According to an article in today’s Wall Street Journal, it looks like the government is going to get an overhaul of their communication systems.

In the past, many federal offices handed out smart phones, like the BlackBerry or devices running Windows Mobile software, only to their top executives. Rank -and-file employees either were tethered to office based computers running on private networks or, if they were in the military or other critical field operations, used expensive, specialized wireless devices.

This year the U.S. government will spend $70 billion on IT. This will include wireless devices, service contracts, and applications. The purpose of this overhaul is to make government workers more effective and efficient  by giving them access to important information irregardless of their location.

It looks like the main beneficiaries of this upgrade however are Research In Motion (BlackBerry manufacturer) and AT&T. Applications are being made for the BlackBerry phones to service the needs of government officials.

Officers can use online programs to direct them to a parolee’s house or set a calendar application to remind them to administer a drug test. They can also tap a secure Federal Bureau of Investigation database for mug shots and other information on people with criminal records.

Furthermore, AT&T gets a big boost from this because they will become the provider for the government.

In the past year alone, AT&T has announced contracts for $292 million to build a data network for the Department of Homeland Security, for $120 million to provide data networking services for the 1,300 offices of the Department of Veterans Affairs, for $80 million to supply a backup data network for the Social Security Administration, and $50 million to supply BlackBerrys and wireless data cards for field workers at FEMA.

While we don’t know the totals of all the contractual spending, it can easily be assumed that it is a multi-billion dollar account.

Man, wouldn’t you love to be the sales person who landed that account?!

This was too good to pass up. Normally I make posts relating to just mobile itself, however it is always great to see when entrepreneurs and start-ups hit it big.

Today, Zappos.com and Amazon.com reached an agreement to make Amazon the sole owner of Zappos. Earlier today, Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos released this letter to his employees via the zappos blog.

What is cool about this buyout is the video that Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon, made that addresses the buyout. It details his mentality on business and his vast knowledge of it as well. Check it out and see how he addresses Zappos employees.

Jeff Bezos talks about Zappos and Amazon

There are two kinds of mobile lists that you can use for your mobile campaigns. I will detail the differences below.

Homegrown: Contest participants are asked to opt-in for future promotions and information, and segmentation is conducted through recorded behavior.

Farmed-Out: Carriers can provide lists of consumers who have provided information about themselves and the types of promotions they are amenable to receiving; once the consumer responds to a promotion sent out to that list, the marketer can begin building aggregated profiles.

It is important to remember that if you are using a homegrown list, let the subscribers know EXACTLY what you will be using their numbers for. Also, allow them the opportunity to easily opt out if they so choose.

Furthermore, if you are using a farmed-out list, make sure you get a copy of what their subscribers saw when the originally signed on to the list. The vendor’s terms and conditions can ultimately come back to bite you.

With the application boom going on with mobile phones and the fact that one in five adults currently have a smart phone (numbers have increased as you are reading this), it seems like there is little that smart phones can do.

Right now with my T-mobile G1 google phone, I can listen update my facebook and twitter and blog. I can check my two personal emails and my business email. I can advance schedule my text messages so that all my friends will get a happy birthday text on their birthday at 12am. I would be the first one EVERYTIME! Never mind that the message was not heartfelt or meaningful….I look good! I kid.

Furthermore, (and this is old news) I can get driving directions with my phone. Bad news for GPS companies…

The NY Times reports that more than 40 percent of all smartphone owners and 80 percent of iPhone users use their mobile devices to get turn-by-turn directions driving down sales of traditional standalone GPS units from companies like TomTom, Garmin and Magellan. During the first quarter, TomTom said it shipped 29 percent fewer GPS units compared with the period in 2008 while Garmin’s unit sales fell 13 percent from the previous year.

More from mobile.slashdot.com.

Marketing and advertising for a new business can seem a daunting task. For a new company, testing and forecasting needs to be done to identify a target market and exactly how to reach them. Once this has been established, the correct marketing mix needs to be created to get your message out to the target market, not just once, but multiple times in order for your message to stick. What is daunting is the fact that most new businesses, especially business to consumer businesses, are unprepared to properly project their marketing needs and ultimately their marketing budget. TV, radio and print are often costly marketing channels that soak up the budget. Furthermore, guerilla marketing tactics, while fun and innovative, often are very ineffective.

Jingleblast.com is a fusion of the two marketing strategies. Jingleblast.com, a service of Jinglefeed, has been developed as a way for any business to enhance their traditional advertising efforts and also as an effective guerilla marketing tactic. Jinglefeed is a mobile marketing and development company that focuses on customer engagement and brand building through mobile phones. With over 270 million mobile phone users in the US alone, Jinglefeed’s focus is to give companies an interactive channel to their customers so they can interact and ultimately strengthen their relationship.

Mobile marketing has been on the map for a number of years now, but was normally used by large companies to create brand awareness and to have customer engagement. The most popular example of mobile marketing was the use of mobile voting. TV viewers would vote for their favorite singer on American Idol or who they thought should be the MVP for a particular basketball game. Disney World uses mobile in their hotels to update guests if their room is ready before the official check-in time so that they can use their room sooner and radio stations use text to update their listeners on what song is currently playing and what songs will be next.

But now Jingleblast.com plans to change the game. What was previously only affordable to large companies is now available to the plethora of small business in the US like the restaurant and deli mom and pops. Jingleblast.com allows businesses to start their own mobile marketing campaigns. “We wanted to create a product that has the reach of the traditional marketing mediums like TV, Radio, and Print, the cost of any guerilla marketing technique and the analytic possibilities of the internet,” says Raphael Doromal, VP of Business Development. “Mobile works hand in hand with traditional marketing mediums to make them stronger. With Jingleblast.com, a business can add text message components to your in-store advertising so that people can subscribe to get promotions and coupons from your business sent to their phone.”

