Asian e-Marketing March 2012 by MediaBUZZ Pte Ltd

March 2012

Awakening Interconnectedness of Online and Offline World, Page 25

Simple and safe Solutions for bringing complex Content Online, Page 34

Accelerating Business Mobile Accelerating Business withwith Mobile Enterprise Content Management Enterprise Content Management , , Page Page 45

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EDITORIAL:

Dear Reader, Welcome to the latest issue of Asian e-Marketing that gets granular on the increasing interconnectedness of the online and offline world with mobile technology and devices. Experts and executives in the mobile industry currently regard HTML5, location-based services (LBS) and mobile payments as the most important future trends in the mobile industry. They believe in the future supremacy of Android, although Apple will remain the leading manufacturer for now with its operating system iOS and having been on the market longest, but Samsung, HTC and Motorola are expected to catch up. Moreover, it is assumed that the willingness of users to provide personal preferences to receive personalized advertisements and coupons to their smartphone will increase steadily, and I hope you will enjoy reading the articles explaining the whys. Last but not least, I would like to especially recommend reading the two exclusive interviews with the renowned companies Akamai and OpenText, and their perspectives and insights regarding mobility. Enjoy reading!

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Daniela La Marca Editor-in-Chief Asian eMarketing

MARCH 2012

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

MOBILE ADVERTISING & INTEGRATION WITH LOCAL AND OFFLINE PROMOTIONS RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

New Mobile Point-of-Sale Platform “Swiff” energizes the Mobile Payment Industry

Frost & Sullivan on the “Mega Trend” Impact of Mobile Devices

Acision’s Enterprise Messaging Network is All-rounder in connecting Businesses to Consumers

Polycom and HTC collaborate and enable Polycom® RealPresence™ Mobile on selected HTC Smartphones and Tablets

Dialogic Launches Unique Software Solution to Measure and Track Viewers' Mobile Video Quality of Experience

Huawei and IBM develop a Smart Workspace@Mobile Solution

COMPANIES & CAMPAIGNS

Accelerating Business with Mobile Enterprise Content Management

adsmobi launches New Mobile Coupon Service ‘Prime Location’

Aruba Networks launches Airheads Community for Enterprise Mobility Experts

LEGISLATION

Location Tracking and Privacy: Can a legal Framework prevent secret Smartphone Monitoring?

BUZZWORD

54 54

IDC: Why China will become the largest Market for Smartphones in 2012 and Brazil and India will catch up fast

comScore’s Insights on the Mobile and Connected Device Landscape

Mobile Money Transfer Services need true Industry Interoperability to attract critical Mass of Users

UM’s New Insights into the inexhaustible Depths of Social Media

Tablet Users’ high Expectations in Web Experience impacts Online Sales

Steady Rise in Digital Advertising Spend strives to cross S$100 million Mark in Singapore

Symantec’s State of Mobility Survey: Benefits are worth the Risks

Mobile overtakes TV states InMobi’s Global Mobile Media Consumption Survey

BEST PRACTICES & STRATEGIES

Awakening Interconnectedness of Online and Offline World

Less limiting Hybrid Apps gain Momentum

Increase Effectiveness of Mobile Initiatives the Symantec Way

Location-based Service (LBS): Categories of Methods, Techniques and Technologies

QR Codes: Jump from Offline to Online World with dangerous Pitfalls

ANNOUNCEMENTS

TECHNOLOGIES & PRODUCTS

IMPRINT

Simple and safe Solutions for bringing complex Content Online

Netbiscuits launched HTML5 Framework “Tactile” to tackle the Challenges of the Connected Screen World

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RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Frost & Sullivan on the “Mega Trend” Impact of Mobile Devices Trends which have a profound impact on the business environment over a period of time are termed ‘Mega Trends’ by Frost & Sullivan, the global research & consulting firm with a history of over 50 Years. Mega Trends are defined as global, sustained and macroeconomic forces of development that impact business, economy, society, cultures and personal lives, thereby defining our future world and its increasing pace of change. Mega Trends have diverse meanings and varying impact on different industries, companies and individuals. Analysis of these Mega Trends and their implications forms an important component of a company’s future strategy, development and innovation process, and directly impacts product and technology planning. To address this very important issue amongst its global customer base, Frost & Sullivan embarked on an ambitious global project to identify the top 50 Mega Trends. A global team of 150 analysts and consultants, with expertise in various industries and economies, convened to brainstorm, scenario-plan and generate ideas for future growth opportunities for businesses. The result was an insight into how these trends will change the pace and scenario of life as we know it as well as the repercussions of these trends in business. Some of the Mega Trends identified by Frost & Sullivan include “Smart” emerging as the new green, Geo Socialisation, Innovating to Zero, Beyond BRIC, The Next Game Changers, Space Jam, Personal Robots, e-Mobility and New Business Models, to name a few. Frost & Sullivan is looking at all Mega Trends they expect to affect global technology companies: anything from Connecting Subscribers to Connecting Devices, Cloud Computing, Urbanisation and Smart Grids, but considering the current topic of Asian e-Marketing, this article will focus on the most important Mega Trends related to mobility.

Moving from Connecting Connecting Devices

Subscribers

Prices of mobile devices, as well as the tariffs for mobile services, have declined sharply, resulting in unprecedented growth in subscriber and penetration numbers. Mobile penetration in most markets today exceeds 100%. The economic added value, that was created based on providing mobility to consumers, has been significantly exploited. The Blue Ocean Strategy of creating new economic value is to shift the paradigm to connecting devices instead of connecting consumers. It is quite possible that, if executed well, penetration levels of 800% or a total connected device ecosystem exceeding 80 billion devices by the year 2020, will be the result. Whilst the connecting devices trend, i.e. Machine to Machine (M2M), is not new, the current ecosystem is ripe for an accelerated take up of this trend. Rapidly declining prices of radio and telecom infrastructure is a key enabler. Added to that is the fact that most countries today have ubiquitous broadband coverage – both fixed as well as wireless. The availability of platforms such as Android and iTunes, amongst several others, help leverage the collective innovation capability amongst millions of application developers globally. The baton for discovery of the applications has been passed on to the consumer and this wisdom of the crowds’ phenomenon helps accelerate the development and innovation cycle. The consumer electronics industry will be a key benefactor of this Mega Trend. Devices which operate in a networked environment will enable consumers to drive a greater degree of personalisation. There will be an explosive level of innovation that will come through from the convergence of these two industries: consumer electronics and connectivity. In many

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

instances, the connectivity piece will be completely transparent to the end-user. We have seen the first signs of this emerging business model in the offering from Amazon Kindle, with global connectivity and completely transparent carriage charges for users. Carriage costs are marginal compared to the overall benefit for Amazon, as well as the consumer, and hence the consumer does not get charged for the usage of data separately. Implications for Telecom Service Providers This Mega Trend is a huge growth opportunity for the telecom service providers (telcos). Whilst the revenue streams will possibly be as low as a few cents per device per month, the number of devices that will be connected is huge. The telcos undoubtedly will earn revenues from the connectivity piece. This will, however, be commoditised and the margins will be under continuous pressure. The battle will be intense for the incremental revenues from the creation of the ecosystem. The first wave of the data connectivity phase has been won by Google, Apple, Facebook and other Over the Top (OTP) players. The upcoming wave of connecting consumer devices will attract the electronic giants such as Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, Philips and others. These companies approach the market from a very global perspective and their scale will be significantly higher than the telcos. The competitive advantage for a telco resides in its strength in operational excellence, its monthly billing relationship with its customers and its strong local distribution presence. Telcos need to adopt a two pronged approach to succeed. Firstly, they need to develop strong global partnerships with the likes of Sony, Apple, and Google, and be an early entrant into the market to garner a significant share of the connectivity pie. Secondly, there are several areas which will favour the telcos more than global players, including sectors like the development of smart cities, security solutions and other business to business solutions. Telcos are in a powerful position to be a one stop solutions provider to enterprise customers by helping them navigate this connected

device ecosystem. Telcos will have to develop capabilities or partner companies with skills in business consulting and IT integration to make this possible. Implications for System Integrators (SIs) An important requirement for the connected device paradigm to become reality would be to stitch customised solutions to address both the consumer and enterprise requirements. This opens a new opportunity for the SIs of the world to work with ecosystem partners in order to design solutions such as transportation solutions for a smart city and / or home delivery system for consumers. The SIs will, however, need to design these solutions with newer business models, which are OPEX-based, maybe using the Cloud computing paradigm. In addition to the current SIs, other players from the ecosystem and beyond, like automation players, and / or infrastructure players, are expected to enter the market. Implications for Enterprises The connected device ecosystem will enable companies to collect real time information on the usage of their products and services. This will significantly improve the quality of products, increase the pace of innovation and most importantly lead to better utilisation of global resources. Business models will change from outright purchase of products to pay as you go, as information about exact usage trends will be available. Insurance companies may offer customised annual premium packages based on a consumerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s driving habits, rather than the one size fits all approach they adopt today. The increased sophistication in cars will translate into the development of collision-less vehicles. Whilst a lot of these may sound futuristic, Frost & Sullivan believes strongly that many of these scenarios will be real by the year 2020.â&#x2014;&#x160; By Manoj Menon, Partner & Asia Pacific Managing Director, Frost & Sullivan

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

IDC: Why China will become the largest Market for Smartphones in 2012 and Brazil and India will catch up fast According to the zzzatest smartphone forecast from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, China will become the leading country-level market for smartphone shipments in 2012, moving ahead of the current leader, the United States. Smartphone shipments to emerging markets will drive growth in the worldwide smartphone market in the years ahead. IDC expects especially India and Brazil to stand out as well, forecasting that both countries will enter the top 5 country markets for smartphone shipments by 2016. "Due to their sheer size, strong demand, and healthy replacement rates, emerging markets are quickly becoming the engines of the worldwide smartphone market," said Ramon Llamas, senior research analyst with IDC's Mobile Phone Technology and Trends team. "Users in emerging markets seek more than simple voice telephony, and smartphones offer the ideal platform for mobile entertainment, social networking, and business usage as seen in developed markets." Meanwhile, mature markets, such as Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, will experience continued growth in smartphone adoption, but volumes will not keep up with those destined for emerging markets. At the same time, smartphone growth within emerging markets presents its challenges. "The total cost of ownership remains a hurdle for potential smartphone buyers," added Llamas. "Smartphones still represent a significant investment for consumers in many countries. This fact was acknowledged by a number of industry executives at the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, who stressed the need for low-cost devices

â&#x20AC;&#x201C; as low as sub-US$50 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; to spur widespread adoption. Another notable barrier to adoption is the cost of a monthly data plan. To realize the full potential of emerging markets, smartphone vendors need to develop low-cost smartphones that provide a full, robust experience while mobile operators will need to creatively subsidize device cost and data plans." China Highlights After surpassing smartphone shipments in the U.S. for two consecutive quarters in the second half of 2011, China will carry that momentum into 2012 and beyond. "PRC smartphone shipments are expected to take a slim lead over the U.S. in 2012 before the gap widens in the coming years," said Wong Teck Zhung, senior market analyst with IDC's Asia/Pacific Client Devices team. "There will be no turning back this leadership changeover." Android smartphones priced below US$200 were a hot segment in 2011 and these low-cost smartphones are expected to remain a key driver for smartphone growth, with prices becoming even more affordable on falling chipset prices and increased competition. "Emerging domestic vendors will be another important engine of smartphone growth as giants Huawei, ZTE, and Lenovo continue to ramp up with big carrier orders due to their willingness to produce customized handsets," added Teck Zhung. "International players such as Samsung and Nokia are also expected to drive volume at the low end with cheaper smartphones." India Highlights The Indian smartphone market will witness galloping growth throughout the forecast period. Carriers are expected to aggressively roll out 3G networks and data

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Country-Level Smartphone Market Share for 2011, 2012, and 2016 (based on shipments)

Country-Level Smartphone Rankings for 2011, 2012, and 2016 (based on shipments)

Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, March 2012

plans while domestic vendors such as Micromax, Spice, Karbonn and Lava have already launched lowcost smartphones in a bid to drive future demand as they attempt to move up the value chain from low-cost feature phones. In 2011, growth has been largely driven by top-tier brands like Samsung and HTC, and international vendors will look to invest further in local manufacturing in the coming years as the high-growth Indian market becomes a top priority. "Demand for smartphones will also grow as urban and enterprise users mature in their handset preferences and usage," says G. Rajeev, senior market analyst for mobile devices with IDC India. "Consumers are growing accustomed to higher data usage and using handsets for entertainment and other content, instead of just as a communication device." Brazil Highlights A booming economy combined with low inflationary pressures have helped lower the poverty rate in Brazil and improved the discretionary income of the Brazilian population. The resultant growth in Brazil's consumer

and business segments has been felt in products beyond mobile phones, with Brazil moving past Japan in 2011 to become the third largest country-level market for PCs. The shift from feature phones to smartphones is well underway in Brazil. Mobile phone subscribership has exceeded the country's population, smartphone prices have dropped to less than US$300, and carriers have introduced prepaid data plans. This last piece has been especially critical as four out of five mobile phone users in Brazil use prepaid phone lines. It has essentially opened up smartphones to a new world of customers that otherwise would not have been able to reap the benefits of smartphones. The smartphone revolution has certainly started and is entering the mass market. Taking into consideration that there are globally more internet-enabled smartphones sold than PCs, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s high time to rethink the present marketing mix, since we all know that the interconnectedness of online and offline world holds many opportunities.â&#x2014;&#x160; By MediaBUZZ

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

comScore’s Insights on the Mobile and Connected Device Landscape ComScore, a leader in measuring the digital world, released the 2012 Mobile Future in Focus Report that gives insight on the mobile and connected device landscape in 2011 and what that brings in 2012. The annual report covers several mobile markets (United States, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, Japan, and Canada) that have been measured by comScore through an exploration of key trends driving smartphone adoption growth, mobile media usage in categories such as social networking and retail, mobile ecosystem dynamics, and shifts in multi-device digital media consumption in 2011. “2011 proved to be a ground-breaking year for the mobile industry, with smartphones hitting the mainstream, tablets emerging as a formidable fourth screen, and consumers increasingly integrating mobile behaviors into their lifestyles. As the industry continues to innovate and more consumers look to multiple devices and platforms to consume digital media, we expect the mobile and connected device landscape to be shaken up even further in 2012,” said Mark Donovan, comScore Senior Vice President of Mobile. “As mobile channels present a more personal, social, and ubiquitous experience to consumers, advertisers and publishers have an opportunity to better engage target audiences, given an understanding of how to connect and leverage the unique characteristics of these emerging platforms.”

