How to boost mobile data usage

Mobile devices, especially those new generation of smart-phones offer a wide range of functionality and connectivity.

You could say that some of these smart-phones could almost replace a laptop in its functionality. No, I am not going to step in between this two groups of laptop lovers and PDA pundits.

However, beside the fact that most new smart-phones offer Wi-Fi connectivity combined with a meanwhile decent mobile browser functionality and of course „email to go“ they also enable an internet like experience.

Interestingly enough its seems to me that none of the multinational mobile network operators have realized that their portals are not only out of step but also not suitable for most smart-phones featuring a reasonably sized screen.

It´s evident that smart-phone users do use data services much more frequently than others. This even though most smartphones do come with an extra big price tag.

Logically these customers should be of more valuable in terms of customer live time and ARPU (average revenue per user) than other customers.

So why the hell there is no tariff offering a combined usage of mobile (EDGE, UMTS, GPRS) and free Wi.Fi access.

Think about Starbucks equipped by T-Mobile Wi-Fi access points.
For a rip off of between 8 and 18 Euros you are allowed to surf the internet. What an opportunity missed by T-Mobile.

T-Mobile could differentiate its-selves easily by offering a tariff made for those smart-phone customers by including free Wi-Fi access.

This ideally flanked by a for mobile optimized landing page guiding the way into the „free“ internet to be nicely garnished with to be paid for mobile services and targeted advertising providing additional return of invest.

Being even more clever a mobile network operator such as T-Mobile could team up with Yahoo or Google utilizing their data clustering logarithm and portals rather than annoying customers with their home made portals such as t-zones etc.

I bet this would boost data usage and revenues as well as making T-Mobile look good in eyes of those on the move aka data nomads.

For sure this also would lead to a better convergence and usability for fixed and mobile portals.

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Tags: wifi, global, internet, access, t-mobile, umts, edge, gprs, arpu, wlan, wireless

Splashcast, the multimedia channels widget, has launched a white label version of its product, as a branded Facebook application offering.For each customer, Splashcast will create a custom wrapper for the media player, and will load it into Facebook, and even stick around for a little while to get some promotional traction going. This is the first of Splashcast’s models for generating revenue for the business. While the base price of having a custom Facebook app created for you has not yet been disclosed, Splashcast has indicated that the base price covers the first 1000 users, and will be priced incrementally for additional users.The plan for Splashcast’s white label service has been in the works for some time now, and Rocketboom was actually the first company to have a custom app launched by Splashcast. Some of the other branded apps that Splashcast is announcing today include Justin Timberlake, Chris Brown and Pink. FBFactory is another company looking to bolster its own business by building custom Facebook

SplashCast Releases White Label Solution for Custom Facebook Apps

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Tags: facebook, white label, solution, splashcast,

Like the Business Week, CNN money started to look outside the US to find and list 31 world’s hottest start-ups.

Surprisingly, only 2 german companies are in there. One of them is already a well established company, named spreadshirt. They even started to spread their business to the US and other markets. There would have been other candidates worth to be listed…. next time, cnn.

We’ve picked 10 out of the list and provide you with a deeper view into this companies:

Location: London, England

Business: web-video
URL: joost.com
Launch: Mid-2006
CEO: Mike Volpi
Funding: $45 million (Index ventures, Sequoia Capital, Li Ka Shing Foundation, CBS Corporation, Viacom)

Location: Paris, France

Business: web-video
URL: trivop.com
Launch: 2007
CEO: Thomas Owadenko
Funding: $82,000 (angel investors)

Location: Milan, Italy

Business: web-video
URL: babelgum.com
Launch: January 2007
CEO: Valerio Zingarelli
Funding: $17.8 million (co-founder Silvio Scaglia)

Location: Bratislava, Slovakia

Business: web-video
URL: myubo.com
Launch: 2007
CEO: Igor Rintel
Funding: Not disclosed

Location: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Business: mobile 2.0
URL: mtouche.com
Launch: 2002
CEO: Eugene Goh
Funding: N/A

Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Business: mobile 2.0
URL: rebtel.com
Launch: 2005
CEO: Hjalmar Winbladh
Funding: $20 million ( Index Ventures and Benchmark Capital and founders)

Location: Espoo, Finland

Business: mobile 2.0
URL: widsets.com
Launch: 2006
CEO: Olli Pekka Kallasvuo
Funding: Nokia

Location: Singapore

Business: web-applications
URL: bezurk.com
Launch: 2006
CEO: Martin Symes
Funding: $1 million (founders)

Location: Barcelona, Spain

Business: web-applications
URL: tractis.com
Launch: 2006
CEO: David Blanco
Funding: About $500,000 (angel investors)

Location: Bejing, China

Business: web-applications
URL: maxthon.com
Launch: 2003
CEO: Chen Ming Jie
Funding: Not disclosed (WI Harper and Charles River Ventures

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Tags: maxthon, tractis, bezurk, widsets, rebtel, mtouche, myubo, babelgum, trivop, joost, cnn, money, startup

Dating site Match.com is set to launch a mobile application called MatchMobile, available first in the US, UK and Canadian, with expansion to 9 more countries by the end of 2007.Features include searching Match.com from your phone and getting a text message whenever another user sends you a message. The cost is an extra $5/month. 3.6 million US cell phone users made use of a mobile dating service in May 2007, says stat tracking company M:Metrics.

http://mobile.match.com/

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Tags: match, flirt, date, mobile, convergence,

M:Metrics released a survey with results showing that Americans and Europeans (survey covers UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy) have most likely the same habits when surfing the mobile web.

all details can be found at http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/news_press_release,144481.shtml

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Tags: m:metrics, mobile, web, internet, wap, mobile web, mobile internet, survey, europe, usa, news, entertainemnt, movie, finance, travel, sport