We came across an interesting survey about what is probably the most popular SMS voting campaign in the US:

With season seven of American Idol wrapping up last week (congrats David Cook!), I was completely shocked that a whopping 97 million votes were cast last Tuesday night. From that 97 million, a record-breaking 78 million were generated from text messages through votes, trivia contests, and other SMS content.

Read more @ Geek Sugar.

Read more about Club Texting's SMS voting software.

Teens, so accustomed to texting, are very receptive to text message advertisements:

"For them, responding to an ad that's relevant by sending a text or following a link on their phone is a logical brand engagement," Covey said. It's so natural that the student council at Notre Dame high school in Sherman Oaks decided to invite teens to their graduation via a prerecorded video sent over a mobile phone.

How receptive?

Teens don't seem to mind the text messages they receive from the retailers. Tsunder said only 4% of people who sign up for the texts ask to stop getting them. And Miller said 2% to 4% of those who see or receive ads on mobile phones click on them to find out more information. On the Internet via computers, so-called click-through rates are generally closer to 0.01%

Read more at the L.A. Times.

Yes another innovative use of text messaging:

Ohio doctors are experimenting with texting to tackle a big problem: Tweens and teens too often do a lousy job of controlling chronic illnesses such as asthma, diabetes or kidney disease.

So how does it work?

Dr. Maria Britto, an asthma specialist at Cincinnati Children's, noticed that even when she's talking to adolescent patients perched on the clinic exam table, they'll keep texting on their cell phones.

"You have to get in their face a little," she says with a laugh.

But it sparked the idea for a study to see if a daily medication reminder via text message would improve kids' asthma control -- preventing full-blown attacks, improving school attendance and decreasing doctor and emergency-room visits. After all, Britto says kids as young as 12 carry the phones into her clinic, poor and middle class alike.

Pilot testing recently began, with a full study set for later this year. Participants say what time they want the reminder, and a clinic volunteer types out the messages -- words spelled out, no mimicking of kids' text lingo.

Head over to CNN to read more, including some preliminary results.

OnlineMediaDaily reports on a Hearst's major mobile marketing move:

Hearst Magazines Digital Media will extend a service that links print ads to mobile marketing across titles including CosmoGIRL, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Redbook and O The Oprah Magazine.

For the last two years, Hearst has partnered with mobile tech provider ShopText to place mobile codes in CosmoGIRL ads that allow readers to order product samples or enter sweepstakes via their cell phones. After an initial purchase, users need only text a keyword and PIN to buy products advertised in the magazine.

Read more at OnlineMediaDaily.

Visit Club Texting for more information about mobile marketing for magazines.

BusinessWeek has an interesting story about mobile advertising and the threat that it poses to Google:

As more people use cell phones and their tiny glass screens to gain access to the Internet, Google and its fellow online advertisers will have less space, or what's called ad inventory, to place marketing messages for customers. Google makes money selling ad inventory. And its ad inventory is diminished on a cell phone.

What does the future hold?

Consumer use of mobile Internet in the U.S. has longed trailed Asia and Europe, where standardized cell networks made it easier for handset makers to produce gadgets that tap the Web at blazingly fast speeds. But in the summer of 2007, Apple rocked America by launching the iPhone. The computer maker wasn't the first to put the Web on phones, but for many consumers, the iPhone made the experience more robust.

Almost two-thirds of Americans have had some experience with mobile Internet use, and the adoption trend is most pronounced among teens and young adults, according to Pew Research Center. About 60% of adults 18 to 29 use text messaging every day, compared with only 14% of their parents. Nearly one-third of young adults use mobile Internet. This is the future, because people take their media habits with them as they age.

Read more @ BusinessWeek

Despite their distrust of electronic voting machines, Americans appear ready to embrace SMS voting:

According to the short survey, more than half of all Democrats, Republicans and Independents surveyed say that if allowed, they’d text in their Presidential vote.

If we look to future voters, the numbers are even greater:

Eight in ten (80%) teens, ages 13-17, say that if they were allowed to     vote in this year’s Presidential election, they’d do it by text message     instead of going to the polls.

Read more at Cellular News.

Adweek let's us know about a new mobile search report:

The mobile search advertising market will surge from $815 million in 2008 to $5 billion by 2013, according to new research published Wednesday.

Search will become as important in the mobile space as on the desktop, ABI Research said. Consumers will have escalating options to conduct searches by SMS and via branded providers, which will help advertising growth.

The outlook for SMS?

Total SMS searches will grow from 13 billion in 2008 to more than 76 billion by 2013, ABI forecasts.

Read more at Adweek.

A new report from M:Metrics suggests that mobile marketing is the way to reach the elusive young male demographic:

With 36% of men ages 18 to 34 in Western Europe using mobile media, and 48% in the U.S. as of February, that demographic is an especially attractive audience for mobile advertisers, according to market researcher M:Metrics.

