Giorgio Armani Mobile to go with your Armani jacket

Giorgio Armani will be releasing their new mobile phone in collaboration with Samsung soon. Its pretty much a fashion phone for those who are prepared to shell out 650 Euro. Thats an expensive price to pay for a mobile phone considering that you can buy 2 Apple iPhones instead. Check the clip below to judge for yourself whether it will live up to the price tag.

Instant Chill

How do you chill a can of soda in 2 minutes?

Intel iPhone clone

Another iPhone clone? This device is designed by Intel and they are targetting to release the 1st version in the 1st half of 2008. The full internet experience in your pocket. The device is slim and looks slightly longer than the iPhone.

Intel claims to be making some major transformation technologically to bring us the full internet experience. I m really not sure about what major transformation Intel is talking about and certainly have no clue why Intel is now interested in manufacturing a mobile phone. Intel is a great company and they should just focus what they do best with the processors unless if they have some good innovation that the world have not seen.

1 GB of storage 20 years ago

Check out how small is the 1 GB of storage today in comparison to what it was 20 years ago. I cant imagine how the size of the current 1 GB storage device will be able to hold in 20 years from now. Its just getting smaller and smaller ain't it.

Beware when unlocking your iPhone

Apple announced today that iPhone customers who use programs to unlock their handsets may cause irreparable damage to the iPhone’s software when Apple supplied software is updated, and an upgrade is coming this week. Users who make unauthorized changes to the iPhone software violate their software license agreement and void the warranty.

Apple is saying that this latest development has nothing to do with proactively disabling pirated phones, but that it is an unfortunate consequence connected to updating software. A skeptical public may find this hard to believe. There is no evidence to show that Apple is actively trying to shutdown modified iPhones, but I’m sure many people don’t believe Apple as it must be another tactical move by Apple to discourage users to mess around with their phones.

Lose weight by drinking 12 cans of beer

Would you like to lose weight? How about drinking 12 cans of beer. Its the best video parody about shaping up.


Miracle Beer Diet - Click here for more home videos

Indian mobile subscribers cross 200 million

The number of Indian mobile phone subscribers has crossed the 200 million mark after the country added another eight million customers last month, industry figures show.

India's wireless market, the world's fastest growing, attracted a further 8.31 million wireless subscribers in August to touch 201.29 million users, according to figures from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Saturday.

It took India less than one and a half year to add another 100 million having crossed the 100-million subscriber mark in May 2006. At this pace, India will likely to garner another 100 million in lesser time.

India's mobile revolution is mainly confined to the cities, but the real prize for phone companies is the vast rural market, where nearly 70 percent of India's 1.1 billion population live, analysts say.

India is aiming for more than half a billion mobile phone subscribers by 2010.

Microsoft interested to buy 5% of Facebook

Microsoft Corp. is in talks with Facebook Inc. about making an investment between $300-500 million in the social-networking startup that could value Facebook at $10 billion or more according to the Wall Street Journal. Just weeks ago rumors of a new round of financing for Facebook surfaced.

It will be a strategic victory for Microsoft if they can ink the deal having lost tremendous a lot of ground to Google for the past years. I m not surprise that Google may counter offer to prevent Microsoft from making the purchase and this would be another huge win for Google and another smack in the face on Microsoft.

Facebook is a great product and it needs the great people behind it to continue making better development and frankly Microsoft isnt that company that will take Facebook to another level but the acquisition will definitely strengthen Microsoft's ad platform on its search engine.

The discussions are still preliminary and Facebook could end up not taking any investments from either Microsoft or Google as Facebook may value themselves higher than what Microsoft and Google would pay for. Its afterall Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's ambition to continue to build the company and eventually take it public.

Blyk launches today

Blyk, the first mobile virtual network operator offering free phone call minutes and messaging in return for sending customers advertising, launches in the UK today. The network will target the ads based on a detailed profile customers will fill out on their website.

To make sure the audience is the right one, only 16-to 24-year-olds will be allowed on it, with cross-checks for age in place. Advertisers, including Buena Vista, Coca-Cola, I-play Mobile Gaming, L’Oreal Paris, StepStone and Yell have already confirmed that they will be among the first advertisers.

Blyk users will get 217 free texts and 43 voice-call minutes every month on condition they opt in to receive up to six ads to their phone a day. It’ll cost 99p per megabyte to browse mobile sites.

Its going to be interesting to see whether Blyk's business model will work. Mobile advertising certainly has a great upside but I m not sure whether the free minutes and sms can ever be subsidized by the 6 ads that Blyk will be sending out to their users everyday. It may or may not work. It really depend on the successful conversion of the ads sent to the users and how much Blyk can monetize from the ads delivered. With an experienced team, headed by former Nokia president Pekka Ala-Pietila and Antti Öhrling, a branding veteran, I m sure they must have got something planned out.

Lets not forget its not really an absolute free service to the end users as once they go past the free minutes and sms, the cost of each sms and call will be charged at 10p a text and 15p a minute and users have to prepay for the additional sms and call minutes.

I reckon that they are going to be alot of takers as its not really a bad deal if you are one of those who does not mind giving up some of your particulars so as to allow Blyk to target you with 6 ads each day. I wish Blyk all the best.

Universal Charger from all Mobile Phones

Finally we are all going to be able to share our mobile charger regardless of the brands that we are using thanks to the Open Mobile Terminal Platform (OMTP), a forum of leading phone operators and manufacturers including heavyweights Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and LG, who has agreed to make micro-USB the connector standard on all its future hardware.

Micro-USB ports allow devices to be charged from PCs. They're also smaller than current mini-USB connectors, making them better suited to the smaller form factors of modern personal devices.

Its a good development for mobile phone users. Hunting down a charger will surely be a thing of the past. Universal charger will also be an advantage to the environment as it will allow mobile users to recycle future chargers than having it disposed.

