The Great iPad fever. Early diagnosis.

Yes. The new Apple device is announced and gadget freaks are smashing their heads against the wall. “No multitasking, no cameras, no flash, no this, no that” – these are the main symptoms on the Internet blogs right now. Some, though, are quite immune to the illness and draw sober conclusions about why iPad is cool.

So, why on Earth Apple would make such useless device (according to geeks) which costs at least half a grand? What is the audience for it? As always, Apple thinks different. And with iPad, they are probably thinking of your mom, dad, kids and maybe even your grandma and grandpa.

When it comes to user experience, seems like iPad is the best thing ever created, to get people with no knowledge about computers to the digital world. Browsing web, watching movies, emails, photos – all common tasks are executed in this device with ease and elegance. Your mom is likely to appreciate the slick and showy look of it. Using fingers to manipulate certainly adds to the appeal, as it significantly improves user experience. It is almost like in a Sci-Fi movie, i.e. cool as hell.

These people don’t need multitasking. They don’t need to read The New York Times and watch Youtube simultaneously, while looking through photos. They want just casually do one thing at a time, like reading a newspaper in the kitchen, or watching movie while on a train. And all that is without the complications of PCs.

Let’s leave aside comparison to Kindle – reading books is just one of the functions that iPad have, and it is not the main one. Though Apple is exploring the new market with iBooks, it is likely to succeed with it. iPad have this aesthetic appeal, as all the products that Apple designs. Ignoring technical characteristics, imagine, what your girlfriend would like more as a present, a bland Kindle or a trendy piece of glass with a lovely apple on the backside? And still, if she doesn’t want to read books she can enjoy other functions, which Kindle doesn’t have. And the price is not that different – but iPad is not only a book reader.

As always, Apple fans will be buying it, just because it is Apple. It may also be the first introduction to Mac OS for Windows users. They may finally follow the hype, as 499$ is not that much. And many people will buy it as addition to their home PCs and notebooks.

There is also this niche, people new to computers, which can be quite considerable. Creating services for them, one should follow the prime example – the iPad itself. Simplicity. The NY Times demonstrated the new app for reading their web site at the iPad presentation that perfectly represents this philosophy. Even inexperienced users can learn how to use it in two minutes. Easy and useful web sites and apps are likely to have big success with this market.

Bashing every new Apple device seems like a nice tradition. We, however, think that Stevie will again make loads of cash, and very much deserved, as iPad is truly an innovative gadget. Just wait and see.

Principal role of the USSD service.

USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) is a technology used for transmitting of information over GSM networks. As a session based service it can support a sequence of information exchange. It works in two modes: push mode and pull mode.

USSD Phase 1 (pull operation), described in GSM 02.90, handles mobile initiated requests. In this phase no real time session is held, as it is only able to pass information from a mobile phone to the USSD service with a confirmation.

USSD Phase 2 (push and pull operation), described in GSM 03.90, handles network-initiated requests and establishes interactive dialogue between USSD application and mobile phone. If a user don’t perform any actions the connection is released by a time out. This phase also allows to push information from network to a users’ handset.

Often overlooked, USSD technology helps users quickly and easily access information and services, and provides endless business opportunities for mobile service providers.

How does it work? User’s perspective.

1. User enters a short USSD service number on the mobile phone (e.g *100#) and press “call”.

2. USSD service receives the request and responds by sending a menu to the user.

3. The user enters a character that corresponds with his/her selection.

Usability

• Fast response. Unlike other short-message protocols which use store-and-forward technique, it offers session-based communication. Information is sent directly from a mobile phone to an USSD platform during a real-time session, avoiding SMSC in the processing path. As a result, a user don’t experience any latency while sending requests to a service.

• Worldwide access. All USSD request are rooted back to the home network. Dialing an USSD number while in roaming in another network will lead to a service which is in home network. This helps users to access their favourite services from other countries.

