UK Domino's To Offer Pizza Via Text Message

Here in the States we can only hope for the day that services like this make their way across the pond:

Good news for junk food junkies - Dominos is offering pizza by via SMS.

Yes, if you get a passion for pepperoni when the pubs throw out, just go to your phone and send a message. Your pizza will then arrive from one of Dominos' 470 outlets just as you've dozed off in the armchair. There are a couple of safeguards - firstly, you'll need to register your full details online beforehand and you'll need to set up a 'favourite meals' list, which you can text to the shop. So texting 'hammered' could lead to a large pizza with extra cheese arriving at your door.

(More info @ Domino's via intomobile via Tech Digest)

Control The ATM With Your Cell Phone

Information Week reports that Diebold has acquired a number of patents that promise to change the way you use the ATM:

Diebold said that the technologies will allow mobile phone owners to find ATMs, order cash withdrawals remotely, generate electronic checks, transmit wireless payments and conduct other transactions more securely and conveniently than they do now.

Sounds exciting. Unfortunately we won't be seeing these applications for a while:

The company said it is in talks with technology partners that could bring Diebold's tested applications to market in three to five years.

At Information Week (via textually)

Text Messaging For Productivity

Though we usually cover the ways that SMS text messaging is changing advertising, the fact is, text messaging is popping up all over the place. Case in point--yesterday, Web Worker Daily published an informative article, 7 Ways to Text Message for Productivity. If you're constantly out of the office, some these tips could prove extremely useful. We've pulled out a couple of our favorites below:

Check your daily agenda. Google Calendar makes it easy to find out what’s on your schedule. Text “next” to GVENT (48368) to get your next appointment, “day” to get that day’s agenda, or “nday” to get tomorrow’s agenda.

...

Read your voice mail. Get the gist of a voicemail message by SMS, with CallWave’s Vtxt service, free while it’s in beta. You won’t get an exact transcription — less important comments like “hello” and “ummmm” will be left out — but that keeps the message down to about the size of a text message.

Read the entire list @ Web Worker Daily.

Kagan: U.S. Cell Phone Saturation May Spur Mobile Ad Rush

Research firm SNL Kagan released a 10-year wireless projection last week which predicts that by the year 2013, mobile phones--including consumer, business and dual users--will achieve 100% penetration in the U.S., when an estimated 322 million cell phone units in use will actually exceed the total U.S. population. Kagan estimates current U.S. cell phone penetration at 84%, or about 233 million units.

Kagan projects that subscriber units and voice revenue will inch along as market saturation is approached--but data revenue will grow at a compound annual rate of 14%, rising to at least 22% of service revenue, compared to under 10% today. Kagan says it may revise its data revenue projections upward after new WiMAX offerings and the winners of the 700 MHz auction emerge next year.

And what does that mean for mobile advertising?

Analysts say the exponential growth of mobile data use--including text, Web browsing, games, music and video--is spurring carriers, WiMAX competitors and other key players to accelerate their pursuit of the "holy grail" of market paradigm shifts: free mobile services fully subsidized by advertising.

Mobile advertising currently brings in about $500 million annually in the U.S., a small slice of the overall revenue generated by Internet advertising. With mobile operators, media companies and Internet giants like Google actively exploring potential applications and huge advertisers like Procter & Gamble, Burger King and Pepsi experimenting with mobile phone ads, some analysts believe that the overall market for mobile advertising could top $11 billion by 2011, or more than one-third of the current Internet advertising market.

Read more at MediaPost Online Media Daily.

Search Wikipedia via SMS Text Message

Wikipedia, everyone's favorite online encyclopedia, is now available via SMS-sort of:

SMS service GoLive! Mobile now offers a convenient text messaging interface to the Wikipedia.  Text the words about <your search term> to short code 23907 and you'll get back a link to a mobile-friendly, shortened Wikipedia page. This is fantastic for quick trivia look-ups on the go - but it does require that you can surf the web on your cell phone. (If only they texted you back the results...)

(via LifeHacker)

'Will Mobile Marketing Work for your E-Business?'

