What’s the future for SMS?

A very good question if you ask me. With the current obsession with iPhone apps, it’s easy to disregard other makes of mobile phone, let alone other mobile technologies. And SMS simply isn’t seen as particularly sexy or exciting (although if I had to blow on my glass screen to write a message, as seen in this Window Concept Phone pictured from Tuvie.com) maybe that would be exciting!). I think there is still a lot of mileage in SMS for marketing and customer service and when Michaela approached me to ask if she could write a guest article for this blog on that topic, I, of course, said yes. So, over to Michaela…

A guest post by Michaela Cristallo, Marketing Manager at InvolveMobile

Mobile marketing has grown at a huge rate in the last ten years, and with this growth we have seen mobile technologies from SMS to now encompass mobile apps, the mobile web, geo-location services and mobile display advertising. With so many technologies at the mobile marketer’s disposal and growing rates of Smartphone ownership worldwide, what is the future for SMS?

While arguably the most simplistic and least ‘rich’ of the mobile technologies, SMS has a variety of important strengths which will ensure its continued relevance amongst increasingly sophisticated mobile channels.

To begin with, SMS is a very effective way to deliver a marketing message to a wide, yet targeted, group of people. Pretty much every mobile phone is text message capable. This means a huge potential reach, compared with other mobile technologies like mobile applications or the mobile web which rely on Smartphones (i.e. handsets which use a named operating system like iPhone, Nokia Series 60 & Symbian 4, Android, BlackBerry etc) where ownership stands at just 18% in the US. Further, research from Frost and Sullivan and others shows that typically, 90 per cent of text messages are read within three minutes of receipt, with 99% read in time.

SMS is also a very versatile medium. Despite its lack of rich media features, SMS marketing can be used to run a variety of interactive mobile campaigns. Information and communication based services are perfect for SMS via text alerts or mobile clubs. Interactive campaigns like text to win, text to screen and SMS trivia are also possible. In addition, many retailers benefit from the instant nature of SMS for pushing timely sales offers via text based mobile coupons.

In addition to its wide reach and versatility, SMS is a great low cost option for marketers just starting out with mobile. It provides an opportunity to connect with customers on a mobile device for a low monthly cost. Unlike creating an app or mobile optimised site there are no large upfront costs (unless you’re considering a large-scale CRM-style system), or long lead times to contend with. An SMS marketing campaign can be set up in minutes and implemented immediately. SMS marketing can be a great way to start out with mobile marketing, with the potential to add other mobile mediums like apps and geo-location later down the track.

SMS marketing is a great way for small businesses to connect with their customers. With smaller budgets and often less stability upon which to make longer term decisions, the cost effective, instant and versatile nature of SMS marketing is ideal. SMS can be used effectively by small businesses to run a variety of promotions including text to win, event based text to screen and special offers via mobile coupons. SMS marketing is also an ideal way for small businesses to keep in contact with their customers via text message alerts and mobile clubs. Once initial opt in consent is gained from a customer, a small business can send regular marketing messages to that customer informing them of new products, events and sales. Over time, a business can grow their database, increasing the reach of their SMS marketing efforts.

With so many consumers interacting via mobile, multi channel campaigns are increasingly effective. The importance of a multi-channel approach to mobile marketing has been realised by many big name brand advertisers including Best Buy, Marks & Spencer and KFC who effectively use SMS alongside other mobile and non-mobile channels.

Multi-channel mobile strategies work well because they are whole – in the sense that each mobile technology on its own has fundamental shortcomings, which are rectified when these mediums are used in an integrated approach. A ‘whole’ mobile approach is possible because each medium contributes in the way it can give best.

SMS marketing, with its instant effect, wide reach and versatility, can be used for pushing timely alerts and information to customers. It’s also great for holding competitions, games and mobile coupons that the majority of mobile users can participate in.

Other richer mobile mediums, including apps and the mobile web, are best used when a richer media experience is required or expected. While many mobile users will not be able to access this content, some situations require this richer experience. Retail in particular is one area where apps and mobile sites are particularly beneficial – where consumers want to see and experience a product in as rich detail as possible, for example an online look book or catalogue. In situations like these, SMS may be too limited to provide the ideal experience.

