Its 470 million users have already erased $33 billion in SMS revenue from wireless carriers that got rich and fat charging per text.
“Sometime in the not too distant future,” says Sequoia’s Goetz, “WhatsApp is likely to eclipse all SMS traffic across the globe.” (Perhaps it’s no surprise that Zuckerberg reportedly held a private meeting with 20 telecom executives last week to ease their fears of being buried by free web-based services like Facebook and WhatsApp.)
A threat to the telecom industry. Web apps like Facebook and WhatsApp erode the need for "wireless data plans" which are the primary source of revenue for wireless carriers.
Robots. Mind control. Mobile games. Social films. Been there, done that. That is, if you're B-Reel. Last year, Ad Age's sibling publication, Creativity, named the Stockholm-headquartered outfit its Digital Production Company of the Year. It was an easy call, based on groundbreaking projects including the Cannes Cyber Grand Prix-winning "Wilderness Downtown" for Arcade Fire (directed and conceived by Radical Media's Chris Milk and Google's Aaron Koblin) and the much-buzzed-about LiveDrive for Mitsubishi, from 180, Los Angeles.
Yet B-Reel's output during the past 12 months has proved even more impressive. A small sampling of the work includes a "Minority Report"-style retail interface for telecom provider 3Sweden; a Rube Goldberg-inspired browser puzzle for Honda and Wieden & Kennedy, London; a social-media-created film for Intel/Toshiba via Pereira & O'Dell; and yes, some really great commercials.
The company plans to spur the development of apps that will help improve the state of education, and is planning an education-centric "hackathon" contest in June to find the smartest apps. The idea is to bring the Internet, video, social media, and the concept of "gamification" to the learning proce
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