Wireless Federation

RIM is leading the chart with maket share of 54% in US smartphone market. It proclaimes a series of new initiatives poised to increase its dominance in this sector. With the social networking giant MySpace, develop an integrated MySpace Mobile experience customized for BlackBerry devices. RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie announced a new partnership with Microsoft to launch Live Search optimized for the BlackBerry platform, as well as an agreement with digital video recording solutions provider TiVo to introduce customized wireless TiVo services. Balsillie said, “It’s important to create an environment where you support diverse messaging services”. We’re now seeing a convergence of the four screens–your cell phone, your home phone, your home Internet and your home content, Balsillie added.

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Marc Andreessen (Founder of Ning) and Ben Horowitz (VP and GM of HP’s Business technology oragnisation) have funded Qik (mobile video streaming service). The amount is not yet disclosed. The live video streaming field is very competitive, Qik has integrated a bunch of services, that is Twitter, YouTube, Mogulus, MySpace, Orkut and Justin.tv in its service. The service allows users with a camera phone to stream live video, and get feedback from other “followers” online. It is admired among the bloggers and other citizen journalists.

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Almost half (44%) of UK mobile phone subscribers belong to an online social network and of this group, 25% use their handset for social networking-related activities, according to new findings from Neilsen Mobile.
 
Around 812,000 Britons each month, or 1.7% of all UK mobile subscribers, visited a social networking website using their mobile during the first quarter of 2008
 
Facebook is the most popular site for mobile social networking, being visited by over half a million Britons (557,000) from their mobiles, or 9% of all UK Mobile Internet subscribers.

It’s interesting news for marketers increasingly looking for new ways to reach media savvy young consumers.
 
Client Services Manager at Nielsen Mobile, Kent Ferguson, said, “Social networking is already a global phenomenon, and mobile could be the next big thing in the space.

“Large numbers of people are interacting with their social networking profiles while they’re on the move.”

He added, “There could be increased consumer demand for mobile social networking driven by the flat fee price plans offered by the leading operators that give subscribers unlimited mobile Internet access.”

The four most popular social networks on the mobile mirror the four most popular on the PC: Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and Windows Live Spaces.
 
However travel social network WAYN is a one to watch. It has the strongest performance on the mobile compared to the PC, ranking 7th on mobile Internet compared to 21st on PC Internet
European Internet Analyst at Nielsen Online, Alex Burmaster, explained, “The increasingly competitive nature of social networking online is being replicated in the mobile space.

“The leading players remain the same but networks such as WAYN and Faceparty have considerably improved on their PC ranking in the mobile world.”

He added, “In an effort to differentiate their offerings and pull ahead all the networks are looking to what the mobile medium can offer – particularly when it comes to attracting 15-24 year olds, a group highly representative amongst social networking addicts.”
 
One in five (21%) Britons who use their mobile for social networking activities, use it to add friends. Bur most popular activity remain sending messages and mail (55 per cent).

Burmaster concluded, “It’s all about adding value. By tapping into the key elements of mobile phone activity, such as text and images, the social networks can increase engagement and ‘stickiness’ amongst their members as well as maximising audience numbers and activity on their own site.
 
For example, within minutes of a social networker making a new friend whilst out and about, they can add them to their digital friends list. This simultaneously enhances both the phone and the network as an extremely important modern-day social utility.”

Facebook was recently reported to be in talks with Nokia in a bid to drive it’s online offering.

Meanwhile Bebo has struck a deal with Intercasting Corp. to allow the site’s 40 million users to produce and share content on their mobiles through the Anthem platform.

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Vodafone will partner MySpace to launch Vodafone Music Reporter, a platform that will share footage from Vodafone-sponsored music events with MySpace users across the UK, Spain, Italy and Germany markets.

The Vodafone Music Reporter interactive profile, hosted on MySpace, will offer clips from summer festivals including the upcoming Vodafone Music Unlimited event  in Cologne.

It will also host user-generated content so that subscribers can share their own music footage, upload and download photos, videos and additional content related to Vodafone-sponsored events.

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Last year Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corp, said he expected Fox International Media’s (FIM) revenues to hit US$1 billion. They won’t. The business unit, which owns MySpace, has found its online advertising has grown more slowly than expected and has signalled that the target won’t be met by June, the end of the company’s financial year.

