MobHappy

More Zombie Killer Mobile Virus Press Releases

Back in January, I wrote my predictions for the year, one of which was

More and more mobile virus stories will hit the headlines. Only for the real story to emerge that to catch one you'd have to be as unlucky as to get struck by lightening on a clear day while standing in a rubber suit at the bottom of a swimming pool.

The normally excellent ZDNews has another of these non-stories, which appears to be nothing more than a Symantec Press Release, reprinted unquestioningly and practically verbatim.

The thrust of the "article" is that most Americans are aware of the threat of viruses on their phone. But who couldn't be when an obliging press reprints every scare story circulated by the virus protection companies?

Despite this awareness, most users don't seem to take the threat very seriously.

Here's a typical statement:

While the spread of such malicious software has been negligible so far, some security companies have become concerned about the possible rise of Trojan horses and other attacks targeting smartphones.

Note the word "negligible".

and

"We do see more smartphone threats coming in the future, but for now, your PC is probably under much greater risk of attack," he [ Matt Ekram, mobile security product manager at Symantec] said

Hey - don't tell anyone, but the reason these companies exist is to sell anti-virus software. Therefore, these press releases are just trying to soften us up for their marketing messages.

In order to install Cabir, you have to be unlucky enough to get it first. You're more likely to get pecked to death by a passing duck, quite frankly.

Then you're asked if you want to install an application you haven't downloaded on purpose and don't know what it is. If you're stupid enough to press "yes" the first time, you're then asked if you really want to do this, again.

So if you do manage to install it after this, you deserve it, as you're officially a moron and shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a mobile phone.

I'm not saying that mobile viruses won't ever be a threat, but until they are, please can we stop trying to make a story when there simply isn't one?

In other words, can we stop rehashing press releases and try and remember what journalism is?

End of rant.

Have a great weekend. Here in Bavaria, we have the Maypole raising ceremonies. This is preceded the night before by everyone guarding the Maypole from being kidnapped by rival villages. And everyone knows that guarding is done much better while drinking beer, so everyone must reluctantly drink for the safety of the Maypole.

If your Maypole is guarded too fiercely and you can't stop the other villages pinching it, you have to pay them a ransom of .... beer. You probably guessed that part.

Russell

Image from Flickr

moblogUK Wins Web User Gold Award

Proving that the spirit of the empire is still alive and well, Alfie Dennen and Mat Brown's moblogUK swept aside their larger and better funded rivals to win Gold in Web User review of moblogs.

The plucky duo left competitors like 6 Apart and Buzznet weeping in helpless rage as the judges gave moblogUK a full five stars for their free and popular service.

Nice to see them bounce back from the attack of the giant plushy monster a few months back.

See Alfie's blog for the full review, which doesn't appear to be online at the magazine yet.

Mobile TV to have Millions of Subscribers

Reuters reports that, research group, Informa forecast 125 million people will be watching mobile TV by 2010. This excludes streaming/downloading video, by the way - we're talking the traditional one-to-many model.

If they're right, this is actually rather pitiful - it's a little less than 6% of worldwide penetration of mobile phones. It means that any return on investment by market for a launch will be hard to achieve.

Informa's stance is in marked contrast to ABI's which I wrote about a few weeks ago, who were more bullish than the Minotaur.

But, what I don't understand is how anyone can make a sensible judgment about this, without taking into account costs. If you ask Martin or Mary Mobile if they want TV on their phone, they'll shrug and say "Sure, baby". If you say, "Will you pay $20 a month in subscription and data charges?", I don't think they'll be quite so sure and at today's rates, it could well be more than this.

So maybe there's a case for Informa being the bullish ones. With ABI completely out to lunch on planet Zob.

If you're wondering about the bloke in the tarzan outfit, by the way, he's a chap whose AOL handle is the Minotaur. Who said AOL members were all boring?

Copenhagen's Mobile Phone Location Based Tours

Near Near Future has an amusing story about a Footsteps of Hans Christian Andersen tour in Copenhagen.

Tourists follow a route marked with 2000 white footsteps on the pavement. Then, at strategic points, they dial in with their mobile phones to listen to an audio narrative about the great man.

A nice idea and an example of many more we'll see cropping up all over the world.

What makes this funny though is that someone has remixed the tour by adding extra footsteps......into gay clubs. The great man was famously gay - a fact that is generally ignored by mainstream society. So the remixing is thought to be the work of the gay movement, showing a nice sense of humour at the same time.

However, it does also point to a potential problem with any physical marker/hyperlink, connecting people to digital information. The physical link can be sabotaged or altered by the unscrupulous or plain mischievous.

Supposing you "click" on Shakespeare's house for more information, but you're taken to say an adult site with Elizabethan wenches doing their stuff? Or even re-directed to a local Shakespeare souvenir shop?

That's why this type of project needs to be self-policing, using Wikipedia principles.

Yahoo! and Nokia Comment

Net Imperative reports that the Yahoo! portal will come pre-installed on some of Nokia's new phones - Series 60 high end smart phones.

Yahoo! Entertainment services will allow Nokia users to download ringtones, wallpapers and games.

I'm sure the seasoned thinkers of Nokia have thought this through, but what are the operators going to think? Currently, about 2/3 of all content goes through operator portals (depending on which market we're talking about).

I don't think they'll just shrug and let it happen. In fact, the words I would least attribute to an operator are sentiments along the lines of "Hey! Great! Yahoo! bundled on phones. This is good news for the user as it introduces genuine choice into the marketplace. Let market forces decide - we're totally confident in our product, pricing and overall loyalty of our customers. Bring it on."

They'll much more likely persuade Nokia to take it off, or take it off themselves before it gets to the user.

Having said that, users can obviously access Yahoo! themselves (unless they're in a closed network, like 3). So they will have to face competition at some point, so this kind of reaction would seem a little short-sighted and a waste of energy all round.

I think that this is little more than an attempt by Nokia to wrest some power back from operators in the continual tug of war between handset manufacturers and operators.

I hope I'm wrong, but I don't feel very hopeful for this deal. After the initial hype, will we ever hear of it again?

Huggy Shirts

Yuck, that Happy Slapping story has left a nasty taste. So here's a story that panders to our higher senses altogether.

Again, from We Make Money Not Art comes the F+R Hugs Lycra shirt. The shirt hooks up over a mobile network and via a series of sensors, the wearer receives a simulated hug from a loved one.

The shirts receive the input of heart beat, touch and body temperature of the remote loved one, recreating (through actuators embedded in the shirt) over distance the pulsation, physical pressure, and warmth of a real hug.

During the testing of the shirts, major intensity points were identified on upper arms, on the upper back part during a condolatory hug, around the waistline, neck, shoulders, and hips. In these strategic spots were placed soft technological sandwiches containing the hugging output actuators.

Ahhhh.

But, I believe these "thinking of you, without interrupting you too much" tools will become important in the future of our relationships over the phone. Sure, it might be a high-tech shirt that hugs. Or it could just be something that happens on your phone - maybe it pulses in some way, or glows, or the screen flashes.

