Jamba!
Encyclopedia
Jamba! is a premium-rate monthly SMS
Short message service
Short Message Service is a text messaging service component of phone, web, or mobile communication systems, using standardized communications protocols that allow the exchange of short text messages between fixed line or mobile phone devices...
mobile phone
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
content provider, based in Berlin, Germany. In China and the company's English-speaking markets—currently Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States—the company operates under the name Jamster.
Jamba!'s main line of business is the creation and marketing of ringtones for mobile phone
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
s. It is perhaps best known for the Sweety the Chick and Crazy Frog
Crazy Frog
Crazy Frog, originally known as Adam King, is a computer-animated character created in 2003 by Erik Wernquist. Marketed by the ringtone provider Jamba!, the animation was originally created to accompany a sound effect produced by Daniel Malmedahl in 1997 while attempting to imitate the sound of a...
characters. The company also sells insurance
Insurance
In law and economics, insurance is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for payment. An insurer is a company selling the...
for mobile phones and home electronics and runs online gaming
Online game
An online game is a game played over some form of computer network. This almost always means the Internet or equivalent technology, but games have always used whatever technology was current: modems before the Internet, and hard wired terminals before modems...
and online dating services. In 2005 it started doing business in the United States and China.
History
The company was founded in Berlin's KreuzbergKreuzberg
Kreuzberg, a part of the combined Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg borough located south of Mitte since 2001, is one of the best-known areas of Berlin...
district in 2000.
VeriSign
VeriSign
Verisign, Inc. is an American company based in Dulles, Virginia that operates a diverse array of network infrastructure, including two of the Internet's thirteen root nameservers, the authoritative registry for the .com, .net, and .name generic top-level domains and the .cc and .tv country-code...
was a successful internet security company that had a series of product lines that connected mobile network companies' text message networks together securely—in 2004, about 3 billion per day. VeriSign CEO Stratton Sclavos
Stratton Sclavos
Stratton Sclavos was chairman of the board, president and chief executive officer of VeriSign, a security services and network infrastructure company, until his resignation on May 29, 2007. Sclavos has a Bachelor of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of California,...
recognised that with VoIP products developing, the revenues could decrease, and so he hired Vernon Irvin
Vernon Irvin
Vernon L Irvin currently works as President and Chief Operating Officer for Virtual World Computing Prior to VWC, he was Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for XM Satellite Radio....
as Executive Vice President and General Manager of VeriSign's Communications Services division to solve the problem. Irvin saw good but technical and expensive products, but saw the volumes of exchange over the system as the solution.
In late 2004 under Irvin's direction, VeriSign bought Jamba for $270 million. Jamba at the time built mobile applications, games, ringtones and wallpapers, and was also in over 40 countries worldwide. The VeriSign team had recognised that there were twice as many mobile phones as there were computers, which also had built-in computer technology. Effectively, VeriSign now had a new content distribution platform which also integrated with the internet, which was both secure and auditable—now all they needed was the content.
VeriSign relocated Jamba's HQ Office to prestige premises in the Dom Aquarée building near Alexanderplatz in the centre of Berlin. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=de&q=karl-liebknecht-str.+5,+berlin&sll=50.092393,10.195313&sspn=13.344035,35.507813&ie=UTF8&z=15&ll=52.52006,13.403535&spn=0.012352,0.048752&om=1&iwloc=addr
While Irvin sourced content, Jamba became Jamster in the United States. Irvin struck a deal with Kevin Liles
Kevin Liles
Kevin Liles is an American record executive. Liles was president of Def Jam Recordings and executive vice president of The Island Def Jam Music Group from 1999 to 2004...
, President of Warner Music Group, to provide mobile consumers with early access to hip-hop artist Mike Jones'
Mike Jones (rapper)
Michael "Mike" Jones is an American southern rap artist, who initially was affiliated with the record label Swishahouse, then left to be the owner of Ice Age Entertainment....
debut album "Who Is Mike Jones?"—in return, Jones created the first artist-endorsed Jamster ring-tone advertisement in the US. When "Who is Mike Jones" was released it debuted among the top 5 albums on the Billboard charts
Billboard charts
The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs or albums in the United States. The results are published in Billboard magazine...
and went on to sell over a million copies. The Crazy Frog
Crazy Frog
Crazy Frog, originally known as Adam King, is a computer-animated character created in 2003 by Erik Wernquist. Marketed by the ringtone provider Jamba!, the animation was originally created to accompany a sound effect produced by Daniel Malmedahl in 1997 while attempting to imitate the sound of a...
ring tone did the same in Europe.
Jamba/Jamster boomed—when VeriSign bought the business it had a turnover
Revenue
In business, revenue is income that a company receives from its normal business activities, usually from the sale of goods and services to customers. In many countries, such as the United Kingdom, revenue is referred to as turnover....
of $15 million per quarter and 3 quarters later this increased to $150 million a quarter—in 2005 the company made close to $600 million in revenue
Revenue
In business, revenue is income that a company receives from its normal business activities, usually from the sale of goods and services to customers. In many countries, such as the United Kingdom, revenue is referred to as turnover....
