A Defining Moment

When the current Communications Act in the UK came into force in 2003, it was already old and pretty much not fit for purpose. Sure, it cleared up a lot of confusion by bringing together a number of, until then, disparate regulatory bodies under one roof, but by the time it came into force, things had moved on. That’s what happens with what I now call the digital industry: it develops and changes very rapidly.

Look at what is happening in the microcosm of the strange legal wrangles in the UK over celebrities with superinjunctions that are being breached by ordinary people on social networks. This has thrown the government, judiciary, media and social media into a tailspin: there simply are no laws, rules or regulations governing what is happening.

So the fact that the government is now proposing bringing in new communications regulations (see my EXCLUSIVE STORY HERE) – and for communications, read digital industry – seems apt. I think the social media/superinjunction debacle is timely, but unconnected to the Department of Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) issuing an open letter to the ‘communications’ industry stressing that, in the interests of growth, the regulatory regime around all things content needs to be rethought.

And yes it does. But, do they really realise what they are seeking to do? The open letter is heavily focussed on content – across many platforms – but really what they are getting into is a total rethink on the regulation of, for want of a better word, ‘digital commerce’. And this is a very broad brief.

I am the first to admit that the regulatory framework we have in place currently is no longer up to the job. Look at PRS: we have a very clear and, now with the new PPP Code, pretty effective and fair way of regulating PRS. But, while all this has been happening, many new ways of doing microbilling have popped up, which aren’t covered by the code and so we have a situation where we have great regs for one thing, but not for another.

The same applies across all facets of the connected digital industry, especially as it all starts to meld into one multiplatform consumer eco-system. This throws up massive issues with anyone seeking to apply old, or indeed create new, regulations to tame its worst excesses. You have now the chance to find something you want to buy on one platform that you pay for on another and consume on a third or in the real world. You have potential situations where people are using mobile to interact with advertising on TV to buy something that will be delivered to their home. How do you regulate that?

What I suspect will happen will be that ‘self regulation’ plays a key role in this. To me it is the only sensible way you can regulate such complex interconnected interactions and future proof those regulations for the ten years that the UK government wants any new rules to apply for.

At least the powers that be seem to recognise the enormity of the task at hand and have put out a request for feedback at a very early stage. But many people may have missed the open letter sent on 16 May and may not have made the 30 June deadline for submissions. And you MUST take part. This will change everything globally and there is everything to play for.  As the MEF’s Suhail Bhat tells us: “This is probably the most important and significant change to most people’s business they will see in their business lifetime. You have to make sure you have your say.”

Beware: new billing kids on the block

With another Telemedia360 event under our belts, many of you who were there will have got a great insight into where the business is going. There are many new kids on the block and the world of content interaction and billing has changed. There is still plenty of room for IVR and pSMS billing services, but as media companies evolve what they are doing with mobile – particularly with tablets – then these old ways of doing things face growing threats from other payment tools.

Print media companies love tablets as a tablet app suddenly gives them something they can legitimately charge for to make up for all that free stuff that is on the web. With this comes the huge opportunity for billing for these services. But, while pSMS and WAP billing play a role in getting money into the system, most consumers these days don’t trust operator billing (a recent Kony survey finds that only 25% of people do) because operators are not known for getting their ‘normal’ bills right, let alone handling any other billing on top.

So what’s happening? Well services where cards are registered at leisure on line then used as part of a one click on mobile, tablet, or in-app are pretty popular in the UK, but these models don’t scale in Europe and further afield where cards are not so well used. Here pSMS and traditional billing tools do have a role to play, but they are then not used as the front line payment brand. That is handled by the new breed of payment companies.

In the retail and m-commerce space, things are tougher still for telemedia billing. There is a huge opportunity for mobile as a payment tool for both in-store and m-retail purchases, but that opportunity is slipping away from operators and telemedia companies on a daily basis. Orange and Barclaycard have rolled out a trial for NFC based mobile micropayments in store, but frankly who needs the hassle of an NFC enabled phone, chipped with bank chip and limited only to stores that can afford the redemption equipment and POS integration?

Like media companies, though, retailers are even more reluctant to use operating based billing as the operators want too big a cut of the transaction to make it viable, they don’t see them as reliable enough and operators still slave under the misapprehension that their brand owns the customer and so are reluctant to give ground to retailers.

