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Posts Tagged ‘content’

Trutap launches Hornet content platform

Wednesday, October 8th, 2008

I got a note in this morning from Carl Uminski, CTO of Trutap. I caught up with Carl very briefly at CTIA in San Francisco last month and he showed me a demo of the next version of Trutap — it’s going to be quite stunning. IM, Content, Social Networking — all aimed at the emerging markets (and India in particular). I think that kind of audience will eat up Trutap.

Part of the new roll-out — including this whizzy new client I saw — includes offering Trutap users the ability to subscribe to and receive content.

Carl’s got some news about this:

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Hi Ewan,

How’s things?

Neil told me about a little trial you were doing regarding PR and press releases, so i thought i’d drop you a quick email to tell you about our new content subscription system, HORNET!

Firstly, what do you think of the name?

We built Hornet because it was a great way for us to supply our users across the world with the kind of content they’ve been asking us for. We’ve been working away behind the scenes to sign deals with a load of major content publishers around the globe. Hornet will let those partners plug in text, images and advertising into their content for free and off-deck – cool eh!

The first publisher we’re rolling out on Hornet is Goal.com. Users who subscribe to the Goal.com free alerts will get breaking news stories and scores from the English Premiership at least three times a day. Goal.com is live across the service right now and it won’t cost the user a penny to subscribe – remember the world loves the english footie!

I don’t want to give too much away but along with rolling out additional content providers, we’re going to be announcing some more fantastic stuff in the near future, I will be sure to let you know when we’re ready… also, when you get time, we should catch up on our new version, the UI has come a long way since we met in SF, not long till launch.

Stay tuned :-)

Carl.

- – - – -

Carl, thanks for writing — and thank you to Neil and yourself for giving this new format a try. I think it’s a lot more useful and relevant for our readers.

To answer your point, Carl, I reckon HORNET is a wicked name. Good choice. I like the energetic connotations!

If you’ve got content (RSSable) that you think might be relevant to the Trutap audience, I definitely recommend you talk to Carl. Mail me and I can connect you.

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Posted in Applications | Comments

Flirtomatic users to now flirt with Sharpcards’ content

Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008

Flirtomatic, UK’s leading flirting service has today announced its partnership with Sharpcards, the global pioneer in enhanced mobile messaging.

As a part of the agreement, Sharpcards will provide its content to over 900,000 of Flirtomatic users, while still holding the mobile licensing rights of its content. An initial trial of the same was undertaken by both the companies since February and has been highly successful. The agreement will work on a revenue sharing basis and gives Flirtomatic users access to over 15,000 items from brands such as Purple Ronnie, Cartoon Network and Forever Friends, all under Sharpcards’ roof.

Presently, the deal is said to cover Flirtomatic’s userbase in the UK and Germany. A speciality shop, knows as the ‘FlirtShop’ will be set up for the users, where they can go ahead and buy content from Sharcards such as creative messages, virtual gifts and mobile greetings. Users can make use of, what has been named as ‘Flirt Points’ to buy these contents.

CEO of Flirtomatic, Mark Curtis, whom we’ve spoken to in the past, said:

Teaming up with Sharpcards means that our users now have access to even more high quality content which we can refresh on a much more frequent basis. With an amazing portfolio of content from some of the most exciting brands at our fingertips, we know we have found the right partner for our needs. Sharpcards is the pioneer in mobile messaging and with its truly global reach, they will be a key partner as we expand our presence and offerings.

After setting up a base in Germany as a part of its European expansion strategy, Flirtomatic is now looking to expand in the other international markets too.

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Posted in Mobile | Comments

UK needs age ratings for under-18 mobile content

Wednesday, August 13th, 2008

Guess what? The mobile industry is actually doing something right for once. Yep, according to watchdog Ofcom, the system of self regulation operators have in place to stop kids getting their hands on adult material before they’re 18 is working out fine, although it did administer a gentle slap on the wrist over information: apparently precious few of us know how about the age verification mechanisms used to block kids from accessing inappropriate content.

Ofcom did say:

“The current arrangements block access to 18-rated material to non-age-verified customers. With increasing numbers of younger children having access to mobiles capable of accessing AV content, mobile operators may need to consider if a binary system at 18 provides sufficient protection from inappropriate content for younger users, or whether a more granular system should be considered.”

The Guardian reckons that’s a sign that we’re going to get cinema style age ratings on mobile content. Not a bad idea, I reckon, assuming operators can put up with the hassle of verifying young customers’ ages – and if there’s a profit in it, I expect they can – I can really see it working.

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Posted in Operators | Comments

Fliptrack becomes Moblyng, gets $5.7m from VCs

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008

Social media service Fliptrack has been reborn as Moblyng and found itself on the end of an injection of VC funding. The company’s offering lets users mobilise and share all their content on social networking sites likes MySpace, including photos, videos and widgets, and announced yesterday that it’s got $5.7 million in venture capital funding from MDV-Mohr Davidow Ventures and Deep Fork Capital.

The service sounds technologically pretty nifty. It works like this, according to the company: “Moblyng technology automatically converts Flash-based content to images or video for mobile distribution, bridging the gap between online Flash objects and mobile devices, which do not widely support Flash-based content.”

With social networking now one of the most popular activities on the mobile web, it’s no wonder so many companies and VCs are gunning for it.

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Posted in Mobile Applications | Comments

Mobile content finally slips from operators’ grasp

Monday, March 24th, 2008

It looks like carriers have finally lost the battle to keep control of consumers mobile content – according to ABI Research the average consumer gets their content from a mix of places, including the web, their mobile operator and from their own collections.

Of mobile users who watched video on their mobile, the split was fairly even between using websites like YouTube, their own carrier’s video offering and sideloading the content themselves. With music sideloading was the most popular option, with 48 percent of mobile-music listening respondents ripping content from a CD or other music source, while over one third of music-listening respondents purchased music through their operator. Pre-loaded content meanwhile, put in a strong showing, with around 60 percent of mobile gamers only playing the games that came with the phone.

So it’s not all bad news for operators – sure, they’ve missed the boat on some areas, but others are still firmly in their grip. Add to that there’s still a lot of money to be made off data delivery, not to mention ad-supported content, and it’s not such a grey picture after all.

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Posted in Operators | Comments

Proof Apple iPhone users can’t get enough mobile content

Wednesday, March 19th, 2008

A new survey has confirmed what most people have already been talking about anecdotally: that iPhone users are massive consumers of mobile web content. According to the latest bit of research from M:Metrics, 85 percent of iPhone users accessed news and information on their device during January, compared to the average of 58 percent for other smartphone users and 13.1 percent for the rest of mobile owners.

The data consumption spike also carried across to other services, with 30.9 percent of iPhone owners watching mobile TV or video, compared to 4.6 percent of the market average or 14.2 percent of smartphones; while 49.7 percent of iPhone owners accessed a social networking site in January, compared to 19.4 precent of smartphone owners and 4.2 percent of average mobile users.

So what’s driving the trend: it’s not the speedy network access, after all, so it’s either the huge screen or the slick interface. Either way, I suspect once carriers and content providers get wind of this, they’ll be pressurising other handset manufacturers to start moving in the same direction while keeping their fingers crossed for a spike in data consumption as a result.

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Posted in iPhone | Comments

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