SnapTell, which we’ve covered before, is a leading provider of image-recognition based mobile marketing services, that today announced they’ve reached a milestone with their revolutionary service.

With their recently released “Mobile Entertainment Explorer” user’s can simply snap a photo of things like CD covers, DVD and BluRay covers, and various games with their camera phones, send it via MMS to SnapTell, and instantly be returned a series of content related to the specific title.  Content like reviews, prices, run times, descriptions of the content and links to buy the DVD, CD or video game, plus more can be sent back to the user via MMS.

Even though it’s still a relatively new service, SnapTell has already grown it’s database to over one million titles, which is quite an accomplishment.  Since it’s ever-growing, it won’t be long until users can access just about any information regarding any media title available using it’s image recognition technology.

The system uses their popular Snap.Send.Get platform that’s available on any mobile device with a camera.  Since it uses MMS transmissions, it needs no special software running on the device, and since the image recognition server can decipher an image of low or poor quality, almost any camera phone can be used to snap the photo.

“…We’re dedicated to providing consumers the simplest means to access desired information on their phones, and now reaching one million in entertainment titles empowers the consumer to make smart decisions when they are out and about and away from their PCs,” said Gautam Bhargava, CEO and Co-Founder of SnapTell. “As we push the image-recognition technology frontier, we will provide solutions similar to the Mobile Entertainment Explorer that help consumers with their day-to-day decisions…”

If you’d like to try out their Mobile Entertainment Explorer, head over to their website to view a demo.  You can simply snap a photo of a DVD cover they’ve displayed, send it as an MMS to fun@snaptell.com, and see the technology in action.  Pretty cool stuff.

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MsgMe is a platform that aims to be the easiest web-based SMS/MMS campaign creator and manager available. It allows for the creation of otherwise complex mobile marketing campaigns by almost anyone, via a step-by-step guide to create rich mobile experiences for it’s users.

Whether you’re a blog owner, or a rock band, the tools provided by MsgMe allow for an effortless deployment of almost any type of SMS-based mobile campaign. From subscriptions to polls and surveys to coupons, the platform will let you do it all.

With distribution channels such as widgets and “Send2Phone” it’s easy to get your user to interact with your new mobile content. Premium content such as videos, MP3s, ringtones, and wallpaper can even be incorporated into campaigns for brand awareness and customer loyalty.

What stands out the most is the ease of use and the intuitiveness of the control panel when creating a campaign. You start by registering a keyword to identify your brand or message, and then begin to build your campaign using a series of sub-keywords and options that can be presented to the user. There’s to many options to list, but as an example we’ve setup a test campaign that uses some features that might be beneficial for site and blog owners that publish content often. Here’s what you do…

Simply text “MMW” to 67463, which is MsgMe’s shortcode, to see an example of a working campaign. You should then receive an SMS with a set of options. We’ve setup a simple poll, and a “news” section which will return our latest post in a series of SMS messages. Give a try and reply “A” to see our latest post. There’s a ton more that can be incorporated, but this shows a feature that I like personally, which is the use of an RSS feed to distribute content via SMS which is great for mobile readers of a blog. There’s a great analytical system as well to let you know who’s been accessing your content, and how often.

It’s well worth testing out, and by far the easiest self-managed SMS mobile campaign platform that I’ve tested in a while. Version 2.0 of the MsgMe platform is coming out in May as well which will include several updates and enhancements, so stay tuned…

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A little off topic, but noteworthy nonetheless; I’ve been using a free service called YouMail for several months now and love everything about it. It’s a service that allows you to divert your cell phone’s voicemail to a new system that allows for several levels of customization with new features added all the time. Of course, being a free service, there has to be advertising somewhere, and YouMail took the mobile marketing aspect to monetize their service in a unique way.

Among the many features YouMail offers, like custom greetings and notification options, is a feature that I find notably beneficial. You can opt to have all your voicemails transcribed and emailed to you or sent to you in a series of SMS messages. It’s great when you’re in a meeting or a situation where you can’t call to retrieve your messages. You can simply read the text messages or email to get the info instead.

What YouMail has done is attached a simple call to action to each text message it dispatches and every email it sends. The call-to-actions advertise a variety of things, but they always catch my attention. I think it’s a unique way to get ad impressions. When each message is transcibed, it’s broken up into 3-4 SMS messages sent in a series depending on how long the message is, and each SMS has a different call-to-action. It’s usually things like “Bet on the 2008 Derby. Reply BET” or something similar, but it’s usually something catchy. The email notifications are the same way.

You never know where you’ll find embedded mobile marketing. It’s slowly finding it’s way into our daily lives more and more to the point that we don’t even notice it anymore.

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It seems like there’s another SMS-based mobile marketing company entering the game every day, so to stand out they need to take the approach a step further, or establish something unique with their service, or target a certain demographic, etc. A brand new company, only launched a month ago, looks to add a few more layers to the basic SMS/MMS mobile marketing channel.

The company, called UGotItFirst.com, features all the normal SMS marketing features and platforms you’d expect. Members can sign-up and complete an online profile that lays out their likes and dislikes when it comes to marketing via their mobile phones, and when a participating advertisers is matched to the preferences of that user, a coupon is sent via SMS. It’s a complete opt-in approach to marketing that this type of service has pioneered. Advertiser’s can choose the demographic to market to, to reduce cost and increase targeting, which is always the number one goal.

