Can adult entertainment(pornography) help push the mobile industry(3G) forward

According to Strand Consults reports, adult mobile content will grow to approx 2.7 billion Euro or more. Even though this figure could easily be much higher, 2.7 billion Euro is well over 10% of the total value of the mobile services market.

As its known that aside from adult content, it has been very difficult to make money on the Internet.
Its strange but looking at the Internet, adult entertainment has helped push the Internet forward in many different ways like it has helped the development of compression technologies, especially in streaming software and optimising bandwidth capabilities.

Now looking at what the adult entertainment industry has done for the Internet, it is not surprising that the mobile sector are secretly hoping that adult entertainment can help push the mobile industry forward in the same way.
But one of the biggest differences is that mobile consumers never had access to any free content on their mobile phone plus there are other challenges ahead including legislation issues and protecting minors from access.

Though at this stage mobile operators feel that mobile adult entertainment content may not be good for their image but with the revenue opportunities it will be difficult for the mobile operators to overlook.....
Playboy have already signed their first mobile content agreements and are ready to go with media rich mobile content.

Everyone loves the underdog!!!!!Palm Pre

At a time when every smart phone phone looks like another copy of iPhone, the Palm Pre comes as a breath of fresh air.

The device is smart, sexy and interesting::

Side by Side: Palm Pre vs. iPhone 3G
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dc5k3rsm_28cttnz8fb


Android, until now the most-talked-about mobile OS, should be afraid of the Pre

Bing.com another attempt by Microsoft to beat Google!!!

Microsoft: Bing is getting all the promotion for its blank page on Google and Yahoo
Microsoft is desperately obsessed about beating Google in the game and Google on the other hand is carefree

Bing is so much customizable that you can grab a board marker and type both search and enter results that you have always wanted to appear.

www.Bing.com

• Video at :

http://www.decisionengine.com/Default.html

Hello Hello.!!!...........

How to educate a common man about the latest technology and products in a simple way.Today 80% of people using mobile phone have no idea what GSM or CDMA means.

One of my friend is in to investment banking, he knows everything about finance but have no idea about telecoms technologies.He has a NokiaGSM phone which fulfills all his needs which he wants from that tool but he gets very irritated because of call drops and poor data services.
So i tried to explain him how CDMA can resolve his basic problem but moment i uttered Code Division Multiplexing(CDMA),i got a reply from him "hey it sounds very complex, leave it...".
Now this is true no one wants to get into technology details , they just want to know it in a simple way.

So how to explain the simple stuff that call drops or poor data service problems can be resolved by CDMA(ofcourse network also plays a major role)?????????

Tata Indicom(CDMA operator in India) came up with a creative,funny and simple ad/marketing campaign where they try to indirectly explain the advantage of CDMA in a very basic way...

Have a look..............
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUF8Vf8--2g

I think there are very few ads/marketing campaign which tried to explain advantage of CDMA over GSM in such a simple way.Obviously this ad doesn't mention the word CDMA but creates a curiosity among people to know more about Tata Indicom which ultimately will make them aware of CDMA.

World's Rural will Drive Growth in Global Cell Phone Use

Nokia’s market share in India is ~60% especially in rural India,of the estimated 79,000 retail outlets in India selling mobile phones, Nokia had a presence in 72,000 of them.

Cell phone is the fastest-selling consumer electronics in the history of retail in Africa.Approx 16 million phone where sold in Africa in 2006, 45 million units are expected to be sold in 2010.

A rising number of Middle East people are using mobile devices to access the internet, while fewer are using computers,the percentage who regularly logged in to the web with their mobiles increased from 33.5% in February 2007 to 40% last month.

Let us have a look at different factors which needs to be taken care of when trying to capture mobile market in rural regions of developing countries:::::

1>Agriculture
What would a small-scale farmer in India or China or Africa or Middle East want with a mobile phone?
>Market information.
>Timely knowledge about who is buying potatoes today, what the buyers are willing to pay and where they are located.
Some creative campaign and product being used to capture this market:
A>Mobile phone to the countryside, a successful campaign started by China Unicom on January 16th 2009 in twelve provinces of china, during this campaign "if the farmers buy certain mobile phones they can enjoy "free call" of China Unicom as well as value added services which are customized for rural subscribers.
Mobile phone to the countryside is really a innovative way of capturing a bigger market cake of mobile phone which is in rural areas.
This a clever way of increasing ARPU and making people in rural area aware of VAS.
B>Nokia Life Tools,An innovative tool developed by Nokia providing information to India's farmers and farming communities,Life Tools provides an easy interface to Reuters Market Light which delivers information on crop prices.
It's important to remember that this is about money: Nokia wants to sell handsets to this growing rural market.
Providing services to farmers in rural area may prove as lucrative as selling applications and content through Apples App store in urban areas.

