Numeric Domains

Telefonica and Facebook - Exclusive to .... Everybody!

NuDoms (Numeric Domainers) know well, how easy it is to enter numbers into mobile phones to access mobile web sites. You want to get to the mobile web site of "Money", simply spell the word money on your mobile browser - 66639.com, press send and you're away to the races. No multi-tapping keys, waiting for the cursor to move to the next position... easy, peasy.

Now comes word that the Spinmeisters at Telefonica and Facebook are up to their old tricks again. Seems they are trying to bamboozle our prized mobile citizenry with their latest EXCLUSIVE offer.

In an October 6, 2008 press release Telefonica proclaimed:

TELEFÓNICA SIGNS GLOBAL AGREEMENT WITH FACEBOOK TO INCORPORATE DIRECT ACCESS FROM ITS MOBILE PORTALS

And like all good marketers, they are drizzling the good news and the deployment in stages

"The first stage includes Ireland, Germany, Spain, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Colombia. The second encompasses Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador, Central American countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia."

OK. So far, so good. But here's where the BS alert (tm) kicks in.

"Every participating country may include a link in the browsing menu of its mobile handsets to Facebook's mobile service, allowing customers to send digital content (photos and videos) through integrated MMS services (currently, more than 24 million pictures are uploaded to Facebook each day)."

Yes, every participating country may include a portal (on-deck) link. But what if you are in a country that is not on the esteemed list? Are you all of a sudden SOL?

And what if you're not part of the Telefonica network? Will you not have access to one of those browsing menus of choice and thusly the mobile web site?

And what if you don't want to send photos and videos via costly MMS? Is it TFB?

Fact is, the Facebook mobile portal is available on billions of mobile phones around the world, on any carrier, on any hand set and in any language.

All you need to do is enter the numeric domain equivalent of the word Facebook into whatever mobile browser you have. Simply input 32232665.com into your browser, press send and see what happens. The flatfeet here at Numeric Domains would love to hear about your experience.

In spite of this seemingly very generous and exclusive offer that Telefonica has negotiated with Facebook, it has nothing to do with better customer service or adding value to your all-you-can-eat data plan. It has to do with money. Telefonica wants to sell more phones, more air time and they want you to send more photos and videos via their system so that they can pad their bottom line. Plain and simple.

Hey, we're all for earning a buck or two, and no doubt this is an exclusive offer relative to Telefonica customers. However, no need to imply that you can't access the Facebook mobile website if you are on AT&T, Telstra, M1, O2, Virgin, T-Mobile etc.

Give it a try and share your comments here.

Moody, Money? Money, Moody? Flip a 2646...

One of the stars in our numeric domain portfolio is 66639.com (more on that project coming soon). No, 66639.com is not meant to spell that word - which is increasingly pervading water cooler discussions, for those fortunate to still have a job where coolers - water or otherwise, still exist. No we're not talking about Moody, we're talking about Money.

With all due respect to my fine-feathered friend to the left, the sluggos here at Numeric Domains see the glass not only half-full, we see it  o-v-e-r-f-l-o-w-i-n-g !

Sure the markets are tanking. There's panic in the streets. Governments are bailing out the saps that over-extended themselves (Ooops they are the saps - my bad).

But je digress. When we read stories like the RCR one below that indicate that the mobile phone will become a "vital enabler", it almost makes me want to run out and change carriers just for the hell of it!

Sure there may tough times ahead. But for those eternal optimists, and those folks who refuse to be sucked into the vacuum of  "woe is me", opportunities abound. Especially for those who have a toe dipped into the wireless ecosystem.

100M People to Use Mobile Money Transfers by 2013

More than 100 million users worldwide will use their mobile phone to make international money transfers by 2013, according to a new analysis by Juniper Research.

Cross-border mobile money transfers is a new trend, but it is expected to gain traction during the net couple of years, especially on migration routes such as Philippines/Middle East and Mexico/ USA, according to Juniper.

“The vast increase in migrant workers globally has fuelled the number of remittances being sent home to friends and families regularly,” said Howard Wilcox, author of the report. “The mobile phone will become a vital enabler in developing countries because often many more people have phones than have bank accounts. The GSM Association Mobile Money Transfer global initiative emphasizes the importance that is attached to this across the mobile industry as a whole.”

The top three regions for international transfers by 2013 will be Western Europe, North America and Africa & Middle East, according to the report.