It's already the social norm for dating young couples to sms each other religiously first thing in the morning and last thing at night. It's the modern equivalent of those long (landline) calls we used to have with the "you hang up first", "no you", "no, you" "love you", "love you", "I love you more", "you hang up first". And just as you were in BIG trouble if you did hang up first, you're toast if you don't send those sms's when you're meant to.

This simply fulfills a very important human need - a sort of grooming ritual. A transactional analyst would call it a stroking ritual, if Eric Berne's original studies were updated to today's context.

So we'll see many more of these types of low key, ritualistic communication over our phones. This is but the first generation.

Happy Slapping - The Video Proof

I've written before about Happy Slapping here and here. Basically, it's the practice of slapping an unsuspecting person hard, while their friends (can people like this have friends?) film the action and reaction on their video phones.

The videos are then shared over the web and passed from phone to phone by Bluetooth.

Firstly, it sounds like it's a bit of an urban myth, exaggerated by the media, including bloggers. Some have accused me of making this up.

Secondly, it actually sounds like little harmless, if high-spirited, fun. I'm sure everyone's youth had a few semi-violent incidents and we grew up OK.

Blogger, Alfie Dennen, has done some great investigation and put together and put together a video of some of the clips (via Textually) that are doing the rounds.

You can view the video here.

BUT before you do, I have to say that it's very nasty and features raw criminal violence. While it starts off with prankish slapping, it deteriorates very quickly into acts of blatant criminal violence. I only bothered watching a few minutes, before I felt compelled to switch off. It's grim, it's not funny and I hope these kids are sent to gaol.

However, it is another incident of a blogger making the news.

More DIY Ringtones

I meant to post this last week, but it slipped through the cracks. Fortunately Matt Maier at MobilePlaya picked it up: Warp Records's cool Bleep.com download store (which sells un-DRMed music) will let users choose snippets of songs from Bleep's catalog and make their own ringtone.

Ki-Bi Raises £10 million

Ki-Bi Mobile Technologies have just raised £10m ($19m) via institutional investors in London according to Globes Online.

That's the boring bit out of the way, apart from that it's a vote of confidence by professional investors, most of whom don't know their mobile from their microwave.

[By the way, a little known fact about the launch of 3 is that it was the investors who insisted on structuring the whole launch around video calling. Management knew there was little demand for it. Not to mention that there was little point in focusing on your Achilles Heel. In order to make a video call, you need to know someone else who has one - so even if you believe in the concept, it's a definite Phase 2 part of the roll out.]

Anyway, Ki-Bi are an interesting company, as it happens. They make credit card sized cards (a bit like the old paybox phone cards) that make phone navigation a whole lot easier. You just take your card, put it next to the mike on the mobile and press the card in a specific place.

Then, hey presto, your phone goes and gets the content you want and downloads it. The content can be anything for your mobile, ranging from applications, ringtones, logos, games or music tracks.

From a content owner perspective, it's a way of getting round the mobile operator portal, if you need to. Approximately 2/3 of mobile content is sold via the operators and if you can't get on there for whatever reason, it makes life pretty difficult.

As important, the push and download angle means no clumsy inputting of WAP addresses, or navigating uninspiring menus, or even sending off a quick sms.

Is it a good long term bet? Despite my catty remarks about professional institutional investors (not having a go at VC's here), I think it probably is. I can't see mobiles being "easy" to navigate quickly, so if there's a demand for the cards at distribution and user levels, there's plenty of life in this yet.

And it stimulates inpulse purchase of content.

In the future, we'll probably have voice commends for this kind of thing, but Ki-Bi are pretty well positioned to go after this sector as well, in due course.

Obviously, the big unknown at this point is what it costs to buy/distribute one. I've asked the question and will let you know if I find out.

So what do you think? Is Ki-Bi on to a winner?

Semacode Guided Tour

Regine at the wonderfully eclectic We Make Money Not Art has a really interesting post on another digital graffiti project in New York.

An old train line through Lower Manhattan, forms the boundary between the Polish Chasidic Jewish community and the rest of NY in the early part of last century. While the physical boundary has disappeared and the Jews dispersed, the psychological boundary is still there and this is what the project commemorates.

At various locations along the way, visitors can "click" on a semacode by taking a photo with a camera phone. This links them to audio content (in Chinese, Spanish, Yiddish and English) which tells them about that location.

Visitors can also leave their own audio impressions for others to pick up and listen to.

Another great example of how the mobile phone is being used like a physical world mouse to access location-based digital information.

As an aside, I wonder why, if the US is considered at least one or two years behind Europe in cell phone culture, that they're so far ahead in thinking about locative media? It's nothing to do with technology, as stuff like the Yellow Arrow project and Blockies use pretty low tech location technology.

Anyone have a view? Please leave a comment and make me happy.

Citizen Content Creation

In the middle of Tomi's interview, I interjected the following thoughts about Citizen Journalists:

I think Citizen Journalism is actually a symptom of something altogether bigger - Citizen Content Creation, for want of a better phrase. Sure, we'll have people taking pics and writing stuff for online and offline newspapers. But they'll also create ringtones and logos for phones, create their own music and art and make their own movies - even create their own advertising - see the George Masters' case below.

After writing that, I starting reading the latest edition of the Trend Watching newsletter, which is the best publication like this that I've found. Go and subscribe today - FREE - it's great.

Their latest edition is all about "Customer Made", which is their take on the same sort of trend. It includes everything from the home made ads (check out the fabulous Tiger Woods one if you didn't see it last week), design competitions, modified/remixed/mashups of products (high and low tech) and customer compiled content.

Their take on where this is going next is that customers will start to ask for real compensation for contributing to success. While I think there's a lot of truth in it, never underestimate the appeal of people becoming famous - albeit very temporarily, like seeing their name on a leader board in a game. To many people, that's as good as getting paid.

How do I know? Well, you don't think I do this for the money, do you? Snort!

Mobile Sex Toy

Vibrafoon have launched a Java application for mobile phones that controls the vibrate alert function. This means that you can turn your phone into a "personal massager" or vibrator, if we want to really spell it out, along with a suitable throbbing graphic.

But they do have subtler versions. Over and above the "erotic", we have "fun" and "flirty" downloads, though I'm not really sure what the difference is, except the graphic is different - a heart, rather than a vibrator, as an example.

I know it's puerile to laugh at people's names, but the Marketing Manager for this product is Harry Lips. Is this really true, or is it a Porn Name, a la Ben Dover, Phil MacCavity or Ruby Lips (actually, that's the name of a My Little Pony character - incredible but true).

Anyway, thanks Harry for sending the info.

Adult Content Huge

i-Mode Strategy has a round up of some facts, figures and interviews with leading pornographers.

The common consensus is that it'll be huge and err...throbbing? In Asia and Europe, people who download this kind of stuff, currently spend about $34 each per year on videos and images. Of course, the crucial question is then how many subscribers there are. Since no one's saying, I don't think this market is as big - yet - as they are implying.

