April 20, 2010
Vodafone 360 kills zyb.com
In an interesting update to the once awesome service of ZYB.com , a phone backup service that helped many to transfer and restore contacts to and between old and new phones, Vodafone had acquired ZYB.com 3 years ago and now they have shut down the service in the face of new subscribers until the subscribers are lucky enough to have Vodafone 360 activated in their country.
vodafone - zyb.com
Lets all hope Vodafone can at least keep the service running for people like me in Egypt and others who aren’t offered the Vodafone 360 option in their country.
Corporate failure at its best.
September 24, 2008
2008 Mobile Web (WAP sites, Mobile internet) presence for the Top 1000 US Brands: Your guide to the mobile world (1/3)
Based on the 2008 Mobile Web Presence of the top 1000 US brands, Rare play (http://www.rareplay.com) offers a comprehensive guide to the Top 1000 US brands (based on Brandweeks’ list of 2000 Superbrands) and their participation in the transformation or conversion taking place through out the world to mobile devices.
I will discuss this survey in a series of 3 articles each covering part of the survey and having a lot of mobile web sites for those savvy mobile internet users like me.
As mentioned in the Report which can be downloaded at
http://www.rareplay.com/index.php?page=white_papers_downloads#paper_2008
The amount of Americans owning a mobile phone has increased by 48 million users in just 3 years, since the earlier survey took place, and that represent a 24-25% increase over 3 years, and totals the number of users of mobile phone to 250 million American mobile phone user.
The report also states that mobile web sites, by the end of 2007, were developed by 8% or 79 of the top 1000 US brands had mobile sites, this number has increased to 14.1 % or 141 , which is close to a 75% increase in the number of brands participating and being part of the mobile realm.
The Report covers the different industries that have become involved in the mobile web, among which are Apparel & Jewelery stores, Automotive Brands, Charity & NGO Foundations, Education, Entertainment, Electronics, Fast food, Services, Travel, Promotional mobile sites that offer a promotion for a certain brand, Medicine, Internet, ISP & Telecommunication, the new phenomenon called “Mobile Social Networks” and last but not least, I will add my own ideas in the 3rd article about what do i see coming to mobile very soon and benefiting all from publisher, user and advertiser.
Below are some of the sites mentioned in the report, Revisit soon, as i will be posting the second and third article with the rest of the examples.
Adidas
Nike
Victoria’s Secret
http://mobile.victoriassecret.com
Avis Rent-A-Car
Castrol Oil
Ford
http://www.ford.ca/mobile/index.asp
Lexus
Mazda
http://www.mazdausa.com/musaweb/displayhomepage.wireless.action
Saturn
Volvo Cars
American Express
http://www.americanexpress.com/canada/mobile/fr/main.html
Bank of America
Capital One
http://mobilebanking.capitalone.com
Schwab
E-Trade
Nasdaq
Scottrade
Sovereign Bank
http://www.sovereignbank.com/mobile/
UBS
Visa Signature Living
http://www.visasignatureliving.com/mobile
Western Union
American Cancer Society
American Red Cross
http://www.redcross.org/wireless
USA.GOV
US Navy
Absolut Vodka
Always pads
Budlight
Cover Girl
Kraft Foods
http://www.kraftfoods.com/mobile/
Herbal Essences
Jif peanut butter
Pepsi
Canon
Nokia
Office Depot
Hp Pavilion computer
http://cloudprint.hpl.hp.com/mobile
Sony TV
http://www.datavlz.com/handheld/index.html
TomTom
I will writing the second and third articles shortly covering my mobile adoption is taking time and what are the ingredients for a healthy and useful mobile experience. Hope you this article, and please let me know if you want to know something in particular about mobile sites.
September 23, 2008
The Google Android G1 Phone (The HTC Dream): Is it up to competing with the Iphone
After months of speculations about its design, specs and functionalities, This is the first phone to be built on the android platform, Google’s latest baby in the mobile domain.
Here you are with a glimpse of the latest from Google by HTC: The Dream
Google G1 Phone
Adding a QWERTY keyboard to help those with thick fingers like mine, its more appealing than the IPhone, which i had major problems with in typing a number, not to mention the hassle in typing a message to a loved one.
google g1 phone with keyboard
Not a lot is known about the G1 phone, though i have read it offers 3G connectivity, a large touch screen, and easy shortcuts to access Gmail and Google Calendar and probably most of the other Google applications.
