.mobi Mobile Web News

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I thought it would be nice to have on one thread the last news on mobile web. All news about mobile web do not necessarily need a new thread, but it's nice to get the info everybody sees.

Thus, here I start, with some news of today. And maybe you can open another thread if you want to discuss them.

http://www.digitaltransactions.net/newsstory.cfm?newsid=1218

Visa Hopes Its New Platform Will Speed M-Commerce Trials

(January 12, 2007) Visa USA has signed up an undisclosed number of member financial institutions to use a new m-commerce technology platform the card network announced this week that ties together a wide range of functions, including contactless payment, over-the-air personalization (OTA), couponing, mobile banking, Internet payment, and person-to-person (P2P) funds transfers. A Visa executive refuses to disclose details regarding the banks that have shown interest so far, but adds the platform will drive all future m-commerce trials sponsored by the association, including a number expected this year. “We do have takers, and you’ll be hearing [more] about that,” says Pam Zuercher, vice president of product innovation at Visa.

Visa, which announced the platform at the giant International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, expects rapid development of the market for mobile payments. “We expect over the next 12 months we’ll get learnings that will inform where we go for market rollout,” Zuercher says. One critical element is availability of phones equipped with near-field communication (NFC) technology, which allows handset users to make contactless payments. At the same trade show, handset maker Nokia announced a new phone model, the 6131, that comes with NFC embedded and is intended for use in m-commerce trials. “The market is moving toward readiness for NFC payment,” says Zuercher. “It’s those signals that lead us to believe in the next 12 to 18 months there will be handsets with that capability that will be picked up by the early-adopter set.”

Embracing applications, security standards, and business models, the Visa platform is clearly aimed at speeding up the implementation of m-commerce trials by providing a sort of standardized template that incorporates what Visa has learned so far. In May, Visa concluded a five-month pilot of handset-based contactless payments at a sports arena in Atlanta, and last fall announced an ongoing pilot of mobile couponing involving 500 employees. “The platform is not a commercial solution, but it will help us execute [a pilot] more quickly,” says Zuercher. “It’s a significant step for the industry because it enables those trials to happen quickly and get to a market rollout scenario.”

The platform is available to Visa members working with what Visa refers to as other members of the m-commerce “ecosystem,” particularly wireless carriers and mobile-device makers. Since the platform does not represent a commercial rollout, says Zuercher, Visa has not applied fees to its use. Pricing, she says, “is one of the learnings we’d be looking to get” from upcoming pilots. She refuses to give details of how many such pilots are planned, or when and where they will take place.

The platform brings together in a single set of applications a wide array of financial functions that up to now have been tested and offered separately by a variety of processors, banks, and card networks. P2P transfers, for example, have been launched by a raft of m-commerce startups over the past 18 months or so, as well as by established players like PayPal Inc. These “point solutions,” says Zuercher, address only “a piece of the puzzle.” Visa will add P2P, along with mobile Web payments, to the platform later in the year.

Another key element is OTA personalization, the process by which users can download via a wireless network applications and account data for functions such as NFC payment. This capability, considered crucial for commercialization of NFC, is already being tested by MasterCard Worldwide in pilots in New York and Dallas. MasterCard officials have been critical of Visa’s Atlanta trial because it did not feature OTA but rather depended on a limited number of phones that were manually programmed before being distributed to participants. Critics say this is fine for a small trial but is impractical for larger tests and for eventual rollouts.

Meanwhile, banks and wireless carriers are embroiled in a long-running dispute over where NFC capability should reside, with the carriers preferring the subscriber identification module (SIM) card, which they control. Banks and their card networks want to keep it outside of the SIM. But Zuercher says the new platform is agnostic in this matter. “The platform is flexible enough to support a number of different ways” of enabling NFC payment, she says. “Through the trials we’re hoping to answer that question.”

http://www.tmcnet.com/ce/articles/4511-warner-music-group-motorola-form-mobile-collaboration.htm

January 12, 2007
Warner Music Group and Motorola Form Mobile Collaboration

By Niladri Sekhar Nath, TMCnet Contributing Editor

Motorola (News - Alert), Inc. and Warner Music Group Corp. have teamed up to develop music-based products. This is the first time a handset manufacturer and a music company have come together to develop digital products along with chalking out marketing campaigns and strategic planning.

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Motorola is poised to reap the maximum benefit out of the collaboration. Thanks to the agreement, the company will be able to offer pre-loaded and over-the-air delivered full-length songs, ringtones, ringback tones, mobile music videos, and wallpapers to its customers.

“Establishing a global partnership with Warner Music Group opens the door for exciting entertainment opportunities for Motorola consumers,” said Scott Durchslag, corporate vice-president of Product and Xperience Invention, Motorola Mobile Devices, in a press release. “Exclusive access to content from Warner’s world-renowned roster of artists enables our mobile phone consumers to further enrich and personalize their mobile multimedia experiences.”

According to the press release, Motorola and WMG have plans to work jointly with wireless carriers to design these new music-based products. This way, both the companies believe, consumers will be able to enjoy seamlessly integrated mobile music experience.

