Move over ringtones this time its personal

Bare — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 20:12:16 +0000

www.buzzmygoat.com (BMG) is a new way for people to communicate using mobile video content. BMG allows anyone to create and send a personalised video clip – television sketch, dramatised greeting, announcement or advertisement to a friend, colleague, client or business contact, anywhere in the world, instantly. BMG provides entertaining content direct to someones mobile (most mobile networks are accessible). Its a variation on the prolific growth in slide-show applications such as www.rockyou.com that have been fuelled by the growth in social networking sites. Clearly the main use will be making someone laugh as a joke or prank but other potential uses anticipated by its creators are sending thoughts or ideas, promoting brands or for viral campaigns.

Given the target audience likely to be 16-25 age group the simple billing options using mobile phone networks makes for easy use and should fuel take up. Ultimately the technology offers little protection from “me too” propositions and brand take up will be focused around using the platform for delivering web to mobile promotional mechanics, and will require exclusive and/or premium quality content to be successful either on a peer-to-peer basis or for brand direct to consumer campaigns.

Expect a flood of new players in this space but we’ll have to wait some time before we know the players that will carve out a leading market position. What’s for sure this is not just a technology play but critically depends on great short-form entertainment content and the ability to clearly present the offer to advertisers who will be vital for funding the development of the content and the technology platform so as to achieve the necessary scale.

Phorm and function?

Bare — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:46:27 +0000

Phorm (www.phorm.com) believes it can rewrite the way Internet advertising is planned, bought and sold. However, Phorm needs the co-operation of its ISP partners to succeed. In return, Phorm’s plans give these ISPs a share of fast-growth Internet advertising for the first time. This said, the user/ISP relationship is fragile due to privacy issues which may hold up progress, and Phorm needs to gain support of all the major ISP’s to ensure success.

Phorm has developed a platform, the Open Internet Exchange, which enables display advertisers on the Internet to target individual users based on their web browsing history (including, but not limited to, current page views). The business model is based on a revenue-sharing partnership with Internet service providers (‘ISPs’) and the company has exclusive arrangements with the top three in the UK, covering 70% of broadband users.

In the US the value of behaviourally targeted online advertising (BTOA) is expected to double to US$1bn during 2008 and then to almost quadruple to US$3.8bn by 2011. According to eMarketer.com (June 2007), this positions behavioural targeting as one of the fastest-growth segments of the expanding online advertising market. In the UK, BTOA could reach 12% of total Internet advertising by 2010, i.e. £528m, according to Andrew Walsh, Media Research Analyst at Landsbanki Securities (www.landsbanki.com).

Whether Phorm has the impact that the research suggests may well depend primarily on ISP’s validating the financial benefits of a revenue-share model. However, with the top 3 ISP’s already ensuring that the majority of the broadband market is under “exclusive arrangements” with Phorm, it seems the biggest question remains how the consumer proposition will be defined by the ISP’s so as to reassure users and how the ISP’s will seek a competitive advantage in the way they present this relationship as part of their offer (e.g. lower prices, more relevant advertising, etc.).

My guess is the ISP’s will cooperate and as a result consumers will need to use their collective “voice” to ensure they benefit from this intrusion on their privacy.