UK sees launch of directory assistance with mobile numbers

UK ICO GIVES TACIT APPROVAL TO MOBILE DIRECTORY SERVICE. Following years of effort to provide mobile numbers through directory assistance (DA), Connectivity (www.connectivityltd.co.uk) has begun the launch of its new UK DA service, 118800. The service is available online now (www.118800.co.uk) and, according to the web site, will be available in the future in the UK by dialing 118800.

While mobile listings are commonly included directory assistance databases in some northern European countries, databases in many other countries--including the US--have only a small fraction of total mobile listings. A European industry-wide effort to develop a mobile listing service never gained much traction--in part because of conflicting interests within the industry--though there have been other recent introductions, including Swisscom's Connect 1811 and Belgacom's "mailbox" service. An effort in the US being spearheaded by the CTIA, which had selected Qsent (subsequently acquired by TransUnion), ran into vociferous opposition from many parties, including Verizon Wireless and US legislators.

To use Connectivity’s online service, users are prompted at the home page to enter a first name, surname, and town. The service doesn't give out phone numbers to enquirers, but says that if it finds the subject of the search, 118800 will text the enquirer's details to the subject and charge the enquirer 1 GBP. The subject won't be charged anything by 118800, though standard mobile network charges apply.

Connectivity reports that its listings come from companies who collect mobile numbers from customers in the course of doing business and have been given permission by customers to share those numbers. Connectivity reports that it is regulated by PhonePayPlus (www.phonepayplus.org.uk) and the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) (www.ico.gov.uk). PhonePayPlus informed us that they regulate phone-paid services but that there had been no issues involving Connectivity's service. The ICO issued a statement to us saying Connectivity had discussed their proposed service and that the ICO provided advice on compliance with the Data Protection Act (DPA) and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR). The ICO statement said, furthermore, that it understands that Connectivity's service will possess the following characteristics:

- it will be privacy friendly;
- it will only connect people when the recipient agrees to take the call;
- it will not divulge subject's number;
- it will not use numbers where there is any doubt about whether the consumer was happy for their information to be used by this service;
- it will allow subjects to opt-out;
- it will make opting-out as easy as possible.

We tried the service out, first by entering our mobile phone online in their database--address Russell Square, London WC1B 5BE. We confirmed the entry with the code we received via SMS from Connectivity. However, when we searched for our listing, it wasn't found. We were prompted to narrow our search to an area or borough in London, which we did, but still to no avail, with no further explanation. We also tried the service out by searching for Connectivity's CEO Raj Raithatha and marketing director Shona Forster. No luck there either, and no explanation.

The BBC (www.news.bbc.co.uk) reports that the company has 15 m numbers and that the service has angered privacy campaigners.

Connectivity, which is privately held, has received investments from 3i (www.3i.com) and DFJ Esprit (www.dfjesprit.com).
-Stuart Whitaker

SONY ERICSSON ENTERS APP STORE MARKET

Sony Ericsson (www.sonyericsson.com), which reports that it began delivering online content in 2003, announced that it will consolidate its Fun & Downloads service into its PlayNow "arena," through which it will begin making applications available. Applications will initially be available in 13 countries that support PlayNow and to the 38 Sony Ericsson phones that are compatible with the PlayNow platform. The app store is being powered by Lithuanian developer GetJar (www.getjar.com). Users with accounts can download content to their phone and computer. Those without accounts may purchase content via premium SMS.
-Stuart Whitaker

Microsoft's Bing411 is Significant Enhancement

Microsoft unveiled a toll-free information service at 800-TellMe after its acquisition in 2007 of Tellme, and this service still operates, though the new 800-Bing411 has a much better feel and function. Matching many of Goog411's features for business searches, Bing411 provides listing information including a "star" rating and automatically sends an SMS message with details of the search result. In addition, it offers driving directions, the ability share the listing via text with another phone, and to automatically connect to the listing. On subsequent calls, Bing411 offers to provide information about the last listing. One problem we found was that on subsequent calls, we couldn't get the "tellme my choices" option to work.
-Stuart Whitaker

VIRGIN MEDIA LAUNCHES ROUNDU LOCAL SERVICE

Mobile Commerce (www.mobilecommerce.co.uk) announced that Virgin Media (www.virginmedia.com) has launched a new mobile internet portal, available for all UK mobile users, featuring the RoundU local search service. RoundU integrates handset location with a comprehensive range of local information. Using listings aggregated from Mobile Commerce’s partners including toptable, Itchy Guides and The Press Association, the service brings a full range of the latest UK arts and entertainment content straight to the handset, as well as complete Thomson business listings.

-Stuart Whitaker

APPLE DOMINATES MOBILE AND HTML SITE TRAFFIC

AdMob (www.AdMob.com) released mobile metrics for April which showed that 43% of mobile requests to mobile sites and 65% of mobile requests to HTML sites originated from iPhones. iPhone represents an estimated 8% of the total installed base. AdMob reports that 3% of mobile requests to mobile sites and 9% of mobile requests to HTML sites originated from Android phones, which have an estimated 1% of the handset market. iPhone and Android devices are the only platforms for which share of traffic to mobile and HTML sites exceed their handset share.

The relation between mobile traffic to mobile sites versus HTML sites is reversed for Symbian and RIM devices. Symbian handsets, which have 52% of the market, generate 36% and 7% of the requests to mobile sites and to HTML sites, respectively. RIM handsets, which represent 17% of the market, generate 9% and 3% of the requests to mobile sites and to HTML sites, respectively.

