User Generated Mobile Content

VidShadow Acquires Minority Interest in MyNuMo

2007-05-17T08:29:00.000-07:00

VidShadow Acquires Minority Interest in MyNuMo

New Affiliation Gives VidShadow and MyNuMo Members Extended Self-Production and Promotional Opportunities

PLACENTIA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--VidShadow, one of the Internet's fastest growing video-sharing networks, has acquired a minority interest in MyNuMo, an online community that lets its members create, share and sell mobile content.

"This union brings users unique content-sharing opportunities," says Jordan Hudgens, VidShadow founder. "It's the next logical step for both companies.

"Our relationship with MyNuMo allows us to utilize a direct carrier relationship with the mobile community," says 23-year-old Hudgens. "Users type in their cell phone number and hit accept to have video clips downloaded to their phones. This is just one of VidShadow's growing capabilities, enabling growth exponentially. It's very exciting."

"MyNuMo has set up a great technology foundation for people to personalize their technologies to add their own originally produced ringtones, wallpaper, video clips and more for wireless," adds VidShadow CEO Dave Behar.

"VidShadow is a top enabler of video content. It's the perfect combination to provide more opportunities for producers to spread their content across the VidShadow Network, which includes syndication through the 1,500+ Channel ION Network," concludes Behar.

William Volk, CEO of MyNuMo, is equally excited about the arrangement. "The investment by VidShadow demonstrates the success MyNuMo is achieving in user-generated mobile content," says Volk.

About VidShadow - VidShadow is one of the Internet's fastest growing video-sharing networks, enabling thousands of websites and producers the highest revenue sharing opportunity.

About MyNuMo - MyNuMo is an online community that lets its members create, share and sell mobile content, making it possible for anyone to publish and sell content into the $9B Mobile Market. The MyNuMo portal delivers independently created content that's rated and promoted by real people and delivered to any mobile phone.
Contacts

VidShadow
Jordan Hudgens, 949-929-3748
Dave Behar, 310-548-4744
or
MyNuMo
William Volk, 858-692-1124

A great article on the mobile marketplace

2007-05-10T09:35:00.000-07:00

Written by Tomi T Ahonen, on Communities Dominate Brands

The Seven Deadly C's, and One that Really Isn't - Understanding 7 C's of Cellphones

I've been talking at various private workshops for the past half year or so about the expansion of the needs of the mobile phone. This helps understand why there is such wide discrepancy with what the giants such as Motorola is doing in this space, compared to what Nokia is doing, or what SonyEricsson is up to, or say a niche player like RIM with its Blackberry or Apple with its iPhone. It also helps shred some light to where the thinking might be with a given mobile operator as well.

Let me tell you about the seven deadly sins. Or actually the Seven C's of Cellphones (as opposed to sailing the seven seas in this, the Year of the Bond, double-oh seven)....

Worth Reading

Mashable Mobile Content

2007-04-26T11:34:00.000-07:00

What’s Your Wallpaper? a21 Enters Mobile Space

Cell phone users can download SuperStock images as wallpaper, and use MyNuMo’s mash-up tools to add text, color, and layer images, creating customized wallpaper for personal use and additional distribution

JACKSONVILLE, Fhttp://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SuperStock, one of the nation’s leading stock photography providers, and subsidiary company of a21, Inc. ("a21") (OTC BB: ATWO), announced today it has teamed with MyNuMo, one of the leading user-generated mobile content networks, to offer the 203 million U.S. cell phone users a library of professional photography images to create unique, personalized mobile wallpaper.

MyNuMo will incorporate a SuperStock image library into a resource for its Web 2.0 Image Editor, giving community members access to top-of-the-line professional photography for their personal and professional creative use. In addition, SuperStock images will be available for purchase and download as wallpapers on all major U.S. wireless carriers, including Cingular, AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint, and Dobson.

“This tool extends the boundaries of creative expression through mobile phones,” says John Ferguson, CEO of a21. “We are giving cell phone users nationwide a way to create personalized products and build on the library of images that can either be personally enjoyed or distributed to a global audience.”

MyNuMo’s mash-up capabilities take wallpaper downloading to the next level by enabling users to use the images as a medium for articulating creative expressions. Stock images will be available as is, as well as in the tool for mash-ups by the creative members in the U.S.A. The technology gives consumers the tools to upload images and video clips for sale and distribution, and feature personal mobile content on personal blogs, Web sites, and other social networking Web sites.