According to the Financial Times, FIM said it will be close to its target, but already steps to remedy the situation are underway. FIM’s advertising sales is to be reorganised and a new unit created called the audience network, which will exploit what the company calls its hyper-targeting system. This uses information, volunteered by site visitors, to serve the most appropriate adverts to them.

Last November, after completing a trial of the hyper-marketing system, MySpace claimed that  the click-through rates were 300% higher for targeted ads than for the others on its site. It also said it had signed up more than 50 advertisers to participate in the scheme including Procter & Gamble, Microsoft, Ford and Toyota.

Now hyper-targeting is to be used across all of FIM’s properties, including Photobucket, a photo-sharing site; American–Idol.com and the Rotten-Tomatoes.com film review site. It will also manage the ad sales for third-parties.

Adam Bain, who developed the hyper-targeting system, is to lead the audience network. Peter Levinsohn, president of FIM, was quoted in the Financial Times saying, “The platforms developed under Adam’s leadership are highly scalable and can be leveraged by sites both inside and outside the FIM family”.

Of course it remains to be seen it the click-through rate will be maintained once the novelty wears off, how many users will opt out and whether adverts will annoy visitors, as they have on rival Facebook.

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MySpace, the world’s most popular social network, and mBlox, the world’s largest mobile transaction network, today announced that MySpace’s text message alert program is now available to millions of users from the following wireless service providers: Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile USA, Alltel Wireless, U.S. Cellular, and Virgin Mobile USA. MySpace’s text message alerts provide users near real-time notification of new messages, friend requests, comments and other key activity within their MySpace profiles. 

With the addition of five major carriers to distribute MySpace alerts via mBlox, more than 90% of MySpace users are now able to receive these alerts. MySpace users can register for MySpace text message alerts by logging into http://www.myspace.com, then clicking the “Text Alerts” link displayed on the User Homepage. 

“MySpace users have come to depend on our text message alerts for instant notification when family and friends reach out to them on MySpace,” said Brandon Lucas, senior director of mobile business development, MySpace. “This partnership with mBlox brings us a step closer to fulfilling our vision of empowering MySpace users to stay connected with their community wherever they are, whenever they like.”

“SMS text messaging is expanding its reach into all aspects of our daily lives and this is an example of how mobile messaging is enhancing the consumer experience in social networking,” said Steve Livingston, chief marketing officer of mBlox. “We are delighted to be entrusted to deliver tens of millions of mobile alerts per month to MySpace users when they are on the go.” 

This announcement comes on the heels of several recent developments in MySpace’s growing mobile business, including the official launch of the free, ad-supported MySpace Mobile Website (m.myspace.com) and a direct distribution deal with Sprint, both announced last week.

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MySpace, the world’s most popular social network, and Verizon Wireless, the nation’s leading wireless service provider, today announced Verizon Wireless customers can now access MySpace Mobile on all Mobile Web 2.0,enabled phones.

Mobile Web 2.0 subscribers can now click directly into the MySpace Mobile Web site from the Connect category on the Mobile Web 2.0 home screen, eliminating the need for customers to type in a URL in order to access the site. With MySpace on Mobile Web 2.0, Verizon Wireless customers now have the ability to edit MySpace profiles, view and add friends, post comments and blogs, send and receive MySpace messages — all from their mobile phones.

“Millions of MySpace users have Verizon Wireless phones, and starting today we’re giving them fast and easy access to our mobile site, at no additional charge,” said Brandon Lucas, senior director of mobile business development for MySpace. “Today’s announcement brings us a step closer to fulfilling our vision that every user has access to MySpace, anytime, anywhere.”

Ryan Hughes, vice president of digital media programming for Verizon, said, “Our relationship with MySpace helps us connect our customers to their friends — with MySpace available on our Mobile Web 2.0 service, our customers can take MySpace with them wherever they go.”

To access MySpace Mobile, Verizon Wireless customers simply open Mobile Web 2.0 on their phones, click on the Connect category from the home screen, and click on MySpace. On the MySpace site, customers can access a host of features, including:

Message Management - send, read and reply to messages from all of their,MySpace friends, as well as field friend requests from their mobiledevices.Viewing Photo Albums - easily look at MySpace photo albums by choosing.My Photos” on MySpace Mobile.Viewing Friends - look up profiles of their friends and others through their MySpace profile. Just as on standard MySpace, MySpace Mobile lets.Verizon Wireless customers see profile pictures and other member information via their mobile devices.Friend Search - search for people by name or e-mail address, as well as send friend invites and review invites that are pending.Comments / Blog Posting - post comments and update blogs just as they would from a PC.  Any new information entered will be posted to a member’s mobile and online MySpace profile simultaneously.Mobile Web 2.0 can be self-provisioned, eliminating the need for customers to call customer service or visit a Verizon Wireless Communications Store to sign up for the service. Customers simply register for Mobile Web 2.0 on their Mobile Web 2.0-capable handsets by visiting the News and Info category under the Get It Now(R: 60.83, -1.35, -2.17%) menu on their phones.