So where does that leave us? Well, it leaves us once again with the likes of SagePay, MGt, Boku, Zong, OpenMarket, MIG, Google and Facebook – not to mention banks and card companies – delivering the payment tools that people will use in the retail space: people trust these brands and retailers trust them too.

There is, of course, a very viable marketing for operator-based billing solutions and they are not going to go away in a hurry – not everyone has a smartphone, so pSMS is pretty much all they have to pay with – but my argument is that we are already seeing a shift in how mobile as a payment tool works and what the brands, media companies and retailers want from it. It poses a massive opportunity to the telemedia sector, but one that to my mind no one is really grasping.

One area where there is still huge opportunity for telemedia billing lies in mobile gambling services. Those of you at Telemedia360 last week will have noticed that mgambling was conspicuous by its absence. Well, that’s because we are running a dedicated show on mGambling – the mGaming Summit – on 15 June at the King’s Fund, in Central London, in partnership with iGamingBusiness. Details are here and it promises to be a fascinating event at the nexus of gambling and mobile.  See you there.

Social networking checks in as the key platform for telemedia 3.0 at TELEMEDIA 360 LEEDS

If there was one key take away from Telemedia360 in Leeds on 11 May, it was that, if mobile marked out the advent of telemedia 2.0, then now we are witnessing the birth of the next generation of telemedia services – telemedia 3.0 if you will – with social media (namely Facebook) at its heart.

Session after session at the show revealed how social media is proving the key target for getting everything from apps to media content to interaction and advertising moving. It also has huge implications for telemedia billing, as new third party payment providers enter this new world as the hunger for virtual goods – and real world shopping – on Facebook grows.

According to Miles Ross, head of mobile at publishers IPC, Facebook is “critical.” Ross says that IPC uses Facebook to “drive interaction with our products and our Facebook products themselves and we are fairly advanced in social games, because that is where our readers are. The hunger for virtual goods is also going to be avid”.

And this means that there is a whole new opportunity for billing and payments, but it remains unclear as to how the telemedia sector is exploiting this currently, leaving the way open to a raft of new players such as Boku, Zong and OpenMarket.

Twitter is also playing a huge role in the media sector, forcing media product brands to sit behind unified URLs so that they can be tweeted and found on multiple devices and through many channels, not just online and mobile, but apps, on tablets and across the social media sphere.

Social media is also playing a vital role in the development of m-commerce and m-retailing, with new ventures such as Whatser and Frooly – who both debuted at Telemedia360 Leeds on 11 May – to create compelling new mobile based services that not only allow people to be ‘social’ but also to fill a novel niche: the small retailer and the high street.

It is interesting to note that at the last Telemedia360 event in Manchester, the m-retail talk was centred on the opportunities that surround major retailers. This time out – just six months later – we are seeing a propensity to target small, independent retailers with mobile as a quick step into mobile commerce.

But its not all one way traffic to social networks. Many are starting to look to some of the key ‘old skool’ telemedia services to drive users in an ever more competitive environment. Friends Reunited is adding dating services, to pull together the ideas of finding ‘people you went to school with’ and ‘people you went to school with who you fancy another crack at’. Around this the social network is also adding in horoscopes from Russell Grant to help guide users as to how well their potential dates might shape up.

This example, delivered by Russellgrant.com’s Kevin Parker marks how social networking is now becoming entrenched in the telemedia world. The question is, does the telemedia industry recognise this? We’ll have to see at the next telemedia event.

TELEMEDIA360 LEEDS Stellar line up complete as industry readies itself for debate

With just days to go until the next Telemedia360 event – 11 May, the Loft, Leeds – the final speaker schedule has been unveiled and the show promises to offer some great insight into the next stages of development in European media interaction, m-commerce and premium rate telephone services.

AIME chairman Edward ‘Bod’ Boddington and social and digital media expert Darren Mark Noyce from Skopos, kick things off with two keynote presentations that paint the current a future picture of both the media and interaction industry landscape and the needs, likes and dislikes of the digital consumer respectively. The show then moves into session format offering a variety of debate on the new digital media and device landscape and how to engage and monetise consumers therein, A look at how ‘traditional’ telemedia services are evolving in this world and where their opportunities lie, m-commerce, billing, CRM and data gathering and how it can all work at live events.

