I have only just now noticed this report 15 minutes before leaving for the airport so I have not had a real chance to give it a deep read. But from what I can tell its very good and Tim, Rob and I seem to agree on a lot of important issues. Especially on how one should not treat SMS like bulk email and the basic strategies around that.
This really is one of those why didn’t I think of that ideas. But it makes sense right? Engineers have developed a system for taking anonymous cell-phone location information and turning it into an illuminated traffic map that identifies congestion in real time. To answer your question, these types of signals are produced whether someone is talking on them or not. Pretty nifty.
Some of you may have started noticing a mobile content search engine appearing on the top of MOpocket’s text section the last couple of days. That, ladies and gentleman, is Mogmo, MOpockets sponsor for the month of September.
A product of Tamej Software (a software company focused on mobile content and decisions for mobile sales.), Mogmo is a search engine specifically designed to help you fine the mobile content that you are looking for. Everything from games, ringtones, images and even themes for you mobile device are only a search click away.
I would not just put any old mobile content search engine at the top of MOpocket… so give it a try and you will see what I mean.
Hey, thats not my dog. What is it doing in my Flickr gallery! That is what this guy who has a blog called the Practicalist (yes, he even has quotes from Richard Rorty) was saying to himself after his cell phone was stolen and who ever it was that stole his cell phone was taking pictures and loading them up to the original owners Flickr account via Shozu (one of my all time favorite mobile applications).
He has some pretty nifty insight on the philo/socio importance of this happening
My cell phone was stolen last Friday. I had it disconnected and arranged to get a replacement. It had been set up with the excellent service from ShoZu to automatically upload all pictures taken with the phone to Flickr. So today, completely surprisingly, I find pictures on my Flickr account of the family of the person who took the phone. I’m not sure they knew what was happening (they replaced the SIM card with their own, clearly, but probably didn’t notice ShoZu), I have no way to find my phone with these pictures, and I’ve disabled my ShoZu account so it won’t happen again. See update, below.
But: what a great illustration of how social media, inadvertently or not, blows away all normally private separate identities and separate worlds! I don’t just know something about the person who took the phone, I see some of the more intimate details of their family and life. Social media and applications create conditions which would otherwise be impossible. These technologies are only beginning to have a profound impact on social norms and behavior. The photos are below.
Its also interesting to note that my buddy Andy Tiller (CTO of Shozu) points out that if the guy had enabled Shozu’s contact backup then all he has to do is sign into his Shozu account to see the thief’s friends and family backed up on the blog.
As reported a while back, Wireless Services Corp, the first wireless data center company ever, announced yesterday that it closed a $30.75 million series C round of funding. and that a portion of the proceeds were used to acquire Mobile Media North America. With the acquisition, Wireless Services has changed its corporate name to SinglePoint to reflect the new focus and will remain headquartered in Bellevue, Wash. With that kind of money expect more acquisitions to come.
SinglePoint represents the marriage of proven mobile messaging technology with industry-leading campaign management and production tools. “The result is a mobile messaging and marketing company with the reliability required by carriers and the flexibility to drive marketing promotions,” said Rich Begert, who will remain as president and CEO of SinglePoint.
Seattle-based Ignition Partners led the funding round and was joined by new investor Rally Capital Services LLC. Pre-existing investors participating include Northwest Venture Associates, Madrona Venture Group LLC, Intel Capital and SeaPoint Ventures.
“We see SinglePoints years of experience in this space and strong leadership giving the company an edge to capitalize on the prospect of triple-digit growth in the mobile content market over the next few years,” said Adrian Smith with Ignition Partners.
The mobile messaging marketplace has changed dramatically in the past six months through mergers and acquisitions. Delivering content direct-to-consumer is expected to be a billion dollar business in a year, Begert said. “With SinglePoint we have addressed shortcomings in the content aggregator model and positioned ourselves to take advantage of the direction the market is moving and expanding,” he said.
SinglePoint can deliver any kind of message, regardless of format, to any subscriber in North America. SinglePoint currently delivers more than 700 million messages per month and has the ability to handle tens of thousands of messages per second during high-traffic scenarios such as interactive television text-to-vote campaigns. SinglePoint provides a scalable platform for content owners, media companies and advertisers to create, deliver and confirm premium mobile messages and capitalize on interactive TV messaging campaigns.
“We have an experienced group of investors who are knowledgeable about the wireless industry and realize mobile messaging is rapidly expanding,” Begert said. “The new funding underscores investor confidence in our business strategy and allows us to aggressively acquire and develop technology that carriers, media and enterprises need to further extend their reach into the mobile marketplace.”
“We are seeing just the tip of the iceberg for mobile marketing. The U.S. broadcast medias use of mobile applications and interactivity was once an add-on before a commercial break. Now it occupies four or five minutes during a 30-minute show,” said Doug Busk, vice president of Marketing & Product Strategy for SinglePoint. “Media, carriers and enterprises are looking for companies experienced in this space that can ensure reliable message delivery as well as handle the millions of messages generated from these campaigns.”
About SinglePoint
SinglePoint is a simple, powerful way for content owners to create, connect and confirm the delivery of wireless messages to mobile consumers. It combines a proven reliable message delivery service with the leading producer and distributor of branded, made-for-mobile entertainment, interactive TV formats and mobile marketing concepts. Today, SinglePoint is engaged with an audience of more than 220 million mobile users throughout North America working in partnership with mobile network and portal operations, media companies, brand managers and agencies. For more information, please visit gosinglepoint.com
The ladies and gentleman that run the show over there at Singlepoint are giants in the industry. I honestly would not trust anyone else with my aggregation needs.
