Mobileslate

Sprint Ambassador Program Update – NFL Pro Bowl

More correspondence from Sprint. The partnership between the NFL and Sprint must be aggressive.

Did you know that through December 11, 2007, you can vote to send your favorite player to the ’08 NFL Pro Bowl? Each time you vote, you are automatically entered into the sweepstakes and have a chance to win a VIP package to the Pro Bowl game in Hawaii!

To vote: Text Pro to 7777 and you will receive a bounceback message containing the link to the voting site.

Comments:

Love that I can vote on my phone. But why should Sprint subs be the only ones to benefit? So I got onto another handset serviced by AT&T and the site is not exclusive! So for those who also want to vote via their phone, the text message info does not work, but the URL does!

CTIA 2007 SF: Bluepulse and Mobile Social Messaging

I recently had the opportunity to meet Ben from Bluepulse at his office to find out more about what his company is up to. Bluepulse is building mobile social media products focused on the Mobile Web community; Internet-enabled phones account for approximately one billion handsets. Bluepulse’s ad-based revenue model has been downloaded close to 3M times across 160 countries. New features on the latest version include:

• A universal message box that receives all incoming profile updates and text messages, as well as displays sent messages similar to an Instant Messenger on a PC, all on a single screen.
• A universal sending box that allows users to send messages to multiple friends, groups, email addresses or phone numbers at once from one place on their phone.
• Mobile web browser-based, download-free availability to anyone with an Internet-enabled mobile phone.
• Group Friending, which intuitively and intelligently helps users expand their network by asking users if they’d like to be friends with people in another friend’s group when they have both been included on the same group message.
• SMS and email alerts to let users know they have a message waiting for them on bluepulse.
• New, easy-to-use address book importing lets bluepulse users invite their Facebook, AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, Gtalk, MSN, and MySpace friends to join them on bluepulse.

“With this release, we are introducing the next layer of social networking functionality for the mobile phone,” said Ben Keighran, founder and CEO of bluepulse. “Making our platform available through the mobile browser means more people can use bluepulse. We have built an accessible next-generation messaging application which allows our users to easily stay connected with their friends, families and co-workers. Whether it’s making plans on the fly or sharing their latest photos while on vacation – bluepulse lets them do it all from a single interface on the device they always have with them.”

Comments: Ben took the time to show me bluepulse in action on his iPhone and it was quite fast and easy. The simple interface makes it easy to pick up and fun to use.

While twitter, jaxtr aim at mobile social blogging in a broadcast method, bluepulse aims at going for a interactive messaging amongst friends for getting together, sharing links with multiple people and more. It doesn’t require the need for dedicated IM clients or for remember what your friends ID is. And the user doesn’t even need to be online at the same time, as bluepulse will alert the intended recipient(s) via text message. The application is smart enough to handle some aspect of going in and out of coverage while on your mobile, as this is a web application, so keeping in sync with a conversation is quite good. Finally, getting all my contacts from my IM and Social networking address books are quite easy.

I already have an unlimited data package, I guess I now need to sign up for an unlimited SMS plan.

CTIA 2007 SF

Well, there was certainly a lot going on, on Day 0, with all the Pre-conferences, you wonder if CTIA should either be a longer event, or the Pre-events should coordinate a bit more instead of clashing with each other? Even the evening events seem to be clashing with each other. Maybe this is the Mobile Mashup, CTIA-style. While you can spend all day walking between all the conferences happening on Monday and not really get to network or see/hear much of each session, I simply had to make a decision to just try and stay as much as possible to one event. There was the Smartphone Summit, The Billboard Mobile Entertainment Live!, Navteq Connections, Mobile Entertainment Summit, and more. So the Daytime Event that I was at, was the Mobile Entertainment Summit at the Metreon.

