……is the cash cow for Chinese company Shanda Literature Ltd, a
subsidiary of Shanda Interactive Entertainment.

The company’s business model is simple: read the first half
of a book online for free, and if you want to know the rest
(which usually is the case if you have read that far) you need
to pay for it. Revenues are split with the stories’ authors.

In China, this proves to be successful. According to Shanda
Literature CEO Hou Xiaoqing, the company now has cash reserves
of $1.8 billion, with 800,000 authors creating up to 80,000 new
pages of content per day, he said at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

On web portals such as www.qidian.com and www.hongxiu.com,
customers can chose from a huge variety of stories, and the best
even make it into print.

Xiaoqing said the company has also teamed up with China
Mobile to distribute literature via mobile phones, a
business model that he said was “very promising”.

He added it was now for Shanda to explore whether those
business ideas also work in other parts of the world, including
Europe.

Could this be a business model for other publishing companies as well?

What do you think?

The traditional art of drawing could see a renaissance helped by the boom in touch-screen mobile phones following the launch of Apple’s iPhone in 2007, says British artist Derrick Welsh.

“The touch has tipped, and drawing messaging is where touch leads,” said Welsh.

It could also create the next money-spinner for mobile operators, for whom text messages are still the key data revenue generator in 2009.

To promote drawing on phones, Welsh — whose mobile paintings have been downloaded some 500,000 times from Nokia’s mobile-sharing service Mosh — is planning a drawing tour across Britain, to visit art venues, universities, schools and nightclubs.

“Fine art drawing and painting are drenched in tradition, but all children draw — as with the transformation that is happening to the rules of photography, the overwhelming majority of people who now take photographs no longer consider themselves photographers,” Welsh said.

“One day maybe the use of drawing will change as children grow up with drawing as an instant communication option.”

So far there is little that’s “instant” in drawn messages — they have to be downloaded through an Internet browser on the phone or sent as multimedia messages (MMS) from one phone to another.

“Currently, nobody trusts the networks as everyone knows a horror story or two to put them off being adventurous on the web from a mobile, and parts of the world don’t have it,” Welsh said.

A few years ago MMSs were expected to be the next big thing for mobile operators, but they have gained only a limited following among consumers due to technical glitches and some phones like the iPhone do not even support them.

Welsh, who has used Nokia’s Mosh service to study people’s interest in drawings on cellphones, says a simplified way of communicating through drawings was needed, and the potential could be surprising.

“A favorite story I heard while talking to many people was of a grandmother in Japan, who had all the usual methods to communicate with her grandchildren and she chose fax, because she could draw and then receive pictures from them,” said Welsh.

In addition to touch screen devices Welsh himself uses different technologies for his drawing, pictures in the posting are made with a Nintendo’s Wii remote control, which has been linked with Nokia’s N95 8GB phone.

For the last two years, investors have been calling for Motorola to bring out some decent new phones. The calls turned to pleas on Tuesday after its bleak results and a weak outlook.

Analysts are calling Motorola’s promise to introduce advanced devices in time for the holiday season, based on Google’s Android operating system, as the company’s last chance. In a research report entitled “Last Hurrah” Nomura analyst Richard Windsor put it bluntly:

I think if Android fails to deliver the needed revenue and profit recovery, then the focus will be oriented on managing the business for oblivion.

Motorola Co-CEO Sanjay Jha said the company will make fewer devices this year and instead put efforts into getting multiple Android products to market by the end of the third quarter and the start of the fourth quarter.

In the meantime the company is planning for a toned-down display at Mobile World Congress, the annual wireless trade show held in Barcelona later this month. All units - mobile devices, home and networks and enterprise mobility - will have a presence. Spokeswoman Jennifer Erickson said “We do have a Motorola booth there. It may be a little different and more focussed on customer meetings.”

The company is also narrowing its focus to the Americas and China, and zoning in on mid-tier ($50 to $200) data-centric devices with an emphasis on data services and social networking as well as higher-end devices. This means that devices cheaper than $50, a big chunk of the market, will take a back seat. Jha’s rationale is that carriers, looking for a shot in the arm of their own, would be more ready to subsidize fancier cellphones that they see helping to boost data revenue.

