i-mode Business Strategy

Discovery discovers i-mode and goes direct in WAP

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Last October, Discovery launched its first i-mode service in the UK on the 02 network. Discovery Mobile's i-mode site offers Discovery branded downloads, trivia, games and programming information from across its portfolio of channels as well as exclusive Discovery content available only to i-mode subscribers.

Discovery Communications has now announced the launch of its first direct-to-consumer WAP portal in the United Kingdom allowing consumers for the first time to access Discovery's content via WAP, mobile TV and i-mode platforms across Europe.

The Discovery Mobile services in Europe are part of the company's worldwide effort to create content and businesses for new distribution platforms including broadband, mobile devices, video on demand, satellite radio service and others. The new offerings are designed to complement the company's television networks by strengthening viewers' loyalty and attracting new audiences to the company's worldwide brands.

"Today's announcement continues Discovery's aggressive drive to extend our programming leadership beyond linear television, demonstrating the worldwide appeal, utility and flexibility of our content," said Don Baer, Senior Executive Vice President for Strategy and Development, Discovery Communications.

(Discovery Mobile can be accessed from any UK network by texting DISCOVERY to 83200 or through the mobile URL at discoverymobile.co.uk.)

The launch of the Discovery Mobile WAP service follows the creation and deployment of the Discovery Mobile TV service, the company’s first branded video service developed specifically for mobile platforms. The Discovery Mobile TV service is produced specifically for 3G mobile users and consists of a weekly two-hour block of short video segments created for viewing in a mobile environment. (The Discovery Mobile TV service is available via Vodafone partners in UK, France, Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal.)

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Robotech brings Harmony to Cybird

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Airborne Entertainment, a subsidiary of one of Japan's and i-mode's most famous content provers, CYBIRD, announced a deal with Harmony Gold USA to bring the legendary anime series Robotech to mobile phones.

As one of the first anime series to bridge the continental gap and truly take hold in North America, the Robotech suite of wireless content will include wallpapers, ringtones and ringback tones, with a mobile game just a few steps behind.

"Airborne has been extremely successful in mobilizing many highly recognized brands and we are thrilled to be able to offer ringtones. wallpapers and games to our loyal Robotech and anime fans," commented Christy Pawlak, Director of Business Development for Harmony Gold.

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Control Freaks TV-based games portal launches on i-mode 3G

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Australia's Brave Vision launched Control Freaks in conjunction with the new Telstra 3G i-mode service. Control Freaks is a 2.5G & 3G enabled i-mode and Active games portal.

Based on the locally-produced international TV show, Control Freaks is a Computer and Video Games i-mode subscription service that features text-based content, and full motion video.

"Control Freaks is a magazine style program which entertains and informs gamers with News, Reviews, Previews and Features - all about the video games industry. An Australian Games Chart link, with weekly updated Charts, and a newly implemented cheats guide, bundled with the ability to watch what you want, when you want, makes Control Freaks the premier mobile 'gamers resource' in the country," declares Brett Howe, Creative Director of Brave Vision.

Control Freaks is one of the official sponsors of the Australian Game Developers Conference (1-3 December 2005, Melbourne) and will be posting updates daily directly from the floor at AGDC. Available online at control-freaks.tv and on the Control Freaks Telstra i-mode services, gamers unable to attend in person will for the first time be able to keep up with the latest developments at Australia's only National Game Development Gathering.

"We are excited by the possibilities that i-mode presents, and look forward to continued design and development of this, and other mobile video projects," said Howe.

Control Freaks (TV Show) has been broadcast in Asia, Europe, Australia and The Middle East, and with another 26 episode season locked in for Q1&2 in 2006.

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Japanese record companies hold back on iTunes

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When Apple announced launched its iTunes Music Store in Japan, some of the big record companies were noticable by the absence of their content.

iTunes created one of the nation's biggest online music downloading services.  Just four days after launch, the number of songs downloaded was already into seven figures. This download rate is faster than any of the service's launches in the 20 nations it's now available, reports Forbes.

