What’s for dinner - asked Dr. FF

In the Fight Club vein, just saw one of the most subversive (or depressingly mainstreaming of underground culture) things I’ve ever seen in a national ad - about a wireless company as well (even though I usually write about ads on cell phones, not about cell phones)…

Meat Loaf - who plays the pivotal character Robert Paulson in the movie previously referenced - does a cute at for AT&T’s Go prepaid phone, which I just saw watching the NCAA title game.

But the interesting thing is when the wife walks in with a leg of … who knows?

Anyone else think of Meat’s turn as Eddie in “Rocky Horror Picture Show?” And the great scene around the dinner table, when it is revealed that Meat Loaf is indeed on the menu?

Don’t know whether to be horrified or delighted by the reference.

OMG - *bux is a hottie!

Pondering a few things as I anxiously await the season premeire of “Battlestar Galactica” Friday night …

1)  Here is an interesting story about how mainstream advertising is staring to use text-ese to hit those teens to 20-somethings who have grown up with SMS. It strikes me as cute, but what about flipping it - how can you get the ads onto the text messages? Some companies have started with ideas such as using the unused portion of a text for a tag line, but it would have to be an opt-in solution.

2) Speaking of mobile ads, there was this from MediaPost Communications: A new report from our friends at Nielsen states that “twenty-three percent (58 million) of all U.S. mobile subscribers say they’ve been exposed to advertising on their phones in the past 30 days.  Half (51% or 28 million) of all data users who recall seeing mobile advertising in the previous 30 days say they responded to a mobile ad.” The post goes on to give different demographic breakdowns, and states that 10 percent of users feel ads on their phones are acceptable, an increasing number of mobile users appear to understand the value proposition of ad-supported mobile content, says the report.

I would be interested in what kind of ads were used. Anyone have a copy of the original report?

3) Here is a recounting of yet another failure/disappointment for a municipal Wi-Fi effort, this one in my old stomping grounds of Boston. Beantown’s city elders came up with a bit of a different plan and business model: using a non-profit shell and not relying on a commercial ISP like EarthLink: which last year all but got out of the Wi-Fi business.

It mirrors an effort by Philadelphia that also has been underwhelming. The biggest problem with such plans is that there isn’t enough demand to make it go, even for a non-profit charging 10 bucks a month. Wi-Fi is NOT designed to cover entire cities, and outside antennas/routers will have a hard time penetrating buildings - especially older walls like in Beacon Hill, etc.

Cincinnati played around with this as well, but pulled out last year because it had no money. And this post by Eric Stein on his blog sums up the situation pretty well - the demand for such services is low given the penetration by more traditional landline (DSL or cable) high-speed services. Cincinnati Bell, Time Warner and Insight all would be leery of getting into this business, because it would detract from a very high-margin business.

And nowhere in the Globe story does it mention the biggest boon for such services - emergency responders and city services. You can make it work if you offer a city such secure services, including water and parking meter reading, but the cities have to agree to pony up millions a year to keep the network subsidized - the so-called “anchor tenant” model. There has been some thinking that ads at log-on and sporadic pop-ups would also pay for it - hence wireless advertising - but again, not enough demand. I mean, the outside season in Boston is what, 3-4 months long?

Again, Wi-Fi is great for houses and even offices, but not city blocks. Wait five years and see where 3G cellular technology takes us.

BTW, here is a link to Battlestar’s mobile page, for those of you interested (for those on a cell phone WAP browser, it’s mobile.scifi.com/bsg. The normal stuff - wallpapers, a few videos, scaled down graphics.

Not quite the shape of things to come, but fans could get a kick out of it.

Here’s hoping the show’s creators don’t disappoint in the final season - it kinda ran off the rails at the end of last season with all the legal drama and turning weasel-face Baltar into a Christ figure.

Catching up

Some odds and ends as I surf the Web and jam to Prince’s “Kiss” on Pandora ….

