Wired on the iPad, via All Things D

Next month, Apple’s iPad comes out (and I will buy one). But what will be the impact of iPads and tablets from other companies on traditional media? Many are considering it to be the new magazine form factor. In theory, the iPad would make online ads compelling, and better enable digital subscriptions and a la carte buys. Wired Magazine, for one,  has been showing off a good-looking prototype. I highly recommend this video from The Wall Street Journal’s All Things D site.

Newspapers will look great, too. Look at The New York Times’ demo. My guess, however, is that the iPad’s impact on newspapers’ bottom line will be marginal for several years — and then, it may be too late. While the iPad should have excellent introductory sales, most sales will likely be low-end units without communications, so their usage will be mostly home and coffee shop based. Low-end units, limited to Wi-Fi Internet, are $499. Wireless Communications adds $130, plus $30 a month. Wi-Fi-only won’t provide a big lift to newspapers, because it doesn’t get the product onto commuter trains.

Newspaper companies, of course, are better positioned to participate in the mobile revolution than a year ago by virtue of their vertical properties, such as Classified Ventures’ Cars.com and Apartments.com. Both are “on the go” media sites that allow users to get information on a 24/7 basis, but more importantly, while they are out and about shopping for their category.

Other newspaper niche sites, like The Envelope from the LA Times, bring newspapers into an entirely new domain with the addition of online App games based on news and entertainment. These might ultimately play a role in the transformation of newspapers.

For now, I’m not counting on significant advertising or circulation revenues to develop for newspapers directly because of their investments in tablet devices, or mobile generally.

The money is moving quickly into the third-party SMB reseller space. ReachLocal has applied for a $100 million IPO, which could go out this spring. In hopes of similar paydays, its rivals are raising hordes of cash. Yodle, for instance, has announced that it has added $10 million, boosting its total amount raised $38 million. And now WebVisible has announced a $20 million round, making its total amount raised $37 million.

According to paidContent, the new round was led by Adams Street Partners, a Chicago-based PE firm. WebVisible’s last round, for $12 million, was led by Sutter Hill Ventures, with previous backer Redpoint Ventures.

WebVisible CEO Kirsten Mangers tells us that she would certainly claim certain competitive advantages over ReachLocal. But Reach’s “explosive growth shows that the market is solid; it is really good green field. Local interactive is the emerging field in interactive,” she adds. “Wall Street will show its support of the business mode.”

While WebVisible doesn’t disclose earnings, Mangers notes that it had 113 percent year-over-year growth in 2009, and a client roster of 40,000 to 45,000 active SMBs. More than 100,000 accounts have worked with WebVisible at one time or another. Top partners include AT&T, Intuit and BT.

WebVisible has also greatly boosted its presence in its size and international presence, with operations in Europe and Australia. Several international deals are pending, adds Mangers. It is also investing heavily in its “Geneva” (i.e., neutral) technology platform.

With the rise of mobile, WebVisible has been especially focused on building “multi-media, multi-device and multi-persona” capabilities that can effectively reach users in different places and dayparts,” says Mangers. “Local is where the consumer says it is.” While mobile is still a minor piece of the puzzle, Mangers predicts “it will be a rather high percentage in the course of the next 24 months.”

But, she emphasizes,  it is important not to get too far ahead of the cart. “So many SMBs still haven’t tipped their toes into the search waters yet.”

Joining the surge of smartphones with quickly evolving standards is the Nokia N97. It was unveiled today at Nokia World 2008 in Barcelona, as the conference’s centerpiece.

The top line is that it has 32 Gigs of memory, DVD quality video capture, a 3.5-inch touch screen, and it’s the first N-series phone to have a QWERTY keyboard. Upon first glance it resembles the Google Android-based G1 in some ways, with some more advanced features and elegant design.

A closer look is forthcoming and CrunchGear has more specs and pics. Nokia also provides a video here.

148apps.com reports that there have been more than 10,000 iPhone apps released to date. The site tracks application releases and also has some interesting breakdowns of where applications fall into different categories and price points.

