Netpace Powers Mobile Commerce for Verizon Wireless With Premium Text Messaging Services

Netpace Powers Mobile Commerce for Verizon Wireless With Premium Text Messaging Services

UNION CITY, Calif., May 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Netpace, a single source for mobile marketing solutions, is helping fuel the new U.S. text messaging generation, today announcing that it is providing premium text messaging services for Verizon Wireless, enabling brands to devise personal, timely, targeted marketing campaigns for consumers.

Netpace's ReadySet two-way messaging platform operates and manages premium text messaging programs that deliver valued content to cell phones and offer businesses new revenue-generating marketing programs. Premium text messaging campaigns can include a variety of offerings from sports alerts and radio song dedication requests, to the ability to purchase more exclusive products and services such as an autographed copy of a guest's book via a tag that appears during a television show segment.
"Due to the widespread take-up of SMS, 'premium SMS' is emerging as the next frontier of growth in messaging," said Naqi A. Jaffery, President, Telecom Trends International. "Because it allows users to make payments over the mobile phone, premium SMS is the key to making mobile phones a transaction medium."
According to an April 2004 study by Telecom Trends International, "Mobile Commerce Takes Off," 94.9 million mobile commerce users worldwide generated $6.86 billion in m-commerce revenue in 2003, with projected revenue expected to exceed $554.37 billion by 2008. The Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA) cites that 1.5 billion text messages were sent in the U.S. in June 2003 -- a 50% increase over the previous year.
"The projected climb of m-commerce combined with continued text messaging uptake in the U.S. foretells the tremendous opportunity for premium text messaging," said Vajih Khan, co-CEO, Netpace. "Americans are the best marketers in the world and with the technology now in place, premium text messaging is primed to take off in the U.S. With a higher response rate and a lower cost of customer acquisition than television and magazine ads, premium text messaging will drive mobile marketing toward the mainstream marketing communications channel."
Netpace, which currently processes and manages two-way text messaging for third-party vendors connecting to Verizon Wireless, enhanced its ReadySet platform with a direct connection to Verizon Wireless' back-end billing structure -- a requirement for premium text messaging.
The Verizon Wireless-Netpace combination has already proved successful for a series of messaging programs in 2003 culminating in "TXT2WIN" sweepstakes supporting the "Lord of the Rings" movie promotion.
Netpace's ReadySet platform is a one-stop source for managing a full-service interactive messaging program -- from application programming, messaging sending/delivery and database management to ongoing statistical and management tools.
About Netpace
Netpace, a leading provider of mobile marketing solutions, provides businesses with a broad range of programs for launching and managing interactive campaigns using text-messaging, picture messaging, and other popular consumer applications. With Netpace, businesses have a highly-targeted, cost-effective way to interact with their current customers, reach new customers, and create new revenue streams. Netpace also provides carriers with an integrated solution for creating and managing mobile marketing programs that leverage existing customer intelligence. For more information, visit http://www.netpace.com/ .
Netpace


CONTACT: Drake White of Netpace, +1-510-476-1730, ext. 250, ordwhite@netpace.com; or Wendy Grubow of Eastwick Communications,+1-831-626-7503, or wendy@eastwick.com, for Netpace

Mobile phone location services ready for rebirth May 27, 04

Mobile phone location services ready for rebirth
Thu May 27, 2004 08:43 AM ET By Lucas van Grinsven, European Technology Correspondent

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The use of a mobile phone to pinpoint a caller's location and nearby businesses was a hot concept when the tech bubble peaked in 2000, but only now with better phones and software does it stand to succeed, companies say.

Mobile operators are selling much-improved services that help users locate friends or get directions to the nearest train station, but they have to fight off consumers' bad memories from 2000 and 2001, when they offered illegible maps on tiny black-and-white screens.

"People had terrible experiences three or four years ago," said Rick Smith of M-Spatial, a wireless map and route-finder software company, at the annual Mobile Location Services conference this week.

These days, maps or directions are tailored to a handset's small screen, which is now in colour. The maps are designed to meet specific demands, such as to help pedestrians who need landmarks to simplify their orientation when they come out of an underground train station.

Britain's Vodafone sell these services as part of its Live! offering. France's Orange, Sweden's TeliaSonera and China Mobile have also activated such services.

These moves signal the rebirth of a wireless industry segment, which at the moment is bringing in a meagre 0.2 percent of total operator revenues, according to British telecoms consulting group Concise Insight.

"There's an opportunity for things to improve," said Jake Saunders, a director at the consulting firm.

WHERE EXACTLY?

Until now, the slow take-up of location services has been compounded by the inaccuracy of systems to locate a handset.

The most widely used technology, called Cell ID which measures the angle and time it takes for a mobile phone signal to hit a radio base station, gives coordinates that can be off by hundreds of metres and up to several kilometres.

Many early services failed to take this margin of error into account, frustrating consumers.

"Some 60 percent of users are not satisfied with the current services," said director Jason Angelides of TruePosition, a U.S.-based and Liberty Media-owned wireless location service provider.

The latest services have become more useful, because they first ask customers to specify where they are in a certain area. But in many other cases, exact coordinates are needed.

Emergency services, for instance, now receive over 50 percent of calls from mobile phone users who are often in a panic and unable to give their precise location.

"And the mobile network only tells us that the phone is somewhere in a certain circle, which is often five kilometres wide, which is no good to us," said Graham Curry, manager of Lancashire's Assistant Operations.

His ambulances must find a patient suffering from a heart attack within eight minutes to be able to save a life.

EUROPE FOLLOWING UNITED STATES?

Several new technologies -- from assisted-GPS chips, which communicate with satellites, to U-TDOA software, which measures the distance from a phone between three radio base stations -- have emerged to refine the location of phones.

