Press Release November 27th ’08:

mKhoj a leading global mobile advertising company that is focused on APAC and SA, today announced its partnership with TexoMobile’s first mobile affiliation platform, MobPartner that enables independent WAPmasters to monetize their traffic. The partnership promises an exclusive deal for advertisers and publishers under the ‘money making program’.



mKhoj in its endeavor to assist advertisers in getting one of the best ROI and helping publishers monetize their traffic has partnered with TexoMobile’s MobPartner to enable advertisers top up their money with extra benefits and publishers to earn more on their regular traffic.



mKhoj says, “We are giving an edge to TexoMobile’s MobPartner by enhancing their ‘money making program’ which would enable the advertisers the best ROI and maximize their advertising budgets at no extra cost and the publishers gain extra on their already existing traffic. This program has been crafted in a way to ensure that both Advertisers and publishers get great saving and a lot of benefits from this partnership”.

“We are very excited to work with mKhoj that has a global reach with strong presence in APAC and SA.” said Vianney Settini, co-CEO of TexoMobile. “Our 26 000 affiliates already earn money with our affiliate programs, and need also a good advertising company to monetize their traffic. TexoMobile is excited to work working with mKhoj who have money making program for Wapmasters and wish to work with MobPartner”.

About TexoMobile
TexoMobile is a creator of mobile communities such as iGloo.mobi. TexoMobile also manages the largest wapmaster community on the mobile internet with MobPartner. MobPartner is one of the first Mobile Affiliation Platform. Our 26 000 affiliates are able to earn money with our affiliate programs (Jamster, Wild Jack Casino ...) and generate traffic with our white label sites (DirLink, MobiParade, Freeastro ...). TexoMobile helps companies to accelerate their mobile strategy, by increase of traffic, sales or registrations.

About mKhoj
mKhoj is one of the largest mobile ad networks in the world that offers solutions for advertising and monetizing on the mobile web.  It enables global, regional and local advertisers in extending their reach in Asia - Pacific, Africa and the Middle East. mKhoj allows advertisers to discover their target audience using its advanced targeting technology via mobile internet sites and it enables publishers of such sites to monetize their traffic. The mission of mKhoj is to provide business model and technology to enable the growth of mobile internet. mKhoj was started in 2007 and is backed by two of Silicon Valley’s top VC firms: Kleiner Perkins Caulfied & Byers (KPCB) and Ram Shriram’s Sherpalo Ventures.

Many of us are excited or intrigued to really see what the G1, as the new Google Android phone from T-Mobile is commonly called. Well thanks to WDSGlobal you all can right now.



You get a tutorial of what and how to use the entire phone. It is all very well set out and clear.



Really very useful for us in the mobile internet industry so that we can conceptualize what exactly we can do with this new tool.. is Google a threat or a friend for the new social networks popping up or what will the G1 do for content models.. ?? Very nice toy from WDS Global.

More about WDSGlobal:

Since 1995, WDSGlobal has been focused on helping mobile operators, handset manufacturers and content providers meet their customers' expectations for service and quality. From handset validation and readiness testing to mobile device management and end-user support, WDSGlobal today offers the mobile industry's most complete solution for the management of subscribers, devices and services.

With dedicated support centers in the UK, USA, South Africa and Australia, no one gets a better view of the complete mobile user experience. Every day, WDSGlobal collects, validates and shares data about devices, services and user behavior, using it to feed GlobalMine - the industry's most comprehensive knowledge base and foundation for the company's portfolio of carrier-grade products and services.

The company currently counts over 100 customers, including most of the world's largest handset manufacturer and mobile operator brands, and is headquartered in Poole, UK. For more information, please visit www.wdsglobal.com

Qik is a ground breaking video streaming service. Basically and very simply put they allow you to film from your mobile and stream directly to a central server which in turn broadcasts the stream to other mobile or web sites. They have a few competitors like Kyte and Flixwagon but have a significant lead.

Following is a simple diagram that demonstrates what it is that Qik does :


Here are some real life shots of what people stream. This is the most eloquent explanation of the rather trivial.. but actually kind of exciting and even scary possibilities that the mobile using Qik offers :


They have taken a rather interesting challenge to make this service available to the largest number of users by make a Java app that can be downloaded to non smart phones. It opens the doors to feature phones that a large audience uses.. and therefore make it possible that this could really go mass.. meaning the billions of Java enabled phones.. in Asia and South America.. along with Europe, Africa and of course the USA.

