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Motorola has come up with its first Android powered mobile phone called Cliq. The phone comes with a responsive touch screen, a slide out QWERTY keyboard, a 5 megapixel camera, and a built-in video and audio player. The USP of the phone is its social networking software called MotoBlur.
What MotoBlur does is simple – it makes mobile social networking a lot easier. All you need to do is enter all your information – email accounts and social networking accounts. MotoBlur syncs everything into a stream and gives you constant updates from various social networking sites. Whenever any of your contacts post a message or send you a mail, it will let you know immediately.
When you switch on the phone, you will see four widgets, or word bubbles as they are usually referred to, on your screen – Happenings, Status, Direct, and Weather. Happenings widget shows you all the posts made by your contacts, Status widget allows you to update your personal status simultaneously on various social networking sites, Direct widget brings you all the private messages, emails, and text messages your contacts send you, and Weather widget gives you weather updates throughout the day.
One of the interesting features of Cliq is that whenever you take a picture or shoot a video with the mobile camera, a small ‘share’ icon appears on the screen. One click and you can share the photo or the video with all your friends on various social networking sites.
In a sense, Cliq is a make or break product for Motorola. The company, as some of you might know, has been going through a rough phase of late and it badly needs to make something happen. Since the success of Razr, the company has not come up with anything worthy enough to be called its successor. Now, after eight long years, Motorola has unveiled what could be the worthy successor of Razr – Cliq. As of now, Cliq is only available through T-Mobile USA. A lot of experts, however, feel that Motorola should join hands with other carriers to make this product a success.
A lot of people also feel that Google sees Cliq as its chance to make its presence felt on a market which is completely dominated by Apple iPhone and Blackberry. If you remember, Google released Android in 2007 and it still has not been able to make its presence felt on the market. As of now, there are only four phone models that run with Android software. So, in my opinion, Google has a lot riding on this phone too. Let us see how it turns out for everyone involved with it.
Tags: Android, Apple iPhone, Blackberry, cliq, Google, mobile social networking, mobile camera, MotoBlur, Motorola, RAZR, social networking sites, text messages, touch screen, t mobile, weather updates
Technorati Tags: Android, Apple iPhone, Blackberry, cliq, Google, mobile social networking, mobile camera, MotoBlur, Motorola, RAZR, social networking sites, text messages, touch screen, t mobile, weather updates
Categories: All things mobile phones, Mobile Social Networking.
A recent report says that SMS (short message service) usage in India, particularly in the urban areas, has grown significantly in the past few years. Given below are some of the interesting points made in the report.
• According to TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India), an average Indian sends 29 text messages a month.
• Text messages in India are not just used for personal communication. People check their bank balances, book tickets for movies, check air ticket and train ticket status, pay their bills, and do lots more.
• The response rate for text message marketing in India is very impressive. One in every three urban Indians has responded to such marketing campaigns either by forwarding the messages to his friends or by calling the sender to get more details.
• A large number of people opt for SMS based value added services. The most popular value added services include business/finance news, stock market tips, astrological advice, spiritual quotes, news alerts, job alerts, and sports updates.
• More than 40% of urban Indians have received promotional offers via SMS. Nearly 12% of people who got such text messages have made a purchase based on the information given in the message.
• 30 to 45 year olds – people with a significant disposable income – are more likely to respond to text message marketing and make a purchase.
• Nearly 30% of urban Indians have participated in some kind of SMS based contests. As you can guess, males are more likely to take part in such contests than females.
While this report does not have any groundbreaking information, it does confirm the fact that mobile advertising, as an advertising medium, has a bright future in India. There are a few important reasons why I think so.
1. Data plans in India are quite cheap. Most operators charge only a very small amount for text messages. Incoming messages are never charged. So, it allows people to respond to promotional offers and other such stuff without worrying about a huge mobile bill at the end of the month.
2. In the past ten years or so, Indian economy has improved considerably and the purchasing power of the middle class – comprising nearly 300 million Indians - has increased as well. Hundreds of millions of people with disposable income – now that’s a dream for any marketer.
3. A number of mobile operators in India are beginning to focus on not just the urban areas, but the rural areas as well. This will increase the number of mobile users in India by an unbelievably huge extent. In other words, in a few years from now, there will be close to 700 million mobile users in India. It is going to be the dreamland of every mobile marketer in the world.
What do you think? I’m interested to hear your viewpoints.
For further reading, check out these posts.
Indian Mobile Advertising Market on a Roll
Is India the Fastest Growing Market for Mobile Advertising?
Mobile Advertising in India - A Closer Look
Tags: marketing campaigns, mobile advertising, SMS, stock market tips, telecom regulatory authority, telecom regulatory authority of india, text message marketing, text messages, urban indians, value added services
Technorati Tags: marketing campaigns, mobile advertising, SMS, stock market tips, telecom regulatory authority, telecom regulatory authority of india, text message marketing, text messages, urban indians, value added services
Categories: Cell Phone Advertising.
If you are one of those people who are still wondering if the whole concept of ‘offering free mobile content supported by ads’ is good or bad, here is some news for you. A German company has recently come up with an idea that is so good that even the harshest critic of mobile advertising will find it hard to argue against.