About a quarter of total applications are free, for example, while about 35 percent cost $0.99 (seems to be the sweet spot for paid apps). The average cost is $3.15, while all 10,000 apps would set you back about 30 grand. In terms of categories, games are the clear winner, not surprisingly.

Though local isn’t broken out specifically, many local apps fall into the “utilities” category (some are classified as lifestyle or travel), which ranks third at about 1,000 apps. More specifically, about 15 percent of applications utilize the location capabilities of the phone.

As we’ve said many times, local’s percentage of iPhone activity (and other next generation devices) will be a larger stake than its percentage of online activity. This has a lot to do with the use case of the device, conducive to finding things locally while out and about, and the fact that location awareness is baked right in.

We’ll be taking a closer look at mobile local search in ’09, including forecast data on mobile usage and mobile ad revenues. It will also be important to take a qualitative look at how advertising will evolve with mobile data consumption and usage patterns.

For example, we could see more CPA or transactional advertising in things like local shopping search (a hot topic this week). This could come about with increased access to store inventory data, and greater potential for promotions or coupons given that the device is with you at the point of purchase.

Picture standing in front of a store shelf and being able to get real-time price comparisons (and availability) from other stores across town. In our discussions with local shopping search companies like TheFind and NearbyNow, this is precisely how they’re thinking. These types of mobile search utilities in retail and many other local categories could see a lot more development and commercial interest in ’09. We’ll be watching closely.

The phone is quickly advancing as a means of pushing out ad-sponsored content that mimics some of the popular mobile advertising features.

Greg Webster of VoodooVox, at ILM:08, debuted some of the new features of the company’s In-Call Media group, demonstrating additional marketing opportunities via on-hold messages, “pre-call” messages when using calling cards, and distribution over a network of telephone audio outlets such as 1-800-FREE-411, radio stations and major call centers. Many of the major functions include sending information to your mobile phone and being able to push a button to get extended information beyond a typical :09 message now utilized on the network. The ICM interface allows advertisers to set up their own campaign, direct it to specific states and even defined DMAs.

Two case studies clearly showed the power of this emerging media. One study involved the promotion of an event aimed at Hispanics by Food4Less, which utilized “pre-call” messages on calling cards used in identified Hispanic communities. The net result of this campaign was a 40 percent increase in awareness, a 15 percent increase in attendance and a 35 percent increase in new customers. Another approach used by Buena Vista International targeted radio station on-hold messages to promote a limited release movie aimed at teen girls.  The real aim of this new media approach is to take advantage of lost sales opportunities while customers are on hold with messages that are more relevant and appealing rather than simply playing “Muskrat Love” or “your call is important to us.” Much like mobile phone advertising, in-call media aims to provide a more intimate connection with customers to drive specific actions or to raise awareness. 

The iPhone is now the top selling cellphone in the U.S., according to a report released today by NPD Group. Though overall mobile phone sales dropped 15 percent to 32 million units, 6.9 million iPhones were sold. By doing so, Apple beat out the Motorola RAZR as the longstanding top seller.

The rest of the list looks like this:

1. Apple iPhone 3G
2. Motorola RAZR V3 (all models)
3. RIM BlackBerry Curve (all models)
4. LG Rumor
5. LG enV2

This is a telling moment for the iPhone and how the market’s general expectation level is rising for mobile device features. The iPhone still makes up a small percentage of overall phones sold globally. But it’s a good sign for its chances to become a mass market device if it accounted for more than 20 percent of cellphones sold in the U.S. last quarter. This also came at a time when consumer spending reductions generally curb sales of higher-end items. Given the iPhone’s $200 price tag and two-year contract, it is about a $2,000 investment.

Because of the iPhone’s more user-friendly interface, the growth of mobile data consumption (including mobile local search) will correlate with the device’s penetration. Rising standards will also affect other smartphones and their penetration — supported by TKG’s Mobile Market View study released last week.

Today at the Canadian Marketing Association’s Digital Digital Marketing Conference, there was quite a bit of buzz around Blyk, a Finnish mobile phone company with an interesting hybrid model for distribution.

