2007 Global Mobile Messaging Awards
Shortlist & Winners

Visto Mobile works in real-time with Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes and internet-based email platforms and is available for more than 120 of the most popular terminal devices.

Easy Setup takes the customer through a three-step process and only requires three pieces of information ??¢â?¬â?? the mobile number, email address and account password. A typical customer can be up and running in under 10 minutes.

In contrast, other offerings have complex setup procedures requiring up to 30 steps and 12 separate pieces of information ??¢â?¬â?? often taking more than half an hour or longer to set up.

Vodafone Spain uses Visto Mobile 5.5 with Easy Setup for its own-branded Real Mail and Lite Email services, and a usability survey of their customers revealed that end-users found it easier to install and manage than they had expected.

In the USA, MVNO Sotto Wireless, uses Visto Mobile to provide SMBs with mobile email services.

pxd??¢â?¬â?¢s research revealed that users in the teens and twenties send and receive an average of 7.8 messages per conversation, and send and receive two or more messages in 95% of messaging situations.

mMessenger is a new messaging service offering: Conversational support for text messaging Convenience for both short-interval and long-interval conversations Easy communication with new contacts when compared to the IM pairing process

By threading messages into conversations, mMessenger makes is easier to communicate effectively across multiple conversations with different contacts.

Customers using mMessenger on their phone can still communicate normally with customers on standard SMS handsets, and address book integration makes it easy to send messages to new contacts without complicated setup or pairing procedures.

mMessenger was launched in September 2006 by SK Telecom in Korea.

Launched in launch March 2007, Virgin Mobile worked with 5th Finger to create a unique mobile experience. The Festival Buddy application, providing festival-goers with a complete, live-updated programme guide on their phone.

Customers could create their own festival guide, selecting the bands they wanted to see and optionally receiving a text message alert 10 minutes before the selected bands were due to perform.

To sign up for Festival Buddy, customers simply sent an SMS to a short-code and received a WAP link allowing immediate download.

A downloadable Java application, Festival Buddy also allowed customers to browse and purchase band-specific ringtones and wallpapers and view a map of the festival.

Festival Buddy also incorporated paid-for advertising from Nokia, demonstrating the potential for in-application media.

By combining an innovative, new Fastap keypad with the eZiType completion engine, the ZTE D90 offers a superior user experience for messaging on a slim, sleek clamshell handset.

The ZTE D90 innovates on the award-winning design and functionality of previous TELUS phones featuring the Fastap keypad. A specially-designed, clever backlight with semi-transparent key labels makes the Fastap keypad, consisting of raised alpha keys and lower numeric keys, look at first glance like a standard keypad, creating the sleek, uncluttered appearance that users have come to expect from a mobile phone handset.

The auto-correction feature reduces typical errors caused by ??¢â?¬???fat fingers??¢â?¬?? and crowded or bumpy environments by correcting duplicated or missing letters or punctuation marks, transposed letters or mistyped words.

Slang, names of friends, streets and locations are all predicted by both frequency and recent input, so the more the D90 is used the more personal the text entry becomes.

Funambol is the mobile open source company and is the leading provider of open source push email and PIM for consumers. Funambol is supported by a global network of users and developers representing more than 1,000,000 downloads and 10,000 contributors in more than 200 countries.

Funambol provides over-the-air synchronization of contacts, calendars, to-do lists and other PIM data. It provides push email capabilities for sending, receiving and forwarding email, and allows users to open attachments, check email online and offline, and accept or decline meeting events. It includes a web portal that can be integrated into a carrier's website to let end users manage device settings and preferences.

With plugins for Windows Mobile, iPod and hundreds of SyncML devices, Funambol also works with Blackberry, Palm OS, Mozilla and many more applications.

Airwide??¢â?¬â?¢s MMS suite consists of AirMessenger MMSC ??¢â?¬â?? a reliable delivery and storage platform for MMS messages, AirGate MMS ??¢â?¬â?? a means of connecting third-party applications and services to mobile networks and AirMessenger Router, which intelligently routes MMS messages to improve the user experience and system efficiency.

Capable of handling thousands of MMS messages per second, the suite is designed to support the increasing requirements of network operators as A2P messaging becomes more commonplace and overall P2P MMS traffic increases.

