Successful content-selling strategies are no longer based on user-pull. Pull is built on the premise that users know what they want and are prepared to go look for it. That’s quite an assumption when it comes to fast-paced content such as entertainment and multimedia which changes faster than users can keep up. More importantly, the pull model ignores the rise of empowered customers who increasingly expect – even demand – content and services on their own terms.

Orange UK doesn’t just grasp the seismic shift to more personalized and proactive content delivery; it has hardwired this paradigm into its first-ever mobile content recommendation service. Put simply, the service – which harnesses a server-based solution from Xiam Technologies, an Irish provider of content discovery solutions – provides users real-time recommendations across the Orange World Portal. The aim is to expose users to content that is relevant to their own specific interests and purchase intent.

I caught up with Jim Small, Portal Relevance Manager at Orange UK, to review the results to date, the relationship with Xiam and the link with targeted mobile advertising. My special thanks to Jim for an invigorating exchange and the opportunity to hear his vision for services that transcend content silos to ultimately deliver individual users what they like – even before they ask for it.

Listen to the podcast here [11:16]

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Positive results: It’s early days and the service has only been live since late September but all signs point to a winner. “We’re just crunching through the data. But early signs are that it is working. – absolutely!” He adds: “The proportion of people who purchase one kind of content, who then go on to purchase one of the other two types of content…from a recommended link is much higher than we’d expect from somebody who, for example, purchases a game and then goes of into the ringtones channel [on their own decision] to buy something.”

Increased relevancy: Before launching the service Jim points out Orange had no way of joining its content together or of cross-selling between the content types on offer. Recommenders effectively bridge that gap, allowing Orange to create a holistic view of the subscriber and respond with a well-rounded offer of entertainment content. In practice Orange supplies Xiam with data including billing information, mobile browsing logs and purchase history, which the company processes to intuit user content preferences and respond with a variety of related content including news, images, wallpapers, video clips, games – and whatever else Orange might have on offer.

Mobile ad opportunity: “Mobile advertising is a big opportunity and there’s a lot of revenue to be had for Orange…We will do everything we can to leverage the fact that we understand who a customer is at any given time within our mobile portal to make sure that the advertising is as targeted as we can make it.” Part of this push will no doubt be an ad component from Xiam that uses the same techniques and recommender technology to deliver users targeted mobile advertising. “A targeted advert is very much the same as a targeted piece of download content.”

2008 predictions and beyond: “I think the fact that our mobile portal is a targeted portal where the content and promotions on Orange World today are targeted at the user even now is a big step forward for us….I think our new search platform and the fact that Orange has taken a step into free browsing on the mobile portal to generate usage is all good stuff, and things that 2007 will be remembered for within our business.” What about 2008? Jim is “looking forward to recommendation’s been a great success and being rolled out fully into all download content areas and beyond into browsing content in third-party off portal services.”

Convergence: Jim tells me Orange has set its sights on delivering fixed-mobile recommendations across a variety of platforms and services such as PC and IPTV. The strategy would allow users to have a common experience as they interface with different content portals and services across different devices. Users could also receive recommendations on what to watch on TV in the evening based on the content they browsed on your mobile during the day, for example. “I think convergent services and tailoring the experience for the user across our portal, across the Web portal, [and] across the TV service that we’re launching in the future … is something we’re all working hard towards, and I think 2008 will be a big year for.”

This entry was posted on Friday, December 14th, 2007 at 9:13 pm and is filed under Mobile Advertising, Mobile Content, Mobile Music, Mobile Search, Mobile Social Networking, Podcasts, Recommendation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.