Every time a user receives a coupon via SMS their account is credited with a nominal fee for agreeing to receive it. Once the user’s account reaches $25, the user can either request a check to be mailed, use the money to shop in UGotItFirst’s online shopping portal, or donate the proceeds to charity. The user’s online control panel can even be used to stop the messages from being sent directly to the phone, and opt instead to have them queued and downloaded when the user is ready.

Above and beyond these “not-so-knew” features, UGotItFirst offers a few other free services that can be beneficial to members. Every member gets access to a member’s control panel that in addition to the mobile marketing aspects of the service, allows the member to create and grow a contact list of friends and family that can be used for things like group texting and event notifications and invitations. A member can indicate in their profile what types of events they’d like to attend, and when a matching event occurs, an invitation can be sent via SMS to the user’s phone. The user can then simply show the invitation at the event to gain access.

In addition to getting paid to receive the marketing messages, user’s can also opt-in to receive surveys to be completed on their mobile devices. Unlike other so-called “get paid to take surveys” scams, the ones included in the service are legitimate and offer only monetary compensation as opposed to gift cards, and other nonsense. Also, since they can be completed directly on the mobile device, it may give someone something to do while waiting in line, or riding public transportation, and so on. Not a bad idea if you ask me.

The last noteworthy feature that deserves mention is the fact that user’s start to build their own network from day one of using the UGotItFirst service. Each member is provided a series of banners and other content that can be placed on user’s websites, social networking profiles, etc. When people sign-up via one of these banners they’re included in your network, and you get commissions on their activities. As your network grows, the more commissions you’ll earn. It’s an obvious approach by UGotItFirst to grow their service virally, and it makes a lot sense. If user’s can earn money, they’ll sign-up as many people as they can. The network spans down four “generations” and you get paid every time anyone in your network receives a coupon via SMS. There was no mention on just how much you get paid per transaction, but I would assume it’s no more than $.10 like other similar services.

As I mentioned, the service just launched their website on March 13th of this year, so It will be interesting to see what happens with them, but by the looks of their forum, their already sporting over 2,000 registered users so far.

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TellMyCell, a provider of mobile content distribution services, announced recently that it has consistently been serving more than 20 million monthly text messages since January of 2007 for it’s client’s mobile marketing efforts.  Hey, they might just be on to something here don’t you think?

The company offers a “complete turnkey mobile marketing solution” that features the normal direct-to-consumer campaign approach with things like MMS, SMS, Voice, and WAP, but takes it a step further by offering a suite of tools to manage, track and evaluate all delivery methods, and outcomes.  Through the use of an API, the company can integrate with it’s partners ad systems to “lower the barriers for both publishers and marketers to distribute content to cell phone users.”

TellMyCell sits on the same SS7 network as all the major phone carriers, and operates an independent SMS, MMS and VOIP gateway.  By not being just an aggregator, TellMyCell can offer the best pricing for all their client’s mobile content delivery and are able to reach all cell phones in the USA and Canada.  According to TellMyCell’s founder and CEO, Moe Green,

“…No other company lives and works in the space between technology and creativity. Agencies don’t have the required mobile technology credentials and technology enablers are out of their depth on consumer marketing.If companies want to produce brilliant, relevant and rewarding mobile marketing, we believe that’s where the company has to be…”

The company has also made strides in the areas of mobile coupons and gift cards with their CouponTxT and GiftCardTxT services.  The coupons can be delivered directly to the consumer’s phone with either a text message or as a full color coupon with a barcode ready to use.  CouponTxT has the fulfillment built-in on the backend, so it redeems right at the POP (point of purchase), which means an easier time for the retailer, and bypasses the problem many mobile coupon technologies have faced, which is how to redeem barcodes directly from user’s cell phone screens.

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In my quest to find new and innovative ways to utilize a mobile device for just about anything, I’ve always been intrigued with the idea of using image recognition technologies with mobile devices to interact with the things around you in everyday situations. Unlike mobile barcodes, image recognition doesn’t require any special applications, or device features to operate, it can work with any mobile device made that has a camera, If done correctly.

SnapTell claims to have solved many problems faced when trying to recognize images taken with camera phones. Things like blurred images, and shaky hands can produce images that are hard to recognize. Since SnapTell works by taking images sent to the platform and comparing it against it’s central database to return relevant content, it’s essential that the image is readable even though it might not be of the best quality. How does it work? Their website says they use….

“…a highly accurate and robust algorithm for image matching that we call ASG. Image matching is the problem of efficiently matching a query camera phone image against a database of images. Our technology offers unprecedented scale in detecting a matching image in a large database of images. Scaling of image matching is achieved using patent pending indexing techniques to organize all the features in any of a database of images for the purpose of efficient lookup…”

They claim their technology will work on almost all camera-phones made world-wide, including those on the lower end of the market that feature a VGA camera and offer low-resolution photos of 640×480 and lower. It also works in real-world conditions where there might be a lot of issues including lighting artifacts, focus blur, motion blur, perspective distortion and incomplete overlap with the database image. They claim photos of magazine print ads, outdoor billboards, posters, product packaging, branded cans, and bottles and logos can all be used with their solution with no problem.

The coolest thing they offer, and the reason I found it noteworthy was the fact that they offer a “Text Extraction” solution as well that will actually pick text out of images taken with camera phones and use that text to initiate a search query. If someone takes and sends a photo of an image that isn’t in their database, it can automatically extract any text and use it for a search. It can then still return relevant content about that image without it even being in the database. Pretty cool.

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Amazon did. I haven’t made a purchase yet (I tried) but I started looking at the service tonight by Texting 245BW to 262966. Read the rest

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