• Simple to use. USSD service is simple to access through practically any GSM mobile phone. A user initiate session by dialing a short code on a default mobile screen which starts with * followed by digits and terminated with # (e.g. *111#). Some of these codes request a single piece of information while others deliver a series of text menus with further navigation.

Functionality

USSD is ideal for a menu-driven applications, therefore it has great potential for mobile banking to perform such operations as balance check, account transactions, payments etc. It is important to note that USSD is not a menu on a mobile phone, but just a bearer for text selections and menus. These menus and texts are not stored on a handset or a SIM card. That’s significantly improves level of security on the users’ side as opposed to SMS messages when data is saved on a device.

Here is the other cases of using USSD:

■ Balance enquiry as alternative to IVR

■ Callback Services

■ Money transaction

■ Informational services ( weather, news, stock market etc.)

■ Voting

■ Reservations

■ Service management (activation / deactivation)

■ Notifications

■ Mobile advertising

USSD + SMS + WAP

USSD can serve as a convergence point for SMS and WAP services. As simple and straightforward service, USSD requires almost no user experience – anyone who can type on mobile devices can use it. With the help of it, service providers can encourage users to visit WAP sites. For example, USSD can respond to a user’s request with an SMS, which can contain a WAP link. This link may lead to a WAP site that is somehow connected with the USSD service which is being used.

Key Benefits

For mobile users:

• Simple to learn, direct access from any default mobile screen.

• Fast response time.

• Supported by 99% of mobile devices on the market.

• Worldwide access to services.

For service providers and operators:

• Can be quickly implemented to existing infrastructure.

• USSD can easily engage users.

• Fast mobilization of business for service providers.

• Cheaper than sending SMS.

Mobile Marketing. Why go interactive with your clients?

The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) recently updated the definition of Mobile Marketing. According to Mike Wehrs, President and CEO of the MMA, the new definition more accurately reflects the evolved nature and current capabilities of Mobile Marketing. Here it is: Mobile Marketing is a set of practices that enables organizations to communicate and engage with their audience in an interactive and relevant manner through any mobile device or network. Great definition! We discussed engagement in the last post and it is a pleasure to hear that the new definition represents our principles, which we are using in creation of solutions for mobile market.

Now, following this definition, let’s talk about interactivity. Interactivity as we see it in Eyeline. There is a lot of buzz about it but why do you need it? Maybe it’s just a fancy word to milk more money from advertisers? It is easy to sink in all abstruse definitions scattered over the Internet. Reality check is needed.

Let’s put it simply – you are doing business. Business is based on communication. Being interactive, you are communicating with your customers. This is how any business is done. And mobile advertising is no different. Today when there are over 4,000,000,000 (according to UN report) mobile phones worldwide (that’s 60% of the world population), mobile advertising might be the best and effortless way to communicate with you clients.

Now let’s look at it a little more closely. As mentioned in the previous post, the first step is to engage a customer. Now when they are engaged, they are ready to listen to you. This is where interactivity kicks in. It is responsible for the next step – maintaining and developing further relationship with your clients. Now when you have their phone numbers and loyalty, you surely want to get more personal with them. However, to make your consumers respond, you need to deliver to them a valuable marketing message.

What is a valuable message? It is a relevant, targeted offer you make to your customers, based on data you’ve collected about them in their personal profile. Personal data may contain literally anything – where John lives, how old he is, what cereal he has for breakfast, what’s his hobby and favorite watch brand. How you get this info depends on your creativity. But as soon as you have it – it’s time to make a relevant offer to John. As you see, the fundamentals of business are working here in full. You know consumer needs and you make them an offer in the context of their needs. The good news are that you are now cutting back on other advertising media expenditures and you are not wasting your time reaching customers when they are already here.