Smartphone Share of Total Mobile Audience

Key findings highlighted in the report include: Smartphones gain adoption among ‘early majority’, driving mobile media consumption Nearly 42% of all U.S. mobile subscribers now use smartphones, along with 44.0% of mobile users across the EU5 (comprised of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK). Mobile media use – defined as browsing the mobile web, accessing applications, or downloading content – saw increased growth as a result, surpassing the 50-percent threshold in many markets, supported by the proliferation of high-speed networks and increased public WiFi availability. Smartphone platform wars intensify as Android and Apple take the lead in most markets The Google Android and Apple iOS smartphone platforms emerged as the leaders of the U.S. smartphone market in 2011, with Android just a few points shy of capturing half of the smartphone market and iOS accounting for nearly 30% of the market. In the EU5, Android saw similarly significant gains, unseating market leader Symbian in 3 out of the 5 European markets measured. The market in Japan is particularly interesting in that sense that smartphones currently represent just 17% of the market – far below what is seen for the North American and European markets reported by comScore.

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

However, the Japanese market is unique since consumers have long had access to advanced phone capabilities through feature phone offerings exclusive to the Japanese market, presenting an initial barrier to entry for smartphones. Thus, today, Japan’s smartphone market is heavily dominated by the Android and iOS platforms, with the two combining for 94.1% of the smartphone market. Microsoft was the only other platform with any notable slice of the market at 5.4%. While smartphone penetration still remains low in this market, we should expect to see the numbers climb substantially in the next year given continuing innovations made to smartphone functionality and the wide availability of these devices at more affordable price points. Japan Smartphone Market Share by OS

At the end of 2011, nearly 1 in 5 smartphone users scanned product barcodes and nearly 1 in 8 compared prices on their phone while in a store. Mobile devices fuel social networking on-the-go, driving real-time online interaction 64.2 million U.S. smartphone users and 48.4 million EU5 smartphone users accessed social networking sites or blogs on their mobile devices at least once in December 2011, with more than half of these mobile social networking users accessing social media almost every day. While mobile social networking users showed the highest propensity to read posts from people they knew personally, more than half of those in the U.S. and nearly half in the EU5 also reported reading posts from brands, organizations, and events. Percent of Mobile Owners that also own a Tablet

Surge in mobile app usage shapes a dual mobile browsing experience, fueling category growth In 2011, both the U.S. and EU5 saw the growth in mobile app use exceed the growth in mobile browser use, leading to both markets seeing the same percentage of their mobile audience use both apps and browsers to access mobile media. Health ranked as the fastest-growing mobile media category in the U.S. in 2011, followed by retail and other commerce-related categories such as ePayments and auction sites. Mobile retail information leads to emergence of smartphone shopping behaviors More than half of the U.S. smartphone population used their phone to perform retail research while inside a store in 2011, illustrating the emergence of savvy smartphone shoppers who bring online shopping behaviors in-store – a trend seen in other markets as well.

Mobile connectivity and connected devices encourage cross-platform digital media consumption among ‘digital omnivores’ Tablets quickly rose in popularity in 2011, taking less than two years to account for nearly 40 million tablets in use among U.S. mobile users and outpacing smartphones which took 7 years to reach the same. By the end of 2011, nearly 15% of U.S. mobile users also had tablets – a trend seen across other markets as well. Around the world mobile phones and tablets increasingly become a gateway to the web. In an analysis of 10 selected worldwide markets, Singapore led in driving the highest share of non-computer Internet traffic at more than 11% at the end of the year. The UK followed, with nearly 10% of traffic coming from mobile phones, tablets and other connected devices. These two markets also drove the highest percentage of mobile Internet traffic among the markets studied. Japan ranked third in driving mobile Internet traffic at nearly 6%. This shift in global device consumption is not only of paramount importance to local brands and digital ecosystems, but also for multinational brands seeking to understand their audiences across borders and across screens.◊ Source: comScore MobiLense By Daniela La Marca

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Mobile Money Transfer Services need true Industry Interoperability to attract critical Mass of Users The increasing use of mobile devices as an alternative to credit cards and paper tickets is one of the fastest growing segments of the mobile commerce market, that turns out to be a good opportunity especially for SMBs that wish to sell or develop goods over the fast growing mobile platform. Juniper Research’s recent Mobile Commerce Markets report shows that the rapid adoption of mobile devices for commerce-related applications is by no means limited to NFC. The firm predicts that actually all segments – money transfers, banking, payments and coupons – will unveil significant growth rates. "Money transfer, physical goods, NFC and coupons will more than treble in transaction value over the next three years, whilst digital goods, banking and tickets will still, on average, double over the same period," says report author David Snow. The Juniper report, however, stressed that even if there is a perceived, if not actual, security risk in the mind of users, not only the specific mobile commerce application, but also the whole mobile commerce market may be set back until user trust is recovered. A Sybase 365 survey, that aimed at uncovering growth projections within the mobile commerce market, comes exactly to the same conclusion. With its second annual Sybase Mobile Commerce Guide 2012, Sybase 365 engaged in the same topics, such as trends like the adoption of Near Field Communications (NFC) or concerns that lacking industry collaboration would hinder the widespread deployment and adoption of mobile payments. According to Sybase’s survey, 81% of respondents believe that NFC will not become a driver of widespread adoption of mobile payments for at least another two to five years. And just less than 10% think NFC mobile payments will become main stream within the next year.

Another key finding from this year’s survey highlighted consumer perception of mobile payment security and how it will inhibit the growth of mobile payments. 38% of survey respondents believe that consumer concern over security of personal financial information exchanged during mobile transactions will be the leading obstacle to large-scale adoption of mobile payments. “Mobile payments are arguably the leading topic of discussion in the mobile commerce ecosystem,” said John Sims, President, Sybase 365. “With our extensive global experience in innovative mobile commerce deployments, Sybase 365 has been defining consumer best practices and fostering acceptance of all mobile payment channels. As the ecosystem further develops and matures, we will continue to enable collaboration and communication between mobile operators, financial institutions, and enterprises to drive massmarket adoption of mobile payments.” Equally important to facilitating the widespread adoption of mobile payments is the need for coordination among key mobile commerce stakeholders and the development of mobile payment standards. These two concerns were cited by 38% of global survey respondents. This finding echoes the sentiment from the 2011 Sybase 365 Mobile World Congress survey, which found that nearly 50% of survey respondents believe that industry standards and coordination would be responsible for driving mobile payments globally. According to 26% of the survey respondents, mobile operators will be important catalysts driving global widespread adoption of mobile payments, while 24% believe that banks will be a leading driver, and another 19% believe that companies like Amazon, PayPal or Groupon will encourage great adoption. NFC technology will help facilitate the future growth of mobile payments, but successful and more established methods such as remote mobile payments are driving deployments and adoption within the ecosystem in both the emerging markets and developed world.

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

“Material advances for mobile payments will only come about when banks, operators and retailers can converge on a business model, and with it true industry interoperability, leading to a widel y em braced m obile payments system,” added Sims.

John Sims, President, Sybase 365 discusses the 2012 Mobile Commerce Guide and the Global Mobile Commerce opportunity.

This means that although SMS is still the key to widespread mobile banking service adoption, mobile money transfer services will struggle to gain a critical mass of users without interoperability.

Sybase 365 is recognized in leading and shaping the future of mobile commerce, and received to no surprise the Mobile Payments Award in Juniper Research’s Future Mobile Awards 2012 for Mobile Commerce, besides getting high commendations for its Mobile Money Transfer and Mobile Banking services.~ By Daniela La Marca

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

UM’s New Insights into the inexhaustible Depths of Social Media The global marketing communications agency UM Singapore unveiled the findings of their annual Wave study, revealing again a lot of useful information for their clients. Six years ago, UM started their journey to explore the impact of social media across the globe, in conjunction with changes occurring in communication technologies, and surveyed in this period more than 136,000 internet users across 64 countries, with Wave 6 comprising the highest number of interviewees (42,000). Wave already taught in previous years that growth in social media is unprecedented, with new platforms launched and reaching a critical mass with extraordinary speed across vast territories, but Wave 6 revealed that businesses need to be developing more sophisticated social media strategies that will help achieve specific commercial objectives, in order to reach an ever-growing number of social networkers. The first and most effective approach a brand can take is to simply offer a personal response to customer complaints and queries. Wave 6 identified that brands doing this gain respect and loyalty, calling this point of view “The Business of Social”, tackling the question of how social relationships can deliver results for brands. Wave 6 now represents more than half of the world’s internet population and intends to build on the story of Wave in two crucial areas:

1. By understanding the role that social media can play in helping clients meet marketing challenges: Social media will be able to create experiences that are designed from the very beginning to meet marketing objectives if its values are defined first, rather than starting with the most popular platforms and how to exploit them. 2. By identifying the means with which consumers want to interact with brands: There are now so many ways and different devices available a consumer can make use of to interact with a brand in the social space. Do they want an app, a website, a widget? Do they want to access these via mobile phone, desktop, notebook, tablet device or internet connected TV? Wave 6 tracks the growth of these technologies and allows us to identify the key way to deliver experiences to consumers. Since MediaBUZZ intends to present a more detailed article on Wave 6 in the next issue of Asian eMarketing, we kept this article quintessential, outlining the key points of the study:



The most powerful social experience is responding to brand issues and customer complaints;

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The brand website, though still relevant to Singaporeans, is fast becoming a one dimensional experience that could potentially be abandoned as is happening globally;

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

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Social media “Likes” aren’t enough to engage consumers - brands and their agencies need to step away from traditional strategic social media plans and try something new by exploring what social relationships online can mean for brands and a consumer;

Last but not least, some rules of engagement to consider as recommended by UM:

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Rule#1: To get the most from social platforms we need to know what they do best

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Rule#2: Understand that consumers want varying degrees of social relationship with brands, ranging from superficial relationships, such as wanting discount vouchers or access to entertaining content, to very deep ones such as helping with product development or being part of a brand community.

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Rule#3: Each of the experiences delivers a very different outcomes: Giving people access to new news about a computer software brand drives awareness and education, but very little else. Again discount vouchers stimulate transaction and trial but do very little on anything else for a computer software brand;

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Rule#4: Always Start with the marketing objective: Ask what it is that I want my consumers to feel or do and then look at which Social media experience will drive that, for instance, if sharing information will help or giving consumers privileged access to company resource would be needed;

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Rule#5: Responding to a customer’s issues is one of the most powerful social experiences a brand can deliver.

Despite rising concerns over data privacy, peoples' reaction is contrary, they are spending more time on social networks, implying that despite the concerns, they are acknowledging the value social media networks bring to their lives.

“Wave is an important survey that arms our team, and the industry as a whole, with a better understanding of social networks and the ways in which we can leverage its power for our clients. Wave 6 has had a huge impact on both a global and local scale,” said Pat Lim, Managing Director of UM Singapore. So many social media strategies look the same because advertisers continue to use the same platforms and strategies to achieve the same goals. Wave 6 addresses this issue by looking deeper into what the online social relationships can mean to a brand. Do they make people want to spend more time with the brand, do they make them feel valued as customers, or do they encourage people to recommend the brand to others? The study has helped us better understand these questions and it couldn’t have come at a better time. We are seeing unprecedented levels of social media use in Singapore on a range of portable devices.” said Pat Lim. The study also demonstrates that some platforms are much better environments for delivering certain kinds of social experiences than others. A smartphone is all about fun and function; about managing your life and filling in downtime, whilst the tablet device is seen as providing a more leisurely experience, such as creativity and learning – and is also seen as a better environment for making a purchase.

The incredible growth in the number of people using social media will keep UM’s global social media survey going and will continue making waves.◊ By Daniela La Marca

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Tablet Users’ high Expectations in Web Experience impacts Online Sales Consumers and enterprises have embraced tablets in large numbers for everything from web browsing and social networking to mission-critical business applications that increase employee productivity and drive revenue. But great opportunity comes with great danger. Failure to deliver fast, quality web experiences and meet rising end-user expectations can reduce revenue, increase costs and damage the brand.

times, and more than four out of ten experienced website crashes or problems with website functions. But the most interesting result the report states is the fact that tablet users globally have high expectations for web experiences and a third are less likely to make purchases online from companies that don’t meet those expectations. Key findings of the survey Include: Tablet users’ web experience expectations are high.  Almost 70% of tablet users expect a web site to load in two seconds or less.  More than two thirds of tablet users expect web sites to load just as quickly, or quicker, than on a desktop/ laptop computer.

So what are end users’ expectations when it comes to the web experience on tablets? To find out, Compuware commissioned the first global survey of tablet users’ web performance expectations. The study surveyed over more than 2,000 end users across North America, Europe and Asia who accessed the Internet on their tablet in the past six months. Compuware’s global survey titled “Engaging the Tablet User: What They Expect from Websites,” revealed that tablet users expect websites and transactions to work flawlessly and tablets to perform as fast, or faster, than a laptop or desktop computer at home. User expectations have been shaped in part by years of using powerful PCs to access fast websites delivered by Internet leaders like Amazon and Google. Four out of ten global tablet users have experienced a problem when accessing websites. Among those that experienced a problem, two-thirds reported slow load

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Web site issues are common for tablet users.  Four out of 10 tablet users have experienced web site problems.  Among those who have experienced a problem, slow load times are the most frequently cited issue (66%), followed by site crashes (44%), problems with site functions (42%) and issues with site format (40%).

“Consumers and enterprises have embraced tablets in large numbers for everything from web browsing and social networking to key business applications that increase employee productivity and drive revenue,” said Steve Tack, CTO of Compuware APM. “However, based on the survey results, companies are not meeting tablet users’ web experience expectations. Tablet users represent a coveted audience that in general tends to spend more per order, so organizations that ignore tablet users do so at their own peril.” Industry analyst firm Yankee Group expects tablet sales to reach 250 million worldwide by 2015. Certain is that the tablet growth is expected to continue with major new players such as Amazon, Samsung and Google/Motorola entering the fray.

Poor web experiences on tablets impact the bottom line.  Nearly half of tablet users will retry a web site only once or twice if it did not work initially.