The advantages of mobile for adult content are claimed to be that mobile is:

Intimate
Addictive
Viral
Relevant

But the downsides are equally balanced, if you ask me:

Expensive (in comparison to online/hard copy)
Poor image resolution/poor video quality (which will get better though)

Is it just me, but at the risk of sounding a little purient, it also seems rather sad and tacky to download dirty pics to your phone.

What do you think? Is it all hype, or is there a real market? Leave a comment, which is pretty quick and easy now...

Tomi Ahonen's New Book - 10% Discount for Readers

No, this hasn't turned into a Tomi Appreciation Society website and no, he's not bribing me to say nice things or paying me in any way.

But Tomi's new book is out - Communities Dominate Brands - so I took the opportunity to get the first interview about it. I will also be reviewing it here in due course, when I get my copy and find time to read it.

It's no coincidence that Tomi wanted the first interview to go to a blogger. One of the themes of the book is the power of community and bloggers have proven to be a central force in this movement. How better to make this point then, by giving the scoop to a blogger, rather than old-school journalist?

Here's the interview:

1. If you had to summarise the key message in your new book, Communities Dominate Brands, what would it be?

The digitally connected and empowered customer-community is a very recent phenomenon, that is now radically altering how businesses can function. Communities from bloggers to mobile phone smart mobs can turn against a brand or support its activities.

Putting in context of the other huge business impacts of such radical changes over the past 100 years as TV, credit cards, the internet etc., communities are the single biggest change in a hundred years. Only the advent of electricity had as big an effect.

But this change is very recent, the first signs became visible only two-three years ago, and the very first case studies can now be made in 2005, from which we can start to form general trends.

That is what this book is about. It is the first practical business book on how to capitalise on community power. Don't become a victim of communities by accidentally arousing them against you. Don't be left in the dustbin of history by ignoring communities. But learn now how to embrace and engage communities to your advantage. Winners in all industries over the next five years will be those who were among the first to grasp this change.

2. Who should read it?

Any senior management in any business. But even more so any mid to senior management involved in the IT/media/telecoms space, and all whose job description has the word customer or marketing or advertising or branding or PR in it.

And of course those companies that intend to make services and products for the most advanced customer communities such as dating, rating, gaming, blogging, virtual worlds, and mobile phone based smart mobs.

3. If you take an example like the famous Kryptonite bike locks, how should Kryptonite reacted when the story broke?

Kryptonite is one of our 13 case studies. Kryptonite was the most trusted brand of bicycle locks - and I personally have bought several in the past for my various bikes.

They did nothing explicitly against communities, they just happened to be the first significant brand to get caught by the fury of the enraged community. In their case it was bloggers of course, but similar stories can be found in politics from the overthrow of the Philippines government in peaceful revolt by smart mobs, to the bad word-of-mouth that has killed Hollywood movies, etc.

What any company needs to do is two things - first, it needs to build the dialogue with its communities to learn to discuss issues openly with the customers. It's also important to note there may be multiple communities of interest for any single brand. This means honestly dealing with the good and the bad.

And then when a problem occurs, as they do for every business in the world, to deal with it openly and honestly. Kryptonite could have salvaged the problem and turned it into a non-story, if they had been aware of the community power.

Unfortunately for Kryptonite, they happened to be the first and thus will probably always be one of the famous case studies of the emergence of digitally connected and empowered community power.

4. Is blogging here to stay? And how should marketers treat them?

Absolutely. The Blogosphere grew from half a million to 8 million in two years. Today 11% of all internet users access blogsites actively. The blogging world appeared suddenly over the past two years and is now one of the most influential media forces in the world.

Take for example CBS's former anchorman Dan Rather. It was not pressure from CBS's peers, the traditional broadcast and print media that forced him to retire. It was the pressure from the Blogosphere that discovered the story and kept it alive.

But what we explain clearly in the book, is that all digitally connected communities are new, they are only starting to learn. What seemed enormously powerful last year, will be everyday normal this year, and trivial next year.

As they are digital, virtual, and global - the communities can evolve much more rapidly, to become more efficient than any PR or marketing organisation can hope to match. If you start a fight with a virtual community, you will lose.

So I don't think that blogging has shown its true power, no. Blogging will become dramatically more powerful over the next few years.

5. There have been quite a few attempts by marketers to create faux blogs. Can this be done successfully and if so, how?

No.

The blogosphere is the ultimate truth police. With RSS feeds, permalinks and your history on file, you cannot maintain a credible false personality on the blogosphere. The truth police will catch you out.

This will become even more relevant as the blogosphere expands during 2005 and 2006, and the older bloggers will be suspicious of businesses attempting to commercialise this space. So they will be very harsh in condemning newcomers who don't conform to the "rules"

6. What's your favourite "story" from the book?

There are so many.

But perhaps Oh My News from Korea is the inspiration for all of us in telecoms/IT and media.

Oh My News is four years old, and today is Korea's third largest newspaper. It gets 90% of its content from what it calls "citizen reporters." These may contribute via the internet, but by far the greatest majority of the contributions, both text and pictures, are provided via mobile phone.

The amazing fact is that there are already 35,000 of these citizen reporters. The newspaper is considered extremely reliable, and the newly elected President gave his first interview to Oh My News.

In terms of readership they sell 1.2 million copies per day, making Oh My News a bigger newspaper than most in the USA for example.

But the best part of the story is that each of the contributors, essentially amateur journalists, bloggers and mobloggers - gets to be paid. They are paid about 20 dollars per submission. The citizen reporters say that even more rewarding than the money, is to see their name in print.

I wrote about this type of future arising, in my second book m-Profits. The first attempts at creating paid content by the populace, via mobile phone, have been sporadic and no massive success had yet appeared. Not before Oh My News.

Now for the first time we have a truly successful major newspaper that is made essentially completely by readers and via the mobile phone. A vision of the future. Every newspaper in the world needs to study this model and quickly adapt, or disappear.

Russell adds: I think Citizen Journalism is actually a symptom of something altogether bigger - Citizen Content Creation, for want of a better phrase. Sure, we'll have people taking pics and writing stuff for online and offline newspapers. But they'll also create ringtones and logos for phones, create their own music and art and make their own movies - even create their own advertising - see the George Masters' case below.

This will create a new Renaissance - but this time everyone who wants to will be involved, not just a few elite. The Long Tail theory fits this model nicely.

7. Which companies/brands "get it" as far as communities go?

Until their recent fight with bloggers, I'd say that Apple is one that seems to be doing very much the right way in terms of the i-Pod, the i-Tunes and how these relate to its main business, the Macintosh personal computers.

One of the cute stories in the book is about a passionate i-Pod fan, George Masters, who was so in love with the product, he created a professional style TV ad, that he posted on the web. That clip has been downloaded some 40,000 times. Talk about a customer that is dedicated to your brand !!

Let's hope that they come to their senses over the bloggers' sources case before they undo the years of hard work and success in building a community.

8. And who doesn't?

There is no obvious candidate to answer this. Most brands today are ignorant of community power.

For example TV ads influence only 17% of our decisions, while world-of-mouth influences 71% of our decisions. Where does most of the marketing/advertising money go to? TV advertising of course.