Eyeline Service Delivery Platform (ESDP) comes in handy when you want to be interactive with your consumers. You may have already got personal info about customers by using CRM, polls, or services, which help to detect behavioral patterns. ESDP provides an API interface that allows you to easily transfer previously collected data. Now, when you have information about customers, you create rules, and by using these rules ESDP will automatically deliver to your consumers a marketing message based on their traffic analysis, demography, geography, preferences and what they’ve consumed before. ESDP demonstrates high performance on a low-cost hardware and it has been tested on over 60,000,000 users. Learn more about it here.

Mobile advertising without furious people and legal issues.

Mobile advertising is going from strength to strength lately. Or so they say. A recent BIGresearch study shows that consumers are not of the same opinion about it as marketing providers. 67% don’t like text ads, 60% don’t like voicemail ads, and 60% don’t like video ads. They just don’t like being constantly bombarded with shells of information they don’t need. But what’s that? Seems like Vodafone could care less, sending messages all over the place having forgotten to include unsubscribe function in their SMS. That’s why they are missing $110,000 in their pockets for being a little bit pushy. People don’t want their personal things to be used for the needs of others. They become angry. Don’t make them angry or you’ll lose money.

What else are there that marketing providers are missing? “How much money we’ll allocate for mobile marketing this year?” you are asking yourself. Now don’t look at it as one more way to advertise your products or services. Don’t use it as an alternative to TV, Internet, radio, and outdoor advertising. Be broad-minded. Look at your whole marketing campaign and use mobile technologies to unite all parts of it.

If you don’t want to be an ugly Quasimodo look-alike for your customers read on. Eyeline Call2Service is a solution for mobile advertising that provides a low-pressure way of interacting with your customers via mobile phone as well as keeping them engaged. You make them an offer and now they decide whether they want it or not. They are now controlling the situation and they are doing it for free. But you are also controlling it better than ever. Let’s have a look at how it works.

Let’s say you sell cars. You have a TV and outdoor advertising campaign going on. You place a 5% discount offer and a service phone number under it on both TV commercials and outdoor stands. Your interested customers call your number (call is free of charge) which can be automatically saved in their phonebook and get an SMS message with 5% discount which they will show to you when they decide to buy a car. There is no voice communication. They just need to dial a phone number. Oh, there is also the address of your web site in that SMS they got. So now they can explore your product in details. By the way, you can place different phone numbers on TV, stands and radio ads and see where the most of your customers are coming from, thus eliminating unnecessary expenses.

Look further. You may set that the customers will get a USSD menu instead of just SMS. There they will have several options such as the above-mentioned 5% discount coupon and a possibility to subscribe for your news and offers. They will do it voluntarily if they want. And of course there is an unsubscribe function. Now they are feeling warm and fuzzy inside. There is no reason for you not to feel warmth spreading all over your office too. You now have phone numbers and loyalty of your customers. And all these are achieved in a very delicate manner.

Now let’s sum up what you get by using Call2Service:

• Your customers are now engaged. This develops base for further interactive marketing without legal issues.
• Transparent metrics. You see from what media your customers are coming from and how many of them are responding to your ads.
• Integration with media. Mobile advertising is no more feeling lonely. It’s now an integral part of your marketing campaign.

Now you are not so cheeky with your clients and you get a couple of cool marketing tools on top of that. Stay tuned for more.

Global Warming: So It's OK to Ignore It?

Just read (again!) about global warming. Although this year is unusually cold, scientists say it is masking the reality of being one of the 10 warmest years. Well, here in Novosibirsk we do not feel that warm — for the second week in a row we have -25 to -30C temperatures with cars failing to start and very uncomfortable conditions on the streets despite sunshine.

Amidst all that, I was really shocked to see GSMA ignoring our application for Green Award (and pocketing $600).

May be it just happened that we have build the most efficient SMS/USSD center. It sends 180,000 SMS using the power of one light bulb. Think about it.

But they say it does not matter? Does it matter less than these…???

