Building on our existing mobile portal the MSN Mobile team has been working hard to introduce our first mobile video service.  Designed for 3G phones and 3G networks this service delivers consumer video via our MSN Video service to mobile phones.  Available today in the US only this initial release is now in trial and available for use by millions of our users.

Video content will be phased over time, with more added in the coming weeks.  Initially today or pretty soon you should be able to see content from MSNBC News, FOX Sports, Dilbert, New Yorker, Dish Diva celebrity interviews, Dateline NBC, Today, Hardball, MSN Money, Stupid Videos,  NBC Sports, MSN Autos and a wide range of movie trailers amongst others. During the launch of our trial there are over 2,000 videos available for previewing and more will be added on a weekly basis.  I have attached a few screen shots from both the iPhone and a Windows Mobile phone. 

The service is designed for 3G networks so when customers connect to MSN Mobile we detect the phone capabilities and if it has the ability to play our videos customers will be able to view the video tab.  We support streaming and downloading, again assuming that the phone has one or both of these capabilities.  Today we support a large number of handsets and we will add more as we scale out the service through release. 

If you have a 3G phone you should start to see the service by visiting here http://mobile.msn.com/en-us/default.aspx 

MSN Mobile is leading the way for mobile video that is integrated within our mobile portal.  Today we are previewing videos that have been syndicated across a range of premium content providers in a variety of categories (news, sports, comedy, autos, money, entertainment and some just plain crazy stuff) This is all available directly from the phone with no client download.

Initially you won't see advertising pre-rolls in the video's but as we scale and grow the service ads will be incorporated into the service at a later stage.  As mentioned this is US only, but expect other markets to come online over time.   More screen shots below

We are continuing our work with Nokia and I'm pleased to announce that today we are making available the Windows Live services to an additional seven different countries for Nokia phone customers.   The Windows Live for Nokia service provides Hotmail, Messenger, Live Contacts and Spaces access to our customers that use the popular S60 mobile phone range.   The application is downloaded and installed on the device and once you sign in with your Live ID you have full access to your email, messenger, contacts, etc.  For further details of the functionality you can see the original blog post here.       

The service was first announced last August and was initially available in 11 different markets and on 5 different mobile S60 handsets.  Last year we added an additional 15 new markets while adding a few new handsets.   Now today we are adding an additional 7 different markets for a total of 33.  On the device side we now support 16 different S60 handset models.   As before, the service initially will be a free trial and at some stage we will turn on billing, dates pending.     

The new markets being announced today are Hungary, Iceland, India, Israel, Poland, Romania and the USA.   This add to the existing list of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Indonesia, Ireland, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Thailand, UAE, UK and Vietnam

In terms of handsets the following S60 handsets are compatible with Windows Live for Nokia today - the Nokia N73, N80 Internet Edition, N95, N95 8GB, N76, N81, N82, N93i, E90, E65, E61i, E51, 6120*, 5700*, 6110*

* Note that users with these handsets must first download a software pack at www.nokia.com/windowslive

The exact time that the bits will be available varies on countries and handset, but I'm told all of the new 7 countries should be available later today.  They can be found in the 'download' folder on the phone.  I've included some of the screen shots below. 

 

Technorati tags: Nokia, Windows Live, Microsoft, Mobile Web Services

Live with Phil: go Live with Nokia

Today at the advance08 trade conference mobile advertising got featured a number of times.  As well as some future demo's that were shown we also released display advertising on our Windows Live for Mobile service.  Now advertisers in France, Spain, the U.K. and the U.S. can extend their advertising campaigns by creating banner ads that will be visible across Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Hotmail.  Over the coming month we will also add Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.  This extends what we have already in market with MSN Mobile advertising that was first announced in December of last year and we now provide mobile display advertising in Belgium, France, Japan, Spain, the U.K. and the U.S.  All of these ads adhere to the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) guidelines, a quick screen grab from one of the first advertisers on the service, FedEx.  Other advertisers announced today are Adidas, Coca-Cola and Paramount.

Also, advertising related we now have a invite only program for advertisers to create keyword campaigns through adCenter that allow advertisers to target customers while they are mobile using their phone using our Live Search Mobile service.  Although this is clearly early days this is the first time that we can start to monetize the Live Search service that works on pretty much any phone.  This beta is only available in the US but we will expand it later this year. 