Here are the mobiles with which it is compatible in its Alpha launch :
Nokia handsets now supported: 5300, 6300, 6500 classic, 6500 slide, Nokia 6555, Nokia 8800 Arte
Sony Ericsson handsets now supported: K850, K858, W890, W910, W908, K660, G502, Z750

It will be interesting to see if there is really an up-take of this service as it could be very addictive. Lets watch and see.

Simon & Schuster, of Star Trek fame, has struck a deal with MPS Mobile’s Global Reader, which will distribute more than five hundred of the publisher’s bestselling and popular titles on its Global Reader mobile service. Simon & Schuster plans to make its entire eBook catalog available to the service in the coming months. For now, titles such as The Secret and books from the Star Trek series are available.

Books will be priced the same as they are in other digital formats--anywhere from $2.50-$10, depending on the title. Individual chapters will cost $0.99, which MPS Mobile says gives consumers a “low cost method” for “dipping” into a book to see if they want to buy it, or by giving them an easy way of accessing a specific chapter of a book they may have already bought in print or e-book format. Global Reader is available on over 75 mobile carriers in 160 different countries.

Ajit Joakar :


This is interesting .. and makes me think ..

Just because we WANT people to pay - does not mean that they WILL .. If the observation in this blog is true, it means that many a business plan based on paying for Context will also hit rough waters (considering that location is one of the most important elements of the Mobile context)

Consider some of the paid iPhone apps from the telegraph.

Vicinity (has got good reviews etc and also GPS based with wikipedia links and so on) is only £1.79??. Is that 1.79 per month or for all times??.

As far as I can see, it's a £1.79 price as a one off charge.

Other paid iPhone apps are (from the Telegraph link above)
* Starmap Planetarium (£6.99): Astronomers and space nuts will love this - a stargazing guide that provides information about constellations, planets and even shooting stars, plus oodles of scientific details.
* Etch-a-Sketch (£2.99): Twiddle the virtual dials to start a sketch, or draw directly on screen using your finger. "Tilt technology" will be added soon to enable you to move the iPhone itself to create a drawing.
* Meal Splitter (£4.99): There will be no need to squabble over restaurant bills with this application, which precisely calculates what each diner owes based on the cost of the meal. Okay, so the iPhone's in-built calculator could do pretty much the same thing, but this takes the pain out of the entire process; it will even work out how much the non-drinkers should pay compared to the drinkers.
* Vicinity (£1.79): Takes advantage of the iPhone 3G's GPS to provide one-tap access to information about local services and amenities. It will even pull in relevant Wikipedia entries and Flickr photos.
* Band (£5.99): Compose your own music using the collection of virtual instruments.
* Stage Hand (£4.99): Control your Apple Keynote presentations using your iPhone or iPod touch, and read and review slides on its screen.
* Super Monkey Ball (£5.99): The pick of the bunch of new games for the iPhone and iPod touch. Tilt the device itself to control the progress of a monkey inside a transparent bubble. The graphics are first-rate, and the gameplay is highly addictive.

The games(super monkey Ball) seem to be valued higher as does niche apps

However, the business model does not seem to be so good based on this evidence since the useful apps like vicinity seem to be valued only at £1.79

We have all seen many many reports saying that LBS will be the big saviour, people will pay for location etc etc - and then we see a very good LBS application priced at only £1.79. This is in the same series of posts where I talked about taking the principles of better than free for mobile and also said that Google's initiatives point to a pricepoint of free for mobile applications - for instance, if we contrast Vicinity to Google maps - then Google maps on mobile is free. And although Vicinity gives us some cool features like wikipedia integration which I love - it does point to a very low pricepoint if that becomes a precedent. Further, it points to a one off price point i.e. not a monthly fee ..

Nokia's got a plan to sway a few potential iPhone buyers and it's called the 5800 Xpressmusic.



With touch screen technology, the 5800 XpressMusic introduces the Media Bar, a drop down menu for access to music and entertainment such as tracks, videos and photos. With a single touch, users can track a digital history of recent text messages, emails, phone logs, photos and blog updates.

