Mobile Entertainment_issue59, January 2010

FOR EVERYONE IN MOBILE CONTENT

JANUARY 2010 ISSUE 59

www.mobile-ent.biz

MOBILE ENTERTAINMENT

Mobile goes to the ball ...and asks what 2010 will bring

CONTENTS

NOW PAY LATER 09 BUY The in-app payments explosion

12

FUTUROLOGY

15

OUTER LIMIT

What lies ahead for this blessed industry

The rise and rise of Out There Media

16

AND SO TO BADA

18

FOR REAL?

Kicking the tyres of Samsung’s new platform

Everyone loves a freebie. And the online era is giving people the chance to get virtually anything they want for nada. But we’ve all got to make a living, right? Which explains why virtually every mobile billing provider is moving into inapp payments. In this issue we talked to a few of them about how such systems work, who’s using them and whether they can ever replace the archaic old process of actually paying for stuff ‘off the shelf’.

Elsewhere, we quiz a bunch of industry insiders about their hopes and predictions for 2010. None of them mention world peace, but then we did only ask them about the mobile industry so don’t be too judgemental. We also talked to Out There Media about its progress in the mobile ad space and report back from the Heroes Of The Mobile Screen event…

Augmented reality in the viewfinder

4-6 News 22 Appointments 24 Shows 25 Databox 26 Network subs 28 Charts 31 Marketplace 36 Discontent www.mobile-ent.biz

January 2010 3

NEWS

That’s your vacant lot nce every few weeks I find myself on Regent Street in Central London.

As I walk southwards, I have on my right the Apple Store – a magnet to hip young designers and foreign students who need to email their parents for more money; it’s always rammed. On my left is the Nokia store, a magnet to no-one, a space in which the number of staff nearly always exceeds the number of customers.

So I was not surprised when Nokia confirmed it would close the shop, along with two more US flagships (although it will keep open seven other outlets in the UK). What the hell was Nokia thinking, locating its store opposite Apple’s? As much as it wants to be, Nokia is not a style brand. It’s simply not cool. And those of us not yet seduced by the Apple cult like it that way. But

O

Apple knows most electronics stores are poorly staffed and display products that are password protected. So, instead, it has stylish interiors, wide aisles, working devices and a knowledgeable team. it doesn’t mean we want to hang round its retail outlets. Nokia’s retail volte-face follows a similar one by Sony Ericsson a few months ago, and would appear to end the fantasy that a mobile phone manufacturer can be a retailer.

All except Apple, bucking the trend in retail as it has in mobile. It was derided for hitting the high street in 2001, but now runs more than 270 shops around the world, and makes big money from them. Apple knows that most electronics stores are badly lit, poorly staffed and display products that are locked down and password protected – if they work at all. So, instead, it has stylish interiors, wide aisles, working devices and a knowledgeable team. It’s not that hard.

But then it only works because, as telco thinker John Strand memorably said: “Flagship stores are important in the fashion industry: Apple is fashion. Nokia is consumer electronics.”

And so Apple ploughs its own furrow again.

But what’s this? Microsoft has just opened its first stores. They look just like Apple’s and there’s already YouTube clips of ‘happy’ staff bursting into dance. Yep, it’s as toe-curling as it sounds. Insert joke here about the stores taking ages to open.

Tim.Green@intentmedia.co.uk; @timgreen64 4

January 2010

New start for content specialist End2End responds to market changes by switching focus from portal management to app billing LONG-established content specialist End2End is terminating its portal management contracts with its many operator partners to address the thriving application market.

The firm will now use its expertise in operator payments and retailing to provide billing connectivity for handset-based app stores. In fact, it has been experimenting quietly in this area for the past 18 months, providing the payments platform for embedded content products in handsets ‘from the factory’.

At its peak, End2End ran five storefronts and supplied a platform for seven more. The switch is merely a change of focus, and doesn’t signal its exit from the mobile content space.

Sven Hålling, VP of marketing at End2End Content Services, told ME: “It’s no secret that operator stores are struggling, and we certainly don’t look at that space and see

No-frills Gorilla UK MOBILE services enabler Gorillabox is publishing ‘no hidden extras’ prices on its site in a bid to banish confusion among customers.

The firm believes fully transparent pricing will reassure brands and content owners looking to develop mobile interaction with customers, but are fearful of hidden costs.

Gorillabox is best known for video services, but also offers site builds, reporting and analytics.

Christian Harris, CEO of Gorillabox, said: “We’re determined to simplify the ecosystem for companies wanting to access the channel. Pricing across the industry has been kept deliberately opaque by service providers in an attempt to confuse and inflate prices. We’re pleased to break the mould with a transparent fixed-fee model.” www.gorillabox.com

Sven Halling, VP of marketing at End2End Content Services

hockey stick growth. The market is changing, and in the last month we’ve seen the attitude of the operators change too. They want to stay in the loop, and the way to do that is through billing.”

While End2End can offer credit card, PayPal and other forms of payment, it recognises that operator billing is where the real

volumes are, and its background makes it wellplaced to benefit from this.

End2End moved into content portals after it bought the Swedish multi-player specialist Terraplay in 2007.

The firm was acquired in 2006

by MACH and was split up in End2End Content Services and End2End Connectivity. www.end2endmobile.com

Top-grossing iPhone apps revealed NAVIGON’S $90 Mobile Navigator grossed the most of the 100,000 apps available on the Apple App Store in 2009.

The location-based app was one of many pricey products to make the top ten.

Meanwhile, EA bagged four of the best selling games bought by iPhone and iPod Touch users.

Elsewhere, Gameloft contributed two titles, but there was also room for publishers of cheaper products, such as Firemint, whose 99-cent game Flight Control came seventh.

BEST SELLING APPLICATIONS: MobileNavigator North America ($89.99) MLB.com At Bat (Free)

Textfree Unlimited ($5.99) Tom Tom ($99.99) Golftshot: Golf GPS ($29.99) SlingPlayer Media ($29.99) ColorSplash ($1.99) Pocket God ($.99) Quickoffice Mobile Office Suite ($9.99) The Moron Test ($0.99) BEST SELLING GAMES: The Sims 3 ($6.99) The Oregon Trail ($4.99) Need for Speed Undercover ($4.99) Medden NFL 10 ($6.99) Tiger Woods PGA Tour ($4.99) Assassin’s Creed ($4.99) Flight Control ($0.99) Cooking Mama ($6.99) Civilization Revolution ($6.99) Wheel of Fortune ($4.99) www.itunes.com

www.mobile-ent.biz

Emblaze or ELSE

Orange App Shop open for business Giant operator set to compete with Java-based app store launch

IS THERE such a thing as a radical handset UI? Handset maker Emblaze thinks so.

Its new phone, the ELSE, showcases a UI that is based around what looks like a fan emerging from one side of the touchscreen. The user uses their thumb to roll around the ‘spokes’ of the fan to find the feature required and then lets go to open it. It’s fast and needs only one hand. The UI is powered by ELSE Intuition, the mobile platform jointly developed by ACCESS on the Linux platform.

Emblaze, soon to be renamed ELSE, claims the UI will differentiate it from other phones and accelerate the triumph of the mobile over multiple consumer electronics devices.

THE long awaited Orange App Shop has finally been launched, offering one million customers over 5,000 pieces of content.

The storefront client is now available in the UK and France as an over-the-air download, and will link Java, Android, BlackBerry, Symbian and Windows Mobile apps. Naturally, carrier billing is built in from the start, so customers will pay for apps on their mobile bills.

The operator says that in January, it will start preloading the client on the Nokia 6700 and Sony Ericsson’s W995 and U100i, before launching it for phones made by Samsung, LG, HTC, Motorola and RIM. Given that many of these devices will run their own app stores and those of a third party OS, there could be interesting ‘real estate’ battles going on.

In 2010 Orange will launch the store across Europe, including Spain, Poland, Romania, Switzerland, Slovakia, Belgium, Austria, Moldova and Portugal – with localised content in each case.

Christophe Francois, director of multimedia at Orange, said the shop will appeal to the mass market. “Not all customers are as advanced as the early adopters of Android,” he said. “Most don’t need to see 140 weather forecast apps in the shop. They just need a couple of good ones.”

www.emblaze.com

www.orange.com

[IN BRIEF] Paper Boy delivery Veteran UK developer Elite has created a version of Paper Boy for Phone and iPod Touch. These versions went live on December 18th, with non-English-language versions in the pipeline. Elite Systems has published more than 80 titles and in excess of 300 SKUs for more than 20 different devices.

Tapping up Samsung Samsung touchscreen sales leapt four fold in 2009, shifting ten million in Jan to Nov 2008, and 40 million for the same period in 2009.

It says touchscreens will account for about 20 per cent of its mobile sales this year, against five per cent last year. This strategy will include more localised designs. The firm said its global market share in handsets rose over 20 per cent for the first time in the third quarter, with its telecom unit posting a profit margin of ten per cent in the third quarter.

Rihanna’s Ovi exclusive Nokia has released an official Rihanna app on its Ovi Store. It is only available for the N97, X6 and 5800 XpressMusic. It offers news, photos and videos to fans, as well as music samples and information on the singer’s upcoming tour dates. It also links in with the Nokia Music Store, where fans can buy the star’s latest album Rated R.

SurfKitchen data boost Aussie operator Telstra registered an 11 per cent rise in revenue on ‘TelstraOne Experience’ handsets using the SurfKitchen UI. These devices were launched in May 2009 with a UI based on the SurfKit Mobile Internet Platform, which accesses services via a ticker on the bottom of the screen. Results showed TelstraOne Experience users were 60 per cent more likely to use their phone on a weekly basis to access the mobile web than regular 3G mobile customers. Mobile data use was almost seven per cent higher.

Springtime for Okto US mobile VAS specialist Spring Wireless has bought Brazil-based Okto. The latter offers billing and messaging services to brands and operators across Latin America.

Terms were not disclosed. Spring Wireless has also received an equity investment of $66 million co-led by Goldman Sachs and US venture capitalist New Enterprise Associates.

Argentinian Stream

Lunch is on MIG EXECS from M&S, Spotify, ITN, EA and many more gathered for MIG’s Digital Media and Interactive Lunch last month.

