Air freshener for mobile phones

No really, you can get air freshener mobile charms from Pixen for your mobile phone including Hello Kitty (see picture on left) and Disney smells (I wonder what those smell like?!). The idea is that each time your phone rings or you receive a text message (or email in Japan's case), you get a faint smell of something lovely. It uses an electronically stimulated micro scent generator in the charm itself. In Japan they're called "Keitai-kun-kun" which translates as mobile sniff sniff.

I guess this goes on the back of mobile phone jewellery and mobile charms which are incredibly popular in Asia and growing in popularity over here now. And they don't come cheap either. Each charm pictured on the right, from Hannah Zakari, is £15. I don't know how much the air fresheners are but I can't imagine they'll be cheap either.

I wonder if it will catch on?

Starsight Project coverage in the Financial Times

I was very excited to see coverage in the FT for the award-winning Starsight Project. Mike Butcher interviewed Steve Flaherty a few weeks ago and this is the result: Lamp posts are leap from dark. I expect we'll be seeing more press coverage in the coming weeks and months as the pilot projects progress in Africa. And as Mike says, who knows, we might even see Starsight lamp posts in the Scottish Highlands!

Wanna know about students and how to market to them?

Well try Luke Mitchell's book "Targeting Students: A Marketing Guide". You'll find out all about it on his website and have a chance to sign up to his very interesting email newsletter (I'm guessing RSS is next on his 'to-do' list). And of course, if you'd like to add mobile to the student marketing mix, then talk to me as well!

As it happens, I'm off to the University of Westminster in two weeks to run a workshop on interactive marketing for the Masters students there and next week, I'm off to the University of Hertfordshire to do my annual undergraduate lecture on mobile marketing.

I always find it fascinating talking to students about mobile. What I usually find is that they're all pretty heavy users of their mobile phones but, even though they're marketing students in the main, they haven't quite made the connection between marketing and mobile. I expect I'll confuse them even more when I start talking about Sony PSPs and video ipods! But I guess it's my job to help them create the link.

Calling all Kate Bush fans

Don't know about you, but I can still remember seeing Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights on Top of the Pops with my big sister and being wowed by it (guess I'm showing my age here). I'm eagerly awaiting my copy of the new album (just ordered it) but in the meantime, I stumbled across this lovely site of early Kate Bush demos 'n stuff. If you're a fan, you'll love it!

Why isn't MTV selling truetones?

I thought I'd take a look at MTV today as one of my clients is interested in advertising there next year. Of course, I couldn't resist but take a look at their mobile ringtone offering and was surprised to see that they're *not* selling truetones (with the exception of 'pimp my ride'). The Music Solution seems to do all their ringtones and I just wondered why they hadn't got round to doing the real music? Seems a bit backward to me - especially when they're already playing around with mobile content with Motorola and made-for- mobile video which is much more complex than ringtones. Anyone know the answer? Is it a DRM issue?

Wahey - The Starsight Project wins MDA Award

I got a MMS message last night from Steve Flaherty announcing that The Kolam Partnership won the Best Short Range Data Application Award for its Starsight Project in the MDA Awards at Painters’ Hall in the City of London last night. I'm very proud of the team - they really did deserve to win this award as it's a fantastic proposition. Pictured is Steve with his award.

The Starsight Project has a multi service architecture delivering solar powered WiFi within solar powered street lighting units, and providing light and broadband internet access with the future potential for voice.

The WiFi implementation within StarSight is primarily used to provide control of solar powered street lights, enabling its users to control battery life, on/off mechanisms and maintenance. It also provides security monitoring. As excess WiFi bandwidth is rolled out into the local community, it allows different types of business, Government and the local community to access standard ICT capabilities.

StarSight has other niche applications in security with WiFi enabled CCTV and also as a tsunami early warning system, with solar powered WiFi and sirens connected to local seismology centres. It has been designed to enable emerging nations and those undergoing transitional change, to roll out street lighting and ICT infrastructure via one economically and environmentally sustainable unit.

Other winners include Spinvox (I'm a big fan of Spinvox - I find it *really* useful), O2 (for best network!?) and Fastap. Find out more at the Mobile Data Association website. And congratulations again to Steve and the team for their award.

tags: mobile+technology & wifi & mobile & starsight+project & starsight & steve+flaherty & kolam+partnership