In a new initiative, Google has got together with the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) to release mobile data which should prove extremely valuable to marketeers. The pair has re-launched ‘Our Mobile Planet’ with help from the IAB and researchers Ipsos MediaCT. The data covers 40 countries in 22 different languages but it has also found which countries have the highest smartphone adoption. The answer is Australia, the UK, Sweden, Norway, Saudi Arabia and the UAE which all have more than 50 per cent of their population on smartphones. Which has led to Paul Berney, md for EMEA with the MMA to claim that the majority of smartphone adopters are in EMEA. The data can be accessed for free from thinkwithgoogle.co.uk/mobileplanet.Significantly, the seven remaining members of the Top 13 adopters are the USA, New Zealand, Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland which all have more than 40 per cent smartphone penetration.

GoMobile News was interested to see how low the USA came (and there’s no mention of Canada)  given the regions undue influence on the smartphone sector.

Anyway, talking about this new resource, Greg Stuart, global CEO with the MMA, observed, “Understanding the mobile consumer is absolutely critical for marketers, and ‘Our Mobile Planet’ puts an invaluable resource in their hands.”

He also pointed out that users can create custom charts that will help them to analyse smartphone consumer behaviour and support data-driven decision making.

Paul Berney claimed, “These figures also point to a burgeoning global mobile movement as smartphone adoption grows exponentially worldwide, and send a strong message to marketers that they need to make mobile an indispensable part of their marketing mix.”

Full data downloads and executive summary reports for each country in the 2012 research are available from here.

The full Press rlease can be found here.

Press release

May 16th 2012. Google with the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), the leading global trade association for the mobile industry, has announced the launch of an updated version of ‘Our Mobile Planet’, a mobile consumer data resource that provides free access to powerful data across 40 countries in 22 languages at thinkwithgoogle.co.uk/mobileplanet. “Understanding the mobile consumer is absolutely critical for marketers, and ‘Our Mobile Planet’ puts an invaluable resource in their hands,” said Greg Stuart, Global CEO of the MMA. “Users can create custom charts that will help them to analyze smartphone consumer behaviour and support data-driven decision making. We’re proud to have played a role in collecting the initial data for the project, and to have taken part in today’s re-launch,” Stuart added.

Originally launched at the MMA Forum in London in October of 2011, ‘Our Mobile Planet’ provides users with free access to the data from the unique smartphone research conducted across 40 markets worldwide by Google in collaboration with Ipsos MediaCT and the MMA. For the re-launch, conducted with Ipsos, the IAB and the MMA, Google commissioned Ipsos to conduct new research on smartphone Internet users across 26 countries in Q1 2012. The updated research is available on the new site, thinkwithgoogle.co.uk/mobileplanet, and also provides full data downloads and executive summary reports for each country in the 2012 research.

So which six countries have the highest smartphone adoption? ‘Our Mobile Planet’ reports that Australia, the UK, Sweden, Norway, Saudi Arabia and the UAE all have more than 50 per cent of their population on smartphones.

An additional seven countries – the USA, New Zealand, Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland – now have more than 40 per cent smartphone penetration.

“That the majority of these countries are in the EMEA region is exciting and confirms that mobile is making immense gains in Europe and the Middle East,” says Paul Berney, MMA CMO and Managing Director for EMEA.

“These figures also point to a burgeoning global mobile movement as smartphone adoption grows exponentially worldwide, and send a strong message to marketers that they need to make mobile an indispensable part of their marketing mix.”

To find out more, visit thinkwithgoogle.com/mobileplanet (US) or thinkwithgoogle.co.uk/mobileplanet (Global & UK).

About the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA)

The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) is the premier global non-profit trade association established to lead the growth of mobile marketing and its associated technologies. The MMA is an action-oriented organization designed to clear obstacles to market development, establish mobile media guidelines and best practices for sustainable growth, and evangelize the use of the mobile channel. The more than 700 member companies, representing over forty countries around the globe, include all members of the mobile media ecosystem. The Mobile Marketing Association’s global headquarters are located in the United States and it has regional chapters including North America (NA), Europe (EUR), Latin American (LATAM) and Asia Pacific (APAC) branches. For more information, please visit www.mmaglobal.com.

Famed for spending ten days camped outside an Apple Store in London’s Covent Garden, Rob Shoesmith has set himself an ambitious target of selling a million copies of his e-book. The book is available from Amazon and the Apple iTunes iBooks Store. Shoesmith actually works for an smartphone app developer operating under the name of MEDL Mobile*. His idea is to sell enough copies of the book – ‘Bin There Done That’ so that he can sell his house in Coventry [England] and donate the proceeds to a charity for the homeless. The book only costs 99 pence or $1.99. Shoesmith emailed GoMobile News to announce that the book had got into the British Top 40 best selling books on iTunes. It has subsequently dropped to No. 60, so he needs more help from Apple fans everywhere.The is an account of how Rob used the world of smartphone apps to transform his life after hitting rock bottom.

His experiment culminated in a ten night camping experience outside an Apple Store in Central London for the release of the iPhone 5.

Unfortunately for Shoesmith, Apple released the iPhone 4s instead of an iPhone 5 but that doesn’t seem to have fazed him.

Rob Shoesmith made the pledge to sell his home after connecting with dozens of homeless people in London throughout his stay.

Curiously quite a few of the homeless people Shoesmith connected with were also Apple fans, a fact which the company would probably like to bury.

Anyway, to make it easier for our readers to donate by purchasing this book here are the necessary URLs: -

Bin There Done That Apple iBooks UK version
Bin There Done That Apple iBooks US version
Amazon UK version
Amazon USA version

We wish him the best of luck.

* Readers may recall MEDL for producing an Apple app called Boink which featured the reverse cowgirl position. More here.

Regular readers will know that GoMobile News recently reported on our inability to join in a quest for London Olympics tickets courtesy of Cadbury (see here). We were testing out the first ever airing of ‘Shazam-for-TV’. This technology enables anyone with a suitably equipped handset to ‘tag’ an advert being aired on TV. We questioned exactly what had gone wrong and have received the following clarification from Cadbury’s representatives below. It makes very interesting reading. Cadbury say, “We’re sorry that you experienced issues connecting to the Cadbury microsite.

As you mentioned in the article the connection error wasn’t from your end, as you were able to tag the advert using Shazam.

In fact, Shazam worked as expected for all users, the connectivity down-time was due to high traffic volume hitting the Cadbury’s servers.

Cadbury did manage to rectify the issue in quick time and also communicated with its fans on its social channels.

It advised them that the tag results lives on in Shazam and was not time-sensitive and the competition could be entered later.

So people who did re-open their tag at a later time were able to successfully enter the competition.

In fact, we have just announced that around 50,000 viewers used the Shazam App to tag the Pepsi MAX and Cadbury ads during the 60 seconds of airtime during the special ad breaks in Saturday’s Britain’s Got Talent Final TV show.

As regards to the Promotional Blurb where we asked users to, “Make sure you have the latest version of Shazam, for the fastest tagging experience!.”

This wasn’t linked to the connection down-time you experienced either – we just wanted our fans to make sure they had the latest version of the free Shazam app.

That’s because it gives them access to the industry’s fastest tagging – tagging adverts and music tracks in as little as one second on Android and iOS devices.

Do let us know if you have any further questions.”

GoMobile News is more than happy to print this clarification. It’s interesting that 50,000 viewers did actually get on.

However, our tag does not “live on” as described. We just put the whole incident down to teething problems.

Let’s see what happens next time and hope the ‘micro site’ doesn’t get overloaded.

May 15th2012. Barclaycard Wireless Festival 2012 is to be the first music event in the country to be fully contactless-enabled, giving music lovers the ability to enjoy the experience without having to carry cash. All vendors at the festival will accept contactless payments, allowing customers to spend less time queuing and more time listening to music. All forms of contactless will be accepted at the event including Barclaycard PayBand, a specially designed wristband that allows festival-goers to pay for goods quickly and easily using contactless technology.Tom Gregory, Head of Digital Payments at Barclaycard said, “We are immensely proud to be the first to go completely contactless and offer the choice of a cashless experience at London’s largest music festival. We’re really excited by the possibilities Barclaycard PayBand offers as a wearable, secure and easy way to pay when you’re out and about at the festival. Alongside QuickTap and Barclaycard PayTag, we’re exploring the versatility that contactless offers as an alternative to cash.”

Festival-goers can pay for goods and services at the event by simply placing any contactless card, Barclaycard PayTag or Barclaycard PayBand on a reader, without needing to enter a PIN or sign their name. This year’s attendees will be among the first to be able to make contactless payments at the new higher limit of £20, as the limit for contactless transactions increases in June from the current limit of £15. Cards from other banks, as well as cash, will be freely accepted at Barclaycard Wireless Festival 2012.

The lucky festival-goers that receive a Barclaycard PayBand will be able to take advantage of a host of enhanced experiences through exclusive ‘Barclaycard Unwind’ privileges. These include fast track entry, goody packs, the chance to win back stage tours, VIP upgrades and entry to the Barclaycard Unwind perk park with luxury loos and a photo-booth that can instantly upload their photos to Facebook.

