Mobile Marketing Blog by Punchkick Interactive

• AT&T is offering unlimited voice for $99 and unlimited connectivity and messaging for $35. One year contract is required for new subscribers and data plans are unchanged, though.
• Analysts are expecting Sprint to, “offer flat-rate calling plans at up to 40 percent discount to it’s rivals” — bringing unlimited wireless minutes into the $60 range for sprint customers.
• $99 buys you unlimited voice and text (including text, picture and IM) at T-Mobile. Previously, the Deutsche Telekom owned mobile operator has been selling unlimited text messaging for $14.99 and 5,000 minutes of calls for $129.99.

Sources: IntoMobile, Reuters

Engadget reports that they have received a flood of tips stating that Verizon to offer unlimited voice, data, and messaging packages. It is reported that starting Tuesday, February 19th the following plans should be available:

• $100 - Nationwide Unlimited (voice)
• $120 - Nationwide Select Unlimited (voice, SMS, MMS)
• $140 - Nationwide Premium (voice, SMS, MMS, VZNav, VCAST, email)
• $150 - Nationwide Email and Messaging (voice, SMS, MMS, and data)
• $170 - Nationwide Global Email and Messaging (voice, SMS, MMS, and international data)
• $200 - Family plan with two lines, $100 per additional line

Additionally, the sources at Engadget claim that premium paying subscribers will also receive the following additional perks:

• The 5GB cap on data will be lifted
• The plans will be available on one or two year agreements
• There will not be a contract extension for current customers
• All plans include mobile Web 2.0 portal access
• No roaming or long distance charges

I stumbled across the self-proclaimed “World’s Largest PDA Database,” and as soon as I did I thought, “I can finally get a tally of how many Windows Mobile 2002, 2003 or 5.0 devices are on the market!” In total I found 584 devices. Unfortunately, however, there is no data on the penetration of these devices.

Why is this important? Adobe offers installers for Flash Lite 2.1 for Windows Mobile 5.0, Flash Player 7 for Pocket PC 2003, and the Flash Player 6 for Windows Mobile 2002. Although this does not have the mass market appeal of Verizon Wireless, it is certainly notable.

Flash is pre-installed on:

• 70 Nokia Phones (includes N96)
• 58 Sony Ericsson Phones
• 13 BREW Phones
• 6 Sony CLIE PDAs
• All NTT Docomo handsets
• All KDDI handsets

Flash can be installed on:

• Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 for Pocket PC Phone Edition (166)
• Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 for Pocket PC Premium Edition (52)
• Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 for Pocket PC Professional Edition (10)
• Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 for Smartphone (61)
• Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC Phone Edition (25)
• Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC Premium Edition (54)
• Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC Professional Edition (6)
• Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 for Smartphone (11)
• Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition for Pocket PC Phone Edition (57)
• Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition for Pocket PC Premium Edition (41)
• Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition for Pocket PC Professional Edition (4)
• Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition for Smartphone (35)
• Microsoft Pocket PC 2002 Phone Edition (20)
• Microsoft Pocket PC 2002 Premium Edition (33)
• Microsoft Pocket PC 2002 Professional Edition (2)
• Microsoft Smartphone 2002 (7)

Note from Adobe.com:

Note: This version of Flash Player is for the individual use of developers of Pocket PC devices. For more information about Adobe’s Flash Player distribution policy read the FAQ.

When you download the free player, it is provided “as-is”—which means that Adobe will support it only for Windows Mobile 5 and Pocket PC 2003 OS devices through available online resources on our website. If you experience any problems for non-certified devices, you should discuss them with other developers in various forums.

The World’s Largest Handheld Database

As a resident of the United States, I’ve longed for the latest mobile phones from Japan, Korea, and other more “tech-fortunate” countries throughout APAC and Europe. I live in arguably the most powerful industrialized nation on the planet, and yet I still can’t video chat from mobile to mobile like they do in Japan. My free-phone-with-a-two-year-commitment doesn’t come with a QR Code™ reader pre-installed. And, let’s be honest, most entry level phones in the States don’t even include Bluetooth or a 1.3 megapixel camera. Until recently, I was convinced that the U.S. mobile market is behind the times.

So what gives?

Very recently, a number of studies have surfaced leading me to think that maybe, just maybe, things aren’t so bad on this side of the pond. For example, according to the CTIA in Wireless Wave Fall 2007 - A Continental Idea:

[..] earlier this year Merrill Lynch reported that Europeans still pay an average of 19¢ per minute for an average of 153 minutes a month, compared to 5¢ per minute for 834 minutes a month for customers in the U.S. The U.S. is the leader in offering bucket plans, driven by competitive market forces to offer more minutes at a lower effective rate.

3G penetration stats are looking up, too. According to industry analyst Chetan Sharma, President of Chetan Sharma Consulting, “Because of the heavy penetration of the Internet over the desktop, as well as the late advent of 3G in the market, there was not a big driver for mobile Internet until the last one or two years. As 3G penetration has been increasing[,] now we’re up to 15 to 16 percent penetration (in the U.S.).”