Windows handsets, which represent 12% of the handset market, originate 3% and 6% of requests to mobile and HTML sites, respectively. Palm, which represents 2% of the handset market, originates 2% of requests to both mobile and HTML sites.

One conclusion from this information is that development of mobile sites is much more important for publishers who are interested in reaching Symbian and RIM users, and much more important in regions, such as Europe, where Symbian devices predominate. HTML sites are much more important when targeting iPhone and Android users. We think it is likely that mobile web sites will fall out of favor with publishers as the share of more-capable Internet handsets increases.
-Stuart Whitaker

MOBILE APPS FORECAST TO REACH $ 25 BILLION BY 2014

Juniper Research (www.juniperresearch.com) forecasts that the total market for mobile applications, retail, and Value Added Service (VAS) revenue will increase by almost three times from 2009 to $ 25 billion in 2014. VAS includes subscriptions, premium events, and additional content. Juniper expects that by 2011, the majority of all app-related revenues will come from apps delivered via app stores rather than from non-store channels, and that the real value of non-store revenue will decline from 2012 onwards. Operators need to develop app store partnerships to share in the app store revenue.
-Stuart Whitaker

YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR: FREE IPHONE APPLICATIONS HAVE HIGHER INTEREST BUT LOWER RATING THAN PAID APPS.

Our review of the Apple iPhone App Store downloads finds that free applications continue to evoke much higher interest, as measured by the number of “ratings” the top twenty-five free and the top twenty-five paid applications have received, though the rating “score” is significantly higher for the paid applications than for the free applications. The top twenty-five paid applications have received 31,965 ratings with an average rating of 3.8. The top twenty-five free applications have received eighteen times as many ratings as the paid applications—588,718 ratings, with an average rating of 3.0. Games and entertainment dominate both the free applications, which finds twenty free applications in these two categories, and the paid applications, which finds twenty-one applications in these two categories. (Table available). -Stuart Whitaker

New mobile voice services on their way

Tellme (www.tellme.com) founder Mike McCue is leaving Tellme, which he founded in 1999. Tellme was acquired by Microsoft in 2007 and is becoming increasingly integrated into Microsoft. Tellme recently announced that it will offer the first mobile voice service to combine content and communications, simplifying how people interact with their phones every day. Tellme says it is the first to allow people to press one button, say what they want and get it, whether that is to send a text, make a call or search for information. Tellme has designed a unique version of this experience specifically for Windows phones due out this fall.

Tellme says that the new service puts many of the most popular phone functions behind a single button. Windows phone users just press the side button of their phone to:

* Send a text by saying "text" to open a text box, then speak the text message and say "send" to send it to anyone in their contact list;
* Initiate a call simply by saying "call" and then the name of anyone in their contact list;
* Search the Web with Microsoft Live Search by speaking your request, such as "weather in San Francisco, California", "Pizza in Kansas City" or "Mother's Day gift ideas."

Datamonitor (www.datamonitor.com) predicts, separately, that the global market for advanced speech recognition (ASR) in mobile handsets will increase from $32.7 million in 2009 to $99.6 million in 2014. Datamonitor predicts ASR in-vehicle telematics will grow at a similar rate, from $64.3 million in 2009 to 208.2 million by 2014.
-Stuart Whitaker

TWEETMART

Tweetmart.com (www.tweetmart.com), started in January, is a Twitter classified service. Users "list an item online," and Tweetmart sends tweets to all your friends (we tweeted Tweetmart to find out whether "friends" means followers, followees, or both, but haven't been retweeted). Items remain active for seven days. "Post a job" lists jobs for thirty days. Users can resend posts at will.-Stuart Whitaker

US Mobile Giving Space Heats Up

Guide by Cell (www.guidebycell.com) announced that it has become one of Mobile Giving Foundation's (MGF) (www.mobilegiving.com) approved application providers. MGF administers mobile giving for major US phone companies.

According to MGF Chairman and CEO Jim Manis, Guide by Cell is the US leading provider of mobile solutions to the museum and cultural nonprofit community. The Guide by Cell program, which will operate through a new Give by Cell division, allows participants to make on-the-spot donations. Guide by Cell also offers audio tours, mobile advertising, training, and a mobile platform. To make a donation, the donor sends a text message to a short code provided by Give by Cell, referencing the nonprofit's name. The donor receives a confirmation message and will see the donation charge on a subsequent phone bill.

MGF is a tax-exempt non-profit (501[c][3]) organization headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, founded in 2006 by Jim Manis and Jenifer Snyder. Other MGF application providers include Distributive Networks (www.distributivenetworks.com), mGive (www.mGive.com), Mobile Commons (www.mcommons.com), MobileCause (www.mobilecause.com), and Wireless Factory (www.wirelessfactory.com). Mobile carriers collect and forward the donated funds for free.

Some mobile giving campaigns are being aggressively promoted with high-profile advertising. The United Way took a ten second ad (www.youtube.com/watch?v=b38idebP4ag) during the 2008 Super Bowl, urging viewers to text "FIT" to 864833 (UNITED) to donate $ 5.00 to United Way Youth Fitness.



Actress Jessica Biel shot a one minute video (www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxrR-8sDgQU) in conjunction with Major League Baseball urging viewers to text STAND to 40202 to "Stand up to cancer" (www.standup2cancer.org).

-Stuart Whitaker