Tablet users represent a coveted target audience. eBay has stated that tablet users spend 50% more than PC users, have higher average order values (AOV) and have higher or equivalent conversion rates.

 A bad web-site experience will also drive 46% of tablet users to competitive web sites; 35%t are less likely to visit the problematic web site on any platform; and 33% are less likely to purchase from that company. But it’s not only retailers that see the benefits of growing tablet adoption. Actually for all organizations that depend on the web to drive business, tablets represent an important new channel for customer engagement. Another survey of Compuware, conducted with 200 mobile users in Singapore and Malaysia revealed a similar result – that consumers’ expectations for mobile and application performance are not being met in Singapore and Malaysia, respectively.

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

The survey, entitled “What Users Want from Mobile”, includes the following key finding:  Mobile users’ expectations for mobile websites are high with 70% of Malaysian and 72% of Singaporean mobile web users expecting websites to load as quickly or faster on their mobile phone compared to the computer they use at home. However, more than half (63% in Malaysia and 58% in Singapore) said websites load more slowly on their phone.  In Singapore, 82% of mobile web users are willing to wait 5 seconds or less for a single web page to load. While in Malaysia, 87% of users are willing to wait for the same period of time before leaving the page.  There are more users in Malaysia who have had problems accessing a mobile website in the past year (96%), than in Singapore (91%). While this is the case, more than 86% of Malaysian mobile web users would access websites more often from their phone if the experience was fast and reliable, 6% more than Singapore users.  Mobile users do not have much patience for retrying a website or application that is not functioning initially – 58% of Malaysian users and

44% of Singaporean users will go to a competitor’s site instead. Majority of mobile web users are only willing to retry a website (90% Malaysia, 83% Singapore) or application (66% Malaysia, 87% Singapore) two times or less if it does not work initially.  A bad experience on a mobile website leaves mobile web users much less likely to return to, or recommend, a particular website. 55% of Malaysia users and 45% of Singapore users are unlikely to return to a website that they had trouble accessing from their phone. 58% Malaysian and 67% are unlikely to recommend the site. Shum Mew Toong, Regional Director, Compuware ASEAN said that the study has been a follow up to the company’s global study. Interestingly, as described above, the results have been quite similar, which just confirms that mobile users want fast and reliable mobile web and application experiences, wherever they are from. Unfortunately it is not what they’re receiving right now, so that the poor performance is preventing many companies from taking advantage of the opportunities being provided by increased mobile access. To read the full survey findings, please go to http://ow.ly/9Bi1Z◊ By Daniela La Marca

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Steady Rise in Digital Advertising Spend strives to cross S$100 million Mark in Singapore The Interactive Advertising Bureau Southeast Asia (IAB SE Asia) Singapore Chapter has released the Singapore Online Advertising Revenue Report reflecting Digital Ad Spend at S$60.31m for the period January to June 2011, accounting for 8% of the total advertising expenditure in Singapore. Jointly commissioned by the Media Development Authority (MDA) and the IAB SE Asia, Singapore Ch ap ter, the r ep or t was c om pi le d by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP to provide an analysis of the online and interactive advertising market growth and trends. "This strong, stable growth is testament to the efforts of the entire industry," says Ken Mandel, Chairman, IAB SEA, Singapore Chapter. “Digital advertising continues to have a bigger share of an increasing pie, and we are moving closer to our ultimate vision where Online Advertising constitutes 20% of total advertising spend. Singapore is definitely one of the best places in the region for businesses to get into the digital space.” Commenting on the announcement, Loren Shuster, Country Director-Singapore and Emerging Markets, Google says: "This positive momentum demonstrates the significant potential within the Singapore market as companies of all sizes discover the reach, impact and measurability of digital with headroom for more continued growth. Google looks forward to working with the IAB to continue to educate and partner with key industry stakeholders to ensure that Singapore reaches its potential as a leading digital marketing hub in Asia Pacific.” Singapore has registered a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 19% for the 24-month period ending

30 June 2011, reflecting a confidence in online channels, encouraged by more stable economic conditions following unsettled markets in 2009 and 2010. IAB Executive Director Ranji David explains that while the figures appear to have declined from the impressive CAGR of 36.5%, recorded in the 2010 year-end report, those numbers were buoyed by the inclusion of Google’s revenues from the network’s websites (“AdNetwork revenues”) into the report for the first time. Display Advertising recorded a CAGR of 15% over the 24 months period, while Search Advertising expenditure logged in a CAGR of 27%, and therefore remains lower compared to other more mature digital advertising markets with continued potential for growth. Meanwhile, CPM (cost per thousand impressions) and performance-based pricing persist to dominate at the expense of tenancy-based pricing. Further, technology and telecommunications, travel and leisure, financial and business services, as well as property have been identified as the key sectors that spend online advertising budgets. “Industries have crossed both a psychological and behavioural tipping point where digital technologies are the drivers of operating models and revenue growth. Monetization is still the key challenge for the industry and digital advertising will play a key role in sustaining the growth. The growth in digital advertising in Singapore underscores this trend. Going forward, we expect to see more creative ways to engage with customers online leading to improved monetisation of digital content,” said Greg Unsworth, Singapore Technology, InfoComm and Entertainment & Media Industry Leader, PwC LLP Singapore.

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Singapore remains the top choice for online businesses that try to establish a foothold in the region. Therefore it is not surprising to see exciting new players in the area of platforms, technology and services, as well as across newer areas of digital such as social, mobile and video advertising in town. With the

development of a more mature, complex and increasingly diverse digital advertising ecosystem, the IAB is well positioned as a platform for m em bers to c onnect, communicate, and collaborate. IAB Singapore Chapters Executive Director enthusiastically announced:

“We will be rolling out several new programs and initiatives over the next two quarters that we believe will allow the IAB to galvanize the industry and come together in a cohesive effort to raise the level of digital investment in this market.”◊ By MediaBUZZ

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Symantec’s State of Mobility Survey: Benefits are worth the Risks Symantec’s 2012 State of Mobility survey aims to evaluate how organizations are coping with mobile devices and the trend to use the new channel to improving corporate agility. Companies are certainly worried about device or data loss and malware infecting the corporate network through smartphones and tablets, but still believe that the benefits outnumber the risks. The Survey highlights three key points: 1. Tipping point in mobility adoption Times are changing for companies, since mobile devices have become essential tools for conducting business. Employees are seeing significantly improved productivity by being able to access business resources from anywhere. Thus, organizations are now commonly making line-ofbusiness applications accessible from mobile devices. In fact, now that mobile devices are commonplace, nearly three quarters of businesses are looking at implementing a corporate “store” for mobile applications. In order to better understand why organizations are adopting mobile computing, Symantec asked them about the most important business benefits and received as answers: increased efficiency, increased workplace effectiveness and reduced time required to accomplish tasks - all benefitting companies’ business agility.

2. Mobile initiatives significantly impacting IT resources Mobile computing is regarded as extremely challenging and hard to manage and ranks top of all risks with 41% – higher than any other initiative, including virtualization, Web 2.0 and even public cloud computing. In fact, IT staff involved in some way with mobile computing reported that they have a variety of concerns, including device loss, data leakage, unauthorized access to corporate resources and malware infection. In response to these perceived risks, most organizations are at least discussing a range of security measures, from antivirus software to remote disabling of devices. When it comes to implementing these measures, however, less than half have taken those steps, stays Symantec.

3. Mobile risks impacting organizations Small and large businesses alike are seeing damages mount due to mobility-related security issues. They have suffered a variety of losses, measured by direct financial expenses, loss of data, and damage to the brand or loss of customer trust.

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS In the end, however, most organizations feel that mobility is worth the challenges. Nearly threequarters (71%) feel that they at least break even on the risks vs. rewards.â&#x2014;&#x160; By Daniela La Marca

25 - 27 April 2012 Suntec Singapore Exhibition and Convention Centre, Singapore

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Mobile overtakes TV states InMobi’s Global Mobile Media Consumption Survey InMobi’s research team just recently unveiled the results of its comprehensive global Mobile Media Consumption Survey and announced as a key finding that mobile web users across the globe now spend more time on their mobile devices than on television, which recognizes the increasing impact of mobile advertising on consumer purchase behaviour. The first of a series of research reports, planned to cover 18 countries on an on-going basis, focuses on consumers who use mobile web services, either through a browser or application and includes all types of mobile devices such as smartphone, advanced phones, tablets, etc. inMobi makes an effort to provide an on-going view of details including: media consumption by channel, time of use, activities conducted via mobile, mobile’s impact on purchase decisions, etc. “Mobile devices are redefining the media landscape across the world. As we move into 2012, we will continue to see these trends rapidly accelerate as consumers rely ever more heavily on their mobile device. While the opportunities to exploit mobile media remain strong, the stakeholders across the industry will be confronted with ongoing questions and challenges which need to be addressed in order to meet the growing expectations of the customer”, Naveen Tewari, CEO, InMobi stated.



Availability, ease of use and privacy appear to be the top three factors driving increased mobile usage;



Along with PCs and TVs, mobile is the most powerful form of media influencing purchasing decisions;



Social media, entertainment, and search are the top three mobile media activities among mobile web users. This popularity will continue to grow in the next 12 months;



Advertising on mobile devices has led to mobile gaining tremendous popularity as a viable shopping channel, with:



42% of respondents indicating that mobile ads have introduced them to something new



23% of respondents indicating that mobile ads saves time and money



14% of respondents indicating that mobile ads have influenced them to buy via mobile

Some key findings for the Singaporean market research include:



Mobile has surpassed TV in terms of time, with consumers spending 27% of their media time on mobile, compared to 22% on TV;

For users of mobile web, overall media consumption habits are dominated by their mobile devices, with half of Singapore’s mobile web users seeing mobile as either their primary or exclusive means of going online;



66% of mobile users are just as comfortable with mobile advertising as they are with TV or online advertising;

Ease of use (50%), availability (38%) and privacy (31%) are key drivers for increased mobile web usage;



Mobile web usage is being driven by social media, entertainment and email;



47% of mobile consumers cite mobile as the primary media impacting their purchasing decisions as opposed to television (34%) and online (42%)

Key highlights of the survey include:







Over half of mobile users (53%) have made purchases via their mobile devices, with threequarters (76%) planning to do so within the next year;



42% of users claim mobile advertising has introduced them to something new, with 66% stating that they are ‘just as comfortable’ with mobile advertising as they are with TV;

 44% of users have been introduced to something new via mobile advertising

 27% have been provided with better options  29% found something relevant nearby while 10% reconsidered a product;

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS



71% of mobile users are as comfortable with mobile advertising as they are with TV or online advertising.

There is an opportunity for advertisers to leverage this quality of the medium to significantly increase the impact of their existing advertising efforts.”

Commenting on the Singapore findings, PhalgunRaju, Regional Director and General Manager - Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan for InMobi said, “Growth in Singaporean mobile use in the coming year is likely to come from entertainment, e-mail and social media. Apps are becoming an important source of content with 47 percent respondents choosing them as their favorite mode of receiving content. What is interesting to note is that increased mobile web usage is adding to the total daily media consumption and growing the pie. This is largely due to the always on, always available nature of the mobile medium allowing consumers to stay online, connected and informed on the go.

InMobi recruited respondents via its global mobile ad network between September and November, 2011, and used Decision Fuel’s and On Device Research’s mobile web platforms to collect a representative sample, including a full range of smartphone & feature phone users. The sample was weighted according to available mobile web demographics and included 20,000 mobile consumers in 18 markets across all continents. According to Tewari the results of their survey showcases the ways in which mobile devices are revolutionizing the media landscape in every corner of the world.◊ By MediaBUZZ

The connected device ecosystem will enable companies to collect real time information on the usage of their products and services. This will significantly improve the quality of products, increase the pace of innovation and most importantly lead to better utilisation of global resources. Business models will change from outright purchase of products to pay as you go, as information about exact usage trends will be available. Manoj Menon, Partner & Asia Pacific Managing Director, Frost & Sullivan

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Awakening Interconnectedness of Online and Offline World All brands are busy working on suitable mobile marketing strategies to interact with consumers through mobile devices. Revolutionary mobile technology is flooding the market, but audiences have yet to adopt the new trends, such as augmented reality, video streaming, social sharing and entertainment, on the small screen.

Tracking mobile traffic data in advance

The prospective to be able to deliver a rich, engaging experience, right up to the point of purchase, is extremely tempting. Especially mobile and social are giving marketers the ability to understand their audiences in vast new ways, making all efforts worth a try. When will mobile marketing hit the mass market, be fully adopted and become standard?

Insights gained with the analysis of attendance probably reveal that only certain pages are accessed via mobile device, such as for instance the contact page. Thus, in case you consider spending just a small budget, it is advisable to first update the appropriate sub-pages for the mobile medium, before eying the deluxe version where a service provider implements a complete mobile web site, with an optimized design for each end device.

The fact that more web enabled smartphones were sold than PCs is a hint that marketers are going in the right direction. Looking at the activity of the market, it’s actually high time to rethink the marketing mix as the interconnectedness of the online and offline world has many opportunities in store.

For searching and finding there are no new rules, but the small screen spotlights the top rankings much more, often requiring scrolling after the third search hit. Of course SEM campaigns should be designed specifically for mobile devices, too. In any case, as always it depends on the right strategy.

In a three-month campaign, Tesco proved impressively how the mobile communication medium revolutionizes marketing and sales. In South Korea, the British supermarket chain put up a number of posters with pictures of filled supermarket shelves in subway stations. Passengers could then use their smartphone camera to scan product codes and purchase, paying via phone, and getting real products delivered to their homes. It’s a good example on how mobile enters the mass market and proves that the trend to use the Internet features of mobile phones for marketing purposes is very obviously on the rise.

Location will drive sales

According to expert analyses, the biggest hurdles in the way of success are scarce resources and the slow expansion of mobile-friendly web solutions. Around half of the top 500 companies that are active in online marketing still don’t have web sites optimized for mobile access and mobile shopping solutions are similarly rare.

It definitely pays off to take a closer look at mobile traffic data, before deciding on a mobile site. Google Analytics even provides detailed mobile traffic data for free and shows what keywords were used to reach sites and with which mobile device.

