A Fuller View

This deal - Local Matters + Mobile People - will be of interest to people in the local search and IYP space. The deal had been rumoured for months now and so no surprise to see it finally announced. The combined company should be able to provide a more comprehensive solution to new and existing customers. There are no details on the value of the deal. If anyone has any info on the deal size or wants to speculate please comment… Note: Local Matters are a fairly significant partner with FAST in terms of using the FAST search platform for as a core element of LMI’s solution. It will be interesting to see how this relationship evolves once FAST is part of MSFT.

Here’s the full release from the LMI site:

March 28, 2008

For Immediate Release

Local Matters and mobilePeople Merger Provides Unique Offering to Directory Publishers

Copenhagen/London, NN March, 2008 – Local Matters, Inc., a Denver, Colorado based Media Technology Solutions provider, and mobilePeople a/s, a Copenhagen, Denmark based local mobile search and advertising provider, have entered into a Share Purchase Agreement on March 21, 2008. Under the terms of the transaction, Local Matters will acquire all of the outstanding capital stock of Mobile People in exchange for a combination of cash and Local Matters stock. The combined company would provide directory publishers, media publishers and directory assistance providers with media technology solutions that connect consumers and advertisers across digital channels including the internet, wireless and voice.

There are now more than three billion global mobile users, and local search ranks among the top content categories that consumers utilize on their mobile phones. Publishers are increasingly extending into Internet and mobile to capture users and local advertisers.

Local Matters’ CEO Perry Evans said: “We chose mobilePeople because we believe they have the best technology to create a mobile distribution presence for publishers. Its expertise, its track record and its innovation cycles set them apart from the many other companies in this space. Our aim now is to be the preferred one-stop shop for directory publishers and directory assistance providers for outsourced media technology solutions online, on wireless and on voice.”

The two companies formed a business partnership in 2006 and have several joint initiatives in progress. The closing of the transaction is subject to additional closing conditions and is currently expected to close in the second quarter of 2008.

Couple of decent posts worth checking out over on sister blog AdViking:

• Post-Mobile World Congress Wrap Up - from Barcelona
• ISP Advertising Moves, Google Video Ad Push

Also, hoping that Simon expands on insight from this week’s Fast Forward search conference in Florida. I am guessing he’s got his silver card on BA by now with all this travel.

Well, that’s wrap for this working week. And here’s funnny one strip from xkcd - enjoy!

This is very interesting snippet:

Informa Telecoms & Media revealed recently that worldwide mobile penetration will hit 50 per cent - or around 3.3 billion subscriptions.

RWW have a good summary on this report. So, could 2008 finally be the year of the mobile web?

I needed some content to help kick off the week as I am (a) running a bit slow; and (b) had yet to crack that first post for Dec… So, here we go. Nothing new but just something a interest especially from a European and mobile perspective.

This week it is Nokia World in Amsterdam and they issued a long winded press release about their vision.

Here’s a the full release:

Nokia World 2007: Nokia outlines its vision of Internet evolution and commitment to environmental sustainability
December 04, 2007

Amsterdam, The Netherlands - At the annual Nokia World conference today, Nokia outlined its vision for the mobile industry, predicting rapid change driven by the convergence of mobility and the internet, and the need for the industry to make an increasing contribution to environmental sustainability. In his keynote address, Nokia president and CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo highlighted Nokia’s commitment to driving both trends.

Speaking to an audience of some 2,700 delegates who had gathered in Amsterdam to experience Nokia’s vision of the mobility industry’s future, Kallasvuo said: “We are at the dawn of a new era in mobile communications driven by the rapid convergence of the internet and mobility, and Nokia is setting the pace of change. But with market leadership in an industry of this scale also comes responsibility,” he said. “We are committed to taking a leading role in increasing environmental awareness and performance right across the industry, creating further products and services that help people make more sustainable choices. It is both the responsible thing to do and it makes good business sense.”

Nokia unveils “Comes With Music”

During the event the company announced Nokia Comes With Music, a revolutionary program that enables people to buy a Nokia device with a year of unlimited access to millions of tracks from a range of great artists - past, present and future. Once the year is complete, customers can keep all their music without having to worry about it disappearing when their subscription is over.

“We set out to create the music experience that people are telling us they are looking for - all the music they want in the form of unlimited downloads to their mobile device and PC,” said Anssi Vanjoki, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Multimedia, Nokia. “Even if you listened to music 24 hours a day, seven days a week, you would still only scratch the surface of the music that we’re making available. Comes with Music fulfils our dream to give consumers all the music they want, wherever they want it, while rewarding the artists who create it.”

The program will launch with Universal Music Group International, and Nokia is in discussion with the remaining major international labels.

Universal Music Group International Chairman/CEO Lucian Grainge was at Nokia World to launch the program with Nokia. “It’s fantastic to work with Nokia on Comes With Music,” said Grainge. “We feel it’s an innovative way for people to discover and enjoy new artists, while at the same time having access to the amazing depth of the Universal catalog. Comes With Music allows our artists to reach new audiences in a very easy and affordable way.”

Images for press use available at http://www.nokia.com/A4632379.

Ovi - your personal dashboard to life

Nokia also gave further details of the upcoming Ovi Internet services environment. Ovi, meaning ‘door’ in Finnish, enables consumers to easily access their existing social network and content, acting as a dashboard to a person’s life.

“Ovi combines the mobile, PC and web environments into an easy to use experience with common user interface elements that provide consistency and simplicity,” said Vanjoki. “We started the Ovi services rollout with the individual services in navigation, music and games, and the next step is to provide an integrated experience. The complete Ovi environment and new services will be rolled out continuously throughout 2008.”

Google has joined the Open Handset Alliance. This was announced yesterday in a PR and of course got wide mainstream coverage. I can see this helping to drive a new food chain around mobile application development and fresh start-up activity. Here some of the analysis and comment worth reading: Radar and SEL.

First off, I’d like to say its good news that there was only minor damage and no major injuries from the moderate earthquake in SF Bay Area last week (on Tues 30 Oct - 5.6 magnitude on old the Richter Scale).

The ‘quake’ that followed in Twitter was total bollocks IMHO… Check the Scobleizer for what I mean. While I do think it is interesting to note that services like Twitter and mobile devices for sure are changing (and many cases already changed - see BBC and Read/Write for some ideas of what I mean) the way we gather information about important events - such as earthquake, fires etc - and keep in touch with loved ones. However, in this case most of the info coming from Twitter about this event was drivel (Mr Doeff was good enough to record most of it, seriously thanks) - at least it confirmed the scale of the event. Maybe in the future news organisation will use Twitter or a similar services to gather info from the field?

  The Guardian is reporting that unloacked iPhones will sold in France. Its a shame that the 1st models to hit Europe will only support 2G…

Check-out the soon to be annouced Nokia N810 tablet with a keywboard. More info on Internet Tablet Talk.

Here’s a quick summary of top items so far this week:

• BBC and Adobe Partner on Future iPlayer
• AdMob Snares Google Executive
• Upgrades to MSFT Local & Mobile
• Google Copyfight Update

Check back soon, I am working on a review of DocoLoco and WeLoveLocal - two new entries to the “local search/user generated content/IYP” space.

The Google blog reported that the GOOG-411 service has graduated. I wonder if Google will launch a similar service anywhere outside the US?