MyScreen Mobile Rewards Users for Watching Mobile Ads & Referring Friends; Could Paying Users Pay Dividends?
In-Brief: A closer look at MyScreen Mobile. Why? Because it’s a model that we’re likely to see a lot more of moving forward.
First, many thanks for the reader feedback. Rather than paste posts together (as I have done over the last days as an experiment), I will split them up to make reading them (and finding them) less of a chore. Such is the case with this post on MyScreen Mobile, which you told me you found interesting and valuable. An update: Christine Barisheff, VP, Communications, assures me a briefing is in the works, so I’ll have more detail soon. (BTW: The company is public. The ticker is MYSL.PK .)
Read the most recent press releases and you’ll conclude (as I have) that this is a company to watch. First, there’s the news that MyScreen Mobile has “advanced to a new stage of its BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) marketing initiative” and opened offices in Mumbai to enhance its mobile operator and media relationships on the Indian subcontinent. (This is particularly important when we recall a key finding of John du Pre Gauntt’s recent eMarketer mobile advertising report – which I will feature in an upcoming podcast series – in which he observed “the end-game for mobile marketing and advertising: an emergent middle class around the world that uses mobile as its first interactive screen.” His takeaway: “Marketers who do not meet these new customers on their increasingly mobile terms will be displaced by those who do.”)
MyScreen appears to have read this report…Its expansion into India comes on the heels of an equally important move: An agreement by MyScreen to provide its services to Brazilian subscribers through a partnership with Marcelo Ballona, the founder of Yahoo!Brazil. On paper, the MOU covers the bases to accelerate deployment in the market, allowing MyScreen to benefit from Ballona’s contacts with local advertising sales agencies, brands, and mobile operators.
But the real news is MyScreen’s business model.
It combines personal mobility services and tools (MyScreen lets users send group messages, SMS, and email from their mobile phone for free (apparently ad-funded); chat with friends via instant messaging; and post to blogs, photo-sharing accounts and social networks only using their mobile phones) and “a permission and incentive-based marketing model” that allows mobile subscribers to be compensated for accepting targeted advertisements on their mobile phones.
The announcements raise a lot of questions, which is why I have contacted the company for a briefing/podcast soon. In the meantime, a scan of the website and recent releases allows me to piece this much together. MyScreen users must complete a quick demographic (gender, age, income bracket) form to qualify as a MyScreen user. This data allows advertisers to deliver targeted messages to specific segments. The ads appear at the end of each call made or received by the user. Each time a paid advert is shown, the user is compensated in cash via a proprietary MyScreen E-wallet. Users will be able to transfer their credits monthly from their E-wallet to their carrier phone bill or to a prepaid MyScreen MasterCard. Additionally, MyScreen enables polling firms instant online real-time results from specific demographics to pertinent data. Users are paid per answer, further reducing their mobile phone costs.
And here’s another interesting aspect: MyScreen also offer a referral service that allows users who sign up to accept ads to also submit five or more mobile numbers of friends they want to refer the service to. Once five friends have successfully logged on to the service, the user will start earning 1 cent for each paid ad message viewed by one of the friends. As I said, there’s a lot going on here – a little like Blyk on steroids…and think of the mobile commerce plays and partnerships possible because MyScreen both administers the payments and manages the accounts.
May 28th, 2008 at 8:55 am
[...] Orascom Telecom Holding – a carrier that operators mobile networks in countries including Pakistan, Egypt, Algeria, Bangladesh, Tunisia, Zimbabwe and most recently North Korea — has made a $10 million investment in MyScreen. The deal gives MyScreen exclusive access to 70 million + subscribers in the Middle East, Africa, South Asia and another 18 million through Orascom’s affiliates Wind Italy and Wind Greece. It’s Orascom’s “first strategic investment in a technology company.” (A more detailed analysis of MyScreen’s business model – one that basically rewards consumer for usage and referrals – can be found here.) [...]