TalkingMobile

Let’s Talk Mobile: Toda!Cell

Harel Shattenstein & Idan Gafni — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 16:17:48 +0000

The mobile advertising market holds a big promise.
According to eMarketer, mobile search ad revenues will reach $715 million in 2011 whereas mobile advertising in general is estimated to generate billions of dollars.

Having said that, mobile advertising is still in early stages and there is no verified and long-lasting model for ROI.
We sat down with Moshe Vaknin founder & CEO of Toda!Cell to learn more about the company and to understand where mobile advertising is going.

Activity started at - May 2007
Entrepreneurs - Moshe Vaknin
Invesments - seed - $1M AfterDox and Fore-Group
Targeted markets - Japan and USA
Customers - ( not yet public) Mobile Content search Provider and Mobile Instant Messaging.

Q: Companies like Microsoft (with its dedicated platform), Media Layers, Amobee, adinfuse etc. supply Platforms that offer the management of advertisement in SMS, MMS, Wap, and Video. What is Toda!Cell’s offer to its clients?

A: Toda!Cell , does not target carriers at all. Our solution has been developed from day one only for off portal content providers. Toda!Cell believes that off portal browsing over the mobile internet is going to grow rapidly. Premium content providers don’t like to be associated or accessible via mobile carrier.
Publishers can benefit from our solution because our core system has been developed to increase their CTR; therefore, increasing the inventory value for them and providing high ROI to advertisers; so both publishers and advertisers are beneficial from the solution significantly. Unlike others we do not push ads, but only pull mode.
Our major differences from our competitors are that we focus only on premium content that was optimized to the mobile medium and we collect data for six months activities, then we generate an optimization process to target accurately the users based on their behavior and not based on content. With the cooperation of the content provider, we use advanced profiling to enhance their inventory to achieve the maximum value for their ads.

Q: It seems like you chose to work in Japan which is an unfamiliar and distant market. Can you please share with us your insight about the Japanese Mobile advertisement market?

A: the Japanese market is the most advanced mobile market in the world. With 3G all across the country, flat fee to access the web, and advanced mobile devices, it is a perfect market for off portal mobile advertising market. The Japanese people access the web over the mobile more than PC. Another important factor is that revenues from ad placement in Japan is about 70 percent from the 700M dollars marker while the rest is in other forms. In USA for example it is 50%. The mobile advertising as of today in Japan is about 1% from the total advertising budget while in USA it is about 0.3 percent. In Japan the off market mobile content portals already serve about 100B ads a month!

Q: You have years of experience working in the internet advertisement market. Why the move to mobile? What are the main differences between the markets?

A: I believe Mobile is going to change our life and in fact already did! With iPhone and other smart phones underway, browsing becomes so easy and applications like GPS makes the mobile device an important part in our life. When I go to watch a game or down town I would like to see if my friends are around; the social communities in mobile is a huge market because of the location and the personal device; unlike the internet which is not personal devices and is driven by the content, the mobile is driven by the users. We will see that people more and more are connected to the mobile internet via wi-fi and soon WiMax, therefore, people will consume more data than making voice calls. This is why mobile carriers are worried and they rush to take and be part of the data growing market.

Q: For many years now we hear that the mobile advertisement is the next big thing, and every year we see a great disappointment from this market with numbers way below the forecasts. Share with us your thoughts about the root causes for the delay this market experiences.

A: I think the main problem for the delay is a few factors:

i. Lack of devices that are easy to use to browse the web- this has been resolved significantly with the introduction of the iPhone and other devices to follow. Apple knows very well how to build intuitive interfaces and rich content while others fail. We are going to see a growth in number of devices on this direction

ii. Data rate was expensive- as I said in Japan there is a flat fee for mobile browsing! If this will happen in other territories we are going to see a major growth in data consumption over the mobile internet.

iii. Optimized content for mobile- until this year, the content in the mobile was not really rich enough to the users. Therefore, the users were reluctant to consume content that was not relevant to them. The content in the mobile must be optimized to the users who browse the mobile device. It must be optimized to the audience habits and behavior on the mobile not on the PC. This year we see this revolution. I have seen content providers are building their content optimized only smart phone. In two years everything will be smart phone everywhere.

Q: Recent hardware and software solutions (iPhone, Skyfire, etc.) are new to the industry, How will it effect the market? and what do you do in order to take advantage of it

A: This is fantastic development for us. Our company was built on this idea that such devices and fast browsing on the mobile will increase the interactive usage on the mobile, therefore, will create significant opportunity for premium mobile advertising which is where Toda!Cell is strong.

