"New research shows the market for multimedia messaging services in the United States will grow from just $8 million last year to $900 million by 2007, and the number of active MMS users will increase from several hundred thousand in 2002 to more than 31 million in 2007."
Wow. And that's just in the USA! So just imagine what figures we're talking about worldwide by 2007. Don't tell me that with a little bit of ingenuity there isn't a whole lot of money to be made out of MMS.
Did I mention that my favourite Symbian site - All About Symbian has been given a seriously tasty makeover? Make sure to checkout the forums which are a hive of activity!
InAMobile says that Club Nokia has launched its MMS Postcard solution to over 750,000 subscribers in Denmark and Norway. The “MMS Postcard” solution enables mobile subscribers with MMS handsets to take a picture and send it instantly to their friends and family as a physical postcard.
This solution is an excellent bridge between 'the future' and 'the past' and will work because it observes the rule that contact is king, not content (but content may be the catalyst). People want to share their experiences. In this case the experience is the content but the contact is still what's important.
Tom Hume drew my attention to the intriguing announcement of the PaperClick service for Nokia 3650 camerphone owners that facilitates comparison shopping on the phone simply by taking and uploading a picture of the book's ISBN. Incredibe!
Tom is understandably sceptical but the service provider - Neomedia Technologies - does offer a few barcoding solutions so I'll keep an open mind on this one.
Tom Hume drew my attention to the intriguing announcement of the PaperClick service for Nokia 3650 camerphone owners that facilitates comparison shopping on the phone simply by taking and uploading a picture of the book's ISBN. Incredibe!
Tom is understandably sceptical but the service provider - Neomedia Technologies - does offer a few barcoding solutions so I'll keep an open mind on this one.
Tom Hume drew my attention to the intriguing announcement of the PaperClick service for Nokia 3650 camerphone owners that facilitates comparison shopping on the phone simply by taking and uploading a picture of the book's ISBN. Incredibe!
Tom is understandably sceptical but the service provider - Neomedia Technologies - does offer a few barcoding solutions so I'll keep an open mind on this one.
Well the test phase is apparently over and Newbay's FoneBlog is finally being officially launched by O2 Ireland -
"O2 Ireland is the first company in the world to deploy new software from NewBay that allows users to update Web logs from their mobile phones."
With about 1,500 subscribers in only a few months (from a population of about 4 million) it appears O2 are satisfied that moblogging is something more than a fad.
"Nine independent mobile operators formed of a new mobile alliance to provide seamless, enhanced voice and data solutions for businesses and consumers across Europe. Amena (Spain), O2 (Germany, UK and Ireland), ONE (Austria), Pannon GSM (Hungary), sunrise (Switzerland), Telenor Mobil (Norway) and Wind (Italy) signed a formal agreement on September 30, 2003. Customers will benefit from progressively introduced services such as seamless GPRS and MMS connectivity across the members' networks, and ... [read full article]
This is obviously big news but I'm horrified by the apparent exclusivity built in to the arrangement where it has been agreed to have only one representative per country, supposedly on the basis that this, "eliminates the complexities that can arise with multiple in-country members." :(
The main reason most Blackberry users cite for their refusal to use a 'real' PDA (like a Nokia 3650 ;-) is the lack of email push but increasingly that's becoming a moot point -
Smartner is building on the Duality server technology ... to offer PDA users more than just email synchronisation. It hopes eventually to allow a cellular capable PDA to 'see' anything which resides on its owner's desktop PC. The Duality server sits behind a company's firewall and allows information received at the desktop to be pushed out to a GPRS enabled devices. The PDA can even achieve this connexion via a Bluetooth link to a standard GPRS capable handset, for example.
Currently the client software (which is only 290 Kb) runs on all three mobile versions of Windows but thanks to Palm OS version 6 should soon be running on Palm based devices too. Plus there's a version for Symbian under way
Different news from different corners of the world. First from RCR News is the story that -
Network interoperability and handset pricing will hold down the market for multimedia messaging services in the United States, according to new research from Frost & Sullivan, which predicts the market will grow from $2 million last year to an astounding $5.5 billion in 2009.
... contrary to earlier predictions -- multimedia messaging service (MMS) will likely copy the success of short messaging system (SMS) in Asia-Pacific countries.