Spiral Arm News

Mobile community tries again for app success.

2010-02-15T13:34:00.005Z

Handset manufacturers and networks have joined together under the name "Wholesale Applications Community" to "ensure that apps will run on all platforms" as they want "to create a single market place for mobile applications regardless of what platform they run on". This is seen as a response the the success of Apple's App Store, and an attempt to challenge Apple's dominance.

The Register comments: "Operators, and handset makers, have hardly covered themselves in glory with their previous individual efforts to create app warehouses and communities of users."

Sources:

Apple ambushed in Barcelona, The Register, 15 Feb 2010.
Mobile firms unite to offer applications, BBC News, 15 Feb 2010.
O2 and Orange link up to fight iPhone, The Guardian, 15 Feb 2010.

Publishers team up to sell digital content.

2009-12-17T13:02:00.001Z

"On December 8th Condé Nast, Hearst, Meredith, News Corporation and Time Inc invested in an as-yes-unnamed venture that will create and sell digital magazines and newspapers for the new generation of e-readers that is likely to succeed Amazon's monochrome Kindle in the next year or so" (A Hulu for Print, The Economist, December 12th 2009, p. 72).

Publishers are driven to this due to: the pain of formatting content for different devices; the need for a better format for delivering the advertising they depend on for revenue; and that Amazon are only returning 30% of the sale price of digital content.

To address these points the consortium is building software to create content for a wide range of devices; open an iTunes-like store front (open to others for content sales, not just the consortium members); and is working with Adobe for the e-reading software.

E-reader display technologies.

2009-12-14T14:56:00.001Z

Around 5m e-readers were sold in 2009, and 12m is the expectation for 2010. These figures are quoted in a review of the prospects behind current and upcoming e-reader display technologies in "Read all about it" (The Economist, 12th December 2009, p. 15). The article looks at the prospect for combining colour, video and low power via E Ink, Mirasol from Qualcomm, Pixtronix, Liquavista, and the tweeking of LCD technology by Pixel Qi.

Interactive television advertising

2009-10-15T08:36:00.002+01:00

"Interactive television advertising, which allows viewers to use their remote controls to click on advertisements, has been touted for years [...] So the news that Cablevision, an American cable company, was rolling out interactive advertisements to all its customers on October 6th was greeted with some scepticism. During commercials, an overlay will appear at the bottom of the screen, prompting viewers to press a button to request a free sample or order a coupon or a catalogue. Cablevision hopes to allow customers to buy things with their remote controls early next year."

TV advertising spend is falling, DVRs in 30% of homes allow ads to be skipped, the internet is both cheaper and has good measurements, but in theory "interactive advertising can engage viewers in a way that 30-second spots do not [...] Unilever recently ran an interactive campaign for its Axe deodorant, which kept viewers engaged for more than three minutes on average." But it may just be novelty.

Source: The Economist, Shop after you drop, 10 October 2009, p. 73

Paying for online newspapers.

2009-09-16T13:14:00.000+01:00

Options being considered by newspapers if they move away from free:

"Erect a pay wall around virtually all stories", successful only if you hold a monopoly on the news (e.g., for a region).
Charge for a digital copy of the newspaper to download and read on a device: "Many publishers hope that people will come to accept the idea of paying for mobile news, as they pay for text messages."
Charge for selected content. If the consumer is interested enough, they will pay. "In Britain, where fierce competition between national dailies probably rules out all-encompassing pay walls, newspapers nonetheless charge for crossword tips and participation in fantasy sport leagues."
A meter system, as implemented by the FT. Users are charged if they want to look at more than 10 articles per month, which is flexible: "A newspaper might, for example, respond to a buoyant market for display advertising by allowing people to read more free articles each month."
Micropayments: "Experiments with 'micropayments' have been held back by the fact that stories are much more perishable than songs, and by transaction costs. But small payments are becoming cheaper and easier to process."
Demand revenue share from on-line aggregators, such as Google.

From: Now Pay Up, The Economist, 29 August 2009, p.60-61

Electronic book readers.