The 3.2-inch widescreen display offers up a 16 by 9 aspect ratio and 30 frames-per-second playback and recording. It features a 3.2-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens. Additional features include a virtual alphanumeric keypad, a virtual computer-style QWERTY keyboard, a pen stylus and a plectrum.

The music player includes a graphic equalizer, 8GB memory for up to 6000 tracks, a 3.5mm jack and support for digital music formats and built-in surround sound speakers.

The Finnish cell phone maker hopes to tap looking for a feature set and slim appeal of the iPhone without the steep hardware cost and will sell the 5800 XpressMusic for $395 or free from operators when signing up for a contract.

What I don't understand is if Nokia and HTC and LG had all this technology to do touch phones and cools products like this.. why didn't they do it before ? What did they have to wait for Apple, a novice to this market, to come along and show them how it is done... ? That is a mystery for me.

By Ajit JAOKAR

Android - iPhone revenue models: Can 70 plus 30 equal free? - Is the future of mobile apps free or fee based?

The iPhone has a simple revenue share model - 70 percent to the developer.

Considering Google's developer friendly credentials, one would have hoped for something along the same lines .. But disappointingly - that's not the case .. Because the revenue share depends on the agreements between the carrier and the developer.

Moco news points out that It will purely be an arrangement between the carrier and the mobile app developer. It is unknown what the revenue-share agreement will be between the carrier and a developer."

To me, this is not a good development in the short term and needs to be clarified in the long term.

It appears that Google is working on the equation that 70 plus 30 equals free i.e. instead of the 70 30 model adopted by the iPhone. Also, Android itself appears to lean to free (ad funded model) for all mobile applications.

Here is why:

1) In terms of data usage and subscribers, I do not believe that individual Operators can have a large enough user base to make a commercial difference to a developer.

2) Individual agreements between developers and Operators are not feasible for Long Tail applications when most of the applications do not make a lot of money in the first place.

3) Also, we start to get fragmentation immediately(for example if developer gets 70 perc for supporting x devices and 50 percent for not doing so etc etc)

All this means that (at least) initially, free applications will proliferate.

This makes little difference for Google since every element of Android is a Mobile web 20 element - (because every element of the stack is capable of creating metadata - all of which can be harnessed towards targeted advertising - just like Gmail)

Hence, Google has a viable economic model but I do not believe that small developers can survive on an ad model alone(and further it is likely that operators may want a share of the ad pie as well)

On the other hand, Android may provide a genuine opportunity for operators to start with a clean slate. Apart from the Korean and Japanese operators, none of the operators have built viable portals. Android offers the choice to start with a clean slate and attract developers and to create a viable ecosystem.

Android raises a broader question is : Are all mobile applications likely to be free(ad funded)?

If we consider the example of the iphone, so far paid iphone applications have not fared well.

So on one hand, while we worry about the contrast between 70 30 and free, we have to consider the broader question of - which mobile applications will users pay for? And the answer is not very clear cut ( see this post where I say that we may have to adopt Kevin Kelly's principles to the Mobile ecosystem ).

Longer term, I see an irreversible trend with more value being abstracted up the stack, multiple payment systems(Paypal and Google checkout), multiple networks(Wimax, WiFi and so on) - but the short term is unclear.

William Volk makes an interesting point when he says :
"The problem isn't just the revenue share. It's that Google, by handing off the sale of paid apps to individual carriers, have added an element of 'friction' to the entire publishing process: With existing content sales carrier terms are typically net 60 to 90 days. What's more if you sell in multiple territories, then you will have to deal with multiple carriers. Also, while there is an unfettered process for free apps, paid apps will certainly be subject to a review and approval process if for no other reason for issues of insuring appropriate content. What will that approval process entail?"

So, Can 70 plus 30 equal free? To me, it seems that Google is going towards Free and not a revenue share model.

A new survey has revealed that people are more interested in social networking sites than online pornography.

Facebook can 'completely obliterate' social lives Bill Tancer, a self-confessed 'data geek' who analysed the search habits of more than 10 million web users, said that internet searches provide an up-to-date view of how society is changing.

"There are some patterns to our internet use that we tend to repeat very specifically and predictably, from diet searches to prom dresses to what we do around the holidays," said Mr Tancer in an interview with Reuters.