Users will be able to top up their Barclaycard PayBand online before the festival, or on site using any Visa or MasterCard credit or debit card. In addition, help points will be positioned throughout the park to top up at any time or check balances.

Once the wristbands are topped up they can be used to pay for everything at the festival, from drinks to t-shirts, as well as to gain access to VIP areas.

Barclaycard PayBands are available to apply for prior to the event, which takes place between 6th – 8th July 2012, at www.barclaycardpayband.com.

Numbers are limited and festival-goers are advised to apply early to receive their pre-festival packs, a £5 incentive for auto-top ups and most importantly, eligibility for onsite benefits. Registration and top-up facilities will also be available at the festival.

Help points and roaming Barclaycard staff will be on hand to help with top ups and to report lost or stolen Barclaycard PayBands. Those paying with Barclaycard PayBand will benefit from the 100 per cent fraud refund guarantee associated with all Barclaycard products.

Barclaycard PayBands will be live only for the festival period and will be deactivated after the festival. Any remaining money on the Barclaycard PayBands will be refunded to the original card shortly after the festival.

To register for a Barclaycard PayBand for use at Barclaycard Wireless Festival 2012 or for further information please go to: www.barclaycardpayband.com.

About Barclaycard

Barclaycard, part of Barclays Retail and Business Banking, is a leading global payment business which helps consumers, retailers and businesses to make and accept payments flexibly, and to access short-term credit when needed.

The company is one of the pioneers of new forms of payments and is at the forefront of developing viable contactless and mobile payment schemes for today and cutting edge forms of payment for the future. It also issues credit and charge cards to corporate customers and the UK Government. Barclaycard partners with a wide range of organisations across the globe to offer their customers or members payment options and credit.

About contactless

Contactless payment enables customers to make a purchase of £15 and under – increasing to £20 in June – without the need to sign or enter a pin. Barclays and Barclaycard are leading the way in introducing contactless and there are now over 17 million contactless-enabled Barclaycards and Barclays debit cards, helping retailers reduce queuing and cut the cost of card transactions. In line with its history of providing customers with innovative payment forms, Barclaycard launched the UK’s first contactless mobile payment service, in partnership with Orange, in May 2011.

Barclays and Barclaycard are the leading providers of contactless terminals in the UK. There are currently over 100,000 point-of-sale terminals that accept contactless payments in the UK and by the end of 2012 it is predicted that there will be over 150,000 across the UK, including outlets such as Waitrose, McDonalds, Boots and Tesco. By then London buses will be accepting contactless payments too, followed by the tube and the rest of the transport network in the Capital in 2013.

To find out more about Contactless payment, visit www.barclaycard.co.uk/contactless or www.Barclays.co.uk/contactless

UPDATE: Why can’t we get onto the Barclaycard Payband site today? May 15th 2012.

May 15th 2012. Kopparberg, the premium cider from Sweden, will tomorrow launch a unique music app; the Kopparberg Festival Player. Employing the expert talents of Spotify and Last.fm, this is the first time these two music services have worked together on a brand-led project.The partnership combines intuitive data from Last.fm, the global music discovery service, and Spotify’s huge catalogue of over 18 million songs, to create a unique app exclusively for Kopparberg Cider.

This is the first playlist generator of its kind, focused completely on UK festivals and will only be accessible via the Kopparberg UK Facebook page here.

Through the innovative app, the user browses a selection of festival artists using a navigational slider which uses Last.fm’s huge banks of scrobbling data to classify the line-up from the more un-established acts to the festival headliners.

The user then selects three artists and the app processes these choices to generate a bespoke Spotify playlist.

The playlists will be permanently showcased on the Facebook app, so that new users immediately get a sense of what is trending.

Other features of the Kopparberg Festival Player include the ability to share playlists with friends and a competition to win tickets to the most sought-after festivals in the UK this Summer, including; Field Day, Secret Garden Party and Reading & Leeds.

Chris Wistow, Commercial Director at CBS Interactive Music Group, Last.fm, commented “We are really excited that Last.fm and Spotify have come together to create this fantastic app, it really highlights the synergy between the two services and the benefit this can have for music lovers.”

Adam Williams, UK Sales Director, at Spotify adds: “This campaign will help UK festival-goers to plan the bands they want to watch over the Summer, allow them to share their suggestions with friends and to re-live the experience through a Spotify playlist afterwards. We love to see campaigns like this that use our vast catalogue to capture the imagination of music fans.”

Leading integrated media planning and buying agency, Arena Media, devised, generated and shaped this inspired three-way partnership.

Kopparberg Head of Marketing, Rob Calder, comments “Kopparberg is proud to bring this innovative app to festival and music lovers – using Spotify’s fantastic content and Last.fm’s music discovery service means this is a totally unique app. The partnership elevates our continued support of new music and festivals allowing us to shine a spotlight on the talent of 2012 and give something back to our 110,000 Facebook fans.”

The announcement of this app coincides with the launch of Kopparberg’s multi-million pound, multiplatform advertising and marketing campaign entitled ‘ün- established since 1882’.

The ad will hit TV screens from Tuesday 14th May 2012 and will continue to be broadcast over the summer; as well as further cinema, digital and outdoor advertising channels.

About Kopparbergs Bryggeri

Formed in 1882 in the tiny town of Kopparberg, Sweden when local brewers joined forces to build a brewery, Kopparberg Bryggeri today remains an independently owned business, employing over 300 people from the town’s population of just 4,000. To put it quite simply, without the town there wouldn’t be a brewery, and without the brewery there wouldn’t be a town.

Brand Owner

Kopparberg UK is a joint venture between Kopparberg Breweries Sweden, Irish drinks entrepreneur Barry Connolly and C.O.S Brands Managing Director; Davin Nugent. Officially a subsidiary of Kopparberg Breweries, Cider of Sweden Ltd was established in the UK in 2005 to market and distribute Kopparberg Cider. Now a range of 7 distinct variants (Pear, Naked Apple, Mixed Fruit, Strawberry & Lime, Elderflower & Lime and 2 Alcohol Free offerings), the brand has pioneered the development of the fruit cider category in the UK with total sales growing by 65% in 2011 v. 48% growth the year before.

Results

First to market with a nationally distributed Pear Cider in 2006, the brand quickly followed in its success by launching its popular Mixed Fruit variant in 2007 which was again, the first of its type to be released in the UK. Today Kopparberg has become the largest fruit cider brand in the UK, where it sells over 40m litres per year. It is also the largest packaged cider brand in the UK bar trade and in total the UK now accounts for over 30% of the total brewery output making it the largest export market for the Kopparberg Brewery.

ün- established since 1882

This May, Kopparberg, the premium cider from Sweden, is set to launch a multi-million pound, multiplatform advertising and marketing campaign entitled ‘un-established since 1882’. Kopparberg is a brand that has always done things differently and through this innovative campaign, the brand is celebrating the people who share this approach to life. Kopparberg believes in following your passions rather than the herd and it’s the people who have the courage and creativity to do things differently and disregard the norms that make the world a more interesting place. These people are the un-established.

About Spotify

Spotify is an award-winning digital music service that gives you on-demand access to over 18 million tracks. Our dream is to make all the world’s music available instantly to everyone, wherever and whenever they want it. Spotify makes it easier than ever to discover, manage and share music with your friends, while making sure that artists get a fair deal. Spotify is available in 13 countries: USA, UK, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Belgium, The Netherlands and Spain, with more than 10 million active users, and over 3 million paying subscribers.

About Last.fm

Founded in 2002, Last.fm is CBS Corporation’s (NYSE: CBS.A and CBS) global music discovery service and is part of the CBS Interactive Music Group. Last.fm intelligently recommends users new music, personalised radio and concerts, connecting music lovers from around the globe. Last.fm’s unique ‘scrobbling’ technology lets users keep a record of what they listen to from over 600 music players. Last.fm harnesses 60 billion pieces of music taste information to recommend music to almost 40 million users across 12 languages in more than 200 countries.

About Arena Media

Arena Media is a fully integrated media planning and buying agency, the UK operation of the Arena Media Network, the fastest growing division of Havas. In the UK, they are a team of 145, with a senior management team who have worked together at the agency for over 10 years and continue to work day-to-day on their clients’ business, supporting both short and long term objectives.

About RKCR Y&R

RKCR/Y&R is a full service creative advertising agency. Clients include M&S, Virgin Atlantic, Lloyds TSB, BBC, Land Rover and Kopparberg across both national and global markets. RKCR/Y&R is the UK’s most awarded creative agency for effectiveness with wins across IPA, Marketing Week Effectiveness Awards and Marketing Society Awards covering both the private and public sectors. The 2010 Gunn Report ranked them the No.1 most creative UK agency and 5th worldwide. In 2010 RKCR/Y&R won its second BAFTA for its BBC Winter Olympics trail – and remains the only creative agency to have been awarded by BAFTA.

A survey of the Top 100 US magazines (by circulation) carried out by Nellymoser has found that the use of some kind of 2D barcode is almost universal. The percentage of magazines with at least one such code went from 78 per cent in Q1 2011 to 99 per cent in Q1 2012. Marketers overwhelmingly favoured QR codes over other types of 2D codes with a share of over 80 per cent. Significantly, Microsoft Tag held a 14 per cent share with other types of codes (SpyderLynk SnapTag, Digimarc watermark) having only a 6 per cent market share. GoMobile News is unsure if Microsoft would have such a share globally. Interestingly most codes pointed to a video of some kind.Nellymoser found that 35 per cent of mobile campaigns led to a video experience such as a product demo, entertaining clip, or behind-the-scenes look.

