Mobile Marketing company Sponge acquired by NeoMedia

NeoMedia Technologies, Inc. has acquired Sponge with an aggregate of £10m consideration, including £3.45 m in cash and the remainder in NeoMedia shares with a further £2.5m available under an earn-out based on targets being reached in the next two years. Sponge works predominantly with agencies on big brand activity such as the recent Walkers Win and Ipod campaign where 5% of the UK population took part (well it was promoted on 600 million packets of crisps... certainly the largest text and win to date that I know of).

In the U.S., NeoMedia completed the acquisition of Mobot^®, Inc, of Boston and announced the acquisition of HipCricket, Inc., of Essex, Connecticut. And in Europe, NeoMedia announced and completed the acquisition of Munich-based pan-European mobile services provider and developer 12snap, and announced the acquisitions of Gavitec-mobile digit of Würselen, Germany, and now London-based Sponge.

This means that NeoMedia will, arguable, be the largest one-stop mobile marketing shop on the planet.

I wish Alex, Dan and the team all the best with their new future at NeoMedia. And let's hope this bodes well for the future of mobile marketing generally.

Other news that will be out tomorrow via New Media Age is that flytxt's deal with Three has fallen through and Mblox has raised a further £14m to aid its mission for global domination.

Site of the Day: Rainbow

This is probably showing my age somewhat, but I'm a big fan of Rainbow - not least because one of our team at ZagMe bore an uncanny resemblance to Zippy (causing much hilarity in the office I might add). Today, via Robert Price, I found a Rainbow site with spoof comics (this one's my favourite), music and video clips to enjoy. If you like Rainbow too, then you'll enjoy this.

Up above the streets and houses, rainbow flying high...

Technokitten goes to Barca

If you're interested to get a feel for what the mobile extravaganza 3GSM is like, then here are my pix. There was way too much to see - 8 halls (think the size of Earls Court or the NEC) and some of them on 2 levels, plus stalls and displays outside as well, it was overwhelming. Fortunately where I was staying was really close by so I could escape for a bit and then come back to it thus saving my feet from overuse.

I did see lots of people I know there which was a real plus for me including Russell at Mobhappy (who I hadn't seen since he decamped to Munich), games guru, Julian Jones, and met some people I'd only met 'virtually' before like Rudy and Carlo. And Swedish Beers was fun too although I don't have photographic evidence of that. Does anyone else?

Not sure that what I saw was particularly interesting in isolation - more a sum of the parts really for me. Surfkitchen was interesting as was Leiki, although Leiki wasn't actually exhibiting. The Satama party was a blast, Julia and Max from Qarea were charming and the FT.com folks were great fun. And of course the group I was with were the business. You know who you are ;-)

In terms of the expo itself, exhibitors could do with learning how to communicate their wares better and what they want people to come and look at. There's so much there, you don't have time to talk to everyone so you need to be able to filter. And the way everything is displayed and organised, it's very hard to do that filtering job. I guess it will get better over time. There was also a lot of bs as captured perfectly by Tom Hume in his flickrstream. Things like 'we hear you' and 'experience true convergence' which don't really tell you anything about the companies involved. And yes, we obviously both liked the mini Marshall amps! I missed the robots though. Tom, where were they?

There's a good article about the event here from the Guardian too which sums it all up [free registration required].

Adios Barcelona. We'll be back next year.

Rappers lead campaign urging young Londoners to vote - BR Bulletin - Advertising, Marketing, Media and PR news by Email - Brand Republic

Rappers lead campaign urging young Londoners to vote -
This is all very well - they've got a song and a message aimed at young urban Londoners to get them to register their vote. There's a website 1824collective where you can download the campaign song (created by current artists) and information on how to register and vote. They even have the start of a mobile strategy.. you can text in to register your vote.

Bearing in mind this is a marketing campaign. Bearing in mind this is about inclusivity. Bearing in mind this is aimed at hard to reach 18 to 24 y/os, who may or may not have much money. Why, oh why, did anyone think it was a good idea to charge people 10p + their standard charge on a shortcode for the privilege of registering their vote? Ok, so it's not much money but it's the prinicple behind it that sucks. Maybe if they'd said it was 10p but you'd get the free ringtone by return it would have been better.

And if they were serious about a mobile strategy, why didn't they also have a ringtone of the song as a free download anyway? Isn't it more powerful getting several thousand teenagers using the same ringtone (so that everyone around them can hear) to express their feelings about being part of the 1824collective than downloading it for free and listening to it on their ipods by themselves?

ho hum. Some people just don't get this mobile thingummyjig.

I love ebay

I've just sold a few bits and pieces on ebay and got chatting with one of my buyers, Martin, and he sent me this picture which is of a cutting from his local paper. It brought a smile to my face. Well captured Martin!

moblogUK Valentine's competition

My pals over at moblogUK are running a Valentine's competition this week. There are 3 competitions in one. To win, simply send in your cutest love inspiring images or your anti-Valentine's feelings in photo form. Various prizes are on offer - phones, gadgets, t-shirts 'n stuff.

And not only that, the competition was featured in Monday's Metro (free commuter paper in London which is very widely read) but also, it was namechecked on the Steve Wright show on BBC Radio 2 (national UK radio station in the BBC stable and one of the largest listenerships in the country). Ok, I confess, I was listening to Radio 2 this afternoon. Way to go mobloggers!