Both Barrels Communications Ltd

Stressed on holiday? Perhaps you’re not your usual self.

The high price of using a mobile phone abroad forces many of us to suppress our normal personality and curb our natural instinct to communicate while we’re on holiday, making us anxious and irritable.

UK mobile phone users typically fall into one of four categories: the Text Addict, the Text’N’Talker, the 24/7 Chatterbox and the Emergency Caller. But, as soon as we’re on holiday, many of us are forced out of our natural category in order to cut the cost of our mobile phone habit. Especially for younger people, but by no means exclusively, this means an enforced change from the way that we normally communicate. This can be very stressful and could lead to nervous behaviour not unlike withdrawal symptoms.

Donna Dawson, a psychologist specialising in personality, behaviour and relationships, agrees that the enforced change of something that most people take for granted is stressful: “In particular, people under 30 are the most likely to react very badly to the stress of having to change their communication habits; this is because mobile phones are something with which they have grown up and become used to as an essential part of their lives.”

“The fact that it is merely the ‘extra cost’ that is behind the need to change the habits of a lifetime, does rub salt into the wound. This could quite easily cause mood-swings, sulks, snappiness and tension while abroad – especially on family holidays, where one generation doesn’t necessarily understand the other,” she added.

According to a survey commissioned by SIM4travel, Text’N’Talkers comprise the largest group (36%), followed by the Text Addicts (25%), the 24/7 Chatterboxes (20%) and the Emergency Callers (19%). Once people go abroad, however, the proportion Text’N’Talkers falls by three-quarters to just 9%. The proportion of 24/7 Chatterboxes also more than halves, also to 9%, but interestingly, the proportion of Text Addicts remains stable at 25%. Conversely, the number of Emergency Callers almost triples, to 54%.

And when it comes to the calls or texts that we do answer/make or send from holiday, the type of phone user that we are plays a significant part: 69% of people who are natural 24/7 Chatterboxes are doomed to fight their natural impulses by trying to limit the number of calls they make or answer when on holiday. Only 13% of natural Text’N’Talkers feel able to carry on as normal.

There are also gender differences men are more likely than women to try to limit the amount of calls they answer or make – 61% versus 42%. Women are almost twice as likely to only use text messaging to stay in touch: 47% versus 25%.

Suk Grewal, marketing director of SIM4travel, said: “What I think has happened is that mobile phones are now such a part of our everyday lives, including our holidays, that we’ve all had at least one rotten experience with a terrible bill. The prospect of feeling like that again makes us change our calling habits when we’re abroad – and, like all change, that makes us feel anxious and act out of character as a result.”

Whatever category mobile users fall into, one thing that they are not is aware of easy ways to keep the costs down. Almost half of people who take their mobile abroad – 48% – are unaware that they can buy either an international SIM card or a local SIM card to use while abroad, which would reduce their mobile bill.

SIM4travel, which commissioned the survey, operates its own Pay As You Go global network. With a SIM4travel international SIM card there are no charges for inbound calls in the EU, and calls home are just 25p per minute. Worldwide, savings of up to 80% are possible in more than 50 countries worldwide.

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Research was carried out on behalf of SIM4travel by the independent market research company BMRB. BMRB interviewed 1000 people aged between 16-64 between August 9th and August 11th.

About SIM4travel
SIM4travel, which commissioned the survey, operates its own Pay As You Go global network. With a SIM4travel international SIM card there are no charges for inbound calls in the EU, and calls home are just 25p per minute. Worldwide, savings of up to 80% are possible in more than 50 countries worldwide. SIM4travel is a trading name of Software Cellular Network Limited. For more information, visit the press office.

Online retailers wary of the possibility of recession, or simply lacking the finance or other resources to expand abroad, are harnessing the advantages of advertising images over advertising words to market and sell their products globally.

PIXSTA’s Visual Search Engines and AdImage™ network enables a scale of exposure that previously would have been possible only with high upfront cost, public relations campaigns and a dedicated, country-specific team.