It's also worth mentioned that we also announced that we have more than doubled the number of countries that the core Windows Live for mobile service is available to 49 different markets which was increased from 22.   This provides mobile access to our 430 million customers that use the core Windows Live services like Hotmail and Messenger from almost all handsets that have a data plan.  It's worth pointing out that customers can now create their Windows Live id directly from their mobile first, something we think about as 'mobile first', a link here. 

Update: Made some slight grammar edits and now included the full list of the 49 different markets here

• Already localized markets:  Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, United Kingdom, United States
• New localized markets: Argentina, Austria, Bulgaria, Chile, Croatia, Finland, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Indonesia (EN only), Ireland, LatAm (rest of region), Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Switzerland, Thailand (EN only), Turkey, Ukraine

Earlier this morning we announced with RIM a new deal to provide Hotmail and Messenger to our mutual customers.  Although we typically like to announce stuff like this closer to the availability this time we choose to align this with RIM's Wireless Enterprise Symposium in Orlando. 

Available later this summer this will enable customers to get a very functional mobile Hotmail experience including push Hotmail, read HTML emails,  ability to reply to email via voice recording a response (great on the move) and you can choose if you receive the email in an inbox that is separate or merge them with your other email.   On the mobile Messenger side you will have group IMs, access to your Live Contacts, Display Pics, emoticons and the ability to record voice recordings for your IM and send photo's from the camera.   This builds on our work to deploy Live Services to smartphones starting with Windows Mobile, followed by Nokia and now Blackberry. 

Once launched these services will be available via download for existing customers and then pre-loaded on new Blackberry's that get shipped.  The device range that will be supported are the 7xxx and 8xxx including the Pearl and Curve.  The deal is global in nature but country roll-out may vary as we work with RIM and the operators to make these services available.  Probably the best part to customers is that the services will be free and will come as part of the Blackberry package that customers already subscribe to.

I was hoping to get access to some early screenshots but no luck I'm afraid.   

A few updates happening this week in mobile search timed with the CTIA trade show happening in Vegas this week. 

One of the key scenario's for our mobile services is voice search as that is an obvious input method especially when you are on the move.  We have been investing in this for a while now and this started to see the light of day with our voice search announcement with Sprint last September where we launched the excellent voice search service from Tellme.  This service not only provides customers with voice input so you can say what you are looking for, it also includes a location service via Sprint's network so it can easily detect the closest location to you. 

One of the next milestones was a new release of Live Search for Windows Mobile that was first launched in early 2007. This nice service provides local business search, maps, driving directions, movie show times optimized for Windows Mobile and it was obvious that voice search would be a perfect addition so back in October we added voice search as well as launching our own Live Search 411 service.   

Then to build on this we are getting ready to release an update to our Live Search for Blackberry that will also add voice input to the popular service.  We haven't set the exact date for this yet, but sometime later this spring.  All in all we are starting to make some nice progress in delivering voice search on a range of handset platforms for our customers. 

Next, related to our the spring release we are getting ready to launch a new update to Live Search for Windows Mobile.  Some of this should be demo'ed in tomorrows keynote session and some of the key improvements include

• Map your contacts.  For any people that are in your contact list (with their address obviously)  you will have the ability to map their location and then get easy directions to them.
• Live Collection support. If you have created your own custom maps of locations and events on the PC you can now access them on your mobile phone.
• Weather.  Its a mobile phone and where better to have access to the latest weather information including a 4 day forecast

• Added Web Search.  This client service has been designed for the local scenario but obviously there are times when you need to find information from the broader web so that's now included.

Again, no exact date for this release, but soonish in the Spring. 

Last year we signed an agreement with AT&T to add our MSN Mobile service to AT&T's MEdia Net mobile deck that is the main 'home page' for AT&T's data enabled handsets.  We decided not to announce the deal when it was signed but wait until customers could use it and after a number of months the integration is now done and it's being rolled out gradually today. 

MSN Mobile first launched back in June of last year and offers the best of MSN's content and Windows Live Services in a media rich portal that looks very much like the PC experience, yet its built and optimized for the mobile phone.  The nice thing about the service is that it works with pretty much any mobile phone that has a data plan.  We render the experience based on screen size and optimize the images and ads for the specific device that visits the site.  Not only does this make a great user experience, but it makes it quick as everything loads quickly.     

This is our first agreement with an operator in the US and with AT&T being the number one here this is a major step to make MSN Mobile broadly available to our mutual customers.  The rollout is happening today in a phased approach starting with their most popular devices.    

