Orange France is the latest carrier to jump on the Nokia (NYSE: NOK) Messaging scheme. The France Telecom-owned operator will offer the service with its Origami Plus and Origami Jet monthly plans, as well as with the Orange email option. Following devices will be offered in the time of launch: Nokia 5230, Nokia E71, Nokia N97 and the Nokia N97 mini.
And as you know, using Nokia Messaging you can access thousands of webmail services from your mobile phone — including the most popular ones such as Gmail, Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail.
Juniper Research’s latest report titled “Mobile Money Transfer & Remittances: Markets, Forecasts & Strategies 2009-2014″ argues that the consumer demand for mobile money transfer services will see users exceed 500 million globally by 2014, most of which will come from the developing countries. The reason is simple – for many people living in such markets, a mobile phone will be their first touch with the banking system.
However, Juniper also points out that many of the mobile money services being announced will face political, regulatory or commercial challenges along the way.
Further findings from the report include:
Sophisticated mobile financial services such as loans and savings accounts can add to the attractiveness of mobile money services, and help to reduce mobile operator churn;
Africa & Middle East, Far East & China and the Indian Sub Continent will be the leading regions for national mobile money transfer services in 2014;
More information is available from Juniper Research’s website.
Mobile barcode solutions provider Scanbuy announced a deal with Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE), which will pre-load the ScanLife mobile barcode application on its handsets. Such phones [with pre-installed software] are already being sold in Spain, Italy, and Mexico; with more countries to follow in the coming months.
For those unfamiliar with ScanLife’s offering, here’s an excerpt from the press release:
The ScanLife mobile application uses the camera phone to read all major 1D and 2D barcode formats including Datamatrix, EZcode, QR, UPC, and EAN. The application scans a code to immediately launch a specific action like displaying a website, loading a video, dialing a phone number and more. This makes all physical objects interactive and removes the need for a user to type long URL’s or search for information using keywords.
Finally, it’s worth pointing out that Sony Ericsson is just a tip of the iceberg. ScanLife app works across multiple platforms — including Android, BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM), BREW, iPhone OS, Java, Symbian and Windows Mobile. It is available as a free download from this page.
Not everyone is aboard the Twitter bandwagon. I was long opposed to it, until turning full circle and becoming an addict at the start of this year. How long will the service continue to be free though? Like every other new trendy west coast startup, Twitter has no business model, and they’re desperately trying to figure something out. In a recent interview with Telegraph, Twitter CEO Evan Williams had these nuggets of insight to share:
“The best business models come from where people can create the most value. I think Twitter can create the most value on mobile phones, because it is more immediate. Most people cannot live without their mobile phones over their PCs and we believe we can enhance people’s lives on the move.”
“Mobile is bigger than people think.”
“Mobile is really exciting as our goal is to make Twitter essential to everyone’s lives. We want to help people make better choices on the move.”
“We think we can do well on mobile because Twitter is native to it. 140 characters was originally set as the limit so it could fit onto one text message. Most people don’t realise that.”
What exactly does Twitter have planned for their mobile service is anyone’s guess. Twitter’s SMS support only works in a few countries, and the company have just recently launched a mobile site in Japan, but that isn’t going to pay the bills. At some point they’ll have to make money. Suggesting a business model for Twitter used to be a fad back when the service was going through a rough patch and having constant issues keeping the service alive, so I’m not going to bother throwing my two cents on to the table.
Folks of The Really Mobile Project wanted to show just how horrible experience Nokia (NYSE: NOK)’s Ovi Store provides. To illustrate their hassle in buying a Twitter client, they made a short video above. As you can see for yourself, something’s fundamentally wrong with the Ovi Store. I’ve no doubts the issues raised will be fixed in time, but in the meantime saying “it sucks” is an understatement…
News America Marketing, a division of News Corporation, announced that its SmartSource coupons are “going mobile” on Sunday, October 25th, when the SmartSource Magazine coupon insert will be carrying a message to 68 million households. People will also be able to get 13 additional coupons by texting the word “coupons” to the number 87415. The system will ask for your email and permission to send you additional mobile offers in the future… You’ll get the rest of the instructions from them.