Dont be too happy yet with this announcement. While the news maybe out and the agreement has been reached but the actual execution of this agreement will still take some time.

Internet is more important than friends and sex

The Internet and mobile internet are dramatically changing the behavior and media consumption patterns of the Americans. The latest piece of research to show this is from the ad agency JWT.

Surfing the net has become an obsession for many Americans with the majority of U.S. adults feeling they cannot go for a week without going online and one in three giving up friends and sex for the Web.

The poll found 48 percent of respondents agreeing they felt something important was missing without Internet access. More than a quarter of respondents or 28 percent admitted spending less time socializing face-to-face with peers because of the amount of time they spend online.

It also found that 20 percent said they spend less time having sex because they are online.

Mobile phones won out over television in a question asking which device people couldn't go without but the Internet trumped all, regarded as the most necessary.

This phenomena isnt just happening in the US as I m certain that its taking place in Asia and Europe too where internet is more than just an access tool. Much of the time are spent on Instant messaging, email, blogging and more recently social networking. Its the main screen for many of us including myself where i had almost stopped watching the TV where TV used to be my only screen.

Ad dollars and media spending will eventually catch up to consumers. You’re starting to see it as ad spending declines in traditional media. A second piece talks about data from Nielsen, confirmed and similarly reported by others (such as TNS), reporting that ad spending is down across the board in traditional media:

The big research company says that for the first half of 2007, ad spending slipped 0.5% versus the same time period for 2006. Not surprisingly, the Internet led the way--again--as the most improved category, up 23.6% versus a year ago.

On the losing end were some long-suffering print categories: Local newspapers were down 8%; national newspapers fell 5.9%; business-to-business magazines were off 5.7%; local magazines tumbled 5.2%; and local Sunday supplements gave away 4.7%.

This study should provide a wake up call to traditional media companies who really need to adapt and accelerate their online distribution strategies or they will be have a hard time competing with their online counterparts or even go out of business.

Instant Baby Soothe

How to stop a baby from crying? Keep the tap water running.

Mobile Phone with Built-in Projector

I think this is the most awesome thing I’ve seen on the development on mobile. Popular Science and Engadget attended a press event in NY called Pepcom where Texas Instruments showed off their pico projector technology. The device will be able to create a 15 inch projection in a well lite room and shipping versions will use LED based technology to minimize heat and size.

The quality and brightness of the proejction may not be optimized at the present moment which is probably why it has not been released into the market yet but I m sure it will gradually be improved and soon be commercially made available. It will be great add on to our mobile allowing us to share rich media content and even make a short presentation to others.

What inspired the Beijing Olympic's logo

Apple's iPhone goes Orange

Following on the UK’s O2 and Germany’s T-Mobile announcement that they will be bringing iPhone to their respective country, France’s Orange has just announced their intention to bring the iPhone to France.

The iPhone handset is slated to go on sale on November 9, simultaneously with UK's O2 and Germany's T-Mobile November 9 launch.

With the world largest mobile phone consumption market in Asia, iPhone will certainly be making its way to Asia soon and I m certain that Steve Jobs must had jotted somewhere on his calendar to schedule a major iPhone launch on this side of the Pacific.

SMS is worth $100 billion in 2007

US$100,000,000,000 worth of SMS text messages will be recorded this year according to the latest stat provided by TomiAhonen Consulting 21 Sept 2007

How big is that? Its so big that even if you combine all the revenues of hollywood movies worldwide, all of the global music industry revenues and all of videogaming revenues around the world and you wont even see it reaching $100 billion.

We will hit about 2,800,000,000,000 (2.8 trillion) text messages sent this year! 8 BILLION texts sent every day. Or 92,000 text messages sent out every second everyday. SMS is definitely not dying and in fact its so addictive that this figure will continue to grow each year with more and more people subscribing to the mobile phone service. Dont think there are too many billion dollars industries out there that can claim to have an annual growth of 25%!

Google's Presentations is out

Google has announced its much anticipated Powerpoint competitor. It has been added to Google Docs - the new, simpler name for "Google Docs & Spreadsheets". With the new Presentations feature, users can create "simple web-based presentations". A quick glance at the functionality shows it is similar to the other Google Docs features (word processing and spreadsheets) - with sharing, revisions, etc.

Below is a video which shows Presentations in action:

Apple going with T-Mobile in Germany

Apple Inc. picked Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Mobile to sell the iPhone in Germany, Europe's largest mobile-phone market. The 8-gigabyte handset will go on sale in Germany ONLY on November 9 for 399 euros ($557) including tax, even more expensive than the UK price of 269 pounds ($536).

Apple and T-Mobile didn't give financial details of the partnership, such as how revenue will be shared.

Source : Apple

iPhone out in UK on November 9

The news is out, the iPhone will go on sale in the UK on November 9 through mobile operator O2, marking the FIRST time the combination cell phone-iPod will be available outside the US and I reckon more iPhones will be launching soon all over Europe afterall Steve Jobs has a 10 million target to catch by next year.

Consumers will pay 269 pounds ($536) for the 8Gb model, or about $139 more than what Apple charges in the US. The iPhone offered in Britain will have the same technical specifications as the US model, but the price includes the UK's value-added tax.

The most interesting point of the announcement is that all tariffs will include unlimited data, meaning O2 will finally be catching up with its peers to offer a flat rate, all you can eat, data plan.

There was no mention on the subject matter of revenue share though it is rumoured in some quarters that Apple will take a cut of between 20 - 40 per cent of all revenues generated on the device, both data and voice.

Of course, since its launch in the US, the iPhone has been successfully hacked and ported to other GSM networks, so switching operator is not an absolute necessity. Jobs said, "With these hackers it is a constant game of cat and mouse. We try to stay ahead. People will try to break in, and it's our job to stop them breaking in."