2>Tradition & Language
The combination of oral tradition and mobile telephony gives word of mouth an extremely powerful and strategic connotation in the context of India, China, Africa and Middle East, especially for marketing campaign in these regions.
Some creative campaign and product being used to capture this market:
A>Nokia 1110 and Nokia 1600 has a feature: Speaking Clock with Alarm, which announces the time in the user's local language.
B>Nokia in a tie up with Malayala Manorama (news publisher) launched a first of its kind a ‘Vernacular’ online news portal that will be available exclusively on Nokia handsets.I think it’s a great way to catch the locals of any country.
C>Hindustan Lever started a unique campaign in rural villages in India:Use of video vans .These vans screen movies in there local dialect at no cost to villagers and the commercial breaks in these movies are advertisements of HLL’s products.

3>Price
Low-income people are the fastest growing group of cell phone owners because of the low density of fixed line phones in rural areas of Africa/india/china/middle east, cell phones are the only means through which the locals can communicate with each other.
Some creative product being used to capture this market:
A>Nokia launched Nokia 1110 and Nokia 1600 in Kenya ,entry level phones which emphasize ease-of-use, reliability and affordability, and contain technological features which reduce the total cost of mobile ownership for consumers. And these phones have very strong demand in East Africa.
B>In India Reliance and Nokia are the providers of low cost phone.

4>Engagement with the Community
Companies must be actively involved in the community in some way. This gives an impression to customers that the company is not just taking money from their customers but giving out to customers.
Some creative campaign being used to capture this market:
A>Zain(lebanon) offered 3 luxurious cars during its summer campaign.
B>Globacom(africa) 'Win and Rule Promo' in which Globacom gave away 500 brand new cars to its loyal subscribers.

5>Entrepreneurship
The importance of local partnerships: reaching the users in this region also calls for innovative thinking to overcome the difficulties of isolation and of setting up a retail infrastructure.
A>The Village Phone concept started by GrameenPhone is now working with MTN to empower the women operators, spur economic activities and promote entrepreneurialism.
B>The Community payphone,are owned and operated by entrepreneurs who buy airtime from the network and subsequently sell it to local people who don’t own phones themselves. A recent survey reported that 97% of Tanzanians now have access to a mobile phone thanks to the community payphone model.

6>Mobile Health
Over million of patients die each year as a result of not having access to a proper healthcare.
A>mHealth Alliance where Qualcomm also plays a major role, formed with goal to improve healthcare delivery in the Africa/Middle east.
B>Map of Medicine a joint project between Cisco and the hospital was launched in Kenya in 2006 to address information access problems for doctors at the institution.
C>Some other products/projects are EpiSurveyor, SIMpill project etc.

7>Mobile Banking
The banking industry is very suspicious of the cell-phone industry, because they suspect that cell phones will make them obsolete. The cell-phone companies think the banks are like dinosaurs.
But these players have to work together seamlessly for cell-phone-based banking to work.
A>Some of the famous mobile banking solutions in Middle East/Africa/India:Wizzit, MPESA ,CELPAY, Fundamo
Obopay Mobile Technology India Pvt. Ltd, Jigrahak Mobility Solutions Pvt. Ltd, Eko India Financial Services Pvt. Ltd and Mchek India Payment Systems Pvt. Ltd.

8>Religion
A mobile phone that gives you access to your belief wherever you are....
Some creative product being used to capture this market:
A>LG-G5300 Qiblah phone comes with an in built compass and location-tracking software which shows the direction of Mecca especially for Middle East market.

Conclusion:
There are certain other areas which requires a significant rethinking of managerial practices.Main point is that urban and rural marketing strategies are totally different.In short, customized and affordable products, effective distribution, and focused marketing initiatives are essential factors in building credibility for a brand in India,China,Middle East,Africa.