Mjoy.com, a Germany based mobile web portal, offers free SMS (text message) service for its registered users all around the world. The service is simple – as a registered user, you will be able to send text messages to any phone, any network, anywhere in the world – for free. How does it sound?
This is usually the point at which the question ‘how can they afford to do so?’ comes up. The answer to that question is something you are already familiar with, if you have been following this blog. It is mobile advertising.
This free service is supported by advertising banners in the portal. Mjoy has officially stated that these mobile ads will not be a hindrance for users as they will be placed in such a manner that they do not disturb the user experience by any means. On top of that, the company has also promised that the users will not be sent any sort of commercial text messages at any time in the future.
Even at the risk of making this blog post sound like a sponsored piece, I have to tell you something about the cool features of this service.
1. There are no character limits for the text messages that you send.
2. The text messages you send and receive will be stored in chat mode in your Mjoy inbox.
3. As a registered user, you can sync your mobile phone contacts with the Mjoy network if you want to.
4. You can also access a variety of mobile content like videos, widgets, pictures, sounds, and much more in Mjoy portal.
Already, we have seen a success story in Blyk, which has now become synonymous with ad supported mobile content. Is Mjoy another success story in the making? Only time will tell. What do you think?
Tags: advertising banners, Blyk, free sms text, free sms text message, mjoy, mobile ads, mobile content, mobile advertising, mobile content, mobile phone, mobile web, sms text message, text messages, text message service, web portal, widgets
Technorati Tags: advertising banners, Blyk, free sms text, free sms text message, mjoy, mobile ads, mobile content, mobile advertising, mobile content, mobile phone, mobile web, sms text message, text messages, text message service, web portal, widgets
Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones, Mobile Web.
Verizon Wireless has announced that it will charge its partners 3 cents per text message sent to its subscribers, a move that has surprised a lot of people. For nearly five years, Verizon has not charged its partner companies that regularly send plenty of text messages, most of which are promotional in manner, to its millions of subscribers. Come November 1st, it will all change.
From now on, companies that have partnered with Verizon have to pay 3 cents for each text message they send through Verizon’s network. Companies offering text message alerts, interactive SMS polls, and SMS search will have to pay this amount from the first of November. However, Verizon has made it clear that this charge applies only to standard and premium programs and not to the free-to-end-user kind of programs.
While 3 cents per text message might not look that big an amount now, it could form a significant source of income for Verizon in the long run. This is the first time the company has reassessed its charges ever since it started partnering with other companies in 2003.
Now the important question is – will other carriers follow suit? After all, if a network carrier wants to charge for the text messages sent through its network, there is not much its partners can do. Especially, with SMS advertising becoming more popular than ever, they cannot afford to lose a highly targeted advertising medium. So, the companies will most probably try to come to terms with these changes in the industry. It will be interesting to see the reaction of other carriers in the coming days.
Tags: SMS, SMS advertising, text message alerts, text message, text messages, Verizon, verizon wireless
Technorati Tags: SMS, SMS advertising, text message alerts, text message, text messages, Verizon, verizon wireless
Categories: All things mobile phones.
I’ve time and again mentioned about India and how it is probably the biggest market for mobile marketers in South Asia and stuff like that. But then, I constantly need to remind the skeptics out there that I don’t talk in air. I do have facts to back up my claims. So, here goes.
The country has a strong mobile subscriber base of over 300 million and has over a 100 million new additions every year. So, needless to say, all eyes are on India as far as mobile marketing is concerned.
ICICI Bank, one of the leading banks in the subcontinent, is enjoying great success with its mobile banking initiative. Ever since the bank started offering mobile banking services, there has been a steady growth in the number of mobile banking subscribers. Similarly, many other banks have introduced mobile banking facility and the number of mobile banking subscribers is getting increased by the day.
Surprisingly, Netcore Solutions, a Mumbai based mobile marketing company, has enjoyed an even bigger success than ICICI. The company specializes in creating permission based mobile marketing campaigns and has had a great success rate so far. Netcore offers a service called MyToday, which offers a variety of mobile phone services like headlines of the day, stock market tips and updates, sports updates, health, astrology, and other things which will be sent to the subscribers as text messages. All these text messages will have a text ad at the bottom. So far, the response has been double positive and the company has enjoyed great success.
The company was launched only in 2006 and within just a span of two years, it has more than four million subscribers now. It gets a whopping 300,000 new additions every month. That’s a mind boggling 10,000 additions every single day.
Read it again. 10,000 new additions every day. And that’s for a single mobile marketing company. India will probably have hundreds of such companies in the next few years. Just imagine the kind of business they can do with targeted mobile marketing.
Are you still wondering why India is considered the next big thing in mobile marketing?Tags: marketing campaigns, mobile marketing company, mobile banking, mobile marketing, mobile phone services, mobile subscriber, text messages
Technorati Tags: marketing campaigns, mobile marketing company, mobile banking, mobile marketing, mobile phone services, mobile subscriber, text messages
Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.
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