effort was to look for blogging talents in our group and get them blogging.

Let me introduce you to my first guest, which I hope you’ll get to read more at the Klonies’ Blog. Welcome to Tal Dagan, the General Manager of the Avatars Group. Well, enough talkin’, rock on Tal!

                                            ******

One of the recent success stories in the device market was Motorola's success with its sleek RAZR devices. Motorola guys were lately quoted saying that in some regions, close to 40% of their total sold devices last year were of this particular model. Now that's an amazingly high number for a company that produces over 50 models a year.

Indeed, everywhere you’ve seen a Motorola phone in the last year, most chances it was a RAZR device. I have seen this taken to the next level in 3GSM in Barcelona; after wandering around the conference, the RAZR effect was evidently seen not only in the Motorola stand. Every single one of the large handset vendors showed at least 1-2 devices which were very nice replicas of the sleek RAZR design. No shame in the industry...

This is all very nice, but what's so special about it? Just a successful handset model?

But there's much more to it.
Although at the beginning of the RAZR, over two plus years ago, it started as just another cool device, its incredible success actually caused Motorola to shift its strategic marketing focus. No more focus on winning the technology/spec battle but rather having "just as good features", and puting the entire weight on design design and design; giving the users a new and exciting form factor, a unique design which is targeted at precise segments of the market. We all know that the handsets have become a user's "statement about themselves" a tool to express one's self... let’s give the user just that.

This may sound trivial, but remember that these industry players have been focusing, and throwing away, billions of $$$ on a technological battle, fighting vigorously on who will be the first to come out with 5,6,7,8...mega pixels cameras, first with double, triple or quadruple packet bandwidth, XHTML and not HTML and so on.

Not only that, but notice another small but significant shift...think about the 'device name': no longer Motorola A900, A1000, V980 or E550 but...RAZR! This makes so much sense. Why should a user remember, or care, if his phone is N-90, or P990 or E750??? I bet 99% of users do not remember the device’s name one month after they bought it. However, go check this with RAZR owners...The opposite will be true. Now that's creating brand attachment.

Following the worldwide RAZR success, Motorola has gone out with its PEBL, ROKR and SLVR models. All follow the same path of the RAZR - a new exciting form factor, no focus on technical firsts, and a cool self expressive name (guess what the PEBL looks like...).

This, in my mind, is good old marketing genius.

 

Technorati Tags: tal dagan, motorola, razr, mobile device, consumer marketing

A Virtual Face Lift

Just saw this one on Yahoo Answers:

Q: Why do you like avatars?

A: “To tell you the truth, I'm just not that great to look at. I'm not the ugliest, but I am getting older and I would rather avoid the signs of aging. An avatar suits me for this purpose.” (Brigid_01)

Avatars - cheaper than a face lift and a lot more effective in our digital era...

Technorati Tags: avatars, yahoo + avatars, virtual identity

Virtual and Mobile Satisfaction (**careful with kiddies around)

More things you can do with your avatar: get satisfacion. Run a romantic virtual/real life. More specifically, you can flirt, court, go on date, cuddle and even have sex.

-Crazy? -Maybe. But it’s real:

IMVU integrated their IM avatars to allow their users to push further their chats into virtual social interactions. Instead of just having a verbal interaction, IMVU enable users to take the “traditional” chat and run it over a cup of coffee on the virtual “Starbucks” or smooch under the moonlight sky.

-Naive? -Maybe, but I’m sure you’ll agree that most people would choose this IM to flirt/ look-for-a-date/ have cyber-sex rather than just to chat with their best friend…

On the mobile sphere, Digital Chocolate apparently targets teenagers and their mobile phones with its new dating video game. According to its last announcement, with “The Hook Up: AvaFlirting” we could create a mobile avatar and flirt with other peoples’ cell phone avatars. No word on how this is going to work, so we’ll have to be patient…

The app that takes it to the verge is “Naughty America: The Game”, a multiplayer online dating game where “players can create their own character and explore an exciting, sexy, and vibrant world. Escape from your day-to-day life by creating a Naughty Persona and interact live with other players from around the world.”

What’s so special you’re asking? Well, while you can have some “ordinary” experiences of a virtual multiplayer world of chatting with people, shopping for clothes or having other outdoor activities, you can also try the “sex mode”! This mode allows you to try sex positions with your avatar partner, turn on the webcam, “or just visit the voyeur club and get a sneak peak at someone else's wild side”.

