Credit crunch – a time for free calls ?

Previously I touched on the concept of Blyk, the virtual mobile operator that gives free minutes to it’s users in return for accepting targeted advertising.

The challenge - whether they could thrive when mobile minutes are so cheap, would people be prepared to accept these interruptions?

Also the question of effectiveness comes into play, mobile being the most personal of all addressable media the targeting of advertising has to fulfil the ‘ contextual and relevant ‘ requirements more so than any other medium.

It seems they are succeeding on both counts, firstly by announcing deals to expand the service beyond the UK to Germany, Belgium and Spain and secondly by higher than average response and opt in rates from it’s subscribers ( a recent campaign for boots the chemist, 1 in 7 Blyk members responded to the campaign ).

Blyks user base now stands at over 100,000 users who are all fully opted in to receive marketing communications, demonstrating this key audience of 16 – 24 year olds are more than willing to accept the odd interruption marketing technology

Making mobile

Neat little tool from Ubik which allows you to create mobile web sites. Using a simple template driven approach very much in the same vain as blogger, you are able to create and publish mobile sites within 10 minutes.

Mobile - Engagement and Porn

Engagement

Screenvision and Verizon are rolling out a polling program to ask moviegoers questions related to their music preferences, with audience results shown on the screen - a neat way of using technology to engage the captive audience.

The reward, a Spike Lee production ' short ' about the benefits for the Verizon V Cast service. marketing technology

Question, why did he not produce a number of shorts, the most ' relevant ' to the audience being aired ? marketing technology

Porn

Crisp Wireless, the mobile content management and delivery company has released it's list of top searches gleaned from over 14 million users across their content publishing network.

No suprise 'sex and porno' featuring within the top 10 with Britney still managing to make the cut - maybe a victim of these search terms being combined ?

One interesting fact is the presidential election could be ' called ' early by reviewing the results, echoing the democratic results. Barack Obama came in number one with Hilary only making 14 on the list.
marketing technology

Top 20 :

First more channels, now more viewing options

In the past two weeks some important announcements for the future of broadcast - first the move by UEFA to stream and make available via video on demand the up and coming Euro 2008 tournament. Second, the BBC will be streaming live it's flag ship channel BBC 1 via it's website ( only available to those with a TV license - this opens up a very interesting debate ).

The UEFA decision is particularly interesting for a number of reasons.

It is confirmation that the technology is now regarded as ' robust ' enough to charge directly for access to such a prestigious event - there are not many events now that draw such viewing audiences

marketing

Then it also throws open the whole broadcast delivery model, as historically they have given rights and therefore the ability to broadcast these games through partners such as the BBC and Setana

marketing technology

With content now being delivered directly to the consumer it continues to erode the value and position these organisations represent for events such as these. How can traditional broadcasters compete or add value?