UK mobile users are increasingly turning to social applications such eBuddy, mig33, Bing, Cellity, EQO, Nimbuzz, Flurry, and Trutap for messaging and photo sharing at the expense of MMS, according to GetJar, the mobile application portal. A statistically precise survey of GetJar’s UK users is claimed to have revealed that 15% had already dropped MMS in favour of application-based messaging.

Regular MMS users also said to have reported reliability and service problems, with only one third finding their attempts to send MMS messages to be successful every time. A further 31% reported that they had rarely or never successfully sent an MMS message via their mobile. The final third of users indicated that they didn’t use their phone to send photos at all.

“Only a short time ago, application-based messaging was unheard of, and now we can see a significant trend towards this form of social communication,” explained Ilja Laurs, Founder and CEO of GetJar. “Users experience a wide range of setup and compatibility issues in their use of MMS, which applications are helping them to overcome - and they are doing so for free.”

GetJar has also reported a steep climb in the popularity of messaging applications, both from developers and in the level of downloads, with over 3.7 million downloads by users per month.

GetJar’s survey received replies from nearly 600 UK users, with trends in territories such as the USA showing similar developments.

Also Mike Grenville of 160 Characters Association wrote about how MMS unreliability drives users to alternatives. If you like to read more please take a look here.

Mobile Marketing Magazine, June 23, 2008:

Research firm Technology Appraisals has published a report, ‘Low Cost & Mobile VoIP: Mobile Communications’, which looks at the low-cost and free international mobile calling sector. The report notes that companies such as mig33, Truphone, EQO, fring, MOBIVOX, iSkoot, cellity, JAJAH, Vyke, and Rebtel have attracted VC funding and hit the headlines by offering low cost and even free international mobile calling, often combined with new mobile applications including IM (Instant Messnger) chat, buddy lists, and social networking.
“Despite the progress, it is a very confusing area,” says Tim Riley, Co-author of the report. “Once you get beyond the headline benefits claimed for users, and the inevitable marketing hype, you realise there are important issues that don’t come out unless you take the time to dig deep, such as ease of use, roaming capabilities, what handsets does it work on, availability of wi-fi, and what is really free.”
The report notes that the new services also use a range of fundamentally different technical solutions, including wi-fi, 3G data, call-back, call-through, local numbers, mobile web, and SIM cards, implemented in different ways, and each with its own distinct advantages and disadvantages. The report concludes that it’s difficult for consumers to find out what is really on offer, what it can really deliver, and to make comparisons.
The report costs £375 (plus VAT for UK organisations) for a 1-5 user electronic copy. There’s more information on the report here.

AlwaysOn and KPMG have officially launched this year’s AlwaysOn Global 250 Top Private Companies competition. After 6 years of the AlwaysOn 100, they are expanding their flagship list to better represent the burgeoning startup communities from around the globe.

They are looking for the top emerging private companies that are creating new business opportunities in the global technology industries. This includes private companies that are demonstrating significant market traction and pursuing game-changing technology in the following sectors:

Consumer and Entertainment
Devices and Components
Enterprise
Greentech
Mobile and Wireless
Network and Infrastructure
Services and Enablers

The winners of this competition will be announced in late July and will be honored at The AlwaysOn & STVP Summit at Stanford

cellity is nominated in the category Mobile and Wireless. Cross your fingers for us!

On June, 23 2008 at 6 pm the first MobileMonday event in Hamburg will take place.

Location:

Museum für Völkerkunde
Rothenbaumchaussee 64
20148 Hamburg

Finally Hamburg has its own MobileMonday Chapter.

Coinciding with big sport events like the EURO2008 or Summer Olympics in Beijing the topic of MobileMonday Hamburg will be “Mobile Sports”. What kind of role does a mobile play in sports? It’s your constant companion. How will it be used for information or be part of your sports activities?

The MobileMonday Chapter invited very interesting speakers. Sarik Weber, Founder and VP Marketing of cellity will present about Mobile 2.0 Sports Sponsoring.

The Speakers:

* Sarik Weber, Cellity: Mobile 2.0 Sports Sponsoring
* Patrick Postel, Silpion IT Solutions: Mobile Scorecard24
* Manuel Kröppelt, kicker: kicker in the iPhone
* NN, Nokia: Nokia Sports Tracker (not confirmed yet)

After the presentations there are good opportunities for networking.

On the website of MobileMonday you will get further information.

We wish all participants a nice time at the MobileMonday Opening Event, Hamburg.

How do you keep personal and business e-mails separate on your cellphone? Just have your personal e-mails automatically forwarded to your free cellity Communicator. If you still aren`t processing e-mails on your cellphone, the cellity Communicator is the perfect way to start doing that and much more.