M:Metrics — which conducts an on-going survey of thousands of wireless customers in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK, and the U.S. — recently found that a slightly higher percentage of U.S. consumers browse wirelessly for news and information than their European counterparts.

The study also shows that the U.S. is at the top in average number of minutes used per month at 832 (Canada, the number two country, averages 429 minutes). The country with the lowest average revenue per minute — a measure of the effective price per voice minute — is again the U.S. at $0.04 USD (South Korea and Mexico are tied for the number two spot at $0.11 USD). And finally, the number of wireless carriers with over one million subscribers is the largest in the U.S. at 10 companies. The country with the next highest number is the England.

My conclusion? Maybe it’s true that the grass is always greener on the other side.

Bill Perry (Mobile evangelist for Adobe) has just posted the Flash Lite install base forecasts for 2008 from the Strategy Analytics Flash-Enabled Handset Forecast from January 4, 2008. The forecast includes the installed base of Flash Lite devices by Region, Country and Version. Bill’s PDF highlighting the 91% Global Growth of Flash Lite in 2007 can be downloaded here.

Worldwide, the totals for 2008 add up to: 461,733,000 mobile devices with Flash Lite pre-installed.

The score card for 2008 reads:
1. APAC - 154,761,000
2. Western Europe - 107,832,000
3. Japan - 77,603,000
4. Americas - 64,561,000
5. CALA - 32,024,000
6. Central Europe - 24,952,000

What are the biggest surprises?
I truly did not expect the Flash Lite 2.x numbers to be so high. Adobe is forecasting that in 2008 the Americas and Western Europe will have higher Flash Lite 2.0 or 2.1 adoption than 1.1! Despite this, Flash Lite 1.1 will still most likely stay the obvious standard.

I am very excited to see that the Americas are so close in numbers to Japan. Additionally, they have more than double the numbers of Central America, Latin America, and Central Europe. It’s no surprise that Western Europe and APAC still top the charts.

What does this all mean?
As companies like Verizon continue to grow with Flash Lite, consumer adoption rates will no doubt go up as well. As a full service mobile marketing firm that is passionate about mobile and pushing the medium forward, we can continue to pursue Flash Lite development with our clients—knowing that one day in the near future it will become the mobile standard of third party development.

We have been working commercially with Flash Lite for some time. Our projects have ranged from oem user interface development, to consumer content such as custom applications and games. We couldn’t be happier about the news.

Via Bill, I recently learned that as of April 30 2007, 13 Flash Lite for BREW supported handsets represent 16 million active Verizon Wireless subscribers (reported by M:Metrics).

One of the many benefits with developing with Flash Lite is that you can target multiple devices with the same screen size using one FLA file. In the graphic below you can see how a developer would only need to create 3 FLA files to target all 13 supported Verizon Wireless handsets.

The phones that support the Flash Lite for BREW extension are: LG VX8100, LG VX8300, LG VX8500, LG VX8600, LG VX9800, LG VX9900, Motorola RAZR V3c, Motorola RAZR V3m, Motorola KRZR K1m, Samsung SCH-A930, Samsung SCH-A950, Samsung SCH-A970, and the Samsung SCH-A990.

fiercedeveloper.com wrote a short article about Flash Lite’s role in the BREW ecosystem citing the October 2006 deal between Verizon Wireless and Adobe. The article from fiercedeveloper.com can be seen as a sign that Flash Lite may be gaining more acceptance from the media, and that it may soon be seen as the standard for wireless development in the US and abroad.

“Verizon’s expanding selection of handsets, and Adobe’s support of Flash Lite for BREW, is a strong signal for developers considering Flash Lite.”

At the BREW 2007 conference, we expect Adobe and Verizon Wireless to be talking about Flash Lite’s impact on some 37.5 million Americans. Verizon Wireless was the first US operator to adopt Flash Lite to it’s network, and the first operator worldwide to offer Flash Lite for BREW.

If you have interest in developing Flash Lite for BREW for Verizon Wireless, you may want to read our Adobe.com article, Developing Flash Lite for BREW applications for Verizon Wireless

Punchkick Interactive has authored it’s first article for Adobe.com. Zak Dabbas and myself (Ryan Unger) co-authored Developing Flash Lite for BREW applications for Verizon Wireless. This article covers not only the technical side of developing applications for BREW for Verizon Wireless, but also the marketing aspects of distributing content directly to Verizon Wireless or to a content catalog partner such as Atom Entertainment, FunMobility, or Smashing Ideas.

The article has three main sections:
1. Understanding the Flash Lite for BREW marketplace
2. Becoming an authorized Qualcomm BREW developer
3. Testing content on a Verizon Wireless handset

Read the full article on Adobe.com

Introduction
At the October 2006 Adobe MAX conference, Adobe and Verizon Wireless announced a partnership that would make Flash Lite content available to over 37.5 million Verizon Wireless subscribers. Flash Lite developers were understandably excited about the announcement, and teaching developers how to create content for Verizon Wireless became a central focus of the MAX conference.