First off, the weather in San Francisco, could not have been nicer! The venue on the 4th Floor with the Terrace was a really nice backdrop with the warm October weather! Maybe I am somewhat jaded by what was discussed at the Mobile Entertainment Summit, but it seemed to be circling a lot around the same topics: m-commerce, monetizing digital content onto the mobile platform, mobile channel distribution and subscriber adoption. To be fair, there have been a lot of promises made and hype around the topics, but the venue was a bit of a distraction and the topic on the panels was not as exciting as expected. Some of the stats presented were good, but it seemed a bit lacking.

For the rest of the show, it seemed that a lot of buzz was getting past a lot of the hype behind mobile games, texting and seeing how everyone can make money. This in my mind is a welcome change, since hype is great and can garner a lot attention, but at the end of the day, people like hearing that money is flowing.

Mobile Web [and Software] Performance

A former colleague of mine, Chris Loosley, who hosts his blog Web Performance Matters, speaks out a lot about how design and architecture of your web presence can effect the end user’s perception of your site, service, application and more. A few months ago, he published his post about “The Laws of Website Performance” it got me thinking about the parallels for the mobile web, content and services. While web standards have matured from static pages, lists of links and images arranged in galleries to dynamic content, AJAX, Javascript, and other tools have accelerated the capabilities and interactive nature of a web browser.The same type of access, functionality, capabilities, and interactive expectations seem to be on the cusp of being there. Innovative devices like the RIM’s Blackberry, the Apple iPhone, Nokia’s N95 and N800 tablet, even the LG Prada and Motorola Dolce & Gabana devices have all been game changers. All have contributed in big and small ways to the thinking about how a mobile phone is used, but ultimately, it’s the software and services that need the attention!This week, Kenneth “Casey” Keller, Motorola’s CMO was interviewed by Advertising Age where he commented about how Motorola will evolve and new “brands” will emerge. Motorola also signed a deal to acquire ownership in UIQ (announced earlier this week) which further admits that Motorola needs to embrace and invest heavily in software if it wants to continue to remain relevant.

“What we’ve been trying to do is also get into applications and experiences beyond just the initial (making phone calls).”

“The mobile-wireless environment is going to create a whole new set of brands—brands around devices, brands around the experiences, and also brands around the way people are connecting and researching on the Internet. You’ll see new brands around this mobile world, hopefully some from Motorola, because we are thinking about creating distinct brand experiences underneath the parent brand Motorola in the mobile space in the future.”

Source: AdAge

But with the software and services, there needs to be a focus around performance and not just functionality. The fact that WAP pages load slowly, content downloads are cumbersome to obtain and mobile commerce can partially be attributed to the less than optimal network infrastructure, however, a constant vigil needs to pertain to bloated page files, excessive calls for images, and limit “tracking” code. Downloadable content needs to be scrutinized for file size and streaming content must continually improve codecs. Subscribers will continually expect more and more from their mobile phones, so keeping in mind the sometimes nerve-racking wait to retrieve information should be worked out. Constant testing of the performance of a site or service should be done regularly from a real handset, not just simply testing concurrent session maxims, or stress-testing load. A fair amount of the chain is out of the control of most content developers who are at the mercy of the platform provider or the mobile operator. Everyone needs to keep in check their performance and availability of their mobile content and services. This is the lifeline and customer experience that drives your mobile channel and revenue source. Spotty service leads to low adoption rate, business ineffectiveness and ultimately poor revenue.