Mobile commerce (which lets readers scan an action code and immediately purchase a product), and social media sharing (to enable Facebook, Twitter and email sharing) both had around a 20 per cent share of links from codes.

Roger Matus, an executive vp with Nellymoser, commented, “The fact that virtually every Top 100 US publication featured advertisements with mobile action codes in Q1 is evidence that they are an essential marketing tool for engaging readers and building brand loyalty.”

“Given the trajectory of growth we’ve seen to date, we anticipate an even faster rate of mobile action code adoption throughout 2012,” Matus added.

Some of the other stats unearthed by Nellymoser are equally impressive.

For example, the total number of action codes in magazines grew by an impressive 288 per cent – from 352 in Q1 2011 to 1365 in Q1 2012.

Brands certainly seem to have caught onto the power of 2D barcodes. More than 450 brands ran at least one advertisement during Q1 2012 which included a code, which is up from only 137 in Q1 2011.

GoMobile News would love to know how these brands broke down into industry sectors. In the UK, brewers seem particularly big users of 2D barcodes, for example.

A free copy of this study is available from here.

Cannes Mobile Day Speaking Panel – Deconstructing Mobile @ 59th Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity

June 19th 2012 3.30 pm – 4.30 pm
Cannes, France
www.canneslions.com

As the consumer communications landscape continues to be dominated by mobile devices, mobile marketing is predicted to be one of the highest growth media platforms to ever exist. Hear from mobile marketing leaders on their vision for how the mobile channel will evolve in the next 3-5 years and what this means for marketers. Also discover ways to navigate this complicated and diverse ecosystem to best leverage the power of the channel.Panelists include Alex Moukas, CEO, Velti; David Kenny, Chairman and CEO, The Weather Channel Companies; Margaret Glover-Campbell, SVP of Marketing and External Communications, Poynt; and moderator MMA Global CEO Greg Stuart.

Press release

May 14th 2012. The International Festival of Creativity – Cannes Lions, the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), the leading global trade association for the mobile industry, and Velti, the leading global provider of mobile advertising and marketing technology, together have announced that the Mobile Circus is coming to town. A one-of-a-kind program celebrating the mobile channel, the Mobile Circus will make its debut at the 59th Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity – the premier international advertising event – the week of June 17th-23rd 2012.For the first time this year, Cannes Lions will include Mobile Marketing as a distinct and separate category. In keeping with the ‘Festival’ theme, MMA created ‘The Mobile Circus Comes to Town’ to help bring the power of mobile to the forefront of a week that is all about the best-of-the-best in creativity and innovation. The MMA program will balance entertainment with education, while showcasing the diversity, growth and potential of Mobile Marketing.

Philip Thomas, CEO of Cannes Lions, commented, “We are delighted to count on the support of the Mobile Marketing Association. Their activities in Cannes reinforce the exciting launch of Mobile Lions this year.”

“Marketers can no longer ignore the power of mobile,” says Greg Stuart, CEO of the MMA. “Cannes organizers realize this, and have made mobile integral to the Festival for the first time this year. We are thrilled to be working with them to lead the Festival’s debut of the mobile channel; it’s up to us to support the industry, help it grow, and make mobile an indispensible part of the marketing mix.”

“How brands are approaching marketing today will be drastically different in as little as 6 months. Mobile marketing makes the promise of reaching the right person, in the right place at the right time, a real possibility for the first time,” said Alex Moukas, CEO, Velti. “As an industry, we need to be leading the way in evangelizing and teaching marketers the best way to reach, engage and inspire the mobile audience. Cannes is the perfect place to further those conversations.”

‘The Mobile Circus Comes to Town’ will feature compelling events and programs that will be interwoven within the Cannes Lions Festival’s schedule, resulting in the highest level of visibility and exposure for the mobile channel. The Mobile Circus will feature:-

• The Mobile Smart Big Top: Events will be centred in and around the Mobile Smart Big Top, a circus tent that serves as the meeting hub that will give marketers and agencies from around the world the opportunity to connect with MMA staff and network with brands, agencies and media professionals. In addition, the Mobile Smart Big Top provides a break from the day where delegates can recharge themselves and their mobile devices. Circus performers will be featured throughout the day, adding to the Festival fun.
• Cannes Mobile Day Speaking Panel: Deconstructing Mobile – Tuesday, June 19: 3:30pm – 4:30pm: As the consumer communications landscape continues to be dominated by mobile devices, mobile marketing is predicted to be one of the highest growth media platforms to ever exist. Hear from mobile marketing leaders on their vision for how the mobile channel will evolve in the next 3-5 years and what this means for marketers. Also discover ways to navigate this complicated and diverse ecosystem to best leverage the power of the channel. Panelists include Alex Moukas, CEO, Velti; David Kenny, Chairman and CEO, The Weather Channel Companies; Margaret Glover-Campbell, SVP of Marketing and External Communications, Poynt; and moderator MMA Global CEO Greg Stuart.
• The Petit Mobile Train: The Cannes Petit Train will be transformed into MMA’s Mobile Train for the Festival. Hop on and off to get to where you need to go. The official mode of transportation, the train will take delegates to the key stops throughout the festival including Mobile Day, the Mobile Lions Awards, the parties, the Old Town, and the beaches, and will be stationed right next to the Mobile Smart Big Top.
• Cannes Creative Academy for Young Marketers: As the exclusive sponsor of Cannes’ renowned Marketer Academy, the MMA, together with Jim Stengel – ex-CMO of P&G, will be participating in curating the curriculum for 70 of the top up-and-coming brand marketers. This is an unmatched opportunity for marketers to be educated on the power of mobile.

About the 59th Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity

The International Festival of Creativity, also known as Cannes Lions, is the world’s leading celebration of creativity in communications. Founded in 1954, the Festival takes place every June in Cannes, France. As the most prestigious international annual advertising and communications awards, over 28,800 entries from all over the world are showcased and judged at the Festival. Winning companies receive the highly coveted Lion trophy honouring the most creative film, print, outdoor, interactive, radio, design, sales promotion & activation, film craft, integrated and mobile advertising, as well as the best media, direct marketing, PR, titanium, creative effectiveness and branded content & entertainment ideas. The Festival is also the only truly global meeting place for advertisers, advertising and communication professionals. Close to 9,500 delegates from 95 countries attend seven days of exhibitions, screenings, as well as 50+ high-profile seminars, 20+ workshops and master classes presented by renowned worldwide industry leaders. As the networking and learning opportunity of the year, Cannes Lions is the must-attend event for anyone involved in brand communication. Please visit www.canneslions.com.

About the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA)

The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) is the premier global non-profit trade association established to lead the growth of mobile marketing and its associated technologies. The MMA is an action-oriented organization designed to clear obstacles to market development, establish mobile media guidelines and best practices for sustainable growth, and evangelize the use of the mobile channel. The more than 700 member companies, representing over forty countries around the globe, include all members of the mobile media ecosystem. The Mobile Marketing Association’s global headquarters are located in the United States and it has regional chapters including North America (NA), Europe (EUR), Latin American (LATAM) and Asia Pacific (APAC) branches. For more information, please visit www.mmaglobal.com. For information relating to the MMA’s Mobile Marketing Forum series, please visit www.mobilemarketingforum.com.

About Velti

Velti is the leading global provider of mobile marketing and advertising technology and solutions that enable brands, advertising agencies, mobile operators and media to implement highly targeted, interactive and measurable campaigns by communicating with and engaging consumers via their mobile devices. The Velti platform, called Velti mGage, allows customers to use mobile and traditional media to reach targeted consumers, engage the consumer through the mobile Internet and applications, convert them into customers and continue to actively manage the relationship through the mobile channel. Velti is a publicly held corporation based in Jersey, and trades on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol VELT. For more information, visit www.velti.com.

Billed as the UK’s first Shazam-enabled ads, UK broadcaster, ITV, aired two adverts during the Britain’s Got Talent Final show last Saturday [12th May 2012]. GoMobile News isn’t sure how other viewers fared but the technology didn’t quite work for us. There were two ads involved: – one from soft drinks supplier, Pepsi and the other from confectionary supplier, Cadbury. Our problems could have stemmed from the fact that we were using a Nokia Lumia 800 (W7 Mango) handset. Such users surely represent a tiny minority of the over 10 million Shazam users in the UK. Another clue is that in the promotional blurb, says, “Make sure you have the latest version of Shazam, for the fastest tagging experience!”. We assume Shazam does actually mean the latest version not the paid-for Shazam Encore version. Curious, though.

The more ambitious of the two Shazam for TV-enabled ads was from Pepsi – ‘Crowd Surfing’.

This offered the opportunity to win tickets to popular festivals and unlock other prizes, free screen savers and merchandise.

There was also a link to Apple’s iTunes so that fans could download the Calvin Harris (featuring Ne-Yo) track, ‘Let’s Go’, which is the Pepsi Max ad’s official soundtrack.

