MediaPost's Online Media Daily is reporting that LG and Billboard have teamed up to offer thirty lucky wannabe rock critics the chance to cover summer concerts on Billboard.com, using LG enV camera phones.

Details:

With "Mobile Beat," up to 30 contestants will spend this summer competing as mobile music journalists--going to music concerts, snapping pictures with an LG enV camera phone, and then posting photos and reviews to a personalized blog on Billboard.com. The contest will culminate in mid-September, with the winner receiving an all-expense-paid trip to the Billboard Music Awards, complete with red-carpet access.

How this came about is even more interesting:

"The editors actually brainstormed about doing a concert series with a blog around it, but we didn't have a specific writer in mind," said Stacey Gross, marketing director, Billboard. "We thought creating a contest would be a great way to connect with our readers and get them excited about the brand as a whole."

Read the entire article at Online Media Daily.

Technorati Tags: billboard, lg, mobile music, mobile beat

D-Day. VJ Day. June 29th - iPhone Day.

mocoNews is reporting on some astounding sales estimates for the iPhone coming out of Credit Suisse:

Credit Suisse has come to the party with analyst Rob Semple predicting that Apple will sell 5 million iPhones this year and 15 million next year, which is ahead of Apple’s own predictions.

Now this number, 20 million iPhones in 18 months is even ahead of Apples own sales predictions--so why is Mr. Semple so confident?

“We expect Apple to capitalize on the evolving trend of middle market consumers paying significant premiums for 'New Luxury' goods, thus yielding a new supply-demand dynamic where higher prices are coupled with higher volumes,” he says.

Interesting take on things, as most predictions are made around the slick graphics, the multi-touch interface, and the rest of the technological innovations.

For coverage around the web, check out the Google News coverage of the iPhone.

OnlineMediaDaily reports on some news coming out of the Mobile Marketing Forum in New York City:

N ADVANCE OF TODAY'S START of the Mobile Marketing Forum in New York, the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) has released an update to its Mobile Advertising Guidelines.

Much like the Interactive Advertising Bureau's universally recognized ad formats, the Mobile Advertising Guidelines provide advertisers with technical specifications and standard WAP ad units (such as banners). Marketers also get detailed explanations of various click-through capabilities, including email opt-in and click-to-call, as well as specific best practices with regard to ad content.

This fourth version of the guidelines includes provisions for mobile Web and downloadable content (such as ring tones and ad-based games), as well as an overview of multimedia messaging services.

Continue reading at OnlineMediaDaily.

Technorati Tags: mobile marketing association, mobile marketing forum

MobileTechNews has the details on a Telephia Premium SMS report, and the news is great:

Premium SMS revenues totaled more than $273 million, making up 32 percent of mobile content revenue in Q1 2007, according to Telephia, the world's largest provider of syndicated consumer research to the telecom and mobile media markets.
...
Download purchases paid for via premium SMS (at off-portal storefronts) totaled nearly $215 million, accounting for 79 percent of premium SMS revenue. These off-portal storefront purchases include content such as ringtones and horoscopes. Voting/sweepstakes entries generated more than $35 million. While voting/sweepstakes entries generated only 13 percent of total revenues for premium SMS transactions, they represented 47 percent of premium SMS volume, equaling more than 34 million transactions.

Can anyone say American Idol?

Technorati Tags: premium sms, sms, mobile marketing, telephia

Today Thrillist reviewed Reactee, an innovative t-shirt company that lets you buy a custom printed t-shirt, along with a unique Keyword. When someone reads your shirt, they can text a message into Reactee's shortcode with your unique keyword. The message is then forwarded on to you.

Thrillist explains just who these t-shirts are aimed at:

Though they're fun for all, Reactee shirts were originally designed for performers (DJs, musicians, mimes) looking to share gig info, and protesters organizing anti-Starbucks riots.

Reactee has a nice design tool at their website, which allows you to edit/design/and redesign your shirt until it's perfect--you see the results in real-time. When you're ready you check out, you pay a single price ($20) for the shirt, the keyword, and the  service  to forward responses to your own phone. Very cool.

Reactee

Technorati Tags: reactee, thrillist, t-shirts, tees, SMS, text messaging

Daily Variety has a story about the vast number of votes cast during the recent season of American Idol:

Voters turned out in record numbers for the sixth edition of Fox's "American Idol."