Before iTunes' arrival, Japan's top music download service, which is backed by Sony and includes Sony recording artists (see below), averaged about 450,000 downloads a month.

However even with a collection of roughly one million songs, the offering does not include the songs of a number of major Japanese artists.

The reason for this is that Apple has not hammered out yet an agreement with some of the big record companies like Sony Music Entertainment (Japan), Victor Entertainment and Warner Music Japan.

The reasons of the major companies are varied; Victor says that it needs more time although it is considering supplying songs to iTunes Music Store.

Apple said it would offer 1 million songs for Y150 or Y200 a piece and gradually increase the number of tunes available (about a 50% premium to the US price of $0.99).

Sony's music downloading service, Mora, which is operated as a joint venture with other groups, had 200,000 songs available in May and charges Y210 per song.

The threat to Sony is obvious and serious, and adds to Sony's general woes and lack of leadership in recent years.

Observers note that Sony's absence in the project is due to disagreements related to the downloading prices for the songs.  Artists signed to Sony have been reported to be approaching iTunes directly for representation, rebelling against Sony.

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Newspapers react to Murdoch to become more relevant to community and mobile interaction

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RedNova.news has a story on FT.COM and its aim to increase paid subscriber content, including mobile.

The newspaper has just extended deputy editor Chrystia Freeland's brief to include electronic services. The former FT.com editor will be responsible for developing the site and newer platforms such as mobile phones. It's the first time such a senior journalist has been put in charge of online strategy.

The Financial Times is transforming itself into a multi-channel content brand to meet the challenges of the digital age, says online publishing director Nigel Pocklington. FT.com is gearing up to use the G8 summit as an opportunity to experiment with the boundaries of newspaper websites. See " Blog: The End of Poverty".

"The G8 will be an example of where we are going to go with this, " says Nigel Pocklington, online publishing director.

"We will cover the story in a very interactive way, with two or three people reporting in a blogging style. There will be updates throughout the day."

Unlike newspaper websites such as Guardian Unlimited, the FT has avoided blogs because it feels they are less suited to business content.

"The question for us is, how can you engage people not only to come to the site once a day but to come back because a story has changed, or to join a debate."

"We're in the middle of a rather uncomfortable generational shift," said Mr Pocklington.

"It can feel as if the world has gone blog mad, and there are attacks on mainstream media everywhere," said Mr Pocklington.

"It's clear that there is a wider discussion taking place and we need to figure a way of taking part in that."

There are also plans to improve the mobile-phone version of the site and create a Blackberry version.

"Much of our work is managing device proliferation - we can't afford not to be on a lot of these platforms," said Mr Pocklington.

"The Blackberry, for example, is a hugely important device in the business world and similarly Pearson, our publisher, is starting to put chunks of college text books on iPods to reach students."

The more ways of making FT available, the more opportunities to sell advertising, sponsorship and paid-for content. Much of this is being put down to the changes in ad spending, where spending on internet advertising rose 60% to pounds-653 million in 2004 in the UK, overtaking radio for the first time. In the first quarter of this year, it was up another 52%, putting it neck-and- neck with outdoor spending and almost double the size of radio.

In the midst of this, there was also the matter of a speech by Rupert Murdoch. Speaking in Washington in April, he told an audience of newspaper editors that he had not done as much online after the dotcom crash as he should have.

"I believe too many of us editors and reporters are out of touch with our readers. Too often, the question we ask is 'Do we have the story?' rather than 'Does anyone want the story?' As an industry, most of us have been remarkably, unaccountably, complacent."

Jemima Kiss, news editor of journalism. co. uk, which specialises in online publishing, says his speech sent shockwaves through the industry.

"Old school hacks have suddenly been realising that if Murdoch, the bastion of newspaper publishing, says the internet is the way to go, they really need to take it seriously, " she says.

One of the big debates is whether you can expect internet users to pay for news.

