LOS ANGELES – Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF) North America announced a new Mobile Commerce (M-Commerce) Initiative created to help brands, content producers, and retailers better understand how to leverage the mobile phone to drive customer acquisition, retention, and conversion. The first phase of the initiative will produce an educational and informative webinar and M-Commerce Guide that will contain commercial best practices, benefits, and case studies designed to demystify and simplify the mobile commerce landscape.

“There is no more timely and definitive resource,” said Gary Schwartz, CEO of Impact Mobile and Vice Chairman of MEF North America. “Across the U.S., brands, retailers, and content owners are exploring ways to effectively reach their mobile shopper. The MEF M-Commerce Guide will help these stakeholders to identify ways to drive revenue on the phone or via the phone. This resource will be a good first step to simplify the myriad of options in-market.”

M-Commerce Services make it feasible for businesses to handle an extremely large volume of low cost sales. In addition to purchases like ringtones, music tracks, and games, the growth in micro-payments has come from the purchase of items like car parking and cinema tickets. Additionally, mobile is beginning to impact commerce at bricks-and-mortar POS through incentive and m-couponing programs driving sales and customer retention.

“M-Commerce is a global opportunity and MEF’s initiative shows how the mobile connected device can be leveraged to effectively enable all types of commerce – not just for services and content consumed on the device but also for the purchase of physical products and services,” commented Suhail Bhat, Policies and Initiatives Director for MEF. “The North America guide is the first step in the globalization of the initiative which will be localized over the coming year in EMEA, Asia, and LATAM.”

Demystifying the World of M-Commerce Webinar Was Scheduled for April 27

On Tuesday, April 27, 2010 at 1:00 PM ET MEF Americas hosted the webinar titled “Demystifying the World of M-Commerce.” This webinar servedas a precursor to the content which will be contained in the M-Commerce Guide. To register, visit the MEF web site.

M-Commerce Guide Due to Be Published in May

The M-Commerce Guide, to be published next month will include sections on the Mobile State of the Union, Planning, Case Studies, Things to Consider, and What Does the Future Hold. It serves as an essential primer which will be developed as a living document over time. It has been authored with the leadership and invaluable support of the following MEF member companies: 2ergo, AdoStrategies, Billing Revolution, Boku, Engage2Mobile, Impact Mobile, KPMG, mBlox, Motorola, Netbiscuits, Nokia, Polar Mobile, Playphone, RIM, Samsung, Sybase, Synergy Affinity, T-Mobile, and Zong

About Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF)

The Mobile Entertainment Forum is the global trade body of the mobile media and entertainment industry. It represents the leading companies throughout the entire mobile entertainment value chain, and works on behalf of its diverse membership to facilitate industry growth, shape regulation and deliver competitive advantage to its members.

With global headquarters in London and operational chapters in Asia, EMEA, LATAM and North America, MEF is a member network with a global reach, strong local representation and the ability to affect market change. Established in 2000, MEF provides a consistent and powerful voice for the foremost mobile media businesses and entrepreneurs. For further information and a full list of members please visit: www.m-e-f.org

SAN FRANCISCO – Kyte, the online, mobile and social video platform for live and on-demand content, announced that media companies and brands will now be able to tap the Kyte Platform to reach audiences with video initiatives across four major mobile platforms: iPhone, BlackBerry, Android and Nokia. After launching application frameworks for the iPhone and BlackBerry earlier in the year, Kyte will now broaden this support to include Android and Nokia. Kyte’s latest mobile application frameworks are extensions of its core platform, a broadly adopted end-to-end solution for the production, distribution and monetization of online and mobile video.

“There is no doubt that consumption of online and mobile video is on the rise, both in terms of unique views and time spent watching,” said Daniel Graf, CEO, Kyte. “Our support for Android, Nokia, iPhone and BlackBerry reflects our ongoing commitment to giving brands, organizations and media & entertainment companies the ability to seamlessly deliver interactive social video experiences that reach and engage online and mobile audiences wherever they are.”