Overall, 609 million votes were cast through the five-month run of the show, besting last year's top figure of 578 million, according to Telescope, the Los Angeles-based company that processes the "Idol" votes. When the show started in 2002, 110 million votes were phoned.

Those vote totals include SMS entries. Last year the number of text votes were out of this world:

Last year, 64.5 million SMS messages were sent via Cingular.

Exact numbers on SMS votes aren't available yet, but you can bet they were huge, especially when you consider this:

This year, the company launched new "Idol"-themed content, in the form of video and other downloads, to encourage more customers to use its new mobile offerings.

Technorati Tags: SMS, american idol, voting

Guardian writer Victor Keegan has written today about why mobile content providers have been able to generate greater revenues than their brethren on the web:

Revenues from the web are about $25bn (£12.5bn) but the content on mobile networks is reckoned by Informa to be worth $31bn - and that is before music and mobile TV take off in a big way.

...

Tomi Ahonen, a strategy consultant, points out that whereas porn and gambling drove revenues on the internet, five content groups are more successful than adult material on mobile phones: music, infotainment, images, videogames and web browsing. He reminds us that in 2005 one annoying ringtone, Crazy Frog, outsold all of iTunes. A key reason is that most content on the web is free whereas mobile phones arrived with a payment system pre-installed for calls, followed by a premium service for texting. If the web had had its own payment system it would have taken a different course.

Head over to the Guardian to read the rest of this fascinating take on the present state of mobile commerce. (via Textually)

mocoNews.net is reporting on an interesting development in the nascent Mobile TV arena:

Rentrak, a company specialized in measuring TV viewing, has sealed a deal with mobile TV provider Hiwire to measure mobile TV viewing. Rentrak will provide Hiwire—a subsidiary of Aloha Partners, the largest owner of 700 MHz spectrum in the U.S.—with information on total viewers of video programming and of video ads on mobile phones. This data will no doubt be the ace in the hands of TV networks providing content to mobile TV providers as they seek to sell ads in mobile content.

Read the full press release (via MocoNews.net)

For the past three years the Mobile Entertainment Forum has been handing out awards in the mobile sector ranging from best handset to best music service. After a quote, we'll take a look at the short-listed candidates:

From Maidenhead to Moscow to Mumbai, this year’s Meffys entries revealed an incredible global diversity, proving that these awards have become an established fixture on the international mobile entertainment industry’s calendar.
...
Rimma Perelmuter, MEF Executive Director, said: “This year’s entries proved that the mobile entertainment industry is set to meet its global revenue target of $38 billion by 2011, with an array of applications and services that make it easy and appealing for the consumer to discover and purchase content on the go.  The stage is now set for an amazing awards show in Monte Carlo which is a fitting location to showcase the leading mobile entertainment companies from around the world.”

And now, for the nominees:

The Games Award
Digital Chocolate – “Tornado Mania!”
Glu Mobile – “Brain Genius™”
Electronic Arts – “UEFA Champions League 2006-2007”
Gameloft – “Miami Nights”
I-play – “The Fast and The Furious Tokyo”

The Music Service Award
Omnifone – “MusicStation”
Mercora – “Mercora M”
Hingi – “Hear It ‘N’ Get It”
Groove Mobile – “3 MusicStore"
Orange – “Orange Music Store powered by Musiwave”

The Artist Campaign Award
Sony Ericsson – “Christina Aguilera campaign 2006”
Nokia – “Dirty Pretty Tunes: Nokia N91 launch”
Endemol Digital Media – “Get Close to…Sugababes”
Parlophone/New Visions – “Lily Allen Mobile Site”
Mercury Music Group – “Ludacris Three Front Room”

The TV & Video Service Award
The Hyperfactory – “Adidas +10 Challenge 3G Campaign”
Endemol Digital Media – “Get Close to…Sugababes”
KTF-MBC-Net&TV – “Mobile TV Project”
QUALCOMM – “MediaFLO System”
Rhythm NewMedia – “World’s First Ad-supported Video”

The Technology Innovation Award
Bango – “Bango BillRank Technology”
Alltel Wireless – “Celltop”
Graphico New Media – “Momentum Mobile Platform”
Realeyes 3D – “Motionized™ Handset”
ShoZu Inc – “ShoZu”

The Content Award
Refresh Mobile – “Mobizines”
Hungama Mobile – “Kingfisher Mobile Calendar”
Fox Mobile Entertainment / Jamba – “Boratisodes”
Endemol Digital Media – “Get Close to…Sugababes”
Player X – “geekTV”

