Spiral Arm News

Mobile data collection.

2009-06-08T09:14:00.003+01:00

"Mobile phones provide new ways to gather information, both manually and automatically, over wide areas". Examples include...

Non-profit Innovative Support to Emergencies, Diseases and Disasters. This group has released open-source software which provides a central number for users to text in, which then appears on a map enabling "geospatial ground-truthing, as your mobile team works to confirm, refute, or update data".
Passive data collection from mobile phones or the network operators could be used for commercial purposes such as identifying the most popular venues or optimizing pedestrian flow.

"The technology is probably the easy part, however. For global networks of mobile sensors to provide useful insights, technology firms, governments, aid organisations and individuals will have to find ways to address concerns over privacy, accuracy, ownership and sovereignty. Only if they do so will it be possible to tap the gold mine of information inside the world’s billions of mobile phones."

Source: The Economist, 4 June 2009, p. 25-26.

The decline of the news business

2009-05-22T10:33:00.004+01:00

News facts:

"In 2008, for the first time, more people said they got their national and international news from the internet than from newspapers" (The Economist leader on the news business, 14 May 2009).
"...the share of 18- to 24-year-olds who got no news at all the previous day has risen from 25% to 34% in the past ten years." (ibid.)

The Economist goes on to describe the "conventional news package" of local, national, international news, sports, weather etc and how it is being undermined by wholesalers such as Yahoo and Google News, or by news "boutiques" which aggregate news and commentary.

The future of news is continued in a longer Economist briefing (also 14 May 2009).

Why 160 characters?

2009-05-08T14:12:00.000+01:00

LA Times reports on why text messages are 160 characters: because that seemed "perfectly sufficient" after trying out sentences on a typewriter.

Mobile phones and healthcare

2009-04-27T16:24:00.003+01:00

The Economist (16 Apr 2009) ran a special report on technology and health: "the next great technology revolution in health care is even now bubbling up from the villages of Africa and may in time benefit the rich world too. It is built on the astounding success of the most famous of all leapfrog technologies: mobile phones."

Examples given include:

HIV/AIDS in South Africa: "So great is the stigma attached to the disease that some four-fifths of victims in the region will not venture into their local clinic to get an HIV test [...] Using a form of text messaging similar to SMS, [Project Masiluleke] sends out up to a million short messages a day, encouraging the recipients in their local language to contact the national AIDS hot line. The response has been spectacular, especially among young men who have proved hard to reach in the past. When people ring, they are often told about clinics outside their immediate community [...]"
"In Uganda, Text to Change uses an SMS-based quiz to raise awareness among phone users about HIV/AIDS that brought a 40% increase in the number of people getting tested."
"A study in Thailand in 2007 showed that compliance with a drug regimen to tackle TB jumped to over 90% when patients were sent daily text reminders to take their pills on time."

£7.8m raised by SMS alone for Comic Relief

2009-04-15T16:14:00.004+01:00

"Comic Relief charity fundraising generated £7.8m of donations purely through the use of text messages. [...] Mobile phone users simply had to send a one-word text message to a particular number and automatically donated £5 or £1 to the charity, deducted through their normal call payment route." From Computing.

UKFundraising reports: "Mobile industry companies 3, O2, Orange, T-Mobile, Virgin and Vodafone have agreed to waive their usual charges to ensure a £1 or £5 text means a £1 or £5 donation to Comic Relief, and the Treasury has confirmed that because of this no VAT will be charged on these donations."

The rise of volunteering

2009-04-14T10:24:00.000+01:00

The Economist on the rise of volunteering in the US:

"Non-profit organisations now have 9.4m employees and 4.7m full-time volunteers nationwide. They make up 11% of the American workforce, more than the car and financial industries combined."
"Corporate America, too, is joining in. Companies such as Timberland and PricewaterhouseCoopers allow employees time off for public service. Others, like Target, are going into partnership with non-profit groups to provide pro bono marketing and financial advice."
"Thousands of lawyers have been laid off in recent months [...] But some law firms are encouraging the underemployed or deferred to do pro bono legal work for a public-interest group for a time. Some are paid monthly stipends or are offered a portion, often a third, of their salary"
Congress will "devote $5.7 billion over five years to expanding or creating national-service programmes, including tripling the size of AmeriCorps from 75,000 positions to 250,000."

