Written on Monday, January 31, 2011
Ok, I'm sure this is the least of the problems of the good people over at Egypt, but I'm reporting this cause it's the most relevant to this blog.
Escalating tensions and persistent protests have now prompted the government of
Egypt to completely block all access to internet as well as SMS services.
Soon after protests against the regime of President Hosni Mubarak broke out on Tuesday, the communication blockade began with the blocking of microblogging site
Twitter. This was elicited by the fact that the protestors were able to unite and organize rallies with the help of social media sites like
Twitter and
Facebook.
Latest reports suggest that internet services were disrupted early on Friday. The blockade applied to all forms of internet access including
3G and Blackberry internet services. The short messaging service on mobile phones has also been hit.
UPDATE: Just did a quick check and it seems Bulk SMS delivery to Egypt has improved and SMS are now being delivered...
Posted in
mobile broadband,
sms,
sms marketing
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Written on Thursday, January 27, 2011
I've been finding more and more interesting articles I've been wanting to share but I don't have the time (nor is it worth it, I think) to prepare a separate post on each one.
Today's post is essentially a shortlist of the most interesting articles I've recently come across, which, I think, are well worth your time and attention:
- Nothing to do with mobile marketing or mobile advertising, but still brilliant! Check it out for a laugh: The Time-Traveler's Shop
Thinking of turning this type of post into a regular weekly thing, so if you like it, give me a shout!
Posted in
mobile advertising,
mobile services,
QR codes,
sms marketing,
text marketing
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Written on Tuesday, January 25, 2011
- retrieve live flight information on their mobile phones, through a simple SMS,
- download an iPhone application that provides a broad range of services and information.
SMS Flight Info
A new service from our biggest airport here in Greece, which I must say could do with better promotion - I've flown a number of times to and from Athens, during the past couple of months, yet I was completely unaware this was currently available to the public.
SMS Flight Information:
Stay Informed
With the “19171 - SMS Flight Tracking Info” service you will have valid and up-to-date information about your flight status on your mobile device wherever and whenever you need it.
Introduction
Be informed about the flight status for scheduled arriving and departing flights at Athens International Airport sending an SMS text message to 19171 with the applicable flight number.
Cost
The total cost for requesting and receiving the specified flight information is 1,23€ (VAT included).
The SMS sent to 19171 requesting information for a specific flight is charged at the rate of 1,23€ by your mobile network operator. All the reply messages relating to the requested flight information are free. The user may receive up to six reply messages.
Service Timeframe
From the moment you sent the SMS, the “19171 - SMS Flight Tracking Info” service provides information for flights that have arrived and/or departed two (2) hours before or will arrive and/or depart within the next 20 hours.
Please note that, since the same flight number may operate on a daily basis, you should cross check that the information requested and received corresponds to the correct flight and date.
iPhone App
The
iPhone app provides a whole array of information, both for individual flights, like the SMS service, but also about the airport itself. Again, I had no idea something was available, so I'm really excited with this, and though I've had a quick look I'm looking forward to trying it out when I'm actually traveling to see how well it works:
ATH Airport is the official free iPhone app of Athens International Airport “Eleftherios Venizelos”. Find your flight details, browse through our shops, get up-to-date information about the airport and much more through your iPhone. Everything you want to know about Athens International Airport whether you are travelling, visiting or accompanying friends or family.
Features in this version:
Real-Time Flight Information
Get real-time information and updates on your flight, the minute you want it. Simply enter your flight number or airline or destination in the search box. This service requires an Internet connection.
Timetable
Search all the flights to and from Athens International airport. This service requires an Internet connection
Access
Get information on how to access Athens International Airport, be it by car, taxi, bus or metro.
Parking
Get information on our various parking options, and check your parking cost by using our parking calculator.
Airport Information
Get information on our airport e.g. our airlines, our shops and many more.
Available for
download through iTunes.
Great stuff! Looking forward to my next flight to try it all out...
Posted in
iPhone,
mobile services,
sms marketing
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Written on Thursday, January 20, 2011
Groupon, one of the largest and most well-known
mobile coupon services, announced a couple of days ago what it calls a record breaking response to one of it’s mobile deals. Groupon reports selling over
70.000 burgers for Hong Kong fast food restaurant Triple O’s
in 72 hours.