During 2011, Quick Response (QR) codes came onto the scene as a way to bridge mobile and traditional media across various mediums, including print publications, product packaging, outdoor kiosks and more. The specific matrix bar code, or two-dimensional code, is readable by smartphones and is an undisputed added value to mobile marketing as an interconnector of the online and offline world. Presenting a QR code in a store’s shopping windows that links to a mobile shop, can satisfy walk-in customers, for example, even after closing hours. Any shopping window could even be individually programmed to understand the origin of the mobile shopper. The necessary code readers will most likely be integrated by default on mobile devices soon, too.

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And by growing up with the QR code, the new generation of mobile users will quite naturally bridge between real business and online store, which is exactly what merchants and service providers consider as the great potential. So, expect to see these little codes more and more often – even where you least expect them. According to comScore the most popular source for scanning is product packaging, directing nearly 3 in 4 of the scanning audience to product information and nearly onethird of those scans resulted in a coupon or offer, while 1 in 4 people received event information. It is no surprise that eBusiness leaders and their peers’ in-store operations are embarking on an aligned journey to digitalize the in-store e x p er i e nc e b y em po we r i n g customers and sales associates alike with best-in-class mobile and interactive technologies. Many believe that stores will be seamlessly integrated across all selling platforms in the future, delivering on the promise of agile commerce and according to the vision of mobile commerce. Mobile Meets Social Any retailer can tap new revenue sources with location-based services (LBS). As modern smartphones are equipped with a GPS transmitter, customers can be reached at their current location in real-time. This allows marketers sending e.g. mobile coupons, which can be scanned and redeemed on site. And if the user of an app gives permission to be located, relevant ads can be delivered to him when he comes near a certain location. Integrating monetary credits in the electronic point of sales (EPOS) system and validating coupons is, however, still a challenge. So far, this technical hurdle is often bypassed by simply distributing free offers or 2-for-1 vouchers.

In vogue are very popular LBSs that provide users with social media platforms such as Gowalla, Foursquare, Friendtic k er or Facebook. With their so-called “check-in services” companies bring users playfully to spend their money locally. All have in common that people visit real places, and "check-in” via mobile phone. As a reward they receive virtual stamps and medals to enhance their own status within the community, or vouchers which they can redeem at local advertisers. W ith each check-in, the user gives indirectly a recommendation for the location to network-friends, since they can see all activities. In order to gain first experiences with location-based services, it is best to focus initially on existing services that already have a large community. In particular Foursquare is easy to handle for vendors. The service is popular among users and posting an offer is free of charge. Not to mention that Foursquare stood up to Facebook so far and already has more than 15 million users. Payment via Mobile remains a Weak Point

Phone

Payment via mobile phone is making use of all solutions that have proven themselves in traditional e-commerce, but the mobile device will soon play a special role when paying on the spot. The breakthrough is expected to come from so-called Near Field Communication (NFC). Lured by mobile marketing into the real store, customers could then buy the advertised goods there with the same device that previously showed them the location-based offer on the display. Data can be exchanged short-range contactless via NFC, including payment data. Mobile phones just have to be equipped with a transmitter and the stationary distributor requires a reader – however, both are currently lacking.

There is still no uniform approach for telecommunication companies, banks and trade, but the rollout has already started. Google, Apple, MasterCard, and many other major players are investing heavily in NFC that so far is mainly used in brick-and-mortar stores, but it has the potential to extend into incentives, promotions, content, and much more. Google is integrating NFC and Google Wallet into its devices and there are numerous other stories coming out about how these and other major companies are preparing for NFC on a large scale. Looking at the industry, the research firm Frost & Sullivan predicts that by 2015, NFC will enable worldwide transactions totaling about $151.7 billion and Gartner believes NFC to be established in three years, citing a need for ease-of-use, and ease-ofimplementation without compromising security. It’s clear that mobile is growing as a technology, touch-point, and medium, but that it is far from mature. The speed of change is challenging companies continuously to rethink resource allocation, organizational structures, and internal processes. What can be expected, however, is that Asia, with its extremely high smartphone penetration, will be pioneering the movement of using the mobile device for sales and marketing on the mobile internet.◊ By Daniela La Marca

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Less limiting Hybrid Apps gain Momentum To start off, it can’t hurt to clarify that hybrid apps combine elements of both native and web applications. In the context of mobile computing, actually most applications could be considered hybrid apps. What they all have in common is that they are developed with cross-platform HTML5, but in a native wrapper that gives them access to native capabilities like the camera, microphone, contact list, or notification system that are off limits to the browser. Facebook, LinkedIn, Netflix or Microsoft, for instance, have been adopting the hybrid app approach and even Adobe got prepared for the new app-centric world by acquiring PhoneGap, a company that has been an early-mover in hybrid apps. They‘ve all got the picture right. Since smartphones and tablets gain market share on a daily basis and drive the development steadily, the question of “whether” to do mobile marketing is outdated and the focus is now solely on the “how”. Due to the fact that we are facing a massive change in communications technology and interaction, the potential of mobile compared to other marketing channels is right now extremely high. After the introduction of television in the 50s, this type of communication probably caused the biggest surge in the development of corporate communication. Although it is still difficult to quantify its capability, as we do not know how the devices will change, it is certain that through the ongoing technical development and the increasing consumer demand, the claims of target group orientation, usability and design will continue to rise. It’s important for brands to find out how they can take advantage of mobile channels while avoiding mistakes. There are still not many case studies, showing what is right and what is wrong, not to mention that consumers are still getting used to the new marketing channel. Handling all the different operating systems on the market has become at least much easier, with hybrid apps providing a good solution by sourcing parts of their services over the Internet, such as databases, booking systems and the like. With HTML5 it should be possible over the next two years to switch (almost) completely to the browser, if it supports the standard. Optimized web pages will supersede apps by behaving like apps. These so-called “web apps” combine the benefits of the Internet in terms of distribution and maintenance with the typical look and feel of apps.

Data can be stored directly on the device, so that the use of the web app is guaranteed even without a data connection. But for mobile marketing HTML5 also means a simplification of advertising in apps. Independent of the technical platforms, any iPhone, BlackBerry or Android app can be integrated on the basis of HTML5. By clicking on the banner, a uniform HTML5 web app is provided to users of all platforms with advertising content such as games, wallpapers and videos. This tremendously reduces costs, preparation and technical arrangements for mobile campaigns. What’s crucial for mobile commerce is to keep shopping systems simple and straightforward, since the customers are on the go and not sitting comfortably at home behind the computer screen. Long loading times and inconvenient payment processes are distracting and discourage the consumer to buy the product. Besides the phenomenon of hybrid apps, locationbased services, touch screens and the deployment of these new innovations are in my opinion influencingdrivers of the mobile marketing industry this year. Location-Based Services: On-the-Spot Marketing Mobile marketing’s power of impact is immediacy. No other channel brings brands and products so fast and so close to the consumer as mobile phones and location-based services, bringing relevant messages to consumers to wherever they are. The principle is as simple as it is brilliant: The GPS feature of modern smartphones is used to pinpoint the exact location of the user, immediately transmitting location-based services, for example a new restaurant or targeted price discounts in the immediate vicinity. New coupon platforms, like e.g. Groupon, or Yoose, make the business with mobile discount offers look quite promising. Another advantage of mobile marketing using location-based services, lies in combining these with social media, e.g. platforms like Foursquare and Gowalla which are particularly suitable for local campaigns. The brand Hugo Boss, for example, sent a special invitation to Foursquare members logging on in New York, for the Hugo Boss Prize for contemporary art. Members were invited to pick up for free a Hugo Boss catalog worth $45 in one of four stores and take part in an exclusive raffle.

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In a playful way, the German fashion label introduced their c us tom ers to their br ands commitment to art sponsoring. Mobile Future: Touch Marketing The smartphone market is growing bigger every day, technology is b ec om i n g m or e an d m or e sophisticated, and useful applications for establishing mobile marketing are in the making. Compared to traditional communication channels such as print, TV, radio and online, mobile marketing is still young. Its explosive growth forecasts its enormous potential. Thus, the big question is how mobile marketing will develop over the next few years. Complex online portals and microsites are assessable via mouse click and programmed with an enormous amount of Flash data, will be a thing of the past or create a niche. This kind of digital marketing is already on the ropes and will have to make space for new creativity, streamlined content and a focus on multi-devices.

Almost all renowned mobile brands have presented their very own tablet, such as Blackberry, Palm, Android, or Asus, driven to become as successful as the iPad. Despite different screen s izes and technology platforms, they all have one thing in common: like smartphones they are operated via touch pad. Some tablets have a phone function but they all are subject to the same technical limitations, and are designed for use on the go. Internet access via mobile phone or touch pad will increase exponentially in the coming years, while lowering the use of stationary PCs. Mobile and touch-optimized pages will be at the core of the digital strategy for any internet-enabled device, be it the TV in the living room, the clock radio next to the bed or the navigation device in the car. Will Hybrids kick out Native Apps? Given its incredible success and momentum, the native app concept is not going away anytime soon, despite being quite expensive. Native app developers not only cost more, they are highly specialized and therefore harder to find.

The lack of talents is an even bigger problem since smartphone, tablet, and consumer electronics platforms are proliferating quickly. Currently relevant app platforms include iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone, Nokia QT, Samsung Smart TV, LG Smart TV, Panasonic Viera Connect, and others. Platforms may come and go, but the one platform to rule them all is unlikely to emerge and leaves us with a fragmented market. So, HTML5 is probably the future of the web, as it is filling a gap, but it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t necessarily mean that native apps must fail in order for HTML5 to succeed and be the one and only solution. Besides, platform owners like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Nokia, and Samsung are firmly in control of what comes next. They currently limit what browser-hosted HTML5 web apps can do for strategic and technical reas ons. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t expec t the potentates to act against their own self-interest and let their platforms be fully commoditized by the open web. The platform owners are allowing hybrid apps into their ecosystems because they can still control them, and that is unlikely to change.â&#x2014;&#x160; By Daniela La Marca

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Increase Effectiveness of Mobile Initiatives the Symantec Way Mobile devices gain momentum and herald change in today’s business world. In fact, regarded as a catalyst of the Internet phenomenon, Smartphones are now used by hundreds of millions of employees throughout the world to access corporate information to keep up in today’s 24/7 business world. Once considered a threat to security, companies blithely ignore the concerns, especially since employees are believed to be more productive when they can access corporate data and apps with their mobile devices. According to Symantec’s "State of Mobility 2012" survey that gauged how organizations are coping with this trend, we have reached a tipping point in the business use of mobile devices. The survey included 6,275 organizations across 43 countries, from small businesses to large enterprises, and brought to light that most organizations make mobile application accessible or even plan to create corporate app stores for employees to download approved software. With the goal to improve business agility, efficiency and increase workplace effectiveness, Symantec states that it all comes at a price. Organizations are aware of the potential dangers mobility can pose, rating it highest among IT initiatives in risk. They’re worried about lost devices, data loss, and malware infecting the corporate network through smartphones and tablets. However, despite these risks, organizations feel the benefits are worth it and are working hard to implement security measures to rein in these costs and keep their corporate information safe.

Symantec’s recommendations to improve the effectiveness of mobile initiatives are according to its “State of Mobility 2012" report the following:

 Enable

broadly: Mobility offers tremendous opportunities for organizations of all sizes. Explore how you can take advantage of mobility and develop a phased approach to build an ecosystem that supports your plan. To get the most from mobile advances, plan for line-of-business mobile applications that have mainstream use. Employees will use mobile devices for business one way or another – make it on your terms.

 Think strategically. Build a realistic assessment of the ultimate scale of your mobile business plan and its impact on your infrastructure. Think beyond email. Explore all of the mobile opportunities that can be introduced and understand the risks and threats that need to be mitigated. As you plan, take a cross-functional approach to securing sensitive data no matter where it might end up.

 Manage

efficiently. Mobile devices are legitimate endpoints that require the same attention given to traditional PCs. Many of the processes, policies, education and technologies that are leveraged for desktops and laptops are also applicable to mobile platforms. So the management of mobile devices should be integrated into the overall IT management framework and administered in the same way – ideally using compatible solutions and unified policies. This creates operational efficiencies and lowers the total cost of ownership.

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ď&#x201A;ˇ Enforce Appropriately. As more employees connect their personal devices to the corporate network, organizations need to modify their acceptable usage policies to accommodate both corporate-owned and personally-owned devices. Management and security levers will need to differ based on ownership of the device and the associated controls that the organization requires. Employees will continue to add devices to the corporate network to make their jobs more efficient and enjoyable so organizations must plan for this legally, operationally and culturally.

ď&#x201A;ˇ Secure comprehensively. Look beyond basic password, wipe and application blocking policies. Focus on the information and where it is viewed, transmitted and stored. Integrating with existing data loss prevention, encryption and authentication policies will ensure consistent corporate and regulatory compliance.â&#x2014;&#x160; By Daniela la Marca

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QR Codes: Jump from Offline to Online World with dangerous Pitfalls Quick Response (QR) codes live up to their promises by providing quick answers to products, services and events. However, security experts warn about potential threats to data security. Abuse of the trendy strings for social engineering attacks and sophisticated scams with QR-code scans can put not only personal information of individual users at risk, but the entire information security of enterprises. The risk has been rising in recent years since QR codes started becoming more and more popular in the advertising industry for gaining customer loyalty and developing an appropriate brand image. Appearing like squares with integrated labyrinths at first glance, they can be scanned with a mobile phone camera and in an instant reveal a link to a brand portal and the mobile Internet. Originally from Japan, QR codes were first developed and used in the early 90s by Toyota to mark assemblies and components in the automotive production and only later gained popularity in the advertising industry. Today, the square bar code adorns virtually every consumer product or service. The black and white matrix can be found on packaging, posters and billboards, in magazines and newspapers and at first sight seems pretty unimpressive. But in reality, the accumulation of small dots and squares is no less than a stepping stone from the offline to the online world, allowing fast access to information via mobile Internet portals. QR codes can be decrypted to reveal their information pool with free reading programs from the Internet, which run on most Java-enabled mobile phones. The mobile phone camera photographs the code, hands it on to the Java application for decryption, which in turn makes the browser of the phone open the page with the additional information. For sales and marketing experts this is a dream come true, since they can lead their customers, practically free of costs, to very targeted information about their products and services.