This is what is so warped about marketing today. Most companies try to make their interruptive ads ever more competitive, clever, funny or different. They get lost in the clutter. For a tiny fraction of that investment they could get huge returns by engaging the customer community. But the changes are starting to be seen, from companies ranging from Adidas and Coca Cola to Boeing and Ford.

9. You've talked about Alpha Users in the past - people who "sell" technology and applications to users. How should marketers best identify who they are and communicate with them?

There is only one technical way to isolate Alpha Users, and for that you have to have the social network of the communities identified accurately, and after that, to separate the Alpha User in each community.

It takes a special social networking technology, and the only industry with the information that is personally accurate enough, is with mobile telecoms operators.

For example, fixed wireline telcos cannot identify if it is the father of the family who places the call on the phone, or if that is the mother, or the daughter etc. Only the mobile phone is truly personal.

But there are many surrogates and good communities to engage before we have to go to Alpha Users. The bloggers are the fastest way. Fan clubs are another. And companies can recruit influences and evangelists, etc.

So many other ways exist that for now will help improve the performance of marketing activities, even if Alpha Users are not identified. As mobile operators get their Alpha User analysis systems online, over the next 3-4 years Alphas are the normal way of launching any new services or products in any industry..

10. Is there anything you'd like to add?

Two quick comments. The virtual/gaming world is a remarkable opportunity and one that most brands and companies can learn from.

And I've said many times, that the blogging trend will inevitably migrate to mobile blogging (moblogging) as already in Japan and Korea the majority of blogging is via smartphones.

So if you think blogging is big and influential, imagine how much more so it will be when bloggers are always on always connected and respond and post in real time.

If you like the sound of the book, I've got you all a 10% discount. All you need to do is go to the FutureText (publisher) website and put in the promotional code mobile-weblog.

More info on the book is here.

Watch out for my review in due course, but if it's anything like Tomi's previous books, it'll be well worth a read.

Apple, iTunes, iPhone and Motorola

Gizmodo says that the Motorola iTunes Phone "has been refused by almost every American wireless carrier" now.

The reason won't be because of the (presumably) sexy and sleek design. But because the operators want to be the ones who sell users music for their phones - over their own networks. The iPhone is designed to allow users to transfer downloaded songs from their PC to the phone, not download direct.

This was somewhat predictable - here's what I wrote back in June last year about the original announcement, when I questioned whether anyone had thought about what operators might think about the idea:

Surely Motorola can't have overlooked this? When you move quickly (and instinct says this was a deal that happened quickly), mistakes can happen. But not, I think, as basic as this. It would be like Mars launching a new chocolate bar and forgetting to build in a margin for the retailer.

It seems that mistakes as basic as this can be made though.

However, it's also a fundamentally wrong and short-term strategy for operators to try to control all content, as well as take a hefty slice of the margin, that ends up on a phone, or is sold over their networks, for that matter. All this will lead to is that new products will be introduced cripplingly slowly and users will be even slower in the adoption process.

In parallel, users will find ways to circumvent this walled garden and climb around or over the walls. This will mean that operators will lose the data revenue (their core business) as well as the content revenue.

As an example, I've been saying for a long time that there will be a boom in P2P content (ringtones, music, images and video) exchanged over Bluetooth.

The record industry created their own monster with Napster, by refusing to allow legitimate music downloads. The same thing is going to happen to the operators if they continue to try to censor their networks.

In this instance, the operators have opened up another network anyway, by refusing to sell the iPhone. Apple is apparently going to launch iTunes Mobile 1.0 anyway imminently. While no details have been announced, my bet would be that it'll be a Java application that'll run on any Java phone (most newer ones, in other words). This will allow user to transfer music from iTunes from PC to phone, simply and easily.

This means that the operators again get nothing - no data revenues and no content revenues either. And since the US carriers are planning to sell direct-to-phone music for $3 a track (in comparison to 99c from iTunes), I don't expect their launches will be a great success either. Why do they think they can sell at this kind of price?

Anyway, the result of this strategy to strangle the iPhone is that there are now at least two ways for users to get music on their phone - illicit P2P and legal iTunes.

Both lead to no revenue for operators.

So a pretty sorry story all round. Apple and Moto failing to predict the blindingly obvious. Operators for being greedy and short sighted. Ho hum. More of the same then.

Geocaching to Save the Planet

Earth Day (22nd April) is a day devoted to creating awareness about pollution and other environmental concerns.

This year, the organisers have surfed on the spectacular growth of Geocaching by launching a series of "Cache In, Trash Out" events.

Geocaching is the location based "sport" that's a combination of a treasure hunt and orienteering, assisted by a handheld GPS or GPS enabled phone. People search for concealed treasure, which is often small trinkets or other stuff of little value, other than to Geocachers.

Since it's all locally organised, it's impossible to know how many people are doing it, but it's reckoned to be at least several million worldwide.

"Cache In, Trash Out" events combine Geocaching with clearing up the countryside as you go.

Link: ABC News

Google Gets Personal with "My Search History"

Hardly a day goes by without Google launching some new Beta service. Seems like Beta is the new word for Cool.

My Search History is a bit spooky though, albeit I've accepted that privacy, if not dead, is certainly a very sick bunny indeed.

It tracks your errr...search history, funnily enough. So if you're in the habit of searching for stuff in the dark underbelly of the net, it's there for you to see. Not that I am, you understand, but it's the principle.

In fairness, they have built in lots of safeguards. You have to sign up, activate it and can pause it while you do your dodgy dealings. And I guess if you were worried, you wouldn't activate it.

But if you weren't terribly good about signing on and off on a shared computer, there maybe a risk.

The great (sneaky?) thing from Google's point of view is that it can start analyzing individuals' search patterns and that should allow them to improve their services. But I'm not convinced it's going to be a big winner, as it's not exactly compelling to sign up for.

If I want a search history, I've got one in my browser already, thanks very much. And personally, I've never been on someone else's computer and not been able to track down a website I found via a search engine before.

I have signed up for it though. D'oh, I'm a sucker for new technology!

Can anyone think of a user benefit of this that I've missed?

Celltick Technologies signs $30m Deal with Russia's VimpelCom

I've been following Israeli-based Celltick for 5 years now, but they seem to have hit the big time with a deal with Russia's largest mobile operator, VimpelCom. Rumour has it that VimpelCom will be paying $30 million over 5 years for the Chameleon service.

Celltick makes the technology that broadcasts live content to users' phones when the phone is not in use - like a screen saver. They can chose the type of free information to get, including news, gossip, sport and games.

The point of this altruism is that 40% of users (employing a one click navigation system) go on to click for more information, dramatically increasing usage - with data revenues increasing by a claimed 15% across the board. This is big bucks to any operator.

They are also the only software developer that I've ever seen, wishing to partner with operators, who haven't mentioned ARPU on the home page of their website. Congratulations, chaps!

Where have we seen this push technology before, coupled with mega-investment (they've recently raised another $11 million in a third round), forecasts of huge revenues and claims of changing the world? Look no further than the web based PointCast.

