In a press release this afternoon, the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia, announced that they will be partnering with Orange, of France Telecom, in order to make Wikipedia more easily available to Orange mobile customers throughout Africa and the Middle East. Hailed as the “first partnership of its kind” – that being the world’s first mobile and Internet partnership – the two companies will provide more than 70 million Orange customers with mobile access to Wikipedia without incurring any data usage charges.

This new partnership will be gradually launched throughout 2012 across 20 African and Middle Eastern countries where Orange operates, with the first markets launching early in the year. The initiative is part of the Wikimedia Foundation’s mobile strategy that aims to reach the billions of people around the world who access the internet solely through mobile devices.

Any customer with an Orange SIM and mobile internet enabled phone will be able to access the Wikipedia site either through their browser or an Orange widget. They can access the Wikipedia encyclopedia services for as many times as they like at no extra charge as long as they stay within Wikipedia’s pages.

Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, said, “”Wikipedia is an important service, a public good – and so we want people to be able to access it for free, regardless of what device they’re using.” She continued, “This partnership with Orange will enable millions of people to read Wikipedia, who previously couldn’t. We’re thrilled to be Orange’s partner in this important endeavor.”

Orange posted a video on their website extolling the value of a freely accessibly Wikipedia to their customers that is now viewable on their website.

Marc Rennard, Group Executive Vice President, Africa, Middle-East and Asia at Orange, commented, “In countries where access to information is not always readily available, we are making it simple and easy for our customers to use the world’s most comprehensive online encyclopedia. It is the first partnership of this kind in the world where we are enabling customers to access Wikipedia without incurring any data charges; and shows Orange’s ability, once again, to innovate in Africa and the Middle East, and bring more value to our customers.”

The timing to announce the merger one day ahead of the the one-year anniversary of Egypt’s January 25th Revolution (although it continues to go on even today), which could be considered the first domino to fall in the Arab Spring’s chain of protests throughout the past year, is peculiar. It may be unintentional, but I’d like to think that this reaffirms Wikimedia and Wales’ commitment to providing a worldwide network of free information whenever someone needs it.

An OpenX spokesperson explained in an email to WebProNews, "OpenX’s new platform, the company’s Software as a Service ad serving product for large publishers, is already being adopted by leading companies including Orange-France Telecom Group in Europe, Groupon in the United States and Excite in Japan."

That’s quite significant, considering that Google recently tried to buy Groupon.  Also, Orange used to have a deal with DoubleClick, a subsidiary of the search giant.

The OpenX spokesperson then continued, "The platform becomes available today and will allow publishers to maximize revenue more efficiently and effectively in the increasingly sophisticated ad landscape.  By optimizing all ad revenue channels in real-time and in one place, we think this new platform represents breakthrough technology for the online advertising industry."

It should be interesting to see what happens next.  All sorts of companies might be willing or eager to follow Groupon’s lead.  If they don’t encounter any problems, a second wave of firms might give OpenX’s ad tech a shot, as well.

Again, it’s hard to imagine Google isn’t paying close attention to all of this.

MySpace appears to be both giving up control and putting itself in good hands.  An official statement explained, "On the advertising side, Orange Advertising Network – Europe’s largest ad network . . . . will manage all aspects of MySpace advertising, liaising directly with clients and agencies."

The statement then continued, "[T]he two partners are also bringing together their extensive and complementary portal and social network expertise to offer the most extensive range of music content for young internet users."  But note: "Orange will be in charge of managing synergies between the two sites and coordinating their content."

Finally, Orange is even supposed to get an exclusive French license for MySpace’s trademarks and logos.

This is a bold arrangement, and it should be interesting to see how it works out.  Or rather, it should be interesting to see if things go well, because then there will be pressure for MySpace to hand over the reins in countries other than France.

For the record, the terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"At Orange we are committed to giving people maximum access to the widest range of digital technologies and to simplifying the way people use these technologies to access information," says Orange‘s Paul-François Fournier. "By bringing our customers a new way to access content from Wikipedia, one of the world’s most recognised and popular internet brands, we are delivering on this commitment."

Some things that the partnership will specifically cater to include:

- creating specific Wikipedia channels on Orange mobile and web portals

- enriching sections of the Orange web and mobile portals with links to relevant Wikipedia information

- developing mobile and web-based widgets which enable customers to access Wikipedia content directly from their Orange mobile or web homepage

"The Wikimedia Foundation is dedicated to spreading knowledge to as many people as possible, in as many ways as possible," said Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. "Orange’s leadership in mobile and focus on innovation makes them an ideal partner to help us extend our reach. The Foundation welcomes partnerships that help us carry out our mission and that respect the valuable contributions of the Wikimedia community"

A second phase of the partnership will involve Orange and Wikimedia creating a range of services. There’s no word yet on just what these services will be however. They will expand into the rest of Orange’s customer base around Europe though.