3 Year-Old Child Prodigy on Classical Violin

Akim, a 3 year old violinist, performs with an orchestra in the Netherlands. He may not have hit every note right but for a kid who is only 3, that was a spectacular performance.

Google launches Mobile Adsense

The search giant today announced it is expanding its widely used AdSense online network to allow affiliated website publishers to target ads at Internet users not just on PCs, but mobile phones, too.

Reuters is reporting that the move means site publishers can now start generating revenue when consumers view ads on their sites via mobile devices.

"Everything we have done in the PC area can be extended to mobile phones," Dilip Venkatachari, product management director for Google AdSense for mobile phones, tells Reusters. "The needs are similar."

Just as with the PC version of AdSense, mobile text ads run on an auction model. The system automatically reviews the content of publishers' mobile websites and delivers text ads that are relevant to the sites' audience and content. Publishers earn money whenever users click on the ads.

What wasn’t announced fully was if the program is different in any way than traditional Adsense. It would also be interesting to understand how Google is exactly defining mobile websites.

It'll be interesting to see how it all works out. It's hard to imagine people spending a lot of time clicking text links on their handsets, but then, it didn't seem like a strong opportunity in the PC world either. In general, I'm skeptical of extending ad models from one medium to the other - but if anyone can do it, it's Google.

For more information, please see: http://adsense.blogspot.com/.

Tech News the Bikini Way

Care for some sexy bikini girls while catching up on your tech news? BikiniZero is one stop where you can get your tech and sex fix all in one. Interested to meet other bikini-loving geeks, go check out BikiniShout, its the social networking community on BikiniZero.com.

Nokia acquiring Enpocket

Nokia will be acquiring Enpocket, a Boston company that displays ads on cellphones, another step in the handset maker's push into software and services and the latest buyout in the mobile-marketing industry, though the price is not clear. Nokia is expected to complete the purchase of Enpocket in October.

By acquiring Enpocket, Nokia will accelerate the scaling of its mobile advertising business, leveraging Enpocket's platform and strong partnerships with advertisers, publishers and operators. In addition to key assets, through this transaction Nokia is gaining a team with strong expertise in global mobile advertising across disciplines.

The company was founded in 2001, and got $2 million last year from venture debt firm Leader Ventures. The 120-person company works with Sprint Nextel, Vodafone and Bharti Airtel of India, and has ad clients such as Hyundai and Pepsi.

Foreign investment in China up 12.8% to $41.95 billion in Jan-Aug 2007

China foreign direct investment had increased 12.8% to US$41.95 billion in the first eight months this year according to the Ministry of Commerce.

The country approved the establishment of 24,848 foreign-funded companies in the same period, down 5.26 percent from the previous year, said the ministry. In August, the establishment of 3,150 foreign-funded firms were approved, down 8.83 percent year-on-year, while foreign direct investment had increased 11.87 percent to US$5.02 billion.

China's cumulative foreign direct investment had exceeded US$750 billion by the end of June this year since the beginning of its opening-up policy in 1978. Currently, more than 28 million people, or about 10 percent of the employed population in cities and towns of the country, work in foreign-funded enterprises.

Source - Xinhua

APPLE vs NOKIA

Check out this well written blog by Michael Mace at Mobile Opportunity on the war ahead between Apple and Nokia.

Check out the differences between Apple and Nokia below and its going to be exciting to see how these 2 giants will be competing with each other. Its hard to comment who will win at the end of the day but one thing for sure, consumers are going to be the real beneficiary.

For those who are not ready for the war, its going to be hard and difficult times ahead and if i were them, I will either run very fast to catch up or re-think my whole strategy again or pack my bags and leave the industry.

Who do you reckon will win the war?

World's 1st Surface Computing iBar

The world’s first surface computing iBar was installed at 24, a high-end Soho nightclub in London. The $147,000 table tops have sensors that detect what you’re drinking, so when you can’t remember how many drinks you had, the gizmo will figure it out for you by scanning the shape of your glass.

It will not be too distant in the future where you can make payment by placing your bank card or mobile on the bar. Looking at the menu and ordering food will be a finger touch away. What a cool way to interact.

Motorola launches Solution Catalog Portal

Motorola has launched a consumer-centric site in beta to showcase the applications available on Moto handsets. The site is dubbed Comprehensive Solutions Catalog, and i shall hope that they have this site rebranded soon with a new name. The current site is certainly not going to give Motorola an edge over Nokia's Ovi new initiatives.

The site does not have an unified billing system or special download provisions, if people want to buy a product they click on a link which takes them to the developers site. The big benefit is users will be able to find out all new releases for each handset in one place.

Really nothing to shout about. Motorola really have to think harder how to improve their market positioning as their market share continues to slide and they are expected to lose their 3rd position to Sony Ericsson this quarter.

Pre-takeoff Announcement on a China Southern Airlines Flight

This is a true account of what was heard on a recent flight from Shenzhen to Qingtao by China Southern Airlines:

"Good afternoon, Ladies and the German. This is your cheap purser Wang Lui speaking. On behalf of China Sudden Airlines, I would like to welcome you on board our Bowling 737 from Shenzhen to Qingtao. Members of my crew speak Chinese and other languages that you do not know. It is a great pressure serving you to-die. Should you need any resistance during the fright, peace do pest the call button. I and my gals are available to make you feel comfortable. Meanwhile, the airkwaft is going to fry. Peace sit upright and keep you belt tightly fastened until dinner is served at five dirty p.m. Hope you would enjoy your fright with us. Funk kill."