However, joining PIXSTA’s AdImage network provides online retailers with an economical, international expansion tool for marketing internationally with minimal change to business processes. Providing a retailer is set up to ship products abroad, there is no constraint to advertising on the sites of PIXSTA’s foreign media partners.

Among the UK retailers that use PIXSTA’s AdImage network to market and sell their products abroad are Funspex (sunglasses) [screenshot] and DeviDoll (a designer ethical fashion boutique) [screenshot].

Elsewhere, Stylebop (Germany) [screenshot] is using PIXSTA to expand into the UK, while Monshowroom (France) and Designer Exposure (USA) are also making progress in multiple foreign markets using the PIXSTA AdImage™ network.

Sindhu Venkatanarayanan, of ethical fashion retailer DeviDoll, said: “Pixsta’s AdImage network allows DeviDoll to attract the attention of global customers from an early stage. It’s proved to be a low-risk, low-cost way to increase brand awareness internationally.”

“Using PIXSTA AdImages, customers make purchases based on a product’s visual appearance, rather than on its description. Smart companies are incorporating this fundamental advantage into their global marketing solutions as a way to break into new markets intelligently. They understand that as long as they can ship there, we can put them there,” said Alexander Straub, PIXSTA’s CEO.

PIXSTA’s AdImages technology has already been integrated into the online shopping portals of many major media titles. The list of media brands currently hosting PIXSTA AdImages™ are:

• UK: Cosmopolitan, Telegraph, The Independent, Handbag, News International’s Fabulous, and Shiny Media’s Shoewawa and TheBagLady.
• Germany: Gala, InTouch, WomenWeb, Agenti.de, RTL2.de
• France: Gala, Femme Actuelle
• Greece: Glamour, Lucky, Myself
• USA: Shoetube, Shoewawa US, and TheBagLady US

PIXSTA’s AdImage network works by presenting a selection of images – advertising images – which can then be browsed at will by the website user. Clicking on a product image returns a new selection of items that are similar by shape, colour or texture. When the user sees a product they want to buy, he/she clicks on the adjacent ‘shop’ icon and is taken to the appropriate product landing page for that item.

Crucially, the retailer only incurs a click-through cost at this final stage. The click through to the product landing page is highly targeted, significantly reducing the risk of losing the customer during the ‘click journey’.

Pixsta now operates its AdImage network across five countries – UK, France, Germany, Greece and the USA. Showing 100% quarterly growth from Q1 to Q2, the company now has 19 major media partners and boasts 93 retailers selling 200,000 different products across 5,000 brands.

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Links and resources

• About PIXSTA/press office
• PIXSTA web site
• Flash video: “What problem does PIXSTA solve?”
• Other PIXSTA pictures
• The PIXSTA blog: The Portobello Spy

Vocal instant messaging now available for the iPhone

‘Push-to-talk’ — the voice equivalent of text messaging (SMS) — has come to the iPhone™ for the first time.

Promised as ‘soon’ when it launched its service for the iPhone on July 29, Palringo has added the vocal instant messaging functionality to its rich messaging application available from Apple’s App Store.

Kerry Ritz, CEO of Palringo, said: “We’ve completed the suite of ways in which people can communicate with each other using an iPhone, adding voice, text-based and picture instant messaging to the standard phone call, SMS and e-mail functionality of the phone. This functionality really adds value to the already-terrific iPhone experience.

“When we launched Palringo for the iPhone, we said that our vocal IM functionality would be added imminently. We’ve kept the promise we made to the thousands and thousands of iPhone users who downloaded Palringo and made us one of the most popular free applications from the App Store,” he added.

The concept of push-to-talk varies in popularity around the world. Currently, in the United States, both Verizon and Sprint are promoting their push-to-talk services as alternatives to each other. However, both of these options lock customers into both a specific device and a specific network.

