MySpace Mobile On Helio with Hero and Kickflip

This isn't the latest George Lucas flick but a series of announcements made last week by Helio LLC (SK - Earthlink's Haryuwood M-VNO aimed at the younger generation)*.
We knew SK Telecom planned a rather ambitious fun-based strategy to succeed in this year's highly competitive draft (Virgin & co). They seem to be delivering the goods : a key partnership with MySpace, and two exciting 3G EV-DO handsets :
. the Hero by Pantech & Curitel : processing power optimized for music & video plus stereo speakers (MelOn anyone ?), a 2 megapixel cam with digital zoom & flash (straight from your mobile to your MySpace blog), a superb luminescent screen and even a removable memory...
. the Kickflip by VK Mobile : a swivel handset with the Hero capabilities, said to be addictively ergonomic.
The surprise comes from the deal with Murdoch's MySpace, a competitor to SK Telecom's Cyworld (even if the latter's popularity mustn't go far beyond LA's Koreatown this side of the Pacific Ocean).
To me, this proves how determined Helio are to succeed. Size matters, as well as Time To Market : the MySpace community claims 5M new members every month and must be reaching the 50M mark...
How long will this exclusivity last ? Even if it's for a few months, that's definitely good news for the marketing and sales teams : other partnerships should follow soon.
And who knows... Why not an even bigger deal with Sir Rupert ?


* See "Hello Helio - here comes the sun" (20051118 + the previous posts related to Helio / SK-Earthlink).

Hardware behind, hard work ahead

The very day TU Media's satellite DMB service was launched, SK Telecom sold their handset manufacturing unit SK Teletech to Pantech & Curitel (P&C moves closer to the Samsung - LG duo but remains a relatively small player internationally). Whatever happens to Moneta ? Dongles can be found all over Korea and mobile banking / finance seems catching but SKT may end up joining the Sony - DoCoMo felica stream.
Anyway SKT confirm their switch from customer-techno-centric to customer-content-focused ambitions, and Hallyuwood should bring better differenciation and higher added value in the long term provided the MNO manages to lock a nice position there. Their market share is shrinking but still strong and this is certainly not the time when short term shareholder ROI should be put first.

DMB @ DMZ : earth, wind &... fire !

South Korea's 6 Terrestrial Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (T-DMB) service providers will be the top 3 networks (KBS, MBC and SBS) and 3 consortia : Korea DMB (CBS plus a team of enablers : Haansoft, GAEASOFT, Sinjisoft, Feelingk...) YTN DMB (behind YTN, Korea's leading news channel, about 20 investors including MTI, TBN - Traffic Broadcasting Network -, GAEASOFT, Kwangju KBS, PSB...), and KMMB (the merger of MMB and KDMB consortia : ANTV & co, led by net&tv's CEO, a promoter of MPEG-4). Among the losing consortia : ucube, the NDMB Plus consortium and his partners, including BBS (Buddhist Broadcasting System)...
The Korean Broadcasting Commission expects commercial launches in may 2005 for Seoul, the same TTM as for Satellite DMB ; T-DMB with a free service covering Seoul only (the rest of the country next year) and S-DMB with a national coverage but a W13,000 monthly fee (not to mention an initial W20,000 connection charge)... plus some not so exclusive contents including those of KBS, MBC, SBS and YTN...
Anyway, Korea Inc is again at it in full gear : the ETRI expects 80,000 jobs to be created by DMB, and the usual doomsayers must realize handsets will be ready. Remember Samsung's portable S-DMB movie theater ? Just to keep one step ahead of their competitors (LG, Pantech & Curitel), the company just announced a T-DMB laptop with a brand new WHQL logo (FYI that's for Windows Hardware Quality Labs, not Windows Horrible Quality Loopholes).
One more techno added to the export-prone Korean Air Wave. Next time Ahn Jung-Hwan comes back home to play some soccer or sell some shampoo, he won't need any special spray to have his hair curl.