eMarketer explains where best to reach the mobile customer-- whether SMS, voice or MIM.

It is logical but not quite right to deduce that Americans simply love the sound of their own voices. A closer look at most U.S. voice rates in comparison to other countries suggests that talk is cheap in the United States vis-à-vis the rest of the world. Data published by the Telecommunications Management Group (TMG) in January 2006 showed that average American mobile voice usage is four times higher than it is in Europe.

However, U.S. operators are noting a significant uptick in messaging-related traffic over the last year. According to CTIA -- The Wireless Association -- U.S. operators recorded a 71 percent increase in SMS traffic in June 2006 (12.5 billion messages) compared to June 2005 (7.3 billion messages). On a six-month basis, the U.S. figures are even more impressive, with 98.8 percent growth in the first half of 2006 (64.8 billion messages) compared to the same period of 2005 (32.6 billion). CTIA also reported that by June 30, 2006, U.S. operators had recorded $6.5 billion in mobile data revenues. Using a 70 percent rule of thumb for the proportion of messaging revenues to total mobile data revenues according to previous estimates by Morgan Stanley, the U.S. messaging market might reach about $9.1 billion by the end of 2006.

When M:Metrics surveyed U.S. mobile users about the mobile data services they access over a rolling three-month period, text messaging came out on top at 38 percent, which is well under European, let alone Asian, norms. However, use of MIM was higher at 7.4 percent, probably due to the fact that more Americans are IM users as a matter of course.

On the handset side, U.S. mobile customers are placing greater value on the ability to send and receive messages. J.D. Power and Associates reported in May 2006 that sending/receiving SMS messages (22 percent) ranked just under use of the speakerphone (26 percent) as the handset feature American users turned to the most after voice calling.

However, all is not smooth sailing in the U.S. messaging growth story. Granted, the last 18 months has seen a substantial shift in messaging traffic that suggests the market is maturing into mainstream adoption, but a Harris Interactive study in June 2006 revealed that many Americans still do not understand why much of the world is worked into a lather over messaging. Over 70 percent of those surveyed didn't see a need for using their mobile handset for messaging.

The plot thickens, so to speak, when messaging is tied to another great American pastime, watching television. "American Idol" on Fox Television planted SMS voting into the conscious of mainstream America, even though in its first few seasons it was available only to AT&T Wireless, and later Cingular, customers.

However, those early days have spawned a new cottage industry of mobile-led referendums on everything ranging from whether a given Idol singer deserves a shot at the next round or a sports player will or will not score, as well as local issues mediated largely by radio. According to a Mobile Data Association/M:Metrics survey conducted in January 2006, nearly a quarter of the highly-sought-after 18 to 34 demographic participated in some form of SMS voting, either through television or radio. The same study revealed a 60 to 40 preference by men for SMS voting, a data point sure to throw gasoline on the fire of marketers' interest in reaching this population.

John Gauntt is a senior analyst at eMarketer. This article was drawn from his report Mobile Message Marketing: Cash Not Flash.

Report: Mobile ad spending to double to $2.9B by 2011

Spending on mobile messaging and display ads is forecast to double to $2.9 billion by 2011, from $1.4 billion this year, according to JupiterResearch. Right now, 22% of online marketers, including wireless carriers, media organizations and automotive and financial service companies, also are advertising via mobile devices.

Hyatt invests in new online booking technology

October 18, 2006

OpenJaw Technologies has signed a contract with Hyatt Hotels and Resorts to provide its Internet booking engine technology for travel distribution, xRez.

The solution from the Dublin-based company will enable Hyatt’s global customer base to make Hyatt Hotel Reservations online in up to 17 languages including Chinese, Japanese and multiple European languages. Japanese property websites are currently in production.

The booking engine technology is utilizing XML (eXtensible Mark up Language) standards from the Open Travel Alliance to connect to the Hyatt Central Reservations System (CRS).

Uniquely, the solution also detects content changes in the Hyatt CRS and performs an automatic language update at regular intervals by connecting to Hyatt’s translations partners, Translations.com, Global Link service, according to an official release.

The OpenJaw solution is a fully managed service hosted out of Dublin. OpenJaw contributes to the ongoing development of the OTA XML specifications, an open standard messaging system that facilitates improved connectivity between travel companies and their distribution partners, better packaging of travel products, and lower distribution costs.

