Saturday, April 11, 2009

Mobile Fusion: Mobile Rendering on the Fly

MoFuse, or Mobile Fusion, is a Web application that allows a user or company to easily and instantly create a mobile version of a blog or Web site.

If a blog or site has an RSS feed, MoFuse will use that as the main source of content for a new mobile site. The advantages are obvious. Content creators can continue to create "PC" sites and MoFuse will do the translations. MoFuse also can create static content pages.

http://fuelingnewbusiness.com/2008/08/28/mobile-marketing-for-advertising-agencies/

Best New Google Voice Feature: Visual Voicemail

Some of us prefer text messages of any sort to voice messages of any sort. So the best new feature of Google Voice, compared to GrandCentral, is the automatic speech-to-text feature, so now I read my "voice" mails, instead of "listening" to them. Very useful.

Mobile Marketing Growth: Inevitable Result of Mobile Web

There's a simple reason so many executives and practitioners now are exploring mobile marketing: Industry executives widely believe mobile computing devices will be the "primary" Internet access device for most people, globally, by 2020.

More than three quarters of the expert respondents (77 percent) recently surveyed by the Pew Internet & American Life Project said they agreed with a
scenario that posited that the mobile computing device will be the primary Internet communications platform for a majority of people across the world by 2020.

Advertising Hits Tipping Point; Mobile Video Hasn't

It is probably worth noting, with significant attention focused on substitution of mobile and Internet video for traditional packaged multi-channel video, that there's lots of activity, money and attention focused on substitution of other services such as advertising.

And advertising already is at an inflection point: video isn't there yet. That's important for anybody who thinks they may have a chance to build a business based on changes in user behavior.

And inflection points are crucial. Move too early and you die. Move too late and you miss the opportunity.

The analogy: assume firms have a chance to establish themselves when water turns to ice or to steam. Since most major changes in established markets do not occur overnight, the analogy is a gradually rising or falling temperature. For a long time, it appears as though not much is happening.

But then the quantum change occurs. Almost instantly, water changes to gas or forms ice.

That's pretty much what happened to the U.S. newspaper business in early 2009: an accumulation of decades worth of changes produced a quantum change. Video is not there yet. Advertising is, in at least one segment of the business.

Since the tipping point has been reached, we should expect change at a faster rate than has been happening.

Skype Founders Want to Buy it Back

Skype's founders are said to be raising money to buy Skype back from eBay. They sold it for $3.1 billion and eBay appears to want $1.7 billion. Aside from the obvious deal economics, Skype's founders have gone almost nowhere with their follow-on video business.

EU Likely to Force Mobile Providers to Permit Skype Use

The European Union (EU) reportedly is preparing to force mobile providers to allow use of VoIP services including Skype over their networks, a move that would not be unexpected. EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding recently reemphasized her opposition to application blocking of this sort, and that tends to signal action by the EU.

Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile unit currently blocks Skype access from Apple iPhones, for example, though access is possible using Wi-Fi, roughly the same policy AT&T uses.

It is understandable that mobile providers are not anxious to put themselves out of business. But VoIP blocking just isn't the right thing to do.

Friday, April 10, 2009

DirecTV Sees No Signs of Consumer Retrenchment

Despite the widespread conventional wisdom that consumers "must be" dropping a wide variety of communications and entertainment services, the most-recent DirecTV Group Inc. financial results do not support the thesis. DirecTV added 301,000 net subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2008, the most net subs it has added in more than three years.

DirecTV also had what it called its "best year ever," as the company added 861,000 net new customers in 2008. Net subscriber additions of 301,000 in the fourth quarter were nearly 10 percent higher than last year's fourth quarter.

We'll have to see what the company reports for the first quarter of 2009.

Directv-Dish Merger Fails

Directv’’s termination of its deal to merge with EchoStar, apparently because EchoStar bondholders did not approve, means EchoStar continue...