Mobile Marketing Forums

The report also makes clear that WAP has a long, long way to go to replicate many of the most basic tasks that Web suffers take for granted. For instance, using a browser’s “back” button is second nature for most people, and is a critical Web browsing function, since it’s easy to go down the wrong path in search of information. Ramsey and Nielsen found that the “back” command on WAP phones was a disaster. Often, previous page information was not cached, as it is on a PC, so users had to take the time to re-connect to a WAP server to retrace their steps (and connecting, as noted, was unreliable). In other cases, because of memory limitations, users could only go back a few pages before their page history was lost, forcing them to start over. Users also had major trouble searching; many even had trouble locating a search engine at all, though six WAP-enabled search engines were on the Web when the report was written. Search results were difficult to navigate, and often even the most common of terms came back with virtually zero hits. (One user searched for “cat” and got one hit.) But again, more sites and better search engines are likely to be available as WAP catches on. The real problem was the time it took for searches to be completed: many minutes, sometimes with dropped connections. Weather forecasts presented a similar problem. Even after a week of using the WAP phones, only 30 percent of users were able to get reports of the evening weather in their areas. Travel information, theoretically a potential goldmine for both WAP users and service providers, brought yet another failure. The majority of users (65 percent) were unable to find any travel information at all. Five out of twenty users found some travel-related information, but it took’ three to five minutes on average to find it.

If you are getting some messages that you didn’t ask for, I suggest that you should text the word “stop” to the premium short code number which starts with the numerals ‘19’ . You will generally be unsubscribed within 10 minutes, or call the premium service help desk. If after 24 hours of activating “stop” you are still receiving premium services, please call the customer care for assistance.

Premium SMS allows users to go beyond person to person text messaging to send and receive essential information. Premium SMS messages could be ‘blast’ messages sent by providers as alerts, ‘be heard’ messages allowing communication through polls and interactive chats, and ‘at your request’ messages that are responses to brief user messages. SMS alerts or updates are also could help busy socialite or active metro sexual deciding whether to head uptown or downtown on a Friday night. They can text-in requests to receive brief restaurant and movie reviews on the fly or even opt-in to receive discounts from boutiques and stores, which would also help advertisers determine the mobile user’s tastes and preferences.

In an effort to limit the potential harm from having a transmitter close to the user’s body, the first fixed/mobile cellular phones that had a separate transmitter, vehicle-mounted antenna, and handset (known as car phones and bag phones) were limited to a maximum 3 watts Effective Radiated Power. Modern handheld cellphones which must have the transmission antenna held inches from the user’s skull are limited to a maximum transmission power of 0.6 watts ERP. Regardless of the potential biological effects, the reduced transmission range of modern handheld phones limits their usefulness in rural locations as compared to car/bag phones, and handhelds require that cell towers be spaced much closer together to compensate for their lack of transmission power.

Some handhelds include an optional auxiliary antenna port on the back of the phone, which allows it to be connected to a large external antenna and a 3 watt cellular booster. Alternately in fringe-reception areas, a cellular repeater may be used, which uses a long distance high-gain dish antenna or yagi antenna to communicate with a cell tower far outside of normal range, and a repeater to rebroadcast on a small short-range local antenna that allows any cellphone within a few meters to function properly.