Mobile operator and media company 3 certainly hit the ground running this year. It ended December with the launch of the X-Series, a service allowing subscribers to make unlimited calls from their mobile using Skype, watch their home television via their mobile using Sling, access their home PC remotely using Orb and have access to internet and messaging services from Yahoo, Windows Live Messenger and Google. To top it off, the operator announced flat rate access – GBP5 per month for a basic package of unlimited Internet access, as well as Skype, Yahoo and MSN services and GBP10 per month to add Sling and Orb. For an encore, the operator sharpened its focus on social networking, sealing deals with a mixed-bag of mobile communities to offer access to its users, and grew membership of its own Kink Kommunity, for example, to over 60,000 members. (And word was at a recent mobile search conference I chaired, where 3 also spoke, that the operator is set to announce agreements with several more social networks, including Faceparty. So, watch this space…) More recently, 3 took the wraps off an ad-funded scheme, promising to deliver users content and relevant advertising in one neat package. I caught up with Rob Wells, Head of Mobile Broadband, to connect the dots in the operator’s broad mobile content and marketing strategy and get the low-down on the increasingly significant role of mobile search in the mix.

—The usual suspects: 3’s mobile Web strategy is built on “mapping the behavioral usage of the Internet onto the handset.” That means offering many of the same services from the recognized brands, such as Yahoo, Google, MSN. “It’s not about a decline of traditional content providers within mobile…But it’s very much based around Internet services.” In line with this, 3 has also adopted a pricing model similar to the Internet, an approach it will extend to mobile social networking. “There will be flexibility around the way that customers can interact, pay for and use those services…..The idea is that it’s not a one-size-fits-all. It’s depending on how frequently the customer wants to interact, what they want to do…”

—Make or Buy: Unlike many operators, 3 is looking beyond the Internet mega-brands to build usage of mobile Web services and membership in mobile communities. “There’s an easy approach and there’s a lazy approach, which is go out there and pay MySpace a load of money and get MySpace on the handset for a big endorsement deal. That’s not where we are, that’s where some of our competitors have gone.  They’ve gone down the much easier route, get some big brand names which will appease 10% of their customer base….The approach that we’re taking is to get a much more diverse group of partners on board, ones that appeal across our customer base, and make those services as tailor made to mobile as possible and spend a hell of a long time really crafting those services, so when we release it to a customer, it’s not just a Java-app that doesn’t really do half the things the internet service does.  It’s as true an internet experience as possible.”

—The numbers game: Targeted mobile advertising works best when companies share the data. But where to draw the line – and how much information should be in the hands of mobile search engines? “There’s a huge debate and there isn’t an end point yet that has been established,” Wells said. “The search engine providers are obviously coming out with some fairly innovative search results more tailored towards mobile and exactly where information sits….Of course, the search partner wants customer information passed over in the search stream. However, obviously we are going to control and manage our own revenue streams to a certain degree.”

—Ad-funded & community: “There’s a wider discussion about exactly how sponsorship is going to work in terms of getting the content to the customers. But there has to be a value-add for the customer….We’re looking at some fairly innovative ideas, but at the moment it is the more traditional sponsorship ideas that have been prevalent.” Ad-funded and social networking, however, don’t always mix. “We’re not looking at negatively impacting on an established way that a customer would interact with (a) social networking provider on the Internet (by) making massive changes in their mobile experience.”

—Partners in the pipeline: “It may well (be about) bringing on some big names, social networking partners and the like, but it’s also about bringing services to customers that they may otherwise not have heard of, bringing social networking partners on that are big in the US, but just haven’t featured in the Wall Street Journal.  It’s about bringing services to customers in a really clear way.  So, yes, we will definitely be announcing some social networking partners that will be quite surprising. (Faceparty, we wonder…)

—Hub-culture: “We’ve announced an agreement with Intercasting, which is a gateway to several community services.  We do have a couple of other social networking partner deals that we will be announcing in the short call, which do add up to there (being) a social networking hub on 3 and we’ll very much be promoting that to our customers so that they can actually actively get to those.”

The full audio is here for download.

Related:
—3 UK Launches On-Portal Ad-Funded Content Offer
—3UK Offers Access To Multiple Online Social Networks
—Tear Down The Wall(ed Garden)!