Nokia and Paramount Pictures have signed a deal to launch blockbuster Mission Impossible III on memory cards for Nseries phones at the same time as the DVD release. “The action-packed feature film will be offered as part of the Nokia N93 sales package with no additional cost to consumers. Available in Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Turkey and the UK, this special offer is the perfect holiday gift - allowing you to enjoy the adventures of M:i:III wherever your own adventures take you.”
BBC and Sky Dominate the Third Screen in the U.K. With Leading Mobile Video and Web Offerings, According to Telephia
Broadcasting giants, BBC and Sky, dominate the third screen in the U.K., according to Telephia, the largest provider of consumer research to the communications and new media markets. Telephia recently expanded its consumer research program in the U.K. to track mobile content consumption at the channel, website and content title level. The first wave of findings shows 33 percent of all mobile TV/video viewers watched BBC 1 (see table 1). Twenty-nine percent watched Sky Sports. The BBC also secured the top ranking among mobile Internet sites, with 28 percent of all mobile web users visiting the site. The Sky Sports website secured a 23 percent reach among mobile Internet users.
"The big broadcasting brands in the U.K. have extended their footprint to reach the mobile population, and the strategy is clearly working," said Reza Chady, Managing Director Europe, Telephia. "Consumers are tapping into three screens -- television, PC and mobile phone -- for their news and entertainment. Broadcasters must develop an integrated strategy across the three screens to reach, maintain and expand their audience."
Table 1: Top Mobile TV/Video Channels and Mobile Web/Internet Sites (U.K.)
Channel % of Mobile Internet Site % of Mobile TV Viewers Web Users ----------------------------------------------------------------------- BBC 1 33% BBC 28% Sky Sports 29% Sky Sports 23% Discovery Channel 24% BBC Sports 22% BBC 3 22% BBC Weather 20% BBC 2 22% Google Search 18% BBC 4 22% Jamster 13% ITV 1 22% Sky 11% Cartoon Network 21% MSN Games 10% ITV 2 21% eBay 10% UK TV gold 17% AA 8%
Note: Data represent responses about mobile activity in the last 30 days. Differences in share between mobile TV channels and mobile Internet sites may not be statistically significant.
Among all U.K. mobile subscribers, there is an even 50/50 gender split. However, both mobile TV and Internet users are more likely to be men. Three percent of U.K. mobile subscribers watch mobile TV or video content, with 70 percent of the audience being male (see Table 2). Penetration of mobile Internet/web is higher at 19 percent, with men comprising 64 percent of the audience. Text and picture messaging still reign supreme with penetration rates of 85 and 35 percent, respectively. In contrast, demographics for text and picture messaging skew female.
Table 2: Penetration and Gender Breakdown for Mobile Data Services (U.K.)
Mobile Activity % of Subscribers % Male % Female --------------------------------------------------------------------- Sent or received a Text Message 85% 49% 51%
Sent or received a Picture Message (MMS) 35% 47% 53%
Played or downloaded Games 26% 53% 47%
Accessed the Wireless Internet 19% 64% 36%
Downloaded Ringtones 15% 53% 47%
Played or downloaded Full Track Music (MP3s) 14% 59% 41%
Sent or received an Instant Message 14% 57% 43%
Sent or received an Email 11% 64% 36%
Downloaded Wallpaper or Images 10% 61% 39%
Listened to or paid for Mobile Radio 7% 62% 38%
Used or downloaded Applications 6% 68% 32%
Uploaded pictures, videos or blogs to an Internet website 4% 56% 44%
Downloaded, watched, or paid for Mobile TV-Video 3% 70% 30%
Telephia Launches Detailed Mobile Content Measurement Service for the U.K.
Today, Telephia launched the most comprehensive mobile audience measurement service in the U.K. The Telephia Audience Measurement service (TAM UK) delivers the most detailed tracking of mobile content and application consumption, including mobile TV and radio channels, Internet sites, games, ringtones and applications titles. Surveying 8,000 mobile subscribers per month, TAM UK also provides information on both on-portal and off-portal download volume, carrier and device analysis and detailed consumer demographics.
