On Technology and the Future: Education, IoT, AI, Mobility, Games

FHM & Heat bet on UGC – EMAP puts Yospace to work

On 05/04/2007

It took them a short while to wrap the acquisition of Yospace up and digest everything but now EMAP announced they’ll be relaunching their FHM and Heat brands on mobile centered around the coveted UGC; and all will of course be driven by Yospace’s platform. The blurb published by NMA (you need a subscription to read the full article) reports that “it is still too early to officially talk about the services” [why do they then???] but the intention is basically to leverage the brands to drive user-generated video content.

For those not so familiar: Yospace powers the successful SeeMeTV service of UK operator 3. FierceMobileContent tells you why it’s great.

I am curious as to what this will mean other than the EMAP team seemingly struggling to transfer editorial onto the mobile platform in a successful business model…

12Snap back at home…

By Volker

On 05/04/2007

Neomedia has sold 12Snap back to its management incl co-founder Birkel for $5m (remuneration is $1.1m cash plus debt, services, etc), reports PR Newswire.

That means that Neomedia wiped out a cool $17m value in little more than a year: you may remember they acquired 12snap for $22m early 2006.

All the very best to the good folks of 12snap!!!

Which mobile are you?

By Volker

On 05/04/2007

Here’s who you are according to the mobile phone brand you carry:

Nokia – the choice of family-minded, middle aged managers
Motorola – favoured by fashion conscious under 24s
Sony Ericsson – for ambitious young men trying to make their mark
LG – favoured by mums
Samsung – for young women focused on their career

That’s at least what Nielsen Media Research says… I wonder where all the divorced, child-less middle managers are…

>1/3 of mobile handsets were changed in 2006

By Volker

On 04/04/2007

So this is how fast the hardware landscape can change. Imagine BMW’s market share could double (or be halved) in one year. With dynamics such as the ones reported here for the mobile handset sector, this would be entirely credible:

Some 36% of mobile phone users in Argentina replaced their handsets in 2006, according to a recent study by local consultancy Carrier y Asociados as reported by Cellular News.

The study, called Telefonía móvil 2007: Segmento individuos, concluded that replacement of mobile devices was common in all income segments.

According to the study, one out of four mobile telephony users in the country plans to replace their handset in 2007, which would mean nearly 8mn new devices.

“Young people aged below 18 tend to replace their device more than others because they want telephones with new features such as MP3 or cameras,” Carrier told BNamericas.

Carrier also stressed that handset subsidies operators offer to clients are crucial to keeping turnover high, although he considered subsidies are lower than a couple of years ago.

Mobile Device Fragmentation?

By Volker

On 04/04/2007

Interesting discussion by some of the venture capital rockstars on mobile devices:

At the recent Churchill Club’s Top Ten Tech Trends, Roger McNamee (Elevation Partners; previously Silverlake Partners) posed as the #1 trend mobile device fragmentation. He discusses this with Steve Jurvetson (Draper Fisher Jurvetson), John Doerr (Kleiner Perkins) and Joe Schoendorf (Accel Partners).

Click here for the AVI of the discussion. A write-up by DFJ is here.

The audience was divided if they should or should not follow McNamee (last but not least one of the power VCs): The yes/no vote was split.

Test 1, 2, 3 – gosh, it's live…

By Volker

On 04/04/2007

And with a bolt of lightning, Volker enters the blogosphere…