On this glorious Labor Day weekend, not all of us will be enjoying a well-deserved three- day weekend.

The employees of retail businesses across the country are gearing up for a flurry of holiday sales that will be driven like never before by mobile marketing.

This Labor Day, retailers are doing whatever they possibly can to motivate shoppers, who are feeling squeezed by high food and gas prices. Yet, despite weak consumer spending, the National Retail Federation estimates that some categories, including electronics, will be stronger than last year. The reason? According to industry estimates, about 20 percent of families have saved a portion of their tax rebates for back-to-school purchases. This weekend they will buy computers and cellphones to help their kids get ready for the new academic year.

One of the biggest motivating factors to get out and shop - not to mention the incentives born of digital coupon distribution - is the aggressive Labor Day mobile marketing sales campaigns employed by an incomprehensible number of businesses large and small. So, if you haven’t already gotten a text or downloadable coupon, chances are you will this weekend.

There’s no way to tell just yet how influential mobile marketing will prove in the retail sector this year, but with more eyes than ever monitoring the success of this marketing medium, I have a strong feeling that we will be blown away by the data that will eventually be released about the success of mobile marketing campaigns during this holiday weekend.

Have a wonderful Labor Day, everybody!

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Congratulations are in order.

According to the GSM Association - the global trade group for the mobile industry - the number of worldwide subscribers using Mobile Broadband (HSPA) networks has hit the 50 million milestone, an increase from just 11 million one year ago at this time.

And as it seems, we’re at the beginning of the boom, not the end. Global uptake of HSPA technology among consumers and businesses is accelerating, indicating continued traffic growth for high-speed mobile networks worldwide. The analyst Wireless Intelligence expects the number of HSPA connections to be growing by 4 million per month by the end of this year. Without question, this milestone represents a major achievement for HSPA and serves as an undeniable confirmation that it will be the dominant mobile broadband technology for the foreseeable future.

The number of operators with commercial HSPA networks has reached 191 and there are now over 740 HSPA-enabled devices, including mobiles, dongles and notebooks, available from 116 manufacturers.

“These figures highlight the global success of Mobile Broadband and the fact that we are continuing to see greater and greater economies of scale,” says GSMA CEO, Rob Conway. “This is driving down the cost of devices and equipment and enabling more and more users across the world to enjoy easy access to media-rich services anywhere at any time.”

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Mobile gamers…. COME ON DOWN!!!

Mobile games publisher Glu Mobile has reportedly signed a development and publishing deal with FremantleMedia Enterprises (FME), the brand extension arm for FremantleMedia, one of the largest international producers of entertainment brands in the world and a subsidiary of the RTL Group.

The agreement gives Glu “multi-year, exclusive rights” to develop and publish mobile games based on the popular game shows, ‘The Price Is Right’ and ‘Family Feud’ in Europe, Australia and parts of Asia.

Apart from these big gaming deals in Europe, Australia and Asia, Glu Mobile and FremantleMedia also partner on The Price Is Right and Family Feud in North America.

“The Price is Right and Family Feud are regarded as heavyweight game show brands across Europe, Australia and Asia, and this partnership offers tremendous opportunities for both Glu and FME,” says Frank Keeling, Managing Director of Publishing at Glu EMEA. “Our development and marketing expertise in dealing with high value brands like these means the mobile games will compliment the brands perfectly, with massive appeal to their target audience.”

Before you can envision Drew Carey on your mobile screen, however, keep in mind that the first incarnation will be the British version. In the UK The Price Is Right, most recently hosted by Joe Pasquale, is a relatively new phenomenon. The show first aired in the US in 1956 making it the longest-running game show in television history. Family Feud, known as Family Fortunes in the UK and hosted by Vernon Kay, has aired in more than 45 countries since its 1976 launch, and is one of the most successful game show formats in the world.

I think we’re all on standby for Pat Sajak and Alex Trebek. They may very well be headed for our mobile phones next.

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It was announced this week that FreeRange Communications has launched the FreeRange Mobile Publishing Platform for commercial availability. According to industry analysts, the release could provide a significant step forward for online publishers to “seamlessly extend their content to mobile consumers.”

In conjunction with the release, FreeRange Communications has also announced new customers: The Wall Street Journal Digital Network, Fierce Markets, and PaidContent.org, who join NewsGator, Travelocity, and Portland Trailblazers in their adoption of the platform.

In a nutshell, FreeRange provides “complete mobile coverage for publishers, delivering branded content to a wide range of mobile devices, including BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian, Palm, and iPhone handsets.”

