In a nutshell, Verizon said AT&T’s request to have the ads pulled is without merit. From the court filing (PDF):

AT&T did not file this lawsuit because Verizon’s “There’s A Map For That” advertisements are untrue; AT&T sued because Verizon’s ads are true and the truth hurts… AT&T now is attempting to silence Verizon’s ads that include maps graphically depicting the geographic reach of AT&T’s 3G network as compared to Verizon’s own 3G network because AT&T does not like the truthful picture painted by that comparison.

In the court filing, Verizon outlines the reasons that AT&T’s arguments are without merit. They include:

• Because the ads are truthful, AT&T is attacking them under faulty theories, including a claim that they are misleading. But Verizon says there’s no real evidence – aside from an AT&T commissioned survey – that proves that consumers are misled by the ad.
• There is no emergency that would require the court to issue an immediate restraining order – as AT&T has requested – without giving Verizon the opportunity to conduct its own research and present evidence to prove that consumers are not being misled.
• The harm to Verizon and the public, in general, caused by pulling the ads is greater than any alleged harm being inflicted on AT&T.

Read more about this topic by Sam Diaz at ZDNet

Despite the tremendous growth in mobile usage and the substantial investment by many businesses in the space, the mobile web is still in its early stages. We believe that great mobile advertising products can encourage even more growth in the mobile ecosystem. That’s what has us excited about this deal.

Though perhaps the most visible, AdMob is not the largest mobile ad network. According to an August compilation of Nielsen data by Mobile Marketer, here’s the reach of each of the top mobile ad networks (monthly unique users):

1. Millennial Media: 45.6 million
2. Yahoo!: 36.1 million
3. Google: 31.9 million
4. AOL/Platform-A’s Third Screen Media: 28.6 million
5. AdMob: 25.7 million
6. Microsoft: 25.4 million (doesn’t include the new Verizon deal)
7. Jumptap: 23.4 million
8. Quattro Wireless: 23 million

You can find more information about this acquisition at google.com/press/admob

General rules:

1. **Only for US readers**
2. Contest Starts June 13th 2009 and Ends July 15th 2009
3. Each entrants will get one unique number. The list of all the entrants will be posted at the end of the contest period
4. Two winners will get a 6 month GPS navigator service
5. The winner will be selected using Random.Org and announced here with a specific blog post

Check out the blog contest and enter to win!

Read more About Blog Contests online.

Related Information:

So why couldn’t Twitter release a premium level of its service that grants paid users a greater level of access to the platform, additional features, more API connections, etc?  This seems the logical next step.  The main service would remain free as it always had (even I didn’t need to upgrade until now), but a handful of the Twitter power users would benefit from near-real-time Twitter updates with applications such as TweetDeck and mobile devices for the iPhone or BlackBerry such as Tweetie, Twitterific and TwitterBerry.

Here is some simple math that I’ve worked out.  The numbers seem fairly reasonable so far and I welcome comments on this model.  TwitDir reports 3,328,420 twitterers that they know as of today.  I’ll use this as the base number for my calculation.  If we estimate that there are 3.3 million Twitterers out there sharing ideas, and only 5% of them are power users that require a more powerful level of Twitter power (166,421), paying only $2.99/mo…

That’s almost a half a million dollars of revenue for Twitter and all they had to do was scale up a few servers and spend a few hours coding the management/login area for users.  Hardly anything else needs to change.  The infrastructure has already been layed out and is operational.  If they wanted to, they could charge $4.99/mo for a different tier of service and offer other incentives to those users that required even more.

I’ve found myself leaving TweetDeck open on both my Mac (home) and Windows PC (work) and constantly use Tweetie on my iPhone.  There go all my API connections for the hour…they’re used up in about 30 minutes even with moderate usage.

The bottom line, would we pay for this service?  Is it so necessary to the way that we network now that users would jump into paying for it, or do we only use it now because it’s free?  My vote is for the same level of service to remain free, but offer additional options to their already-ginormous user base.

Comments welcome.

I’ve witnessed the speed of the internet on a laptop using a jailbroken iPhone lately, and I must say…it’s fast.  The iPhone 3G is connected to one of the quickest carrier networks out there (second only to Sprint’s WiMax I believe), and I’ve seen DSL rivaling speeds.

It’s been said that the carrier will also be likely to charge additional fees for the service or to use the application to cover costs.  I’m sensing this idea of “double dipping” starting to pop up again.  I posted about this a week ago with Verizon trying to do this with SMS messaging not originating from mobile devices.

Read:  Verizon to stunt mobile growth for a few bucks?

I mean, they’re already billing you for so-called “unlimited” data.  This has been discussed for many months in relation to various carriers (not just AT&T) and is starting to irritate the hell out of consumers.  You have a sales guy in the retail store telling you it’s “unlimited data” and signage all over the store also stating the term “unlimited”, yet we have the carrier’s terms and conditions for service stating something like this…

If you are on a data plan that does not include a monthly megabyte allowance and additional data usage rates, the parties agree that AT&T has the right to impose additional charges if you use more than 5 GB in a month.  Prior to the imposition of any additional charges, AT&T shall provide you with notice and you shall have the right to terminate your service.

Increasingly, Internet providers across the country are placing such limits on the amount of data users can upload and download each month, as a way to curb a small number of “bandwidth hogs” who use a lot of the network capacity. For instance, 5 percent of AT&T’s subscribers take up 50 percent of the capacity, spokesman Michael Coe said Tuesday.