Palringo does neither of these things, being entirely operator-independent and also working on almost every handset released in the last two years. Most recently the company added RIM’s BlackBerry platform to a list that already includes Windows Mobile, Symbian and Java-based devices from manufacturers including Nokia, Motorola, LG, Samsung, HTC, HP and Sony Ericsson.

“Some of the big carriers tout their PTT services, but they have the ‘carrier barrier’ limitation of locking their customers into their networks and only the handsets the carriers support,” Ritz said. “That sort of lock-in is a 20th century business model and it doesn’t wash with savvy mobile users today.”

Palringo integrates with several existing popular instant-messaging services: AOL’s AIM, Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger, Gadu Gadu, ICQ, Jabber and Windows Live Messenger. People can also use Palringo to contact their friends using iChat, Apple’s IM client.

Palringo for the iPhone is free and easy to download and install from Apple’s App Store. There are no hidden costs, catches or other charges.

[ends]

Apple, iPhone, and Apple Store are trademarks of Apple Inc, registered in the United States and other countries. All other product or service names mentioned in this announcement may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

A growing number of international media brands have recognized the potential of advertising images presented as content to further monetise their websites.

Visual search and browse company PIXSTA has revealed that eight media brands have joined its content network since May, bringing the total to 19. PIXSTA’s media partners now span five territories: UK, Germany, France, Greece and the USA.

The list of media brands currently hosting PIXSTA AdImages™ are:

• UK: Cosmopolitan, Telegraph, The Independent, Handbag, News International’s Fabulous, and Shiny Media’s Shoewawa and TheBagLady
• Germany: Gala, InTouch, WomenWeb, Agenti.de, RTL2.de
• France: Gala, Femme Actuelle
• Greece: Glamour, Lucky, Myself
• USA: Shoetube, Shoewawa US, and TheBagLady US

Natalia Lorentziadi of Greek publisher Liberis – which publishes the three Greek titles Glamour, Lucky and Myself featuring PIXSTA – said: “PIXSTA is already the 4th most popular page on our websites, and its popularity rises month by month. In terms of monetisation, the PIXSTA page delivers an effective CPM rate of €56 across the Liberis Group, with some PIXSTA pages delivering €65. This makes PIXSTA one of the most promising elements of our web offering,” she added.

Alexander Straub, PIXSTA’s CEO, said: “PIXSTA enables media brands to monetise their sites by serving up advertising images that are presented to users as valuable content. It also provides an extra layer of interactivity, making sites more engaging and ‘sticky’.”

PIXSTA AdImages™ works by presenting a selection of images – PIXSTA AdImages™ – which can then be browsed at will by the website user. A simple click on a product image returns a new selection of items similar by shape, colour or texture. When the user finds a product they want to buy, he/she clicks on the adjacent ‘shop’ icon and is taken to the appropriate product landing page. The media brands that leverage PIXSTA’s AdImages™ Network deliver large, receptive and – in the case of specialised media such as Shoewawa (shoes) and TheBagLady (handbags/purses) – fully ‘product-specific’ audiences.

Karen Millen is just one of the 93 retailers that now use PIXSTA’s AdImages™ network. Emma Bott, e-commerce manager for the fashion company, said: “Pixsta offers an innovative and highly targeted means of reaching a new customer base. The concept of browsing for garments visually, rather than being dependent on keywords or descriptions defined by the retailer, is far closer to the in-store shopping experience. The shopper is able to view and compare a selection of products based on their own criteria at one glance, thus the quality of the click-through is greatly improved.”

[ends]

Links and resources

• PIXSTA web site
• Flash video: “What problem does PIXSTA solve?”
• Other PIXSTA pictures including screenshots
• The PIXSTA blog: The Portobello Spy

Mobile phone users can now make cheap calls to the USA and Canada for just US$0.015 per minute, from anywhere in the world.

This is the terrific result of global mobile operator Truphone’s first minutes ‘bundle’ – Tru Saver – which offers iPhone and Nokia handset owners 1,000 minutes to the USA and Canada for only US$14.99 per month.

