:::M-Internet360:::

Mobile Spam on the rise

Definition of Mobile Spam:

Mobile Spam is to a mobile handset what email spam is to an e-mailbox.
It is defined as unsolicited commercial messages, which

• try to sell something to the user or
• ask the user to call a phone number, which may be a premium-rate service or
• destroy or change handset settings or
• are simply messages of a commercial nature that are considered threatening, or intruding upon a user's privacy.

80% of mobile phone users surveyed by University of St. Gallen, Switzerland and bmw wireless said tey have received unsolicited text messages (mobile spam). The survey forms part of a report -- "Insights into Mobile Spam, World's First Collaborative Empirical Study" -- on the growing problem of mobile spam.  Click here for a look at the Table of Contents of the report.

Related:

: Techworthy on SMS Spam Filtering Solutions

: Trojan virus targets handsets with SMS spam

: Mobiletracker: "Mobile Spam spreads"

: CNN: "Spam invasion targets mobile phones"

: New measures launched by O2 Ireland to block m-spam

: Mobile operators in the UK apply content controls

Vodafone Italy offers Disney Content

Vodafone Italy is offering pictures Disney and Looney Tunes characters to be sent as MMS as well as real music Disney cartoon soundtracks. More here.

Related:

: Walt Disney India recently launched two TV channels - Disney Channel and Toon Disney in the Indian market and plans to offer wallpapers, ringtones and mobile games in the next few months.

Detecting credit card fraud by SMS

MasterCard teams up with mBlox to add SMS option to its Aristion fraud detection system.

"It is an add-on module that will work as a turnkey or plug-and-play solution to easily give banks the ability to reach more customers rapidly and reliably at a lower cost," said Johan Gerber, associate vice president of MasterCard's risk products division. "Instead of every bank trying to do this on their own, this SMS option is ready to use and can be installed in about an hour."

SMS based fraud alert systems are also being used in parts of Eastern Europe and South Africa by individual banks, but only MasterCard is offering the service and alerting system on a global scale.

6 reasons why text messaging will grow

Jeff Wilson, CEO of text and voice infrastructure developer Telsis is very upbeat about the future of text messaging services and according to him there are six key growth-driving factors:

Demographics – texting will expand into new groups, as today’s text-savvy youngsters grow older. The new generation of teenagers will continue to use text because it is cheap, fast and discrete.

The expanding mobile community – the number of GSM subscribers is set to double to 2 billion. New users will catch the texting habit. Advanced network services – new text services such as divert, copy and alpha addressing will stimulate more usage by both businesses and individuals.

New text applications – new applications such as national-scale participation TV will generate huge text volumes. A five-minute voting period in the UK could easily attract five million votes with gross revenue of over £1 million.

SMS for customer care – text will become a regular part of customer-care programmes. Text wizards can already recognize natural-language questions and automatically fire back answers.

MMS growth – far from replacing text, MMS will actually grow it because every MMS message is underpinned by up to two text messages. Meanwhile people will continue to use text when speed, cost and privacy are important.

Related:

: Telsis inks multi-million euro deal with Swedish telco Telia to create text and voice voting system.

: Towards National Scale SMS Voting white paper looks at “Participation TV and examines the unique demands that mass messaging places on network infrastructure. It explores network capacity problems and how, using an Intelligent SMS Routing infrastructure, mobile operators can follow the same tried-and-tested voice calling model to make national-scale SMS voting a success”.

Delivering The 'Safe Sex Message' - By Text

From Text-News newsletter:

Wandsworth Borough Council have teamed up with Text Marketer to launch a unique service aimed at communicating the ‘safe sex’ message to thousands of local clubbers.

Visitors to nightclubs in Wandsworth are being given the opportunity to win a top prize. Clubbers simply text in the keyword ‘safe‘ to enter a prize draw. Entrants also automatically join a text news service giving regular text bulletins and safe sex tips.

Targeting the most vulnerable 16 – 24 year olds, the campaign aims to deliver the safe sex message without individuals having to give any personal details. The service is anonymous and users don’t even have to speak to anyone on the phone.

Richard Hawley, Text Marketer’s Creative Director commented, “This service is a great example of how ‘the mobile channel’ is being used to deliver genuinely innovative solutions”.

Filipino insurance company offers SMS services

The Philippine Health Insurance (PhilHealth) is offering “TxtPhilHealth” service to overseas Filipino workers and their families, allowing them to use SMS to check their their identification, remittances, and other benefits with PhilHealth. 

Mobile 365 gets behind London 2012

From Yann Yip of Asian Publicis:

" Mobile 365, the global leader in mobile messaging services, has partnered with London 2012 to deploy a major campaign encouraging Londoners to ‘back the bid’ to bring the 2012 Olympics to the city. By teaming up with Mobile 365, London 2012 enables British sports fans to show their support by texting LONDON to the cross-operator short code "82012." The campaign is promoted on poster sites, tubes, and buses across LondonEach text message received will be counted and given to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as proof that the citizens of London are behind the bid. "We're thrilled to be providing the interactive voting mechanism to the London 2012 bid," said Russell Tarr, Mobile 365 Country Manager, UK & Ireland. "Text voting is the ideal way for Londoners to back the city in their bid to host the games. It's easy, fast, and reliable."

Londoners who back the bid will receive a return SMS confirming that their vote has been counted. The text response, to be introduced to the service this month, will also contain details of the London 2012 Website, where further interactions to support the bid can be found."

Related:

: Five things to know about launching a profitable SMS service.

Golden Wonder begins SMS campaign

Crisp and snack maker Golden Wonder to launch SMS campaign with Text Marketer.  Consumers play to win one of 25 beetle convertibles by cracking an 8-digit safe code of which there are 25 winning sequences.  Players are allowed one text-based attempt per day and every entry will go into the prize draw. Promotion will appear on more than 22M promotional packs. Text Marketer has experience in providing SMS marketing services to Sainsbury’s ExxonMobile, Halfords, Revlon, L’Oreal, Virgin, Samsung and BP. Click here for more information.

First MMS stamp in the World

From Cellular-News:

"Switzerland's Post Office is to issue the worlds first postage stamps with images sent in to it via camera phones using MMS. Swiss Post, Swisscom Mobile and the Museum for Communication in Berne are seeking the best motifs on the topic of "Swiss mobil - a country on the move". Owners of mobile phones with cameras can submit their pictures as an MMS from 1 February until 21 March 2005. The public will vote by text message to choose the top 100 MMS pictures by the end of March. A specialist jury will then select the four winning motifs from these entries. They will be issued as special stamps with face values of CHF 0.85, CHF 1, CHF 1.30 and CHF 1.80 and will be available at all post offices as of September.

But MMS artists are not the only winners. Swiss Post, Swisscom Mobile and the Museum for Communication are holding a draw for all kinds of prizes for those who take part in the text message voting."

Also Finnish postal service has launched text message theme stamps so as to draw young Norwegians back to letter writing.

Sending MMS from MS Outlook

With General Wireless eMMS application you can send and receive MMS messages from your MS Outlook program.  You can attach multimedia content in any popular format, regardless of size and eMMS will automatically convert to MMS formats.