MessagePublisher is a new end-to-end automated tool that dramatically simplifies the creation and submission of messaging content alerts and campaigns, whilst preserving multimedia quality and reducing the chances of unexpected media adaptation results.

MNOs can offer 3rd party content providers user-friendly and seamless delivery of content over MMS without requiring complex MMS know-how, thereby assuring that the predefined content is efficiently used.

Message Publisher greatly simplifies the creation and submission of alerts and campaigns by periodically retrieving predefined content from web URLs, creating an MMS messaging campaign dynamically, and efficiently matching the predefined content to the recipient device capabilities during campaign delivery.

All content is created to match each family of terminals with a common set of capabilities, so a campaign can easily consist of several versions of the same content adapted specifically for each device family.

Throughout the process all the messages are managed and viewed as a single campaign.

The Mobile Democracy Platform allows local governments to broadcast information on a variety of issues concerning their administrative zones such as time-critical issues, plans or activities of the municipality concerning the area or residents, as well as information about roads, buildings, water supply interruption, traffic, health, cultural and social activities. All a resident needs to do to receive cell broadcast messages from their local administration is to activate the 888 cell broadcast channel on their mobile phones. The service also allows municipalities to conduct public surveys where questions are transmitted through cell broadcast and residents respond through an SMS shortcode.

The municipalities can broadcast their desired information to the targeted area via cell broadcast (CBC) technology over Turkcell GSM BTSs (Base Tranceiver Stations). These CBC messages reach mobile phone screens of Turkcell subscribers who have activated the 888 cell broadcast channel code in their mobile phones.

This service is completely free of charge to all subscribers, and customers are able to respond to the broadcast messages using an SMS shortcode.

In India, finding out how much your electricity bill is can be a tedious task. You have to travel to the nearest electricity branch office and wait in a queue ??¢â?¬â?? the same queue that deals with all customer queries.

The Cellebrum service allows customers to use keywords to communicate via a common SMS shortcode shared across all of India??¢â?¬â?¢s major MNOs.

More than two million customers across three districts of Andhra Pradesh are served by the system, which can also be used to send feedback and complaints to the electricity providers.

FrontlineSMS provides an affordable, standalone turn-key solution to NGOs, allowing them - many for the first time - to access group SMS technology. It allows them to carry out small- to medium-scale trials before embarking on larger project. Although systems do exist, few if any have been designed with the NGO sector, and wider civil society, in mind.

The service empowers concerned individuals, NGOs and not-for-profit groups, and runs off the GSM network with no requirement for internet connectivity.

Designed with developing countries in mind,

It has a number of advantages over other solutions: It is PC or laptop-based, and will work anywhere that has GSM connectivity; Data is held locally, not on a central server; If running on a laptop with a mobile phone, it will work during power outages

Since launch in November 2005, Frontline has been tested and trialled with a wide range of NGOs and was used to great effect in monitoring the presidential elections in Nigeria. The Philippines and Kenya have expressed an interest in using it for the same purpose, and significant funding from a major US foundation is also in the pipeline.

AnnieS, a Dutch charity for the hearing-impaired, developed Talk-by-Text to improve communication and to information access for the hearing-impaired.

Unlike other text-based messaging functionality such as SMS, MSN or email, the talk-by-text application is real-time and fixed/mobile/IP convergent. Each letter appears on the recipient's display screen as the sender types it so the recipient no longer has to wait for a complete message to be sent. The users have the clear benefit of having the other party's undivided attention, including the ability to interrupt the other's dialog. The communication is thus more akin to a real conversation than with SMS. The application can communicate with existing fixed-line text terminals used by the deaf, and can be loaded to any mobile device enabling a lively and interactive form of communication while on the move.

Text telephones developed in the late 1980s are required by both parties, and cost ~1,200 euros; this has limited adoption ??¢â?¬â?? talk-by-text will overcome this using OpenCloud??¢â?¬â?¢s technology.

In January 2007 Chiltern Railways, with Mobiqa, YourRail and CTS created the first pilot of mobile train ticketing in the UK ??¢â?¬â?? for the service between Birmingham and London.

Customers could buy an e-day ticket costing ?????£5, and have it sent directly to their mobile phone as a unique barcode. This barcode could be scanned by self-service scanning gates, or by ticket inspectors using a hand-held PDA scanner.

