New, inexpensive (under $150) cellphones for the holiday- 2008

Thanks to industry newsletter FierceWireless.com for this helpful overview we’re offering to parents looking to buy that first cellphone as a gift. These are the “new” phones that have just come on the market at various price-points. There are, of course, free phones as well, depending on the contract you sign.

Starting with the least expensive (just considering the phone price only)…

Click on the link under each label for more details about features.

Motorola VU204
Verizon Wireless- $29.99 (after $50 mail-in rebate and a two-year service contract)
http://www.fiercewireless.com/slideshow/pics-holiday-handsets-under-150?img=2

Pantech Slate
AT&T Mobility- $49.99 (after $50 mail-in rebate and a two-year service contract)
http://www.fiercewireless.com/slideshow/pics-holiday-handsets-under-150?img=4

Samsung Rant
Sprint Nextel- $49.99 (after $50 mail-in rebate and a two-year service contract)
http://www.fiercewireless.com/slideshow/pics-holiday-handsets-under-150?img=8

Motorola i576
Sprint Nextel-$70 (with a two-year service contract)
http://www.fiercewireless.com/slideshow/pics-holiday-handsets-under-150?img=1

Pantech Matrix
AT&T Mobility- $79.99 (after $50 mail-in rebate and a two-year service contract)
http://www.fiercewireless.com/slideshow/pics-holiday-handsets-under-150?img=3

Blackberry Pearl 8130
Alltel- $79.99 (after $100 mail-in rebate and a two-year service contract)
http://www.fiercewireless.com/slideshow/pics-holiday-handsets-under-150?img=5

Samsung Propel
AT&T Mobility- $79.99 (after $50 mail-in rebate and a two-year service contract)
http://www.fiercewireless.com/slideshow/pics-holiday-handsets-under-150?img=7

UTStarcom Quickfire
AT&T Mobility- $99.99 (after $50 mail-in rebate and a two-year service contract)
http://www.fiercewireless.com/slideshow/pics-holiday-handsets-under-150?img=10

Samsung Highnote
Sprint Nextel- $99 (after $50 mail-in rebate and a two-year service contract)
http://www.fiercewireless.com/slideshow/pics-holiday-handsets-under-150?img=6

LG Rhythm
Alltel Wireless-$119.99 (after $50 mail-in rebate and a two-year service contract)
http://www.fiercewireless.com/slideshow/pics-holiday-handsets-under-150?img=0

Samsung Sway
Verizon Wireless- $119.99 (after $50 mail-in rebate and a two-year service contract)
http://www.fiercewireless.com/slideshow/pics-holiday-handsets-under-150?img=9

Wild Card
Virgin Mobile USA- $89 (pre-paid service details at http://www.virginmobileusa.com/rates/minute.do)
http://www.fiercewireless.com/slideshow/pics-holiday-handsets-under-150?img=11

Survey: Why parents are texting their kids

Survey Shows Parents Are Learning to Text From Their Kids; Children Like Privacy, Cool Factor, Efficiency of Texting

A new survey released on Oct. 8 announced that, “Many parents view text messaging as a convenient way to stay connected with their children. The survey, conducted by Synovate for AT&T, “sought to better understand how and when parents text with their children and vice versa.”

AT&T’s survey came to the same conclusions at we did about texting and parenting.

“Text messaging has proved to be a powerful tool to help parents and kids close the communications gap,” said Alecia Bridgwater, director of Messaging for AT&T’s wireless unit.

“Not only does text messaging allow parents to enter their child’s world, but it provides an unintrusive way for families to stay in touch throughout the day as needed, whether it’s coordinating schedules, sending reminders about doctor’s appointments or just texting a ‘thinking of you’ message.”

WuduPlz was designed to help adults with texting. And who do adults often text? “Parents text most often with their children. Seventy-nine percent of parents surveyed said they text with their children most often to tell them to come or phone home, representing the most common type of parent-child text message,” according to the survey.