Q: How do you approach advertisers for mobile advertisement and how do you convince the advertisers as most of them are very reluctant about this medium?

A: We have contacts with few leading mobile agencies globally and also we approach unique advertisers who like to access mobile users in a specific geography. A simple example: if you want to advertise to download a game or a particular song there is no better platform than the mobile where we can target the right age and the right vertical to match the needs of the advertisers. I think that the mobile device is the only device that can match ads to users; the PC internet can do match to the content but not to the users.

Q: How do you think mobile operators can manage mobile advertisement as they have no specialty in advertisement management (unlike ads agencies and interactive agencies)?

A: I think mobile operators should stay away from advertising. It is not their expertise. I don’t see a communication company by DNA becomes a media company. It is not going to work. In fact we have already seen that. Mobile operators more and more will outsource their media operations to those who know what to do and they will share part of the revenue, but mostly, they are interested to see the users consume more data in order for them to generate more revenue from data and not from advertising.

Q: Where do you think the mobile advertisement market will get to a year from now? (Technology, content types, services, significant players…)

A: We are going to see a continued growth. The economic situation could be an opportunity for mobile advertising. If a content provider can prove to advertiser better results than TV, we are going to see shift of money from the expensive advertising budgets on TV to mobile which can be measured and less expensive.

Q: What do you wish Toda!Cell towards the New Year?

A: We hope to continue to grow and expand our deployment to many customers and finally to see a significant growth in mobile advertising.

We would like to thank Moshe Vaknin of Toda!Cell and to wish all our readers Season’s Greetings from TalkingMobile.

Mobile IM News Roundup - Fring & Nimbuzz

Harel Shattenstein & Idan Gafni — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 11:33:13 +0000

For years the IMPS (Instant Messaging Presence Services) was moving nowhere. With 3G connectivity, and open OS we see more and more services that offer a rich IM experience. So is the IM market ready to grow and become a mainstream service?
Two of the major players in this field provided information that supports this assumption.
Fring posted in its blog about the layoffs in the company (about 20%) because of the global economic slowdown but also mentioned that the number of users is rapidly increased and there are 400,000 new users every month. The company also hinted that some “very exciting product announcements” are planned.

On the other hand, Nimbuzz launched its iPhone version which offers a landscape mode and announced that Nimbuzz will support Facebook chat and Myspace chat in all their clients.

Taking into account the news that Nimbuzz added 17 SIP partners and that it raised 15 million dollars, the company, its condition looks great.
Although we are glad for the developments in this market we really do not agree with CNet’s estimation that mobile IM will surpass SMS. Mobile IM is still not a native client and it takes a great effort to shift the usage patterns of users. There is a good attraction point in IM with the ability to integrate with web based services and offer added functionality (like basic graphics and VoIP talks, PTT, send files etc). The operators want the users to continue using SMS as it offers a strong viable business model. Mobile IM may cannibalize in SMS traffic but it can never generate this amount of revenues based on the current business model.

vufone to power Motorola devices with sync

Harel Shattenstein & Idan Gafni — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 00:05:21 +0000

The storage paradigm was in the center of the mobile phones market since the devices became more media capable. Mobile phones’ storage capacity has rapidly grown and more and more information is being kept on the devices.
Video clips, MP3’s and pictures are often saved on the mobile device, while the mobile phone increasingly takes part in more events in our lives.

Two problems remain with the data stored on our devices; 1. Content is created to be shared and the social factor is crucial to maintain the interest level in the content. When the content is stored on the device, our friends and family members are being excluded from participating in the social activities based on the content. 2. The device can easily get lost or get stolen, leaving us without the content we have accumulated.
Synchronization is the answer to both problems, but to sync the mobile phone to the PC on a regular basis can be a burden, and to get the content on the computer and then share it with friends is cumbersome.

There are many services aimed to synchronize our data especially for devices with high speed connectivity like 3G. These services were traditionally offered by the operators to let them hold our content thus increase our loyalty (as a result of the dependency in their service). Recently, more and more services are offered independently, detached from the operator, as premium and even free services. Such services include Nokia’s OVI and Plaxo.

Newact, a company specialized in synchronization solutions, has recently changed their focus and their business model in a move that also included laying off 30% of their employees. v ufone, a new free synchronization service is the result of that move. Vufone service backs-up the data from your mobile phone and connects Mobile phones to web2.0 sites like Facebook, Flickr, etc.

