GoMo Mobile Search News

Zaplinks

Rating: colour coded barcodes

The president of Zaplinks emailed me and said:

Hi,
I wanted to inform you of a new participant in the "mobile barcode" arena.

Telefonica goes mobile barcode crazy

Rating: CEO of Scanbuy Mr. Jonathan Bulkeley has gone barcode mad. At the start of the year he sent me a picture of Times Square all barcoded and now Telefonica HQ in Spain.

Even though I am not the greatest fan of operator proprietary services – the extent of the pictures shows that operators realise that barcodes are the future and Telefonica hopes to lead.

Download fotos_bidi_navidad.pdf

The Mvive mobile coupon Moupon

Rating: Coufon, Moupon, Boufon –

Oh, hold me back. The TM names for new mobile coupon services are getting SO creative it’s like being punched in the face with innovation.

Mvive has announced the Moupon – a mobile coupon.

Mobile barcodes on Times Square

Rating: cool

I got some Happy New Year wishes from the CEO of Scanbuy Jonathan Bulkeley yesterday which I decided to share.

The image is of Times Square in New York and the two Reuters owned billboards are covered in mobile barcodes.

Barcodes on the mobile phone: Mt. Bachelor and RocketBux create Registers Ring

Rating: barcode bachelor

By Bena Roberts

Mt. Bachelor is a resort in North America. RocketBux is a mobile software company. Both companies have collaborated to create a Registers Ring.

Mobile Predictions 2008: Mobile Advertising, Search and Barcodes

1. The way in which data is consumed on mobile will finally change and advertising fuelled models will start to make a more aggressive impact.

2. Mobile Search branded players will still be “the face” of mobile operator portals at the start of the year – but by Q4 portals will change to accommodate the white label model – where brands results are brokered not headlining.

MetroPCS Customers get savings with Cellfire Mobile Coupons

Rating: metro coupons on cellfire

MetroPCS Communications has teamed up with Cellfire to launch mobile coupon discount offers.

MetroPCS?
MetroPCS is a Dallas based mobile communications provider. Its offers flat rate monthly mobile fees based on the monthly fees not number of minutes used. It has about 3.6 million subscribers.

MC2 Mobile Codes Consortium convinces OMA and GSMA to drive mobile marketing using 2D barcodes

Rating: MC2, OMA, GSMA, 2D? Drowning in acronyms

MC2?
The MC2 is the Mobile Codes Consortium. It’s a cross industry group created by NeoMedia and Gavitec to enforce a global adoption of mobile marketing using 2D barcodes? Other founders and members of the MC2 are: Publicis Groupe, Hewlett-Packard, Deutsche Telekom, KPN, Nokia, Qualcomm and Telefonica/O2.

Neomedia vs Scanbuy or simply a mushrooming mobile barcode market?

Rating: dear me

By Bena Roberts

The mobile barcode market is still in infancy. The core players in my eyes so far are NeoMedia, Scanbuy and Abaxia. But this is not the end; it is not even the beginning. As I write my industry analysis on NeoMedia vs Scanbuy – a slow realisation has hit me.

The realisation is that what ever the big vendors are doing, smaller guys, operators, pop bands and government agencies are already embracing the fresh, young; but innovative new market.
For the analysis, I thought I would do a small overview of barcode deployments and then it hit me. There is no such thing as a small overview. The barcode market is growing in all directions and the only way to keep up is to run.

Mobile barcodes @ OMA World Part II

Rating: Ah, Gowan. Start another technical committee
by Tony Dennis

As I mentioned previously, the whole mobile barcode sector is riddled with incompatibilities. So what's the industry's typical reaction? You've got it, somebody founds yet another specialist technical forum.

In this case it has turned out to be the Mobile Codes Consortium – which somehow gets abbreviated to MC². Anyway, the conspirators have put together a web site here which aims to encourage others to join in.

But what's really missing is an industry accepted standard. Which is exactly what the OMA is capable of producing.

Mobile barcodes explained at OMA World bar

Rating: Gavitec and Nokia throw some light on the subject
by Tony Dennis

 

A chance encounter at the OMA World cocktail party last night has helped me enormously in trying to fathom exactly was is going on the UK – as opposed to Japan – with 2D and 3D barcodes.

I ran into Dr Frank Muller from Gavitec who then introduced me to Torulf Jernstrom from Nokia. Both are experts on this subject.
The barcode's potential is self-evident. For example, a barcode can contain a complex mobile internet URL that can easily be read with a cameraphone. And, voilà, you have thousands of mobile phones surfing to the same site.

Advertising and Barcodes: MobiTMS adds Microformat

Rating: ad tagging html widget?

by Bena Roberts

What comes after videos, blogs, RSS? Apparently its micro format synchronization that bridges the gap between print, digital and mobile.

What?
Microformat technology consists of HTML that can be read and stored or concealed in web pages. A company called MobiTMS has included this “Microformat” mobile reader service in its TMS advertising platform.

O2, barcodes and The Lord of the Rings

Rating: is this a Hobbit, I see before me?

O2 has signed up with NeoMedia (Gavitec) to launch a full scale mobile ticketing service. O2 users can purchase cheaper tickets for The Lord of the Rings (GBP 25 instead of GBP 60) and purchase via a secure link on the O2 Active portal.

To access the service, O2 customers can text LOTR to 2020.

Mobile visual barcode company Scanbuy gets 6.8 million USD Series B 1 investment

Rating: the only way is up!

by Bena Roberts

Original Scanbuy post.

First of all I have a scoop – Scanbuy just received 6.8 Million USD in VC money an internal round of initial and existing investors.

CTIA: William Chip Hoffman CEO and Director NeoMedia

Rating: we are not evil

by Bena Roberts

I only had a 15 minutes with NeoMedia because I another urgent meeting to get to. But I used my time effectively. William Hoffman or Chip as he likes to be called is the new CEO and he has a tough job and a new team.