LondonCalling.co » thoughts on all things social and mobile

RSS

Tomi Ahonen’s new book Mobile as 7th of the Mass Media released

I’ve been a big fan of Tomi Ahonen’s writing and approach for a while now, and so I am excited that his new book, Mobile as 7th of the Mass Media has just been released.  You can download a 30 page extract of the first chapter, or do what I have done, pre-order the bookat [...]

Ofcom in the UK is asking for consumer feeback on mobile regulation

Ofcom(the UK telecoms, TV, radio and spectrum regulator) has published an initial consultation document assessing how the mobile sector delivers on the needs of UK citizens and consumers and posing questions about the future of competition and regulatory policy. Ofcom’s aims for the sector are to ensure that: consumers get the best choice and value [...]

Gartner predicts mobile advertising market will be worth over $12 billion by 2011

A Gartner report published today predicts that Mobile Advertising market alone will be worth Over $12 Billion by 2011.  Wow – big numbers here. Quoting from the report “Telecom carriers around the world are turning their attention to advertising as a potential source of revenue, according to Gartner Inc. Gartner forecasts that the worldwide mobile [...]

3 UK to launch “Facebook phone” for Christmas

Marketing Week is reporting that 3 are going to launch a “Facebook phone” for Christmas.  Quoting from the report: Mobile operator 3 is launching the first handset to have a “Facebook button” that will take users directly to the site. It will be part of an “ultimate handset”, which will be launched for Christmas. It is [...]

Locatik location enabled social networking service now live

Since the Symbian smartphone show in 2007, I have been trialing the Locatik location based social networking service from the team at Psiloc. These are the guys who are well known for developing quality symbian software including psiloc connectwhich is the first application I load onto any new Nokia. It has now been released as version [...]

Australian mobile advertising research suports ad-funded model

Following on from my post about ComTel launching SMSPup in Australia, the media kit they sent me included research from 6500 of their opt-in members conducted in August 2008. The results from the survey make interesting reading – and are for the Australian market: • 50% would consider receiving ads to their mobile if they [...]

The ALDI effect and how it will benefit mobile advertising

Much has been written in UK newspapers about the “Aldi effect” – as consumers tighten their belts due to the global credit crunch and tougher domestic conditions in the UK and switch to lower cost retailers to save money. Traditional retailers such as Tesco are acutely aware of this phenomenon and are plotting to counter the [...]

Carnival of the Mobilists 138 is at MobHappy

This week’s Carnival of the Mobilists is back at MobHappy - actually where it all started back in October 2005. Since then, the Carnival has thrived as a place to showcase the best writing about mobile in the blogosphere.  Featured this week is my post on the new Google Gears geolocation API. Head over to MobHappy to read [...]

ad funded mobile offering SMSPup launches in Australia with Blyk type model

ComTel Corporation Limited has launched what they claim is Australia’s first advertising subsidised mobile phone service ahead of the anticipated surge in mobile advertising growth down under.  The model looks similar to that of Blyk, currently operating in the UK. Update: Jonathan Macdonald (who was instrumental in setting up Blyk in the UK) points out in a comment [...]

Google geolocation API gets the green light

As foreshadowed by Charles Wiles at the Mobile Monday London event in July, and as announced on the Google Mobile official blog as well as on Charles’ blog, the Google Gears API is now location enabled for both desktop browsers (via IP address) as well as mobile browsers (windows mobile only at the moment) using cell-ID or GPS. [...]

Britain’s top 10 private media companies

The Daily Telegraph newspaper in London has been running a series on the “Britain’s biggest private companies” over the last week or so – covering the top 10 retailers, property, manufacturers, food and drink, transport and leisure, business services, financial services, utilities, and resources companies in Britain. As quoted from the Telegraph website: Many of [...]

London Mayor Boris Johnson Launches London Calling

Well, this has absolutely nothing to do with this blog, also called London Calling but I thought I’d upload the press release anyway. Press Release: Mayor seeks ‘wow’ factor for London 2012′s legacy Mayor of London Boris Johnson has today called on businesses and organisations from around the world to submit truly ground-breaking ideas to [...]

Sky appoints head of mobile advertising

As reported over at Brand Republic, Sky has appointed its first head of mobile advertising, recruiting former AOL head of mobile Tim Hussain. In addition, Sky has promoted David Gibbs to general manager for mobile. The two appointments follow the recent announcement that Emma Lloyd, business development director at Sky, will take overall responsibility for [...]

Orange trial SMS advertising – but will it work?