Back in December we also launched advertising on MSN Mobile in the US (and then later in the UK) with advertisers Bank of America, Paramount Pictures and Jaguar.  Our agreement with AT&T continues with our focus on mobile advertising and includes ad buys with Best Buy and Saturn initially.

Some quick screen grabs above. 

Like much of the mobile industry this week many folks from the team are in Barcelona right now at the Mobile World Congress trade show.   Its a crowded show for news announcements both large and small so I thought I would summarize the announcements from our side of the fence.

The first thing we have a nice endorsement of our Windows Live mobile services in Latam where Telefonica Latin America has announced that they are adopting our services in 12 countries.  This deal is for WAP browser based services, including Hotmail, Messenger, Contacts and Spaces so that means that they work on pretty much any data enabled phone under Telefonica's movistar brand.  The rollout should begin next month and will happen in a phased approach for the 12 countries that include Chile, Mexico, Argentina, El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Venezuela, Colombia, Uruguay and Peru.  Associated with this is an extension to the deal where Telefonica has also agreed to deploy MSN Mobile in Venezuela and Mexico as well.  Knowing how popular the mobile phone is in latam and the fact that Telefonica is the second largest operator in the region this is great for our customers who want mobile access.  The formal press release can be found here.  Also, don't forget now that you can also create your own live ID directly on the mobile phone that we announced last year which means you can start using even without a PC.

The second area of focus for us is around mobile clients that can be created and then deployed onto mobile phones.  This can be divided into two parts.

• First is an updated developer program for developers wanting to build Windows Live applications on mobile phones that connect to the cloud/PC based services.  Included in this is a new SDK and additions to the protocol that enables some very compelling communications scenarios such as multimedia file transfer, multiple conversations with messenger and integration with camera phones and address books.  The key thing here is that these applications can be written for pretty much any phone independent of operating system.  
• Next is a new program called Windows Live @ mobile that is focused on enabling operators to rapidly deploy Windows Live services on their handsets. We are creating standard offerings for our partners that enable them to get into the market quickly. The theory here is that by choosing from standard offers it will quicken the deployment time and enable operators to drive additional revenue sooner.

Although we haven't made much noise in the past about our developer story we now have over 70 ISV partners that are building applications that work on more than 800 devices equipped to support Windows Live for mobile. That press release can be found here. 

Then, the third area of focus is of course mobile advertising where we announced progress both on and off the Microsoft network.  On the syndication side we are announcing that a number of new mobile publishers have chosen Microsoft Advertising Platform Services team to syndicate display ads on their mobile sites. Publishers include Disney mobile in the United Kingdom, L’Equipe, Boursier.com, and Autonews in France; and Orange in Spain.  Then we have MSN Mobile where they were a number of new advertisers signed up including Nike, Coca Cola, Voyages-sncf.com (VSC), Jean-Paul Gaultier perfume, and Pages Juanes in France, and Saturn, Best Buy and Verizon Communications in the US.  That release here. 

Cheers

After the recent release of our Live ID creation and the new Windows Live services we have just released an updated version of Windows Live Messenger for mobile that will work on pretty much all phones. Its been in beta for a while now and its ready for prime time use now - all you need is a data plan and you are good to go. 

The new service, that is available from mobile.msn.com comes in two flavors, a WAP 1.x version and a version for WAP 2.x phones.  When you hit the service from your phone we detect your device capabilities and route you to the correct version.  Its the WAP 2.x version that probably most exciting to folks that have purchased a new phone in the last couple of years as it most likely has a decent xHTML/HTML browser in it.    For those lucky folks this new service now provides

• Rich emoticons support
• The ability to view and manage up to five active conversations
• Customers can change the display names, status etc
• Full access to your Live Contacts, still my favorite live service
• Search your contacts, hide offline contacts etc

Although this doesn't provide the full functionally that you would find on Windows Live for Windows Mobile or Windows Live for Nokia it provides a fast, clean, and simple instant message service for your mobile device that works on almost all phones. The core proposition is that it shouldn't be a hassle to use mobile instant messaging, with an interface that is familiar and easy to use.

The service is now available broadly and it rounds out our browser based services for the mobile device.  We now have Hotmail, Messenger, Spaces, Search and of course if you don't already have an account you can create one from the mobile phone.  

In addition to the advertising that went live this morning MSN Mobile also added some additional content for our customers.   For those folks that love checking out their stars we have added a new astrology channel enabling to read their daily horoscopes on the move. 