Newer technologies such as geo-location are ideal for physical retail locations. Geo-location tools can be a great way to drive store traffic and encourage interaction, however once again, reach is limited.

A multi channel approach therefore draws all of these mediums together to create campaigns that reach consumers at every mobile touch point. SMS is essential to the multi channel approach because it does what it does well – provide marketers with the opportunity to push short, sharp messages to consumers that will be received and consumed instantly, with little cost or lead time involved. Without SMS the multi channel mobile approach falls apart, with brands using expensive technologies like apps to achieve the simplest of mobile tasks, suffering from longer lead times, and not reaching a large proportion of their target market.

So, what is the future for SMS? While SMS today competes with a range of different mobile technologies, SMS marketing brings its own set of strengths to a mobile campaign to complement it. The pace of mobile technology is moving quickly, and just as apps, the mobile web, mobile applications and geo-location have taken a piece of the mobile marketing pie, other technologies will continue to do so, such as NFC (near field communication), augmented reality and more. SMS, however, has its own distinct advantages, so the future for SMS remains bright – for small business, for new mobile marketers, for multi-channel approaches, and simply, for anyone wanting to engage their customers with short, sharp, timely, relevant and cost effective messages to the widest group of consumers possible using a mobile device.

About Involve Mobile:

Based in Australia, InvolveMobile is a leading text messaging software solution and has an award winning and full featured solution that has been continually developed since 2001, providing clients (from small business to large enterprise) with short code (dedicated short code and shared short code) and bulk SMS solutions.

InvolveMobile is part of Dload – an international interactive marketing company founded in Australia in 1999. Dload have commercialized research and technical development in digital communications to provide interactive marketing solutions to clients around the world.

Technorati Tags: sms,sms marketing,mobile marketing,involve mobile,guest post,text messaging,mobile advertising

SMS continues to grow in the UK

The Mobile Data Association has released it’s latest SMS and MMS usage figures for the UK. And interesting reading they are too. MMS or picture messaging is still a tiny proportion of overall messaging, but it is there and it is increasing.

According to the MDA, the continued growth of messaging is highlighted by a 2009 daily average of 265 million text messages and 1.6 million picture messages. 2009’s text message total was 96.8 billion (a 23% increase on 2008), while over 600 million picture messages were sent across the whole year.

Seasonal drivers still appear to propel the use of Picture Messaging, with 4.5 million picture messages being sent on Christmas Day itself – hence the spike in traffic in December -  while Network Operators’ figures also indicated an upturn in picture messaging during the recent cold snap. I’m guessing lots of people were comparing the snow in their area with friends and family.

Text messaging traffic over the recent festive period continued to rise proportionately.

Christmas Day    Increase on      NYE/ Day      Increase on 
2009                       2008                       2009/10                  2008
441,805,870          31%                   874,033,799               21% 

Assessing the findings of the MDA’s report, Rob Bamforth, Principal Analyst at Quocirca, said: "New generation touchscreen handsets and the bundling of SMS messages into many tariffs has made texting easier, and seen its role develop. Now it is not only a convenient medium for a quick chat with friends, but also a way of participating in television voting and raising funds for needy charities. When a powerful call to action is given, the population of the UK often turn first towards their mobile phones." This is borne out with the recent campaigns to raise funds for BBC Children in Need and the DEC appeal for Haiti.

Q4 2009 Statistical findings

Text Messaging (SMS)

Total number of text messages (SMS) sent in:
2009 total 96.8 billion
2008 total 78.9 billion
2007 total 56.9 billion

Video and Picture messages (MMS)

Campaigns like the Radio 1 Free MMS Day appear to have had an effect on the figures by attracting 42,000 messages to the BBC radio station in just 24 hours with viewers contributing to an online mosaic of all their images (moderated of course). Let’s see if MMS continues to grow in 2010. The growth rate between 2008 and 2009 was just 9%, averaging 1.6m MMS per day. However, I’m in no doubt that SMS will continue to grow in 2010 and beyond.

Total number of picture messages (MMS) sent in:
2009 total 601 million
2008 total 553 million
2007 total 449 million

 

 

Source: Mobile Data Association / Text.It

Technorati Tags: sms,mms,messaging,picture messaging,text messaging,statistics,mda,text.it,mobile

Is SMS marketing doomed?