Very creative, kinky and daring. Really. What I don’t like in these apps is the potential to replace (to a certain extent) a normal social interaction. There’s no harm in meeting a potential date over an online dating service, over any IM jabber or flirt through SMS. There is no wrong in having a place to express ourselves and our fantasies more easily and freely either. But these apps exist in an evasive sphere, not totally real and not totally imaginary. They provide an alternative experience which is easier and safer to dating (in the real world) which many find as very stressing, intimidating and exhausting. By providing a detour, many just don’t need to cope with/ face their difficulties in order to get satisfaction.

Would next step be feeling embraced to initiate a small talk with people without having technology as a mediator? Will we (need to) hum/ scream out loud Rolling Stones' "I can't get no satisfaction"? ;-)

Lack of Self-Expression

Most irritating, most annoying, most disturbing, most distressing thing on earth is… trying to catch a short nap on the train and having the latest ringtone buzzing everywhere around me! The guy with the cap, the lady with the big bag, the tired soldier, two students, a freckled red-headed girl, a grandpa with his grandchild…all having the same ringtone! People, be creative… express yourselves, don’t be like everyone else!

Technorati Tags: ringtones, self expression, mobile culture

Human Visual Stories

As you probably got to know me by now, I’m really fascinated by the online culture that is growing and developing, and especially fascinated by one of its biggest phenomena, the Avatars.

Once in a while I look for new content on avatars, posts, discussions, apps… whatever my hand reaches – or better said - whatever my RSS aggregator reaches… :) This time, I came across a conversation over WrongPlanet.com forums, asking the community whether “avatars strongly affect how you read a person's posts?”

Before posting here a few answers which I liked, I’ll give you my answer. Of course avatars affect the way you read a person’s post! Over the web, this is the first visual impression we have on a certain community member\ blogger. As a first impression, it plays a major role in managing our impression in the eyes of the other. In everyday life, we need just one look on a person on the street or in the subway to hold an opinion regarding who is he\she, what is his\her lifestyle, economic status and even some notion regarding some personal traits (we can observe aggression, tenderness, exhaustion, suspicion, shyness…).

I’ll confide here and tell you about a little game I’ve had since I was a little girl with big eyes and shy character hiding behind pink plastic glasses… One of my favorite things, especially when I’m on train or waiting to a doctor’s appointment is the people around me. I’ve always liked to examine people and guess who they are, where are they rushing to, gather as much as possible info to learn their story…  (everyone has an interesting story to tell, you just need to look\ listen close enough). I know it isn’t polite to stare, so I try to keep my inquisitive looks invisible… Sometimes I play the little game with a variation: I try to guess who lives in a certain building or house, especially those very very very old ruined buildings with high and narrow windows and rusted blinds. To me the most interesting is the tension between things that are emphasized and things that leak from the side, exposing deeper layers… like a very tidy man, looking like he’s on his way to a job interview, straightening his tie, combing his hair. Everything about him says tension and order but his shoes are powdered with dust… that say it all – he’s trying to make an impression of a tidy man but he doesn’t really have a pedant soul :)

Well, enough with those nonsense and back to the Avatars… :) So, as I said, the visual appearance of things helps us gather so much information on the object of reference (no matter if it’s a human being or an artifact). It has a crucial part in determining our approach and opinion on a given object (is it safe? Can I trust? Am I in danger? Do I believe? Am I repulsed by something?). Especially when it comes to the web and we need to establish our approach and are given so little solid info we can rely on.

NeantHumain: “have noticed someone using a different avatar now (don't remember the old one, just know it's different), and it changes how I read the tone of their messages and how I perceive them as people, too. I often don't even remember someone if they change their avatar or think they're a whole new person. I was just wondering the perennial question: Is anyone else like this?”

Baby: “my avatar is a picture of one of my tattoos, so it’s me whether it reflects badly on me or not.”

aspiesmom1: “Many people's nicknames are confusing to me, or maybe mean something to the person but not to the community as a whole, and so I associate people with their avatars. When they change them it throws me off completely. The avatar itself however, doesn't affect how I view the person.”

Theman: “Well, the answer is yes. That's why we pick them, they say something about who we are, and consciously or unconsciously everyone is influenced, to what degree is debatable but it is impossible not to be.”

