Mobile & Wireless Roundup - Innovation & Industry News

There has been a lot of hype around location based services recently, and their potential benefits to the users through the exploitation of the fact that the user is mobile, and hence has a location.

Last week at MoMo, the topic was LBS, and an excellent presentation was given by Alcatel Lucent, showcasing their latest service called GeoPepper. The service, which is very similar to FireEagle by Yahoo which was demonstrated at ICE08, however it is out of closed and is available to developers and application service providers to start exploring. The services all offer an API through which developers can connect to get location information on users.

From this, there is plenty of potential, however, there currently exists a few limitations to LBS.

• A small percentage of mobile devices have built in GPS recievers, of which, a smaller percentage have the facility turned on in order to save battery
• GPS does not work indoors effectively
• Triangulation provides a rough location, for example, Google Maps often locates me to the nearest 1600m, or is unable to find my location
• Third Party applications often needed to communicate with servers

So how can this be issue be solved?
Well, currently there is no definitive answer, it all depends on the scale of the project that the service will be used for. An article over at MoCoNews entitled Shopping malls are tracking the habits of visitors using location based services provides an insight as to how one company is now offering services to track users on a local scale to find out their habits using mobile triangulation.

There is a much simpler solution for shopping malls to track users. Through bluetooth. All users broadcast their MAC Address when their bluetooth is turned on to discoverable. So if in each shop there is a bluetooth discovery module, which doesn’t actually ask to connect to the device, but just discovers bluetooth devices, they can be linked up to a central database to track exactly (more precisely than triangulation) where users have visited.
As the data of which types of stores are visited, and how frequently, carefully targeted proximity marketing can be implemented to offer loyally discounts to frequent users, or offers to entice potential customers through an opt in scheme.

Obviously the concerns about privacy of the users is still in question, but correct marketing techniques should be used to explain to the targeted users what is happening, how to receive  promotional campaigns through opt in procedures that are not overly complex.

Back in October I wrote an article on mobile content agrigation and discovery, and the benefits it would have on the mobile industry.

Full article can be found here

Yesterday, MoCoNews reported that there is a major problem that consumers are unable to find the games they want for their mobile phone.

Today, Zodiac made an announcement that they have developed such a portal which allows content aggregation from multiple content providers. The product is to be name Zodigo  Press Release

When this type of search finally gets mass market appeal, Operators will have to change their strategies in mobile content, and competition between content providers will become fierce. In turn this will drive down prices, increase consumer awareness and willingness to use content, and who knows, maybe more ad sponsored titles will emerge into the market which will appear as *free* in the search result listings, opening the gates to a flood of mobile marketing campaigns.

An excellent article has been posed on MocoNews.net by James Quintana Pearce which quotes Steve Smith from Mobile Insider, discussing why they think Mobile video content should not be charged for.
The general gist of the argument is that users are not used to paying for video based content. Although strictly not true, in the UK we pay a TV Licencing fee to the BBC to have ad free TV channels, we pay for DVD rentals, and Pay per View TV. However, most TV (and hence video based) content is free, and the user does not have to make a purchase to watch the channel or particular content item.

The article is available here:
http://www.moconews.net/entry/why-mobile-video-should-be-free/

I agree with the point that has been made, however, the approach to providing free content should be met with a choice. Users should be given the option as to getting FREE ad sponsored content, or paying for the item, but getting the original content. This could be taken a step further to then provide a higher quality content item for the paid for market.

An advantage to providing free content, with no DRM restrictions will also encourage viral marketing. Users forwarding the items to their friends and peers, and hence spreading the advertisements.

Like Mobile TV, when it finally gets released, the uptake will dependon the revenue models that will be associated with the channels. Commercials within the TV programs will generally be accepted if there is no charge to receive them.

Tags: MobileVideo, Mobile Content, Ad Sponsored

An excellent article was posted on Wireless World Forum by Karerina of Touchlink Mobile about the success of the Mobile advertising strategy that was employed by Coca-Cola, entitled Global brands take mobile marketing track

Here you can see that it proves that with a eye for innovation, and the driving and influential force of large brands, mobile content can see unprecidented sucess.

Read: http://www.touchlink-mobile.com/news/?id=91/

A follow up to my previous post: Proximity Marketing or Spam?

In response to an article posted on mocoNews.net

In my opinion, Bluetooth marketing, otherwise known as “Proximity Marketing” is only suited to certain situations to take of in a way that will benefit the end user. Banking is not an exciting medium for mobile, as there are few application usages currently for banking using mobile services. Companies that should be embracing proximity marketing are restaurants (only broadcasting their bluetooth messages during eating hours) and entertainment retail stores. The application for bluetooth is much larger, as they can offer money-off coupons as image push, or advertise the latest albums and dvd offers with video and audio clips to get the users attention.

