Sky has unveiled its newest online service that will replace the Sky Player and Sky mobile TV services — Sky Go. Sky Go will be available to all Sky customers online via PC, smartphone or tablet devices.

Customers are allowed to register two devices to be allowed access to Sky Go content. Non Sky customers can avail of the service starting August with a subscription price between 15-40 GBP per month depending on the plan.

The Sky Go will carry a substantial number of premium channels such as Sky News, ESPN, Sports channels, MTV and more.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) orders AT&T and Verizon Wireless to let its wide mobile data services be used by smaller service providers for data roaming. These required both service providers to sign an agreement with smaller competitors for the cause.

This gives companies like U.S Cellular and Cellular South to offer nationwide coverage to its subscribers freely using AT&T and Verizon Wireless data networks.

AT&T and Verizon Wireless reacts to this by saying that the FCC and the government is pulling the progress of the mobile industry as this will discourage future investors to invest in their companies and considering it as a defeat of their subscribers too.

Grooveshark is confirmed to have been removed from the Android Market today. This is due to the copyright infringement violations it committed. For those who don’t know, Grooveshark works with users uploading their own music content for others to play when they want.

Grooveshark was kicked by Apple a long time ago for the same reason. If we live in a perfect world, apps like this would definitely prevail. The service is too good to be true. Users can pull up any song on Grooveshark’s database, listen to them and even cache the file for offline listening. The app is free with ads but you can opt for a $9 a month payment for the ad free version.

Users on webOS platforms are the only ones that can still enjoy the Grooveshark service.

A report by Millennial Media, a top mobile ad network has released its February 2011 mobile mix report for the public to see. The report highlighted key players on the mobile industry for the month. Here is a summary:

The Verizon iPhone on it’s first two weeks gathered 4.5% of the total American iPhone 4 market. While Samsung’s sales grew 50% compared to its January figures which puts them on number 2 on overall top mobile manufacturers.

Android overtook the iOS for the third consecutive time garnering a 51% impression share in February while Apple holds its position in the Tablet market share as number one.

Sony Ericsson is taking mobile gaming to a new level with its launch of the first ever dedicated gaming mobile smartphone, the Xperia PLAY. The phone was announced on the Mobile World Congress which was referred to as the Playstation phone.

The phone will come preloaded with selected playstation games that are translated for mobile playing. Powered by Android Gingerbread, users will be able to easily access the android market where they could download the latest games.

A lawsuit was filed to the court by Patrick Hendricks after he received phone bills that are unusually high. He subscribed to a $15 data plan for 200 MB but was always charged more for exceeding it. He was charged an additional $15 when he only exceeded 23MB on his limit.

Another complaint also stated that there were huge amounts of data being sent while the users are asleep. This was explained as carriers’ billing systems do not update real time so a 40 MB usage at 3 in the morning doesn’t mean that’s exactly when you used the data. Other charges were also made against third party apps sending huge amounts of data without the users’ permission.

In order to promote its new comedy “Glee” during a fall hiatus, Fox is turning to mobile.

By calling 419-329-4868 , fans can listen to messages from the stars of the show, leave messages for the actors to hear, listen to voice messages from other fans and maybe get a call back from one of the actors. Consumers can opt-in to receive text alerts when new messages are available.

According to Jason Clark, Fox spokesman, Los Angeles, ” It’s a way for our viewers to connect to the characters on the show.”She said ,”We do anything to bring them back into show, like Facebook pages and character Tweets, this is another way for fans to connect Fox.”

Glee is a comedy about a high school glee club, the outcasts of the school. The show is in its first season and has received critical praise and a cult following.

The show is set in Lima, OH and the number’s area code is for Lima, giving a nod to fans of the show.

The campaign called SayNow is a free service used by celebrities and regular consumers as a way for people to communicate with groups. SayNow claims to be unique because it is using voice, unlike text messages, blog posts or emails which can be written by somebody else.

Currently SayNow has more than 10 million users. As of press time more than 5,000 fans have listened to the messages from Glee cast members and more than 4,000 have been unique callers. Every user’s real number stays private on SayNow, the SayNow number is linked to the user’s current device.

When a consumer calls the Glee SayNow number they are presented with a promotional message urging them to continue watching the television program. Consumers calling from a mobile device can have the SayNow service notify them with a phone call or a text message whenever a Glee cast member leaves a message.The reminder service is free but carrier charges may apply.

The service also lets fans forward messages and save them as favorites.

According to the campaign, sometimes the celebrity will actually answer the phone line.

As per Mr. Clark, Fox’s demographic is consumers between the ages of 18-49. It’s more teens and young people that use phones more than ever, so it’s one additional way to connect with those viewers.

Toyota used mobile bar codes in a marketing campaign at Giants Stadium. The campaign had a fan engagement rate of 9.2 percent.

Jagtag’s mobile 2D bar code technology was used by the campaign that enabled fans to engage with Toyota in-venue.

According to Dudley Fitzpatrick, CEO of Jagtag, Princeton, NJ, Toyota wanted to extend its Eli Manning sponsorship with the Giants to promote local dealership specials and drive traffic to the showroom.

There were several ways for consumers to engage with Toyota by using Jagtag’s mobile 2D bar codes. They got a a video multimedia message from Eli Manning, they could also view dealer specials, visit Toyota’s GreatTimetoSign.mobi site, and even enter to win autographed Giants merchandise.

