Last week mobile operator Blyk announced a partnership with Orange whereby they will use the Orange network for their imminent free calls and texts mobile service.
Blyk is a new European mobile operator, aimed primarily at young people, that does not charge for calls or texts, but instead makes its money through advertising. It is scheduled for launch in the UK in mid 2007, but there are few more details than that available at present on its official website.
When subscribers sign up, they will have to provide basic demographic data, and their subsequent mobile usage will be tracked, including analysis of times and dates of calls and patterns of internet behaviour, so they can be sent targeted advertisements.
Details of a person’s location will not be stored, but can still be used to deliver advertising to a certain person at a certain time. I suppose if someone was in the region of a cinema for example, they could then be sent an ad for the latest films.
Ads will be delivered via SMS and MMS text message, and there could also be a banner advert at the top of a browser window when using the internet. There is a possibility at a later date of adverts appearing while using applications such as messaging.
It’s not the first time that the idea of mobile advertising has been raised though, with many of the opinion that Google’s recent interest in the mobile sector is related to their desire to expand their lucrative Adwords platform into the mobile sector.
Operators such as O2 and Vodafone have plans to trial mobile advertising as well.
The propsect of a free mobile service does bring to mind the Free PC offerings that appeared at the start of the dot.com revolution, that paid for themselves by bombarding users with adverts every time they used them. This particular model failed because people disliked the adverts and disliked disclosing personal information, and because advertisers quickly realised that people were learning to read around the adverts.
Personally I get so frustrated when I get a text message only to find its a network promotion, that I think I would avoid mobile advertising. It could be a useful option for university students however?
What do you think? Would you be happy to have adverts on your phone in exchange for free calls?
7 Comments
it`s very nice and i want it
it`s very good iwant it
i got it today i love it
good
how long do you have to wait to get your minuts again?
I think its a great idea.
I think this is a scary concept. If making free calls means you have to constantly sift through sms or mms spams to get to messages you really want you have to start wondering if having a mobile is even worth it. Imagine being spammed wherever you go! There are services which allow you to make very low-cost calls on your mobile using VoIP technology. Some are even pay as you go with no contracts and will work with any phone. The great thing with this one is that you can make very cheap international calls even if these are barred by your provider. I think these types of services are a better option for students or anyone really as they are low cost, no commitment and you don’t feel as if you’ve sold your soul to marketeers.