011 Calling on your Mobile

With global travel and mobile communications becoming an ever increasing part of many people’s lifestyle, the mobile phone and a place with great cell reception becomes anyone’s instant office. Barring the constraints of timezones, making calls is easy from the mobile phone. But ease of use still prevents people from dialing internationally, due to cost. It’s possible to remember or pre-program long distance services, then dial the number, but these are inconvenient because they do not integrate well with dialing numbers from the phone’s address book. Unlike landline phones, you can’t exactly choose your long distance provider. And I’m sure that your mobile operator doesn’t want to negotiate international calling rates, since that is where they make a lot of money. So what to do? It looks like for every MVNO that busts, a few more spring up. Back in January of this year, I wrote about the MVNO Summit and January of 2006, I wrote about MVNOs some more. So now 011 Mobile is going to make a run at helping people with international calling. When I wrote about Red Pocket Mobile roughly a year ago, they were focused on the Asia market, being able to directly dial China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, as well as more countries in Asia slated. So I tried to put the two services to the test, by using the rate comparison tool offered on the site.
Based on the screenshot above, 011 looks to be less expensive that Red Pocket for the same destination (011 = $0.025/min vs. RPM = $0.10/min). Other rates that I looked up were also quite inexpensive. In doing more research about the company, it has been around since 1989, offering long distance calling plans and wireless services for quite some time. Based on the devices offered, I uncovered that they are riding on the Verizon Wireless network. Perhaps 011 Mobile swaps the spot where Amp’d Mobile was in Verizon’s portfolio of MVNOs?My last parting thought regarding the new entrant, 011 Mobile, is the fact that why offer this as a differentiated MVNO gear towards long distance calling? It would seem to make more sense to try and tackle a more interesting problem by offer long distance alternatives to the incumbents similar to what happened almost 30 years ago when you could pick your long distance carrier. Unless you have a smartphone, the alternative to saving money is Skype, provided that you have an unlimited data plan. Whoever figures that out, will help be a change the rules…again.Source: 011 Mobile Press Release

Sprint Ambassador Update – Mobile Shopper

Another short email blast from Sprint.

Greetings Ambassadors,

Never pay retail again… use your mobile phone to compare prices on more than 9.2 million products… FREE!

To learn more: Web> Entertainment > Mobile Shopper or visit http://www.sprint.com/mobileshopper

Comments: I think quite a few ideas around comparison shopping emerged over the years, first on the web, and even some attempts on the mobile phone. So far there has not been a dominant player, even though a lot of money has been thrown at the problem. Froogle, CNet, NexTag, and dozens of others are still churning out sites with more and more categories of reviews, ratings and connections to enable commerce. Here is the video that I captured from a Samsung M610 device on Sprint of how the Mobile Shopper works on Sprint. YouTube doesn’t allow me to edit the resolution of the video, so the screen is a bit distorted.

After watching the demo on how the product works, I went to the Best Buy near my house. Since I was actually in the market for a new LCD monitor, I figured looking through the aisles on the latest 19″ to 22″ LCDs. The Acer, LG, Samsung all looked good and ripe for the picking. All monitors were hovering around the $300 price point. But wait, I have the Sprint Mobile Shopper! Time to compare! So after I fumbled with the Samsung Upstage that Sprint gave me trying to work on typing in the URL and then punching in the brand [Acer] and model number [AL2223WD] to see what would show up.
First off, the service was fairly quick to return a result. It was the exact same result as what I queried. It even provided an image of the item to match the product that I was looking for. While it’s a small image on a tiny mobile device, the general idea that the item is displayed is only good for approximations that the item that you’re standing in front of is the same as the one you pulled up through the service. Looking at Amazon price was less than the LCD I was staring at in front of me at Best Buy, however, does this model work, if I am an impulse buyer, the item I want is right there and I can go home and enjoy it now? I guess it depends on how much I am going to save. $299.99 (Best Buy) vs. $229.99 (Amazon) is certainly enough savings to wait, but with tax and shipping, the price is close to being the same (provided that I select Next Day delivery). The screenshots below show the screens from my session.

Finally, curious to see if this was a closed service, I tried to use my WAP browser on my AT&T device. Turns out that I can also access this service to look up information from almost any device, but purchasing items can only be done through Sprint, because of the billing system and in-network registration of devices/phone numbers.

GABA No-CA Event: Communications Today: Blogs, Email Etiquette and More

This is perhaps of the first and rare exclusive posts about non-mobile content but I thought that it was related and of interest for me to attend as I am a blogger as well as a “mobilist.”

German American Business Association

Overview

An Information Mapping, Inc. study found that 89% of the respondents wasted as much as one hour per day trying to decipher poorly-written e-mails.