In addition, mobile phone users can purchase images from MyNuMo’s innovative Web site, which automatically detects their mobile phone model, and allows easy wireless translation of the image from the image library to a phone’s photo gallery. This automatic image trans-coding ensures that every SuperStock image is adapted to optimal image quality on the thousands of handsets MyNuMo supports.

“Incorporating these images into our Image Editor provides a resource to our creative community that will result in some exciting mash-ups,” says William Volk, CEO of MyNuMo. “MyNuMo’s goal is to give creative people access to the multimillion-dollar mobile market. SuperStock’s high quality images are a terrific complement to this mission, and we hope to greatly benefit our artistic members.”

Ferguson concluded, “We are excited to launch this mobile image library for consumers, and look forward to a long relationship with MyNuMo as we explore additional opportunities to work together.”

About MyNuMo

Building on the exponential growth in user-generated content on the Internet, MyNuMo (www.mynumo.com) has launched a powerful online marketplace, where anyone can publish and sell music, images, and videos into the lucrative mobile content marketplace.

MyNumo enables creative people everywhere to tap into the mobile market, and to provide mobile customers with great content. MyNuMo has already attracted impressive media talent from the U.K., Mexico, Korea, Europe, and the United States.

About SuperStock

SuperStock, is the best in stock photography, offering over a million diverse, creative Royalty Free (RF) photos and licenses for Contemporary, Vintage, and Fine Art Rights Managed (RM) images. SuperStock.com now features a powerful new search engine for greater speed and more relevant search results. Quickly search and buy photographs, illustrations, stock video footage animation clips, clip art, at high resolution, for high quality reproduction and all for immediate download. Our Royalty Free brand publishers offer digital images in value packs and bundles packaged on CD-ROM and DVDs available for free delivery in the continental United States.

SuperStock is a subsidiary company of a21, Inc. ("a21") (OTC BB: ATWO) a leading online digital content marketplace.

What have the Mobile Carriers ever done for us?

2007-03-01T16:07:00.000-08:00

Here's a little ditty I composed after reading another "oh, what have the carriers done for us" post, with apologies to Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Reg: They've bled us white, the bastards. They've taken everything we had, and not just from us, from our fathers, and from our fathers' fathers.

Stan: And from our fathers' fathers' fathers.

Reg: Yeah.

Stan: And from our fathers' fathers' fathers' fathers.

Reg: Yeah. All right, Stan. Don't labour the point. And what have they ever given us in return?!

Xerxes: Text Messaging?

Reg: What?

Xerxes: Text Messaging, you know SMS.

Reg: Oh. Yeah, yeah. They did give us that. Uh, that's true. Yeah.

Commando 3: And premium billing.

Stan: Oh, yeah, premium billing, Reg. Remember what digital content sales on the internet used to be like?

Reg: Yeah. All right. I'll grant you the SMS and the Premium Billing are two things that the Mobile Operators have done.

Matthias: And the games!

Reg: Well, yeah. Obviously the games. I mean, the games go without saying, don't they? But apart from the SMS, the premium billing, and the games--

Commando: Ringtones.

Xerxes: Wallpapers.

Commandos: Huh? Heh? Huh...

Commando 2: WAP.

Commandos: Ohh...

Reg: Yeah, yeah. All right. Fair enough.

Commando 1: And the video.

Commandos: Oh, yes. Yeah...

Francis: Yeah. Yeah, that's something we'd really miss, Reg, if the Mobile Operators left. Huh.

Commando: Content Portals.

Stan: And you can sell 15 seconds of music for $2.99, Reg.

Francis: Yeah, they certainly know how to create a content market. Let's face it. They're the only ones who could on the internet!

Commandos: Hehh, heh. Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh.

Reg: But apart from the SMS, the Billing, Games, Wallpapers, WAP, Video, Content Portals, a $billion content market, and billions of subscribers, what have the Mobile Operators ever done for us?

Xerxes: Created the mobile industry?

Reg: Oh, ind-- Shut up!

174 Million Mobile Community Members by 2011!

2007-01-07T13:30:00.000-08:00

Social Communities Go Mobile: ABI Research Forecasts 174 Million Members by 2011

This is big. Of course I'm biased, but this makes sense.

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A new ABI Research Brief has found that “mobile social communities” currently count nearly 50 million members worldwide, a number that is expected to reach 174 million in 2011.

