E-Mail Gets an Instant Makeover

December 20, 2010

E-Mail Gets an Instant Makeover

By MATT RICHTEL

SAN FRANCISCO — Signs you’re an old fogey: You still watch movies on a VCR, listen to vinyl records and shoot photos on film.

And you enjoy using e-mail.

Young people, of course, much prefer online chats and text messages. These have been on the rise for years but are now threatening to eclipse e-mail, much as they have already superseded phone calls.

Major Internet companies like Facebook are responding with message services that are focused on immediate gratification.

The problem with e-mail, young people say, is that it involves a boringly long process of signing into an account, typing out a subject line and then sending a message that might not be received or answered for hours. And sign-offs like “sincerely” — seriously?

Lena Jenny, 17, a high school senior in Cupertino, Calif., said texting was so quick that “I sometimes have an answer before I even shut my phone.” E-mail, she added, is “so lame.”

Facebook is trying to appeal to the Lenas of the world. It is rolling out a revamped messaging service that is intended to feel less like e-mail and more like texting.

The company decided to eliminate the subject line on messages after its research showed that it was most commonly left blank or used for an uninformative “hi” or “yo.”

Facebook also killed the “cc” and “bcc” lines. And hitting the enter key can immediately fire off the message, à la instant messaging, instead of creating a new paragraph. The changes, company executives say, leave behind time-consuming formalities that separate users from what they crave: instant conversation.

“The future of messaging is more real time, more conversational and more casual,” said Andrew Bosworth, director of engineering at Facebook, where he oversees communications tools. “The medium isn’t the message. The message is the message.”

The numbers testify to the trend. The number of total unique visitors in the United States to major e-mail sites like Yahoo and Hotmail is now in steady decline, according to the research company comScore. Such visits peaked in November 2009 and have since slid 6 percent; visits among 12- to 17-year-olds fell around 18 percent. (The only big gainer in the category has been Gmail, up 10 percent from a year ago.)

The slide in e-mail does not reflect a drop in digital communication; people have just gravitated to instant messaging, texting and Facebook (four billion messages daily).

James E. Katz, the director for the Center for Mobile Communications Studies at Rutgers University, said this was not the death of e-mail but more of a downgrade, thanks to greater choice and nuance among communications tools.

“It’s painful for them,” he said of the younger generation and e-mail. “It doesn’t suit their social intensity.”

Some, predictably, turn up their noses at the informality and the abbreviated spellings that are rampant in bite-size, phone-based transmissions. Judith Kallos, who writes a blog and books about e-mail etiquette, complains that the looser, briefer and less grammatical the writing, the less deep the thoughts and emotions behind it.
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AT&T Settles Class-Action Over Mobile Web Taxes, Still Leaves Questions Unanswered

From Mobile Marketing Watch:

AT&T has been caught up in a class-action lawsuit stemming from taxes billed to subscribers using data plans. The operator started sending out SMS messages to subscribers last week regarding a future refund, though details on the settlement and the lawsuit’s background is still largely unknown.

As part of the settlement, AT&T will refund taxes billed to users for mobile Internet services rendered between November 1, 2005 and September 7, 2010. The lawsuit was filed against the operator from plaintiffs who claimed that AT&T had violated the federal Internet Tax Freedom Act. This act prohibits state and local governments from levying taxes on Internet access between November 2003 and November 2014, though apparently AT&T kept collecting anyway.

A Website was created to give information about the lawsuit, though several important questions remain unanswered. First of all, there’s still no mention of how much AT&T collected wrongly, or how many mobile data users it affects. I for one have two AT&T accounts with data plans and have never received an SMS regarding the lawsuit like many others have. Another big question is what AT&T will have to pay out for this mistake. In the last quarter alone, AT&T reported revenues of $4.8 billion from wireless data services, and this settlement covers the last five years.

It’s also likely that AT&T isn’t the only operator who’s been collecting these taxes. I have a feeling we’ll be hearing a lot more about this in the near future. Leave us a comment if you’ve been affected by this lawsuit. Has anyone received an SMS regarding a refund?

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Rhythm NewMedia Raises $10M, Sees 425M Monthly Mobile Video Ad Impressions

From Mobile Marketer

Mobile video advertising provider Rhythm NewMedia has announced a series C round of funding valued at $10, while indicating its interactive video ads average over 425 million monthly impressions as of Q3 alone.

The company was founded in 2005 and says its the largest mobile video ad network around, even though it’s continued to fly under the radar. A reason for that is that it tends to only work with big-name brands and publishers, and actually counts over 100 Fortune 500 companies as clients. Publishers include CBS and Fox; and advertisers include Best Buy and FedEx, to name a few.

