Category: marketing

Great news for Verizon customers… let’s hope other carriers follow. In network free calling already exists for all the majors making messaging a logical next step. Perhaps this is just what is needed in the US to push messaging (SMS and MMS) into the mainstream…

Verizon Wireless has expanded its popular “IN” calling plan (free calls to every other Verizon Wireless customer) to messaging. For $5 a month customers can have unlimited text, picture and video messaging to other Verizon Wireless users. A plan costing $39.99 or higher per month and 1 or 2 year contract is needed to sign up for Unlimited IN messaging. [ MobileTracker]

Good news on the buying content front… one package, multiple formats.

Bandai Visual allows almost every PSP user to breathe a sigh of relief as they announce the release of the first DVD title to come packaged with a UMD of the same contents. Or at least I was relieved…

“Eureka Project” (sorry, didn’t bother looking up the English name) is the anime series that will be available in this dual media package beginning in July (in Japan).

As with anything related to UMD-Video, however, the price point becomes key. Put your fears to rest, though, as the version including a UMD-Video costs only 1,200 yen more (about $12 USD) than the version without. As our recent poll results show, this $12 figure is well in the price range of a large portion of PSP owners/future owners. [PSP-Vault]

This is not the vidcasting I discussed last week, but it’s certainly a nod in the right direction and with content positioned for a target I suggested would be an easy one to reach… parents.

On the French Riviera last week, television executives from around the world crowded into a mobile television seminar to gaze at a giant screen view of the late Ray Charles serenading Ernie of Sesame Street from the frame of a mobile phone.

J. Paul Marcum, Sesame Street’s general manager for its interactive group, came to the annual MIPTV international television conference in Cannes as part of a vanguard of producers to trade information about a format so new that no one is sure how business models will evolve.

Sesame Street, he said, is one of the first children’s entertainment companies to start offering phone fare, through an alliance struck in March with Verizon in the United States to offer some of its classics through a $15-a-month wireless broadband service called V Cast.

“It’s certainly not like we’re advocating selling phones to preschoolers,” Mr. Marcum said. “But you can’t ignore the convenience factor when people are in motion. A parent can pass back a telephone to the kids in the back of the car. And it’s a device that families are going to carry with them everywhere.” [NYT]

I can’t speak to the quality of the VCast service having no experience with it as a Cingular customer, but my wife got a Sesame Street demo from one of the doormen in our building who has the service and she noted how compelling it was.

Cingular does offer MobiTV, but of course not for the Treo… or my wife’s new phone so I guess we won’t be sampling this first-hand anytime soon. For us, it’s actually easier and quicker to create either segments or full programs and movies from our digitized library. The immediacy and reliability of content saved locally is a key point missed my offering streaming only access… especially since the networks are still being deployed – even if I can hear you now, there might not be EV-DO service handy. Queue time can be killer when you need something like this and what if it skips or even worse you run out of range…

Vidcasting is really the way to go. I can easily carry several episodes or movies on an SD card and hand a Palm device (hmmm… actually I have quite a few laying around) running The Core Media Player or even a PSP. Of course now the trick becomes do I really want my child handling my gadgets? The cheap portable DVD player we have seems more likely to sustain the abuse, though prices will continue to drop on Palm and other multimedia capable units.

I find it fascinating that I keep reading mixed reports about the PSP’s launch. Since Sony planned for 1 Million units and only sold 600,000 it is being reported as less than stellar. This is just wacky in my opinion. If you spend anytime browsing the web, you’ll find a few devices available, fewer games and even fewer accessories like memory sticks of reasonable capacity (there are literally no 1GB sticks available).

There is virtually nothing to buy on the hardware side in the places I’ve been. The shot above was taken last weekend at the Sony Store on Madison Ave. Software is completely limited and only seems to be a few titles, people were less than interested in grabbing at the get go. The popular titles are being sold primarily through mail-order now rather than direct sale, since stock has not been replenished…

These are all signs of success in my book. The interesting piece though, at least for me is how many PSPs I’ve spotted in the wilds… none!! I have not seen anyone playing or watching anything in parks or on the subway. There is a continuous parade of iPods, but so far no PSPs visibly being utilized. They are clearly out there, based on everyone having sold out… just being used more privately I suppose.

This is a very cool connection given the early adopter (yes still) status of Tivo owners. What would be really cool now is if Tivo enabled the PSP to be an authorized player of TiVo to Go files. That would be synergistic!

The main menu on thousands of TiVo boxes across North America now features advertising for the PSP. The “TiVo Central” section of the digital video recorder allows users to view the new POV Sony PSP commercial (called “Take it Out” on the TiVo menu) and a new promotional video, entitled “An Inside Look,” that highlights the numerous features of the device. [PSPworld]

btw – I realize it’s still April 1, but the images on the link really do look real and it would not be out of the question to see TiVo being used as a marketing channel for a new CE device.