Verizon Scam Math: $0 Off = 25% Discount

From Consumerist:

Spying On The President Elect: Not A Good Idea, Verizon...

A variety of media sources have reported that unauthorized Verizon employees had accessed Barack Obama's celly account to see what they could see. The account they scrounged was not current, and was for an old flip phone, not his beloved BlackBerry.

Hmm. In an environment in which privacy is under increased scrutiny, I cannot imagine the lads and lasses at Verizon PR were pleased to have all this go down.

I was not pleased with their lame public response, taken from Adotas:

“This week we learned that a number of Verizon Wireless employees have, without authorization, accessed and viewed President-Elect Barack Obama’s personal cell phone account. The account has been inactive for several months.”
“All employees who have accessed the account – whether authorized or not – have been put on immediate leave, with pay. As the circumstances of each individual employee’s access to the account are determined, the company will take appropriate actions. Employees with legitimate business needs for access will be returned to their positions, while employees who have accessed the account improperly and without legitimate business justification will face appropriate disciplinary action.”

Suspended with pay? I call that a paid vacation reward.

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Bigtime Mobile Consolidation: First Verizon/Alltel, Now ATT/Centennial

Are there too many mobile providers? That is a bigger question than I could possibly answer. But ATT and Verizon have made big moves this week toward further consolidation of the industry. Big stuff, people.

First was the FCC's approval of Verizon's acquisition of Alltel -- a move that put the big V at the top of the heap subscriber wise, with over 80 MM subs.

Now ATT has announced a buyout of Centennial Wireless, a Midwest provider. This puts ATT's subs total at 76 million.

I have to believe that both will continue to make such moves as they battle for that number one slot.

What of the timing? Well, might it relate to the upcoming change in Presidency, and the possibility that the incoming government will be less friendly to big mergers?

Oh, too big a question for my noggin, but the Verizon acq does represent the disappearance of a low cost alternative to the big lads. Though perhaps Verizon will have to make provisions for low cost plans given that they will lose those value oriented subs if they just jack the rates. With the declining barriers to brand switching, I would expect above average churn in both of these subscriber bases -- I mean, there must have been a reason why someone chose a Centennial or an Alltel instead of the providers with the largest national footprints.

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Vongo RIP

Vongo is no more...



Vongo was a movie downloading platform for portable devices. Unfortunately only 7 portable devices, and none of the 7 was the iPod.

Ars Technica reports that customers are being referred to Verizon StarzPlay, a virtually identical service.

Now that Vongo is dead, its web site directs interested parties to Verizon's Starz Play—a service launched in May that practically mirrors Vongo, except under new branding. The only differences are that the monthly fee is slightly lower ($5.99 per month instead of $9.99), and there are no longer pay-per-view movies available. Starz Play is apparently part of the company's new (new) marketing strategy. "We felt like the upside for us from a business standpoint was to wholesale it to affiliates...Vongo had fulfilled its mission by generating interest," a Starz spokesperson told PaidContent.

That must be a hell of a lot of interest in order to justify shutting down a service, ditching its branding, and relaunching it as something else. In reality, there likely weren't many people using Vongo, and Vongo's new branding under Verizon is unlikely to take it much further.

Vongo RIP.iPod knockoffs will never be the same.

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How Sweet the Idea, Verizon Wireless!

Of all the emerging digital platforms, the one that is least intuitive for me is mobile. I know the stats, I know what's going on, and intellectually I understand the power behind it. But it's tough for me to feel it because for me a cellphone is a utility, not an entertainment device.

But when I saw the "How Sweet the Sound" Gospel promotion from Verizon Wireless, I could finally feel it. I am a gospel fan, though perhaps surprisingly I am not a terribly religious person. But anyone who has visited a large black church (I prefer "urban contemporary" or "black" gospel, but there are four other subgenres with their throngs of devotees) with a good choir knows that you don't need to "believe" for Gospel to put a smile on your face and lift your day.

How Sweet the Sound is a gospel choir competition in which choirs record vids of their choirs and submit them to the contest. there are two tiers:

Small/medium choirs of 6-35 participants
Large choirs of 36-100 participants

Piloted last year in Memphis only, HSTS is now a national program. Any church-related choir can participate - the church needs to be a 501c3 nonprofit. Choirs are judged on a battery of criteria -- here is the list.

In the first round, 5 minute vids are submitted and a subset will be posted for consumer voting. From there, the semifinalists will be judged by professionals. These regional winners will be selected at an in-person event.



From there the regional winners advance to an in person national event. Verizon Wireless will be videoing the winner, and making the video available as part of its popular VCast entertainment offering. Additionally, they'll be offering downloads and ringtones, to make it a truly mobile-integrated program.

What I like about this program:

1. It is a music program beyond the kerplunk hip hop music competition genre that has been adopted as the defacto way of reaching an African American audience. I am not disparaging hip hop but rather saying this to celebrate Verizon Wireless's wisdom in finding other genres where its program can stand out and reach a broad audience.

2. It has online, mobile, and in-person components. Ya gotta have in-person because there's nothing like gospel in person, and it will give Verizon Wireless opps for signage, messages, and sign-ups.

3. It reaches out to (mostly) black churches -- there is a lot of research that suggests that black churchgoers are highly brand loyal and reward those firms who support their organizations with purchases and brand loyalty. Basically what Verizon Wireless is saying with this program is that they want to be part of this massive and eminently positive network of organizations that are firmly connected to thousands of communities across the country.

4. It is commercial but respectful. It invites people to use Verizon Wireless, but it doesn't demand it. I bet loads of people will accept the nice invitation.

5. It showcases VCast and the plethora of mobile phones they offer that provide good sound fidelity and streaming video.

6. It recognizes the absolutely gigantic gospel fan community -- with one in four Americans being "born again," you better believe that there are throngs of people buying albums, MP3s, and ringbacks.

This is a great program, and I bet it really pulls in the subs. People like companies that support what they love. I'll bet a lot of them'll be saying ATT can keep its iPhones. ;-)

I'll leave you with a bit of Yolanda Adams. She's got pipes -- and should be on that playlist of yours.



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