Mobile Social Networking

M:Metrics, the mobile media authority announced that 12.3 million consumers in the United States and Western Europe access a social networking site with their mobile device in the month of June.

MySpace garnered the most mobile users in the USA & UK whereas MSN was the forum of choice for mobile Web 2.0 users in the other geographies surveyed. Nearly every online social networking site has added the ability to connect to these communities with a mobile phone, allowing people to access profiles and share content while they’re on the go.

MySpace and Facebook are the top two social networking sites accessed via mobile in both the USA and UK.Those under 25 are the most active users of mobile social networking sites across all geographies. In France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the age demographic with the largest percentage of use is 13-17-year-olds, whereas college-aged consumers (18-24) are the most avid users in the USA & UK.

Source: 3G

Operators Not Ready to Revert Tariff Hike

Mobile service providers are in no mood to roll back the recent hike in SMS and call tariffs. There will be some more operators joining the band wagon with Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar.

This move comes even as the regulator had expressed its readiness to intervene in the matter. Bharti and Vodafone had increased local call charges within their own networks in the Delhi circle, under some tariff plans, from Re 1 to Rs 1.20 per minute. SMS rates were also hiked from Re 1 to Rs 1.20 per message.

Source: iSource

Battery Defects in Nokia Handsets

World’s largest mobile handset maker Nokia has issued an advisory informing about defects in nearly 46 million batteries used in some of its handsets sold wordwide. The defect pertains to handsets having BL-5C battery manufactured by Matsushita Battery Industrial Co Ltd of Japan between December 2005 and November 2006.

Some of these handsets may have been sold in India too but Nokia India said that it was too early to give an estimate on the numbers.

Nokia has offered to swap these BL-5C battery free-of-charge.The defect came to light after about 100 mobile users across the globe complained of overheating.

Source: The Pioneer

N95- European Media Phone of the Year

Nokia N95 multimedia computer has been voted 'the European Media Phone of the Year 2007-2008' by the European Imaging and Sound Association (EISA), Europe's leading association for consumer electronics.

Features-

• GPS
• 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and MPEG4 video capture of up to 30 fps
  
• Wi-Fi
• MicroSD slot

Source: Nokia Press

Bigadda.com- Indian Youth Networking Website

Reliance ADAG launched first Indian Youth Networking Web site- www.bigadda.com. Bigadda.com caters to a purely Indian audience.

Bigadda claims to be more than just a networking site -- its a way of 'self expression' for Indian youth.

Some of the salient features of bigadda.com-

• Media sharing including creating, uploading, and sharing of videos and photos
  
• Addas or communities
  
• Blogs and scribbles
  
• Bookmarks and tags
  
• Reviews and ratings

Source: Techtree

Increased Mobile Tariffs

Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar have increased local call charges within their own network by 20%. All pre-paid and post-paid subscribers with rentals less than Rs 150/month will have to pay Rs 1.20/min instead of Rs 1/min for Airtel-to-Airtel calls and Hutch-to-Hutch calls.

The two operators have also increased local SMS rates to Rs 1.20 per message for all users — both pre-paid and post-paid — from 1 Rs earlier. This comes within a few weeks of an increase in STD rates in Delhi. Both Bharti Airtel and Hutch had increased their STD rates to Rs 2.60/min from Rs 2.40/min and Rs 2/min, respectively.

The increase in tariff comes even as the operator’s revenue per user continues to dip over the past year. The national average is hovering around Rs 300 per user per month, which is among the lowest in the world.

Source: TOI

Machines To Make Sales Pitch

IVRs are replacing the existing method of sending an SMS to sell a service or a product. Operators including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar, Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices are also installing outbound diallers. Mutual fund and insurance firms, banks (for selling loans and credit cards) and other service providers are increasingly using diallers now.

The technology used here is not new, these interactive voice response (IVR) systems have been there for long time. What is new is that the technology is being used for outbound calls, commonly called auto-diallers. This is contrary to the existing method of using technology to answer inbound calls and directing it to a call centre executive.

BPL Mobile, for instance, has installed an auto-dialer to sell ring tones, caller ringback tones and other services of the company. The automated voice is also used to remind defaulters of bill payment, inform users on new products and services, and even for balance enquiry among others.

Source: Business Standard

Mobile Phones Can Lead to Hear Loss[FM8154-6]

A study carried out by India's Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) has reported that people who use mobile phones in excess of half an hour per day are at higher risk of developing hearing loss, particularly at higher speech frequencies.

Source: Cellular News