Here‘s the original source for anyone who happens to speak French.  Unwired View‘s Staska interpreted, "Mobinaute had someone from Orange France spill the beans about their Android plans for this year.  And they look mighty impressive – at least six more Android phones will be launched by Orange in 2009, from 5 different brands.  Including Android phones from Sony Ericsson, Motorola, LG, Samsung and HTC."

The market should be, if not flooded, at least well-sprinkled with options, then.  User adoption of Android is almost bound to pick up, and if all goes well, there’s liable to be a snowball effect as more mobile companies become part of the trend.  Staska noted, "Orange . . . indicated that it is pretty happy with the revenue sharing model of Android Marketplace and will heavily promote it."

So this could be the year that Android becomes a serious force in the mobile market.  Or, if the big push somehow fails, the year it’s consigned to forever stay off lists naming the market leaders.

First things first, though – keep your eyes and ears peeled for proof of those six (or more) new cell phones.

Shrink Sets Internet Addiction Alert To Orange

I added the last part.

Dr. Pinhas Dannon of Tel Aviv University suggested the rest, though, and thinks IAD (as we know it will eventually be called) should be upgraded from its current status, filed under Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, to a category that includes kleptomania, as OCD just isn’t as big a deal.

Dannon disagrees that IAD fits to the traditional definition of OCD, which is classified as a "mild to severe mental health condition that results in an urge to engage in ritualistic thoughts and behavior."

Before we move on, let me say that I know a lot of people with OCD (hell, I was raised by them), and OCD behaviors are not "urges," they’re flat-out requirements for peace of mind. That means checking the lights, the stove, the iron, the dryer, your tires, bumpers, and signals, cleaning every speck of dust that can be found, and making sure your clothes are taken out of the dryer immediately before they have a chance to wrinkle.

Not really urges, in my book, and that definition could include anybody that goes to a church, synagogue, mosque, or coven. Check out four other definitions which make more sense.

Anyway, Dannon thinks "urges" is too weak of a word to apply to IAD.

“Internet addiction is not manifesting itself as an ‘urge.’ It’s more than that. It’s a deep ‘craving.’ And if we don’t make the change in the way we classify Internet addiction, we won’t be able to treat it in the proper way.”

Okay, fair enough. A craving, like for cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs. A physical or mental manifestation of desire.

Consequently, people with OCD tend to self-medicate via the physical addictions mentioned, and it’s difficult for me to justify that checking email has the same physical release, and almost as difficult to equate to gambling or sex, which are also actions performed as a kind of self-medication, stemming from other psychological issues. So just how, exactly, getting on the Internet satisfies some physical or primal need stemming from driving psychological forces is unclear. 

Or maybe it’s a more difficult line to draw between mental cravings and mental urges, or even distinguishing between an urge that drives one to irrational safety precautions and seemingly compulsive urges to steal, like with kleptomania, which shares a class with addictive disorders.

But I’m not a psychiatrist like Dr. Dannon, so what do I know?

“They are just like anyone else who is addicted to coffee, exercise, or talking on their cellular phone. As the times change, so do our addictions," he said.

And with the diagnosis, also comes treatment, which includes prescribing serotonin blockers, which are also used to treat, you guessed it, obsessive-compulsive disorder (because anxiety is what drives it).

Oh well, if enough disorders emerge, then over time all of us will be on antidepressants and participating in worldwide sing-alongs, happy as a pharmaceutical rep in a field of script-happy doctors.

So, if you find yourself jonesin’ for some Internet, find a healthier habit to replace it with, like talking to your kids – else they’ll have you on meds before you can say "When I was your age…"

Interestingly, though, Google’s mobile reign appears to be much weaker in the UK than in the US – the corporation had an “active reach” of just 30.94 percent in the one, compared to 62.48 percent in the other.  Also, Google is ahead of its nearest competitor in America (Yahoo) by almost 30 percent; in Britain, its lead (over runner-up Orange) is just 9 percent.

Still, it doesn’t appear that the search engine giant will be overthrown anytime in the near future; M:Metrics’s figures for the UK put Google ahead of the BBC, Microsoft, and Vodafone (ranked third, fourth, and fifth, respectively) – each of them massive in their own right.

As for those US numbers, Google appears undefeatable, as well.  Yahoo, Microsoft, AT&T, and Time Warner were number two, three, four, and five.

To explain the importance of these figures, an M:Metrics press release states, “Smartphone usage is driving the emerging mobile Web and this will be one of the keys to advertising-based business models. . . .  Smartphone owners drive a disproportionate share of revenue for mobile operators and content providers and understanding their behavior is a key to understanding how to best monetize the mobile medium.”