Reliance on search is scary prospect: Liberty Media exec

October 13th, 2006

NEW YORK – Gregory Maffei, president/CEO of Liberty Media Corp., shared his forecasts on the future of e-commerce during the Oct. 12 keynote called “Differentiating in a Converging World” at Shop.org’s annual summit at the New York Hilton.

Mr. Maffei based his examples largely on what the company has done with home-shopping brand QVC, which Liberty Media purchased in 2003. An avenue for worldwide retail, the outlet ties its entertainment broadcast to purchase opportunities across various platforms including the Internet and mobile, with a focus on brand and viewer community.

“I think it’s inevitable,” Mr. Maffei said. “You’ll see more and more commerce embedded in community.”

Opportunities in digital community growth need not be restricted to the younger generation, he said, referring to sites MySpace and similar sites. In fact, he said that the number of teens on MySpace had dropped to only 12 percent and more than half of the site’s visitors were older than 35.

One forecast he said online retailers should pay attention to was the aging population. Rather than targeting “millennials,” the population segment 18-24, QVC and other Liberty Media properties are watching older consumers who are more stable and more affluent.

As international markets open up, use of digital devices increase and more consumers demand online video, Mr. Maffei said a serious obstacle to online business could be the rising cost of clicks on major search engines.

The growth of vertical search engines, which provide a focused place for searchers and the potential for better leads for marketers, may be one solution.

“If you want to make and control your own destiny I think reliance on search to drive your business is a very scary prospect,” Mr. Maffei said.

Walking TV Nets Nivea 6,600 Potential New Customers

A couple years ago, we told you about a technology that mounted TV's on people so they could walk around and sell stuff. Now, everyone's doing it including Nivea who contracted with AdWalkers, trained street walking marketers who wear TV's and hand out stuff, to promote the company's "Nivea Touches New York" Exhibit.

Nivea deployed eight Adwalkers in its first week of operation and four during its second week. The Adwalkers fanned out around Chelsea, Union Square, Gramercy Park, and Herald Square on a Wednesday through Saturday basis. Of the people exposed to the AdWalkers, a total of 6,600 took a virtual tour of the Nivea exhibit and got a printout reminder/invitation to visit the West 19th Street installation.

Src: AdRants.com

The Graying of MySpace

OCTOBER 13, 2006

Do grown-ups really want in on the party?

Last week's release of audience demographics for MySpace set the industry abuzz. Was the MySpace crowd really that old?

New data from Nielsen//NetRatings reconfirm what comScore Media Metrix told us last week.

Nearly half (46%) of MySpace's US-based visitors in September were ages 35 and older, up from 38% a year ago, according to NetRatings. Visitors in the 12-17 age group slipped from 31.5% of the total audience to 20.0%.

Data released last week by comScore revealed that 51.6% of US MySpace visitors were 35 or older as of August. Teens dropped from 24.7% to 11.9% of total unique visitors.

Will a lot more MySpace profiles look like the one maintained by 53-year-old Nintendo VP George Harrison, whose page highlights his favorite movie (Dr. Zhivago) and his interest in historical nonfiction?

It is doubtful. Tracking the percentage of old folks who visit the site is only part of the story, and may not even be all that relevant in the long term. What is far more relevant is the amount of time people spend on MySpace and how they interact with the content and marketing messages there.

As blogger Fred Stutzman pointed out, "A parent knows that their child has a Myspace page. That parent visits Myspace.com, attempting to learn about the service. In Comscore's index, they would be validly counted as a unique visitor." But these visitors are not necessarily regular users of the site.

Young people still account for a vast proportion of usage of MySpace. They spend more time there than older people — which means it is quite likely that a lot of those middle-agers turning up in the NetRatings and comScore data are looky-loos who are there for work (see: George Harrison), who keep tabs on their kids' activities or who are just plain curious.

"The average 12- to 17-year-old spent 260 minutes on MySpace and viewed about 808 pages. By contrast, the average 35- to 54-year-old spent 179 minutes on the site and took in 560 pages," Ad Age reported earlier this week (but did not cite the source of the data).

In other words, teens consumed 44% more content and spent 45% more time there. Those are much more intriguing statistics to pay attention to.

US Mobile Text Ads Move Slowly

OCTOBER 16, 2006

RU text-savvy?

In what is billed as the "first definitive metrics for mobile advertising,"M:Metrics found that a sizable percentage of mobile subscribers are responding to short codes placed in advertisements or other media.

Of the five countries surveyed, Spain topped the list with 29% of mobile users responding to ads, followed by the UK at 18.5% and France at 10%. The US and Germany were both under 10%.