Access to the vufone service will be soon pre-loaded on Motorola’s devices, but it is also free to any user and supports devices from Nokia, Motorola, SE, LG, and other Symbian powered devices.
The registration has two phases, the first one is the online registration and the second one is the installation of the application on the mobile device. Once these phases are completed, you are “sync” to go.
The mobile application holds 5 basic functions: sync, upload, download, backup, and restore.
These functions are meant for manual synchronization but the application also enables an auto synchronization option that will do everything for you (in the background). When a new contact is added or when a new song is downloaded, the application will automatically synchronize it with the service, accessible online.
The information is stored and is reachable on vufone’s site, in a plain, simple and clean interface in 9 languages to choose from at the moment.

vufone is a great tool for people who are looking for synchronization and backup of their mobile phone’s data seamlessly and in real time.
The big bonus in vufone is that it also supports direct and automatic synchronization to several web 2.0 services such as Facebook, Flickr, Picasa and more. If the user decides that the data should also be posted to these sites, every picture the user takes will automatically go to Vufone and facebook and flickr etc.
From an interview we held with the Newact’s CEO, Rafi Ton, we learnt that there are many planned features including a Firefox plugin which is in the works, that will let you “grab” content from the web and get it on your device promptly.

Overall, from what we have tested, vufone offers nice functionality with a clean interface. The connectivity to web 2.0 sites and the free nature of the service makes it a good service to use in order to backup and share your content.

Is Modu Modufying?

Harel Shattenstein & Idan Gafni — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 11:48:36 +0000

It was back in January this year when Modu Mobile first revealed the video teaser, and two weeks after that release, the big announcement was made. Modu even brought a whole plane full of the start-up employees for a one day visit in 3GSM Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Everything was bright and promising for Modu.
Modu Mobile was (and still is) a big promise/potential. Its revolutionary concept, a modular mobile phone with “Jackets” and “Mates” that change its purpose utilizing its mobile abilities and its memory. There were disappointments that the first generation will not be a 3G phone but still, it was obvious that Modu’s product has the potential to lead a revolution of a lightweight basic unit that connects and corresponds with other devices.

Almost a year later and the first modular phone’s future is unclear. Here are some developments that from our perspective show there are serious problems in Modu, problems that have a bad effect on one of the biggest promises of the Israeli and mobile market.

Layoffs- In just two week, the company fired in two cycles 100 workers, and some executives. That’s about 25% of the company working staff.
Do not get me wrong, layoffs in this time can also project managerial responsibility towards the problematic state in the markets. But it is a massive hit to a company that its first product should be out soon and just until recently was recruiting in a crazy pace.

Launch delays- When the Modu was officially announced the company said that the first devices would hit the market on October 1st, 2008, since then the date changed and it was assumed that we could buy the device on Q1 2009.
Today in an interview Dov Moran, the CEO and Co-founder, said that the device will only be available on April. This statement is actually to say that the launch date was delayed by 6 months.

Operators- At first, Modu announced that three operators will launch the device at the same time, Cellcom (Israel), TIM (Italy), and Vimpelcom (Russia). Time passed and after the first delay of the launch, it seems Cellcom will be the first to launch and TIM and Vimpelcom will come second (meaning they will wait).
This launch resembles what Apple aimed to when launching the first iPhone in the states, but in Apple’s case, that was their strategy and not a misfortune.
It seems that TIM and Vimpelcom are waiting to see if the launch in Israel is successful and will decide only afterwards if and how to deploy.

Advertisement of the launch- Modu sent a request to two major publicity agencies in Israel (with a global ownership) to send them a price quote on the Israeli launch campaign.
That is a bit strange, Cellcom will be the first to launch the device and it is expected that they will worry for the marketing side to their customers with ads and promotions. This step can be interpreted as a lack of commitment / security on Cellcom’s side.

All that being said, Dov Moran is an established business man with a brilliant record from M-Systems and with great connections. Modu still has a large sum of money in their bank and there are many skilled professionals still working in Modu. Bottom line, I hope that Modu Mobile will pass these bumps on the road and leaves as a triumphant from these challenges.

$100 Million Coming To Israeli Startup Modu

Fring: Ads Are Coming!

Harel Shattenstein — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:16:42 +0000

Fring has announced that an ad trial is now running on some of the users around the world.
Fring, a free IM and VOIP client, did not seem to clock-in much revenues, although the application is very popular.
The ads are banners at the end of the chat window as show in the picture:

The announcement is truly good news to Fring’s Business plan and business model, moreover it is an ultimate test for the mobile advertising market.
Ads that will be displayed on millions of Fring clients, to users that come from different backgrounds, different languages, different geographies, different age groups Etc.
So how do you create an advertisement campaign on such a personal device to such a varied audience?!
Will the users click on the banners and actually perform or initiate transactions?!
Will they use the integrated VoIP engine to create calls to the advertiser?!

