Ad-funded mobile network Blyk says it will update its membership numbers over the summer. The company launched in September 2007, offering 16-24 year olds 217 free texts and 43 minutes of free talk time each month, in return for accepting targeted advertising on their phone each day.
A year later, Blyk, which relies on a member-get-member promotion to sign up new members, said it had signed up 200,000 members in the UK, but since then, has issued no updated membership numbers, and recently changed the terms of its offer, replacing the 217 free texts and 43 minutes of talk time with 15 of credit each month.
But speaking to Mobile Marketing Magazine this afternoon, Blyk COO Leif Fgelstedt said that the company would issue an update on UK membership numbers before the summer break, or when people come back.
He also said that brands and agencies who criticised the firm for a lack of reach were missing the point.
If you look at magazines targeting young people with over 200,000 subscribers, you have to look very hard to find them, he said. And if youre an agency buying media, you dont just buy one media, you buy a portfolio, of which mobile may be one element.”