Mobile Marketing +

Oct 23, 2008

Game over Handango

The Android Marketplace for free apps will go live Monday.
Iphone applications is being installed via Installer or via Appstore for more than one year.
We have got Nokia's OVI.
RIM is planning to open its app store in March 2009.
Samsung says their's is coming pretty soon.

Can we say "game over Handango and Motricity duopoly"?

The least we can expect is people to start picking their handsets on the basis of what applications they run, and is prepared to spend money to make sure the greatest applications work on their devices.
By the way it is remarkable that third party developers will start making money out of this :)

Sep 12, 2008

NEWS OF THE DAY: German court bans VoiP on iPhone

A VoiP application for Apple's iPhone has been banned by the Higher Regional Court in Hamburg, Germany at the behest of T-Mobile.
The app - available through Apple's iTunes App Store - allows users to make cheap phone calls using T-Mobile's Wi-Fi network and bypass roaming charges.

However, that's not why the app called Sipgate got banned. The court argues that Sipgate makes use of unfair business practices to pull customers from T-Mobile to its own services. Sipgate only runs on iPhones of the first generation up to firmware 1.1.4 and requires the "BSD Subsystem" for installation. Jailbreaking the iPhone is a violation of T-Mobile's contract terms, the court says.
Sipgate had received a cease and desist letter from T-Mobile's lawyers in July, but decided not to comply with the order. Instead, it fought back. The company said T-Mobile was misleading its customers by not telling them it offers a limited service without VoiP, IM and VPN usage. A German regional court agreed, barring T-Mobile from advertising its iPhone plans as "open internet access with unlimited data".
But now the courts have sided with T-Mobile - the ban only includes Germany. Other countries where T-Mobile is the sole provider of the iPhone, such as the Netherlands, aren't affected.

(FROM THE REGISTER)

Jul 2, 2008

RATING BLACKBERRY - by me

Price: B+ (it is subsidized by GSM operators in Turkey)
Design: D (there are very few worse designs than blackberries
e-mail: A (there is not any better device than blackberry in that department)
internet: C (most of the nokia's provide better internet - I do not even mention iphone and other new multitouch devices)
wireless: B (not all of them has wireless feature and the ones that have rank below iphone on that department)
GPS: B (every model has a nonGPS and GPS submodel, so you can use the GPS submodel as a navigation device by installing the necessary 3rd party softwares.)
Third party software integration: C (Better than symbian, worse than apple and windows - but I have heard that they will put pressure in that department too)

Jun 20, 2008

some ideas - from Jay Handler

Automotive Sales: "Text DODGE to 55555 to download your $13,000 Digital Discount off a new Dodge Ram Truck"...Customer gets automated response including his Digital Discount, we email the cell phone number to the dealership for instant follow-up call, and we database the cell phone number for later use in marketing efforts.

Pizza Delivery: "Want to win a free pizza from Jay's Pizza? Text SLICE to 55555 to enter!"...Customer is entered into monthly random drawings and receives coupons and special offers via text messaging, store owner can use database to send out in-store specials with incredible time-sensitivity (store is slow, send out special 2-hour deal).

SMS related entries:

Jun 16, 2008

Dark side of the mo.. mobile marketing

• Unwanted calls.
• Recorded advertising voice mails.
• SMS ads that ring your phone.
• MMS ads that ring your phone.
• E-mail ads.
• Advertiser-supported software and services.
• Web pages that force you to view an ad before you can see the page.
• Location-based advertising -- you'll walk by a store, and it will ring your phone to tell you about a sale.
• Viral videos.
• Text, e-mail or Web-based ads that encourage you to "click to call."
• Search ads tailored for phones.

Jun 7, 2008