M U S I C G A M E S V I D E O C O M M U N I T Y A D U LT
MAY 2008 ISSUE 39
Now on your
mobile mobile.mobile-ent.biz
MOBILE ENTERTAINMENT FOR EVERYONE IN THE MOBILE CONTENT INDUSTRY
www.mobile-ent.biz
Playboy’s nonnaked ambition Iconic brand speaking to operators, content partners and potential sponsors as part of renewed mobile push for 2008 PLAYBOY is ready to make its mark in mobile – and the name of the game is not adult, but lifestyle content and social networking. The strategy is part of the iconic brand’s wider move away from the ‘late night’ and ‘glamour’ content categories and the connotations they carry, particularly in the traditionally conservative operator community. The Miss Playboy Mobile competition, which culminated at CTIA last month, is the springboard for a renewed wireless focus – the contest will expand beyond the US this year using social networks like Facebook to drive mobile interaction. The company is also re-launching the PlayboyMobile.com portal, which will act as a hub for localised, adfunded content and community services around the world. Playboy has already partnered with Minick to get its mobile content operations up and running in Europe. Speaking to ME, Ed Lang, SVP of mobile and international online at Playboy Media Group, said: “We made a conscious decision some time ago to take ‘nude’ off the table and focus our digital efforts on other, more aspirational qualities of the
Playboy brand – we’re now playing at a higher level.” Indicative of the company’s new ‘lifestyle’ approach in other media is the Playboy U social networking site and the Girls Of The Playboy Mansion TV show, which has a 60 per cent female audience on E! in the US. In mobile that message is being rammed home by mass-market licensing deals such as the one inked earlier this year with THQ Wireless for a series of mobile games, which Lang says will open previously closed
doors for the Playboy brand ‘on-portal’. Meanwhile, the rollout of PlayboyMobile.com will be coordinated in conjunction with the company’s 20-odd international publisher partners. Lang added: “We’ll definitely be looking to sell premium content through our mobile channels in the future, but right now we want to present them as a sponsorship opportunity for operators and thirdparty brands.”
ME Awards: Countdown begins! THE ME Awards 2008 will take place on September 25th. Put the date in your diary straight away! Yes, the biggest night in the content calendar is five months away, and this year it will return to the Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington, West London. Since its debut in 2006, the awards evening has established itself as a celebration of all that’s good about the mobile content
business – and a tremendous knees-up for its execs. As before, we'll give out awards under the
category headings of services, development & publishing and handsets & operators. But please note! We are not yet accepting nominations. Full instructions will appear in the June edition of ME magazine and on our website. For details of table sales and sponsorship opportunities, contact Jodie.Holdway@bhpr.co.uk or call +44 (0) 1462 456780.
G 50 million euros is spent on downloading games each month in Europe G Ringtones still dominate European spend with over half a billion euros spent in the past twelve months G 70 pence of every pound spent on downloads is on deck.
www.gfkrt.com
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NEWS ISSUE 39 May 08
News 1-6 Features
Sparks fly at CTIA Opcos and content providers clash at big US trade show
8 Le Main Event MEM’s big gig in Cannes approaches
11 Keeping Mumbai ME went to India, read all about it
14 Challenging times Tanla on the pitfalls of mobile marketing
16 Experiencing difficulties What’s wrong with mobile UI?
19 Mobile rocks! The LP version of Guitar Hero on mobile
20 Platform form book Stats on the format war in mobile gaming
23 Biscuits to a T A refreshing sit down with NetBiscuits
26 Moving drama Comings and goings in our jobs page
Reference Section 29 Product focus A load of new stuff
32 Games releases All the releases from the top publishers
33 Databox Your monthly fix of stats and research
36 Charts The best-sellers
38 Shows Wanna go to Cannes? Here’s your excuse
46 Discontent All the funny stuff
www.mobile-ent.biz
THE CTIA opened its spring show in Vegas last month with the news that mobile data revenues in the US had increased by 53 per cent in 2007 to $23 billion. Data now accounts for 17 per cent of the total mobile market. It was against this backdrop that 40,000 attendees packed into the Las Vegas Convention Centre. Sparks flew at the preshow Billboard conference as Disney’s Larry Shapiro and Virgin Mobile’s Peter Lurie debated why the market wasn’t seeing ‘hockey stick’ growth. Lurie quipped: “I think operators are partly responsible, but the content owners have a greater responsibility. Content is too expensive – when you think how consumers value OTA downloads, they’re just not going to pay $2 for them.”