The company focuses on pre-roll interactive mobile video ads, and is responsible for many of the ads you already see on iOS and Android applications. The ads served by Rhythm are interactive in the sense that users can tap on something during the pre-roll ad to visit another website, or view a longer video clip like a movie trailer for instance. Serving over 425 million monthly video ad impressions, which the company says is up 30% over Q2, Rhythm has found the sweet spot of mobile video advertising.

As part of its “Q3 2010 Mobile Video Ad Report” released last month, Rhythm covered data showing completion rates for interactive pre-roll video ads remain high at 87%, exceeding online video and even television. In addition, CTRs are 79% higher on display ads that mention “video” as a call to action vs. other similar ads, the company said, and iPad CTRs for pre-roll video ads are 2x or higher vs. iPhone, iPod Touch and Android.

The mobile video ad space will continue heating up, and we’ll likely hear a lot more from Rhythm going forward. Rhythm CEO Ujjal Kohli said his company was “a bit early” entering the space, but that things have really taken off since the iPhone launched.

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Food Network takes 45,000 recipes mobile.

From mobile marketer

November 5, 2010

The Food Network is letting food enthusiasts browse through 45,000 recipes via its applications for Apple’s iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.

Each recipe comes with photos and step-by-step instructions. The In The Kitchen application is available for $1.99 in Apple’s App Store.

“We want to give fans access to their favorite recipes from their favorite Food Network stars – anytime, anywhere,” said Bob Madden, senior vice president and general manager at Food Network.com, New York.

“Users can follow along looking at recipe while they watch TV or look for last minute ideas for dinner in the grocery aisle,” he said. “Mobile is a category we’ve been playing in for a while.

“It only made sense for our brand to tackle recipes as that’s what we’re known for – our vast catalog from some of America’s most well-known chefs needed to be there.”

Food Network is a lifestyle network, Web site and magazine that connects viewers to the power and joy of food.

Food for thought
Users with a Food Network account can access and browse their online recipe box with the ability to add new recipes directly from the application.

In addition, seasonal menus will be updated monthly and Thanksgiving recipes will be featured at launch.

Users can add ingredients from the recipes to a shopping list that they can share with friends via email, Facebook and Twitter.

Users can access the shopping lists offline.

“We’re leveraging all of our resources for this app,” Mr. Madden said. “You’ll see a broad marketing and public relations campaign around In The Kitchen – television ads, snipes, Facebook and Twitter posts, as well as contests, and so on.

“We’re really proud of what we produced,” he said.

Users can search the application

Users can browse recipes

Key features
Other features of the application let users set timers as they work on the recipe without leaving the application and converting measurements.

The company is looking to extend the application to Android devices in mid-November.

“Specifically with the In The Kitchen App, you can expect to see video, offline access to more content, ability to rate and review recipes, plus lots more in future versions,” Mr. Madden said.

“We’re also making select programming available on iTunes,” he said. “Food Network takes the mobile space seriously and wants to give our fans what they want, where they want, when they want it.”

Editorial Assistant Rimma Kats covers media, television, research and social networks. Reach her at rimma@mobilemarketer.com.

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Coca-Cola drives product awareness with cross-platform ad buy on CBS

From Mobile Marketer:

Brands such as Coca-Cola, Mars Inc.’s Snickers, Home Depot, Ford Motor Co., the Discovery Channel and Capital One are driving brand engagement and raising product awareness with advertising across CBS’s mobile sites and applications.

Coca-Cola Zero, Home Depot, Capital One and the Discovery Channel’s “Storm Chasers” have all run ad campaigns with the CBS Sports application, while Snickers and Ford are cosponsors of the CBS Sports Pro Football application. The majority of these are cross-platform buys that include online and television as well as mobile.

“One of the tent poles of our business is to make it easy to buy across CBS Interactive’s inventory,” said Rob Gelick, Los Angeles-based general manager of CBS Mobile and senior vice president at CBS Interactive. “Advertisers can now buy on air, online and mobile as a bundled package that extends reach and allows brands to follow an audience as it migrates from one platform to another.

“For example, Ford and Snickers are both running campaigns in our online sites, and are also both lead sponsors within our Pro Football mobile apps,” he said. “On the mobile front, we’re able to create unique, rich-media experiences like expandable ads and video units that we see as excellent points of connection to our audiences.

“We have a huge amount of products getting released in the mobile space, especially in the sports category, we’re running a lot more rich-media ad units and we’re seeing a lot more brand partners leveraging our mobile inventory"

Mobile advertising boom
Coca-Cola Zero, Home Depot and Capital One are all advertisers within the general CBS Sports iPhone application.