O2 expected to launch iPhone in UK

O2, the mobile phone company is expected to launch iPhone before Christmas having laid the groundwork yesterday for an announcement of a tie-up with Apple to sell the US firm’s iPhone handset.

Peter Erskine, the O2 chief executive, defended Apple’s insistence that it receives a share of revenues from calls made on iPhones. Mr Erskine defended Apple’s insistence saying that such agreements were still advantageous.

Revenue-sharing deals with handset manufacturers are unheard of within the mobile industry. Manufacturers such as Nokia had never received any share of the revenue made on their devices. Mr Erskine said: “If sharing revenue brings a bigger pie to the table, then we’ll be happy to share that pie . . . The revenue-sharing model will play an increasingly important role in the future of converged communications.”

Losers in the converged world, he said, would be “the network operators, service providers and device manufacturers who don’t pay particular attention to understanding and reacting to what customers value”. Its a whole new paradigm shift but analysts arent too positive about iPhone setting this new precedent as history had shown that partnership with Apple had always resulted Apple being the ultimate winner.

Source : Business Times UK

Nokia Maps downloaded 1 million times

Nokia had just released the latest version of its mapping software, Nokia Maps, which it is planning to incorporate into its Ovi mobile Internet platform. In addition to a new user interface, the latest version offers more detailed nearby and category searches, including full city guides, improved GPS, as well as a data counter.

Nokia planned to cover 150 countries with 50 of them navigable. Most of the basic route service is free. Nokia had also released a version of its Map Loader software for PC to upload the maps from the PC to your mobile phone. Definitely will save the heavy loading from the mobile network.

Nokia claims that the mobile maps apps each have been downloaded one million times since its mapping service since it first went live in February. This has to be the most valuable service on Ovi now.

Do check out their site to download Nokia Maps to your mobile.

Global Wireless Data Market Update - 1H 2007

Chetan Sharma Consulting conducted its semi-annual study on the global mobile data industry studying wireless data trends in over 40 major countries - from developed and mature markets such as Japan, Korea, UK, and Italy to high-growth markets such as China, India, Brazil, and Russia.

2007 continued to enhance mobile data’s role in the operator ecosystem. Japan and Korea remain the envy of the global markets and the countries to study and learn from. The US market has been steadily making strong comeback and equaled Japan in terms of most service revenue generated from mobile data.

This note summarizes the findings from the research.

- The worldwide markets continue to grow at an explosive pace reaching 3B subscriptions by Q207 up 13% from 2006 levels. Significant growth is coming from India and China with both countries registering close to 7M net adds on average in Q2. India recorded 8M net adds (its highest) in July. Overall, the world market is at almost 50% penetration.

- US equaled Japan as the most valuable mobile data market (in terms of service revenue) with both nations reaching just over $11B in mobile data service revenues for the first half of 2007. China with $5.9B was ranked number three.

- NTT DoCoMo continues to dominate the wireless data service revenues rankings with over $5.5B in service data revenues however Q/Q growth has dropped to single digits. DoCoMo crossed 70% in 3G penetration and is expected to cross 80% within 9 months.

- DoCoMo was followed by China Mobile, KDDI, Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint Nextel, Softbank, O2 UK, SK Telecom, and China Unicom to round up the top 10 operators by wireless data service revenues. All the top 10 carriers exceeded $1B in data revenues for the first six months of 2007.

- Most of the major operators around the world have double digit percentage contribution to their overall ARPU from data services. Operators like KDDI, DoCoMo, 3 Italy, 3 UK, and O2 UK are topping 30%.

- SingTel reported the highest increase in data ARPU from 4Q06 with 39% growth. Other notable percentage increases in ARPU were from Rogers, AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and T-Mobile Austria. The biggest drop in percentage terms were registered by the Indian operators.

- In terms of absolute dollar amount, 3 UK became the first operator (qualifying limit: 4 million subs) to crack the $30 data ARPU mark. By comparison, rest of the top 4 operators are below $18. In fact, 3 UK reported the highest ARPU recorded at approximately $94. Other operators who reported overall ARPU above $60 were SingTel, Rogers, Sprint Nextel, and 3 Sweden.

- The biggest jump in data revenues was experienced by Softbank, Japan. Since taking over from Vodafone, it has turned the operations around and has experienced a 42% jump in data revenues since EOY06.

- In 1H 07, SMS’s vice like grip on data revenues continued to loosen a bit with many carriers seeing an increase in non-SMS data revenues. On an average, Japan and Korea have over 70-75% of their revenue coming from non-SMS data applications, US around 50-60%, and Western Europe around 20-40%.

- The top 10 operators increased their revenue by 17% during the first half of 2007 compared to second half (2H) 2006 to reach $29 billion in data service revenues.

- NTT DoCoMo’s position at the top of the wireless data world has been challenged recently by several carriers esp. by its archrival KDDI. Their data coordinates stand at ($17, 32%) and ($18, 32%) respectively (please see PowerPoint for reference).

- The biggest percentage contribution by data ARPU has been consistently registered (since mid 2002) by two Philippines carriers – Smart Communications and Globe Telecom with almost 52% (or $3.6) contribution coming from data services.

- Even though China reported approximately $5.9B in data revenues for 1H 07, and the % contribution is over 20%, data ARPU is around $2. For India data ARPU dropped below $1 for all major carriers.

- China Mobile with 338M remains the #1 subscriber followed by Vodafone at 200M and China Unicom with 152M subscriptions. Telefonica, América Móvil, SingTel, Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile), and Orange (France Telecom) are the next five largest telecom groups in the world. In terms of individual carriers in a given country, AT&T and Verizon Wireless occupy the #3 and #4 spot respectively ahead of NTT DoCoMo, which is at #5. The two Chinese carriers round up the top two positions and are likely to stay perched at their lookout vistas for some years to come. Telecom groups in mature markets are under enormous pressure to either come up with a global expansion strategy or accelerate their existing plans. Carriers in Japan and Korea are the most under duress.

