In fact so much so that they have invested in dotMobi initiative.

Visa CEO, Coghlan, said the value proposition for mobile payments had four parts: These new services and devices will attract new wireless subscribers, expand existing relationships by driving ARPU, provide greater convenience for consumers and increase speeds of transactions.

Coghlan also cited some interesting internal metrics surrounding mobile payments: 57 percent of consumers with a debit or credit card are interested in mobile payments; 90 percent of those interested in the service said they would pay more for a device with payment capabilities; 64 percent of 18 to 42-year-olds would consider switching carriers for to get mobile payment services and 58 percent of consumers in that age bracket would switch banks to do so. Perhaps most interestingly, by a measure of 5 to 1, those polled would prefer that payments appear on their credit card statement, rather than their mobile bills. That’s one metric the carriers might cringe at.

Coghlan concluded: “The mobile device is simply the most promising new form of payment available today.”

According to a new report from the CTIA, revenues from wireless data services rose to $15.2 billion last year, representing a 77 percent increase over 2005, which saw $8.6 billion. Data ARPU now makes up 13 percent of all wireless service revenues in the USA. Presently there are an estimated 234,167,757 wireless subscribers in the USA. CTIA (http://www.ctia.org/) president and CEO Steve Largent noted that the figures build on the FCC’s recent announcement that 59 percent of all new high-speed lines were wireless.

Millennial Media, the cross-platform mobile advertising company, has solutions for off deck publishers.

The Millennial Marketplace, is a premium mobile-only ad network that operates in both the on- and off-deck markets. Millennial Marketplace includes publishers such as Jumbuck, WeatherBug, 4INFO, Cellufun, and ZooVision, as well as premium advertisers such as EA Mobile and CoverGirl.

Millennial Media brings these new services to market to achieve a diverse array of advertiser objectives, including awareness, brand engagement, and customer acquisition. Mobile publishers can leverage each of the company’s services to monetize their ad inventory and better segment their offerings.

http://www.millennialmedia.com/

Pulse Mobile, one of the leading providers of user-generated mobile messaging and entertainment services, today announced that it has received $7M in a Series B funding from an international consortium of investors including Anthem Venture Partners, Draper Associates, Shea Ventures, Hikari Tsushin Group in Japan, and several other Asian and European investors.

Pulse Mobile is a leading provider of multimedia messaging and user-generated content creation technologies for mobile and web applications. The Company’s patented Veepers™ Content Engine (VCE) platform automatically transforms static two-dimensional (2D) facial images into animated three-dimensional (3D) characters with synchronized audio – either recorded or via text-to-speech. VCE is also a powerful personalization engine for user-generated imaging and video entertainment services including animated picture messages, personalized mobile wallpaper, video ringtones, and much more.

Pulse Mobile lies at the junction of off deck and on deck as their solutions allow users to generate content themselves. Much of this content is generated via the web as shown in the following diagram :

One of the investors had this to say :”Pulse has incredibly engaging solutions that enable viral mobile messaging.” said Tim Draper, Managing Partner of Draper, Fisher Jurvetson. “Not only are these solutions appropriate for mobile subscribers, but they also show tremendous promise for Web-based community services where personalization needs abound.”

According to a recent research, Nokia is still the handset leader with a 56.4 percent share of the 70.9 million units shipped in 2006. The handset maker sold 40 million smartphones in 2006, up from 28.5 million a year earlier. Motorola maintained its position as number two in 2006 with 8.5 percent market share, thanks largely to its Linux-based devices in China, like the MING.

“”

Operating system dominance, however, is a different story: Symbian is still out in front, but its market share is set to drop dramatically as Windows Mobile and Linux climb. It is estimated that 2006, Symbian had a 73 percent share of the smartphone OS market, but pundits forecast that it will to fall to 46 percent by 2012, due to strong competition coming most notably from Linux, but also from Windows Mobile.

Medio has made a concerted effort to create a user friendly mobile search engine. Focused on creating a great search experience.
Created specifically for mobile, the Medio Search System combines an intuitive, effortless user interface with powerful recommendation and personalization technologies, for a search experience that keeps subscribers coming back.

On the web, a search normally results in pages of links, leaving users to browse for information. On a mobile device, the time and effort required for a traditional search prevents subscribers from finding and purchasing the mobile content they want. Medio’s technologies provide a click-saving experience, returning answers instead of links. And Medio’s proprietary ranking algorithms balance the subscriber’s preferences, device, location and other information to present personalized, relevant results.

Even with all this technology under the hood, subscribers need an intuitive, responsive interface. Medio developed Mobile Markup Language (MML)TM, a superset of XHTML, for optimized display, reduced latency, and advanced features in J2ME, BREW, Symbian, and other rich clients. With a rich client interface, finding content can be easier than typing a word. Custom shortcuts, autocompletion of search terms, and embedded multimedia content are part of the best search experience available.

A complete, integrated search engine helps subscribers to find content everywhere: on-deck, off-deck, and on the phone itself. Carriers can choose off-deck content partners-with complete control-and Medio’s ContentBroker technology will index and seamlessly integrate their content. A web-based management system enables the carrier to control the mix of content and partners. Reports break down what subscribers are finding-and what they aren’t.