Disney’s Shapiro laid into operators’ ‘draconian’ walled gardens and their failure to educate users. He said: “Carriers have such a tight grip on this business that they don’t pay attention to companies like Disney – one content manager didn’t take our Lost products because he didn’t watch the show. That’s very odd given his customer base.” Other stand out moments for CTIA 2008 included: Nokia’s EVP of entertainment Tero Ojanpera said the firm would forge relationships with personalities in film and sports as part of its Ovi content services drive. It has already recruited musician and producer Dave Stewart. Sony Pictures will offer full movies on AT&T as part of the operator’s MediaFLO TV
service. Films include Ghostbusters, Bugsy, The Karate Kid and Philadelphia. Playphone announced two high-profile deals – the first to manage the Adult Swim US mobile storefront for Turner, the second to add Sony BMG artists to its D2C content catalogue. RealNetworks will bundle ringtone, ringbacks, video tones and graphics for one price. Zong launched a developer network, comprising community source code for turn-key apps, an open API and testing tools. Google is the top US mobile web brand according to Nielsen Mobile research. Google’s mobile services had 13.4 million unique users in December 2007, followed by MSN with 11.1 uniques and AOL with eight million. www.ctiawireless.com
Materna nurtures media brands CONTENT services specialist Materna has united its technology and creative divisions under the Materna Communications master brand. Among the first fruits of the revamp is a partnership with Bob Mobile and licensor TripleM Music to produce a suite of content for boy band US5. The campaign comprises digital content combined with articles in promotional booklets and magazines, Bluetooth marketing at concerts, on-pack promotion with exclusive extras for album purchasers and a mobile portal. Built using Materna’s MACS platform and its in-house creative team, the Germanybased company is now offering
its services as a ‘one-stop’ content marketing solution for mobile operators, service providers and media companies – O2 UK already uses MACS to power its games portal Also, as an extension to the MACS platform, MusicMACS
can offer a full-track music portal that supports both mobiles and PC downloads – the platform powers the musicbons service recently launched by Sony BMG and 234 AG. www.materna.co.uk
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NEWS
Mobile TV is Ben Affleck HOW much time do you spend slumped in front of your mobile watching TV? I know, I know, you look at your watch and hours have gone by. Honestly, where does the time go? Of course, I’m being facetious here. Mobile TV was the next big thing of 2005, and it remains just that. It’s a bit like Ben Affleck. A few weeks back a Nokia exec finally admitted as much (not the Affleck allusion, but the slow take-up of TV) and agreed that consumers appear more interested in downloading mobile video clips than watching live programming. Well, duh. Anyone with children will know how selective the next generation is about broadcast TV. My 14 year-old daughter never watches the telly. Never. How ironic that, just ten years ago, there was “Ten years ago moral panic there was moral about how panic about kids much TV kids watching too much watched, and now, thanks to TV. Not any more.” technology and the wonders of mobile and the internet, they’ve abandoned it anyway. Of course, they’ve only departed a big screen for a series of smaller ones. As a parent, I find that depressing, but as a mobile trade journalist I’m immensely excited about it. Yeah, paradoxical isn’t it? The explosion of interest in communication and user-generated content at the expense of passive consumption must surely be the key for the proponents of mobile TV. This is not an original thought. Qualcomm (with its MediaFLO platform), Nokia and the rest are not that dumb that they don’t realise that sharing, voting, gaming, etc are as important to mobile TV as the programmes that are being broadcast. But they must package the offering attractively. And they need to get on with it. MediaFLO is only just going live with its second operator in the US, while DVB-H will be hoping for live implementations and lots of consumer interest in Europe to co-incide with the Euro 2008 football tournament. Of course DVB-H and MediaFLO are not alone as far a technological standards for broadcast mobile TV are concerned. Operators can also choose from ISDB-T, DMB, DAB, CMMB, MBMS, TDtv, MHP, AVSB and ‘regular’ streaming TV across 3G. Can there be another mobile sector with as many alternative formats and so few actual implementations? Depressingly, there probably are.
