Mobile Innovation

There are now more than 10 million Koreans using mobile-banking enabled handsets, up from 1.1 million in 2002, reports Moco News, via Mobile Monday.

"Currently, one chip can accommodate mobile banking service for just one bank, which means customers are required to exchange chips specific to a certain bank every time they make a transaction.

To rectify this, mobile carriers led by SK Telecom are seeking to invent new types of chips that will include several credit cards and debit cards in a single smart chip.

The operators’ commitment to the smart chip, however, aroused the ire of some banks that raised concerns regarding the security of the new solution.

Banks seem to worry that mobile carriers will gain the upper hand if the smart chips that include customer information of many bankers are introduced by carriers,” a Seoul analyst told Korea Times. “Banks think that then wireless operators will hold master keys to the smart chips and will exert sweeping clout over them."

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The social networking site MySpace, hugely successful among teenagers and twenty-somethings, is about to become more ubiquitous with the launch of a cellular service that will let users read and post to the site for free.

The service and two accompanying phones will be launched in a few months by Helio LLC, a joint venture of Internet service provider Earthlink Inc. and South Korean carrier SK Telecom Co.

On MySpace, users keep personal pages with journals, communicate with friends and play games. It's a formula that has attracted more than 54 million users and the attention of media conglomerate News Corp., which bought the site last year for $580 million.

SK Telecom owns the Korean equivalent of MySpace. Called Cyworld, it is hugely popular among young South Koreans and can be accessed from cell phones.

"We're able to leverage a lot of that experience about how to take social networking and put it on a device," said Sky Dayton, founder of Earthlink and chief executive of Helio.

"What our target really cares about, this young consumer, is being connected to their friends and being connected to their world," Dayton said, contrasting Helio's idea to that of the major carriers, who are expanding sales of music, videos and games.

Helio's two phones, dubbed "Hero" and "Kickflip" will be based on Korean designs. Made by Pantech and VK Mobile, the phones will feature large color screens and cameras, but no QWERTY keyboards.

An exact launch date was not announced. Nor were prices for the phones and plans, but Dayton said they will not be prepaid. Apart from a monthly fee, access to MySpace will be free.

Helio will be a so-called "mobile virtual network operator," meaning it won't have its own cellular network. Instead, it will buy access to Sprint Nextel Corp.'s and Verizon Wireless' high-speed networks.

Other MVNOs include Virgin Mobile and Boost Mobile.

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MySpace, the largest and most successful social network on the planet, just announced the exclusive way it will enter the mobile arena. It’s worth noting that existing MySpace users effectively include every single mobile-savvy young adult in the US. And, Enpocket’s research finds that 30% of respondents age 18-24 prefer to access information from mobile phones rather than TV, newspapers, the Internet, radio, and magazines.

So, does MySpace repeat its initial success by keeping the barriers to adoption as low as possible and giving their users a highly social, highly flexible environment in which to express themselves? Nope, MySpace cuts an exclusive deal with a yet-to-be-launched MVNO named Helio whose current installed base is zero. Further, this MVNO only offers the latest, coolest phones, and “’MySpace Mobile On Helio’” will leverage the devices’ advanced capabilities.”

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