One thing is for sure, the mobile advertising market will have much to learn from this move, and Fring will be the first to know.

Mobile 2.0 And Live Mobile Video With Flixwagon And Nokia

Harel Shattenstein — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 12:57:51 +0000

The web 2.0 was referring to the social and content rich web.
Mobile 2.0 is a common term that is used to describe many things.
It was first referring to the contextual aware network with M2M (Machine-to-Machine) direct communication.
Now it is mostly use to describe the mobile interface of the Web 2.0.
The mobile is usually used as an access channel to the web-based applications and services (there are some pure mobile services but they are too significant).
The Mobile device is a multimedia creation and consumption device for several years now.
It is only logical that the mobile device will take a part in the content creation for the Web 2.0 / Mobile 2.0 services.
Many services (like flickr) provided the means to upload to the web content from your device.
It was usually done with pictures and content that only requires a low bandwidth.
Others like many facebook applications, used a mailing mechanism with MMS (Multimedia Messaging Services) but MMS only supports files up to 300Kb so no good video of over 10 seconds can be sent and it is not immediate (just like in mail).
All solutions lacked immediacy (like you can create an immediate content with your webcam).
Qik and Flixwagon are two competitors who are battling for the title (And no, I did not forget Kyte).
Until today the battle was more or less around “who supports more devices” nevertheless, Flixwagon’s recent announcement on its partnership with Nokia may change the rules.
Nokia, with its services portal (OVI) intends to create one place where all Nokia users could upload all of their content.
With the help of Flixwagon, Nokia hopes to create the “mobile youtube” but only for Nokia users.
Qik from the other hand is still focusing on bringing the service to any device, smartphones and low-end devices as well according its latest announcement.
The new Nokia 5800 is coming with a download catalog where Qik application can be found that’s not much but it indeed is a good sign for Qik.
Both Qik and Flixwagon have yet a long way to go, until live broadcasting will turn from a niche product and go to the mainstream.

Moblica Transforms Websites Into Mobile Apps

Harel Shattenstein — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 03:19:43 +0000

The mobile web is evolving slowly to a fully PC-like web experience.
That happened thanks to improved mobile web browsers such as Opera Mini, Nokia’s mini map, iPhone’s Safari, Etc.
But the mobile web has yet a long way to go, sites are still to be optimized and most of the browsing is still made with old-fashioned browsers.
According to Admob Motorola V3 is still the most popular device in the states in web browsing.
That’s where Moblica comes in, the company turns websites into web-apps or widgets. The wrap of websites and presenting them as applications is very similar to the way Opera mini conducts the browsing. Moblica took another step farther and re-assembled the page and the user interface in a form of an application.
Snaptu is the latest package for the UK market but it is actually available to all and everybody can find it useful.
Take the Facebook app for example, rather than browsing the m.facebook.com site you can directly access your account with Snaptu.
The interface is much better than surfing the dedicated Facebook site for mobile, it is slick, fast and most of all, it looks great.
Google Calender, Picasa, an RSS reader, and several popular UK sites are on Snaptu as well.
The major issue is that mobile users are still not used to install applications on mobile devices, although that may change soon.
Snaptu is not aimed to replace the mobile browser, and one can not turn all the web into web-apps.
The mobile web is not the same internet. We do not use the internet form our device as we do on the PC but we do need to stay connected and updated, Snaptu is great for surfing your favorite sites.

Didiom Stream Your Music To Your Mobile

Harel Shattenstein — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 03:09:14 +0000

Music download became a significant component in the mobile content ecosystem after the improvement of the connectivity speed.
Download is one thing but live streaming is another story that requires a stable high speed connectivity.
While most of the user’s music is stored onto the PC, transferring music to the mobile phone became common.
Didiom’s application tries to combine those two needs to one mobile application.
As for the PC to mobile problem Didiom enable users to stream music form the PC directly to the mobile phone for free (like several products that exist for years as Orb networks and other operators’ proprietary solutions).
The streaming feature is problematic in terms of DRM.
It allows you to stream content but has anyone checked that the content was legally purchased?! The approach Didiom took is a little bit safer than other options (for them) because they locate a streamer on your computer and do not store any of the data on their servers but that approach forced them to require installation on the PC and on the mobile deivce.
The streaming feature means that all the playlists from your PC are available anywhere at any time, of course both the PC and the mobile must be connected to the internet.
Secondly the Didiom application has a music catalog with more than 2 million songs.
Lately the company announced a partnership with independent music distributor CD Baby.
Didiom’s store allows you to preview music, place a bid, or just buy new tracks and albums for you mobile, PC or both.
Payment is done using credit card with Didiom’s account or before purchasing.
The main disadvantage of the application is that you will not be able to use your original music player, but that it a small concession regarding the option to connect into your music library.