The perceived advantage of The FreeRange Mobile Publishing Platform is it’s ability to remove the barriers typically present for effectively pushing web content out to the mobile device marketplace by leveraging existing web content, eliminating mobile content management system requirements and operating in a software-as-a-service model to create zero impact on customer IT resources.

The Wall Street Journal Digital Network (in case you’re wondering) uses the FreeRange Mobile Publishing Platform to provide a WSJ.com-branded mobile application that automatically downloads optimized content to a user’s BlackBerry device. Users receive immediate access to business, finance and technology news and analysis from WSJ.com as well as MarketWatch.com, Barrons.com and AllThingsD.com. Headlines, article summaries and previously downloaded stories are always accessible, even if out of wireless coverage.

The commercial availability of this platform will hopefully enable up-and-coming mobile marketers (big and small) to experience success similar to the mobile endeavors of one of the nation’s most venerable publications.

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As if mobile marketing isn’t stylish enough already, luxury retailer Chanel is diving into mobile territory with the launch of a new iPhone application.

The application, called “Chanel - Haute Couture Show Fall/Winter 08/09,” enables users to window-shop the upcoming seasons’ Chanel products and allows click-to-call to make an order. Naturally, other popular features of http://www.chanel.com, such as locating a local store, images and videos, are also included in the application.

Apart from Chanel, it appears that going mobile is becoming  “fashionable” in the world of fashion. As it now stands, Polo Ralph Lauren, Armani Exchange and Dolce & Gabbana are all taking mobile initiatives.

- Dolce & Gabbana has proven that mobile advertising is effective as well as fashionable by running a mobile campaign on the Nokia Media Network

- Armani Exchange is doing a text-to-win promotion in an effort that also involves future SMS marketing.

-Polo Ralph Lauren has launched a mobile commerce service to let consumers buy products through their handsets.

The Chanel application can be downloaded from the iTunes App store under the lifestyle category.

The application is free for all iPhone 3G users.

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Ok, Ok… I promise. This is my last entry about the massive SMS blast over the weekend by you know-who.

Keynote Systems, an industry leader in on-demand mobile and Internet test and measurement solutions, revealed today that the SMS service used by the Obama campaign was “highly unreliable the week leading up to his momentous text announcement.”

Keynote conducted six hundred tests on the Obama ‘08 Campaign short code from August 13 to August 22 in anticipation of the August 23 announcement. The results revealed inconsistent performance with extremely poor availability compared to the industry average.

Based on its data, Keynote believes that between 40-50 percent of people subscribing to receive the VP selection text message from the Obama campaign may not have received the text message in a timely fashion or in fact very likely never received the text message at all.

Keynote conducted its tests in San Francisco and San Diego across two major carrier networks. Subscribers to the Obama ‘08 Campaign received an SMS message and response time was measured once an hour over each carrier network.

“Our evaluation of Obama’s SMS service leading up to his VP announcement demonstrates the inadequacy of the SMS technical infrastructure to support large-scale marketing campaigns,” said Shlomi Gian, director of mobile business development for Keynote. “As mobile marketing increasingly becomes a key channel for campaign managers and marketers interested in communicating with voters and consumers, a solution for testing and monitoring common short codes is needed to ensure the delivery of critical information and reliability. The Obama event underscores the absolute need to monitor the performance of common short codes used in high impact marketing or sales initiatives in which actual delivery of the message to the consumer is important to the overall success of the campaign.”

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If today seems a little more hectic than usual in the mobile world, your presumption is correct.

Amidst a flurry of interesting items in the news today is the announcement from AT&T this morning that the eagerly anticipated Microsoft System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008is now available to AT&T business customers who use smartphones running Windows Mobile 6.1.

In conjunction with the availability of Mobile Device Manager, AT&T also revealed the availability of the MDM Early Adopter QuickStart Program (which was “developed cooperatively by AT&T and Enterprise Mobile and is an exclusive offering designed to assist AT&T customers with deploying the Microsoft mobility solution.”)

According to info directly from the horse’s mouth, the Mobile Device Manager is an enterprise-grade mobile device management solution that also provides security, mobile Virtual Private Network (VPN) and software distribution for Windows Mobile devices.

With Mobile Device Manager, AT&T customers using Windows Mobile 6.1 smartphones now have secured access to applications, files, corporate data and other information that is located on the corporate network and previously inaccessible without a secure VPN connection. For example, customers can now access information such as price sheets, marketing collateral and legal documents on the corporate network — items that were often previously available only through PCs or laptops.

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