Smart Communications: Alternative Power for Cell Sites program
Nokia Siemens Networks: Environmentally Sustainable Business (ESB) initiative
Vodafone: Reducing Network Energy Use
Alcatel-Lucent: Eco-sustainable Communications Transformation
Telenor: Climate Change Programme

Is it because we are small?

People are using SMS more and more, it’s the second communication mode to voice. And making it more efficient — and showing the world that it matters — is not helping the industry BIG TIME?

What are the aforementioned initiatives? I dearly hope they will make some impact. But the change should start from the small with the biggest impact. From something SUSTAINABLE because it makes everyone to save (every SMS will burn less coal in India and China). From equipment being efficient, like Sun’s. From programs which do their job consuming less resources. Not some “initiative” which will probably require more resources than it saves.

I am by training an economist. And I understand that if the price of green is yet small, people pay it and screw the world. But our center is also one of the cheapest. What we were looking for was some help with promotion which, by the way, would have saved as much electricity as 164 Europeans (already energy conscientious) consume per year.

But the black box of GSMA judges just chewed us up and spat with delight! Shame.

Economic Crisis and USSD: Time to be Reasonable!

Alcatel-Lucent seminar which I listened to yesterday (sorry, a webinar) was nicely organized but it was a bit too much for me. (May be it was Tom Peters’ influence from the time when I translated for him and it was the time when the Alcatel-Lucent merger happened. As you know, Tom Peters thinks mergers are always bad.).

Why was it too much? Because it posted as a problem the complicated network that modern operators have to have. Do we really need this “IP revolution” and “Always On” that equals billions in investment?

When liquidity is scarce, infrastructure expansion is limited because 3-4G will pay off in the future, wheras liquidity is needed NOW. The soltuion to putting off expansion comes from looking at telecom reserves (as many countries do nowadays by using up reserves; well, except for the US that continues to borrow).

The reserve for many operators/carriers lies in EXISTING technologies. In particular, in utilizing USSD because the infrastructure is there and because what is needed is just an application/upgarde which would increase the current cash IN-flow.

USSD white paper

Join LinkedIn group to discuss USSD

Get a PDF version of this paper

“I’m Back in the USSD”

(You Don’t Know How Lucky You Are, Boy)

“USSD is doing its comeback.
An old technology that finds its niche solution
providing a web surfing experience -
just using text – and at no cost.
The session ability that is inherent in the technology
is a major advantage over regular SMS.”

Amir Dorot
CTO, Cellact

Start using USSD, come back to the old good things!

For ages we know that certain things are good for us. But we don’t use them. We continue on looking for something new, a “magic belt” to loose weight, instead of “getting there” by using something proven; by eating less and exercising, for example.

The same is true for an old and unique technology called USSD. It makes communication from a mobile phone with a computer in the mobile network extremely easy. It gives a subscriber a simple dialog functionality. It is free in roaming.

USSD stands for Unstructured Supplementary Services Data sent to/from GSM mobile networks. USSD technology is defined in GSM standard 02.90 (USSD Stage 1) and 03.90 (USSD Stage 2). What is valuable, however, is a USSD service used by a subscriber and provided by a service application.

Nowadays USSD technology is becoming more popular. It’s getting used for various services, most often nowadays for mobile banking (read about applicability of USSD for mobile banking in these two white papers). USSD is getting used for mobile coupons. USSD is used in roaming for Call Me type services.

USSD Services: the Essence of It All

Of course, technology is secondary, the use of it is primary. What can one do with USSD? The following list compactly summarized the most important cases:

• Balance Inquiry (dial *100# and receive your balance on the screen of mobile)
• Balance Top-Up (e.g. using scratch cards – dial *101#cardPIN# and receive money to your phone account)
• Balance Transfer (payment from your balance to another balance – dial *102#phone-number#amount#)
• Call Me (requesting another party to call you – dial *103#mobile-number# and the other party will receive a “Call Me!” note from the number to call)
• Profile Management (add someone to your plan, change your plan, manage services – portal with a menu at *111#)
• Mobile Banking (e.g., Barclay’s Bank in India)
• Notifications (“Time to top-up”)
• Subscriptions (“Would you like to subscribe to a news service? 1=Yes, 2=No”)
• Voting (“Please rate our customer service: 1= good , 2= ” after a call to bank)
• Games (E.g. ‘Maze’ where a teenager gets prizes by finding his way in a maze)
• Delivering non-intrusive personalized mobile advertising (“Your balance is $10. Start saving with a new plan by calling 12345 now”)

What is Needed to Get USSD Going?