The AT&T press release quoted a mother of three as saying, “Texting is sometimes the easiest way to keep track of my kids,” said Janet Sturley. “They’re so much more likely to respond quickly to a text message, and it’s the most convenient and inexpensive way to keep tabs on them. I’ve become extremely fluent in the language of text.”
Some 73 percent of parents think that their children are more likely to respond to a text message. Half of parents surveyed had the impression that texting  makes them a “cool” parent.
The survey noted that “children like the privacy of text messaging (65 percent), the cool/hip factor (49 percent) and that it’s a better use of time than calling (48 percent).”

http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=4800&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=26157

New openness toward phone consumers! (Er, who wanted that?)

Pity the poor family looking to buy new cellphones and reading how “in the last nine months, carriers, software developers and cellphone makers have embraced a new attitude of openness toward consumers,” as The New York Times reported this week.

Sounds great. Where is it in the store?

As the NYT explained, “The market for smartphones, which are really handheld computers, has quickly expanded beyond business users. They have gone mainstream, with teenagers and women finding novel uses for them — texting snippets of their lives to friends or tracking friends on maps. The carriers and the handset makers realize they have to make the phones adaptable to those new customers.

Super! So, therefore…

Well, deep into the article, it explains that “Of course, consumers should be careful what they wish for. Already there are at least six major operating systems for cellphones — Linux, Symbian and BlackBerry, as well as those made by Microsoft, Palm and Apple. And more are coming. Google expects the first phones in its Open Handset Alliance, which will use its Google Mobile operating system, to be out this fall.

“Consumers may find it confusing that some applications work only for certain phones because developers do not have the time or money to adapt projects to every operating system.”

“Consumers will also come to realize that “open” comes with an asterisk. The word means what the carriers, handset makers and software developers want it to mean.”

Of course, it’s even worse if you are a “mobile marketing” professional trying to figure out your next move.

Texting “A Pain in the Neck”

I loved the August 1 story in the Washington Post how seniors are tapping into texting. Kim Hart did a great job. But, really, the point of the article was: Not really.

The story starts off with:

“Jane Stohlman, 69, stared intently, trying to figure out why in the dickens that tiny envelope kept appearing on her cellphone’s screen.

The helpful young man sitting beside her explained. It was a text message, and it was far more useful than one of those old-fashioned voice mails.”

“Not at my age,” Stohlman informed him. “And who the heck was texting me?”

Hart reported that, “for wireless companies, senior citizens are a relatively underserved market. About 50 percent of seniors over age 65 own a cellphone, compared with nearly 90 percent of consumers 18 to 29, according to a survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.”

Seniors make up the fastest-growing market for cellphone firms like AT&T, the article said.

The reporter was covering a demo for seniors by AT&T. One compay rep showed a woman how to designate her daughter as a contact under “ICE,” short for “in case of emergency.”

But when he typed the wrong letter, he was one who was stumped. He couldn’t find the delete button.

Now it was Esler’s turn to show off her cellphone skills. She proudly pointed out the correct button. “It may be old, but it still works fine.”

The story concluded with this:

Tap, tap, tapping away in search of the right letters to spell out “Hello” for a text message seemed a bit overwhelming to Stohlman.

It’s all about rhythm, she was encouraged by Damon Frazier, also an AT&T sales representative. It just takes practice.

“It’s a pain in the neck!” Stohlman said.

Actually, Frazier said, texting can be quite addictive.

“Trust me,” Stohlman said. “I have plenty of other things to do.”

WuduPlz sell more ads

As a recent article in The Wall Street Journal outlined, the new online ads newspapers are managing to sell are cannibalizing their print-ad revenues.

The number of local salespeople peddling online ads for newspapers has ballooned to 15,500 from 5,900, according to estimates from media-research firm Borrell Associates. But, newspapers now control only 27.4% of the local online ad market, down from a 35.9% share in 2006, according to Borrell.