- As far as 3G is concerned, GSA reported the crossing of the 200 millionth subscription in Q207. Both Japan and Korea continue to expand their 3G base with both reporting over 50% penetration. 3G has picked-up steam in both western Europe and North America per our discussion in the cover story article “3G: Hitting the Mass Market” published in Wireless World Magazine. Western Europe and US are approximately at 15% penetration (Italy being the exception reaching 35%).

- China and India represent the biggest opportunities for Infrastructure providers. China has postponed its 3G decision for the umpteenth time and is having technical and political problems to get something in place before the 2008 Olympics. India is going through its 3G spectrum policy but unlike China is likely to resolve the issues in short order. Some of the biggest infrastructure contracts will come from these two countries that are looking to expand coverage into rural area.

- Carriers with nationwide 3G networks and good distribution of handsets are seeing uptick in data ARPU. The Japanese and Korean carriers along with operator 3, Verizon, Sprint Nextel are all seeing benefits of rolling out their 3G service. Deployment of 3.5G technologies such as HSDPA and EV-DO Rev A (and B) are also gaining momentum. Networks are getting deployed and market is being seeded with some of the early handsets.

- In terms of applications, messaging accounts for lion-share of data revenues. However, other services such as Mobile Music, Mobile TV and video streaming, Mobile Games, IMS, LBS, Mobile advertising, and others have captured industry’s imagination. Though not much talked about, enterprise applications are also being adopted widely esp. in North America as more workers become mobile and corporations seek efficiencies in their operations and supply-chain.
1H07 also saw the demise of yet another high-profile MVNO in the form of Amp’D. Helio continues to struggle while the newer ones like Sonopia and Blyk are testing the treacherous waters.

- Nokia eclipsed 100M unit sale in Q207 for the second time in history (first being in Q406). Its 1H07 tally stood at 191.9M followed by Motorola at 80.9M and Samsung at 72.2M. Nokia’s share of the market went up to 37.9%. Motorola lost significant ground dropping 3.2% Q/Q to 12.4%. Samsung gained as a result and ascending again to the number 2 spot with a 14.1% market share. Sony Ericsson with 9.4% and LG with 7.2% rounded up the top 5.

- Several operators reported Mobile Advertising as their key strategic focus for the coming quarters, esp. China Mobile and Vodafone. Sensing the opportunity to seek new sources of revenue stream, Nokia launched its ad service as well. 1H07 saw tremendous M&A activity in both the online and mobile advertising space.

You can download the details of their findings below.

Download PDF (1.9 MB)

Download PPT (1.1 MB)

First free software to unlock iPhone

First fully tested software to unlock iPhone is here and it works and its free too. They had already got an early beta build of the graphical one-click iPhone-based software and can confirm that despite the visual glitches you see above, it's already a fully functional one-click unlock solution, not too different from iPhoneSimFree's paid unlock software.

Unfortunately, you still have to actually get the app onto the phone and go through the activation process with your SIM afterward (and re-enable YouTube, if you so choose), but this is the first major step in automating the process of quickly and easily unlocking everybody's iPhone and of course its free and most importantly its proven to work.

Source : Engadget

Unlocked iPhone on sale in China for $1,000

iPhones smuggled into China are selling in Shanghai's electronics shops and online store even if the unlocked device lacks warranty and face connection problems.

The Shanghai Morning Post reported that a 4G iPhone sells for $771 while an 8G model sells for $1,037 in an electronics mall in Xujiahui area. Even though its much higher than the $600 debut price, the vendor claimed that seven to eight units are sold per week.

IPhones originally works only with SIM cards from AT&T in the U.S. However, unlocking service is locally available for $107 making the phone open to SIM cards from China's major mobile phone service providers-China Mobile and China Unicom.

Apple has yet to release iPhone anywhere outside the US and if you are living in China and have $1000 to spare, go check out the malls at Xujiahui. As for me, I m going to wait patiently for the the new iPhone that should come with 3g support.

iPhone unlocked from start to finish

Please check out at Engadget the latest live captured video on unlocking the iPhone. Thanks to the geeks at iPhoneSimFree for providing the details step by step to unlock the iPhone.

iPhone crossing the 1,000,000 sales target

It took a bit longer than a some analysts were expecting, but Apple announced today that it has finally achieved the one million iPhone sales target, 74 days after the iPhone hit the scene on June 29th and right on target for Apple's own projections.

"One million iPhones in 74 days -- it took almost two years to achieve this milestone with iPod," said Steve Jobs. But of course, it's never enough: "We can't wait to get this revolutionary product into the hands of even more customers this holiday season."

While it remains to be seen whether Apple can achieve the 10 million sales target for 2008, iPhone had certainly earned the status of the most sexiest mobile phone in the market and definitely had redefined the overall design of an integrated multimedia communication device. Viva Apple.

Anti-piracy The UK Way

Found this funny Ad from CrunchGear on Anti-piracy.

Five Marketing Secrets from Apple

Steve Chazin, a marketing executive with Apple, recently launched a blog called MarketingApple with the able assistance of David Meerman Scott, who himself is the author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR and a long-time member of the social media sphere.

In addition to his blog, Steve has written an ebook - styled in the cool and classic Apple look & feel that we've all come to expect - in which he outlines the five marketing secrets that have catapulted Apple to success.

Each one deserves to be read through in its entirety, but the summary is as follows:

- Don't Sell Products. People buy what other people have
- Never Be the First to Market. Make something good better
- Empower Early Adopters. Help your customers help you
- Make Your Message Memorable. Boil your idea down to its syrupy goodness
- Go One Step Further. Surprise and delight your customers

You can download the ebook here.

