mjelly mobile 2.0 blog

abphone - a killer mobile vertical search engine coming out of France

abphone is a mobile search engine for videos, games and images which we just covered over at Mobile Industry Review as the mjelly Mobile 2.0 Service of the Week.

 

Here are the key stats

– 400k unique visitors per month

– 100+ million page views per month

– 500+ million searches since launch

- 15 sessions per active user per month

 

You can read the full article over at Mobile Industry Review

Find abphone on mjelly (PC)

Find abphone on mjelly (mobile)

Free mobile games sites

A big development of the last year has been the emergence of free ad-funded mobile games. Just this week Greystripe, one of the leading players in this space announced that they have done 140m mobile games downloads.

Free mobile games sites are a great example of how mobile 2.0 is re-defining the consumer proposition and value chain in a range of different mobile media sub-sectors.  Traditionally mobile games have been based on paid-for games, usually created using licenses from console games or movies, and are sold via operator portals or via aggregators like Jamster.  The new breed of mobile games sites are different - games are either created in-house or from older games from the big publishers.  Instead of charging for them they offer them for free funded by advertising.  This is helping to spread mobile games into completely new types of users. 

There is a bit of question about the long-term sustainability of some of these sites - CPMs for in-game mobile ads are incredibly low - <$1 typically so there needs to be massive scale of game downloads or a move to a different ad model such as sponsorship to make the economics stack up. 

Here are some examples of some of the free mobile games sites springing up...

Gamejump - free mobile games network

Gamejump is operated by Greystripe who have built a white-label ad-funded games platform which a lot of the big mobile sites have plugged into.  Gamejump is their own in-house front-end for the platform.  They have a good selection of downloadable games including action, adventure, arcade, puzzle etc.  However, they are apparently moving to focus more on the iphone now rather than Java so they might not be updating the java services much. 

Gamejump on mjelly (PC)

Gamejump on mjelly (mobile)

Hovr - free mobile games site

Hovr launched at around the same time as Greystripe/ Gamejump but without the white-label platform, focusing on buiding its own site.  They offer downloadable casino, puzzle and arcade games - there's also some social elements like a high score table and player profiles.  

Hovr on mjelly (PC)

Hovr on mjelly (mobile)

Playyoo - free flash games

Playyoo is a new site which is attacking the flash games market.  They have a load of flash games which you can either download or play in your browser.  At the moment, not many handsets support mobile flash but this is no doubt going to be a standard feature pretty soon.  Apparently there are some really big successful flash games sites in

Cellufun - mobile games community

Cellufun is a US site which is extremely popular - they have a lot of mobile versions of popular classics  like Chess or Blackgammon, or multi-player games like “Call of the Pharaoh”.  They also have a a lot of social features including multi-player games are multi-player with high score tables, forums and player profiles.

Cellufun on mjelly (PC)

Cellufun on mjelly (mobile)

123 Play - free mobile games

123play is pretty new on the scene and they've been buying a lot of admob advertising recently.  They offer a load of downloadable free mobile games including action and arcade, puzzles and racing and sports.  Very nice mobile site at m.123play.com - easy to get to the games fast. 

123play on mjelly (PC)

123play on mjelly (mobile)

That's it - you can find all these free mobile games and more in the mjelly directory.  Let us know if you find anymore sites and we'll add them to this list. 

Related articles by Zemanta

• Cellufun - free mobile games site getting millions of visits a month

ebuddy hits 11m downloads of its Java app

 

ebuddy just announced that they have reached 11m downloads of their mobile application.  The service lets you log into your IM accounts like AIM, Googletalk, MSN Messenger and ICQ as well as the Facebook and Myspace social networks. 

This is pretty stunning when you consider that this has all been achieved with very limited use of the iphone app store.  ebuddy has been really effective at using mobile viral marketing tactics, word of mouth and the strength of its product to get traction without spending large sums on advertising

I recently profiled ebuddy over at Mobile Industry Review - so head over to read it. 