“This partnership represents the next phase of our mobile strategy as we focus on collaborating with manufacturers such as Motorola to complement and enhance our carrier distribution footprint by creating first-rate music experiences on the handset through improved music-driven user interfaces, new music-based products and innovative artist promotions,” explained Alex Zubillaga, executive vice president, Digital Strategy and Business Development, WMG.

Warner Music Group takes pride in its collection of the best-known record labels in the music industry including Asylum, Atlantic, Bad Boy, Cordless, East West, Elektra, Lava, Maverick, Nonesuch, Perfect Game, Reprise etc.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/10/magazines/business2/cesmobiletv.biz2/?postversion=2007011118

2007: The year of mobile TV
Providers are scrambling to let consumers take the boob tube to go - but are we willing to pay up for the privilege?

(Business 2.0 Magazine) -- Will 2007 be the year American consumers can finally watch live football wherever and however they want? Judging by the onslaught of mobile TV-related announcements and demos (the majority of which made reference to the current football season) at this week's Consumer Electronics Show, the answer is a resounding "Yes."

But just how much will even the most hard-core football fans - or even just your average TV addict - be willing to pay to carry their content with them wherever they go?

One of the biggest CES announcements, made last Sunday, was that Verizon Wireless (Charts) would soon launch live, full-length television programming, including hits such as Fox's "24" and Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" on cell phones. Verizon's calling the service, powered by Qualcomm's MediaFLO technology, V Cast Mobile TV.
This $310,000 phone blings, then rings

The company won't say just how much they will charge for the new offering, but subscribers to Verizon's current V Cast service, which offers access to videos and music, already pay $15 a month, on top of the price of a voice plan. And it's not clear just how much more they'd be willing to shell out.

"You've got a bit of a disconnect between the current pricing of these services and the fact that this is still an early phase in the market, and there is somewhat of an unwillingness to pay up on the consumers' end," says Linda Barrabee, an analyst with the Yankee Group. "The mobile market is still primarily about voice, then messaging."

According to Barrabee, an estimated 5.3 million wireless users - a mere 2.5 percent of total subscribers - currently subscribe to video services. Of course, that number will probably grow, but just how much will depend on what mobile TV services cost and how easy they are to use.

"It all comes down to form factor and price point," Barrabee says. "Unless it's easy for the consumer to use, mobile TV will continue to be an experience for early adopters only."

But companies like Verizon are hoping to reach far beyond the early adopters.

One way they may be able to do that, says Barrabee, is by letting subscribers test a service before they commit, and by offering them several ways to pay up.

Verizon's already done that by recently launching pay-by-the-day access to V Cast videos and music. The service costs just $3 a day, and users don't have to commit beyond a single day. This approach could work especially well with the youth market - the type of TV-loving, yet cost-conscious customers that V Cast Mobile TV is likely to attract.
YouTube goes 'moblogging'

Another way around the pricing problem is an ad-supported, or at least partially ad-funded, model. That could be what mobile television service provider MobiTV has in mind: Monday at CES, the Emeryville, Calif. based company announced it will soon add an interactive advertising component to its mobile television technology, which powers the mobile TV services for Sprint Nextel (Charts) and Cingular Wireless (Charts).

MobiTV will enable advertisers to send out promotional coupons, WAP-based surveys and contests, and deliver localized ads based on users' zip codes. The company says it currently has over one million paying users. And if advertisers start snapping up interactive ad space on MobiTV's service, that could provide Sprint and Cingular some additional revenues, lowering mobile TV subscription fees for users.

Samsung also jumped on the mobile TV bandwagon at CES, announcing on Sunday its new mobile television standard, dubbed A-VSB. The Korea-based company says that the new technology will enable local broadcasters to transmit a mobile digital TV signal on the same frequency they now use for standard broadcasting, meaning they won't have to buy up additional spectrum.

By transmitting the signal that way, consumers will be able to watch live, local broadcasting on any A-VSB compatible mobile devices (which Samsung intends to sell soon as the new standard is adopted), even while traveling at high speeds.

"You could say we're liberating the couch potato," said John Godfrey, vice president of government and public affairs at Samsung, moments after the company unveiled the new technology in Las Vegas.

But just how badly does the couch potato want to be liberated? And at what price?
AT&T and Verizon: Wireless at heart

In places like Korea, where Samsung is based and where mobile TV has already taken off, nearly 14 percent cell phones support Digital Mobile Broadcast television, according to ABI Research. That's a high number, compared to most other countries, except maybe Japan.

But ABI Research expects mobile TV will be someday be a cash cow globally as well. According to the firm's forecasts, there will be half a billion mobile video subscribers by 2011. What was a $50 million industry back in 2005 will be worth several hundred billion dollars by 2011. And ABI believes advertising revenues from broadcast mobile video will dwarf subscription revenues from these services.

If Korea is any example, then mobile TV just might become the booming business ABI Research projects it will be. After all, we are a nation of TV addicts.

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