Jingleblast.com offers free access to creating your own mobile marketing campaign. Currently being offered is mobile surveys, promotional lists, blasts, polls and contests. Businesses wanting to get connected with their mobile customers would just need to pay $0.05 for whenever a message is sent out. Not bad considering that messages are only sent out when customers want them, making them more likely to increase business or to make customers them return customers since text is looked upon as a service instead of spam.

How effective is it? Well, the numbers are pretty staggering. Text coupon campaigns boast an average of 29% redemption. Also, they boast a purchase intent that is nine times higher than that of the Internet, according to a study by InsightExpress.

There is a definite value to do-it-yourself mobile marketing. Since it can be done by the business owner or employee directly, expensive consulting and production costs are avoided. Additionally, the user-oriented site allows people to learn about mobile marketing and create campaigns in less than five minutes.

Mobile Phones are one step closer to being the only thing you will ever need. Yesterday, DOCOMO, Japan’s largest cell phone provider announced their plans to release a cell phone remittance service. DOCOMO cell phone users will be able to send money to another DOCOMO user using just their cell phone. The a payer can send up to  is $208 per transaction and payee can receive up to $2080 per month. When a user sends money, they put in the phone number they want to send it to. That money can either be deposited in a bank account or to the recipient’s cell account to pay for their bill.

The service was envisioned by DOCOMO to be used by people to pay friends and family. For instance if you are at dinner with friends and no one has any cash on them, one person can just take the bill and everyone else just transfers what they owe, using their phone.

However there is some fees for the service. It costs the payer about a dollar to send it and the payee about sixty cents. This is per transaction of course. Maybe they should look into a percentage charge up to a certain limit. If I owed a friend five dollars then I would definitely not send it through DOCOMO remittance but if it was $200, I would have no problem.

Nonetheless, it is cool stuff

Check out more.

It’s so important to consult with experts when it comes to mobile marketing. While it is true that the average response rate to a campaign sits at around 30%, and that campaigns such as the Little Caesar’s free cheesy bread campaign can a return more than a 60% response rate, the fact still remains that mobile implementation is not sure thing if all of the factors are not considered.

Take, as an example, what a Jiffy Lube in Iowa did with mobile. The local automotive store elected to run a mobile text to subscribe campaign through local radio station. At the end of each radio ad, listeners were asked to text “Jiffy” to a short code in order to receive coupons for free oil changes and/or car accessories. The ad ran for two quarters and here were the results were as follows: 4500 people responded (about 175 per week) and 30 redeemed coupons.

When looking at the numbers, it looked like it was an unsuccessful campaign. With only redemptions over a 26 month period, the actual redemption rate was 0.7%. However, a good thing was that out of the 30 that did redeem the coupon, 50% ended up being new business. This is significantly better results than the normal 20% for other campaign methods.

When asked about the results of the campaign, Andrew Storjohann, general manager of the Jiffy Lube of Ames, pointed out that the low response rate could be due to the type of business they were in. “The people either didn’t value our coupons or forgot about them,” he said. “It told me either our coupons weren’t very good or…maybe it’s the fact that you only get your oil changed every two months or so.”

The coupons expired in 30 days. So, if a winner of a free oil change recently had the job done they wouldn’t be interested, Storjohann suggested. However, that theory doesn’t explain the no-shows by those who won coupons for discounts on other services and products.

Storjohann said he changed his mobile coupon plan this spring, hoping for better results. “I signed up for a sponsorship of the radio station,” he said. “They have texts that come in requesting certain programming. Whenever one of their customers texted anything to Clear Channel, they would automatically get back one of these coupons.”

The results were even more disappointing, he said. “We have a lot more coupons going out with even less of a redemption rate. At this point, I’m not signing back up. I think it’s a very convenient way to advertise and I would consider doing one like the first one again, but I want to figure out how to get more redemption out of it.”

…When considering to run your own campaigns make sure you take into consideration the reason why mobile is popular. It is quick and easy to use, it is personal, and it always with you. Redemption rates for coupons go down if these coupons are sent when people don’t want to redeem them. In the Jiffy Lube example, the campaign would have been much more effective if Jiffy Lube sent out the coupons to people who had received an oil change more than two months ago. This would have increased the likelihood of people saying to themselves, “Oh, I have been meaning to get that darn oil changed!” For restaurants, you want to send your coupons a little before lunch and dinner time, not at 5am in the morning.

Time sensitive mobile campaigns and location based campaigns are key to a mobile campaign’s success.

I’m speaking at the Ignite Orlando 2 event this Wednesday, June 24. My topic titled “How’s your TXT life?” is about how texting is no longer just about misspelled words and booty calls. Find out how TEXT messaging increases sales, boosts your business and saves the world. I’ll be touching on case studies of how this is helping businesses increase sales and customer retention…oh, and how in its own small way does it’s part in “saving” the world.

Pretty excited since this is my first public speaking event. Hope to see you there!

Ignite Orlando 2

A list of all the speakers for the event

Welcome to JingleFeed.com!

JingleFeed.com (http://www.jinglefeed.com/) is a full-service mobile marketing solutions development company.

We provide dynamic mobile phone promotional, marketing and development solutions for those who are interested in gaining the mindshare of a consumer who is constantly on the move.

From leveraging our technologies to increase your bottom line to developing your own marketing lists and constantly communicating with your consumers, we do it all and we make it easy!

JingleFeed requires no installation of software, our prices are amazingly affordable, and we strive to keep things simple!

Enjoy!

Carlo