James Martin of E-Commerce Guide has published an informative article on the huge rewards (and the potential pitfalls) of mobile marketing. The article is worth a full read, but if you're short on time, we've pulled out some highlights for you. FYI: Martin identifies two types of mobile marketing--Opt-In SMS and Mobile Banner Ads.

Opt-in SMS (Short Message Service) campaigns, in which a consumer provides a business with his or her cell phone number in exchange for special offers or alerts delivered via text message, is one option. For example, a cosmetics retailer on eBay may send SMS alerts to customers, reminding them when it's time to reorder and offering a 15 percent discount coupon if they buy now.
...
Though still primarily used by large corporations, mobile marketing is increasingly attracting interest from small e-tailers and retailers, said Strother. "The mobile phone is a very personal device. People take it with them everywhere they go — especially people 35 and under. So you can easily develop a one-to-one relationship with your customers through their mobile phones." Messages sent to a mobile phone are much more likely to be read than e-mail sent to a PC, which may get routed to a spam folder, Strother adds.

The result: Mobile marketing can be more effective than other forms of marketing, said Bob Gold, CEO of Gold Mobile, a mobile marketing solutions company. Because mobile campaigns are highly targeted and opt-in, Gold said consumers typically redeem 5 to 20 percent of coupons delivered to their cell phones, compared to only 1 to 3 percent of coupons received through direct mail or e-mail.

Mobile marketing also helps e-tailers gather valuable data, such as cell phone numbers, on consumers who are interested in their products or services. "Once you get your customers to opt in (to receive an offer or alert via text message), you can capture them in your database and use that information later for loyalty marketing and customer retention," Gold said.

And some common mistakes to avoid?

For a mobile marketing campaign to succeed, Gold said, you must first understand your customers. For example, are your customers heavy text message users? Do they frequently use their cell phones to find products and services? If not, a mobile campaign may not be an effective strategy for your marketing efforts. If you do decide to go mobile, every mobile marketing campaign should be opt-in, Gold adds.

Head over to E-Commerce Guide to read the rest of the piece.

PingMe Launches SMS Reminder Service

For those who can never seem to keep up with an endless stream of appointments and responsibilities comes PingMe, a new SMS-based reminder service. Thrillist has the details:

PM's a new free service that'll text and/or email you reminders whenever you command it to, much like your late manservant did, only PM's missives do what Covington never could (digitally beam themselves into your pocket). With its Post-it-esque interface, using PM's as easy as setting and saving however many "pings" your defective memory requires: punch in your message, date/time, targets (phone or email), and whether or not to repeat -- daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, or millennially (handy for long-prophesied apocalypses). When the time comes, you'll get a text/email with your requested info, like rental car confirmation numbers, bar/restaurant addresses, or just friendly reminders for everyday tasks: "I must kill...the Queen"/"I must prevent Reggie Jackson from killing the Queen."

Sounds promising--for more head over to Thrillist.

Dadnab Rolls Out SMS Transit Tools In The Bay Area

Dadnab is an Austin Texas based company with an interesting SMS application:

Dadnab  is a text messaging service that plans your trips on city transit.  Without web access and don't want to study the schedules?  Dadnab tells you which bus or train to take, at which location, at what time.

They recently added the Bay Area to their system:

A Bay Area Dadnab user sends a text message (SMS) with an origin and destination to bay@dadnab.com. Seconds later, the user receives a text message with the optimal routes and times to get to the desired destination by rail, bus, or ferry.

Dadnab incorporates schedule information from 28 Bay Area transit providers and serves a population of more than seven million residents in the region.

This is an interesting use of text messaging--the only question is, how well would this service work for complicated directions? Would such a response overwhelm the user? Would it require multiple texts? Regardless, this is an innovative service, and if they could figure out a way to account for service delays and shutdowns--which would have been a godsend during New York City's recent subway flood--they might have a killer app on their hands.

Read the entire press release here.

Gannett Rolls Out Dozens Of Local Mobile News Sites

Media Post is reporting that Gannett Co, the owner of the USA Today and nearly 100 other smaller newspapers, has just rolled out a lot of free mobile content:

The Virginia-based media outlet has developed mobile news sites that correspond to some 84 daily newspapers and 19 broadcast station Web sites, as well as one for its national paper USA Today.