They heard presentations on the past, present and future of mobile media from, respectively, Mike Short, (VP, Telefonica Europe) Jess Greenwood (deputy editor, Contagious Magazine) and Rory Sutherland (vice chairman, Ogilvy Group). www.migcan.com www.mobile-ent.biz

Mobile Streams will target low-end mobile users in Argentina with textbased alerts that deliver news, weather, sports, horoscopes and more. The content distributor already runs mobile content clubs, which bundle text alerts with items such as ringtones, wallpapers and videos.

These new services are targeted at users without WAP and GPRS access.

Alongside this, Mobile Streams will also launch new text-based mobile marketing services.

January 2010 5

NEWS

Nokia: Ovi was just a stopgap Handset maker says a new version is coming Claims nearly one million app downloads a day in latest update NOKIA has admitted that its app store Ovi was an interim service designed to consolidate its many content platforms.

George Linardos, the firm’s VP of product media, told ME: “We had this jambalaya of services – Download, MOSH and WidSets.

Looking at them, it was obvious we needed to consolidate one place for consumers to go, put the full weight of our distribution behind it, and provide a single point of entry for publishers.”

So it decided to take an interim approach of using some of the components of its existing platforms to get up and running quickly – while building the all-new platform in the background.

This was before the Apple App Store changed the standards by which such things are measured – and didn’t reflect well on Ovi. Consequently, Nokia’s been fixing bugs and introducing features like

Nokia’s new Ovi will have improved speed and reliability

search and re-downloading that should have been there from the beginning.

However, Linardos says the changes – and the rollout of the Ovi client on new Nokia handsets – have transformed download volumes. “We’re doing just under one million downloads a day, and our download numbers are growing 100 per cent month-on-month.”

Next comes the entirely new Ovi, with more speed,

better UI and improved reliability. Nokia is also working on providing better analytics to developers, while introducing operator billing in more countries – it’s currently enabled with 50 carriers. The new Ovi client should be available in a few months.

It’s been quite a month of humility for Nokia – the firm also confirmed it would close its flagship UK retail store, and two more in the US. www.ovi.com

App ads? Keep all the money…

UK-BASED ad exchange Admoda is celebrating the launch of its iPhone/Andoid app ads by offering 100 per cent payouts to developers.

The offer is open for app developers who sign up with Admoda (or its sister firm Adultmoda) before the end of February 2010.

They will receive one hundred per cent payout for the first 30 days from when they start running Admoda in-app adverts.

Terry Jackson, CEO of Admoda, said: “We have had many enquiries from app developers this year asking when we will be launching our app ads. The app developers all had similar gripes with the current in-app ad solutions on the market – inappropriate ads, low pay outs, and low fill rates resulting in low eCPMs. We aim to help address that with our straightforward solution.” www.admoda.com

Playboy iPhone app: … And get free all about the writing personalisation data too PLAYBOY has finally got its first app onto the iPhone App Store and it’s a magazine-type product full of interesting articles – lots of brain food for horny teenage boys.

The app, developed by India’s Jump Games, gives fans of the magazine a glimpse of the latest issues, along with exclusive content such as free Rabbit Head and Playmate wallpapers, and a Playmate video clip. It’s for the over 17s, but there’s no nudity.

Consumers can also download a new edition of 6

January 2010

the app on the same day Playboy’s new issue hits news-stands. Archived editions will be available through in-app microtransactions with the launch of the Jan/Feb double edition. The app costs $1.99, and the November and December editions are available now for $1.99.

The release has re-heated the debate about what’s permissible on the Apple App Store. In the past, Apple has okayed ‘upskirt’ apps while banning satirical political cartoons. www.playboy.com

PREDICTIVEINTENT has developed what it claims is the first personalisation platform pitched at ‘everyday’ portals – and it’s giving ME readers the chance to try it for free.

The firm is granting a 30 day trial to any firm with a content service or WAP site that wants to see how revenues can be improved by PredictiveIntent’s behavioural profiling. It says its solution is more effective than existing

offerings, which merely present ‘bestsellers’ and ‘most popular’, by displaying relevant content based on previous visits/purchases and behaviour in the current session.

It takes around two days to set-up and is managed on a web-based content management system by PredictiveIntent.

ME readers can get a free trial at www.predictiveintent. com/free-trial-form. www.mobile-ent.biz

Learn more: Mobile World Congress 2010, hall 1, G05 or visit http://mwc.materna.com www.mobile-ent.biz

January 2010 7

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January 2010

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IN-APP PAYMENTS

Inside job Apple’s decision to permit in-app payments is transforming the App Store and prompting a re-think elsewhere too, discovers Tim Green… here was relief and excitement last summer when Apple launched version 3.0 of its iPhone OS and confirmed it would enable in-app payments. With all the hype around ‘freemium’ business models and the downwards pressure on average app prices, this was seen as the beginning of a new era by the iPhone developer community. But the initial delight dimmed when it emerged that only paid-for apps could offer micro-purchasing. The option didn’t exist for free apps.

What worried developers was the prospect of paid-for apps that cost 99-cent, but required an in-app payment to remain active after 30 days. This would not serve customers well.

Rather more obviously, it denied developers the chance to explore the freemium model for themselves.

Happily, Apple relented in October, kickstarting a new era for the iPhone community. It’s easy to explain the re-think. All payments

T

Consumers who want free stuff don’t want to pay anything. A very small proportion will, and that’s fine when you have a vast user base www.mobile-ent.biz

are processed through a user’s existing iTunes account, with Apple acting as payment processor and getting its 30 per cent cut every time.

Suddenly, in one strategic move, Apple gets the chance to monetise all that ‘free’ stuff that was previously off-limits. Indeed, the API is set-up to permit all sorts of billing options, not least subscriptions. This means that

developers can just set a recurring payment event for regular updates (like, say, a new magazine edition) without having to send annoying alerts to users.

It’s felt that the move will divide content offerings into premium and free, thus reducing the quantity of so-called ‘lite’ apps that require users to download an entirely new app to access full features. Already, the changes are taking effect. Ngmoco’s Eliminate Pro shoot-em-up game quickly became the seventh highest grossing app in the App Store, even though it’s free app, all of its revenue came from the in-app purchasing of virtual goods. Meanwhile Pocket God creator Bolt Creative reported that micro-transactions contributed to 27 per cent of its revenues since in-app transactions were made available.

That said, not everyone believes in-app payments will make a huge difference to the free space. Anil Malhotra, SVP of alliances and January 2010 9

IN-APP PAYMENTS

Above: Anil Malhotra, SVP of alliances and marketing at Bango (left), and Rob Weisz, director of wholesale at MIG (right)

marketing at Bango, said: “Consumers who want free stuff don’t want to pay anything. A very small proportion will, and that’s fine when you have a vast user base. But only a few products can deliver this, like social media or social gaming apps.

There aren’t too many of those.”

As a provider of multiple billing options, Malhotra is watching the space carefully. Bango, like all its competitors, is effectively locked out of the game by the fact that all inapp payments are executed through iTunes, and only iTunes. This ‘lockin’ could apply to payments on some other app stores too, when they embrace the model. BlackBerry has already announced its intention to enable inapp payments, locked into its own system (based on credit cards and PayPal), although it’s likely that Ovi will link to operator billing when it comes aboard, while 360, Orange App Shop and other operator app stores self-evidently will.

Of course, this uncertainly could all be by-passed in a browser-based future – letting companies like Bango fill their boots. Malhotra explains: “The challenge is identifying the user every time a billing event takes place, and doing so in a way that’s not instrusive to the user. That’s easy with a pre-established payment channel, more of a challenge for companies like us. The best way to do it is via the mobile web in such a way that you don’t have to open the browser every time. A major part of our strategy for 2010 is to address this.”

Until then, there’s always Java.

Old-school downloads from operator portals or via D2C channels can easily be embedded with this functionality, even if the billing method is clunky old PSMS (or PayForIt in the UK) and there are old legacy handsets that can’t handle it.

Oh, and then there are legal restrictions in some territories.

Michael Whelan, director of TxtNation, has seen demand soar for this functionality in the last six months.

“I think people are suddenly thinking about the potential of this business model, and there’s more device support for it. It’s easy to do, as long as you bear in mind the regulatory stuff,” he says.

to deal with it. End2End was a key player in operator portal management, but is now re-orienting around managing the billing component of embedded handset apps. Then there’s Accumulate, which is gathering interest around a system than embeds payment functionality into downloaded games – effectively turning a Java game into a storefront.

Of course, a general issue around all such ideas is scale. While it’s possible to bill using PSMS all over the world, you need to find a partner that connects to operators everywhere. And while the biggies like Netsize, mBlox and Ericsson have good reach, they’re not ubiquitous.

That’s good enough for most, but some of the major brands now fiddling around the app stores want universality.

Another poser for brands and content providers is the issue of rev shares. The industry norm is around 30 per cent on app stores, but in some countries PSMS is even higher than this. While credit cards take a fraction of this, the fact is that users prefer m-payments. Rob Weisz, director of wholesale at billing enabler MIG, believes the industry is missing a huge trick here. “The e-commerce industry in the UK is worth about £50 billion a year; m-commerce is worth £350 million. Why? Because what retailer wants to give away ten times more than they do online with a credit card payment?” Ah, rev shares.

Ten years on and they’re still the cause of so much unhappiness.

The e-commerce industry in the UK is worth about £50 billion a year; m-commerce is worth £350 million

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Indeed, there have been notable successes in this area. Russian games developer Dynamic Pixels found its fortunes transformed when it stopped hoping for deck placement and launched an aquarium-based tamogotchi-style game called AquaPhone, which it gave away and then monetised with in-game extras bought using premium SMS. AquaPhone built a user base of over 1.4 million, and the publisher claims to have generated well over one million dollars – and that’s after onerous operator PSMS shares were deducted.

The potential of the market is such that a well-established company like End2End is changing its entire focus

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2010: THE YEAR AHEAD

Forward thinking If we could see into the future we’d all have applied for jobs at AdMob while we had the chance. We didn’t. But that hasn’t stopped Mobile Entertainment asking a star chamber of industry execs for their predictions for 2010…

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2010: THE YEAR AHEAD

Below from left to right: Eric Hobson, Miguel Lopez-Quesada, Neil Andrews, Harry Dewhirst, Paul Reddick, Peter Cowley and Tim Green

“The most notable change in mobile will be the further opening up of the handset space.”

