OMG - *bux is a hottie!
Posted in Ads, Carriers, Fun stuff, Networks, Wi-Fi on April 4, 2008 by phelch66
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.