Well, that’s a question I was asked recently. The marketer who asked me feared that SMS marketing could go the same way as email marketing, which in his opinion, is ruined and he wondered how or even if we could stop that from happening and whether or not any industry initiatives held any weight.

Many would argue that email marketing isn't broken - it makes money, can be useful and is now a well-honed, scientific activity. There are plenty email companies out there doing very nicely thank you. And there are even a few of them who take our privacy and customer experience seriously. Personally, email marketing is broken for me. I’m overwhelmed by email (I always have a backlog of emails to read and I don’t get round to answering them all despite best intentions, there simply aren’t enough hours in the day). And I still get junk email to made up email addresses based on my domain names which I find particularly distasteful. That said, I still sign up to email newsletters and from time to time there are some things I respond to. But it’s all a bit random and I really could do without the volume. The same goes for direct mail and direct marketing. It doesn’t work for me. I’m completely overwhelmed by direct mail, both business and personal, and despite being on the Mailing Preference Service’s 'Do not mail’ list, it still keeps coming. I’m also on the Telephone Preference Service list although, you’d never know as I still get a ton of unwanted marketing calls.

But those direct marketing channels still work as most people are not like me. Or the chap I was talking to about this. Not everyone is overwhelmed with paper or digital communications. Different people have different needs and we are most definitely not all the same. Click through and conversion rates in the very low percentage points are all that’s required for a direct marketing campaign to be successful inasmuch as there’s a return on investment. That fact that 99.9% of your audience didn’t respond is largely irrelevant if the 0.5% responding made you the money. Screwed up, yes, but it still adds up financially.

Coming back to mobile marketing, it is inevitable and unfortunate that mobile advertising and marketing will be and has already been misused. There will always be someone out to make a quick buck, find a loophole and exploit it. Junk SMS does make money too - although the economics and science behind it are more limited than with email due to the cost of sending. But even factoring that in, and factoring in the potential of a fine from Phone Pay Plus, junk SMS persists – I know. I still get the junk SMS messages offering me a hot date, filthy video clips or a dodgy loan. The Mobile Marketing Association initiatives *are* worth supporting and savvy marketers and companies will follow them as the short cuts become less and less appealing.

I co-founded Grumbletext SOSSMS back in 2003 which is a site where you can complain about your junk SMS and it certainly helped raise awareness at the time and is still a place where you can name and shame the offending companies and campaigns. Phone Pay Plus (formerly ICSTIS) is the UK regulator for many issues around junk SMS and does fine companies pretty regularly. However, the fines for some companies are simply a ‘cost of doing business’,but if we didn’t have this, then the landscape would be even worse.

We will never stamp it out completely, there will always be someone who doesn't want to play ball and finds a way around it and who is led by greed and not what customers what, but the industry initiatives are worthwhile supporting because, if nothing else, it raises awareness on a wider scale. There are no easy answers.

I think the real problem around mobile marketing ultimately will be more generic. As we move towards unified messaging (facebook, twitter, SMS, email all coming to the same inbox), we will be overwhelmed by marketing messages yet again so it will be a law of diminishing return as we just switch it all off rather than trying to work out which messages we want.

We actually need less advertising overall not more but in this world where creation of digital media and by association advertising opportunities, is almost infinite and only limited by bandwidth (you can create as many web pages as you like and auto-generate emails, blogs, viral message and in turn, on each page there’s the potential to place an advertisement), that isn't going to happen. Automated filtering might be the way forward. Intelligent systems may help. Some customers may even be prepared to put the effort in to manage all of this to keep it under control. And we might think we’re so clever that by understanding past behaviour we can predict future behaviour (which is a myth by the way - “Past performance is no guarantee of future results” as all financial companies will tell you). Even with all the targeting and relevance in the world it won’t necessarily make our advertising lives any better or easier. Serendipity plays a part too and I’m not clear how much that is or isn’t understood in marcomms circles. I guess that’s one for another post.

We're in a period of fast change, a revolution even, and we do need to keep an eye on the ball as to what the future might hold. We don’t have the answers yet but that shouldn’t stop us from trying to work them out.