We’ll see even more consolidation among big publishers, and there’ll also be further polarisation in prices charged. Basically, I think the market will divide between high-end price items and free/ad funded products at the low-end.

In terms of distribution, I think the Apple 70/30 model will start to apply across the operators in-house stores, while some smaller carriers will completely outsource their stores.

Also, piracy will get worse and start to be a major problem, and Nokia will eventually get the Ovi Store right.

Eric Hobson CEO, Connect2Media We will see 2010 as being the year that genuine mobility starts to be part of mobile content as location finally comes of age. The widespread availability of GPS-enabled smartphones coupled with the addition of geolocation to popular search engines such as Facebook and Twitter will make location a key part of all mobile services.

Simon Buckingham CE, Mobile Streams and Zoombak

operator walled garden is dead, and to be immediately replaced by the handset app store walled garden.

Real world companies will still marvel at how fragmented the mobile channel is and cut back on their mobile investments. Again.

Or, we’ll all ‘embrace the browser’, make mobile the ubiquitous channel it has been yearning to be and finally get this market kickin’ arse!

Chris Noone Director, Nitro Mobile Three key trends for 2010: another year of growth for mobile apps, more M&A activity and a surge of activity in multi-platform content development across mobile, web, TV and other channels.

Miguel López-Quesada General Manager, Zed TV

The Google AdMob deal will cast a long shadow. Every man and his dog is going to buy or open his own version of AdMob. Shashi Fernando CEO, Saffron Digital

Mobile location will become more important, relevant and monetisable than ever, presenting lots of exciting new revenue possibilities. Meanwhile, I fear operators will continue to miss the point about content and fail to understand that consumers don’t wish to pay them to own it.

On a broader level, we’ll be trying to understand what Google WAVE is all about. We’ll be drowning, not waving in it.

Michael Ohajuru Director, Materna

2010 will be the year we start to think about the choice between the app store and the browser. It could be when we all finally agree that the

The key trend has to be the further proliferation of people accessing the internet from mobile devices. This will prompt an even wider range of

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social networks and brands to invest in the mobile channel.

Neil Andrews Head of Portal Advertising, 3UK I think the winners in 2010 will be companies that invest in their teams and evolve their products and services in line with market changes.

In the ad space, companies that own or represent mobile ad inventory like Millennial or Quattro and large media owners like Yahoo! and Sky will do well. Ad agencies that can truly convince brands how to use mobile effectively will come up trumps. There are some huge budgets out there that need to be spent in mobile. Get ready!

Harry Dewhirst COO, Ring Ring Media I really believe 2010 will be the year agencies and advertisers finally embrace mobile advertising. The main reason for this is the roll-out of supporting technologies such as mcommerce, apps, NFC and couponing. Because of them, brands can make money on their mobile destinations, and this is what will get them to spend media budget on promos, and use mature media sales businesses to do it.

Alex Rahaman Director, Unanimis 2010 is the year that mobile applications will become a more important outlet for publishers and media brands. With traditional approaches struggling, apps will be logical extensions that connect

people to news and information. The important change will be in using mobile apps as a connection to a broader experience – rather than just for playing games or indulging in novelty. Companies will need to recognise that distribution, monetisation and on-going innovation is king in the mobile app space.

Paul Reddick CEO, Handmark The bottom is going to drop out of the apps market, because there is too much competition. Prices will drop.

Peter Cowley MD of digital media, Endemol UK The most notable change in mobile, will be the further opening up of the handset space. The top five we had for so long have been blown apart by the arrival of iPhone and Android.

That moment of panic people had about leaving the comfort of Nokia or BlackBerry is evaporating. It’s okay to try HTC or Huawei now. Phones look alike, and if they’re running a third party OS, they even run the same.

Much as I’d like to see genuine mobile tech like Augmented Reality or 2D barcodes hit the mainstream, I’m not convinced they’re ready yet.

Instead, I think momentum will be made by m-payments and NFC. Watch Barclaycard and Mastercard go in 2010 – and see how operators start to realise that a tiny slice of trillions of transactions might be preferable to running their own content operations.

Tim Green Executive editor, ME January 2010 13

OUT THERE MEDIA

Outstanding With 16 operator deals, Out There Media seems to have something that carriers like. Tim Green spoke to the mobile ad provider’s CEO, Kerstin Trikalitis, about the key to its appeal…

2009 was the year Out There got noticed. Why was this?

I think most operators are coming round to the idea that they can’t be advertising companies. So we go in and give them an end-toend platform that comprises sales, creative, media planning, buying and the underlying ‘Mobucks’ technology platform. They don’t have to spend time or money licensing a platform or learning how to run it, and they get revenues from day one. It seems to work.

Are advertisers buying in?

We’re working with over 150 now, including Nestle, RIM, Coca-Cola and Peugeot. There’s a spill over effect once you get past a certain scale. We now have 16 operator deals in 15 countries – and access to over 120 million consumers, many of them exclusive to us.

Ultimately, advertisers want reach and if you can

guarantee millions of consumers, then they start to pay attention. And with targeting, the proposition is even stronger.

While advertisers want reach, don’t they also want local expertise?

Absolutely, which is why we aim to hire people in every country we enter, because there’s no substitute for a team that lives and breathes the inventory at a local level. That’s eight teams now, with six more in Q1 2010.

What results do you achieve?

An average of seven to ten per cent click through. This is possible when you have targeted campaigns.

You have this ‘end-to-end’ policy.

But some of the tier one operators have their own sales teams...

This is the number one reason why the market hasn’t fully taken off. In a country where every operator has its own sales force or an exclusive partner, it’s just too much hassle to deal with multiple partners and advertisers get frustrated and decide not to add mobile. Anyway, operators are struggling with the self-managed model. Only Turkcell has really made it work. We’re about to announce a contact win with one of Europe’s biggest operators. They had wanted to buy-in a platform and run it inhouse. They changed their mind.

Even so, some operators are working this way. Have you anything to offer them?

Well, we have a ‘secret sauce’ that complements what they do extremely well, but I wouldn’t want to expand on that here.

Kerstin Trikalitis is looking to strengthen the company by setting up six more teams across Europe in early 2010

What advertising channels do you use?

Targeted SMS or MMS. They account for around 65 per cent by revenue, and half of the traffic is MMS, which has never taken off with consumers but is perfect for advertising. Of the rest, 20 per cent is operator portal banners,

ringbacks, systems notifications and other channels.

Why does Out There target operators and not publishers?

We took that decision long ago. It’s challenging working with operators because of due diligence, quality of service issues and the decision ‘circle’. It’s our speciality though.

And it’s worth it because operators are uniquely capable of getting people to opt-in to receive ads. No matter what happens with the mobile web, there are channels like missed call messages, credit statements and so on that are great for advertising and will always be so. That said, we can address the publisher space. AdMob has done a great job and we work with them sometimes on campaigns.

Isn’t there a danger that outsourcing goes in cycles? How long before operators think they can make more money without a partner?

I don’t see the cycle turning like that in advertising. The money they pay would be swallowed up in costs. The downturn has helped us. Operators are looking at CAPEX and focusing on core strengths. They’re outsourcing more.

We’re in the era of specialisation.

There are big players in your space – Ericsson, Openwave, Amdocs, Comverse. Does this concern you?

It’s true these companies have operator relationships going back decades. But it turns out that carriers want partners that can bring them money, advertisers and a solid track record. In fact, one of these giant companies recently approached us about sharing resources, so we’ll see what happens.

What’s the long term future for mobile advertising?

For all our progress, it’s still an immature business. Ultimately though, there has to be consolidation in the sector, with three or four major specialists worldwide.

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BADA OS

Samsung’s big Bada bid Bada is the feature phone OS with smartphone functionality. Great. But Samsung’s new platform also adds more fragmentation to an already complex marketplace.

Tim Green reflects… martphone was, is and always will be one of the most useless phrases this industry has ever invented – and we’ve made up a few.

God help us. At first, it existed to differentiate handsets with email, video, MP3, document reading and other ‘advanced’ functions from dumb feature phones. But when big selling feature phones like the Tocco easily embraced the sophisticated stuff, the only differentiator became the third party OS. Since when does the average punter care about that?

The blurring of the lines appears to have underpinned the thinking behind Samsung’s Bada platform/OS, which launched last month. Through many long speeches the firm rammed this idea home. Shame, then, that it did so by calling Bada a ‘smartphone platform for everyone’, rather than eradicating the ‘S’ word for good.

Ho hum.

So what is Bada? Well, in Samsung’s words it’s a ‘feature-rich platform that delivers enhanced mobile experiences for consumers, and a support programme for developers’. Translated, it seems to be a new proprietary OS and UI that will run across every touch-enabled phone shipped by Samsung next year. Given that the firm sold 40 million touchscreens in 2009, and will surely sell more in 2010, that could make Bada a serious rival to Android, Symbian, Windows Phone and iPhone within 12 months. Handets will start shipping with the OS during the first half of next year to 50 countries.

Developers will be able to program in C++ for Bada handsets and will get deep access to hardware capabilities such as GPS, contacts and camera. There will also be APIs

The Bada advert from Samsung – depicting a world of opportunities for the mobile user

S

16

January 2010

$2.7m reasons for developer support Samsung is making a beeline for developers, with a host of initiatives to stimulate Bada projects. The headline grabber is a Developer Challenge, offering a $2.7 million prize fund, and a top prize of $300,000. This will be supported by developer days in Seoul, London, San Francisco and other cities to be confirmed. for in-app purchasing, face recognition, multipoint touch and Flash support. This is an improvement on the current feature phone options, which support only Java or Brew. Bada apps will eventually be able to stream video, which was the main focus of the most interesting of the presentations by Samsung’s publisher partner, Blockbuster. It intends to use Bada in a flagship application for streaming, renting and previewing films as part of a multi-channel offer.

It’s a bold move by Samsung, which is clearly throwing its whole

weight behind this ‘every phone is a smartphone’ philosophy. This has been rumbling for a while – certainly since October when the firm flew hundreds of partners and press to Milan for a lavish launch of the Corby/Genio range – a handset series that packed advanced features into a fashion-centric form factor.

