Newsletter
Newsletter

Newsletter

Focusing on Camera-Phone Apps & Let's Put a Celly in Every Back Pocket

Look how traditional chemical photo service providers have realigned themselves to handle digi prints; this is a new and growing line of business. With DoCoMo’s 505-series i-modes phones (due to hit the market early summer), handsets will have very high-quality, mega-pixel-class cameras, so cam-phone users will want to buy more of the services that digi-cam users have already been buying – like kiosk printing. And to those who would cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war I reply: cry freedom – and put a keitai in every back pocket.

Cell-Based Location Services on Target and Japan has Cheapest WLAN on Earth

So far, Japanese carriers haven’t really pushed location services as stand-alone products; they’re sold as “part of” a handset and there are no handsets that are sold only as, or primarily for, navi-service capabilities. Sure, KDDI did do a big marketing push when their first GPS-enabled keitai hit the market in December 2001, but now it’s just one more feature onboard their fleet (in the January catalog, KDDI showed six of 11 handsets as having GPS capability). Also: Looks like Japan’s WLAN market – in addition to being highly fragmented – is one of the cheapest.

BeatCast and Kaopass: Unknown Mobile Applications that won't be for Long

It’s rare for me to be Oh-My-God! impressed by mobile applications these days (blame it on George Bush and the endless beat of dreary war drums…), but the demo we saw was really terrific. The animations were great, the sound effects weren’t irritating (like they are with a lot of Java applets), and you could access pics of all the latest car models that slide onto the screen from the left or the right. If there’s a better way to sell cars via mobile, this may be it.

Who Will Take the i-mode Lead in Europe?

Conrad Yiu, director of development at London-based Carbon Partners, a mobile content developer, said last week that the difficulty with using the wireless Internet as a marketing and promotion platform is the grey area mobile marketing and mobile consumer services crossover. He agreed that, even in Europe, or at least the UK, mobile users should be willing to pay for “marketing messages” that are fun and cool. “That is the holy grail for the brand or media owner. I guess the same idea of US college kids who wear their sweatshirts with the college name on it,” he added.

Mobile Marketing is the Mobile Internet

Morinaga is a great example of the content providers that organize their offerings into more sophisticated “mini platforms” that support sales, marketing, and promotion campaigns for off-line products. In other words, they provide mobile content (images, ring tones, etc.) as part of an overall marketing effort (either for themselves or for clients) – usually combined with PC Web or non-electronic channels.

KDDI 3Q Rock'in Results and BREW Comes to a Boil

Berman warns, however, that with a typical handset cost of 37,000 yen in the latest quarter, “it will require about 23 months to cover [the] cost for upgrade customers.” He goes on to state that this creates a difficult situation for KDDI, wherein there’s lots of room for concern for the cost of the 2G-to-3G upgrade cycle. Remember, too, that KDDI has committed to launching a 1X EV-DO upgrade in late 2003. Will it have to commit to another two-year cycle to convert subscribers to the new system? If so, the expense half of their balance sheet may get a little out of control no matter how strong the revenue side remains.