Coca-Cola is sponsoring the SEC Live Game of the Week feature within the application, which features live streaming video, including Coke Zero mobile video ads.

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Kenneth Cole exec: Apps do not make sense for brand retailers - Mobile Commerce Daily

NEW YORK – During his keynote at the Mobile Shopping Summit, a Kenneth Cole executive said that, especially with the rise of HTML5, his company’s focus is on the mobile Web and that an application does not make sense for a brand retailer’s business.

The Kenneth Cole presentation offered a look at what the marketplace is doing in terms of mobile, with a focus on the current design trends in mobile space. The differences in mobile site design tend to correspond to particular categories—mass merchants, look-up sites and brand retailers.

“Looking at the mobile sites of mass merchants, look-up sites and brand retailers, they are all using different design templates and tactics to get their message across,” said Tom Davis, vice president of ecommerce at Kenneth Cole Productions, New York. “This year we put our toe in the water, but we expect [sales driven via] mobile devices to be bigger than some of our bricks-and-mortar stores.

“The technology is about to change with the introduction of HTML5, and as a brand retailer, it’s all about the mobile Web site,” he said. “An app really doesn’t make sense for my business.”

Mobile commerce boom via the mobile Web
Before the brand launched its mobile-optimized Web site, it was seeing about 1 percent of its business coming through mobile devices.

Kenneth Cole tapped Usablenet for the launch of its mobile-optimized site at end of July. Mobile traffic immediately surged to 4 percent of the brand’s total, and that was during the summer, traditionally the slowest time of year for the brand.

Currently, mobile accounts for 10 percent of its total Web traffic and 4 percent of its revenue, although Mr. Davis believes that those figures only represent the tip of the iceberg.

“We’re expecting an incredible spike in mobile traffic and sales during the holidays,” Mr. Davis said. “For X amount of money I can build this mobile commerce business, man it with one or two people, and it will drive more revenue than an entire standalone store.

“It is the easiest business case scenario today, but what I really get excited about is what’s coming tomorrow,” he said.

Mr. Davis shared three main takeaways related to the mobile space:

1. By 2013 more mobile phones will be shipped than desktops and laptops combined, and by 2015 there will be more smartphone users than desktop and laptops users combined, per Mary Meeker.

2. Today’s mobile commerce design is reminiscent of 1990s Web sites, but no doubt that is going to change and change very rapidly.

3. By the end of 2011, customers will expect an excellent, relevant mobile experience that prioritizes content that is important to them while they are on the go.

Mass merchants
Mass merchants such as Zappos, Sears/Kmart and Target have thousands of brands, so to try to navigate through that sort of inventory on a mobile device can be very difficult.

The mobile sites of these types of retailers focus on putting search at top of the page and drilling down by product category down below.

For example, Zappos’ mobile site leads with portal for search, brand lookup and browsing by gender, boiling down what they do on the PC site so it fits on a mobile site. The approach is very simple and straightforward.

To create its mobile site, the company removed marketing messages and featured products or brands that are on its PC site.

Target’s mobile site also leads with search, with minimal call-outs about browsing assortment and a heavy focus on the needs of in-store shoppers, from daily deals and store lookup to deals, coupons and weekly ads.

“They’re not necessarily really driving the product base—they’ve removed promotion callouts, home page hero content and category callouts,” Mr. Davis said. “They’re focused on searching and browsing, simplifying the main navigation experience so that it is quick and efficient.

“They are focusing on simplicity to a Spartan degree to offer what people are looking for on the go,” he said. “If you’re a mass retailer, this is the status quo at the moment.

“I do think this is going to become tedious after a while, as all mass-market retailers seem to be using the same template.”

Look-up sites
Look-up sites from airlines, hotels and movie-ticketing companies target on-the-go consumers looking for quick information.

They do tend to have shopping or commerce ability, but it may not be why consumers visit that site, per Mr. Davis.

A lot of lookup sites lead with a download-our-app call-to-action and a login feature for customization, profiling or quick checkout.

Ecommerce is often secondary or even an afterthought, per Mr. Davis.

Brand retailers
The mobile sites from brand retailers such as American Eagle and Kenneth Cole often lead with their sister brands via tabs, features consistent cross-channel marketing messages and product search, while removing the bottom of the page marketing or promotional banner from the PC site.

“We are a brand, we represent a lifestyle, an attitude, and we’re trying to carry that personality or persona into the mobile space,” Mr. Davis said. “It’s about a cross-channel experience, whether you’re viewing the site on a computer, iPad or mobile phone, the experience is more or less the same.

