Mobilists on twitter

Carl Martin has done a couple of interesting posts on why he follows mobile folks on twitter and he’s included me which is very sweet. I happen to follow a lot of these folks too, so if you’re in to twitter and mobile stuff, then these two posts are worth a look. And if you’d like to follow me, then you’ll find me here. I can’t promise that you’ll find me interesting, useful or entertaining mind you!

Blyk announces Vodafone as its exclusive partner in the Netherlands

I’ve just got this press release in from Blyk. I couldn’t see it on their website so I’m publishing it verbatim (something, I don’t usually do).

Aligned to its global expansion strategy, the mobile engagement media will launch its brand in the Netherlands in partnership with Vodafone

Helsinki, London and Amsterdam, 23 July 2009 – Blyk, the mobile engagement media, today announces Vodafone as its exclusive partner in the Netherlands.

The partnership between Blyk and Vodafone builds upon a relationship between the two companies, which started in 2008, with a view to expanding the Blyk brand. The partnership will bring the Blyk brand and media model to the Netherlands and it is aligned to both companies’ strategies for growth and leadership in mobile advertising.

“We’re extremely pleased to be extending our relationship with Vodafone. For Blyk, the partnership is part of a global strategy to bring scale and speed to our operations, while continuing to provide an innovative and valuable proposition for both consumers and advertisers. Together with Vodafone, we intend to build a game changing engagement media in the Dutch market.” says Blyk co-founder and CEO, Pekka Ala-Pietilä. “Our relationship will include a co-development of the consumer proposition for the Netherlands and audience management. Blyk will have responsibility for the advertising sales and technology.”

Eric Kip, Managing Director Blyk Netherlands, says: “The Netherlands has the third highest advertising spend per capita in Europe and is a hub for many global companies and ad agencies, so it is an obvious territory for Blyk’s expansion. The advertising market, whilst both creative and dynamic, is also cluttered and we believe youth brands will welcome a highly engaging communication channel like Blyk. We are confident that both Dutch advertisers and global advertisers will make use of Blyk’s unique ability to connect them with an important consumer segment.”

Links & a recommendation

I have way too many tabs open on more than one browser so it’s time to get through them and share them here with you.

Motorola goes carbon free with the Motorola Renew. I didn’t spot this when it was announced in January and since Climate Change is such a big deal then I think mobile phone companies (network operators and hardware manufacturers) will have to be more transparent over their green-ness. Recycling phones alone is not going to be enough.

An interesting essay on mobile widgets and their impact on our personal timelines and communications from mobile futurist Paul Golding.

Turkcell puts mobile marketing at the centre of its strategy. Here’s an explanation of Turkcell’s Tone ‘n Win from MobiadNews.

Videos of some of the sessions at the Nokia Summit that was on last week in Monaco.

The Gizmodo lowdown on the various mobile application stores, including iphone – essential reading for anyone venturing into distribution via any of the app stores. And if app stores are your thing, then there’s a comprehensive review of the Blackberry app store from Terence Eden. Meanwhile Urban Spoon, an iphone app, is acquired. And if that’s not enough for you, then Pinch Media shares some of its secrets regarding the iphone App Store.

Investment in digital infrastructure could save or create 700,000 jobs in the UK with links to the relevant reports via the LSE (that’s London School of Economics).

Vodacom Thumb Wars – a mobile reality series. Teams will travel across South Africa, relying on their wits, Vodacom’s advanced communication technologies and their Samsung mobile phones as they take part in the treasure hunt of a lifetime launching on 4th June. An interesting concept, but is this simply extreme product placement or engaging television?

Mobile web usage still on the rise according to Opera. [Well, I would hope so, we’ve barely even scratched the surface yet for mobile web usage bearing in mind the number of web-capable handsets out there.]

Had enough of reading blogs about mobile, then how about making some skittles vodka instead? Or I believe crushed fisherman’s friends mixed with chilled vodka is popular in Finland – what’s the name of the drink again?

Or if you’re suffering from hayfever, like I am, then I can highly recommend Luminescents very own Hayfever Relief tea. It is the proprietor’s own recipe and he blends it himself so it may not always be in stock. I bought some from his shop at Merton Abbey Mills and it’s been brilliant! I haven’t had to take any anti-histamines since I got it.

Technorati Tags: links,linkage,mobile web,iphone,mobile applications,app store,vodacom,turkcell,hayfever

Diabetes support via mobile phone

Diabetes, or at least, Type II diabetes seems to be an affliction of modern, sedentary life. It has very serious implications with heart and sight problems associated with it and a strict dietary and medical regime in order to regulate and manage it. A member of my family has Type II diabetes and the associated heart condition and mood swings as well as a plethora of drugs and blood testing paraphernalia. You never quite get used to seeing someone you love inject themselves with insulin. What it must be like to actually have diabetes, I can only imagine. And I only hope that it remains imagination with me and that I don’t succumb to it.