According to an eBay study of December 2011, the potential of generating direct revenues this way is tremendous: 48% of the respondents would have purchased immediately online, if they found a QR code on an interesting product. Thus, the QR code mutates literally to the smallest online store in the world, increasingly embraced by manufacturers as a sales booster. The fact that users really enjoy the convenience of the scan and browse experience offered by the QR code, is exactly what makes the coded information carrier interesting for hackers. Cyber criminals take advantage of the growing popularity of QR codes with so-called social engineering attacks, which means that they exploit human characteristics and weaknesses to acquire information illegally. The human "weakness" in dealing with QR codes is not only pure curiosity of what happens when a code is read, but also unawareness. Users assume that they can â&#x20AC;&#x153;trustâ&#x20AC;? the integrity of the code provider and that the code from the selected destination address is legitimate. Small square, large target As the code is hidden in many small dots, untraceable for individuals, internet fraudsters and data thieves have a walk-over in leading the mobile user to malicious sites or malware. Moreover, so-called QR code scanners for smartphones often have a direct connection to other smartphone features such as email, SMS, local services and app installations, which increases the potential risk to the mobile device itself and opens the door for viruses, worms and malicious code. Hence, the small square provides hackers with a much easier target that it would seem at first glance. The first step of an attack is the clever distribution of the code to the potential victims. A simple but very efficient distribution option is to embed the code in an email, where it can serve as bait for a phishing attack.

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Most often, faulty QR codes are widely spread on documents appearing trustworthy, such as flyers for trade shows and seminars, or in the form of vouchers and authentic-looking labels, as used for certain promotional activities. Beware of Virtual Pickpockets Once the code is circulated, the attacker has a variety of options he can choose from for fraud. QR codes could lead the user, for instance, directly to false websites or online stores to collect their credit card information. More sophisticated attacks could direct the user to sites conducting a “jailbreak”, removing all use restrictions on the end device and providing access to the operating system. Like a so-called “drive-by download”, the hacker can then install malicious software applications, such as key loggers and GPS trackers, on the mobile device - without knowledge or consent of the user.

Perhaps the greatest potential risk for mobile users is the growing implementation of online banking and payments over the phone, since these transactions provide a vast amount of highly sensitive bank account-, credit card-, and financial information. Hackers can operate as virtual pickpockets in "mobile wallets" by using QR codes, cracking mobile devices and settling in with applications. Further danger comes from already existing QR-based payment solutions, which are right now still used very little, but are expected to rise rapidly with increasing public acceptance of QR codes. Clever Scanners, Data Encryption and Education for Protection The most important precaution to avoid risks regarding hip QR-codes lies in the early revelation of their secret information. Users should be able to find out all details on which link or source code is called up immediately when scanning the square.

Some "smart" QR-code scanners already offer this essential transparency and ask if a certain link or action should actually be executed or not. This gives the user the ability to assess the validity of a link before the scanned code is enabled. For company smartphones, a data encryption solution should be considered, keeping confidential business data protected against hackers even when a defective QRcode is installing a Trojan or other malware on the mobile device. Continuous education, higher awareness and a comprehensive enterprise-wide integrated security solution is crucial for dealing with new threats such as malicious QR codes. Be aware of risks, while exploiting the full potential of mobile channels with QR codes that are last but not least a predestined point of contact for business.◊ By Daniela La Marca

Mobile marketingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s power of impact is immediacy. No other channel brings brands and products so fast and so close to the consumer as mobile phones and location-based services. The principle is as simple as it is brilliant: The GPS feature of modern smartphones is used to pinpoint the exact location of the user, immediately transmitting location-based services, for example a new restaurant or targeted price discounts in the vicinity.

TECHNOLOGIES & PRODUCTS

Simple and safe Solutions for bringing complex Content Online Akamai‘s VP of the Media Division, Bill Wheaton, in an in-depth Interview Akamai is a Hawaiian word meaning smart or intelligent, with connotations of insightful, wise or skillful, which are accurate adjectives for the company and its spokesperson Bill Wheaton, whom I had the honour to interview recently. Bill Wheaton has worked for Akamai for about 13 years, where he holds the position of vice president of the Media Division. The Next Generation Broadcast Network According to Wheaton, the media business makes up about 45 or 50% of Akamai’s business today, explaining that the first broadcast network used to be television with some advertising breaks. Today the next generation broadcast network is going to be defined by any screen, any time, anywhere! People prefer watching videos on television, but there will be more and more of a shift not only to notebooks and PCs, but also to tablets and other mobile devices. In Asia in specific, the people having mobile devices actually outnumber the people who have televisions. To make that work, what we have to do, is to make it simple, for both the publisher / content producer and for the consumer by reaching all the connected devices. We‘re going to take out the complexity of all these different devices and different run times by moving that work flow into the cloud and giving them unified reporting on all platforms. With all the premier publishers in the world using our platform today, it has to become a television like experience. Video streams at high quality with no rebuffers, ads play right beside them with no rebuffers, going from one to the other and back seamlessly. That‘s the experience they expect and that is what we are going to give them”, Wheaton commented. Getting started in Video Streaming When asked if he could give some advice to companies that are just planning to get into video streaming, Bill Wheaton said it would depend on the company‘s role in the ecosystem, explaining: “If you are a content producer, an owner of content, then you should ask, who is the market, how do I target to get my content to

them, and do I do syndication deals?” Akamai offers tools to make online business easier and can even make advertising follow the content, so that companies can control their own advertising spend, besides controlling sponsorships and subscriptions and so on. However, Wheaton continued: “If you are an aggregator of content, where you go out and buy rights and then aggregate them back in, then you have potentially a different play. It‘s about selecting content, running recommendation engines to get people on your site and about promoting your site to drive traffic back to you. We have a lot of experience about how to go to market and about what makes sites be successful, and how they cut deals in their distribution.” Akamai is currently working intensively on identity services, Weathon admits, which will allow people to access digital lockers or authenticated sources to be able to view content. In addition, he advises to make consumer experience easy and smooth, noting: “If you make it easy, they will engage longer with you, and the longer they engage, the more time to target, the more opportunity for you to monetize your content. One of the things we‘ve found is that the easier and simpler you make it, the more people are willing to pay for content. So focus on quality and the experience.” Partnerships with Global Media Networks The top 30 global media networks, and the very large social media sites, are all Akamai’s customers, stating that his company helps to deliver a grand majority of Facebook’s content on a worldwide basis and that Twitter is using their service quite extensively, too. But also the more traditional media companies, like News Corp., Disney, CBS, NBC, or Sony amongst others work closely with them on a worldwide basis. Here in Asia, ESPN Star, a joint venture of News Corp. and Disney, is one of their clients besides many more. However, Wheaton assured that his company wellconsiders how they start a working relationship with a client, since they treat them as partner and not just customer. He emphasized: “Our job is to make people successful and bring their content online.

TECHNOLOGIES & PRODUCTS

When they grow, we grow. That's how we‘ve been successful in the past. One of our hallmarks is working very closely together and bringing the very complex system of our partners together with our complex system and making it work easily. We can‘t fail and our partners are depending on us not to fail. That‘s what we strive for, to be there 99,99% of the time, like TV. And we‘re very close to reaching that goal with reliability, scalability, high quality and reporting back. We assume that things will fail, so we build our system with redundancies in it, so when there are failures in a broadcast system, you don‘t see anything.” Akamai‘s customers are making up about 25 - 30% of all web traffic in the world and we can expect to see the triumphal procession of the company continuing with its next generation broadcast network. Social Media, Security

Mobility

and

Bill Wheaton specifies on the special demands of companies like Facebook and Twitter, stating “Security is paramount. Last year we experienced about 2000 difference attacks. We rolled out a whole new suite of security products to secure websites and media assets, so people can be online and be confident about not being distorted or attacked. Regarding social media, speed and performance is very important. During the Superbowl, it was estimated that about 40% of the people watching it on TV had either their phone or tablet beside them, interacting on social media about what they are watching. Discovering content will come more and more over social networks, and it will also come from recommendations. Social is a huge factor relating to media, and its just starting to melt together.” On Akamai‘s development and research focus regarding social media he commented: “For the social side, we have a site division

dedicated to making websites working better, faster, and more secure across all devices. The media division is focused on how we make media work better in those areas, and the third thing we do is our cloud division that takes our technology and licenses to various people to make B2B applications work better and faster. We‘ve developed a portfolio approach to provide a variety of s olutions . W e‘re now als o developing our network division products, we‘re licensing our technology to telcos and operators in the network itself, to provide something which can be embedded right into the telco operations. We‘ve always partnered with networks and deployed deeply into local networks, to bring content closer to the end users and to save money for the network operators.” Serv ic ing about 3 0% of Worldwide Internet Traffic and Growing fast According to Bill Wheaton, Akamai is handling about 25 or 30% of the world‘s internet traffic with 1.2 trillion hits a day, and every 7 or 8 months it doubles in size. “Today we average about 5 or 6 terabytes per second and we think that is going to be 20 fold that size within the next five years, that is a huge amount of growth”, he said. To do that properly and cost effectively, is the challenge they face. And the only way to do that is working through the ecosystem with partners and to lead in making it simpler – with a focus always on quality and simplicity.

We can help with that, given our position in the market place and our technology, making those ads look just as good as the content itself, completely seamless across all connected devices”, Wheaton commented. He continued: “There's has been a fragmentation of the market place recently, with all the different devices. Our job is to make it simple and to take that burden away from the content producer, because we understand how content should be encoded, how to use technology to avoid rebufferings altogether, and report back on all that information - both real time so you can monitor and also in historical perspective so you can develop trends and tweet your c ontent and m ax im ize th e consumers engagement time. The longer they engage, the more ads they will watch, and the more satisfied they will be with your business, so you have a higher yield on your CPMs.” Bill Wheaton knows that clients come to them for best practises and to be taken by the hand. His company is a leader in its industry, demonstrated again at the Mobile World Congress where Akamai presented its new standard for streaming, called MPEG DASH, which is not a standard yet, as it is still in its early stages, but attempts to combine the best features of all HTTP-based adaptive streaming technologies into a standard that can be utilized from mobile to overthe top (OTT) devices. Making sure of Being Ahead

"If you look at the ecosystem of video advertising on the web, the amount of money spent on processing is ridiculous high, with about 15 cents of a dollar going to agency handling fees. Compared to that television broadcasting fees are much lower. We need to streamline that workflow and make it very simple and help both the publishers and the advertisers come better together in the market place.

Akamai is big in commerce, media, security, and cloud enablement of different business applications. Bill Wheaton explained: “In mobility you combine the best of everything. One way of getting content to work better across mobile platforms is to make transactions better and faster, besides making sure people don‘t disengage and quit in a purchase process. The phone is a very secure device with its SIM

TECHNOLOGIES & PRODUCTS

card for authentication that predestines it as payment tool. The trend will be to support e-Wallets and moving that along in the commerce area”. Wheaton continues: “We do a lot of work on PCI compliance and how we tokenize credit card information across the web. Actually, we saw the trend of mobile overtaking the browser environment three or four years ago and we‘ve been working at it since then, so we have by now a whole suite of products targeted exactly at that area. We see trends early, since we deliver so much traffic, so we started working on delivering video to all these connected devices three and a half years ago, and its just all coming out now. We‘re changing the jet engines while the plane is flying, and we do that every day.

People in Singapore are way ahead on the mobile front, taking advantage of the market opportunity as it presents itself. We are ahead of our competition to be a good partner for them in that respect.” Asia Pacific is currently Akamai‘s largest investment market, mainly due to its huge population that has an enormous hunger for content and therefore offers the company a sea of opportunities. Akamai is used to working with partners in a confidential way, so they can make a big splash and be outstandingly successful. After this insightful interview, I can only say that the company seems to be fully living up to it's Hawaiian name, and that we look forward to seeing them take off even more.◊ Daniela La Marca

TECHNOLOGIES & PRODUCTS

Netbiscuits launched HTML5 Framework “Tactile” to tackle the Challenges of the Connected Screen World Today's web experience is all about connected screens and the technological complexities and challenges this brings, which is Netbiscuits’ field of activity. The company was founded twelve years ago in Kaiserslautern, Germany, and has set itself the goal of becoming the standard mobile web platform. Asian e-Marketing covered Netbiscuits already in the February issue, but last week, during an Emerging Technology session at SXSW Interactive in Austin, Texas, the company launched its new product “Tactile”. According to Netbiscuits, Tactile is an efficient design and development framework that utilizes today’s web standards to enable the seamless creation and delivery of engaging mobile web experiences. Utilizing the Netbiscuits SaaS Cloud-Based Platform, it simplifies development and deployment complexities while reducing the time and cost of publishing and maintaining high-quality/rich user experiences for today’s feature-packed, gesture-driven devices. “As more consumers across the globe turn to the mobile web to search, shop, share and connect, marketers have to create and deliver even more engaging branded experiences in multi device environments,” said Netbiscuits CEO Michael Neidhoefer. “We help Enterprises to do this efficiently without compromising quality of service. Netbiscuits Tactile closes the technical and creative gaps encountered when trying to create HTML5 based, touch enabled mobile web apps that render properly no matter the device, operating system or country in which the consumer is going mobile." Combining server-side optimization, client-side optimization, device detection, progressive enhancement, and responsive design, Netbiscuits Tactile is an unparalleled cross-platform publishing environment. Using next-generation web standards such as HTML5 and CSS3, web apps can be rapidly created without wasting time and resources

compensating for browser, operating system and device fragmentation. For developers and designers, Tactile identifies the specific device classes requesting access to their content, tailors diverse multimedia content from a server and delivers that content in formats optimized for a device’s specific profile and screen dimensions. Web apps produced using Tactile provide end-users with an instantaneously responsive and reactive experience equivalent to those enjoyed on native applications. All in all, Tactile delivers four main benefits:

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Tactile Mark-up replaces a large portion of JavaScript, reducing the size and complexity of the code without compromising the user experience;

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Large number of “out of the box”, cross platform optimized display and behavior effects and events;

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Device Information Services provide device characteristics from the device and from NB Testing Intelligence to all touch points of a web application – at the edge enhancing redirection decisions, at the backend systems allowing for specific device-class computing and at the client side for native user experience.

