Business customers are already demanding services from high-speed networks not expected from operators like Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc until 2010.

But that timeline hasn’t deterred Scott Slater, an advanced engineering expert at The Bank of New York Mellon, who asked Verizon Wireless for two-way video conferencing on mobile phones so that bank representatives could bring an investment adviser into a client meeting. Slater has even come up with a new marketing slogan for the company.

“Verizon will have to change its moniker from “Can you hear me now” to “Can you see me now,” said Slater in a presentation at a technology conference run by the No. 2 U.S. mobile service for business clients. “When mobile video conferencing becomes rampant in the U.S. and Verizon changes its moniker” said Slater, “you heard it here first.”

Slater’s company has 42,000 employees in 34 countries, and is testing mobile video conferencing in Europe. Verizon Wireless technology executive Ian deCone would not say when he could offer video conferencing but said that faster data network speeds should help.

AT&T has offered a video-sharing service since July with two-way audio but only one-way streaming of video images. “What we’re really interested in is two-way video,” said Slater. “Video is a more effective means for communication. It’s more personal. Facial expressions tell a lot.”

Verizon may be an extreme example of efforts by telephone companies to reinvent themselves. Its mobile unit Verizon Wireless has set up a mobile music production studio, in the form of a high-tech tour bus. The company has also hired influential hit-maker Timbaland as its first producer-in-residence.
 The plan is for Timbaland, better known for his work with singers such as Aliyah or Justin Timberlake than with the phone company, to create a mobile music album by producing one song per month for participating artists and releasing that song exclusively for Verizon Wireless in the form of a full song, ringtones and ringback tones, which callers hear before a call is picked up.
So far Verizon has signed up R&B singer Keri Hilson for the project. Ed Ruth, the director of digital music for Verizon Wireless explained the strategy as he showed off the bus ahead of a Madonna concert, from which Verizon Wireless broadcast four songs live to its mobile phones on Wednesday night.
   Ruth said the project was an important marketing tool for the artist, their record label and of course Verizon Wireless, which is looking to make a name in digital music.
“This is not a matter of exchanging big checks,” Ruth told reporters ahead of the show, when asked about the terms of Verizon’s agreements with record labels.
“Music is important to our overall brand,” he said. ”We’re looking to create strong relationships with artists.”
“Artists are frustrated,” said Ruth. As CD sales decline, “there’s frustration the labels aren’t innovating.”
But while these may sound like fighting words Verizon Wireless says it wants to help the record labels rather than hurt them.

AT&T plans to offer a new mobile digital TV service, including full-length shows and some movies, which is an obvious step up from typical mobile video shows that are over in minutes. AT&T is launching the service May 4 in 58 U.S. markets, putting it on flashy phones from LG Electronics and Samsung Electronics.

But the service may not win over a big number of AT&T customers, if past consumer behavior is anything to go on. Only 5.9 percent of mobile users watched video on their phone once a month during December, January and February, while less that 1 percent watched video “almost every day,” according to M:Metrics, which surveyed more than 31,000 people.

AT&T Mobile TV will broadcast from a wireless network run by Qualcomm’s MediaFlo USA and will cost $15 a month for about 10 channels including Comedy Central, ESPN, MTV and NBC News. Or it will charge $13 for just four channels. Yet it remains to be seen whether prices, which are similar to Verizon Wireless’ MediaFlo service, are cheap enough to get consumers hooked.

It’s no secret that most people still want to use their phones mainly for talking and sending text messages. And those who do want mobile video are looking to pay much less or preferably nothing, according to Linda Barrabee of Yankee Group.

About 20 percent of respondents to a Yankee Group survey last year said they would consider paying a monthly fee for mobile video, and slighlty fewer said they’d favor pay-per-view. So how much would they pay? Apparently, less than $5 a month or about $1 for pay-per-view .

Google suprised the market with better than expected quarterly results despite worries that it was being hit by economic weakness after comScore data showed it having trouble converting Web search into ad viewer. Google CEO Eric Schmidt even went as far as to say the company would still perform well for the whole year ”regardless of the business environment.” For investors, the results wiped away fears that Google was just as vulnerable as any company to recession fears and, as of this morning, company shares were up more than $80.

Some analysts noted that Google growth slowed from the previous quarter and that the good results did not completely eliminate concerns about its prospects (New York Times) . While Lehman and Merrill Lynch rushed to see who could raise their price targets for Google higher, shares of comScore quietly fell 8 percent. 

Schmidt gave less satisfaction in his comments on the company’s dealings with arch-rival Yahoo, but his tone was sweet: “It’s nice working with Yahoo and we like them very much.”