For Promotion or brand-building in rural region of developing countries we need to use Non conventional media – Conventional forms of media have made their way to the rural hinterland but they don’t have the desired effects on the consumer. Other forms that can be used use are puppetry, folk theatre etc. Given the literacy ratio of rural Africa/Middle East/India/China, it is important to connect to rural consumers in their dialects to inform them of available product offerings.

Rural folks think of a purchase in terms of how it serves their needs and how well its suits the family, rather than the individual. Products must be affordable and immensely practical.

As it’s rightly said, Nokia is to "phone“ in India what Kleenex is to "tissue“ in USA. This is because they think small. May be this the reason why in North America, despite a marketing blitz Nokia's market share has slid to just 8% from 15% two years ago…. Just joking…!

‘Weird Effect’

It’s often said every technology in world has a good and bad effect but I would say there is one more effect and i.e. 'weird effect' !!!
I think no other technology can have a 'weird effect' other than MOBILE.
Imagine "Selling goats using mobile" and this the reason why even in time of recession mobile sales haven't gone down.....

Another weird fashion is SOCIAL NETWORKING.Worldwide users of social networking increased by 25% when compared to 2007.

Just combine this two weird things together and you can conquer the world.Internet is the key to next phase of mobile growth in emerging markets as increasing numbers of people are accessing the internet for the first time on their mobile rather than on a PC.

A>Research firm Strategy Analytics has forecast the value of the mobile content market - including downloadable games, ring tones, wallpapers, video, mobile TV, text alerts and mobile Web browsing - to grow 15 percent this year to $79 billion.
B>But still there are great disparities in the distribution and use of many forms of technology. For example, 331 per 1,000 people in Europe use the Internet, while approximately 15 per 1,000 in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, 37 per 1,000 in the Middle East and Africa and 92 per 1,000 in Latin America and the Caribbean use the Internet.


What message do we get from this, message is simple:

Internet or Mobile alone doesn't have a market.

A>It's due to this simple factor that Nokia is now trying to build a new business from mobile Internet services(ovi store) like games or maps in order to cope up with the slowing phone demand.

B>But then we all know Apple was able to convert this simple message to iPhone obviously in a much cooler way.And despite the global economic malaise, apple is still the cool brand that consumers want and willing to spend on.Their stock price has held at the mid to high 90's.

C>Then why the hell am I blabbering about this simple message of combining mobile and internet.
Reason is smartphones are a small minority of all wireless devices.Smartphones make up roughly 10% of all mobile devices globally and about 20% of those in the U.S.

D>As we all know our small world has been divided in to two parts by Uncle Sam ie. developed and developing countries.And today developing countries are driving growth of Global Cell Phone Use.
Less than 10 percent of the population of even the most technologically developed countries don't have telephone service of any kind.That translates into hundreds of millions of potential customers!!!!!!

E>Although trying to sell mobile phones to people who don’t even have old-fashioned landline models might seem like folly, business and infrastructure concerns may give cellular the edge.
The reasons are both economic and regulatory.It’s cheaper for a carrier to lay down a few miles of cable to a base station filled with cellular antennas than to string traditional phone lines to every house and business.
For example take case of Africa where Wireless penetration was 24.4 % in 2006 and is expected to reach 35 % by 2010.

F>Mobile Internet market is ripe for innovation but for mobile internet to do well in developing world, the operator’s will have to bring down the usage cost and encourage adoption.

Now question is how to capture this market when there are so many competitors out there.

1>When doing business in developing world, remember that success is crucially linked to relationship building.
Main focus should be Branding.

2>Don’t waste all the time and money you spend on marketing and sales by not maximizing your brand.
Branding is influencing.Creating a brand identity that associates certain perceptions, emotions, and feelings with that identity.

3>Branding happens before marketing and sales. Without a strong brand, marketing is ineffective and selling is like beating your head against a wall of sales resistance.

In life, as in business, branding is more effective, powerful, and sustainable than marketing and sales.

In next blog I will dicuss about different factors which needs to be taken care of when trying to conquer the "Mobile+Internet" market in developing countries and what are the different marketing campaigns being done by telecom giants in order to grap this raw market.