The century of mobile

Katz has gone from being a ringmaster in the wild wild west of talk radio two decades ago to a fast-talking evangelist of the cult of mobile. He explains: “Radio is an old medium losing out in the United States to the iPod, online radio and cellphones. Mobile is in your pocket... ‘the world at your fingertips'.” Their slogan is ‘your world in your pocket'.

He believes the future is ‘pull messaging', where consumers have the choice to opt in or opt out. Mobile technology, like the Internet, enables this. The difference and what makes mobile the future technology for marketers, is that it is ‘always on' - always switched on and always on the consumer.

Making that choice attractive to consumers so that they opt in to your marketing messages, is of course, the catch. And this is where MobiBlitz comes in with its Mobizone concept. More than a portal, it's a new medium for advertisers and a new content platform for brands. Best of all, it's free to the consumer (well, apart from some pesky network bandwidth charges).

When he declares that “radio is so last century”, Katz well knows that he is ‘stirring' and that vociferous comment will follow. But it's not radio that is in his sights really, it's the cellphone companies which have for far too long held sway over mobile content and accessibility with high charges and inflexible attitudes.

And if Africa, let alone South Africa, follows other developing societies such as India in bypassing the PC revolution to connect directly to the world wide web using their mobile phones, then Katz is cleverly carving himself a potentially large slice of that exclusive pie.

He gives himself away by describing MobiBlitz as a new converged media company.

'Internet changes everything'

“When I left AME I was done with radio. There was nothing exciting left to do... been there, done that, got the bloodstained T-shirt!” So he did what every other millionaire entrepreneur with a profile does at some point: he formed an investment company. Then he sat down and debated what the next big thing was in 21st century media. “To me, I'm reinventing myself, being reborn into this century.”

He emphasises: “The lines have blurred between technology and media. Take Google for example, it is a technology company, but it makes its money from advertising. It turned advertising on its head with its pay per click/pay per acquisition model. We have to look at what advertisers want: ‘Who sees my ad?'. Take the rest of the media world: newspapers are losing readership; radio is being replaced by iPods more and more - it's become cookie cutter entertainment that is formulaic and researched to death; television is about entertainment, not advertising, with Tivo and the PVR zapping up to 84% of ads; and the digital players have changed the game worldwide for the music industry - record companies are in the poo! Traditional advertising isn't as effective as it once was... there is no question that the Internet changes everything, mobile is one more extension. Everything is going mobile.”

But, of course, he would say that now that he has a mobile business to punt. But the real question Katz says, is how do you sell stuff to people getting it for free anyway?

The consumer as participant

The difference is that the consumer has changed - they are no longer passive recipients of information, but active participants. And they like it that way.

So, in a nutshell, his plan to take over the world and make a lot of money in the process is to put mobile Mobizone hotspots in every place where consumers congregate - be it the malls, fast food outlets, to special events to subsidise and provide free access to content online and voice calls. He has already tied up 70 of the most popular shopping malls to date in this regard. It's a win-win for the malls, which want to attract consumers and make them linger longer.

It will cost consumers nothing to access the Internet or make calls while in Mobizone hotspot. (There is a subscription model for later which I'm not allowed to talk about right now, except to say that if he gets the figures he's throwing around, he'll be one of the most influential, not to mention richest, men in media - once again - in the next couple of years). Right now he'll be making his money initially with opt in brand advertising.

Mobizone will also be providing a bundle of news and entertainment content, including movie trailers. Bizcommunity.com can also be accessed from the Mobizone portal.

Right up front he'll be competing with the very popular local mobile social networking site, MXiT, as well as the cellphone networks. But, he knows he is also actually competing with all other media for a slice of the advertising pie.

The MobiBlitz mobile portal can be accessed at: www.mobizone.co.za. Katz explains the specifics: “Bluetooth is arguably the most powerful platform for proximity marketing... The Mobizone Bluetooth Network currently gives advertisers access to some 3.5 million shoppers per week at the points where buying decisions are made. The Mobizone solution allows for both push and pull messaging and both options have their place. However, by far the biggest opportunities and greatest flexibility come from the ‘pull' application. We therefore decided to allow 24/7 access to the portal by making it available outside of the Bluetooth hotspots via any web and WAP-based protocols. This means that one is always in the zone, so to speak.”

A secret to his envisaged success: “We're agile. That is the only strategic competitive advantage today: agility and speed-to-market.”