As reported by Textually, the Philadelphia Inquirer carries an article on why mobile spamming won’t be as big as email spamming.

According to John Summers, global director for managed security at Blue Bell-based Unisys Corp:

U.S. cell-phone companies have learned from the mistakes of carriers in other countries and have installed technology to prevent spam and viruses from reaching cell phones.

Cell-phone companies have a strong financial interest in keeping text-message spam under control, Summers said, because text-messaging represents a potentially lucrative revenue stream.

And he could well be right - logically he is, obviously.

While the fuss about mobile spam is greatly hyped by the media, it does still go on. And perhaps the biggest damage is that it makes bona fide marketers slow to embrace a potentially very powerful medium.

But some of us were making exactly the same points to the operators in the early days of the Mobile Marketing Association in the UK, as Mr Summer’s is making now. And it didn’t stop spam happening.

The mobile operators would much rather adopt the “I see no ships” policy adopted by Nelson at the Battle of Copenhagen - while putting his telescope to his blind eye.

They think that by ignoring the problem, they’ll make a lot of money out of spam. Unfortunately for everyone, they’ll only start to make money from mobile marketing when they eliminate spam.

According to the BBC Virgin Mobile is to float next month “subject to market conditions”.

Hmmm. No wonder Sir Richard was so scathing about the MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operators) about to launch in the UK we reported yesterday here.

With incumbents showing a c. 20% drop in ARPU in places where MVNO’s have launched, now would be a jolly good time to sell, methinks. Sir Richard didn’t get where he is today for selling things off at the bottom of the market, after all.

New Media Age reports that Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO’s) are about to launch following huge success in Northern Europe. Due to the significantly lower cost base, prices have plummeted in a matter of months.

In Denmark the price of a mobile minute has dropped from E0.17 to E0.09 (11p-6p) in only six months, and an SMS has fallen from E0.07 to E0.03 (4.5p-2p). The price of a subscription has fallen from E6.70 to nothing. The discount mobile operators claim 23% of voice traffic in Denmark, and close to 30% of text traffic.

TDC, the largest operator in Denmark with 46% market share, experienced voice-per-minute growth of 19% in 2003, at the same time seeing a 22% decline in ARPU. Its pre-paid ARPU in Q1 2002 was E7.5 ; in Q1 2003 it was down 50% to E3.6.

Frankly, I’m surprised that this hasn’t been launched before - it’s been talked about for years.

Good old Stelios’s easyGroup will be one of the first entries into the market. Though Sir Richard Branson says he doesn’t believe in it. Well, he would wouldn’t he? But how can you not believe in something already proven in four other markets? It’s a bit like not believing in SMS, or something.

New Media Age also point out that it’s not about IF they’ll launch but when and who

The question is who will launch these discount companies: media companies that have free advertising in their own media, or other players?

Picking up on an earlier thread, operators really need to start building themselves as brands before it’s too late. And the key to this will be developing compelling content.

There’s an interesting article over at The Feature on SK Telecom’s (a South Korean operator) plans to produce own label handsets, by buying some of the players in the market.

It’s all about who “owns the customer” - the handset guys or the operators. It’s a bit of a redundant argument really, because at best, any company tends to have a very precarious and temporary relationship with consumers these days, unless you deliver what they really want.

You “rent” the customer at best.

But accepting this, it’s a very difficult path to steer for operators, as ultimately, they’re in a highly competitive and commodised business. There really is very little to choose between say, T-Mobile and O2, to take a UK example. And, other than selecting on price, most consumers aren’t capable of selecting one over the other rationally.

And as this article says:

As much as the mobile operators believed they were promoting their own services, customers still came into the stores asking for “that new Nokia phone.” Operators that didn’t offer the latest and greatest phones lost out on business.

While it may well work in South Korea, I don’t think that owning handset manufacturers is the way to go in Europe. Brands are too endemic to our culture and Nokia, Samsung and Sony (to name but a few) are simply too strong as brands (especially in the youth market) to ditch. If you don’t sell them, consumers will go where they can buy them.