I have checked through out the internet and i am sure that Google’s chrome is not yet supported in G1 though it has to be coming soon.
Amazon have just announced that its MP3 service will be coupled with the HTC Dream (Google G1) phone, offering a direct connection to Amazon’s MP3 Library.
Analysts estimate the G1 will capture from 4% -10% Market share in the US, where it will be available for sale starting the 22nd of October. The UK and the rest of Europe will follow starting November.
Its been said that the G1 will be offered exclusively through T-mobile for 179 American dollars, on a two year contract, specially with T-mobile latest roll out of its 3G network, let see how this competes will the 2 hour IPhone activation by AT&T when it first launched the phone.
Lets wait and see how this develops and follow all updates and full feature list at HTC’s website
July 30, 2008
Create Your Own WAP Site cont’d….Wapamama, Gotamobi and other mobile hosting service providers
I am have only been focusing lately on mobile sites, as i have felt the interest in the topic for some readers, i am going to follow up on my previous post TagTag: Create your own WAP (Mobile) site, i wrote about TagTag, a site that hosts your own WAP site, functional yet very simple. I actually found another blog talking about the Tagtag, and all his vistors hammered him on its capabilities, so i decided to take a deeper look into WAP hosting and found out some interesting findings. I have found out two types of sites, Free hosting and Professional hosting. Here is what i found…
Wapamama (Free WAP hosting)
Wapamama as they introduce themselves, it is the easiest way to create your own personal or business mobile site in just seconds for free.
After you create your account, Wapamama offer you adding the following features,
Add Text, Picture, Videos , Link, Hit counter, TOC, RSS Feeds, Polls and much more
Check it out @ http://www.wapamama.com
Gotamobi
Gotamobi is a WAP hosting site, that offers users to create their own normal site and they will adapt it to fit the mobile screen. You can upload your own videos or images to use on your site, or you can use, share or feature someone else’s files as long as they are shared on Gotamobi.
Check it out @ http://www.gotamobi.com/
WAPPLE (Free WAP hosting)
Wapple offers an award winning platform for hosting mobile Internet sites created by them as well as other mobile advertising solution and digital content.
You can either choose to build your site for free, ad funded of course, or you can choose one of the mobile advertising packages, price ranging between 15-45 sterling pounds.
They even state that they will start offering mobile commerce packages soon, lets see how that will do.
Excerpt by their Rich Holdsworth, CTO, talking about Wapple Canvas, the award winning platform.
“I conceptualised the idea of a system capable of designing and publishing mobile sites back in 2003, pre-Wapple, when we were selling mobile content over WAP. In those days I had to hard-code each page that was delivered. What a headache it was!”
“I started work on a CMS as soon as I was able to. This CMS quickly turned into a template site builder and over time evolved based on the needs of our growing customer base.”
Check it out @ http://wapple.net/index.htm
GoLiveMobile!
GoLiveMobile is a business to business mobile service provider, offering professional WAP site hosting, Mobile Payment and Mobile content aggregation.
Check it out @ http://golivemobile.com/wap-sites.htm
————————–
To get a glimpse of the Top mobile web sites for the top US Brands in 2008, Click here, i have added about 30 different WAP sites for your pleasure
Commercial Mobile WAP sites: well known brands venturing in the mobile world
Mobile websites have been in place for some time now, but with the mobile advertising hype that has been on for the past year or two, I am realizing that the Internet which was once in a league of its own, is being contested fiercely by the Mobile Phone.
Whether its a promotion for a certain product or just for mobile Internet presence purposes, Companies having been shifting to the mobile medium for answers to the lost million of dollars being lost in other cluttered Media forms let it be above the line Media such as press, radio, and TV or below the line such as Outdoor banners and handouts.
Due to its target ability and profiling features , Mobile is well placed to become the next Internet in 5-7 years time.
I have included some commercial WAP site links i hope you like them.
Nokia
The number one handset manufacturer.
BlackBerry
Research in Motion’s gift to the world, the best push email reader in the world.
StarBucks
Your favorite coffee shop.
The Inquirer
Sprite (Chinese)
Century 21
Mobile resource for home buying, selling, financing and property listings.