Tim.Green@intentmedia.co.uk
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Nokia N-Gages The third tier of Nokia’s drive into mobile services is NOKIA has unveiled the Mobile Games Innovation Challenge to coincide with the full launch of its nextgen N-Gage service. The aim is to stimulate invention in mobile gaming and a pre-production contract is available to three concepts. The creators of the winning ideas will be awarded €40,000, €20,000, and €10,000 respectively. And Nokia has finally launched its N-Gage gaming storefront. The handset giant pressed the green light on its service with five games available for between £6 and £8, namely Brain Challenge (Gameloft), Asphalt 3: Street Rules (Gameloft), World Series of Poker Pro Challenge (Glu Mobile), Hooked On: Creatures of the Deep (Nokia Publishing) and System Rush: Evolution (Nokia). The following titles will be released in the coming
weeks: FIFA 08 (EA Mobile) Tetris (EA Mobile), The Sims 2 Pets (EA Mobile), Block Breaker Deluxe, (Gameloft), Dogz (Gameloft), Snakes Subsonic (Nokia Publishing), Space Impact: Kappa Base (Nokia Publishing), Mile High Pinball (Nokia). The launch followed an eight week ‘first access’ beta phase, during which Nokia says ‘tens of thousands’ of N81 owners from 100 countries downloaded a stripped-down N-Gage app. The full version is initially compatible with three devices: N81, N82 and N95, but will be embedded into every subsequent Nseries device, as Nokia always said. N-Gage offers a raft of community and tournament functionality, in addition to letting gamers try any game for free before buying. Games can be downloaded either over the air or sideloaded from a PC. It is,
of course, the third pillar of Nokia’s drive into content services alongside music and maps. Nokia launched its Music Store in Ireland and the Netherlands last month. Nokia has dozens more titles to release over the coming months from publishers including Digital Chocolate, I-play: Vivendi Games Mobile, THQ Wireless and others. www.n-gage.com
Rock up at Meet-Up ME and Hands-On Mobile jam together to present a special Guitar Hero Meet-Up event – register now! COME to Meet-Up, the industry's best free networking event – and prepare to rock! Mobile Entertainment magazine is delighted to present a summer Meet-Up party in London in association with Hands-On Mobile to celebrate the launch of Guitar Hero III on mobile. Everyone who attends is invited to indulge their inner axeman by taking to the stage for some heavy guitar action. Yes, in addition to drinking and networking, guests can take part in a Guitar Hero competition on stage. There’ll be prizes available to those who rock hardest. For those unfamiliar with the concept, the original Guitar Hero launched on the PlayStation 2 in November
2005. It’s sold over 14 million units in the US alone in its various SKUs since. Hands-On will release Guitar Hero III: Mobile in Europe later this summer after a hugely successful launch in the US (see feature, p20). It was third best-selling game on the
Verizon deck in 2007, and is now live on AT&T. WHERE: Slug And Lettuce, 80-82 Wardour Street, London, UK WHEN: 7pm on Thursday, June 5th 2008. To register send an email to: meetup@intentmedia.co.uk www.mobile-ent.biz
www.mobile-ent.biz
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with devs finally open for business The new NGage storefront is embedded in handsets like the N81 8GB
MobiTV passes 4m MobiTV says it has over four million subs – that’s more than all the IPTV users in Europe. The provider is now adding a million subscribers every six months, whitelabelling streaming TV services for operators all over the world. It now plans to expand from hosted services to licensing the use of its servers so partners can manage the operation. To do this, it unveiled its enhanced Optimized Delivery Server.
Glu’s Summer Knight Glu Mobile has unveiled a summer release schedule comprising eight new games, including movie tie-ins, arcade classics and original IP. It will lead with two games based on the summer movie blockbusters The Dark Knight and Speed Racer, with Super Breakout, Super Political Boxing, Brain Genius 2, Race Driver: Grid, Wedding Dash and Get Cookin' completing the line-up.
AdMob’s impressions
ME mobilises itself on WAP MOBILE Entertainment magazine has launched a dedicated mobile site, so now you can take us with you wherever you go. The stripped down version of the industry’s most comprehensive news source displays the most recent headlines in a transparently easy user interface. It’s quick, intuitive and it won’t cost you a fortune in data charges. The ME team posts at least six stories a day. We did 32 once. The least you can do is carry us round in your pockets. So simply bookmark http://mobile.mobile-ent.biz into your handsets to stay incredibly well-informed. Stuart Dinsey, publisher of Mobile Entertainment, said: “ME is the clear leader online as well as in print. We have the most relevant trade website for www.mobile-ent.biz
the mobile content industry, BlackBerry-friendly email news services and now a bespoke site for browsing via mobile. This is about investing in order to provide the best news and advertising solutions, while delivering the widest reach. We are the only trade publisher in this market that is genuinely committed to growing our readership.” There are also mobile sites for other relevant Intent Media magazines, including MCV, Develop and Licensing. Check out the ME web site and link through for more details on each.
AdMob’s total ad impressions rose 10 per cent in March to 2.55 billion. The off-portal ad network also revealed that the proportion of impressions to Nokia devices decreased by 2.5 per cent as US market grew (the US is one of Nokia's weaker markets for handset sales). Globally, iPhone traffic is now growing at the same pace as the rest of the AdMob network.