USSD is a very simple and robust technology for the end user. As a rule, a user just dials a number (usually preceded with a * and enclosed with a #) and receives a text (a menu) on the screen of the mobile that can be responded to (answered). In effect, a user enters a dialog with the application. There is also an alternative way to initiate a USSD session by dialing a regular phone number. If you are interested in learning this new way, contact us.

For a content provider, USSD can be somewhat problematic. In technical terms, a USSD service requires a USSD application which needs to be tailored to a particular USSD gateway/center located in the mobile operator’s network. Therefore, a content provider needs to find a suitable technical or aggregation partner (like Eyeline Communications for MTS, Russia) who would help.

Note: It is possible to provide USSD services globally without the use of a particular operator. Contact Eyeline for more details on this use of USSD technology.

For mobile operators, a USSD center (gateway) (see Wiki Definition) is a piece of hardware with software that needs to be integrated into the core network and plugged into other modules like billing. If you are interested to know details (there are some), see our USSD center presentation.

There are lots of suppliers of USSD gateways/centers. And I mean “lots”:

http://eyeline.mobi/sms_ussd_center/
http://interacctsolutions.com/
http://patternmatched.com/products.html
http://press.nokia.com/PR/199903/777096_5.html
http://www.6dtech.co.in/products/messaging/ussd.html
http://www.acision.com/ also known as Logica/CMG
http://www.bhartitelesoft.com/products/ussd.htm
http://www.cellicium.com/ussd/info/
http://www.comverse.com/data/uploads/products/USSD%20Center%20BR%202008%200398b.pdf
http://www.flashmedia.co.za
http://www.inswitch.us/ussd_gateway.htm
http://www.leibict.com/
http://www.mctel.net/art.php/en/ar21/ussd-gateway.html
http://www.opencode.com/solutions-1-1.php
http://www.sacaya.com/ussd.html
http://www.sicap.com/products/ussd-menu-browser/
http://www.surizontech.com/products/messaging.htm
http://www.syniverse.com/content.cfm?section_id=2&service_id=3&service_type_id=1
http://www.telenity.com/usc.php
http://www.truteq.co.za/products_telco/
http://www.wind-mobile.com/images/WM_brochures/PharosUSSDGateway_Brochure_EN.pdf

Because I am from Eyeline, I should speak only for Eyeline. As our experience show, the choice of supplier is usually based on whether you know them, whether they had contacted you, or whether other operators are using their solution. It is an OK approach. But if you want to make an intelligent choice, it is better to host a competition and invite all companies (if I missed some in the list above, please let me know!), having clear criteria to judge them.

As to our center, I see four pluses with my own eyes:

1) Installation. It is very compact and thus can be easily added to existing infrastructure.

2) Performance. You can measure it by messages per second, for example. Our developers are spending considerable time building probably the most powerful solution. At the same time it is small and expandable.

3) Maintenance. Since my officemate is a guy from technical support, I see how we stand by our solution. We have dedicated support specialists who monitor the centers day and night. Not because there are problems but because our customers should have their peace of mind.

4) Track Record. We have supplied USSD centers for the 10th largest operator in the world since the beginning of the century.

Do you want to have the most efficient USSD solution? Get in touch.

Knowledge is Power: Get to Know USSD

Well, take the most out of this amazing technology and avoid potential pitfalls. A long and heated discussion on LinkedIn about obstacles to a faster uptake of USSD, has yielded a list of potential “pitfalls” that I must evaluate here.

