In addition to these great interviews and encounters (doing some face-to-face in London), I have conducted a number of briefings and podcasts for MSG tracking the trends that matter. Among these are mobile search engines (ChaCha, Hiogi), mobile advertising firms (AdMob), and barcode companies (MDS -Mobile Data Systems, Nextcode) that supply symbologies, applications and commerce schemes that link the virtual and physical worlds. I’m excited about the consistent supply of exclusive content and invite you to check back regularly.

I’m likewise excited about the impact MSG is having on the mobile industry, and (as of this month) the publications that cover it.

A picture indeed speaks a thousand words and the decision by ISM, a trade magazine published by Jordan Communications Ltd, to feature our trademark logo on the front cover of the Mobile Internet special issue speaks volumes (!) I am honored and hope to return the gesture by contributing a guest column to ISM soon.

Partnerships, projects and major advertisers: There’s a lot going on behind the scenes at MSG, and next week the executive team meets in London to make some major decisions. Stay tuned!

Finally, I would like to thank the companies and executives that have granted me interviews over the last weeks for their interest and patience. I will post what I can before I fly out on Monday, and the remainder in the week of the 24^th.

But the news today is the acquisition of ChangingWorlds by Amdocs, a company that has quietly and cleverly added capabilities that build on its billing expertise to deliver the right content to the right user in the right context. As I observed in this earlier analysis of Amdocs, the company isn’t there yet (no one is), but they have correctly placed personalization and relevancy at the core of their competitive strategy. The decision to acquire all of ChangingWorlds’ shares for $60 million in cash is a brilliant move – and one that makes Amdocs the one to watch.

A larger trend at play here is the run on personalization companies. Think of Qualcomm snapping up Xiam, a company specialized in personalization and recommendation technology. Go further back, and you might recall Real Networks acquired Sony Network Services (a company that had perfected personalization to stream mobile music according to your mood), or that Microsoft-owned FAST also bought AgentArts, a personalization and recommendation company based in Australia. And the list goes on…

In fact, my standard PowerPoint presentation, which I have presented at several mobile search seminars and a recent master class in London, contains a slide explaining the pivotal importance of recommendation and personalization (aptly titled Was it good for you too?) which also recounts the recent raft of M&A that has transformed the space.

Personalization companies are hot – and with good reason. If the end-game is about delivering advertising, apps, content and even search results that I am likely to find both genuinely useful and interesting, then technology provided by the likes of ChangingWorlds, Xiam and others I have high on my radar is crucial. (It’s all about relevancy here, but frequent exchanges with Ogilvy’s mobile advertising evangelist Jonathan MacDonald have broken me of the habit of using the term too loosely. Read his rant and you’ll understand why.)

Connect the dots and Amdocs’ acquisition, coming on the heels of a strategic decision to bundle its search and advertising capabilities in one division, is on the money.

By way of background, ChangingWorlds, an Irish provider of personalization technology, is best known for its ClixSmart platform. Designed to provide individual consumers with “proactive recommendation of content based on their preferences and context,” the platform has been deployed by 50+ mobile operators around the world.

(In a nutshell, ChangingWorlds’ ClixSmart platform includes a variety of solutions in areas such as content recommendation, mobile search and mobile advertising. Sitting at the core of this platform – and taking center stage in all ChangingWorlds does – is a profiling and personalization engine that is capable of capturing subscriber intelligence by automatically monitoring the implicit behavior of how users use and navigate the mobile Web.)

As Barry explained it to me a while back, the combination allows ChangingWorlds to create richer preference profiles and combine this profile information with external sources of complementary data – ranging from user demographics to mobile billing records. (Little wonder billing giant Amdocs snapped it up.)

And let’s not forget the recent tie-up with Sprint Nextel in the U.S., which sees the mobile operator launching ChangingWorlds’ ClixSmart technology both on the carrier’s own portal, Sprint Web, as well as providing advanced personalization solutions for a number of Sprint’s cable partners and wireless wholesale customers. (I was scheduled for a podcast with Sprint and ChangingWorlds’ CEO David Moran to get the inside track on this deal, but I can imagine this project is on hold indefinitely.)

