Great news are rushing from everywhere: Kristina Šmigun-Vähi have won a silver medal at 10km cross-country skiing at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Mobile World Congress in Barcelona has gathered almost 100 000 people to announce new mobile trends, industry news and cool devices like the 15$ handset from Vodafone, not to mention hot Windows Phone 7 Series, which has an ambition of revolutionizing mobile interfaces.

But today, it’s Fortumo who is making history. We are proud to announce, that on the 16th of February a 100 000th SMS service was created in Fortumo.  With more than 35 100 registered users we can now say for sure, that mobile payments rock!

Thanks to everyone, who has chosen Fortumo’s services for monetizing businesses across the globe. We will continue improving our world’s most user-friendly mobile payment platform and bringing you cool surprises every day.

Cheers,
Team Fortumo

In the past few months, more and more countries from Eastern and Western Europe were joining our big Family. But at some point we thought that we need to even the load on both sides of our European connectivity map. Some would say that we already have Germany and it’s the center of Europe…and they would be wrong. Actually the geographical center of Europe is the village of Dilove located on the Tisza river which is in the largest country in Europe – Ukraine. So that’s why we introduce to you our new center of  balance – Ukraine.

Once the country of fearsome cossacks and still a place with pristine nature and a lot of beautiful women, Ukraine is one of the fastest developing countries in the former USSR.  It ranks among the top 45 countries in the world by its nominal GDP (according to CIA). Even more impressive is the fact that Ukraine is one of the 5 countries – leaders in the space research industry. They produce all kind of vehicles, among which is the largest plane ever – The Antonov An-124 Ruslan. What matters the most – with over 55.5million mobile subscribers (converted this is over 120% mobile penetration) it is a place that can take your mobile services to a new golden age.

The other new addition to our list is Slovenia. This jewel of the Balkan peninsula is famous with its amazing nature, wonderful wines and economic progress. If you are looking for a peaceful place to live -  the 5th most idyllic place in Europe, according to Forbes, is in Slovenia and it’s called Bled (check the picture to the right). On the other hand, if you are keen on traveling – then the famous Slovenian Karst is the place for you. It is a very special, lyrical landscape, spreading over the south-western part of the country near the border with Italy. And if you “just” want to earn more by expanding your services into one of the countries with fastest developing economies – Slovenia can offer you over 100% mobile penetration and over 2mln mobile payers.

An interesting fact: Slovenia and Slovakia(that we presented to you a week ago) are the only former communist nations that are in the EU, the Eurozone, the Schengen area, OSCE, the Council of Europe, Nato, UNESCO, WTO and UN.

Stay Mobile! Keep the Fortumo way!

Affiliate programs can be great. Sure, you might not become rich overnight like some ‘gurus’ claim in their 19.95$ e-books (actually, we have one of those, except it’s doesn’t feature any wild claims and it’s free), they can be a great way to make additional income, or, if you are really dedicated, they can even grow into a steady full- or part-time business. But, just like in life, the main requirement for becoming successful in affiliate marketing is patience, dedication (did I already mention it?), and hard work.

We know that there’s a lot of you out there who are either considering or already using Fortumo Affiliate Program - we received a lot of feedback and questions ever since we launched it back in February. And since you asked, we gave you some tips and finally created a growing Affiliate Advice section that sits right in your Affiliate account. The response was positive, and we figured there’s never too much of a good thing, so we’ll continue with the practice of publishing tips for affiliates – this time, I’ll try to focus not so much on our own affiliate program, but some of the best practices and general advices that should work for anyone trying to be effective in affiliate marketing. Read it all after the break.

It’s cold and snowy outside, but team Fortumo has no time for making snowmen or playing snowballs, because we are making our best to bring you the “best of the best” mobile payments. And this time, I would like to introduce you 2 new countries in our Family: meet Belarus and Slovakia.

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Six days ago the old year 2009 became history and its throne was taken by the new 2010. It is a year full of expectations and hope. Still, while some are waiting for the end of the ravaging economic crisis others already know that mobile revenue continues to grow, despite the recession.

Here are some raw facts from the holiday season, that you will find interesting. Read the rest of this entry »

Have you wondered what great other ideas there are to provide SMS-services? Fortumo user tells a story section has made another interview with great, yet simple idea of providing SMS-services. Meet transportinestonia.com! It’s useful, easy and quick solution for anyone who needs help with transportation service. Check it out!

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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year – 2010!

Let the new year bring a lot of joy, success and wonderful mobile moments to all of you!

Fortumo’s team

As the interest towards our affiliate system is constantly rising we decided to outline some generally good ways of advertising. By doing this we want to help to the ones that wonder what should they do with the affiliate code or when to use the affiliate link or mix both. At the same time, the advertising pro’s can check if they have used our tools in all possible ways.

I am glad to welcome you to our brand new Fortumo affiliate advices section. In order to see it you have to be logged in and registered as an affiliate of ours. Inside you can read more about using the advertising tools that we offer you and, what is more important, you can gain valuable ideas about the ways of promotion.

You may also notice that we have separated the text ads from the banner ads in different tabs, so that you can find the ones that you need easily.

What’s to come: for those of you that are bored from the banners that we currently offer – wait for a few weeks and you will be amazed by the new goodies that are coming.

Good luck with the mobile promotion!

Fortumo loves expanding to new markets. So this time we are bringing you something very extraordinary: say hello to Russia, a new member in Fortumo family.

Forget the rumors about the snow, bears and vodka, it’s a country with friendly people, who love to communicate. Actually there are 142 million of them, not to mention than 70% of them have a cell phone. And, of course, Russia is by far the largest country in the world, covering more than a ninth of the Earth’s land area.

At the moment Russian mobile content market is hot. And there’s no difference, if it’s a ringtone, book or a virtual flower on local social network – Russians are used to paying with mobile phones, as it’s easy and fast. You’ve  never thought about doing business in Russia before?  With Fortumo you have access to 11 local operators and you can choose between five different pricepoints.

So hurry up and start your mobile business is Russia. Some facts about the country:

• Population 142 008 838
• Mobile penetration 132,8%
• Internet penetration 27,1%
• Mobile content market growth 50%