• Here is a cool site that really lays out the issues and the players in wireless advertising. There are more than the players listed here, but they really get to the heart of the issue - getting people to accept ads on their phones. Interesting take on which industries would be good for it: “Dining and Restaurant Reservations, Theatre Ticket Reservations, Hotels and Motels in connection with Telematics.” I would add retail, and especially grocery stores (see my previous post). But overall, MobileInfo.com gets it right.
• Here is a report of yet another prediction of more ad spend on “non-traditional” media, including mobile. This one suggests that even with the current threat of economic downturn, we’re looking at a 20.2 percent jump to $88.2 billion this year. This includes segments such as casual gaming, etc., but mobile certainly will take a share of that.
• Why has no one really followed up on/copied the coolest of all the iPhone applications? Sure, wanna-be devices are coming out in droves, but for me, the visual voice mail was the true new killer app on that phone (the rest was all superior UI as well as the ability to have your iPod and phone in one device). I know that Alcatel-Lucent did the back-end stuff for AT&T to make it happen, but why is it not been launched on other devices/networks since? (For those of you without an iPhone, the service allows you to see who called, and just touch the entry to hear the message, just like an e-mail inbox. No dialing in for voice mail - it is shipped to the phone within minutes of the message being left).
• That being said - here is a quick endorsement for another service that comes close - CallWave. If you can get your phone configured (or if your provider lets you), it comes really close to the “virtual voicemail” that is advertised. And they are playing around with voice to text conversion that allows you to get a sense of the message. Not quite as good as SpinVox, which uses real people to get the accuracy rate up, but not as expensive either. CallWave has a nifty widget for a PC, and even allows you to screen the call after a few rings either on your PC or on your cell.  You also get transcribed text messages, and e-mails (with a full voice message attached). You can also transfer back and forth between different lines. HawaiiTel (the major telecom in Hawaii) offered this, calling it Call Choice.
• And off topic - got another  comic series worth delving into. It’s called Y: The Last Man and it chronicles Yorick Brown, the lone remaining male of any species on the planet after a mysterious plague kills all the Y chromosomes but leaves all the females. And no, it’s not a dream world for poor Mr. Brown.

So where does all that money go, anyway? A BIG PARTY on Verizon’s tab!

Someone at the FCC is buying at least one round this weekend.

I mean, $19.59 billion with a B? For nothing more than air? For the uninitiated, I am referring to the results of the latest FCC auction of spectrum, or the licensed radio wavelengths that are used for everything from television broadcasts to yup, you guessed it, your cell phone networks.

The block up for grabs this time had been labeled “the beachfront property of wireless spectrum,” because of its purported ability to carry lots and lots of data (read: ads and media, hint hint). It is the space currently and soon to be formerly occupied by standard TV broadcasts, which are switching to go all digital.

Actually, I could’ve titled this post “The rich get richer - by losing their shirts.” All that money came from primarly two sources - Verizon and AT&T, primarly the former.

Noticably absent was Google - which honestly was a surprise to me. But they helped drive the price up, apparently, and got some provisions for open access networks (the ability for any phone or service provider to work on a particular network).

Also, the video guys didn’t really jump in full-force: Cox and a partner of Dish Network got some, but not nationally like the two big boys.

But two questions remain:

1) Did VZ and AT&T overpay? Some say yes, some say it’s too soon to tell. Here is an excellent post by Susan Crawford about the particulars of both the auction and the context around it.

2) Will it make consumers life better, and will it make it easier for marketers to use cell phones to advertise? Yes and no. It will take a few years, but this spectrum will make our current DSL landline connections seem like dial-up. The mobile Internet will work on this. And no, marketers will still face the same reservations and objections from consumers about getting ads on their phones as they always did. Even a noted online marketing expert acknowledged as such in my previous post (there’s just something about a person’s relationship with their phone). It will make it easier to get the content there, but will it make it easier for a consumer to want it? That’s up to the marketer, not the technology or the spectrum.

As for the fate of all that loot, here is a missive from the Washington Post:

“The winnings from the auction will go to the U.S. Treasury and are earmarked for support for public safety and digital television transition initiatives.”

That kind of loot should get us all a personal bodyguard, me thinks. But there oughta be a share set aside for a kegger, anyway.

That comes with a side order of weekend minutes …

So now you can get a break on hummus your using your cell phone.

The latest food chain to use with mobile couponing is Extreme Pita, joining the likes of Taco Bueno Hollywood Video, and Hardee’s. The service provider doing this is Cellfire, which uses an onboard program to map to UPC codes that are swipable at the restaurants. (By the way, anyone ever tried one of their pitas?)

This is only going to grow, as the industry careens toward as close to an operating system standard as it can get.

Service providers hooking into this system include Alltel, Cincinnati Bell, Verizon Wireless and several more.

The list of compatible phones looks hard to get from trying the site, but I know the RAZR and any Windows Mobile device will work.

Now the next step is to marry this with location-based or GPS enabled phones so you get coupons (opting in of course) when you walk by a restaurant or store. And the networks are evolving to get that smart - the question is whether consumers will want it and opt in.

Well, do you?

Love the smell of regret in the morning …

Ahh, my first mistake/correction. Just like old times.