Technorati Tags: sms marketing,junk mail,junk sms,grumbletext,Phone Pay Plus,ICSTIS,MMA,Mobile Marketing Association,Mobile Marketing,advertising,mobile advertising

Image courtesy of sirmikester used under Creative Commons Licence.

Update 3pm 3 April 09: Paul Berney from the MMA has written a post about how to harness CRM using mobile marketing and says,

"...the customer experience and the ensuing results for the brand will only be good if the channel is not abused in the same way as email has been in the past. For any mobile marketing message to really resonate with a consumer, they need to have confidence that what they receive is something of interest and use to them. Anything else on this highly personal medium is unacceptable.

Current internet marketing and privacy standards do not adequately address the specific challenges faced by marketers when marketing through the mobile channel. Strong mobile industry privacy principles must protect the mobile channel from abuses by unethical marketers, to limit consumer backlash and additional regulatory scrutiny."

Check out the full article and the links to the relevant MMA guidelines.

Sarah McVittie – one for Ada Lovelace Day

For those of you who don’t know, Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology.

Women’s contributions often go unacknowledged, their innovations seldom mentioned, their faces rarely recognised. Something I’m quite vocal about as some of you may have noticed already. Ada Lovelace Day is about changing that invisibility and getting bloggers to tell the world about these unsung heroines of tech.

Recent research by psychologist Penelope Lockwood discovered that women need to see female role models more than men need to see male ones. So this initiative is one chance to do something about that and highlight new role models and make sure that whenever the question “Who are the leading women in tech?” is asked, that we all have a list of candidates on the tips of our tongues.

So with a bevy of lovely ladies to choose from, it was very hard for me to decide, but decide I must. So today I’m choosing Sarah McVittie who co-founded Texperts.

She’s not your typical lady in tech, if there is such a thing. She’s not a developer. She doesn’t talk geek speak. And if she’s into gadgets in a big way, I’ve never noticed it during all the times I’ve spent with her. What she is though is down to earth, passionate, driven with an aim to help real people find the answer to stuff. She’s the founder of Texperts, the dead easy service whereby you can text any question you like to 66000 and get an answer back for a pound from the Texperts engine which is a genius mix of automated answers (built on several years worth and many 100s of 1000s of questions and a system that learns) and real live human beings. The human element being critical to the success of the service. If the answer isn’t to your satisfaction, you’re not charged. Simple as that.

Admittedly, in this tech world of the new new thing, SMS isn’t seen as the sexiest technology in the world to work with and is often dismissed now as the poor relation in this new world order of the mobile internet. And even in 2003 it wasn’t the sexiest technology in the world. But good golly Miss Molly, the algorithms and thinking behind this service are sexy. SMS it may be but don’t be fooled by its simplicity and think it can’t be any good and that it must be ‘a bit last year’. It certainly ain’t ‘a bit last year’ and is very much ‘so right now’. SMS is still very much live and kicking and the Texperts team are making customers happy and making money at it too. Yes, making money. A real live revenue stream not dependent on mobile advertising. How’s that for a turn up for the mobile industry books?!

Now the Texperts service is growing up having been bought by the folks behind the mighty 118118 and with that comes the recent US launch. Exciting times indeed for Sarah and her loyal team of texperts.

As for Sarah herself, she’s an entrepreneur with a vision and tenacity. A generalist who can also specialise when she needs to. Without a technical background, she’s built a technology business focussed on customer need. She has bags of energy, and I *mean* bags of it. She’s generous of spirit and kind of nature. A pleasure to hang out with. Always lots of fun and bursting with ideas and great anecdotes about the kinds of questions they get asked. She’s been through good times and bad times and has held on and kept the faith and it has paid off. And she’s still young enough to enjoy all the success that has and will come her way.

I’ve known her since the very early days of Texperts when it was born as 82Ask and I’ve been a fan since day one of both her and the service. Sarah is an inspiration to all of us, men and women alike and is a great role model for anyone with an entrepreneurial spirit. Sarah shows us that you don’t need to know C++ or the square root of the semantic web divided by a Java platform to build and run a technology business. What you do need is a good idea and to get the right people and resources around you to deliver that idea. Oh, and a good dollop of strength of character.

