6 New Phones For AT&T And They're All About Texting

AT&T recently unveiled six new phones to be sold on their network. Featuring full QWERTY keyboards, they're all designed with texting in mind:

AT&T today announced a fresh new lineup of smartphones and messaging phones that make it easier for customers to message with friends and family and manage their business and personal lives on-the-go. These new models are not available immediately but will be released soon in next few weeks. In the smartphone category, AT&T debuted the Nokia E71x and the Samsung Propel Pro, powered by Symbian OS and Windows Mobile 6.1. In addition, the Samsung ImpressionTM and Samsung Magnet, and LG Xenon and Neon expands the number of full-keyboard mobile phones in AT&T’s lineup to seven.

Read more @ SlashPhone

CBS Scores A Big Win With March Madness Mobile

USA Today's AdTrack column delivers the info on CBS Sports' successful March Madness mobile marketing campaign:

March Madness on iPhone is turning out to be a slam-dunk for CBS TV advertisers.

Advertisers for CBS (CBS) broadcasts of the NCAA men's basketball tournament now underway are getting a bonus: Their ads show up in games viewed on iPhones via a $4.99 CBS application.

Coke (KO), for one, is happy. "It's an innovative iPhone application that gives us an additional way to connect Coke Zero with NCAA fans," says spokeswoman Susan Stribling.

Read the entire story at USA Today.
(via MobileMarketingWatch)

Mobile Marketer's Mobile Outlook 2009 Is Now Available

Head over to Mobile Marketer to download a PDF of their Mobile Marketer's Mobile Outlook 2009. It's packed with important info:

As Mobile Marketer's Outlook 2009 proves, marketers understand the need to integrate mobile into their multichannel branding, customer acquisition and customer retention plans.

Several trends are emerging as mobile matures into a medium that, while not without flaws, is a more palatable option than other marketing channels in use. The emphasis, however, should be on mobile's complementary nature - it gives legs to other channels, including retail, online, television, print, coupons, radio, outdoor, direct mail and insert media.

Top of the trends list is the consumer's growing comfort with consuming news and content on mobile phones, along with exchanging SMS text messages, shopping for products and services, checking email, playing games, conducting mobile banking transactions and searching for retail locations or driving directions.

Read more at Mobile Marketer, and download the PDF!

New Club Texting Web Site. New Club Texting Features!

It's been a busy week at Club Texting. First, we launched our brand new website this morning. It's designed to help you find exactly what you're looking for as quickly as possible. We think you'll enjoy it.

The other major announcement is that we're launch two great new features: Picture Attachments & Voice Broadcasting. Here are the details on Club Texting Voice

With Club Texting Voice, you can send out 1000s of calls within minutes. From your account, just click "Call" and follow the simple instructions to record your voice message. Once you are satisfied with your message, select the group of numbers you wish to call and you are all set! Each call costs 5 cents for US accounts and 7 cents for Canadian users.

And here is the info on Picture Messaging

Would you like to add pictures to your messaging campaigns? Unfortunately this technology - called Multimedia Messaging (MMS) - is not fully supported by all of the wireless carriers. Instead of waiting, we've released our own version of picture messaging via WAP Link!

Visit the new Club Texting website today!

Mobile Bar Codes On The March

Ad Age has an interesting take on mobile bar codes. Have they finally arrived?

When Peter Shipman, a franchise owner of the Qdoba casual Mexican restaurant chain, was launching his third outlet in the college town of Ann Arbor, Mich., he needed a way to draw students to the new location -- and he wanted to speak their technological parlance. So he bought ads in the campus newspaper and posted promotional posters, each with a code kids could scan with their phones to get a mobile coupon for a buy-one-get-one-free burrito.
...
Qdoba joins small but growing group of marketers warming to the long-promised technology. In fact, among three vendors working to make this a reality -- Scanbuy, Jagtag and Clic2C -- there are at least 15 initiatives involving national brands in the retail, fashion, food and beverage categories that should hit next quarter.

Read more @ Ad Age.
Visit Club Texting to learn more about mobile marketing solutions for retail.

AMBER Alert iPhone App Goes Multiplatform

Jonathan Zdziarski's recently announced AMBER alert iPhone app is now available on the App Store. You can expect to see it on other platforms in the near future as well:

The AMBER Alert iPhone application we told you about last month, developed by iPhone forensics expert Jonathan Zdziarski, is finally available from Apple's App Store. The free application is designed to help disseminate alerts for high-risk missing children and report sightings to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

The application helps NCMEC more accurately pinpoint the location of missing children by sending GPS coordinates of your iPhone when you report a sighting. The NCMEC uses the GPS data to coordinate reported sightings and inform the proper law enforcement agencies.

Read more @ Ars Technica.

Read more about Emergency SMS Alert Systems @ Club Texting.

Car Insurance Firm Alerts Customers Of Icy Roads Via Text Messages

We recently heard about an innovative Dutch insurance firm, over at textually.org:

As soon as weather warnings are issued that could make driving hazardous, Onna-onna sends its clients a text message advising them to be extra alert or even stay off the road. The company relies on weather reports from the National Meteorological Institute, and provides the text messages free of charge to clients who have signed up for them.

Aiming to reduce the number of accidents caused by heavy winds, icy roads and severe thunderstorms, the warning service is part of Onna-onna's wider efforts to promote road safety. Which isn't a purely philanthropic gesture, of course—lower accident rates are good for any insurer's bottom line. Onna-onna is planning to trial the service for a year before evaluating and potentially adding other SMS-based perks.

Read More @ Spring Wise (via Textually)

Head over to Club Texting to read our Emergency SMS Alert System Case Study.

Talk And Type SMS App For The iPhone!

According to cnet's Crave blog, iPhone owners can bypass typing out text messages with a new app:

Tired of fumbling around the iPhone's onscreen keyboard to send a text message? Soon you can skip that altogether, as long as you can speak English properly.

This is thanks to a new iPhone application that Promptu, a talk-and-type mobile phone application developer, introduced Monday called ShoutOUT. The application is going to be the first voice-to-SMS application for iPhone users in the United States.

The application lets you dictate text messages instead of typing on the iPhone's touch-screen keypad. It also allows for checking the transcribed messages for errors and make corrections if necessary before sending them out to the intended recipients.

Read more @ cnet