Didiom Application

It Is All About The Music

Harel Shattenstein — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 13:32:13 +0000

The mobile market is flooded with iPhone form-factor devices, and some devices that are intended to “kill” the iPhone.
Until Nokia’s Remix event it seemed that Nokia does not pay attention to the rise of the iPhone.
They reasoned this position by showing recent researches showed that the potential market for iPhone-like devices which are “design centric” is 5% of the mobile devices market.
Now after the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic was announced, Nokia is back on track, but it is not because of the 5800, it is because of the new service they announced: “Come With Music”.
In addition to the fact that the iPhone is an amazing piece of hardware (at least cosmetically and user interface wise) it is also the first phone with a well based music download service, the iTunes.
While with iTunes, music tracks are purchased per song or album, “Come With Music” offers a new way of purchasing music (Unlike Nokia Music Store).
You will not pay per song, the music “comes” with the device.
A free annual subscription is given for any Nokia device for unlimited tracks, at the end of the year all the tracks are yours, Of course, with some limitations.
The annual subscription can be renewed, just purchase a new Nokia device.
Nokia’s business model makes sense, while other services generate revenue from selling tracks, Nokia recruits music to help her stay the biggest mobile phone manufacturer.

It is not known to many, but Nokia with its MP3 capable phones became the brand with the largest market share in MP3 players (larger than Apple, Creative, SanDisk etc.).

But Nokia and Apple are not alone in this battle, Sony Ericsson announced recently its PlayNow arena, an all new music and mobile content store.
Sony Ericsson plans to maneuver between operators so they will foster Sony Ericsson’s devices and will not see that it bears a threat to their business model.
Sony, backed by its latest 260 million dollars acquisition of Gracenote, the company behind Track-id, is fully armed for the music battle.
The real battle will begin in 2009 when most of the services will be available worldwide and enough supporting devices are sold.

(For more information take a look at the table)

Channel 10 Now Mobile With IVVR

Harel Shattenstein — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 16:13:52 +0000

Today, Israeli Channel 10 (second largest TV Channel in Israel) with its Internet arm nana10 (www.nana10.co.il) launched a mobile video portal - *977. The digits 977 stand for the Hebrew word for “ten” which is the name of the channel.
The portal is based on 3G video calls (IVVR) that was built by Teleclal, an Israeli mobile services provider backed up by DSPV as a technological partner and Ugunduzi the IVVR services domain expert partner. Teleclal is the largest Israeli services provider with an offering in SMS, WAP, IVR, IVVR, and mobile content creation.
Teleclal group owns Telemesser, Appcell, Media Market, Media Direct, and more.The launch of this portal is meant to strengthen channel 10 and nana10 in their new media offering and is designed to broaden the reach to their audiences in the mobile medium.

IVVR (Interactive Voice and Video Response) is the technology that enables to deliver interactive video and services over a 3G video call.
The interaction (navigation) is done using the digits of the phone (DTMF).
The technology offers a solid business model (regular or premium charges on the call) with ease of use and requires no data connectivity (based on a call and not on internet browsing).
Because the IVVR services are based on a video call, the playing of videos is immediate (no buffering) and the video can be interactive (where in the mobile internet the playing is done in a dedicated player that allows no interaction with the video).

The technology is very attractive for media services and other interactive services but still suffers from low adoption in most markets and the video quality shows signs of the compression that is needed in order to serve videos on the 64Kbit/s dedicated channel.
The low adoption of the technology is caused by the problematic balance in the market between infrastructure vendors, mobile operators, and services providers.
Now, with a high penetration rate of 3G phones the relevance of the IVVR is growing and so is the number of commercial launches.

With the launch of Channel 10’s portal added to the existing services of Blockbuster and movie distribution companies, Israel becomes a leading market for IVVR services.
Talkingmobile compliments Idan Gafni, owner of Ugunduzi and a professional adviser to this blog on this major launch.