REACHING BEYOND MARKET SHARE

Delynn Ho, Regional Director, Southeast Asia

BuzzCity champions an open mobile internet. Over the past couple years, we've written several times about how mobile carriers should not build barriers that restrict users to the carrier's portal or make it difficult or prohibitively expensive to surf other sites. User preferences are clear. In countries where carrier “wall gardens” have been lifted, mobile surfers access a wide range of content, both on- and off-portal.

So what's a telecom carrier to do, particularly if it wants to be a content provider as well as a communications pipe?

Commentary: WSJ and Niche Content

Rupert Murdoch has announced plans to start charging mobile readers of the Wall Street Journal. Before the end of the year, people who access the WSJ on Blackberries and iPhones will pay US$2 per week. Mobile access to the journal would cost a dollar a week for subscribers to the newspaper.

At BuzzCity, we applaud moves by print media to mobilise their content. New applications meanwhile make it easier to package content for mobile devices and improvements in the handsets themselves - such as larger, clearer screens - make it much easier to read.

So what's still missing here ?

THE FORTUNE TELLER SAYS . . .

By Delynn Ho, Regional Director, Southeast Asia

Nichaphat Rojratanasap , a mother of three in her 50s, used to run a restaurant . . . before she found her calling in the fortune-telling business. While she's not famous, Khun Nichaphat is quite popular in her local community and with her clientele – all of whom consult her over the phone.

TOP TEN BRANDS ON MOBILE

Results from our latest survey are out and the top 10 brands among mobile internet users are:

1. KFC
2. McDonald's
3. Sony
4. Nestlé
5. Samsung
6. Nokia
7. LG
8. Coca-Cola
9. Panasonic
10. Philips