Available beginning in the first quarter of 2010, Kyte’s Android and Nokia application frameworks deliver online Kyte channels as fully native Android and Nokia applications, enabling companies to cost-effectively converge their online and mobile audiences into a single community. Core interactive Kyte features such as real-time chat, comments and ratings, the ability to share content, and real-time viewer count are presented in a dynamic interface. The applications also include activity notifications to indicate new content and chat messages and come equipped with mobile-specific modules that can be dynamically configured, including:

Twitter – brands can deliver Twitter feeds, enabling audiences to view Tweets in real-time
Events – location-aware module allows fans to view nearby event listings, tour dates, venues, etc.
RSS – blogs, news feeds and other alerts can be delivered via RSS
Downloads – songs, videos and other digital goods such as tickets and merchandise can be made available for mobile commerce
Mobile Web – dynamic, web-based content can be accessed through the applications
Custom Modules – brands can further expand the possibilities by integrating custom-developed native Android and Nokia modules
Monetization – companies can monetize applications by running mobile advertising campaigns
Kyte already supports integrated online, mobile and social video initiatives for hundreds of business and organizations. Kyte has also long supported mobile web, allowing companies to deliver the full Kyte experience to any mobile device. Organizations interested in powering their online, mobile and social video initiatives with Kyte can visit www.kyte.com.

About Kyte

Kyte is the online, mobile and social video platform. The Kyte Platform combines the real-time, interactive and community building capabilities of the social Web with the analytics, control, and monetization features of a professional video platform, enabling companies to engage audiences, build community, and monetize.

Kyte powers online and mobile video for premier media companies, enterprises and organizations. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California, with offices in New York, London, Hamburg and Zurich. Investors include Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Telefónica, Nokia Growth Partners, Steamboat Ventures, TeliaSonera, DoCoMo Capital, Holtzbrinck Ventures, Swisscom and others. Visit Kyte online at www.kyte.com.

A well-respected expert on both online advertising and digital media, Grosso has led his team to create long-term partnerships with global brands such as Reuters, MTV Networks, RealNetworks, Nokia, Microsoft and Shell. A digital media veteran with more than a decade of international experience, Grosso is well-qualified to offer unique insight into the world of online video advertising.

Since inception, blinkx has signed more than 530 media partners and indexed over 35 million hours of video content on the Web, fueling its reputation as one of the most intelligent search engines available today.

blinkx’s unrivaled contextual advertising platform for online video, blinkx AdHoc, is designed to enable blinkx’s media partners to place highly relevant advertising against their video content on the Web. blinkx’s AdHoc platform has revolutionized video advertising by matching compelling, customized, TV-style ads to audiences on the Video Web. It is unique because it was built from the ground up to address rich media, resulting in more effective marketing for advertisers, higher monetization for content owners, and, most importantly, a useful, non-disruptive experience for users.

About blinkx

blinkx plc (LSE AIM: BLNX) is the world’s largest and most advanced video search engine. Today, blinkx has indexed more than 35 million hours of audio, video, viral and TV content, and made it fully searchable and available on demand. blinkx’s founders set out to solve a significant challenge – as TV and user-generated content on the Web explode, keyword-based search technologies only scratch the surface. blinkx’s patented search technologies listen to – and even see – the Web, helping users enjoy a breadth and accuracy of search results not available elsewhere. In addition, blinkx powers the video search for many of the world’s most frequented sites. blinkx is based in San Francisco and London. More information is available at www.blinkx.com

The economic crisis gives us a timely opportunity to look at the current state of mobile advertising – particularly the players. Mobile advertising companies will have to work harder to grow their business and many of the small players will struggle.

