Bango Foresees WAP Billing to 'Dominate' Subscriptions

Mobile Web tech vendors Bango say they see that the opening-up of mobile traffic channels – paying for on-deck links to off-deck sites and mobile advertising through Yahoo! and Google as an indication that content providers are acquiring customers through the mobile Internet rather than via PC Web affiliate programs.


“WAP billing is now the preferred way to sell content to customers acquired through mobile marketing,” says Anil Malhotra, SVP of Marketing and Alliances atBango ( News - Alert), adding that they predict this “e-commerce for the mobile Web” will “dominate how subscriptions are marketed and sold in the US within the next 12 months.”

Subscriptions tend to be the mainstay of the mobile content market in the US. Bango’s MMA-compliant WAP-based mobile subscription service is designed to eliminate the need to send text messages to make a purchase – “the price, subscription time period and T&Cs are clearly displayed on-screen before consumers click to purchase,” according to the Bangovians.

Earlier this month TMC’s Nitya Prashant reported that a Bango survey of the 20 most trafficked PC Web sites has found that “half of these sites do not work well on mobile phones.”

The survey concluded that that PC Web sites are not adapting fast enough to match mobile browsing trends. Even though five percent of visitors to PC Web sites come from mobile devices (compared to 1 percent last year), the Bango study concluded, “PC Web sites have yet to show mobile-friendly versions of their sites.”

A recent update to the Bango mobile subscription service provides an API so content providers can see the status of their subscriptions. ”Bango re-bills consumers on their behalf once the subscription period has finished, notifying the user by text,” Malhotra explains.

The WAP model “capitalizes on this year’s surge in mobile Web browsing,” Malhotra says. “We anticipate US mobile operators will support more flexibility around subscription pricing models next year with the introduction of weekly subs, at price points other than $9.99.”

Nielsen Finds Online, Mobile Reap Tiny Shares Of '3 Screen' Video

The proliferation of time-shifting technologies and new "screens" for watching video, means Americans are watching more video programming than ever before, but they're still watching it primarily on a traditional video programming platform: the television set. That's the conclusion of a new "three screen" report from Madison Avenue's arbiter of TV audience estimates, the Nielsen Co. The report, which was released Monday as part of Nielsen's overall push into so-called "A2/M2" (anytime/anywhere) video audience measurement, does find that traditional in-home TV viewing has been losing share - albeit modestly - to newer video screen platforms, but that the biggest gainer is not Internet video or even video on the mobile Web, but technologies that enable consumers to watch traditional TV on a time-shifted basis.

While traditional linear TV's share of time spent watching video in the U.S. declined 0.29% between the third quarter of 2008 and the second quarter of 2008 (the first for which Nielsen is reporting time spent watching video across all three screens), it still dominates the video medium with 91.83% of all minutes spent watching video during the third quarter.

The biggest gainer was viewing via time-shifted devices such as DVRs and video-on-demand, which rose 5.25% to a 4.21% share of all video minutes viewed during the third quarter.

While Internet video and mobile Web video also are growing, they still account for only a fraction of the total video marketplace, as defined by Nielsen. That's important, because Nielsen's estimates are still more or less the proxy for Madison Avenue's TV advertising budgets.

Watching video on the Internet rose 12.5% to 2.52%, while watching video on a mobile phone jumped 11.4% to 2.33% of all video programming viewed during the third quarter of 2008.

The TV and Internet estimates are calculated using Nielsen's national TV and Internet panels, which are measured electronically and reported on a regular basis. The mobile phone figures are collected by Nielsen via a quarterly survey and give a firsthand look at how early adopters report their usage of mobile video.

The paltry online video share estimates are consistent with data presented last month by Black Arrow's Larry Kramer at the OMMA Video conference in Los Angeles. Kramer said the current TV usage landscape is still dominated by linear TV viewing--about 389 billion hours per year in 2008, compared with only 800 million viewing hours for online video. By 2010, he projected, linear TV viewing will decline to 342 billion viewing annual viewing hours, while online video will expand to 14 billion.

