Mobiya press clippings (today’s links)
- m-trends.org: Mobiya and Metro launch mobile classified service in Belgium.
- web.2point0.be: Mobiya strikes (sms) deal with Metro.
Mobiya and Metro launch mobile classified service today: SMS Deal
Mobiya inked a strategic deal with Metro. From tomorrow readers of the free newspaper Metro in Belgium will be able to place classified ads using SMS and MMS. The Belgian-British company Mobiya, market leader in the mobile classifieds industry, is providing the supporting technology and mobile services. The service is live since today at Metrotime.be.
Find out more:
- Press release in French: Download 26.03.07 – Metro petites annonces.pdf
- Press release in Dutch: Download 26.03.07 – Metro lanceert zoekertjes.pdf
- Today’s coverpage Metro (French): Download metrofr_2007.03.26.pdf
- Today’s coverpage Metro (Dutch): Download metronl_2007.03.26.pdf
I would like to thank the Metro team, in particular Nancy and Serge for their enthousiasm and support! At our side, Stijn and Henk: excellent job. Keep going.
Newspapers and outsourcing
Mobiya has gone into the market with a Classified outsourcing proposition, although the first customers of Mobiya are publishers without a Classified business. It was a hard sell to confront established publishers with their decreasing Classified business and show them how Mobiya could innovate and turnaround that part of the business using mobile services.
It is difficult to sell Christmas to a turkey, but here are the first signals of the newspaper industry starting to outsource core-activity: A New Zealand publisher (APN New Zealand) announced Thursday its plan to outsource much of its editorial production to another company. Newspaper and magazine editors would retain total control of all published material, APN said. Content selection, design and layout of main news and sport pages also would continue at each local site.
Time for Mobiya now to dust off the Classified outsourcing proposition and get back to our newspaper executive contacts. Publishers should publish. They should not run IT systems. Publishers need to help advertisers, editors and innovators to connect with their markets using their media and brand.
Co-founder Mobiya speaks at VBO-FEB press conference
VBO-FEB (Federation of Enterprises Belgium) has launched a national campaign to promote entrepreneurship in Belgium. The campaign ‘Your-Own-Company‘ will run for 2 months in national newspapers such as Metro. Objective is to motivate new graduates and younger professionals (aged 18-35) to startup their own companies. The launch of the campaign takes place during a press conference at the first day of the conference Ondernemen 2007.
Sacha Vekeman, co-founder of Mobiya, is invited to provide a testimonial during the press conference next week. The press conference is headed by the president of VBO-FEB, Jean-Claude Daoust. He is the second most influential person in Belgium, next to the minister of economy, Fientje Moerman, when it concerns economic affairs. Mobiya gains visibility and respect on a very senior and national level.
Newspaper classified ad spending fell 7.1%
Time for newspapers to start embracing new revenue generating solutions. Mobile is certainly one of them. The game is no longer to protect the classified revenue as it will be completely gone in 5 years. The new classified revenue streams are being captured by new media players such as Yahoo, Google and eBay. These companies have also started to buy space into newspapers. Therefore newspaper will loose two times: the classified revenue slips while their margins are being pressed downwards as advertising volume from portal giants increase. Mobiya can help newspaper executives to stay in control of their revenue stream and content, both offline as online.
Source: Total Content + Media: "Newspaper classified ad spending fell 7.1% to $4.87 billion (USA)."
Mobiya launches affiliate program with first partner
Mobiya is proud to announce the activation of their first affiliate partner using the Mobiya Classifieds Gateway. Rommelmarkten.be is a very popular Belgian community site specializing in sole trader events and garage sales.
Alex Vander Cruyssen, owner of the site commented “Adding classifieds to the portal was the next step up, but that was easier said than done. I had tried adding Classified adverts to Rommelmarkten.be in the past, but the administration overhead and the absence of an online business model pushed me to reconsider and I decided to partner with experts to overcome these problems."
Mobiya delivers an end-to-end, fully managed and revenue generating, turn key solution. Alex continuous: "They made the integration with my website look simple and the system is as good as 100% automated. Most importantly the user experience is new and refreshing, making it appealing to my 500,000 users. There is so much potential in mobile-to-web advertising, I’m happy to working with Mobiya to exploit this emerging market.”
Monster in newspaper deals
Mobiya has envisioned to close the gap between online and offline media. It seems that Monster, the online job classified and search portal has recently inked deals with 55 newspapers. Newspapers can now have their own employment classified ads co-listed in Monster’s database and giving online advertisers an easy way to buy print ads in the paper.
Funny enough Monster was long seen as a threat to newspapers’ lucrative classified business, which is being challenged by many online alternatives including the free classified site Craigslist. Newspapers are taking a variety of approaches to the threat of losing their highly profitable classified advertising revenue to the Web.
What about the mobile side of online and offline media? Mobiya maybe…
Sources: Total Telecom + Media; Monster press release
Mobiya recruits: product marketing manager – cross media
Ready to join a mobile 2.0 company? Are you as hungry and ambitious as we are to make a difference in a global economy? Have you read the book Leading the Revolution? Mobiya’s plan for the next three years is simple: "First we take our competitor’s markets and their customers. Next, we’ll take their best employees. Finally, we’ll take their assets." – Gary Hamel.
- Find out more: Download StartNow.pdf.
- Join now: send your CV in English to startnow@mobiya.com.
Mobiya in the press
Mobiya is featured in a cover story about Mobile Marketing in the March ’07 issue of the Internet & digital media magazine Inside. The complete article gives a boost to Mobile Advertising in Belgium and provides examples of mobile marketing campaigns for Ikea, Bacardi and Q8.
Read: Mobiya, gericht adverteren dankzij Classifieds. Click here: Download inside_blz_30.jpg.
Mobiya about international expansion
Mobiya is constantly analyzing expansion possibilities. Yesterday we received a call from a big Chinese mobile player about our near-future plans in Asia. China is an attractive proposition: 500,000,000 mobile users and growing. A huge classified market! Earlier this year we started to prepare the UK operation. Next country on the radar: the Americas, but we are in doubt about the readiness of the market. This interview with Jay Emmet, President of mBlox Americas, about text messaging is encouraging. Read the Q&A here.