For purposes of comparison:

• UK customers pay UK£7.49 per month for the Tru Saver bundle.
• A UK ‘pay monthly’ iPhone owner making a call to the USA or Canada, with O2’s International Traveller Service option, is charged UK£0.17 per minute. This means that someone making more than 45 minutes of calls to the USA/Canada in a month will be better off with the Tru Saver bundle.
• Without the International Traveller Service option (i.e. a customer on O2’s £30 per month tariff), the otherwise-identical O2 customer is charged UK£0.99 per minute. For this customer, the payback period on the Tru Saver bundle is reduced to a little over seven and a half minutes of calls – offering, effectively, a further 992.5 Tru Saver minutes for free.
• Since the Tru Saver bundle applies for calls to the United States and Canada from anywhere in the world, the payback period for an iPhone user calling these countries while roaming are even shorter – as little as three or four minutes in some cases, giving up to 996 effectively free Tru Saver minutes.

James Tagg, Truphone’s CEO, said, “iPhone and Nokia owners who regularly call North America can purchase Truphone’s bundle to get ‘peace of mind’ pricing of just 1.5 US cents – 0.75 pence – per minute to the USA and Canada from anywhere in the world. People don’t want to calculate precise ‘per minute’ rates, or check tariff websites, or take a paid-for tariff ‘bolt-on’ to get a still-high rate. They simply want to feel comfortable about what they’re going to pay for the call they want to make.”

Truphone carries calls via Wi-Fi and the internet. However, for Nokia handset owners with bundled GSM minutes as part of their GSM operator’s plan, the combination of Truphone’s new bundle with Truphone Anywhere – which enables cheap mobile calls via the internet even when not connected to the Internet – makes possible mobile calls to the USA or Canada at the amazing price of just 1.5 US cents per minute [UK£0.0075 per minute] even when the caller is on the move and outside Wi-Fi.

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iPhone is a trademark of Apple Inc, registered in the United States and other countries. Truphone is a trademark of Software Cellular Network Limited.

SIM4travel today announced an agreement with lastminute.com that will see customers of the leading online travel and leisure retailer offered the opportunity to buy a SIM4travel SIM from the lastminute.com site. The tie-up will add value for customers and brings additional revenue streams to both lastminute.com and SIM4travel.

The mobile phone has long since joined the trio of ‘money, ticket, passport’ that people routinely check they have with them before leaving home. Adding the option to purchase a great value SIM4travel card at the same time as booking the travel itself ensures that buying a travel SIM isn’t something that gets forgotten until the traveller reaches their destination.

The opportunity for the travel industry to generate revenue from travel SIM sales is significant: in the 12-month period to April 2008, UK residents made 70.3 million trips abroad*, with the overwhelming majority of these accompanied by at least one mobile phone.

SIM4travel is a low cost mobile roaming network that allows travellers to avoid the high costs of using their mobile phone overseas. One of SIM4travel’s key advantages is its simplicity: the service is provided via a SIM card that the customer simply inserts into their mobile phone in place of their usual SIM card.

SIM4travel customer can then travel to over 110 countries around the globe and save up to 80% on calls. In over 50 countries, the customer will not have to pay for inbound calls – a fear of which stops some people from turning their phone on while abroad. Credit is easy to top up while at home or travelling.

lastminute.com UK Managing Director John Bevan said: “lastminute.com is delighted to be the only online travel retailer to offer its customers SIM4travel’s service.

“lastminute.com aims to give its customers the greatest breath of product in the travel and leisure industries and SIM4travel offering helps us to achieve that.”

“SIM4travel fits perfectly with lastminute.com’s philosophy of ensuring customers get the best possible range of travel options at the most competitive prices.

Suk Grewal, marketing director at SIM4travel, said: “This is an exceptionally good fit between two companies focused on giving their customers the best travel experience possible in our respective fields.

