Skype announces four wi-fi Skype phones

Tee hee, at last. Skype have got manufacturers to integrate wi-fi into a handset and you can roam and talk. With enough take up and with sexier handsets, this could really mean a lot of the mobile providers could die overnight. However, in remoter regions and outside densely populated regions unless there's a WISP there isn't a revolution overnight. In places like Spain I think this will work out damn cheap as face it - mobile companies have been taking the micheal on the continent with their inflated international roaming charges. Integrate 3G cameras into phones or just a TEXT message only portable keyfob with wi-fi capability and you'll be laughing!

Amazon's Foray into Online Groceries

"Amazon is currently selling just non-perishable goods, so is not necessarily competing directly with FreshDirect and their ilk who also offer fresh produce, but Amazon's economies of scale and logistics expertise will ensure they will have a significant impact on the market.

Online grocery shopping has never been a very popular categories of online retail, compared with books or music, for example. Research from WSL Strategic Retail shows that just 12% of US Internet users purchased groceries online in 2005, up from 8% in 2003."

Great insightful article, however I believe in the UK Tesco are leading the way in fresh goods and non perishables. "Sales for Tesco.com almost reached £1bn in 2005, with profits for the online store up by 55% to £56.2m.

Sales rose at Tesco.com by 32% for the year, now representing over 3% of its UK sales of £32.7bn. Tesco said it had 750,000 regular customers and 200,000 orders a week online. "

Now tesco is selling i-tunes as well. Where Tesco's lack is a robust, search friendly and navigable site. It's an example of a brand offering cheap merchandice. Saying that, I've abandoned my cart quite a few times mainly out of frustration of not finding vegetarian produce I knew they stocked. Still, I don't think Tesco and Amazon will team up as Tesco has so much to learn from Amazon I think the affiliate model (on books, electronics and esp Amazon's affiliate sellers) would be to hard for Amazon to swallow!

"Internet marketing spend reaches new high

"Internet marketing spend is reaching record highs, while traditional advertising and sales promotion budgets are being slashed across the board, according to the latest Bellwether Report.

Growth of Internet marketing continues, with 30% of companies reporting an increase to budgets against a 6% of those reporting a decrease for the second quarter of this year. The report from the of Practitioners in Advertising found that the proportion of companies allocating more than . 10% of spend to Internet marketing rose to a record high of over 17%, while the proportion of companies allocating no spend to Internet budgets fell to a record low of 11%."

Great news for online marketeers however not without a price. Of course online marketing can be effective and be measured more accurately than traditional media. The downside is many companies still expect too much in terms of ROI. A think a report focusing on ad spend over a period of time would be more insightful. For many of the companies I've come in contact with it seems they will put a lot of money in for the short term, but not the long term. Thus it could mean a lot of companies are experimenting, not in it for the long haul.

Free PUSH email

"Emblaze’s emoze is reckoned to be the world’s first free downloadable ‘push’ email service for mobile devices. That means a BlackBerry-like service which delivers emails directly to the phone as soon as they are received in the user’s inbox."

Funny about this new technology - Vodafone have a new business push technology service that works cross platform and with PDA/Phones/Smartphones like the 6630/80 and P910i. If there's no set up costs I might actually try this service. It looks promising and if anything it will encourage networks to lower mobile email delivery!

Dell Keyloggers

Someone sent us this link. Either it's like super freaky or something is seriously wrong with Dell Keyboards . In effect this guy outlines the tecnical details of each component in his Dell Keyboard. Personally I thought it would have a lot more glue, toilet rolls, saw dust and maybe some electronic components.

But seriously, the author suggests there's a hard wired keylogger in Dell keyboards. He wrote off to Homeland Security to have the usual stone wall letter. Some things like this are interesting especially following Intel's previous interest in marking CPUs.

The best bit however is looking through the file directory this guy has. There's funky applications, pictures and other dross!

Mobile Gaming Market Hot on Downloadable Titles

"Entertainment is a big driver for content consumption on mobile phones, with games a driver of the category. Thirty-nine percent of mobile subscribers play preexisting games on their phones, while 53 percent download additional titles."

This is based in the US. One of the main issues surrounding downloading games/entertainment has always been download time and connectivity. Providers of content and network could offer more headlines for free. Personally I love connectivity, but do i wanna wait 5-10 mins for a game to download? Narr....

Web rage turns shoppers back to the high street

"Three quarters of people now shop online, but the growing threat of ‘web rage’ could drive consumers back to the high street, according to a regional ecommerce study... irritations include websites crashing during a transaction (47 per cent), usability and complicated registration processes (47 per cent), inability to find information (46 per cent) and inability to amend orders (45 per cent)."

This was a REGIONAL web-survey. Probably most of the concerns are shared by most people so no big surprises that poorly built websites cause grief. I guess the same for poorly built cars then!

What the "survey showed that the big spenders are just as likely to live in the North as in London", but I would counter that media spending and point of sale advertising in London promotes a lot more targetted marketing. Frustration is often felt in not finding the best places to do one's shopping or unfamiliarity to smaller online brands.

Motorola BLING V3

The V3 get's another launch of life (very good in the world of handsets) with the BLING D&G V3. Only the nokia 6230i has lived this long, but hasn't gone through any re-incarnations. Saying that if you want features go with the nokia 6230i. If you want a slim fashion phone that's bound to get you mugged or laughed at on the street - get the Bling V3.

Portals compete with Yellow Pages for Revenue

Jupiter research have inferred that portals are taking ad revenues from the likes of yellow pages etc.

"Shawn Riegsecker, the president of local media services firm Centro, disagrees. He believes content sites have no need to worry about portals dipping into their ad dollars, because they typically don't sell ads to traditional yellow pages advertisers. Content sites like local newspapers tend to attract advertisers from the real estate, jobs and autos categories, while yellow pages players rely on plumbers, restaurants and contractors, he said.

"There's no fear at all because [local media publishers] don't play in that game today in the offline world," said Reigsecker. As far as he is concerned, portal sites are "glorified yellow pages," providing listings as content rather than the more robust news and information provided by local newspaper sites and other local publishers."

I'd disaggree. For example directory sites would be better looking at agregating their content to the likes of google etc. Why? A partnership would better benefit both parties. In addition the rise of online travel (train/bus/airport) information would also be better served by aggregation. Perhaps directories should think of creating their own white page sites or better still their own localised RSS feeds. I feel that there still needs to be directory companies and although points of presence on the web (portals) will take revenue. The question is whether portals or directories offer something different. One of the most important things a consumer needs to know are things like opening hours, parking space etc. The power is with the directories. Their problem is one of adaptation and innovation to new media.

Top 50 Advertisers by Media Value in May, 2006

NMA.co.uk [100% Interactive Marketing, Media, Mobile and Advertising]

"Pricerunner and 118118 offer best prices by phone


Price-comparison site PriceRunner has launched a phone and text service through directory service 118118 to enable customers to find the best value products when shopping on the high street.

From today, 118118 direct enquiry assistants will be able to give consumers information provided by PriceRunner data so they can compare prices against model numbers over the phone.

The service, called PriceFinder, will be supported by a co-branded microsite that will be available at 118118.com..."