Executive summary
In a nutshell
The impact of the economic crisis on the competitive landscape
Be prepared for a bumpy ride
Brace yourself for further change
Is mobile advertising stacking up for operators?
Don’t lose sight of the real progress made by mobile advertising
Mobile advertising player case studies
Approach and objectives

Player selection

Google
Ovum view
Strategy
Understanding the bigger picture
Adding mobile to the mix
Google’s mobile inventory
The importance of Android

Yahoo
Ovum view
Strategy
Fitting the pieces together

Nokia
Ovum view
Strategy
Enpocket is where it starts to get serious
MOSH: an advertising sandpit

Blyk
Ovum view
Company credentials
Strategy
A targeted, desirable demographic for advertisers
Blyk needs to evolve to remain competitive

AdMob
Ovum view
Company credentials
Strategy
Continuous improvement, fast to act on new opportunities

Velti
Ovum view
Company credentials
Strategy
Building on a strong technology background
Partnering for growth in emerging markets

Amobee
Ovum view
Company credentials
Strategy
Championing an operator-centric model

List of Tables

Table 1: Sample response rates from Blyk campaigns

List of Figures

Figure 1: Top level topography of mobile advertising players

Figure 2: Sample Nokia mobile advertising campaigns

Figure 3: AdMob advertiser base

Figure 4: Sample metrics, AdMob January 2009

Figure 5: Sample campaigns supported by Velti

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Mobile advertising players: ones to watch

http://www.reportlinker.com/p0116547/Mobile-advertising-players-ones-to-watch.html

BOSTON – Defying the conventional wisdom that consumers in emerging markets simply want “no-frills” devices and services, Strategy Analytics has identified sizable numbers of users who want advanced products – and are willing to pay for them. A new report from the Emerging Markets Communications Strategies (EMCS) program, “Emerging Markets Consumer Segmentation,” is based on groundbreaking analysis of mobile phone users in eight Asian and African countries.

The “Selective Connectors,” segment for example, makes up 19% of the population and spent an average of $191 for their mobile phones, which they want to use to access the Internet, watch TV and videos and check their email.

“Samsung, Motorola, and Sony Ericsson could realistically challenge Nokia in this segment,” notes David Kerr, Vice President of the Strategy Analytics Global Wireless Practice. “Well-designed, mid- to high-end smartphones could be very well received.”

Tom Elliott, Director of EMCS and the report’s author cautions, “They’re not afraid to spend money. However, the ‘Selective Connectors’ purchase items because they need them, and are not buying the next glittering new thing because it’s new.”

The four other segments identified in this research have their own unique communications needs and usage profiles, and represent real opportunities for carefully targeted offerings from operators, MVNOs, and device OEMs.

To see Average Monthly Service and Handset Spend by segment, see http://tinyurl.com/cbt2os

About Strategy Analytics

Strategy Analytics, Inc. provides timely and actionable market intelligence focused on opportunities and disruptive forces in the areas of Automotive Electronics and Entertainment, Broadband Connected Home, Mobile & Wireless Intelligent Systems and Virtual Worlds. Headquartered in Boston, MA, with offices in the UK, France, Germany, Japan, S. Korea and China, Strategy Analytics works with clients through annual multi-client services, management team workshops and custom consulting engagements. For more information, please visit http://www.strategyanalytics.com/

San Mateo, California (PRWeb) January 21, 2009 – Jivox, the online video advertising service that helps small and medium-sized businesses reach local customers, today announced continued momentum over the past quarter as more companies discover the power of online video ads to attract local customers.  In Q4 of 2008, Jivox doubled its customer base and number of registered users from the previous quarter and reported four-fold revenue growth.  Jivox also tripled the number of ad views served on the Jivox Video Ad Network in this quarter.

Summary of key milestones in Q4:

Customer growth: Jivox doubled both its customer base and its registered users.
Revenue growth: Jivox achieved four-fold revenue growth.
Ad views: Jivox tripled the number of ad views served on the Jivox Video Ad Network.
New product features: Jivox released a number of new product features to extend the value of customers’ online video ads, including the ability to embed videos on a web site and upload videos to sharing sites like YouTube and local directories such as Local.com.
New partners: Jivox’s signed major partnership agreements with companies like Examiner.com, operator of a network of 60 local insider information Web sites; PixelFish, a leading provider of affordable and effective custom video ad solutions; and BigAdda, a leading youth networking web site in India
New brand customers: Jivox engaged with large brand customers for its subsidiary Jivox India, including LG, Sony and Nokia.

