The MoPR Blog

Text messaging hazardous to your health? It could be if you are texting and not paying attention. According to a report from Fox News, people walking while texting are ramming into walls and doorways, falling down stairs and bumping into lampposts, parked cars and garbage cans. Read the whole piece here.

Women get their game on. New research from the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) reveals that forty percent of gamers are women. Additional findings in the ESA’s annual survey of consumer demographics and usage behaviors indicate that the average age of game players has risen to… 35! This research, says the ESA, shatters the stereotypical image of gaming having, say, a sole audience of slacker male teens.

Other findings of interest:

• Sixty-five percent of American households play computer and video games;
• Thirty-eight percent of American homes have a video game console;
• The average game player is 35 years old;
• One out of four gamers are over age 50;
• Women age 18 or older represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (33 percent) than boys age 17 or younger (18 percent); and,
• Forty-one percent of Americans expect to purchase one or more games this year

Generation Why. A great piece appeared in last week’s edition of Seattle Post-Intelligencer that offered tips on how to communicate with co-workers, across the enterprise and generations. From the article:

In general, boomers (1946-64) still prefer the phones they grew up with, Gen X (1965-82) is big into e-mail, while the youngest members of today’s work force, the “net generation” or the Millennials (1982-now), strongly prefer real-time communication technologies such as IMing and texting.

Interesting. Here at MoPR HQ, we sit mere feet across from each other and do we talk to each other? Yes, of course we do. But, we IM up a storm too. It just seems….easier. On the other hand, if we really want to get in touch with a reporter or writer, we usually pick up the phone to call them. It all depends on the scenario.

Frankly, we think email could be completely extinct in the coming years – many of the generation of youngsters coming up in the ranks will demand Facebook-like apps to communicate with each other and their co-workers. What do you think?

Former Googlers launch their own search site. Called Cuil [Cuil is the Gaelic word for both knowledge and hazel and rhymes with "cool"] the new site generated a ton of buzz, but has gotten tepid responses from the media and users who have actually tried it. We tried it out and were a bit perplexed on the results, but can see the site gaining users. We did like the rollover definitions and imagery that accompanied each search. Our only question… When’s the mobile version?

Google looks over shoulder after Nokia Symbian buyout. Big news this week with Nokia taking control of Symbian. Nokia is riding on the hopes of increasing the sales of mobile phones while boosting revenues from its wireless web services.  According to InfoWorld Daily’s Tom Sullivan, the move could damper Google’s Android. Still wondering what this means to the industry? Read “Seven things you need to know about Nokia-Symbian deal.”

If you think your broadband is slow, you’re probably right. Enter InternetforEveryone.org led by the FCC [?!] that wants universal access to high-speed, broadband Internet throughout the US. Thirty-five percent of homes with less than $50,000 in annual income have a high-speed Internet connection in the U.S. Moreover, nearly 20 million Americans live in areas that are not served by a single broadband provider; tens of millions more live in places where there is just a single choice for high-speed Internet service.

We’re in Awe: 15-Year-Old Girl Sends 15,000 Text Messages A Month. According to WEWS in Cleveland, a 15-year-old Ohio girl discovered her true talent recently - the ability to crank out 15,000 text messages in a month and keep an 3.0 GPA- all under a 9:00 p.m. curfew. According to WEWS, she didn’t realize how many text messages she sent every month until she went to the cell phone store to get her phone fixed.

“I just don’t look. I guess I had the phone a long time and I just know where the buttons are and I just hit them,” said the speed texter.

Mobile coupons finally a reality? According to MediaPost, Yahoo! is teaming with Coupons Inc. to offer mobile coupons through its Yahoo! Mobile service. The initiative would “create a national platform for large brand advertisers to distribute mobile coupons, which so far have mostly been tested only in local markets or niche categories.”

Mobile coupons, says the article, will rely on solely electronic means, such as a secure bar code system allowing shoppers to swipe mobile devices at the point of sale to get discounts or special offers.
Distribution of the coupons would involve different methods, such as e-mail, banner ads, SMS text-messaging and apps on Yahoo!’s mobile portal.

McMobile McMarketing. The Mobile Marketing Association newsletter landed in our mailbox this week. A mix of industry news, trends and upcoming events, the newsletter is always an informative read. Our favorite section is successful case studies of mobile marketing in action, such as a recent story on McDonalds and its use of SMS in Germany.

Via the SMS Lounge, McDonald’s invited customers to text their information which then registered them at their local McDonald’s. In the following months, users received a mobile voucher directly from the restaurant onto their phone every two weeks. The coupons – embedded in code - could be redeemed by scanning them at the restaurant.

Since its launch in July 2007, more than 10,000 participants have used SMS service. This first of its kind mobile couponing pilot achieved response rates up to 29% throughout Germany according to the MMA. Using SMS and mobile technologies to extend and build your brand is something we can get behind!

Wind Charged Cell Phones. Folks toting mobile phones to this year’s Glastonbury Festival 2008 in the UK later this week will have a free and green way to recharge their phones thanks to a charging station being set up at the festival by Orange. Measuring more than 7 meters tall, the free-standing recharge pod is a self-sufficient unit that taps into a wind generator and solar panels to charge as many as 100 mobile phones per hour. It’s actually the next iteration of a portable wind charger Orange tested out at last year’s festival through a partnership with Gotwind and will serve as a trial for using renewable energy sources on a larger scale at future festivals. Orange expects the recharge pod will charge thousands of mobile phones over the course of the three-day festival. [See Grace's post for more on Gotwind.]