Currently, developed regions of North America and Europe have the highest messaging ARPUs, and send the most messages from the computer to the mobile device using IM. Mobile users in Asia-Pacific sign up for the most SMS alert services, and Latin Americans are heavy SMS users, but prefer pay-as-you-go for all messaging services.

According to ABI senior analyst Dan Shey, device and messaging platform suppliers will need to pay attention to regional differences in customer type, payment preferences and usage as well as "manage across markets where growth is king - and other markets where product differentiation is king."

Because of these differences, Shey sees a ripe market for smaller players to break into, either alone or in partnership with a larger company, with new products and services designed to "serve the niche needs of a region or country."

(Image credit: Jupiterimages Unlimited)

Specific terms of the new 15-year deal were not disclosed, but the agreement calls for Nokia to continue paying royalties for the Qualcomm technology it uses for its handsets. According to the New York Times, the dispute originated because Nokia wanted to pay a lower royalty rate for the technology "because it controlled important technology with its own patents." The tech it licenses from Qualcomm "improves phone performance and battery life, and reduces product size," the Times reports.

The two reached the new agreement on Wednesday, the original start date for the trial, which had been postponed until Thursday.

The two industry giants are launching "free wake-up calls and customized activity reminders" from Hannah Montana, the teen pop sensation at the heart of the Disney TV series of the same name, Mobile Marketer reports.

From now through September 15, parents can sign up at the promotional Web site and then choose the date, time and one of three messages to have sent to the kid's mobile phone. The call choices are a wake-up call, a school activity reminder and, because this is a Wal-Mart promotion, after all, a back-to-school shopping message letting the kids know about all the Hannah Montana stuff the retailer carries.

The BlackBerry Media Sync software acts as a conduit, says Engadget Mobile, allowing users to grab their non-DRM-protected music and playlists from their iTunes libraries and listen to it on their BlackBerry device.

While Facebook may be gaining on MySpace in the U.S., the overall picture for social networking sites doesn't look as good. MediaPost reports that the market share of U.S. visits to the social networking custom category has decreased 19% year-over-year, according to more data from Hitwise.

Social networking site interest may be peaking—we've seen several reports to this effect over the past six months. But the mobile side continues to see action, as companies fall over each other trying to figure out a) how to incorporate physical presence detection, and b) how to monetize it all. The latter, of course, is something that's proving elusive on the desktop side as well.

MySpace users still spend more time on the site than Facebook users on average—31 minutes versus 21 minutes—but again, the numbers in that category are getting closer as well. Both portals have robust mobile social networking options, from WAP portals and standalone applications, to specific carrier tie-ins with certain handsets.

eMusic, the independent online music store that claims a certain dominant competitor isn't playing fair lately, now has a new strategy that involves pushing content out to social networking sites while integrating links to relevant online media from its own site, according to Wired.

The report said that eMusic subscribers can now embed eMusic album art and song samples on Del.ici.ous, Digg, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Twitter and 13 similar sites. "eMusic album pages now include links to YouTube videos of bands playing live, photos of artists on Flickr and links to bands' Wikipedia pages," the report said, as users will soon be able to connect to Flickr and YouTube without leaving the eMusic page.

Google's YouTube is on the way to making amends with Hollywood, CNET News reports, and could soon be home to legally-obtained clips from popular movies and TV shows. The report said that insiders are claiming Google has "adopted a more accommodating approach" toward movie and TV studios. For example, Lionsgate struck a deal with YouTube that allows cooperation with a major (unnamed) film studio.

Other big media companies are in talks with Google about similar deals, said sources from three different studios in the report. "We've been working with them on filtering and they're doing a pretty good job," said an executive at one of them. "We're pretty impressed with the results and their ability to identify our clips and allow us to automate the process."

According to the report, marketers will account for a greater proportion of that overall spending as the ad-supported model for mobile music gathers steam.

"Mobile works better as a marketing and customer relationship platform than it does as a retail sales platform," said eMarketer senior analyst and report author John du Pre Gauntt. "Bands and artists are increasingly using mobile to form direct relationships with their fans, which are then monetized through other means, such as tickets to live shows, merchandise and fan clubs."

Slashdot reports that after a lengthy beta period, Boston-based MobileSphere launched what they're calling a 'straight-to-voicemail' service called Slydial. Here's how it works: Call 267-SLY-DIAL and listen to a short ad. Then the service will then connect you to any cell phone subscriber's voice mail box in the U.S., without causing their phone to ring beforehand.

As the report said, "sounds kinda useful—but, incredibly, MobileSphere is pitching the service as a way to avoid actually communicating with all those difficult, boring people in your life." In response, the company said it's just fighting technology with technology, letting people take back control of whether or not they want to talk to co-workers, family, and friends, according to the story. There are also a bunch of videos on the site, illustrating, um, example situations where you'd want to do such a thing.

Remember that whole Yahoo-May-Buy-AOL thing? It never looked all that likely to us to begin with, and now it's even less so. Reuters reports that Yahoo is unlikely to get into a bidding war over AOL with Microsoft because if Microsoft gets in the way, Yahoo could instead renew talks over News Corp's Web properties, a person with knowledge of the plans said:

"Yahoo, seeking to shape an independent growth strategy after rebuffing Microsoft's bid to take it over, has kept in contact with News Corp," the source said in the report; the same source indicated that discussions with Time Warner about AOL appeared further along. But Rupert Murdoch, head of News Corp, said recently that a deal between his company—which owns the popular MySpace online social network—and Yahoo was "very unlikely." All of this adds up to a net change of zero, in other words.

First up we have a new Transformers game in development. Scheduled for worldwide availability this fall, Transformers G1: Awakening goes back to the Transformers' roots with characters, story line and scenes from the original first-generation cartoon series.

Next, superhero fans will be forced to wait until winter for action from Superman/Batman, a new Glu title that pairs the fan favorites on a quest to fight evil. Although they've worked together in the comic world, the Glu game marks the first time the dynamic duo has been paired in a mobile game.

In addition to the Superman/Batman game, Glu is also planning to sell related mobile content like wallpapers, ringtones, animated screensavers, voice tones and ringback tones.

These new ad formats will work in both a Web browser and native iPhone applications. They meld graphics with one of eight iPhone-specific actions that take advantage of an iPhone application's ability to provide one-click access to iTunes, the App Store, audio, video, making a phone call, maps, the Web or a custom interactive user experience.

Additionally, AdMob said that it's giving away $1 million worth of advertising to developers to promote their iPhone applications and services. Interested developers can apply for inclusion in the program at http://admob.com/iphone.

Advertisers already working with the new ad formats include Ford, EA, Land Rover, Jaguar and Universal Pictures among others. You can check out examples of the new ads in the video below.

In a statement, the company said that Myxer Select partners can be up and running with their own mobile content download site (on the mobile Web or on the regular desktop Web) in a matter of days. Myxer Mobile provides the delivery backbone for the new service; currently it serves 22 million downloads per month.

Recently, the company added one million ringtones to its repertoire via the digital music company The Orchard.

Mobile data usage is finally catching on, despite its high costs: AT&T's revenue from mobile data services rose 52% in the second-quarter compared to the year-earlier period, MediaPost reports, to $2.5 billion:

"The wireless giant said revenues from mobile Internet use had doubled and services such as e-mail, text-messaging and data access each had more than 50% growth."

The report also said that 18% of AT&T's contract customers had smartphones, up from 8% last year; the average revenue per user (ARPU) for these is roughly double the company average. Remember that AT&T is also the sole provider for a certain news-making cell phone as well.