Wireless Watch for November 7, 2003

Interpublic Execs Bow a New Mobile Marketing Firm

[November 7, 2003] Former Interpublic Group executives Mark Timbrell and Wes Bray are launching a new company to create and implement mobile phone marketing campaigns in local markets worldwide.

Called Mynamics, it will be headed up by Timbrell as CEO, out of the London office. Bray will be CEO of U.S. operations in Essex, Connecticut. The company will work with brand marketers and agencies to integrate phones into marketing plans.

Mynamics announced Entercom Communications as an early client. The third-largest owner and operator of radio stations in the U.S. has tapped the new company to build a series of text messaging programs. Additionally, Mynamics has formed partnerships with (M)forma, a market leader in mobile phone content development; Knowledge Point, providing interactivity staffing for live chat, SMS messaging and customer service; and Txt Talk, which specializes in local market mobile program radio execution.

Both Timbrell and Bray are former chief executives of Interpublic’s Marketing Drive Worldwide.

European operations will be based out of London and led by Alan Lawson, a former Marketing Drive executive. Mynamics has a third office in Sydney, Australia.

“Mynamics is uniquely positioned to provide brands with a strategic portfolio of services from ideation through implementation, in local markets, national markets or on a worldwide basis,” Timbrell said.

Mynamics is funded by eFund LLC, an investment partnership based in Seattle focused on early-stage investments in communications and Internet companies. eFund was an investor in InfoSpace and AT&T Wireless.

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DoCoMo Intensifies Spam Blocking

[November 7, 2003] NTT DoCoMo and its eight regional subsidiaries are implementing an anti-spam service that will let i-mode users automatically reject emails from any i-mode handset that sends 200 or more emails per day.

DoCoMo established a limit of 1,000 emails per i-mode handset to help combat spamming on October 20. Certain spammers have continued to abuse the system, however, by restricting their daily quota of emails to this limit. The new measure is targeted directly at these spammers, the company said.

Among other countermeasures, DoCoMo now reserves the right to suspend all handset contracts registered to any company identified as a spammer. As of October 28, DoCoMo said it had suspended almost 2,000 contracts held by such companies.

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Digital Youth Adds SMS Services

[November 7, 2003] Canadian wireless marketer Digital Youth tapped SMS marketing platform Impact Mobile and middleware provider XIAM to help it broaden its mobile services program. Through the Impact/XIAM solution, Digital Youth will add an email-to-SMS solution and an interactive SMS solution to its offerings.

“We are delighted to be able to announce Digital Youth as a new client. Our joint solution with XIAM offers reliable performance and the flexibility necessary to enable Digital Youth to roll out a wide array of new services to its user community,” said Impact Mobile CEO Gary Schwartz.

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