FT's decision to increase its proportion of subscriber-only stories is thought of as one reason why traffic has dived - page impressions (the total number of pages accessed on a site) in January was 46 million, some 14 million down on the same month in 2004.

Pocklington says that the balance between free and paid-for stories is around 60/40, and argues this is about right.

"We still make more money from advertising than subscriptions, by some distance. I would like to see our subscriber numbers [nearly 80,000] grow, but I am not going to do that at the expense of ad revenue."

- see this interview with Tracy Corrigan, Editor of FT.com Will paid content be the future for web publishers?

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IM and mobile takes leap forward with MS Voda tie-up

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Vodafone and Microsoft's MSN unit plan to launch an instant messaging service that will allow communication between mobile phone users and computers, the companies announced recently.

They aim to launch the messaging service in several European countries before the end of 2005.  See Google reports here.

Users will be able to see the presence of their contacts and exchange instant messages between MSN Messenger on a computer and Vodafone Messenger on mobile phones and vice versa.

The service aims to bring together more then 165 million MSN Messenger users with nearly 155 million Vodafone customers around the world, and increase traffic on their networks.

Vodafone said that the service will be charged on the commonly-used mobile commercial model of "calling party pays" and contract customers would be able to pay for the service through their mobile bills.

"By bringing our collective customers together, we'll deliver more options for staying in touch when messaging. Our agreement will grow IM (instant messaging) and SMS (text messages), meaning additional revenue for Vodafone," Vodafone's Chief Marketing officer Peter Bamford said.

Mobile Content World for iCF Members 10% discount for Members Sign Up Mail iCF 6th Annual Conference and Exhibition, 13–15 September 2005 London. MCW Brochure

What Vodafone's Bamford didn't mention was that Microsoft has suddenly realised that it can capitalise on the operator's charging model to make IM users pay for what was previously free.  The Enquirier uncovered the deal with their "I smell a rat" story - worth reading.

Those using Messenger have long been able to send messages to those with mobile phones but when the INQ spotted the recent tie-up between Microsoft and Vodafone, it smelt a rat. Sure enough there was now a new window asking for payment.

MSN customers will have to buy the special messaging package from MSN, while Vodafone customers will either prepay or pay as they go, with charges appearing in their monthly bills.

This move brings not only IM to mobile to the forefront, but also opens up other possibilities related to the Microsoft's mobile ambitions.  For example, VOIP analyst Om Malik commented in his blog that Microsoft might buy San Francisco-based Teleo since the service would be a solid choice as it already works with devices—mobile phones, e-mail and Web browsers—regularly employed by Windows users.

Users can make phone calls from inside Microsoft Outlook. Also, Malik said he can see Teleo carries distinct similarities to Windows Communicator, an enterprise combo app composed of IM, voice, video, Web conferencing capabilities.

In Australia later this year, Optus (owned by Singtel) will offer instant MSN messaging between its 3G subscribers and between 3G mobile phones personal computers.

This news, all together, seems quite modest, but it points to a new phase of integrated mobile communications development and the role of presence and desktop integration is key for business users, as well as the attractiveness of mobile IM for consumers.

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European top-10 mobile games content providers

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Mobile Games Analyst, the research journal of the Mobile Entertainment Industry from Informa Telecoms & Media, has just released its top 10 list of leading content providers in Europe.

The report from Mobile Games Analyst, covers the reach of mobile games publishers.

Content providers were rated on how successful they were in getting their products onto the mobile operators games decks, the number of mobile operators they supplied games to and the size of the mobile operator’s subscriber bases. From these rankings, each company received a composite score.