Mobile internet is growing eight times faster than PC-based web

The mobile internet is growing eight times faster than traffic to the PC-based web, according to the first set of mobile data from Nielsen Online.

The research company has released its first Mobile Media findings which show traffic on the mobile internet increased by 25% to 7.3m during 3Q 2008. The survey found 25% of mobile internet users are aged 16-24 compared with just 12% who are older than 55.

BBC News is the most popular mobile internet site, attracting 1.7m unique users in 3Q 2008.

Mobile internetThe mobile internet is growing eight times faster than traffic to the PC-based web, according to the first set of mobile data from Nielsen Online.

Kent Ferguson, senior analyst for Nielsen, said the mobile web was a great opportunity for advertisers and publishers to reach important demographic groups. "People often need fast, instant access to weather or sports news and mobile can obviously satisfy this, wherever they are," he said.

Going Green with your Mobile Phone

Mobile phones are greening up their act.

If your like me you leave your mobile phone charger plugged into the wall at all times. Well that constantly plugged in charger continues to pull energy from the socket long after your phone is fully charged and you have removed your phone.

Mobile phone manufacturers are taking note and have developed an energy rating system for mobile phone chargers to enable consumers to make greener purchasing decisions. LG, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung Electronics and Sony Ericsson have teamed up to make mobile communication a bit greener.

The new rating system takes these two factors into account and is based on both European Union and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Energy Star energy standards. All five of the companies’ current chargers will be including in the five-star rating system where five stars categorizes the most efficient and zero stars the least efficient.

There has been no news from Research in Motion, the company behind the BlackBerry, but are welcomed to join the green initiative. Until then I will just have to unplug my charger.

GetJar's Visual Bookmarks Make WAP Sites as Sticky as Mobile Apps

LONDON, Nov 20, 2008 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX) -- Consumers are enthusiastically enhancing their mobile phones by downloading applications, which appear as icons on the phone's 'home screen.' Meanwhile WAP sites (websites optimized for phones) are left out in the cold because a WAP site has no application to download. It is just a browser link, which means that no icon sits on the phone's home screen, and so the WAP site doesn't receive the same sticky user attention as a downloaded app. GetJar ( www.getjar.com), the world's most popular destination for mobile application downloads, is changing this -- and boosting traffic to hundreds of WAP sites -- with its free Visual Bookmark service for WAP publishers.
Visual Bookmarks are tiny applications that sit on the phone's home screen and, when launched, open a specific mobile web page using the phone's built-in browser. Through a free, self-service system available to any WAP-site owner, GetJar automatically creates Visual Bookmarks for all major platforms (Java, Symbian Series 60, UIQ, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry). This gives WAP sites the same phone home screen visibility as phone apps, and at no cost. WAP publishers need only specify their site's URL and upload a graphic.
Consumers download these Visual Bookmarks from GetJar, instantly adding a handy shortcut to a favorite mobile website. For WAP publishers, a Visual Bookmark can ensure that their site reserves a prominent spot on a consumer's handset in the form of a familiar icon, driving adoption and usage. Research conducted by GetJar shows that visitors who have discovered mobile sites through a Visual Bookmark are four to eight times more likely to return to these sites, compared to those who discovered sites via conventional online references such as search engines, SMS messages, ad banners, or WAP text links.
One mobile web portal currently using GetJar's free Visual Bookmark service with great success is Vuclip, a mobile video search and delivery service. "At Vuclip, we want to reduce barriers to entry for consumers using the mobile web, and bring video content to as many mobile devices as possible," said Ashwin Puri, VP of business development & marketing at Vuclip. "The GetJar Visual Bookmark service enables us to drive distribution globally across the more than 2,500 devices we currently support. We have found that consumers using the GetJar Visual Bookmark come back to Vuclip almost eight times more frequently than an average mobile web user."
"Our goal with our free Visual Bookmark service is to boost downloads and usage for mobile web publishers and application developers," said Ilja Laurs, founder and CEO of GetJar. "A Visual Bookmark drives far more traffic to a mobile site than sending URLs in SMS or relying on the user to bookmark the URL. It bridges the technical gap between entering the URL and going to the site -- something that's easy on a PC, but hard on a mobile phone. A Visual Bookmark makes mobile sites stickier, and Vuclip's experience proves that it works."