Disney
Disney.com (United States)
disney.co.uk (United Kingdom)
Formula 1
All the Latest live news from the circuit.
Honda
MY Space
NBA
Polo Ralph Lauren
Rummble
Volvo
http://apps.volvotrucks.com/wap/pickcountry.aspx
E-Trade
Fidelity
UBS
Wachovia Bank
http://www.wachovia.com/mobile/
Nickolodean
Red Cross
http://www.redcross.org/wireless/
Real Madrid
Spain’s favorite Football (soccer for those who think football is played by hand) Club
Cingular
NFL
DHL
UPS
IKEA
Charles Schwab
BravoTv
MSN
AXE (Brazilian)
Boteco Bohemia Bar Guide (Brazilian)
www.botecobohemia.com.br/mobile
Mondo Mini shows
Cars.com
http://mobile.cars.com/index.jsp
And to check out the latest in Mobile Web Presence for the Top American Brands, click on the next link, its my latest post covering mobile web presence in 2008 for the top bransds in the US.
Globally accessible operator wap portal – a channel worldwide content business
Almost every Telco in the world who are providing the data service facilities to their subscribers have their own operator WAP portal or intend to have one. An operator WAP portal can be a strong revenue earning source for the operator if it is properly planned architecturally as well as strategically.
The basic purposes to have an operator WAP portal are:
- To inform the subscribers about their packages, ongoing promotions and offers etc.
- To provide several types of lucrative services to their subscribers, like news service, search facilities, weather report etc.
- And at the end and most importantly, to sell several types of contents to their subscribers thus enriching their content revenue.
Content business drives huge revenue for the operators for which it became a major focus for them to look into.So where the operators host their WAP portal and why?
It is seen that there are actually one of the two approaches the operators are taking to host their WAP portal. They are:
- WAP Portal Hosted in Local IP: So in this case the WAP portal is hosted in a local IP; meaning to say that, this WAP portal is only accessible to the on-net users. No off-net users (users from the same country but other operators) or any foreign (outside the country) visitor can enter the operator WAP portal.
The major reason behind keeping the WAP portal hosted in local IP is the security issue. If the portal is hosted in local IP then it reduces the probability to be hacked globally. - WAP Portal Hosted in Real IP: In this case as the portal is hosted in a real (global) IP so if there is no other checking (ie. MSISDN based portal access) enabled, anybody from anywhere in the world can access these WAP portal.
Analysis of the approaches:
1.Security Issue: In case of local IP based approach the operators are less vulnerable than the real IP approach because it is only accessible to their own subscriber base. But of course it does not eradicate the possibility of being attacked. Of course the local IP approach restricts the global hackers to access the platform but there are local hackers too. So if security holes are not blocked properly the potential local hackers can also enter into the system.
So in case of the real IP approach the operators can also take the same security protections to ensure the availability of the service.
2.Subscriber Confusion: The basic procedures or steps to use the operator data service (GPRS or EDGE etc) are:
(A) First to configure the subscriber’s handset with correct parameters (like Access Point Name eg. APN, IP, Port, WAP Portal URL etc). Most of the cases the operators have a specific platform to handle this work (sending the correct GPRS/EDGE settings to subscriber’s handset) which is OTA (Over-the-air) Device Management Platform.
(B) Then as the handset is correctly configured with operator specific parameters so the subscriber then click the “Home” to visit the operator home page or can manually type and go to any web address.
When the operators put their WAP portal in the local IP, then they generally provide two different settings for accessing the GPRS services: WAP and Internet settings. Conceptually both settings are used for getting the browsing service. But the general difference is: using the Internet setting the subscriber can not visit the operator WAP portal. But they can visit naturally any other web/wap sites which are hosted under the real IPs and can be accessed over the internet.
So when the subscribers get to know about two settings like one setting will be used to browse the WAP portal and another setting will be used to browse all the portals except the operator’s WAP portal then generally less tech savvy users may be confused and may become interest less to do these hardship to use the GPRS services. At least this will happen in case of the subscribers from low developed countries.
But the operators should carry the motto like “One APN, One Setting, One WAP Portal” which will give the subscriber more comfort to be interested in using the data services.
Worldwide Content Business:
Now to discuss on the main point.
