Blog

Many people have asked us about the animations that are making the rounds on the Internet (like this one: Blyk by Elin Svensson) and about the design of the Blyk brand identity.

When we started designing the Blyk brand we took a deliberately “open code” approach. I’ve written a post on what we’re doing and why. This coincides with the launch of Shift6.net the blog of the new Blyk open brand lab. Fellow bloggers include danah boyd, Inma Martinez and Alison Black.

Blyk has teamed up with Vice to run a FREE live music tour, the Unitaur. It’s launching on Monday 29th October 2007 with 10 dates across the UK featuring brilliant acts including: The Teenagers, Crystal Castles (a favourite at Blyk UK HQ), These New Puritans and more.

What’s more, you can play “spot the logo” on the Unitaur site.

Blyk Appoints Shaun Gregory as UK Chief Executive

London, 2 October, 2007 - Blyk the pan-European free mobile operator, which went live in the UK 24th September 2007, today announced the appointment of Shaun Gregory as UK CEO.

Shaun will be responsible for the overall strategic direction of the company and lead the day to day running of the UK business.

Prior to joining Blyk, Shaun was the Director of New Media at the Telegraph Media Group, where he was responsible for shaping the new media strategy working with the Executive board.

Commenting on Shaun’s appointment, Blyk’s Co-founder and global CEO Pekka Ala-Pietilä said; “Shaun brings over twenty years experience and a proven track record in securing substantial revenue for a media company working within a new media format, we are delighted Shaun has decided to lead the UK team.”

Shaun Said: “Blyk has one of the most compelling advertising opportunities I have ever seen. It can reach, engage and build relationships with consumers on a very personal level. It’s also focused on the youth market which is notoriously difficult to reach.”

On leaving Telegraph Media Group, Shaun said: “We have achieved an awful lot in the last year at the Telegraph. The commercial side of the business is now completely integrated. This truly multi media offering means that both TMG’s audiences and revenues are growing faster than those of the competition.”

Shaun will take up his new position with Blyk imminently.

ENDS

For further information, please contact Karen Keany or Adam Rutherford at The PRactice on 0207 072 4184/ 07989 429 367 or karen at thepractice dot org dot uk/ adam at thepractice dot org dot uk

Contagious Magazine features Blyk in the “Birth of a Brand” section of their last issues. They also covered the Blyk launch briefly in this Contagious News Article.

Some selected articles on the Blyk launch:

Business week: Free Mobile Services Set to Take Off: Blyk’s British launch of its ad-sponsored cell-phone service targeted at teens and young adults has traditional mobile operators nervous

Reuters/CNBC: Ad-Funded Mobile Operator Opens in Britain

MobiAdNews: Designing Blyk - The First Ad-Funded Mobile Operator

Here is the full video of the Blyk launch event on September 24th at the Vinyl Factory in London:

Jonathan will be speaking at the Chinwag Live event, today Monday 26th February.

The organisers say “Chinwag Live events seek to lift the lid and cast a quizzical eye on the latest trends in the web and mobile sectors in the full spirit of community participation. The series brings together leading experts and practitioners in the digital industries to share their perspectives and experience. Chinwag’s audience is a broad cross-section of senior decision-makers, creatives, marketers, technologists, business professionals and industry commentators working across web, mobile and other interactive media.”

Other speakers include representatives from O2, AdMob, Fathom Partners and the Mobile Entertainment Magazine. The evening is likely to produce some interesting feedback.

Marko will be speaking today at DLD (Digital, Life, Design) in Munich about Blyk and the future of mobile media on a panel with Hjalmar Winbladh, Alexander Straub and Jeff Pulver. Other speakers on the strong and diverse program include Luc Besson, Linda Stone, Norman Foster, Martin Varsavsky, Marissa Mayer, Caterina Fake, Carlos Bhola, Esther Dyson, Niklas Zennström, Bruce Sterling and Nicholas Negroponte.

The Economist interviewed Pekka for an article in today’s print edition: Adland’s test tube: Britain provides a glimpse of the future of advertising.

Excerpt:

THE future, noted William Gibson, a science-fiction writer, is already here—it is just unevenly distributed. To see the future of mobile phones, people look to Japan; to see the impact of broadband internet connections, they look to South Korea. And for a glimpse of the future of advertising, the place to look appears to be Britain. The country is a “test bed” according to Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google, which has just announced an alliance with British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB), a British pay-television company…

…In addition, next year a new mobile-phone service for young people, called Blyk, will be launched in Britain before being rolled out across Europe. Users will be able to earn airtime in exchange for receiving advertisements on their handsets.

Blyk’s co-founder, Pekka Ala-Pietila, a former president of Nokia, the world’s biggest handset-maker, says the firm decided to launch in Britain first because it is the second-largest advertising market in the world after America, with sophisticated advertisers who appreciate the market segmentation that new technology makes possible. As a result, he says, Britain “is where we could learn the most”.

I will be speaking at Le Web 3 on Tuesday, December 12 in Paris about Blyk and the future of mobility (see the full program).

With 36 countries represented and 1000 attendees it looks to be a strong event.

I will be speaking at SIME06 - Scandinavian Interactive Media Event - on November 22-23.

As the website puts it SIME is not about visions and dreams but focuses on how the Internet and the evolving digital environment changes the world we live in, both for us as individuals as well as for companies and the societies we live in.

It looks to be great conference with great people.

Eric Auchard writes in Google CEO sees free mobile phones, funded by ads:

Web search leader Google Inc.’s chief executive, Eric Schmidt, sees a future where mobile phones are free to consumers who accept watching targeted forms of advertising.

Schmidt said on Saturday that as mobile phones become more like handheld computers and consumers spend as much as eight to 10 hours a day talking, texting and using the Web on these devices, advertising becomes a viable form of subsidy.

“Your mobile phone should be free,” Schmidt told Reuters. “It just makes sense that subsidies should increase” as advertising rises on mobile phones.

Schmidt was interviewed following a speech on the theme of business innovation organized by Italian student groups and the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University.

Jack Ewing wrote a piece in BusinessWeek on Blyk’s Radical Mobile Phone Plan.

Thomas Crampton wrote an excellent piece on Blyk in International Herald Tribune: Coming to (free) mobile phones for youths: Ads. He gives a good overview of the venture and the business model innovation. The story also quotes Nicky Walton, a senior research analyst for mobile content and applications in London for Informa Telecoms & Media: “Offering fully free voice minutes and text messages in exchange for advertising is a real paradigm shift, but the time is right and I really don’t see how this could fail,” Walton said. “The business model is powerful for users because it is free and for advertisers because it is so tightly focused on known individuals.”