Hi guys,

Georgi has decided to move to the neighbor blog,

from now on you can read her posts through “The mobile blog of israel”!!!

see ya there!

Few weeks ago when Georgi told her friend she can check her e-mail via her cell, her friend laughed.

Yes, she laughed, and not because Georgi said somthing funny, but just because she was convinced that her phone doesn’t have the capability to send and receive an e-mail. In 5 minutes time Georgi taught her how to use her e-mail account.

Not a technologicaly challanged person, but she was amazed!

she called 5 more times on the day after, so that Geogi would  tell help her access other e-mail accounts on 5 of her friends phones as well.

Why is this important? well, it’s simple. Its important to show you that even young people who are familiar with technology, most of the time have no idea what their phone capabilities are, or even more important what they can do with their phone.

But yet, why is Georgi telling you all this?well, thats simply because she thinks she has the solution for this particular problem.

Enabling mobile sub’s use their social network for free. Yes you heard me right.

Why is it a good move for everyone?

* Everybody loves social networking, and with a prediction of 140 million  mobile social networks users by 2013 (according to ABI Research), everybody will still love social networks on the next 4 years.

A period of 4 years is considered a lot of time in mobile world, developing and adjusting all the time.

* Loving social network can drive data usage and might encourage  application-phobic people to start using other mobile internet tools once they discover it is oh so simple.

* In the future (not a very far one I believe) driving revenue based on social network advertising will be quite common.

But, there are some things that must  be done to ensure all these wonderful thing will happen:

1. Charging flat fee for data- so that users won’t have to worry about passing their data limits

2. Enabling quick access to social network via mobile

3. promoting SNS usage through campaigns

4. Designing additional mobile features to complete the SNS profile

If you want to read more Georgi recommends:  “Mobile social networking – is it win-win for operators and social networks?” (by: Analysys Mason)

what is it? another Blackberry? you’ve seen Blackberries before….

nice teaser ad from Verizon Wireless for the new Blackbery Storm- iPhone killer wannabe

enjoy

It was on June 2008, when Pelephone has launched its 4M ILS (1.6M $) campaign to promote it’s new mobile broadband+ laptop bundle.

The offer was considered innovative at the time, since operators only started offering a free lap-top in Europe  after Orage UK‘s successful launch in July 2008.

The campaign started with outdoor ads showing the message we all like to hate when browsing the internet:  ”The Page Cannot Be Displayed”.

The teaser was followed by an exposure of “Netstick”, Pelephone’s mobile broadband modem which allows 10 GB in up to 2.4Mbps speed.

The combined laptop (Dell500) +netstick bundle offered customers a very attractive price of 119 ILS per month (31.5$), in an 18 months contract.

(for POS material: http://mobileisrael.wordpress.com/2008/10/18/mobile-pos-of-the-holy-land-2/)

Considering the fact that this price is much lower than other mobile broadband offers in Israel ( which dosen’t even include a lap-top in the price), it is rather surprising the netstick bundle isn’t a big hit.

So why did that happen?

1. Israeli charachter- First of all, we Israelies as people, are very suspicious customers. Good deals allways seems like a honey trap to us, so we like to wait and see what happens to others falling in the so called “trap. We are very sceptical that any promotion can really do us some good… and well, unfortunatly it is not very good to be innovative in Israel. Innovation comes many time here, too much ahead of time, and the market has not matured enough.

2. Maturation-A main reason for the tremendous success the Orange “connected range” had in the UK, is the maturity of the mobile broadband market there. According to a survey by Point Topic Almost half of UK users accessing the internet away from home or work prefer mobile broadband networks. Forty-seven percent of surveyed users now choose mobile broadband networks to access the internet, compared to 42 percent who still use Wi-Fi hotspots. Meanwhile, Mobile broadband packages offering a free laptop are becoming increasingly popular with consumers and are set to be one of the big Christmas gift ideas for cash strapped consumers.

This is not the case in Israel.

3. Business segments- While in Europe it might be quite customary  to work from home or in general out of the office with a lap-top, in israel there are not many employees or Soho segment businessmen working out of the office. It is usually Salespersons that use the mobile broadband outdoors.

4. Low speed- offering an up to 2.4Mbps speed in Israel is not very attractive, and emphasizes the disadvantage of the mobile broadband.

5. Low fixed broadband prices- fixed broadband prices have reached a point from which they can’t be lower (29.9-39.9 ILS for 2.4Mbps) . Considering those prices are so low private customers should have no reason to pay for an expensive luxury (99.9-129.9 ILS for 2.4Mbps).

Georgi will try as much as she can to stay mobile traveling  the internet space, in order to deliver you some of her insights from the wireless world.

You are most welcom to Ask Georgi questions by posting a comment.

*Georgi is a fictional charachter invented by Stav Rave only for this blog.