Government policy will force usage of these new systems.

In the United States, location services got a boost from a government mandate that by end-2005 all mobile phones must be pinpointed to a small radius. CDMA phones will mostly be fitted with A-GPS chips, while GSM networks are upgraded with U-TDOA.

Europe, aware that its security and emergency services also demand accurate location data, is watching closely. Every year, millions of European emergency calls go to waste because the location information is inaccurate, the European Union found.

"The problem is increasing as a result of high (handset) penetration," said Leo Koolen, a policy and regulations advisor at the Information Directorate of the European Commission.

Unlike the U.S., Europe has not yet demanded that mobile operators provide a minimum level of location accuracy, but the Commission will review that soon, Koolen said.

"We may need to adjust and see if it's necessary to amend accuracy requirements. The EU will review the situation by the end of 2004 and see if we need a mandate like the United States," Koolen said.

Operators balk at these requirements, which can cost them tens of millions of euros per country. But higher accuracy will also open up new commercial activities, and consumers may find their carriers will start sending limited time offers via text message if they enter a certain coffee shop or department store.

In a TruePosition survey, 80 percent of consumers said they would be interested in emergency location services on their phones.

Said TeliaSonera's Peter Bianconi: "It will re-open the location market in a new way."

Strategy Analytics Raises Worldwide Mobile Data Forecast

Strategy Analytics Raises Worldwide Mobile Data Forecast

Strategy Analytics - August 17, 2004

Strategy Analytics estimates that global revenues from mobile data will grow from around $61 billion this year to just over $189 billion in 2009. The analysts expect person-to-person messaging will account for 48 percent of the total, leading cellular data application categories such as downloading ringtones, games and entertainment content.

Strategy Analytics' Wireless Internet Applications (WIA) Service today released its new Cellular Data Forecast model (2004 - 2009). Building on its previous forecasts, this report breaks out user numbers, price and frequency-of-use metrics for 21 discrete application categories across the six major geographical regions.

"Overall, we have trended our outlook upwards since our last forecast," said senior analyst Philip Taylor. "This is due to multiple factors, but principally the faster than expected penetration of rich feature sets into devices, and growing evidence that demand for various types of content is being converted into usage.">

Despite this however, Strategy Analytics still expects lowly text messaging via SMS to remain the dominant global application, generating 26 percent of all data service revenues in 2009.

David Kerr, Vice President of the Strategy Analytics Global Wireless Practice, said, "Mobile data services are currently undergoing a period of strong growth as a result of carrier strategies, many of which were implemented in late 2002 and 2003, that have succeeded in establishing a strong base for consumer demand. These include better marketing, lower data prices, greater service availability, faster transmission speeds, richer handset features and more intuitive user interfaces."

What other application categories are hot? According to Kerr, "Certain applications are very promising: ringtones and download games continue to perform strongly in many markets, and are increasingly supplemented by video and audio infotainment services as the number of consumer 3G launches ramps up. Entertainment applications will generate revenues of $52 Billion in 2009 with 'Music and Media' and 'Sports' content the top two categories."

M-Commerce Market to grow to $40bn fuelled by micropayments

M-Commerce Market to grow to $40bn fuelled by micropayments

* Submitter: Juniper Research [View SourceWire PR Company Listings]

* Release Date: 05-10-2004

* 710 views on SourceWire

* Use Tech Response Source to send requests to all PR contacts.

The global mobile commerce market excluding mobile entertainment, will

become a $40bn industry by 2009, fuelled by a growth in micropayment

volumes, according to a new study from Juniper Research.

Large numbers of small payments will make up the vast majority of sales

via mobile phones, with the average Western European making

approximately 28 transactions a year via the mobile phone by 2009. The

average cost of each transaction in 2009 in Western Europe is expected

to be worth approximately $3.

Whilst the current m-commerce market is dominated by digital goods such

as mobile entertainment (ringtones, games, wallpaper, gambling and so

on), other markets such as ticket purchases, retail, and person to

person payments will emerge as additional application areas, with

revenues totalling $39bn by 2009.

The purchase of tickets (such as car parking and cinema tickets) using

the mobile phone, will dominate the growth in m-commerce. Mobile users

have started already to show interest in ticketing particularly in

Europe and Japan, while in the retail sector, initial applications are

geared towards vending machines, but this will see slow growth.

The report also reveals that:

Ticket purchases will emerge as a major application area by 2007 with

revenues totalling $39bn by 2009.

· Retail Point of Sale (POS) mobile transactions will be slow and be

worth only $299m by 2009.

· RFID and Infra Red technologies are likely to have major influence on

future developments of mobile as a payment device.

· The development of global standards will continue to be slow due to

too many industry bodies concentrating on vested interests.

Report author Marc Ambasna-Jones said:

"Mobile commerce is slowly starting to happen, driven by the demand for

ringtones and games but also increasingly music downloads. Other

applications too will start to emerge, such as ticketing and these are

applications that mobile users can understand as they start to explore

more uses for their increasingly powerful handsets."

"The key for m-commerce growth is simplicity. Will it be easier to use

than a credit card for example? Can it ever be more convenient than

cash? Ultimately the success or failure of mobile commerce, either macro

or micro payments, will come down to this."

White papers and further details of the study ?Mobile Commerce

(M-Commerce) & Micropayment Strategies? can be freely downloaded from

http://www.juniperresearch.com. Alternatively please contact Michele

Ince at micheleince@juniperresearch.com, Telephone +44(0)1256 345612.

Juniper Research provides research and analytical services to the global

hi-tech communications sector, providing consultancy, analyst reports

and industry commentary.