Interesting? Here's the news piece from
GoMoNews:
What’s the story?
If you haven’t heard of Groupon, here’s the short version:
- it’s a coupon service. You can print the coupon, or just get it sent to your mobile device.
- only one coupon is offered per day in any city that Groupon operates in
- the coupons work around the “group buying” method. The discounts are usually pretty huge, but they only come into effect if enough people sign on for the daily deal
- this means that the participating retailer can offer a generous discount, and be guaranteed they’ll only have to honor it if enough people sign up
Part of the massive appeal of Groupon is that it works on mobile. You can check out the daily deal in the morning and decide whether you want to be part of it or not. Then you just go about your day – and if the necessary number of people opt-in, the coupon will just arrive on your phone.
What’s the news?
An existing coupon service called uBuyiBuy.com was repurposed by Groupon in June 2010, and it claims to have shifted over 300,000 vouchers already. That number of vouchers, downloaded over a period of several months, should give you an idea of how massive a success the Triple O’s campaign was. The deal it ran through Groupon was this – if you spend $25 on food and drink, you get another $25 for free if. 40,000 burgers had been sold after 24 hours, with the 70,000 figure reached after 72.
This deal has now shot straight to the top of performance charts for Groupons worldwide F&B Restaurants coupons.
What we think?
As social networking and mobile shopping both grow in popularity, we’re seeing the emergence of what is potentially an incredibly powerful force: social shopping. That is essentially what Groupon is – it uses social media tools to create a large group of people interested in taking a certain deal… before the deal is actually available. When a suitable economy of scale has been attained by the retailer, the deal is unleashed. Everyone wins.
It’s such a powerful concept that plenty of other people are getting on board. Mobile gaming platform OpenFeint is applying the same kind of model to selling mobile games (
see here), HipLogic built Groupon updates right into it’s UI (
see here), and mobile location company WHERE bought into the market through LocalGinger (
see here).
Obviously with this deal both Groupon and Triple O's both made their money, however, what's most important from our point of view is us catching a glimpse of the power mobile coupons have. These sort of mobile marketing campaigns go to show that if your content is good, and the offer 'just right', mobile is the ideal medium to convey it to the mass public.
Not to mention, of course, the publicity you get when one of your campaigns hits the spot getting you these impressively big numbers!..
Posted in
mobile coupons,
mobile marketing,
social networking
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Written on Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Just came across this post in the
Textboard blog, about a global study, conducted by Nielsen, about the use of
SMS messaging and
mobile internet.
The post contains a good summary of the whole report, so I'm quoting directly from
there:
It’s no surprise that China is the global leader in mobile internet usage. With 73% of Chinese youth (ages 15-24) using mobile devices have used the mobile internet in the past 30 days. The United States mobile internet usage of youth in the same bracket is still an impressive 48% according to Nielsen.
The Nielsen mobile marketing report also discovered gender dominance when it came to sending text messages. While female youths sent the most text messages in every country measured except in China and India where text messages and SMS was dominated by males.
The study digs deeper into teens that send text messages in the United States. The results showed that teens are texting all the time (obviously) and at a rate of over 6 text messages per hour that they’re not asleep. United States teenagers send and receive an average of 3,339 text messages per month. The survey measured cellphone bills from 60,000 mobile subscribers and 3,000 separate surveys.
No one sends more text messages than teens between the age of 13 and 17, especially females who send and receive an average of 4,050 text messages every month. Teenage males in the same group are not far behind, sending an average of 2,539 texts monthly. Young adults come in second with a comparative measly 1,630 text messages sent per month. This rounds out to about 3 text messages per hour.
When teens were surveyed by Nielsen last year as to their preference for texting instead of placing voice calls they cited “it’s fun” as their reasoning. But this year almost 80% of teenagers that sent text messages recognize it as a convenience and an easier/faster way to communicate than voice calls. With this comes an obvious decrease in voice activity among teens- 14% decrease to be exact.
Interesting, and the good thing about the study is that they have a pretty large sample, so I'll definitely be giving the whole thing a closer read.