In the UK IT professionals can volunteer their time to help charities at iT4Communities, a service that Spiral Arm have helped enhance and which we also host.

Mobile broadband

2009-04-02T14:59:00.000+01:00

In Priming the pipe, The Economist (7 March 2009, p. 68) notes that "Even industry veterans have been surprised by the rapid take-up of mobile broadband—using built-in receivers or plug-in “dongles” to provide internet access to laptops via high-speed mobile networks" .

The reason: price, network speeds, bundled netbooks with contracts. '“The pricing is crazy—mobile broadband is becoming a commodity way too fast,” notes Didier Bonnet of Capgemini, a consulting firm.'

Mobile advertising

2009-03-16T14:52:00.000Z

Research reported by eMarkerter: "One in three mobile users who recalled seeing a mobile ad said they responded to it in some way". The rate was highest for SMS, with 20.2% of non-iPhone US users recalling viewing mobile advertising (the rates are generally higher for iPhone users).

Fierce Wireless report: Economic Downturn Will Create Opportunities for Mobile Advertising, Says Analysys Mason. "Advertisers require high-impact media that are highly engaging and highly personal in order to deliver the best value for money. Mobile advertising has the potential to address both of these needs effectively."

Mobile banking to lift millions out of poverty.

2009-03-06T10:00:00.000Z

Two stories from BBC News discuss mobile banking for the poor.

Developing world's text bank plan (13 Feb 209) describes a three-year project which "allows people to transfer money via text messages without the need for banks." This will make a difference: "People who are too poor to use traditional banks, or who live too remotely, could use the service to save and transfer money between themselves as well as receiving money sent from family members in other countries."

An announcement from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is discussed in Help for poor to access banking (20 Feb 2009). "It is thought that more than a billion people worldwide do not have a bank account but do have a mobile phone." By working with the mobile phone industry, the foundation aims to help people "manage life's risks and build financial security".

Nokia, MS, Blackberry plan app stores.

2009-02-23T14:18:00.003Z

CNN report from the Mobile World Congress that Apple's iTune App Store has finally caused a reaction from other players to release their own stores. The Nokia one will be available for download in May; the Microsoft one is for Windows applications some of which will be mobile; an offering from Symbian will cause confusion with the Nokia offering; Blackberry's is due for October. Only stores from Palm and Android's are open now.

Mobile connectivity at sea.

2009-02-13T15:37:00.000Z

BBC News report on the deployment of pico cells on boats. "Previously merchant ship crews had to rely on expensive satellite phones. The new system will also rely on satellite communication [...] Connected to a remote gateway, [the pico cell] will convert a mobile call into a narrowband IP signal for transmission over the satellite network."

Snowmen strain mobile networks.

2009-02-06T15:40:00.000Z

Difficulty in making calls, network congestion, and delays in text messages in the UK on 2 Feb 2009 were a consequence of the heavy snow that fell. T-Mobile saw 73% more calls, 21% more texts on the day. 'A spokesman from mobile network 3 said: "We've seen a very steep jump in the number of picture messages sent across the network as snowmen make an all too rare appearance in gardens across the country."'

From: Snow strains technology networks, BBC News.

Networks, handset manufacturers profits down.

2009-02-05T15:23:00.004Z

Nolkia "dramatically lower quarterly profits" due to "global economic slowdown that was affecting people's ability to buy new mobile phones". They are not alone: "Motorola, Sony Ericsson and LG Electronics all reporting grim sales figures".

Motorola reports a loss and "said it lacked a popular handset to compete with its rivals".

Vodafone "grew revenues by 14.3 per cent" in the quarter, although "[s]tripping out the benefits of currency movements and the benefits of an Indian acquistion Vodafone's revenue actually fell one per cent while service revenue dipped 0.3 per cent." Voice revenue fell, but revenue from data services was up by 30 per cent.