Develolping Your Business for the Next Four Billion

Entrepreneurs are constantly challenged to maintain and grow their businesses. It's no longer enough to idle along with the status quo if you plan on being around next month, next quarter or next year, especially if your business depends on the wireless ecosystem.

The World Resources Institute, along with their colleagues at the Global Challenge Network  and Harvard's John F. Kennedy school of government, have published an insightful report detailing the global social and economic impact of the Base of the Economic Pyramid, better known as BOP.

The above graph is explained as follows:

Four billion people form the base of the economic pyramid (BOP) -- those with annual incomes below $3,000 (in local purchasing power).

The BOP makes up 72 percent of the 5,575 million people recorded by available national household surveys worldwide and an overwhelming majority of the population in the developing countries of Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America and the Caribbean -- home to nearly all the BOP.

This large segment of humanity faces significant unmet needs and lives in relative poverty: in current U.S. dollars their incomes are less than $3.35 a day in Brazil, $2.11 in China, $1.89 in Ghana, and $1.56 in India.

Yet together they have substantial purchasing power: the BOP constitutes a $5 trillion global consumer market.

Even though the report is not about wireless technology per se, it does help us to understand the indisputable fact that the worlds developing countries will drive major portions of the economic and social landscapes. This fact is certainly uppermost in the minds of many a Fortune 500 companies' CEO's.

Sun Microsystems' CEO, Jonathan Schwartz, shared his views on the importance of BOP in this Next Billion video segment (scroll to the bottom of the correct page).

As BOP users gain access to mobile devices and become more comfortable using them as tools to enhance their social and economic activities, I see a tremendous opportunity  for the inclusion and use of numeric domains as a way to more easily access the wireless internet.

Developing Nations - Picking Up the Mobile Pace

That venerable organization, UNCTAD, (who dat?, ed.) an offshoot of the UN claims that "Mobile phone users in developing nations now make up 58% of handset subscribers worldwide". And according to the ITU , mobile phone penetration rates are expected to reach 50 percent by early this year with the three billion subscription mark already passed some months ago.

Unsurprisingly, most of that growth is coming from emerging markets like Africa, which has come up with a growth rate of 50 percent in the last few years. The stars of the show, equally predictably, have been the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) adding one billion new users between them last year.

Undoubtedly, the vast majority of the mobile phones being purchased are NOT of the Smart phone and qwerty keyboard variety. They are of the standard key pad alpha-numeric configuration used on billions of cell phones world wide.

As our unofficial anecdotal learning curve suggests, many new cell phone users will type-in random numbers into their browsers to test the wireless internet waters. These meanderings eventually lead subscribers to properly formatted internet sites designed to deliver information and services. As their efforts improve access over time, they will come to realize that  inputting 42637.com leads to "games", 2428.com leads to "chat", 6397.com leads to "news", 32232665.com leads to Facebook etc. Companies delivering mobile content such as Worddial continue to see growing traffic from these developing countries.

This can only bode well for increased use of numeric domains.

More Fuel to the Fire - UK Mobile Internet Use Taking Off

The Guardian Unlimited  cites that more than 17 million people accessed the internet on a mobile phone in December.

In time, broadband mobile will be individuals' primary way of accessing the internet - and it will have a greater impact than even mobile voice has had."

All the signs are there. As mobile Internet access continues to increase steadily around the world, consumers will demand a "beyond expectations" experience. That starts with a simple, easy way to access the wireless Web.

Major players that are dictating the the  rules that define how we access the wireless Web need to pay much more attention to this aspect of the customer experience. You can have the greatest products and services, but if customers can't get to them, there's little chance of sustained success.

Convoluted sub-domains, (m.mycompany.com, wap.my services.com, mobile.my wallpaper.com) and the  wowitsa.mobi, (who dat ? ed.) will just not cut it. They're too long, take too much effort to input and are just plain NOT user friendly.

 

Vodafone slashes UK data costs

FT.com

Vodafone yesterday made an aggressive push to generate more revenue from mobile internet services by slashing prices in the UK, one of its core European markets.

The move came as Vodafone indicated it should generate £2bn of revenue from mobile data services in 2007-08, which would be an increase of about a 40 per cent on the previous year.

Vodafone is looking to offset falling revenue from mobile phone calls with rising sales from data services, such as web surfing on handsets.

Consumer adoption of mobiles offering internet access is rising significantly and increasing numbers of consumers and businesses are buying datacards that provide wireless internet access for laptops.

Arun Sarin, Vodafone's chief executive, said the UK move could be followed in other countries. "We are obviously trying to stimulate the market," he added.