Anyway, for the launch there will be coupons from Kotex, Huggies, Trident, Jimmy Dean, Kellogg and Tyson, totaling $17.50 in savings and ranging in value from 50 cents to $3.00. The coupons will remain available until November 8th…
In a nutshell, we have another major company embracing mobile technology and that’s a good thing.
Telenor Pakistan along with Tameer Microfinance Bank launched a mobile banking service called “easypaisa“. Using the new service, Telenor’s customers in Pakistan will be able to make bill payments, send and receive money at thousands of outlets, as well as manage their bank accounts — all while on the go.
Commenting on the new service launch, Governor State Bank of Pakistan, Syed Salim Raza, said: “Helping people to get access to financial services is central to improving their livelihood. Branchless banking has been used internationally as a successful tool to reach customers who cannot be served by conventional branch-based financial services. That is why State Bank has been very supportive of innovative synergies in this field, a prime example of which is easypaisa by Tameer Bank and Telenor Pakistan.”
And the good news doesn’t stop there. The two parties plan to introduce additional services to “easypaisa” such as mobile wallet, cash deposits and withdrawal facilities. Cool, don’t you think?
We had learned recently that T-Mobile (NYSE: DT)’s Project Dark would involve hardware financing that would allow customers to pay off devices on a monthly basis rather than entirely up-front, but there was another piece to the puzzle that was still missing: what about that “most affordable unlimited rated plan“? Well, some internal documents are revealing an unlimited text, talk and data plan for $99.99/month, matching Sprint (NYSE: S)’s equivalent Simply Everything plan. The $79.99 unlimited plan, will catch many people’s eye; you’ll likely end up paying more overall since the off-contract deal will make you pay the unsubsidized price on the hardware each month on top of the plan, but that will largely depend on which handset you get. Regardless, not being tied down to the two-year plan might be worth it. There’s plenty of fine print and option for family plans, but take a look at these docs to see if there’s anything for you.
Provider of traffic and navigation services is “going Android” with a free application called INRIX TRAFFIC! providing drivers with the information of current AND future traffic conditions. In addition, INRIX argues their app is the only mobile phone app that combines real-time, crowd-sourced traffic information from more than 1.3 million vehicles with insight from hundreds of public and private sources. More than 160,000 miles of freeways, interstates and highways in 126 cities across the U.S. and Canada are covered, meaning that you can use the application just about anywhere in North America. In that sense, INRIX hopes you’ll use their app to avoid jams and reach your destination the fastest way possible.
The interesting part is that INRIX TRAFFIC! is completely free — it’s even ads free — hence we’re not sure what’s their business models. The ads could always come later, right?
Anyway, if you’re interested, search for it in the Android Market. And if you have the iPhone, the application is also available in iTunes.
China’s leading search engine Baidu has entered into a partnership deal with China Unicom to provide search services for the carrier’s 3G mobile subscribers.
Under the agreement, Baidu will be the default search engine on China Unicom’s handsets. In addition, few Baidu apps will also be pre-installed, enabling users to quickly access Baidu Knows, Baidu Post Bar, image search, news search, MP3 search and other services. Finally, China Unicom’s mobile website will be powered by Baidu’s search engine.
As a reminder, in May of this year, Baidu announced a similar deal with China Telecom…
Juniper Research’s latest report titled “Mobile Money Transfer & Remittances: Markets, Forecasts & Strategies 2009-2014″ argues that the consumer demand for mobile money transfer services will see users exceed 500 million globally by 2014, most of which will come from the developing countries. The reason is simple – for many people living in such markets, a mobile phone will be their first touch with the banking system.
Telenor Pakistan along with Tameer Microfinance Bank launched a mobile banking service called “
China’s leading search engine Baidu has entered into a partnership deal with China Unicom to provide search services for the carrier’s 3G mobile subscribers.