Creating a Visual Bookmark is easy
To create a free Visual Bookmark, a mobile application developer first opens a free account on GetJar, then adds the web address, an eye-catching graphic icon, and a description of the service. Within 24 hours, GetJar develops a set of Visual Bookmarks for that web address, compatible with Java, Symbian Series 60, UIQ, BlackBerry, and Windows Mobile phones. GetJar also creates a special web address on GetJar for the Visual Bookmark, from which consumers can download it. GetJar creates Visual Bookmarks at no charge for the owner of any mobile-compatible website or web application. Once installed an a mobile phone as an icon, a Visual Bookmark resides on the phone's display in the same area as other downloaded applications.

Survey Finds 61 Percent of Mobile Users Would Agree to View Advertising for Discount on Monthly Bill

Transverse, a pioneer of open source business solutions, today released the results of a wireless and mobile industry research survey which provides insight into mobile customers’ phone use and their willingness to view advertisements in exchange for discounts to their monthly service bill.

The survey, commissioned by Transverse and conducted by iGR, a market strategy consultancy focused on the wireless and mobile industry, interviewed 810 wireless subscribers ages 18 to 65, found that the majority of respondents were receptive to mobile advertising. In fact, 56 percent of mobile users said they would view ads on their phones if they were given a 25 to 50 percent discount on their monthly bill.

Among the other key findings of the survey were:

* Mobile users under the age of 35 were most receptive to advertisements on their mobile device as incentives for discounts on their monthly service bill.
* Younger users ages 18-25, who are more apt to text, were among the most willing to trade the number of text messages sent/received while audiences 26-44 years of age, who are more apt to talk, were most willing to trade voice usage for discounted services.
* 46 percent of those surveyed said that a 25 to 50 percent discount on their monthly bill was enough of an incentive to provide access to their usage patterns, including browsing, email and texting habits, as well as location - but not personal information such as the content of texts and emails.

“Mobile advertising has taken on many forms, and is generally considered to be intrusive. But when consumers are given the choice to receive ads and share their usage patterns in exchange for discounts, mobile advertising has the potential to be highly targeted and highly effective,” Iain Gillott, President of iGR. “These survey findings indicate that consumers are open to non-traditional mobile advertising models.”

“With today’s economy, consumers are actively looking for ways to cut back their monthly expenses,” said Jim Messer, president and CEO of Transverse. “When a carrier is able to open up their customer base to create better value relationships among users, brands, merchants and the media companies, consumers will see a significant reduction on their monthly bill, advertisers will have a highly targeted avenue to reach their audience, and wireless service providers will see new revenue streams to improve their bottom lines. All of this is made possible with state-of-the-art OSS technology available today.”

Mobile Marketing Interest Unchanged Since Last Year

In the past year, consumers haven't changed their attitudes toward mobile marketing, according the "2008 Mobile Attitude & Usage Study" of the U.S. market released by the Mobile Marketing Association and with research conducted by Synovate.

Where the study sees promise is an increase in text message use and subscription to alerts. The percentage of consumers interested in mobile marketing has remained even for the past four years of the study, however. Of the total audience, 6 percent say they are highly interested in mobile marketing, 20 percent are moderately interested, and 75 percent aren't interested. The percentages are roughly the same for the 18 and over group: 6 percent are highly interested, 19 percent are moderately interested, and 75 percent aren't interested.

Participation in mobile marketing efforts is higher among those between 18 and 44 years old. The 18 to 24 year olds are the highest group, with 12 percent participation; 8 percent of those 25 to 34 years old and 7 percent of those 35 to 44 years old partake in mobile marketing. In total an average 6 percent of consumers, including teens to those over 55, take part in mobile marketing efforts. In 2008, participation rates were higher than in the past three years.