As an ending note, I’ll ask for forgiveness if someone got offended by what was supposed to be an invisible harmless investigating look… it’s just for the sake of the human story lying there that fascinates me. A great human story which sometimes I get carried away with… hey, life is the best show you can get around town! :)

Your Xellular Xen

Blogs - THE Stage of our Lives

It was very interesting to read a techie guy like Stowe Boyd writing about life and Philosophy… :) for a Theatre groupie like me, the greatest thing was to read his views on our theatrical personas in blogging and in everyday lives. Stowe writes that:

“By becoming bloggers and writing […], our self can become larger than life. Some magic that is buried in the human psyche makes the figures leaping about on the stage a representative of something larger than that single person. The actor, writer, poet, or artist is a sort of shaman, responding to a higher calling. And, as such, I believe we lose something of ourselves in exchange for the experience. Our personas are not our own, truly; we are part of something larger. And that larger thing includes both dark and light sides.“

Not just the blogger, actor, writer, poet or artist… I think we All have a persona\ a role\ a character that “leaps about on the stage” and is presented to the world. This persona is built from several roles we hold in life (a blogger, a woman, a student, a daughter…) which build our self esteem and the sense of who we are. For example, if you’ll ask me at university: “who are you?” I’ll probably answer: “an M.A. student at the department of Theatre Arts”; asking me the same at my hometown neighborhood will get me to say: “I’m Dr. Mendelsohn’s oldest daughter”. Both answers are right, accurate, and different. Both are parts of my persona, among other roles.

When it comes to famous people, it’s easier for us to assume that they have a ‘public’ persona in contrary of a ‘private’ persona. We know that a celebrity has a different “face” when getting in front of the public or when talking with a close friend. (And what is more interesting than getting a glimpse of the private persona, like on a paparazzi pic?!) But if you think of it for a moment, we all have “different” personas: we act differently when we are at work, at the supermarket, at the movies or at home… Even at home, far away from the public’s eye, we might act (i.e. behave and play a role) differently in front of our parents or in front of our naughty kids. (“Not in front of the children” rings any bells? BTW, that is basically a theatrical ACT…)

As for the blog-sphere:

“People know us through our personas, and they expect us to stay in our roles, and to play our parts. If we have done a good job of portraying ourselves, up here in the limelight, then they will be surprised -- maybe angry -- when we step out of character: and I mean character in both the theatrical sense and the sense of 'person of good character'. And sometimes they will be angry when we do things in character, because the role we are playing is not always the hero in the story. […]”

Stowe describes the response of the readers to the public persona. Readers get angry when the blogger’s persona isn’t linear\ coherent\ consistent, when bloggers “step out of character” or step out of the desired theatrical plot. The interesting question here is why? How come there’s a difference between our acceptances of the multiple celebrity’s personas and our refusal to treat the A-list blogger (like Robert Scoble, Dave Winer and others mentioned by Stowe) the same way?

The difference is the medium itself. A blog, or better said a Weblog, is first of all a kind of a public diary. So it gives the reader a sense of intimacy and closeness to the blogger. A closeness which he\she doesn’t get when watching a movie star getting interviewed (on TV, magazine etc…). So we assume we’re getting to know the blogger’s private persona. We don’t realize, or maybe don’t want to realize, that a blog is a ‘public diary’, a stage. As a stage, it is a place to present a role, a mask, a character. It always brings inner truths with it, as an actor brings his experiences and his feelings to the role. At the same time, it is an act. That is why it can be criticized by the public, or better written by Stowe Boyd, that is why

“it's not us that define the character we are playing: it's the larger group, the world beyond the footlights”, “so they become public property, not the possession of the bloggers.” “Whatever we bring into the role, into the role, becomes a prop. Even it is 'ours' in some sense -- like a personal relationship, or a project, or some idea -- once we bring it on stage, it is no longer personal.”

Realizing that blogs are the new theatrical stage would make it easier to maintain our blogging relationships and to synch our expectations as bloggers and readers.

MobFashion

Well guys, you probably remember the last post on men and their mobiles... I know that some of you were a bit mad (and even pinged me about it).So to be fair, I'm gonna write about women's mobile fashion from as well… :)

What you can see here is C'Élégance (pronounced cell-egance), a jewelry for your cell phone. With  this cute thing we can all personalize our mobile to better express who we are... (and you now the rest...) :)

[via the Mobile Diva - Darla Mack]

***

People gather information when deciding with whom to pair up to prevent investing time and genes with a bad-genes partner; or in Darwin's words - sexual selection. I know I know… people don't present to the public our health charts and medical prescriptions, so how do we do that? Health condition and fitness are demonstrated by visual cues and behavior (remember the men and their luxury gadgets?).