Sources:

Motorola loses ground to rivals, BBC, 3 Feb 2009.
Nokia sales and profits plummet, BBC, 22 Jan 2009.
Nokia results hit by slowing customer demand, Computing, 22 Jan 2009.
Weak pound helps Vodafone dial up profit, The Register, 3 Feb 2009.
Vodafone sees 30 per cent rise in UK mobile data, Computing, 3 Feb 2009.
Sony Ericsson sales plummet, Computing, 16 Jan 2009.

2012: 1 in 5 of all mobile youth will be in India

2009-02-02T13:41:00.000Z

Mobile Youth report that by 2012 there will be 350 million under 30s in India, and this will account for 1 in 5 of the world's mobile youth market. "As a standalone country, Indians aged under 15 would rank as the 3rd biggest country in the world".

Short codes: opportunities and challenges

2009-01-19T13:39:00.000Z

In the US advertisers are starting to use short codes more and more. "'The expansion of short code marketing depends largely on the ability of advertisers and their agencies to use this medium in an interesting and compelling fashion,' said Nic Covey, Chicago-based director of insights for Nielsen. 'The text-message audience is there, it's now up to marketers to create a reason that consumers would want to relate to them through such a personal and immediate medium.'" Participation TV and radio interaction are helping drive this.

However, "'It's imperative to all of us that consumers come to view SMS as a safe, interesting and reliable means of communicating with brands,' Mr. Covey said".

In the UK in the last 6 months it's estimated that phone-paid services have declined by 15% in value. The main reasons given are: lack of interest, alternatives and a drop in disposable income. The report, from PhonepayPlus, notes "the penetration of mobile Internet will pose a growing threat over the next year, as its usage reaches the mass market", and "although premium-rate SMS will fare reasonably well despite some potential negative impact from mobile broadband towards the end of the year. "

Sources:

SMS short code marketing maturing: Nielsen, Mobile Marketer, 9 Dec 2008.
Stats & Research: Premium Rate Research, 160Characters, 5 Jan 2009.
UK Phone-paid services market:
current conditions and future trends (PDF), PhonepayPlus, Dec 2008.

US: 13-17 year olds average 1742 texts/mo

2009-01-13T08:24:00.000Z

The New York Post story of a girl who ran up 14,528 text messages in one month notes that: "The average number of monthly texts for a 13- to 17-year-old teen is 1,742, according to a Nielsen study of cellphone usage."

On the subject of facts and figures, 160Characters report on text figures around the world for new year: "In the UK O2 announced a record 166 million messages were sent over its network in a 24-hour period ending at 7.30 am on New Year’s Day 2009, an average of 1,900 messages sent every second."

iPhone and Android grow

2009-01-05T11:26:00.001Z

"The [Open Handset Alliance]'s new members include major handset makers, mobile service providers, and chipmakers, including ARM, Asustek, Garmin, Huawei Technologies, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba, and Vodafone." Sony Ericsson have also announced their plans to make an Android device.

Meanwhile Apple has annonced a milestone reached of shipping 300 million iPhone applications from a catalog that now contains 10,000 applications.

Sources:

More mobile makers join Android alliance, The Register, 10 Dec 2008.
Sony Ericsson to make Android phone, The Register, 10 Dec 2008.
Apple: 300 million iPhone apps downloaded, Macworld, 5 Dec 2008.

Nokia turn to services.

2008-12-22T16:01:00.000Z

As margins in handsets sink, Nokia is turning to services. "It has spent more than $10 billion buying firms with technology to support its services strategy, notably Navteq, the world’s biggest maker of digital maps. [...] Surprising many industry observers, Nokia has convinced leading mobile operators such as Vodafone and T-Mobile to support Ovi on their handsets. Ovi will be offered alongside their own services, and operators will take a cut of the revenues which Nokia hopes to make from advertising, e-commerce and subscriptions to premium services."

Source: Ovi go again, The Economist, 4 Dec 2008.

Bluetooth messaging.

