Alfie’s Blog » Blog Archive » Twitters model is partially broken: Europe the first casualty

Technorati Tags: sms,twitter,network operator,mobile,social networking

Alfie Dennen (of Moblog fame) has done a write up on Twitter's recent decision to stop the free SMS element of its service. I've seen quite a bit written about it and most of it lacks any understanding of how SMS or the operators work but this post makes some sense of it so worth a look.

For the record, I would pay to receive my (selected) DMs (that's direct messages to the twitter uninitiated) via SMS as well as email. I don't get a huge amount each week, but enough to warrant me buying some kind of bundle.

And for those on the facebook group on this topic who think that the pay to receive SMS on twitter is tantamount to paying to receive junk text messages then they clearly don't understand how the privacy and DM settings work - it doesn't *all* happen on SMS you know. Most of the interaction is web-based - be that mobile or full-fat internet.

Alfie’s Blog » Blog Archive » Twitters model is partially broken: Europe the first casualty

Wednesday linkage

Nokia is opening up via its Adlabs to teach the world how to advertise on mobile. This is a good thing and I agree with Mike Baker that the objections of reach and metrics are obsolete. I would agree that creative teams are holding things back, but most importantly of all, agencies still haven't worked out how to a)add value in mobile initiatives and b)charge a fair price. I had an interesting conversation with an industry pal yesterday who said he'd seen 'traditional' agencies mark up project quotes by up to 400%. And then the agencies in question wondered why they didn't win the pitch. Hmm.

Mobile operators are up in arms at the prospect of having to reduce their EU roaming and SMS rates within the bloc. And it's about time too that those charges were reduced. It makes no sense to me to pay 40p for a text message (but only 20p for a MMS message) and £7.50 per megabyte when roaming in Europe. Distance is not an issue these days. I look forward to the day when it's all reasonably and fairly priced. Well, a girl can dream can't she?!

The VC community is betting on mobile for future digital investments according to KPMG.

"With a focus on mobile entertainment, venture capitalist opinions vary when
asked about which mobile entertainment applications would dominate market
revenue in 2009, though social networks was the favorite with 31 percent of the
responses. Rounding out the top five applications were gaming (20 percent),
video (14 percent), music downloads (20 percent) and user-generated applications
(10 percent). Additionally, 90 percent of VC respondents believe mass adoption
of mobile video consumption will take off in the next five years, and 60 percent
expect it will happen within the next three years. "Activity in the market
clearly indicates that the mobile space has become a significant area of
opportunity for venture capitalists," said Brian Hughes, KPMG partner based
inPhiladelphia and co-leader of its venture capital practice. "The population of
consumers who prefer to receive content via their mobile devices is a rapidly
growing segment of the market, and VCs have shown keen interest. We've seen new funds created specifically for the mobile sector, and social media also
continues to gain traction." "

T-Mobile UK doesn't understand mobile web

or it's customers!

T-Mobile as a network operator has pioneered, to some extent, the mobile web by being an early adopter of fixed rate mobile data plans. They also opened up their portal to the wider web rather than focussing on creating and managing their own portal. I stick with them because T-Mobile has been value for money so far.

But I reckon there are some very weak links in the organisation for this to happen:

Message just received via SMS: "From 28 July we're increasing the charges for calling some numbers beginning with 08. For full details please visit our website at t-mobile.co.uk/08"

Can someone tell me why this information couldn't have been put into a mobile friendly page with a direct link so I can check it there and then? After all, it's only a list - there's nothing complex in there. And where do they get off putting up their prices anyway for this without any explanation as to why beyond 'according to OFCOM guidelines' with no link to said guidelines. In some cases the cost has gone up 400%. I find it hard to believe that OFCOM has been telling network operators to *increase* their prices. Details below:

08xx number changes
To make things clearer for our customers, we have aligned our 08 number charges with local and national calls to follow the latest Ofcom guidelines. These calls aren't included as part of your allowance in any of our price plans.

The table below will give you an overview of how your price plan has been affected by the change, the 08xx numbers affected and details of how the prices are changing.
08 number changes

0870 / 0871 / 0844 / 0845

Tarriff Current Charge New Charge
Flext 10p 20p
Combi 10p 30p
Solo 10p 30p
Everyone Off-Peak 10p 30p off peak / 5p on peak
My Faves 10p 30p
Freetime 10p 40p off peak / 5p on peak
Family 10p 20p
Relax 10p 12p
Just SIM 10p 30p
Web'n'Walk / Data Plans 10p 20p
N.b. Call charges are in pence per minute.
Changes will all take affect from the 28th July 08. If you have any additional queries please contact Customer Services by dialling 150 from your mobile phone.

