With the market saying 'no' to Nokia's Ovi Store, what do you think can be done to change this?Got this in — any suggestions?
I’m hoping you can point me in the right direction.
Do you know where I can get a list of Mobile Aggregators that operate in The Philippines? I can find a bunch that offer Bulk SMS, but very few, (one in fact) that offer Short Codes, or Shared Short Codes.
If you can point me in the right direction it will be a big help.
Had a reader email me and ask me what I knew about SMSC crime.
Not a lot, other than a passing awareness, was my answer.
I said I’d make like a Who Wants to be a Millionaire and ask the audience.
Is it an issue?
It’s Fine Day today — the UK regulator, PhonepayPlus published details of the companies that it has fined for breach of its regulations last month. Most of the fines are 5,000 or 10,000… small beer, really, especially compared to last month’s 175,000 pound whopper fine for SMS.ac.
2Ergo is banished to the naughty step as a result of one of it’s clients operating a rather suspect free text online service that charges users £1.50/fortnight and whose server appeared to misunderstand the ‘STOP’ opt-out command, a huge no-no when it comes to the PhonepayPlus regulator panel. Effectively, once you signed up, you couldn’t unsubscribe…
2Ergo were reportedly quick at reacting when the regulator came-a-knocking and this stood them in good stead when it came to working out the value of the fine. However:
In coming to its decision on the level of fine to impose, the Panel was particularly concerned by the service provider’s breach history, noting that this was the fourth time within the past year that breaches had been upheld against this service provider.
Deary me. Not good!
CellphoneNews2.com (and, unfortunately, CellphoneNews2.mobi) has officially launched as a digg-style source of mobile-phone related news topics. Users can create a free account and digg up or bury news stories, thereby affecting what shows up on the main page.
It’s a rather neat idea, and easy enough to submit an article. There isn’t any commenting built-in, as there is on Digg, which personally I think adds a bit of value to those submitting articles. Rather than carry on conversation on a 3rd party site, readers can converse on the actual story.
The mobile site is quite neat, as well, though I’m not sure why they chose .mobi rather than easily (and for free) setting up an m.website. Perhaps in the near future the m.site could forward to the .mobi and we’d all be happy?
Have a read of this one…
Link: Calls for Tax Exemption for Charity Sms Donations
Vir2, a provider of SMS marketing and fundraising solutions for charities, has welcomed the decision by UK politican, Mark Oaten MP to file an Early Day Motion calling upon the Government to stop charging VAT (sales tax) on UK charity donations made by SMS. All other methods of giving to charity are VAT exempt. Premium SMS texts are a particularly useful way of collecting money quickly, but the Government are not treating it the same as other methods.
On the face of it, this sounds like a brilliant idea. I support it.
Vir2 favours a solution of creating “VAT free” short codes that can only be used by registered charities for the purpose of fundraising. The awarding of short codes is already regulated by Ofcom and Phone Pay Plus.
The problem? Well, you’ve got four (or five, depending on your viewpoint) huge, huge multinational companies who are earning massive percentages of their revenue from text messaging. Premium text messaging, in particular, contributes a tidy sum.
The last thing your common-or-garden mobile operator needs is the bright light of a consumer movement demanding tax exemption on donations made by text. Whilst one would have thought the key issue resides with Inland Revenue, I reckon that’s just a sideshow. At 17.5%, it’s a bit part in the huge game of premium text.
The tax is nothing, NOTHING when it comes to looking at the revenue share from premium rate text messaging. Operators are routinely taking 40-50% of premium text revenues citing all sorts of bollocks about ‘keeping the lights on’ and having to manage the billing relationship with the end-user.
The net effect is that when you donate to a charity, let’s say, via a £1.50 text message, a good whack — 30-60 pence of that (depending on exact relationships) goes direct to the operator. This is something that winds up the charity no-end, the aggregator and the service provider. I’ve no doubt that it’s also intensely annoying for the person donating the money when they read the small print (”At least 80p of your 1.50 goes to the charity… the rest goes to the thieving bastards…”)
There’s lots of conversations to be had on the topic. Pluses and minuses all round. I strongly favour operators taking a significantly reduced percentage of all premium rate text message traffic, not just charity donations.
But, as the chaps at Vir2 put forward above, I’d settle for charity shortcodes that are both VAT free — although I’d also like to see much higher payouts nearer the 90% mark, at least for charities.
Read more about Vir2 at www.vir2.co.uk.
If I want a UK number to receive text messages, who should I be using? The last time I bought MSISDN numbers, I used…
gosh let me try and remember.
ZIM something. Somebody ZIM.
I’ll get it in a moment……. trying to think.
ZIM EPL! That’s it. They had a pretty good amount of gold, silver and bronze numbers and online activation, last time I looked.
I also used FastSMS as well.
Do you have any recommendations for other suppliers of UK MSISDN numbers?
Children In Need (wikipedia reference), the annual British charity event aimed at helping out Children, is the focus of one of the UK’s biggest messaging aggregators, MX Telecom, and the UK’s most progressive MN(V)O, 3UK.
They’ve both collaborated to launch a mobile donation service for 3UK users, enabling one-click donation. There’s no financial gain either, no 40% cut — the entire cash donation is sent directly to the charity. Nice.
Here’s some more details (other Charities take note, might be worth a chat with 3UK and MX):
3, the mobile media company is collaborating with MX Telecom to provide a mobile donation service for its users to donate directly to the BBC’s Children In Need 2007 Appeal.
A section of 3’s Planet3 Portal will be dedicated to BBC Children In Need, allowing 3’s customers to donate with the touch of a button.
“By giving customers a simple way to donate, 3 is using its 3G internet service to help raise as much money as possible,” said Mark Williamson, Head of Internet Products at 3 UK. ‘We’re hopeful a sizeable portion of our customer base will play a part in making this year’s BBC Children In Need Appeal the biggest yet”.
Working in partnership, MX Telecom and 3 have made the donation process simple and effective, delivering the entire donation amount to BBC Children In Need with no financial gain to either company.
The MX Telecom developed donation system also allows for Gift Aid, adding an extra 28% of the donated amount to the total received by BBC Children In Need.
Mark Fitzgerald, Managing Director of MX Telecom commented: “We’re delighted MX Telecom’s technology is providing the most cost effective way of donating to the BBC Children In Need Appeal. It’s also positive that the platform will enable BBC Children In Need to appeal to a broader audience.”