In the first three months of the pilot over 90,000 mobile rail tickets have been delivered and the service is already more popular than other print-at-home ticketing options. Mobiqa??¢â?¬â?¢s technology guaranteeing that the barcodes are compatible with 98% of mobile phones,

In follow-up research 99% of customers who have used the service say that they would recommend it to a friend.

bluecycle, part of Norwich Union, is widely regarded as the premier internet site for motor salvage, selling over 90,000 total loss vehicles each year.

Using Refresh Mobile??¢â?¬â?¢s Mobizine Technology, Alpheus created highly-graphical magazine style catalogues of vehicles available at auction for delivery direct to customers??¢â?¬â?¢ mobile phones.

A new bluecycle Mobizine detailing 15 new vehicles is created daily and pushed automatically to customers??¢â?¬â?¢ phones ??¢â?¬â?? web content from bluecycle is automatically reformatted into the most appropriate footprint.

The Mobizine contains links to bluecycle partners such as HPI and the RAC and the option to call bluecycle directly for customer service and support.

The increased bidding activity created by the Mobizine is expected to contribute an additional ?????£1.5m of sales by the end of 2007. bluecycle is the first business outside the publishing industry to use Mobizine technology to reach its customers.

According to the UK Financial Services Authority, the UK financial sector has experienced an 8000% increase in online phishing scams in the past 2 years. The increasing occurences of phishing has led banks and financial regulators to explore two-factor authentication as a tool for preventing fraud.

TynTec's Mobile Authentication Service is engineered to enable authentication of legitimate online banking users through guaranteed delivery of One-Time Passwords (OTPs) via SMS. This provides complete security for customers looking to authorize transactions for both online and mobile financial services, as well as for securing employee access in enterprise applications.

TynTec guarantees SMS delivery within 15 seconds, which means users receive time-restricted passwords before they expire. By sending OTPs via SMS TynTec ensures financial institutions and enterprises protect their sensitive data using a completely secure mechanism, avoiding access by unauthorized users.

The 15 second delivery guarantee is provided in more than 150 countries, matching and In many cases exceeding the industry standard for password delivery. With direct access to the SS7 network TynTec can offer improved services over those delivered by MNOs.

Mopinion is the world??¢â?¬â?¢s most sophisticated enterprise-class SMS research platform, currently used by clients including Ipsos Mori, the BBC, Tesco and Vodafone.

It can be used for a range of polling activities, such as: Snap opinion polls; Feedback on specific consumer services; To garner opinion on new products.

Polls can be as simple as a single question, or more complex multiple question surveys where customers are routed depending on their responses.

Setting up surveys is quick and easy, and responses from customers are available in real-time to the survey owner.

All questions and responses travel across mBlox??¢â?¬â?¢s network to ensure prompt delivery to customers anywhere in the world.

Message Plus is a new messaging application allowing MNOs to differentiate their messaging service beyond price through personalized services already familiar to consumers from PC-based messaging applications.

Features include auto-reply, for use when unavailable or busy, auto-copy to email or other MSISDNs, trusted sender lists for parental control, personal blacklisting, message diversion and message archiving.

Message Plus is easy to use and the customer has complete control over the service, which is applied to all messages sent and received by them regardless of their roaming status.

It works with any handset, and with a roadmap including MMS and IMS as bearers, Message Plus is future-proofed. Already launched by operators in the very strong SMS markets in the Philippines and Singapore, further roll-outs are expected in 2007.

Description below in the Innovation category.

Three launched Windows Live Messenger, the first open access version of the service on mobile devices, in August 2006. Allowing 3 customers to see the presence of their Messenger contacts and exchange messages with buddies wherever they are for free.

Offering the service free to all of its 3.75 million customers, 3 is committed to providing the widest possible choice of mobile entertainment applications. Nearly 3/4 of under 24 year-olds are regular users of instant messaging and 3??¢â?¬â?¢s research suggests that more than half of these want access from their mobile.