Well, judging from M:Metrics’s data, it looks like Google holds that key.

Cerf effectively outranks Isabel Aguilera, Google’s chief executive in Spain and Portugal; it was Aguilera who made a proclamation about the GPhone six days ago.  But if Cerf’s word isn’t enough for you, Richard Kimber, Google’s managing director of sales and operations in Southeast Asia, confirmed the handset’s nonexistence.

“At this point in time, we are very focused on the software, not the phone,” said Kimber, as quoted by The Sydney Morning Herald.  And while his statement, in combination with Cerf’s, effectively stomps out any hopes on the hardware front, it does leave other doors open.

Indeed, Cerf described his employer as “quite eager to be part of the mobile revolution,” and said that Google is “very interested in the platforms that other people are building.”  The company’s recent deals with Vodafone and Orange serve as evidence of this focus (although those deals were also considered evidence of the GPhone’s existence).

At any rate, it appears that Google has issued a new party line in regards to one of its best-known mythical products.  The blogosphere is reacting to the news with some disappointment – and some suspicion – and yet Cerf is one of the most credible people within the company (and, given his background in the communications industry, Cerf is perhaps the most credible person on this subject).

So Cerf’s proclamation should stand: there will be no Google phone.  At least not yet.

Sprint was the first to offer this but others such as Verizon and AT&T are not far behind. Even Google is teaming up with Orange on a new cell phone that will undoubtedly have its share of advertising.

Naturally the marketing world has been abuzz on these developments, with much of the commentary negative. Rather surprisingly a major Montreal marketing agency has also come out against this new channel for advertising. Of course they’re now sporting a new name (Sid Lee) and a new philosophy so perhaps that’s the explanation. As they explain on their Conversational Capital blog:

We’d like to argue against unrestrained mobile advertising from another perspective. We’re against networks selling unsolicited exposure on the networks consumers are paying to build and maintain.

Unless this is a clever campaign to generate extra conversational capital, it would seem to be a somewhat simple view of the situation.

Clearly the most effective advertising is acceptable to its targeted audience. That was the truism that the J. Walter Thompson Company enunciated early in 2005 when it was reborn as JWT. Their ideas were set out in a JWT Trendletter in May 2005 (PDF). That included the following message:

We create ideas for our clients that people want to spend time with. We believe Time is the new currency. The more people who spend time with a brand the better.

They were picking up a theme that had then been around for at least five years. A variety of phrases have been coined to describe it but Permission Marketing or Pull Marketing are particularly apt. It all links in with the notion started by the Cluetrain Manifesto and culminating in Time Magazine nominating us all (“You“) as Person of the Year in 2006. In other words we the consumers are in control. Advertisers must be smarter to attract our interest rather than triggering our irritation. Anyone proposing old-fashioned Push Marketing that just pushes the ads ‘in your face’ should be laughed out of court.

If advertisers can be smart and create ads that we ‘want to spend time with’ and the cell phone service is thereby cheaper, then we are all the winners.

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Barry Welford, President of SMM Strategic Marketing Montreal works with business owners and senior management on Internet Marketing strategy and action plans to grow their companies. He is a moderator at the Cre8asite Forums and writes on current issues on the Internet and on the Mobile Web in three blogs, BPWrap, StayGoLinks and The Other Bloke’s Blog.

If Google plans to take over the mobile Internet world, they appear ready to start in Europe, where the use of mobiles for Internet usage tends to be higher than that of the United States. Should they debut as predicted, the phones will arrive with plenty of Google technology on board.

A report in The Guardian’s Observer said executives from French Telecom’s Orange have visited Google’s California headquarters to discuss a deal. The two companies have very strong and positive brand recognition in the UK.

The story cited a source close to the discussions on Orange’s ‘a-peel’ to Google:

Key to such an endeavor will be Google’s ability to deliver its advertising to users of the phones. The company has been testing geo-targeting extensively for delivering ads to people where the ad is relevant to the person’s location.

If Google can get that done effectively enough to deliver street-level ads, the potential for the effort becomes apparent. In a busy shopping or restaurant district, no business would want to risk missing out on customers because the shop next door shows up in local ads on phones while theirs does not.

Ad competition would move the non-participants to join up with AdWords, the key product to roughly 99 percent of Google’s revenue. More participants would spur competition for better placement in the ads on the phones, which means more spending and more Google revenue.

One aspect of such a deal will be the browser Google uses in the software for the project. Google has been a partner with Opera Software for several months, and Opera has worked extensively on mobile browsers.

Those browsers have Google search as a default on them, and in turn on thousands of handsets around the world. If and when the Google and Orange partnership delivers those mobiles, we expect Opera will be the browser on them.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.