“The rapid rise of online social communities – gathering places such as MySpace and Facebook – has done more than bring the ‘pen pal’ concept into the 21st century,” says vice president of research Clint Wheelock. “It has created a new paradigm for personal networking. In a logical progression, many social communities are now based on the mobile phone and other portable wireless devices instead of (or as well as) the PC. Such mobile social communities extend the reach of electronic social interaction to millions of people who don’t have regular or easy access to computers.”

The brisk pace of mobile social community growth means opportunities for new entrants hoping to join the established players such as SMS.ac, AirG, and Jumbuck that provide the technology and marketing behind leading mobile communities.

Opportunities to monetize mobile social communities fall into several main categories. Mobile operators profit from the data usage that underpins all mobile community activities they carry, and in some cases from monthly subscription fees as well. Companies can sponsor special interest communities that relate directly to their brands or services. For instance, MTV Asia sponsors a music forum for Asian users, where members talk about music. (In fact mobile social community sites will see their greatest growth, on both a percentage basis and absolute number of members, in the Asia-Pacific region.) The self-profiling nature of these communities means that advertising can be targeted to specific niches with great accuracy. Many mobile communities also offer downloadable merchandise for sale – ringtones or images, for example.

Of course the beauty of MyNuMo is that the community is centered on creating, commenting on, and selling mobile content, and that is a BEAUTIFUL thing.

The problem with "Credit Card Based" Ringtone Stores

2006-12-23T12:27:00.000-08:00

The Facts

1. MyNuMo pays almost 50% of the net sale to the artist.
2. Industry statistics show that you can sell 5x as much content by using carrier billing instead of a credit card.
3. There are no monthly fees to pay.

The result?

You can make more than twice as much money with MyNuMo compared to a “credit card based” ringtone store.

Time Magazine Gets It Right!

2006-12-17T10:41:00.000-08:00

Time Magazine Person of Year

Isn't this great!

Time Magazine named "You" (as in user-generated content) the person of the year 2006 ... as the biggest phenomenon for the year!

"... look at 2006 through a different lens and you'll see another story, one that isn't about conflict or great men. It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before."

It's nice to hit a tread spot on!

MyNuMo.com Brings Mobile Publishing to MySpace Members

2006-07-07T07:46:00.000-07:00

Los Angeles, CA – July 7, 2006, MyNuMo LLC has released the NUMOMATIC, enabling MySpace members and bloggers everywhere to sell mobile content directly from their own MySpace and Blog pages.

"MyNuMo’s goal is to empower mySpace members and bloggers everywhere to tap into the multi-billion dollar mobile market" said William Volk, CEO of myNuMo. “With NUMOMATIC creative artists can sell their content to Mobile users from their own web pags.”

“Personally I think there’s a lot of good stuff happening with MyNuMo and I like the fact that someone has finally figured out a way to enable creative people to share their creations and monetize them without having to get a degree in carrier relations to do so.” added Oliver Starr of MobileCrunch, “This tool, NUMOMATIC, allows you to create snippets of HTML that allow you to post them on other sites (like your MySpace page) to promote the content you’ve created.”

“We enable anyone to become a mobile publisher,” states Sherri Cuono, President of MyNuMo, “after a review, your ringtones, wallpapers, and videos will be available for sale to Cngular/AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and soon Verizon customers in the USA.”

“It’s all about empowering the artist,” states Keith Arem, MyNuMo co-president and 15-year veteran for the music industry. “We encourage creative people to come up with the next great mobile content category.”

About MyNuMo

Building on the exponential growth in user generated content on the Internet, MyNuMo (www.mynumo.com) has launched a powerful online marketplace, where anyone can publish and sell music, images, and videos into the lucrative mobile content marketplace.

MyNuMo has already attracted impressive media talent from the UK, Mexico, Korea, Europe, and the United States. “Our goal is simple,” concluded William Volk. “…to enable creative people everywhere to tap into the mobile market, and to provide mobile customers with great content”

Keywords: MySpace, Blog, Blogger, Web 2.0, mobile, user generated content, myNuMo

More Details about MyNuMo at www.myNuMo.com
bvolk@myNuMo.com +1 858 692 1124

MyNuMo.com Brings YENTATONES(TM) to Mobile

2006-07-01T12:02:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES, CA - June 30, 2006 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- MyNuMo LLC in partnership with renowned voice talent actress Martha Kahn, announced today that it will be offering comic ringtones based on the rich tradition of Jewish and Yiddish humor and comedians at www.yentatones.com.

"MyNuMo's goal is to empower creative artists who have been overlooked by mainstream publishers," said William Volk, CEO of myNuMo. "Martha's hilarious YENTATONES are some of the funniest ringtones in the market."