Here are the key stats:

- 11m downloads of the ebuddy mobile software, growing at 1m downloads per month

- average user logs in 30 times a month

- 3m monthly visitors on mobile, growing 195% a year (2004 to 2008)

- processed 45bn messages in 2008

- In some markets, such as Indonesia, eBuddy's mobile traffic is 2-3 times its web traffic

- PSP, iphone touch are fast growing platforms not just mobile phones

 

ebuddy are an amazing mobile success story ! Dont forget to read the full profile over at mobile industry review.

ebuddy in the mjelly directory

eBuddy mobile messenger (java app)

eBuddy download on mjelly (PC)

eBuddy download on mjelly (mobile)

eBuddy Lite Messenger (mobile web app)

Find eBuddy Lite on mjelly (PC)

Find eBuddy Lite on mjelly (mobile)

Related articles by Zemanta

• Jan-Joost Rueb - eBuddy: The cards to win the game @ LeWeb08

• eBuddy's Mobile IM client hits 10M downloads in 18 months
• EBuddy reports 10M downloads of mobile chat service
• eBuddy Users Very Chatty on Mobiles - Over 10 Million Downloads
• eBuddy's Mobile Chat Continues To Thrive, Hits 10M Users
• Mig33 usage statistics and funding info

Mobile 2.0 Resources

This blog is all about mobile 2.0.  However, if you say "mobile 2.0" a lot of people still don't know what you are talking about, so here's a quick list of mobile 2.0 resources to help people understand it.

What is mobile 2.0? Mobile 2.0 Definitions

Dan Applequist has blogged his definition of mobile 2.0 here where he contrasts mobile 1.0 services and activities with their "mobile 2.0 equivalents.  A great place to start!

"SMS -> IM, mobile blogging
MMS -> Media sharing
Operator Portals -> Mobile Web and search
Operator chooses -> User chooses
Premium SMS billing -> Mobile stored value Accounts
Java Games -> Connected Applications (e.g. photo sharing, blogging)
Presence & Push-To-Talk -> VOIP applications
WAP sites -> Web sites that adapt for mobile browsers
WAP push -> RSS readers
Wallpaper -> Idle screen applications
Location services -> Google maps application
Content consumption -> Content creation (e.g. mobile blogging)"

Wikipedia has the following http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_2.0

"Mobile 2.0, refers to a perceived next generation of mobile internet services that leverage the social web, or what some call Web 2.0. The social web includes social networking sites and wikisWeb 2.0 services to the mobile internet, i.e., accessing aspects of Web 2.0 that emphasise collaboration and sharing amongst users. Mobile Web 2.0, with an emphasis on Web, refers to bringing sites from mobile internet browsers.

By contrast, Mobile 2.0 refers to services that integrate the social web with the core aspects of mobility – personal, localized, always-on and ever-present. These services are appearing on wireless devices such as Smartphones and multimedia feature phones that are capable of delivering rich, interactive services as well as being able to provide access and to the full range of mobile consumer touch points including talking, texting, capturing, sending, listening and viewing.'

Fabrizio Capobianco has a nice pithy definition here

"1. Mobile 2.0 is NOT a mobile version of Web 2.0.

2. Mobile 2.0 is all about open standards and open platforms.

3. Mobile 2.0 is driven by open source.

4. Mobile 2.0 happens with flat fee billing.

5. Mobile 2.0 is centered on content and messaging."

Ajit Joaker has blogged his own series of posts defining mobile web 2.0 here

Alfie Dennon of moblog gathered together a load of bloggers (including me!) to post on the subject of "What is mobile 2.0 and who is using it?"  as part of the mobile 2.0 websummit on a special blog.  There are a great range of views here, ranging from "mobile 2.0 doesn't mean anything" to tight definitions:

Alfie Dennon

http://moblog.net/view/333610/who-is-using-mobile-web-20-and-how-can-we-understand-them-better

Carlo Longino

http://moblog.net/view/335132/mobile-web-20-the-one-people-will-use

James Whatley

http://moblog.net/view/335761/mobile-web-20-what

Afternoon

http://moblog.net/view/335238/what-mobile-web-20-is-not-and-whos-not-using-it

mjelly

http://moblog.net/view/335171/so-what-is-mobile-20-and-who-is-using-it

Mobile 2.0 Presentations

Rudy De Waele has done some brilliant presentations at conferences all over the world all about mobile 2.0 and has uploaded them to slide-share.  One of his presentations is embedded below and you can find the others by checking out his uploads on the site:

Mobile 2.0 @ Plugg

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: media retail)

Mobile 2.0 Events and Conferences

The big mobile 2.0 event is the Mobile 2.0 Conference which is a real grass roots effort run on a not for profit basis in San Fransisco and Barcelona

There is also the mobile 2.0 web summit in London which is happening again this June.

