Constant Contact, a service-provider for managing and creating email newsletters, had his NASDAQ debut yesterday. Shares are trading up an impressive 65% at more than $26 per share. With this IPO, Constant Contact has raised more than $100 million.

Clear that it is not a Web 2.0 company, the company is a clear leader in the niche market of providing email marketing infrastructure & services for small and mid-size clients. 2006 revenues hit $27.6 million.

A survey from Continental Research of just under 1,000 people shows that they are using less content now than they did last year. The survey covered people from O2, T-Mobile, Orange and Vodafone. The only two categories which showed increased usage were sending a photo message to another phone and downloading a mobile game reports Cellular News… there are some nice graphs through the link. This flies in the face of some other surveys saying that mobile content and service use is increasing, although a poll released by Harris Interactive showed much the same result concerning mobile internet use. It also goes against revenue figures for mobile content and services which are (slowly) climbing, except for things like third-party ringtone sites. Despite this, the survey shouldn’t be ignored without good reason.

The survey also found that “a large majority (68 percent) of mobile users agreed with the statement I would prefer a more basic mobile phone that was simple to use and affordable”, while “only 25 percent of mobile users agreed I am prepared to pay more for a mobile phone that looks stylish. Similarly only 25 percent of mobile users agreed that I am prepared to pay more for a mobile phone that has the latest in mobile technology”. Not great figures, but the perennial argument applies here: The total mobile user base is a pretty big one to grab a quarter of.

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Tags: moconews, uk, europe, usage, mobile,

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during the last 3 months we many times have been asked: “what is youmato ? what is it all about?”

Well, youmato stands for “you, me and the others” and “mato” it self is a traditional target of the Japanese Kyūdō (弓道:きゅうどう, Kyūdō?). Kyūdō is the Japanese art of archery and the means “way of the bow”.
The different rings within the logo present “you” (in the center) “me” (around you) and “the others” (the outer-ring).
At Kyūdō, after warming up, the archer may then move on to shooting at a target called a mato.

We do see this as a metaphor for the entire social network experience. After users have learned how to use social networks, they move to youmato and target their friends and contacts as a kind of natural life style evolution.

CNM recently decided to acquire an existing social network platform speeding up our development process. The team of the acquired platform will stay on board and will safeguard a smooth integration process.

youmato is about the 3 important “P’s” in life and will be launched as an exclusive closed-alpha during september 2007. Until than we will tell you more about the 3 “P’s”.

Stay tuned and keep an eye on your mailbox. Maybe you will receive an invitation to join in and to create a brand new social network experience.

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Tags: europe, Network operator, messaging, sms, mms