“While brand advertising overall has suffered in the face of the economic downturn, investment in online video advertising campaigns has never been stronger, as companies look for new, more cost-effective ways to promote their businesses online.  Online video has proven itself as a significantly more accountable and cost-effective form of advertising than many traditional forms of advertising,” said Diaz Nesamoney, CEO of Jivox. “We think 2009 is going to be the year online video advertising goes mainstream and makes significant inroads into the world of online advertising, to become a de facto format every business will use to reach customers.”

Jivox offers a do-it-yourself local online video advertising service, combining video ad creation tools, proprietary targeting technology and an extensive network of premium local publishers to help companies easily develop high-impact online video advertising campaigns. The Jivox Publisher Network has grown to include over 650 local TV, radio and newspaper websites across the country and now reaches more than 60 million unique viewers.

About Jivox
Jivox helps small businesses reach customers with online video advertising.  Jivox provides advertisers with an online, self-service tool to create high-impact video ads using stock footage, images, music or their existing video assets.  Jivox ensures high-quality placement of customer ads through the Jivox Publisher Network, a locally focused network of premium publishers that includes hundreds of local TV and radio stations, newspapers,  weather and other specialty websites, and offers geographic ad targeting at the city level as well as demographic and contextual targeting. Jivox is a privately held company based in San Mateo, Calif.  For more information about Jivox, please visit www.jivox.com.

“While the relevance of location-based advertising for the location industry is huge, the hype is never far away,” says ABI Research director Dominique Bonte. “Too many location based services (LBS) providers see advertising as the cornerstone of their business plans. The reality is a nascent industry with many barriers still to be removed: the lack of understanding of location-based mobility, a fragmented location ecosystem, immature click-to-locate and click-to-navigate direct response models, limited indoor location technology, and intrusiveness and privacy-related user acceptance issues. Startups such as social networking sites are advised to introduce location-based advertising gradually next to more traditional pricing schemes based on subscription fees or pay-per-use, or a combination of free ad-funded basic services with paid premium offers.”

Transparent opt-in processes and advanced levels of customization will be key success factors for location-based advertising. The seamless integration of location into standard demographics and usage-related advertising targeting parameters will be equally important.

While free ad-funded off-board navigation solutions are already offered by companies such as Jentro Technologies and Locationet, ABI Research expects the bigger brands such as Google and Nokia to dominate this space in the future. The Mobile Marketing Association and advertising agencies such as 1020 Inc. with its Placecast service are key players in enabling this new form of advertising and increasing awareness and understanding within the location and advertising industries.

A new ABI Research Brief, “Location-Based Advertising” describes the types of location-based advertising, the latest trends, drivers, and barriers, and the ecosystem. Case studies of the most relevant initiatives are included. The Research Brief also provides forecasts for free ad-funded navigation.

It forms part of the firm’s Location Aware Services Research Service, which also includes other Research Briefs, Research Reports, Market Data, an Online Database, ABI Insights, ABI Vendor Matrices, and analyst inquiry support.

ABI Research is a leading market research firm focused on the impact of emerging technologies on global consumer and business markets. Utilizing a unique blend of market intelligence, primary research, and expert assessment from its worldwide team of industry analysts, ABI Research assists hundreds of clients each year with their strategic growth initiatives. For information, visit www.abiresearch.com, or call +1.516.624.2500.

Mobile Media Advertising Opportunities: The Market For Advertising

Personal, always on, ubiquitous and connected, mobile has the potential to become a potent advertising medium. However, some factors are slowing down the development of the market. The report provides basic metrics relevant to the take-up of mobile advertising and gives an overview of the players involved in its value chain. The report then provides a recap of recent consolidation and funding in the industry, before providing analysis and forecasts for advertising tied to four mobile content types: TV, VoD, user-generated content and games. It also examines advertising within search and communication services, and provides insight on operators’ strategies.

The report features results of the survey conducted within GroupM’s 25 international agencies on mobile advertising perception from the advertiser’s perspective. Finally, the report studies key players (including Nokia, Microsoft and Google) and the vertical integration strategies of those companies.