So, what does Bada mean for Samsung’s commitment to Symbian, Android and the rest? Well, the firm has denied it’s pulling out of any of them. But it’s hard to imagine any further support for the fading Symbian option, while the appearance

of just one Android device to date (the Galaxy) suggests the Google OS is hardly front of mind either.

This was far from the only question that went unanswered. Although Samsung stressed that Bada apps will be downloadable from the recentlylaunched app store, it wouldn’t be drawn on a rev share.

Samsung’s sheer market power – the world’s second biggest OEM – means that Bada can’t be ignored, but it’s more fragmentation in a mobile platform family that already includes Android, Symbian, Linux, Windows Mobile, Java and BREW. www.mobile-ent.biz

melodi MOBILE MEDIA SOLUTIONS

www.mobile-ent.biz

January 2010 17

AUGMENTED REALITY

Dutch firm Layar kick-started the AR era with a browser that overlays the real-world view with text

They think it’s all overlay 2009 was the year augmented reality became actual reality.

Will it last? Mobile Entertainment investigates…

18

January 2010

hen you get to a certain age, you realise that there’s nothing new under the sun. X Factor/American Idol is just Opportunity Knocks with phone voting; Paris Hilton is Jayne Mansfield. It applies to tech, too. If you left school before the nineties, you’ll remember virtual reality. And if you remember VR, you won’t have fainted with excitement at its grandchild, augmented reality.

Which is not to minimise the impact of AR – it just reminds us that technology itself is never enough: there has to be the right hardware, value chain and consumer

W

psychology to make it fly. Although there had already been advances in the Far East, that point arrived for AR in the late summer when Android provided the handset and the OS to enable Dutch firm Layar to debut its Layar Reality Browser.

This app uses the handset’s compass to figure out what direction the user is facing when using the app.

It then overlays the view with text and graphical information. Layar’s vision is of an open platform in which other developers can create their own ‘layers’ for the browser, and that this will populate the app with local information all over the world.

At launch, some of these embedded extras included: London Tube Stations (the nearest stations flash up); Food and Drink (nearby fast food outlets); Wikipedia (scans for anything that has its own Wikipedia entry) and Tweeps Around (identifies Twitter active near you). Layar says it now has more than 1,000 developers creating content for its browser.

People got very excited. And shortly after, another cool app ramped up the AR fervour. Google’s Sky Map for Android showed what is possible when you point the camera in the air at night – the free programme uses GPS, compass, and www.mobile-ent.biz

AUGMENTED REALITY

other data to label the night sky.

Brian May must have been thrilled.

It was fantastic for Android, because the tech had been denied to iPhone developers until Apple launched version 3.0 of its iPhone software in the summer. When it did, though, the inevitable migration started. By October, Mobilizy had launched its Wikitude AR browser on the Apple platform, which pulls down data from Wikipedia, Qype or Wikitude’s own database of usergenerated notes and guides.

Shortly after, Mobilizy released a twist on the app based around motoring, Android: Wikitude Drive.

Rather than show directions on a map, it overlays them on the handset’s camera feed. The app pulls navigation data from the web, and supports voice commands from users.

Sky Map and Wikitude Drive illustrate the flexibility of AR, reminding the trade that it’s not just about pointing a camera at a street view. Philipp Breuss-Schneeweis, CEO of Mobilizy, says: “Wikitude Drive is part of a natural evolution in mobile augmented reality. I believe there is much more to AR than simply planting coloured points of interest on a cam-view. People want to know how to get to these POIs, and Wikitude Drive shows the way.”

Inevitably games developers have begun to explore the tech too.

Actually, there was a prototype of AR gaming released back in 2004, when the Jamba-owned studio Ojom release Mosquitoes. This overlaid insects into the camera view, which the user could zap by directing their viewfinder.

The new AR games aimed higher than this. For example, New Zealand developer HIT Lab launched two iPhone titles Drift and Splatter Bugs under a dedicated publishing brand Slapdown Games. Each one requires the user print out a physical ‘game card’, which then launches the game.

Without doubt, AR is the industry’s most-hyped tech right now.

Analysts are already throwing projections at it, with ABI Research estimating a $350m industry by 2014 (up from $6m in 2008), while Juniper Research is far more bullish, projecting $732 by the same period.

Of course, no one is quite sure how AR should be monetised, although obvious possibilities include pay-per-download, micro-payments and advertising. www.mobile-ent.biz

AR was used by Mini to create a 3D image of the popular car (left) and to show off the potential of the technology. Vic Gundotra (right), Google engineering VP, believes visual search will become second nature – a “mouse for the real world”.

The four lives of AR Dutch mobile consultancy SPRX has identified the four stages of AR as follows: 1. Physical world hyper linking Another way of describing 2D image recognition by mobile. Train the camera on a barcode to receive a link to redirect you to a mobile site for more information.

The area has been hampered by tech fragmentation and consumer indifference.

2. Marker-based AR This is an upgrade of 2D barcode scanning wherein the code is transformed into a 3D image or animation. The first free toolkits worked online with a webcam,

and the next step up is Marker AR using mobile.

3. Markerless AR This is the AR we’re most familiar with now, in which the phone camera view is overlaid with information made relevant by the GPS position and the compass.

4. Augmented Vision This is real sci-fi stuff, the point at which AR is integrated into contact lenses so that – potentially – everything becomes AR-enabled.

It’s possible that print, radio, TV, the web and all other media could be imbued with the technology.

It’s equally possible it won’t happen at all.

AR explained AR apps and browsers include layers of metadata about physical objects which appear in the camera viewfinder and have been geotagged: either by the developers of the app itself, third-parties or even members of the public.

The app then identifies where the user is via the GPS, and which direction he or she is facing via the digital compass. AR therefore requires five key facilities within a handset, namely: • Camera • GPS • Broadband connectivity • Tilt sensors (accelerometer) • Digital compass These are generally embedded in only the more high-end devices. The first handset to meet all these requirements was the HTC Dream/G1. But from summer 2009, many more Android devices emerged while iPhone running 3.0 OS and the Nokia N97 also enable AR apps.

Interestingly, brands are already experimenting with AR – especially beer brands. Stella Artois teamed with AcrossAir to launch a mobile app that lets US drinkers find their nearest Stella-dispensing bar by waving their cameraphone in the air. And another application of AR – using ‘markerbased’ tabs (see box) – could be even more exciting for advertisers.

Here, a 2D barcode is transformed – as if by magic – into a 3D image that the user can ‘pick up’ and inspect from all sides. An early attempt at this, produced in Germany for the Mini motor car, stunned observers and became a minor YouTube sensation when it emerged in December 2008.

Although it was created for webcams rather than the phone camera, it was an eye-popping illustration of AR’s potential for marketers.

Any uncertainty surrounding monetisation hasn’t stopped investors racing into the space. In the last few weeks, AR firm Tonchidot raised $4m while Layar closed a $1m round. The investors must have seen potential beyond the browser, given the recent entry of Google into that space.

Its Android app, Google Goggles, lets users point their camera at an object, and then get information on it from Google’s database. Vic Gundotra, Google’s VP of engineering, says: “One day visual search will be as natural as pointing a finger – like a mouse for the real world.”

Google’s presence might obliterate the browser as a commercial proposition, but it doesn’t half boost the standing of AR as an idea. We’ll be looking through our viewfinder at 2010 to see how the sector benefits.

January 2010 19

HEROES OF THE MOBILE SCREEN

Show me the

money!

If apps are exploding, why aren’t developers making decent money from them? That was the question raging at the Heroes Of The Mobile Screen conference in London, writes Stuart Dredge…

i

independent developers launching Phone may have racked up more apps with rock-bottom prices just to than two billion app downloads, but many of the 100,000 plus apps have a chance of breaking into the Top 100 chart. It’s a strategy that can released on the App Store have sunk pay off in spades if you achieve big without trace. Meanwhile, Google’s download volumes – as apps like I Android Market has well-publicised Am T-Pain, Flight Control, London issues on the paid apps front, while Tube and Pocket God showed in 2009.

Nokia’s Ovi Store continues to be Google’s Hugo Barra argued that roundly criticised by developers for its more mobile publishers are making poor user experience. And while money than they were a few years mobile advertising paid off ago, contrasting the money-making handsomely for AdMob recently potential of the current generation of when Google agreed to buy it for app stores with the days when a big $750 million, there is still scant carrier deal was the only route to evidence of mobile developers rolling mobile profitability. It’s an argument, in ad revenues. but not a convincing defence.

It was at the Heroes Of The Cold hard realism was injected by a Mobile Screen event in London, last session at the conference, where a month, that a debate with the panel of VCs discussed the mobile punchy title ‘Who’s Making Money in Mobile?’ was hijacked by the topic, space. Greycroft’s Ian Sigalow admitted he’d looked at more which then 1,000 mobile sidetracked into a “In order to make all than apps in the last two discussion of the of this work, we still years, and that ‘none interesting-butare making separate issue of have a huge amount ofthethem type of money downloads versus of plumbing that goes you’d expect to see web apps. A panel for a venture-backed comprising Google, into it, and that’s start-up.’ He also Microsoft, Research where the money is.” said VCs are holding In Motion and off on widespread Symbian wriggled a investment, due to the hurdles they bit. “Very few developers are making face in generating revenues. money,” admitted Symbian’s Oliver In fact, they are focusing more on Gunasekara, and eyebrows were infrastructure and technology firms. raised when RIM’s Mike Kirkup added: “It depends on your definition “There’s a lot of money to be made, but I’m not talking about applications,” of making money.” said Peter Globokar from Mooreland However, Kirkup did put his finger Partners. “Yes, there’s applications, but on one problem often cited by developers – their attachment to paid in order to make all of this work, we downloads. “A lot fall into the spell of still have a huge amount of plumbing the one-time download payment, and that goes into it, and that’s where the a lot are being crushed by it,” he said. money is to be made.”