The operators do the content business through their WAP portal. Subscribers can visit the portal and can download several types of contents like Wallpaper, Ringtones etc. In some WAP portals the operators provide the facility subscriber to subscribe for different types of alert services like: news alert, sports alert, subscription based astrological information etc.
When the operator WAP portal is local then the customer means only the on-net customers. But when the portal is hosted in real IP then this is accessible globally over the internet from anywhere in the world by any subscriber who have data service enabled and properly configured. So there is specifically no customer base or can be said that the customer base is unlimited.
When theoretically any subscribers can access the portal then any subscriber can download the contents from this specific operator WAP portal. Now if specific charging option can be ensured for these off-net subscribers (all the subscribers worldwide except the operator’s own subscribers.) then this operator can say every data users in this world as the customer of its content service. But there are legal issues of course to do worldwide content business. I will ignore that part in this article and will consider that “Sky is the limit”.
As a strategy to run the worldwide content business the operator can set two different prices as well two different currencies (ie. Local currency and USD) for each content.
So the first requirement for any operator to run the worldwide content business is to open up their WAP portal to be accessible globally and then of course to provide some sort of charging mechanism to charge the off-net customers.
In the following it is proposed some different types of charging options for worldwide content customers:
1. On-Net customers: On-net customers are the operator’s own subscribers. So any event based charging mechanism which is available to that operator can be used to charge the subscriber in real time. For an Example: Premium SMS based charge can be one technique.
2. Off-Net but within the same country: They are the subscribers from the competitor operators. It is not expected that the competitors will welcome this business and may restrict their subscribers to access this WAP portal. But there should have been some kind of negotiation or agreements to be done between the operators so that each one can do maximize their business scopes.
Here in this case a easy solution can be: PIN code based billing. The customer (from any operator) can buy scratch card and can use the PIN while buying the content. On-net subscribers can also have the same facility.
3. Off-net and out of the country: These are the customers from the other countries.
So they can be given the facility to be charged by PayPal or by Bango Billing etc.
Conclusion:
From the analysis above it is pretty clear that there are immense opportunities waiting for the mobile operators to maximize their earning through global business of their services. Just it is required to have the good will from the operator side.
Conservative approaches always limits the scopes. And of course conservativeness is not competition. So letting the operators WAP portals be accessible globally and settling the agreement among the telcos permitting service access among each other will be beneficial for each others.
July 25, 2008
Stephen King Enlists Marvel
In his new short-story collection, “Just After Sunset,” Stephen King delivers his usual spooky tales. But to promote the book, he’s come up with something unexpected: a video series based on one of the stories.
In a promotion expected to be announced Friday at Comic-Con, the big comic-book convention in San Diego, a previously unpublished story by Mr. King has been transformed by Marvel Comics into an animated video. The 25 episodes will be distributed in a variety of online and mobile channels ahead of the book’s publication Nov. 11. Starting Monday, new episodes will be released daily, five times a week, through Aug. 29.
The willingness of Mr. King and publisher Scribner, an imprint of CBS Corp.’s Simon & Schuster book-publishing arm, to remix the story, “N.,” into bite-size video vignettes underscores how eager publishers are to come up with new marketing techniques at a time when book sales are flat or slumping. Five years ago, Mr. King’s publisher might have taken the creepy short story and offered it to a literary publication like “The New Yorker” in expectation that a first serial sale would create interest in “Just After Sunset.” The story focuses on an unlucky psychiatrist whose latest patient is “infectious.”
Scribner and Mr. King are betting that a digital adaptation designed for those with short attentions spans will be more productive. They’re trying an increasingly common marketing technique. Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Bros. film studio recently released a new online cartoon series to promote its new Batman film “The Dark Knight.”
Beginning Monday, Apple Inc.’s iTunes Store will sell a pass for all 25 two-minute episodes based on Mr. King’s 54-page story for $3.99. Amazon.com Inc. will sell the series too, at the same price.
Video episodes will also be available free on Monday for subscribers of various cellphone services and on the Web, on sites including CBS.com. In a nod to the everything-should-be-free crowd, fans can snag the video player online, and post the episodes on their own blogs or on social-networking sites.
To lure those who see the video into buying the book, at the end of each episode viewers will be directed to a Web site, NisHere.com, where they can pre-order “Just After Sunset” from a variety of online retailers.