Posted in
mobile broadband,
sms
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Written on Monday, January 17, 2011
Today's article is by Emma Rose Smith all the way from Australia, who was kind enough to share her perspective on how mobile marketing is evolving down under:
SMS Brings Life to Mobile Marketing in Australia
Australia, the landmass at the bottom of the world, has interesting news. It’s throwing itself into mobile marketing.
This is welcome information for Australian mobile marketers and advertisers alike, as for the past several years Australia has lagged behind the global mobile marketing leaders of Japan, Germany and America. But things are changing. 2011 is set to see mobile marketing spending tripled, and Australia wants to grab a chunk of the prize.
The forerunner of mobile marketing in Australia is SMS. Australian consumers and businesses alike are notoriously sceptical of change in technology, and are therefore only now beginning to embrace mobile websites, mobile ads and apps. Additionally, many cities lack the population density for location-based services to be functional.
SMS marketing though, is familiar territory with an existing infrastructure; meaning text response mechanisms are proving their weight in the marketing and advertising industry. Text response has taken off because of proven results.
The Australian tide is finally turning towards mobile marketing. An Australian computer chain store, Leading Edge Computers, recently used mobile marketing to receive over 1080 text entries into their 2 week competition. This is triple the entries they usually get by paper. Charith Moonesinghe, Marketing Manager at Leading Edge, is the voice of most marketers and business owners when he says, “Overall, I am happy with the results. I’ll be interested to see what happens in the next campaign.”
The sky’s the limit, skippy.
Posted in
mobi,
mobile marketing,
sms marketing,
text marketing
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Written on Thursday, January 13, 2011
I just came across two really interesting white papers, which were featured on the
Mobile Marketing Magazine in December (
here and
here), so some of you might have already seen them, but I only just found them and read them, and I definitely think they're worth a read at your next coffee break.
The first is from
Bango, the
mobile analytics and
mobile payments company, and contains some really interesting statistics about measurements made in some
mobile marketing campaigns they provided their analytics services to. They explain factors that lead to successful mobile campaigns, common mistakes that result in lower than expected results, and the dangers of using PC web analytics to measure success of
mobile campaigns.
The second is from
Velti, the very well-known, multi-national brand that also provides
mobile marketing services. The white paper asserts why store owners need repeated communication with the consumer, going beyond one-time promotions, in order to build a closer relationship with the customer that brings repeated sales. It describes various approaches using mobile loyalty programs to help businesses (such as operators, brands, agencies and media companies) achieve such long-term success by building high-value customer relationships.
Happy reading!
Posted in
mobile advertising,
mobile coupons,
mobile marketing,
mobile payments,
mobile services
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Written on Monday, January 10, 2011
Wow! It's been a good 3 weeks since I've posted on here so apologies to those of you who spent lonely mornings with just your coffee and no interesting posts to read (as if!!) but it was a combination of looming deadlines and the holiday season - not good, I tell you!
But enough - my wishes are now in due for a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year for all of you out there! I really hope 2011 brings you what you were looking for - but never knew it!
...Having said that, now let's be honest... 2011 looks like a pretty crappy year judging from the state of the markets, doesn't it? It looks like half of Europe is in crisis (Greece are proudly first in it!) and though things are looking better States-side, I'm not convinced Europe's crisis will not affect the US, just like it happened a couple of years ago with the credit crisis in the US.
HOWEVER (and I do mean this) this can also be a good thing (there's a positive side to everything!) as I am certainly not one to be put off by such 'nuisances'. It is all the more incentive for all of us to work harder, perform better, overcome the barriers we'd built between us, outdo ourselves and rise up to the challenge. 2011's just made me roll up my sleeves. Bring it on...
To start it all off, here's some of the key highlights of the holiday season, which I would have blogged about (really) if I'd had the chance to. Some really interesting stuff on there which I kept on
Instapaper just for you (btw, I only recently started using Instapaper and it's pretty handy - it's for 'bookmarking' stuff to read later).
So here's a Top... 7 - with just the big headlines.. No time to waste with the busy New Year ahead of us, right?
Again, a Happy New Year to everyone!
Posted in
mobile coupons,
mobile marketing,
mobile payments,
QR codes
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