2008-12-15T16:19:00.001Z

In an attempt to reduce drunk driving, police in Edinburgh are setting up Bluetooth nodes at drinking hotspots to send messages such as "Who's taking you home tonight? Bus, taxi, police, paramedic?"

The Register comments: "The campaign is aimed at 17 to 24-year-olds and the hope is that this demographic is more mobile-equipped than others, though one might imagine they're also more likely to have set their phones to non-discoverable mode before venturing out. Of course, the message won't be limited to those who've been drinking --- anyone driving past and completely sober will be equally vulnerable to being distracted by an incoming message".

Sources: The Register, The Scotsman, BBC News.

Advertising growth during recession.

2008-12-11T15:12:00.002Z

Two articles in the 29 Nov 2008 Economist discuss online and mobile advertising.

Advertising, in general, seems to follow GDP. During the dotcom recession online ad spend fell by 27%, but the predictions for 2009 say growth of almost 9% (down from earlier estimates of 14.5%). In other words, the recession will slow the growth of online ad spend, not cause a decline.

Meanwhile mobile advertising will grow thanks to the reduction in barriers: better screens, faster networks, flat-rate data plans. Contrast this situation to the past, when "having to wait for an advert to download, while being charged for the privilege, was unlikely to inspire warm feelings about the product being advertised".

Sources: Not ye olde banners (p. 73) and Madison, we have lift-off (p. 74).

Handset sales drop, but it's about the software.

2008-11-25T13:02:00.003Z

While it's expected that handset sales will fall, the percentage of smart phones will grow, and with that the industry changes. "It will be less about hardware and more about software, services and content. In fact, for the first time, more will be spent this year on such intangibles than on the handsets themselves".

The Economist describe "the battle for the smart-phone's soul" (22 Nov 2008, pp. 85-86) noting that it has taken Apple and Google, two outsiders, to shake things up.

"But even if one [of the many platforms] comes out ahead, it is unlikely that the market will consolidate soon. Strong economic interests are keeping each platform alive. Google wants to get its services and advertising on mobile phones. Nokia is also betting on services as a source of growth. And handset-makers and operators will probably continue to support LiMo, if only because they do not want to depend on Google or Nokia."

Council .mobi services.

2008-11-14T19:05:00.002Z

"Newham Borough Council is launching a service that will enable citizens to book GP appointments, report graffiti and access local maps and travel information on their mobile phones." Although to book a GP appointment you need to enter a "practice ID", "Access ID" and password and visit the GP to register in the first place. From Computing.

Controversial Phorm advertising trial continues.

2008-11-11T17:41:00.003Z

Computer Weekly reports: BT presses on with Phorm after Orange pulls out. The Phorm ad-serving system generated concerns from privacy groups, and it was privacy issues Orange cited as reasons for moving away from the platform (as reported in the FT last month). BT, however, are continuing their trials.

Using SMS for health education.

2008-10-27T17:27:00.003Z

From Texts tackle HIV in South Africa, BBC News: "Project Masiluleke [...] plans to broadcast millions of health messages every month to mobile phones across South Africa."

"The system sends the messages using a so-called 'Please Call Me' (PCM) service. This free form of text messaging, found across Africa, allows someone without any phone credit to send a text to a friend asking them to call. Each sent PCM message has the words 'Please Call Me,' the phone number of the caller, and space for an additional 120 characters. The extra space is normally filled with advertising, which helps offset the cost of running the service."

"Texts include: 'Worried that you might have HIV and want to talk to a counsellor about getting tested? Call Aids helpline 0800012322.'"

See also: MobileActive's coverage of the trail of this system from December 2007.

Quantitative analysis from mobile phone movements.

2008-10-08T15:42:00.002+01:00

By tracking the temporary mobile subscriber identity number, Path Intelligence have started to produce analysis of consumer behaviour. As reported by The BBC, their initial findings that "the longer people spend in shops, the more they spend" is hardly a revelation. But the approach holds promise.

See also:

Path Intelligence web site, includes a demo of the technology.
Shops track customers via mobile phone, Times, 16 May 2008.