Social Networking

Vodafone 360 goes live, with focus on social networking

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:34:25 -0400

Vodafone will either be widely praised or ridiculed depending on the success of the gamble it is taking with the launch of its new 360 service. The company, which switched on the service last Friday, said that two Samsung handsets - the H1 and M1, have been tailored to support 360 with access to an app store containing around 1000 products.

However, Vodafone is betting on the new 360 service attracting enough people that want to join its community - which will require an easily understood marketing message from the company.

The main element of the new service is called Vodafone People, a connected address book. The service is automatically backed up and synchronised, regularly and wirelessly, between the mobile and PC or Mac. All contact updates, e-mails, photos and conversation history or settings changes made either at home or when on the move are saved.

However, Facebook and Google Talk will be integrated before Twitter - driven by the sheer number of users that the leading social networking website has, although users will be able share things like photos, music and their location with others that have signed up to 360.

Vodafone has also confirmed that 360 will be downloadable before the end of 2009 as client for Symbian handsets, which could mean that over 100 phones form Nokia and Sony Ericsson should be compatible with the Vodafone 360 service.

Interestingly, to help grow its apps base, Vodafone has said that it will make its APIs freely available, including those which cover its LBS and billing apps. The company is also promising SDKs to become available in the near term.

While Vodafone has spent almost two years developing its 360 service in-house, it is likely to take much less time for others to catch up, using external service providers. Platforms, such as Android, are seen as being much better placed to innovate and deploy new services, and, unless managed in the right way, Vodafone might struggle to cope with this pace of innovation.

For more on this story:
ITPro and Tech Radar

Smartphone revolution tests established players – page 2

Keith Mallinson — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:15:32 -0400

Major operators such as Vodafone are no less challenged by the rise of Apple and others. Vodafone's moves--I'm loathe to describe most of these as strategic--aim to hedge its position against competition for customer control and margin right across the value chain. Whereas the old enterprise-focused BlackBerry provided significant added-value for operators and did not pose a competitive challenge, in its expanded guise to consumers the BlackBerry ecosystem competes for the customer relationship and bottom line profits. Vodafone and Orange picking up iPhone distribution in the UK counters O2 on expiration of its iPhone exclusivity. Whereas this eliminates a competitive advantage for O2, it also puts Apple in an even stronger competitive position versus the operator market. Apple anticipates a fall in street prices with carrier competition in iPhones, but it does not expect its wholesale prices to fall. So far, Google's Android is predominantly with the T-Mobile with the HTC G1, but this OS is also set to diversify. For example, Vodafone's Verizon Wireless joint venture with Verizon is imminently expected to announce a Motorola "Droid" phone.

Vodafone and other carriers have numerous possibilities in smartphones. Focus is required. Vodafone has had a mixed relationship with Nokia for a decade or more. Club Nokia's mobile portal threatened to circumvent Vodafone and was crushed in order to preserve the regular handset trade. Club Nokia's reincarnation with Ovi was backed by Vodafone since 2007.

Vodafone's 360 initiative is an attempt to get back into the driving seat where its Live! portal has failed. It is promising sophisticated personal contacts management, social networking and an applications store. Its payment mechanism enables content and applications charges to appear on the phone bill. Vodafone plans to rollout 360 to Germany, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Portugal and Spain by yearend and into a further nine nations during 2010.

Vodafone has signed-up phone suppliers Samsung and Nokia with LiMo and Symbian OS respectively for 360. The attraction of LiMo's Linux is the pledge that this will never be used to circumvent the mobile operator with the independent service portals and applications stores that are strategically being pursued by Apple, RIM, Google and Nokia with Ovi.

A key potential competitive strength for 360 versus Apple, BlackBerry and Google is that Vodafone can allow developers deeper access into network capabilities with applications running on a variety of OSs. Similarly, Orange has opened up applications programming interfaces under its Orange partner Program.

Easier said than done. Most carriers groups are loosely structured federations: ownership and control is not absolute. It is difficult for Vodafone's corporate centre to impose a one-size-fits-all approach across many operating companies because local history and conditions differ significantly from nation to nation.

Carriers are disadvantaged by their limited scale. Even though Vodafone is a large group with 315 million proportionate subscribers worldwide, this is still less than a tenth the worldwide market of 4 billion subscribers addressed by Nokia and increasingly other smartphone and OS vendors. Scale attracts developers, helps amortize development and operational costs and build cool brands.

The Joint Innovation Lab initiative promotes creation of mobile applications and services with a global platform for developers. Widget compliant handsets from supporters LG, RIM, Samsung and Sharp will enable developers to create applications that can be rolled out to customers across JIL member companies China Mobile, Softbank, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone with a combined user base of more than 1 billion worldwide.

