Archive for SMS
by Imran Ali
August 26, 2008 at 10:45 am · Filed under Marketing, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Marketing, SMS
Thinking about running a Obama-like 50-state strategy? Help is at hand with Tagga, a service that lets regular users create and track SMS marketing campaigns.
Currently live in North America, and not dissimilar to Mozes (but cheaper), Tagga is reaching out to customers seeking to create mobile campaigns; advertisers seeking to insert marketing messages into such campaigns; content owners looking to alternative distribution channels.
Content publisher’s purchase keywords - such as ‘MM2.0′ - which when texted to the Tagga number (82442) will return content to the user by SMS. Interestingly, publishers can opt to purchase they keywords for a limited period or carry advertising, in the outbound SMS; though reserving half the available characters for advertisers seems excessive.
Though the interaction model, advertising real-estate and pricing may not suit all, services like Tagga illustrate an important shift in the use of mobile marketing campaigns - that the technical knowledge to operate such a campaign is about to become available to all kinds of publishers, advertisers and businesses, potentially democratising access to a new marketing medium at the same time as increasing the daily noise of messages we recieve through various channels…
by Imran Ali
August 25, 2008 at 10:17 am · Filed under Advertising, SMS, Twitter
As an early adopter of Twitter, from late 2006 onwards, I’ve found the SMS interface to be one of the foremost examples of where text messages can provide a powerful user interfaces for hybrid mobile+web applications. For UK users such as myself, we quickly found ourselves subject to a 250-per-week limit on SMS notifications - a limit that can easily dissipate in much less than a week.
Surprisingly Twitter never offered UK users the option to purchase additional blocks of 250 messages - an obvious and easy-to-exploit revenue stream…very low-hanging fruit. Sadly, the company recently disabled SMS altogether in the UK, not only crippling British users, but others around the world using the UK access number.
Fortunately, literally within days, other startups have emerged to take up the challenge of feeding SMS-hungry Brits with their Twitter notifications…
TweetSMS - launching imminently, Statis Media’s founder Craig Mason has already published price plans - ranging from 5p/message for UK users, to 3p/message for Australians - and has hinted that a free ad-supported plan may shortly become available.
Tweeteroo - also remain pre-launch, but have published pricing ranging from £7 to £35 with a free-trial for new users. Tweeteroo don’t seem to have the same international range of plans as TweetSMS.
3jam is already live with a service that also accepts outgoing messages from a user, though limits notifications to direct messages only.
Curiously, each of these services expects Twitter users to hand over their account details - something, that’s perhaps irresponsible for new service providers, when more elegant methods exist, such as chi.mp’s method whereby users twitter a particular code that the chi.mp engine then looks for under a particular user’s Twitter posts (a little like verifying Google Analytics/Apps accounts)..though of course this method wouldn’t allow for authenticated features such as direct messages.
Twitter’s own behaviour in withdrawing SMS notification gives some clues as to their plans for a business model. Perhaps, a successful breakout by one of the companies above will lead to a Summize-style acquisition to fulfil a particular feature. By ignoring obvious revenue opportunities, Twitter is signalling that it expects growth of the user base to be the basis for its value, rather than the potential revenue that may be extracted.
by Paul Ruppert
August 25, 2008 at 10:08 am · Filed under Advertising, Mobile Advertising, SMS
In my earlier post on the short code enabling business, “Too Early & Too Late?” (click here), I outlined why I think this is a segment on very weak footing. Short code solutions are an easy way to enable print and media advertising to the mobile web space. But its time may have already come and gone.
The real opportunity for these short code enablers is to quickly shift to a more powerful technical solution, otherwise known as QR code technology.
QR codes are two dimensional bar codes which have quietly grown significant first in Japan and Korea, and now in Germany, Italy and Spain—all dense users of mobile internet. They were invented by a Japanese company in 1994. Showing up mostly as thumbnails on magazines and newspapers, they work as quick, automatic links between print and on-line mobile media that don’t require a customer to type in an internet address or a short code key word combination. Any object, machine or advertising space can be engaged and serve as a prompt to a consumer. Simple as click and connect. Watch it here
Physical size of the QR code is irrelevant. Northwest Airlines in Japan utilized QR codes on full size out door billboards 30 ft up from sidewalks which could be viewed and clicked on from across a street. Alternatively QR codes can be small thumbnails in “hand held” publications like La Gazetta Sportiva in Italy (think Sporting News) or Germany’s Welt Kompakt national newspaper (think USAToday). With just the click of a phone’s camera to engage the code and connect with a specified link, such codes are very compelling and simple to engage, even fun given their simplicity.