VCs haven’t been scared off entirely “We want to give people the – Shazam recently took investment opportunity to experiment within from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers’ their own apps, whether you offer it iFund. But VCs and developers alike for free, or if you want to upgrade for are starting to wonder whether the a freemium type model.” main financial beneficiary of the apps The App Store’s rush towards 99boom will remain Apple for some time. cent price points has seen 20

January 2010

Mobile leaders discussed money matters at the Hereos Of The Mobile Screen conference last month

www.mobile-ent.biz

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January 2010

JAMES MACDONALD

CAROLINE FINCH

Former Virgin Mobile content chief JOHN CONLON has been appointed senior business development manager for mobile at Barclaycard. In his new role he will lead the credit card firm’s many excursions into mobile, not least in NFC, which it has already run trials for with O2 and Nokia.

Mobile Streams has a new COO. The global mobile content retailer has hired ARND ASCHENTRUP to the newly created position. He will be responsible for managing all aspects of Mobile Streams including licensing, preparation, distribution and reporting. Arnd will also take charge of human resources and legal services, as well as responsibility for the European commercial region. Blimey, what a job description. Arnd joined Mobile Streams in 2006 when it acquired Cyoshi Mobile, which he co-founded.

2ergo has hired ex-O2 media chief JAMES MACDONALD to be its new head of media and entertainment.

The man known as JIMMY MAC has more than 20 years experience in mobile, most recently as director of sales at O2 Media and head of mobile at Unanimis. 2ergo is active in mobile publishing, content management, interactive messaging, ticketing and couponing, mobile payment, and security solutions.

DAVID KO has been handed responsibility for all of Yahoo’s content sites in North America, including news, sports and finance.

He takes over from JEFF DOSSETT, who left in May. Ko was made global head of Yahoo Mobile at the beginning of the year. His new title will be SVP of audience and mobile for North America. Meanwhile in the UK, CAROLINE FINCH has joined Yahoo UK and Ireland as category director for technology and telecoms.

She will be responsible for providing insight and understanding into how consumers interact with the internet and how marketers can engage with their customers online. Finch previously worked with Vonage.

Glu Mobile has brought in BILL MILLER to replace the departing GREG BALLARD as interim president and CEO. The mobile games publisher has been searching for a replacement for a few months, but it seems it has decided on appointing Miller as a stopgap measure. “The need to start planning for 2010 is upon us, and it seemed to us on the board that it was important to put somebody in place who could drive the company through that 2010 planning process and carry it into 2010 if necessary,” Miller told ME. Spotify has recruited OSKAR STÅL from mBlox to be its new CTO. His hiring indicates music firm’s seriousness about mobile payments.

Stål had been with transactions specialist mBlox for eight years. As director of development he helped grow the firm from a five-person start-up to a $100 million business. www.mobile-ent.biz

22-23 ME59_Final

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Sponsored by

with some credit Barclaycard’s mobile adventure in 2010

ARND ASCHENTRUP

ROB GELICK

The assumption is that Sal will bring new ideas about in-app payments, ‘sender-pays’ packages and phone billing to Spotify.

and was previously CEO for PortalPlayer.

Mippin has hired NICK BARNETT as its new CEO. He arrives from Phorm UK, the targeted online content and advertising firm, where he was MD, but held a VP role at O2/Telefonica for five years before that. Mippin is an aggregator of hundreds of publisher sites, which is heavily committed to app platforms.

Vodafone has appointed DANIELLE CROOK, the former European brand director at Gap, as its brand director. It marks a return to the network for Cook who previously worked in a global role as lead of brand integration and customer experience, as well as general manager for brand and communications at Vodafone Australia. She will report to IAN SHEPHERD, director of consumer at Vodafone UK. Movidius has appointed GARY JOHNSON as non-executive member of the board of directors.

He brings over 20 years of experience in technology companies

Video streaming specialist Vidiator has a new chief executive officer. He is TAE SUNG PARK, who brings with him a background in large hitech multinationals and small venture capital backed software start-ups. Vidiator provides operators and service providers with a scalable digital content streaming platform.

ROB GELICK is to head up CBS Interactive’s mobile division. The giant media corp has a 40 strong mobile unit that services the FLO TV channel, develops new product features, and provides advertising and sales support. Prior to joining CBS, Gelick co-founded MVNO Helio, serving as its VP of data services.

US mobile marketing specialist iLoop has recruited D’ARCY SALZMANN as its CMO. He brings 15 years of management experience at Nokia, Metrowerks and IBM to the role. iLoop Mobile’s patentpending mFinity platform delivers marketing services to brands, marketing agencies and content owners.

Does your firm have a position to fill? If so, you should advertise on the appointments page that’s read by everyone in the content business: yes, this one. We also offer a complementary online service.

Either way, every exec in the business will be reading about your vacancy. Contact Katy Grant at Katy.Grant@intentmedia.co.uk or +44 (0)1992 535647 for more info. www.mobile-ent.biz

January 2010 23

24 ME59_Final

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SOURCE: EVENTS

2010 Calendar March 23rd-25th CTIA Wireless 2010 Las Vegas Convention Center, US www.ctiawireless.com It’s back to the monorail, the slot machines and the grinding soulless despair of Las Vegas for CTIA 2010’s spring show.

Some people adore Vegas, but for the rest of us the conference centre is the best place to be – a location from which to escape the knuckle-dragging epsilons, and check out shiny new gadgets instead. Despite the downturn, CTIA attracts around 1,200 exhibiting companies and over 40,000 delegates.

January 2010 January 7th-10th International CES 2010 Las Vegas, US www.cesweb.org The colossal CES bandwagon rolls on, with its 2,000 plus exhibitors and 150,000 visitors.

Every conceivable consumer electronics item will be represented, including mobile of course. In fact, Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo is among the keynotes.

January 24th-27th MIDEM Cannes, France www.midem.com The future of the year’s biggest music industry trade event, MIDEM, was in doubt for a while, but will return to the Croisette in Cannes in January.

For the first time, it will incorporate the MidemNet digital and mobile programme into the main programme rather than as a precursor to the week’s action.

April 2010 April 7th-8th China Mobile Internet 2010 Summit Beijing, China www.china-mis.com Mobile World Congress (February 15th-18th). Inevitably the GSMA has cottoned on to app mania and decided to host an ‘app planet’ showcase in good old Hall 7. We’ll see you there

January 28th-29th M-Days Munich, Germany www.m-days.com Applications, LBS, mobile devices and business solutions, all under the roof of the imposing BMW Welt.

February 2010 February 15th-18th Mobile World Congress Barcelona, Spain www.mobileworldcongress.com The juggernaut returns to Spain. The 2009 show may have been smaller than in previous years, but it still drew 49,000. Not bad in a global recession. This year, inevitably, the GSMA is climbing aboard the applications bandwagon with a new event called App Planet. It will be held in Hall 7, traditionally the home of mobile content at MWC, and will include conference sessions, an exhibition of apps, and a networking-focused App Lounge.

24

January 2010

In January, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued 3G licences to its three main telcos. Thus began an exciting new era in the world’s biggest mobile market. This summit is supported by the big three operators – China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom – and is also endorsed by the MMA and the MEF. The organisers are expecting 150 senior delegates, and among the confirmed speakers are the app VPs at the opcos, plus Jin Peng (VP of MySpace in China), Lin Bin (VP of mobile R&D at Google) and many more that will be announced on the day.

June 2010

China Mobile Internet 2010 Summit (April 7th-8th) The conference, supported by China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, expects 150 delegates and a strong cast of speakers from the mobile industry March 2010 March 8th The Mobile Research Conference 2010 Swissotel The Howard, London, UK www.mobileresearchconference.com MRC is the only industry event

entirely dedicated to mobile surveys, connecting scientific research and best corporate practice. It comprises workshops and presentations from industry experts. It is aimed at scientific and corporate researchers, business developers and executives from marketing and HR disciplines.

March 9th-12th GDC 2010 San Francisco, US www.gdconf.com The world’s biggest games developer event returns to San Francisco, bringing together the community to share techniques, make connections and showcase the hottest upcoming technology.

June 22nd-23rd Mobile Entertainment Markets Park Plaza Victoria, London, UK www.m-e-f.org MEM will once again bring together the world’s content players together for a two-day conference. The 2009 show attracted over 500 attendees, a 26 per cent increase from 2008.

Only date and venue details are available at present, but ME will be the first to hear when speakers and the agenda are confirmed.

www.mobile-ent.biz

SOURCE: DATABOX

databox

A selection of stats from across the mobile industry...

Camera phones trump digital cameras One third of people use mobile phones instead of digital cameras – and among teens it’s over half.

A study by Lexar Media of 3,000 phone users in Europe found 34 per cent of Germans, 31 per cent of Brits and 25 per cent of French now use their camera phones for taking pictures. For teenagers, the figure is as high as 61 per cent for the UK alone. It also found that photo taking was the main reason for consumers running out of phone memory.

Mobile phones get saucy One fifth of people keep saucy images on their phone, while a quarter mistakenly send them to the wrong person. A study by www.rightmobilephone.co.uk identified ten of the most embarrassing phone blunders – and storing naughty images took the top spot with 28 per cent saying they ended up in the wrong hands.

Fifty-eight per cent of mobile users said their phone had rung at inappropriate times such as during a job interview or funeral, while 19 per cent said they had been gossiping about a friend without realising that they had phoned them by mistake.

The top ten are: 1. 85 per cent had embarrassing ringtones in public places 2. 58 per cent had their phone ringing in inappropriate situations 3. 52 per cent had made regrettable drunken phone calls 4. 49 per cent texted the wrong person 5. 41 per cent left a voicemail on the wrong answer phone 6. 30 per cent had been on loudspeaker without realising

www.mobile-ent.biz

7. 28 per cent have saucy pictures on their mobile phones 8. 22 per cent admitted to their mobile ringing when they were already pretending to be on the phone 9. 20 per cent said they had been text-jacked by friends who had sent inappropriate things to other people from their phone 10. 19 per cent confess to calling someone without realising and gossiping about them

Flat rate Japan Just over one third of Japanese subscribers are on a 3G flat rate, but by 2011 the figure will hit 60 per cent.

Kei Shimada from Infinita added that total revenue for the Japanese telecoms market is $85 billion – and that 239 billion page views a month are on mobile, with 60 per cent of those coming from off-portal sites.