The Cadbury’s ad –’Unwrap Gold’, offered viewers the chance to win a London 2012 Opening Ceremony package. This is where GoMobile News got nowhere.

What we saw was a graphic which read – “OOPS. SORRY POOR CONNECTION TRY AGAIN WHEN YOU HAVE A BETTER SIGNAL OR WIFI.”

Which is very strange indeed.

If – as is implied, we didn’t have a connexion, then how did we manage to actually obtain this tag in the first place?

Another attempt produced no tag – exactly what you’d expect when there’s no connexion.

Apparently, the idea and creative was devised by Drum and the deal brokered by PHD.

We’re not quite sure if The Drum is embarrassed by this episode because the relevant Press release on its site here was missing when we tried to view it.

We like the remarks in the release made by Cadbury London 2012 marketing lead, Clare Tasker, about the use of ‘Shazam for TV’.

She said, “This is a great way to use the second screen around event TV and the use of this innovative technology allows us to get closer to consumers.

It is something Cadbury have been doing more and more of over the last 18 months.”

GoMobile News wonders just how many people did get a chance to win the tickets. Perhaps we’d better ask her who won?

UPDATE: Cadbury has come back to us with an explanation. See here.

A new report from market watchers, Berg Insight, entitled ‘Location-Based Advertising and Marketing’ (see here) estimates that location-based advertising (LBA) will account for 28.3 per cent of mobile ad spend in 2016. That corresponds to a compound annual growth rate of 90.9 per cent, so the real-time LBA market should be worth €4.9 billion in 2016. The company reckons that in 2011 the total global value of the real-time mobile LBA market was €192 million, representing 5.0 per cent of the total mobile ad spend. Asia-Pacific is estimated to be the largest LBA market in 2016, followed by Europe and North America.The figures also mean that location-based advertising and marketing will represent more than four per cent of digital advertising, or one per cent of the total global ad spend for all media.

Berg Insight says that the LBA value chain is still forming. Many different companies are involved, ranging from LBA specialists such as Placecast, xAd and LEMON Mobile, to operators including SFR, AT&T and O2, and LBS players such as Telmap, TeleNav and Waze.

Furthermore, there is an abundance of location-aware applications and media which serve geo-targeted ads, with examples such as WHERE, Loopt and Shopkick.

Included in the marketplace are coupons and deals providers including Yowza!!, GeoAd and COUPIES; plus search solutions such as Poynt and Qype.

Additionally there are proximity marketing providers like Qwikker, Proximus Mobility and Scanbuy.

A number of traditional mobile advertising players are also active in the LBA space, for example Millennial Media, Madvertise and Nexage, as well as major digital and telecom players such as Google, Apple and Nokia.

Current important high-volume LBA formats include mobile search and SMS campaigns.

Berg Insight however anticipates that geo-targeting gradually will become ubiquitous and available across the entire mobile channel.

Useful definitions

The report provides some extremely useful definitions of the LBA sector. It says a notable division can be made between static and real-time location-based advertising (LBA).

• Targeting by static variables involves using information which is part of specific user profiles such as place of residence and work.
• Real-time location targeting instead uses location information which is gathered when an ad is delivered to a mobile user.
• Such location-based advertising programs and campaigns leverage the same type of technologies to determine user location as other location-based services (LBS). Common methods include GPS, Cell-ID and Wi-Fi positioning which are all based on real-time information.

Prices for this report start from €1,000. More information here.

Facebook yesterday [10th May 2012] warned investors that the rapid growth of its mobile apps will threaten its long term financial prospects because its mobile advertising strategy lags behind consumer uptake. With the rapid rate of pace in the technology world, mobile is the platform or environment of choice for companies looking to launch a new product or service.While industry heavyweights such as Google and Facebook have made their fortune on the web, the new mobile paradigm requires a new way of thinking and a clear, defined strategy for success.

We understand how consumer consumption habits have evolved, with data that illustrates how mobile increases consumer engagement.

Today’s consumer demands a richer experience on both their smartphone and tablet device.

Indeed, our global consumer research with Mobext which was launched yesterday [10th May 2012], revealed that tablet users are shopping more on their device than PC and smartphone users and 63 per cent of users in the UK agreed that it was easier to access media content on a tablet than on a mobile or laptop/desktop.

As a new driving force in mobile, tablets clearly offer a higher conversions rate to purchase – with one in ten consumers happy to use their tablet for a ‘big ticket’ purchase.

Perhaps, it is time for companies of all sizes to open their eyes to mobile, or risk defeat as those who ‘get it’ supersede them?

A team of UX and visual designers; senior native Apple iOS and Android developers; and QA testers put together by Grapple Mobile has produced the Halifax Home Finder app. It’s already been named ‘app of the week’ by the Guardian newspaper and amongst its leading features is support for augmented reality (AR). Simply by holding up their smartphone and panning around the vicinity users will be able to view properties currently for sale in the surrounding area. The app also offers property search facilities; mortgage affordability calculators; local area information; and property buyer guides. The app is already available for free from Google Play and the Apple iTunes App Store. Bizarrely Grapple has created a page for mobile phone owners here which won’t display video on our Nokia Lumia 800 W7 Mango phone. So much for the QA testing.*

Grapple boasts it worked closely with the Lloyds Banking Group (Halifax) through the app delivery process releasing prototypes throughout the project, and supporting a Halifax internal distribution and feedback cycle with top executives and employees.

“With this new app we provide house hunters with easily and readily accessible information and guidance to help them make sense of the residential property market and make better-informed property decisions,” claimed Stephen Noakes, mortgages director with Halifax.

The Halifax Home Finder app was launched on May 8th 2012 will be supported by a high profile above-the-line campaign.

“Halifax had a very clear proposal to utilise the direct nature of the mobile channel to provide a genuinely useful app for their customers, whilst simultaneously positioning Halifax as a challenger brand,” explained Adam Levene, chief strategy officer with Grapple.

Grapple has also just launched the first Sky News Arabia app in the Middle East, as well as being nominated for Retail Week’s ‘Mobile Solution of the Year’ for its work with electrical retailer, Comet.

* UPDATE: Grapple tells us that Halifax themselves created the mobile page. Should have gone to [Grapple]savers! Grapple created the m.halifax.co.uk/finder page

Press release

May 8th 2012. Universal Music UK is launching a chain of virtual vinyl stores in tandem with fashion retailer Pretty Green and Mobile Money Network’s instant mobile checkout app Simply Tap. The virtual stores will be open for business 24 hours a day in the windows of 10 Pretty Green outlets across the country from May 24th until Sunday June 10th, selling a dozen titles ranging from The Rolling Stones’ Exile On Main Street to Elbow’s Seldom Seen Kid and Ian Brown’s The Greatest.Shoppers will be able to instantly buy the vinyl records after browsing images of the sleeves in the Pretty Green window displays. Once first-time customers have downloaded the Simply Tap app and securely registered their card details and delivery address, they will be able to make instant purchases with their iPhone or Android handsets. Their albums will arrive in the post soon after.

While the number of independent record stores in the UK has fallen to 300 from around 2,000 a decade ago, vinyl is enjoying a resurgence. Though still a niche product, the format’s sales were up 44 per cent last year to a six-year high with many music fans collecting vinyl LPs and singles alongside their digital musical libraries.

Universal Music UK’s Commercial Division MD Brian Rose says, “We are seeing continued passion as well as new enthusiasm for vinyl through our online store Uvinyl and the great support the format gets from those indie music shops which are still flourishing, but by harnessing the latest technology we hope this partnership with Pretty Green will lead to much wider opportunities for selling music on the High Street.”

Pretty Green’s Brand Director Nigel Grant says, “As music is a large part of Pretty Green’s heritage the collaboration with Universal Music and Simply Tap(tm) is in perfect synergy with our brand values. Through our label we strive to bring style, culture and music from past decades firmly into the future. We feel that by providing the virtual vinyl outlets in-store is a further complement to our brand and ideals.

“This project excites us greatly and to work with Universal Music and Simply Tap is a great opportunity. We believe offering this virtual experience across our stores will be a unique opportunity for our customers, emphasising the link between fashion and music.”

Mobile Money Network MD John Milliken says, “Our instant mobile checkout allows shoppers to buy what they want, when they want it. People walking past the Pretty Green store window will be able to instantly buy vinyl records 24 hours a day, seven days a week and have them delivered to their preferred address. This is the first in a series of ways we are planning to support Universal Music and help them roll out a really smart, cool way for people to buy the music they love.”

The full list of titles available in the virtual stores. More information from www.umusic.com.

Hot on the heels of its acquisition of the photo sharing site, Instagram, Glancee has admitted to being bought by social networking giant, Facebook. The management and development team have already revealed that it is off to join Facebook at Menlo Park and “to build great products for over 900 million Facebook users.” And the service is no more. The announcement leaked out last week [May 4th 2012] but already the Glancee app has disappeared from the Apple iTunes App Store, for example. If you visit the Glancee web site now, you’ll see a link for former users. This takes you to the relevant page on Facebook from which you can download all of your Glancee messages – if you were a member in the first place, of course. Hopefully, Glancee won’t go the way of the Zyb service.Zyb was an online service that enabled smartphone users to backup and sync their personal contacts data. It was shut down after being acquired by Vodafone.

