Tag archives: 3g

3G, music and money

Another article on the “lovely” relationship among the music and the mobile industry: Cingular ads ring with sounds of music on Usatoday. Ringtones, music videos and music downloads are generating a huge business. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, quoted on The Guardian, mobile music downloads are soon expected to surpass Internet downloads. 3G technology (pricing permitting) will boost the market which is expected to boom in the UK during the Christmas season.

File under: 3g, downloads, mobile downloads, music, profits

Smartphones and mobile advertising

According to the numbers recently released by Gartner, smartphones will represent one fifth of all mobile handset sales by 2008. 3G eventually appears to be around the corner, and we need to start thinking about the real opportunities on a mass market scale the new technology will provide us with. After the failures in the early stages of the mobile market, mobile advertising is about to come back but, of course, we need to take into account the lesson learned from past mistakes. Basically the marketing approach to mobile phones should be “push” not “pull” but, with the growth of WAP 2.0 portals and mobile HTML browsers, this concept will evolve. I see a near future of “light” contextual advertising, while I believe we still have to wait a couple of years for mobile rich media. Of course the technology is already there to support streaming media ads and now even Flash animations, but marketers need to remember the “pricing” issue. Given the current prices of 3G connections in Europe (recently I spent 15 Euros with Vodafone to download 300 Kb!!!) making the user pay to watch your ads is a crazy idea that could absolutely damage a brand. So while we wait for 3G to reach the mass market with carriers applying fair prices, SMS and partly MMS will still remain the best mobile marketing option.

File under: 3g, mobile advertising, pricing, rich media, smartphones, sms

Mobile entertainment propels 3G

Mobile entertainment services will propel 3G to become a high-volume, high-revenue industry. Doug Rasor, Texas Instruments’ Vice President and Manager for Worldwide Strategic Marketing, is convinced that ringtones, 3d games, video and multi-megapixel cameras will drive the growth of 3G. Stockwatch reports the press release about Rasor’s presentation at the 3G World Congress:

“We must miniaturize the living room entertainment experience in size, but not in performance. Hence it’s critical that we work together on open platforms that allow maximum potential for innovation. We need to take the high-end electronics experience consumers have come to expect from their state-of-the-art digital cameras, camcorders, and game consoles, and integrate that experience into the cell phone. Meeting consumers’ expectations for a secure, state-of-the-art mobile entertainment experience will be a strong step toward making trendy mobile features ‘must-have,’ revenue-generating services.”

File under: 3g, Mobile entertainment

3G users in France

The French Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) has presented an overview of mobile users in the country. In April, more than 7.5 million unique users have visited Vodafone Live, i-mode TM and Orange World. The press release provides positive datas about the 3G’s usage trends, highlighting that mobile internet is growing rather fast.

File under: 3g, france, mobile users