“You have to realize that you have a very captive audience, a very special audience coming through the mobile channel, often younger shoppers,” he said. “We trimmed down the mobile site navigation to increase speed and efficiency and keep the form and function sleek and quick, and it has paid dividends over and over.

“We want to offer a consistent experience across any channel—everywhere shoppers’ experience should be seamless across in-store, online and mobile.”

Final Take
Kenneth Cole’s Mr. Davis

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Mobile on Rise...Decreased Media Hurts Ad Market

Decreased Media Usage Hurts Ad Market

APRIL 19, 2010

Mobile only channel with rising media time

Online was the largest segment of media time in 2009, followed by TV and video, music and radio, and mobile phone usage.US ad spending was down in 2009 as marketers and consumers alike tightened their belts during the recession. And while Americans looked to save money and trim expenses, they also began to spend less time with media, causing a worse drop in ad spending, according to the Yankee Group.

Overall, US consumers spent less than 12 hours a day with media on average. That was down from nearly 14 hours daily in 2008, a 17% decrease. Yankee Group speculated in its report that the recession may have left Americans too stressed to enjoy as much media consumption as the previous year.

Activities decreased almost across the board, with reading, music and radio, and TV and video dropping most dramatically. The only increase in time spent was with mobile phones. Talk time on mobile was up 12%, while average daily mobile Web use rose 36% to 11 minutes. Texting was also up, by 55%, to take up 27 minutes a day in 2009.

Yankee Group's picture of media consumption differs from others, including Nielsen's Three Screen Report. For Q4 2009, Nielsen reported TV time was up and significantly higher than Internet usage. Nielsen relies on automated data collection, while Yankee Group polled US consumers. In addition, Yankee Group includes both personal and work Internet usage in its media consumption study, while Nielsen excludes work time.

Yankee Group believes the transparency in our consumer attention model provides a more accurate picture of consumer demand for media, while automated systems are more tuned to determining media supply, said the report. As connected devices flourish and multiply in consumers'™ lives, we further believe this attention-driven model will rise in importance as consumers struggle with an increasing tyranny of too much media.

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Mobile Marketing and Coupons

Elevating the Mobile Love Affair With Coupons

Written on Apr 8, 2010
Author: Meaghan Schaefer

The number of mobile coupons redeemed in North America is set to increase more than tenfold in 2010, followed by triple-digit increases in both 2011 and 2012, according to Yankee Group. All in all, some $2.37 billion worth of mobile coupon transactions will take place in North America in 2013, up from just $5 million this year.

Typically text messages or images sent to people’s mobile devices offering a discount redeemable in-store, mobile coupons are a win-win for everyone. Consumers get deals targeted to their current interests, past purchases and/or current location sent right to their phone, while marketers succeed in directly spurring purchases that can be tracked and measured through to the point of sale.

Many marketers have experienced great success with targeted and measurable online discounts and affiliate programs, and mobile coupons are a powerful way to extend the capabilities of online marketing offline.

From a consumer perspective, mobile coupons deliver not only a discount, but more importantly, a positive shopping experience. They don’t need to flip through circulars and clip coupons or search for promotion codes online, since mobile coupons are pushed to consumers’ phones.

Today’s mobile applications also can glean understanding about a customer’s product preferences and current location from GPS, CRM, and credit card systems, then match data with brand marketers’ promotions so that offers sent to phones are truly targeted. Mobile coupons are relevant, timely and easy… and they have the ability to dramatically alter the way people shop.

Brands and retailers are eager to adopt mobile coupons to reach consumers in a unique way. By sending relevant offers to people via their very personal, always-on mobile device, marketers can essentially speak right to a potential customer in a one-to-one dialogue.

This channel not only improves sales and loyalty, but the in-store experience. Mobile coupon alerts can also serve as an influence point when someone is in the vicinity of a store, providing a timely and targeted call to action.

One of the most effective reasons marketers like them is that mobile coupons are very measurable — marketers see not only how many coupons were redeemed, but which type of customers or segments responded to which offer.

Marketers can leverage this analysis to accurately understand customer behavior and target future offers. In addition, marketers can eliminate lengthy and expensive reconciliation processes that are standard with paper coupons. If consumers opt in to offers from brands to their mobile phones, marketers can wisely develop an intimate level of customer engagement.

Mobile coupons hold the promise of both direct marketing and one-to-one marketing. By delivering highly personalized incentives to a person’s mobile phone, marketers are promoting their brand right into the pocket of their target audiences at key influence points. The mobile commerce and coupon ecosystem will be one to watch as brand advertisers capitalize on this innovation.

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