It’s pretty amazing to see that after hitting Top 4 in the overall free chart, over a year later the WhitePages iPhone application continues to be a Top 10 free reference application.
We have learned a lot, sharing with MediaPost the importance of having ad-supported and paid models, innovating with new services like Caller ID, and why the carrier pipes are a lot smarter then folks give them credit for. In today’s Mobile Marketer, we offer some of the key success factors advertisers should consider around targeting, brand, and performance.
Leading the charge in the delivery of our mobile services is Bret Moore, the most productive mobile product executive in the industry. In the last year, Bret has led 6 key mobile product launches and 16 updates/new versions for new devices. Bret presented our Caller ID for Android at this years Google I/O conference. Check out all of the innovative products he has launched in the related posts section below or by clicking on his name.
Finally, our mobile services provide even more reasons why we no longer need the paper phone book. WhitePages Mobile gives you access to hundreds of millions of contacts, right at your fingertips, and on the go.
Today we’re taking the covers off our latest mobile product – LOOKUP! This new text messaging service is the first of its kind – and it’s amazingly simple to use. Just text any 10-digit phone number to 566587 (LOOKUP) to find out who called or texted you. Sound easy? It is.
Of course, text messaging is the single most popular use of mobile phones aside from, well, calling. What may surprise you is how many people are not only using text to keep in touch, but also to find information. Some recent research showed that 38% of mobile phone users have searched for information using text messaging!
So, it’s a natural to take the WhitePages database of 600MM listings – including hard to find mobile and unpublished numbers — and make it available through text. Now, if you have one of our new iPhone, Android or BlackBerry apps, you may already use WhitePages to find people and businesses on the go. However, we wanted something that anyone could use, no matter what kind of phone they had. Here’s how you do it:
Text any phone number to 566587 (LOOKUP).
We’ll tell you if we have a match.
Reply GO to see the caller name and address.
That’s it! The service is available for $1.99 per match found, or $2.99 per month to look up as many numbers as you want. That’s about the price of a call to 411 – but includes millions of numbers you can’t find anyway else.
Give it a try on your phone today – and happy texting!
Thoughts, questions, concerns? Just post a comment below and I’ll get back to you.
As those of you with iPhones may already know, v1.3 of the WhitePages Mobile app is now live in the App Store!
This new version represents a huge step forward for our most popular mobile app – and if past updates are any indication, there will be quite a few of you already trying it out and using the new features.
I’ll go ahead and get one thing out of the way — we now have in-app advertising. Thankfully, most people understand that this is a necessary part of most high quality free apps. What some people may not know is how hard it is to make it all work! Ad standards are still emerging for apps so it took a lot of hard work from Jen Fraum and Cory Gaddis on our ad team to get an ad platform all teed up and ready to deliver campaigns! We signed on Continental as our “pilot” (ahem) sponsor and expect more to come soon.
After getting the good news that the app would be featured in the Android Market this week, we got another unexpected surprise.
WhitePages at Google I/O Conference
Google I/O is a developer conference in San Francisco that took place May 27-28. On Memorial Day, our contact at Google shot us a note saying one of the developers planned to demo at Google I/O couldn’t make it, and asked if we could fill in. We jumped into action! Within 24 hours we had marketing assets to Google, booked travel and had a plan for Kevin Nakao and I to cover the two day event on Wednesday and Thursday. Not fully prepared for marketing Caller ID at a trade show or hobnobbing with some of the sharpest technologists around, we didn’t know what to expect.
At WhitePages, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how to make it simple for people to connect – any time, anywhere. With mobile phones being the most common way that people connect, we began a concerted effort to offer new ways to use WhitePages on mobile phones.
This began with the launch of our WhitePages Mobile for iPhone application in August of 2008. The app quickly shot up to the Top 5 of the App Store charts, and it was clear we had a hit! Since then, we expanded our mobile plans and tackled apps for Android, BlackBerry, and revamped m.whitepages.com.
Right as the worst economic news hit, we presented our mobile plan for funding to the board of Whitepages. While other companies were cutting back, the response from our President/COO Max Bardon was “This is exciting, budget approved…how fast can you make this happen”.
Board Presentation Slide
We quickly put our plan into place, hiring internally and signing deals with top mobile developers. All told, there were over 20 people from the U.S., Germany, and India working with us, resulting in a slew of new and innovative mobile offerings:
.. with more to come in the next couple of weeks (Follow me @knakaoon Twitter to get the udpates)
We created new revenue streams for our company. Our Premium Caller ID service for mobile is getting 3 times the projected uptake, leading to even more funding for our mobile efforts. This puts more money into the economy, innovation can help end this recession. And just as importantly, our mobile innovation is helping us to reposition the WhitePages brand and prepare the company for massive growth over the next few years. In fact, all of our mobile apps incorporate the new WhitePages Visual Identity and our ‘Caller ID’ concept was designed as a proof point that would allow our customers to ‘connect with confidence’ (check out our Strategic Brand Platform post for more info).
While it is the job of cost cutters to trim the fat, now is the time for product innovators to present a vision and create value — which is exactly what our head of mobile product development Bret Moore has done.
We are not alone. I suspect there are other folks out there investing in innovation. Help me to motivate others by sharing your story below.
It’s pretty amazing to see that after hitting Top 4 in the overall free chart, over a year later the WhitePages iPhone application continues to be a Top 10 free reference application.
Put a name to unknown callers on any phone with 
