Advertising key to putting Internet in every cellphone

BOSTON, United States (AFP) - The emergence of "smartphones" has put the Internet, music and videos in the palm of the consumer's hand, but the technology will need a flow of advertising cash to reach its full potential.
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Cellphone makers and service providers meeting at the Mobile Internet World conference here picture a world five years from now where the consumers will be able to pay bills, read the news and communicate with their mobile devices.

Few cellphone owners are currently using their devices to access the Internet -- nine percent, according to the Yankee Group, a technology consulting firm.

But the IDC research firm says that more than one in five cellphones sold in 2011 will be "smartphones," devices with Internet access that can also play videos and music.

Three billion cellphones circulate in the world, three times more than computers. While Internet connection over the cellphone is often slow, it is improving.

According to Kiyo Oishi, chief of the Japanese firm Access, one billion consumers will have access to high-speed Internet in 2013.

Consumers will need better services, including simpler websites and systems that are not limited to one operator or device.

But the market will need revenue.

"Advertising, commerce will be the economic engine that will drive everything," said Andrew Belt of the Monitor Group.

Currently operators make money through subscriptions to their services. For instance, some companies charge for email service, ringtone downloads or voting on television game shows.

But to get a slice of the mobile Internet age, companies will have to rely on advertising to get their products to consumers, analysts say.

"You have 110 billion dollars spent on TV (advertising). By 2008 you'll see big shifts, to mobile and social networks," said W2 Group chief executive Larry Weber.

According to the firm eMarketer, 16 billion dollars will be spent on advertising on cellphones in 2011, 10 times more than today.

"Most people would rather have free services with ads than paying subscriptions," said Andy Jedynak, co-chairman of the Interactive Advertising Bureau's (IAB) mobile committee.

Advertising will become the main source of revenue for mobile devices, but not before three to five years, he said.

IAB, which represents companies that sell interactive advertising, already wants to set standards for cellphone ads, including to limit their size to no more than a quarter the screen.

"All mass-media are financed by advertising," said Douglas Edwards, founder Handmark. "Advertising will inevitably" become the main source of revenue, he said.

M:Metrics Launches Mobile AdTracker

Today M:Metrics debuts a new service tracks ad display on mobile sites, or on the devices themselves.

M:AdTracker will be deployed on 120 mobile portals and websites, including those from ESPN and other high-level publishers, as well as a few lower-tier ones.

The software measures ad display four times daily and returns raw numbers to M:Metrics, where data is analyzed and scrubbed by a team before conversion into client-ready reports.

Ads must link back to a webpage to be counted by the software.

Early reports show a number of Fortune 100 companies advertising on mobile platforms, breaking conventional wisdom that mobile advertising tends to be primarily for mobile products.

Nokia launches WidSets - a mobile dashboard

Espoo, Finland - Nokia today announced that its innovative Internet service called WidSets, launched one year ago, has emerged from Beta to a new service platform. With the new platform WidSets will offer improved usability by localizing mobile clients and improving mobile widget library. WidSets will also bring advertising in as the primary business model. WidSets works on Java enabled handsets from a range of manufacturers and utilizes widgets, so users can have one-click access to real-time online content without needing to use a mobile browser.

"We've been delighted with the feedback we've had from the Beta trials of WidSets," said Jarmo Jokinen, Director of WidSets, Nokia Emerging Business Unit. "During that time, we've had more than 3 million users register for the WidSets service on more than 300 models of mobile device. We've valued the early feedback, which has enabled us to launch a more compelling service for users and content providers."

The new platform offers a dynamic search feature and an improved widget creation tool for quicker, simpler and more personalized options for creating widgets. And now it is really easy: enter the web address, click to select the feed and then you will have a personal widget! Around 90 percent of the current WidSets' content is already user generated, but the WidSets team has recently added many new widgets and made it easier for users to find local and also non-English-language content.

The new Explore feature for finding widgets offers an option to perform a live search, filter through recommended widgets, or go through tags or categories, and download them for use on mobile devices.

WidSets now offers a unique advertising model to commercial customers for providing two-way-interaction between the advertiser and their customers or prospects. A great example is a movie theater widget: the user chooses the city they are looking for and can then see what movies are on, in which theater, and whether there are seats available. A perfect match of benefits for movie going consumers, and the advertiser!

On the WidSets website people can review the widgets and see the latest, most popular or top rated widgets and share those with others. And now this can also be done from the mobile device. One of the latest widgets is for AccuWeather.com, which is expected to rapidly become one of the top ranked widgets in the WidSets library.

The WidSets mobile dashboard can also now be shared. This means that when creating a profile, users may share their own dashboard and widgets with the others, and see what the other "WidSeteers" are using as well as how they look like, thanks to the user images available in dashboards.

Nokia plans to pre-install WidSets in tens of millions of mobile phones during 2008, and enabling service support in tens of different languages. The recently unveiled Nokia 8800 Arte which will start shipping in the fourth quarter of 2007 will be the first handset to offer WidSets to its style-conscious consumers. In addition, users can already get started with WidSets via the Download! folder on all Nokia Nseries and Eseries devices.

WidSets works on a wide variety of mobile phone brands, and is already compatible with more than 300 mobile devices. Users can easily download WidSets from www.widsets.com or on their mobile from get.widsets.com.

Mobile Video Subscribers to Jump to 59M in 2010

Despite concerns over the business plan and subscriber rates, mobile video phone sales are expected to climb from $58 billion in 2006 to $125 billion in 2010 worldwide, according to a report from Infonetics Research.

The bump is fueled by "increasingly powerful and efficient phones" and augmented spectrum availability.

There were a few million subscribers to video phone service in 2006, but the number is expected to climb to 58.6 million in 2010. Currently, about 77 percent of subscribers are found in the EMEA and Asia/Pacific regions.

Though the US trails behind in bringing video to mobile phones, it may get a hand after the government effectively switches off analog TV in 2009.

Google Plans Mobile-Phone Operating System to Expand Beyond Web

Nov. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Google Inc., seeking to expand beyond the Web, said it plans to create a mobile phone operating system for handsets sold by Sprint Nextel Corp. and T-Mobile USA Inc.

Google, owner of the world's most popular Internet search engine, today announced the 34-member Open Handset Alliance, which includes Sprint, T-Mobile and phone makers Motorola Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co.

The agreement would boost Google's advertising revenue from mobile phones, which outsold personal computers by more than 4 to 1 last year. For phone companies, the accord may bolster sales of online services and give them an edge over larger rival AT&T Inc., the exclusive U.S. carrier for Apple Inc.'s iPhone.

``While it might be some time before mobile-phone advertising revenue begins to be meaningful for Google, it certainly says that they have worked successfully to put the foundations for such growth in place,'' said David Garrity, director of research at Dinosaur Securities Inc. in New York, who advises buying Google's shares.

Spending on mobile-phone ads may jump to $11.4 billion worldwide by 2011 from $2.17 billion today, according to Informa Plc, a London-based research firm. Google, in Mountain View, California, gets 99 percent of its more than $10 billion in annual sales from advertising, mostly by selling text links next to search results on its own pages and partner sites.