Nonetheless, we get an idea of the use case from Kevin Packingham, senior vice president of product and technology development for Sprint, in a recent press statement. In his view, the aim of the deal is to “automatically learn what content the customer likes and put it on their homepage,” thus enabling Sprint customers to access genuinely useful content they will most likely appreciate. In this scenario, ChangingWorlds’ ClixSmart solution automatically generates personalized, dynamic content teasers that enrich the user experience of Sprint Web and stimulate increased click-through. ClixSmart teasers, which include text and images, are rotated dynamically and personalized according to the ClixSmart user profile to provide a compelling and relevant user experience designed to encourage Sprint Web users into using more mobile data.

ChangingWorlds and Amdocs share several customers including Sprint, the Vodafone Group and Telefonica O2.

During a recent industry event, David told me the company was preparing to broaden its focus beyond mobile operators and content companies to address the wider opportunities around content discovery such as voice-activated content portals, online destinations and electronic program guides for digital television. This is no doubt attractive to Amdocs, which has its eye on the bigger prize: Personalized and converged services.

I just this minute saw an email from Jessica Francisco, Account Executive, Weber Shandwick, with the news that James Patmore, Vice President of Amdocs Advertising, Content and Entertainment division, is available to speak with me later today and discuss the growing importance of mobile personalization. I’m excited about the opportunity and will have more after the call. Thanks for the prompt response Jessica!

BTW: MSG is still setting up a few features including a search box – so apologies that you can’t find the reports on Xiam and others easily. But be patient – we’re on it.

Get the Bango Whitepaper

However, I am deeply honored that Bango thinks of me as such: communicated in their press releases, corporate messaging and on the cover of my new release mobile advertising white paper, Mobile advertising for newbies. As of today it’s available for free download here, and already the congratulatory emails are pouring in. As Glenn Roland, who is active on the dotMobi Advisory Group, writes: “I just got done reading your white paper on Mobile Advertising. Nice job! I thought it very insightful and a good read on an emerging space.”

I am overjoyed that my work has impact, and I hope it will provide some guidance to the Long Tail of publishers and advertisers that want to move into mobile but need some help.

In the meantime, thanks are in order to my esteemed colleague Maria Sanchez. Brainstorming sessions with her were both fun and fruitful. (Full disclosure here: Maria is a Bango marketing manager. She also calls them as she sees them.) Her keen observations and good-natured rants, which she posts regularly on the mobislim blog, are a perfect complement to my in-depth analysis and user-friendly clarification of the range of mobile advertising and mobile analytics tools and techniques at your disposal.

I was also inspired by the writings of Tomi Ahonen and Jonathan MacDonald – both figure prominently in the white paper. (As they should!)

The purpose of this hands-on research – a how-to white paper covering the basics of mobile advertising and mobile analytics – is to give readers the inside track on the procedure to set up and measure the results of three mobile campaigns. I chose to use a small-scale mobile site created by Bango called Mobislim, which offers a light-hearted look at weight-loss tips.

But my investigation into mobile advertising won’t stop there. This white paper marks the launch of a dedicated blog here at MSG. Marketers that can’t wait can also visit the accompanying Mobislim blog to see the three campaigns cited in this white paper. You’re also welcome to try out your own mobile advertising campaigns there and direct traffic to the Mobislim mobile site if you don’t have one of your own.

Creating a mobile site for MSG is next on my list, and I’m investigating options. Wapple appears to be a good place to start. (Who knows? That learning process might turn out to be the stuff of a mini white paper…After all, it’s all about breaking down the barriers that keep us from embracing mobile. With the right tools, mindset and how-to tips publishers can move full-steam into mobile and jumpstart this exciting industry…)

Where do we go from here?

As I write in my conclusion: “Mobile advertising is a brave new space with new rules and new rewards. As publishers and advertisers we should be conscious that our efforts to achieve our business objectives can be compared to a marathon with no finish line.”