The intention was to build Zyb technology into Vodafone’s 360 service. Only 360 in now defunct just like Zyb is.

At least Zyb gave its users a cut-off day by which time they had to download all of their existing data. That’s not the case with Glancee.

There’s loads of speculation about how Facebook might utilise the location based technology but little discussion on what Glancee actually offered.

Glancee was akin to a ‘friendly stalker’ facility. As its promo material originally stated, “Glancee quietly works for you throughout your day, looking for people nearby and keeping track of the people you meet.”

Having mined your personal data is could, “Discover the hidden connections you share with people around you.”

GoMobile News particularly likes the Glancee’s Radar feature which knew who was close by at the time. Another belter was the Glancee’s Diary.

Forgotten exactly what happened on that bender last night? Well, the Diary could tell you who else was at an event the previous night.

So work out who to apologise to. Or who owned the hat you woke up with on your head the next morning.

Now this is all very ‘neat stuff’. It could probably knock the standard Facebook ‘Check In’ facility into a cocked hat.

The big question is … How can Facebook monetise such capabilities? Can it be used to create services that people would actually pay for? Could it bring it more advertising?

Those observers who blandly suggest it should help with Facebook’s impending float should ask themselves – why and exactly how will it do so?

Figures pertaining to smartphone usage in the UK have just been by YouGov‘s technology and telecoms team. Significantly, they confirm the gut feeling of many industry observers. For example, Apple’s iPhone is in pole position with nearly 30 per cent share of the smartphone market whilst Blackberry has steadily lost share over the past two years declining to17 per cent. That puts it on par now with HTC, with the world’s biggest supplier of handsets – Samsung, growing to 20 per cent. So, while RIM/BlackBerry is very definitely down but not out – neither is Nokia. The problem is that Nokia still dominates the featurephone sector with a 40 per cent share but smartphones currently represent almost half the market (47 per cent). Within a year, however, YouGov expects smartphones to dominate with over 55 per cent of the market.YouGov’s research has focussed on how the players can meet the challenge of converting featurephone users over to smartphones?

Guess who it predicts will be the biggest losers – Nokia and RIM/BlackBerry, of course.

YouGov’s arguments also point to Apple’s dominance of the smartphone sector being challenged as well.

Stating the almost obvious, John Gilbert, consulting director of YouGov’s technology and telecoms team, observed, “Nokia, despite currently having the lion’s share of the feature phone market, has been unable to convert this base to its smartphone models (Lumia).”

The research firm predicts that Nokia may capture just 4 percent of featurephone converters over the next 18 months.

“This situation may be a case of Nokia coming to the smartphone party, too little and too late – their loss of share may be permanent,” Gilbert added.

Unless the company bites the bullet and produces Android handsets as GoMobile News constantly urges.

YouGov merely suggests that RIM’s problems are well documented. But what if the company pulls a rabbit out of the hat, GoMobile News asks?

What if the next QNX-based version of the BlackBerry OS really does run Android apps on its smartphone offerings whilst still retaining features like BBM?

It’s also GoMobile News‘ interpretation of YouGov’s figures that Samsung or HTC (or both) could eventually overtake the iPhone.

Why? Because both tackle the main gripe of featurephone Refuseniks – namely that smartphones are too expensive.

The research also implies that the likes of ZTE could also steal valuable market share from Apple, too.

GoMobile News also totally agrees with this observation from Gilbert.

“Smartphone features, such as the wide variety of apps, need to be communicated more effectively, as they will play an increasingly crucial role in handset selection in future,” he says.

Too often handset manufacturers fail to mention the fact that a particular model is running Android (and not Windows Phone 7 Mango), we feel. Sony in particular seems to be tackling this ommission.

Press release

April 25th 2012. IceWarp, the global messaging and collaborations solutions provider, has announced the release of IceWarp Server Version 10.4 that for the first time fully integrates corporate e-mail applications with popular social media platforms and gives organizations qualitatively new capabilities to handle extremely heavy e-mail traffic. The new version’s updated Desktop Client allows users to communicate with their Facebook, Skype and Gmail contacts from one secure console. In addition to robust Web Client, the solution provides seamless integration with Microsoft Outlook, making it a viable alternative to Microsoft Exchange.

“IceWarp is riding the software consumerization trend, making corporate messaging as reliable and easy to use as popular personal technology,”says Ladislav Goc, IceWarp President. “But we are not forgetting the basics: the product’s consecutive versions can consistently handle higher e-mail traffic with more speed and reliability. IceWarp’s ISP clients worldwide are especially appreciative of this capability. This approach allowed us to register rapid and steady global growth, despite uncertain economic environments. In 2011, hundreds of organizations of all sizes, across numerous industries successfully adopted our solutions.”

IceWarp Server Version 10.4 new features include: -

Full Facebook /Integration. The option makes it possible to chat with Facebook contacts through IceWarp Desktop Client or IceWarp WebClient with full avatar support

Gmail Contact Synchronization. New IceWarp Desktop Client allows users to synchronize their contacts from their Gmail account

Significantly faster Web Client that can support thousands of clients without impact to speed and reliability

Complete Skype Support.  The upgraded Desktop Client allows users to receive Skype emails and instant messages, plus manage contacts and calendars in one client

Account Migration from MS Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail and Thunderbird. Offers seamless migration from these popular messaging applications to the IceWarp Desktop Client with just a few clicks. New To-Do sidebar provides additional ‘Outlook experience,’ allowing users to quickly access their daily schedule

Tablet-Optimized Interface. The Basic interface has been reworked for tablets and optimized for touch interaction. Adds support for SmartAttach, event recurrence, reminders, blacklists, whitelists, tasks, files and more. Lists can be paged by swiping the screen to the left and right, rotating the screen will rebuild the interface, hiding/showing less used navigation options.

Support for Google Maps v3. All installations now have Google maps available by default and integrated with Address fields of contacts. The solution supports Street view, mouse wheel zoom, multiline address suggestion and offers complete maps usage

New anti-spam filter with gateway mode option that eliminates the need for additional costly  anti-spam and antivirus solutions like Barracuda

Better Resource Management offers enhanced permissions for organizers to make this task even easier. There is also an improved view featuring a calendar for quick access to scheduling availability, and a vCard that appears in the GAL for the server containing all resource details

New SIP Server Enhancements. For customers looking for a full-featured unified communications experience, IceWarp Server 10.4 brings a completely reworked and more feature rich Interactive Voice Response, call queues that behave as “active”extensions with the need for a dial plan, and a host of improvements aimed at better compatibility with SIP-based clients and closed VoIP systems

“More organizations, especially in the SMB space, now consider IceWarp as a practical alternative to well-established products such as Microsoft Exchange,”continues Mr. Goc. “They are attracted by ease of maintenance, reliability and reduced ownership cost. As new customers migrate to IceWarp from these platforms, we want to make their transition as easy as possible, and the IceWarp Exchange Migrator allows for this. Companies can move all of their critical data with zero downtime or interruption of their daily routine.”

IceWarp Messaging Server 10.4 is has received two purchase options with the pricing a customer can get upfront:

IceWarp Mail Server – includes main features, such as the core email, WebClient Basic, Kaspersky anti-virus, and dual-layered anti-spam featuring Anti-Spam LIVE. This basic product is built on the same powerful IceWarp platform as its enterprise solution and can be easily upgraded to its full-fledged functionality.

IceWarp Messaging Server Enterprise – includes all product’s features in a customizable package.

“For most organizations, the new product and the new buying options help eliminate the guesswork that brings a lot of uncertainties into the buying decisions,” says John Cooper, Director of North America Sales at IceWarp. “Now companies, especially in the SMB space, can rapidly do their analysis, review options and immediately select the scenario that fits their unique needs.”

Already recognized as a leading email solutions provider and a viable Microsoft Exchange alternative, IceWarp (formerly Merak Mail Server) is deployed in more than 20,000 organizations and supports over 50 million users worldwide. The company disrupts the messaging category by delivering all email, mobile synchronization, SMS, chat, voice and video capabilities in one integrated, extremely secure and easy-to-deploy solution. Its customers include such market leaders as Marriott International, Verizon Communications, Russian Space Agency, as well as small to midsized firms.

The company is also offering LiveWebAssist, a multilingual business chat that allows companies to better monetise website traffic by interacting live with website visitors, from any location, through any device – desktop, laptop, smartphone or tablet.

About IceWarp

IceWarp is an emerging provider of comprehensive messaging solutions for every business class, size and niche. Building upon a decade of enterprise e-mail platforms experience, IceWarp offers organizations an all-in-one highly secure solution that enables their mobile workforce to communicate through any platform, be it e-mail, mobile synchronization, chat, SMS, voice or video. The highly scalable product can easily be used by organizations of all sizes, from SMBs to large corporations, delivering ease of deployment, exceptional reliability and scalability. IceWarp’s solutions are available in over 40 countries through a comprehensive network of distributors. More information from http://www.icewarp.com.