Key findings:

* Global mobile media advertising expected to reach €1.77bn in 2012
* With €1.5bn globally in 2012, mobile TV will capture bulk of audiovisual advertising on mobile devices
* Mobile VoD advertising expected to be worth €213m globally; China, Europe and North America provide the biggest opportunities
* Mobile games and music will be used primarily for marketing and promotional campaigns
* Survey of GroupM agencies shows creatives experimenting with multimedia capabilities of phones
* Nokia, Microsoft and Google are investing heavily in what is seen as the next big advertising medium

In this report

* Overview of the mobile advertising value chain
* Recap of recent industry consolidation and funding in mobile advertising
* Analysis and forecasts for mobile TV, VoD, video user-generated content, games and music
* Overview of mobile search and convenience services advertising
* Advertising industry perspective and the results of the survey conducted among 25 of GroupM’s international agencies
* Analysis of the acquisitions and value chains of key players, including Nokia, Google and Microsoft

Introduction

Objectives

Data sources

Territories covered

Forecast methodology

Definitions

Overview of the mobile market and mobile content

Total mobile subscription

Mobile market penetration

Proportion of non-voice service revenues

Contract/prepay split

High speed data services (3G)

Mobile advertising today

Mobile advertising value chain

Content side

Advertising side

Operator

The handset

Audience measurement

Content and advertising: clarifying the opportunities

Trade bodies

Mobile marketing association (MMA)

Internet advertising bureau (IAB)

Mobile entertainment forum (MEF)

Open mobile alliance (OMA)

Industry consolidation

Mergers and acquisitions

Funding

Advertising and mobile content

Text content and display advertisin

Mobile TV

Broadcast TV

Unicast TV

Mobile TV advertising formats

Mobile TV advertising Forecast

Mobile video on demand

Mobile video on demand advertising forecast

Video user-generated content

UGC as a profiling tool

UGC as a marketing tool

UGC advertising forecast

Mobile gaming

Ad-funded games

Games advertising forecast

Further developments

Music

Advertising ties to mobile music

Search and other services

Search services

Branded search

‘White-labelled’ search

Location-based services

Ad-supported voice and messaging services

Idle screen advertising

The advertiser’s perspective

GroupM’s Survey Results

Study results

Usage

Perception

Towards online-mobile integration

Content types

Service types

Key players in mobile advertising

Nokia Legacy expertise: handset manufacturing

OVI

Operating system: Symbian

Google

Legacy expertise: online search and advertising

Operating system: Android

Microsoft

Legacy expertise: PC operating system and productivity software

Operating system: Windows mobile

Yahoo

AOL

List of tables and charts

Overview of the mobile market and mobile content

Mobile subscriptions (000s)

2007 mobile market penetration

2006 monthly ARPUs in key territories (€)

2007 contract/prepaid subscription split in key territories (per cent of total subscriptions)

2007 Proportion of 3G subscribers among mobile users (per cent of total subscriptions)

Mobile advertising value chain representation

Mobile advertising today

Industry consolidation

2007 mergers and acquisitions deals in mobile advertising

2007 funding deals in mobile advertising

Advertising and mobile content

Table of broadcast mobile TV services

Mobile TV market (million users)

Mobile TV market (€m)

Mobile TV advertising revenue forecast (€m)

Mobile TV advertising revenue (€m)

Mobile VoD forecast (€m)

Mobile VoD advertising forecast (€m)

Paid mobile video user generated content market forecast (€m)

Mobile video user generated content advertising market forecast (€m)

Mobile video user generated content advertising market forecast (€m)

Mobile games market (€m)

Mobile games advertising specialists

Mobile games advertising: dynamic and static markets (€m)

Mobile games advertising: dynamic and static markets (€m)

Mobile games advertising: regional breakdown (€m)

Mobile games advertising: regional breakdown (€m)

Search and other services

Mobile search specialists

The advertiser’s perspective

GroupM’s Survey results

Mobile advertising usage (in percent of respondents)

Mobile advertising types used in campaigns

Pricing schemes per advertising type

Mobile advertising perception

Mobile advertising advantages

Mobile advertising drawbacks

Mobile advertising content uses

Key players in mobile advertising

Nokia’s recent acquisitions

Nokia Value chain

Google’s recent acquisitions

Google value chain

Microsoft’s recent acquisitions

Microsoft value chain

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