There is are also two special workshops – one in the morning and one in the afternoon – looking respectively at PPP’s new code of practice and a special crowd sourcing workshop from Noden Dot Net.

The overall programme of the event is designed to lead the audience of brands, retailers, media execs, telcos and service providers through the high level view of what the new digital media landscape looks like – a mass of new devices, new social media tools and new marketing channels – and how to bolt that together with the proven money making ideas that have powered the telemedia industry for so long.

The afternoon sessions reflect how telemedia is becoming the cornerstone of the broadening m-commerce marketplace and so we look at how the tools used in telemedia are starting to play a wider role in the m-commerce and m-retail environment: taking in m-commerce services, billing and m-payments, CRM and data gathering.

We finish off with a look at how telemedia will play out at live events – not least the London Olympics in 2012.

The two workshops also fit nicely into this, offering a much more in depth understanding of two vital side issues around servicing this marketplace: regulation and crowd sourcing.

PPP, the premium rate industry regulator and the part of Ofcom charged with overseeing how this interactive digital world is policed, is introducing its new – and significantly revamped – code of practice in September, so it is taking the morning to talk to interested parties about what the changes mean in practice for companies that will seek to work within the new rules.

The afternoon sees a change of tack in the workshop room with a detailed look at how social engagement through crowd sourcing and other techniques, delivered by Noden Dot Net. In this modern world there is more and more pressure to reach out to your “community” via the internet.  There is also your own need to drive innovation, resource new content and drive down costs whilst improving your brand profile. Crowdsourcing allows you to engage the internet connected audience by asking them to supply you with ideas & content.  At the same time you are effectively reaching a larger community using the principles of social media and viral marketing

·          Getting web & mobile users to upload video and audio content to your website. 

·          Normalizing and formatting for best site integration

·          Moderation, content approval and publishing / broadcasting

·          Capturing UGC through promotion and social media

·          Creating competition online

·          Legal requirements and management levels

For more details and to register to attend go to www.telemedia360.com

The speaker line up delivering this is below:

9.00 - 9.15 Opening Keynote:

Telemedia’s role in the new interactive landscape

With TV interaction turning to social media and apps, and with publishers embracing online and digital publishing with alacrity, our panel sets the scene for the day exploring how the telemedia industry can lead the chase for eyeballs and earlobes.

Ed Boddington, Chairman, AIME 

9.15 – 9.30 Mobile users and the digital society

An statistical overview of the digital society and what opportunities lie out there for brands, media companies and the telemedia sector

Darren Noyce, chief analyst, Skopos

9.30 - 10.15

The new digitized media landscape

New devices, new operating systems, apps stores, m-web and social media: today we operate in a very different media world. Our panels and presenters explain how Telemedia services can continue to add huge value to media, brands, broadcasters and retailers

• What services are the best fit for what devices

• Mixing interaction and monetisation

• Working with the new platforms players – getting Facebook, Twitter and the myriad of  app stores working for your content

• What value social media

• M-web, apps or both – what works best for media 

• Increasing importance of loyalty and CRM

PANEL

Mark Challinor, Head of Mobile, Telegraph Media Group

Miles Ross, Head of Mobile,  IPC

Carl Costa, Songhi

Matt Baskerville, Shortlist

CHAIR: Adam Maxted, Square Media Consultancy

10.15 - 11.00

Engaging and interacting in a multi screen digital world

Whether you are a media company, broadcaster, retailer or a brand, the new landscape for media delivery also affects how you market your services and how consumers interact with you. Our panel and presenters show you best of breed solutions to win in these battles

PRESENTATION 10.15-10.25 in-SMS ads

How to use consumers to spread your message with in-SMS affiliate services

Efe Udugba, CSO, GText

PRESENTATION 10.25 – 10.35 What about Wifi?

With up to three quarters of mobile ad traffic coming through wifi in the past year, it looks like its time to rethink business and billing models; is PSMS no longer fit for purpose?

Sebastian Garel-Jones, Admoda

10.35 – 11.00 PANEL DEBATE

• How social media, apps and new channels are affecting the interaction paradigm

• What solutions are there for broadcasters, media companies, brands and marketers to generate incremental new revenues?