To promote Toyota’s “It’s a Great Time to Sign” campaign, thousands of fans at Giants Stadium received handouts featuring the Jagtag mobile 2D bar code from Toyota street teams.

To interact with the campaign, Consumers could take pictures of the bar code with their camera phones.

As per Mr. Fitzpatrick, for this campaign, Toyota was targeting sports fans attending games at Giants Stadium and used mobile because it works well for out-of-home marketing to easily reach fans when and where the marketing content is most relevant to them.

Toyota has been quite active in the mobile space. The car maker’s promotion of the Prius car model tied consumers’ experiences on their iPhones to a billboard in Times Square and let people interact with the brand via their handset.

The Prius Experience application was at the center of the promotion and meant to help educate and entertain iPhone users interested in learning more about the EPA-rated 50 MPG 2010 Toyota Prius hybrid.

Toyota also ran a targeted location-based mobile marketing campaign in September at the NFL’s New York Giants’ season opener. Powered by Proximity Blue , this campaign combined outdoor, television and mobile advertisements.The location-based campaign delivered a 14 percent increase of people downloading information about Toyota’s campaign to their handsets.

Mr. Fitzpatrick said, ““At a sporting event, you have a captive audience watching the game and they can easily snap a photo of the Jagtag, no matter what phone they have, and get content that piques their interests.”

According to Mr. Fitzpatrick, Mobile helps automotive marketers extend their print promotions in a way that is more interactive and engaging for consumers. They can seek out more information on vehicles, find local dealer specials, and even join a community to get ongoing promotional specials, all at their convenience and on their mobile device that they take everywhere.

According to industry speculators,If Verizon Wireless implements its proposed $.03 rate hike the mobile marketing industry will topple over, eventually bringing the carriers down with it.

With the proposal,executives at mobile companies are not so happy and they feel that it would only benefit Verizon.

The worst thing of all, the industry is very disappointed in the Mobile Marketing Association and the fact that the organization hasn’t reacted in any way to the proposed hike.

David Wachs, president of Cellit Mobile Marketing, Chicago, IL said,”Raising the price of text messaging points to Verizon’s myopic view of how the industry operates.”

“While Verizon believes these costs will be eaten by the aggregators and value added service providers like Cellit, in actuality the marketing firm must bear the cost in the end,”he added.

He further said,”As such, with a (more than) doubling of costs on the marketer, the ROI of projects is removed, leading to fewer marketing programs.”

“Fewer marketing programs lead to fewer reasons for the end consumer to text and take full advantage of their phone and carrier,”he added.

“In the end, it is consumers who suffer as they have fewer ways to engage with their phone and carrier in compelling, meaningful and relevant ways,”he said.

Verizon Wireless surprised the mobile industry last week when rumors of the hike first started.Verizon is basically double dipping on every message being sent out.

David Deutsch cofounder/CEO at DMD Mobile Holdings Inc., New York said,”Obviously we are very disappointed that Verizon would want to impose any type of fee.”

“I want to think it’s a mistake on their part and they did not think this through in terms of how it is going to cripple the mobile industry,”he added.

“From a mobile marketing perspective this is terrible” he said.

Mr. Deutsch said,”The Mobile Marketing Association is a conduit for carriers.”

“The organization should have reacted to this in some way and it hasn’t,”he added.

A mobile campaign at the Keith Urban World Tour was run by Clorox-owned KC Masterpiece Barbeque Sauce and Kingsford Charcoal,in which 530,000 people participated.

Mobile was integrated into a national promotion by Clorox’s agency George P. Johnson to win a backyard barbeque with Keith Urban by incorporating in-venue activities such as text-to-win seat upgrades and calls to action to enter by texting a keyword.

ndrew McGowan, group manager at Clorox, Oakland, CA said,“We worked closely with our activation partner, George P. Johnson and Keith’s management at Borman Entertainment, to create a 360-degree marketing plan, including mobile activation with Mozes, to achieve our brand objectives, market the tour and provide added value to fans.”

“We kept fans consistently engaged with our brands by incorporating mobile connectivity at multiple touch points throughout their tour experience,” he added.

KC Masterpiece Barbecue Sauce,Kingsford Charcoal and Clorox brands were the three headline sponsors of the Keith Urban 2009 “Escape Together” World Tour, which hit 49 cities across the country this summer.

An in-venue text to screen was also there for allowing fans to send their personal messages of love and support to Mr. Urban on-screen.

Mr. McGowan said,“Mozes helped make this possible with an extremely easy-to-use and effective way to register and send out mobile updates to entrants for the tour’s national sweepstakes, as well as connect with consumers on-site in a very personal way via mobile interactivity.”

The channel was also responsible for increasing participation in the “Me You and BBQ” promotion.

Sloane Scott senior account executive of the entertainment marketing group at George P. Johnson, Auburn Hills, MI said,”Mobile activation is a critical piece of our audience acquisition strategy.”

“It extends the reach of brands and places them directly in the hands of the consumer,”she added.

She further said,“Through a simple and universal opt-in process, the ability to match keywords with specific tactics and an OD reporting dashboard, we have the ability to identify which tactics are successful (hitting our target audience) and measure them against the overall objectives for the program.”

“The ability to adjust our tactics quickly based on those results is critical,”she added.