Success is a journey, not a destination. Great to have you along for the ride!

Disclaimer: Bango is an MSG supporter.

So talk about timing! I finish the column and then Eran Wyler, InfoGin CEO, pre-briefs me on the news that Telefonica in Spain, a mobile operator with around 20 million subscribers, has officially deployed InfoGin’s solution.

In fact, Telefonica deployed the solution few months ago and already shows a significant increase in mobile data services. According to a press statement, the solution fits with the operator’s overall strategy to facilitate access to mobile content and deliver services to its subscribers “giving an optimized access to Web sites that aren’t mobile compliant.”By way of background, the prime contractor in the deal, ATOS Origin – an international IT services company – was responsible for overall integration of InfoGin’s Intelligent Mobile Platform, a patented approach that lets users access any Internet website from their mobile, independent of the device capabilities. It’s a feature Eran tells me has allowed InfoGin’s mobile operator customers to chalk up “20 percent [growth in mobile data usage] every month, and sometimes much more than that.”

Another stat that speaks volumes refers to what users are accessing.
Absolutely – made-for-mobile websites have their place in the scheme of things. However, Eran reports that a whopping 70 percent of requests his system sees (across the Far East, The U.S., and Europe) is for Internet sites. “There is huge demand for Internet content and less demand for mobile content. However, the most important thing is to enable the user unlimited choice and that means access to both.”

Here is an excerpt of the interview:

MOBILE SEARCH: It was during CTIA that InfoGin announced a strategic agreement with Microsoft to adapt Web sites for Microsoft’s Live Search Mobile service. InfoGin offers similar services – through similar deals – to companies including AOL and Motricity, a company that offers federated mobile search as a managed service. (And let’s not forget the ties between Yahoo and its partner Novarra.) So why the increased interest by mobile search companies in content adaptation? As Eran sees it, it’s the logical next step. Devices such as the iPhone and smartphones turn the pressure up on the industry to deliver a better user experience, and mobile search companies are no exception. They must be able to display results from the Internet that work on mobile, Eran says. “When Microsoft presents the results from the Web and the user clicks on the link, they will be directed to the real Internet site from [their] mobile device.”

iPHONE & GOOGLE: Neither negates the need for content adaptation solutions. In the case of the iPhone, issues with Flash and Javascript create even more of a demand for InfoGin. “Surfing the Internet on the iPhone today is not without its shortcomings….And it’s not only with the iPhone. New devices from Samsung and LG [for example] are also facing the same issues.” At the other end of the spectrum, Eran says Google’s Android creates more challenges for everyone – and more opportunities for InfoGin. “The market becomes much more complex with the new players entering the market….So it’s surely to become more fragmented.”

MOBILE ADVERTISING: This is the one to watch over the next weeks (and I will). Eran would not disclose details at this time, but he did hint at plans to integrate mobile advertising into the equation by providing content companies (“like AOL, MapQuest and others”) tools to build campaigns for mobile. “We are also talking to the advertisers to show them that they can reach any mobile device with the mobile campaigns, and build campaigns for mobile easy and fast.”

My take: InfoGin has been high on my radar for several years now. However, the advance of the mobile Web – catapulted onto center stage by the iPhone and other schemes that encourage users to explore Internet websites and apps on their mobile devices – plays overwhelmingly in the company’s favor. Consider the recent news that InfoGin has raised more than $10 million in a third round of funding from Minneapolis, Minnesota-based Coral Capital Management.

Connect the dots and it’s clear a comprehensive mobile service must present results and destinations that have been optimized for viewing on a mobile device. Squeezing a Web page on to a mobile phone display or retro-fitting content (such as a banner ad from the fixed Internet), are flawed approaches that can alienate users and ultimately reduce content purchases. Smartphones and the iPhone raise the bar – and they do not remove the requirement for content adaptation solutions. To the contrary, these devices have whet users’ appetites for a real Internet browsing experience on mobile – and they will likely vote with their feet if they are offered anything less.

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