Notes from the Mobile Technology Panel. I'm sitting next to Ben Combee who made the Palm schedule for SXSW.

Marc Brown, the founder of Buzznet.com moderates; Tom Anderson, President of MySpace.com, and Jeff Birkner; ipsh.net

Note: I'm attending this because it's important for podcasting and videoblogging and their respective futures.

Ipsh.net is a mobile marketing company. 64% of US households have movile phone subscriptions. Texting use is skyyrocketing. 100 million use texting on their phones... out of 170 million cellphones. Over 3 billion text messages in Nov 2004, 3x up from 2 years prior. ... the market is 63 million.

Sony + Maverick records used ipsh! Messenger for 50 First Dates
Last Samurai = mobile wallpapers

Starburst case study... 23% RETURN visitors. About a half million text messages deployed
Mobile phone p2p campaign. The average user sends 2.5 text msgs to their friends.

Budweiser. Text-a-Bud. and True Music Live. Unsigned, indie bands, and you can send messages of a phone number to hear clips from the artists.

Advertone.... Life Aquatic... converted into ringtones; Blade, ringtons/wallpapers.

Radiohead (AT&T campaign)
Kellogg's Corn Pops had point of sale texting invitation
Starsky & Hutch, Warner Bros. Theatrical, very progressive in using new media.... Wallpaper campaign

And now on to Myspace Music

Users can make profiles; as can bands
It's not so much the band driving the ideas, it's the marketing companies or advertisers, like Target or P&G, who want to connect themselves to music.

Hilary Duff, the Donnas, and another female artist were cross promoted with Secret Sparkle wallpaper (Secret Sparkle is deodorant for girls/women)

Myspace has 11 million users. 70,000 per day growth. Right behind Google who's #6.
Age demographic is 16-24.

Birkner is noting that ipsh.net has the most success with the 'mobile demographic'.... 16-21/24.

Alicia Keys, Avril Lavigne, Busta Rhymes, Lil Romeo.... over 40,000 messages exchanged.
Jo-jo, over 100K msgs
Jay-Z, over 200K msgs (can hit youth and older demo)

How promoted? On their own website; Publisher's sites.... Sisterhood Central from Random House... to send messages about Pants; Banners are the most successful when put in front of the right eyeballs.

Email promotions prior to the album being released... (Chingy, hip-hop artist)

Ipsh and Buzznet partnered together for a SXSW promotion, the band of Gratitude leading up to Coachella. Moblogging and SMS updates.

Notes: Scale this down and rip it apart and apply it to podcasting and videoblogging. And stop arguing about the words podcasting and videoblogging. MAKE MEDIA.

MySpace doesn't have paid listings anymore... levels the playing field.

Labels want to come in and spend money and Myspace says, it's not necessary... if you build a profile and know how to work it.... they just want to spend the money and not do the work.

Buzznet's Brown notes that social networking of this sort is not necessarily the biggest topic here at SXSW.

Question: how is it making money: branding (banners) AND licensing the technology. Same situation for Tom Anderson, MySpace

Question: how do you determine which phones to support... (carriers almost all) but handsets... Birkner answers and relates a story about talking to Russ Beattie.... who said no one will say...

Trivia:
Ringtone revenue: 724 million in 2009. (217 million in 2004)
Mobile Gaming: 430 million in 2009 (72 million now)

Not sold as a keepsake, like CDs or Records.
"Ringtones are meant to be consumable"

My notes: that brings up an interesting paradox as it relates to content lifespan perhaps? The 'ownership' that people demand (a blogosphere trend)

Buzznet charges for the customization for Buzznet Music. (used the Von Bondies example)

With myspace, it's like putting your demo tape online... why go to the show when you can spend your time on Myspace.

Question about resources; making ringtons
To make your own ringtone... (Windows-only) Xingtone.

"To the labels: You just can't come in and buy a space on our site and expect to get exposure... you have to do what the small bands are doing." -Tom Anderson

No plans to add RSS to MySpace. No plans to pull in others, he wants them to stay on his.