It’s the first day of CTIA Wireless 2010, and things are already buzzing here in Las Vegas.  One of the more interesting announcements this morning comes from Openwave Systems Inc. and Nielsen Company, who announced a collaboration, which should benefit both mobile operators and their consumers.

They’re rolling out what they’re calling an “insight engine”, that combines Openwave Analytics, a solution that helps mobile operators monitor data network traffic and trends in user behavior to diagnose and address bandwidth constraints with Nielsen PRIZM, a user segmentation solution that creates a common language to segment various types of users and helps marketers address different segments of users based on demographics, behavior, and geography. 

The combined product will allow mobile operators and other drivers of the mobile ecosystem to better understand, target and monetize their customers and the mobile internet more effectively.  It should also help advertisers better understand mobile user behavior and target that behavior more meaningfully with advertising.  And, lastly, for consumers it should ultimately mean that the marketing they see should be more relevant over time.

In order for mobile to become a long-term viable and profitable medium for marketing and advertising, the various players in the mobile ecosystem need to better understand mobile customer behavior.  Mark Nelson, senior vice president of the Nielsen Claritas Corporate Partner Program, described the benefits of the Openwave collaboration by saying:

By combining carrier-related mobile analytics with Nielsen’s PRIZM and ConneXions segmentation, carriers can analyze and measure mobile behaviors in terms that advertisers understand.  We believe this integrated approach will help drive adoption of mobile as a viable advertising platform.

The collaboration is certainly a good first step towards ensuring that there is a better common understanding of mobile consumers between various stakeholders in the mobile ecosystem.  By better recognizing consumer preferences and where they impact the network, mobile operators can begin to price services more effectively.  John Giere, senior vice president, products and marketing, Openwave pointed out:

The long standing belief within the advertising industry is that one half of the budget is generating results, but nobody knows which half.  We hope to arm the industry with actionable solutions which provide better response rates and more measurable mobile campaigns…We believe our collaboration with Nielsen will help improve the mobile operator’s understanding of their network usage and facilitate new revenue opportunities for ecosystem players.

I’m looking forward to seeing what comes of this collaboration and which operators engage with it longer term.