Tactile’s HTML5 framework allows developers to extend the JavaScript library at all layers – from kernel to UI components – or using CSS pre-processor capabilities. Netbiscuits Tactile addresses timely all the technological complexities and challenges the changing landscape of connected devices brings. It can be leveraged on all multi-touch devices, as it is integrating with any backend system for all types of mobile web sites. Still in beta status, it is planned to start officially in April.◊ By Daniela La Marca

TECHNOLOGIES & PRODUCTS

New Mobile Point-of-Sale Platform “Swiff” energizes the Mobile Payment Industry Swiff, a mobile payment platform that uses a plug-in device to transform smartphones and tablets into credit card/debit card terminals will launch its solution officially this week in Singapore. Jerome Cle, CEO and Founder, and Etienne Van, COO, will present and comment on the business and technology behind their innovation at a media invite at the first restaurant in Singapore that test-drives their new technology, besides providing insights on the mobile payment market in Singapore, the region and around the world. Swiff is revolutionary in that sense that the mobile payment platform enables banks to acquire and retain market share in an increasingly competitive environment, while providing merchants with a fast and affordable way to implement credit card payment facilities. All parties involved in the payment process – merchants, customers and banks alike - will benefit from Swiff’s end-to end security that not only offers protection of credit card data, but also the reduction of fraud in payment transactions. Replacing traditional credit card terminals, businesses now have the flexibility to secure credit card payments with their mobile phones anytime, anywhere. With realtime processing on the move, collecting payment is no longer confined to the back of the counter, which improves customer service and reduces waiting time. In general it seems as if Swiff comes at the right time for the mobile payment industry, which is expected to hit US$900 billion globally by 2014. Easy to use Swiff allows merchants to capture credit card payments from Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Diners and JCB and its application supports iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, Android and Tablet computers.

Merchants who sign-up to the mobile solution receive a card reader from Swiff that is plugged into the audio jack of a variety of mobile devices, allow them to accept instant credit card payments - actually similar to Square. But what sets Swiff apart from Square is its business model that permits merchants to choose from any acquiring bank of their choice to obtain the most competitive rates, since it is not a close loop solution. It is just an enabler to facilitate the payment transaction what makes it more flexible and appealing to merchants. The banks will have direct relationship with the merchant and therefore, merchants have the flexibility to plan their businesses. The merchant can swipe or manually input the credit card (Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Diners and JCB) details of the customer, capture a digital signature on the screen, and authorize a transaction. Security guaranteed Security measures have always priority since they are crucial to credit card transactions, and Swiff has, of course, precautionary measure is place to guarantee necessary security. The service provider makes sure that credit card data is encrypted in the reader and that only an encrypted format is sent to the gateway for payment processing, all according to the standard procedure, but on top, data is never available on the application to ensure a full end-to-end security. And of course each password and pin is allocated to one merchant and synchronized with the card-reader and the device. Actually, I was already waiting for such a mobile payment solution for a long time and now I am curious how Swiff will perform in the fast-paced and extremely competitive mobile commerce industry.◊ By Daniela La Marca

TECHNOLOGIES & PRODUCTS

Acision’s Enterprise Messaging Network is All-rounder in connecting Businesses to Consumers Acision launched its Enterprise Messaging Network this month, which is the first dedicated messaging platform connecting businesses to consumers. Building upon its market leadership in text messaging, the Acision Enterprise Network (AEN) provides a single point of entry to connect operators, businesses and consumers, while delivering universal capabilities, reach and reliability for measurable campaigns and communication via text. As the most reliable communication tool which reaches all handsets globally and supports interactive dialogue, SMS has become increasingly important to enterprises, especially those that want truly global access to consumers. By working with partners, the AEN brings enterprises, application service providers, (ASPs) operators and consumers together, providing a new mobile media delivery model which will is set to change the dynamics of the mobile messaging ecosystem. By giving enterprises the broadest reach to consumers via text, the AEN provides a cost effective option to mobile communications which is targeted, provides full insights and analytics into campaigns and communications, and can support various business critical processes, commercial and transactional models. This ultimately advances the control, transparency and flexibility of any campaigns being driven by an enterprise, as well as assuring greater success as previous mobile engagement platforms, besides intensifying customer interaction. For application service providers, the network enables them to have greater reach to serve more enterprises with the use cases they enable, as well as increasing speed of delivery via SMS. With greater revenue share across all parties in the ecosystem, mobile operators will also benefit from additional revenue streams derived from enterprise SMS traffic which they would otherwise not be able to address.

Jorgen Nilsson, Chief executive, Acision comments: “The ubiquity of SMS, spanning all networks and devices, makes messaging the obvious choice for brands looking to leverage mobile to enhance their consumer reach and their bottom-line. The AEN provides a protected mobile media channel, which will stimulate the usage of messaging, by guaranteeing the quick delivery and roll-out of campaigns and communications to consumers, and creating competitive advantage for all parties involved. It is now easier for operators to actively seek new revenue streams from the increase in messaging, with a service managed by a trusted provider and interface to the global corporations.” Examples of the new service delivery models across multiple verticals – from healthcare to FMCG’s, social networking, logistics and financial services – include integrated mobile couponing, alarms, appointment reminders, meeting scheduling, tracking, fraud prevention alerts, SMS rewards, interactive payments, commerce, promotions and ERP. The new offering provides global enterprises with the audience and platform needed to reach the next billion consumers, local businesses the tools and education to build loyalty in their community, and consumers with a direct connection to the brands and businesses they trust, on their terms. The platform also provides an explicit opt-in/opt-out approach to campaigns from point of origination to termination, while maintaining the integrity of the consumer data. “In the same way that Acision pioneered mobile messaging, we are once again at the forefront in driving the next phase of messaging to ensure its on-going longevity and to help the ecosystem to effectively capitalise on its enormous potential,” concluded Steven van Zanen, SVP strategy and marketing at Acision.◊ By MediaBUZZ

TECHNOLOGIES & PRODUCTS

Polycom and HTC collaborate and enable Polycom® RealPresence™ Mobile on selected HTC Smartphones and Tablets Polycom, Inc., the global leader in standards-based unified communications (UC), and HTC Corporation, a global designer of smartphones, announced to enable Polycom® RealPresence™ Mobile on select HTC smartphones and tablets by mid-2012. HTC devices with Polycom® RealPresence™ Mobile software will connect customers through high-quality video collaboration in any environment including on the go, at home, at work, in a conference room, or in an immersive theatre. "Video collaboration is a critical application within mobile platforms, and offering Polycom’s RealPresence Mobile on HTC smartphones and tablets will provide tremendous value and opportunities for our customers," said David Jaeger, executive director of Global Enterprise and Services for HTC. “Polycom’s mobile video application supports our commitment to provide authentic audio and amazing imaging on our devices and together, we can now extend this experience to our enterprise customers.” As part of the agreement, these select HTC devices will be certified Polycom-ready and optimised for RealPresence Mobile, which is expected to be available for download on HTC devices via the Android Market™ in mid-2012. RealPresence Mobile, powered by the Polycom® RealPresence™ Platform, is a secure, enterprise-grade video software solution for

mobile devices that extends the reach of video collaboration beyond the conference room, allowing users on the go with a mobile device to easily connect with other standards-based video systems including immersive video rooms, group/desktop systems, laptops, tablets, and smartphones in HD quality. “Increasingly, our customers are seeing the consumerization of IT – employees are bringing their favorite devices to work and they want them supported on the corporate network,” said Sue Hayden, executive vice president Strategic Alliances, Polycom. “Our new relationship with HTC helps customers embrace this trend, ensuring mobile workers and road warriors can enjoy high-quality mobile video collaboration solutions from anywhere without sacrificing quality, security, or reliability.” The collaboration boosts Polycom’s drive to make video collaboration ubiquitous by delivering easy-touse, standards-based software to anyone, across any environment.The company announced RealPresence Mobile for tablets in October 2011 and at Mobile World Congress 2012 its availabilityfor smartphones. The Polycom and HTC agreement is focused on the opportunity presented by today’s one billion mobile workers – more than a third of the world’s total workforce – and prepares for the expected growth to 1.3 billion mobile workers over the next three years.◊ By MediabUZZ

TECHNOLOGIES & PRODUCTS

Dialogic launches unique Software Solution to measure and track Viewers' Mobile Video Quality of Experience Dialogic Inc., a leading provider of communications technologies that power advanced networks, launched its software solution to measure and track the perceptual quality of mobile video. The Dialogic® VisionVideo™ Software Solution enables companies that deliver mobile video services to determine the perceptual quality of experience (QoE) being received by viewers. The rising demand for mobile video services is currently creating many new opportunities for both network operators and application developers worldwide. In particular, the growth of 3G networks allows mobile operators to open up new revenue streams by increasing subscriber adoption rates of unique and innovative applications and services. Many developers in the mobile video industry face stringent performance requirements, multiple interoperability issues, and a variety of other technical challenges where Dialogic can offer to support. By understanding, for instance, the perceptual quality of the viewer, companies can position themselves to improve viewer experience, and ultimately open opportunities to monetize mobile video services.

Dialogic’s VisionVideo Software Solution is utilized by companies that create and deliver mobile video, including broadcasters, advertisers, content aggregators, and network operators, and who disadvantageously lack information about their customers’ actual video quality experience due to current solutions that focus on analyzing network conditions. The VisionVideo Software Solution measures and reports perceptual mobile video quality as experienced by viewers and it provides important information for diagnosing and isolating problems and targeting perceptual quality issues. By delivering a high-quality mobile video QoE, service providers and other companies can help better position themselves to retain customers and build a positive brand image around quality. VisionVideo is being launched with one of the premier streaming media companies in the world – MobiTV. “MobiTV has long been a believer in seamlessly delivering an overall high quality of experience while maintaining network efficiency,” said MobiTV, Inc. CTO Kay Johansson, adding, “We believe Dialogic’s VisionVideo Software will be a valuable solution to achieve this goal."

TECHNOLOGIES & PRODUCTS

“Demand for mobile video is on the rise, and with that comes higher expectations of quality,” said Susan Welsh de Grimaldo of Strategy Analytics. “Dialogic is addressing this issue head on, giving companies the right information they need to create a positive viewing experience, which translates to strong customer retention and an increased bottom line”, she concluded. The VisionVideo Software Solution integrates seamlessly into existing workflows and operations, without the need for special or customized measurement hardware.It can be downloaded and deployed quickly, giving companies fast access to its benefits and eliminating the need for costly installation and integration. “The VisionVideo Software Solution opens important doors for companies involved in creating and distributing mobile video, giving them information to help establish new and creative - yet still grounded business models,” said Uno Mehta, vice president and general manager of Dialogic’s Video Business Unit. “With its unique ability to measure and track quality for specific video content, VisionVideo provides the opportunity for companies to generate additional revenue - whether through subscription services, tiered service offerings, or other premium services - based on the solution’s ability to validate a high-quality viewing experience for mobile video.”

Especially in times when the move to all-digital TV gathers momentum, consumers and business users alike want to have proper mobile voice and data communications. Dialogic’sVisionVideo solution measures and reports perceptual video quality on specific content, giving mobile operators and all other companies in the video creation and delivery chain valuable information to help them monetize their rapidly -growing video services. If you are interested you can download the free white paper on Dialogic® VisionVideo™ Software Solution.◊ By MediaBUZZ

TECHNOLOGIES & PRODUCTS

Huawei and IBM develop a Smart Workspace@Mobile Solution Huawei, the Chinese provider of information and telecommunications technologies has announced to develop a Smart Workspace@Mobile solution in cooperation with their strategic partner IBM Global Business Services (GBS) in China. Their ambitious plan would provide clients with a secure, intelligent mobile solution, ushering in a new era of the 'smart mobile worker'. "We believe this collaboration builds on the strengths of two great companies and will address the changing needs of the workforce within enterprises," said Mr Wan Biao, CEO of Huawei Devices. "Today, enterprise mobile office will not only need automation but also need to drive new service channels, enhance asset and logistics management, offering customers additional business-oriented services. The launch of this new Smart Workspace@Mobile solution will redefine a new era for the enterprise mobility market in China." The solution aims to provide an 'anytime, anywhere professional secure office environment' on smart devices that are integrated with tailored industry applications. Each device is enabled to be cost effective, efficient and secure. The Smart Workspace@Mobile solution addresses the growing demand in China for smart mobile office solutions which integrate effectively with Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Supply Chain Management (SCM), and inventory management delivered within a cloud environment. IBM Global Business Services in China will provide the overall consulting to support the enterprise foundations for ERP systems. Huawei Device will undertake the solution integrator pilot, providing the convergent smart devices based on the operating platform - Mobile Device Management (MDM). This will ensure that companies can have their back end management systems extend to smart phone and tablet devices tailored to a specifically customized industry process.

"With their strength in smart device technologies and the expanding operator [broadband] coverage in China, Huawei's collaboration with IBM Global Business Services to provide consulting and enterprise platform integration will ensure that work moves securely and efficiently from a PC-base to a mobile office environment." said Ms. Shirley Yu-Tsui, General Manager, Global Business Services, IBM Greater China Group. This solution will integrate entire cross-business processes including market sales, channel management, store management, mobile sales, customer service, devise management, inventory management and office management all in one device. The solution will further support three industries; the consumer goods sector with solutions developed for inventory optimization, synchronized distribution and shop management. The energy sector services will be developed to enable asset management, secure access, equipment testing and remote positioning. In the retail sector, the Smart Workspace@Mobile solution will provide applications to accelerate product exhibition, store operation, market information collection, customer management, channel visit and office automation. Huawei and IBM deal with a huge amount of defined requirements, which are generalized, but basically serve the needs of mobile workers. However, new and innovative ideas have not been announced, so it remains to be seen how IBM and Huawei envisage the new era of smart mobile workers. Their risk of getting bogged down is certainly high. Besides, it remains unclear what devices or operating systems are supported and further technical details and a release date were not disclosed, yet.â&#x2014;&#x160; By Daniela La Marca

COMPANIES & CAMPAIGNS

Accelerating Business with Mobile Enterprise Content Management Q & A with OpenText Chief Marketing Officer James Latham OpenText Corporation is Canada's largest software company, with twenty years of experience in enterprise content management. With various significant acquisitions in the last two years, OpenText has repositioned itself with an even broader product range, now also covering web content management, business process management and secure file sharing services for enterprises. Special platforms enable access from all sorts of mobile and desktop devices for employees. Asian eMarketing met OpenText‘s Chief Marketing Officer, James Latham, in an interview to discuss the company‘s focus on mobility, and their investment and strategies for the Asia Pacific region. Q: I‘m happy about the opportunity of a face to face interview with you, and I would like to talk about different issues, but with a main focus on mobility. Please present your company and how it is positioned in Asia, and what kind of solutions your clients can expect from you A: OpenText is the world leader in Enterprise Content Management (ECM). When it comes to marketing, we tend to focus on content management in the context of digital asset management. We provide the capabilities of managing vast numbers of digital assets, making sure they are deployed, accessed and distributed properly to organizations that try to manage brand identities in countries around the world. If you can create a kind of river of digital assets, then you have the opportunity of influencing buyers at every stage of the buying cycle.