Then we have added two premium contents providers, both of which a nice piece of integration with the existing entertainment channel.  First, lets imagine you are looking for a movie, find it on MSN Mobile, enter your zip to locate movie theaters and now you can purchase your tickets directly on the phone.  Enter your CC details and then walk into the theater to pick up the tickets.    The second is a relationship with Thumbplay, where we now offer premium content such as wallpapers, games, ringtones etc  Again, purchase directly from the phone.   These two updates are a couple of additional ways for us to connect customers with merchants while on the go providing value to our customer base and a good example of the direction the industry is taking.  

Couple of screen grabs here of those two examples, plus one of the Jaguar campaign that went live this morning.  

Back in June the MSN Mobile team first launched their new site in the US.  This completely new site was designed to be a true media experience on the mobile device.  Gone are the list of text links that we used to have, replaced by a rich media with an editorial voice, graphics and images from the various content providers.  What is different from many other mobile portals is that its designed to work on any device, all your need is a data plan and if you have a phone that was purchased within the last 3 or maybe 4 years it should just work.   Its designed to be quick, with the page weight being low - optimized for mobile device. 

Over the last few months we have been combining a number of assets from APS and ScreenTonic to get ready for this launch.  Deliver advertising opportunities on MSN Mobile has been a major initiative for the mobile advertising teams and today is the first time that they will be available.  One of the top considerations for mobile services as a whole is to make sure we try and deliver the best customer experience that we can.  For advertising that is obviously critical and the industry is taking steps to setup standards and implementing metrics to encourage further take-up by advertisers.  The advertising that we are launching has been designed to confirm to standards that have been set by the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA).  When a phone connects to MSN Mobile we detect the screen capabilities of the device and render the appropriate sized ad.  You can can see some of examples below.

We have had some good reactions from advertisers and initially we have three top brands signed up who are Paramount Pictures, Jaguar (cars), Bank of America and from conversations with the ad team you can expect more over the coming months.  In addition customers will see our own house ads running as well.  I have inserted some screen grabs here to show how they will appear.  

Anyway, this should be live just about now.   As always send feedback our way.   

As we look at our customers today its clear that almost all of the folks that use our services on the mobile phone first started to use them on a PC, be that messenger, hotmail, spaces etc.  As they started to rely on the services they started to use them on the mobile phone.  They can sign-in using the same account, with the same contact store and it just worked on the mobile phone like it should.  For countries where the PC is the primary computing device that's great, however for folks that don't have access to a PC everyday, often going days without a visit to an Internet Cafe they were out of luck.   Not much point in creating an email account when you could only get to it once every week, stick with sms as your primary way to chat with your friends. 

Now with help from the Live ID team we are hopefully going to resolve that now that we have the ability to sign-up for a new Live ID completely from the mobile phone.  The process has been designed to be as easy as it can, while still offering a secure sign-up.  Its a simple three step process, you can see the simplified inputs that we now ask below to create an account.  The service has been designed to work with the built in mobile browser that comes with your phone and all folks need is a data plan to get started.  Its going to be available in 33 languages and about 70 different countries so hopefully we have the availability we need.  

Moving forward this sign-up will be integrated into our client based services like Windows Live for Nokia so for customers that go and purchase a Nokia device later this year they will be able to create an account directly on the phone.  Attached are some screen grabs that we created as we started to prepare for the CTIA Wireless show that is happening this week. 

We think this is an important step in delivering a great end-to-end solution in the 'mobile first' scenario where we know many customers in countries like China, India, Brazil that their primary computing device is the mobile phone.  We already have services like Hotmail broadly available in most countries around the world already so this enables folks to sign-up directly for a new Live ID and get access to email for the first time. 

The service is going live as we speak, it can be accessed via your mobile phone from

• Go directly to the account creation: https://mid.live.com/reg
• Go to http://mobile.live.com, find service like hotmail, and select “Get a Windows Live ID”

Anyway, we think its a nice clean experience that is appropriate for a mobile device.  In the past its been way too hard to try and create a Live ID on a phone and in fact was really limited to a couple of operators/countries.  Now we have a sign-up experience that is available to a much broader list of potential customers and so much easier - yeah!   