PointCast also pushed information, but to PC screens, and was much lauded and courted from 1996 to 1999. At one point, Murdoch's NewsCorp offered $450 million, which they unwisely let escape, before eventually crashing out of the ring.

Other than the hype, are there similarities? While it's clearly much more complex, PointCast fell down arguably on technology - it was slow and hogged bandwidth. It's main business model was also from advertising.

Celltick's technology will work on the basis of increasing operator data revenues, which seems a far smarter play. And it seems as if they can now prove that it does increase revenues, which explains why they can close big deals.

So, I'd say that this is no PointCast, but clever technology with a cleverer business model. Watch this space.

Story Haaretz.

Heineken Uses Barcodes in Promotion Mechanic

It's nice when something happens which one has been predicting for a while. Actually, it's more of a relief that I'm kinda on track most of the time.

Heineken, in the Netherlands, has launched a fantastic promotion in conjunction with OP3 (Dennis is an occasional Guest Blogger here) which allows participants to scan product bar codes with their camera phone, to connect directly to the H.E.L.L.O. website. The promotional theme is the search for aliens life forms and some barcodes have aliens hidden behind them. The more aliens you spot, the greater your chance of winning.

The website (in English, with Dutch subtitles) is also worth a visit as it's a great example of an integrated campaign.

My own quest for joined up mobile marketing is finally successful and note, there's narry a "Text and Win" in sight.

I think that barcode "hyperlinking" is such an important concept, and not just in a promotional/commercial context. Here's an article I wrote at Net Imperative about it.

Now, can anyone tell me why every advertisement doesn't carry a barcode to enhance interactivity? Or at least an sms short code?

Via Smartmobs.

Leapfrogging in Kenya

One of my recurring themes here (in case you missed it) is that the mobile is going to take over from the PC as our primary digital device.

This is partly driven by what's happening in the West, but equally influenced by developing markets. If you're looking to sell the next billion phones in the next 5 years, look to China, India and Africa. And if you're going after a market that big, it's obviously going to affect how we, in the more developed markets, use our phones too.

The phenomenon of leapfrogging is where a less developed country leaps a stage in the evolution of technology. In this case, people are adopting mobile phone use, leapfrogging the PC stage.

Reuters reports one example of Kenyans using sms to search for jobs. A PC will be out of the budget of many Kenyans and an internet café can be many miles from home.

There are also 3 million mobile phones versus half a million PC/net users, most of whom are based in Nairobi, the capital.

So, my friends, the PC is dead. It just doesn't know it yet.

Russell

PS If you're ever in that neck of the woods, going on safari is a truly awesome experience. I won't try to describe it, just do it and you'll love it.

I went many years ago now with the legendary Carr Hartleys and one of their mobile camps. They build a luxury tented village in the bush as your base. You even get hot showers and I never figured out how they cooked croissants from scratch over an open fire.

Tell them Digby Danvers sent you and you might get a discount. On the other hand they might just laugh in your face.

It's not cheap, but it is fantastic value. Pic shows Clark Gable on safari with the same crew.

This is The News

If you work in mobile (and the chances are quite good you do, if you're reading this) do you have any news that other readers might be interested in?

Rumour, gossip and scandal are all fine, but I'm thinking more about your company and its products/services. Do you want to raise your profile with the 70,000 or so people who read this blog?

I can't promise that I feature you, but if I think you're doing something interesting, it's a good bet that I will. Of course, I'm not promising to be totally nice either, but then, you might find a second opinion useful anyway. And I'm not into the concept of giving companies a total kicking, so if I really don't see the value in what you're up to, I just won't post about you.

Can't be fairer than that.

So let me have your stuff russell AT mobhappy DOT com.

Blockies - More Physical World Meets Digital

We've seen number of art projects that link or tag physical world locations with digital information, such as Yellow Arrow, Mobile Scout and Grafedia.

Now it seems that it's tipping into the commercial world, with the launch of Blockies, as reported by Regine on the wonderful Near Near Future.

Blockies is a service that allows you to take photos with your camera phone in the street. You then fix a Blockies sticker to the place, upload the pic onto the Blockies site, together with the unique code from the sticker. Future visitors to that location, see the sticker, sms in the code and see the photo you left - or a link to the website if the phone isn't capable of seeing the photo itself.

Actually, future visitors can also attach pics to that location by using your code and thus building up a location-based photo album.

It's "like a message in a bottle..only less wet" which is a great line, if not a very good analogy. But great lines win, in my book.

There's nothing on the site about costs - cost of stickers (though they do say they'll send you them, with no mention of money), cost of sms, or the cost of uploading, storing and downloading pics. But I assume that they intend to charge a small premium for these elements. I've asked and will run a small follow up if I get answers.

I think that services like this, which essentially hyperlink meatspace (or is that such a 1999 expression?) and digital space are going to be very important. Obviously, physical tagging of images is only one aspect, with text, audio and video all being possibilities too.

The only problem I can see the team facing is if they're relying on MMS to deliver images. The cost of the basic service is still prohibitive and then there's the question of whether it works at all.

UPDATE: I've exchanged emails with Melissa, who's running Blockies. She's a student at NYU IPT promgramme and doing Blockies as part of het thesis.

As such, there's no commercial angle, as I surmised, so it's free for users. Having said that, you still have to pay your normal operator charges for sms/mms.

I do think that this has the potential to be extended commercially though.

Good luck Melissa.

MoMeMo

First we have a MoMo in Munich and now a MoMeMo has been launched in New York and rapidly spreading.

Mobile Media Mondays is a private membership, invitation-only group consisting of key decision makers and thinkers on mobile media initiatives. Founded by one of my old contacts, Ashley Heather, together with James Joyce, initial members include people from Accenture, Bertelsmann, Cingular, Comcast, Ericsson, ESPN Mobile, Hearst, NBC Universal, Sony, Time Warner, Viacom and Virgin Mobile, among others.

You can apply for membership at the website, so if you live in New York, London or LA and work in mobile, head on over there.

Business in Germany

One of the starnge things about doing busness is Germany is the fomality of the language. For instance, it's ususal to call people Mr or Mrs Surname, even when you know them well. Coupled with that, you use the Du (informal) and Sie (formal).

In fact, old collegues of 20 years standing, can still be Sie-ing and saying Mr and Mrs to each other. Then perhaps the senior of the two will suggest over a meal that it's time they moved onto a Du basis. It really signfies something.

Addressing someone as Du before invited is really churlish. And while you might be excused as a foreigner, you can still see people wincing unconsciously if it happens.

A German friend of mine recently came back to work over here, after 10 years in the US. After a couple of days, he told all his staff to Du him from now on. He said that it was weird, but they instantly lost all respect, at an almost unconcious level.

In the end, he had to have a meeting and tell them to Sie him and respect and order were restored.

This would all be fine if it was entirely consistent. Younger people (by that I mean under 40) don't necessarily expect the formal address, but some do. And if you stick to the formal, they think you're being stuffy.

I guess it's best to stick to the formal, as it's better to be thought stuffy than rude.

