A new tool to meter usage of mobile phone content could help kick-start the market for mobile advertising.
Monday, March 26th, 2007This should read as an ominous warning…
ohn Blau, IDG News Service
MeterDirect, launched Monday by M:Metrics Inc., is an “on-device” service that measures how smartphone owners use mobile content such as games, videos and music, providing useful information for advertisers to plan media strategies.
The service, targeted at advertisers, mobile phone operators and others, “gives a much more granular look at mobile content consumption, similar to what media buyers and planners expect in the Internet,” said Paul Goode with M:Metrics.
As part of the service, a select number of smartphone users agree to download the MeterDirect application to their phones and allow the software to track how they use mobile browsing, messaging, multimedia and general applications such as games.
The application records, for instance, what Web pages are clicked, how many text messages are sent and received and which games are played. The data is retrieved at the end of each day.
The service will be initially available in the U.S. and the U.K., where 1,100 smart phone users have agreed to download the software.
M:Metrics plans to extend the service to Germany, France, Spain and Italy later this year. The goal is to have about 1,000 people using the application in each market.
Mobility By Mark Raby Monday, March 26, 2007 09:14 Los Angeles (CA) - Helio today announced its latest cell phone, which it claims is the world’s first to include both a Qwerty keyboard and a numeric keypad. The phone, named the Helio Ocean, uses 3G cellular technology for wireless entertainment and communication. It has a 2.4 inch, 260K color QVGA screen, a 2 megapixel digital camera, and playback capabilities fr MP3, AAC, WMA, and MPEG4. It comes with an internal memory of 200 MB and a micro SD card slot, which allows for up to 2 GB of additional storage. In another rarity for a phone, the Ocean also has a built-in USB port for transfer of music and video files directly from a computer. It also has advanced e-mail and messaging features, including a universal hub for six different e-mail programs (Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail, Gmail, Earthlink, and Helio’s proprietary e-mail application), as well as support for all major IM programs. The Ocean can also alert users about when their friends are online, regardless of the instant messenger being used. The Ocean is set for release later this spring and will carry a suggested retail price of $295. 