Anyway, the bright folks at Mobile Health Tech, a mobile healthcare service provider, has rolled out its first commercial trial of mPro Care at Clarkstown Medical Associates PC in New City, NY.

MPro Care is the first two-way mobile diabetes solution that provides automated reminders and accepts readings using standard mobile phones on all major U.S. service providers.

Diabetes patients text back their blood-sugar readings, which are captured and plotted on a patient diary card graph in a secure portal for online access by either patient or physician. Nifty.

mPro Care was developed to help improve patient medication and treatment compliance for improved health care outcomes and reduced cost of care for patients with chronic conditions such as diabetes, coronary artery disease and hypertension, asthma and obesity.

More information about it in this article on Mobile Marketer.

I suspect many of these patients are in the latter halves of their lives so I hope that the people creating and running these services have taken that in to account. As a refresher, you may want to have a listen to this podcast of Dick Stroud’s session on marketing to the Over 50s.

Technorati Tags: diabetes,mobile,mobile health,text messaging

Today’s spammers are…

I don’t have time to name and shame all the email spam I get but I will continue to highlight a few in the hope that it might actually make a difference and make the industry sit up and take notice and change their ways of doing business and running campaigns. It feels like there is a complete disregard of consumers as *real* people. These companies are suffering from TDC, aka Thinly Disguised Contempt – often seen in retail environments but is now spilling over into digital. They seem to have forgotten that *data* isn’t just *data*. It is actually attached to someone real, with a heartbeat and thoughts and feelings and who is ‘not just a number’ or a record on the database. It’s not just about conversion rates and click throughs and a numbers game. This is about real live people. And these email spam companies are wasting real live people’s time, bandwidth and testing their patience.

So an update on Daily Picture / Mikkelsen Media. Their UK MD did call me an did apologise and did assure me I’d been taken off the database. He even rang me to check that I hadn’t got anything from them. So I thought, ok, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt…. And then today, they send me more junk email. If their systems are so broken that an email address cannot be removed from the database, they have no business in sending out any emails at all I would suggest.

And another new spammer on the list is Cabestan who allegedly do email campaigns for the likes of Symantec. Well they send me an email to a *completely made up address* today selling me life cover so this is very much a consumer-based service not a work-related one so consumer laws do apply as I understand it.

Here’s the small print from the email:

Click is a brand licensed to Castle Publicity International Ltd registered in Gibraltar, company registration number (84755) at 932 Europort. Click Financial Ltd is the service provider for Castle Publicity International Ltd. Click Financial Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority, registered number 311877. Registered in England and Wales at: Click House, Bear Lane, Farnham, Surrey, GU9 7LG. Registered Number: 04183791.
*Policies from £2.50 a month, premium subject to individual circumstances.

If you don't recognize who used the Cabestan UK service to send you a given message, you can report it to us as spam by sending it to abuse@cabestan.co.uk. We receive, investigate, catalog, and take action based on these complaints. If you're worried that we would simply "list wash" your address without further investigation, feel free to report the message to whatever spam reporting entity you feel most comfortable working with. Spamcop at www.spamcop.net provides an easy way to report unwanted mail as spam.

Interesting that they suggest I tell spamcop. I’ve emailed them and suggested reporting them to the Information Commissioner.

Spam, spam and more spam. Companies like these are spoiling it for legitimate email marketers and will ultimately make email marketing, and arguably email itself, a very unattractive proposition indeed.

Technorati Tags: spam,email spam,junk email,spammers,email marketing

Monday Morning linkage – 27 April 09

How to make money on the mobile internet – a presentation round up from Sergio Falletti’s session at The Mobile Internet Forum in Vienna.

Comprehensive case study from Guinness and their use of mobile marketing for the Hong Kong Sevens (a rugby tournament for the non-rugby fans out there).

SMS biggest riser as mobile marketing recall increases significantly in early 2009 according to recent GFK research into advertising and marketing.

Rory Cellan-Jones meets Malcolm Barclay, the inventor of one of the many home-crafted applications being sold for the iPhone (short BBC video) and Rory also discusses the birth of the new mobile applications industry (including a short interview with James Whatley aka Whatleydude).

Are we living in a Totalitarian State in the UK? Political correctness going over the top? And what about the Government snooping on our every email, telephone call and web visit? [My personal opinion is that the government is neither equipped to deal with the data, nor has the justification to go down this track since there is no evidence to suggest it will make our lives safer and will be prone to abuse since it’s humans who will be running it not robots.] I agree, give us back our private lives.

Technorati Tags: linkage,links,mobile marekting,data,sms marketing,mobile internet,mobile web