As an example, Marriott Hotels are using these capabilities, coupled with their actual web content management. It‘s about gathering assets appropriately, whatever and wherever they are , and presenting them in a new and compelling way on the web. The web experience management capability is another part of our software that we give to our customers. Behr Paint is another example: they allow you to paint rooms digitally using a combination of suggested or recommended colors from thousands available. That gives a very compelling, cinematic experience on the web. Those are the kind of things that appeal to marketers. Q: What exactly is your function at OpenText? I understand you have a focus on the integration and collaboration of various marketing groups and on your company‘s global marketing strategy. Could you please give me more insight into your scope of work and the challenges and opportunities you are facing here in Asia. A: I am chief marketing officer at OpenText, that entails the responsibility for all of our products in web experience management, ECM, and business process management. I am also responsible for global brand management. I work with the people in the field to drive that brand consistency around the world and help our sales people understand our message positioning and products. I‘ve been with OpenText for about three years. Q: In a few words, what would you say are the unique characteristics making OpenText successful compared to competitors? A: I think there are two main areas: one is a very, very broad set of capabilities in web content management,

COMPANIES & CAMPAIGNS

digital asset management and portal management. The other is the scale of those. As an example, if you are going to manage 32 million videos that are captured and distributed everyday, then you need a highly scalable enterprise-class web and digital asset management. We are helping enterprises create those more compelling experiences on the web. Q: I'm extremely interested in OpenText Everywhere as the focus of the issue is on mobility. I read that, a year ago, your company acquired the London based mobile application development tool vendor weComm to extend the flagship ECM to smartphones. Before that you purchased the business process management software Metastorm, the communication software provider Streamserve, in early 2010 digital content mangement system provider Nstein Tech, and the year before the competing content managemant provider Vignette. So, a lot happened in the past two years. I would like to hear a little about your journey. A: Just a week or two after I joined, we embarked on a strategy to acquire very significant sized companies, hundred, two hundred, three hundred million dollar companies, in order to consolidate in the market place the capabilities for those three areas I mentioned before. In addition to Metastorm we also purchased Global 360. Those were two of the leading business process management software firms, so we instantly became a major player in that market. For years we have been the leader in enterprise content management, and our acquisition of Vignette propelled us into web content management. That was a more than 300 miliion dollar acquisition. The combination of those acquisitions and our investment in research and development, and integrating those together, has provided us with a very wide range of capabilities. Specifically in the area of mobility, really compelling web experiences are happening a lot better if you have an application rather than just a mobile web site. We help our customers, the big brands, to build an app once and then deploy it on more than 900 different mobile plattforms. It saves them the time and energy of building an app over and over again for different mobile operating systems. We create a viable way for a brand to put a mobile app out there to be used an anything from a Blackberry to an iPhone. And that app creates a better experience for the customer. Q: Please, tell me more about your product OpenText Everywhere. A: We’ve had a product called OpenText Everywhere for about two and a half years and weComm is an additional wave of new capabilities that we’ve added to

the mobility platform. It is typically an add-on, because you need a repository, either digital asset management repository or ECM repository to use it. However, while travelling, the mobile worker needs to access key intellectual assets within the organization, and digital assets of other types, like the marketing ones we talked about earlier. So, we expect with growing Smartphone penetration better and faster access to those kinds of assets. We provide the facilities and our customers are building apps and connecting them to their repositories. Q: It is surely a challenge to stay up to date in this fast living environment. A: It is always a challenge. The real challenge is, from a marketers perspective, to continue to combine the technology and the creative juice that is in markerters minds in order to create those experiences for the customer. Q: The big question at the moment is: what’s a better solution - the app or the mobile web? Mobile devices are definitely surpassing the computer as a primary means of accessing the web. “The world is going mobile“ you say on your website. What impact does this have on OpenText and how does your company react to customers‘ demands? A: We‘ve made our products more accessible to mobile devices, and have been specifically building applications and interfaces that work better on those devices, for accessing digital assets that might be in a digital asset manangement system. We offer a better way to access, to use, to deploy and to monitor the digital assets of an organisation on those devices themselves. For example, we have a new product called OpenText Tempo which is essentially a secure way to do simple file sharing. It’s interface is easy to use, yet it‘s secure and protects companies from information leakages. Many pharmaceutical companies make use of our products and validated them with the drug regulation agencies, for things like aggregate spend, reporting, and federal drug administration submittals of trials. Q: Your customer experience management covers a huge field and collects a lot of data, what advice could you give to a company that wants improve its performance? What should they consider in managing their customers, what would be your strategy for good results in no time? A: We focus on the web experience part of the customer experience: we provide facilities that can do some very unique things that can qickly allow your customers to enjoy a better experience in their use of the web, in their use of social media, in their use of

COMPANIES & CAMPAIGNS

communities. You can create a community site very very quickly with our software and get your users, your customers, generating, communicating, and essentially reinforcing and advocating your products right there on the web. Q: Is it a challenge for OpenText to protect all the data? A: Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s a strength we have had for more than 20 years with ECM. Information governance, regulatory compliance are capabilities that secure the knowledge, the information, the content, no matter how big it grows. It's our major strength. And now we've brought those capabilities, that strength, to the web and to the business process. Q: How do you imagine the coming years for your industry in Asia? A: I think in Asia, the growth is driving adoption of more and more technologies, more and more capabilities, and different usage patterns. I think the differences in language add an extra layer of challenge for digital marketing in the region. So you have to be cognitive and aware of what the cultural imperative is and what the languages are trying to portrait, and make sure that localization happens for each specific area or regional language. We're counting on rapid economic growth to offset our business in Asia and consequently invest in this region like many others.

Photo: James Latham, CMO, Opentext

Another challenge that we've been thinking through, and providing products for is to make sure your content is the same, your acces is the same, no matter which device (smartphone, tablet, notebook, desktop) you are using, and how is it all synchronized. In the consumer world you can use iCloud, but corporations, academic institutions and government organizations are not interested in providing iCloud to their users. We've created this product called OpenText Tempo that automatically synchronizes across all your devices. Tempo is about orchestration and about speed of business. It's brandnew, just released on January 31st, and becoming available on a global basis. OpenTextâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s products Everywhere, Tempo and Tempo Express Edition are especially interesting for companies in Asia, since they allow a quick set up of private and secure solutions for easily sharing, synchronizing content from any kind of mobile or desktop device, and providing rigorous records management and security that is required to meet internal policies and industry regulations.â&#x2014;&#x160; By Daniela La Marca

COMPANIES & CAMPAIGNS

adsmobi launches new Mobile Coupon Service ‘Prime Location’ The mobile media buying platform adsmobi’s prime business is placing successful mobile campaigns for mobile advertisers by delivering premium advertising traffic for their clients through partnerships with leading mobile mediation and optimization platforms. adsmobi matches agencies and brands with the best mobile publisher inventory to achieve their mobile ROI goals with the help of their ad server that effectively manages media spending with the flexibility to target a desired audience at the right time, in the right place, on the right device. The company has chosen the hyperlocal mobile ad network YOOSE to develop their soon to launch location-based mobile coupon service, Prime Location. Advertisers who sign up for Prime Location will benefit from a functionally rich, but easy to use, self-service web application to create and manage their locationbased mobile coupon campaigns.They can select their desired target group, indicating the time, place, and device on which they want their ads to appear, since adsmobi has a huge inventory spanning 220 countries and hitting 30 billion ad requests. Prime Location’s ability to deliver consumer engagement via mobile coupons will complement the existing adsmobi service offering which includes innovative and performance driven products such as Rich Media Ad Formats or the Push-App Program,a dedicated mobile app promotion program. RamyYared, Co-Founder and Managing Director for adsmobi, says the developer relationship between the two companies was a natural choice given the common ground they share, “With our forthcoming Mobile Coupon Service Prime Location, we will successfully extend our mobile advertising service offerings. Location Based Services are in great demand, brands and advertisers want to reach their consumers directly at the Point of Sale. We chose YOOSE as a partner not just for their technical expertise but also for their commercial understanding of what mobile publishers, advertisers and consumers want.”

Prime Location will be structured to allow users to launch their new mobile coupon campaigns in four simple steps, making it easy and fast for both agencybased professionals managing the needs of multiple brands, and smaller businesses who may be new to mobile advertising. The first two steps allow the user to set up the type of coupon they want in a pre-defined category (such as Food & Drink, Entertainment & Leisure, Health & Beauty) and create a tailored campaign message or offer. The final two steps ensure they can set up an accompanying ad banner, determine the location radius for their offering (for example, around a flagship store) and set the validity dates for the campaign. Christian Geissendoerfer, CEO for YOOSE says, “In terms of the functionality, we had to ensure the Prime Location self-service platform would be intuitive to use and would set the standard for on-going expectations of location-based mobile advertising. This is what will ensure the long-term success and value for the user base. The emphasis was on delivering a very powerful solution with precision consumer engagement via location-targeting and couponing, but we had to be mindful not to overwhelm the user with the technology that powers it. Mobile advertisers can be confident that all the elements required for successful targeting are working together – consumers, location, offer, format, inventory and timing. It’s a seamless process and one that is very easy to manage.” Both companies are headquartered in Singapore and Adsmobi’s partner Smaato Inc., an ad-enabler for mobile phones, is quite active as well in the Asian region, supporting with its Smaato Open Mobile Advertising (SOMA) platform that delivers targeted mobile advertising as well as cooperation with international ad networks, media companies, carriers, publishers and software developers for its cutting edge mobile advertising platform.◊ By MediaBUZZ

COMPANIES & CAMPAIGNS

Aruba Networks Launches Airheads Community for Enterprise Mobility Experts IDC predicts the growth in enterprise mobility, video consumption and cloud infrastructure will drive worldwide enterprise network revenues to US$39.4 billion by the end of the year. Rohit Mehra, IDC's director of Enterprise Communications Infrastructure, said “bring your own device” (BYOD) will continue to proliferate with IT now getting more of a handle on these devices, and corporate policy starting to change.

 Airheads Social – it’s a best-in-class social media

Taking that into consideration, the networking industry has undeniably a strong need for a professional engineering community to address the multiple challenges related to consumerization of IT. Aruba Networks, Inc. therefore announced the launch of its new Airheads Community that offers social networking, technical certifications, member events and an industry -first MVP program for IT engineers in wireless LAN, security and mobile device management.

 Airheads Events – they allow members collaborate

While the enterprises and their IT specialists are struggling to catch up with the BYOD trend by upgrading their wireless network, Airheads forms a vibrant community of engineers who are focused on designing and implementing wireless LANs, ensuring network security and supporting mobile devices and applications. Airheads Community members have access to a wide variety of professional development opportunities, including the following:

platform which acts as the central hub for all Airheads Community activities;

 The Aruba Certification and Training Program – it prepares engineers to solve a host of complex challenges that extend well beyond the wired infrastructure;

in real-time with other members at the annual Airheads conferences, regional user-group events and virtual events;

 The Aruba Airheads MVP Program – it rewards members for demonstrating their knowledge as mobility experts. The more engaged members are with all aspects of the community, the more rewards and recognition they receive. The Airheads Community is the only platform dedicated to exchange knowledge on enterprise mobility, user dynamics, device types, applications and networks and seeks to both draw from and inform a new type of networking expert, focused on wireless LAN, security and mobile device management.◊ By MediaBUZZ

The rising demand for mobile video services is currently creating many new opportunities for both network operators and application developers worldwide. In particular, the growth of 3G networks allows mobile operators to open up new revenue streams by increasing subscriber adoption rates of unique and innovative applications and services.

LEGISLATION

Location Tracking and Privacy: Can a legal Framework prevent secret Smartphone Monitoring? The importance of keeping people's location private has been an issue for quite some time now. The crux of the matter is actually that location-tracking services rely on third parties to track peoples’ location, such as mobile telephone service providers, which make it seem more intrusive than position-aware services. The fact that a third party is tracking their location makes people nervous. Or how would you feel if you think your employer is tracking you and not just your service provider? When it comes to location tracking of mobile devices, users are most concerned about who collects and makes use of the information. We all know that our mobile devices have GPS, pinpointing our location, we know that our operating system makes that information available to applications in a common language and the applications make that information useful to us, such as figuring out where we are, or have to go to, or getting a discount through location-aware advertising. But, with a growing number of organizations involved in the process of making all information useful, it starts to become dubious if all that can be kept safe and protected from abuse. To be more precise, the question comes up: “Who is responsible for respecting people’s privacy and ensuring that data captured is treated with respect - particularly location data?“ Not only are there multiple agendas at play, given that hardware needs one thing, operating systems something else, app developers something different again. On top of that we have multiple platforms to think about, besides the fact that technology is

changing fast: new apps are coming out on different platforms on a daily basis and we’re rapidly moving towards a location-aware world where everything around us is coming to life not just in front of our eyes, but on our devices too. So what to do or can be done? Making use of location datatouches upon delicate privacy issues, since it enables verifying someone‘s location without the person's consent. Strict ethics and security measures are strongly recommended for services that employ positioning, and the user should be giving an informed, explicit consent to a service provider before positioning data from the user's mobile phone can be computed. In Europe, where most countries have a constitutional guarantee on the secrecy of correspondence, location data obtained from mobile phone networks is usually given the same protection as communication itself. The United States, however, has no explicit constitutional guarantee on the privacy of telecommunications, so use of location data is limited by law. In Germany, even obviously criminal intent may not be inferred by such means, although technically possible. Officially, only authorities (like the police) can obtain permission to position phones in emergency cases, in contrast to the current U.S laws that allow tracking suspects – even access a mobile phone's internal microphone to eavesdrop on local conversations while the phone is switched off. By the way, this is a technology that China proposed to use to track commuting patterns of Beijing city residents.