Many such alliances in IT and telecoms have failed over the years in their attempts to drive cohesion and scale. Alternatively, Ericsson is helping carriers by offering mobile internet, applications and messaging services including hosting to all comers on a white label basis. Carriers worldwide brand these as their own.

Vodafone's old anxieties about Nokia should be the least of its worries with so many new strategic challenges.

Keith Mallinson is a leading industry expert, analyst and consultant. Solving business problems in wireless and mobile communications, he founded consulting firm WiseHarbor in 2007.

Social Networks: Orange, Vodafone up the pace

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 13:22:12 -0400

The impact of social networking on mobile data traffic has triggered Orange and Vodafone to revamp their strategies in an effort to attract higher usage. While Vodafone's plans remain at the ‘well-sourced rumour' level, Orange has taken the lead by announcing Social Life, a social networking aggregation tool, that brings together activity on Facebook, MySpace and Bebo in one central interface, accessible via the Orange World portal.

According to Orange, the new platform allows users to upload photos, update their status, keep track of friends' status updates, etc., as well as sending and receiving messages. Social Life also claims to have SMS capabilities, allowing users to send and receive updates by text.

This move into becoming a consolidator makes more sense after Orange revealed that the number of monthly unique users to social networking sites jumped 48 per cent quarter-on-quarter to 946,564 in the three months to the end of February. Monthly page impressions climbed 129 per cent, with the average number of social networking pages per user per month hitting 397, indicating some heavy usage.

Orange said it will look to incorporate more social networks throughout the year.

Meanwhile, industry sources claim that Vodafone is preparing to launch its own social networking and aggregation platform, understood to be called Vodafone People.

The platform, which bears a striking resemblance to Zyb, the mobile phone utility and social networking site that Vodafone bought last year for €31.5 million, would appear to directly attack the INQ Mobile service offered by 3 by syncing contacts on multiple devices and details with Facebook.

However, Zyb is a little different from the MySpaces and Facebooks of the social networking world in that its focus is on enabling users to back-up and share their handset's calendar, messages, contact information and the like online. Vodafone People is also expected to allow integration with Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Bebo and GTalk.

This interest in providing much improved access to social networking sites would appear to be added evidence that Orange and Vodafone are determined to increase the value of their proposition by offering their own services - a critical acceptance as voice and data tariffs continue to fall.

For more on this story:
Mobile Today and Tech Crunch

Virgin to launch mobile VOD, and unveil 'social networking' handset

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 12:09:02 -0400

Having gained over 73,000 new mobile phone customers during Q2/09, Virgin Mobile UK is now reported to be looking to encourage its near 800,000 mobile users to subscribe to mobile video-on-demand (VOD) and use social networking sites using a new (yet to be launched) BlackBerry-style email device.

The strategy is part of Virgin Media's efforts to link together its mobile, broadband and television customers under a ‘third screen' campaign, which the company hopes will provoke more of its broadband customers to sign up for mobile services. This move will see the company unveil its new Blackberry-like handset for use on networking sites such as Twitter, as well as offering high-end smartphones, like the Nokia E-series, to attract high-spending customers.

According to Graeme Oxby, Virgin Mobile's managing director, the company , has set its sights on integrating the content available through Virgin Media's set-top box and on its broadband portal more closely with mobile devices. "We are finally getting ready for the bigger push around what we think is the next big step - what we call the 'third screen'," he said. "We have customers using fast broadband and customers watching TV. How do we bring that to life on the mobile phone?"

"We have done some mobile video so that we know it works and people like it, but actually getting to VOD, which is more a world of pause, rewind and resume rather than just being able to download, is where it gets very interesting."

Meanwhile, Virgin Media announced it was working to launch the world's first unlimited music download subscription service with Universal Music, and said discussions were now underway with other major and independent labels and publishers.

For more on this story:
Guardian and Mobile Today

A quarter of young people are social networking on mobiles every day, claims survey

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 11:16:23 -0400

Over a quarter of young people are using social networking sites on their mobiles every day, a CCS Insight report has claimed. The growth in mobile internet usage is so strong, said the report, that operators are relying on it to fill revenue gaps as profit margins fall.

CCS found that consumers are increasingly using the mobile internet as a force of habit, with one in five respondents admitting that they log on to their preferred social networking site ‘several times a day'. Facebook is still the star attraction of social networking on the mobile internet, with hits outnumbering Twitter, MySpace and Bebo combined.