In a survey of 16-24 year-olds, Shimeda found that 90 per cent use the mobile web at least daily, and 61

per cent use it for more than an hour a day, with 24 per cent accessing the internet for more than three hours.

He cited the success of mobile media in Japan to the operators – benevolent dictators that dictate handset features, and then back off, running ‘unwalled gardens’ available to customers of all the others. They also take a mere ten per cent revenue share too.

300,000k iPhone apps?

The iPhone app catalogue will leap from 100,000 now to more than 300,000 iPhone apps by the end of next year, says IDC. Analyst Frank Gens predicts that a big chunk of the new iPhone apps will come from ‘well-known Global 2000 business and consumer brands’, but adds that the app space won’t be all Apple’s. Although Android will number just 75,000 apps by the same time, he believes it will find its place – even if it faces hurdles. “The advantage of Android – that it’s more ‘open’ than the iPhone platform – creates more compatibility challenges for developers,” he said.

Short URLs, big impact Mobile views of shortened URLs like bit.ly and TinyURL have soared on the small screen.

Research by Novarra showed page views grew by 1,068 per cent in 2009, supporting the findings of the firm’s Mobile Internet Experience Update, which noted that page views of Twitter grew 3,500 per cent in the first half of 2009.

TinyURL and bit.ly links are used to share content via Twitter and other micro-blogging services because they fit easily into 140 character SMS messages.

Novarra’s data shows that bit.ly and TinyURL ranked in the top 200 UK sites accessed last month.

January 2010 25

SOURCE: OPERATORS

network subs Key operator subscriber numbers from around the world

Operator

Subscribers

T-Mobile

5,207,000

T-Mobile

2,885,000

T-Mobile

5,458,000

20,960,800

O2

4,922,700

Orange

16,110,000

Vodafone

2,984,000

Vodafone

34,774,000

Megafon

49,117,000

T-Mobile

39,330,000

Mobile TeleSystems

68,700,000

O2

15,400,300

VimpelCom

49,971,000

E-Plus

18,712,000

Tele2

13,302,000

Freenet (debitel + mobilcom)

17,621,000

Kyivstar GSM

22,285,000

Drillisch (Victorvox)

1,969,000

Ukrainian Mobile (MTS)

17,780,000

Vodafone

22,403,000

O2

463,100

3

8,931,000

T-Mobile

2301000

Wind

17,900,000

Country

Operator

Subscribers

Western Europe UK

Vodafone

18,704,000

T-Mobile

16,608,000

3

5,591,000

O2

Germany

Italy

France

Spain

Netherlands

Ireland

Sweden

Norway

Denmark Greece

Belguim

Poland

Portugal

Switzerland

Austria

26

Country Eastern Europe Hungary Croatia Czech Republic

Russia

Ukraine Slovakia Asia Pacific Australia

TIM

31,921,000

3

6,052,000

Orange

25,354,000

Optus

8,225,000

SFR

20,226,000

Telstra

10,191,000

Bouygues

9,894,000

Vodafone

3,274,000

Tele2

n/a

China Mobile

508,367,000

China

Vodafone

17,069,000

China Unicom

142,799,000

Movistar

23,993,200

Tibet Telecom

46,780,000

3

1,456,000

Hong Kong

Orange

11,620,000

Yoigo

1,318,000

Vodafone

4,708,000

T-Mobile

5,474,000

BSNL

58,756,598

KPN

6,739,000

Idea Cellular

51,454,402

Tele2

417,000

Tata Indicom

46,796,033

Vodafone

2,119,000

Reliance

86,117,663

O2

1,717,500

Vodafone

82,846,000

3

n/a

Meteor

1,017,000

3 (includes Denmark) Telenor Tele 2

3,343,000

Netcom Telenor Netcom

1,650,000

Tele2

463,000

TDC

3,202,000

Sonofon

2,018,000

Vodafone

6,255,000

India

Japan Thailand

SmartTone

1,164,000

Bharti Airtel

110,511,416

NTT DoCoMo

55,186,000

AIS

28,282,300

1,423,000

Dtac

19,271,000

1,958,000

True Move

15,400,000

Singtel

2,976,000

5,608,000

StarHub

1,884,000

2,977,000

MobileOne

1,718,000

Movistar

15,453,400

Movistar

8,810,900

Cosmote

n/a

Wind (Previously-Qtelecom)

4,967,000

Singapore

Latin America Argentina Columbia Brazil Mexico

Comcel

27,357,000

Vivo

48,847,200

Claro

42,278,000

Telcel

58,360,000

Movistar

16,518,400

Movistar

10,613,800

T-Mobile

9,064,000

Mobistar (Orange)

3,421,000

BASE

2,992,000

Belgacom Mobile

3,829,000

Bell

6,707,000

Vodafone

3,451,000

Rogers

8,365,000

Orange

13,736,000

Telus

6,413,000

T-Mobile

13,482,000

Sprint

48,281,000

Vodafone

5,813,000

T- Mobile USA

33,420,000

TMN

7,084,000

Verizon Wireless

89,013,000

Optimus

3,326,900

US Cellular

6,131,000

AT&T

81,596,000

Orange

1,566,000

Swisscom

5,543,000

Sunrise

1,487,000

T-Mobile

3,387,000

January 2010

Venezuela North America Canada

USA

Source: Mediacells was established in 2004 to assist clients in making more money out of mobile. The company provides accurate and actionable intelligence to the mobile, media, retail, research and information sectors. www.mediacells.com

www.mobile-ent.biz

Raise your brand profile: sponsor the industry's premier networking event!

It worked for Qualcomm, Nokia, Samsung, MIG, WIN, Hands-On and others. It’ll work for you.

An ME Event

Meet-Up sponsors recieve:

MEET-UP was created by ME magazine to bring together mobile execs for a night of networking and fun. With so many key industry

people in one room, it’s a superb opportunity for sponsors to launch products and boost brand awareness.

Huge pre and post-event coverage via ME’s magazine, website and email alerts Branding at the event on interactive video walls Opportunity to invite clients and suppliers Access to list of all event attendees Meet-Up events take place at the 24 club in London’s West End.

For more information call Katy Grant on 01992 535646 or email katy.grant@intentmedia.co.uk www.mobile-ent.biz

January 2010 27

SOURCE: CHARTS

charts Check here every month for the best selling games, ringtones and mobile apps from across the market...

Tagging

Ringtones

Artists & Videos

Ringtones.com top Euro music tones, December

Song 1 2

Fight For This Love Everybody In Love

Flycell US Top Ringtones, December

Cheryl Cole

Song

Artist

Song

Artist

JLS

1

Down

Jay Sean

1

Te Amo

Alexander Acha

Party In The USA

Miley Cyrus

2

Si No Te Hubieras ido Mana

3

I Need You

N Dubz

2

4

Watcha Say

Jason Derulo

3

I Gotta Feeling

Black Eyed Peas 3

Black Eyed Peas

4

You Belong To Me

Taylor Swift

4

Bruja Hada

David Cavazos

Best I Ever Had

Drake

5

Labios Compartidos

Mana

5

Meet Me Halfway

Amiga Mia

Alejandro Sanz

6

Riverside

Sidney Samson

5

7

Bad Boys

Alexandra Burke

6

Paparazzi

Lady Gaga

6

Like A Virgin

Madonna

Lada Gaga

7

Successful

Drake

7

Corazon Partio

Alejandro Sanz

Journey

8

One Time

Justin Bieber

8

Uno, Dos, Tres

Motel

Movie Theme

9

Fireflies

Owl City

9

Boulevard Of Broken Dreams

Green Day

10

I’m Going In

Drake ft Lil Wayne

10

Live Your Life

TI ft Rihanna

8 9 10

Bad Romance Don’t Stop Believin’ Twilight

Source: Mobile Streams 1

Meerkat Message

2

Meerkat Simples!

TV Advert

3

Meerkat Brring, Pick Up Phone

TV Advert

4

Let Me Out, I’m a Meerkat

TV Advert

5

Milky Bar Red Car & Blue Car Race

TV Advert

6

Compare The Meerkat.com, Simples

TV Theme

7

Market, Not Meerkat

TV Advert

8

Compare The Meerkat.com

Meerkat

9

Only Fools and Horses

TV Theme

10

Red Dwarf

TV Theme

TV Advert

Music

Source: Mobile Streams 1

Jamster top ringtones, December Song

Artist

1

I Gotta Feeling

Black Eyed Peas

2

Fight For This Love

Cheryl Cole

4

Meet Me Halfway Bad Boys

Black Eyed Peas Alexandra Burke

5

Sexy Chick

David Guetta ft Akon

6

Sex On Fire

Kings Of Leon

7

Silence I Kill You

The Dead Terrorist

8

Break Your Heart

Taio Cruz

9

Oopsy Daisy

Chipmunk

10

Million Dollar Bill

Whitney Houston

Source: Jamster Jamster games, December Game Publisher

2

Shakira

Bad Romance

Lady Gaga

Russian Roulette

Rihanna

3

21 Guns

Green Day

4

Down

Jay Sean

4

Watchya Say

Jason DeRulo

Cobra Starship

5

Tik Tok

KeSha

Pitbull

6

Replay

Iyaz

Little Boots

7

3

Britney Spears

Down

Jay Sean

5 6 7

Good Girls Go Bad Hotel Room Service New In Town

8

Sexy Chick

David Guetta ft Akon

8

9

Sweet Dreams

Beyonce

9

Party In The USA

Miley Cyrus

Whitney Houston

10

Meet Me Halfway

Black Eyed Peas

10

Million Dollar Bill

Source: Melodi Media

Source: Melodi Media

Video & wallpaper FoneStarz top videos, December

FoneStarz top wallpapers, December

Fight For This Love – Cheryl Cole

2

Tiger Watching

3

Wii Fit Girlfriend

3

Dolphin Pink

4

Bad Boys – Alexandra Burke

4

Tiger Cubs

5

Forever – Eminem

5

Thunder and Lightning

6

Break Your Heart – Taio Cruz

6

Night Storm

7

YouTube Baby Hulk

7

Nodding Pup

Fox Mobile Studios Berlin

8

Oopsy Daisy – Chipmunk

8

Dolphin Bubbles

Puppy Howl

9

Tiger Storm

I Gotta Feeling – Black Eyed Peas

10

Pink Heart Burst

RealNetworks

3

Little Shop of Treasures

RealNetworks

4

The X-Factor

Namco Bandai

5

X-Ray Scanner

MobileActive

6

Phil Taylor Power Darts 2009 Player One/I-Play

7

Pro Evolution Soccer 2010

Konami Digital Ent

Jay Z ft Alicia Keys

3

2

Twilight: The Movie Game

9

The Sims 3

EA Mobile

9

10

Need For Speed Shift

EA Mobile

10

January 2010

Empire State Of Mind

2

1

2

Source: Jamster

She Wolf

Jay Z ft Rihanna

Sexy Cam

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Glu Mobile

Partner Tracker 3.0

Shazam Tagging December 1 Tik Tok KeSha 2 Watcha Say Jason DeRulo 3 Meet Me Halfway The Black Eyed Peas 4 Riverside Sidney Samson 5 You’ve Got The Love Florence & The Machine 6 End Credits Chase & Status ft. Plan B 7 Cry Me Out Pixie Lott 8 Sweet Disposition The Temper Trap 9 Down Jay Sean 10 Let The Bass Kick Chuckie Source: Shazam

