The same mobile tech companies that played a large role in getting the word out about Obama’s campaign are seeking to cash in on marketing victory. If you’re part of a mobile marketing company that helped Obama out, you’re in luck.

Mobile marketing firms that had a role in Obama’s win, such as Distributive Networks and Quattro Wireless, are taking advantage of the victory. And they have a good shot of it, since big advertisers are looking to get in on the same kinds of mobile marketing that led to the election results. According to The Wall Street Journal, big-name marketers including retailer Gap and insurer Allstate are seeking out this firms, “hoping the Obama effect will rub off.”

Obama’s campaign gave mobile marketing a few proof-point metrics it had been entirely lacking before. If you recall (and how could a mobile marketer forget?) he even announced his Vice Presidential choice via SMS, and used text messaging throughout the campaign. “Unlike most other technologies that already have been proven, this was text-messaging’s coming-out party,” Kevin Bertram, CEO of Distributive Networks, told the Journal.

The campaign was “a great model for marketers to really think about how to use emerging digital tools effectively,” said Joan Walker, Allstate’s interim chief marketing officer and senior vice president of corporate relations.

Nothing like a good auction to kick off a new year. And Hong Kong is the place for all the excitement.

The Hong Kong government said that it will “auction three mobile TV licenses in 2009,” a move that could put city viewers one step closer to watching their favorite dramas and soccer matches on the go.

The licenses (which will span fifteen years) will allow operators to broadcast in the DVB-H standard common in Europe and in the T-DMB standard common in Korea.

High bidders for the licenses will have to begin broadcasting within a year and a half, putting the start of the market’s mobile TV rollout in the second half of 2010.

Japan leads the world in tiny TVs, with 20 million cell phones equipped with TV receivers. South Korea is next, with 8.2 million, according to data from U.S.-based research firm In-Stat, which says that there were 29.7 million mobile TV viewers in the world at the end of 2007.

The number is expected to nearly double to 56.9 million by the end of 2008, driven by strong growth in Japan.

Interestingly enough, about 1 million Italians pay as much as thirty bucks a month to watch about 12 channels from three different mobile TV providers.

And you thought there was nothing high-tech about selling shoes? This story reveals that the Al Bundys of the world may have  a lot more to get excited about next year.

According to the now legendary tale, the CEO of Onlineshoes.com “operated four retail stores to help pay for the Internet part of the business when it began in 1996. Having brick-and-mortar stores gave him cache at retail trade shows in the early years, when online was ephemeral.”

Today, he has five retail stores and they represent less than 5 percent of the company’s volume. In other words, the type has come to capitalize on mobile marketing.

Jimmy Healey, product manager at Onlineshoes.com, once “put a posting on Twitter asking a question about some shoe” and immediately had three hundred responses.

As a result, the company is gung ho for mobile marketing. They’ve even gone so far as to launch a mobile video site, www.onlineshoes.tv.

It’s nice to see a small retailer that has made it big and is now showing other small retailers how much potential lies in the future of mobile marketing.

Usually this time of year it is all I can do to make and try to keep my own resolutions, but this year I’ve decided to be bold and suggest one for all of us in the mobile industry. Take a look and let me know what you think – will you join me?

I resolve in 2009 to help as many people as possible avoid scams and unfortunate paths in mobile marketing.

This resolution sprang forth when a colleague of mine from the internet marketing world asked my opinion of an “SMS” text messaging opportunity. I use the quotation marks purposely. The opportunity he was so hopefully excited about was a text messaging software that allows business owners to send unlimited free text messages from their website to any US cell phone. Continue Reading

MobileVerbs, a provider of on-demand Mobile Marketing solution, has launched mobile marketing program for one of the largest franchisee of Jack-in-the-Box restaurants. The restaurant guests can provide their feedback and redeem coupons by simply using their cell phones.

This isn’t necessarily anything new, but it speaks to the rapid (and difficult to keep pace with) expansion of mobile marketing’s utility in fast food. And, as we’re seeing, every franchise does a little something different.

For instance, at Jack-in-the-Box, restaurant guests follow “call to action” instructions on tabletents andsend a SMS message to the MobileVerbs service. The mobile service delivers a series of survey questions to guests’ cell phones. Once the guests complete the survey in couple of minutes, they are provided with a secure mobile coupon on their cell phones. The guests can redeem mobile coupons instantly at participating restaurant locations by showing a secure redemption code on their cell phones to the restaurant staff.

Although the powers that be at Jack-in-the-Box aren’t saying much about this recent endeavor, this isn’t the first time they’ve worked with MobileVerbs. So they must be seeing some results.

Along with many others, I’ll be interested to see what those results reveal.

TiVo has launched a free, mobile phone-optimized Web site that “allows both TiVo subscribers and non-subscribers to browse, search and discover TV shows, regardless of mobile platform, carrier or browser.”

For this reason alone, 2009 is already going to be better than this year!

Dubbed “TiVo Mobile” and located at m.tivo.com, the site can be accessed via any Internet-enabled phone through any network, the company says.

Among other things, the site allows TiVo subscribers to schedule recordings on Series2 or Series3 TiVo boxes remotely from their mobile, and to search for programs by actor, title, director and keyword. It also offers “Daily Recommendations” and “Most Popular” lists, and, like TiVo’s recommendations engine, an “If you like this…” tool to help users find new shows.

TiVo Mobile, which was built through a partnership with mobile application development agency, Mobui, is currently in beta and will be available “on a wide scale” in a few weeks, TiVo says.

For over a month now (this one must have slipped past my radar) Ace Marketing & Promotions, Inc. and Madison Square Garden have been dabbling in a joing venture to capitalize on proximity marketing opportunities, a technology that delivers content and promotional offers via Bluetooth and Wi-fi directly to cell phones.

Although MSG isn’t the first sports arena to utilize mobile technology, it’s the biggest and most famous to date. At the Garden, the location-based technology presents a simple message to consumers that have their Bluetooth Visibility set to Enabled or Discoverable. The example given was: “Do You Want To Receive A Free Knicks Video?”

The Proximity Marketing units are located “discreetly in front of Madison Square Garden” near the stairs of the Pennsylvania Station entrance on 32nd Street and 7th Avenue at street level.

So far, thousands of fans have downloaded the free Knicks highlight videos by replying “yes” to the offer and the campaigns have provided measurable revenue results as recipients have also purchased discounted game tickets with codes provided in the content. The first campaign was launched the weekend of November 29th.

You can expect the trend to continue both at Madison Square Garden and (once other teams and arena owners discover its value) more large sporting venues around the country.

In 2009, it will be “game on” for mobile marketing. Literally.