The Innovative Business Model Award
3 UK – “Ad-funded Content on 3UK”
AdMob – “AdMob Marketplace”
Amobee – “Amobee Media System”
Muzicall – “RBT.4.ALL Programme”
MX Telecom – “Unified Short Codes”

The Communities & UGC Award
Orange – “Buff or Rough?”
Jumbuck Entertainment – “Fast Flirting”
Loop Mobile – “MOKO”
Pitch Entertainment Group – “Pitch”
Mowave – “Self Central”

The Search & Discovery Award
MCN – “DoCoMo D903i FM Radio Search”
mobilePeople – “liquid mobile search”
InfoSpace Europe – “InfoSpace Mobile Search”
Orange – “Orange Mobile Search”
Roundbox – “TV Guide Mobile ESG”

The Handset Application Award
Didiom LLC – “Didiom”
NewBay Software – “PIXOTA”
ShoZu – “ShoZu”
Sprint – “Sprint NFL Mobile”
Roundbox – “TV Guide Mobile ESG”

The Marketing Campaign Award
Qwikker – “Branded Mobile Application”
Hungama Mobile – “Hutch & Casino Royale Campaign”
The Hyperfactory – “Johnson & Johnson DEFINE 3G Campaign”
Nokia – “Music Recommenders”
Vibes Media – “Vibes Media’s Pirates Campaign”

The Mobile Entertainment Handset Award
Nokia – “N95”
Sony Ericsson – “W880”
HTC – “HTC Advantage”

The Mobile Entertainment Operator Award
3 UK – “X-Series”
Orange – “Content Everywhere“
Telenor Norway – “Mobile Entertainment for Customer Empowerment”

Read the entire article at the Mobile Entertainment Forum website. (via 160chars.org)

Last week Reuters ran a story on the prospects of the mobile advertising market--all signs point to extraordinary growth.

The more than $500 million mobile advertising market looks set to multiply in just a few years, helped by new technologies and the spread of more advanced phones.
...
"It will certainly be in the $4.5 to $5 billion range in terms of the marketplace (in five years)," he said, adding that estimates for the annual market now range from $500 million to $900 million.

"I think you need to be there. That's money that's coming from some place. It's coming from other media," Falco said.
...
Strategy Analytics, one of the most cautious forecasters on mobile advertising market growth, has forecast global mobile advertising market will reach $574 million this year and grow almost three-fold by 2010.

Continue reading at Reuters (via mocoNews)

Today's issue of the Washington Post covered the ways that younger people are using text messaging. The Washington Post text messaging article profiles Love, an area nightclub, and Club Texting client:

Some local nightclubs already have figured out how to use text messaging to reach their young partygoers with instant news about upcoming entertainment. Ti' Jean Beezer, assistant to Love owner Marc Barnes, said he often uses the Web site clubtexting.com, which is designed to help nightclubs promote their events through text messaging. Beezer said he gets cellphone numbers from patrons and regularly enters them onto a database at the site. He can type one message and reach 1,000 patrons at once.

"You don't have to worry about doing it yourself, texting one by one, thousands of people," Beezer said. "It's very effective."

Technorati Tags: sms, text messaging, washington post, DC, nightlife

The Hill newspaper is reporting that Hillary Clinton's campaign will be using text messages to reach out to potential supporters. While the adoption of text messaging will not present as dramatic a change to the nature of campaigns as the rise of the Internet did a few years ago, change is certainly afoot.

“By harnessing the power of text messaging, we can engage voters in the political process using the latest technology and provide personalized, local campaign updates to our supporters nationwide,” Clinton said. “This is an exciting step forward that I hope will continue our conversation with voters in a new format.”

Her campaign announced Monday that the new technology takes Clinton’s commitment to reaching out to voters “to a whole new level.” The campaign noted that there are 236 million cell phone users in the U.S. and that 18.7 billion text messages were sent in December 2006.

Those who sign up for the service will receive updates on Clinton’s campaign, including pictures.

Read more at The Hill.

The USA Today OnPolitics Blog has some other details:

According to an e-mail from campaign spokesman Phil Singer, those who text the word "JOIN" to 77007 can expect:

• "Regular updates from Hillary while she is on the road (messages, photos, etc)."
• "Local updates about campaign events in their area."
• To be asked "for their input."

