October 22, 2007

Media commentators to have scrap in San Fran

Rating: The Fist Disco in 'Frisco
By Tony Alton

Currently sitting in the monument to glass and shiny white plastic which is the Moscone Center in San Francisco waiting for Mobile Entertainment Live to start.   The event acts as an aperitif to tomorrows CTIA main course and is essentially a series of small controlled fights between media owners, some celebrities and mobile companies.  Not withstanding jet-lag psychosis or coffee induced embolisms I will be ringside throughout and keep you updated.

August 24, 2007

BKI Media: Analysis 2.0

Rating: Real Value

Industry analyst performs primary and secondary market research within a particular segment of an industry, such as the developing mobile ecosystem, to determine accurate market descriptions, market trends, forecasts and models – according to Wikipedia. Typically, analysts specialise in a single industry, researching the broad development of the market rather than focusing on investments or financial opportunities.

BKI Media is a new breed of industry analyst.

We do much more than simply establishing whether the (often inflated) description and outlook of a proffered service or technology is accurate. BKI Media uses the services and technologies extensively to understand their advantages, shortfalls and how they will play in the tough, rapidly evolving, commercial environment. Put another way, BKI Media doesn’t take a vendor’s word for anything and our findings are backed by empirical evidence and wide experience.

BKI Media specialises in mobile search and what we call Mobile 2.0 – marketing (from SMS to coupons, vouchers and bar codes), advertising, social networking and communities, and recommendation. These are all new phenomena and will have a big impact both on the industry itself and on consumers’ individual behaviour as well as having wider social implications around the world: mobile will be the primary access to the Internet for billions of people.

This is exciting stuff, but this ecosystem is generating a great deal of hot air and hyperbole. BKI Media’s task is to separate the hype from the possible and realistic, by signing up for new services and testing mobile portals immediately.

This is a critical distinction.

There have been occasions this year when well-established industry experts have enthused about new services from Nokia and AOL, spawning many more blogs and news stories. Having tried, hard, to use both BEFORE writing about them, BKI Media was the lone voice that said the services were impossible to use, as indeed they were. In Nokia’s case, this was because the new version of the application wasn’t even available, due to an oversight.

BKI Media tests every service it evaluates. It focuses on the competitive nature of the service and ensures that the analytical results provide business and market intelligence.
The company was founded by the visionary industry analyst Bena Roberts who was joined by veteran telecoms journalist and editor Annie Turner

BKI Media’s three core services are:
• The Mobile Search Analyst, 11 issues as year, web-based analytical reports, available only to subscribers*.
• Mobile 2.0 Analyst 11 issues as year, web-based analytical reports, available only to subscribers*.
gomonews.com, a daily, edgy and insightful blog covering these core subjects (and any others that are pertinent to them) and attracts 300,000 unique hits per month. Within three months of its full launch in January, it had been acclaimed as one of the Best British Technology blogs and the daily newsletter is growing fast.

* BKI Media’s clients include Tier 1 and Tier 2 mobile operators, branded mobile search players and the lion’s share of the white label mobile search market, among others.

To purchase BKI Media intelligence or for a consultancy quote please contact Bena Roberts bena@bkimedia.com

July 30, 2007

Action Engine raises USD20m to on-device portal apps

Rating: aggressive growth, GRRRRR

By Annie Turner

Action Corporation, which specialises in on-device portals announced it has raised USD20m of equity in its latest round of venture funding. This round was led by current investor, Baker Capital, with participation from other current investors: Northwest Venture Associates and The Spangler Group. It brings the funding raised to date to USD 65m.

The company says that the funding will be used to accelerate investment in the company’s sales, marketing and customer implementation functions. Action Engine pioneered the technology for delivering mobile on-device portal (ODP) solutions to media companies and mobile operators in 2000. ODPs are downloadable clients that reside on the mobile phone to make content, like music, city guides and video, easier to discover and use.

P. Kevin Kilroy, partner of New York-based Baker Capital. "They are capturing market share faster than anyone else in the industry, and this additional funding will help them continue that momentum." ARCchart, the ODP market is now poised for aggressive growth and is forecast to reach USD 1.4bn by 2009 with a compounded annual growth rate of 166% while Strategy Analytics reckons this segment of the market is projected to reach USD 14.4bn by 2011. Action Engine has recently signed up MSNBC.com and TiVo as clients.

The last word goes to our very own Bena Roberts, senior analyst at BKI Media, who says, “On-Device Portal technology is starting to shake-up the mobile market in a big way. Action Engine is positioned as the leading ODP provider in the US, and this additional funding will likely strengthen its foothold.”

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