You can get cheap own-label jeans too, but no one who’s anyone will wear them.

I suspect that this won’t deter the operators and there may well be a mad scramble to buy one at vastly inflated prices. And then the whole project will be quietly abandoned, accompanied by huge write offs a few years later.

I’d suggest a slightly different approach to that taken by the article though. If anyone “owns” the customer (albeit with the qualification above) it’s probably going to be the retailer - where there is one in the channel of distribution.

History tells us that this is what normally happens, as it’s retailers who eventually become the dominant power. It’s about being closest to the customer and using your buying power and influence at point-of-purchase to drive prices down and retain all the transaction value into your part of the equation.

Ask farmers who they think owns the customer in their channel. And wait until Carphone Warehouse et al start using grocer type buying techniques in this channel.

So what could operators really do?

I think the answer lies in compelling content for that operator. While the TV you buy is an important decision when you make it, it becomes irrelevant thereafter. What’s important is what you watch, which is nothing to do with the set manufacturer.

So if Orange has a great range of content that isn’t available with other operators (or is consistently available before the others), you’re going to want that Operator’s product.

Assuming that they have a handset you like, the service works and they’re broadly competitive price-wise. This is the ONLY chance you’ll have to differentiate your brand in consumer terms.

I think this is the idea behind Vodafone Live! But sadly, it hasn’t lived up to the marketing hype and has very little that actually differentiates it. But it’s a step in the right direction, certainly.

Nice article from Anuj Khanna from Netsize ( an International mobile services company) in New Media Age.

While it’s one of those blatant “yes, I’m soliciting business” pieces, he makes some very valid points. His basic argument is that companies tend to focus on the sexy “entertainment” applications and services and ignore “there’s gold in them thar hills” B2B:

The industry seems to have reached the stage where, when we look around, there seems to be an ideas drought on how it can grow further. Many companies are focusing on maximising revenues solely from mobile entertainment.

Well, we’ve got lots of ideas, if anyone’s interested
Indeed, while accounting for just 20% of Western Europe’s mobile subscriber base, corporate users generate over 50% of all voice and data mobile service revenues, suggesting huge growth potential.

This is an excellent point and one I’ve made before about 3 especially. On launch, they claimed to be targeting these corporate heavy users - and quite rightly too.

But they focused on video calling as the service they thought these Captain Commerces wanted. What on earth suggested that anyone would be interested in this technological dead end? It can’t have been the millions of lanline conference calls business people make everyday, coz they don’t. Why would people suddenly start doing it on mobile phones?

What they should have focused on is data, or more specifically, fast and easy access to email on your mobile. This is a service they still haven’t delivered, as far as I know (maybe their management are still having conference calls about it?). And yet it’s surely the killer app for 3G as one of the new operator launches will hopefully prove soon.

So, having failed in understanding the difference between a feature and benefit (ask your marketing people if you don’t. And if they look blank, sack them and get someone who does understand) they bottled out and slashed prices. Which kind of works, except that you attract de facto the most price sensitive, promiscuous (in their relationship with their operator, anyway) bunch of customers out.

Martin Little wrote a great article on Mobitopia a few weeks ago, ending prosaically with:

Three: you are the weakest link. Goodbye.

New Media Zero reports that in the UK

Media owners and content providers will soon be able to benefit from the one-click WAP billing mechanisms that have proved so successful on operator portals.

Orange and Vodafone lead the way, with O2 and T-Mobile following. As ever
It never ceases to amaze me how slow “Mobile Time” is for operators and how quick for everyone else. In fairness, I know that they face incredibly complex management and infrastructure issues, but it does seem to take an unfeasibly long time to make things happen.

I’m not sure what the revenue splits will be - I’ll have to investigate. But if they’re anything like Premium SMS, they’ll be charging far too much as their take.

Can you imagine a credit card charging a retailer c. 50% commission on a sale? No I can’t either. But that’s what the Operators want. Apart from DoCoMo and look at the kind of data revenues they enjoy.