Well done Sarah. A most welcome addition to Ada Lovelace Day.

Technorati Tags: adaLovelaceDay09,mobile,sms marketing,sms,texperts,82ask,entrepreneurship,wimd,women in mobile data,technology

10 things you didn’t know you could do via text

 

Now there’s a challenge. I use SMS for all sorts of things but in my mobile world, folks tend to get carried away with the new stuff and forget good ol’ fashioned reliable text messaging. And I firmly believe there is still plenty mileage in text messaging.

So when I received an email from another Helen who blogs at Mobile Maven alerting me to a post she’d just written about 1o things you didn’t know you could do via text, it got me thinking. Clearly there’s an American bent to her list and there’s a few things missing on it including these:

My favourite use of SMS in marketing terms is for customer service. Telling people via SMS that their parcel will be delivered on x date, asking customers for feedback and simply saying thank you goes a lot further than endless push messages telling me to do something I probably don’t want to do. Customer retention is cheaper than customer acquisition.

On a daily basis, one of the SMS services I use most is Spinvox who do voicemail to text message – incredibly handy – it converts all my voicemail messages to a SMS which I can then reply to the caller via SMS if I wish. I can even dial in to listen to the message if someone has mumbled so much that it wasn’t translatable. It also works as a voice memo service and links in with various social networks. And even better news today, is that Spinvox is now working with Skype.

You can text in to disable your phone if it’s been stolen… this is still a work in progress for me and I have yet to complete my investigation into these services but will report back shortly on my findings.

And although not strictly a SMS service, you can back up all your SMS (and contacts and whatever else) from your phone, over the air, using Synkia. I met these guys in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress and I’ve been looking out for a SMS-back-up service forever and couldn’t understand why one didn’t exist. After all, O2’s bluebook does this. And Treasuremytext goes some way to doing this too, but it wasn’t quite what I was looking for. But I have to say, Synkia is *exactly* what I was looking for.

I know there are plenty other examples but instead of me going on about them, perhaps you can tell me what your favourites are instead and share them with everyone here?

Police text cocaine users

I was chatting with Patrick Smith from SMS is the New Black about the future of mobile (something we'd all been talking about all day at the Future of Mobile Conference and I've questioned here ), and we both agreed that there was still a lot of mileage left in today's technology - not least trusty old SMS.

So I thought I'd check out Patrick's blog and although it's a new blog on the block, I like what's there so far and was particularly interested in his coverage of the police texting cocaine users in St Albans. It's such a simple idea. The police busted a bunch of cocaine dealers who were operating a delivery service not unlike your local pizza delivery service. As such, cocaine buyers ring up their local cocaine delivery service on their mobile and make their order and it gets delivered. So when the police caught the dealers, they also grabbed their phones and checked who had called the order line and texted them back.

"Police also sent text messages to 668 phone numbers they found thought to be of regular cocaine users.

The text messages said no action would be taken against the users and offered receivers help to kick drug addictions.

The recipients were also directed to a website with links to the Talk to Frank drugs advice website where they can get help."

So simple.

Technorati Tags: mobile,sms,text message,cocaine,police

Spam doesn't pay.

Oh dear. It seems that Timberland is paying a very high price for spamming it's US-based customers. Timberland has agreed to reimburse people $150 who received unauthorized text messages advertising its products between 2003 and 2008 in one of the first nationwide settlements of its kind, according to a law firm involved in the case. 

I knew we had stringent rules on spamming here in the UK. But I guess we don't have the 'class action' culture that exists in the USA. $150 compensation seems rather high when you may only have received one or two text messages.

One of the key differences in the US is that you have to pay to receive SMS still so this will have played its part. I'm also curious as to where Timberland got the mobile numbers from. Were they on a dodgy database or did they just make them up?

So the lesson today is to make sure that you're database is fully opted-in and you make it really easy to opt-out at any time. This is a very expensive lesson to learn.

Technorati Tags: sms,sms marketing,text message,spam,permission,opt-in,database

Timberland pays out to settle text spam lawsuit | InfoWorld | News | 2008-09-22 | By Nancy Gohring, IDG News Service

Americans text more than they talk, so are just like us apparently

Yes, it's true. Our friends across the pond are catching up with us Europeans.