2009-09-03T13:05:00.001+01:00

The Kindle has become the dominate name in electronic book readers, but Sony have released a new device to compete with Amazon's device. With Google, Song has given their users access to a million books. "It has also embraced an open electronic standard that lets customers buying e-books from Sony read them on other devices running the software."

"According to some estimates, more people use Apple's iPhone to read digital texts than use the Kindle. And Apple is hard at work developing a multimedia "tablet" that will probably act as an e-book reader too. Gizmos such as these are the likeliest heroes of the next chapter of electronic bookselling."

Source: Screen test, The Economist, 29 August 2009, p. 60

Bar codes on mobile phones.

2009-08-28T13:27:00.002+01:00

Snap it, click it, use it: The Economist (22 August 2009, p. 70) discusses 2D bar codes.

"In America and Europe, three types of bar code, called QR Code, Data Matrix and Ezcode, are likely to become common. The first two are free, open standards. Ezcode is owned by a New York-based firm called Scanbuy, but it, too, is available free, for general purposes. The firm behind it makes its money by charging advertisers and publishers when people use it."

Advertising spend for 2009Q1

2009-08-10T07:40:00.003+01:00

In December it was suggested that on-line advertising would slow, not decline, during the recession (see, for example, our post: Advertising growth during recession). The numbers have been adjusted and can be found in The Economist, 1st August 2009, p. 59:

Advertising in magazines: -18.3%
Radio advertising: -21.8%
Advertising in newspapers: -26.5%
Advertising online: -2.2%

These are US advertising spending for the first quarter of 2009. "Total ad spending fell by more than 10% in the first quarter [...] and predictions for the full year are even more dire".

Mobile, internet and TV a priority for people in the UK.

2009-08-06T15:29:00.002+01:00

The BBC report an Ofcom review: "The watchdog's annual report says spending on mobiles, the internet and TV is regarded as a higher priority than almost anything except food."

Free mobile operator closes.

2009-07-28T14:24:00.002+01:00

"Blyk, the MVNO which eschewed charging customers in preference to giving away services, has run out of advertisers and will be shutting down UK operations come the end of August."
From: Blyk goes bye-bye, The Register, 27 July 2009.

Local newspapers: what is and isn't working.

2009-07-24T14:05:00.002+01:00

The Economist, 25 July 2009, ran two items on local newspapers: The town without news (p. 25) and True grit (p. 26).

"An advertising slump has hit local newspapers much harder than national papers or other media [...] local papers have lost their grip on property and car advertising. Most painful has been the disappearance of job ads. In July 1999 an edition of the [Bedworth] Echo carried 17 pages of job advertisements. The final issue had one-fifth of one page."

"The Echo carried reports of school plays [...] local sports results and other humble fare. It also reinforced a sense of community. [...] It is not clear where the debate will carry on. The internet is undermining local newspapers much more effectively than it is supporting alternatives."

Falling back to national coverage of local areas will not be as detailed, and those most in need of local information may be those without an internet connection.

Newsletters and leaflets are appearing to take the place of the newspaper, and on-line local news is expected to improve as a place for user generated content. "As local newspapers fail, we may learn that their real value was less as a check on politicians than simply as a forum for casual conversation---a place where a town can talk to itself."

Of the local news papers that are surviving, they "are successful because they retain the best characteristics of their past. They have low overheads and levels of debt. They cover the local news and politics which matter to people. They have a belief in themselves that, some say, results in high staff satisfaction and low employee turnover. And they are often in well-off areas where readers---holidaymakers and the retiref---have time to read newspapers and are unlikely to be lured away by the internet. Above all, their proprietor editors have the will to battle through."

Mobile data collection.

2009-06-08T09:14:00.003+01:00

"Mobile phones provide new ways to gather information, both manually and automatically, over wide areas". Examples include...

Non-profit Innovative Support to Emergencies, Diseases and Disasters. This group has released open-source software which provides a central number for users to text in, which then appears on a map enabling "geospatial ground-truthing, as your mobile team works to confirm, refute, or update data".
Passive data collection from mobile phones or the network operators could be used for commercial purposes such as identifying the most popular venues or optimizing pedestrian flow.