"MyNuMo made it easy for me to publish my content into the mobile marketplace" added Martha Kahn, "it handled all the details of conversion, delivery and billing allowing me to focus on the humor and performance."

"We enable anyone to become a mobile publisher," states Sherri Cuono, President of MyNuMo, "after a review, your ringtones, wallpapers, and videos will be available for sale to Cngular/AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and soon Verizon customers in the USA."

"It's all about empowering the artist," states Keith Arem, MyNuMo co-president and 15-year veteran for the interactive industry. "We encourage creative people to come up with the next great mobile content category."

About Martha Kahn

Martha is a San Diego, CA based trained voice actor who has studied with award winning LA based teachers Pat Fraley and Teri Douglas and at the Commercial Clinic in San Diego. Her theatre credits include working with Jose Ferrer at the esteemed Coconut Grove Playhouse in Coconut Grove, Florida and other performances as a singer/actress.

About MyNuMo

Building on the exponential growth in user generated content on the Internet, MyNuMo (www.mynumo.com) has launched a powerful online marketplace, where anyone can publish and sell music, images, and videos into the lucrative mobile content marketplace.

MyNuMo has already attracted impressive media talent from the UK, Mexico, Korea and the United States. "Our goal is simple," concluded William Volk. "...to enable creative people everywhere to tap into the mobile market, and to provide mobile customers with great content."

More Details about MyNuMo at www.myNuMo.com or contact William Volk at info@mynumo.com

All trademarks acknowledged.

News Source: MyNuMo LLC

Important Statistics for Mobile User Generated Content

2006-06-15T18:03:00.000-07:00

From Ratio of content creation vs content viewing by Tomi Ahonen.

I think we are starting to see a pattern on the ratio of how much content is generated vs content is viewed. We've discussed SeeMeTV stats earlier here, where the ratio is about 100 times more viewing than creating videoclip content.

We also saw the example from Finland with Pop Idols/Common Man's Idols, where 1,700 people generated content (singing songs), but 150,000 people came to consume (almost 100 times more listeneners than content creators).Now Orange CEO Sanjay Ahuja has spoken in Chicago at the Globalcomm event, where he reported that on Orange's blog service they have 1.2 million postings (by 65,000 bloggers) which have been viewed 140 million times. Again that 100x greater number.So I think we can use a tentative rule of thumb, that on mobile networks, for appealing user-generated content, the viewing will be typically 100 times more than the original content generated.

I think this is well in line with the early expert predictions, and also suggests that a business model where content generation is free but content viewing/consumption is charged, should be very easily sustainable.

I believe that this is the model that makes sense.

MyNuMo.com Brings Inspirational Wallpapers to Mobile

2006-05-21T21:11:00.000-07:00

Los Angeles, CA - May 22, 2006 MyNumo LLC in partnership with renowned South African designer and writer Sanet Strydom, announced today that it will be offering mobile wallpapers with messages of Faith, Inspiration, and Christian themes to mobile consumers throughout the United States (www.mynumo.com/sanets).

"MNuMo's goal is to empower creative artists to reach audiences who have been ignored by mainstream publishers" said William Volk, CEO of myNuMo. "Sanet's incredible mobile wallpapers offer messages of faith and inspiration to Christians and people of all faiths."

"MyNuMo made it easy for me to publish my content into the mobile marketplace" added Sanet Strydom, "it handled all the details of conversion, delivery and billing allowing me to focus on the artwork and message."

"We enable anyone to become a mobile publisher," states Sherri Cuono, President of myNuMo, "after a review, your ringtones, wallpapers, and videos will be available for sale to Cngular/AT&T, T-Mobile, and soon Sprint customers in the USA."

"It's all about empowering the artist," states Keith Arem, MyNuMo co-president and 15-year veteran for the interactive industry. "We encourage creative people to come up with the next great mobile content category."

About Sanet Strydom

Sanet is a native of Pretoria, South Africa, has extensive experience in journalism, art, marketing and multimedia production.

About myNuMo

Building on the exponential growth in user generated content on the Internet, MyNuMo (www.mynumo.com) has launched a powerful online marketplace, where anyone can publish and sell music, images, and videos into the lucrative mobile content marketplace.

MyNuMo has already attracted impressive media talent from the UK, Mexico, Korea and the United States. "Our goal is simple," concluded William Volk. "…to enable creative people everywhere to tap into the mobile market, and to provide mobile customers with great content"

Excellent article on myNuMo.com

2006-05-18T17:09:00.000-07:00

See:

MyNuMo Democratizes Mobile Content Creation, Distribution and Sales

MyNuMo.com announces “Funniest Ringtone” Contest.