Source : The Social Media Marketing Blog by Scott Monty

Publicis Acquires French Mobile Marketing Firm Phonevalley

The French advertising holding company has acquired Phonevalley, a Paris-based mobile marketing firm, according to Forbes. The company, which has a presence in five European countries, where it develops SMS, MMS and banner mobile advertising campaigns, will become the mobile marketing arm of Publicis Group.

Most of the top advertising groups had either acquired or started their own mobile marketing arm. This is a sign that mobile marketing is taking on ever greater importance to marketers the world over. Such deals will be expected to be common as more global brand owners and advertising agencies embrace mobile marketing.

For more, click here.

Drive & Download - Map Directions Sent To Your Car

Yahoo, Google and Mercedes have teamed up for this idea. After you have sent the driving directions from either Yahoo or Google’s map sites to your car, you just push a dedicated ibutton in the car to download the directions to your car’s navigation system and you’re good-to-go.

You can immediately start the route guidance or else save the information for later use in your navigation memory. Instead of spending time inputting data into your navigation system, your destinations will be available whenever you need them.

Apple's new sexy iPod Touch with Wi-Fi

Today Apple CEO, Steve Jobs unveiled the new “iPod Touch” which has many of the same features as the iPhone…with the exception of making or receiving calls. Another good news for all iPhone fans is Apple will discontinue one of the two models sold since late June and the remaining version, with 8 gigabytes of storage, will now sell for only $399, or $200 less than before.

The Touch iPod has a 3.5” widescreen and carries WiFi, giving the consumer the ability to surf the net using Safari and with the same scroll, flip and zoom in/out feature as the iPhone. There are two models of the iPod Touch, an 8GB for $299 and a 16GB for $399. The newest version of the iPod Nano has been introduced with a 2” color video screen

YouTube videos can be watched on the iPod Touch with the exception of being 8mm thick, the device looks just like the iPhone. Users will be able to download content from the iTunes store that can be imported to your computer.

A new version of the Classic comes with a full metal design and is thinner than its predecessor. A $249 version has 80 gigabytes of storage and 30 hours of audio. A slightly thicker model features 160 gigabytes of storage and will retail for $349. Jobs also pointed out that the new iPod could hold 40,000 songs in comparison to 1,000 on the original iPod.

Jobs also announced a new venture with Starbucks whereby iPod Touch users who visit one of the coffee house's outlets will be download any song playing directly to their music player. They can also retrieve a list of the last 10 songs that the Starbucks store played. You can check out Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveil the new iPod touch, iPod nano, iPod classic, and iPod shuffle, plus new features in iTunes. See the video-on-demand event right here, exclusively in QuickTime and MPEG-4!

iPhone is the Best Selling Smartphone in the US for July

According to iSuppli, the iPhone outsold all other smartphones in July:

Apple Inc.’s iPhone became the biggest-selling smart phone in the U.S. in July, according to iSuppli Corp. The iPhone accounted for 1.8% of all mobile handset sales to U.S. consumers that month — the first full month in which the iPhone was available. Apple’s device outsold the BlackBerry series, the entire Palm portfolio, and any individual Motorola, Nokia, Samsung or other smart phone model.

This is an endorsement of both the fashion/buzz value of the phone but more importantly the perceived usability of the device even vs. other other popular smartphones and most notably the Blackberry.


The iPhone represents a bid to recreate the desktop Internet in mobile, something that a fair number of people appear to want. It remains a minority device unless or until it’s untethered from AT&T, however. Yet, despite this minority status, it will continue to influence the design of competitors’ products and in that way have a continuing ripple effect on the broader market.

First 1 Million Love Song Downloaded in Japan

Mobile music's on the move in a very big way.A Japanese pop group made up of anonymous dental students has recorded the first song ever to rack up 1 million downloads to mobile phones over mobile networks.

According to the Sept. 3 issue of Business Week, the group, called GReeeeN, has a major hit with its song Aiuta (Love Song).

Of course, we are talking Japan, where mobile infrastructure had made it possible to download songs at ultra-fast speeds. In fact, according to Business Week, 90% of all music downloads travel over mobile networks - and takes about 15 to 20 seconds to download a song. Here in the China, by comparison, users have to hard wire their phone to their computers to do that. China is still at 2.5-2.75 G network. Its way too costly and too slow to download over GPRS.

Mobile Music is certainly a killer app for the operators worldwide and its a trend gradually being embraced by mobile operators worldwide.

7 Reasons why Microsoft is DOOMED

I was reading askreamaor's blog and came across an article where Rea Maor had given 7 reasons why Microsoft will eventually tank one day. Pretty good insights and most are valid too. I m sure Microsoft is working on something but it aint easy as they havent been successful outside the software business. Some of you may laugh about it but read the followings and let me know what you think.

Here are the 7 reasons:

#1. Their business model is a dead-end.

- Back when Microsoft first started business in 1980, software as a commodity was still a fuzzy concept. Computers, themselves, were flying off the shelves, and of course you bought game cartridges for game consoles, but what little computer software was being sold in the early 1980’s was worth a few dollars at the most. And then came “Micro-soft” - a BASIC interpreter on a floppy disk in a zip-lock plastic baggy! But somehow, it caught on.

Now, in 2007, the concept of software as a commodity is rapidly wearing off again. Today, it’s all about the service and maintenance - something that Microsoft isn’t prepared to deal with.

#2. They flunk at Web 2.0.

- Another shift in the technology market is the much-hyped web app. When you can get more and more of your programs to download from a server and run in a web browser, your whole operating system - as far as what needs to be installed on your computer goes - can be a life-support system for a web browser. You can even get a full operating system to run in your browser! Meanwhile, the biggest stake they have ever had in the Internet user-space is Internet Explorer.

