Competition is the mother of all economical strategies

Two news this morning.
They are not important per se, but for what they mean: somebody is beginning to see.

Trilingual telco TV
James Enck - EuroTecoblog


Belgacom is going to launch its Belgacom TV product tomorrow with a press conference at 10:15 AM CET, though sparing itself (and the rest of us) any analyst involvement. Pick your language of choice and tune, um, log in.


Great news, providing everybody has access to it.

It means something is changing in the content, besides the way of broadcasting.
At least the content, as stupid as it can be, will be accessible from multilingual people.
It's a first small step to build something sharable to Europeans.
If the mountain doesn't go to Maometto, Maometto goes to the mountain (or was it the other way around, it doesn't matter..it matters the meaning, if Europeans do not want to learn another language, at least they can choose among three)
It is still bad news for the Italians, they will anyway have to learn another language...


Ethnic Marketing of Telecom Services
Mark Evans
http://evans.blogware.com



In-Stat has a report suggesting carriers are taking a more aggressive marketing approach to ethnic groups.
The company cites Qwest's low-cost LD calling plans for Mexico, and Sprint's launch of Movida Communications, which also targets the large Hispanic community.

The report is intriguing as carriers try to penetrate new niches while protecting their existing customer base from cablecos. I'm a firm believer VOIP is the ideal service to be sold into ethnic and special interest groups.

This can be done by large service providers such as Vonage or Cablevision, as well as small niche players looking to establish a viable and profitable market foothold.

The big challenge facing large companies in ethnic marketing requires particular focus and may not be worth it if the audience isn't big enough. This, in theory, leaves room for small and nimble rivals to jump into unserved or under-served markets.