In 2008, the top mobile marketing categories included:

* Text-to-win or voting campaigns: 48 percent

* Ringtone downloads: 28 percent

* Status alerts: 25 percent

* Sales alerts: 24 percent

* Mobile coupons: 22 percent

* Product information: 21 percent

* Mobile customer care: 13 percent

* Location-based information: 6 percent
*

An increase in the volume of text messaging and nonvoice features on mobile phones suggests consumers view their handsets as more than just mobile phones, according to the study.

"Continued increases in text messaging behaviors pave the way for mobile messaging and marketing," said Beth Ritchey, vice president, Synovate Tech and Telecom, in a report. "Creating strong opportunities for mobile marketers, the pervasiveness of mobile phones in Americans' daily lives suggests that marketing applications are a natural extension of consumers' ever-increasing reliance on mobile devices."

The study consisted of 1,405 online interviews using a nationally representative consumer online panel of over 1.5 million households.

Kids and Teens Are Always On

Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk.

eMarketer estimates that 82% of US teens ages 12 to 17 and 43.5% of children ages 3 to 11 will use the Internet on a monthly basis in 2009.

Comparative data from Nielsen Online indicates that about 19% of active Internet users in July 2008—or 32.4 million people—were under age 18.
MultiMedia Intelligence found that there were 16 million mobile teens in the US in 2007.

According to the US Census Bureau, there are 25.7 million teens in the US. That means nearly two-thirds of all teens have a mobile phone.

Pew Internet & American Life Project and the College Board’s National Commission on Writing found that a greater percentage of US teens have a mobile phone than own a PC
“This audience navigates between a multitude of electronic options for communication, including social networks, text messaging, instant messaging and virtual worlds,” says Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, Kids and Teens: Communication Revolutionaries. “They expect transitions between communications media to be seamless—messages sent by one means ought to be accessible in another.”

In fact, the distinctions many adults make between “online,” “offline” and “mobile” communications are meaningless to these young multimedia mavens.

“Kids and teens just communicate, period,” says Ms. Williamson.

What tools they use to interact are less important than how simple the interaction is, how seamlessly they can move across devices and how engaging the experience is.

“Marketers have never confronted a faster-moving or more elusive audience,” Ms. Williamson says.

One step closer to mobile TV

This year’s TelcoTV conference has service providers looking beyond the living room. The show, typically centered on IPTV and broadband, is tackling the bigger picture of how the Internet, over-the-top video, long-tail content and, especially, mobile devices are changing how television is delivered.

The Open Mobile Video Coalition demonstrated this week that one industry segment, local broadcasters, already is changing how they deliver TV. Two local Chicago broadcasters, ION Media Networks and Fox Television, held successful mobile digital TV demonstrations in the downtown market, confirming that they can deliver a number of local and live broadcasts over a variety of mobile devices and phones. The service, which uses a draft of the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) mobile TV standard, could give other mobile TV providers a run for their money.

Consumers Want Quality Cameras on Mobile Phones

The Strategy Analytics Wireless Device Lab service research, "The Camera is Still King: Consumers Willing to Pay for a Quality Camera on Their Mobile Device," shows that a quality camera is the primary mobile phone add-on for which consumers in the U.S. and Western Europe would be willing to pay--and willing to pay the most--compared to other mobile device features.
These findings are based on a survey of over 2800 wireless device owners in the US and Western Europe. The survey showed that mobile consumers are also willing to pay for a video camera, music player and removable memory cards.
"Strategy Analytics research shows that over 60% of all respondents would be willing to pay extra for a quality camera on their mobile device," commented Chris Schreiner, Senior User Experience Analyst at Strategy Analytics. "This desire for imaging features prevails across all age ranges in both regions."
Kevin Nolan, Vice President of the Strategy Analytics User Experience Practice, added, "Cameras, video cameras and music players are quickly becoming table stakes when consumers shop for mobile devices. They also requested additional memory in order to store this media."