However, there is room for further improvement on overall mobile internet usage, with around a quarter of respondents still not using the internet on their mobiles at all. Paolo Pescatore, head of mobile content at CCS Insight, said: "The phenomenal growth in mobile internet usage is removing the strain on voice and text for operators. The web is revolutionising the way people use their mobiles and big brands are starting to invest huge amounts in it." Article

New mobile social networking platform unveiled

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 12:34:49 -0400

Looking to differentiate itself from such giants as Facebook and MySpace has prompted the Italian mobile content developer, Buongiorno, to limit its new mobile social networking platform to support just 20 people. The company maintains users of social networks don't want hundreds of people involved, but would rather limit it to the 20 people most important to them.

The new platform, labelled Peoplesound, has been running as a beta service under the Blinko brand with more than 30,000 users. Following this trial, Buongiorno said it has used the feedback to develop the final version so users can access Peoplesound through pplsnd.com. The service is free, but the company has not detailed how it plans to generate revenue through the service, but does mention "exciting monetisation opportunities" created by the 10 channels it plans to include within Peoplesound. These channels are currently under development but plan to provide updates on music, sport, movies, news events, etc-- with the content designed to be shared amongst the 20 people on the network.

For more on this story:
MoCo News

Mobile social networking boosts page views

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 12:39:57 -0500

The combination of social networking and mobility continues to drive web traffic, with one of the newest entrants, Bebo, claiming its mobile offering is causing a boom in page views with a 44 per cent increase in January.

O2 UK, which signed to join the Bebo Open Mobile initiative last month, has seen apparently an increase in Bebo pages viewed on its network of more than 60 per cent. This upsurge, according to Bebo's head of mobile, Sean Kane, is evidence the website is offering a compelling mobile service. "Mobile social networking is a fast-moving market and empowering our partners to innovate in a flexible and mutually beneficial way helps us all win," said Kane.

The company describes its Open Mobile initiative as being aimed at operators, handset vendors and mobile software developers and consists of a suite of software tools to support the delivery of the Bebo ‘experience' to mobile users.

This move into the mobile arena might provide Bebo's parent, AOL, with some justification for acquiring Bebo for US$850 million in 2008. AOL has bundled Bebo into its People Network group which includes AIM, ICQ, SocialThing, Yedda and Goowy Media. The president of this group has commented, perhaps wisely, that there are no more social networking acquisitions in the offing.

For more on this story:
IAB and Mobile Europe

Mobile social networking driving growth of the mobile internet in Europe

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 12:35:19 -0500

A new report from the market research firm comScore claims social networking is drawing new users onto the mobile Web. In November, 34 per cent of mobile phone owners in Western Europe who visited social networking sites accessed social media exclusive of all other mobile Web content. With 12.1 million users in Western Europe (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK), mobile social networking is said to be a rapidly-expanding category that grew 152 per cent from November 2007 to November 2008. The UK boasted the highest penetration of mobile social networking, at 9 per cent, nearly triple that of Germany, where the activity is the least popular. article

Facebook's mobile service goes global with Telefonica

Paul Rasmussen — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 12:43:09 -0400

Mobile social networking has taken a significant step forward following a global agreement that will enable Telefonica cellphone subscribers to access Facebook's mobile services and applications. The deal expands the current UK-only relationship into a worldwide contract.

The agreement calls for a phased roll-out of the new network which will see services firstly deployed in Ireland, Germany, Spain, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Colombia, with the second deployment including Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador, Central American countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Every participating country may include a link in the browsing menu of its mobile handsets to Facebook's mobile service, allowing customers to send digital content (photos and videos) through integrated MMS services. Currently, more than 24 million pictures are uploaded to Facebook each day.

Mobile social networking is being hyped by the providers of such services as the next logical extension of their existing PC/laptop-based platform. Operators are keen to forge deals such as the above in anticipation of greater data usage.

For more on this story:
- go to The Unwired

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Facebook for Mobile Operators debuts on Vodafone. Vodafone story

Keep mobile social networking simple, says Bebo head

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 12:57:06 -0400

Mobile operators and platform developers have been urged to keep the user experience simple when building mobile social networks. The head of Bebo, Sean Kane, maintained that cheap, basic functions such as being able to send a text message to online friends from the handset were enough to empower users, rather than layering advanced features on top of the mobile social networking experience.

Bebo, which had racked up more than 40 million users prior to being acquired by AOL earlier this year for US$850 million, admits its mobile interface looks unexciting compared to the fixed-line alternative. However, Kane confirmed the 16-24 age bracket was the target, a group less likely to be able to afford smartphones capable of supporting sophisticated user interfaces.

Kane was also critical of the number of mobile platforms currently on the market, but registered his enthusiasm for Google's forthcoming open mobile operating system Android as an example of the way forward.

In Europe, the company has recently run several campaigns with music vendors in an attempt to convince this age group to move away from using free music download services such as limewire.

For more on this story:
- go to Total Telecom

Related articles:
Mobile social networking tops 4 million users in US. Mobile social network story
Forecast: 140M mobile social networking users by 2013. Report