Ho hum.

The pic is actually an English actor, Jeremy Irons.

Fake Calls on the Mobile

Mike at TechDirt reports that people are pretending to make calls on their mobiles, to get them out of embarrassing social fixes.

So next time you see a Norman No-Friends at a party madly chatting and laughing into his mobile, his phone might not even be switched on. Why not call him, if you have the number, and giggle when it rings?

It seems the practice is pretty widespread actually. Do you do it? Leave a comment and let me know.

Sony and I-Play

Digital Bridges, the UK based mobile games maker, has changed its name to I-Play and positioned itself as a consumer-facing brand.

I was reading this in the excellent Mobile Entertainment, one of the few publishers who are kind enough to send me a hard copy, here in Germany.

The senior VP of publishing and marketing, said: "But all of them [mobile games makers] have technology oriented heritage and company names. We felt it was time to differentiate and address the mass market. Sony did it with Walkman. We're doing it with I-Play."

I read it several times and just wonder why the Walkman popped into the press release. Is it anything to do with games? No.

Did they go from a B2B proposition to a B2C? No. Are I-Play suggesting that they have Walkman levels of launch spend? I doubt it.

Odd.

Still, good luck to them.

Tomi Ahonen's Pearls #4

Last week, I featured mobile guru, Tomi Ahonen's Pearls - 6 mobile applications Tomi rates very highly. Here's his commentary on the final two:

Location-based allergy warnings by Vodafone Germany is a rare example of a location-based service that seems to be truly useful and may find a significant market.

Most location-based services are severely disappointing the telecoms industry worldwide. But in this case, there is the health-dimension which adds to the appeal of the service, particularly with the ever-returning worries about long-term health effects of cellphone radiation etc.

This service allows allergy sufferers to indicate which types of pollen etc they are sensitive to, and then the service uses national weather information, together with the location of the owner, to inform not only current pollen counts, but more importantly, give advance warning whenever there is an anticipated change.

This helps enormously those who, for example, suffer from hay fever. Rather than suddenly notice that your nose is stuffed and your eyes water etc, and having to decide are you getting a cold or is this allergies, now you get advance warning that the winds have changed and the pollen count in your location is starting to rise.

Bloggers to be paid via mobile by Kwickee Guides UK is one of the first examples of what I have been saying all last year that will become a huge tidal wave of a change, that the bloggers will migrate from their current desktop PCs, laptop PCs, and PDAs, to smartphones, as the primary tool to post and update blogs, especially whenever wanting to add images to blogsites.

The problems early on still today are of course mostly technical, with cumbersome phones and very difficult interfaces between blog software and the mobile phone. This is being addressed and very soon we shall see the over 300 million camera phones used regularly by the 8 million bloggers and their hundred million readers to post, upload, read and comment on blogsites.

With this trend, the Kwickee Guides is one of the first and still rather rare examples of a monetary driver to expedite this transfer. The idea here is that each Kwickee Guide contributor will get to be paid, not once when submitting an article, as most journalists for example, but every time the mobile internet page is viewed.

This is a very compelling incentive for the contributors to generate high quality content, and to keep it up to date. This is an example of a future vision I predicted in my second book, m-Profits, and I am totally convinced we will see a rapidly expanding range of services like this - oh, and this too includes that element of rapidly growing importance: the community dimension.

Watch this space to see who wins!

Russell adds; while I agree that Moblogging is going to be a big new trend, I'm not convinced by the Kwickee example, I'm afraid. Provided Moblogging is made much easier to do and is far cheaper than the current MMS pricing, I've no doubt more bloggers will post via their mobiles.

This is also consistent with my thinking that the mobile is replacing the PC as the primary digital device in our lives.

However, I'm not convinced that people will pay to use this kind of service - either a high enough cost per viewing or in sufficient volumes - to make a business. And certainly the revenues for the bloggers will be pretty measly, especially in the short term.

If I were looking at this market, I'd make the content free and try to make money from other services resulting from the relationship. That might be advertising, though it would need to be very carefully constructed. But it could perhaps include other things such as ringtones and content.

I've also noticed that Kwickee have withdrawn from the adult market, which seems to be a missed opportunity. This is more likely to be pressure from operators, rather than a moral stance, but I could be wrong on this.

Anyone else have any ideas as to how this model might be improved?

Kellogg's Corn Pops' Gotta Be Connected

I was looking at some of the Mobile Marketing Association's case studies. Lest there be any doubt, the MMA's remit is to promote mobile marketing to the world and therefore, the case studies should be showcasing the very best campaigns available.

I won't go into all of them now (though I may return to a few in due course) but let's look at the Kellogg's Corn Pops' onpack competition. I didn't choose this specifically by the way - it's the first one I read.

The prize is a little derivative (a phone a day to be won) but not necessarily the worse because of it. It was featured on 6.5 million packs, which must make it a pretty small brand in the US, despite being in the Kellogg's portfolio.

Purchasers were invited to enter via sms or the special promotional website, where they could chose to participate in the next stage via sms or email. Entrants would be send a trivia question to respond to in the "classic" Text and Win format.

While I guess this could be described as mobile marketing, it's actually only really promotional fulfillment using the mobile mechanic, instead of using a traditional handling/fulfilment house. Therefore, I really wouldn't exactly describe this as showcase of mobile marketing excellence.

Before I look at the results though, consider this amazing piece of umm..., I'm sorry, but it's pure stupidity, actually. There was a delay between the registration and the dispatch of the trivia question required by the client "in order to spread or expand the timespan of the brand interaction."

The whole POINT of using the mobile is the immediacy of the interaction. It caters for the instant gratification factor people demand in today's society. Delaying sending it out, is about as sensible as not posting a gift out to entrants in the old days to prolong the brand interaction. Anyone who has ever been involved in this type of campaign knows that turning round stuff quickly, disproportionately affects the recipient's satisfaction. This is as true for the mobile channel as the old snail mail method.

I'm sure it's not the agency's fault, in fairness, and indeed, the operators themselves apparently questioned the client's sanity decision when consulted. As an ex-agency man myself, I learned the hard way, that you can tell a client s/he's wrong twice, but then you just have to take the money!

Anyway, the results of this were also pretty ho hum. 40,533 registered, which is 0.62% response. In my days of running on-pack cereal promotions, this would be judged as simply pathetic.

It must also be considerably below expectations too, as the Kellogg's website makes a point of limiting registrations to the first 325,000. Not coincidentally, this would be a 5% response, which would actually be more in line with redemption expectations, albeit on the high side.

Also note that the way that this is expressed would have cut redemption. A purchaser later in the promotion would assume that they were too late. Therefore, if they needed to limit redemption (presumably for budgetary reasons) expressing it as "10,000 successful registrations a day", as an example, sounds a lot more positive.

Of those who registered and got their trivia question (with extended brand interaction) many didn't respond at all. So having gone through the registration process, they couldn't be arsed to take it any further - could be something to do with all that brand interaction they'd been doing while waiting for a response.