In addition to local news and information, the sites link to national news coverage available via the USA Today mobile site, and the content will be supported by local, regional and national display ads.

Users with handsets and data plans that allow for Internet browsing can access the sites for free by entering an 'm' before an existing Gannett site's URL (such as http://m.tennessean.com), via links from the home pages of all Gannet newspaper and broadcast Web sites, or by texting a unique daily short code to 59523. The short codes are being promoted through Gannett's print, online and broadcast news presentations.

Read more @ Media Post.

UK Consumers: We Want Shortcodes With Our Ads!

The goal of a most marketing campaigns is to induce a consumer response. In order to achieve this, the consumer has to remember your ad. This can be difficult in an age of media saturation. There are two approaches you can take to this problem. One - Hope for the best, relying upon the creative brilliance of your campaign, or Two - Give consumers a way to instantly respond. A recent survey of consumers in the UK shows that they're clamoring for the latter:

When asked if they would find it useful using text as a response mechanism to an offline advertisement, to then be forwarded to a mobile internet site for more details, more than 51% of consumers said they would be quite keen or extremely keen to use it.

Out of those who were interested in the service, three quarters (74%) said they would use it to order a brochure and 70% would use it to check the availability of a product. Two thirds (66%) would use it to find their nearest retail store, 65% would use it to request a sample and 58% would use it to browse the product information. More than half (53%) would be interested in using it to order tickets to a concert, play or other event, whereas 49% said they would use it to buy a product and 48% would use it to book a holiday or other types of travel. More than half mobile users would also use a service like this to enter a free prize draw (51%)!

Head over to the 160Characters Association's website to read more.

People Mobile Launches - Downloadable Application For Cell Phones

RCR Wireless News is reporting that People Magazine will be launching their own custom-built application:

The periodical launched People Mobile, a downloadable application that delivers breaking celebrity news, photo galleries, a puzzle game and a style blog. The application is available on carrier decks for $4 per month in addition to messaging charges

This is an interesting development, worth keeping an eye on. Not content to merely deliver a messaging or mobile web-based solution, People has built their own mobile application. And, bucking the usual model, the application itself is free; instead monetization will come through subscription access. If they see success with this strategy we might see a lot of brand-based, downloadable applications, especially if the FCC's recent ruling opens up the landscape.

Breaking Down The Walls Of The Mobile Web's Garden

The FCC recently issued a ruling that partially opens up the American airwaves:

The agency approved rules for an auction of broadcast spectrum that its chairman, Kevin J. Martin, said would promote new consumer services. The rules will let customers use any phone and software they want on networks using about one-third of the spectrum to be auctioned.

No one is quite sure yet how open things are about to get, but in the meantime, today's Wall Street Journal observes that some consumers have broken out of the walled garden themselves:

Ever since wireless companies began offering Internet services on cellphones, users have shared a similar complaint, largely because the companies want to control which sites their customers visit. Phones come with browsers designed to go mainly to the Web sites the carriers chose -- usually the ones they have revenue-sharing deals with. It is possible to go to sites outside this "walled garden," but the experience is so slow and cumbersome that most users don't try. And some of those outside Web sites won't work with the carrier-approved browsers.

But now those walls are beginning to break down, in a development that harkens back to America Online's failed attempt to limit its Internet subscribers' surfing in the 1990s. "Having a Web browser and the ability to browse the open Internet on your mobile phone will be a given in the future," says Tony Cripps, an analyst at research firm Ovum in London. "It's a capability that eventually people would expect to be there, just like text messaging and camera."

Since it was launched in January 2006, more than 15 million cellphone users around the world have downloaded the Opera Mini browser, which is available for free and usable on most cellphones. Early versions of the Opera Mini, developed by Opera Software ASA in Norway, display Web pages in a single column, which works well on cellphones with small screens. The latest version shows Web sites in full-page views that are even more similar to the look on a PC.

Read the entire article @ The Wall Street Journal.