Business News Holding

Tag: mobile-content

  • Bringing the Best of the Web to the Phone: Interview with David Mannl, Mippin

    As society becomes more mobile, publishers are looking for ways to make their content accessible to as many people as possible.

    While there are still some that have barely recognized the web as a viable marketplace for their audience, those that have adopted the mobile trends are quickly seeing changes in how their customer base interacts with the products/services offered and shared both on the standard web, and thru mobile technologies.

    Mippin is one such company that specializes in helping users attain access to mobile content, and helping publishers mobilize their content for easy access for their audience.

    Mippin, backed by Refresh Mobile, came to life in 2007. David Mannl, Head of Creative and co-founder of Mippin, states that he and his partner said, "let’s ditch the whole client business for the time being’ and focus only on mobile apps and that’s when Mippin got started and launched as a product."

    He also notes that when they started back in 2007 there were hardly any mobile internet sites around, and left a huge need for publishers and users to have mobile versions of all the web content they could.

    How large is Mippin? "We have 76,000 sites in our system, all of them categorized into various levels of interest," answers co-founder of Mippin David Mannl.

    David Mannl

    Currently there are two ways to mobilize your content via Mippin. The first one is on your mobile phone; just enter the URL into the search box and on the fly Mippin will go out to that website, looks for a RSS content feed, and then creates a mobile version of it which works perfectly across 3,000 devices.

    As for the second option, if you do the same on your computer over at mippin.com, under publisher or blogger tab you go into a flow where the user can do the same thing. Mippin will basically find the RSS feed and then the user can upload their logo, define a color scheme and enter their ad mobile ID. It’s a fairly simple and streamlined process and Mippin has seen much success with.

    TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN

    Mippin for publishers

    For a publisher the approach is a simple solution. The publisher comes to the site to mobilize their web content, does not have to have any program skills whatsoever because its a one size fits all solution. You typically will find two types of publishers the first one is where we are the primary mobile solution.

    This means Mippin will work with a lot of blog networks that want to have a wide variety of blogs over 30 to 40 sites and for them its a complete and total package. Each site takes about five minutes to set up and that’s mainly uploading the colors, defining the branding and then they have this huge array of mobile sites. We also have publishers that use Mippin like an additional distribution channel.

    David Mannl shares an example, "we have an agreement with the New York Times and we are allowed to republish their content as well, but of course they already have their own mobile site. For them they have their own platform, they use us as an additional distribution mechanism and then some publishers use us as their only mobile solution."

    Mippin for advertisers

    There are two tiers for advertisers. If you host your ad on Mippin, you keep 100% of the ad revenue and that solution is offered with Ad More because it’s the easiest to implement. An advertiser goes in, there’s a little monetize tab in that mobilization’s log, you put in your own AdMore information and from that moment on Ad More send you money every month as soon as you are over a certain threshold.

    Alternatively, we have what is called Mippin Premium Publishers. For these more premium advertising, Mippin will actually take a little cut from the ad revenue because they have to interact with the ad providers and make sure they always get the best campaigns.

    They also make sure there is more targeted advertising so they will give a lot of information about the site to the advertising network so they can insert more relevant ads into the system or into the partners’ site as well.

    Demographic of users

    The majority of users on the Mippin network are in America, followed by the UK. Demographic wise Mippin does not collect any data with regards to gender or age or income. What we do see are the devices the user is using and the location where they are coming from. Mippin tracks how long users are staying on the system, but they do not collect any more data from the user because its just a mobile internet site and they don’t think its really necessary to register this service.

    "They just want to quickly access every time they have spare time," David Mannl responds with regard to what the end user is looking for.

    What’s interesting about what Mippin can see is what sites are more popular in each country. Mippin has a full time editorial staff that picks the best sites and puts them into categories based on popularity in the country you live in. So if you go to a category on Mippin in America, you will see different sites and different ordering then if you would do the same in the UK.

    Mippin uses a crowd source approach for editorial ordering of content. David notes that one of our biggest successes in America is wrestling, which they were completely surprised about. While in the UK, it’s a lot of tabloids and gossip and of course football (soccer).

    Mippin replacing traditional computing?