Blyk is a free mobile operator targeting young people (ages 16 to 24) and funded by advertising. Brands pay Blyk to help them reach their target audiences while users get interesting messages, cool stuff, free texts and voice minutes. Users receive six SMS/MMS per day in exchange for 217 texts and 43 minutes of voice calls each month.  Accounts can be topped up once the free usage runs out with standard mobile usage fees.

The company was founded in 2006 by former president of Nokia phones Pekka Ala-Pietilä and award-winning film producer Antti Öhrling. Blyk entered the U.K. in mid-2007 and by April 2008 had already reached more than 100,000 members. The company plans to go pan-European in 2009 potentially reaching 40 million young consumers.

A couple of presentations touched on some interesting case studies that gave national marketers some compelling reasons to look twice at this emerging mobile platform.  Executions ranging from straight promotion to previews on ads before they air on TV and books before they’re released show the broad utility of this type of opt-in platform. The level of engagement gained through the transparent relationship between Blyk and its users creates a number of opportunities for advertisers to gain valuable insight into the elusive 16- to 24-year-old market.

From an affinity and subcategory targeting standpoint, the model is unique in its depth and breadth. New members go through a lengthy registration process that includes a detailed questionnaire. The objective is to create highly relevant matches with potential advertisers to create an optimal user experience. The transparency of the interaction is what drives the users to share more personal data than even social networks are able to get a grip on.

One presentation showed some interesting McKinsey research that indicated a 26 percent lift in mobile advertising acceptance among consumers if there was a reward attached to it. For cash-strapped 16- to 24-year-olds, it’s known that a phone registers highly in the reward category. In a case study presented by Janet Kestin, co-chief creative officer at Ogilvy & Mather, a community of Blyk users were asked if they were OK with the advertising in exchange for phone usage. Seventy-one percent of those users responded that they were “cool” with it as long as it was relevant to their lives.

Big national brands like Boots, Penguin Publishing and L’Oreal that have experimented with the platform have seen tremendous results with average clickthrough rates of 29 percent (ranges between 12 percent and 43 percent). Not bad, since the mobile advertising average clickthrough rate hovers around 3 percent to 6 percent.

Blyk is a great example of a phone company that is thinking like a media company. Check this link for some innovative campaigns that have already been executed on Blyk’s network. Some of them clearly demonstrate how this platform could turn up serious volume and innovation on mobile marketing.

With the addition of coupons and GPS targeting, a whole new opt-in local media channel targeting 16- to 24-year-olds emerges.

OK, we’ve got the format(s) and “best and brightest” speaker roster set for Interactive Local Media: Extending Local Channels, which is Nov. 19-21 in Santa Clara, California, next to San Jose.

At the top of the list is Angie Hicks, “the Angie” from Angie’s List, and Rodney Rice from ServiceMagic. They’ll tell it all during one-on-one interviews.

More excitement is to be found on a financial panel with Kara Nortman from IAC, and the “Transition to the Internet” sessions with Kevin Cuddihy from Comcast, Larry Olevitch from NBC Local, Lem Lloyd from The Yahoo! Newspaper Consortium and Meredith Papp from Google’s Traditional Media team.

For some people, Interactive Local Media is all about the ad nets. If that’s the case, we have three of the leaders in the vertical and local space: Russ Fradin from Cox’s Adify, Shawn Riegsecker from Centro and Jason Tafler from Gannett’s PointRoll.

And we’ll have plenty of “Community” with Mark Josephson from Outside.in, Mike Orren from Pegasus News, Dave Galvan from Topix and Seb Provencher from Praized.com. We’ve also zeroed in on new business directories in the U.S. and abroad with Chris Smith from Sensis and Eric Peacock from Citysearch/Insider Pages. Watch for some additions there, to be announced shortly.

We are also looking forward to new directions in mobile with Greg Wester from VoodooVox (Greg, of course, is one the smartest analysts to come out of the Yankee Group). We’ll have a lot of other local mobile-related things at the show, including leading-edge local iPhone and Google Android demos.

We’re especially proud to land Mike Liebhold from the Institute For the Future to give us a sense of how mobile, GPS and mapping technologies will affect the future of local media, community and society. Mike is a longtime tech industry leader and visionary at Apple, among other places. All this will be rounded out with some great comScore data on multiplatform local usage from Brian Jurutka, a great presenter and analyst.