About IceWarp UK

IceWarp is an emerging provider of comprehensive messaging solutions for every business class, size and niche. IceWarp UK, for distribution in the United Kingdom, has established itself, in a short space of time, as a leading Unified Communications provider in this territory. It possesses a diverse customer base ranging from large corporates like Toyota GB, national defence organisations like The British Army as well as education providers, for example, London School of Commerce. It continues to grow its customer base offering a fully featured, yet cost effective solution.

source: netmarketshare.com

Recent reports are suggesting that Joaquin Almunia, the EU’s commissioner for competition, is only weeks away from launching legal action against internet search giant, Google. Almunia will have to decide whether the company has breached the European Union’s anti-trust laws. In Europe, nine out of ten internet searches is carried out via Google as opposed to two out of three in North America. This brings Google some very nice profits. Last year [2011], it made around £6 billion which provides it with a nice little war chest for fighting such actions. These monster corporation versus government battles can drag on for years – witness the EU’s battle with Microsoft over browsers. But Microsoft was fined £1.4 million in the end. In theory, this means that Google could be fined around ten per cent of its annual revenues – which could come in as high as 3.1 billion. In the mobile world, however, Google’s dominance is even higher.GoMobile News was searching for some stats on mobile search and found a great web site service offered by NetMarketshare.com.

The site’s latest figures are for last month [April 2012] and show that Google had some 91.14 per cent of the global Top mobile/tablet search engine market. At one point (June 2011), it had a 92.49 per cent share. See here.

You might have thought that its nearest mobile search competitor would be Microsoft’s Bing, given that it is built into the Windows Phone (W7 Mango) mobile OS.

However, the nearest mobile competitor is still Yahoo! But it is followed by Baidu which dominates the Chinese market, of course. Bing comes fourth followed by Ask.

It is interesting to see who is actually complaining to the EU about Google’s behaviour. Two are price comparison sites – British price comparison site, Foundem, and German price comparison site – Ciao (which is now owned by Microsoft).

Another complainer is French firms 1plusV which claims that between 2007 and 2010, around 30 ‘vertical’ search engines created by the firm were blacklisted by Google.

1plusV operates the French legal site, Ejustice.fr. GoMobile News isn’t surprise that Ejustice does badly.

It appears poorly designed using unsearchable graphics which resist Google Translate’s attempts to turn the site into English.

Incidentally, did you know that you can use the Translate service on your mobile by visiting  translate.google.com/m using a mobile browser.

Alternatively there’s a Google Translate app for Android. You can find it on Google Play or scan in the barcode which accompanies this article.

But we digress. 1plusV has accused Google of suffocating rivals through its policy of tying its Adsense advertising service to its own search engine.

We can see very similar pressures being exerted in the mobile space so perhaps some mobile orientated companies ought to have a word in the ear of Joaquin Almunia, too.

Here’s a few good tips for those who want to add holidays to their iPhone’s calendar. It’s particularly apt for our UK readership where today [May 7th 2012] just so happens to be a May Bank holiday. This tip arose because a Brit had forgotten that extra Bank holidays had been added to the UK calendar as part of the celebrations for Queen Elizabeth II’s Jubilee celebrations. Now the natural reaction is to go to the Apple iTunes App store and search for an appropriate program. Indeed, there quite a range of UK calendar apps. If UK tech guru, Tony Smith, is right, however– there’s no need. Besides, if his hot tip doesn’t work then we suggest you download a free app instead.We checked out the tip Smith provided in The Sunday Times and it took us to this page. However, the link points at a MacOSX calendar not an iPhone one.

So we searched the iTunes App store and found a range of UK calendar apps including one for 69 pence from Joules Media here.

Another popular UK calendar app is available from DEVART here and it too costs 69 pence. There are others which even cost £1.49.

But GoMobile News found a free app from InitPlay. You can locate this simple UK calendar here.

GoMobile News was thinking that many iPhone users might want to insert more than just Bank holidays onto the iPhones.

So the obvious solution is to sync your Mac or Microsoft Outlook calendars in the iCloud.

There’s even a solution for syncing an iPhone with Google apps (including calendar) here which is ideal for those who don’t possess a desktop computer as well as an iPhone.

If anyone gets Tony’s tip working by pointing their iPhone’s browser at the Apple support page given above, let us know.

We’re not quite sure why Microsoft hasn’t publicised it better but it turns out that there is a music recognition built into the W7 Mango Windows Phone OS. Microsoft’s answer to Shazam is integrated into the standard Bing search facility. An eagled-eyed reader spotted it and notified us of the relevant help page on the official Windows Phone site here. Naturally this being Microsoft, the whole facility is tied into Zune Marketplace. As with rival offerings this service only works with commercial music. If you’re trying to hum a tune which you can’t place, ‘What song is this?’ won’t help.GoMobile News decided to put the Bing music search to the test and to make the whole exercise a little bit more difficult we pointed it at the Chill digital radio site.

To our surprise, it immediately recognised the track as ’88′ by Dave Spoon. The obvious next move was to try to download the song.

The easiest way to do this was to acquire a Zune Music pass which is free for the first 14 days.

We were astonished to discover that signing up was easy because you can sign in via you Windows Live ID.

It was a bit worrying to find out that we’ve previously saved most of the details of our credit card on the system beforehand but on the other hand it did make the whole process simple and fast.

Once you’ve got your Zune Music pass you can download the tune to your W7 Mango smartphone. In our case – with our Nokia Lumia 800 smartphone, the track even appears in you Nokia Music play list.

We’re grateful to WPCentral here for the next tip which is how to download the track for free (instead of purchasing it) by holding you finger down until a menu appears. You then just select download.

We also noticed from the same WPCentral story that Zune is also integrated into Shazam as well.

If you look there’s a little Zune icon at the bottom of the screen when you’ve ‘tagged’ a tune.

Zune tracks are, of course, protected with DRM (Digital Rights Management) software so if you let you Music pass expire, you won’t be able to listen to them again.

We fired up the Zune application on our PC and when we synchronised our W7 Mango phone, it automatically added the tracks we’d download to our PC’s collection.

There’s another facility buried away in the Zune Music software which is something called ‘Smart DJ’. This creates a special mix for certain artists based on your existing music catalogue.

There’s more information on the Smart DJ facilities on the Zune web site here.

Why Microsoft hasn’t done more to publicise all of this is a mystery to us.

May 3rd 2012. Hipcricket, the one-stop mobile marketing and advertising subsidiary of Augme Technologies,has  unveiled the newest version of AD SERVE, Hipcricket’s patented mobile ad server. Now fully integrated with the AD LIFE platform, AD SERVE is a self-service tool that empowers marketers to create, manage and optimize their mobile advertising campaigns throughout the customer engagement lifecycle-both pre-and post-click-across all mobile media, including mobile ads, SMS, QR codes, mobile sites, and applications.With the integration of patent-protected ad serving and enhanced analytics into AD LIFE, Hipcricket is now the only company to deliver the full lifecycle solution within a single platform.

AD LIFE aggregates analytics for advertising, mobile web, SMS, and 2D barcodes (such as QR codes) into a single dashboard.

Traditionally, marketers have found it necessary to ‘toggle’ between a number of multiple reporting tools in order to measure the overall success of their campaigns.

Hipcricket enables powerful multi-channel analytics, and clients can easily use powerful APIs to incorporate additional enterprise data from leading ERP systems.

“With AD SERVE, for the first time, marketers can manage their entire mobile campaigns-from creation to beyond the click or install -from a single platform,” said Hipcricket COO Eric Harber.

“Now, the AD LIFE platform is further pushing the mobile marketing and advertising envelope by measuring mobile customer engagement, not just click-throughs, downloads or other discrete activities.

This longitudinal view is critical for our clients to fully extend their customer relationship management from the back office onto their customers’ mobile devices.”

Additional key features and benefits of the self-service AD SERVE platform include:-

Powerful targeting capabilities: – AD SERVE offers mobile-specific options for precise targeting of rich media that go above-and-beyond traditional mechanisms.

The platform creates full, custom mobile advertising plans for clients based on the specific requirements entered for each campaign.

Targeting based on device type and ambient conditions (including local weather) is now available in AD SERVE, and is protected by USPTO patents 6,594,691, 7,269,636, and 7,958,081.

Integration made simple: =-with distinct tools available to both advertisers and publishers, ad management set up can be done with just a few clicks.

Fully integrated into the AD LIFE platform, AD SERVE is also positioned to easily integrate into industry-leading enterprise marketing applications.

Unique features have been implemented that allow clients to maintain all of the data that is collected from disparate sources associated with ad campaigns within a single interface.

This reduces significant numbers of man-hours that have traditionally been invested in day-to-day operations, empowering clients to focus on achieving core campaign objectives, as opposed to laboring over spreadsheet manipulations.

Patented ad rendering capabilities: AD SERVE is built on Hipcricket’s patented technologies, ensuring that mobile ads are rendered, targeted, and distributed correctly across all mobile devices and platforms. Universally compatible and targeted advertising delivery technology is protected by patents 6,594,691, 7,269,636, 7,783,721, 7,831,690, 7,958,081, 8,069,168, 8,069,169 plus patents pending in the U.S. and internationally.

AD SERVE is now in use by many of Hipcricket’s clients, including multiple Fortune(r) 500 companies. The AD LIFE platform has been used to power more than 175,000 mobile marketing campaigns for leading brands, agencies, media properties and pharmaceutical clients-campaigns that engage customers, drive loyalty and increase sales.