. VeriSign expanded Jamba/Jamster by the acquisitions of UNC-Embratel and Unimobile. Jamster also added to its revenues by adding "impulse purchasing"—when you downloaded one ringtone, you were offered others. This turned into interactive advertising, for which the mobile owner was charged, sometimes unknowingly. This created controversy in Europe, and was quickly withdrawn.
Later developments included a collaboration with L'Oréal
L'Oréal
The L'Oréal Group is the world's largest cosmetics and beauty company. With its registered office in Paris and head office in the Paris suburb of Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine, France, it has developed activities in the field of cosmetics...
encouraging users to send in photos to find 'America's next supermodel' and promoting VeriSign Back-Up as a mechanism to re-download music tracks a customer had previously bought to a different mobile phone, for example if the previous phone was stolen, broken or lost.
On 12 September 2006 News Corporation
News Corporation
News Corporation or News Corp. is an American multinational media conglomerate. It is the world's second-largest media conglomerate as of 2011 in terms of revenue, and the world's third largest in entertainment as of 2009, although the BBC remains the world's largest broadcaster...
announced it would pay approximately $188 million for 51% shares in Jamba! and would combine it with Fox Mobile Entertainment assets, such as Mobizzo
Mobizzo
Mobizzo is an entertainment service offering trivia games on mobile phones and smartphones, from Fox Mobile Distribution . Trivia games are played via SMS-text and mobile web. Mobizzo has sites online and on mobile web/WAP.- Services :...
Mobizzo, Inc., with Lucy Hood
Lucy Hood
Lucy Hood is an American business woman, and until October 10, 2007, CEO of Jamba!, the mobile phone industry’s largest vertically integrated mobile entertainment company....
, formerly President of Fox Mobile Entertainment, becoming CEO of the joint venture. On 23 October 2006 it was announced that Vernon Irvin
Vernon Irvin
Vernon L Irvin currently works as President and Chief Operating Officer for Virtual World Computing Prior to VWC, he was Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for XM Satellite Radio....
would join XM Satellite Radio
XM Satellite Radio
XM Satellite Radio is one of two satellite radio services in the United States and Canada, operated by Sirius XM Radio. It provides pay-for-service radio, analogous to cable television. Its service includes 73 different music channels, 39 news, sports, talk and entertainment channels, 21 regional...
as Chief Marketing Officer. In late December 2010, Jesta Group acquired Fox Mobile Group from News Corp. Jesta Group renamed the mobile services company to Jesta Digital.
Controversy
Jamba! has drawn criticism for allegedly misleading customers in its service advertisementsMobile phone content advertising
Mobile phone content advertising is the promotion of ring tones, games and other mobile phone services. Such services are usually subscription-based and use the short message service system to join up to them. Another method is broadcasting messages to the mobile phone's idle-screen, enabling...
. In general, Jamba! services are sold as a subscription, despite advertising that seems to imply that customers are buying a one-off phone ringtone. The firm has drawn criticism for making it difficult to unsubscribe; for example, as of December, 2005, Jamba!'s German website FAQ
FAQ
Frequently asked questions are listed questions and answers, all supposed to be commonly asked in some context, and pertaining to a particular topic. "FAQ" is usually pronounced as an initialism rather than an acronym, but an acronym form does exist. Since the acronym FAQ originated in textual...
does not mention the SMS
SMS
SMS is a form of text messaging communication on phones and mobile phones. The terms SMS or sms may also refer to:- Computer hardware :...
code needed to cancel all subscriptions.
Jamba! advertises aggressively on youth-oriented channels such as MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
and German VIVA. In 2004, it spent €90 million on television advertising in Germany alone. In Jamba! countries in Europe, it is not uncommon to see a multitude of the same Jamba! commercials on television in the same commercial break. An online petition in Germany protesting against the firm's advertising practices drew some 200,000 signatures. In the United Kingdom, The Mail on Sunday
The Mail on Sunday
The Mail on Sunday is a British conservative newspaper, currently published in a tabloid format. First published in 1982 by Lord Rothermere, it became Britain's biggest-selling Sunday newspaper following the closing of The News of the World in July 2011...
decried what it described as a "ringtone rip-off", citing the example of a young girl who ran up a bill of £70 in a short time, just by ordering ringtones and wallpapers
Computer wallpaper
Wallpaper is an image used as a background of a graphical user interface on a computer screen or mobile communications device. On a computer it is usually for the desktop, while for a mobile phone it is usually the background for the 'home' or 'idle' screen...
.
In late September 2006 television channels MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
, ProSieben, RTL II
RTL II
RTL II is a privately owned, commercial, general-interest German television channel.It was founded as a second-generation commercial broadcaster in 1993. It quickly became infamous for its perceived "trash programming", comprising lots of soft porn as well as shows such as Peep and many...
and Viva cited ethics concerns over refusing to air Jamba's advertisement for a Hitler themed SMS-downloadable cartoon titled "Der Bonker". Illustrator Walter Moers
Walter Moers
Walter Moers is one of the best-known and commercially most successful German comic creators and authors.-Life and work:...
's short film depicts Hitler in bathroom humour scenes with his dog Blondie and three Nazi uniformed rubber ducks. The work has earned criticism from some Jewish memorial groups and mainstream politicians, while garnering praise from others.