They provide multiple functionalities enabling options such as click to call, links to maps, code conversion to images such as a gif file, constantly changing splash or mobile web destination pages driven even by personalization—think every time you click on the code you are being sent to a different page, or information being delivered depending on location and time. QR cores are the singular means to engage context without “big brother” monitoring your every location and while remaining fully in control over your opt in issues. High calorie GPS may do more in an advertising context but at what costs? QR codes are much more “low calorie” with the user still maintaining a degree of control.
Technically QR codes provide greater reporting capability on the type of action delivered to the consumer clicking on the code. Mobile carriers can view what handset class or specific handset type are engaging on what codes, thus providing even greater metric use planning for advertisers and brands that short codes solutions can. Plus QR codes have greater back-end capability. Click destinations and resulting actions can be varied and changed based on time parameters, geo-location of click, number of clicks, or even immediate response needs of brands or advertisers such as end of sports events, natural disasters or other time defined-sensitive actions.
Such time-shifting and channel-changing is impossible through fixed, print based short codes. Short codes vary only through the frequency of a change in print/media ads, placements within different channels, print or media properties, or frequency of issue. Hence, an ad in Cosmo remains fixed in its functionality until the next monthly edition is published and released. These factors combined with the ever increasing penetration of SmartPhones in the US market and its mobile ‘big screen’ availability will begin to pressure and shape this market away from text code functionality.
As to potential timing of QR codes entering the US market—they are already here in trial scenarios. A fledgling start up, Mobile Discovery, recently completed a semester long trial at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Partnering with Gannett, QVC, Reuters, local restaurants, clubs, apartment complexes and others, QR codes were engaged across the campus by students using any and all mobile operators in the forms of CPG trials, daily sweepstakes, bus arrival timing (click on the code, see how long your bus wait is), and editorial content engagement as examples.
The short code based solution is then fairly rigid as compared to QR codes. This is a critical KPI differential. From an advertiser’s perspective, the measure of who is actually reading the ad in relation to the request is murky with short codes as compared to QR codes. Without access to handset ownership–which sounds quite intrusive in the US for both consumers and carriers–who knows whether the request is appropriately targeted to the segmented reader of an ad. Think sitting in the dentist’s office reading an Esquire 9 months old and responding to a short code ad, and you get a sense of whether that was read by a woman, man, or teen age boy. QR codes being inherently connected to the handset data become far more valuable as a measured metric for the advertising world.
Most of you are aware of the ubiquitous bar codes used everywhere. What you might not know is that is there is a standards body behind the UPC Codes you see everywhere. Some argue that the QR codes won’t take off because it is a proprietary solution and has associated licensing fees, etc. My view is if that was the case Qualcomm would not exist today if IPRs were a major hurdle in technology adoption. I”ve also heard that the bar code standards body, specifically GS1 US, which is assigns GS1 UPC codes to companies/organizations in the USA, and it’s associates the industrial/Commercial EDI, Uniform Communication Standard (UCS) (used in the grocery industry), and VICS EDI (used in the general merchandise retail industry) are the most likely source of a non-proprietary standard reflective of the UPC code, which could be used in the mobile segment. Bunk. Who has more impact in this segment, two trilllion dollar global industries or a standards body? Standardization issues and IPR commercial models will not stop this growing phenomenon.
If short code enablers are to remain competitive and grow within the mAdvert segment, they need to either partner or build such functionality into their service portfolio. If not, they will find themselves outmaneuvered by QR code enabling companies that already ‘grandfather’ short code technology into their solution. In the end it will be a better way to build engagement with consumers enabling them to do much more than they can now. Let’s see how well the segment reacts.
by Paul Ruppert
August 19, 2008 at 7:42 am · Filed under MMS, Messaging, SMS
I’m looking for a few good mobile messaging companies (early stage) to present to conference producer friends of mine who have asked for my help in identifying ‘below the radar start ups’ in the mobile messaging segment.
I’m always looking for new topics to write about so when three producer friends asked for my help in the last 
month, their requests caught my interest and drove me to action.
If warranted I’ll blog about the company as part of our innovation identification effort here at MM2.
