The 3G Dating Agency’s Blog

An article on Cabel’ Blog got me thinking today… One look at our site stats and it’s obvious a lot of our traffic (particularly from mobile browsers) is originating from Google. I understand that this is because most people are searching for URLs rather than just typing the full URLs into their browser, and most mobiles have the Google search page set as their default.

As we top Yahoo, Google, Taptu and all UK and Irish mobile operator search results, might advertising like that shown be a little more effective than the complete The3GDatingAgency.com URL?

I have a feeling that this advertising technique (already being widely used in Japan) might make more sense when we’re advertising on printed ads in the future as it might complement our QR Codes better too…

Is there anyone who could put up with having their day interrupted by the following?

…Oscar Jones and Norma Jones are now friends
…kevin Joyce is eating marshmallows
…Ollie Dale is attending toodles renoodles!
…Bronwyn Holmes wrote on Brendan
…Elmo Spears, Joe Biggs and Juliet South updated their profile picture

Facebook may have made the leap to the mobile device but to me the experience still looks like it’ll only be tolerated on a desktop… and we haven’t seen the adverts yet!

The Mobile Entertainment Award finalists have been announced and we’re very grateful to have been nominated as the Best Mobile Social Networking and UGC.

Unfortunately we’ll have to wait until the awards ceremony on the 10th December at the Mobile Entertainment Conference held at Londons prestigious Grange Holborn Hotel.

Not only is Verizon leading in the roll out of 3G in the USA, but their marketing campaign is reminding customers that a mobile needs a 3G network to excel.

Click here to see coverage in your area

US 3G Mobile Operator AT&T, have announced the results of a May 2008 survey on the use of mobiles in the modern dating scene. Alecia Bridgwater, AT&T’s Director of Messaging, sums it up “The love note has evolved from “roses are red” references scrawled on stationery to fast and flirty text messages”

Feedback from 26 year old Dee Casey from San Antonio was spot on: “I spend a ton of time texting every day. I think it’s much easier to flirt via text message than in person because you have a moment to think of a cute, flirty, creative response without being embarrassed about what the other person will think.”

But don’t forget to be careful with what you write as the research also shows that more than 50% of us would occasionally share a private text message from a suitor with a friend - to get their interpretation!

AT&T seem to have a great appreciation of the potential for Mobiles to take centre stage in the dating world and they’re branding their new 3G Video Calling service with the slogan “Being there is priceless”.

View AT&T’s Video Share Demo

Visit MobiAdNews for a great opinion piece on the Engagement Marketing Promise of Mobile from best selling Mobile Telecoms analyst Tomi Ahonen.

“Consider the banner ad, it is a copy of internet banner ads, which themselves are online variants of magazine and newspaper advertising. Banners are interruptive advertising. What we need is engagement marketing…”

“…Don’t try to copy the internet onto the phone. The phone is as different from the internet as TV was from radio. If you develop compelling advertising concepts for mobile using its benefits, you will succeed.”

Watch the YouTube Video of Tomi presenting at the Vodafone Mobile Advertising Seminar (5/2008)

Order your own copy of Tomi Ahonen’ latest book, Mobile as 7th of the Mass Media (highly recommended)

The 4G Forum has confirmed the agenda for the 4G Open Mobile Initiative plenary taking place at the Las Vegas Convention Centre as part of the Consumer Electronics Show.

We’ll have to start planning some activities to promote The 3G Dating Agency in the USA to coincide with my session on the 11th January when I’ll be talking about Mobile Social Networking Business Models alongside John Faith, General Manager Myspace, Marc Davis, Chief Scientist, Yahoo! Connected Life, Amir Hosseinpour, SVP of Product Strategy, JuiceCaster and Nagappan Arunachalam, Chief Marketing Officer, NewBay Software.

View the program for the 4G Open Mobile Initiative Program.

The full list of speakers will include: Willie W. Lu USCWC, Jon Hindle Cisco Systems, Thomas Lee JP Morgan, Michael G. Hill IBM, Rama Shukla Intel, Kris Rinne AT&T Wireless, Atish Gude Sprint XOHM, Latif Ladid IPv6 Forum, Indu Kodukula Oracle, Jai Jaisimha AOL, Jim Balquist Cisco, Kevin Shatzkamer Cisco, Tom Nagel ComCast Communications, Rick Robinson Sprint XOHM, Kay Johansson MobiTV, Michael Sheha Networks in Motion, Gary Schofield Amobee, Rama Shukla Intel, Bill Krenik Texas Instruments, Will Pinnell Handango, Mark Komisky
Bluefire Security Technologies, Paul Singh PixSense, Richard Wu Sieneon Technologies, Matt Bancroft Mformation Technologies, Stephane Maes Oracle Mobile, Jake MacLeod Bechtel Communications, Alan Brenner Research in Motion, Marc Davis Yahoo! Connected Life, Shane D. Wall Intel, John Faith MySpace, Jim Madsen Next Wave, Tom Nagel Comcast Communications, Kris Kolodziej Spime Inc, Chris Butler Dash Navigation, Cormac Conroy Qualcomm, Marwan Jabri Dilithium, Bradford D. Duea Napster, Dave Reid SiRF Technology, Martin Feuerstein Polaris Wireless Polaris Wireless and Todd Young Rosum Corporation.

An Australian member told us about a cool campaign that their Mobile operator Telstra have started to promote the use of QR Codes like that used in The 3G Dating Agency logo.

Visit QRious.com for a cool demo site explaining how to use 2D codes and why they are the ideal way to get any information you might like onto your mobile…

With the biggest 3G operator in Australia getting behind the movement it won’t be long before we see QR Codes on every Business Card, TV programme, Billboard Advert, Magazine, Newspaper, Wrapper, Food Packaging, etc.

Reading Tomi Ahonen’ Communities Dominate blog today and I realized I have a new hero. Marc Mielau, the innovation manager for mobile marketing at BMW – read his interview at Mobile AdNews.

By means of a carefully devised plan to remind relevant customers of the benefits of winter tyres/wheels the guy has used engagement mobile marketing to generate a 30% customer conversion rate and $millions of sales (the $45 million was my own back of an envelope rough guesstimate).

If anyone still doesn’t appreciate the benefits of engagement marketing through mobile think how:

> BMW thought about the needs of their customer
> Only sent messages to customers who bought cars in the summer months
> Personalised the messages so customers received a message featuring the exact same model, color and wheel style to the car they were driving
> Joined the service up with a .mobi mobile web site with a simulator so customers could try out different styles and see/compare prices.
> Sent out the MMS advert on the day when the first snow fell.

As to the future… I think my new hero has got it spot on in his Mobile AdNews interview so I’ll let him tell you about it…

“3G functionality in the phone with a big screen and browsing capability – this will influence the whole market. And when operators follow with flat rate offers, we will see a boom in this market”

DISCLOSURE: I am a diehard BMW fanboy and drive a much loved 8 series.

Last week The 3G Dating Agency entered a competition run in conjunction with Mobile Monday London and the Device Management Forum. Today we got the great news that we’d won a runner up prize and have been awarded the opportunity to present at the Device Management Forum’s forthcoming MIDAS event.

Other winners include Fromdistance (with tools to manage and support a wide variety of devices “over the air” in a centralised way), Airplay SDK (Cross-platform native execution environment for mobile) and WASP (CMS Wireless Asset Security Protection Cycle Monitoring System).

The Device Management Forum’ Managing Innovation Devices and Services (MIDAS) event takes place from the 27th to the 29th October 2008, at Centrepoint in London, UK.

See you there?