Something came to my attention earlier this week, a new virtual cell-co, Blyk. Blyk's angle here is that it's giving away over 200 free SMS and 47 minutes of free phone calls. All this is in exchange for being advertisted at.
There seems to be two schools of thought about advertising, the Cluetrainthought (number 74) against the Google/Facebook "look at us we're made of millions yet we don't take a penny" thought. Blyk seems to be taking the second side.
Get them while they're young!
Let's consider for a while, as the Guardian points out, teenagers are going to love this, free stuff rocks! But the Register points out a more serious side with the consequences.
Blyk will not only have your profile data for getting the sim (age and sex etc), but by using the handset it will also have call and location data about the caller as well. This data is invaluable, your location (although generally restricted by hundreads of meters at best through Cell Mast postitioning) can be used for targeted advertising and can also use call and SMS history to target ads as well. Will they go as far as reading your texts for key words?
People expect stuff for free now! Most are willing to be advertised at for free stuff, but some are still cautious about this.
I'm not quite sure how I feel about this all yet. Anyway, check them out and Blyk in the news:
http://about.blyk.com/home/
http://www.blyk.co.uk/
http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/nov2006/gb20061103_894708.htm
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/09/24/blyk-launches-ad-based-mobile-network/
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