Top 10 Publishers (weight by operator and games)
Rank	Publisher	Points
1	Gameloft	165
2	InfoSpace	125
3	Sumea	121
4	In-Fusio	117
5	Digital Bridges (I-play)	111
6	THQW	108
7	Sorrent	96
8	Living Mobile	92
9	Jamdat	89
10	iFone	88
Note: Markets include France, Germany, Italy, Spain and UK. Publishers awarded one point for presence on deck of operator with less than 5 million subs two points for a operator of 5-10 million subs etc., plus one point for presence on less than five operator decks, two points for six to eight operator decks, etc., plus one point for one to 10 games on a cellco's deck, two points for 11-20 games on a cellco's deck, etc. Source: Mobile Games Analyst, operator data

In April Informa named the top three mobile games publishers in the UK as local outfits' iFone, Iomo and Digital Bridges.

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Mobile Content Development Workshop: Richmotion

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Australia: Following on from the success of the i-mode Forum, lab.3000 is running a series of practical workshops that will give you the skills to create your own mobile website and content application. Richmotion technology allows for the easy creation of rich media across a very broad range of mobile devices.

Mobile Content World for iCF Members 10% discount for Members Sign Up Mail iCF 6th Annual Conference and Exhibition, 13–15 September 2005 London. MCW Brochure

Who Should Attend?

The target audience is content creators who are interested in learning more about mobile platforms with a focus on i-mode, those looking for new ways to engage customers and have ideas about content integration.

Date:  15 June 2005
Time: 1.30-6pm
Venue: lab.3000 Incubator, Level 3, 257 Collins Street, Melbourne
Speakers: Kynan Woodman, Lead Programmer, NDware
Ticket price: $50 and $45 student and concession

This workshop will cater to new comers to Richmotion.

It will introduce the basic concepts of developing content for mobile phones and allow participants to start applying those concepts. After becoming familiar with the Richmotion Live feature set, participants will be able to create content based on their existing art work.

Tutors will guide participants through this task and recommend appropriate techniques.

To register, please click Book a Place and follow the prompts.

For more information please contact:
Michelle Milton
lab.3000
t: 03 9925 4810
e: michelle.milton@rmit.edu.au

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Can the mobile develop as a genre without carrier support for content development?

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Following the competition sponsored by iCF and lab.3000 for content developers in Melbourne last April the three winners attended Mobile Content Forum Asia Pacific in Sydney.

Mobile Content World for iCF Members 10% discount for Members Sign Up Mail iCF 6th Annual Conference and Exhibition, 13–15 September 2005 London. MCW Brochure

After MCW we gathered in Melbourne to discuss what we each found most interesting about the conference, although in the case of David Taft from Harvey Taft productions the discussion was more one of frustration:

David: The mobile phone will never become a genre for content in its own right as long as there is no money for content development.  I'm frustrated  that at the entire Mobile World Conference there was no discussion or even contemplation of carriers paying for content development.

For example, tomorrow I am presenting to ABC TV a film concept for production, which they will fund.  And after the fund it I will still own the intellectual property - the production itself.

When I approach carriers and ask to present a business case for them to fund production they don't take me seriously.  We don't even get to presentation - it's just not the model for mobile content.

David's version of what makes a "genre" is where original content specific to that presentation medium (mobile) is developed and exists only in that form.  Whereas he laments that the mobile is simply a portal for content which has been paid for somewhere else in another genre's system and simply re-purposed for mobile.

David Taft has a soul-mate in Russell Buckley at The Mobile Technology Weblog who almost at the same time posted his Advice To Operators #1 where he says:

...This delivery process requires new products and services coming to market in record numbers. This means products and services created with the customer in mind, in classic user-driven, innovative product development methodologies. ...Let's face it. These innovative products and services won't be invented by operators.

This type of innovation is simply not what they're they're good at. So how should operators inject innovation into their businesses? One way would be to try to change the corporate culture and make it creative and customer-centric. But, by any measure, that would be incredibly hard to do, not to mention a major, long term initiative.

...So, as far as I'm concerned, there's a pretty simple answer. Innovation will come from the independent development community and entrepreneurs (often the same animal actually) who are also power users on new mobile applications.

...However, what developers and entrepreneurs generally need is money, which the operators have an awful lot of. Funds are particularly scarce in the Mobile industry, which unlike the early days of the web, has had very little VC money injected into it - especially start-up/seed stage investment.