#3. They’re running out of friends.

- First off, they’ve been brought up on multiple anti-trust charges in both the United States and Europe, plus been the subject of 130 lawsuits besides. Now consider that IBM, their former friend, now values Linux above Microsoft. And then there’s Sun, Apple, Google, and Oracle, who are flat-out competitors to Microsoft while favoring at least open source, if not Linux proper. Even Adobe is starting to look like a competitor with Microsoft, with nearly a one-to-one mapping of what Adobe and Microsoft each offer.

#4. They only have a couple of cash cows to work with.

- Yes, it’s easy to look good when you consider their dominance on the desktop and office programs - but that’s their two products that they stay afloat on is Windows and Office. What about the other ventures of Microsoft? Is MSN taking over share from Google and Yahoo? Did the Zune beat the iPod? How many of you bought Microsoft Surface? Web servers? Nope, Apache rules that roost. OK, so what about the XBox? Yes! The XBox is selling well… at a loss.
At this point, it is becoming apparent that Microsoft had better cling to that operating system and office suite, because every time they step into another market, they get their head handed to them.

#5. People are hating on Vista.

- We didn’t even see this many people mad about Windows ME.

#6. Their stock isn’t rising any more.

- This is not to say “this week”, but rather over the last seven years. This chart shows a clear picture. You see the stock value climbing steadily until right at the year 2000 - then it fell gradually and has puttered along at a level rate ever since. Microsoft was once the most profitable stock you could trade, but with a seven year slump, that magic spell seems to be irrevocably broken.

#7. PC makers are starting to turn their backs on Microsoft.

- Sure, small-time markets have offered alternatives to Microsoft, but when a giant PC seller like Dell starts selling Ubuntu machines, that’s another big sign. HP has followed suit.

Any comments?

Mobile Advertising – the buzz is coming to China too!

Taken from Services Mobile, an article edited by my good friend Bruno Bensaid, Founder of Mobilemonday Shanghai, Entrepreneur and M&A advisor in the China telecom and media industry.


China’s online advertising market might still be in its infancy, it is nonetheless witnessing robust growth. According to OgilvyOne’s China President, online ad spending in China could reach $6 billion by 2012, when most analysts predict about $4 billion. Mobile advertising is next, but with some major differences: the telecom operators’ monopolistic tenure on the market and weak wap usage to date. With a mobile population now over 500 million (and growing at an astounding pace of 5-6 million new subs a month), mobile ad revenue could reach $92 million in 2007 (from an estimated $65 mil in 2006), $142 million in 2008, $193 million in 2009 and $243.2 million in 2010, according to a recent research from Marbridge Consulting in Beijing (http://www.marbridgeconsulting.com/).


How to explain some of this growth? We have to factor in the concurrent growth of sms campaigns, wap ads, 2D barcode, photo-based marketing campaigns and mobile search. Besides, the overstated “Olympic Games effect” is now also visible on online ad spending as brands are finally releasing long-overdue budgets for 2007 and 2008, reaching out to more customers in the internet world. Along with the Games is 3G being rolled out, and hopefully more wap and SMS campaigns will benefit from the 3G/Olympics hype too. China is currently stuck in the 2.5G era and only rolling out Edge and locally-made 3G standard (with maybe some HSDPA), before the Olympics and in targeted “key” cities. Full fledged 3G deployment will take place in 2008 and 2009.


If all agree mobile advertising will be “big” at some point in the future, several factors are still hampering growth: slow data throughput, lack of reliable campaign metrics, data flat rates (or lack thereof), increasing “walled garden” tendencies and constant threat on free wap site ecosystem, low mobile browsing usage compared to the overall mobile population (at most 8%-10% total subs are regular wap users), agency and brands bias towards traditional media – decision makers, some in their 50s, are often ignorant of the internet age. The market is dominated by SMS, which has reached maturity and is widely accepted by the mobile population (SMS – 66% of ad revenue, Wap push – 16%, wap 12% - Marbridge).

Independent metrics, for one, are missing. Though these metrics don’t exist either in the China online advertising world, this is not stopping the market from growing faster than anytime before. The difference with mobile, however, is that the mobile ad market is hugely uneducated and marketers are more often than not reluctant to throw (larger) budgets to acquire (mobile) inventories when they do not know if their ad will end up on one of the gazillions illegal (soft) porn wap sites marring China’s internet…

Digging deeper into the mobile market’s peculiarities, flat data rates plans (or lack thereof) could be a roadblock to adoption too. China Mobile and China Unicom recently cancelled their flat data plans – though it is believed this will be a short-lived decision, at the eve of major 3G deployment. Beyond the regulatory thing, what insiders fear the most is short-sighted strategies from operators (especially China Mobile, the dominant operator) to create more and more walled gardens. Until a few months ago for example, mobile music was widely available with all content providers working with China Mobile (called “SPs” here) – now they have to go through a dedicated music download platform hosted in one of China Mobile’s provincial operations. Not good for business… Same could be happening with mobile advertising.

Advertising on Monternet wap pages (China Mobile’s own wap content and billing platform) requires to go through the “exclusive agent” of China Mobile, a Japanese company called Fractalist. All other mobile ad companies need to buy inventory from Fractalist if they want a spot on Monternet’s wap pages. How un-cool is that? Besides, pricing is twice higher on Monternet than anywhere else (6 € for CPM and 0.3 € CPC, compared with an average 3 € CPM or 0.15 € CPC for free wap sites, according to Madhouse). And more bad news might still linger ahead. Very recently, China Mobile announced they received an advertising license and might take over the sms and wap agencies job and cut a deal with brands directly to carry out campaigns. In this unlikely yet possible catastrophic scenario, affiliate networks and agencies will rely more on free wap advertising inventory, which – despite its huge number of sites – only covers a small portion of total wap traffic. Statistics show China Mobile and only a few large service providers capture roughly 80% of the wap traffic.