Just a little note to highlight that the Mobile Search service that we launched with Sprint just got selected as one of the Top Mobile Applications for 2007.  The service that is based on Tellme provides voice search and is integrated into Sprint's location service so that you now have presence enabled voice search.  Seeing as it run's on Sprint most popular five phones finding that Pizza shop close to your home has never been easier!

Details below from FierceMobileContent's site, with links to the other award winners.

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What a difference a year makes. When FierceMobileContent inaugurated its Top App Awards in the autumn of 2006, the emphasis was squarely on the entertainment and multimedia applications then revolutionizing the mobile platform. Twelve months later, mobile subscribers have evolved from consumers to prosumers, and instead of watching video clips and listening to music, they're socializing, shopping and searching. Content consumption is out and content creation is in--after all, why watch videos when you can upload your own?
And so FierceMobileContent's 2007 Top Mobile Applications Awards change course in tandem with the industry they honor, documenting the shift from entertainment services to information tools by spotlighting 10 of the cutting-edge apps best signifying a mobile sector that, true to its technology, never stops moving forward. While this year's Top Apps roll call reflects the sea of change reinventing mobile data, the basic criteria for determining inclusion are still the same: After evaluating hundreds of apps according to guidelines including technological innovation, revenue potential and competitive edge, we've come up with a final roster that promises to expand and enrich the everyday lives of the wireless subscriber population.
As was the case last year, these Top App Awards span the value chain, further underscoring an industry in flux--while some applications flourish on carrier decks, dependent on operators' scale and reach to maximize their potential, others fare far better off-portal, liberated from corporate restrictions and anxieties. What unites these far-flung applications is their originality, practicality and personality: Each capitalizes on the inherent promise of mobile technology, delivering experiences tailor-made for a culture in perpetual motion. They are the trailblazers--the question facing the apps in their wake is whether to follow, or to blaze new trails of their own. –Jason

And the winners are:

1. 3jam SMS 2.0

2. Anthem

3. Digby

4. ESPN MVP

5. Fast Flirting

6. GetMobio

7. Live Search

8. MC Notify

9. MyCorner

10. ZenZui

Next: 3jam SMS 2.0

Top Mobile Applications 2007 - Mobile Apps, Mobile Application

The mobile search teams are in the process of releases some new updates that folks might like to try out.   A quick summary here

1. Live Search for Windows Mobile - now with voice input. 

We think voice input on the mobile phone is a pretty important and obviously a logical input method for customers.  A little while ago we released a new service with Sprint, and now we updated the Windows Mobile search application to now also include voice input.  The functionality in terms of voice input works pretty much the same as the Sprint service and it leverages the dictionaries and data work that both the Tellme and Microsoft teams worked on.   It addition we have added gas prices and hours of operation for businesses to the search data.  The service works with GPS devices to auto-magically determine your location and make that available for your local searches to find a hotel or store etc..   This is a free download - check out http://www.livesearchmobile.com/windows_mobile.htm.  Some screen grabs here

2. A completely new Live Search for Blackberry. 

Well, we did have a beta for the Blackberry, but to be fair it pretty much sucked.  It was written in Java and didn't work well with the Blackberry device so after a bunch of appropriate feedback the team realized it wasn't what we wanted so started again.  This time its written with the public Blackberry API's and looks and feels like a true Blackberry app.  It doesn't yet support voice input, gas prices and hours of operation but everything else that the Windows Mobile version has pretty much works like it should including traffic info and such.  Its also GPS aware, so if you have a BlackBerry 8800, 8820 or 8830 it will also auto-magically determine your location for your search queries.  Likewise its a free download - http://www.livesearchmobile.com/blackberry.htm  Screen grabs here

3. Live Search 411 

A few of us have had a debate if this really is a 'mobile' service because it works with any phone, land lines and all.  Heck, it probably works with an old rotary phone.  This new service is completely free (works in the US only) and brings a new search experience that is driven by your voice.   You call 1-800-CALL-411 (1-800-225-5411) from any phone and say either the business name or category.  This is perfect for when you are walking downtown looking for a store or new restaurant or maybe for when you are home and don't have your PC on.  I confess that's not me as I always have at least one PC on, but I'm told by Erika that is a scenario for most normal people!   Then, if you are using this with a mobile phone the service will also allow you to text address, directions and such to your mobile.  In addition the service also offers movie reviews, weather and traffic information.   Its built using much of the great work from Tellme folks.    If you aren't in the US and want to get a sense of the service check out here http://www.livesearch411.com/

Anyway, a quick update on stuff.  Now back to work!