Since the launch over 120 million messages have been sent, and the service is available to both contract and pay-as-you-go customers on 3??¢â?¬â?¢s network

Spin-my-Blog??¢â????¢ allows people to post to a blog directly from any phone, anywhere. SpinVox converts the bloggers??¢â?¬â?¢s voice message to text enabling users to speak a message, idea, point of view or hot news feed and instantly share it ??¢â?¬â?? taking audience participation, citizen journalism and social networking to the next level.

Launched in February 2007 as part of SpinVox's Voice-to-Screen messaging portfolio, designed to deliver any voice message to any screen, any place, anytime, anywhere. Spin-my-Blog enables new and faster ways for organisations to share ideas with their peers and customers.

SpinVox is being used successfully on both TV and radio: Fizz TV on Sky Digital is generating increased audience interaction and retention as viewers phone-in chat messages to be displayed on-screen. EMAP radio station Magic FM first used SpinVox to drive event-specific promotions on Mother's Day and Valentine's Day and is now integrating the service as a strategic audience participation tool.

SpinVox also recently launched its blogging services with leading Blog provider Six Apart, which has now enabled all 12 million of its LiveJournal bloggers to post directly from any phone.

Monilink, launched in June 2006, allows bank and building society customers to perform banking transactions ??¢â?¬â?? including balance enquiries, mini statements and mobile top-ups ??¢â?¬â?? directly from their mobile handset. It is the first cross operator/cross bank mobile banking platform in the world.

Live in the UK with HSBC and First Direct, the service will launch through 2007 with other banks including Alliance and Leicester.

The design of the service means that regardless of choice of bank, mobile network or physical location, consumers can access their essential financial information through a single, consistent interface much the same as the global ATM network.

Easy to set-up, Monilink requires no pre-registration for phone or internet banking ??¢â?¬â?? customers only need their debit card number and mobile number to activate the service from wherever they are.

mBlox??¢â?¬â?¢s mobile transaction network is used to provide short code access and billing for the service.

Already launched by T-Serbia, Comverse??¢â?¬â?¢s SMS Personal services personalize SMS in several ways:
- SMS Signature lets users create a signature that appears automatically on all their outgoing SMS messages. - Using SMS Auto Reply, users can set up 'out-of-office' messages that respond immediately and automatically to text messages that arrive when the user is too busy to answer. - With SMS forward, users gain the ability to forward SMS messages to friends and to automatically send copies of all incoming and outgoing SMS messages to a designated email account. - SMS Virtual Private Network allows customers to create SMS user groups with special short dialing numbers. - Finally, SMS Sponsored allows MNOs to grant tariff reductions to customers agreeing to have advertisements placed in the SMS messages they send.

Talkster is the first service to let people place free calls from their cell phones to instant messaging services like MSN, Google Talk and Gizmo Project. It consolidates the many voice and text-based communications services people use every day into an easy-to-use service on the mobile phone.

The service adapts to calling/long-distance/roaming plans worldwide, making it possible to lower costs on any calling plan with simple direct-outbound or callback options. Such features will be of particular value to the 400-million+ Europeans with mobile phones in the 25-EU countries. These callers can realize cost-savings immediately, and stand to make even greater savings after the enforcement of new EU roaming price-capping.

Talkster lets any mobile phone call SIP URIs such as those used by IP-PBX phones that don't have traditional phone numbers and Voice-over-IM services (VoIM) such as MSN, GoogleTalk and Gizmo-Project. Talkster released this functionality by letting callers place free calls from any mobile phone to VoIM services without any software, special networks, convoluted calling methods, or special telephony services.

Secure Advanced Message Service (SAMS) takes traditional SMS and enhances it so that the world's most popular mobile data product will now support m-commerce. SAMS harnesses the immediacy of SMS, in an enriched and encrypted, field-based format which makes data capture from the consumer simple, intuitive and totally secure.

SAMS is based on traditional SMS but powered by a small Java applet. Its 'form based' structure supports encryption using Broca's patented protocol and will work on any phone with Java 1 or 2 and messaging.

SAMS messages support branding using a splash screen that can include a colour logo ??¢â?¬â?? a big improvement over the 11 characters allowed by SMS, and the field-format structure means that customers don??¢â?¬â?¢t need to remember syntax to use services.

More flexible than SIM toolkit, SAMS is particularly appropriate for those wishing to develop and deploy secure commerce applications in the developing world where mobile penetration outstrips PC internet access.