I'll get to the mobiles in a sec, don't worry, but before that let me say another word... To complicate things a bit, there are fake signals which we all use, like make up, push-up bras, wigs... I'm sure you can come up with dozens of exapmles. So the natural tendency, when selecting, would be to rely on hard to fake signals. Genuine signals are signals which ONLY fittest women could communicate. And here's where FASHION comes in the picture.

How a woman dresses and what mobile she owns are more than a successful self representation. Fashion forces a woman to look good while sending signals of her knowledge of the rules of fashion. That is a real signal because being always in fashion requires qualifications that are much harder to fake: being alert to social conventions and being well equipped with financial resourced to achieve it. [If she makes money or comes from a rich family means she is has good genes for survival in the modern era.]

Fashion is changing rapidly while introducing so many new accessories in so many fields. We don't only have cosmetics, hair style, clothes and shoes, we also have jewelary, bags and all kind of mobiles and personal gadgets as well. This makes it even harder to be always up-to-date. Harder means a sincere cue for sexual selection, and it causes a wide scale of accomplishments: from a fashion pro with the latest mobile to the fashion beginner without it.

So fashionable girls, this is the new mobile fashion... go and grab some! Present it to the guys... hopefully it'll make wonders! :)

Big Little Helpers

A bit late, but I just had to comment on something I’ve read on Ad Age. The recent post of “Media Morph” covers the phenomena of Avatars, from marketing point of view. Yet it did that only to a very poorly extent, the concept was so reduced and badly presented…

First, Avatars are a visual mean of self representation in a limited environment, where we can’t use our physicality as our representation. The environments vary from virtual games, to chats, instant messengers, forums, different social softwares and they have even reached the mobile sphere.

Avatars can be used also for interacting with friends, like in more evolved instant messengers (IMVU for example), or like in virtual societies (“Second Life” for example). On these platforms, avatars can have all kinds of interactions with other people’s avatars: they can go on a date over a cup of coffee, shake hands, hug or kiss... Avatars can have formal interactions like buying or selling stuff too. Whatever comes to your mind – your avatar could interact for you!

And to the marketing perspective: Since avatars are our representation, we want them to be as close as possible to the way we are, as close as possible to what we wish to be. That is why from consumer’s perspective, there is no difference between branded content for  avatars to other branded merchandise (clothes, gadgets, cars… you name it). Whatever brands we own in real life we’ll probably want to have for our avatars as well. Here lies the big benefit to marketers - make branded content to be used in the virtual sphere. This can advertise and promote the consumer brand in real life. But it could be another major route for revenues.

So, don't just go underestimating Avatras (or you'll get me writing another post about it! ;-))

Self Portrait Tuesday

I was playing around and found a very interesting web community – The Self-Portrait Tuesday. Each member posts a self portrait on his\ her blog on Tuesdays (as often as wanted) and sends a trackback to the Self Portrait Tuesday Blog. There is also a Flickr group filed under the same title.

I watched dozens of self portraits and I felt admiration for the self exposure that people are willing to have. Yet it should be noted that on the process of taking pictures we stage ourselves (lighting, angles, colors, compositions, etc…). So the outcome is less invasive than a spontaneous paparazzi photo taken on your worst bad hair day. Moreover, there is also the "editing decision", i.e. which pic to upload or to destroy. It’s like willing put up an act on stage – the actor reveals something private about himself (his pain, his joy…) and he puts a mask, a role, a character at the same time. In this duality of hide-reveal, we express ourselves in a very genuine way.

I decided to publish an avatar, a Klonie of myself. Your first thought might be – “she’s hiding, this isn’t a self portrait”. But if you really think about it – every decision we make says something about us. Oscar Wilde phrased it (so much better): "Give a man a mask, and he'll tell you the truth." the mask lets us loosen up and expose hidden parts of the personality. Because we’re putting up an act\ a role we allow ourselves to unleash some inner restrains and express ourselves (“that’s not Xen, that’s Hamlet”). I'll say it allows more libidinal materials to come upon surface and become less hidden. So, next time you change your Avatar into a sexy diva or a Manga worrier think what kind of emotions are you restraining in your life. Or you might consider taking some martial art lessons…

Technorati Tags: self portrait tuesday, exposure, avatras, Oscar Wilde, Flickr Group

Name-Expression...

Hi everyone,

As you probably noticed - the scenery has changed here, and for those of you who usually notice little details, there’s more than meets the eye, a lot MORE than new colors and templates…

Friends, I decided to share with you something personal that happened very recently in my life. My husband and I are getting a divorce. I know that it is very sudden, and it came as a huge surprise to all the people who got to know us as couple… and yet, the decision has been made, the procedures are in process, and this is the right thing to do.

