MSearchGroove

SOCIAL NETWORKING: The news that Microsoft and Facebook are linking up is not exactly mobile news (yet!). Yesterday’s deal sees Microsoft buying a minority stake in Facebook - a mere $240 million of minority - and becoming the exclusive third-party ad platform provider abroad for the social networking phenomenon that is now valued at a stratospheric $15 billion.Facebook are making big inroads into the mobile space, with application providers falling over themselves to give users mobile access to the social network, and Microsoft will see this link-up as an opportunity to beef up in its battle for supremacy with Google. David Bradshaw, principal analyst at Ovum shares the same view and paints an interesting picture for the future of this tie-up stating, “Our longer term concerns about Facebook are that it clearly has a way to go in its development, and this is one area that Microsoft may be able to both teach it and learn from it. Current use of sites like Facebook at work is more like social ‘notworking’ than networking, yet these tools clearly have a long term role in making organisations of the future get far more from their peoples’ skills and knowledge.”

MOBILE MARKETING: Vodafone Essar has outsourced its FLASH! service to Celltick, giving it full responsibility for editorial content, programming and content partnerships. The FLASH! service streams content tasters to users’ idle screen in order to entice them to consume content that is reachable in only two clicks. This short click path is crucial to usability and a key attribute for any mobile service as users will turn off when faced with a complex navigation path. But the real success of this service will depend on the targeting of the campaigns and the degree to which users can influence what they get to ‘taste.’  (Check out our exclusive podcast with Celltick CEO Stephan Dunford here. Peggy is also on the trail, interviewing providers in this space for her upcoming VisionGain report on mobile search & content discovery. She wrote the first-ever industry examination of this space and “Vol II” promises to be an essential read.)

MOBILE WEB: Slovenian operator Si.mobile-Vodafone has deployed InfoGin’s service platform enabling it to launch an enhanced mobile internet browser. The improvements in navigation and usability of its Vodafone live! portal have also been accompanied by new pricing and bundling packages specifically designed to attract customers and drive usage of the mobile internet. Although the long term value of an operator portal is questionable, this news does point towards a push to boost mobile Internet usage in eastern Europe. Peggy adds: A special thanks to Eran Wyler, Infogin CEO & Founder, who has graciously agreed to do a podcast next week before I leave to chair the mobile search & advertising and user-gen content sessions during World Telemedia Prague- November 7-9.

IN-GAME MOBILE ADVERTISING: Mobile content provider Jamster and ad specialist innerActive are launching a trial of in-game mobile advertising in the U.S. and U.K. markets. And the good news is that they seem to tick all the right boxes for successful mobile campaigns. The ads will be unobtrusive and highly targeted (real-time behavioural segmentation) and placed within free to download games. The roll call of advertisers is already impressive and includes Calvin Klein, Domino’s Pizza, Fox, SPIDER-MAN 3, Paramount Pictures, What’s on TV, Pick Me Up, NME.COM, and eBay. The market for mobile gaming will increase exponentially if Jamster can make top titles available for free, attracting new customers and crucially, a bigger audience for the advertisers. Certainly one to watch here.

MOBILE MUSIC: Perhaps the biggest story coming out of CTIA this week was the tie-up between AT&T and Napster an announcement that was supposed to propel AT&T to the front of the queue in mobile music terms. Despite the collaboration giving AT&T users the opportunity to search, purchase and download (less than a minute) songs from Napster’s 5 million+ music catalogue, it was the pricing models that caught the headlines this week. 5 tracks a month for $7.49 ($1.50 per month) or $1.99 per song. It’s all a far cry from Napster’s free to download site of yesteryear and the high price tags will just send users elsewhere for cheaper or free downloads.

MOBILE SOCIAL NETWORKING: Mobile social networking is not just a consumer play. Mobile social network service Juice Wireless has announced that it will offer its JuiceCaster service free of charge to users of Ojeez.com, a San Francisco based business network for entrepreneurs with over 16,000 members. The JuiceCaster service will let users view and post pictures and videos onto their Ojeez site as well as other networking sites like Facebook and MySpace.

• Posted in
• Personalization, Mobile Social Networking, On-Device Portals, Mobile Music, Mobile Content, Mobile Advertising

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