One company has bought our entire output exclusively, on-going. We are, in effect, becoming a private research company.

Our new client is unwilling to subsidise our existing audience of readers (300-400k last month) so the content that we’ll be creating — reports, video interviews and day-to-day industry news and analysis — will become proprietary from 27th of March. After this date, the public version of MIR will no longer be updated.

The nature of our agreement allows for corporate subscriptions to our content at £12,000 per annum, plus applicable taxes. I’m able to offer the first 10 subscriptions at half price until the end of the month.

Our subscribers will receive:

* Daily news, updates and opinion — similar to the existing MIR daily output.
* Provision of monthly reports on key issues and trends.
* Exclusive video interviews with influential movers and shakers from around the industry (similar to the ones we’ve been providing).
* Exclusive video research with end-users of mobile technologies — and the ability for client/subscribers to direct research
* Business development and corporate strategy — our network reaches far and wide.
* Expert news and analysis (think Mr Operator features on steroids), written by some of the best and most informed in the industry.
* We’ll retain the lively MIR editorial style in a weekly summary of what’s going on.

Our content is going to be delivered directly to subscriber intranets and via email newsletters.

If you’d like to discuss a subscription, drop me an email: ewan@mobileindustryreview.com.

I’ll post more on this subject soon!

I had a note in from Alfie of Moblog telling me about their new competition, Lovetheaccent.com.

It’s a rather wicked proof of concept demonstrating the integration between Moblog and SpinVox. (I haven’t written much about SpinVox recently — still loving it. Still a critical service for me.)

The competition is quite simple. Call up the Moblog SpinVox number, tell the world what accent you love or hate — and why — and your message (and audio) will be posted live to the Lovetheaccent.com site.

The best caller (I’m not sure how that’s judged… so, be creative!) will win an Nokia N82 along with a year’s free subscription to both Moblog and Spinvox. On top of that, you’ll also get 250 Moo cards.

But, to get their hands on the device for the cheaper price, German shoppers will also need to get their hands on a more expensive phone plan, the Complete XL, at €89 a month with 1000 minutes and 300 texts. There’s also a price cut on devices that come with a cheaper subscription – for those on €29 monthly contract, the device has dropped to €249.

So what’s behind the price cut? A sign that sales haven’t come up to T-Mobile’s projected figures? A simple way to increase premium subscriptions? Or a sign there’s a 3G iPhone coming out before too long?

As the FT points out, Apple wouldn’t be the first company to bundle in a music subscription with device purchases – Nokia unveiled its ‘comes with music scheme’ late last year, whereby some Nokia phones come bundled with a year of unlimited access to the company’s music store.

While it seems that Apple is only at the negotiating stage on its own plan to bundle music with the iPhone, if it goes ahead with the scheme, it’ll make a major departure for the company. Nevertheless, the promise of all you can eat music is an attractive one, so now Apple just has to find a price that consumers — not to mention the record labels — are happy to work with.