The availability of MySpace on Verizon Wireless’ Mobile Web 2.0 service is part of a larger agreement in which Verizon Wireless will distribute mobile versions of FOX Interactive Media’s leading Web brands.

Unlimited MySpace Mobile use is included at no additional charge with a Mobile Web 2.0 subscription. Unlimited Mobile Web 2.0 usage is included with a $15 monthly V CAST VPak subscription, which also includes access to V CAST Video, V CAST Music and Get It Now applications. Alternatively, customers can access Mobile Web for free with a Nationwide Plan but will incur usage charges of $1.99 per megabyte. As an example, 50 Mobile Web 2.0 pages equal approximately 0.6 megabytes. Customers should view their customer agreements or see a Verizon Wireless customer service representative for additional details as legacy plans may vary.

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Sprint Nextel Corp.’s Internet-accessible phones now have access to MySpace Mobile through an a agreement the companies entered.

In a release Thursday, MySpace, based in Santa Monica, Calif., said that this is the “first free direct access” to MySpace Mobile on a U.S. wireless carrier.

Customers of Sprint Nextel can edit MySpace profiles, view and add friends, post blogs and bulletins, and send and receive MySpace messages.

“Mobile is the next generation of social networking,” Brandon Lucas, MySpace’s senior director of mobile business development, said in the release. “Our partnership with Sprint makes it easier and faster for customers to get the most out of MySpace when they’re on the go.”

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Jangl, a company connecting online profiles and mobile phones, has unveiled a new mobile media initiative that connects brands and marketers with millions of mobile consumers around the world.

The Jangl Mobile Media Initiative kicks off with Pudding Media and advertising and communications agency, Ogilvy s Digital Innovation Group, to bring flexible mobile advertising solutions for today s top brands.

Jangl services already enable text messaging, calling and voicemail for most social Web destinations, including Facebook, Bebo and Plentyoffish. And now, Jangl is monetizing its free-ad-supported services and aggressively developing for more social networks, like MySpace, as well as supporting the many new social networks and application developers integrating Jangl SMS and voice services through Jangl s Public API.

Earlier this quarter, Jangl and Pudding Media tested pre-roll spots prior to calls on its free direct services and recently tested ads appended to SMS messages in Bebo and Facebook. Jangl is now working on new campaigns that leverage the interactive response capabilities of its voice services to deliver links and additional information via SMS to customers that respond and opt-in to promotions and offers from service sponsors and advertisers.

Jangl s recent voice and text launch with Plentyoffish, a top ranked personals site according to ComScore Media Metrix, has driven significant additional volumes of text and voice messages to be monetized starting today through the Jangl Mobile Media Initiative.

Pudding Media is one of the first ad networks and technology providers to embrace Jangl s marketing channel.

The Pudding Media platform brings targeted, relevant and timely advertising to voice services, and opens new advertising real estate that allows placement of multi-modal advertising for voice providers. By combining placement of voice, text and display ads with a contextual targeting engine, Pudding Media enables an effective transition in ad-supported calling plans by voice providers, the groups noted in a release.

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French mobile operator SFR has extended its Illimythics unlimited mobile internet offer until 11 March. To date, the service has attracted 250,000 subscribers, well above an initial target of 100,000. Some 25 percent are new customers and 48 percent are SFR subscribers who have changed plan free of charge. The company states that users can enjoy unlimited internet surfing, messaging, music and live TV, with no time or download volume restriction. A 2 hour Illimythics plan will cost EUR 39 for two years to the first 50,000 consumers who sign up by 11 March. The price then rises to EUR 49 per month. SFR ’s 3G+ (HSPDA) network covers 70 percent of the French population. It carries big internet names such as Google, Dailymotion, YouTube, MySpace, eBay, etc. A broad range of 3G+ handsets are available.

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