LEGISLATION

Protect yourself One implication of LBS is that data about a subscriber's location and historical movements should be owned and controlled by the network operators, including mobile carriers and mobile content providers. Beside the solution of a legal framework several technical approaches to protect privacy exist, using privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs), such as basic on/off switches to sophisticated anonymization techniques, which are e.g. offered by Google Latitude. Another set of techniques included in the PETs are the location obfuscation techniques, which slightly alter the location of the users in order to hide their real location while still being able to represent their position and receive services from their LBS provider. Fact is that smartphone devices tend to go with their owners wherever they are and increasingly becoming a payment device, too. But why should smartphone users make use of a trackable black box that makes them feel uncomfortable due to security and location-tracking issues inherent in such transactions? To give the development of the mobile payment industry a push forward, we definitely have to find a good answer to the question.

Debates sparked last year after monitoring software installed on millions of smartphones had been discovered. In the US the proposal was triggered that carriers and phone makers must inform consumers about the presence of monitoring software and gain their "express consent" before collecting and transmitting information from phones. Although all manufacturers say that this software is used only as a diagnostics tool to improve network and service performance, congressmen started denouncing the use of it and class-action lawsuits were filed, followed by a draft legislation that would require disclosure of monitoring software when a consumer buys a mobile phone. This legislation would in addition prevent manufacturers from collecting and transmitting information unless consumer consent is obtained, and would outline security policies companies would have to follow when receiving personal information from smartphones. While Apple and Google claim they’re doing what they can to respect user privacy on smartphones, legislation is planned to make sure that customers get protection from third-party app programmers as well, asking both companies to clarify their locationdata collection methods.

Repr es e nt at iv es f rom eac h company explained then that their mobile devices are collecting data on nearby Wi-Fi access points and cell towers to transmit to a comprehensive location database, which improves the accuracy and speed of location-based services for customers. They added that the data is anonymized, meaning it cannot be tied to a customer’s personal identity. The only problem is that neither Apple nor Google have imposed a formal privacy polic y on app dev elopers , demanding a privacy policy to ensure that companies must disclose what customer information is being shared, with whom, and how, for each app. A number of third-party apps, which collected and shared customer information unrelated to the services they provide, have already been discovered. A combination of appropriate technology, education and an opt-in processes, making sure that companies get explicit consent from users in order to share their location data, is probably the best solution. On top it can’t hurt to reconsider what level of privacy is actually needed and desired by users, don’t you think?◊ By Daniela La Marca

When it comes to location tracking of mobile devices, users are most concerned about who collects and makes use of the information.

BUZZWORD

Location-based Service (LBS): Categories of Methods, Techniques and Technologies Everyone knows that location-based services (LBS) is an information or entertainment service, which is accessible with mobile devices through the mobile network and which uses information on the geographical position of the mobile device, so we won’t bother you with that. But did you know about the different types of methods used to locate users?

 GPS-based LBS is the simple and standard solution. Sony Ericsson's "NearMe" is one such example. It is used to maintain knowledge of the exact location, however can be expensive for the end-user, as they would have to invest in a GPSequipped handset. GPS is based on the concept of trilateration, a basic geometric principle that allows finding one location if one knows its distance from other, already known locations.

 GSM localization is the second option. Finding the location of a mobile device in relation to its cell site is another way to find out the location of an object or a person. It relies on various means of multilateration of the signal from cell sites serving a mobile phone. The geographical position of the device is found out using various techniques like time difference of arrival (TDOA) or Enhanced Observed Time Difference (E-OTD).

 Near LBS (NLBS) is another example, in which local-range technologies such as Bluetooth, WLAN, infrared and/or RFID/Near Field Communication (NFC) technologies are used to match devices to nearby services. This application allows a person to access information based on their surroundings; especially suitable for use inside closed premises, restricted/ regional areas.

 Operator- and GPS-independent location service based on access into the deep level telecoms

network is another alternative. This solution enables accurate and quick determination of geographical coordinates of mobile phone numbers by providing operator-independent location data and works also for handsets that are not GPS-enabled.

 Other Local Positioning Systems are available, especially for indoor use. GPS and GSM do not work very well indoors, so other techniques are used, including Co-Pilot Beacon for CDMA Networks, Bluetooth, UWB, RFID and Wi-Fi. Localization-based divided:

systems

can

broadly

 Network-based techniques utilize the service provider's network infrastructure to identify the location of the handset. The advantage of networkbased techniques - from a mobile operator's point of view - is that they can be implemented nonintrusively, without affecting the handsets.

 Handset-based technology requires installing client software on the handset to determine its location. This technique determines the location of the handset by computing its location by cell identification, signal strengths of the home and neighbouring cells, which is continuously sent to the carrier. In addition, if the handset is also equipped with GPS then significantly more precise location information is sent from the handset to the carrier.

 By using the SIM in GSM and UMTS handsets, it is possible to obtain raw radio measurements from the handset. The measurements that are available can include the serving Cell ID, round trip time and signal strength. The type of information obtained via the SIM can differ from what is available from the handset. For example, it may not be possible to obtain any raw measurements from the handset directly, yet still obtain measurements via the SIM.

BUZZWORD

 Hybrid positioning systems use a combination of network-based and handset-based technologies for location determination. One example would be some modes of Assisted GPS, which can both use GPS and network information to compute the location. Both types of data are thus used by the telephone to make the location more accurate (i.e. A-GPS). Alternatively tracking with both systems can also occur by having the phone attain his GPS-location directly from the satellites, and then having the information sent via the network to the person that is trying to locate the telephone. Google Latitude, for instance, allows such mobile phone tracking.

between the telecom network and an LBS application running on a server in the Internet Domain. LIF went on to specify the Location Enabling Server (LES), a "middleware", which simplifies the integration of multiple LBS with an operators infrastructure and merged in 2004 with the Open Mobile Association (OMA). Already in July 2001 launched the first commercial LBS service in Japan by DoCoMo. Some examples of location-based services are:

 Recommending social events in a city;  Requesting the nearest business or service, such as an ATM or restaurant;

Did you know?

 Turn by turn navigation to any address;

Research forerunners of today's location-based services are the infrared Active Badge system (1989– 1993), The Ericsson-Europolitan GSM LBS trial ran during 1995 by Jörgen Johansson and the master thesis written by Nokia employee TimoRantalainen, in 1994. In 1997 Christopher Kingdon, of Ericsson, handed in the Location Services stage 1 description to the joint GSM group of the European Telecommunications Standard Institute (ETSI) and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) that continued to select positioning methods and standardize Location Services, later known as Location Based Services (LBS). In 2000, after approval from the worlds’ 12 largest telecom operators, Ericsson, Motorola and Nokia jointly formed and launched the Location Interoperability Forum Ltd (LIF) that specified the Mobile Location Protocol (MLP), an interface

 Locating people on a map displayed on the mobile phone;

 Receiving alerts, such as notification of a sale on gas or warning of a traffic jam;

 Location-based mobile advertising;  Asset recovery combined with active RF to find, for example, stolen assets in containers where GPS would not work;

 Games where your location is part of the game play, for example your movements during your day make your avatar move in the game or your position unlocks content;

 Real-time Q&A revolving around restaurants, services, and other venues.◊

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

APPOINTMENTS

ANNOUNCEMENTS

UM Singapore hired Vinitra Chaudhuri as Regional Business Director. In her role, she will be assisting on regional accounts such as MasterCard, Exxon Mobil and other regional new business leads. Vinitra brings to UM Singapore more than 12 years of experience in the communications industry where she has worked across a range of disciplines including account planning, research, media and integrated communication. In the past 6 years, she lived in India, Taiwan and Indonesia and is now settling in Singapore. Vinitra previously worked at Starcom Indonesia where she handled key clients and worked then at Mindshare Indonesia where she was the client lead on key accounts in the Unilever portfolio, covering some of the largest brands in Indonesia.◊ Vinitra Chaudhuri Buddy Media announced the newest member of its executive team, Susan St. Ledger, as President, Buddy Media. In her role, St. Ledger will lead global revenue generation and oversee the company’s sales and client service teams. She will report directly to co-founder and CEO Michael Lazerow. St. Ledger joins Buddy Media after more than seven years with Salesforce.com, most recently as Senior Vice President of Industry Verticals, where she focused on Salesforce.com’s largest clients within their vertical industries, including tech, financial services, insurance, media, & telecommunications. Previously, St. Ledger was Senior Vice President of Global Platform Sales at Salesforce.com. Prior to salesforce.com, St. Ledger held the role of Vice President of the Global Manageability Services Practice at Sun Microsystems, Inc., driving sales and generating over $3.5 billion dollars in revenue annually for the company. St. Ledger joins Buddy’s burgeoning West coast team based out of its San Francisco office. In order to further support the community, Buddy Media has joined forces with San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, and a number of other Silicon Valley giants, in participating in San Francisco Citizens Initiative for Technology & Innovation (sfCITI). sfCITI seeks to be a civic leader in technology, promoting job growth in the Bay Area technology sector.◊

Susan St. Ledger

InMobiSmartPay and Opera Software announced their partnership to bring InMobi’s SmartPay mobile payment platform to Opera’s more than 160 million mobile browser users worldwide. InMobiSmartPay will enable Opera users to pay seamlessly for digital goods in key markets around the globe, when they make purchases with some of the leading publishers that partner with InMobi. The two companies are committed to providing choice to consumers, mobile content developers and app developers, by building viable third-party monetization solutions in the mobile browsing and computing space. InMobiSmartPay is a simple, smart, global solution for mobile payments and app monetization aimed at mobilecontent publishers and app developers. Opera Mini is the world’s most popular mobile browser with users on most mobile platforms including iOS, Android, Symbian, BlackBerry and Java. Including other browsers for computers, TVs and connected devices, and Opera Mobile, the browser for high-end mobile devices, Opera has more than 250 million users all over the world.◊ Komli Media acquired Admax Network that brings its new owner with the region’s largest and most diverse publisher network of 4,600 local and international websites, including Admax’s exclusive sales partnership with Facebook in Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines and with MSN in Thailand. Komli Media will consequently have the greatest reach of the total SEA online audience and access to the region’s largest local language sites. Furthermore, Admax’s experienced team and sales relationships with over 350 premium advertisers such as Sony, Citibank and Blackberry will fortify Komli’s leadership presence in the region. Komli Media is planning to integrate its current SEA team, operating as Aktiv Digital, with that of Admax’s, under the Komli Media brand and be with this acquisition more than 400 people strong and service more than 1000 active advertisers across Asia Pacific with a reach of over 150 million unique monthly users, making the company the largest independent media network in the region.◊

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Singapore-headquartered Tata Communications announced a multi-year technology service and marketing agreement with Formula One Management. The agreement will see Tata Communications delivering world-class connectivity to all 20 Formula 1 race locations over its global network, the largest in the world. It will also provide hosting and content delivery services to Formula1.com, which is accessed by tens of millions of fans around the globe.

Vinod Kumar with Bernie Ecclestone

Formula One group businesses and race locations will now be connected to the Tata Global Network (“TGN”), supported by secure MPLS connectivity. Formula One Management's IT infrastructure and Formula1.com will be co-located and hosted in Tata Communications’ world-class data centres.

Tata Communications’ capabilities in video and content delivery networks (“CDN”) will enable uninterrupted, high-quality connectivity to the multi-media portal on Formula1.com, due to Trans-Atlantic and Trans-Pacific data transfer capacity of one terabit per second. Tata Communications will also provide Formula1.com with a new Managed Security Suite and will apply an additional layer of managed security monitoring to ensure an increased level of protection to Formula One Management's IT infrastructure. Looking ahead, Tata Communications and Formula One Management will also work in close collaboration on research and development around connectivity and the latest video technologies.◊

PublicisGroupe announced the acquisition of two specialty marketing agencies in Asia: King Harvests and Luminous. Both agencies will be integrated into MSLGROUP, the flagship strategic communications network of PublicisGroupe. Founded in 2002, with 360-degree marketing capabilities across Tier-one and Tier-two cities in Mainland China, King Harvests' staff of more than 100 offer particularly strong expertise in both events and experiential marketing to local and international clients including Bosch, Haier, Sanyo and Siemens. Established in 2005 and with more than 40 employees, Luminous is an award-winning experiential marketing consultancy with offices in Hong Kong, Singapore and Macau. Luminous produces live marketing events for clients including Cathay Pacific, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Prudential. Agency heads Laura Lee and Antony Spanbrook -- founders of King Harvests and Luminous, respectively -will report to Isabelle Chouvet, the founder of Emotion, MSLGROUP's high-end and luxury events communication agency in Asia. King Harvests' and Luminous' experiential marketing expertise will enrich the scope of Emotion's service offering. King Harvests and Luminous are the latest in a series of acquisitions in Greater China by PublicisGroupe, including Eastwei Relations, Interactive Communications Ltd (ICL), Dreams, Genedigi, Wangfan, Gomye and most recently UBS. It is in line with PublicisGroupe's strategy to increase its presence in fast growing markets, with China at its core and where PublicisGroupe has set an objective to double its size.◊ Sybase 365, a subsidiary of Sybase, Inc., the global leader in mobile messaging and mobile commerce services, announced a global, strategic partnership with Telefónica Digital to provide mobile wallet services. Sybase 365 will help develop Telefónica’smWallet which will be the gateway for its customers to a wide range of mobile financial services. The mWallet, provided by Sybase 365, will be a virtual wallet which will offer a convenient and secure way of accessing a range of services from a stored value account through to payments and peer-to-peer transfers. It will be capable of storing prepaid, debit, credit and loyalty cards, thereby simplifying online purchases. And as NFC technology becomes more widespread it will be possible to make payments directly from the wallet via compatible handsets and point of sale terminals.Telefónica expects to see the first commercial wallet services launching in Latin America and in Europe during the first half of 2012. PHD Singapore has been appointed to handle NTUC Income’s media planning and buying, following a competitive pitch. The account is a win back for PHD from Maxus and effective immediately.

IMPRINT

MediaBUZZ Pte Ltd, launched in early 2004, is an independent online publisher in the Asia Pacific region, focusing on the business of digital media and marketing. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s online publication Asian e-Marketing is a true pioneer in Asia Pacificâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s digital marketing scene, empowering e-marketers in the vibrant and fast-paced electronic marketing environment. Key sections include e-marketing tips, best practices and trends/statistics, legislation affecting e-marketing, training the spotlight on companies and their e-marketing campaigns and e-marketing leadership profiles.

Editor-in-Chief: Daniela La Marca

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