search marketing blog: ambergreen

AOL is to trial a revolutionary new mobile application designed to make the process of capturing and sharing images online a whole lot simpler.

Created by Juice Wireless, the JuiceCaster servicettp://www.juicecaster.com/juicecaster/ enables users to easily upload photos, view user generated images and videos, as well as create videos and connect with friends online. A viewer can search for and stream user-generated videos and images directly to a mobile phone.

AOL Europe’s Mike Moore, head of monetisation services, praised the new service saying: “JuiceCaster is exactly the type of application our users want — an easy-to-use social networking service that connects mobile phones to the web. This is a leading product delivering open, post-anywhere, mobile picture and video blogging.”

The free service gives users the JuiceCaster application and the associated mobile to web publishing tool known as MediaBox, a simple Flash plug in which the user adds to their online locations, enabling images to be automatically distributed each time they are taken. AOL is already the top referrer to online video sites in the UK, being 39% more responsible for a click through to a video site (11%) than it is to anywhere else (7.9%), and JuiceCaster could be a great way for AOL to push themselves as the social media ISP.

JuiceCaster works on most camera-enabled mobile phones and while uploading their content, users can quickly provide relevant information such as title, keywords, location, topic and community.

With more and more photos being uploaded to the web every day in countless social media locations every day, AOL may have a great product on their hands here, and one which appeal to a young market. Already very popular in the US, JuiceCaster has received huge amounts of financial backing and has secured deals with sites such as College Tonight, a social network that helps college students stay in touch.

AOL plans to launch the application in early 2007.

According to new research carried out by the BBC and ICM Research, the rise of online video is impacting on traditional TV viewing figures, with 43% of British people watching video on their mobiles or online at least once a week, cutting the amount of time they spend watching TV.

The survey of 2,070 people found that 75% of the respondents watch more TV online and on mobile devices than they did a year ago, and although only 9% do so regularly, they admitted that they spent less time watching TV as a result.

It hasn’t been a good year for TV, with online ad revenue impacting heavily on traditional media sales. Channel 4 recently issued a warning that it is likely to be overtaken in ad revenue by Google this year. Channel 4 has entered negotiations with Google to discuss the possibilities of making its programming content available online, but as internet spend continues to rise while TV ad spend falls, the threat of online seems set to cause TV bosses concern for the foreseeable future.

The success of sites such as YouTube has helped the online video market grow, and experts predict that the online video advertising market in the US will be worth around $410 million this year, with this figure predicted to rise to $3 billion by 2010.

While most of those surveyed who regularly watched video online were aged 16 to 24, use across all age groups was noted, including in the 65+ category. 10% said that they didn’t watch online video at the moment but intended to do so in the next 12 months, which could drive an even greater need for TV to make a concerted effort to move online as the internet threatens not only ad revenue, but also viewing figures.

It seems that viewing is at the start of a revolution, and one which should be taken seriously, and as mobile operators pull out the stops to get customers using mobile internet services, it looks like 2007 might be the year when it all starts to happen.

MySpace is looking for partners as it prepares to launch MySpace mobiles services in Europe. According to vice president of mobile, Europe, MySpace is focusing on three keys areas of expansion; mobile, video and international.

Mobile internet usage has been slower to take off than expected, with a recent US survey conducted by the Mobile Marketing Association indicated that 31% of respondents used mobile search in the previous month, with users conducting an average nine searches per month.

With sites such as MySpace moving clearly into the mobile internet space, it is likely that uptake will rise, and with 3 billion mobile phones worldwide, the war to win the mobile internet market seems to be hotting up. Mobile operator 3 recently secured partnerships with Google, Skype and eBay among others to provide a range of services to subscribers, who will be able to access MSN instant messaging, eBay auctions, Windows Live Messenger and make free calls to Skype subscribers around the world.

The moves come amid demands from the site’s 130m subscribers. MySpace will not license its brand to mobile operators, but will offer customers MySpace functionality and promote it.

Deals have already been signed in the US with Helio and Cingular to promote the site’s mobile usage across America.

Mobile operator 3 yesterday took steps towards revolutionising the slowly developing mobile internet market by generating revenues from customers subscribing to use advanced mobile services.

Subscribers will be offered free long distance phone calls and unlimited internet access from mobile devices for a monthly flat fee. X-series will be available to 3 customers from December and is likely to cost in the region of £10 to £15, although this is to be confirmed.

3 has signed a deals with Google, Skype and eBay among others to provide a range of services to subscribers, who will be able to access MSN instant messaging, eBay auctions, Windows Live Messenger and call any of the 136 million Skype subscribers around the world for free.

With 3 billion mobile phones worldwide, the war to win the mobile internet market seems as if it’s about to hot up.

According to 3’s finance director, Frank Sixt, mobile services have been too highly priced with too narrow a range of applications to make uptake attractive.

“Forcing people into a walled garden of services in a mobile broadband world is wrong. And it’s not acceptable to make choice so expensive that it’s no choice at all,” said Sixt.

Meg Whitman, eBay’s chief executive, called the deal a “key milestone” in the development of the mobile internet.

In addition to the mobile services offered, X-Series users will also be able to buy an additional gadget from Sling Media which will allow them to watch pictures from their home TV on their mobile device will anywhere in the world.

Ask.com has launched a new web search service for mobile devices called Ask Mobile. Designed to be easy to use from tiny, teeny little handset, Ask say that the service will make navigation easier and make searches faster.

The Ask Mobile homepage links off to category pages, making it easy to navigate to the right place, while the ‘Squeezer’ technology used enables web pages to be easily viewed and navigated on a small screen, rather than trying to adapt PC pages.

While mobile search usage hasn’t yet reached the levels expected, ASK clearly have some competition to live up to, with Google, Yahoo! and AOL already in this space.

Ask has seen a rise in usage recently, with August search statistics from Neilsen/Netratings showing an 8% market share in the UK, with 38,220,000 total searches made during August.

Yahoo has today launched a service which will see sponsored adverts appear beside natural results on mobile phones, both in the US and UK. Operating in the same way as normal PPC advertising, each of the mobile sponsored ads will offer each of the current 100 advertisers the opportunity to attract mobile users to their products and services.

Although the service is currently only at the test stage, according to Steve Boom, Senior VP of Broadband and Mobile at Yahoo!, “Enough users are doing queries that it’s beginning to turn into a business big enough for Yahoo! to find interesting. We’ve done the same thing in the UK on a single operator for the last nine or ten months and the same trend appears to be happening.”

While only a small number of advertisers are able to use the service at present, Yahoo! intends to iron out any problems before rolling the service out to take advantage of the huge rise in mobile search usage in recent months.

A recent US survey conducted by the Mobile Marketing Association indicated that 31% of respondents used mobile search in the previous month, with users conducting an average nine searches per month.

Concerns about consumer backlash when advertising is added seem to be unfounded as the Mobile Marketing Association’s research indicated no complaints, echoing Yahoo!’s test period which has seen no complaints. Indeed it may be that consumers are now so used to advertising being shown during a PC search, that mobile search is assumed to be exactly the same.

Google seems to be a step behind it’s rival on this one, with the company currently conducting pilot tests for mobile ads in the U.S., U.K. and Germany similar to one Yahoo! conducted in Japan late last year. Integrated with the AdWords system, text ads will appear when a user searches using Google from a mobile device.

Goggle’s entry into this space could make it a whole lot easier for smaller advertisers to get involved in mobile search, but with Yahoo! jumping in first, Google may have to play catch up.