Keep an eye on:

•  Sam Zell eyes Chicago Cubs sale, undecided on Newsday fate (Reuters)
•  CW to pull free Internet streams for new “Gossip Girl” episodes, says watch it on televsion  (LA Times)
• Viewers are not rushing back to their favorite TV Programs (Advertising Age)
• Sony-BMG Reshuffles, gives legend Clive Davis a new title — and may be showing him the door. (Silicon Alley Insider)

(Photo: Reuters)

The wireless industry’s clout attracted former U.S. presidents last year, but this year it was just enough to lure the former wannabes.

This year’s headline keynote speakers at the CTIA annual industry showcase were former presidential candidates John Edwards and Fred Thompson? Last year the wireless show nabbed Former actual Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton as keynote speakers.

After lamenting lost chances and nodding to the increasing importance of technology in campaigns, both politicians then got busy criticizing how the mainstream media has handled the presidential campaign so far.

Edwards spent a good deal of his keynote discussing how voters, despite wall to wall coverage of the campaign, seemed largely ignorant of  the remaining hopefuls’ John McCain (R), Barack Obama (D) and Hillary Clinton (D) differing approaches to issues such as global warming, national security or health care.

“What you’d expect is a more informed electorate,” said Edwards in answer a question about the impact of 24-hour media  coverage of the campaigns.
“Unfortunately that’s not the case,” he said during the questions session after his keynote.

“There is so much focus on the superficial. The American people deserve better. You deserve to be better informed than that,” said Edwards before refusing to reveal who he would vote for and saying that he would not consider a nomination for vice-president.

Thompson was equally contemptuous of the mainstream media campaign coverage. 
“There’s nothing more dangerous than a writer or a television personality with dead airtime he’s got to fill up,” said the former actor.

“Controversy is the name of the game and sometimes it’s generated when it’s not really there,” he said of coverage of the campaign so far.  “We’re seeing it in these campaigns, the good side and the bad side of these new ways to communicate,” said Thompson.

In his speech he referred  to the double-edged sword of blogs and services like Twitter, which lets users send updates to a large group of people.

However, neither seemed to blame the media for their failure to win nominations for the top job. Thompson blamed his failure on his taking advice that he should “be himself.”  Edwards said, “If some of you voted for me it wasn’t enough of you.”

(Photo: Sinead Carew / John Edwards (top); Fred Thompson (bottom)

A cottage industry has risen from the ashes of Eliot Spitzer’s career and, well, life. Echoing Jay-Z’s words, Client 9 “is no businessman…he’s a business, man.”

Ok, maybe not an industry in the traditional sense. But certain opportunists companies are at least looking to make a quick buck on the former “Wall Street Sheriff’s” woes. It didn’t take long for Virgin Mobile Canada and Sirius Satellite Radio to add their takes on Client 9, Spitzer’s infamous court document alias.

“When you call us we’ll treat you like a person, not a client. Whether you’re #9 or #900, you’ll get hooked up with somebody who’ll finally treat you just how you want to be treated,” Virgin Mobile Canada promised.

Sirius Satellite Radio went a step further by creating and promoting a weekend of programming billed as “Client 9 Radio.”

“Client 9 Radio will serve as a forum for this national conversation,” Sirius announced on Friday. “Client 9 Radio will explore every side of the story: from the political to the psychological to the medical and beyond.”

A representative of YouMail, a company that lets users save their voicemails, also chimed in: “With the recent developments regarding Eliot Spitzer being exposed through wiretaps, I can’t help but wonder when saved and easily shared voicemails will be used to uncover the next big business or political scandal.”

On Tuesday, a day after the New York Times first reported the Spitzer’s ties with a prostitute ring, vendors were already hawking T-shirts. “Client #9 for President, Help Legalize Prostitution” T-Shirts were available over at CafePress.

Client 9 even hit lunch, Gothamist reports. Eisenberg’s Sandwich Shop in New York started serving “The Spitzer” sandwich made with “hot tongue,” naturally.And apparently without even trying, News Corp earned publicity from the debacle in the form of reports about the MySpace page were “Kristen,” Spitzer’s alleged lady-friend shared her story and her music.

(Photos: Virgin Mobile Canada; Sirius Satellite Radio)

The Mobile World Congress kicks off in Barcelona this week with about 60,000 delegates showing everything new in the world of wireless.

The night before the show’s official start Sony Ericsson made a splash with seven new phones that promised users every possibility from back to the future cellphone-enabled handwritten post-it-notes to devices that could hold as many as 8,000 songs.