"The technology is probably the easy part, however. For global networks of mobile sensors to provide useful insights, technology firms, governments, aid organisations and individuals will have to find ways to address concerns over privacy, accuracy, ownership and sovereignty. Only if they do so will it be possible to tap the gold mine of information inside the world’s billions of mobile phones."

Source: The Economist, 4 June 2009, p. 25-26.

The decline of the news business

2009-05-22T10:33:00.004+01:00

News facts:

"In 2008, for the first time, more people said they got their national and international news from the internet than from newspapers" (The Economist leader on the news business, 14 May 2009).
"...the share of 18- to 24-year-olds who got no news at all the previous day has risen from 25% to 34% in the past ten years." (ibid.)

The Economist goes on to describe the "conventional news package" of local, national, international news, sports, weather etc and how it is being undermined by wholesalers such as Yahoo and Google News, or by news "boutiques" which aggregate news and commentary.

The future of news is continued in a longer Economist briefing (also 14 May 2009).

Why 160 characters?

2009-05-08T14:12:00.000+01:00

LA Times reports on why text messages are 160 characters: because that seemed "perfectly sufficient" after trying out sentences on a typewriter.

Mobile phones and healthcare

2009-04-27T16:24:00.003+01:00

The Economist (16 Apr 2009) ran a special report on technology and health: "the next great technology revolution in health care is even now bubbling up from the villages of Africa and may in time benefit the rich world too. It is built on the astounding success of the most famous of all leapfrog technologies: mobile phones."

Examples given include:

HIV/AIDS in South Africa: "So great is the stigma attached to the disease that some four-fifths of victims in the region will not venture into their local clinic to get an HIV test [...] Using a form of text messaging similar to SMS, [Project Masiluleke] sends out up to a million short messages a day, encouraging the recipients in their local language to contact the national AIDS hot line. The response has been spectacular, especially among young men who have proved hard to reach in the past. When people ring, they are often told about clinics outside their immediate community [...]"
"In Uganda, Text to Change uses an SMS-based quiz to raise awareness among phone users about HIV/AIDS that brought a 40% increase in the number of people getting tested."
"A study in Thailand in 2007 showed that compliance with a drug regimen to tackle TB jumped to over 90% when patients were sent daily text reminders to take their pills on time."

£7.8m raised by SMS alone for Comic Relief

2009-04-15T16:14:00.004+01:00

"Comic Relief charity fundraising generated £7.8m of donations purely through the use of text messages. [...] Mobile phone users simply had to send a one-word text message to a particular number and automatically donated £5 or £1 to the charity, deducted through their normal call payment route." From Computing.

UKFundraising reports: "Mobile industry companies 3, O2, Orange, T-Mobile, Virgin and Vodafone have agreed to waive their usual charges to ensure a £1 or £5 text means a £1 or £5 donation to Comic Relief, and the Treasury has confirmed that because of this no VAT will be charged on these donations."

The rise of volunteering

2009-04-14T10:24:00.000+01:00

The Economist on the rise of volunteering in the US:

"Non-profit organisations now have 9.4m employees and 4.7m full-time volunteers nationwide. They make up 11% of the American workforce, more than the car and financial industries combined."
"Corporate America, too, is joining in. Companies such as Timberland and PricewaterhouseCoopers allow employees time off for public service. Others, like Target, are going into partnership with non-profit groups to provide pro bono marketing and financial advice."
"Thousands of lawyers have been laid off in recent months [...] But some law firms are encouraging the underemployed or deferred to do pro bono legal work for a public-interest group for a time. Some are paid monthly stipends or are offered a portion, often a third, of their salary"
Congress will "devote $5.7 billion over five years to expanding or creating national-service programmes, including tripling the size of AmeriCorps from 75,000 positions to 250,000."

In the UK IT professionals can volunteer their time to help charities at iT4Communities, a service that Spiral Arm have helped enhance and which we also host.

Mobile broadband

2009-04-02T14:59:00.000+01:00

In Priming the pipe, The Economist (7 March 2009, p. 68) notes that "Even industry veterans have been surprised by the rapid take-up of mobile broadband—using built-in receivers or plug-in “dongles” to provide internet access to laptops via high-speed mobile networks" .