T-Mobile will run a two-month mobile TV pilot in the Czech Republic ahead of a full commercial launch next year. It will use DVB-H plus interactive technology from Gemalto, but doesn’t seem to be the straight broadcast service you’d expect from a DVB-H deployment. “Testing will incorporate voting linked to TV broadcasts, plus downloading of video clips and trailers. In the next phase of the pilot, participants will also be able to subscribe to specific programmes and purchase the rights to view sporting events and concerts.” It sounds like everything to do with TV is being included.
French Operator Cuts Price Of Music To Apple Levels
French mobile operator SFR will halve the price of its full-track music from 1.99 euros per track to 0.99 euros (US$1.25) from November 7, although extra charges will apply if the track is downloaded over the mobile network rather than to a PC. This is directly a result of Apple’s pricing, which SFR spokesperson Caroline Mir described as “the reference price today”. “SFR even plans to undercut Apple’s price, offering complete albums for 9.90 euros, compared to Apple’s price of 9.99, or a pack of up to 20 downloads a month for 14.90 euros, bringing the price per track down to 0.75.” SFR currently sells 300,000 full tracks per month, and hopes the new pricing will push it up to 1 million per month.
Europeans More Likely than Americans to Use Mobile Phones to Access the Internet
comScore Networks, a leader in global digital media measurement, today releases the inaugural findings of the comScore Mobile Tracking Study, which reveals significant differences in the way that Europeans and Americans use the Web on their mobile phones. This innovative ongoing tracking study is designed to analyze and understand how consumers across six countries in Europe and America (U.S., France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK) access Internet content from their mobile phones. It shows that 29 percent of European Internet users within the aforementioned countries regularly access the Web from their mobile phones compared to only 19 percent in the U.S. Of the countries examined, the highest mobile Web penetration is seen in both Germany and Italy (34 percent for each), followed by France with 28 percent, Spain with 26 percent and the UK with 24 percent. The U.S. figure of 19 percent is the lowest of the set.
Mobile Internet Penetration by Country
September 2006 –U.S., UK, French, German, Italian and Spanish Online Populations
Source: comScore Networks – Mobile Tracking Study
U.S.
France
Germany
Italy
Spain
UK
Online Population: Persons 15+ from Home and Work (000)
152,698
23,980
32,085
17,389
12,281
29,589
% Online Population Accessing Web from Mobile Phone
19%
28%
34%
34%
26%
24%
The comScore Mobile Tracking Study also shows than men are somewhat more likely to access the Web from their mobile phones than women. Across all six countries, although the Internet penetration is split evenly between men and women, 55 percent of those who access the Web from their mobile phones are men.
Nokia Leading the Way The study found Nokia to be the leading brand of phone for those who regularly access the mobile Web across five of the six countries examined, capturing share ranging from 50 percent in Italy to 22 percent in France. Only in the U.S., where Motorola has the greatest share (26 percent), is Nokia pushed into second place, with a 17 percent share.
Mobile Internet Share of Market as Measured by Penetration by Phone Brand
September 2006 – U.S., UK, French, German, Italian and Spanish Online Populations
Source: comScore Networks – Mobile Tracking Study
Phone Brand
U.S.
France
Germany
Italy
Spain
UK
Nokia
17%
22%
32%
50%
39%
39%
Motorola
26%
13%
22%
18%
14%
14%
Samsung
10%
21%
8%
8%
17%
17%
Sony Ericsson
6%
14%
12%
5%
11%
13%
Other
41%
30%
27%
19%
20%
17%
Portals and Providers are the Most Popular Sites The comScore tracking study determined that the major online portal sites represent the most popular online destinations among mobile Web surfers, with Google, Yahoo! and MSN leading the way. However, the mobile Web sites set up by the phone operators, such as Vodafone, o2 and T-Mobile, are also proving attractive to mobile Web surfers, particularly in Europe.