Run This Town

1

1

1

8

USA realtone soundalikes, December

South Africa realtone soundalikes, December

Ringtones 3

Source: Binbit

Source: Flycell

Ringtones.com top Euro funtones, December

28

Binbit Latin America Top Videos, December

Artist

Source: FoneStarz

Beach Babe Maria

Source: FoneStarz

www.mobile-ent.biz

SOURCE: CHARTS

Bplay Smartphone Entertainment Charts Thru December 15, 2009 Top 20 themes

Top 20 games

Thru December 15, 2009

Smartphone Entertainment Charts

Smartphone Entertainment Charts

Title

Category

Publisher

Title

Category

Publisher

1

iBerry 2.0 Today Plus

Today Plus

Magmic

1

Texas Hold'em King 3

Cards/Casino

Magmic

2

iBerry Edge Zen

Zen

Magmic

2

Tetris Mania

Puzzle

EA

3

iWidgets

Next Gen

Magmic

3

Mahjong Solitaire

Cards/Casino

Magmic

4

iBerry Edge Today Plus

Today Plus

Magmic

4

Sonic The Hedgehog 2

Action Arcade

5

Snow Globe

Animated

Magmic

5

Hunting Unlimited: Big Game Action Arcade

6

Flowberry

Next Gen

Magmic

6

Monopoly

Strategy/Board EA

7

iBerry 2.0

Icon

Magmic

7

Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?™

2010 Puzzle

Capcom

8

Fireplace

Animated

Magmic

8

Chuzzle™

Puzzle

PopCap Games

EA THQ

9

Glitter Today Plus

Today Plus

Magmic

9

The Sims 3

Strategy/Board EA

10

iBerry Edge Today

Today

Magmic

10

Sudoku

Puzzle

Magmic

11

Saltwater

Animated

Magmic

11

No Limit Casino 12 Pack

Cards/Casino

Digital Chocolate

12

Tinker Bell

Disney

Disney

12

Wheel of Fortune Deluxe

Puzzle

Sony/Handmark

13

iBerry 2.0 Zen

Zen

Magmic

13

Phase 10

Cards/Casino

Magmic

14

Rainforest

Animated

Magmic

14

Need for Speed Shift

Action Arcade

EA

15

Tinker Bell Pink

Disney

Disney

15

Spades

Cards/Casino

Magmic

16

Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas

Disney

Disney

16

Guitar Hero 3

Action Arcade

HandsOn Mobile

17

Glitter

Zen

Magmic

17

Bookworm

Action/Arcade

PopCap Games

18

Beaches of the World

Rotating Wallpaper

Magmic

18

EA Sports Madden NFL 10

Action/Arcade

EA

19

Deep Blue 2.0

Animated

Magmic

19

Solitaire Legends

Cards/Casino

Magmic

20

iBerry Neo Zen

Zen

Magmic

20

Marble Madness

Action/Arcade

EA

www.mobile-ent.biz

January 2010 29

Title

Publisher

Title

Artist

Title

Category

1

The Price Is Right

Mobliss

1

Read Between the Lines

KSM

1

Haters Make Us Famous

Pink Frosty

2

Win At Texas Hold'em

I-play

2

Boom Boom Pow

Black Eyed Peas

2

Red Dethklok

Metalocalypse

3

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Glu

3

I Gotta Feeling

Black Eyed Peas

3

Evil Mage

Dustin Meyer

4

2 Fast 2 Furious™

I-play

4

Swag Surfin'

F.L.Y. - Fast Life Yungstaz

4

Music/Rap & RnB

Graffiti

5

Hannah Montana Star Moves

Disney

5

DethPhone

Metalocalypse

5

Bloo Screen

Imaginary Friends

6

JONAS!

Disney

6

Trust

Keyshia Cole

6

JEOPARDY! Silver Logo

Jeopardy

7

TextTwist Turbo

Real Networks

7

Bounce

Jonas Brothers & Demi Lovato

7

Amazing City Scape

Pink Frosty

8

Call of Duty: World at War

Glu

8

Run This Town

Jay-Z ft. Rihanna,Kanye West

8

Butterfly Love

Versaly

9

Family Feud

Glu

9

Big Green Tractor

Jason Aldean

9

Lara - Hanging On

Tomb Raider: Underworld

10

Hannah Montana in Action

Disney

10

Sweet Dreams

Beyonce

10

Saints 2nd Logo

NFL

11

Gem Drop

Real Networks

11

Here We Go Again

Demi Lovato

11

Lara - Scaling Cliff

Tomb Raider: Underworld

12

Hannah Montana Secret Star

Disney

12

Breakup

Mario ft.Gucci Mane

12

Lara - Climbing Mountain

Tomb Raider: Underworld

13

Flavor of Love

IGfun

13

One Time

Justin Bieber

13

Robert Pattinson & Kristen Stewart Versaly

14

Family Feud Deluxe

Mobliss

14

Turn My Swag On

Soulja Boy Tell`em

14

Kiss Me Thru Da Phone

Pink Frosty

15

Wizards of Waverly Place

Disney

15

Empire State Of Mind

Jay-Z ft. Alicia Keys

15

Ocean Pose

Tomb Raider: Underworld

16

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

Glu

16

You're A Jerk

New Boyz

16

I'm So In Love

Fulep

17

Call of Duty 4

Glu

17

Not Anymore

LeToya

17

TRU key art

Tomb Raider: Underworld

18

MTV Cribs

Real Networks

18

Sweet

Elizabeth Wills

18

Purple Haze

Pink Frosty

19

Jewel Quest™

I-play

19

Day 'N' Nite

Kid Cudi

19

I Love You

Pink Frosty

Glu

20 The Climb

Miley Cyrus

20 Dragon's Sword

20 Deer Hunter 2

Versaly

MOBILE MARKETPLACE MOBILE ANALYTICS

MOBILE MARKETPLACE

MARKETPLACE INDEX ADMODA ........................................................08707 661 992 www.admoda.com ARTWIZZ ..........................................................01642 204350 artwizz@playwithhubb.com BANGO............................................................08700 340 365 www.bango.com BRIGHTSHARE.........................................+972 (54) 307 9157 www.brightshare.com DIALOGUE COMMUNICATIONS ...............0 8700 790 300 www.dialogue.net ELITE ................................................................01543 268 826 www.elite-systems.co.uk FROGGIE ....................................................+34 954 98 08 48 www.froggie-mm.com INMOBI ....................................................+91 (22) 2671 7772 http://inmobi.com/

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The Mobile Marketplace offers a complete marketing package of print, online and editorial visibility, allowing companies to maintain contact with readers each month without the cost of full display advertising.

The Mobile Marketplace and its associated online version has also been designed to offer readers a directory of all products and services in the content industry. A presence in this section ensures that your companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s details are easily found, keeping you one step ahead of your competitors.

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(

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January 2010 31

MOBILE MARKETPLACE

32

MOBILE MARKETING & ADVERTISING

AFFILIATE PROGRAMS

MOBILE ADVERTISING

LOCALISATION

January 2010

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MOBILE MARKETPLACE ACCESSORIES FOR IPOD/IPHONE

MARKETPLACE NEWS

InMobi eyes US expansion INDIAN-BASED mobile ad exchange InMobi has declared itself profitable and is now delivering 7.5 billion ad requests a month. Next up: the US. In its Asian stronghold, the firm now serves 4,950 million ads each month. In Africa, it delivers 900 million impressions per month. But the fastest growth has been in South America, where ad impressions have grown by 1,306 per cent in the last six months, and Europe with 850 million impressions per month.

In 2010, InMobi will target US expansion. Anne Frisbie, the firm’s head of North America, said: “InMobi is just beginning to hire more people in the US, so building a team here is my top priority for 2010. InMobi has become the clear mobile advertising network leader in Asia and Africa, and we are looking to replicate this level of success around the globe.”

The company’s service is currently available in 30 countries, and counts advertisers such as Reebok, Yamaha, and Cricket Nirvana, while representing publishers including Ebuddy, hi5 and Friendster.

Above: Anne Frisbie, head of North America at InMobi

Bango’s Fox fix MOBILE SERVICE PROVIDER

FOX MOBILE GROUP is to use Bango for billing in a multi-territory agreement across its Jamba and Jamster channels.

Bango’s platform will enable Fox to charge for its content through operator networks, wi-fi and other routes such as BlackBerry RIM data networks. If operator billing cannot be used, Bango will process payments through credit card and other methods, such as PayPal. Soren Schafft, general manager of Americas for Fox Mobile Group, said: “We are committed to strengthening the user

experience across our services and we are excited to be able to offer our customers a more efficient billing option.”

Fox Mobile Group was launched in 2008 after the purchase of Jamba by Fox owner, News International. It now manages the services offered by the Jamba and Jamster portals in more than 30 countries worldwide.This library includes branded content from more than 800 content providers around the world, including Fox entertainment and The Simpsons.

