tiistai 31. maaliskuuta 2009

News News

Hi

Yet again I have been really busy. Anyway: Look like "my" thoughts on Nokia and general mobile banking were correct?

At least finally we are hearing some news around mobile payments/banking. Nokia is investing 52 million Euros to California-based mobile banking/payments startup banking firm: Obopay. Obobay ensures mobile payment/money transfers via mobile devices. The idea is similar that PayPal uses i.e. you need an account etc. Nokia vision is to make the mobile phone the credit card of the developing world. By the way: Gartner has predicted that mobile payments user base is to got from 33m to over 100m by 2011.

Other news: Operator Orange UK has conducted a survey to find the role of Mobile within the media marketing landscape. Here are some key findings:

* The average age for mobile media users is 36, and 81% use mobile media more than once a week with 46% using it daily

* The Mobile Internet pages viewed most often are search engines, email, news, music and film although, interestingly, a high proportion (55%) of people browse the mobile internet with no specific agenda, providing an opportunity for marketers to attract their attention

Al in all the stuff is rather basic. Please visit the Orange Press office site for more info. By basic I mean information such as:

* 82% of respondents have the operator’s portal as their mobile internet home page, making this page an extremely valuable piece of marketing estate. --> Yes --> Most consumers have bought the phone via an operator deal and thereby the phone is "customized" and has the operator sites pre installed. Naturally these can be used for marketing. However more interesting would have been to know how many change the configurations and do not want to visit the operator "sites" i.e. walled gardens :)

* 70% of participants are attracted more by interactive marketing formats, such as sponsorship, coupons or picture messaging mechanics --> Yes Really? --> Sure they are when you take into account how static and boring the sites look and feel :)

FROM this particular point we come to the next news section:

EngadgetMobile tells us, that in downtown Oslo a Norwegian ski billboard gets snowy when texted.

See pic:



Similar interactive stuff: intomobile tells that Dockers brings motion-sensing ads to iPhone games. The new Dockers ads take advantage of the iPhone’s accelerometers and microphone to turn a mobile banner advertisement into a fully interactive ad. The first ad, “Shakedown 2 Get Down” features a dancer clothed in Dockers threads. The ad responds to shaking movements with a little dance-show from the on-screen dancer, asking the user to “Shake 2 Activ8.”

See pic:




That’s all for now. Br. Vesa

perjantai 13. maaliskuuta 2009

Music for the masses

Hi

So Nokia came out with new Xpress devices. Nice, but what does Express mean? Please leave a comment if you happen to know. Anyways: Nokia and also other competitors are really pushing to the music scene. I'll focus more on Nokia as their news hit the streets here in Fin more often than for example Samsung.

Below is pictured one of their devices. The Nokia 5730 XpressMusic has both numeric keypad and slide-out QWERTY keyboard. I feel this look squire nice. Nevertheless I might be already too old to judge stuff like this... eventhough I am part of the younger generation.



More info on the release can be found under: Nokia events

So Nokia is really going after the music via Comes with Music and Nokia Music Store which currently operates in 15 countries. Nokia is planning on adding more within this year (5-10 stores) Personally I feel that the Comes with Music “idea” is more revolutionary than the plain shops. Also the Comes with Music “idea” is to some extent not perfect. By perfect I mean some of the DRM issues.

However the future aspect of the whole music mania (in addition to getting free DRM music) is the notion that in the future consumers will not need to purchase any music at all. Nor will they need to "keep" music i.e. mp3 files etc. Either the music is free, subsidized by Ads or included in the device/service or “the” cloud will keep you music. Remember Googles plans on integrating a G-drive to the cloud i.e. online? Anyway: Comes with music it works in the sense that the device price includes the “extra” cost.

Also other companies are getting interested on music: Amazon launches DRM-free "Amazon MP3" music downloads. Engadged

My favourite “player” is Spotify. "There are no restrictions in terms of what you can listen to or when." You can access all music fro free - however no download i.e. cannot keep music, but the service remembers your playlist and is VERY fast so who needs to keep the files. In addition they are moving to the mobile space as well.

To end this post: A cartoon from Dilbert:

torstai 5. maaliskuuta 2009

Productivity

Hi

Two interesting news on how to increase productivity.
The first one is more on the subject and the other one on a concept idea.

Starting off: Digitoday.fi
As the site is in Finnish please us for example Google translator.

Anyway Fraunhofer research indicates that productivity rises as end-users (at work place) get the chance to use multiple screens. The research shows that with three panels (LCD screens) the productivity rose by 35%. In addition the work environment and atmosphere also had a positive affect. Needless to say that please keep in mind that this is a research study and the sample and results are questionable and thus cannot be "used" for populations.

The second news comes from: tivi.fi
Again use a translator.

The news is on a Asus concept miniPC showcasing two screens. Please see the picture.


NOW to the assumptions; I feel that within a few years the mobile devices will look similar. Have tow sides. This is good news if we can back up the design with increased productivity!! That's all for now.

Br. Vesa

keskiviikko 4. maaliskuuta 2009

iPhone or "touch" increasing web traffic?

Hi

At least to me not surprisingly iPhone is clearly dominating the web traffic accessed via phones.

Link to News text By Fortune:

Anyways seems that iPhone is according to AdMob dominating mobile web traffic… In almost all categories The iPhone OS now represents 51% of U.S. smartphone traffic, leaving RIM’s (RIMM) BlackBerry (19%) and Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows Mobile (14%) in the dust. In the global handset market, the iPhone and iPod Touch represent 18.3% of worldwide ad traffic - second only to Nokia 30%.

I feel the success is mostly related to the fact that the consumers who initially purchase an iPhone are tech savvy and probably already use the web to a great extent. In addition the iPhone is a wonderful device to surf the web. Unlike most devices using "small" screen wap or .mobi sites. Anyway will be nice to see whether giant Nokia can increase the S60 web traffic with 5800 and upcoming N97. IF then one conclusion might be that the touchscreen (or at least wider screen) provides more delight to end-users in surfing the web.

And link to AppleInsider:



The second news suggest that iPhone (both the iPhone and iPhone 3G) accounts for a staggering 66.61% of all mobile web traffic! Despite Nokia's domination of the global mobile phone market with its Symbian-powered handsets apparently failed to provide its users with the kind of desirable web surfing experience. Yes - I agree!

Finally a nice video that has been creating "news" online:
<a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-GB&playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:a517b260-bb6b-48b9-87ac-8e2743a28ec5&showPlaylist=true&from=shared" target="_new" title="Future Vision Montage">Video: Future Vision Montage</a>

Br. Vesa