Furthermore, men in that age group are highly receptive to SMS text messages, with 9% responding to a text ad compared to only 4% of mobile users on average.

"Reaching the 18- to-34-year-old age demographic is a real challenge to advertisers, as this group is spending less time consuming print and broadcast media," said Paul Goode, a senior analyst at M:Metrics, in a statement.

Read more at OnlineMediaDaily.

The Washington Post recently ran a story about parents who text. While the teenagers might not like this, it is good news for mobile marketers:

Parents are horning in on their teenagers' lives through text messaging. Sending shorthand cellphone messages used to be the province of the younger set -- under the dinner table, in the car, at all hours of the night.

Now, parents are responding with their own quick dispatches -- "RU there," "Running L8" -- and becoming the fastest-growing demographic in text messaging, which is one of the biggest areas of the mobile-phone industry.

Read more at The Washington Post.

The FCC has approved what will certainly be the largest Emergency SMS system in the world:

Cell phone users will get text message alerts of emergencies under a new nationwide alert system approved late Wednesday by the Federal Communications Commission, according to FCC spokesman Robert Kenny.

It seems that the system will work in a manner similar to the TV/Radio Emergency Broadcast Systems:

Under the plan, the FCC will appoint a federal agency to create the messages and pass them on to cell phone companies that choose to participate, an FCC representative said earlier. Once that agency is named, the participating cell phone providers would have 10 months to comply with the new system's requirements.

All major carriers are expected to join the program. Read more @ CNN.

Lyle Bunn has written an interesting piece for Digital Signage Today. His thesis:

Social networking. Bluetooth. Mobile commerce. Millennials visiting Web sites and extending music and TV.  Each of these are components in the next wave of the digital signage business model.
...
By extending display messaging to a personal device such as a cell phone, message engagement and brand interaction is significantly advanced. This advancement makes digital signage valuable for marketers and communicators wishing to extend ad display into brand engagement.

He gives us an example of this works with SMS Text Messaging:

SMS Text. Text codes presented in a digital ad could prompt the download of information, coupons or media such as ringtones, wallpaper or games. A text code could also enable a mobile commerce transaction. Mobile commerce provider mPoria reflects that the average mobile commerce transaction is $130 with conversion rates of .8-1.5 percent on mobile devices.

There is much more over at Digital Signage Today.

RCR Wireless News has an interesting story about the battle brewing over just who should regulate Short Codes:

The controversy over whether the Federal Communications Commission should regulate short code-related text messaging has opened a floodgate of weighty policy questions — from network management to consumer protection to free speech — that could make resolution of the matter far more difficult than federal regulators and warring factions may have anticipated.

How did we get here?

Last year, NARAL Pro-Choice America bumped heads with Verizon Wireless after the carrier initially rejected its application for a short code it wanted to use to transmit wireless alerts to supporters. After the controversy gained national media attention, Verizon Wireless reversed course and gave the abortion-rights organization access to its network. Then Rebtel, a Voice over Internet Protocol firm that offers low-cost international calling on mobile phones, began to complain loudly about being turned down by Verizon Wireless, Alltel Corp. and T-Mobile USA Inc. in requests to secure short code-enabled text messaging rights.

So how is this going to end? We'll just have to wait and see.
Read more @ RCR Wireless News.

Adota has an opinion piece on the current state and the future of mobile marketing. Some highlights:

Predictions around the rise of the mobile marketing space have come fast and furious. eMarketer states that the U.S. mobile advertising market, which was $1billion in 2007, will grow to $5 billion in 2011. While these numbers are impressive, what the experts seem confused about is when the mobile marketing revolution will begin. Instead the pundits are focusing on “what’s to come,” not what is happening now. This is a mistake. Truth is, there is a great deal happening present day. Marketers should not sit and wait for a formal invitation before making their move.

So what is happening right now?

One example of how mobile marketing is already providing real results for many brands is their use of SMS (AKA text messaging), which allows for the sending of short 160 character messages to and from a mobile phone. 160 characters might not seem like much but when they are highly targeted AND personalized to each individual user, the message can be quite powerful. According to a January 2007 CTIA Report, 96% of all active cell phones in the U.S. can be reached using text-messaging (more than 220 million users). In fact, text messaging is the fastest growing communication channel in history worldwide and already has twice the reach of the Internet (Computer Industry Almanac 2006). These figures cannot be ignored and they are not; currently 89 percent of major brands have stated that they are planning to market via mobile phone text messaging by 2008.

Read more at Adota.

The New York Times recently ran an interesting story on the evolution of airline boarding passes:

First came the kiosk, a strange addition to airport terminals when Continental Airlines began offering it as a check-in option in 1995. It was followed by Web check-in, introduced by Alaska Airlines in 1999.

Now, with 80 percent of passengers using these self-service options, the next step is electronic boarding passes, which essentially turn the hand-held devices and mobile phones of travelers into their boarding passes.

