Kraft Foods Tweets

Kraft Foods is using Twitter to spread word about where its Oscar Mayer Wienermobile drivers will be next. Kraft also launched the "DiGiorno Crispy Flatbread Pizza" by delivering pizza to "tweet-ups," or in-person, social-media gatherings.

AT&T Seeks to Extend iPhone Exclusive

AT&T is now in discussions with Apple Inc. to get an extension of AT&T's exclusive on the iPhone until 2011, the Wall Street Journal reports. AT&T also is seeking to overhaul AT&T's marketing to make wireless the priority. Ultimately, that likely will mean that customers can qualify for AT&T discounts on IPTV or broadband access if they are a wireless customer, where tradtionally AT&T has tied discounts to being a wireline voice customer.

AT&T has 77 million wireless customers and 30 million consumer voice lines.

The intensified focus on wireless shows just how much is changing in the world of former wired telephone companies. Where once most telcos were very similar in terms of services offered, customer base and strategy, firms are becoming quite differentiated. Verizon and AT&T have options, footprints and business segments quite distinct from those of virtually all other U.S. carriers.

The big challenge is what wired network providers without the scale and wireless assets of those two firms will fashion their business strategies.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123973238611017715.html

Mobile Broadband: 2nd or 3rd Mass Market Mobile Data App

By the end of 2014 more than two billion users globally will be accessing the Internet using a mobile broadband connection, analysts at Ovum now project. By that point, mobile broadband will have proven to be the first mass market data application since text messaging (short message service). Some of us might argue that mobile email was the second mass market data application, but a success on this level would be quite noteworthy, in any event. 

Total mobile broadband users will grow by 1024 percent by 2014, while total mobile broadband revenues grow at a 33-percent cumulative average growth rate over the forecast period.

Total mobile broadband revenues will not only stem the decline in text messaging revenue Ovum expects will happen, but also will grow operator overall revenues. Though handset access to mobile broadband services will exceed laptop access in terms of number of users, laptop ARPU is six times greater than handset ARPU.

Bluetooth at Fiesta Fiesta: Proximity Marketing in Action

Attendees at the “Fiesta Fiesta” event in Alamo Plaza on April 16 might see a pop-up message might appear on their Bluetooth-equipped mobile phones offering a 15 percent off coupon for a Fiesta pin.

The message comes from Blue Zone Mobile Media, which employs Bluetooth technology to send coupons, images, ring tones and video clips to cell phones within a 300-foot radius of its broadcasting device.

The San Antonio-based advertising company partnered with the Fiesta San Antonio Commission for the event. Blue Zone also is working with Pocket Communications Inc., Toyota Motor Co. and Anheuser-Busch InBev to send out Bluetooth ads to cell phones during Fiesta.

Levi's, Bacardi and Pepsi all have dabbled with Bluetooth ad campaigns on mobile phones, offering incentives at festivals, train stations, bus stops and shopping malls. Last month, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group used Bluetooth wireless technology to send songs and wallpaper from various artists to the mobile phones of people attending the South by Southwest Festival in Austin.

When the consumer comes within range of Blue Zone's hardware, they receive a message from one of its advertisers, McWright said. From there, the user can accept or decline the invitation, he said. If they accept, Blue Zone can transmit a video clip, ring tone or coupon to them.

“We make sure our campaigns are 100 percent opt-in,'' said Vincent Hearn Jr., Blue Zone's founder.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/business/Bluetooth_messages_to_pop_up_for_Fiesta.html

Social Marketing Generates Qualified Sales Leads, Business Owners Say

Some small business users of social networking for marketing purposes are relying heavily on tools such as Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn and Facebook, a survey of some 700 early adopters finds.

About half the respondents to the survey were sole proprietor operations, typically in service businesses. The study was conducted by Michael A. Stelzner, indicates that users gain not only by increased awareness, as you might expect, but also served as a lead generation tool.

About 48 percent of respondents say social marketing created qualified sales leads.

Small Businesses Say Social Marketing Really Works

Mobility and social networking increasingly are seen as fundamental underpinnings of tomorrow's marketing environment. And though it is tough to quantify, some very-small business early adopters do believe social marketing has really worked for them. And while social media takes time, as much as 20 hours a week, respondents say it saves them money.

According to ABI Research, mobile marketing revenues will increase to more than $24 billion worldwide in 2013. CCS Insight believes that by the end of 2009 annual mobile advertising revenue in Western Europe alone will amount to €236 million.

Mobile is crucial for small businesses trying to reach their local consumers, it often is noted, in part because most small businesses sell locally. It also might be true that, though use of social media is not yet mainstream, small businesses--especially those run by sole proprietors--can rely on social media for marketing.