This article will teach you how to develop Flash Lite for BREW content directly for Verizon Wireless. It will detail the process of becoming an authorized Qualcomm BREW developer, testing your Flash Lite for BREW content on a Verizon Wireless handset, and selling your content through Verizon Wireless.

In addition to understanding the technical specifics of creating Flash Lite for BREW content, this article will also discuss the pros and cons of using the direct model for developing and distributing Flash Lite for BREW content—including the real costs and anticipated returns on your development investment. It will also briefly cover the process of selling content through an content catalog partner, and the pros and cons associated with doing so.

Also, we would like to thank Phil Pastore for helping out with the headshots.

Learn more about Punchkick Interactive’s Flash Lite development capabilities.

Adobe began shipping the much anticipated CS3 design and Web software bundles. Additionally, Adobe has added several software titles to Labs.

Amongst the new Beta software in Labs is:

• Adobe After Effects CS3 Pro
• Adobe Premiere CS3 Pro
• Adobe Soundbooth CS3 beta 3
• Flash Lite for BREW Publisher for Flash CS3 Professional prerelease
• knowhow (preview)

After Effects and Premiere have been long overdue. I am very excited to play with both titles. Soundbooth is great and new beta versions are always fun.

The Flash Lite for BREW Publisher is obviously needed. I am very happy that Adobe released this tool. The only thing they neglected to include was a Mac bundle (sigh). I am sure that there are other developers that will only use one licenced copy of Flash CS3 (in my case on my Mac), and will need to create Mod/Mif files from it.

I am also very happy to see the knowhow demo. It seems like a great panel to add to the CS3 suite.

knowhow is a technology preview that delivers single-click, contextual access to relevant help information from a panel in Adobe® Creative Suite® 3 software. knowhow gives users access to a wide variety of information—basic tool descriptions and short cuts, Adobe Help content, as well as community-generated tutorials, tips, and techniques on the web.

First noted by Aniway:

Adobe released the mobile device profile update #5. Get it here. This update contains or makes changes to the following device profiles:

• Nokia 3250
• Nokia 5200
• Nokia 5300
• Nokia 5500
• Nokia 6085
• Nokia 6125
• Nokia 6131
• Nokia 6151
• Nokia 6300
• Nokia 7390
• Nokia 8800
• Nokia E50
• Nokia E60
• Nokia E61
• Nokia E62
• Nokia E70-1
• Nokia N70-1
• Nokia N71-1
• Nokia N73
• Nokia N75
• Nokia N80
• Nokia N91-1
• Nokia N92
• Nokia N93
• Nokia N93i
• Sony-Ericsson K600
• Sony-Ericsson K600c
• Sony-Ericsson K600i
• Sony-Ericsson K606c
• Sony-Ericsson K606i
• Sony-Ericsson K608c
• Sony-Ericsson K608i
• Sony-Ericsson K610iM
• Sony-Ericsson V600i
• Sony-Ericsson V800
• Sony-Ericsson W300i
• Sony-Ericsson W550c
• Sony-Ericsson W550i
• Sony-Ericsson W600c
• Sony-Ericsson W600i
• Sony-Ericsson W710i
• Sony-Ericsson W810i
• Sony-Ericsson W830a
• Sony-Ericsson W830c
• Sony-Ericsson W830i
• Sony-Ericsson W850i
• Sony-Ericsson Z712a
• Sony-Ericsson Z800i
• Verizon Motorola RAZR V3c
• Verizon Motorola RAZR V3m
• Verizon LG VX9800
• Verizon Samsung SCH-A950

Download here.

Via Scott:

Showcase your best BREW® applications and gain recognition at the BREW 2007 Conference - submit your nominations today!

We’ve extended the submission deadline to March 14, so don’t miss out on your chance to be recognized by your peers and industry leaders for your outstanding contributions in developing BREW-based mobile applications. Winners will be revealed at an awards ceremony held at the BREW 2007 Conference in San Diego June 20 - 22, 2007.

The BREW 2007 Developer Awards will recognize the best BREW applications in the following categories:

* Best Up and Coming Application
* Best Public Service Application (New Category!)
* Best Business or Productivity Application
* Best Location-Based Service Application
* Best Community Application
* Best Entertainment Application
* Best Game Application
* People’s Choice Award

Submit your entry forms and application demos online at http://www.brew2007awards.com

For more information about the BREW 2007 Conference, visit http://www.brew2007.com

Verizon Wireless is increasing their text messaging rates by 50% and you can use that to get out of your contract. (Starting March 1 it will cost you 15 cents to send and receive instead of 10 cents.) A cancellation script was constructed on another blog for people to use during the call. They use scripts on us so why shouldn’t we have one too?

You can view the script here. It’s helping quite a few people cancel without a fee. Even if you don’t want to cancel your contract with them, you should still use it to get a credit on text messaging for the remaining life of your contract. Do it before March 1. Thirty minutes of your time can save you over fifty bucks.

Read how it’s done here.

Source: The Consumerist and Roosh

Learn more about Punchkick Interactive’s custom mobile software development capabilities.