So why don't operators give the developers financial support?

It's a good question and perhaps a fundamental one if the mobile is to develop into its own genre and become not just the 4th screen but the 4th entertainment experience.

Ajit Jaokar picks up on this topic in his opening post for his new blog Open Gardens.

Earlier this month, DoCoMo posted a profit of $7 billion for the fiscal year ended in March, which was up from $6.1 billion the previous year. A meager $100m or so for content originators, carefully directed, could result in substantial new streams of innovation and progress towards the establishment of the mobile as a genre in its own right.

Of course this can also be accomplished as a social obligation of awarding spectrum for wireless carriage, in the same way as for TV operators.  In Australia free-to-air TV must show 55% Australian content and CTV operators 10% of their broadcast hours must be Australian content.

(Other winners of the iCF/lab.3000 content contest were Globalentertainment and Steamfish)

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Sprint introduces new game categories as Tetris goes double-platinum

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On the US Sprint network Tetris® by JAMDAT has reached double-platinum status with more than two million downloads. Bejeweled by JAMDAT and PAC-MAN by Namco have earned gold status with more than 500,000 downloads. These games join the ranks of JAMDAT Bowling and Ms. PAC-MAN by Namco that went platinum and gold, respectively, in October 2004.

"These games are so popular because they're well-known titles that are fun, simple, usable and reliable," said Jason Ford, general manager - Games, Sprint.

"We are pleased to recognize JAMDAT and Namco for helping drive the popularity of mobile gaming and look forward to working with all our game partners to continue the phenomenal growth and loyalty we've built since Sprint launched its first game in August 2002."

The U.S. mobile gaming market is expected to grow at a steady rate. According to In-Stat/MDR forecasts, mobile gaming users will increase from an estimated 10.6 million in 2003 to 78.6 million in 2009, and game downloads are expected to grow from 40.2 million in 2003 to 648.3 million by 2009. In addition, mobile game revenues are forecasted to increase from $91.3 million in 2003 to $1.8 billion, or 4.4 percent of all wireless data revenue, by 2009.

Sprint's New Game Categories

Sprint has unveiled new categories on its games deck. The new game categories, many "unique in the mobile games industry", will make it faster and easier for customers to find the games they want to play based on interests and lifestyles.

The new categories include:

• Lite Fun - offering Scrabble® from JAMDAT, Hangman Tournament from Jsmart and other titles that are popular with women
• Quick Play - find games like Block Breaker Deluxe from Gameloft and Bejeweled Multiplayer from JAMDAT that can be played in just a couple minutes
• Games for Gamers - games such as Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory from Gameloft and Call of Duty(TM) from Mforma are best left to the pros
• Only on Sprint - hot games exclusively offered to Sprint customers.

The game categories that Sprint customers have become familiar with are still available, many with subcategories to speed up the game search.

"The new categories will make it easier for customers to find what they want and will benefit our game partners by giving their games more visibility with listings in multiple categories," Ford said.

Sprint also announced several milestones for the Game Lobby - a virtual mobile community for gamers to meet, recommend games and challenge each other.

Launched in March 2004 with M7 Networks as the world's first carrier-based mobile games community, the Game Lobby from Sprint boasts:

• More than 500,000 members
• 67 games from 12 leading mobile game publishers
• Nearly six million game scores posted by members to leaderboards
• More than 40,000 game reviews uploaded by members, which help other customers buy the best games
• The "just-launched" status points program where customers earn points for their activities to enhance the fun, competitive nature of the virtual games community.

"As the first carrier to recognize the consumer demand for a virtual gaming community, Sprint created the Game Lobby to provide a ubiquitous mobile experience for both hardcore and casual gamers," said Jason Ford, general manager - Games, Sprint.

"We are enhancing this community experience by adding a status points program to the Game Lobby so members can accrue points for community-related activities, such as posting scores, updating profiles and recommending games to buddies."

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