His research reveals that elbows, belly button fluff and ceiling fans rank among the things people fear most, as do social intimacy and worries about rejection. He also said that internet searches for anti-depression drugs peak around the November Thanksgiving period in the US.

"As social networking traffic has increased, visits to porn sites have decreased," he said.

A decade ago, porn-related searches accounted for 20 per cent of all internet searches made, he noted. They now account for about 10 per cent, said Mr Tancer, who also found that web users aged between 18 and 24 were searching for less porn.

"My theory is that young users spend so much time on social networks that they don't have time to look at adult sites," he said.

Mr Tancer, a general manager at global internet research company Hitwise, has written a new book, entitled Click: What Millions of People are Doing Online and Why it Matters. In it, Mr Tancer notes that celebrity websites get more hits than sites devoted to religion, politics, wellbeing and diets combined.

He also warns that web users are searching for pictures of the US Republican party's vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, rather than information about her policies.

"A lot of the focus around the candidates in general is image-based. People want to know how tall Barack Obama is," he told Reuters.

"You have to get far down in the search terms to link the search for a candidate with any issue."

Mr Tancer also noted that in some instances, the speed of dissemination on the web had led to the spread of disinformation.

"With the explosion of thus type of false information on the internet, I think we will see someone come forward and develop a new type of software that can filter for the most accurate information. "Maybe accuracy is the next thing we will all search for," Mr Tancer concluded.

His comments come just days after Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the web, called for a system to be put in place to rank the trustworthiness of websites, and launched a charitable foundation that seeks to bring the internet to a wider audience in developing nations.

I must say that I am excited. I am stoked because I love my iPhone but an only Apple world is scary, now we have a challenger. The so called iPhone killers I have seen until now were lots of hype but basically not iPhone killers. Google's G1 isn't necessarily a killer either but it is a nice alternate. An choice let us say. And now that there is one there will be more.



Co-developed with T-Mobile, this new handset will the first mobile device powered by Google's open-source Android operating system. Like the iPhone, this new device will offer a large touch screen similar to the iPhone, a 3.0-megapixel camera with photo-sharing capability, a trackball, a slide-out keyboard and easy access to Google's email and mapping programs.

As the video here shows it is a very, very intergrated with Google experience...


Will people want to be so stuck to Google.. not just search but Mail, Calendar, Talk ? That is certainly what Google hopes. Obviously they are leveraging this to get people to abandon their old solutions and use only Google's. But it remains to be seen if it will really work. Not so different then Apple after all..

The device will be available at T-Mobile stores and online in the U.S. beginning Oct. 22, with a price tag of $179 with a two-year voice and data agreement. It will hit Europe shortly thereafter.

Here are some other shots that show the phone at different angles :

I noticed this article in my recent overview of world news. I have often written on MobilOpen how the developing world is leading the charge in use of the mobile phone. Just last week I reported on these pages that India was reaching the 300 Million mark of mobile phones subscribers. Here is how they use their phones...



Not just to call.. no they use them as multimedia devices that video, email, text, chat, and accompany them in there daily life. Here in this article you can see how Kashmiris, whatever you may think of their position, are firmly part of the mobile internet sphere. It seems to me that the openess that the internet started to spawn and access to information that is available in the West is now accelerating around the world via.. yep you got it mobile devices.

This presents a huge opportunity to mobile internet entrepreneurs and executives, now truly products and services need to take into account users around the globe. This requires thinking globally and finding the right business model for each region. Till now except some exceptions like MyGamma, GetJar, TexoMobile, Pepperoni and a few others services were for one or 2 markets or at most for the West in the broad sense of the term. But that has to change. There is a whole new market out there.

mobiSiteGalore one of the pioneers of the mobile web with their PC based mobile site builder have taken their tool to the next level, they have taken the guts from their builder and made it accessible to mobile only users.

Now anyone with a mobile connected to the web with a GPRS connection can now create their own mobile site. No fancy smartphone needed either a normal WAP phone will do just fine.



I got to give it to these guys.. they are in my view spot on in their creation of a tool accessible to the masses. As I reported in my last article millions of new users are getting their first mobile : close to 300 million users in India and the same in many developing countries. These new users want to taste the web and don't have access to PCs so they do what Pc users would do except from their mobile. And one of the things people want to do is create their own site to talk about themselves, to meet people, to promote something or to sell something. This is the first step in that direction.