Only the Medio Search System combines these features and more.

Finally a MNO has a data/mobile internet plan that will really drive use.
Sprint Nextel is test launching a new cellular plan that features unlimited call time, text messages and Internet access on a mobile phone for $120 a month. Initially this is limited to the San Francisco Bay area.

Despite the cost, the unusual approach to pricing wireless service could carry profound consequences for the industry if it proves popular and Sprint rolls it out nationally. Sprint Nextel has been moving in this direction since January with a pricey $200 unlimited calling plan for high-volume users. Some regional carriers and niche service providers offer unlimited plans, but Sprint’s plan appears to be the first mainstream wireless offering of this sort in the United States.

Sprint wouldn’t say how long it plans to offer the unlimited bundle in the San Francisco Bay area or when a decision might be made on a wider trial or rollout.
Sprint already offers unlimited text-messaging packages starting at $10 a month and unlimited data plans starting at $15 a month. The trial package can be expanded to include unlimited wireless Internet access for a laptop for $30 more, half the usual rate, for a monthly total of $150.

Medio Systems, which is vying to become the Google of the wireless world, plans to announce today that it has launched an ad network for the mobile phone.

The Seattle company has been developing search tools for phones that allow users to find ring tones, graphics and Internet-delivered information.

Today, it is extending its search skills to both the carrier’s storefront and the Internet by adding the ability to insert advertising in the form of sponsored links into a user’s search results.

Medio is initially launching the network with Amp’d Mobile, a Los Angeles-based mobile phone operator targeted at a younger audience. Medio said it plans to extend the service to more carriers in the next three months. Its current customers include Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile USA and Telus Mobility.

Mobile search and advertising are two areas receiving a lot of the attention because they promise a new source of revenue for carriers. Telecoms & Media forecasts that cellphone advertising could hit more than $11 billion worldwide in 2011.

Besides Medio, a number of small companies are entering the arena, including JumpTap of Cambridge, Mass.; Admob of San Mateo, Calif.; and Third Screen Media of Boston.

Bellevue-based InfoSpace is also developing mobile search technology, as are online search giants Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft.

Omar Tawakol, Medio’s chief advertising officer, said most of these companies are focusing on providing an ad network for either the carrier’s storefront, also called a “deck,” or for Web sites made especially for mobile-phone viewing.

He said Medio’s network covers both while also reaching multiple carriers at one time.

“In the mobile space, there’s so much complexity,” he said. “We take care of all the back-end stuff.”

For now, carriers are experimenting to determine how they can also make money while not upsetting customers by doing too much advertising too fast.

Last year, Medio bought Seattle-based WebRelevance, a company specializing in matching ads with content on Web pages.

With that expertise, Medio can use information – including a user’s demographics, click-through history, search behavior and location – to determine which ad should be placed on which mobile page.

Medio also supports several types of ads. In one type, a user clicks on an ad to initiate a phone call or download content. The advertiser, in turn, can then ask the user for an e-mail address or phone number to follow up with an additional message.

The advertiser pays only if the user clicks on the ad. To ensure that the user completes the call, Medio has partnered with a company called Ingenio to monitor traffic.

Medio said it shares the advertising revenue with the carrier when the user is searching on the deck. When the user is outside the carrier’s storefront and on the Web, Medio shares the revenue with the content publisher.

Tawakol said the mobile advertising space is hot.

“People are really waking up to the fact that they can reach consumers on the go,” he said. “Advertisers are saying, ‘What’s my strategy here,’ and interested in buying.”

After successfully having set up a mobile association of off deck mobile sites and webmasters in France we are now pleased to open this internationally. MobilOpen has for mission to exchange information, to reference independent mobile players and to influence MNOs and MVNOs. This has been successfully done in France on several occasions.

We are convinced that the era of off deck is here and the mobile networks are starting to take notice. The advent of search on the walled gardens of the MNOs letting users escape and explore the mobile internet is of fine augur for us : all off deck publishers.

MobilOpen is open to all independent webmasters and companies who wish to operate in the off deck space. We have in France a number of members who straddle both the on deck space and the off deck space. So please join MobileOpen too if you are on deck but have off deck ambitions or vice versa. On the MobilOpen blog we will exchange technical advice, news, shortcuts and code. Any how wish to contribute and help build the knowledge base are welcome. To become a contributor please contact us at contact (at) mobilopen (dot) org.

To become a member of MobilOpen please click here

A la Mobile is hoping to help fuel the supply of converged Wi-Fi and GSM phones with a new version of its Linux-based mobile phone software package.
One major criticism of converged services is the small number of handsets available on the market. Their are only about a dozen handsets are on the market, and though they have the merit of existing we can’t say that they are that exciting.

A la Mobile proposes to change all that. They have designed a new Linux system stack that is supposed to make it easier for handset vendors to quickly build and deliver converged phones that can enable VoIP over WiFi and GSM voice services. The pre-integrated and pre-tested software stack includes a SIP-based VoIP client and applications that include a browser, email and Java.

So far only Gupp Technologies, a Malaysian phone maker, is the only manufacturer to license A la Mobile’s platform. The handset maker plans to begin selling the phone some time during the second quarter.