• The role of telemedia in this new landscape

• Where does fixed line fit?

Todd Green, FreMantle Media

Stephen Petheram, MD, MGt

Sebastian Garel-Jones, Admoda

Efe Udugba, CSO, GText

CHAIR: Paul Skeldon, Editor, Telemedia-news.com

11.00 - 11.30 networking with tea and coffee

11.30 - 12.30

Traditional Telemedia service update

While the media landscape may be crowded with new devices and business models, consumers still love the same services – they just want them delivered in different ways. Our panel and presenters take a look at how the telemedia basics are shaping up

• Latest developments, products and services in Psychic, horoscope, life coaching, chat and dating

• Issues affecting the market, including regulatory updates

• Creating effective services for brand and media clients

• The impact of new devices, new delivery channels and new media

• Exploiting SMS, MMS, Video and social networking

• Monetising through add ons

Kevin Parker, Russellgrant.com

Danielle Morgan, Sales & Marketing Manager, Flirtomatic

James McNab, Sprint

Taya Bose, Com&Tel

CHAIR: Paul Skeldon, Editor, Telemedia-news.com

12.30 - 13.00 CASE STUDY

Where traditional services meet new media and brands

FMCG brands are using Horoscopes/Psychic for PR, CRM, editorial content and incremental revenue. We find out how brands, including Asda, are using bingo, dating, horoscopes rather than the traditional "in print" models.

Kevin Parker, Russellgrant.com

13.00 - 14.00 lunch

14.00 – 15.00

M-Commerce – so more than just retail

SPONSORED BY NET-MOBILE

Mobile is the ideal sales tool, offering a channel and billing – as well as today total broadband web connectivity. So what are the main games in town for m-commerce?

PRESENTATION 14.00 – 14.10 Social shopping

A look at how social media and mobile together are revolutionizing mobile commerce, with a case study on fashion retailer Republic

Damian Hanson, One iota

PRESENTATION 14.10 – 14.20 Local m-commerce

A presentation looking at how local markets are being serviced by mobile

Michael Ord MD Frooly (leo Kellgren email)

PRESENTATION 14.20 -14.30 Local social shopping

Whatser

PANEL DEBATE

• What is being bought on mobile – real, virtual or both?

• What can we teach tangible goods retailers about mobile commerce?

• Turning mobile marketing into mobile commerce

• Drop charges, telemedia billing and the new world of retail

Justin Richardson, MD, Net-Mobile (UK)

Damian Hanson, One iota

Michael Ord, Frooly

Colin McCaffrey, 2Ergo

Colin White, Netsize

CHAIR: Paul Skeldon, editor, Telemedia-news.com

15.00 - 15.45

Billing & payments – the options to consider

SPONSORED BY OPENMARKET

Making all interactive and m-commerce services work relies of collecting money and extending that to allow for payment through device in stores and online. But the billing and payment landscape has changed radically in the past two years.

PRESENTATION 15.00 – 15.10  In-app billing

The try then buy app model is a staple in the games industry, and ripe for media subs. We offer a masterclass in working with Android and Ovi on technical and regulatory intergration of in-app billing with case studies

Presentation by OpenMarket

PANEL DEBATE
The panelists will then discuss:

• The rise of Apple, Boku, Zong and the others

• The role operator billing might yet fulfill

• How 90% payout transactional SMS billing is becoming reality

• What NFC and other mobile payment tools bring to the party

• Refunding to phones and accounts – a new opportunity?

• International billing and payments come of age

PANEL

Stephen Petheram, MD, MGt

Danny Marino, txtNation

Speaker from OpenMarket

CHAIR: Paul Skeldon, Editor, Telemedia-news.com

15.45- 16.15 network with tea and buns

16.15 – 17.00

Telemedia CRM & DATA – the marketing department’s dream come true

SPONSORED BY NETSIZE

Both fixed line and mobile services generate extraordinary amounts of detailed data about the consumers’ behavior interacting with your brand. . But how do you harness and monetize this data from marketing and commercial perspectives?

• Creating data and using it as a marketing tool

• CRM best practice & Data Protection Act main points to watch

• Comparative studies of how well CRM generates repeat calls and up sell across media types

• CRM, data and Age Verification – protecting consumers and your business

• The role of delivery through SMS, MMS, Apps and M-web

• Collecting and re-using data through new channels – how do apps, m-web, social media and wifi change the data game?