Consideration Criteria
Send a short making your case note, or power point, to me at pruppertMM2 at gmaildotcom if you are an angel funded or early stage (Series A or soon to be Series B) company and you think you should be part of my consideration and would be interesting to a mobile industry conference producer. We’re seeking intriguing messaging innovation as much as creative commercial plays–and I know that N. America is not the source of all things mobile.
Biased as a business centric more than creative type, my filters are about what’s the path to revenue, quality of a team, type of solution, competitive positioning, barriers to entry, access advantages, burn rate, etc., which start up companies offer. Eons ago I was a product developer identifying innovative mobile technology / solutions, and even then I preferred to focus on scalable revenue potential as opposed to cool technnology. I admit it, my filters might be a little askew for the developer crowd, yet I’m enlightened and experienced enough to see the combinatorial value of both in a fledgling firm.
Thanks and Good luck!
by Paul Ruppert
August 18, 2008 at 8:40 am · Filed under Advertising, Mobile Advertising, SMS
Mobile advertising is the fuel of arguments between mobile trend makers across the globe. An emerging traction point is the use of short codes for simple print and media extension into the mobile web.
In the states, ShopText, HipCricket and SnapTel are successfully developing the short code segment as mobile advertising enablers. They’ve captured a beach head through the use of short codes as a bridge between old and new advertising media. By including mobile short codes on fixed and print advertising they’ve carved out a solid position in a confused and crowded space by offering a low friction means for advertisers and agencies to capture the increasing power of context, immediacy and personalization offered via the mobile platform.
ShopText especially has been very successful leveraging their experience in advertising by enabling high profile campaigns by the likes of Hearst–Cosmopolitan and Esquire–Burger King, and P&G products such as Tampax to capture a solid “access advantage” with brands and agencies, making ShopText the clear leader in the developing short code enabling space.
Paradoxically these simple short code solutions may be both too early and too late. Regardless of how connected their client portfolio is today, unless short code enablers show they have the means to migrate up the technology value chain, short code simplicity will be quickly leapfrogged by the on-coming rush of technology which is quietly prevalent in Asia especially Japan, and is being swiftly adopted in Europe. The US will be next. The ripple effect through the short code ecosystem will be considerable jostling even larger public companies such as Neustar, which administers the short code distribution in N. America.
Most of these enabling companies have been started by advertising executives who have leveraged their understanding and experience with agencies and brands. They have provided a means to do things people couldn’t readily do before. However, their offerings are more point type solutions, “better, faster, cheaper,” than breath taking mobile innovation which will help define the mobile advertising space. Short code enablers have architected an easy means to extend media through a secure, off the shelf solution using accepted standard short code functionality. All good in jump starting traditional print and media into the mobile web world.
But, my biggest concern is there no identifiable defensibility against similar advertising or mobile savvy teams building short code solutions from entering the market. Anyone, anyone, can secure a short code contract, vary key words or text combinations, start selling to brands and advertisers and compete in the space. There’s no entry defensibility. With easy entry, scalable growth becomes an issue. You can see a glimpse of that already happening in the short code enabling business with the rush of providers using short codes for rental and real estate applications at the local market level.
Yea, yea, the simplicity of the short code solution has captured value in initially developing this space. But to gain “venture value,” up-starts need as much to manage complexity, and if the market remains the same, the short code enablers will be forced to compete on price alone as more enter the space. Low margin, low prices means highly efficient volume becoming the key driver. But with such intense competition, where are scale efficiencies achieved? Something else needs to be in the value mix. Knowing “mobility” within advertising won’t cut it. Access or relationships with brand and agency decision makers will not carry the load alone, and beyond speed to market what “efficiencies” can be captured with simple short codes? Additional reporting metrics might be only creative point to cash in on but what else is there with such limited functionality?
Unless short code enablers adapt to more powerful technology now just coming on line, these fledgling start ups plus the entire short code engagement business will find itself dying in the sun while the tide changes.
Check out Part 2 of “Short Code advertising: too early & too late?” to find out what this technology is. . . .
by Imran Ali
July 29, 2008 at 4:23 pm · Filed under MMS, Mobile messaging 2.0, SMS, UK
Back in November, we reported that Brits were sending 1.2bn text messages each week. Today, just eight months later, the UK’s Mobile Data Association released figures (as reported by BBC News) covering the first half of 2008 that show in increase to 1.4bn messages per week, surprisingly including 10m photo messages.