What will really make this conference stand out, however, are the multi-paneled “SuperForums” on SMB marketing and video, which we hope will be complete with audience “voting” via laser pen (if we can figure out the logistics with 600+ attendees). The SMB SuperForum is now largely in place with Paul Ryan from DoneRight; Josh Walker from CityVoter; Court Cunningham from Yodle; Todd Crandall from Metrix4Media; Darren Waddell from MerchantCircle; and Mike Englehart, the new CEO from LiveDeal.

On the video SuperForum side, we’re kicking things off with a mini-keynote from Brad Inman, CEO of TurnHere (and founder of HomeGain and InmanNews); great demos; and many top speakers to be announced shortly. Here’s The Kelsey Group URL for where to sign up. (But don’t delay. Prices go up shortly.)

After more than a year of speculation about a “GPhone,” the Google-powered G1 phone was unveiled today in New York. As we reported last month, this will be a T-Mobile phone (built by HTC), and it will be available to T-Mobile subscribers for $179 starting Oct. 22 (two-year contract).

It features a touch screen that slides up to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard. It also has a 3-megapixel camera, on par with that of the iPhone, and it will bundle a suite of native Google applications, including Street View’s first appearance on a mobile device.

The price slightly undercuts that of the iPhone, and it will have a more “open” development platform (presumably fewer filters than those imposed by the app store approval process). It also boasts faster download speeds than the iPhone, although T-Mobile’s 3G network is still under construction and currently limited to 16 U.S. markets.

This will follow closely behind the demand and appeal (and lowered price tag) that Apple has ignited in the mobile market. And judging by the video provided with the T-Mobile press release and another one provided by Google, it looks like a pretty sexy device. It’s going to need to be in order to compete with the iPhone. It could have a big impact, regardless, with T-Mobile subscribers who have been contractually motivated against iPhone purchases.

We’ll see lots more carrier deals formed in the coming months that will broaden the market for next generation phones. Mobile local search (both app development and adoption) will get a big boost from all this, as we keep saying. Carriers have finally been forced to open their doors, and there is no going back now.

France Telecom is finally pulling the plug on the 26-year-old Minitel service, which it launched in France in 1982. (Actually, Minitel is really 15 years older than that according to SEC filings: “Under an advertising sales agreement entered into in 1967, France Telecom granted PagesJaunes exclusive rights to canvas and collate the advertising to be incorporated within the telephone directory and the alphabetically classified Minitel service.”) Minitel was to replace the White Pages, but not the Yellow Pages.

According to Wikipedia, France Telecom estimated that almost 9 million terminals had access to the Minitel network at the end of 1999 and it was used by 45 percent of the French population. Originally Minitel was seen as a model for mass deployment of interactive terminals and electronic services. The first 4.5 million terminals were provided at no cost as incentive to use a nationwide, electronic telephone directory. They then started to add a variety of interactive services to allow users to shop for retail products and transportation services, as well as access databases, information services and message boards.

In 1992, Donald Mackenzie, president of Nynex Information Resources Co. (Yellow Pages for New York and New England), told The Kelsey Report, “My view is that now Minitel is online and I want to ask my brethren in the directory business if they would like to share the information and the costs to develop it into a national Yellow Pages product in the U.S.” At the same time, other RBOCs and independent companies were evaluating electronic delivery of information, but no one in the U.S. anticipated replacing the print product with an electronic product. US WEST adopted Minitel to buy into its electronic directory services as a backbone to its videotex application.

By 1997, Minitel had peaked as the Internet provided a more robust platform. Minitel users, not unlike the people who are addicted to a soap opera, resisted fiercely because they thought, in part, that Minitel was their own. The service was judged to be a success in terms of accomplishing several of France Telecom’s objectives, even though it was not a business model that could be transferred to other countries. Today, according to France Telecom’s most recent quarterly report, Minitel revenues totaled only 4.5 million euros in the first half of 2008, down 69.4 percent compared with the first half of 2007.

The electronic information services industry owes a great deal to Minitel. May it rest in peace when it is discontinued at the end of March 2009.