The many features provided by the Communicator delivers benefits to you in three areas:

Your service benefits:

- You select your own free cellity e-mail address.

- You get an e-mail account with cellity free of charge.

- E-Mails are displayed so that text wraps for easy reading - no more scrolling back and forth.

- The cellity Communicator optimizes navigation in your mailbox, making it far easier than any web-based cellphone browser.

 Your benefits when processing e-mails:

- Send e-mails to any e-mail account and, if you don`t have the e-mail address, just use any cellphone number.

- You get a ping notification when receiving e-mails, even if the Communicator app happens to be off.

- Your e-mails are encrypted to protect your privacy.

- E-mail data is compressed to further reduce the minimal costs for a GPRS connection.

And there`s even more:

- Your e-mails are automatically downloaded as soon as the cellity Communicator is launched.

- Your cellity Communicator automatically creates an address book for people you send e-mails to.

- Have e-mails forwarded directly to your cellphone from webmail accounts such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, GMX.

And the best thing of all:

The cellity Communicator combines the very best features of a free small cellphone application, including freeSMS, Instant Phone Conferencing and low-cost international calls.

The new cellity Communicator was introduced to Jessica Dolcourt of CNET. She tested the free mobile software on her BlackBerry phone. Depending on your mobile device you will either download a regular or an advanced version of the free mobile software. The advanced version runs on over 280 devices worldwide, including leading mobile phone manufacturers like Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and Samsung. We are currently working on the advanced version for BlackBerry phones. Here you can read the whole article:

“cellity Communicator is an e-mail, SMS, and calling client and service for Java cell phones that’s better than it looks. That may not sound terribly heartening, but it’s no derisive knock. Designing an app that crams phone calls, conference calls, various tiers of texting, and e-mail into a mobile application and still manages to look simple is quite an achievement.

It is arguably overly so. Compared with other mobile communication applications, like EQO and Fring, Cellity Communicator reveals a rather dressed-down interface that requires a few too many clicks to get contacts added and messages started. To Cellity’s credit, the interface can be expanded to include more options with an expert mode. Higher-end Java MIDP2 phones support contact-importing, but BlackBerrys don’t, so those folks will labor to enter contacts by hand.

When it comes to performance, Cellity Communicator does deliver on promises of sending and receiving e-mail and SMS messages through various approaches, and of providing cheap international calling through purchased credit. At this point, phones calls are placed through a ring-back bridge.

Cellity’s selection of text services is wide, but potentially confusing. Besides shooting an e-mail to a contact’s address, there’s free SMS texting to other registered users using Cellity’s integrated FreeSMS product, and a glorified version of FreeSMS that is positioned as an e-mail message one addresses to a cell phone number. Nonregistered users receive teasers from these two message types with a prompt to download the communicator. Sending a regular text message is a workaround, though depending on your plan, Cellity’s charge could exceed your carrier’s cost.

Since Cellity Communicator begins by giving you a unique Cellity.com e-mail address, the app could function as a person’s only e-mail client. However, there’s not much in the way of message management, so I’m hesitant to recommend it for those with other options. The program also supports Web mail-forwarding and replying through another e-mail address.

Sounds like a fine app, right? It is, at least on paper. Despite its demonstrable uses for both low-end and high-end devices, Cellity Communicator simply fails to grab me. It doesn’t help matters that a couple of obvious bugs have been allowed to slip through and that I’m biased against multiple clicks to accomplish a simple task. All things said and done, it is a quite decent app that has a strong following and could secure a stronger future, but which still feels more unfinished and less engaging than its peers.”

The 3rd Mobile Media Summit held as part of the 20th medienforum.nrw is dedicated to the discussion of the mobile Internet. In view of the saturated market for mobile telephony services, the wireless industry is now focusing on mobile Internet services. Mobile devices are intended to integrate online services, Web 2.0, advertising, videos, and games. Already, network operators, software companies and mobile phone manufacturers are hustling for the best starting positions. This combination of wireless telephony and Internet creates new growth potential.

On June 11, 2008 mobile experts meet to discuss on three different panels the following topics:

Mobile Internet - Fighting for the best Start Position

Mobile Social Web - Web 2.0 in pocket format

Mobile Advertising - right next to the Consumer

Sarik Weber, Founder and VP Marketing of cellity AG will be on the panel “Mobile Social Web - Web 2.0 in pocket format” with Olaf Kroll, Director Business Development Europe of Fox Interactive Media/ MySpace.com to talk about starting opportunities and latest trends. Click here to view the complete program.

Following the response and feedback on “Understanding Mobile 2.0” article at Read/WriteWeb, Rudy de Waele created a wiki space to start categorizing the so-called mobile 2.0 companies, the next generation mobile products and services coming to market. Check out the new Mobile 2.0 Company Directory including cellity!