"For the second quarter of 2008, U.S. mobile subscribers sent and received on average 357 text messages per month, compared with making and receiving 204 phone calls a month, according to Nielsen. The new statistic is a clear indication that Americans have jumped onto the SMS text bandwagon."

Ok, so they're not at UK levels but still, it's an impressive rate of growth at 450%. Read more about it here : Americans text more than they talk | News - Wireless - CNET News

Technorati Tags: sms,text message,text messaging,usa

Air Pollution SMS Alerts

I wish we didn't need to have pollution alerts in London, but sending them straight to your mobile via text message seems like a very sensible solution. And what's more, this isn't a premium rate service, it's just a service, and it's free.

The website is pretty thorough too - worth a look.

Technorati Tags: text message,sms marketing,sms

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...?

82Ask relaunches as Texperts

I got a lovely email from Sarah McVittie, CEO of Texperts (formerly 82Ask) explaining what was what with the new name, branding and shortcode. I've been a fan of 82Ask for some time and use it regularly with both work and personal stuff. I've even used it successfully when I've been abroad. I really like their style and at a £1 or less a pop, it's a bargain time and stress-saver.

And having seen how their back end works, it's a really impressive combination of good technology plus great human brain power plus the ability for the system to learn and store answers for future use so the more people use it, the better it gets and with several years knowledge in the database already, they're going great guns. The Texperts are "licensed to find" but I'll let Sarah continue with the story so far...

Sarah says, "We just wanted to let our close 82ASK friends know that today we officially re-launched the service we all know and love as Texperts. In addition, we have a great new shortcode, 66000 and a couple of fantastic new websites that really bring to life the Texperts experience.

We have been studying our service and growth for a while and have identified a change in the composition of the types of questions that we receive. While we are always on hand to to provide you with great factual answers to your specific queries, we have found that more and more people are using us as a service that helps them with their daily lives through the provision of useful and generally time-sensitive information.

Answers to these types of questions needs intelligent human input and we found that you really value knowing that there is a bright person at the end of your question, not just a complex set of algorithms.

Therefore, at the point of significant marketing investment for the first time in our short history, we have decided to re-christen the service after those that make it human and great - the Texperts themselves. We have also managed to get hold of an fantastic new shortcode, 66000. Tests have proven this to be a really memorable number, far superior to 82275.

Although all this change is happening now, and happening fast, be reassured that the team here at Texperts Towers remains the same and indeed the service is just as amazing as it always has been. I think this is reflected in our new website (www.texperts.com) and online Krypton-Factor-for-the-brain game (www.tex-factor.com).

However, for the foreseeable future, you will still be able to access our service on 82275 even though you will notice that your answers are returned on 66000.

This is a very exciting time for us. We truly believe that our offering of a 'mobile find' service is significantly superior to you having to search for the information you need on your mobile phone. So much so, we feel that the time for searching is over.

You might want to check out their blog to find out what they were up to in London in the middle of the night last night accompanied by fellow mobilist Ewan MacLeod. Looks like they were having some fun.

Best of luck to the Texperts with the revamped service - keep up the good work!

Tuesday linkage 31 July 2007

I'm having a clearout of all the tabs I have open on firefox so here are a few links for you

Keep stuff secure with your eyes (and your mobile)
Oki Japan has developed software that brings iris recognition security to existing mobile phones. Of course the focus described is security and that's *great*. Can you imagine, no more pin number or password traumas. But I wonder if it could also be used for iridology, either now, or at some point in the future when the resolution improves?

Mobile and fashion
Or perhaps we're better off with a mobile 'colour me beautiful' type service, courtesy of the folks over at HP. It's still in prototype mode but I can see it taking off and is a nice takeaway if you've gone through the whole Colour Me Beautiful (or similar) process. Maybe this is what the fashion industry needs to help get them more mobile. I can't help thinking though that lighting is going to play an important factor as to whether or not this will be successful. In certain lights, it's very difficult to tell what colours clothes are exactly and I'm wondering if the camera can get round this or not.