Hmmm. Something to think about…

Textually reports an article in United Press International

It’s a little over the top at the moment, but I think there’s more than a grain of truth in the scenario.

A hacker sits on a bench at Grand Central Station in New York City and, with his mobile phone and a Wireless Fidelity connection, deviously places a virus on the cell phones of unsuspecting commuters as they walk nearby, on their way to work.

Fantasy? No — the coming reality. Viruses and worms on mobile phones are now considered by computer gurus to be a legitimate threat that soon may become as pervasive as the malicious codes being sent to PCs via the Internet every day.

Having said that, the journo proceeds to make a series of errors, which undermine the credibility somewhat.

People who engage in a mobile phone pastime called “Bluetoothing” are susceptible. It occurs when a user leaves a Bluetooth software-enabled phone or PDA on, and looks to link with other mobile phones in the area using the same software, to have real-time, phone chats with strangers.

Obviously he’s refering to Bluejacking, where you send messages (not have phone chats) to other enabled phones in the immediate area.

And the rather sweet:

“We call them ’script kitties,’” Crum said. “They have no knowledge of how to create the script, or code, for a virus, but they use what is created by knowledgeable guys. A lot of the viruses are like this. They use virus creation tools found on the Internet. It’s like paint by numbers — virus by numbers.”

I think he means script KIDDIES. At least round these parts. Unless cats have got in on the act now? I wouldn’t put it past them, they’re fiendishly clever you know.

It must be really scary to be in an industry which is in danger of being wiped out. I remember back in the 80’s school skiing trips in the UK were a niche industry, but a large and profitable business, none the less.

Then the Government introduced the National Curriculum and skiing wasn’t on the curriculum. Meaning that term-time trips were no longer allowed, which effectively killed the industry. And there was nothing they could do about it.

Kodak seem to be in danger of this kind of scenario, certainly as far as their traditional camera and film are concerned. But they’re fighting back as this story in the International Herald Tribune via SmartMobs demonstrates.

Within the next 12 to 18 months, Kodak plans to expand the range of mobile devices that can communicate with the kiosks and also include other wireless technologies, such as Wi-Fi. “We are not married to any particular technology,” said Lisa Gansky, Kodak’s general manager for digital imaging services.

However, it seems that there’s an assumption inherent in their plans that consumers will want to continue their historical habit of wanting to print their photo’s.

I’m not sure this is the case - and certainly it’s not going to happen in the same volumes. The old technology required you to print every photo - good and bad -and be charged for them all. A bit like the music industry selling you an album which often includes dodgy, or certainly unwanted, tracks. And look what happened to them.

But one of the ways I use my mobile phone is as a digital photo album. I’ve never sent a picture by MMS (I’m too mean and it’s as easy to beam them to the lappy and email them free). Neither have I ever printed one of them. But I have showed an awful lot of people my snaps.

Camera phones make photo bores of us all. Have you seen my holiday pictures?

The New York Times (registration needed) reports another interesting story about how people use mobile phones.

Consider the case of Lilia Belkova, a passenger earlier this month on a US Airways flight from Miami to Philadelphia. She refused repeated requests by flight attendants to turn off her cellphone so the plane could take off. Hanging up on her caller, she said, would be rude. Things got so out of hand that the plane had to return to the terminal, but not before Ms. Belkova, 38, had slapped a federal air marshal.

…………..More troubling, it took only a small skip in logic for Ms. Belkova to claim that it was rude to hang up on her friend, even if a planeload of passengers thought otherwise. To academics, this is known as the actor-observer paradox, a theory backed up by studies showing that most Americans think that while other cellphone users are rude, they are not.

Establishing acceptable social norms takes time and seems to lag behind technology adoption to a significant degree. The picture is only going to get worse on the mind bogglingly confusing times ahead.

DM Europe reports via Textually that in the UK, MMS enabled phones now account for 25% of the user base.

So why are hardly anyone using the damn things?

Answers here!