Yet, if there is one area in the mobile industry VCs are currently bullish about, it is undoubtedly mobile advertising, search and marketing. Mobile ad serving companies have mushroomed in 2006 and 2007 (count MadHouse, WAPS, and CASEE in the winning trio), and so have mobile search companies like mInfo, UUCun or Yicha. Search is expected to capture most of the mobile ad revenue in China too, but in the longer run. 2D barcode and photo-based mobile companies have also emerged to grab a piece of the pie, such as Gmedia, Inspiry or Coolmark in 2D, and Hong Kong-based MyClick (picture-taking and recognition advertising-based model). On the marketing side (playing the roles of mobile media agencies), long time players like 21Communications or Puca (from Ireland) and new players like Fugumobile in the advergaming space (ad in games) or Pioco in the bluecasting space. To put things into perspective though, when Madhouse claims 251 million impressions in 10 months across 1,100 publishers (wap sites), AdMob claims 4 Billion impressions since 2006. Considering the China market is at least twice bigger in subscribers than the US market (where most AdMob ads were served), that shows the potential for growth here in China, to say the least. Madhouse, like their colleagues from 21Communications, claim some big guns clients relying on them for mobile marketing compaigns. While 21Communications is the exclusive mobile partner of Coke, Madhouse nourishes big hopes following successful campaigns with Pepsi, Visa, Nokia or Ebay in the past few months (www.madhouse.cn/en/pop/case4.m).

At the end of the day, all these players are still dividing a tiny pie, and few or none are convincingly profitable (except, maybe, the mobile agencies which operate, in my opinion, a non-scalable business model based on campaigns, not ad serving or affiliate network). Yet, the recent explosion of free wap (aka “off portal” wap sites) and advent of 3G before and after the Games in the coming months will probably push more borders than one dares to imagine, and will help facilitate mobile browsing penetration and web-sized content downloads. Location based services and behavioral search should be the icing on the cake boosting mobile ad spending. Let the Games begin!

Windfall for Singapore Airlines and Temasek for acquiring 24% of China Eastern Airlines

Singapore’s Temasek Holdings and Singapore Airline’s joint bid for a 24 percent stake of China Eastern Airline finally received its blessing from Beijing last week. The deal valued CEA at HK$3.80 per share. China Eastern’s Hong Kong listing after a three month halt resumed trading earlier today and promptly doubled from HK$ 3.73 to HK$ 7.50 before paring back to settle around HK$ 6.90 in the afternoon. Today’s surge in gave the two new investors an instant HK$5.84 billion profit on paper, about USD $750 million. Not bad for a day’s work!

China's third-largest airline will raise HK$11.3 billion ($1.5 billion) selling shares to Singapore Airlines, Temasek and its parent company. Consolidation is a major trend in the aviation industry and China Eastern will definitely strengthen its leading position in China with an alliance with the world's largest airline by market capitalization, Singapore Airlines.

The two new investors will provide all the management assistance required to help the airline return to profit in 2007 after reporting losses for two consecutive years. More importantly, the purchases will give Singapore Airlines a foothold in China's expanding air travel market and an increase in status for China Eastern in the aviation industry, enhancing their brand and reputation thats synonymous with Singapore Airlines. As for air travellers, its going to be good news as we are all going to get Singapore Airlines service on China Eastern.

Advanced Photo Image Resizing

Amazing technology on image resizing from Shai Avidan and Ariel Shamir. Check out the clip below.

Mobile Marketing: Top Tactics

The opportunities of the mobile channel are becoming clear to marketers of all kinds, thanks to the growth of mobile as a consumer technology. Unfortunately, mobile marketing is still new enough that there are no obvious rules of thumb to help marketers who jump into the channel for the first time.

Having experienced and executed many many mobile marketing campaigns, here are the top tactics for planning and executing a mobile marketing campaign :

1: Determine goal: audience reach or customer engagement

2: Match brands with the right audience

3: Mobile application differences

4: Match campaigns to available infrastructure and inventory

5: Capitalize on mobile's peer-to-peer communication abilities

6: Integrate mobile with online and offline marketing (IMPORTANT)

7: Allocate enough set-up time

8: Varying ad sizes for each phone

9: Don't do mobile just because you have to (MOST IMPORTANT)

Linux powering 31% of smartphone market share by 2012

Linux is due to run 331 million phones and mobile devices by the year 2012, according to a new study from ABI Research. The Linux smartphone market share is expected to grow at more than 75 percent per year, bringing the anticipated total percentage of mobile devices running the platform to 31 percent in five years.

"Serious initiatives from the likes of Intel and Access are gathering pace and momentum, whilst the carrier community continues to identify Linux as one of the few operating systems that it intends to support in its long-term plans," ABI research director Stuart Carlaw told PCWorld. Linux-based mobile devices have already taken off in Asian countries like China and Japan, with over 30 percent of the market.

Linux is benefiting from growing support in the handset OEM community, most notably Motorola, but also Nokia with less traditional types of devices aimed at mobile broadband applications. Between Motorola's plans to run Linux its handsets, and Google's rumored gPhone, the odds of you carrying a penguin in your pocket are improving every day.

Not everything you can buy with Mastercard

There are some things only cash can buy....



MasterCard Funny Commercial - video powered by Metacafe

How Google Works

Have you ever figured out how Google search works? It looks simple, the minute you type into Google what you are searching for, within less than 1 sec, you will get an immediate search reply. Check out this site as it explains and demostrates how your search results are gathered from Google clusters of intelligent servers hosted on their data centers. Its pretty amazing which is why Google is an outstanding and impressive Internet search company.