On Saturday, the morning after the decision to break up was made, I felt the extreme urge to change everything here, at my blog. First, there was the name issue. I realized that I’m no longer “Xen Dolev”. But until I’ll have the official papers I can’t officially change my name back to my maiden name “Xen Mendelsohn”. So, for now it’ll be just “Xen”. It’s not that bad actually. But then, I noticed that my name is writen all around (!), so I started changing it everywhere I could... Yet there's a major problem with my blog’s URL since it contains my "old" name in it: “http://XenDolev.typepad.com”. If that is not enough, everyone in the blog sphere knows me by that name and URL...! [For the URL problem, I really need a “redirect link” - If someone knows how to make one, please leave me a comment or an e-mail (thanks!)].

I realized that a name says something about us too – it’s not just something we use as a username or as part of an e-mail address. Think of a social gathering where people mingle: it really makes a different statement if I introduce myself with an academic title (B.A.? Dr? MD?) civil title (Mrs.? Miss?), first and last (last name by marriage? maiden name?) or just by my first name “Xen”. Thinking about it, my beloved Klonie has a very big advantage not having a last name… :)

Well, if I can’t just personalize my name yet, I would then personalize my blog to better express myself! Suddenly my life and my work blend into one another and I really FEEL the extreme desire\ need\ urge to reinvestigate my identity and to express myself as the genuine Xen, as I know she really is. At this moment, my Klonie here really expresses the way I feel now… :(

Express Yourself or Get Screened!

I don’t know if you remember, but long time ago, when the mobile was merely an infant, it just rang when someone called and we had to pick up in order to know who’s calling. Most of us probably had calling card or lots of change and didn’t own a mobile… what a days… Later on, the mobile evolved a bit and we could get a display of an entering call or a “missed call”.

Then, with more developed caller IDs we had an informative display of the caller’s identity. By signing up for the service, we could get this information, which was merely a phone number. Yet, we could customize it to better fit our needs as the receiver of calls.

Imagine yourself this (not PC) situation: an ex-boy\girlfriend (or other nagger) who keeps calling again and again… not nice but it happens. Besides asking him\her to stop calling and hope for the best, we could simply tag him\her with “don’t answer” or “I’m a jerk don’t answer” (I’m sure you can come up with more amusing tags to better rephrase that) so each time the nagger calls we won’t answer… For the same purpose, we could also choose a certain ringtone to all the naggers as a group.

The nagger, on his\her behalf, could only determine whether we can see his\her phone number or block the number (displayed as “private caller”) on our mobile screen. His\her ability to self express on our mobile is very limited and is very much depending on our mobile settings.

But what if the nagger isn’t really a nagger? If I’m feeling bad and I know that my mom\dad\both are in a meeting and can’t answer? With the next generation of caller ID’s, we can take advantage of the visual display to express more complex messages. With the multimedia user defined caller ID, I can have the ultimate ability to self express my personality and state of mind and reach far over the receiver’s mobile screen.

So if I’m feeling bad, my mom\dad\both could know it before taking that call, that otherwise wouldn’t have been answered. Instead of customizing my mobile phone, I’m self expressing on other’s mobile! I’m actually sending a visual message (or better said - communicating!) before even beginning the call. Think of all the possibilities... Next time you need to get answered - express yourself visually!

Anonymity

Anonymity on the web was among the hottest headlines lately... splogs, spammers, Wikipedia’s pains, Bush’s new law prohibiting US citizens making annoying comments (which led to discussions about freedom of speech…). So, what is there regarding anonymity that is so appealing to many? What is there that provokes so many emotions? 

Anonymity gives us the freedom to speak out without fearing from criticism or social rejection. It also sets us free from inner restrains. Anonymously, we can be what ever we want because anonymity means freedom; anonymously, we can say things that normally we don’t let ourselves say out loud (about anything, really). As an aside note I’ll say that anonymity is sometimes exploited to spread malicious rumors and gossip that is published against people (this is how tabloids work).

Anonymity is also a detour to facing with the difficulty that lies in saying hard things right in the face. It’s easier for us if someone else would say it for us - and that mysterious John Doe isn’t us… right? ;-)

Leaving the gossip on ice, if you think of it for a moment, when anonymous, we actually hide our identity and reveal an inner truth at the same time! We reveal something that otherwise is berried underneath, too fragile\delicate to expose on daily life. As said before, even the shiest people when anonymous, loosen up and express inner dimensions.

With so many pros, why should we expose our real identity?