Martyn Williams has an interesting look at the Japanese mobile content market. For 2007, more than $100 billion was spent on mobile content. The value of business carried out through cell phones in Japan broke the US$100 billion mark for the first time in 2007, according to government figures.The total was actually $107.5 billion and includes items such as ring tones, Web site subscriptions and e-commerce purchases. E-commerce made up about 65% of the total amount spent and all sorts of transactions were handled including: movie and event ticket sales, travel reservations, air and rail ticket sales, stock trading and online auctions.

The e-commerce part of that was worth ¥7.2 trillion, up 29 percent on the year, fueled by movie and event ticket sales, travel reservations, air and rail ticket sales, stock trading and online auctions. The mobile-content market grew at a slower pace, expanding 16 percent to ¥4.2 trillion, the ministry said.

Maybe the iPhone app store will push other countries to follow suit. While not mentioned in the article, I wonder what percentage of transactions took place via a QR code.

The mobile gaming market jumped 13 percent to ¥848 billion, and the e-book market expanded 220 percent to ¥221 billion

It is increasingly difficult to talk about the Internet, or media and marketing in general, without the conversation quickly
turning to mobile phones. 40 million mobile subscribers in the US, plus millions more across Europe and Asia, surf the web through a mobile phone each month—checking email, exploring their social networks, making bank transactions and engaging in other web activities right from their hands.

• The US, UK and Italy are leaders in mobile Internet penetration. 15.6 percent of mobile subscribers in the US, 12.9 percent of subscribers in the UK and 11.9 percent in Italy actively use the mobile Internet

• We believe mobile Internet has reached a critical mass as an advertising medium in the US. As of May 2008, there were 40 million active users of the mobile Internet in the US, with individual sites that attract millions of unique users. This provides scalable marketing potential with demographic
• breadth.

• Unlimited data packages are an important part of  the growth of the mobile Internet and are increasingly popular with US consumers. Today 14 percent of US wireless subscribers have unlimited data packages, and 50 percent of data users say
• they would prefer to have such a package.

• 3G networks are greatly improving the quality of the mobile Internet experience  and will help drive customer satisfaction with mobile Internet. 3G
• networks perform up to six times faster on data throughputs used for mobile Internet than 2G and 2.5G networks.

• Yahoo! Mail is the most popular mobile website in the US, with 14 million unique visitors per month, as of May 2008

• Mobile Internet provides audience “lift”—added  reach over home PC traffic, at an average of 13% for leading mobile websites in the US

• As mobile Internet publishers build out an advertising inventory, advertising is becoming a common part of the mobile Internet experience: 26 percent of mobile Internet users recall seeing some form of advertising while using the mobile Internet.
• Mobile Internet users are 60% more likely to be open to mobile advertising than the average mobile data user.

How man times have you been bothered with spam messages. But here is one good solution to beat them all odds With SMS Spam Manager you can effectively filter all your incoming SMS messages.

There are 6 different types of filters to block unwanted SMS. You have the freedom to choose whether to reject all incoming messages or to accept messages only from people listed in your phonebook. You can also choose to block incoming SMS messages from a defined phone number, from a defined prefix number and even messages that contain a defined phrase.

With SMS Spam Manager you can tune your phone with 4 different modes and choose among 6 different filters to block junk and unwanted SMS messages:

• Accept all (inactive) - the phone will accept all incoming SMS messages.
• Block all - the phone will block all incoming SMS messages.
• Accept phonebook only - the phone will accept incoming SMS messages only from people listed in your phonebook.
• Block from black list rules - the phone will block the incoming SMS messages, which meet at least one of the rules listed below.

Block from black list rules option allows you to filter and block incoming SMS messages in three different ways, choosing one of the three black list rules:

• Telephone number - all messages coming from a defined phone number will be blocked.
• Prefix number - all messages coming from a defined prefix number will be blocked.
• Text match - all messages that contain a defined phrase will be blocked.

You can check all blocked messages anytime, as they are kept in “Blocked SMS log” and restore them into your SMS Inbox if needed. You can also easily check the number of messages rejected and accepted since SMS Spam Manager has been started.

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 VITO AstroNavigator II is the GPS application that displays sky map above you according to your current location, time and direction of movement.

The main screen is divided into three separate windows with various gadgets. You can choose between the following gatgets to be displayed in every window: speedometer, compass, time, direction to a pushpin, available satellites.   Time is very convenient and always at hand. Compass is quite self explaining, works just as a regular compass. Sattelites view shows you how many sattelites are currently active. Speedometer shows your current speed; you can set the appropriate maximum. Direction to a pushpin helps you find the way back to the places you once visited; it also shows the distance to the destination point

Here users can watch their track of movements on a map. Track recording can be paused and resumed later. Users can upload a previous track in the background while recording a new one and check their current path against it. Map and track viewing is fully adjustable: you can zoom in and out, move the map, find your current position. Users can choose to keep their current position displayed always in the center of the screen. VITO SmartNavigator supports two types of pushpins. Permanent pushpins always appear on screen, others show up only when you load certain tracks. VITO SmartNavigator can show you the direction to a selected pushpin when you need to find a way to the place you visited once

	TRACK RECORDING Record your track of movements virtually anywhere
	EXPORT TRACKS to Google Earth Tracks are compatible with Google Earth and can be easily imported for a closer inspection.
	GADGETS Various gadgets provide plenty of useful trip info: speedometer, compass, time, direction to a pushpin, available satellites.
	TONS of MAPS Extensive maps database with pushpins support Load vtm maps from vitotechnology.com or create your own with free MapManager.
	EVEN MORE MAPS Experienced users can create their own plug-ins to use maps of any format DOWNLOAD NOW

Mobile TeleSystems, the largest mobile phone operator in Russia and the CIS, announces that its consolidated subscriber base reached 86.94 million users on June 30, 2008. During June 2008, MTS consolidated subscriber base increased by 0.64 million subscribers.

SOURCE

Google reported revenues of $5.37 billion for the quarter ended June 30, 2008, an increase of 39% compared to the second quarter of 2007 and an increase of 3% compared to the first quarter of 2008. Google reports its revenues, consistent with GAAP, on a gross basis without deducting traffic acquisition costs, or TAC. In the second quarter of 2008, TAC totaled $1.47 billi