Live with Phil

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 Th