As a follow up to my previous post on the usage of Mobile Barcodes in Korea and Japan there has been a recent article James Quintana Pearce on mocoNews.net describing the increased usage of Flashcodes in magazines. The usage of these barcodes is to promote the usage of the digital magazine, linking the user directly to the mobile web version of the article they are reading. This provides an “in-the-pocket” version of the content that took the customers interest. Thus allowing them to forward the URL to their friends via SMS, and further promoting the magazine.

As discussed in the article, it relies on the consumer having the barcode reading software installed on the device. The manufacturers have been slow to include this on newly produced devices, with exception to Japanese vendors (such as Sharp). But as stated before, Japanese devices have barcode reading applications as standard.

The big stumbling point that we face in Europe at the moment, is determining which standard of barcode to use, and so manufacturers can begin shipping devices with pre-built in applications that meet this standard.

Various carriers are beginning to provide content targeted portals to their customers. Information on the user behavior is gathered and analyzed in order to determine what kind of content that the user will be interested in. The concept is nothing new, as it has been used on sites such as Amazon for many years. However, porting such an application to mobile has brought up some concerns. Are telephone conversations and text messages intercepted and analyzed?

Anyways, bringing the content to the user without them having to waste time and data performing the searches themselves seems like a good concept, its the approach to data capture that needs careful consideration.

A very interesting article has been published by News Wire Today showing how ethical mobile marketing can generate a positive marketing strategy.

Mobile marketing has always been seen as intrusive, mostly implementing “opt out” ensuring that the end users will receive the marketing unless they specifically tell the campaign management that they no longer wish to receive marketing information. However, this has been met with much criticism, and the introduction of double “opt in” which allows the user to make the choice if they wish to receive the information that will be targeted at them. This process ensures that the user is comfortable with the marketing before receiving it. Firstly the user must find the service and request information, then a message is returned asking if they wish to receive further information.

This method was used by the fashion retailer Up Against the Wall for its latest marketing campaign. An unprecedented amount of users decided to receive further information through the service. The figure reached 63%, and then only 1% went on to cancel. But as stated on MoCo News there is no details on actual figures, only percentages.

So does this cast an end to the theories that people are unwilling to allow marketing through intrusive methods in mobile? We must wait to see other results published to find the true outcome.

QR codes have been in use in Japan for many years now, and have started to gain popularity elsewhere. They can be found everywhere in Tokyo, from the Subway adverisments, business cards, and even entry stamps in passports.

http://www.denso-wave.com/qrcode/qrfeature-e.html

As you can see QR can contain a substantial amount of information, however, this information is static, and relies upon having a QR reader.

In Korea, an alternative approach has been widely adopted to utilise the high average phone capabilities, and also the takeup rate for new mobile services. Using standard 1 dimensional barcodes, which can be read by standard barcode readers, an entire user profile can be called.

While in Korea, my girlfriend used her phone on many occasions for this purpose. Full purchasing of cinema tickets and ski lift passes are common, and the payment is added to the users airtime bill. These barcodesare then scanned at the checkout desks to confirm payment, and swap for the voucher. In addition to full payment, subscriptions to discount schemes prove to be popular too. A code is sent to the users device allowing them discount on a variety of services.

Eventually we should start to see such systems in the UK, and the rest of the world, but the take up of new technologies is slow.

Roughly half of all bluetooth devices have their phones in discoverable mode. Allowing other bluetooth devices to make contact with them. Recently this is beginning to be exploited for marketing purposes.

Unlike MMS and SMS and WAP Push, bluetooth content delivery is free. Being a push technology, the recipient does not require and discovery of the service, the only pre-requisits for delivery are:

1. Bluetooth enabled phone
2. Bluetooth in Discovery Mode
3. User to accept the download

With all this being an advantage to the advertiser, what is the benefit to the end user?

1. Targeted ads - User can receive information about special offers in their vicinity or related to the event they are attending etc.
2. Free Content - Brands can deliver wallpapers or videos to the user, this may be part of a promotion
3. The ability to reject the delivery and switch off Discoverable

There are some limitations to this service. The device is usually a Windows client, or a standalone box, and so requires a source of constant power. The reach of bluetooth varies from 50m to 300, but is severly restricted indoors.

Some people may cause this SPAM, however, in use with proper applications, and the ability to only send to devices once will ensure that the user does not get agitated with the service and hence the brand being marketed a bad name.

Application usage of this type of marketing tool has seen an increase, with billboards in the London Underground providing broadcasting ringtones of a artists to passers by, and people waiting for the train.

Time will tell how this type of application will take off…