There are other site creators but they are more based around a community, they are more profile like or blog like. Whereas mobiSiteGalore allows users much more freedom in what they want to create. I am looking forward to see how users like their tool.

India reaches ever closer to the 300 Million mark with 6.3 million new users in August. At this rate it will be before the end of the year that they will hit that magic number.



With all the consolidations there are 4 major players and then as the graph below shows 3 smaller challengers with a couple of very small players. This means that competition will remain stiff and mostly the eldorado for the Mobile Internet players of the world maybe.. great data packages or even unlimited packages will be in the mix.



India is already the second largest market after China. What is exciting is that unlike China, Indian users are part of the global community of Mobile Internet users. Most mobile community services like iGloo.mobi or itsmy.mobi experience a large part of their traffic already from sub-continent users.

Picked up this announcement from Google about their new mobile location based search service. They call it "Search with My Location". It only works on Windows Mobile phones but it is a very cool app no doubt.

Previously, when you went to google.com from your phone’s browser and performed a local search, the results were tailored to the last location you entered. Now, using the Gears Geolocation API, Search with My Location approximates your actual location using the same Cell ID technology used by Google maps for mobile. So if you want to find sushi nearby, just type "sushi" and Google will return local business listings around you. If you want to know the forecast, type "weather". If you want to search somewhere else, specify a location in the query like "pizza Kansas City".



Initially, Search with My Location will be available in the US and UK. To get started, visit google.com from your phone and click on the My Location link under the search box (you may have to refresh the page to see the link).

Swype is an amazing gesture-based data entry system that is truly revolutionary. To type a word, you simply connect letters together using a stylus or finger and predictive text to pick letters and words out of seemingly unintelligible squiggles.



The inventor of the ubiquitous T9 tool, which is installed on a billion plus phones, is one of the founders : Cliff Kushler. There are some hold outs against T9 but generally to send a long SMS or to type your mobile blog if you don't use T9 your masochist. Nevertheless T9 is on the way out with touch screen mobile devices. The iPhone uses the app Shapewriter but the Swype system is substantially more robust and very powerful. It works on Windows Mobile and Windows right now and will soon be available for the iPhone.

Swype works with an on-screen QWERTY keyboard like you have on the tablet version of Windows and on the iPhone. But instead of tapping letters out, you press your finger or stylus on the first letter, then, without lifting it, move it to the remaining letters in the word. When the word is done, then you lift.

A built-in 65,000-word dictionary corrects obvious and even creative spelling errors. A word menu pops up if the correction is somewhat ambiguous; in our tests, the top choice was usually correct, and it can be selected with a simple swipe upward.

Little tricks make it possible to capitalize words (jerk the stylus up and down) or select double letters (wiggle the pen over a letter).

The development team is focused on Windows Mobile (smartphones) and also the tablet version of XP and Vista, and Surface. However, Kushler mentioned how great the iPhone hardware was for his method.

The great news for the millions of mobile users out there is that they may also develop Swype for Symbian.

See the interview and demo with Kushler here:

Dynamic Logic, a leading marketing research company with expertise in measuring advertising and marketing effectiveness, has released new research which indicates that mobile advertising can be “an effective medium for raising brand metrics throughout the purchase funnel.”



Dynamic Logic completed over 30 AdIndex for Mobile studies. These are survey-based research that are conducted in a live, in-market environment, and ran simultaneously with specific mobile advertising campaigns. This approach is used in order to isolate the impact of the mobile ads on key brand metrics. (read more about AdIndex for Mobile).

When comparing people that have been exposed to a mobile ad with those who have not been exposed, the results indicate that mobile advertising can be very effective for brand building purposes. For example, an observed increase in ad awareness of over 29% indicates that these campaigns “generally cut through and grab the users attention”. An increase in Brand favorability of over 5% shows that mobile ads have the capability to influence people’s attitudes.



The study was quite broad-based, and it included information from brands in many industries. These industries included Alcohol, Automotive, Consumer Electronics, CPG, Entertainment, Financial Services, Retail, Telecom, and Travel.

Read the full release on the Dynamic Logic site.