PANEL

Stephen Upstone, Velti

Kate Atkin, mLaw

Colin White, Netsize

CHAIR: Adam Maxted, Square Media Consultancy

17.00 – 17.45

Telemedia and Live events

With the Olympics just around the corner and sports clubs all getting on the mobile bandwagon, we wrap up the Leeds show with a lively debate about how best to put all that we have learned today into practice around live events.

• Opportunities for telemedia in live events

• Opportunities for media, brands and retailers around live events

• Cementing the two with mobile, kiosks and more

• Challenges of making it work

• From marketing on page to ticket on phone – the complete journey for the modern event

• Case studies and demos from around the world.

Panel

Luc Jacobs, TeamBlogger

James McNab, Sprint

CHAIR: Paul Skeldon, Editor, Telemedia-news.com

WORKSHOP PROGRAMME

10.15 - 12.15 PPP 12th CODE WORKSHOP

On 1 September 2011, a new Code of Practice and industry-wide Registration Scheme will come into force for premium rate services (PRS).

· The new Code contains rules that apply across the whole PRS value-chain. Information/content providers will be responsible for consumer protection for the first time.

· The Registration Scheme is mandatory for ALL providers in the PRS value-chain. You will not be able to do business in the UK market unless you are registered.

14.45 – 16.30 CROWDSOURCING WORKSHOP - SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT IN A CONNECTED WORLD

Hosted by NODEN DOT NET

In this modern world there is more and more pressure to reach out to your “community” via the internet.  There is also your own need to drive innovation, resource new content and drive down costs whilst improving your brand profile. Crowdsourcing allows you to engage the internet connected audience by asking them to supply you with ideas & content.  At the same time you are effectively reaching a larger community using the principles of social media and viral marketing

·          Getting web & mobile users to upload video and audio content to your website. 

·          Normalizing and formatting for best site integration

·          Moderation, content approval and publishing / broadcasting

·          Capturing UGC through promotion and social media

·          Creating competition online

·          Legal requirements and management levels

Social refinement – all thanks to mobile

While we are tooling about town in the sunshine, we will mostly be making good use of social media to get the most out of our time off from Telemedia Towers. And how social media has changed. Refined from being just a series of check in services that let you win badges, or shoot birds or whatever, social media now uses the tools of location, recommendation and peer group pressure to create services that actually enhance your life.

The launch this week of Whatser – a Dutch location based service that lets people collect bars, restaurants, shops and places and share them with their friends – marks a sea change in how mature social media, especially on mobile, has become. No longer the stuff of kids, it is now shaping up to be a serious business tool. 

In the case of Whatser one that allows smaller, local businesses to grow organically and gives such businesses a valid and workable alternative to coupon services than can, for the smaller business, actually cause a lot of bottom line damage, rather than boost sales. 

For the bigger brands, companies such as One iota are opening up the joys of using Facebook – which to all intents and purposes these days is a mobile social network – to create a new way of selling.

Together these two services mark how social media services are becoming the back bone of m-commerce, especially in retail. They are also becoming increasingly embedded in TV and media interaction services thanks to the work of companies such as MIG. 

We touch on how social networks are becoming something of a new 'OS' for many developers, but this belies what social really offers; these services are using mobile technology to refine how people use and interact with the vast amounts of data coming their way from cyberspace. This is the true power of social media and how it will shift how money is made around the digital environment.

And that is why social media sits at the heart of the seminar sessions being undertaken at Telemedia360 in Leeds on 11 May, sponsored by Core Telecom. There will be a range of companies that are harnessing social media to create new revenue streams around media and commerce on hand and much of the debate at the show will centre on how to operate in this brave new world. So, before you tuck into your pile of chocolate Easter eggs, sign up at www.telemedia360.com

Mobile payments set to fragment?

Mobile payments, especially around retail, is becoming a very hot topic. The idea of using NFC for contactless payments from phones is gaining pace, even though bar one Nokia handset and some stickers, no one is doing it. It has, as ever, all been spurred on by rumour that Apple is going to build NFC and a card chip into iPhone 5 (well it was, then it wasn’t, now it seems to be on again). Google is also looking to do the same.