Motorola’s market share has fallen to 6.4 percent in the fourth quarter from 18.4 percent in Q1 of 2007 and more than 20 percent at its peak when demand for Razr was strong. Goldman analyst Simona Jankowski said it makes sense to refocus even though it makes it very difficult for Motorola “to go back to where they were” in terms of market share.
“They have to be good at something even though it’s small as opposed to being mediocre at a lot of things,” she said.

(Reuters photos: Motorola Renew phone, setting up its stand at CES 2007)

Having a copy of the Financial Times poking out of your valise is one way of telling the world that you are a sophisticated business type. Another way is to show people the new FT mobile service on your BlackBerry.

Here’s the news from the press release:

The Financial Times today announces the launch of a new FT.com website optimised for mobile devices available at m.ft.com. The site is consistent with the new FT.com design unveiled in November 2008 and follows the news that FT.com has broken the one million registered user barrier for the first time.

The idea is to loop a younger generation into the FT, particularly young people who think that any newspaper showing up on any part of their person is like driving a chariot to work in the morning rush hour.

More from the release:

Phase one of the launch offers a new touch screen interface, faster access to content, improved search, the ability to customise and follow stock options and, although the site works on any phone, optimisation for the iPhone and BlackBerry which together account for over 60 per cent of FT.com mobile traffic.

And:

Phase two of the launch in the first quarter will include interactive mobile charting so users can quickly access company information and index data on the go. A dedicated iPhone application will follow, incorporating more sophisticated graphics and charts and the ability to quickly share FT content with the integration of the address book.

And now you know How to Spend It.

Even before a deal to bankroll Steven Spielberg and David Geffen’s new studio has closed, India’s Reliance ADA Group is now on the hunt for U.S. mobile content publishers including game makers, according to the Wall Street Journal.

“The thought is to build a distribution model across the world,” Rajesh Sawhney, president of Reliance Entertainment, a unit of Reliance ADA, told the Journal. “For the content we’re acquiring now, we want to exploit it globally.”

Reliance hired Silicon Valley consultants VSC Consulting to scout out targets. The Mumbai-based conglomerate is also seeking to license content from big producers. This all comes on the heels of signing deals with eight Hollywood production house run by the A-listers George Clooney, Tom Hanks and Brad Pitt.

The latest suggests Reliance has cast its gaze beyond Hollywood.

Keep an eye on:

• Beijing Olympics attract record viewers. (Reuters)
• China TV companies are expected to pay at least 10-times more for the rights to broadcast the Olympics. (FT)
• Hulu reaches 105 million video streams in July. (paidContent) Hulu selects Crispin Porter + Bogusky. (AdWeek)

(Photo: Reuters / Reliance ADA Chairman Anil Ambani)

The good news on ad spending ain’t so good. According to ZenithOptimedia, spending on advertising in North America and Western Europe is expected to grow by 3.8 percent this year. But that is lower than an earlier forecast of 4.4 percent, as the credit crunch saps confidence.

This comes after Carat, the media network owned by UK group Aegis, earlier this month cut its own forecast for growth in global ad spending in 2008 to 6 percent from 6.2 percent.

An even more grim reality: Ad agencies are prepping for a recession.

The silver lining is online, of course, but it may not last. Zenith sees U.S. online ad spending growing 23.4 percent this year to $47.5 billion, an upgrade from the 19 percent forecast in December, amid the continued shift from traditional media to interactive. But it downgraded its 2009 forecast for online to 15.8 percent growth.

(Reuters)

Keep an eye on:

• Sony Pictures Television is looking to launch the first movie network on mobile phones in the United States, and has signed a deal with AT&T and MediaFLO USA to launch in May. (Hollywood Reporter)
• Microsoft and a company headed by Peter Safran, the veteran Hollywood producer and talent manager, have agreed to produce original shows for distribution on the Xbox 360 game system. (New York Times)
• More than 100 staff at Newsweek have accepted a buyout last week, including many senior editors and researchers. (Radar Online)
• Microsoft - Yahoo: No News is good news? (AllThingsD via Silicon Alley Insider)
• Live Nation lands 12-year digital branding, touring and merchandising pact with U2. (Reuters)

(Photo: Reuters file)