Far off technology? Nope, it's already here:

[S]o far, Continental is the only carrier in the United States to begin testing the electronic passes, allowing those travelers to pass through security and board the plane without handling a piece of paper. Their boarding pass is an image of an encrypted bar code displayed on the phone’s screen, which can be scanned by gate agents and security personnel.

Read more at The New York Times.

MobileCrunch has the scoop on HTC's upcoming phone, which will use Google's Android mobile operating system:

High Tech Computer (HTC) is developing a mobile phone that will use the open-source Android software created by Google for its operating system. The phone will be called Dream and have a large touchscreen and full QWERTY keypad. The handset is over 5 inches long and 3 inches wide and has a keypad that swivels out from underneath the screen.

So what will it be? A Google phone or an iPhone...

The New York Times reports on the recent wireless spectrum auction:

The government announced on Tuesday that it had closed the most lucrative government auction in history as wireless companies bid more than $19 billion for the rights to radio spectrum licenses.

In the coming days, the Federal Communications Commission is expected to publish a list of the winning companies. The major participants included AT&T, Verizon and Google, although many experts said they did not expect Google would bid much more than the minimum reserve price of $4 billion for one of the more attractive groups of licenses.

Why the mention of Google?

While Google was not expected to post a winning bid, it has already achieved an important victory by influencing the auction rules. The commission forced the major telephone companies to open their wireless networks to a broader array of telephone equipment and Internet applications. It remains to be seen whether a variety of technical and regulatory issues can be resolved to make the promise of more open networks a reality.

Well played Google, well played.

Mobile gaming isn't just about selling games. NBC understands that it is about extending the brand:

Players work to solve the latest celebrity crime in New York, investigating the crime scene, interrogating witnesses and bringing their key suspect to trial. Cast members like Alana De La Garza offer advice and feedback to help move the case along, and mini-games like Warrant Race (where players rush to try to secure warrants) are also included.

"Creating mobile games based on popular television series like 'Law & Order' is one way NBC Universal is looking to extend our audiences' experience with the brand," said Jeremy Laws, senior vice president, mobile and broadband, Universal Pictures Digital Platforms Group.

Read more @ OnlineMediaDaily.

From the indispensable OnlineMediaDaily:

MORE THAN 2.6 BILLION MOBILE ticket transactions amounting to nearly $87 billion will be delivered to 208 million mobile users by 2011, according to a new study.

The report by Juniper Research found that the mobile ticketing business is gearing up for major launches in the next few years as early trials evolve into commercial services controlled by the ticketing issuers such as Ticketmaster and Tickets.com.

Read more @ OnlineMediaDaily.

The NY Times has an interesting piece on the coming migration of social networks to mobile phones:

Social networks may be nothing new to habitués of the Internet. Several years of competition among Facebook, MySpace and Friendster have generated tens of millions of members.

But now the market is teeming with companies that want to bring the same phenomenon to the cellphone. There are so many “mobile social networking” upstarts, in fact, that when New Media Age magazine in Britain tried to identify the “ones to watch,” it ended up naming 10 companies.

What is so appealing about the mobile space?

The prize, as these start-ups see it, is the 3.3 billion cellphone subscribers, a number that far surpasses the total of Internet users. The advantage over computer-based communities, they believe, is the ability to know where a cellphone is, thanks to global positioning satellites and related technologies.

The market research company Informa Telecoms said in a report last month that about 50 million people, or about 2.3 percent of all mobile users, already use the cellphone for social networking, from chat services to multimedia sharing. The company forecast that the penetration rate would mushroom to at least 12.5 percent in five years.

Head over to the Times to read more.

Today is the day for the iPhone SDK:

At this point, it's still not clear whether Apple intends to officially release the SDK at Thursday's event or just make some announcement. At any rate, the SDK will be in programmers' hands soon, and analysts and developers expect a wide variety of applications to blossom in the coming months -- everything from photo-editing apps to motion-sensing games that take advantage of the device's orientation sensor.

The possibilities, as Mac developer Daniel Jalkut recently noted, will be limited only by developers' imaginations.

Those possibilities will be also influenced by a number of outstanding questions about Apple's planned app-distribution method, the vetting process it will use, and any iPhone access restrictions the company imposes on developers. The company is expected to provide answers to those questions as well on Thursday.

Even more important though:

At the very least, Thursday's SDK event will involve an announcement about new enterprise features for the iPhone, according to an invitation circulated last week.

While enterprise software may not be as sexy as movie and game apps, its inclusion could be huge for Apple's ability to meet its goal of 10 million iPhone sales by the end of the year.

By adding features like push e-mail and cultivating relationships with corporate-software vendors, Bajarin says, the iPhone could become one of the major communication platforms in business, making it much more competitive with the corporate-friendly BlackBerry.

Read more @ Wired News.