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Geoff Hollingworth, director of Marketing Services for Ericsson North America and the person responsible for the portal, says: "As I look back on what we have done, I realize that we have actually delivered an end-to-end solution rather than talking about it."

By the end of March, the portal had delivered 3,316,916 mobile-phone pages. Video downloads proved popular, representing 30 percent of all delivered pages. Wallpaper pages have also grown in popularity after increased promotion, with more than 400,000 wallpaper-related pages delivered.

The Web Marketing Association rewarded the site with a prize for Best Telecommunication Rich Media Online Campaign, putting it in the company of other winners such as Disney, Verizon, and online broker Charles Schwab. Sweden's Mobil magazine listed the portal as the ninth-best International Mobile Site, putting the site on a par with the likes of Google, USA Today, and The Guardian after only six months in operation.

The success of the portal has led to commercial interest for other sporting events: one mobile portal was created for World Cup hockey for Sweden, and a World Cup soccer portal was developed for Rogers Canada.

Hollingworth says the project was a tremendous learning experience for Ericsson. "We have seen why the magic happened and why the delivery was so stressful," he says.

Service mindset
"It has forced our normal box-centric delivery into a service mindset by looking at user experiences, user-interface (UI) design, promotional experience, real-time content management, translation, and more."

Based on the project, Hollingworth has been able to create a list of key points that will help to make an event-based mobile portal successful:

Initial research and planning

• Analyze the opportunity carefully, looking at the event audience profile and target markets.
• Analyze the event: event target audience versus "mobile-media savvy" audience.
• Analyze the event: event target markets versus "mobile maturity" target markets.
• Build a total offering return plan.

Technical

• Keep user interactions simple. Each extra click is a hindrance.
• Production needs to be fast and cheap because the return is short-lived.
• Storefront design and integration into marketing and promotion is key.
• The billing and settlement process needs to be efficient.

Content/editorial

• Integration into existing media editorial and content teams is critical to success.
• Discover all "hidden" mobile media assets.

Marketing/promotion

• Budget for adequate marketing and promotional spending.
• Cross-promote the mobile service in all other media commitments/channels.
• Integration into existing marketing/promotion is critical.
• The promotion message has to be simple, obvious, and easy to communicate.
• Develop simple messaging, with one marketing plan for each channel in service (SMS, MMS, data).
• Develop a UI marketing promotion plan for each channel in service (SMS, MMS, data).
• Use each channel to cross-sell all other channels (in mobile, as well as other media).

"Choose the right event and mobile services based on knowledge and experience," Hollingworth says. "If nobody knows about the service, nobody uses it, so plan for spend-message integration.

"Even if somebody does know about it, if the service interaction or promotional message is too complicated, nobody will use it."

Find out more about the portal at the Telecom Report site.