About Hipcricket
Hipcricket, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Augme Technologies, Inc. (OTC.BB: AUGT), is the one-stop mobile marketing and advertising company that empowers brands, agencies and media properties to engage customers, drive loyalty and increase sales. Hipcricket’s customers connect with consumers across every mobile channel, including SMS, 2D/QR codes, mobile websites, advertising networks, social media and branded apps. Hipcricket’s proven technology, strategic and marketing services and experienced account management teams have provided measurable success to a broad range of national and regional brand-name leaders (e.g., Macy’s, MillerCoors, Nestle, Clear Channel) across an industry-leading 175,000 campaigns. The company has also created the first comprehensive mobile ad network that taps into the buying power of the mass market with industry-leading capabilities to target customers via location and highly-specific demographic information across SMS, display, rich media and video.

Following the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S3, design consultancy Fjord which works with mobile manufacturers and companies to create new innovative services, feels the necessity to comment on this possibly game-changing event. Olof Schybergson, CEO, with Fjord suggested, “The launch of the Samsung Galaxy S3 has been highly anticipated, and lately Samsung has had incredible momentum overall. The buzz around Samsung has been tangible, and news last week from Strategy Analytics that it has overtaken Nokia in terms of mobile device sales comes as no surprise.He continued,” The new device sports a superbly fast, quad-core processor and a super AMOLED large screen.”

“The advanced overall device experience, and the fact that Samsung will throw marketing muscle behind this device means that it’s likely to fly off shop shelves.”

“In terms of the mobile market as a whole, Apple has long been dominating the headlines and has also collected the lion share of the profits, but Samsung is starting to grab meaningful pieces of both the buzz and the profits.”

Schybergson added, “The iPhone has been an amazing success story, but increasingly there are several good device alternatives available for consumers, often at lower prices. Devices like the Galaxy S3 offer people a great overall package, where considered design meets cutting-edge technology.”

Will it be a game changer, he asks? “As style conscious consumers start to look for less ubiquitous alternatives than the iPhone, companies like Samsung could be well placed to reap the benefits, and the Galaxy S3 clearly has the potential to rival the iPhone.

May 3rd 2012. PayAnywhere, a leader in mobile point of sale solutions, has announced the addition of two payments industry titans to the company’s leadership team. Bringing decades of senior executive experience in credit card processing and payments, Carl Williams and Ed Myers are joining PayAnywhere as managing directors, advising the company on new acquisitions, partner development, domestic and international market expansion. “PayAnywhere is the only ‘mobile payments’ company created and run by a true payments company; payments is our DNA,” said Marc Gardner, CEO of PayAnywhere. “PayAnywhere already possesses a deep understanding of merchant needs and the technology and services that best serve them. We are looking to Carl and Ed’s expertise to help PayAnywhere expand into new markets and grow the business. Carl Williams and Ed Myers joining the PayAnywhere team further demonstrates our commitment to deliver the preeminent and most innovative merchant-focused mobile payments service.” Carl Williams’ career in financial services spans 30 years and includes high profile industry positions, most notably as president of worldwide payment processing at Global Payments (GPN) in that role he led business operations in Europe, Russia and Asia Pacific.

He also served as president of the merchant services division of National Processing Company (NPC). Carl serves as an advisor to Global Payments and Planet Payments.

Ed Myers also brings more than 30 years of financial services experience to PayAnywhere, most recently serving as president of US operations at Global Payments.

An advisor to executives and organizations across the payments and transactions industry, Ed has also served as chairman of the board at Comerica Merchant Services, on the advisory board of the Electronic Transaction Association (ETA) and on the advisory board of Discover.

Although the parent company of PayAnywhere is a leader in credit card processing operating for two decades, PayAnywhere operates very much like a start-up.

Carl and Ed’s entrepreneurial insights bring energy and excitement as the company aggressively pursues its goals for 2012 and beyond.

About PayAnywhere

Created by a multi-billion dollar credit card processing company with more than two decades of merchant billing services experience, PayAnywhere is powering a payments revolution with its enterprise-grade, commitment-free, “pay-as-you-go” mobile payments system. PayAnywhere’s mobile point of sale (POS) technology combines the industry’s most comprehensive enterprise-grade features with 24/7 customer support. From billion dollar enterprises to the neighbourhood garage sale, merchants of all sizes turn to PayAnywhere for highly secure, feature-rich, affordable mobile payments systems that expand and enrich their ability to conduct business. For more information visit www.payanywhere.com.

May 2nd 2012. Canalys has released to clients its detailed smartphone shipment estimates by country for Q1 2012. Total shipments worldwide grew 45per cent year on year to 146 million units, but significant country and regional differences were apparent. Shipments in the US rose just 5per cent year-on-year, in marked contrast to the 81per cent growth seen across the Asia Pacific region. Shipments in China doubled and overtook those in the US for the first time. In Q1, China represented 22per cent of global smartphone shipments, while the US accounted for 16per cent. A year earlier these figures were the other way around. Of the top 10 countries for smartphones, half are now in the Asia Pacific region.“As well as seasonal factors, such as the Lunar New Year, the iPhone’s arrival at two of the country’s carriers helped boost volume and raised Apple’s share to 19per cent,’ said Nicole Peng, Canalys Research Director for China, based in Shanghai. But it was Samsung that took the lead. Canalys estimates its smartphone share in China stood at 22per cent in Q1. ‘Samsung expanded its smartphone business substantially through its existing mobile phone channels. Its wide range of localized devices helped increase uptake across all carriers, and it combined this with significant marketing spend to drive consumer awareness.’

Nokia fell to third place in China, but the launch of the Lumia devices with two operators in Q2 should help it regain traction in what has now become the most important market in the world. Local vendors, such as ZTE, Huawei and Lenovo, have benefited from being able to offer competitively-priced Android smartphones and are hot on the heels of the top three. Canalys also points out that these vendors’ ambitions are not confined to the price-sensitive end of the market. ‘A key facet of Huawei’s brand strategy for 2012 is to move up and compete in higher value devices and services,’ Peng added. ‘It is developing a clearer marketing proposition that, combined with its cloud services, will prove more attractive to consumers in China.’

Two-thirds of the smartphones shipping in China in the first quarter were based on Android, and more than a quarter of all Android smartphone shipments globally are in China. A multitude of international and local vendors are using Android to address the Chinese market, offering an array of devices at a wide range of price points. Canalys notes that the dynamics of app stores are very different on these devices compared to other parts of the globe.

‘Third-party app stores are ubiquitous on Android devices in China, to a degree not seen anywhere else in the world. The absence of the Google Play store as standard is a factor, but vendors targeting this market must understand the intensity of competition between these stores and how it has promoted innovation,’ said Tim Shepherd, Senior Analyst at Canalys. ‘If the big international app store providers want to attract Chinese consumers, they must quickly reach the point where they can offer a large selection of good-quality, locally-relevant apps and content. This can be achieved organically, through partnerships, or by acquiring a major third-party Chinese app store. But they must also offer suitably localized and relevant featured app listings and ensure the content does not stagnate.’

Shifting trends in the channels in China mean that vendors must also keep a close grip on their programs, resources and incentives. ‘Operators are becoming a more important route to market in the large cities as they work to drive 3G uptake. Increased credit card ownership and Internet use means online retailing is on the rise too, through the likes of 360buy.com, Taobao and Amazon,’ said Rachel Lashford, Managing Director, Mobile and APAC. ‘And retailers are looking at new ways to attract consumers, for example by focusing on initiatives such as back-to-school programs rather than relying on those timed around traditional holidays. Vendors need to be aware of all these changes if they want to succeed in the world’s largest smartphone market.’

About Canalys

Canalys delivers smart market insights to IT, channel and service provider professionals around the world. Our customer-driven analysis and consulting services empower businesses to make informed decisions and generate sales. We stake our reputation on the quality of our data, our innovative use of technology, and our high level of customer service.

A quick straw poll taken at the recent Internet World 2012 show in London by affilinet revealed that respondents were split down the middle when asked if in the future they would invest more in mobile rather than online and offline. encouragingly, 65 per cent of respondents stated that they believed mobile, online and offline all have a role to play in the future of marketing due to the importance of being able to ensure they’re reaching consumers at all stages of their purchasing journey. However, the research shows that whilst the intention is there to immerse themselves in mobile, there is still some way for organisations to go before they get there. Gary Bicker, UK country manager with afilinet, said, “Whilst online and offline remain important for the time being, in the future the indication is that spend will increasingly be diverted to mobile.”Somewhat worryingly, two thirds of those surveyed said they have yet to optimise their website for mobile browsing.

62 per cent of those respondents won’t do so for another three to six months, whilst 31 per cent were expecting to go live with a website optimised for mobile browsing within the next quarter and 7 per cent within the next year.

Bicker observed, “Mobile is great because it’s everywhere, but people operate in their own little mobile worlds and breaking into that can be tough as the small screen doesn’t allow for creating an emotional connection in the same way that other channels do.”

Of those that have engineered their website for the mobile world, 71 per cent have tagged it so that they can analyse mobile traffic and generate transparency into what channels are driving customers to their site.

The research revealed though that as yet mobile strategies don’t yet extend as far as to include mobile apps. 85 per cent of those asked did not have a mobile app strategy in place.