Mobile 2.0 Books

Mobile Web 2.0: The Innovator's Guide to Developing and Marketing Next Generation Wireless/Mobile Application by Ajit Joakar

Next Generation Wireless Applications: Creating Mobile Applications in a Web 2.0 and Mobile 2.0 World by Paul Golding

Mobile 2.0 Services

Rudy De Waele has created a directory of mobile 2.0 services at http://mobile20.wetpaint.com which you can edit wiki-style

The web 2.0 directory allthingsd http://www.allthingsweb2.com/mtree/MOBILE_2.0/

Also, not forgetting the mjelly directory which is chock full of mobile 2.0 sites and applications

That's it - shout if you know any more resources we should add to the list

7 viral marketing tactics for mobile internet services

Viral distribution has been key to growing online web services as it provides a very low user-acquisition cost.  Without viral distribution PC-based online services like facebook would never have been able to grow to the level that they have without huge investment in marketing.  One of the big problems mobile internet applications and sites have had historically is that it has been difficult get any viral mechanisms working.  At the same time, search is not yet an effective channel for driving large volumes of traffic on mobile.  As a result, most mobile sites and applications are forced to invest heavily in PPC advertising on mobile ad networks like admob in order to build a user-base. 

However, it is no longer the case that viral marketing doesn't work on mobile.  There is a lot of innovation happening in this area from both mobile startups and big mainstream companies so here are 7 ways you can drive viral growth for your mobile site or application.

1. Link to contacts/ address book

Linking into your email address book/ contact list has been the key way that sites like Bebo and Facebook and others have grown traffic and users virally.  Until recently, this hasn't been something that mobile social networks have used (or any other types of mobile sites for that matter).  However, this is no longer true - Heysan, a mobile messaging service and mobile chat community have developed a fantastic mobile implementation of this feature - check it out in the mobile screenshot below:

This functionality is not without its critics - whenever we cover Heysan people complain that they are "spamming" using this feature.  However, without out it, we would never have achieved critical mass in services like facebook.  Heysan also follow good practices like asking permission before using your address book in this way.  Plus - the traffic that Heysan is building says it all - amazing growth to 100m page views a month and 600k users.

2. Integrate with Facebook

Another viral mechanism that the web guys have been using recently is integrating with Facebook, mainly through developing a facebook application which can be promoted within the newsfeeds or through mass invites.  Again, this isn't something mobile services have made much use of - until now!  Locle - a fantastic Irish mobile LBS startup has managed to integrate its service with the facebook mobile extension of the developer platform - allowing them to promote their mobile app and site through the social network.  This is the first time I've seen anyone doing this on mobile and it's potentially incredibly powerful. 

3. Twitter blasting

Twitter is a great fit with mobile as a lot of users are mobile savvy and people often get twitter messages fed to them via mobile either through SMS or mobile web on m.twitter.com or a third party client like m.slandr.net or dabr.co.uk.  Twitter have made it easy for mobile sites to be shared over their network through their API - you can easily create a form on your mobile site to allow a user to login to twitter and share the site to their followers. 

 

A slightly more complex version of this is an auto-ping using twitter where twitter is automatically blasted when you use the service.  The best example of this is Qik which sends out a customized message to your twitter followers when you start streaming.

  

4. 'Tell a friend' - via SMS

SMS is the obvious viral channel for mobile, as unlike email, 99.9% of people have it right on their phone, and you can click straight through from an SMS to a mobile internet site or to a download.  Some mobile sites like mippin, have experimented with providing users with free SMS to tell friends with - but they found that some users were abusing the feature as a way of sending free SMS ! However, if the user is willing to pay to send the text (not unrealistic if they are on a text bundle - or feeling generous) it is quite easy to enable someone to text their friends about a mobile site. 

You just use the following XHTML code to automatically create an SMS with your URL and message filled in when the users clicks on it:

<a href="sms:?body=Check out the X at http://m.domain.com"> <b> Sharethis site</b></a>

See the screenshot below - which was fired up through a text link on the taptu (mobile search startup) home page:

 

5. IM status 'hijacking'

This is quite a neat trick being used by some of the messaging aggregators including Fring. When a user signs into its mobile instant messaging platform it changes your status message to include its URL e.g. "on mobile by www.fring.com" - see below - a great way of giving a mobile app visibility to anyone logged into a messaging service. 

6. message footers

Message footers were one of the original viral tactics used most famously to help spread hotmail, which attached a link back to hotmail at the bottom of all messages sent using the email system. This tactic is already being used on mobile pretty extensively - for example all Blackberry's typically attach a footer to the email sent with them like this:

 

Google also does something similar with messages sent via the google mail application:

 

Obviously this only works for apps with a messaging system or email of some kind.  However, people like igloo.mobi are offering a free mobile email service bolted on to their other services like a directory, chat sites, site builders and so on.  So - it might be possible for more types of mobile sites to use this approach.

