Vodafone Hungary has chosen the mobile advertising technology company MADS as their partner for “targeted mobile advertising“, on their Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) Live! portal. There are a good bunch of well-known brands, such as Nivea, EA, and Gameloft, that have already launched campaigns on since the pre-launch of the service in the summer.
MADS is an Amsterdam based company that offers multi-channel mobile profiling, analytics & ad server solutions. The mobile advertising channels include WAP, SMS, MMS, Mobile Video and Ring back tones within a single platform and interface.
So Advertising presses on – it’s a solid revenue stream for Operators, and shows no signs up slow-down!
Internal RIM and AT&T documents have floated up, discussing the competitive points between the iPhone and the upcoming BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) 9530 on Verizon (NYSE: VZ). The long and short of the arguments is that the BlackBerry Storm has all the back-end security and support, while the iPhone 3G has the panache of multi-touch and iTunes integration. A lot of AT&T’s points haven’t been really well-researched, like the HTML e-mail viewing (avaialble as of BlackBerry OS 4.5), AppStore (BlackBerry has plenty of 3rd. partysoftware outlets, and they aren’t ruled with an iron fist), maps and GPS (hasn’t been ruled out, and it will likely be on the GSM version), and Wi-Fi (a 9520 model will likely follow shortly after the initial Storm), but hey, we all know what camp I’m in. To be fair, the Storm’s selling points will only really appeal to the IT admin that cares about locking down devices, although they are trying to make a pitch for the benefits of data compression as a means to save on wireless costs and battery life.
See, when the BlackBerry Bold came out, everyone was making a big deal over the iPhone vs. Bold, but the Storm and the iPhone is going to be the real fight to watch out for. My only real worry for the BlackBerry Storm is the quality of their touchscreen. It looks like they’re doing some funky stuff with pressure sensitivity, as the keypad will light up as your finger goes over the virtual keys, but not actually press until you push down on them, and small vibrations will confirm keystrokes. It’s a bit of a gamble, but I trust RIM to polish the experience and get it up to the snuff of their traditional tactile keypads.
Mobile consumers these days aren’t going to take text message spam lying down. The precedent has been set, forcing spammy text message senders to pay heft sums to angry mobile users. In that light, shoemaker and clothier Timberland has offered to settle a class-action lawsuit filed against itself and GSI Commerce by mobile customers complaining of being sent unsolicited SMS text messages.
The two companies have offered up a $7 million fund to reimburse angry mobile phone users for their text messaging fees. The class-action lawsuit accuses Timberland and GSI Commerce of sending out SMS text messages in violation of the U.S. Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Both companies announced that they would put $7 million in cash into the fund to help pay back customers who received the unwanted text messages.
The settlement is pending court-approval. Customer can apply for a $150 reimbursement by filling out the application here. Claims must be filed by Feb. 2, 2009 in order to qualify.
The settlement has ugly implications for the future of targeted mobile advertising. If consumers have the power to sue over unwanted SMS text messages, advertisers may be forced to consider other advertising solutions for the mobile space.
You know you are getting old when you derive pleasure from accruing reward card points with a supermarket. Fortunately, I didn’t derive any pleasure as such, but am doing from letting our UK readership that you can both accrue points, AND get some BlackBerry goodness at the same time!
Nectar (which is a consortium of retailers in the UK, who have a common reward card system) have emailed me to say that if you get any BlackBerry on a UK network, with a 24 month voice and data tariff, they will give you 2000 Nectar points (once you have registered the purchase with them).
Unfortunately it’s not 2000 pounds, but hey, it’s a good deal if you have intentions of getting a BBerry soon – and let’s face it, that could easily be the case if you are eyeing up the BB Bold, as I am ….
If you wanna check out the offer, go here and login to your Nectar account.
If you’re not excited for the T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) G1, maybe some fresh-squeezed Android ad material is what you need. The video shows the G1’s browser, Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Street View in Compass mode, messaging, calendar and YouTube in full prerendered goodness.
T-Mobile is no doubt enjoying the wave of popularity caused by the G1, but we hear the exclusivity will apparently only last a week, which means carriers could have just as much free reign with Android as the programmers. T-Mobile’s run with the G1 will give us an idea of how well Android performs outside of the pipe dreams of programmers, and could easily pull in carriers and manufacturers after seeing it take off, which is likely to happen with proper marketing like this behind it.
Well, the show that is known as IBC 2008 (this year at least), sure was busy! As I mentioned in a previous post, this is where the illuminati (and other people too) of the broadcast world get together, to show their wares, and present information directly to peoples’ brains.