On the plus side, they did offer screensavers to every entrant, avoiding one of the main pitfalls of the Text and Win mechanic - entrants receiving an sms by return saying "Hey, piss off you looser".

In conclusion, this is not a well constructed promotion and it achieved fairly pitiful results. OK, this happens sometimes, let's from learn the mistakes and move on. But why oh why is this held up a model to aspire to on the MMA website?

If this is really the best that mobile marketing can do, pack up and go home. If it's not the best, what's it doing there?

The MMA does some fine work, generally speaking, and are to be appluaded for their thankless and underfunded efforts. But what were they thinking of, in this instance?

Tomi's Pearls #3

Yesterday, I posted two of Tomi Ahonen's favourite mobile applications from 2004. Here's a couple more:

Exclusive TV cameras accessed by 3G phones at Big Brother house in Sweden was my most loved story at conference speaking all of last year. So many have discussed about the convergence of TV and the mobile phone. In most cases the assumption is to take existing TV content, squeeze it to the small screen, and expect viewers in the millions.

From news clips in Finland to football scores in the UK, this has disappointed the forecasters. I have said from the start, that we should not try to migrate current TV content to the mobile, there is no compelling advantage. We want to watch TV on the big screens at home.

What we should do, is utilise the mobile phone for TV-related services and content. Not to replace TV viewing, but to enhance TV viewing. Like SMS voting of Pop Idol etc. For this principle, the innovation from Sweden is so clever. They did not install TV cameras to the Big Brother house so that passionate fans could watch the show on their pocketable 3G mobile phones when away from the TV set (even though that may occasionally happen of course).

No, these 6 exclusive cameras were installed so that the TV viewer could sit at the TV, while watching the big screen, use the mobile phone to see what is going on in the other room !!! A kind of personal spy camera.

[Russell adds: it's nice to see that I'm not alone in being sceptical about simply piping existing TV footage to mobiles. I do think there's a limited market for video clip downloads, but I also think it's a novelty purchase.

The clever money will go in the direction Tomi is talking about, plus self-made video.]

Insult joke network game "The Dozens" on mobile by Keenan Ivory Wayans USA.

America is the backwaters of mobile telecoms, usually estimated to be 7-8 years behind the leading countries. One would not expect a world-leader service to emerge from there, but this comedy game is a true gem of an idea.

The Dozens is a game that young black children, often boys, play. It is around the insult jokes of "your mama" in other words "your mama is so ugly that.." or "your mama is so fat that.." and so forth.

The game is to trade insults between two and try to top the other. The movie actor/director and standup comic Keenan Ivory Wayans is known for using this in his routines. The game, developed by Bonus Mobile, uses Keenan as its marketing spokesperson, so there is guaranteed media exposure.

The game also involves the Topps card company, which makes baseball cards that young kids (and why not older collectors?) collect.

From the viewpoint of the Pearl of the Year, here again we have the community dimension, as there is a strong cultural element to the service (appeals to young blacks and those non-blacks (like me) who like that culture) and then there is the competition aspect of winning and national leaderboards and a continuing collection of the best "your mama" jokes that all who play will build and contribute.

The game has inbuilt viral marketing elements and seems likely to become a huge success.

Tomi Ahonen's Pearls #2

I let Tomi know that I'd published his short list and he was kind enough to send some analysis and background to each of the finalists.

Since the analysis is fairly in-depth, I'll spread them out over a few days for easier reading.

Here's the first part:

Hello Russell and readers of The Mobile Technology Weblog.

The Pearl of the Year award is intended to capture the best innovation and be an example for the industry of what is possible with mobile phone technology. The candidates each year are collected from the Pearl of the Month service ideas that I introduce each month at my website, tomiahonen.com.

You can scroll back and see previous Pearls back to mid-2001. There are some true gems amidst the services, and it often surprises first-time visitors to see where any given service may have been launched first, or even more so, how long ago that seemingly brand-new idea has already appeared. Of course I use the Pearls as material for my conference presentations and into my books.

I should mention that the Pearl of the Year does not need to be projected to be the biggest money-maker, but rather a service that is truly innovative, bringing us something almost magical, that seemed impossible before. Like the 2002 winner Shazam of the UK, which allows people to identify music just by pointing the mobile phone at it. What is this song? point the phone and find out. That was never possible before with our laptops or PDAs or even today you cannot point an i-Pod or digital camera at music, for it to be identified. Only the mobile phone allows us to do that.

This year's finalists represent a nice balance of different parts of the value-add part of the mobile phone industry. In the order that you [Russell] happened to mention them at your initial posting (and totally random in terms of their possible chances of winning) let me discuss each of the finalists in a bit more detail here

The Handsfree bicycle kit including peddling-powered phone battery recharger by Orange Netherlands is a fascinating example of what I include as a mobile service. The mobile telecoms part of this service is Orange's normal mobile phone service.

Nothing new there. The gimmick here is that this is all marketing to get new customers. The extras, that have little to do with telecoms (handsfree kit to allow holding both hands on the handlebar while talking and the peddling-powered battery recharger) and some that have nothing - ie the free bicycle thrown into the subscription offer. Yes, this offer included a new bike as well.

Why do I like this service? First, it is clever marketing, gets the attention. It is very tightly focused, at those who are very safety-conscious, or very "green" ie conservation-oriented, who are attracted to the idea of using peddling power to recharge the battery. Of course the bikes have an orange logo, so it then helps these bikers identify others who are kindred spirits. This is the community dimension of the service idea. Very clever, so much so, that it is one of the 13 case studies in my latest book, Communities Dominate Brands.

The Welcoming message with exchange rate information by Singtel Singapore is something that I almost deleted by accident. Those of your readers who travel abroad often, know that the moment you turn on your mobile phone in another country, you get a welcoming message via SMS text messaging which usually says welcome to XXX network, voted best network in YYY country, dial ABC to access your voicemail, etc etc etc.

These messages may have some novelty value the first time you receive them, but for frequent fliers they are a total annoyance or irrelevance. Please don't clutter up my phone messages with these kinds of nonsense.

So when I landed in Singapore on my frequent visits there, last Spring, I noticed a different welcoming message from Singtel. Rather than brag about the quality of their network, they welcomed me with the current exchange rate of the British Pound to the Singapore Dollar.

This was a brilliant idea. The exchange rates always fluctuate so you are never quite sure if memory serves you well from your last trip, what is that current rate. Now I of course saved this message for the duration of the trip - and looked at it several times. A promotional welcoming message had been turned into something of real value to me, so much so that I saved the message (oh, and deleted it after I left Spore of course).

As a candidate for Pearl of the Year, it illustrates that innovation, in something so very mundane as a network welcoming message.

Thank you Russell for inviting me to post here at your excellent blogsite.

Dominate

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Russell adds, anyone who calls this blog "excellent" can post as often as they like :-). Look out for more of Tomi's Pearls in the next few days.]

Tomi Ahonen's Mobile Pearls of the Year

Mobile consultant, author and raconteur, Tomi Ahonen, has announced his shortlist for Pearl of the Year for 2004. You can read my interview with Tomi, about his new book, here.