“It’s really encouraging to see that as brands move into mobile, they’ve learnt this lesson and are applying it. I am surprised though so few people have an app strategy in place,” Gary Bicker commented.

“The app ecosystem is set to be increasingly important not just for user engagement but also revenue generation. Selecting the right strategy now is key to keeping pace with the consumer.”

These results were obtained from a survey of 100 attendees at the Internet World show who attended on April 24th 2012.

French comedy actor, Gildas Pugot, played the farmer

Oh dear. It seems that GoMobile News fell for a really convincing spoof video of a French farmer who had painted his cows with giant QR codes as an advertising gimmick. See our previous story here. Apparently, the video starred a fairly famous comedy Actor, Gildas Pugot, who belongs to a French comedy troup known as Qualite [Quality] Street. We’ve been pointed in the right direction by another blog site, QR Code Artist, here. However, “all good stories eventually become true” [Mike Magee]. Two French farmers here are apparently experimenting with ‘bio’ paints which will stop the QR codes washing off in the rain.Here’s who was real. The web site, QR Dress Code, had the idea of tagging the cows in the first place and the film was produced by My QReation which specialises in printing T-shirts emblazoned with QR codes.

The game which was on the other end of the URL when you scan the QR code in the video – ‘cows to scratch’, is real and was created by the mobile marketing agency - Bookbeo.

There were also two agencies who helped to publicise the video through the media – Imagypress and Mediaoptim who specialise in PR and web marketing respectively.

And Matilda Neyland was behind the English translation and subtitling which helped to trick us all.

Here at GoMobile News we’re still thankful for this spoof for leading us to all kinds of QR code specialists we never knew existed before.

Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) are sensor devices commonly found inside mobile devices and include accelerometers, gyroscopes, magnetometers and others such as pressure, humidity & temperature sensors. Well, mobile augmented reality and location based services will be powered by over four billion such components according to a report just released by Juniper Research. The company forecasts that that they will become an important differentiator for mobile device manufacturers. The popularity of such devices amongst mobile phone and tablet manufacturers should ensure that component prices decline as volumes go up, the Juniper report – ‘MEMS in Mobile’, predicts. Unit prices for MEMS devices will rapidly decrease over coming years until reaching a lowest possible price point over the medium term, the report says.

However, vendors need to have guaranteed volumes in order to commit to cost and price reductions, creating a ‘chicken and egg’ situation in some newer areas.

“MEMS sensors, especially accelerometers and gyroscopes have experienced a dramatic reduction in price over the past few years,” comments report author, Nitin Bhas.

“Increasingly vendors need to create or add value to their products by incorporating more functions into a single MEMS device, thereby further reducing size, complexity, and cost”.

Bhas expects that this will help to negate the expected flattening revenues towards the end of the five year forecast period.

Other findings identify the revenue opportunities available in the mobile sector from sensors, including microphones and RF components:

Annual revenues of over $6 billion will be generated by MEMS devices built into mobile phones including sensors, audio, displays and RF by 2016.

As other categories including audio & RF begin to contribute towards the total, MEMS sensor devices will witness a declining revenue share in the market (reaching 60% in 2016),

The ‘MEMS the Word in Mobile’ whitepaper, together with further details of the full report is available to download from the Juniper website here.

An eagle eyed reader (Jim) spotted a great video here on YouTube about the use of QR codes with cows. It harks back to a story we ran in December [2011] about British farmers branding their cows with QR codes for auction here. This video is in French – with subtitles in English. For some stupid reason many English-speaking viewers assume it must be a joke whereas it’s actually a genuine documentary * and has opened up a relative gold mine of information about French QR code industry players whom GoMoMobile News had previously never encountered. For that reason alone it’s worth a look.The video is many by a local French company – Anoriant.TV which covers a region of France called Lorient. Which we presume is on the East of the country.

Anyway, the producers had discovered that a local diary farmer, Gildas le Behoc, has started to spray his cattle with pretty large QR codes.

The reason for this – as he clearly explains – is that the farm is in a protected area so he couldn’t put up giant hoardings, for example?

So he hit on the idea of using QR codes as a gimmick. The idea is that when you scan the codes you are taken to play a game where you have to uncover three cows to win a prize.

This game appears to have been put together by a French mobile marketing agency – Bookbeo. You can play the game here.

GoMobile News suspects that another QR code technology company myQRCreation had a hand in this entire project because the video features an interview with the company’s Marie Ben.

The main point here is that this use of QR codes worked for Messieur le Behoc because it’s managed to advertise the existence of his farm shop something rotten (effectively).

We’ll be following up some of the other gems this video uncovered a little later.

* UPDATE: It was a spoof. See our other story here.

Ever since GoMobile News bumped into an official ‘Nokia Trainer’ in Basingstoke for the Lumia W7 Mango range, we’ve been intrigued by its music facilities. He convinced us that there was a whole wealth of facilities buried deep inside the ‘Nokia Music’ hub which regular fans of W7 Mango never quite discover. We must have misunderstood because we could have sworn he claimed there was Nokia’s answer to the popular Shazam app built in, too. That would be the kind of app which listens and then identifies music tracks. We can find no such facility. However, we did manage to totally personalise the ‘Mix Radio’ feature – in the end.Mix radio is in itself quite a strange beast. Effectively what it does is stream multiple ‘radio stations’ to your handset. Each station being based on a particular music genre.

Now GoMobile News is a big fan of WOMAD – the World of Music And Dance festival which in the UK takes place between 27-29th July [2012]. So that makes us World music fans.

If you fire up Nokia Music from W7 Mango on your Lumia handset, you’ll find that the second option is Mix radio. Select that and it will take you to ‘mixes’.

We naturally assumed that world would be left out of the options but we were actually wrong. Go to the bottom of the screen and you will find ‘Specialities’. Select that.

Scroll down a bit and you eventually come to World. Initially e thought that the editors we mostly picking reggae as ‘world’ but we soon found this not to be the case.

Still, the thought of being able to create our own personailsed Mix Radio (radio station) was a massive lure.

Buried away in the help files we found this URL. If you click on that on a Windows PC or Apple Mac, you can download Nokia’s ‘Music Scanner’ software.

In order to install this app you must either have and existing ‘Nokia account’ or create a new one. You can’t install the software until you’re successfully logged into your account.

Basically, you point this program at all of the music you store on your desktop computer and it will analyse the tracks to decide exactly which genres you really like.

In our case it came out with 16 per cent reggae; 59 per cent rock; and five per cent metal. Considering some heavy duty punk was disguised in there somewhere it was a bit surprising.

Anyway, once you’ve run the app it uploads the information to your Nokia music account.

Then when you return to Nokia Music on your W7 Mango phone, flick through the screen until you reach ‘Personalise’.

If everything is going to plan, you’ll then be asked to download your personal music profile. Do that and miraculously you new ‘personal’ mix becomes available.

We flicked though the selections and they were all tracks which we generally liked so Nokia’s genre selection algorithms do work.

Until we find the music recognition capability buried in Nokia Music we have to rely instead on Shazam and SoundHound.

One thing which is irritating is that on W7 Mango, the entry level version of Shazam is restricted to a small number of ‘tags’ per month. Not so with the Android version which seems unfair.

April 25th 2012. Momac, a leading provider of mobile interface
solutions for operators, was recently selected to build and host the mobile site for the O2 Priority Tickets program, a site where O2 customers can get tickets up to 48 hours before general release to thousands of gigs and events across the UK. According to Momac Managing Director, Felicity Austin, the goal of the project was to offer end-users even more on-device services. O2’s new mobile site emulates the look and feel of the Priority Tickets website, giving members access to pertinent entertainment information and allowing them to log in and purchase tickets directly from their mobile phones.“The mobile site will be functionally identical to the website but adapted for mobile screens – feature phones to the latest model smartphone,” Austin confirmed.

“Priority Tickets mobile is another important phase in O2’s mobile strategy and Momac are thrilled to be able to develop this innovative technology for our long-time operator partner.”

As on their website accounts, users will be able to retrieve lost password and account information and personalise their mobile Priority Tickets accounts by adding favourites and bookmarks.

A leader in the development of intelligent and innovative mobile sites, Momac have helped with the growth and expansion of O2’s overall mobile strategy, acting as the sole ringtone provider on O2 Active.

Momac’s advanced, cloud-based mobile publishing platform m*volve* was recently chosen to power O2’s mobile microsites.

“The Mvolve platform has made us more agile, responsive, and better able to develop mobile versions of campaign sites to very tight deadlines.

This is essential in a fast moving market,” says Lee Prior, Head of Design and Development for O2′s mobile channel.

O2’s mobile Priority Tickets site launched last week.

About Momac

Momac simplifies customer engagement for leading communication service providers. By bridging the technology gap between internal data systems, service offerings, content and on-device user interfaces, Momac allows CSPs to reduce costs, increase revenue and rapidly bring solutions to market. The m*volve *platform drives mobile internet and app solutions for leading CSPs and operator groups around the world, including Orange Group, Vodafone, Telefonica, Three, MPN, T-Mobile and more. Operating in 29 countries, Momac has offices in the US, UK, the Netherlands and France.

More information here.