To that I say:  ”Why did you say it was unlimited, then?”.  This screams false advertising, doesn’t it?  Let’s just call it what it is.  I sense a class action lawsuit coming of many.

Original article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/11/technology/companies/11text.html?_r=2&em&oref=slogin&oref=slogin 

When mobile subscribers already pay for this as part of a service contract, this seems like double dipping in terms of where they’re getting their income.

I question what this will do to the growth of the mobile market just as it’s taking off?  The creative agency I work for, Quango Design + Marketing, doesn’t currently do work with text messaging outside of the mobile networks, but we do marketing that in some part could make use of web text messaging someday.  This type of hard cost makes it nearly impossible to integrate on a large scale unless cost is passsed on to the end user.

Will Free Web Text & txtDrop still remain “free”?  Text messaging & SMS is useful for more than just entertainment purposes.  Text 4 Deaf is a service that enables deaf users to remain connected in a number of ways.  Something of this size could be crippled (no pun intended) overnight by a change like this, or could require higher charitable donations in order to remain operating.  The other alternative would be higher rates to the users of course.

Something as significant as this change may seem like a simple choice to Verizon, but they have an opportunity to help shape the mobile market and be innovators, not stifle it by increases.  People are already paying for the right to receive these messages to their mobile providers (Sprint PCS, ATT and T-Mobile).

Verizon mentions:
“We want to find a way not just to create a toll but build the overall market together”

I don’t view this as building the market as much as I do see it as a toll.  Isn’t there a better way than double dipping on something you’re already profitable from in the service contracts?

Now I’m with ATT (iPhone) and it’s a whole different ball game. If I recall correctly, all of ATT, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile don’t charge you for call forwarding. ATT confirmed this via a customer service call last night.

The pricing has always been fairly reasonable. Most people don’t receive more than 40 voicemail messages per month and the $9.95 per month plan will suffice. PhoneTag will bill you $0.25 per message over your 40 message limit each month (I will rarely ever go over). Although this seems like a lot, think about the math when you add it up. That’s 20 additional messages for only $5 more…what a bargain.

They have a pay as you go plan that costs $0.35 per message received, however, if you receive more than a few voicemails per month, this can add up rather quickly. For those of you operating in a business environment, PhoneTag will work with you to craft a solution for your workforce that suits your needs. Simply contact one of their corporate support agents and you will be guided through the process.

For the full-time on the go business person that practically lives by their phone 24/7, they have an unlimited plan that costs $29.95 per month. This plan is more geared towards the die-hard mobile person and would be ideal to expense this to a business requiring mobile work to occur.

PhoneTag works with over 95% of current mobile, home and work voicemail systems today. Some third party vendors may have differing costs to use in terms of carrier services, but for the most part they all work similarly. You forward voicemails on a “call forward no answer” to the number that PhoneTag gives you and they handle the rest.

How easy is it to hook up or install? Here’s what I did. I received an email that contained these instructions (underscores replaced instead of the phone number they gave me).

On your mobile phone, dial *004*___________*11#, hit send, and enjoy!
You are now on PhoneTag!

If you wish to turn PhoneTag off, just enter ##004#

Additional information was included that told me how to customize my voicemail on their servers. It was a simple call to a toll free number they listed and it was done in less than 5 minutes. Recommendation: call from a land line phone for clarity’s sake. Your voicemail message will sound much clearer if you do this.

Vonage, Lingo and Packet8 users are also covered. Those voice over IP (VoIP) services allow free forwarding of voicemail via phone and email. If your service doesn’t allow you to simply forward the voice call in real time to the number that PhoneTag designates, PhoneTag has a special email address that they setup allowing you to forward voicemail as attachments to the PhoneTag service. PhoneTag then transcribes the recorded message and emails or text message’s you with the text version in about a minute.

PhoneTag’s technical support via phone (800-788-0916) and email. I left a message for support for something I needed done this morning and Tom in support called back within 3 hours. They do, however, operate inside of a typical U.S. working day. So if you’re in the UK or somewhere else in the world, the service will work but you’ll likely receive support outside of your own typical business hours.

PhoneTag themselves offer a 7-day free trial of their services. You can remove the service and cancel at any time within the testing period. They have offered me a special code to allow you a full 30 days to try out PhoneTag. If you dislike it for any reason, just cancel at any point within the 30 day trial.

Free 30 Day Trial:
https://apps.simulscribe.com/signup/r/320275

I think the only negative aspects I dislike about the PhoneTag service are:

• Lack of after hours support. Should something (ever) go wrong where I made a configuration mistake and were missing voicemails from important people, I’d be extremely upset. Even the simplest of support via email through their ticket system would be acceptable.
• They brand their name stating that “your message will be transcribed by PhoneTag” when the person is leaving their message. This is both good and bad. It prompts users to “clearly” state their message and phone number, so you’re more likely to receive an accurate transcription of the recording. However, we’re paying for a service at an arguably steep rate. They shouldn’t be forcing their brand on our callers…especially for business users.
• I wish they would create more diversity in their package offerings. Even when they were Simulscribe (I notice they still use the “simulscribe.com” domain name pretty heavily still, too) they offered the same plans. I would suggest a plan for $19.95 that offers possibly 100 voicemails per month.