Four helpers who could take U.S. newspaper mobile

This is not like the myriad  threats newspapers have battled.  By a fluke we were left with very little time to prepare to face a voracious new set of competitors -- the mobile phone system operators.

Mobile phones -- even smartphones -- are not new.  Europe and Asia have enjoyed them for years as the technology got better and better.  The path of cell phone innovation overseas was like one of those gradual 30-degree diagonal lines on a graph.  While that was happening, however, cell phone technology in the United States was frozen by the mobile phone networks, who kept their profits high by only offering low-end phones with their contracts.

The iPhone changed all that.  Now everyone wants a phone that can navigate to the nearest Starbucks or update your Facebook profile.  Fulfilling that demand will be easy -- they cell networks just have to import all that technology that was lying in wait across the oceans.  The formerly flat line for the smartphone market in America now looks like a hockey stick -- a quick turn and then a rocket upward to join the mobile world.

So while our colleagues in Europe and Asia had the luxury of time to develop their mobile phone news strategies, we have almost none.  Speech after speech at the congress exhorted the cell phone operators to combine the emotional lock they have on an addicted customer base with the incredible data the cell phone system collects to become the most powerful advertising force in the world.

Oh, and to supply the news content while they are at it.

Though the futuristic phones and other gizmos on display here came from Finland, China, Korea and Sweden, I found a small corps of American companies well-positioned to assist the newspaper industry.  One provides the basics, one provides the sizzle, one attracts the advertisers and one brings in the money.  The newspaper industry might be able to do all that on its own, with enough time.  But I don't think we can buy time -- only help:

Handmark: I came 4,700 miles to find help was a two-hour drive from the University of Missouri.  Steve McGuigan is VP for Handmark Software, a firm that has found a slick way of turning Web sites into native mobile applications.  Based in Kansas City, the company has converted hundreds of games and other programs into applications that run on all of the smart phones and even some of the not-so-smart phones.  A few years ago they began to take a hard look at news media sites. The result was sites for Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, and the London Evening Standard.

The Handmark system sucks content from a newspaper's RSS feed, reformats it, packages it and makes it into a good looking native application (as opposed to a mobile Web page).  "You focus on great content and let us focus on developing the app," Steve said.  The beauty of the Handmark conversion engine is that it produces equally good apps for the iPhone, Android phones, the Blackberry and Palm.  You could design glitzier apps yourself, but probably not this quickly nor with such an immediate revenue stream.

Did I say revenue?  Ad slots are built into the Handmark apps.  If the paper wants Hallmark to fill them with national ads, the revenue is split 70/30 in Handmark's favor.  But Jon Maroney, one of the company's founders, said they would much prefer that newspapers make the sales themselves -- and reverse the split.

McGuigan will join us in Columbia April 19-20 for the planned conference of mobile phone editors. E-mail me if you are interested in attending.

Digitmarc:  Dumping you Web site onto a mobile platform is a no-brainer.  But adding features that only a cell phone can access is what will draw attention.

Digimarc is a Beaverton, OR, company that several years ago perfected a system to fight copyright violation of photos.  The photographer embeds a "watermark" that is invisible to the human eye but can be detected with a scanner.

Now Digimarc has used the same technology to link print newspaper content to mobile newspaper content.  The same type of watermark is invisibly embedded in a photo for the print edition.  Readers then use their camera-equipped smartphone plus a Digimarc app to scan the photo.

Presto! The scan automatically opens a Web location on the smartphone -- most often to a video or photo gallery.  The Portland Oregonian is piloting the system now.  Sure, it's a bit gimicky, but it is darned appealing to have the ability to find something in your daily paper that others in the same room can't read.  What I like about the Digimarc system is that it unites the traditional audience of newspapers with the newest market.

deCarta:  Perhaps the biggest threat to newspapers is the ability of mobile network operators to use their data to micro target advertising.  DeCarta levels the playing field somewhat by offering a software system that allows mobile users to search, say for "restaurants" and get the expected map showing all the nearby eateries.  But the deCarta software also serves an ad from one or more of those points on the map.  It then gives specific directions to the site.  In addition to the fee for serving the original ad, publications can charge a premium for readers who actually downloaded the directions.  If I was the ad manager, I'd also place a coupon in that set of directions.

The deCarta system is a bit trickier to install than the other two helpers.  The good news, however, is that Handmark can wrap it into one of its quick apps.

Visa: It's all well to put the marketplace in your phone, but the convenience of mobile marketing fades quickly unless the customer has a way to pay for it.  The "pay wall" newspapers want to raise for access to content has been stymied by the lack of a good "micro payment" system.

Enter Visa.  Probably the only thing more common in pockets and purses than mobile phones are credit cards.  Now Visa want to combine the two.  Claudia Parazzoli, Visa's corporate relations manager, was at Mobile World Congress demonstrating two methods to do this.  One was to replace the microSD chip many phones carry with a chip that carries credit card information and can be scanned at the cash register.  The other was to establish a PIN-activated system that allow mobile customers to pay even small amounts via phone.

Neither of these two systems is novel.  But what I like is the Visa brand behind them.  Americans are very leery about money matters these days.  I think the combination of a newspaper's good name and the respected Visa brand could actually make micro payments work here.

I would like to think that partnerships with Visa, deCarta, Digimarc or Handmark would instantly mobilize the newspaper industry.  It won't.  That will take an intensely focused effort by all segments of the business.  I do think, however, that the four represent a home-grown kickstart that could move newspapers along much faster than if they tried to take on the future alone.  Speed is the premium in this case.  The mobile clock is ticking.