Assuming an SMS averages 5p and MMS 10p, that’s likely to be around £60-70m of revenue each week for a product will a relatively miniscule cost base…an astonishing figure which underlines the massive consumer appeal of SMS and MMS and its value to cellcos. All the more impressive when comparing the 28bn UK messages with 80bn messages sent across the US in the same period, a country five times the size of Britain.
Conversely, the UK’s Chartered Society of Physiotherapists today published a study illustrating the physical and physiological impact of texting on teenagers and other groups. As well as a geographic and demographic breakdown of the texting habits of 177 people, the CSP goes on to suggest a five step programme for safe texting…
- Hold the phone up with the screen facing towards you so you are not having to flex your neck too much as you look down to view the screen.
- Keep your hands close to your body. The weight of a phone may not feel much, but the load on your arm is significantly increased if the arm is held out stretched and this action will put strain on your neck and shoulder muscles.
- Try to use both hands together when texting to “spread the load”. Keep messages short and use abbreviations and the predictive text messaging feature on your phone. This will help reduce the repetitive motion of pressing various keys.
- Don’t text continuously. Try to take breaks by putting the phone down between text messages.
- Carry out the following two exercises to prevent text message injury:
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- Regularly open your fingers and stretch them out.
- Stretch your arm out, rotate your wrist so it is facing upwards and with your other hand pull your palm down towards the floor to feel a stretch over the front of your forearm muscles. Hold for 15 seconds and repeat 2-3 times.
Taken together, the MDA and CSP studies provide an invaluable insight into the textual habits of Brits.You can read the CSP’s study online, here…
by Imran Ali
July 4, 2008 at 12:46 pm · Filed under Emerging Markets, India, Mobile messaging 2.0, SMS, Twitter
“Gup Shup” is a Punjabi term that almost literally translates as ‘gossip’ or ‘chit chat’ - generally with an informal, unrestricted context - and also the central concept of India’s SMS GupShup service, a kind of Desi Twitter for the subcontinent.
The big brains over at Telco 2.0 have just published an analysis of SMS GupShup’s relationship with carriers, that explores…
- pricing multi-party conversations and chats.
- diversified revnue models, including allocation of 60 characters for text-ads in a GupShup SMS.
- using customer data to create value for users themselves, not just carriers.
The piece is actually quite a penetrating analysis of how third parties and service ecospheres can add value to a carrier (to mutual benefit) without neccesarily cannibalising or commoditising existing businesses, and perhaps more interestingly where companies such as Twitter can find sustainable revenues…
Read more at Telco 2.0…
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by Paul Ruppert
May 28, 2008 at 3:43 pm · Filed under Messaging, Micropayment, SMS
China mobile has announced a partnership with the Red Cross Society of China where CMCC customers can make donations to earth quake relief through SMS transactions.
Using the text relief service, China Mobile subscribers can send donations in increments of 1 or 2 RMB (roughly 29 US cents or 19 Eurocents), to earthquake victims. The donations will be deducted from users’ mobile fee accounts. 
Initially the web wags thought this was a hoax, but in reviewing the Chinese sites and via Xinhua, China’s official news agency, the SMS relief text is the real thing.
I am of a certain age to remember as an elementary school kid in the late 1960s we used to bring in pennies, nickels, and dimes for such things as the Fireman’s Fund, the United Way, as well as making CARE donations to feed “hungry children in eastern Europe.” CMCC’s efforts are remeniscent of such small donations from so many meaning so much. A simple and great idea swiftly executed.
The cost of the donation is not so inconsequential. 2 RMB is roughly 30 times the average retail cost of an SMS in China, so such transfer pricing would be the equivalent of a kid in the US sending a $3 SMS.
Why Not do this Globally?
Here’s a suggestion for the mobile industry. Why not make this a global initiative? Afterall, in the Philippines you can make cross boarder transfers of top offs and payments from Saudi Arabia or closer from Malaysia. Why not marshall the global wireless industry, with each operator enabling a Text for Relief program within their own network to benefit the earthquake survivors and homeless in China? There are roughly 1000 mobile operators around the globe, with all of them having text messaging capability. Think of how so many could be united behind this effort and make a real impact, just by sending a simple SMS.
Technologically it would be very straighforward with the infrastructure already in place. The transfers of such payments could be affected through the clearing house functions surrounding international roaming, with each carrier routing the funds to a central receiving bank, say the GSM Association or an entity in the Chinese government. This would not be that difficult. Perhaps there might even be a business in it. And it wouldn’t need to stop with just the quake relief in China. Any natural disaster could trigger the phenomenon with major benefits resulting. Consider this a Manifesto for Messaging Relief Capabilities on a Global basis.