Mobile Internet Penetration- Most Popular Sites
September 2006 –U.S., UK, French, German, Italian and Spanish Online Populations
Source: comScore Networks – Mobile tracking study
Site Category
U.S.
France
Germany
Italy
Spain
UK
Online Portal
74%
24%
29%
34%
28%
31%
Operator Portal
5%
26%
25%
18%
25%
31%
Specific Mobile Site
0%
17%
17%
23%
4%
0%
Commerce Site
4%
2%
8%
7%
6%
8%
News Site
2%
10%
0%
11%
2%
9%
Other
15%
22%
21%
8%
35%
21%
“Three-quarters of American mobile Web surfers access content from the leading online portals such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN compared to only thirty percent of Europeans,” commented Bob Ivins, managing director of comScore Europe. “In Europe, the mobile Internet appears to mirror the dynamics of the fixed Internet. Google remains strong but the other U.S.-based portals achieve much lower penetration, facing stiff competition from local competitors--in this case the mobile providers-- who have the structural advantage of a degree of control over the access point and interface from the mobile phone.”
A cellphone sideshow: YouTube-like content is going mobile
Gather around, "towners," for a glimpse of Hot Dog Boy - "quickest frankfurter eater in town!" Or take a twist with the Pretzel Girl, "real-life office contortionist!" Feast your eyes as often as you want - the carnival is coming to your mobile phone.
Towners is the carnival term for a sideshow audience, but in the cellphone industry, the towners could be people who operators hope will create a powerful revenue stream by uploading amateur photographs and video clips for fellow customers to download and gawk at.
Google reaped international attention for its purchase of the top video- sharing Web site, YouTube, but phone companies in Europe, Asia and the Americas are also exploring the territory for "user generated content," tantalized by the prospects of making money with low-cost, effective entertainment.
Hot Dog Boy and Pretzel Girl are among some of the sensations that have emerged in the year since the mobile operator 3 created "See Me TV."
More than 100,000 amateur videos and photographs have been submitted, resulting in more than 12 million downloads, according to 3, which in keeping with this new form of entertainment calls itself a "mobile media company." But the medium has its limits. To reach all of 3's some 3.75 million customers, See Me TV acts are warned to avoid swearing, racist comments or making faux horror clips that are just "too gory."
Phone companies are working furiously to develop systems that will allow social networking or the sharing of material with a layer of human control to filter submissions. "We definitely think there is a long-term business model around it," said Daniel Winterbottom, a senior analyst with the research firm Informa Telecoms & Media. "Anytime you create a community it's a way of driving the up-selling of content."
With the growing popularity of sophisticated telephones, Informa forecasts that globally, operator revenue from such services will rise to more than $13 billion by 2011 from $3.45 billion this year. Asia is the most active region, with revenue from "mobile community services" of $1.8 billion this year, followed by Europe at $721 million, according to Informa. Leading the way are companies like Cyworld in South Korea, a creation of SK Telecom that allows cellphone users to share pictures, clips, music, ring tones and games.
Orange UK started a service this year that asks Britons to submit photos of themselves that could then be shared and voted on in a contest, "Buff or Rough." They recently increased the degree of difficulty by asking contestants to submit photos with Bollywood themes. The winning entrant, who was to be announced Monday, is Ishrat Jabeen Sharif, a 21-year-old newlywed. Her prize will be a bit part in a real Bollywood movie.
"It's cheap for the customers and it's cheap for us because the content is generated by them," said Alistair Johnston, director of multimedia and marketing for Orange in Britain. "We laugh at it, but we were staggered by the response, with more than one million votes per week. The average use is high, with people browsing through 50 pages and customers going in two or three times a day. The behavior is all about boredom busting."