“With rising prices and the credit crunch making customers alert to every opportunity to avoid wasting money, and shrinking margins for travel companies, this is a win-win-win situation – for the customer, for lastminute.com and for SIM4travel.”

SIM4travel’s distribution channel already includes Carphone Warehouse stores in the UK, and BMI Baby and EasyJet – where they may be purchased in-flight.

[ends]

iPhone owners can now download Palringo’s rich messaging service (RMS) application from Apple®’s new App Store. Palringo enables picture messaging, text-based messaging and, soon, vocal instant messaging over the iPhone’s data connection.

Palringo integrates with several existing, popular instant messaging services: AOL’s AIM, Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger, Gadu Gadu, ICQ, Jabber and Windows Live Messenger. People can also use Palringo to contact their friends using iChat, Apple’s instant messaging (IM) client.

Palringo offers two unique advantages to iPhone owners:

• people can stay connected to the most popular messaging services at the same time, without the need to switch between applications or use web-based messaging services
• in the current absence of MMS capabilities on the 3G iPhone, Palringo offers the ability to send and receive picture messages using the iPhone’s data connection

Palringo launches and connects within seconds, with a single screen-tap. Palringo then presents a person’s IM contacts in a single, combined, presence-aware list, whichever IM service their contacts are using. Sending a voice, picture or text-based message, whether to an individual or a group, are also single screen-tap operations.

Vocal IM, which is already available on all other Palringo-supported platforms, will be added in the second release of Palringo for the iPhone.

Kerry Ritz, Palringo’s CEO, said: “Just as Apple has changed people’s view of what it should be like to use a mobile phone, so Palringo aims to change the way people see messaging. Billions of people already use instant messaging on their home or work computers to communicate with each other. Palringo has added vocal instant messaging and picture messaging and has put IM on the iPhone – that’s a great combination.”

Using Palringo will barely make a dent in an iPhone customer’s data usage: just one megabyte is sufficient for Palringo to send/receive the equivalent of about 4,500 SMS messages, send/receive about 32 picture messages, or send/receive up to 15 minutes of vocal instant messages.

The service is available worldwide, which means conversations can incorporate people from across the globe, on any mobile network or connected PC or Mac. This makes it very attractive for multi-national corporate users or extended family use.

Palringo for the iPhone is free, and is easy to download and install from Apple’s new App Store. There are no hidden costs, catches or other charges.

As well as the iPhone – both the original and new models – Palringo works on almost all models of mobile phone released in the last two years – visit www.palringo.com.

[ends]

Apple, iPhone, and Apple Store are trademarks of Apple Inc, registered in the United States and other countries. All other product or service names mentioned in this announcement may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Additional links/resources

1. Screenshots: Palringo on the iPhone
2. Alternative picture: Kerry Ritz, Palringo CEO

A growing number of retailers are turning to advertising images, rather than adwords, as they look for ways to increase the return on their pay-per-click marketing campaigns.

Visual search and browse company PIXSTA has revealed that 44 new fashion retailers have joined its AdImages™ network since its launch in May, bringing the total to 93.

Among the companies turning to PIXSTA are well-known brands Tommy Hilfiger, TM Lewin, Mexx and Karen Millen.

PIXSTA’s AdImages™ has already been integrated into the online shopping portals of many major media publishers. Media titles such as Cosmopolitan.co.uk and Fabulousmag.co.uk, immediately deliver highly qualified, receptive and – in the case of specialised media such as Shoewawa (shoes) and TheBagLady (handbags/purses) – fully ‘product-specific’ audiences.

On these media sites, PIXSTA AdImages™ works by presenting site visitors with a selection of images – PIXSTA AdImages – which can then be browsed by the online shopper. Full details, including brand, retailer and price are displayed for the shopper.

To browse, an online shopper simply clicks on a product image; this immediately returns a new selection of items similar by shape, colour or texture. When the shopper finds a product they want to buy, he/she clicks on the adjacent ‘shop’ icon and is immediately taken to the appropriate product landing page on the retailer’s site – just one step from checkout.

