Mobiya at Mobile Content World?

London’s Mobile Content World is Europe’s largest mobile content event and brings together the most pioneering executives of leading companies active in mobile media and entertainment: mobile TV, mobile music, mobile advertising and interactive entertainment.

50 international companies are trying to grab the attention of mobile operators, content owners, portal giants and media groups, demonstrating their mobile solutions and networking skills. This year, Mobile Content World added a new group of people: investors.

Mobiya was first to present at the Investor Lion’s Den, a live investment show based on the popular BBC program Dragon’s Den. This BBC programme is a series where entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to secure investment finance from dragons – elite business enterpreneurs.

Mobiya was selected as a finalist and was able to present at the Investor Lion’s Den headed by Doug Richart (Library House), Khrisna Visvanathan (3i) and Ray Anderson the CEO of Bango.

Belgium lost, Mobiya won

It has been 14 days since our last company announcement. Due to the preparation of the Fed Cup final in Belgium and London’s Mobile Content World last week, we have been working around the clock, including weekends to follow up with our customers and investors… and still be present at these events.

Let’s start with a recap of the Fed Cup final. Main highglights:

• airtime: Mobiya’s brand was on prime time television in both Belgium and Italy for two days.
• traffic: traffic to the portals www.mobiya.com and beta.mobiya.be doubled since the Fed Cup final weekend.
• launch: Mobiya did a soft launch of its Belgian platform www.mobiya.be. Users can sms or mms their advertisement directly into the portal using the short code 4050.

Belgium lost the final after the Fed Cup was decided by injury in the last match. Justin Henin-Hardenne (see picture below) was forced to retire early in the third set due to right knee problems.

Mobiya’s value chain = strong partnerships

Many smart investors challenge us with the statement "eBay can do this themselves?" Interestingly enough eBay is using a third party application service provider ‘Dynetic‘ to deliver sms re-bidding services to various eBay platforms in different countries (Spain, Austria, USA) on top of the mobile transaction network mBlox. Read the complete post at the Mobile Marketing Magazine website.

This confirms the approach of Mobiya to look for partnerships in the mobile classifieds value chain, both on a supplier as on a distribution level. Many of our larger newspaper customers confirmed that the Mobiya ecosystem to deliver a mobile enabled service for classified advertising is preferably done over a company that has a focus and specialist solution. If you are interested to find out how our value chain looks like: contact us at info@mobiya.com.

Mobiya, Wilson and BNP Paribas

Mobiya remains globally visible as we get closer to the 2006 Fed Cup Final by BNP Paribas. Mobiya has signed as an Official Sponsor of the Final, joining title sponsor BNP Paribas and International partner Wilson Sporting Goods (Official Ball). According to ITF’s latest newsletter, this groundbreaking sponsorship deal will see the world’s first mobile short code promotion (4050) at a worldwide sports stadium event, and coincides with the launch of Mobiya’s person-to-person mobile enabled classified advertising service.

   

ITF announcement on Mobiya

The International Tennis Federation (ITF) is the world governing body of tennis,  one of the few truly global sports, and yesterday announced Mobiya as an official sponsor of the 2006 Fed Cup Final by BNP Paribas. The ITF has 203 member National Associations – more than most other international sporting federations. Please read the announcement here which has been distributed in more than 200 countries or download the complete issue of the ITF weekly newsletter.

Special newspaper report by The Economist

"Who killed the newspaper?" This post is not a summary of the complete article that appeared as a cover story in The Economist last week. This post is about sharing information on initiatives that publishers take to counter declining revenues. The special report ‘More Media, Less News" provides an insight in the media evolution and how media groups deal (or don’t deal) with the Internet and other new-media, call it mobile media and social media.

Trial and error has been the remedy for the last couple of years, but today it is about finding a solid solution for new revenue streams. Classified revenues are quickly shifting online, but there is no defined business model at the other side of the spectrum, where almost everything is free. And let’s be honest, you can’t subsidize your print division and online operation with Google Adsense and banner advertising.

Another article by De Tijd explains how media groups are introducing new web sites and new freesheet titles (daily or weekly) to help them counter the decline in circulation and lowering advertising revenues. In Paris, Le Monde and Le Figaro are launching a free daily. In London, Rupert Murdoch’s News International is ready to start printing The London Paper.

Rupert Murdoch is quoted a couple of times throughout the special report. He is making a big move to catch up by attracting younger readers through his purchase of MySpace’s social media platform. Social media brings entertainment, lifestyle and subjects relevant to the daily lives of the younger generation together. Social media is about blogging, texting, podcasting, gaming, etc.

Final quote from The Economist "Even the most confident of newspaper bosses now agree that they will survive in the long term only if, they can reinvent themselves on the Internet and on other new-media platforms such as mobile phones and portable electronic devices." This is exactly where Mobiya plays, reinventing the classified advertising business model and user experience using new-media platforms that allow content to be generated by SMS and distributed through RSS. Simple and effective.