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Yesterday I saw an ad on Spanish TV of Telefonica’s MNO Movistar, promoting flat-rate Mobile Internet acces for their 3G brand e-mocion, co-branded with Google and MSN Hotmail… I couldn’t believe my eyes. Mobile Internet advertising on TV? Of course we have seen some allusion to it on Vodafone Live ads, but as explicit like this? No we haven’t seen it like this here before.

So today I had to know everything about this e-mocion offer. First I tried to find the ad at YouTube but this one seems too fresh yet to be posted there already. Instead I found this really funny one… go and check it out anyway if you’re in for a laugh (no need to understand spanish

People who read this blog often know about my griefs against the high cost to acces the Mobile Internet. You can read the threads here and here if you haven’t done that yet.

At e-mocion website, you can find the announcement to access the mobile internet for 0,30 cent/session… Well, that’s better than my 0,50 cent I currently pay at Vodafone but when reading the small letters, it’s a promotion until September. So let’s find out more about this promotion and the marketing behind this new kind of partnership, at least in the mobile space.

I read the Google and MSN Hotmail Lead the New Portal Services; Movistar Turns ‘e-mocion’ into the New Flat-Rate Gateway to Cell Phone Content press release from May 3, being really surprised I haven’t read anything before on this news. Read also this article at Forbes.com:

” With the new flat rate per session, users will have unlimited access to content and services from both ‘e-mocion’ and the Internet, at only 0.30 euros per session, which, until the month of September, will have no time expiration. This initiative helps users, who will know at all times how much they will pay for browsing and accessing content.”

Good point! Until September all my sessions can be unlimited … not bad after all, maybe I should give it a try and calculate the difference on my mobile browsing consumption, for the price I pay at Vodafone I might have one of those fancy phones included

But let’s drop the pricing issue right now, what actually surprised me the most was the synchronised announcement of the Movistar partnership with Google and MSN Hotmail (get it?) For amateurs, some brain exercise can be done on this one…

Once I can acces the mobile internet I can also access Yahoo! Mobile services or whatever mobile web enabled service, I don’t need a partnership for this, so there is more going on, especially on the Google side. I tried to see the win-win of the partners involved but I don’t really see MSN services competing immediately with what Google wins in this deal…

From the same Forbes article mentioned above:

“With the inclusion of Google as e-mocion’s main search engine, users will be able to search for content based on keywords, facilitating the exploration and discovery of services. Initially, the search results will include links to external Internet content. In a subsequent phase, results will incorporate content from e-mocion. Google will use its technology and its indexing and content updating expertise to turn e-mocion into the starting point to access the Internet from a mobile phone.”

Google offers his Google Search Engine to access Movistar services and content - users can search music and video’s for example, while building its’ own user-base of course. Google gets useful stats and information on users and their search behaviour, soon they’re be able to deliver content through the Google Reader, offer Google Talk (VoIP), and so on… Google can start proposing its Google Music Search, Google Video, why not geo-locate straight to their Google Maps?

Has Telefonica Movistar accepted the role of mobile data pipeline provider yet?

Meanwhile, Google Talk is already offered on the Nokia 770 portable Internet Tablet, don’t have to draw that one out again, no?

Too much of a Google in one article? I just wonder how the small mobile services companies are going to find their way to the mobile consumer? You have to be able to deal straight with the operator or the manufacturer if you want to reach some critical mass, for sure… or going viral?

Maybe I can found out a bit more going to listen to Isabel Aguilera (CEO Google Spain and Portugal) next week at the Internet Global Conference.

3G, Analysis, Announcements, cell phone, emocion, flat rate, google, google maps, google mobile, google music search, google reader, googletalk, hotmail, igc2006, internet global conference, Mobile Advertising, mobile internet, mobile marketing, mobile music, Mobile RSS, Mobile Search, mobile web, movistar, MSN, Operators, telefonica, voip, yahoo mobile