"These numbers are not unlike what we saw in e-mail response during the mid-1990's as the Web emerged [as] an advertising medium," said Will Hodgman, CEO of M:Metrics.

Contests — such as game or reality television shows or chances to win free merchandise — were the leading driver of responses, with 18 million subscribers across the geographies reporting they participated.

Again, Spain showed the highest rate of participation, at 18%, followed by the UK and France, with the US and Germany lagging.

Not surprisingly, the number of subscribers receiving SMS ads is growing.

In Spain, 67% of mobile subscribers reported receiving an SMS ad, with France at 50%, followed by the UK, Germany and the US, where slightly less than 13% of SMS users reported receiving ads.

The largest source of the ads, by a wide margin, were the mobile operators themselves.

"Remember the early days of the Internet, when spam was still a meat by-product?" said Mr. Hodgman. "At that time your Internet service provider was the major commercial e-mailer in promoting their services. It appears that the mobile operator is functioning in the same capacity today on mobile. It will not be long before brand advertisers supersede the mobile operators, though, given the robust activity and consumer response rates we are already seeing in the medium after only a few years of the existence of common short codes."

Routes to the best deals may not always be direct

Those popular search sites help bargain hunters narrow their choices, but they still have a way to go.

October 15, 2006, LATimes.com

SEARCHING online for the best travel deals can be a time-consuming proposition. On average, most consumers visit more than three websites to compare prices. The promise of travel search websites such as Kayak, SideStep and Mobissimo is that they help with some of the heavy lifting of finding the best travel deals online. But they are not yet perfect.

They differ from online travel agencies such as Travelocity and Orbitz in that they do not actually make bookings but send consumers directly to other websites, where travelers can finalize and pay for the deals they find. They comb through dozens of websites, including Travelocity and Orbitz, as well as so-called travel supplier websites such as those operated by the airlines or hotel chains.

The deal-finding websites have been popular with consumers. SideStep has been around as a pop-up application for six years. It has been downloaded by more than 9 million users and, since launching a search website two years ago, has become the 11th most popular travel site as ranked by Hitwise, a New York-based research company that tracks individual usage of the Internet. Kayak's website, which has also been around for two years, is the 10th most popular.

This popularity has gained the attention of Forbes.com, which last month announced a partnership with SideStep to provide its travel booking function on Forbes' new website, ForbesTraveler.com. It builds on the Forbes brand of websites and aims to appeal to higher-end travelers.

ForbesTraveler.com will feature original content aimed at helping the high-end traveler create better vacations. And although folks in these tax brackets probably are not looking for the cheapest way to enjoy a vacation, they are not averse to finding a good deal on a four- or five-star hotel, which is where SideStep becomes useful. Rich people usually don't get that way by being foolish with money.

The search results for those using SideStep via ForbesTraveler.com will be filtered to show those four- and five-star properties first, said John Robison, senior vice president of product development for SideStep.

"We've modified the default content to appeal more to their higher-end customer," he said. If someone wants to see results for hotels with lower star ratings, they can click a button to change the search.

It is one example of how these search engines are not yet the end-all and be-all in one-stop travel shopping. They are powerful and useful tools, but they still require consumers to make certain they are getting the best possible deals for their travel preferences.

Also, while the sites search the vast majority of the websites selling travel, doing a little legwork on your own might still save you money.

A recent survey by Hitwise found that about 40% of the search results at Kayak went to an online travel agency such as Travelocity, while only 20% went directly to a travel supplier site. The remaining 40% visited non-travel-related sites after leaving Kayak. (SideStep sent 28% to agencies and 19% directly to suppliers.)

These findings matter to consumers because, unlike travel supplier sites where you buy directly from the source, online travel agencies add booking fees. And although the fees are not outrageous, they do add up.

I went to Kayak.com to test this principle for myself. I found an example on my first search.

I searched for a flight between LAX and London's Heathrow International Airport in mid-October. I was given an array of choices, all around $700. (These prices are for illustration only and may no longer be available.). I was also given a choice of a $576 fare, including taxes and fees, if I was willing to fly into London's Gatwick Airport on Northwest Airlines with one stop in Minneapolis.

That seemed like a great deal, so I clicked on it and was taken to the online travel agency Cheap Tickets.com (www.cheaptickets.com), an advertiser on Kayak. There was no direct link to Northwest Airlines, though Kayak does search it for fares, said Drew Patterson, vice president of marketing for Kayak.