Crucially, the retailer only incurs a click-through cost at this stage. This means a very targeted click to their product landing page, virtually eliminating the risk of losing the customer during the click journey. All previous brand impressions, description and shop information are shown free-of-charge to the browsing shopper.

Emma Bott, e-commerce manager for Karen Millen, said: “Pixsta offers an innovative and highly targeted means of reaching a new customer base. The concept of browsing for garments visually, rather than being dependent on keywords or descriptions defined by the retailer, is far closer to the in-store shopping experience. The shopper is able to view and compare a selection of products based on their own criteria at one glance, thus the quality of the click-through is greatly improved.”

Alexander Straub, PIXSTA’s CEO, said: “Since we launched in May, retailers have been very quick to understand the benefits of the PIXSTA AdImages network. If they are wary of the forecasts for a downturn in the economy and are looking for improved return on their online marketing expenditure, then they are coming to the right place: they receive multiple brand impressions for free, and pay only when a customer is incredibly close to buying.”

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Truphone has phased in important new service improvements that ensure its customers need never run out of credit again. The improvements are fourfold:

• customers can now easily top-up [refill their credit] while on the move, via either handset screen-optimised web pages or an automated telephone top-up service;
• customers may set their account to ‘auto top-up’ [screenshot], in which case their credit is automatically refilled when credit has fallen to a specified level;
• Truphone now sends ‘low balance’ SMS alerts to customers as their credit starts to exhaust;
• payments may also now be made via a wider variety of credit and debit cards.

The top-up improvements benefit all Truphone customers, including users of Truphone for the Apple® iPhone™. Designed to provide low-priced international calls for iPhone users, Truphone hit Apple’s new App Store on July 11th and was the first internet telephony application available for the iPhone.

“We’ve fully addressed the issues of topping-up credit while on the move, because running out is one of the most irritating things for any mobile phone user,” said Gavin Miller, Truphone’s director of customer services. “We listened to a range of suggestions from our customers, and we’ve acted on all of them. No-one ever needs to find themselves unable to use Truphone.”

[ends]

Truphone is a trademark of Software Cellular Network Limited. Apple and the Apple logo are trademarks of Apple Inc, registered in the U.S. and other countries. iPhone is a trademark of Apple Inc.

Designed to provide low-priced international calls for Apple® iPhone users, Truphone for the iPhone hit Apple’s new App Store today.

James Tagg, Truphone’s CEO, said: “What Truphone for the iPhone does is really simple but absolutely sensational: it gives people low-priced international calls, whether they want to phone someone abroad or avoid roaming charges when making calls from abroad.

“With just a few clicks to download and install Truphone, anyone can afford to take their iPhone on holiday this summer – or call their friends and family abroad,” he added.

Truphone enables an iPhone to make calls to any number over the internet instead of over GSM, at Truphone’s fabulous internet rates. The rates are especially competitive for international calls, including landlines in 40 countries at GBP0.03 [USD0.06] per minute and mobiles at just GBP0.15 [USD0.30] per minute. To Canada, the USA and China, even calls to mobiles are just GBP0.03 [USD0.06] per minute.

Making a call using Truphone is exactly like making any other call on the iPhone: a single touch to bring the dialler up on the touch screen, touch-dial the number or choose from the iPhone’s own address book, and a touch to start the call.

Truphone for the iPhone is available to download from Apple’s new AppStore for free. There are no monthly subscriptions or other charges. Visit www.truphone.com/iphone for more information.

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Apple, iPhone, and Apple Store are trademarks of Apple Inc, registered in the US and other countries. Truphone is a trademark of Software Cellular Network Limited.

Links

• Photo: James Tagg
• Pictures: Truphone on the iPhone
• Video: Truphone on the iPhone (YouTube)
• Other Truphone photos (Flickr)
• Truphone website