BIG FAT FAIL T-MOBILE

Of course this isn't the first time, and probably not the last. I have countless useless marketing and service messages from T-Mobile - the most memorable being the one promoting Euro 2004 England football content. My surname might be Keegan, but I'm not related to the footballer and it doesn't mean I like football. I've never suggested I'm into football for one minute and my footie-mad pals would concur. But even if I was a football fan, they sent the message the day *after* the match that England *lost*. When will they ever learn...?

Ringback tone advertising launch in Turkey

Musings of a Mobile Marketer reader, Refik Çağlayan, let me know about a new mobile marketing technique being launched by Turkcell (the leading network operator in Turkey). They've launched 'TonlaKazan' (which means 'Tone and Win') using ringback tones (those are the ringtones that you hear when you call someone up and are waiting for them to answer). By choosing a branded ringback tone on TonlaKazan, from the likes of Coca Cola, Kraft, Nestle, Nivea, P&G and Unilever, Turkcell customers will win airtime or credits each time their callers listen to said ringback tone. So it's a loyalty scheme rather than a sales promotion.

This is, in effect, pay per listen advertising and if audio is a part of your branding (as it is with many large brands - think how many hit records have been generated on the back of advertising), then this could be very effective as it uses downtime and is potentially more interesting and memorable than listening to the endless ring-ring you would normally hear.

It is possible to become a member of TonlaKazan through web, wap and SMS channels. Customers simply select the branded music of their choice as a RingBack Tone that they want their callers to hear. 4play Digital Workshop is the team behind the idea on behalf of Turkcell.

TonlaKazan has a performance-based pricing model, Cost Per Listening (CPL) in which advertisers are charged according to the amount of branded RingBack Tones that callers hear, providing a measurable advertising channel.

Audio branding is very powerful so there's clearly potential in this idea and the ability to charge and reward by the time listened is a sensible commercial model.

You can preview the tones on the site in full before you choose it. The site is all in Turkish, but if you go to the home page, and click on one of the buttons that say 'Dinle', this will give you a preview. If anyone calls me, they hear a ringback tone (currently the theme tune to Austin Powers - I really must change that!) and underneath the track, you can faintly hear the usual 'ring-ring' sound so that you know you're waiting for me to answer the call as opposed to thinking you might have dialled a wrong number and got through to some kind of IVR (interactive voice response) system. The ringback tones Turkcell is using here is doing the same thing. Underneath the track, you can faintly hear the ringing tone.

The full press release is here.

Interesting, very interesting.

Monday's mobile marketing tidbits

Blyk's delaying its launch until October. No bad thing as July and August are quiet times in retail. IMHO, Blyk should be launching in September to get the school, college and university kids signed up as they go back for the Autumn term, and that starts early September for schools and Sixth Form Colleges. Come October, we'll already be into half-term and well into silly season for Christmas which may be too late to launch something. I wonder if Blyk realises what an enormous task they've taken on? And I wonder if they've managed to sort out data charges so they can offer their customers a proper mobile content and media experience via wap or mobile internet?

Borders is extending their mobile marketing effort to provide sample chapters to customers' phones for free to promote new book titles. Details are currently a bit sketchy. I'm interested to see how this works in practice. The best example I've seen of this in the past was a poster campaign I saw at a railway station promoting a new thriller, Mr Clarinet. You texted in a keyword to a shortcode and by return, got back a link to a wapsite where you could read a synopsis of the book, part of the first chapter, find out more about the author and also click to buy the book. Perfect for whiling away 10 or 20 minutes while you are waiting for a train.

Three UK has launched 3next.mobi which is a user generated catalogue of stuff to do on your phone. A very nice idea where you can add applications and services that you like and add them in with your review of the service. It's free to join and not restricted to Three customers although it's designed specifically for Three's X-Series customers. Worth a look as an example of how to market content services. http://www.3next.mobi

And finally, Admob has now served more than 4 billion wap adverts, the last billion being published in the last 35 days. Way to go!