Google to invest $500 mn in Clearwire

Preparing a launch pad for its Android platform seems to be the most important thing on Google’s mind these days. As I had already mentioned, the Microsoft-Yahoo deal is a goner now and Google is one happy company. So, it’s only concern right now is to make Android a success. And its latest $500 million deal with Clearwire speaks volumes about its passion to make Android a success.

Google has announced that it will invest $500 million to help Clearwire, the erstwhile-popular wireless internet provider, find its mark in the market again. This is part of the deal made by Google, Intel, Comcast, Bright House Networks, and Time Warner Cable to invest a collective amount of $3.2 billion to unite two of the biggest wireless broadband business in the market today – Sprint Nextel and Clearwire.

Clearwire, meanwhile, will work on building the first nationwide WiMax network in the country. As you know, WiMax transfers data way faster than 3G wireless networks that we have today. So, with a nationwide WiMax network, mobile users will be able to access multimedia content on their mobile phones easily and this will in turn give Google a chance to serve a wide range of mobile content backed with ads.

Also, as expected, Clearwire will now officially join the league of companies that support Android platform. As of now, the list of companies that support Google Android is pretty big and Google is trying everything in its power to make Android a success.

When Google came up with the idea of Android, some people thought it would be a bumpy ride for Google, as the market is currently ruled by Symbian OS, Windows Live Mobile, and Apple iPhone. Well, as of now, it looks like Google is ready to face the competition. What do you say?

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, Google, All things mobile phones.

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Mobile phones in India to come preloaded with ads?

With a mobile user base of around 250 million and growing, India continues to be the hottest market for mobile phone manufacturers. However, the rates of mobile phones have gone down sharply over the years. There are two main reasons for this.

First, the target customer segment of mobile phone manufacturers as far as India is concerned is the middle class people. According to surveys, the number of middle class people in India is estimated close to 300 million. In order to target this segment, mobile phone manufacturers have introduced new models which cost very little. And since the middle class also happens to be the most active customer segment in India, the low-priced models usually sell well, leaving the mobile manufacturers with no option but to continue with them.

Second, there is hellacious competition in the market. Both CDMA and GSM phone manufacturers are hell bent on capturing the biggest market share and as a result, they’ve cut down their prices sharply.

As a result, you can now get a mobile phone for just over $20 in India. Due to this reason, mobile phone manufacturers are looking for different ways to make money. One such way is mobile phone advertising.

Already, Nokia is planning to generate revenue through its mobile internet platform Ovi. Also, some of the mobile phone manufacturers in India are in talks with UK based mobile media firm Affle.

Especially, Affle’s SMS2.0, a mobile application, seems to have caught a lot of attention. This application adds a lot of new features like color, graphics, signature, and emoticons to an otherwise ordinary text messaging service. When the customer sends a text message using this application, there will be an ad at the bottom of the message and a full-screen ad while the message is being sent. Affle is also planning to add features like social networking and mobile search to this application.

Some of the big names in India including Airtel are interested in this technology and might soon incorporate it in their handsets. There are plans of releasing handsets which will have this application preinstalled. However, mobile manufactures might want to test the waters and see the user response for such handsets before taking any major decision.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

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YuuZoo enters mobile advertising with a bang

YuuZoo, a popular name in the world of mobile content and mobile advertising, has moved from its beta phase and will soon start rendering its services to a number of countries including China, India, US, UK, Germany, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

In case you don’t know YuuZoo, here’s a small piece of info. YuuZoo is backed and financed by a number of high profile executives from Nokia, Ogilvy & Mather, and Ericsson and is famous world over.

Perhaps the biggest advantage of YuuZoo is the extensive range of mobile content it has on offer. It has partnered with some of the best mobile technology companies in the world and offers a wide range of mobile content, most of which are exclusive.

With the current set up, YuuZoo can easily reach around 1 billion consumers around the world. What this means to mobile advertisers around the world is that they can now easily target a huge number of consumers with the help of YuuZoo. With its technology, YuuZoo can help mobile advertisers send highly targeted ads to consumers – both local and international.

It will be interesting to see the growth of YuuZoo in the coming months. With such a strong set up, I think it is certainly a force to be reckoned with in the mobile advertising industry.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

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Listen to inspirational songs on your mobile phone

Finally, here’s a company which is worried about people listening to sexually explicit music every day. The company in picture is uVuMobile, a mobility software and solutions provider. It has joined hands with Watchfire Music, an online music resource. Watchfire Music specializes in inspirational music and sexually explicit lyrics and songs with provocative themes are a big no-no for them. So, they’ve joined hands with uVuMobile to create mobile music stations.

Wait a sec; what on earth is a mobile music station? Pretty simple; you can listen to music on your mobile phone. This partnership aims to launch two music stations named WFM Heart Beat and WFM Quiet Soul. These stations will only broadcast songs that are inspirational and have a positive influence on people who listen to them. Simply put, it’s like a musical version of Dale Carnegie.

Both the parties involved in the partnership are confident that people will find these mobile music stations very useful and this will pave way to generate new revenue streams for them. Any takers?

Categories: All things mobile phones.

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Men’s Health to incorporate fully interactive advertising

Perhaps the most popular men’s lifestyle magazine in the world today, Men’s Health, is all set to become the first magazine to incorporate fully interactive advertising in the U.S.A. Men’s Health has joined hands with SnapTell, a mobile marketing solutions company, to incorporate image recognition based technology in its magazine.

What this means to you, the magazine reader, is this. From now on, you can simply take a snap of the advertisements in the magazines with your cell phone camera and send a short code to SnapTell. In return, you’ll get a promotional bounce-back. It might be a discount coupon, a sweepstake offer, product sample, or free wallpapers and videos.

This makes responding to ads so easy for the users and this might increase user response big time. We’ve seen ads in magazines and newspapers which ask us to call a number or visit a store to get more information. But this is really, really simple. You just need to take a snap and send a short code. I think the response rate for this kind of interactive advertising will be way better than traditional ads, for obvious reasons.

Also, there are two things that make this technology extremely useful. First, it’s compatible with all cell phone providers across the country. Second, you don’t need to download any software to make use of this technology.

Men’s Health’s July/August issue will be the first issue to come out with this technology and it hits the news stands on June 24. Make sure you check it out.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

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