When time passes it gets harder to draw a straight line between different
communication channels. The borders were a bit hazy but Yahoo! managed to make
it quite blurry.

According to press release Yahoo Mail service, allows users to send real-time messages to
wireless handsets in the United States, Canada, India and the Philippines via
the IM platform. Users can also send instant messages from Yahoo’s e-mail
program to Yahoo Messenger and Windows Live Messenger. The service is free of
charge to the Yahoo user.

This solution gives a lot of opportunities for interesting services, it is
difficult to predict how crazy things can go, i hope that we don’t have to
integrate spam filter to our cellphones.
But i sincerely hope that google will somehow response to it and rest of the
world will also be able to benefits from this solution.

We are just few moments away from the first wave of people who will get an access to Fortumo.
But before people can get inside and see for what Fortumo is capable of we are publishing some screen shots which are taking you behind the curtains to see what is waiting for you.

It seems that nowadays marketing people have started to use mobile marketing more and more in their campaigns. Some proactive ones have even built the whole marketing concept on mobile marketing. It is mainly because mobiles provide more flexible and effective ways for marketers to get their information directly to the audience. The other side of course is that people can respond to the campaign or be part of it just using their everyday tool- cellphone.

According to MobiADNetwork Coca Cola has also realized the benefits of mobile marketing and used it in “My Coke Music” campaign. When Coca Cola slightly uses simple mobile marketing solutions to make their campaign more effective, then Hyunday got in use more advanced techniques. To attract new drivers in the 18 to 24 demographic mobile was a natural fit with this group. You can see the different features of that campaign from here .

It seems that marketing focus has starting to change the aim is on solutions that still can attract people and can deliver the message to target group, since traditional ways aren’t so effective any more. It will take a while before mobile marketing will be the boring and traditional way of marketing, but what interests me is, what comes after that…

We all know that mobile technology has passed through several “generations”. In a mere 10-15 years, it has went from huge handsets and low network coverage (of the 1st generation) to colorful displays, high speeds and mobile internet (of the 3rd generation).

So have mobile services – all these fun and useful things one can do with his or her mobile besides talking. In less than a decade, mobile phone has become exacltly what Howard Rheingold once predicted: “a remote control for our life“.

In somewhat simplified terms, the evolution of mobile services and their provision has been the following:

First generation

In the late 90ies, only mobile operator could provide a mobile service. Mobile services were few and far between. Nobody really used the phones for anything else besides talking.

Second generation

In the early 2000ies, with the emergence of SMS-service providers, the mobile (or SMS)-services went to a boom. New services started out everywhere, ranging from wallpapers and melodies, text-to-win campaigns, SMS-chat and voting in TV, SMS-based info services, SMS-payments etc. etc. Texting became hugely popular, and not only among the young.

Third generation

However, as it turned out, providing a mobile service was still expensive and feasible only to bigger brands and mobile service providers. Only now, in line with the rise of blogging and social networks, a new trend in mobile service provision emerging – where everyone can create their own SMS-service as easy as setting up a homepage or a blog.

Fortumo is happy to be part of this exciting development.

Before the leaves fall.

(… in Northern Europe, that is ).

Check back to this blog for more info soon!

If you want to get a taste of Fortumo before others, ask for an invitation at fortumo.com.