    David notes that especially in developing markets where they don’t have access to a laptop, growth has exploded. In Saudi Arabia the average time a user is on Mippin is as high as 20 minutes and that’s just the average. So it’s easy to see, for them, it’s the only way to access the internet. Compared to the UK, where a user will spend 8 minutes on average, and America, 7 to 9 minutes.

    It may be also because Mippin has one of the biggest selection of mobilized content out there. They’ve also built in recommendations into the system which will regularly recommend new content. You can connect with other users on the service, they can recommend you new content, so there are many ways to discover content on Mippin.

    In cultures where desktops and laptops are scarce, services like Mippin seem prime for growth. In cities where many of the populace are constantly on the go, David sees explosive growth continuing, hoping that their service reach more and more people every year. It should be noted that competition in the mobile space is not as it was back in 2007.

    Today competition or attention is fierce and the market is quickly growing. Mippin is now just one of many services that offer mobilized content, but so far David sees the growth of his network remaining strong.

    You can follow David on Twitter @flashy1980. More specifically if you are a user of Mippin, David prides himself on the face that users can always submit feedback to the company for future improvements.

    "Every page on Mippin has a feedback box and we actually read that feedback everyday because that’s part of our company DNA. We listen to our users because we want to keep them entertained and they are what help to make this service better and if we make the service better, we can entertain them better. So there’s a lot of really great dialogue we’re seeing. We are also getting a lot of feedback through the ad store. Its really good to now have the tools to stay in contact with your users and not just be a faceless company," David says proudly.

  • Bringing Content to Cross-Media Platforms: Interview with Thomsen Ghebresellassie, Yukoono

    The digital age has changed everything we’ve known in traditional media, how it’s distributed, but most importantly, how it’s consumed.

    The world is still surging in a sort of Technology Renaissance where innovation is taking off, long standing habits are changing, and media is becoming as consumable as our snacking habits, bit by bit, on the go as much as we are.

    One such company that is ahead of the curve is Yukoono, a digital content portal that is as adaptable as the user is.

    Sales Director of Yukoono, Thomsen Ghebresellassie states that “The idea of Yukoono came up last year in April when the CEO thought about why a user should only have access to certain types of content and certain type of media? If you are browsing on the website, you have to visit several websites in order to get news, videos on YouTube, or a different application in order to get access to content. So we came up with the idea of having one platform which you can think of a big shopping mall.”

    Thomsen Ghebresellassie

    A shopping mall of sorts is what Yukoono became. The application stands as a global portal with access to all content due to partnerships based on shared distribution. Each of these “stores in the mall” are called channels and partners offer up their content to be accessible via these channels increasing exposure, visibility, and consumption of what they are creating.

    As sales director for Yukoono, the task of global responsibility for product placement and sales teams is a daunting task, but Thomsen relies on his years of experience in the music industry to help him build Yukoono’s reputation as a recognizable brand familiar to all.

    The Platform Explained

    The very beneficial thing about this platform is that Yukoono guarantees the user a convergence of mobile app and TV. If you’re watching a movie on your handset while you’re traveling, come back home, you turn on your TV or your laptop, you log in and you can watch the movie where you just stopped, it’s bookmarked.

    This is a simple explanation about the benefits of the platform. The concept was to create an information entertainment platform which you can access from different platforms – mobile, web and TV (3 screens).

    Due to the fact that we are now living in an area where mobile content is extremely necessary and more popular, people are using their iPhones, for example, to access even more applications online.

    “Facebook for example, the social community, everyone is updating their status via mobile phone. It’s just a matter of time where there’s also access to different video on demand platforms where they can watch movies. As you can see, in the Asian market so far the user is far far away from where we are right now, we’re just in the [infant] stage, Thomsen says of those consuming digital content.

    Interestingly, it’s been shown that the user right now in the Asian market is spending two and a half hours a day watching movies and its content on his mobile. Thomsen is very correct when we look at how certain cultures, such as our Asian counterparts, expect to consume their media.

    The mobile industry, the mobile internet is getting more and more important for delivering, accessing news and information for the user.

    Yukoono Has Focus

    “I believe that everyone is focusing on the iPhone right now. It is one of the most popular handsets on the market right now but if you see the coverage from a global base, iPhone is just one out of two and a half thousand handsets worldwide. So the focus on our platform is not the iPhone, its nice to have, but we are attempting to provide service to more regular handsets on the market,” asserts Thomsen.

