2006-12-21

Mobile advertising in Japan


I with Peter Vesterbacka who made the case why Japan is an exceptional country for early-adoption of video-enabled social networking service (SNS).
1. Social networking users : 7 million, estimated 2 million using mobile
2. 3G adoption : 60 million users
3. Critical mass of mobile advertising : 50% of users, 300M$
4. Mobile video usage is emerging
1. Social networks in Japan growing to 2-3 million mobile users
Online social networks membership exceeds 7 million and expected to grow to 10 million in 2007 [Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications]. Some examples of online services going mobile described below :
- Mixi has 4.8 million users, 70% logged every 3 days, 1 million groups and and 7 billion page views /month, 3rd behind Yahoo and Google (July 2006). Mixi mobile was released in December 2006 and forecasted to reach 2 million subscribers. Mixi name refers to mixing with other, it is an invite-only network with product reviews, blogging, photo sharing, and music clone that lets you buy tracks from iTunes.. Demographics estimated 15% 17-19 (18 minimal age) and 70% 10-29. The company was founded by Kenji Kasahara, revenues around 9 million $ and IPO forecast above 1 billion$.
- S! Town on Softbank is designed like a mobile 3D virtual world where avatars walks around, chats, shares photos, shops for music and video, personalizes a room, plays games. eXplo community platform from Gemini has been adopted by SoftBank Mobile in Japan; SmarTone-Vodafone in Hong Kong; FarEasTone in Taiwan; Nextel International in Central & South America; and Sferia in Poland. Gemini was founded in 2001 by Hiroshi Ota, Michael Tso and Scott Driggers, Gemini and over 20 million $ in two rounds, it is profitable. Japanese game company Bandai did the S! design.
- http://www.gorotto.comfunctionality includes a blog, networking, personal profile, picture/media library, calendar and newsgroups. It has a mobile version, a GIS/Google maps mash-up feature, an open architecture for integration of other services. Registered users can invite contacts.
- Love-Getty . This service was deployed in 1998 and used by 1.3 million users. I list it as a comparison point and an interesting case study. Love Getty was an oval device on a key-chain programmed the to look for others in the same mode. There were 2 sexes boys and girls looking out for each other; and 3 modes : karaoke, chat and meal. A girl’s Love Getty on karaoke mode would sound when another boy’s karaoke Love Getty was around. The inventor was Takeya Takafuji currently president senior associate of IMJ Mobile. My HP colleague Nicolas Raguideau worked on that project at the time to implement a real-time database using HP OpenCall technology.

2. 3G adoption >50 million and 40% penetration by 2007
Mid-year statistics :
. DoCoMo 30 million subscribers (WCDMA)
. Softbank 5 million subscribers (WCDMA)
. KDDI 10 million subscribers (CDMA 1XRTT)
ARPU statistics : 70 $, 65% non-voice




3. Mobile advertising reaching 60% of users with revenues of 250 million $ In 2005-2006, revenues grew 50%, from 250 million $ to forecasted 300 million US$ in 2009 (or >5$ per subscriber, on operators portals only) . This amount is similar to that of internet advertising revenues in 2000, they grew to 2 billion $ in 2006. The penetration of mobile advertising is estimated at 60 % (InfoPlant survey on usage of mobile coupons and discounts : 2-3/month 27%; 1/month 25%;1/2-3 months 20%). One of leading mobile advertising agencies is D2 Communications, jointly established in 2000 by NTT DoCoMo, Dentsu and NTT Advertising for the DoCoMo i-mode service (Takayuki Hoshuyama, COO).

4. Usage of video messaging is 9%
According to Mobile marketing association the mobile usage is
Mobile internet 76%
Picture messaging 42%
Text messaging 39%
Digital music 16%
IM 15%
Video messaging 9% (this is low but probably 3 times above usage in Europe).
Mobile TV 4.4%

2006-12-13

HP Communications World, Vienna, December 12 2006

 3G video services from HP
The theme of the conference being imagine the future and make it happen. So, I thought of a future 3 years from now, when 50% of the users have a much easier time. This future is the result of telecom evolution : in the 80's when we invented the PC and the mobile phone as a personal productivity tool - we had e-mail and a phone book. In the 90's where we got the web, every body had the phone and used SMS. And the waves of 2000 are evidently about communities and multimedia. So in 2010 there will be 800 million 3G multimedia phones WW, mostly in Asia and 100 million in Europe.

Blue Ocean Strategy
I used 3 recommendations from the book :
1. Create and capture new demand : create new 3G video user experiences combining elements from content discovery, personal messaging, marketing and branding, on-line connectivity.
2. Make the competition irrelevant : optimizing the value delivery chain, especially by attracting content creators, media industry, Web 2.0 developers and addressing separately the tasks of merchandizing and operating networks
3. Align the whole company in the pursuit of differentiation : allow permanent innovation by providing web tools to designers, a video studio in the network.

 BBC’s 3G video for participation TV
Chris Yanda, Executive Producer at BBC Mobile presented some projects :
- Olympics 2004 : video highlights trial partnering with Orange and O2, 2500 video downloads and 2.01 million page impressions
- Grand National 2005 : Live Video Streaming to mobile
Doctor Who Tardisodes Spring 2006 : thirteen 60 second mini episodes about next episode characters and adventures
- SpringWatch 2006 : Live WAP cam, streams of animals in the wild
- BT Movio : broadcast digital TV trial using DAB-IP

BBC match of the day
 
The presenter trails topical question inviting 3G video messaging commentary from fans. Comments shown on air. Users record video message on a 3G phone by dialing a short code and send it to the program.
BBC findings
The response is immediate
You need to tell people about it
Ask good questions
People like to be on TV
Keep it simple

2006-12-08

Telecom World, Hong Kong, December 4-8 2006

 ITU TW is moving
This year the show landed in Hong-Kong but with a low attendance. The next edition comes back in my hometown in Geneva. Our HP team was there to present the alfa-version of our Instant Communication solution over an IMS networks.
 TD-SCDMA starts slowly
I went to the anticipated press announcement of 3G trials with China Mobile, China Netcom, China Telecom with 10,000 users., Datang announced trials in Hong Kong, and ZTE in Romania. Alcatel Shanghai Bell confirmed their collaboration with Datang Mobile, and in parallel to ZTE released TD-SDMA supporting HSDPA. By 2008, TD-SCDMA will support the same 3GPP's evolution roadmap as W-CDMA. In the short term the terminal supply may be limited.
 PCCW 3G Video
PCCW mobile demonstrated their Easy Watch 3G video monitoring service. Unique pan-tilt and zoom functions give more control than usual fixed services. Video-calls are charged $1-2/min for on/off-net calls. PCCW also offers a video conferencing services. In parallel PCCW has a DVB-H trial with Motorola.
 Video devices
Huawei demonstrated video with the Viewpoint familly. A number of 3G-TDSCDMA video devices were also anounced.