Lonely Plant has made a move to expand its reach within the digital space, with the launch of a series of augmented reality (AR) apps on Google’s Android Market.The company already has a strong hold in the Apple App Store but wants to expand its mobile readership beyond this one domain.
The Lonely Planet Compass Guide apps use AR and the phone’s GPS features to display local attractions in 25 cities, including Bangkok, London and New York.
Matthew Cashmore, innovation and ecosystem manager at Lonely Planet, said the apps, priced at $4.99 (£3.14), are designed to drive premium revenues for the company, and ruled out any third-party ads.
In addition to the release of the AR city apps, they have recently introduced a discover eBooks series, which profiles areas of interest, on Apple’s iBookstore.
Lonely Plant’s expansion into these new digital arenas demonstrates their commitment to developing innovative and exciting products for their consumers, while at the same time developing their online operations.
Posted by jen | Comments (0)
Sales of Android phones have risen by more than 300% since the beginning of 2010! With 1 in 10 mobile contracts sold in the UK now running on Google's mobile operating system.
From the beginning of 2010, most of the UK's major mobile operators have started selling a number of Android based mobile devices, running on Google's Linux-based software. The HTC Desire and HTC Legend are among the devices hailed by critics and consumers alike. HTC, the Taiwanese manufacturer of many devices running Android, posted a 41% global sales increase for the first six months of 2010.
"The figures suggest an increasing number of consumers are now asking for Android handsets by name," said GfK analyst Megan Baldock. "Operating systems are no longer simply a by-product but a key selling point in their own right."
Posted by jen | Comments (0)
Nielsen Mobile have released new stats that indicate the adoption of mobile web has reached a critical mass and can now support large scale marketing efforts.
The news comes in the same week as Admob announced that, as far as they're concerned the mobile web has grown 104% over the past 12 months with the US an UK growing substantially faster.
According to Nielsen 15.6% of mobile users regularly access mobile internet from their handsets which equates to some 40 million consumers.
(All in all, 95% million US subscribers access mobile internet, only 40 million do so on a regular basis however)
The UK and Italy followed the US, with 12.9 percent and 11.9 percent respectively, of subscribers going online from a mobile device.
The Nielsen report shows that the top things to do on mobile include - visiting music portals, email access, weather reports, news/politics, search, city maps and sports.
Surprising how search feature far down on the list when key industry voices are maintaining that the evolution of search over mobile will be the single most influencing factor in its growth.
Top 5 handsets used to access internet over mobile, according to Admob, are; Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Samsung and Apple featuring at no.9 which is impressive considering that the iPhone hasn't been on the market a wet weekend!
Posted by lisa | Comments (0)
Tags: mobile internet, statistics, admob, nielsen mobile
New Statistics released by the MDA (Mobile Data Association) show interesting results for picture messaging...
In its first ever aggregation of MMS Statistics from all operators, it is clear now that UK mobile consumers are more and more interested in snapping pictures and sending them on to their friends, loved ones etc..
The 55% increase inpicture messages being sent is the physical equivalent of 19 million rolls of camera film!
Also in the stats it was revealed that 17 million people accessed the internet using their phones in December. This equates to 23% of the UK's mobile user base.
To see all stats from the report click here.
Posted by lisa | Comments (0)
Tags: mobile marketing, picture messaging growth, mobile internet, uk, mda
In support of their current TV Campaign Strongbow have launched an on-trade promotion using mobile as a primary reach channel according to Smstextnews.com. Together with UK mobile marketing agency incentivated Strongbow will use location based tracking to engage their audience.
The campaign is aimed to encourage people to choose Strongbow as their first drink of the evening and will target 66 pibs and clubs nationwide.
Focusing in on the 25 - 35 male target group consumers will need to text to the shortcode for their location to be detected; details of their nearest Strongbow First Pint Friday venue will then be sent to them. A support WAP site is being created that will provide an array of content that pub goers would want to download on a Friday night including jokes, ringtones and wallpapers. Allerts will also be sent every Friday at 3pm to the promtion database to remind them of the nights events! Just took a look at the strongbow website and it's worth a look (which is always good news!), you can view all current and past ad campaigns and enter competitions.
Posted by lisa | Comments (0)
Last week was a busy one in the UK for network providers Vodafone and Orange as they faced the public with their new pricing models for mobile data in the UK. It felt for many people that the day would never come but gloriously it did!
So good news or bad news first? Lets start with the easiest...
Orange have followed in the steps of T - Mobile and 3 and announced daily browsing for £1. In the new pricing Orange pay monthly customers will be able to access the mobile internet for £1 a day, £5 for monthly and weekend browsing and £8 for monthly anytime browsing. Fair play to Orange I say! Also announced is that all monthly customers will be allowed free access to their own Orange World Homepage, news and favourites.
In the same breath Vodafone have also announced their great new value deal which is slightly more complicated.. So Vodafone will charge for the first 0.5 MB (Approx. 20 Pages) that you download and then give you the next 14.5 MB Free. This works out at about 85p per 15MBs. This is a decent offer, however it comes with a few exceptions.
- You may only download the free MBs over the same day i.e. Data cannot be carried over
- There is a charge of £1.70 per MB after the 15 MBs has been exceeded
- The 85p charge does not include Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services such as Skype or Peer-to-Peer services such as Instant messenger. These services cost £1.70 per MB used and a 4p minimum charge for each data session
At least we are seeing some more movement towards all you can eat data pricing and flat rates overall but I wonder who will find it easier to advertise their new prices?!
Posted by lisa | Comments (0)