Anyone that could have seen the hours I wasted last night trying to install the maps for the US West Coast onto my TREO 650 for a trip to L.A I am taking would find it as humorous as I did to wake up this morning and discover the news that TOMTOM , the GPS software I use on my Treo, just released the long awaited new version of their mobile PDA GPS software the Navigator 6.
New features include:
Users of NAVIGATOR 6 can also take advantage of TomTom’s innovative desktop software application TomTom HOME, which enables users to easily manage, download, store and transfer content and services to their device. TomTom HOME is compatible with both a PC and MAC.
TomTom NAVIGATOR 6 also includes TomTom’s innovative TomTom Buddies service, enabling authorised TomTom users to locate each other and send instant messages*.
TomTom will unveil both a regional and European version of NAVIGATOR 6. The regional version will come with detailed maps of a customer’s country or region, as well as including the major roads in Western Europe, for seamless cross border navigation. The European version features complete door-to-door navigation anywhere in Western Europe.
which has been in stealth mode for the past eight months, has recently announced some numbers that make Third Screen Media’s reach look small. The folks at Admob are reporting 250 Million page views a month (they are ending up the month of August with a quarter of a billion pageviews per month in inventory in the advertising network). All this with average click-through rates of 3% to 4%.
Some people advertising with Admob include Adidas, Nokia, and MTV and their network serves ads in 156 countries with a majority of its traffic in the United States, Europe, and Asia.
Admob works a lot like the “Google AdSense of mobile” where anyone - regardless of size - can start advertising on thousands of mobile WAP sites, or sell advertising space on their own WAP site, and target campaigns by such variables as country, region, handset model, and many other facets to ensure that messages are truly hitting the right consumer. AdMob allows advertisers to run ads across a comprehensive set of mobile content channels, including communities, entertainment, news, and portals. With the recent addition of the contextual search channel, AdMob also allows advertisers to build campaigns that include mobile Web searches through Google¹s mobile AdWords service.
To celebrate the recent milestone, the company is offering free $20 advertising campaigns to new members of its network. To claim your $20 campaign and try AdMob.
Hot damn! I tell you, as soon as I make a mobile friendly version of MOpocket I am all over this. Now I just have to figure out how. Anyone wanna make a quick buck or to and build the MOpocket WAP site and CSS script for mobile recognition?
A lot of people have been talking lately about an article written in Cnet about the Mobile Internet” and whether we are there yet. As the article smartly points out it depends on who you ask… no don;t worry I am not going to do another rehashing of the article for you here on MOPocket. I trust that if you are interested in the article you will go read it for yourself. Its pretty balanced coverage which in itself really is an expression of the current state of the mobile web in the United States.
What I do want to point out, however, is some great reactions to the article that I have come across beginning with Daniel Appelquist’s response over at Dan’s Blog. Dan and I have had this conversation before at the Mobile Monday Global Summit in Helsinki and I regard Dan as a maven of sorts in regards to the mobile web in that he is the W3C representative for Vodafone. Dan is also on the programing committee for a Mobile Web in Developing Countries workshop planned to happen this Decemeber.
The article points out and is heavy on the fact that more-sophisticated handsets, improved mobile browsing technology and increased coverage of high-speed wireless networks will improve the Internet mobile experience and attract many more regular users.Dan is quick to point out that, surprisingly , the article did fail to mention anything regarding W3C’s Mobile Web Initiative (a far better initiative then, say, .mobi). Knowledge of the initiative and their Mobile Web Best Practices Guideline does change, alter and add to some of the opinions in the piece. All in all Dan’s conclusion is a valid one the Mobile Web will not be a success if it’s The Web, only Smaller. Content and services must adapt and take into account the specific needs of Mobile Web clients and users, even on advanced devices, even on fast networks.
Despite recent reports on how we here in the US are not yet so text message savvy (which I commented on here)… Emily over at Textually points out an article from the Financial Times that actually says that text messaging is catching on in the United States.
According to the report a total of 48.7bn SMS messages were sent in the last six months of 2005, which is up 50 per cent from 32.5bn in the first six months of last year, according to the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA).
Of the 200 million US phone subscribers in the US 40 percent send text messages which is up from 25 per cent in 2003 but still far behind the 60 per cent plus penetration rates in Europe.
Jim Ryan, vice-president in charge of consumer data services at Cingular Wireless blames the “economics of texting” being not so lucrative as well as the fact that would be SMS early adapters already had access to mobile e-mail devices.
The article says that increase awareness of SMS by the carriers as well as making text messaging more lucrative with bundled packages is part of the reason for the recent upswing.
I say its only part of the issue. Read here for a much deeper understanding of SMS in the United States.
Came across this post the other day about a technology developed to intercept text messages from a specified number and then send the text to your handset. This is what company X claims:
We can now install, remotely anywhere in the world onto their mobile phone (providing it is a compatible model) a program which when they receive or send a text, you will at the same time receive the exact same text with the number it is being sent to and received from… This feature is an extremely powerful and covert application that is 100% trace resistant.
However, the company do have a disclaimer on their site which states that the use of such facilities is illegal in the EEC and warns against customer use in this region. Nevertheless, it seems as if data-mining has returned to the (insanely rich) people, no? Bring out the James Bond in you. Lol. Somewhere there is an NSA or Australian government agent lifting an eyebrow.
The blogger would not post the actual website he was referring to… but did mention other sites like
Other interesting discussions on the matter can be found here, here and here. Actually, its pretty scary to see how many people on mobile forums have “wondered” about such technology with follow up questions of how to do it.
The New Politics Institute has just put out a white paper on Mobile Media in 21st Century Politics. The white-paper was prepared by Tim Chambers and Rob Sebastian of the Media 50 Group, a new player on the mobile political field and one who#039s founders, like Politxt, comes from a plethora of mobile experience in the entertainment space.