Handling USSD Objections

All Good… but What Are People Saying?

Dozens of people from all around the world discussed the future of USSD. They shared their real life stories. Although I asked them a question about obstacles to a faster uptake of USSD, they could not hold their personal excitement about USSD services. Below is a digest of what they have said:

• USSD is used “for prepaid top up because many people prefer punching in while seeing on the screen rather than going through an IVR.” (Jean Cerien, CEO at COMM4U; Paulo Correia, Telecommunications Consultant; Niranjan Srinivasan, Ericsson – Design & Planning – IN & VAS)

• “USSD is very popular for a number of core and killer services like:

- Subscriber profile and balance management
- Non standard call initiation (like shared charging, B-party charging)
- Call back services
- Rarely voting services” (Murad Mamedov, Wide Area Specialist, Paulo Correia, Telecommunications Consultant, Jim Murphy, Product Manager Homisco Inc.)

• “More generally, USSD is used:

- where you need subscriber to confirm some action. For example, a balance transfer service.
- where a simple menu consisting of a few items is needed.
- where you want to be sure that your interactive service could be used by all your subscribers disregard of phone model or service settings.” (Yuriy Filatov, Solution Architect at Ericsson)

• Valentin Micic (PRINCIPAL CONSULTANT at PHAROS CONSULTING) adds:”CallMe service (a service where a subscriber dials an USSD string, resulting in an SMS being sent to another subscriber, asking him/her to phone the caller back). The initial thinking was that this service will never exceed more than 12 requests per second. A few months later, we’ve been sitting on 100 requests per second – and all that without any advertising. So much for the hard-to-use argument…

These days USSD is used for a number of things, including mobile banking.

Some operators are using USSD for notifications — at least one operator in Europe is using USSD gateway to push One-Time-Password to subscribers requiring secure login over the internet (the reason: cost – it is much cheaper than SMS).

USSD is also used to generate revenue for the operators – time-based billing, where subscriber is charged for a time spent utilizing USSD. An interesting point is that introduction of the billing caused the usage of (what used to be) a free service, to drop substantially, only to bounce back to the similar level within few weeks.

Also, there is a number of pilot projects in telemetry and application-to-machine communication, e.g. switching things on and off, checking statuses etc.”

• “Broadcast adverts that are spawned by a USSD transaction” (Graeme Lewis, Telecommunications Projects and Marketing Professional with 25yrs experience). “Started to use USSD technology as a promotional channel just with a short message after balance requests.” (Paulo Correia, Telecommunications Consultant)
• “The same way that subscribers are using WAP, SMS, IVR or even Web site – they can now operate the same services using USSD. From the feedback we get from our customers – we know it is a very simple way to operate those services – and subscribers rapidly adopt this technology.” (Amir Dorot, CTO, Cellact)
• “Mobile payment service based on USSD. Very simple and convenient. Person receives a bill (paper or digital) with the USSD code he has to use to pay the bill.” (Goran Radic, Country Manager at Siemens IT Solutions and Services)
• “Our implementation on USSD includes services such as Balance/Recharge, Voice Mail activation, Registration of Family and Friends numbers, Change of Tariff Plan” (Carlos Mendoza, VAS, Product Development at MTN Irancell, Tehran, Iran)
• “For prepaid – balance request after toping up; balance view after calls and SMSs.” (Paulo Correia, Telecommunications Consultant) “USSD is the preferred and best mode to do balance checks & recharging prepaid accounts.” (Niranjan Srinivasan, Ericsson – Design & Planning – IN & VAS)
• “Transferring money, using refills, making changes to your account. Our USSD gateway has been very beneficial in this area.” (Jim Murphy, Product Manager Homisco Inc.)
• “USSD is great for content subscription. An out-roaming customer wants to contact his friend whose mobile number is 9810012345. He simply dials *333*9810012345#. His friend receives a message requesting him to call the customer back — this increases ARPU for the operator!!! (Call Back service)” (Gaurav Sarin, Telecom Evangelist)
• “USSD allows for very complex and customer oriented services like CUG (closed user group), money transfer from one account to another” (Patrick MIDY, VAS engineer at Digicel)

How to Make Sure USSD Services Spread Like a Wild Fire?