Another Nationwide Commission study in 2006 found that time spent reading and applying information in blogs, emails and other communications costs American corporations as much as $3.1 billion annually. This does not include the costs of people reading and re-reading communications that they do not understand, taking wrong actions based on miscommunications, or taking no actions and jeopardizing corporate initiatives.

Your company’s image and professionalism may be at risk when an employee participates in a blog, sends an inappropriate email or text messages a client. This practical panel discussion will provide you with tools and techniques to improve productivity and results from communications today – through blogs, emails, text messaging and more.
Key topics to be discussed include:

• When, why and how blogging can be effective
• Five tips for improving email etiquette
• Avoid the ‘fatal faux pas’ of communications today
• Establishing and enforcing company policies
• Avoiding legal dilemmas from communications

Moderator:
E.J.Dieterle, CEO, YES Partners (Inc.)

Panelists:

• Kristi Royse, Consultant, Next Step LLC
• Sean Murphy, CEO, SKMurphy, Inc.
• Jennifer Lankheim, Manager of Corporate Communications, SAP Labs
• Achim Hoelzle, Attorney-at-Law, FeldbergPacific Law Group
• Pierre Khawand, CEO, People-OnTheGo

Notes and Summary

This was an event where I was not quite sure if the topics would be relevant to me and my blog, Mobileslate, but “The Quest for Knowledge is Un-ending” so I remained a captive participant.

Some of the stats that I found useful:

• People generally filter or screen out over 70% of communications (in context about reading email).
• 65% of people spend more than 4 hours a day on email. That could amount to approximately every 2 minutes checking email.

Finally some advice that I found useful related to by blog.
“People do stupid things that get them in trouble.”
- Sean Murphy from SK Murphy, Inc.

“Don’t post or email anything that you wouldn’t want to appear on the front page of the New York Times.”
- Achim Hoelzle from Feldberg Pacific.

So in conclusion, what the event did for me is to heighten my senses about my writing and make sure I re-read what I wrote at least two times before posting on my blog.

CTIA – List of Fun Events

For those of you who read my blog, thanks for the support and readership.For those of you going to the upcoming 2007 CTIA San Francisco event, October 23rd – 25th, I started doing a search a few days ago on all the potential networking opportunities (AKA Parties). It seems that there were web pages, but listed CTIA events in the past. Well, since I have not seen any lists emerge yet for the one happening in a few weeks, I decided to post my own. All of these events have been confirmed, and if there are more events that you hear of, please let me know.2007 CTIA San Francisco Party List (link updated) Hope to see you at the show!

SIM Card Vending Machines

I got back from Europe at the end of September and was not able to transfer my pics from my digital camera onto my blog. Finally! I spent the greater part of a long overdue vacation at the end of September in Germany, which I really enjoy visiting. Aside from the gastronomy and the scenery that makes up the fabric of Germany, there is always the side trips to the mobile phone stores to see what they have cooked up. Don’t get me wrong, the beer, the castles, old churches and cobblestone streets, the trains and the cruise on the river were all very, very enjoyable!

O2 Prepaid Kiosk

I was very impressed by the stunning look at the O2 Kiosk. The smart looking machine allows anyone to just walk up, stick in their bank or credit card and out pops an activated SIM card ready to stick into your phone. You can also top up your existing O2 Prepaid card by entering in your number and the requested amount you want to add. As I already had a Vodafone Prepaid SIM, I’ll have to try my hands at one next time I am in Germany.

Heidelberg Hauptbahnhof

At one of the stops during my vacation, I was in the Heidelberg Main Train Station, on my way to see Heidelberger Schloss and noticed a rather antiquated-looking vending machine. I would have dismissed it, but noticed that instead of selling telephone (IC) cards or stamps or postcards, that it was actually selling pre-paid SIM cards! While not as elegant or inviting as the O2 Kiosk pictured above, I suppose that it does the trick if you are in a jam and need the convenience. As of March, 2007, Germany has over 100% market penetration for mobile phones. I suppose when the US or other countries get to that point, we will start seeing the SIM card vending machine next to the Coke or Pepsi machine. Funny that I did not see any SIM card vending machines in Japan!