Television has long ago left our Plasma screens and creeped into laptops, desktops, and different media players. And now, it is making the transition to mobile. Of course, sinking into your favorite chair with an ice cold beer and leaning back to watch your favorite shows on a huge screen is a luxury to be treasured. But being able to watch an episode of How I Met Your Mother while waiting in a doctor’s office instead of flipping through a 5 year old copy of Home Living might just be the next best thing.

If TV comes to mobile on a wider spectrum, making mobile an even more prevalent part of our everyday lives, what do you think the impact will be on the mobile advertising industry? Let us know!

When going through the certification process for most carriers, we set up the service and once it’s ready for testing, we send it back to the carriers and they do their thing.  Though I’ve had my problems with Sprint and their audit system in the past, I have to say their carrier testing aspect is not nearly that difficult (knock wood).  AT&T is a pleasure to work with as well.  Verizon on the other hand…well, they’re not so easy.

Recently we received word from Verizon that for every content based campaign that we would liked provisioned, we must test on all of their priority 1 and priority 2 handsets.  In layman’s terms this means that for every campaign that provides wallpapers, ringtones, or videos, we need to test said downloads on over 60 different handsets.  Seriously Verizon?

I’m pulling out the conspiracy theory card on this one.  There’s this company out there, for our sake let’s call them, MeMice MnyMhere, AKA the ‘Ultimate Mobile Application Testing Platform.’  They seem to have a gigantic foothold in the mobile testing area and they are pretty much the go to platform testing service in the US.  (If you know of any others, please let us know.)  Because of the new Verizon rules, MeMice MnyMhere is going to be seeing a drastic climb in their business.  Additionally, the frustrating aspect is that MeMice MnyMhere doesn’t even have all the handsets that Verizon is requesting!  There are 4 handsets on the Matrix I was provided by Verizon that I can’t even test on.

Oh, and by the way Verizon your phones aren’t the smartest of the bunch.  Good thing you got the Droid, that might be a saving grace.

Delays in certification also arise when Carriers all of a sudden make up new requirements and last minute unreasonable requests.

Here are two recent occurrences that had us running in circles, throwing up our hands in utter disbelief and clinching our fists in a solemn swear that at least on a personal level we will never become users of this one particular Carrier. I won’t mention their name, but they are 1 of the top 4 in the U.S. For ease of reading we’ll just call them Queen Bee Mobile (QBM).

Pre-Emptive Audits:  A team member came to me the other day to tell me about an audit we received from QBM . The audit was scolding us for not having a reply message when the auditor had text the keyword STOP to one of our managed short codes. This is a concern, and I asked the team member why he was talking to me about the audit and not resolving the audit! We are MMA members, strict on consumer compliance and this is a serious issue. The team member calmly said to me “The code isn’t provisioned, which means we have no technical connection to QBM which means that we’re incapable of receiving the STOP request and incapable of sending a text message to QBM users!” Yes, we were audited on a code that was still undergoing the strenuous process of certification!  If you’re wondering how to solve pre-emptive audits give us a shout and we’ll fill you in. When I tell you the ends to which we had to travel to get this resolved you may want to stop doing mobile! (But don’t, it’s still a great space.)

Off-the-Cuff Requirements: Another recent client project required we apply for standard rate binary content, in this instance it was a wallpaper. After not hearing from QBM for 3 months, we receive an email with an Excel matrix of all QBM handsets, and a demand that we test the wallpaper download on each handset, tell QBM if it passed or failed, and provide the phone number to each of those handsets! Mind you, this requirement was not, and is still not documented.  When we asked where this rule came from and the reasoning behind it we were told that the rule was to enhance user experience. What?! How exactly would this requirement meet that goal? In order to meet this goal all call to actions, including TV, Radio, Online, etc would need to list each and every handset that are compatible. This is obviously not realistic and fails on far too many levels for me to bore you with.

I mean, can you imagine the print, radio and television nightmare!  And, where was this ‘rule’ 3 months ago when we applied for the code! Here’s the kicker, I told my Aggregator that my client that was going to do a wallpaper campaign is gone, because the process with QBM took too long. Thus, I didn’t want certification for binary download, just a standard rate SMS service which was also applied for at the same time.  Simple right? Wrong! In order to do that QBM would need a brand new application just for the SMS alert service, they can’t (i.e. won’t) certify 1 service if the application asked for 2 – oh, and the cherry on top, I have to pay an additional application fee.

Alas, all of our frustration, agony and diatribes are a waste since Carriers control their backyards and we’re the ones that are asking permission to play in them. It’s the ultimate example of the “golden rule” – he who has the gold makes all the rules.

When these situations come up and we’re deflated the one thing we remind ourselves is that even though mobile can be frustrating when dealing with the Carrier/bureaucratic side of it, the client side is a fabulous eco-system the brings true value to consumers, quantifiable return on investment to brands, and pushes all of us to continue innovation. I truly hope Carriers realize this and focus more on supporting us rather than waking up on the wrong side of the bed and pulling random rules out of their . . .thin air

Recently, the CSCA has changed their application process for PSMS and standard rate shortcodes. Not only are you paying the leasing fees, but now you must complete a very thorough application process. There was a time in the not so distant past where applying for a shortcode was a simple process and the application requested information on how the shortcode was being used, who was leasing it, and how it was advertised. There were other tidbits of information requested, but they were all relevant to leasing the shortcode. You would then go on to pay your fees and begin the long haul of work with an aggregator to get your shortcode certified with the Carriers.

Now the CSCA application process has become its own beast. The CSCA is requesting all sorts of information about the proposed campaign that really should be managed on a Service Provider or Carrier level. They even go as far as requesting what keywords are being used on the shortcode!  How is a brand to know what keywords it will be using when trying to obtain the lease of the shortcode while still being months away from having the code certified and then an actual campaign launched! Could this possibly be the CSCA’s attempt to maintain their domination of the shortcode skies?