    It’s a known fact that the iPhone has dominated much of the Western world in terms of usage and infiltration into our culture, but worldwide, there are many more phones to take advantage of. Developing a mobile platform is very expensive and not something that every mobile platform company is willing to spend the time and resources to build out.

    This is where Yukoono steps in as the aggregation and accessibility across all three screens. It’s a process that is simplified for all the labels, especially for the publishers.

    Quality Encourages People to Move

    Recently at IFA Berlin, this past September, big TV manufacturers were displaying their new screens, unique platforms all connecting to services such as YouTube, Twitter, and other social network platforms. Thomsen shares that a big question at the event was “Why don’t you link?” He admits it’s a fair question, but the answer is equally simple.

    “It’s a simple fact that if you link to different websites that means you don’t have any influence about the quality of the content. As you know on YouTube where a user generated content has to be uploaded, quality cannot be guaranteed. You don’t have any influence on that and we want to guarantee 100% HD quality for our users. The second is thinking on TV platform, not only are the younger users using it to watch TV, but also the older generation. So if you link to different websites that means that the user has to adjust himself all the time to the navigation structure of these different platforms and this is going to be quite difficult.”

    That’s why Yukoono worked hard to have one surface in all different platforms so no matter where the user logs in, it all is set up you can browse through all the different platforms and it’s guaranteed to all be the same.

    “I cannot believe that five years ago that you had to be sitting on the laptop or even writing and sending letters by hand. The communication is getting shorter and shorter and it has to be more quicker and faster and as you can see there are a lot of online platforms, storage especially where you don’t have to keep things on your laptop anymore or on your mobile device. You just put it online and you have access to it all different ways,” Thomsen shares.

    This digital revolution is truly driving us to change our habits and ensuring quality encourages the prospective audience to trust the platforms and make that change. There’s no telling where we will be within the next five or ten years, but there’s no doubt that most of our life interactions will be taking place online.

    The line between online and the privatization of our own lives, work and stuff, is melting together. There is no difference between what we say to our friends or what we say to the world on the internet.

  • FutureDial's Mobile Content Solution Can Have "Huge Impact" On Operators' Revenue Potential

    INTERVIEW: Sanjiv Parikh, vice president of marketing for FutureDial, talks to smartphone-biz.news about its mobile content management service and its potential to generate revenue for operators and retailers.

    Apple has shown how its App Store can be a lucrative earner – and has inspired similar ventures from the likes of Google’s Android, Blackberry, Nokia and even the as-yet-unlaunched Palm Pre.

    But how can wireless operators and even retailers ensure they maximise their earnings from the lucrative mobile content market?

    Software company FutureDial believes it has the answer.

    Sanjiv Parikh, vice president of marketing for FutureDial, said its Retail Management Solution (RMS) 4.0 allows mobile content to be directly loaded to handsets at store counters – an industry first.

    He said the "Buy Content" feature enables retailers to sell user-selected content from an integrated online content site at a store counter.

    "Online content is still very difficult to access using phone browsers. It’s still not very user friendly," he said.

    "So when someone is buying a new phone, the store would ask if they want the content transferred from their old phone, but also if they are interested in games, applications, music files and so on for their new phone.

    "It’s an additional up-selling opportunity."

    Parikh said initial feedback suggested this new feature was having a "huge impact" on clients’ business.

    He said the idea was to provide operators or retailers with complete flexibility when it came to providing their own content.

    With this in mind, FutureDial also offers a solution to clients that have their own music or content portal.

    Main Markets

    RMS is supported on over 1000 handsets and this number is continually being added to – at a rate of 50 new handsets a month, if necessary.

    FutureDial’s main markets are the US and Europe, with a major UK carrier deal expected to be announced "shortly".

    Parikh said the latest version of RMS – launched at MWC in Barcelona last month – helps stores to close the sale on new phone purchases, maximize customer acquisition and retention, and increase ARPU.

    As well as allowing content downloads, RMS also offers users phone-to-phone content transfer, backup and restoration services across thousands of handset models at the store counter.

    The mobile content transfer service handles personal address books, pictures, calendars, messages, and audio/video files.

    A major addition in RMS 4.0 is an operation from a tablet-sized touch-screen online terminal called Talisman for "mobile personalization" services, either for use by store staff or as a customer self-service kiosk.