Get the message right
ICSTIS is investigating anonymous text message services as they seem to be used for bullying and rather insidious messages which is not what they were designed for. There's a public consultation under way, so get in there quick to add your point of view. You can download the pdf http://www.icstis.org.uk/pdfs_consult/anonymous_sms.pdf here and the deadline is 7th September.

Meanwhile, Darla Mack, wishes SMS a happy birthday this week. It's 15 years old. Can you believe it?! I only started texting in 2000 so as much as I like to think I'm an early adopter for some things, maybe I wasn't an early adopter when it came to SMS!

Social media continues apace
Online social networking isn't going away. Via Twitter, I'm finding friends are unhappy about being facebook-less today (it's undergoing maintenance right now - but only affecting *some* accounts, including mine). But never fear, there's always somewhere else to go play and connect with folks like you. So if you're a teenager (I'm not) and you're into anime, avatars and the like, then join 8.5m other teens like you at Gaia. Ok, it's not mobile, but it's big and we need to be keeping an eye on this social media type stuff.

Monday morning linkage

Morning world. A few links for a Monday morning now the sun is finally shining!

First the bad news, a Polish bus driver loses job over text lottery addiction. Oh dear oh dear, where *did* he get the time and how on earth did he think he'd get away with it?

In need of a laugh? Seen Headzup? Anyone used it? For those who don't know, Headzup is 'catch and release comedy' for mobile phones and video ipods. The daily Headzup editorial cartoons and parody clips, many with a political slant, are designed for downloading and sharing as picture messages (MMS) which is why they're so short. With the US election campaigning well under way, the latest headzups do have a political slant and I'm really interested to see what effect this kind of campaigning has in the US.

Got a fancy new Nokia smartphone? No idea how it works or what to do with it? Then you could do worse than head over to check out Smartphonin' where you'll find tips and hints on how to use your phone. Also worth a look is Darla Mack's blog all about mobile phones, including lots of interesting stuff about Nokia phones like this post on a DJ mixer mobile application for your N-series Nokia.

The link between music and mobile gets stronger with Sony Ericsson, Orange and Channel 4 teaming up for a new music talent show. The TV show is called MobileAct and viewers will be able to download tracks from competing bands and vote for the one they want to progress through to the competition. The competition will shortlist 25 bands, who will all record their own video auditions with a further 25 being picked by a music industry panel.

Francois Mahieu, Orange UK's director of devices, said:

"We want there to be a direct link between what they can see on TV and listen to on their mobile. When the TV programme begins, Orange will kick off a number of initiatives so that customers feel they are part of the choice, including getting the music free."

And finally, the first book written on a mobile phone has been published by lulu.com, the self-publishing platform people. The author, Robert Bernocco took advantage of his idle time while commuting to and from work by train, writing his 384-page science fiction novel, Compagni di Viaggo (Fellow Travelers is the English translation), on his Nokia 6630 phone, using the phone's T9 typing system.

By dividing his manuscript into short paragraphs, Mr. Bernocco wrote his novel in perfect Italian, not your typical text-message shorthand, and saved the paragraphs on his mobile phone. Mr. Bernocco then downloaded them onto his home computer for proofreading and editing. The book took him 17 weeks to write.

Mobile Marketing Best Practice guide is out

Highlights to the July 2007 Guidelines include:

• Marketing to Children: define the guidelines for marketing to children under the age of 13.
• IVR: provide guidance on opt-in and opt-out via IVR (interactive voice response).
• Mobile Web: ensure opt-ins are also adhered to with each mobile web experience. The Guidelines specify the use of a PIN or phone MO message to confirm the authorized subscriber.
• Dispute Resolution: defines that dispute resolution is at the discretion of each carrier for their respective customers.

The mobile marketing best practice guidelines are available in pdf format from the MMA global website. You'll find other useful reports and papers available to download from the site too, and they're all free.

Meanwhile in the UK, ICSTIS is having its say on mobile marketing too.

"ICSTIS's proposals on third marketing lists have been received with cautious encouragement by industry members attending a meeting last week.

ICSTIS is proposing that:

1) In the subject/title of WAP Pushes, to have within it details of the short code in question. This is no different to existing requirements for promotional SMS messages.