 

Technorati Tags: SMS, text messaging, hillary clinton, 2008 elections, democrats

It's May and the baseball season has already been going on for an entire month, but it's never too late for news like this:

Text publishing and advertising platform developer 4INFO announced a free service that delivers Major League Baseball scores and player alerts to mobile handsets. The service includes event-triggered text alerts assembling pitching and offensive statistics for teams and individual players, including hits, runs, RBIs and roster and injury status. "For true baseball fans, watching the game is only half the fun. Knowing exactly how every play affects a player's stats can be more exciting than a final game score, especially to those in fantasy leagues," said 4INFO director of product development Ted Burns.

Read the press release here. (via FierceMobileContent)

Microsoft continues to edge its way in to the Mobile Commerce arena. First, we reported a few weeks ago on the software giant's purchase of TellMe, and now we hear that they have snatched up ScreenTonic SA:

MICROSOFT IS ACQUIRING EUROPEAN MOBILE advertising company ScreenTonic SA in a bid to expand its mobile expertise--and intends to use the company as an eventual springboard to offer global mobile services.
...
"The mobile Internet is an extraordinary vehicle for brands to connect with their target audiences, because devices like cell phones enable interaction to take place virtually anywhere or anytime," said Steve Berkowitz, senior vice president of the Online Services Group at Microsoft. "The acquisition will be part of our long-term strategy to deliver ad experiences that map to the environment." (MediaPost OnlineMediaDaily)

In other news, FierceMobileContent is reporting that Hearst Magazines will be launching some new mobile properties. What is interesting about this announcement is who Hearst is hoping to reach with this content:

Publisher Hearst Magazines and mobile technology and services company Crisp Wireless announced an agreement to launch three new made-for-mobile websites targeting women over the age of 35. The Good Housekeeping, House Beautiful and Redbook sites promise interactive mobile tools like calculators, quizzes, wallpapers, user-generated content and search services.

AT&T reported their 1st quarter earnings the other day, and it looks like Ma Bell has found her footing in the 21st Century:

AT&T reported first-quarter profits of $2.8 billion, an increase credited in part to mobile data service revenues generated by text messaging, web browsing and content downloads. AT&T's total wireless revenues grew 11.2 percent in the first quarter to $10 billion, with wireless data revenues increasing 66.8 percent over Q1 2006 to $1.5 billion. The former Cingular's wireless operations counted more than 33 million active data customers, up more than 30 percent over year-ago numbers, and delivered close to 230 million multimedia messages and 14 billion text messages.  (Via FierceMobileContent)

You can read AT&T's entire press release at their corporate site.

New York City's popular Tribeca Film Festival will be offering up something new (and exciting) this Spring:

The Tribeca Film Festival announced it will deliver trailers, shorts and full-length features to handsets via Verizon Wireless, heralding the annual event's first venture into the mobile content arena. The festival, which begins April 25 and continues for 12 days around New York City, will distribute to wireless devices three current festival full-length features, three short films, 49 movie trailers and three additional short films created exclusively for mobile consumption. Tribeca will also alert attendees of private screenings by sending wireless barcode tickets to their phones, and will launch text-based mobile movie reviews. (Fierce Mobile Content)

If you happen to come to NYC for the Tribeca Film Festival, then you might see some special new Pepsi billboards--they light up and beam messages to your phone!

Pepsi has mashed up an outdoor ad to be interactive and mobile. Pepsi ads at 120 transit shelters in Los Angeles, Washington, New York, Pittsburgh and Denver through May 31 send a message to any nearby Bluetooth-enabled phone, offering free music videos.

If the user accepts, the bus shelter poster lights up and video is sent. In New York, the video opens with Yankees outfielder Johnny Damon, who introduces three local singers. The ad closes with the address for a related website: pepsismash.com, which has video and music downloads as well. (USA Today)

If you attended college in the last five years, chances are you are familiar with www.Campusfood.com, or a similar online ordering system. For those of you who are a bit older, it works like this. Joe student is sitting in his dorm. He is hungry (and perhaps likely intoxicated). Finding a menu, a phone, and talking to a human being = very difficult. Enter Campusfood.com. Log on to the website, browse the menus of restaurants delivering to your campus, click on the items you want, and click buy. Your order is forwarded to the restaurant of your choosing and within the hour, your food arrives.

Perhaps you don't see the difference, perhaps it's a generational thing--whatever the case, Campusfood is insanely popular on many, many college campuses (and yes, they arrange deliveries to nearby apartments and homes.)

