News Corp. to use mobile barcode technology

The News of the World have teamed up with NeoMedia Technologies Inc. to bring interactive content to its audience. The technology called “qode”, enables users to take a photograph of a barcode with their camera phone or enter keywords to be connected to Internet information on their mobile phones.

From the press release:

“Mike Anderson, managing director of News Group Newspapers for News Corp. said News of the World will use qode mainly to bring TV clips of English Premier League football (soccer) to its readers via their cell phones over the mobile Internet. He said qode technology could also be used by News of the World advertisers to offer readers discount vouchers, or additional product information via their handsets.”

Orange Photography service: 1 million photos uploaded after the first 5 months.

According to this press release, the Orange Photography service in the UK has had over a million photos uploaded over the last five months. The service also allows users to share images with friends. Orange gives some of the credit to Pixota, a mobile imaging client developed by NewBay

Preference for Mobile Data Services

This report has some interesting information about which services mobile users have a particular preference for. For the full article, click here.

Service and Ranking

1 Text messaging (SMS)

2 Email

3 MMS

4 Alerts via SMS/MMS

5 Instant messaging

6 Web browsing and searching

7 Location-based services

8 Mobile radio

9 Financial transactions

10 Downloading content

11 Mobile TV

12 Video calling

13 Video sharing

14 Gambling

Music companies make up for lower CD sales with singles and ringtones

This is an interesting article about how sales from ringtones and other mobile products are actually producing a substantial amount of revenue for record companies, from the article:

“According to the data, sales of the CD still accounted for roughly 74 percent of the U.S. revenue earned by the company, or roughly $17 million. But sales of an array of individual digital products added almost $6 million. About two-thirds came from ringtones of hit singles, but the figure also included roughly $330,000 from mobile phone games related to the artist and $94,000 in sales of cellphone “wallpaper,” or screen backgrounds.”

Encouraging findings for mobile TV in the UK

A new study released by GfK Technology (this article in Revolution has some information on the results) shows encouraging findings for mobile TV usage among users in the U.K.

Overall, the study found 70% of active subscribers are using the service at least once a week. However, the vast majority actually watch mobile TV for less than half an hour at any one time, and only 38% claim that the typical length of a viewing session is for more than 20 minutes.

Over half of the respondents (the study conducted 280 online interviews with users of mobile TV over the last three months) said they watched mobile TV for something to do during their downtime; 18% said they watched to catch favourite programs when they were away from their TV at home; and 10% said they wanted to catch a particular program on-the-fly. The three most popular forms of content on mobile TV are: News & Weather (65% watch often or sometimes), Sports (56% watch often or sometimes) and Music Videos (46% watch often or sometimes).

Source: moconews.net

2006 Sprint Productivity Survey

The recent Spirit Productivity revealed some interesting findings and trends among wireless mobile users in the US. Around 93% of Americans take their work-related mobile phones with them on holiday. The report also found that respondants thought that technology was essential to their levels of productivity.

From the report:

Productivity with Mobile Phones
When asked what services on respondents' mobile phones help maximize their lives (respondents could choose more than one), respondents said:
Text messaging (64 percent)

Email (62 percent)

Camera (60 percent)

Wireless Web (59 percent)

Music (58 percent)

Instant messaging (58 percent)

Location-based services (driving directions, GPS tracking) (55 percent)

News (55 percent)

Games (51 percent)

Similarly, when asked which feature on their mobile phone helps respondents make the most of their time, voicemail led the way. Respondents said:

Voicemail (86 percent)

Phone book (82 percent)

Speed dial (65 percent)

Speakerphone (65 percent)

Camera (56 percent)

Text/instant messaging (53 percent)

Calendar (51 percent)

For the full report, click here.