This year, as is usually the case, there was a Mobile zone, and it was full of a veritable ecosystem of Mobile TV companies. Big names, little names, and some companies where I couldn’t decipher the name – you really can never recover from the usage of bad fonts…!
The one take-away from this event that I personally got was that Mobile TV is really mixed – on the one hand, broadcast should be the way things are going, but unicast (3G streaming) is also still popular. Ultimately, this points to the diversity between the various different operators/providers that are out there actually doing it. And also the fact that techological solutions need to fit the requirements of the customer (typically an operator) AND the end-user.
X Factor website video player, sponsored by Carphone Warehouse
In past years, it has been Nokia (NYSE: NOK) who have taken on the mantle of sponsoring the X Factor, but this year sees new blood, with Carphone Warehouse stepping in to the breach. They have adopted quite a cartoony visual style, which is applied to all the in/outs on the Ad breaks, plus the online properties of the X Factor – as can be seen above from the X Factor website video streamer. Unfortunately when I checked, the video player didn’t seem to be working properly, but nonetheless, the Carphone visual ID is all over it.
Of course, CPW sponsoring the X Factor is perfect, as it’s just the demographic they want in their stores, buying devices and contracts. A quick flight over to the CPW website, and they have some attractive tariffs, and devices – notably the iPhone 3G, and the Samsung i8510 (the 8MP, Series60, 16Gb, uber-device!).
So if you want to take a look at the X Factor site, go here.
If you’d prefer to see the Carphone Warehouse site, go here.
Cellular News is reporting that Italian Mobile Operator Wind has started to offer SIM cards, which have an embedded DVD optical disc in the plastic (credit card sized) holder than typically is used to deliver them when new (see pic).
The cards are supplied by Gemalto, and will be used by Wind to allow wireless Internet access from a PC. The idea is that subs use the SIM in their phone, connect their device to their PC, and then insert the card to run up the software on it. The software installs the necessary drivers, and user guides on the disc make life simpler for the end-user.
All in all, not a bad idea – efficient, and probably worthwhile. I’ve used these discs before and they store about 50Mb from memory, so a reasonable amount of data can be delivered.
….Smart Video Card replaces heavy and costly user and service guides – the usual tools for content promotion. It is environment-friendly, since subscribers use the card body as a DVD instead of throwing it away once they have extracted the SIM card.
So, here’s the Friday Quiz, kinda courtesy of Sony, of who emailed me to let me know the trailer of Quantum of Solace is now available for viewing….
I say kinda, because it’s actually my question, based on Mobile Devices. So, in Casino Royale the device of the day was a Silver Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE) K800i. Interestingly it was outfitted with a ton of extra cool stuff, including a new UI, and various other GPS/Radar features, if memory serves.
But what the device that we are going to see in-frame for QoS? Hint: we’ve mentinoned it before on IntoMobile…. but if you are a real device freak, you’ll be able to piece together manufacturer, film, and device, and the model number should literally jump up and poke you in the eye! Answers on a comment-card please…..
By the way, you can see the new Bond film trailer here.
We’ve known the Omnia has been coming for some time – we’ve even seen the Ads in the sunday newspaper today – but what is the total cost of all that marketing and advertising in the UK? Well, according to Mobile News, we now have an answer……
….. and the answer is nearly £5m!
The Omnia has come at somewhat an awkward time, in so much as the established competition (a certain Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) device) is selling like the proverbial ‘hotcakes’, and other newcomers such as the Nokia (NYSE: NOK) N96, and Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE) Xperia are looming on the horizon.
So it would appear Samsung is going to address this by dumping a ton of cash in to making sure that everyone and his mate knows about this device! Oh, and the global marketing campaign is going to hit around £24m, just in case you were wondering.
In the UK at least, Samsung has qualified their spend to say it covers advertising in the press, online, and also outdoor (in ‘the street’ so to speak), but no TV Ads. So I think once it is done, we are all going to be pretty aware of this touch-based smartphone….
I’ve still got to wonder though – does that UI layer that Samsung have added to WinMo really make it competitive with the iPhone’s native UI? Best get myself down the local mobile shop and find out!!
Vodafone Hungary has chosen the mobile advertising technology company MADS as their partner for “targeted mobile advertising“, on their Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) Live! portal. There are a good bunch of well-known brands, such as Nivea, EA, and Gameloft, that have already launched campaigns on since the pre-launch of the service in the summer.
Mobile consumers these days aren’t going to take text message spam lying down. The precedent has been set, forcing spammy text message senders to pay heft sums to angry mobile users. In that light, shoemaker and clothier Timberland has offered to settle a class-action lawsuit filed against itself and GSI Commerce by mobile customers complaining of being sent unsolicited SMS text messages.
