Classified portals Homes.com and Match.com powered by SMS
Recent announcements of two major classified portals are growing the importance of SMS interactivity within the classified industry. The two largest classified verticals (a-) real estate & Homes.com; and (b-) personals and Match.com, are bridging online and offline user activity using SMS. Text messaging is put forward as the ideal communication vehicle to connect the users.
More stats & research: text messaging continues to grow each quarter
Worldwide SMS traffic was up year-on-year by around 50% to more than 620 billion messages in 1Q07 according Informa’s World Cellular Data Metrics: Link.
The mobile operator O2 revealed its 2007 second quarter results: a 15% growth year on year in SMS traffic up to 7.10 billion messages across the O2 group: Link.
Total Telecom covers Mobiya | Mobile phone becomes ad platform
Mobiya in the press. Story covered by Lorraine Turner. Read the complete article here: Download TotalTelecom.pdf
The Non-Believers and All-Believers : some market figures
"Do people really use sms?" is a frequently recurring question during many discussions with customers and investors alike. This question arises from a commonly held armchair opinion "Everyone is on the Internet!"
Categorizing the critics:
- The Non-Believers: unaware that the general population uses sms as a medium to communicate;
- The All-Believers: believing the Internet is the only place where people spend all of their time.
Market research provides the facts:
- In Belgium, 9.38 million people use a mobile, out of a 10.39 million population. A penetration of almost 90% compared to…
- only 57 percent of the Belgian population having a computer, 25% has never accessed the internet (shock!)
Furthermore…
- On average, each Belgian sends 477 sms’s a year
- The volume of text messages has increased by almost 30% (CAGR 05/06)
- The total amount of text messages in 2006 was 4,500,000,000 (as of billions)
The sources to these figures:
- "Elke Belg verstuurt 477 sms’jes per jaar" – Het Nieuwsblad (link)
- "Kwart Belgen nooit op internet" – Het Niewsblad (link)
It is important to note that these figures relate to Belgium, a tiny and complex country in Europe, about the size of Maryland. Given its complexity in multiple language demographics which brings with it some distinct cultural diversities, Belgium provides a unique market for research and opportunities. These findings should bring some perspective to the Non-Believers and All-Believers.
Mobiya analysis: Screen Stalkers – about mobile advertising
"We believe that mobile will be the most powerful advertising medium the world has ever seen" is the opening quote by Geraldine Wilson, VP at Yahoo, in the latest cover story about mobile advertising in Red Herring. "Earnings from Web 2.0 could be peanuts compared to what’s ahead for mobile ads" is the general tone of the complete story. "Global mobile advertising revenues will reach 11.35 billion by 2011" according to Informa Telecoms & Media. A must read article: Screen Stalkers (flip to page 17).
Mobile advertising is the oil for Mobiya’s classified engine. Mobiya connects advertisers (sellers) and responders (buyers) over our mobile classified platform using SMS and MMS for communication. Mobile advertising will help us to drive alternative revenue sources into our business. In addition to that, SMS will remain the preferred communication vehicle to share links with friends to new mobile web sites and services, or to upload and respond to classifieds, offline and online. A combination of an (almost) free mobile classified service driven by SMS and MMS, could be the preferred platform for portals, operators and classified players to serve mobile ads to consumers… Billions of ads…
Unfortunately 90% of today’s mail traffic on the internet is spam. Also in the mobile world, corporate advertisers need a communication vehicle to direct user to mobile web sites, and indirectly to mobile ads. As Ovum’s Ms. Zoller rightly states "Spam is the real no-no in mobile." This is the exactly where Mobiya’s sweetspot is, providing a communication platform with behavioral context around buying and selling in direct communication with a consumer. How?
In order to successfully serve targeted mobile ads you need (a) context = consumer acceptance and situational intention such as buying or selling, budget, timing, etc. (b) location = is at the very heart of a classified advertising system – location based services is at the centre of the Mobiya system and (c) rich media = the mobile device will be the preferred device by far for video and imaging. How easy it is to upload a digital image or video together with your classified in one simple message!
Just to conclude: 2.84 billion mobile phones are currently in use, growing quickly to over 3.25 billion by year’s end. All portal giants (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL) have made mobile as top priority. Some have been acquiring early-stage companies already, very opportunistic not to miss the mobile advertising window. Mobile network operators (Vodafone, Virgin, NTT DoCoMo) have been preparing the networks for mobile advertising. Also Blyk is mentioned, quickly becoming a serious MNO player and already moving into the classified space: see article.
All these companies need a reason to advertise to their consumer in a mobile world. Classifieds and e-commerce have been driving the internet traffic in the last decade. eBay and Amazon have been dominating the online space. Is Mobiya positioned to play in that new global mobile world?
Reed Business Information selects Mobiya’s mobile classified media platform
London: Mobiya the leading provider of mobile classified media solutions, today announced that Reed Business Information (RBI), one of the world’s leading business to business publishers, selected Mobiya’s classified media platform to help them innovate and dominate the emerging mobile classified opportunity in their markets. RBI has a portfolio of more than 100 news and information products, covering 18 markets. Mobiya will initially activate 2 out of these 18 markets through an OEM agreement. Congratulations to our UK team and RBI’s corporate development group in achieving this tremendous result. An official press release will follow later this month.