Wednesday, May 28, 2008

GSP East and mobile


GSP East 2008


I'm going to be speaking on a panel at the upcoming GSP East event outside Washington, DC in June. I'm excited about the discussion we will be having about mobile and social media. I've been thinking more and more about a framework for understanding the options one has when pursuing mobile. I believe there is a spectrum of opportunities in mobile that vary in cost and complexity. Each has its benefits and challenges. In the next week I hope to give an overview of the following technologies on my blog.

Mobile technologies for social media:
SMS
MMS
WAP (mobile internet)
Java/Brew applications

Stay tuned!

MMS Privacy Policy


My colleague, Brian Kathman has been doing some great work documenting the many ways in which the Hook Platform protect subscribers from unwanted messages. This approach is going to be critical to the growth of mobile social media extensions. Many in the space don't understand the need for such rigid policies, but anyone who has worked with the wireless operators will know that it is essential. See excerpt below:

"Hook Mobile understands the importance of subscriber protection in order to protect users of social networks from receiving content or services unwillingly, incurring charges without proper disclosure, and gaining access to content or services that is inappropriate for the audience. At the same time, Hook Mobile understands the potential liability risk mobile operators can take on when the proper subscriber protections are not in place, especially in the context of the new social networking environments in which the flow of communications and content is not always of the old ‘one-to-one’ variety, but in some cases among and between friends and shared interests.
So to achieve the optimal mobile subscriber protection in a social networking environment, Hook Mobile has extended social networking applications with opt-in only MMS push platform, M.A.X. 2.0. This protects users by utilizing the double-opt-in process of normal mobile marketing, along with two additional opt-in processes for i) application acceptance, and ii) Friend confirmation. So at the very least, mobile subscribers receiving services through M.A.X. 2.0 are protected by an integrated ‘triple-opt-in’ of the content, services, and friends that are part of their “mobile social” experience."

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Hook Mobile in Mashable



Hook Mobile got some great coverage in Mashable today.

See article at: http://mashable.com/2008/05/21/hook-mobil/

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Ztail - The Kelly Blue Book for everything else



My good friends Bill, Jordan and Dave just launched a site called Ztail (www.ztail.com) that aims to help you find out what things are worth. Personally, I think it is a great idea. As a gear head, I have a whole garage filled with stuff I don't use and probably should sell. But how do you know how to value a bike that was build of misc. parts? By asking the community what something is worth, you can get a sense for how much to expect should you throw it up on eBay.

Check it out when you get a chance. It gets addictive when you are 'worthing' products!