    Solution Aids Content Management

    Parikh said the content transfer, back-up and restore features of  RMS essentially address the issue of how consumers manage old phone content when switching handsets.

    He said it helps consumers move personal content – and to protect it by offering a backup and restore function.

    These aspects of the solution work in two ways.

    Firstly, with operators and equipment retail stores so that when a consumer switches phone, content can be transferred and backed-up at the store counter.

    He said that the more tech-savvy user was happy to do this themself at home – and FutureDial provides a product that connects mobiles to PCs to back-up and download content.

    Backing-up: "Complex & Tedious"

    But he said for many people it was a complex and tedious process.

    "What we found based on our home back-up offering is that many customers didn’t like to do this themselves," he said.

    "They would rather have someone do it for them and they are willing to pay for the service.

    "This has turned into a major opportunity for service providers."

    Around 70 per cent of stores using RMS charge for the service.

    Parikh said a fear of losing content and data – which often involves a huge investment of time and effort – also put many people off changing their handsets.

    But he said that even if they overcame that fear, simply by changing to a new phone could result in lost revenue for operators.

    "When users start with a new phone it can take up to 18 weeks before they come back to the original usage levels of the old phone," he said. "That’s a lot of user revenue lost."

    That wasn’t the case with RMS because content is instantly transferred onto a new handset – enabling usage to continue as before.

    Loyalty Has Rewards

    Parikh said RMS’s second function is to create loyalty in users by ensuring they return to stores for future back-ups – and so creating the potential for sales of sleeves, cover and other accessories.

    He said one US operator using RMS in hundreds of its stores had seen a marked upturn in user loyalty.

    "This loyalty element really helps operators avoid churn and sell more," he said. "It’s a revenue opportunity but it also give consumers the feeling that the service provider is taking care of them.

    "That’s a major element in such a fiercely competitive market."

    Please let us have your comments on RMS – will in-store content delivery and back-up appeal to the mass market?

  • Growth of Mobile Content and Services Sector Threatened


    The UK’s mobile content and services market could be in for tough times if research from mobile research and analyst house Direct2 Mobile bears out.

    Its survey found that over 7 per cent of consumers have stopped, or intend to stop, their spend on content and services until better economic conditions emerge.

    D2M said that figure represents 3.96 million users – or almost 50 per cent of the existing mobile content and service user base.

    Nearly a fifth of respondents (17.8 per cent of men / 16.3 per cent of women) – or around 10 million users – said they will not subscribe to mobile content and service subscriptions, such as mobile Internet access, mobile TV and mobile music services, until the economic environment changes.

    Nick Lane, chief researcher at D2M, said the glass is half full for the mobile operators and half empty for the mobile content and service industry.

    "As almost half the advanced data users are reverting to talk-and-text only usage, the mobile entertainment companies should remain vigilant for the foreseeable future," he said.

    "And with 20 per cent of the UK’s mobile population unlikely to subscribe to mobile data subscription services during the recession, it threatens to seriously impact on growth in the mobile content and services sector."

    The UK mobile entertainment market was worth approximately UKP£505.8 million in 2008, according to D2M.

    The survey, conducted by Lightspeed Research, asked a representative sample of 1,000 UK consumers about their changing spending attitudes and habits on mobile.

  • Mobiles To Receive Unprecedented US Election Coverage


    Whatever the outcome of the Obama-McCain contest, the unprecedented level of mobile US election coverage is expected to do much to introduce mainstream consumers to mobile content.

    Media companies and mobile operators have teamed up to offer extensive coverage of the US presidential election results direct to mobile phones.

    The hope is that huge numbers of people unfamiliar to the world of mobile content will continue using it long after election day.

    News, analysis and results will be available across a wide range of operating platforms.

    For Microsoft Windows Mobile-enabled phones, NewsGator Technologies is providing content from WashingtonPost.com and Newsweek to wireless users via its free Campaign Tracker app.

    iPhone users can receive a mobile version of online magazine Slate.com’s Election Scorecard thanks to its partnership with Seattle’s Chimp Software, which is offering a downloadable version of its interactive polling application for the Apple handsets.

    Google is offering an array of elections-based mobile offerings, including a mobile election site with links to election-related news, mobile YouTube channels from both John McCain and Barack Obama and links to search results for both candidates that eliminate the need to type in names for every search.