MaxxoMedia Digital Media and Entertainment Trends

From Kenradio.com

A growing number of mobile phone subscribers worldwide are taking online social networking to the streets. The U.K. leads Europe in mobile social networking on a percentage basis — with the U.S. boasting comparable numbers. In the U.K., approximately 810,000 mobile subscribers, or 1.7% of all mobile subscribers in the country, visited social networking websites on their mobile phones in the first quarter of 2008. That reach percentage was twice as high as it was in other major European markets?though similar to the U.S., where 1.6% of all mobile subscribers (4.1 million in all) accessed social networks via their phones in December 2007.

Now in beta, Knewsroom publishes the “Knews” every morning, featuring the previous day’s top stories in politics, business, technology, design, sports and entertainment. Which stories rank as most important is decided by the audience of readers, in Digg-like fashion. Going far beyond Digg, though, Knewsroom rewards contributors with a portion of 20 percent of every dollar it earns in advertising revenue. Members of the Knewsroom community can participate by proposing topics for the next day, submitting syndicated or original stories, and voting on favourites.

By Mark Levy, CEO MaxxoMedia

I thought I had the social network angle all covered with my Facebook profile, Linkedin profile, Plaxo, my website and a blog. But then I noticed people “Twittering” and “Zanneling” through my Facebook updates and I was intrigued. What were these new strange verbs, I thought?

So I went over to www.twitter.com and www.zannel.com and I looked around.

What I found was people of all ages, all across the globe sharing their lives in bite size bits — sharing web pages, photos, news stories and conversations being overheard. More bits sharing ideas, new product launches, videos, bookmarks and slideshows. Even more bits with moments of the mundane, the sad and the peculiar.

Then I dug a little more and found that there are many more sites with strange names, encouraging people to share their interests, loves, hates and lives. Some of the sites share information with other sites. They create a daisy chain effect where, for instance, I can Zannel a new video of the woodpecker harassing me during my conference calls, and it will feed the link to my Twitter account, which then feeds Plaxo and Facebook.

But what if you wanted to share and collect all the information on all your friends regardless of which site they are using?

According to a new analysis from Scarborough Research, six percent of all consumers are classified as Digital Savvy nationally, but Austin (TX) adults are almost twice as likely as the national average to be in this leading edge consumer segment. Las Vegas, NV, Sacramento and San Diego are also leading Digital Savvy cities, with 10 percent of their residents having this higher level of technological orientation and adoption.

Eighteen hi-tech consumer behaviors and purchasing patterns were identified and isolated within the national study. These behaviors included household ownership of certain hi-tech items, consumer likelihood to engage in certain Web 2.0 behaviors, and usage of leading-edge cellular device features. Those who satisfied eight or more of them were classified as “Digital Savvy.”

By Mark Levy, CEO MaxxoMedia

According to the International Telecommunications Union, worldwide mobile telephone subscriptions now exceed 3.3 billion — equivalent to half the global population. Cell phones now surpass the number of computers and televisions combined.

In the coming years, it is predicted by some that the cell phone will become the device of choice for watching video. There are a number of current challenges to this vision that to date have stifled the market. Much like the early mobile web browsing experience, user expectations are low. Users complain of poor image quality, complexity, slow downloading times and lack of selection of content.

Content providers, distributors and carriers see a huge pot of gold in mobile video. Before they can realize it, though, new tools need to be created that help people find the content they want, format it correctly for each device and deliver a quality experience through the subscribers’ network connection.

Bob Bickel, founder of Ringside Networks,  has written an article digging into the behind the scenes struggles between Google and Facebook over  Google’s Friend Connect service.  Facebook has been willing to share with other network’s integrated applications but told Google to talk to the hand.  Social Networking sites have yet to achieve the revenue levels that they so desperately need to maintain their services in the long run.  Which path is correct? open sharing or isolationism?

By Bob Bickel

Facebook came out swinging yesterday to defend their users and their turf. http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=111. They have basically shut down Google’s use of their API to collect user profile and social graph information on the new Friend Connect service. Here’s my take on the background and what is going on…

Google has made a nice business out of an open Internet. Facebook carved out a nice little corner of the Internet with a social network that does not give Google the type of visibility they would like into that little corner. In addition, that little corner looks like it might be kind of valuable. Google makes a few moves like buying Orkut and amassing all the other social networking vendors and creating Open Social. Those things are OK, but not really opening up that corner that Google now has become to covet.

Well, the world of social network walled gardens kind of exploded last week. MySpace, Facebook and Google all seemed to rush announcements to market without full thought, without proper collaboration and certainly a bit hastily.

Last week, I explained some of the complexities within the mobile content retailing market. This week we’ll hear senior execs from Thumbplay, 9Squared/Zed and Flycell talk about what it’s like to play in this space.

Are Traasdahl is the CEO of Thumbplay, the largest direct-to-consumer player in the U.S. An independent company with 100 employees based in New York, Thumbplay is projected to own about 18% of the U.S. off-portal market. The company recently raised $18 million in venture capital to expand operations.

Brian Casazza is CEO of 9Squared, a part of Zed, the leading mobile content retailer in the world with over $500 million in gross revenue annually. Zed has 40 million consumers around the globe who buy on a monthly basis. 9Squared announced earlier this month that they would formally combine operations with Zed.

Guillermo Cengotitabengoa is the VP Marketing for Flycell, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Italian mobile-messaging pioneer Acotel Group. Launched in November of 2004, Flycell provides a broad range of premium mobile content products, including ringtones, games, mobile greeting cards and wallpapers that empower mobile users to customize their phones and make them an extension of their personalities.

I asked each of them about the state of the market, how the regulations were affecting their businesses and what they could do to build brand and grow their businesses.

By Mark Levy, CEO MaxxoMedia

Throughout the past few years, the mobile content industry has enjoyed strong market growth. Primarily fueled by the sale of master ringtones directly through the cell phone carriers, the market looked unstoppable.

Recent studies show, however, that the ringtone market appears to be peaking and is projected to decline in the coming years. So far, no other mobile content application has proven it is ready to take the ringtone’s place. Mobile video has yet to take off and full-track music downloads seem to be dead on arrival. Some project Ring Back Tones may be the one to break through although it’s growth has been slow to date.

As recently as last year, it was believed that the direct-to-consumer market, also known as “off portal” mobile content sales, would more than make up for any flattening sales at the carriers.

Foreign-based companies, which had been successful in their native markets, began entering the U.S. market. They launched multi-million-dollar TV and print advertising campaigns to quickly build brand and drive awareness. Many considered the ads misleading. They offered “free” ringtones without explaining clearly that the consumer would be signed up to a pricey subscription.