WuduPlz has packaged itself for newspapers to address this.

Because online ads are far less expensive than print ads and thus offer lower commissions, it’s difficult to get salespeople to focus on selling the digital products.

WuduPlz, however, is a premium online product which can demand higher rates. And, WuduPlz offers materials for both editorial and advertising to create a compelling print tie-in.

WuduPlz uses the typical, easy-to-deploy banner ads that are directed to specific local markets. WuduPlz works for both small and medium-size local businesses as well as large regional or national accounts.

Local local online ads are growing — that market expanded at a 57.2% clip last year. The big winners so far are Internet companies like Google and Local.com, which collectively control 53.3% of the local online ad market, up from 25% in 2006, according to The Wall Street Journal. “And they’ve done that with only 1,400 ad-sales reps. They specialize in selling ads that target consumers searching the Web for a particular product or service, whether it’s a plumber or a neighborhood pizzeria,” the Journal noted.

WuduPlz provides newspaper with a unique way to compete for ads with both Google and local bloggers .

Small- to medium-size businesses are a prime target for WuduPlz because their limited ad budgets price them out of the daily print paper, but they are eager to market.

The online audience is often about a third of the size of a newspaper’s print circulation, but by offering a clear path to a prime target market, WuduPlz can overcme that objection.

“Unless you take practices that have been in place for 50 years and shake the dust off the rugs, you’re not going to move the needle,” says Mark Contreras, senior vice president of Scripps newspaper division.

Ads welcomed with valuable content

“We see an increasing trend of consumers willing to trade off and receive advertising to gain more–and better–mobile content,” Nielsen Mobile VP of mobile media Jeff Herrmann said today, looking at their most recent research.

“Successful mobile marketers will meet the challenge offered by consumers by engaging with them in a way that adds value to the mobile user content experience,” he concluded.

Easy does it

As we’ve noted, mobile technology is getting cheaper and cheaper, which is great news for users and content providers.

But, don’t get too excited because users are not getting excited. Last month, the Israeli “Service Adoption Management” firm Olista published the results on their in-depth analysis of who is doing what in the real world of mobile. Their findings, from from monitoring over eleven million mobile users across five different mobile operators, using their software is worth noting. As Cellular News first reported, usability rather than price is slowing the adoption of new mobile data services.

One eye-opening stat: 85% of mobile TV users abandoned the service after the first viewing and after passing through the advice of notice charge without hesitation. “The indication from the Olista findings being that the user was experiencing navigational difficulties in moving from one TV channel to the next,” Cellular News said.

Even more interesting was that over 70% of users who sign up to content bundles failed to consume any mobile content. They had paid for it but did not use it. Another worrying statistic for content providers showed that around 50% of all application downloads failed to complete successfully.

Oren Glanz, CEO of Olista, said in releasing this data, “The key to unlocking the pent up demand for mobile content lies in understanding and addressing these barriers to adoption.”

To reach teens and pre-teens, use parents (Duh!)

A new study about teenagers’ attitude regarding the news reminds me of when, several years ago, I got deep into the massive amount of research done on how to keep children from starting smoking and how to convince kids who had started to smoke to quit. Everyone wanted to discover the major influences on pre-teen and teenage children’s behavior.

Northwestern University’s “If It Catches My Eye” report released this month offered the same thing I learned, time and again, from my readings what influenced teen smoking: Reaching parents is about the best way to influence their kids. Believe it or not, kids do listen to (and watch) their parents.

WuduPlz is a web service for the parents of pre-teen and teenage children. While using the online service regularly, WuduPlz is designed to deliver advertising messages from local newspapers. We are also, however, strongly recommending that our newspaper partners place linked appropriate news headlines on WuduPlz’s concluding pages to attract parents into their online newspaper.