2006-05-16T18:53:00.000-07:00

Los Angeles, CA – May 17, 2006 MyNumo LLC announced today that it will be running a “Funniest Ringtone” contest. The contest will show how myNuMo opens up mobile publishing to anyone who wants to create ringtones and other mobile content.

"We're delighted to invite comics to create hilarious ringtones" said William Volk, CEO of myNuMo. "This contest will show how easy it is to create, show, and sell content into the $5B mobile marketplace.”

The contest is open to anyone who creates a comic ringtone on myNuMo. Contestants can upload their audio file or call into an 800 number to record their funny ringtone. After screening the ringtones for copyrighted, obscene, and other unqualified material, myNuMo will make them available for purchase by Cingular, AT&T, and T-Mobile users. The best selling comic ringtone from May 15th to May 31st wins.

“The winner will receive $100,” states Sherri Cuono, President of myNuMo, “but everyone wins because artitsts get paid for every one of their ringtones sold.” The contest is open to new and existing artists on www.myNuMo.com . The prize winner will be announced on June 5th

“Independent artists can now receive the recognition and rewards they deserve,” states Keith Arem, MyNuMo co-president and 15-year veteran for the interactive industry. “We encourage comics to come up with the next ringtone hit.”

myNuMo, Opening Mobile to "The Long Tail of Content"

2006-05-02T22:07:00.000-07:00

First off, what do we mean by "The Long Tail" ...

In most situations, 80% of the revenue comes from 20% of the
products/services (depicted in red below). Thus, the remaining 80% of
the products have low demand and low sales. These constitute the
‘long tail’ (such as yoga enthusiasts). The principle of harnessing the
‘long tail’ argues that collectively, these low volume/low sales products
can make up market share that equals or exceeds the few bestsellers
– provided the distribution channel is large enough and the per unit
production cost is low.

In the case of mobile content; ringtones, wallpapers, mobile
video, text message services ... publishing content is difficult:

1. Technical issues such as format conversion and reliable content
delivery.
2. Business issues involving P-SMS agreements and expenses.

This is why you'll see mainly Hip-Hop/RAP ringtones advertised.
The cost of production is too high to support untapped markets.

For example, Julie is really into Yoga. She likes to listen to
chants and would love nothing more than to have a ringtone with this
sort of music. Now maybe someone who records this sort of music
would be interested in selling ringtones. The problem is that Jamba or
other ringtone publisher simply isn’t going to create a “YogaTones”
category. What’s more, even if a label had the resources to launch a
mobile store, or took advantage of some existing store, there’s just
no way they can efficiently get into the market. Sure, you could figure out
the formats and delivery via a user-typed in WAP page, and maybe bill
to a credit card ... But the FRICTION on both sides of the process
(publishing and purchasing) are just too high to make it worthwhile for
a label that owns Yoga Chant Recordings to get into the ringtone
business and provide customers with a "best pratices" content delivery
(credit card billing and typing in wap pages just won't cut it).

On an even smaller scale a school might want to raise money by
selling wallpapers of the school’s mascot and/or ringtones of the
school song. That may produce a few 100 sales of the item in question
(the average SeeMeTV video was sold to 25-30 people a month). It’s
just not worth the hassle for the ringtone publishing company (I
should know) to sell stuff like this. The friction of the publishing
process is just too high for the children at the school to deal with.

In comes myNuMo. Think of it as a eBay for digital content. For
creators, myNuMo deals with all the technical issues. Conversion to
handset formats is automatic. Even if you have no recording
experience, you can create a funny ringtone just by calling a phone
number. What’s more, unlike some of the ‘stores’ myNuMo has billing
agreements with the US carriers that support wap-push of content.
There’s no need to type in URL’s or use a credit card. We even are
going to have SMS keywords for every account. So if a band called
‘ROCK99” wanted to have their fans get ringtones at a concert, they
could just tell them to TEXT ROCK99 to 74415. myNuMo will be
supporting text message content as well as mobile blogs.

Think of it this way ... myNuMo is like YouTube + Flickr +
Jamster + eBay + mySpace all rolled up into one. It opens up the
mobile content market to anyone who has any sort of audience.
myNuMo even supports ‘private’ content so a parent could limit sales
pictures and ringtones of their children to their friends and family.

It's simple. Every day millions of people create pictures, music
and videos. Now they can get paid for it.