Serving Your Customers With Mobile Marketing

Is your company Web site easily browsed by mobile devices like phones and BlackBerrys? If not, you may want to do something about that — soon.

Mobile_MarketingJust maintaining your Web site may seem daunting enough. But there’s reason to start planning ahead to the next frontiers of Internet usage. All signs suggest that online browsing will be done increasingly by mobile phone.

A July report by Nielsen Mobile showed that 15.6% of U.S. subscribers “actively use” the mobile Internet – that is, use the Internet services on their mobile device at least once a month. And that number is rising quickly as more carriers bundle their voice plans with plans that offer Internet usage.

Mobile TV Gains Momentum

Mobile digital TV appears to be a step closer after two Chicago stations conducted a test that successfully streamed live TV to handheld devices. Local TV stations are pushing for a standard to be developed to facilitate their ability to deliver live news and other local programming.

In addition to Chicago, where Ion Media Networks' local station was involved along with the local Fox owned-and-operated outlet, a second successful test took place in Denver using an Ion station.

Sprint, Verizon and other carriers deliver live TV, but this initiative would allow local broadcasters to deliver to the small screens over the air.

Questions for Yahoo's Head of Mobile Advertising and Publishing

Yahoo may not have its own mobile OS or branded phone like Google, but its mobile offerings -- such as Yahoo Go, OneSearch, and OneConnect on the iPhone -- reach millions of users worldwide.

At the helm of Yahoo's advertising initiatives is David Katz. Appointed in June, Katz has overseen the launch of a search and display ad partnership with AT&T and one with T-Mobile. ClickZ talked to him last week about Yahoo's mobile progress and its plans for 2009.

Q. What has happened in the two months since you took over?

A.We've had a busy couple of months in terms of what we've accomplished. We launched a mobile search and display partnership with AT&T. We launched partnerships in Asia as well [with carriers in Malaysia and India].

On the product side, our big [news] is the launch of rich media ads in the Yahoo Go product. The challenge was most phones don't have Flash support. With Yahoo Go we can control the media experience. A great set of brands can get excited about [the ad offering], with recent campaigns from Ford, Mountain Dew, Nationwide, and we just launched with the Sci-Fi Channel.

Cell Phone of the Future

With wireless number and home to cell phone portability now live, wireless dominance is now forseen. The wireless revolution will occur slowly. Changes and new technology will be introduced. Cutting the wireline cord is inevitable. The world is going wireless - totally.

So what does the cell phone of the future need to be?


Because your cell phone already controls so much of your life the cell phone of the future needs to manage it. The cell phone of today is already your alarm clock, day planner, music player, internet, and your social circle. Tomorrow, shouldn't your cell phone integrate all aspects of your life to make it easier? What if leaving your cell phone at home wasn't just leaving your cell phone behind but leaving behind your wallet, keys, music player and cell phone?

Mobile TV Tees Up for Election Day

If you’re not near a TV today, mobile TV services are one alternative to getting your Election Day fix.

Qualcomm’s MediaFLO USA service will be delivering Election Day coverage all day from NBC, CBS, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, CNN and MTV News. There also promises to be Election Day versions of the Colbert Report and the Daily Show from Comedy Central.

Both Verizon Wireless and AT&T offer MediaFLO services in the United States.

MobiTV also offers programming tomorrow on CNBC, MSNBC, ABC News NOW, C-Span and Fox News. In the United States, MobiTV, which boasts more than 4 million subscribers on more than 350 handsets, is carried by Alltel, AT&T and Sprint.

MobiTV saw some big upticks during the debates leading up to the big day. The first Presidential debate on Sept. 26 saw a 64% increase over the average daily viewing on mobile news channels that carried the debates on MobiTV. The Oct. 2 Vice Presidential debate drew a 102% increase over the average, and the Oct. 7 Presidential debate prompted an 84% increase over the average. The final Presidential debate produced a 111% increase over the average.

Mobile TV service providers say people are not necessary out of their homes when they’re watching mobile TV services. Sometimes they’re tuning in because someone else has commandeered the TV set.