Orange has run the world’s first in-SMS advertising trial in Switzerland in partnership with Amobee Media Systems, a provider of advertising solutions for mobile phones. Several major brands participated in the project. Orange ran a trial with SMS-embedded ads in Switzerland to leverage the mobile advertising potential in European markets. SMS is probably the most [...]

Motorola Good Mobile Messaging 5 to be launched for the Nokia E71

UPDATE: November 29 2008 I thought it would be worth an update on this post, as it receives a fair number of hits every day so many others must also be hanging out for the E71 + Goodlink fix. I’ve been testing version 5.1.0.24 on my E71 and E61i.  The good news is that it [...]

Clicky – a new web analytics service worth a closer look

I came across Clicky from one of my twitter contacts, so I thought I’d take a closer look. Wow! This is the analytics tool I have been waiting for. For 2 years I had to suffer with only matrixstats from my web host, then recently signed up for mybloglog which give a better view of what is going on [...]

Telcos Believe Launching New Mobile Content Should Take Less Than a Month

  Over at Cellular news, there is a story on a survey commissioned by Valista and conducted at the Building Blocks 2008 conference held last week found that over 86 percent of the industry insiders interviewed believe that it should take less than a month to launch new mobile content and services with an operator. [...]

Tomi T Ahonen on permission based and targeted mobile advertising

Jonathan Macdonald recently pointed me to a brilliant post by on permission based advertising by Tomi T Ahonen – someone well respected in this space for among other things his communities dominate brands blog. In Tomi’s posted titled Permission Based is not enough: Understanding mobile advertising from March 20 this year, he argues eloquently that [...]

Firxt.com – a new Australian mobile search website

I received an email via my contact form this morning from Andrew Gray in Melbourne about a new mobile search engine called Firxt. As I’m always happy to help Aussie startups, I’ve posted the information here as well as a bit from his about page.  Why not point your mobile browser at www.firxt.com and give a [...]

Google are starting to monetize mobile maps

It was only going to be a matter of time until sponsored Google mobile maps results would appear. Today when I was seaching for the Waldorf Hotel in London, the actual location was identified by a Hilton logo on my Google mobile maps screen (it was clearly identified as a sponsored link) and the results page also [...]

First look at the Nokia E71 after a week of power use

This post has just been featured at WOM World/Nokia. Just over a week ago I took delivery of a shiny new Nokia E71.  Those who have been following London Calling lately will know that I have been waiting excitedly for the E71 to be released, having been an early adopter of both the E61 and E61i. [...]

Mippin launches mobile Olympic Games channel

The Olympic Games are a hot topic and people from all over the world want to catch up with the latest news about it. According to a recent release from Nielsen Mobile 31.3% of mobile video users and 17.2% of mobile internet users in the UK are likely to follow the Olympics on their cell [...]

Who will win the location battle?

Google appear to be the front runners at the moment – is their lead assailable? With Google’s current domination of the maps space thanks to Google Maps, and their recent upgrade of mobile maps to include my location, and the rumours circulating that soon they will open up their cell-ID database API to third parties [...]

88% of mobile users would watch ads to get free content: 4th screen advertising

Some 88% of mobile users in the UK are willing to receive pre-roll mobile ads in return for free video content, according to 4th Screen Advertising’s Adlndex for Mobile research, conducted by Dynamic Logic. Mobile pre-roll ads, which ran on O2 Active, are “attention grabbing” and increase brand recognition and favorable opinions of advertisers, the [...]

Amobee secures new investors Motorola and Cisco

Redwood City, Calif.– August 6, 2008 – Amobee Media Systems, the world leader in advertising solutions for mobile operators, today announced that Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT) and Cisco have made investments in the company. These market leaders join the company’s existing investors who also participated in this round – Telefonica (NYSE: TEF), Vodafone (NYSE: VOD), [...]

Future of Mobile event in London November 17 – 18

I’m delighted to be involved with this year’s Future of Mobile conference to be held in London on November 17-18th at the Kensington Town Hall. I’ll be in good company as I will be joined by fellow bloggers James Whatley, Vero Pepperell, Helen Keegan, Jemima Kiss and Ewan MacLeod.  Also on the platform are Rudy de [...]

latest UK marketing blog leader board out for August

The crew over at SPINNING AROUND: SEVENTY SEVEN THINKING OUT LOUD have once again sliced and diced the Ad Age Power 150 at of 1st August to see who’s who in the UK blogging world. I’m delighted to day that London Calling is shooting up the charts (up 4 on the UK chart to #42 and up 135 [...]