File Access

Seeking to build a user base for a technology that some call critical to the future of communications, officials with a Germany-based text-messaging service say mobile device users in 79 nations worldwide have started using their Web portal since it went public about seven weeks ago.

 

Oliver Wimmeroth, managing director of Mjoy, said that more than 26,000 users already have registered for the company’s free, ad-funded service.

 

“Our service works, users like what they see, and they pass the word,” Wimmeroth said.

 

Operational since last month, Mjoy is the mobile Web portal of Germany-based Venista Group, a mobile business. The service, which is in beta mode, prompts cell phone users to “sign up” on its home page:

 

 

Messages to people who haven’t yet signed up for Mjoy are displayed on their handsets, and include information that they came from the service – a move that’s designed to prompt more subscribers. Registered users get a full message when they receive a text-message through Mjoy, and a link to their “inbox.” The inbox – similar to a Facebook (News - Alert) exchange – displays entire “conversations,” sorted by contacts.

 

The service works on all common handsets, according to Mjoy.

 

In focusing on text-messaging, Mjoy is targeting a technology that industry insiders say will become a core to advertising within five years.

 

As TMCnet already reported here, text-messaging has become a mainstream communications among mobile phone users – about 42 percent of consumers use their mobile phones to text as much or more than they do to make calls, one survey finds. Some have called for global text messaging revenues to double to $165 billion by 2011.

 

Now, as one official from a Reading, England-based messaging company that provides communication solutions for more than 300 network operators and service providers worldwide told TMCnet in an interview, texting and the mobile Web stand to gain a permanent place in advertising.

 

According to Oswin Eleonora (News - Alert), senior vice president at Acision, LLC, texting and the mobile Web will be fundamental to all advertising, rather than the “additional” or “new” channel that they represent today.

 

“Behavioral analysis is essential to that evolution,” Eleonora told TMCnet. “While the proper balance of its application is yet to be determined, there is no question behavioral analysis will exist and will play a critical role.”

 

Officials at Mjoy say their service’s next development step is to offer free quality content such as sounds and wallpapers.

 

“We’re also starting an offense to provide the hottest ringtone and full-track service worldwide,” Wimmeroth said. “And we will have the top 20 songs for each individual country available.”