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Cool Cell Phone Uses

A few good uses of cellphone technology:

1. Reaching out to younger people to increase voter participating...

From News.com:

Music for America, a nonprofit advocacy for young-voter registration, will kick off a text-messaging campaign this June at concerts around the country...

...participating musicians will call on concertgoers with cell phones to get registered by punching in a word designated by the musicians and then sending it off using a short numerical code. Fans will receive a reply asking them to send their name and address to receive voter registration forms. They'll get an SMS (Short Message Service) reminder to vote on Election Day.

2. The London Borough of Lambeth is piloting a new email and SMS reminder service that will send a series of regular emails and text messages reminding users of deadlines for electoral registration, postal vote registration and election day voting. Read more from Textually.org.

3. Fox creates a new interactive game for cell phones inspired by 24, its hit television show:

From the BBC:

Taking the popular TV show, 24, and squeezing it into a mobile phone game sounds like a daunting task.

But as with so many big names from the world of TV and film, this is exactly what has happened to the real-time action series.

24 is making the leap from being a TV show to a game franchise of its own. Game versions for the main consoles are on their way.

Bad, Yahoo, Bad

This last weekend, I decided to purchase a song on Yahoo! Music and put it on my iPod.  (Yes... I now know you can't do this.) The experience turned out to be one problem and disappointment after another.  I had no idea what this was going to involve... 

When you sign up for Yahoo! Music, you need to get the "music engine."  This was expected (I have signed up for iTunes and MSN Music, so I realize that this is part of the process).  But, when all was said and done, I got a few extras added to my computer: Yahoo! Messenger, Yahoo! Mail and a Yahoo! Toolbar.  And, the kicker... Yahoo! suddenly became my default home page.  Bad, Yahoo, Bad! I probably should have paid more attention to options being presented to me when I started the sign up process. Overall, it would have been better to opt-in to all of these extra items than to have to customize the installation by excluding all of these irrelevant additions.

In the end, I found out that Yahoo! Music downloads are not compatible with iTunes/iPod.  To Yahoo's credit, iTunes downloads are compatible with Yahoo!.  But, seeing that I listen to my music on an iPod, this wasn't helpful to me.  Once again, I should have been paying more attention. 

My guess is that there are a lot of disappointed Yahoo! Music users.   

ESPN Mobile Now Available

ESPN has created a mobile phone for the ultimate sports fan. A media blitz starts today in conjunction with the Superbowl.

The new ESPN phone (ranging in price from $34.99 to $224.99 per month) includes everything you would expect from a cell phone, plus:

1. Access to teams, players, scores, stats and information.
2. Up-to-the-minute scoreboards from around the country.
3. Game previews, up-to-the-minute highlights, box scores and summaries.
4. video player with LCD display. Includes pause and rewind.
5. Access to lots of ESPN content like Fantasy Manager, SportsNation, BottomLine and columnists
6. Text Alerts for scores, breaking news, players and columnists

Subscribers also get ESPN magazine for free for one year. (Lots of convergence opportunities... I wonder how well they will take advantage of that.)

All of this info comes right from the site.  Visit the site to learn more.

This market was just waiting to be exploited. No doubt, this was a huge investment for Disney. It will be interesting to see if any other players enter this market. Sports is big business.  So, if this goes well for Disney, others will likely step up to the plate.  (Hee hee... get it... step up to the plate.)

Hugs via mobile phone

Looking for a good gift this year? How about a bluetooth-enable shirt that sends and receives hugs via your mobile phone.

F+R Hugs is a shirt that allows to exchange the physical sensation of a hug over distance. Embedded in the shirt there are sensors that feel the strength of the touch, the skin warmth and the heartbeat rate of the sender and actuators that recreate the sensation of touch, warmth and emotion of the hug to the shirt of the distant loved one.

Young people connect through music and expression

More research is out on how young people are using the Internet.  As I have said in the past, anyone in the business of marketing to this segment will not be surprised by the study's conclusions... [Drum roll...] young people on the Internet value community and self-expression. The study, a joint effort of Yahoo and OMD, also reports that listening to music is far and away the number one leisure activity for this group.

ADWEEK sums it up nicely:

In the U.S. market, 54 percent said they had downloaded music in the past month. The study found music plays an important role in this generation's connections with peers, acting as "the universal language of youth." Over 80 percent of U.S. respondents choose music as the No. 1 choice of what they do for fun in their free time.

See "Teens Customizing Online Media," from ADWEEK.

Yahoo is tagging this segment the "My Media Generation." They have identified three "needs" for this audience: community, self-expression, and personalization. The report recommends strategies that focus on the Internet and mobile devices with music as the glue that brings it all together. Other forms of media remain important, but only for specific functions.  For example, TV is still the medium of choice for comedy (e.g. The Daily Show). 

Communicators should take note.  Successfully engaging this audience is going to require some new ideas.  As I mentioned in my post last month (See "Communicating with Young People"), you need to invest in building the relationship first.  Offer something new, interesting and different and then reap the rewards of your efforts. Hopefully, this new Yahoo study will help you figure out that strategy. 

Read more: "From 'My Generation' to 'My Media Generation:' Yahoo! and OMD Global Study Finds Youth Love Personalized Media," from Yahoo.

CBS pondering cell phone episodes of CSI

CBS is continuing to expand its digital media offerings (see "Glogs. Yes, I said Glog."). The company wants to produce short, original episodes (about eight minutes each) for its CSI: Crime Scene Investigation series.  Viewers would access them online or via their cell phone.  Media Week notes that Fox has done something similar for Verizon cell phone users with its show, 24. (I don't have a Verizon V Cast phone, so I haven't seen them.) Fox has done some other interesting stuff including episode-specific webcasts called  24Inside. I think we can expect more of this in the coming months, especially if companies like CBS and Fox can figure out how to get viewers start paying fees to access this additional content.

Mobile phone barcode campaign

Very cool use of technology using mobile phones: The Times runs mobile barcode promotion for HP competition, from New Media Age.

Thanks to Adverblog for highlighting it!