The reason: price, network speeds, bundled netbooks with contracts. '“The pricing is crazy—mobile broadband is becoming a commodity way too fast,” notes Didier Bonnet of Capgemini, a consulting firm.'

Mobile advertising

2009-03-16T14:52:00.000Z

Research reported by eMarkerter: "One in three mobile users who recalled seeing a mobile ad said they responded to it in some way". The rate was highest for SMS, with 20.2% of non-iPhone US users recalling viewing mobile advertising (the rates are generally higher for iPhone users).

Fierce Wireless report: Economic Downturn Will Create Opportunities for Mobile Advertising, Says Analysys Mason. "Advertisers require high-impact media that are highly engaging and highly personal in order to deliver the best value for money. Mobile advertising has the potential to address both of these needs effectively."

Mobile banking to lift millions out of poverty.

2009-03-06T10:00:00.000Z

Two stories from BBC News discuss mobile banking for the poor.

Developing world's text bank plan (13 Feb 209) describes a three-year project which "allows people to transfer money via text messages without the need for banks." This will make a difference: "People who are too poor to use traditional banks, or who live too remotely, could use the service to save and transfer money between themselves as well as receiving money sent from family members in other countries."

An announcement from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is discussed in Help for poor to access banking (20 Feb 2009). "It is thought that more than a billion people worldwide do not have a bank account but do have a mobile phone." By working with the mobile phone industry, the foundation aims to help people "manage life's risks and build financial security".

Nokia, MS, Blackberry plan app stores.

2009-02-23T14:18:00.003Z

CNN report from the Mobile World Congress that Apple's iTune App Store has finally caused a reaction from other players to release their own stores. The Nokia one will be available for download in May; the Microsoft one is for Windows applications some of which will be mobile; an offering from Symbian will cause confusion with the Nokia offering; Blackberry's is due for October. Only stores from Palm and Android's are open now.

Mobile connectivity at sea.

2009-02-13T15:37:00.000Z

BBC News report on the deployment of pico cells on boats. "Previously merchant ship crews had to rely on expensive satellite phones. The new system will also rely on satellite communication [...] Connected to a remote gateway, [the pico cell] will convert a mobile call into a narrowband IP signal for transmission over the satellite network."

Snowmen strain mobile networks.

2009-02-06T15:40:00.000Z

Difficulty in making calls, network congestion, and delays in text messages in the UK on 2 Feb 2009 were a consequence of the heavy snow that fell. T-Mobile saw 73% more calls, 21% more texts on the day. 'A spokesman from mobile network 3 said: "We've seen a very steep jump in the number of picture messages sent across the network as snowmen make an all too rare appearance in gardens across the country."'

From: Snow strains technology networks, BBC News.

Networks, handset manufacturers profits down.

2009-02-05T15:23:00.004Z

Nolkia "dramatically lower quarterly profits" due to "global economic slowdown that was affecting people's ability to buy new mobile phones". They are not alone: "Motorola, Sony Ericsson and LG Electronics all reporting grim sales figures".

Motorola reports a loss and "said it lacked a popular handset to compete with its rivals".

Vodafone "grew revenues by 14.3 per cent" in the quarter, although "[s]tripping out the benefits of currency movements and the benefits of an Indian acquistion Vodafone's revenue actually fell one per cent while service revenue dipped 0.3 per cent." Voice revenue fell, but revenue from data services was up by 30 per cent.

Sources:

Motorola loses ground to rivals, BBC, 3 Feb 2009.
Nokia sales and profits plummet, BBC, 22 Jan 2009.
Nokia results hit by slowing customer demand, Computing, 22 Jan 2009.
Weak pound helps Vodafone dial up profit, The Register, 3 Feb 2009.
Vodafone sees 30 per cent rise in UK mobile data, Computing, 3 Feb 2009.
Sony Ericsson sales plummet, Computing, 16 Jan 2009.

2012: 1 in 5 of all mobile youth will be in India

2009-02-02T13:41:00.000Z

Mobile Youth report that by 2012 there will be 350 million under 30s in India, and this will account for 1 in 5 of the world's mobile youth market. "As a standalone country, Indians aged under 15 would rank as the 3rd biggest country in the world".