But with no hard evidence that any of this is actually going to happen any time soon, where does that leave mobile payments? As we saw last week, PRS revenues are growing, spurred to some degree by people using PSMS to buy Facebook credits to interact with TV shows, but when it comes to the real money pot – the retail sector – nothing really is happening.

Operator billing, as we all know, is too expensive for retailers to consider using. Then there is the problem that a growing number of people are accessing retail sites from mobile devices but using wifi (as many as 75% according to one company), so any form of operator billing becomes  clunky at best if plain irrelevant.

Then there is the issue of consumers themselves. A study by Kony Solutions, which builds apps management platforms finds that only 16% of consumers would prefer to use operator billing to pay for things, with the majority (75%) wanting it to be something directly linked to their card or their bank account.

The reason? They don’t trust the operator to get it right. Too many people have problems with their mobile phone bills as it is without having to trust it to cover other purchases.

So does this mean that telemedia billing as we know it is doomed to never get a slice of the retail space? Well no, but it is likely to be limited to the sub £10 mark. That said, however, that is a potentially very lucrative space in itself and, handled correctly, could well be a nice niche to carve out for that kind of payment – especially for those without credit and debit cards, or who wish not to use their cards for some purchases.

Mobile payments are meant to make things easy and simple, but the fragmentation that this turf war will bring could see it consume itself. Having one set of payment tools for low cost items, another for in store buying, yet another for online purchases – as well as having to have cards and cash for those places that won’t be doing contactless mobile payments – makes for a more problematic world for the consumer than we have at present. Progress this ain’t.

The debate will rage on for many months – not least until iPhone 5 arrives – but to get a clearer understanding of how the changing landscape effects mobile payments, our panel at Telemedia360 in Leeds on 11 May is set to at least try and clear up how the billing landscape may work in 2012 and beyond. Register here to learn more 

PRS starts to grow again driven by virtual goods on social sites

PRS in the UK is in recovery mode – well unless both PPP and AIME have gone, as my Belgian friend says, “complete banana” – with the sector recording some modest growth in 2010 and with more to follow in the coming year. The growth has been driven largely by media interaction, where PRS calls to vote are starting to make a huge impact, along with social media on mobile seeing a rise in people using PSMS based services.

But it is the growth in the purchase of virtual goods that really tickles my telemedia taste buds. Up 400% on the same period the previous year, it has become a market worth in the UK alone £8.1million in 2010.

Virtual goods include virtual currency to spend in games on social networking sites, ‘virtual gifts’ such as virtual birthday cakes and, more recently, virtual charity badges with a donation going towards the consumer’s good cause of choice. 

According to figures from Analysis Mason, 8.5% of consumers have bought a virtual gift or object related to a social networking site using a phone-paid mechanism, while 19.4% of 25-34 year olds and 16.5% of 18-24 year olds have bought a virtual gift using PRS in the past six months. The average micropayment per transaction for virtual goods is £2.41.

This is all great news for the telemedia industry as it shows that, while more traditional areas of revenue generation are plateauing or even tailing off, social media is starting to offer some real openings for new business.

Another element of this that is encouraging is that consumers are once again trusting phone-bill based micro-payment tools. Complaints to PPP fell to unprecedented levels in 2010, with just 3% of people saying that lack of trust in phone paid services stopped them using them.

While the general economy may be in turmoil – I would cry “up the workers” at this point, but I don’t want to get hurt as the health service won’t be able to look after me – the PRS sector is again bucking the trend. The old adage that these services always do well in a recession as people seek some cheap comfort and joy was ringing a tad hollow.

But social networking, smartphones and a general embracing of a new way of interacting with each other and brands, has seen consumers resurrect the PRS sector and offer some rays of hope.

This is why the timing of Telemedia360 in Leeds on 11 May couldn’t be better. Featuring a line up of media, service provider and operator speakers, the sessions all look at how the digital ‘media’ landscape is shifting and how media companies, brands, telcos and service providers need to think in new and agile ways about how to engage consumers and offer them the kinds of services that they will pay for.

Some of it centres on new things and new ways of thinking, but a lot will really just involve putting well understood practices onto a new platform: the social media platform.

To learn more about getting involved sign up at www.telemedia360.com