SEND YOUR NEWS TO TIM.GREEN@INTENTMEDIA.CO.UK www.mobile-ent.biz

January 2010 33

MOBILE MARKETPLACE DISTRIBUTION

VIDEO/PICTURE AGGREGATION

PUBLISHER

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January 2010

www.mobile-ent.biz

MOBILE MARKETPLACE GAME DEVELOPMENT STUDIO

MARKETPLACE NEWS

Voice of the nation UK PREMIUM rate specialist txtNation is offering voice short codes that connect across all UK operators.

The codes are compatible with SMS short codes, which makes them complement existing SMS services.

Furthermore, they’re a useful marketing vehicle for combining voice and data components on any campaign or app. It also means that the same five-digit short code number can be used, saving money.

Customers pay for these premium rate calls in the normal way – either on their phone bill or out of pre-paid credit. Revenue is shared by txtNation, operators and clients. Michael Whelan, director of txtNation, said: “I predict that in 2010 the highest grossing interactive TV shows, like X Factor, will be using VSCs for enhanced user participation.

“If you look at the issues with premium rate numbers and how difficult they are to advertise when compared to voice short codes, this alone will result in better acceptance.” txtNation will look to launch in other markets in 2010.

Xiam: mobile search still frustrating MOBILE GAMING PARTNERSHIPS

EIGHT OUT of ten mobile internet users find mobile search unsatisfactory, says research by personalisation specialist Xiam Technologies.

Its survey of over 2,500 US and UK mobile internet users revealed widespread frustration despite 68 per cent of people being dependent on mobile search engines to access content

such as weather, maps, social networking, games, music and local/world news.

The main problems are confusing navigation, excessive clicks and too much irrelevant information.

Respondents said that 27 per cent of the time, they were unable to access mobile content.

Logic3 goes retro AUDIO EQUIPMENT SPECIALIST Logic3 is reviving the warm tones of the vinyl age with its Valve80 iPod speaker system.

The set-up uses vacuum valve technology, highlighted in a colourful tube at the front of the unit, to deliver 80 watts of sound from any iPod, mobile phone or other audio device. It was awarded best consumer audio product at this year’s MacWorld awards.

It’s also retro in style with a wooden cabinet and bookshelf speakers with

removable front grilles, and has an exposed valve tube that pulses light in time to the music.

“Stylistically, the Valve80 is really something special. It mixes high-tech design with exposed retro valves, and is a real statement piece for any living room. In terms of sound quality, it sets new benchmarks; whether it’s bass tones or sharp sounds, Cheryl Cole, Elbow or Dizzy Rascal” said Michael Kirkham, development director of Logic3.

SEND YOUR NEWS TO TIM.GREEN@INTENTMEDIA.CO.UK www.mobile-ent.biz

January 2010 35

DISCONTENT

(Dis)content

We take content extremely seriously in Mobile Entertainment.

But not here...

E Memories from the M sored Meet-Up party, spon

by Qualcomm … ber 30th and It’s the morning of Novem a biblical London is cowering under g the skies are nin eve downpour. But by the ter than to bet ws kno e tur clear. Mother Na in p. So the event, mess with an ME Meet-U vitated to the gra over 150 content execs for an evening ue ven n do uber-cool 24 Lon and business of conversation, drinking development. played images 24’s interactive walls dis nsor Qualcomm, provided by the event spo ivities in rich highlighting the firm’s act media such as: Plaza allows application A widget platform that tors) to present era op retailers (typically m and easy subscribers with a unifor capable device. any shopping experience on ommendations Personalisation & rec behind the scenes The Xiam solution works relevant to es vic to make sites and ser thereby grow and rs ibe individual subscr ARPU. Mobile TV enables partners The MediaFLO platform a mobile, and has to offer broadcast TV on a D2C service on as ed recently been launch ices. dedicated MediaFLO dev

36

January 2010

Materna’s Michael Ohaju ru (above, left) looks like he doesn’t have a care in the world. But then, this pic was taken before Sco user Michael’s beloved Liverpool FC began the ir slide into crisis. Micha el, might be time to get you r blue specs out.

www.mobile-ent.biz

Send your pictures and gossip to tim.green@intentmedia.co.uk

IT’S TERMINALS! ME remembers the weird and the woeful...

THIS MONTH’S PHONE:

DANGER HIPTOP

It’s not obligatory, but you ’re more likely to get your pic ture into Discontent if you we ar red.

Could be a jumper, cou ld be a tie. Could even be glasse s.

Failing that, you can do something embarrassin g and blush yourself into print.

Playwright George Bernard Shaw said: “England and America are two countries divided by a common language.” You can see the disconnect in mobile too. Never was the division between the Atlantic neighbours more sharply illustrated than by the Danger Hiptop – a huge hit in the US and a dismal flop in Blighty (and indeed across Europe).

Lindsay Lohan never went anywhere without her jewel-encrusted one. How they would have laughed at her in London, Paris and Munich.

In the end, the Hiptop was supplanted by the Blackberry and Danger was bought by Microsoft, never to be seen again.

an ME event An ME event wouldn’t be of Metacloud’s without the exuberance left). At the ME , ove Charles McLeod (ab mon from the sal a like pt Awards, he lea ating another stage. Here, he’s celebr beer. e fre much-desired prize:

BE A MEET-UP SPONSOR Imagine hosting your own profile-raising product launch party, but getting someone else to do all the work. And then imagine getting masses of exposure in the world’s leading content trade publication and website into the bargain.

This is what Meet-Up does. It’s a hassle-free and affordable way to launch a new product or service – or just raise your company’s industry profile – in front of your own invited guests and a general industry audience.

Contact Katy Grant at 01992 535646 or email katy.grant@intentmedia.co.uk for more info www.mobile-ent.biz

January 2010 37

Send your pictures and gossip to tim.green@intentmedia.co.uk

DISCONTENT

FAVOURITES Victor Malachard, CEO, Adfonic What’s the best phone you’ve ever had and why?

The iPhone, because it’s changed the mobile landscape, forcing operators to reevalaute their role and OEMs to think about the user interface differently. And it's soooo pretty.

Mineral water and prostitutes

What phone would you like next?

Got no reason to change right now.

Jess at the frets

The highlight of MIG’s Digital Media Lunch was a hilarious speech by Rory Sutherland, vice chair of Ogilvy Group UK. He observed that the era of exponential technological change is over; we’re now in consolidation mode. Good point. But he also had things to say about whingeing music execs. “In 20 years, I’ve worked with Evian and Perrier, and they never complained about unfair competition from the tap.” But then he turned on the press. “Journalists complaining about bloggers is like prostitutes complaining about consensual sex: ‘We’re trying to make a living and those bastards are giving it away!’” That told us.

One day we’ll find out that there was a mobile gaming event at which Vodafone’s Jess Gwyther didn’t party hard. Until then, we’ll just have to report her performance (above, top) at the Glu games night for Guitar Hero 5. Apparently it was utterly axe-tastic. But it didn’t win her the big prize. That was scooped by Yann Plomb and Mark Entwistle of Hutchison 3G (above).

Current ringtone?

Michael Jackson: Billie Jean.

Wallpaper?

Plettenberg Bay, South Africa.

Favourite mobile game?

Crash Kart.

Favourite mobile internet sites?

Betfair. Please don’t tell my wife.

Anything you’d pay for on a mobile that you can’t currently get?

Access to underground, taxi and parking meter fares.

Volume shipments Here at ME we love all things mobile, and the louder the better as far as we’re concerned. That teenager on the bus with an intrusive drum ‘n’ bass ringtone is fine by us. So we were delighted to hear about the Geemarc Phone, which is dubbed ‘the loudest in the world’. It can increase its volume by 1,000 times to reach 81 decibels – that’s just short of lawnmower loudness. Someone at Nokia should really pick this up. Call it the Foghorn, perhaps.

Bada slaughterfest Anyone familiar with launches hosted by Koreans knows to expect bland statements in an atmosphere of deferential fear. That was what we got at the launch of Samsung’s Bada platform.

Then, after much waffle about ‘going on an adventure’, we were treated to our first glimpse.

Cue shots of people having their heads blown apart in Resident Evil. The contrast was delicious.

What's the worst idea you've seen in mobile?

Operators charging for international roaming and data services.

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Please note that this is a controlled circulation title and subscription criteria will be strictly adhered to.

Executive Editor: TIM GREEN Tim.Green@intentmedia.co.uk

Sub-Editor: GEMMA MESSINA Gemma.Messina@intentmedia.co.uk

Production Manager: ABIGAIL FANGER Abigail.Fanger@intentmedia.co.uk

Online Editor: STUART DREDGE Stuart.Dredge@intentmedia.co.uk

Managing Editor: LISA FOSTER Lisa.Foster@intentmedia.co.uk

Subscriptions Manager: HANNAH SHORT Hannah.Short@intentmedia.co.uk

Total average monthly net circulation per issue for January 1st 2007 to December 31st 2007 was 8,012.

Associate Editor: STUART O’BRIEN Stuart.Obrien@intentmedia.co.uk

Advertising Sales Manager: KATY GRANT Katy.Grant@intentmedia.co.uk

Publisher/Managing Director: STUART DINSEY Stuart.Dinsey@intentmedia.co.uk

© Intent Media 2010. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior permission of the copyright owners. Printed by Pensord Press, NP12 2YA

Editorial Production Manager: HELEN FRENCH Helen.French@intentmedia.co.uk

Design: JAMES MARTIN James.Martin@intentmedia.co.uk

Intent Media is a member of the Periodical Publishers Association.

Mobile Entertainment is published 12 times a year by Intent Media ~ Saxon House, 6A St. Andrew Street, Hertford, Herts SG14 1JA, England

Mobile Entertainment magazine – your direct link to the content biz No other B2B mobile content news source hits more eyeballs. Here’s why: Monthly direct-to-desk print circ: 8,012 Monthly digital downloads: 2,236 Online uniques: 50,379 (Google Analytics) Email news digest subscribers: 13,869 Need to get your message across? Work with Mobile Entertainment magazine to maximise your exposure and reach all sectors of the industry, using print, online and events.

Contact Katy.Grant@intentmedia.co.uk for more details or call +44 (0) 1992 535647

EDITORIAL: +44 (0)1992 535646 ADVERTISING: +44 (0)1992 535647 FAX: +44 (0)1992 535648 38

January 2010

www.mobile-ent.biz