But the most confusing part of the line-up was the swan – or should one say penguin — song, Sony Ericsson’s first mobile phone with a Microsoft Mobile Windows operating system. The company explained that it needed to broaden its portfolio to new software platforms, but never mentioned why it illustrated the device’s multi-media prowess with the Penguin, a long-time symbol for Linux , Microsoft’s open-source arch-rival.

To read Reuters’ preview of the show, click on http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080208/wr_n m/mobile_fair_preview_dc 

Mobile porn could be a hit in the United States this year, the pornographers say. But could the 2008 U.S. presidential candidate’s rush to vie for voter love delay its rise from obscurity.

Consider, this is the same country where a singer’s career nearly ended after flashing one bare breast on national television. 

Offering mobile porn could be further complicated after customers and Catholic officials in Canada, U.S.’s liberal neighbors to the north, condemned the country’s No. 2 phone company Telus, forcing it to stop offering porn on handsets.

“It’s hard to overcome stuff like that. When you’re in the adult market place it’s a constant uphill battle,” says ClubJenna President Jay Grdina, who founded the company with his porn star wife Jenna Jameson and sold it in 2006 to Playboy.
 
Indeed, even the staunchest defenders of freedom of speech admit there are muddy legal issues. For one, U.S. mobile providers could face serious legal hurdles if porn on their services ends up in the hands of minors, according to lawyer and adult entertainment specialist Gregory Piccionelli.

“The regulatory posture of adult entertainment will always be a matter of some contention because it is so charged with morality and politics,” he said.

ClubJenna’s Grdina and Piccionelli said they saw hope in gadgets like iPhone, which can show racy images in all its detailed glory on the device’s 3.5-inch “multi-touch” display. Piccionelli is so convinced iPhone will go down in history as the device that made mobile porn happen he has stockpiled some devices for posterity.

“Finally we’re going to say this is acceptable,” Grdina said.

(Photo: Screenshot of ClubJenna.com)

AT&T spooked the markets on Tuesday after admitting seeing softness in its consumer businesses including wired broadband and telephone services, with less of an impact on the company’s wireless business.
 
Meanwhile, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas - clearly a more cheerful city - executives, including some from AT&T, were decidedly more optimistic about the prospects for telecommunications companies in the event of a downturn.
 
Scott Helbing, AT&T senior vice president for entertainment services said consumers have become so addicted to broadband Internet access they’re likely to say “I’ll forgo the coat or the second pair of pants” for a broadband connection.
 
Similarly Muzib Khan, a product manager for Samsung Electronics U.S. mobile phone business likened the importance of cell phones to food.
“Cell phones are a necessity,” he said. “From our point of view the cell phones that we’re selling and the features we’re selling (add value) for consumers. I don’t think they’re going to say we don’t want that value add.”
 
In the third quarter AT&T found that about 50 percent of its U-Verse customers were opting for the most expensive $129 a month package of video and broadband services based on the company’s fiber optic network.  Helbing did concede that in the event of an economic downturn “maybe that percentage could draw back.”
 
Khan said that the impact of a slowdown could also be softened by the fact that U.S. carriers heavily subsidize the price of cell phones. But Sprint Nextel does not plan to subsidize any devices it sells for a high-speed wireless service it is launching in April based on WiMax.
Asked whether the timing was risky for such a model, the company’s Chief Technology Officer Barry West said, “I really don’t see it.” 

Little over a week after Verizon Wireless made headlines with its plan to open its network to phones it doesn’t sell, AT&T won applause for apparently following suit, when in fact the company says it is making absolutely no changes to its policy. 

Consumers have long been able to use phones that were not bought from AT&T on its network because the company cannot avoid it, thanks to the GSM technology it uses. But AT&T doesn’t actively encourage the practice and says it warns its customers that it won’t guarantee devices it doesn’t sell will work well. 

Neither is Verizon making any promises about the quality of non-Verizon devices, but it has promised to set up a program to certify and activate any that meet its technical standards.

The subtle difference didn’t stop USA Today from writing a headline about how AT&T was flinging its “cellphone network wide open” in a story based on an interview with the head of its wireless business.Upstart Frontline Wireless followed with an e-mailed statement entitled AT&T/open access claiming ”a big win for our policy argument” and ”a reaction to what Frontline has championed on open access.”

Then, adding icing to AT&T’s cake, Washington experts weighed in. Enter Representative John Dingell, Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, which oversees U.S telecommunications regulator Federal Communications Commission.Dingell said in an Dec. 7 e-mail he was “pleased to hear AT&T’s announcement, which continues a consumer-friendly trend of more open wireless networks.”

To his credit Dingell notes that “the devil is in the details” as he urged the company to “implement its policy in a way that maximizes consumer choice.”