2) In the subject/title of WAP Pushes, to have within it details of the fact that it's a "FreeMsg". This again is no different to existing requirements for promotional SMS messages.

Some networks already have a rule for the time after which you cannot send users promotional messages - which is set to 6 months, so as to ensure that if a SIM is recycled, the new owner doesn't get the previous owner's promotional messages."

Either way, common sense applies. And the old adage, "Do as you would be done by" certainly holds true with mobile marketing regardless of any legal requirements.

Are you a Paparazzi in training?

Got a cameraphone? Do you spend your time celebrity-spotting in training to be a fully-fledged paparazzi? Then if so, Mr Paparazzi might be for you. You can send in your pictures and Big Picture will attempt to sell them for you if they're hot. In addition, they have a celebrity tracker text message service with each message costing you 50p and you'll get no more than 10 messages a week tipping you off where the latest celebs are hanging out... thus keeping you up to date like their own paparazzi. Hmm, £5 seems a bit steep to me for a week's worth of messages, but if this is your kinda thing, then I guess it's a small price to pay if you get to sell your picture for £1,000. It's all backed by Big Pictures, which is arguably the world's biggest picture agency in the world.

Scoopt set up something similar a couple of years back and is still going strong now it's backed by Getty Images. Scoopt accepts pictures of all kinds and has even teamed up with the fab Shozu so you can upload your pictures in one click. This means they get a better quality picture than the ones Mr Paparazzi will get via MMS, and it's not restricted to celebrity pictures. And it doesn't cost you anything to send your picture in (save for your standard network data charges).

Monday meanderings continued

Dotmobi is giving city domain names away including Birmingham.mobi, London.mobi and Manchester.mobi. All you have to do is apply for the domain you want with a proposal of how you're going to offer a comprehensive city guide on the mobile phone.

Virgin bags online and mobile rights for The Football League to allow Coca-Cola Football League matches to be shown on its broadband and mobile channels. Highlights of Football League matches will be available to watch on-demand for up to one week after transmission.

Streamthru offers free flight information via your mobile phone. Really useful if you do much travelling. You get updates 4 hours before departure time, shortly before boarding and immediately if your flight is delayed by 15 minutes or more. I could have done with knowing about this when I was travelling earlier in the year.

And if you're travelling to exotic climes, the new malaria information service by text message might be for you.

But whilst you're travelling, don't buy cheap mobile phone batteries from China or Hong Kong for your Motorola or Nokia mobile phone... because it might explode. Nokia and Motorola, however, say they are very concerned about the substandard goods, particularly because their reputations are at stake in China, which has the world's largest number of mobile phone subscribers at over 400 million. Best to stick to the branded batteries for now.

Cracking offers from Roadchef

A couple of weeks back I wrote about Roadchef and its mobile marketing efforts with a text-based loyalty scheme. Well, I've joined up and have received a couple of messages since I signed up and here they are:

Reply path: 447786201349 | Received 4/7/07 at 14:59
Roadchef: Have a FREE KitKat 4 finger (std or dark). Quote code 5798206 to Retail Store cashier at till. Valid to 17/07/2007. Reply STOP for no more offers.

Reply path: 447786201349 | Received 22/06/07 11:00
Roadchef: Have a FREE 500ml Coke or Diet Coke on us. Quote code 8666734 to Retail Store cashier when paying. Valid to 05/07/2007. Reply STOP for no more offers.

Do offers like these really work when the value of the freebie is so small? I wonder how many customers are really going to make the effort to quote the offer code (why couldn't it have been KIT01 for example?) at all for the sake of saving 50p on a bar of chocolate. Is this really 'loyalty'?

Looking at the positive, they do have a reply path and you are able to unsubscribe from getting more offers which is a good thing.

However, judging by Roadchef's website, it looks to me like marketing isn't necessarily their thing - not least, as they're not even promoting the SMS loyalty campaign on the website. In fact, there isn't even a news section. So they seem to be new to this consumer marketing lark and are taking baby steps. But unless they really go for it, I can't see the scheme working and they'll be giving up before they've even begun.

Any loyalty scheme afficionados out there want to add their 2p?