Users pay differently for downloading material based on their monthly plans or "bundle" rates; one option is £1, or $1.88, for one day of unlimited use. So Johnston said it was difficult to calculate how much revenue the services are creating, but he said it was clear that "Buff and Rough" and chat forums were the "main motors" behind the company's growth.
Last week, FremantleMedia, a production company that is a division of the European broadcaster RTL Group, teamed up with the U.S. phone company Sprint to create a subscription mobile channel called Atomic Wedgie aimed at tantalizing young men with recycled video fare like "Baywatch Babes." The venture is not ready for video sharing because, according to Olivier Gers, general manager of FremantleMedia CQ Licensing Worldwide, "we're still trying to learn what the medium is about and what people like and don't like."
Many operators are asking start-ups to manage mobile video applications. Gilles Babinet, a founder of Musiwave in Paris, which advises operators about how to sell music tracks, has created another company, Eyeka, that provides mobile video and image service along with vetting controls. The biggest concern is posting information "that involves any legal issues or porn stuff or violence," Babinet said. "Telcos won't accept that."
Helio will premiere an anthology of short movies at the same time as it appears on the online Sundance Channel. Sundance has acquired the US rights to The Art of Seduction, “an anthology of short films about seduction, featuring the work of ten Canadian filmmakers”. Sundance Channel also plans a bunch of exclusive content around the films, including “quizzes and polls, podcasts, exclusive video, filmmaker profiles and user-generated stories”. Starting from October 30 one of the ten short films will be offered each week.
Startup mobile and online social network Socialight, based in NYC, has raised an additional $.05 million in its angel round, bringing its total funding to about $0.65 million. The firm will use this money to continue developing its service, expand into European and other markets, as well as ramp up its efforts to establish third-party content partnerships. I briefly met the CEO of Socialight at the Monaco Media Forum last week..the company’s platform, yet to be fully launched, is a mobile (and online) social network which enables location based content, community and commerce services. The concept: You can create virtual sticky notes with text, pictures, sound, and video online - and you decide who sees them. A short video piece about the company’s service in this Discovery
You might think that comic books wouldn't go over well on mobile phones, but Japanese apparently don't mind following dialogue balloons on tiny screens. Consumer demand for manga (the Japanese word for print comics) has surged in recent months, thanks to high-speed 3G phones, the proliferation of fixed-rate plans, and high-quality LCD displays.
The growth in manga shows how hard is it to predict what effect new technologies will have on old markets. Manga publishers initially thought that a phone service would appeal to commuters, but customers have turned to their mobiles to read comics more at home, especially after 11 p.m., than on the move. "I'd imagine at that time of day many people are reading comics in the dark," says Yutaka Tashiro, director of content planning at Shueisha Inc., Japan's major publisher.
The other surprise is that women account for the lion's share of mobile manga consumers. NTT Solmare, one of the nation's largest content providers, initially targeted salarymen but received a tepid response. Women then wrote in asking for more female-oriented titles. When the company added them last summer, demand soared, says Katsuyuki Kobayashi, a deputy general manager. Today 60 percent of his customers are female, up from 20 percent. One of the appeals to an online comic, he believes, is that people can buy racy titles like "Love Junkie" or "I Could Not Wait Until Night" without being seen.
For Japan's publishing industry, which has endured a decade of declining sales, the boom is "a savior," says Satoshi Iwamoto, the general manager of Net Media Center at Shogakukan Inc. The market for digital publishing grew nearly fourfold compared with the year before, to $38.5 million in March 2006, according to Impress R&D, a Tokyo-based research firm. Comic books account for $19.6 million, compared with $9.4 million for comics on PCs.
Mobile comics, for which viewers pay 30 or 40 cents an episode, are also a boon to Japanese carriers, whose customers are shifting to fixed-rate plans. Publishers are busy converting the hundreds of titles in their archives to digital format. But digital television may soon compete with comics for viewers' eyeballs.