This regards my previous post on Pandora - turns out I didn’t do my homework. Pandora does have such a service with Sprint and AT&T (look here for details). Thanks to David Rose at Bridge Worldwide.

But this gets to a larger issue that is actually in the news today regarding Net Neutrality and access to the Web.

Imagine if your ISP were to limit the content you could access, or at least make it very difficult to navigate away from the preloaded “exclusive” content. Or make it so you only had access to cool stuff via their portal? (AOL tried that and failed, remember)?

The service providers are doing everything they can to control the wireless Web, and they don’t need to. Why not create an open access model that allows users full control over the content and applications they want on their handsets?

Wouldn’t it be cool if everyone had access to Pandora on their phone (provided they had an advanced enough device)? And then let the ads pay for it? Wouldn’t the volume more than cover the loss of recurring service revenues?

Just a thought as I apologize …

Would you like your WEP low-fat?

 

Starbucks is blowing up what was once viewed as the most successful model for paid Wi-Fi in the U.S. - a good idea or no? (The closest thing we have to a legal crack dealer is turning over its Wi-Fi business to AT&T, ending its long-time partnership with T-Mobile).

 

First of all, this is just another sign of T-Mobile’s waning influence in the U.S. as the carrier market heads toward a duopoly between Verizon and AT&T.

 

Secondly, this could be a sign that we’ve reached a tipping point for Wi-Fi. Sure, you have to use a Starbucks card to get up to two hours of access, but the point is that you don’t have to spend any extra if you get a drink (mine happens to be a grande caramel machiatto, two shots of regular, one shot of decaf, low fat milk, and only two pumps of vanilla syrup - yes I know I am high maintenance). You only need to use the card, which is easily rechargable online and doesn’t cost anything extra.

 

But aside from lower labor costs and higher transaction turnover speed, here’s what both the coffee peddler and the carrier formerly known as Cingular get - a lot more eyeballs. No one with Starbucks or T-Mobile is talking about how many people used the pay-to-play service before (which was working OK from all accounts given the captive audience).

 

Now that its essentially free (even though there is also a pay to play as well as a subscription system), expect a lot more people to try it out. And that means potential ad revenue, which has been hard to come by on Wi-Fi hotspots until now.

 

I would very much expect some of Starbucks’ “strategic” partners such as Amazon and XM Satellite radio to start using the splash pages or pop ups to get their messages out there to an admittedly small number that is in a highly sought after demographic: laptop users in Starbucks probably have a lot of money to spend.

 

This isn’t to say that this will work on a wider scale like municipal Wi-Fi evangelists would like you to believe. You still need that “captive audience” to make it work.

 

But this could be the start of a major shift in the business model.

 

Terminator v. Heroes - my money is on Hiro

 

Watched with interest all the new ads for both Verizon’s VCast  as well as NBC/Universal’s new NBC2Go feature. Both show the distinct difference that content providers and service provides have in pushing and managing the material.

 

Can’t say I’ve tried Verizon’s VCast for a couple of years, as I am not a subscriber there. the last time was testing it for my previous writing gig, and it was just getting off the ground. The devices were not quite yet ready for prime time and weren’t able to take full advantage of Verizon’s 3G (high-speed wireless) network.

 

But what must Verizon’s ad budget be if they can afford to put out TV spots on nothing but their tie in to shows such as Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles? (Apart from Lost, this show is the best thing on TV with the writers’ strike underway. Side thought - wonder if the writers’ strike applies to Web-only or mobile-only content?) 

 

And I’ve got to be honest, I seriously wonder if such content is helping them move the subscriber needle at all. Is it just the coolness by association factor? 

 

As for NBC2Go, Michael Stroud at iHollywoodforum.com had this to say about it. I agree: when it comes to getting content (whether it be advertising or entertainment) onto mobile devices, the service providers. He quotes Salil Dalvi, NBC Universal’s general manager for wireless, as saying that it’s hard to make money selling content to mobile outlets, because the service providers hold all the cards.

It’s the same model that keeps true device innovation from taking off in this country, as opposed to other nations and regions (see my first post about Europe and Asia and mobile computing).

 

Turns out NBC2Go is only available through a few providers, for example - Verizon VCast and soon AT&T. So again, I can’t try it. Device compatibility will also probably be a major issue going forward.

 

Still, is it enough to advertise on to either drive viewership (and ad dollars and CPM) or subscriptions?

 

Methinks not, but that could be changing. And if efforts such as NBC’s can drive further convergence without being beholden to the service providers, all the better.