Mobile News

Mobile handset manufacturers provide the technology foundation for the creative possibilities in mobile marketing. Common technologies used today in commercial projects for mobile marketing include interactive voice response (IVR), SMS, WAP and MMS.

An interesting emerging technology that we will not cover but is worth mentioning is the Wireless Village instant messaging and presence service (IMPS). IMPS includes four key features: presence, instant messaging, groups and shared content. Handsets with IMPS support were available in 3Q 2003. With IMPS, the Wireless Village intends to further blur the border between mobile phones and desktop computers. The required interoperability improvements across devices will be interesting for mobile marketing solution providers looking at tapping further into the peer-to-peer (P2P) communication taking place between subscribers.

To draw a parallel with Internet-based P2P networks, Beverly Hills-based BigChampagne conducted a series of “instant” P2P marketing campaigns to test the effectiveness of its data-mining software. In one trial, BigChampagne’s software logged onto Napster at designated intervals and searched user hard drives for MP3 files of songs by the rock band Toad the Wet Sprocket. Whenever it found one, the program fired off a personalised instant message, directing the user to check out the web site of ex-Toad singer-songwriter Glen Phillips. BigChampagne fired off 54,000 instant missives that generated a 40% hit rate for Phillips.

IMPS brings the necessary tools for the creation of mobile P2P networks that might then see the intervention of mobile marketing services interacting with instant messaging users in a similar way to what BigChampagne’s software interaction with the Napster community.