Having more eyeballs of active parents has value to many marketers, but don’t discount the long-term value of also attracting more family leaders into the habit of reading the news which, the research shows, is a habit they will pass on to their children.

Download the report here: If It Catches My Eye (pdf)

What did you mean by THAT?!? (WuduPlz calm down)

According to research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, we only have a 50-50 chance of ascertaining the tone of any e-mail message. The study, reporting on in The New York Times, also showed people think they’ve correctly interpreted the tone of e-mail messages they receive 90 percent of the time.

This is email messages, not text messages, which have to be shorter and are often done on the fly. And this report covers all people, not parents communicating with their pre-teen and teenage children. My conclusion: Yikes!

People (not just kids) reading messages unconsciously interpret them based on their current mood, stereotypes and expectations, the study said. Despite this, the research subjects thought they accurately interpreted the messages nine out of 10 times,  psychologist Nicholas Epley of the University of Chicago told the Times.

The reason for this is egocentrism, or the difficulty some people have detaching themselves from their own perspective, says Epley. In other words, people aren’t that good at imagining how a message might be understood from another person’s perspective.

WuduPlz should help with this problem, at least in terms of communicating household tasks. First, the message is identified as a WuduPlz.com message. (Some people have told us that saying “WuduPlz” takes the edge off. Some, however, have said it sounds sarcastic, which backs up Dr. Epley’s research.)  Coming from the WuduPlz website, it should be more difficult to assume one can read “mood” into the message. Second, we have crafted our messages to be polite and clear. Our checklist should be a help.

“People often think the tone or emotion in their messages is obvious because they ‘hear’ the tone they intend in their head as they write,” Epley explained to the Times.

WuduPlz should help parents be more clear. Maybe, at times, a bit kinder and more helpful even. After all, your kids really, really, really, really did mean to take out the trash like you asked, but–like children everywhere– they “forget.” Because they’re kids. (We don’t have any research to explain this, but then you don’t need any.)

Where families are moving online in 2008: Peter Grunwald reports

Peter Grunwald has gotten the respect (and ear) of organizations such as the National Association of School Boards. His Grunwald Associates LLC is said to be a pioneer with “new media market intelligence and industry surveys including Children, Families and the Internet.” Grunwald’s “Social Networking Study” has established useful benchmarks regarding the media habits and attitudes of American households, according to the Ypulse newsletter.

Grunwald has now gotten interested in the “multi-generation networked family,” which, of course, has those of us involved in WuduPlz interested. A polite email from him last week said he’ll have more data later this year.

It will be interesting to see if he has something to say about WuduPlz when it’s released, considering how Grunwald sees the major trends shaping up.

Here, in a nutshell, is how he sees 2008 shaping up, according to an article he wrote for YPulse.:

• Collaboration: Web users will seek “sites where their contribution, in collaboration with others, realizes a common higher purpose.”

• Ubiquitous networking: Constant networking is blurring the line between our online and offline lives. “While most consumers will appreciate the novelty, convenience and immediacy of information anytime/anywhere, advertisers will face challenges mastering associated short-form communications and optimizing drill-down.”

• Technology is a family affair: Grunwald Associates Social Networking Study found more than a third of parents already text message with their children and two-thirds of kids say they’ve gone online with mom or dad at least once in the past month, including more than 60% of teens. “Look for new applications and communication tools designed with families in mind as a unit for both entertainment and communication,” Grunwald says.

• Schools are driving home internet use:  Now many districts, even poor districts, are directing their students to use the Net outside the classroom

• Marketers need to move toward “integration and interaction” instead of “intrusion.”

It’s his last point where we believe WuduPlz best makes the case for sponsors. WuduPlz demands that the user creates content. WuduPlz is a highly-personalized environment. Users will, therefore, have a heightened sensitivity to advertising and news they see on the service.

“Smart marketers have begun to provide tools, information and environments that enhance online experiences and user control, building brand loyalty through voluntary participation,” says Grunwald.