Tomi's finalists are:

Handsfree bicycle kit including peddling-powered phone battery recharger by Orange Netherlands

Welcoming message with exchange rate information by Singtel Singapore

Exclusive TV cameras accessed by 3G phones at Big Brother house in Sweden

Insult joke network game "The Dozens" on mobile by Keenan Ivory Wayans USA

Location-based allergy warnings by Vodafone Germany

Bloggers to be paid via mobile by Kwickee Guides UK

I'm not convinced about the Kwickee Guides, but all the others are corkers.

Source: Ecademy Mobile Applications Club. Membership of Ecademy might be required.

Capitol New Media VP on Cingular Deal

Matt Maier has a great interview with Capitol Records' VP of New Media (Ted Miko, who was involved in the "innovative" Cingular Sounds deal earlier this week) over at his equally great MobilePlaya mobile music and gaming blog.

Forget everything I said about the service being about promoting Capitol artists; it's a total money-grab by Capitol, which considers the ringtone and the underlying Coldplay single "completely separate". Miko says the point isn't to boost music sales, but the deal was made "because we felt the ring tone was worth releasing." And from the rest of his comments, it's clear that was a financial, rather than artistic, decision.

But the real gem comes when Maier asks, "Would it ever make sense to give the ringtone away? It seems you could give it away, build a lot of buzz with consumers, and—most likely—people would go out and purchase more albums or singles."

Miko predictably replies: "Absolutely not. We could also sell the ringtone and build a lot of buzz and have people then purchase the album. One is probably a much better business than the other."

The only problem is he's probably wrong about which business is better.

Kuro5hin - Tough Crowd

Kuro5hin is a huge, ancient (in web terms) and venerable site for techies mainly - or certainly geeks at the forefront of new digital change. It's not just about tech, as culture is an important theme too. And all content is user generated.

So I thought I'd write a slightly expanded version of last week's post on Physical World Hyperlinks. I think it's a really important trend and I wanted to stimulate some wider debate.

They have a really tough posting policy. You write your article and then post it up for comments. Then, you adapt the article based on this peer review (if you want to) and then everyone can vote on whether it gets included.

If you have a couple of seconds, you can read - and vote (please!) - here.

All this is fine, in theory - it ensures a decent quality of article and writers can make their work better.

But the thing is, some of the comments are astonishingly vitriolic and for a less thick skinned personal that me, it would be a very shabby experience. The destructive critics are basically trolling (I think!), or trying to wind people up to provoke a response. Then these trolls vote against your article being included, which is also pretty personal.

Anyway, as it stands the good guys are winning the vote, but it remains to be seen if I make the threshold to publication.

None of these trolling saddos have never posted an article themselves and I suppose you should just feel sorry for them really. But the system doesn't exactly encourage new blood, which I'd have thought they'd be pretty keen to encourage. Surely some kind of karma system could be developed to stop consistently negative losers from poisoning the whole experience.

Or maybe it's not worth the effort of bothering with what they're trying to do and just ignoring their puerile efforts to get noticed. But I'm positive a lot of potentially good contributors won't put their head up over the Kuro5hin parapet.

And that seems a shame.

Sony Ericsson Shuns Mobile Marketing

Mobile Tracker points to a Wall Street Journal article revealing Sony Ericsson's advertising plans.

75% of the budget will be spent on ads shown before films/movies* in cinemas/theaters* (*depending which which brand of English you prefer). This apparently is a great way to target young people.

But isn't mobile marketing equally good? And shouldn't Sony Ericsson be showing the rest of the marketing world the way?

Incidentally, I didn't link to the WSJ article as you need a paid subscription to access it. This means that I haven't seen the article either, so can't check it.

It also means that WSJ have deprived themselves of all the readers who would have clicked through from this and other websites and who would boost their advertiser proposition. In a hard copy market that's in circulation meltdown and being taken to the cleaners in adsales terms (as Rupert Murdoch admitted yesterday), you have to wonder at a strategy designed to keep away readers from your online product.

I'm not saying the newspaper market's problems are easy to solve, but intentionally preventing traffic from reaching you seems a little foolhardy. What next? Maybe they could try suing their customers for not buying their products - the record industry seems to think it works.

KDDI Chaku Uta Full Results

Japan tends to be ahead of everywhere else when it comes to mobile, so it's interesting to look at key trends from time to time and see what might be coming here next. We don't always follow Japan - especially in operator revenue share models with content owners - but it can be indicative.

KDDI, one of the big mobile operators, launched Chaku Uta Full in November last year and in less than 5 months have enjoyed 5 million downloads at Yen 300 ($2.77) each.

Chaku Uta Full are just complete music tracks downloaded directly onto phones.

In this instance, I think we will follow our Japanese cousins. But I'm also convinced that P2P free downloading will impact in the West much more severely.

It also remains to be seen if the mobile will become the music platform of choice in a mainstream way, or if separate, portable MP3 players will continue to be a serious market. I'm in two minds about it, to be honest. Some days I go for the Convergionist model. Others, I'm a Separista. After all, do I want to be constantly interrupted with new sms and voice calls, when I'm in my little musical bubble?

What do you think? Convergionist or Separista? Leave a comment.

Story from i-mode Business Strategy

Munich MoMo

The next meeting of Munich's MoMo (Mobile Monday) has changed to 9th May. Register here or send this post to anyone you know in the Munich area.

Hope to see you there.

Russell

Mobile TV is a Goldmine according to ABI Research

Mobile TV is going to be a gold mine and errr...bigger than a big thing on Planet Big, if we're to believe a new report by ABI Research. This will surely have mobile operators celebrating in the streets and and writing out Purchase Orders to buy copies of the report telling them how clever and successful they're going to be.

Even more promisingly, this new genre of mobile programming will be based on the old "one to many" broadcast concept. And operators will be able to cross sell a range of related content like sports stats, ring tones, logos etc. "The list of revenue opportunities is huge" is case you hadn't figured out what they're saying.

But one little thing they don't mention is what the cost of these programmes might be and if the user will pay for what can often be enjoyed free on larger sets with a far better viewing experience.

I can't understand how you can possibly determine the success or otherwise of this kind of concept without considering what people will pay in data costs and subscription fees. As an example, if it was suggested that such a service would cost $1,000 a month to use, I'll show you a Fool's Gold mine. While this may seem ridiculous, listening to Virgin Radio on some UK networks costs $10,000 an hour.

I have a suspicion that even if the content is priced fairly and download costs are priced sensibly (preferably on an "all you can eat plan") this market is going to be much smaller than ABI are suggesting. Once the novelty value has worn off, the market may just be very limited.

Having said that, if you're a big player in the telecoms sector, investing in mobile TV is must. The prize is simply too big if ABI is right and the consequences too dreadful for not entering the market. And if it turns out to be a damp squib, everyone else is in the same boat and what's a few tens of million to a company like Nokia or Vodafone - it can take it out of the petty cash budget.

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Gizmondo Slashes Prices, But Still Costs More than Nintendo

Gizmondo, the new pretender to the handheld throne, has just announce