With this epidemic comes the Sunday Coupon section in the paper. This is still a major player. In fact, Scarborough Research finds that:

the thrifty still turn to Sunday newspapers as their top source for coupons. While many search for deals on the Internet, 53% of households got their coupons from the Sunday paper in 2007. Only 11% of households did so online.

Being in the mobile advertising world, we tend to believe that technology is making coupons more convenient and more relevant than your Sunday edition.  With more and more phones bringing in GPS navigation, 3G networks to browse the mobile web faster and smarter mobile advertising, it is only a matter of time before companies feel confident in placing their Sunday morning coupons on a cell phone.

The people using mobile phones and sending text messages is a diverse crowd as Mobile Marketer reports:

In 2007, more than 350 billion text messages were sent in the U.S. Though certainly popular with the demo, text messaging is not just limited to teenage mobile users. Nearly half of all active SMS users are over the age of 35. The mobile audience is a broad and diverse one that reads 94 percent of all text messages.

Research firm ABI Research goes on to state that:

63 percent of consumers feel a coupon is the most valuable form of mobile marketing.

Coupons that can relate to a geographic location, say in the middle of Sanford, FL (a suberb of Orlando), that can tell you food deals within a 5, 10 or 20 mile radius can make everyone happy from a targeted market and potential customers for the advertiser to valid coupons that consumers will actually use.

Time will tell how it plays out, but rest assured that GripOffs is aimed to stay ahead of the game and bring Mobiel Coupons to the people that matter to your company. For advertising rates or to hear more about GripOffs and Mobile Coupons, please send an email to jim@gripoffs.com.

-The GripOffs Team

The first thing we want to know is “who is using the web from their cell phone?“  In the Uniter States the figures are 15.6% of all mobile subscribers. That equates to 40 million active mobile web browsers here in the states alone. (Stat came in May of 2008)

Is this number going to increase?

The answer to this is a resounding, YES! With more and more mobile companies coming out with data plans, unlimited texting, email applications, chat applications, 3G networks and other components, the average cell phone user will be more accessible to the mobile web.

Google is getting close to reaching launch with its Android platform and that will kick down whatever part of the door that still remains up.

One last quote and stat from the Nielsen Mobile Report:

As mobile Internet publishers build out an advertising inventory, advertising is becoming a common part of the mobile Internet experience: 26 percent of mobile Internet users recall seeing some form of advertising while using the mobile Internet. Mobile Internet users are 60% more likely to be open to mobile advertising than the average mobile data user.

If you have any other questions regarding who is using the mobile web, or to find out how GripOffs can help get you in front of the 40 million U.S. mobile web surfers, please send an email to jim@gripoffs.com.

For the full Nielsen Mobile Report, click here.

-The GripOffs Team

Not that it isn’t happening everywhere, but here in Orlando, all the talk on Twitter and at watercoolers across the tech community is on the iPhone.

Etan Horowitz, an Orlando Sentinel Tech Blogger has been reporting on the phenomenon all day today, reporting long lines and the sad-but-true reality that Apple did not send enough product on Day 1. This also played into the iTunes store going down for the better part of the day and leaving many with an expensive brick in their pocket.

In Etan’s latest post he reports,

AT&T spokeswoman Gretchen Schultz said that by 3 p.m. nearly all inventory of the iPhone 3G had been purchased at the roughly 30 AT&T stores in Central Florida.

No word on the supply at the area’s two Apple stores, but there are reports that lines are still very long.

Schultz said the AT&T stock of iPhones will be replenished, but she could not say when that would happen. She the stock would definitely be replenished “throughout the week,” but she could not say if any more stock would be arriving over the weekend.

Hopefully there will be better luck tomorrow and the upcoming week. Can Apple meet the demand? Are we ready to have all that data on our cell phones? I sure bet that GripOffs coupon offers look great on the iPhone!

Have a great weekend!

-The GripOffs Team

In appreciation of our environment, every Wednesday will be GripOffs Going Green Day!

Today we are going to make a quick note about helping our environment by driving less and the consumption of gas. The tips for today are:

Carpool to help ease traffic congestion and air pollution.
Walk or ride a bicycle for short distances. e.g from your home to the groceries/market.
Make a list of errands and plan to do them in a day… this saves time, petrol and money.
Look for jobs online via job boards and search engines
Take public transport whenever convenient instead of using the car.
It’s summer time, roll the windows down!

Enjoy the earth and enjoy great savings from the GripOffs Mobile Coupon Mobile site. Remember to grip your .mobi and look for exciting deals in your area!

-The GripOffs Team

David Murphy from Mobile Marketing Magazine wrote up a quick piece about GripOffs, our system and the future potential of the platform this morning. Check out a brief excerpt:

…what you do, in fact, is go back to the mobile site once you get to the shop or restaurant making the offer, select the appropriate mobile coupon, and hand your phone to the cashier. So there’s no need to send the coupon to the handset, and no need for the phone to have anything other than mobile web-browsing capabilities.
Presumably there still needs to be some sort of POS infrastructure at the retail end in order to redeem the offer and enable the advertiser running the promotion to measure its success, but even so, as mobile couponing schemes go, this one looks to have potential.

Thanks David, and we look forward to updates on all things Mobile and .Mobi at Mobile Marketing Magazine.

-GripOffs Team