7. Adding a URL to content downloads

Last but not least, here's a trick we use at mjelly.com.  When someone downloads a ringtone from the site the mjelly.com URL is added to the file name (e.g. mjelly.com - doorbell.mp3 click on the link here to see the example http://mjelly.com/track/download/3295-Dingdong-Doorbell .  This means that anyone that bluetooths the mp3 file to a friend will help to spread the word about mjelly.  We get a lot of searches for mjelly.com on the site so this seems to work quite well!

Conclusions

If mobile services are to really take-off and achieve mass market traction we need to get viral distribution mechanisms working.  To date, it has been assumed that it is hard for mobile to do this, but this is no longer the case.  If you run a mobile site or application then think about if any of the approaches above can work for you!

If you have any other ideas for viral marketing of mobile services then please leave them in the comments and we'll add them with a link back to you. 

Related posts:

12 ways to promote your mobile site

Apple iphone app store TV ads show how to advertise new mobile services

At the last Mobile Monday London, Dan Applequist mentioned that Apple had started advertising the iphone app store in the US, with a screen by screen demo of how to download an app onto your phone.  The point he made was that Apple are very successfully presenting this as a "new thing" and a lot of people will think that they invented the idea of downloadable mobile applications and software, despite the fact that this capability has existed for years on Symbian and Windows Mobile devices, not to mention Palms, Blackberries and handsets with Java and Brew built in. 

Here is the TV ad "Vicinity" which is also showing in the UK now and probably all the other countries the iphone is available in.  

What is amazing is that in all the years downloadable applications have been available, no other company has every promoted them in this way and made the process easy to understand for the mass market of consumers.  The ad focuses on the device and actually shows you the process of downloading an app.  If you look back at the way 3G services and portals have been advertised by the big mobile operators they almost never do this - the ad may show a specific thing you can do with the phone but the whole thing is tied up in a glossy TV ad as if they are almost ashamed of showing the device.  See this one for example for Vodafone Live! in Greece:

This says it all really - a mobile ad that gives you virtually no idea what its about, and does not provide any value to the view in terms of user education etc.  I could post a whole load of similar commercials featuring David Beckham, cool music and good looking young people but never telling you what you can do with your phone or helping you to use it. 

There are loads of great apps Symbian and Windows Mobile devices such as Shozu, Opera Mini and Mig33 but at the moment its only really the early adopters and consumers in developing markets that are using them.  If T-Mobile ever gets its own app store off the ground let's see if they can advertise it the same way as Apple or whether they a) dont bother to advertise it or b) do a load of adverts with celebrities and pretty cinematography rather than a clear and useful demo of the service. 

337studios.com tunes on mjelly

Max respect going out to the one like Sketta Lee from 337 Studios for the new ringtones up on mjelly right now.  337 Studios are an upfront music production and design company and they've produced some sounds which you can download as free mp3 ringtones on mjelly under the 337studios.com tag

Smausse by Sketta Lee (337Studios.com)

Soft it up by Sketta Lee (337Studios.com)

Off it by Sketta Lee (337Studios.com)

Ringading by Sketta Lee (337Studios.com)

Nice one. To download them hit m.mjelly.com on your handset browser or go to the 337 Studios blog or forum . 

 

iphone ringtone - wap hosted version for easier download

So gizmodo put up a version of the iphone ringtone on their site - only thing is you need a data cable to transfer it from the PC.  There's a wap version available if you hit m.mjelly.com on your handset browser (browse for it or hit code 1844).

You can locate it online here

iphone ringtone wap download

More electro-house downloads on mjelly

Couple of new electro house tracks in on the site - its interesting how the electro house stuff is rapidly going down the same remix/ novelty route as the funky stuff...

Another One Bites The Dust by Queen Vs Miami Project

and

Proper Education by Eric Prydz

They are both poly ringtones unfortunately - still holding tight for getting the real tones and full track downloads on board. 

Free mp3 ringtones on mjelly

Heads up - we've got loads of free mp3 ringtones up on mjelly now   - check them out here on the mjelly website using the free and free mp3 ringtones tags.  To download them just hit m.mjelly.com on your phone wap browser and either enter the code that you'll find on the website or hit the free mp3 ringtones link at the bottom of the wap page.

You can get an RSS feed here to chuck into bloglines, netvibes or whatever and keep you updated when the new stuff comes through.