Some 88 percent of respondents to a recent survey of business professionals recruited using Twitter, blogs or Facebook use social media to market their businesses. About half the respondents are sole proprietors.

Twiter was used by 86 percent of respondents while blogs were used by 79 percent of users. LinkedIn was used by 78 percent of respondents and 77 percent said they used Facebook.

Business owners were more likely to use social media marketing (more than 90 percent) than employees working for a business (81 percent). People aged 30 to 39 years were most likely to use social media marketing (92.8 percent), says vMichael A. Stelzner, founder of WhitePaperSource.com.

A significant 61 percent of those investing more than 20 hours per weeks are using social bookmarking sites.

The largest group just getting underway with social media marketing was sole proprietors (30.2 percent reported just getting started) while owners of small businesses with two to 100 employees were the most experienced (29.3 percent reporting doing social media marketing for years).

A significant 81 percent of all marketers indicated that their social media efforts have generated exposure for their businesses. Improving traffic and growing lists was the second major benefit, followed by building new partnerships.

An unexpected benefit was a rise in search engine rankings reported by more than half of participants. As the search engine rankings improve, so will business exposure, lead generation efforts and a reduction in overall marketing expenses. About one in two marketers found social media generated qualified leads.

Social marketing takes time. But it also substitutes for paid media buys.

Rural Broadband, Green Energy and Externalities

The reason people ought to study economics more carefully is because good intentions do not always translate into "good results." In the broadband access and "green energy" businesses, though the assumption is that more broadband, and more green energy are purely positive, each could destroy some jobs, some economists note. As always is the case in real life and the real economy, choices have consequences not intended. 

The general notion about broadband spending mandated as part of the national economic “stimulus” plan is that it will create jobs. To be sure, construction of the access networks will drive some direct employment.

Some 128,000 jobs (or 32,000 jobs per year) could be generated from network construction over a four year period, and each job would cost $50,000, according to Dr. Raul Katz, adjunct professor at the Columbia Business School.

Beyond that, such new broadband facilities are supposed to spur economic development as well. But will it?

Unfortunately, says Katz, research on the productivity impact of broadband indicates the potential for capital-labor substitution and consequently, the likelihood of job destruction resulting from broadband deployment, as well as some incremental job creation. So the issue is whether net job creation exceeds net job destruction, and by how much.

You might think bringing broadband access to any community can only be a plus. As it turns, out broadband creates jobs and destroys them as well.

Since broadband tends to enable the outsourcing of jobs, a potential displacement of employment in the service sector from the area targeted for deployment might also occur, says Katz.

Also, some job creation in the targeted areas could be the result of relocation of functions from other areas of the country, and therefore, should not be considered as creating incremental employment, he adds.

Still, Katz says, the study results indicate that some job creation aside from the actual construction jobs is feasible. “Our estimates indicate that over four years the network effects could range from zero to 270,000 jobs over four years (approximately 67,500 jobs per year), although anecdotal evidence would point to the lower end of this range,” says Katz.

Separately, a new study by an economics professor Gabriel Calzada of  Juan Carlos University in Madrid says Spanish government spending on green energy to boost job creation kills 2.2 jobs for every green-collar job it creates. The damage could be even worse, the study says, if job destruction from companies fleeing Spain’s higher energy prices were included, he argues. 

What the study says is that government spending on renewable energy is less than half as efficient at job creation as private-sector spending. Specifically, each green job required on average 571,000 euros, compared with 259,000 euros in “average capital per worker” in the rest of the economy. In other words, more jobs could have been created had the money been spent in other ways. 

Some people might not consider "opportunity cost" (spending on one thing means money can't be spent on an alternative good) to be a real cost. One has to make a judgment cost about whether twice as many new jobs, were money invested another way, a better outcome. 

One can always quibble, perhaps even vehemently disagree, about economic studies. But all actions in economic life do represent choices: spending one way precludes spending another way. Businesses that can't make money die. I doubt it is possible to find many, if any, people who argue we should not extend broadband to every household and business, even if doing so will cost some jobs, as well as create some others. 

Few people, if any, will argue the United States should not achieve energy independence. But every positive step in that direction will have implications in other areas. Some forms of alternative energy consume vast quantities of water, a key issue in the western United States. Plants grown for energy raise food prices, globally. As there are no free lunches, there are no positive steps we can take that do not involve some negative consequences as well. Those consequences always should be part of the decision making process.

http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2009/03/30/green-jobs-ole-is-the-spanish-clean-energy-push-a-cautionary-tale/