Now we hear that Campusfood will be rolling out text message ordering. How might that work? Let's turn to their press release--which Textually.org rightfully recognizes as "quite remarkable. It's on a campusfood.com webpage, with a PR text, YouTube video explaining their services, a link to the podcast and all the geeky logos to digg, del.icio.us, reddit and facebook." On to the press release:

Campusfood.com’s new online TXT/SMS service is available through all major carriers including Verizon, Cingular, T-Mobile and Sprint by TXTing a Favorite to the 36368 shortcode. The restaurant receives the order like any other Campusfood.com order. Users can set up their Favorites on the website for easy one-click ordering. Both SMS/TXT and one-click ordering are free services to Campusfood.com customers.

One more reason to wish you were still in college.

Today's New York Times has a story about a new company called ShopText, who hope to revolutionize impulse buying:

A company called ShopText has introduced a system that lets people buy products instantly using text messages, a process that eliminates the need to go to a store or even visit a Web site. For instance, a woman seeing an ad for a pocketbook in a magazine can order it on the spot simply by sending the text code found beside the item through her cellphone.

Amazingly, they have already signed up a number of high-profile clients for their service:

Consumers can already use text messages to buy some products. Ads for the new CD by singer Tim McGraw carry a texting code, as do magazine writeups for the new Harry Potter novel coming this summer. Some concert halls are selling tickets by text message, and some charities are taking donations that way.

CosmoGirl magazine will feature text-message codes throughout its June/July issue, both in the advertising and editorial pages. And Stuff magazine is introducing text-to-buy on products like CDs, DVDs and video games featured in its pages.

Alas, it is not as seamless an experience as the Times first hints:

To use the system, a consumer must first place a phone call to ShopText to set up an account, specifying a shipping address and card account. After that, all purchases can be made by thumb.

When ShopText receives text messages about donations or products, it charges the credit card it has on file for the buyer, then, if appropriate, sends the product from one of its warehouses around the country.

If they can hook up their system to directly bill customers through their carriers, then they'll find themselves  in excellent position to truly revolutionize the modern shopping experience.

Read the rest of the article over at the New York Times.

CallWave, Inc. today announced the launch of its text messaging gadget (also known as a widget) for Microsoft Vista – a free, desktop-based application enabling users to send text messages to virtually anyone, anywhere from their computer whether their handset is nearby or not:

By making it easier to send text messages worldwide, CallWave Web 2.0 widgets and gadgets can dramatically increase text daily usage and adoption. While text messaging continues to grow in popularity, many consumers find it difficult to text on a phone’s small interface. CallWave solves this problem–using the familiarity and ease of the computer for text messaging. Additionally, users who are in front of their computers everyday may prefer the convenience of communicating in that environment.

Meanwhile, UpSnap, a mobile search provider announced the launch of a new, free mobile meta-search engine :

“In essence what Dogpile and MetaCrawler are doing for the World Wide Web, UpSNAP is doing for mobile phones,” said Tony Philipp, CEO of UpSNAP. “We are excited to offer this great and innovative service for consumers through our Web site, which serves as a one-stop-shop that does all the work for you in a matter of seconds. It makes searching 10 different sites for mobile content a thing of the past.” 

Finally, mocoNews recently reported that a number of museums have joined together to create Museum On The Go, which will offer images of famous works of art, photographs of historic personalities, voice and sound recordings, music and video for download to mobile devices.

As a part of their recently unveiled Run Easy marketing campaign, Reebok is encouraging consumers to text in to to the short code RUNEZ. The messages are posted to the Run Easy website, where they are sorted by origin on a mashed up Google Map.

Meanwhile, New York City is promoting HIV awareness with an innovative texting information service. New Yorkers can text their zip code to the short code KNOWIT, and the City will respond with a list of nearby testing centers.

Finally, ABI Research recently issued some lofty predictions for the future of mobile marketing:

By 2011, the value of this market will reach $19 billion, including mobile search and video advertising. ABI Research also expects some of the highest levels of spending to come in the broadcast mobile video space. By 2011, it will surpass SMS as a source of mobile marketing spending, due in part to mobile broadcast networks’  presence in all major markets. In 2011, ABI Research expects spending for broadcast mobile video advertising alone to reach $9 billion.

Read the press release or the whole report ($) (via FierceMobileContent).