When launching USSD services, it is paramount to have a good marketing campaign. I mean a good old classical AIDA campaign. It is absolutely necessary to build Awareness or Attention, that is to teach people about USSD (the easiest way to learn USSD is through a balance check routine; it would also be a good idea to start advertising your *111# portal). Then move on to the Interest campaign (for example, by advertising a “killer” application like “Call Me”). Decision/Desire can be provoked by a voting application (“Vote Now” via a Balance Check Ad?), and the Act can be induced by a FREE trial of a Top-Up, a Weather, a Sports, or a Balance Transfer application.

Besides this marketing campaign for end-users, content providers and operators must have a clear understanding of what USSD services are capable of and they must be aware of myths surrounding USSD. As to the latter, operators must understand that USSD does not impede the network in terms of call (service) availability. It’s a myth. There are no such instances recorded around the globe. USSD also does not replace but rather add revenue streams to existing SMS services. This is good news for service providers. USSD is often considered a dead-end technology in the view that 3G will replace it. It is a wrong view. What 3G adds to the mobile network is access to a faster Internet from a mobile phone. If porting of USSD services to the Internet consumes resources (as it does) and if it increases end-user costs (in terms of service accessibility from 2G phones, service learning costs, and roaming costs), a mobile operator will loose from switching attention away from USSD portals. Many experts including myself believe that USSD technology will be increasing in use and that it will in fact enhance 3G experience.

It is easy to start/to try using USSD. Of course, big volumes of USSD services need appropriate technical infrastructure. But in order to start serving USSD services NOW, you just need to contact us. We offer 1) immediate global USSD services accessed through a regular or 800 number; 2) global USSD coverage through renting of our USSD center (about 1 week lead time); 3) USSD center ownership (depends on hardware delivery, about 1 month).

When revenues are stabilizing and 3G is not yet paying back, launch USSD services to increase your ARPU!

Date: November 7, 2008

Author: Ivan Komarov, k@eyeline.mobi, Skype: ivankomarov

Contact: Eyeline Communications Inc., http://eyeline.mobi/contacts/

Green SMS and USSD Centers

There is a lot of talk nowadays about being Green (because of the climate change) and now also about being cost efficient (because of the world financial crisis).

So the question is: how efficient is your SMS/USSD center/gateway?

See what people are answering: http://www.linkedin.com/answers/technology/information-technology/telecommunications/TCH_ITS_TCI/358022-7613196

And cast your vote!

 Speaking of voting: Congrats to Obama supporters!

WSJ: Selling Potatoes By Phone

Below I will re-post a full (almost) article as it was reported by the Wall Street Journal here.

Why did I decide to re-post it here? Just because, I am the Editor! Well, more precisely — because it is interesting. Wait. No: because it gives us ideas about what to do in poor countries which love VAS more than rich countries. Why do they love VAS? Because poor countries use mobile phones not just to call but to enjoy every little thing on them. And there are indeed a lot of hidden treasures even in the simplest mobile phones. Mobile phones can supply crucial data and they do substitute computers and Internet. The question in this context is “How to build a profitable business model?” Read more

Messaging Is on the Rise

Almost 20 percent growth is forecasted by Gartner for mobile messaging in 2008. Revenues are expected lower, around 16 percent (probably due to falling prices). SMS use will be growing at a third of the growth rate as compared to 5 years earlier. 74 percent of text messaging will come from Asia Pacific and Japan. North America is expected to outpace Western Europe in the number of sent SMS messages: 300 vs. 215 billion as forecasted for 2008.

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