Texting to Say You’re “Safe”
In a related effort, SINA, China’s leading on-line media company, partnered with China Mobile Sichuan to launch a platform locating information about people caught in the earthquake region, as well as posting a report on one’s own status by using a common short code 100865 through the Internet, SMS or voice IVR. The estimated millions of homeless then have a readily available source to find informaiton on friends and families. The 100865 service serves as a platform for people to simply and swiftly reconnect with one another. Within three hours of the service launch 1,600 people had used the inquiry service online, with nearly 800 of them finding good news about their relatives and friends.
Internet users may search for information about their relatives or friends by logging onto http://xunqin.sina.com.cn and entering their names and addresses. The platform also provides phone numbers of major hospitals and emergency centers in Sichuan for further inquiry. The SMS inquiry service is only available to CMCC subscribers in the Sichuan Mobile users. Callers within Sichuan can directly dial 100865, while callers outside the region must dial the long-distance code 028 first.
Our hearts are with the Chinese people suffering in the quake-hit areas.
Take action and click on the icon below to find out more ways which you can contribute to the relief of quake victims in China, or please visit my personal blog “>(click here)) for both Asian and western relief organizations providing assistance in China. Stay tuned for more information on how “texting to give” might be possible.
href=”http://www.lostlaowai.com/china-earthquake-how-you-can-help” title=”China Quake Relief”>
by Imran Ali
May 26, 2008 at 4:33 am · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0, Research, SMS, Social Networking, Twitter
Following this week’s publication of a Gartner research report, there’s been some commentary onthe relative growth of SMS messaging and mobile instant messaging clients and services.
The report - profile here by Betanews - speaks of a 19.6% increasein the global volume of SMS traffic (that’s 2.3 trillion messages?)…interestingly, the report highlights South East Asia as the most prolific messagers, averaging around fifteen messages each day. Gartner go on to suggest that the growth of mobile social networks will gradually cannibalise SMS usages as users begin to communicate without the need for SMS as a carrier.
CrunchGrear’s counterpoint to Gartner’s analysis - and one I’m inclined to agree with - is that while social networks and IM networks effectively lack interoperability, SMS’ ‘baked-in’ cross-device and cross-network compatibility will likely slow the cannibalisation of SMS by mobile IM. With the major IM networks polarised around Google+AIM on the one hand and Yahoo+MSNon the other, handset manufacturers and cellcos tend to pick a camp which favours commercial terms, not user needs.
To add to this, unfettered use of mobile IM or mobile social networks is generally enabled through the adoption of generous or all-you-can-eat data plans - which are likely to exceed the budgets of most casual pay-as-you-go users.
As services such as Twitter have shown, there’s still a a lot of mileage and innovation in SMS…with what has essentially become the command line interface of the mobile internet.
by Ewan Spence
May 20, 2008 at 10:53 am · Filed under MMS, Mobile messaging 2.0, SMS
Imran’s already highlighted the relative cost of SMS bandwidth last week, but I do want to touch on it again. The summary - that the raw cost of sending 160 characters is completely at odds with the cost that the customer actually pays - shouldn’t be that surprising. The first rule of business is to get as much money as the market can take, and the current SMS pricing is clearly something the market is happy to pay, in ever increasing numbers. But as for a higher per text price? Not going to happen.
Many years ago, the introduction of multimedia messaging (MMS) in the UK saw the priced fixed at 40p per message, four times that of an SMS. The rationale, that sending a picture or a sound clip was a lot more information dense and convenient and special than the 160 characters of a text made sense in that context, but put into the real world, the cost of an MMS, coupled with poor cross platform and cross network capability, killed it in the minds of many.
In the struggle to find a new form of messaging (and the implicit goal of being able to create another cash cow just like SMS), the networks seem to be avoiding one thing. The majority of their users are probably completely happy with the messaging options they have. The amount of education the networks would have to do is huge. Trying to spring a new system for profit is not going to happen. Any new system has to be wanted, and I don’t see an appetitive at the moment for anything new.
We have SMS for phone to phone, the business users have their push email and blackberries, and the geeks have whatever XML tools they can put together. Is there seriously space for anything that’s not based on current tech to make a showing? Or is it all about the presentation – after all Twitter is nothing more than SMS with slick presentation.
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