I then went to Northwest's website (www.nwa.com) to see if I could duplicate or better the fare. I found the exact same flights for $7 less — the cost of the booking fee at Cheap Tickets.com.

Certainly seven bucks isn't a lot of money, but multiply it by two or more tickets and it starts to add up. And although it took only five minutes to find that fare at Northwest, Kayak should have taken me there to begin with.

"I acknowledge that the technology on the site is still growing and maturing," said Kayak's Patterson. "We're not foolproof yet."

And in its defense, Kayak alerted me to the lower fare option to begin with. Fortunately, I knew enough to take the search a step further.

Here's what consumers should do: Always check with the supplier's site directly, whether you are sent there by a search engine or you go there on your own. The money you save may not always be huge, but it is, after all, your money.

Even the well-heeled travelers who visit ForbesTraveler.com can appreciate that.

The Hottest Out-of-Home Technologies

Ad Age's Abbey Klaassen Tells You How Once-Static Outdoor Is Now Truly Interactive

By Abbey Klaassen - AdAge.com

Published: October 02, 2006

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Outdoor is getting more inventive every day, thanks to technologies that allow the once static billboards to be truly interactive. With more cellphones now equipped with Bluetooth, consumers can request more information or download music, while "digital ink" lets marketers change their messages and video screens respond to a touch.

Digital ink lets marketers alter messages throughout the day.

Bluetooth
It was a big trend-to-watch last year, and it's bigger this year. While only about 14% of phones were equipped a year ago, that number is about 30%, said Saul Kato, CEO at Qwikker (formerly Wideray), a San Francisco company that has mostly launched Bluetooth campaigns in the U.K. but is beginning to market the technology in the U.S. In fact, 50% of new phones sold in the U.S. are Bluetooth-enabled. An advertiser can attach a Bluetooth transmitter -- usually no larger than a hockey puck -- to an ad, which then instructs users they can access the content by turning on their phones' Bluetooth function.

The new model, Mr. Kato said, is to push a mobile channel -- a set of rich content packaged into what is essentially a small, cached website so a phone doesn't have to stay connected to the Bluetooth transmitter to navigate the site. In the U.K., Quikker delivered a mobile World Cup channel for Yahoo through transmitters on ads in pubs. A similar deal with Red Bull delivered the Red Bull Air Race channel.

Around 50% of new cellphones in the U.S. are equipped with Bluetooth technology, which gives users the ability to download content from signs and billboards they pass.

Another company, Kameleon Mobile Technologies, is working with CBS Outdoor. And JC Decaux is using its own Bluetooth technology.

It doesn't cost the end user anything to download content via Bluetooth. And Mr. Kato said the mobile carriers like it because "we're helping the mobile industry get people onto a diet of content."

Digital Ink
Call it next-generation paper. While some major out-of-home players are starting to aggressively deploy LED and LCD screens, the most promising technology for broadly deploying dynamic outdoor advertising is digital ink.

How's this for a chemistry lesson? The technology for the "ink" is based on helix-shape molecules, which if stretched to a certain length reflect on color. Stretch them further and they reflect a different color. And so on. And unlike LCD and LED, digital ink looks bright in broad daylight.

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The technology costs significantly less than both LED and LCD to deploy and should increase the number of boards that support dynamic advertising, which allows marketers to change messages throughout the day and buy in dayparts (think McDonald's advertising breakfast sandwiches in the morning; Johnnie Walker advertising around happy hour). It will also eliminate printing costs.

Magink has been developing the product for six years and has been doing some trials abroad, most recently with Clear Channel Outdoor in the U.K. Ran Poliakin, founder-chief marketing officer, said to expect to see it in the U.S. as early as next year.

Interactive Video Screens
In May at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, Accenture launched a rather "Minority Report"-ish interactive video screen, which let travelers use their hands to manipulate content, including weather, news and Tiger Woods' greatest putts, on a 10-by-7-foot touch screen. A month later, it unveiled a similar screen at New York's Kennedy Airport. Right now the technology isn't being sold, but Accenture has been in discussions with several companies about commercializing it.

Accenture has set up video screens in airports that allow travelers to manipulate and scrol through content with their hands.

JC Decaux, meanwhile, is hoping to import from Europe video-embedded bus shelters that have a button users can push to choose which movie clip to watch.

Interactive video screens often are activated by text messaging. LocaModa allows people to use their mobile phones as a remote controls to call up content on an internet-connected video screen. Real-estate firms, for example, have begun using it to let passers-by browse their listings on flat-panel TVs.