For Scribner, the venture is a shot in the dark. There’s no way of forecasting how well the videos will translate into book sales. While Scribner’s corporate sibling, CBS Mobile, cites Nielsen data showing that roughly 14 million cellphone users in the U.S. pay for video services, it doesn’t know how many of those people are regular book buyers. However, the links from the videos to the NisHere.com pre-ordering Web site will allow Scribner to get a sense of how many sales result from video viewings.
Mr. King is optimistic about the video’s prospects. “I think they’re readers,” he says of likely video viewers. But he admits that the venture is “something of a test” whose outcome isn’t certain.
The veteran thriller writer likens the effort to the bumpy experience of the first electronic books. “The first soldiers out of the trench are always machine-gunned. But somebody has to go first, and I’m curious about this. You try these things and see what happens.”
Scribner publisher Susan Moldow says the imprint expects to attract a younger generation of readers. “Once they try Stephen King, they’ll want more,” she says. Scribner won’t disclose its investment in the promotion. There will be a Scribner edition priced at $37.50 that includes a DVD of all 25 video episodes in addition to the traditional $28 standalone book.
Mr. King has long been interested in digital technology and its potential for attracting new readers. Back in 2000, the author and his publisher successfully released the novella “Riding the Bullet” solely on the Web. The work, free on some sites and $2.50 elsewhere, attracted a total of 400,000 downloads in the first 24 hours.
Not all his digital experiments have worked. Also in 2000, Mr. King posted six chapters of a budding novel, “The Plant,” on his Web site, StephenKing.com, asking readers to pay $2 for each chapter. But eventually Mr. King suspended publication.
Although it was widely reported that the number of readers willing to pay for “The Plant” dropped off significantly, Mr. King says he made plenty of money from the effort and only stopped because he felt the story was petering out. “The money was rolling in, and it was interesting because I didn’t have a publisher, and it didn’t involve ink or a bindery,” he says. “I just ran out of ideas. It doesn’t happen often, and not usually in public.”
Now Mr. King is trying again, this time with the help of Marvel Entertainment Inc.’s Marvel Comics. He teamed with Marvel in 2006, when the two launched a comic-book series based on “The Dark Tower” — a series of seven related novels that Mr. King wrote over a 22-year period. Marvel is also working on a 30-issue comic-book adaptation of Mr. King’s classic apocalyptic novel “The Stand” that will go on sale in 2009.
Marvel created the video episodes of “N.” specifically for small screens, with tighter camera shots and slower movements. “This isn’t about reading a comic book on a tiny screen,” says Ruwan Jayatilleke, Marvel Entertainment’s senior vice president of strategic development.
Write to Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg at jeffrey.trachtenberg@wsj.com
Read the full story from http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1641244263/bclid1631250027/bctid1659871101 »
July 21, 2008
Top Selling books in Japan on Mobile
In Japan Half The Top Selling Books Are Written On
Mobile Phones
Duncan Riley
With all the talk about Amazon’s Kindle, there’s a bigger revolution taking place and those who studied classic literature will be horrified. In Japan, half of the top ten selling works of fiction in the first six months of 2007 were composed on mobile phones.
According to
the Sydney Morning Herald, mobile phone novels (keitai shousetsu) have become a publishing phenomenon in Japan, “turning middle-of-the-road publishing houses into major concerns and making their authors a small fortune in the process.”
Read the rest of the article at TechCrunch
Mobile Social Networking Larger Than Online In Japan
Japan’s Mixi: A Social Network As A Purely Local
Phenomenon
Serkan Toto
Japan’s biggest social network is called Mixi, launched in February 2004 by the company of the same name. Drawing in one in five web users in the country, Mixi now boasts over 15 million members. The site ranks sixth on Alexa Japan and racks up over 14 billion page views monthly. Google Trends for Websites shows the Japan-focused service attracts more visitors than Bebo on a worldwide basis (about 2.3 million daily, see chart below).
Compared to leading Western social networks, Mixi is rather scarce function-wise (see the screenshot below). However, here are the main country-specific differences why MySpace, Facebook or Bebo don’t stand a chance in Japan:
To read the rest of the article , Click the link below http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/20/japans-mixi-a-social-network-as-a-purely-local-phenomenon/
Mobinttechno : being linkedin is just a thought 