CNN asks a very pertinent question: Would you watch ads to get free voice minutes on your mobile? Actually, ad-supported mobile services are targeted at students so it’s not really a pertinent question for (what I suspect is) the average CNN Money reader. Anyway, as a pleasant surprise the article doesn’t mention Xero but rather talks about Virgin Mobile USA, which from wednesday will offer its users the chance to earn up to 75 minutes of airtime a month by watching up to 75 minutes of advertising on Virgin’s website or reading SMS messages…and answer follow-up questions to make sure they were paying attention. There’s an analyst quote, Lewis Ward with IDC reckons “it’s only a matter of time before mobile phones go the way television and the Internet have gone – seeking advertising revenues to subsidize cell-phone calling or wireless content…”This is very likely to happen if you look at the history of other media,” says Ward, a specialist in wireless communications.” What goes with voice will likely go for content too…although the model doesn’t seem to have been overly successful so far, so it probably needs some tweaking.
As an example of the advertisers signing up for Virgin’s “SugarMama” service, Xbox, Pepsi-Cola and Truth, an anti-smoking campaign targeted at youth are the first.
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