A very Distinctive Facebook page UK developer to market its games using online communities DISTINCTIVE Developments is to harness the power of social networking as a marketing tool for the upcoming sequel to its 3D Pool mobile game. The original title, first published in 2004, has been given a major graphical and gameplay overhaul for its Facebook debut. Members of the online community will be able to play each other in real-time or as part of a turn-based mechanic, amassing achievement points as they go that are displayed in their profiles. Distinctive’s goal is to use Facebook to promote the next mobile instalment of 3D Pool, which is currently in development. The UKbased studio is in discussions with potential publishers with a view to a 4Q08 mobile release, which will be supported by a ‘click
LITTLE: Social networks have a ‘key role’ to play
ro buy’ option within the Facebook site. Speaking to ME, Distinctive Developments’ MD Nigel Little said: “This is still a highly experimental strategy, but as the market for mobile games moves off-portal, social networking sites could have a key roll to play when it comes to marketing and content discovery.” www.distdevs.co.uk
…while Rovio Flashes its goods ROVIO has confirmed that its next piece of original IP will be released as a Flash game on the internet this quarter, before a 3Q 2008 debut as a Java title. The hope is that if the Flash version of puzzler Totomi is a success on the myriad casual gaming sites out there it will create a marketing story to help Rovio secure ondeck distribution of the Java game with operators. Rovio feels the time is right to strike out once again with its own IP, having made a mark two years ago with survival horror mobile games like The Darkest Fear. In the last 12 months the Finland-based studio
has solidified its reputation with some high-profile work for third party publishers, including N-Gage game Bounce for Nokia Publishing, Burnout for EA Mobile, Paper Planes for Namco Bandai Networks Europe and Burger Rush for Mr. Goodliving/RealArcade. Rovio CEO Johan Annamatz said: “Creating casual games that work across multiple platforms is a great route to market for smaller publishers and developers. If you can attract a million users to a Flash game, there’s an excellent opportunity to translate that success to the mobile arena.” www.rovio.com
www.mobile-ent.biz
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NEWS
TV: state of the mandate debate
It’s my millionth
Industry forum clashes with EC over its DVB-H decision THERE was no need for the European Commission to endorse DVB-H – the market would have done it anyway. So says Dr Claus Sattler (pictured), executive director of the Broadcast Mobile Convergence Forum, after the EC upset many vested interests, with its mandating of DVB-H broadcast mobile TV technology last month. Sattler said: “Economies of scale will ensure that DVB-H probably becomes the European standard. But we refrained from endorsing anything, because we prefer to let market forces decide.” The BMCO Forum was founded to shape a market environment for mobile broadcast services, and has over 100 members.
Of course, for all the noise, broadcast mobile TV is still embryonic in Europe. Italy has launched DVB-H and claims at least 800,000 subscribers, while Finland has soft launched and Germany has a low key DMB service. However, BMCO says 2008
will bring roll-outs in the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and Switzerland – the latter three with an eye on the Euro 2008 footy tournament. The EC added the Nokiabacked DVB-H technology to the ‘EU List of Standards’, which serves as a basis for encouraging the harmonised provision of telecoms across the region. The decision prompted disapproval from MediaFLO and others. Sky is in trials with MediaFLO, and T-Mobile and Orange are having a look at TDtv. DVBH is the only standard with a global presence, although South Korea prefers DMB, Japan supports ISDB-T and two US operators have launched with MediaFLO. www.bmcoforum.org
THE mobile-only social network itsmy.com has added its one millionth registered user. The extraordinary popularity of the network also generates more than 300 million mobile internet page impressions per month, and five million videos, pictures and wallpapers have been uploaded to date. Members have built more than 4.5
million WAP sites within the community. Owner Gofresh says 80 per cent of users are from the US and Europe, with UK, Ireland, Italy and Spain contributing the fastestgrowing user bases. Users tend to split between active content creators and nonmember visitors known as downloader-surfers. www.gofresh.de
Mobile music on the move If licensed music is to enrich mobile games, publishers will need to pay attention to the legal situation, says Tahir Basheer, partner at media law firm Sheridans... MOBILE games and music are not yet natural bedfellows. The fact is, many mobile gamers turn the music off. But music on consoles was once equally unsatisfying too. All that changed with the advent of CD-based machines, and in time music became integral not only to the feel of certain games, but also, in the likes of SingStar, to their core gameplay and functionality. The same evolution can be expected in mobile as hardware improves. Many smartphones can already boast sophisticated audio capabilities, as can the slew of ‘music’ handsets like SE’s Walkman range. As a result game creators need to understand the rights situation. The consequences of not doing so can be disastrous, if not criminal. 6
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Copyright law draws a clear distinction between the original musical composition – the ‘underlying work’ – and its subsequent recording. They are separately protected by copyright. The owners of the underlying work are the respective authors, and there could be many of them. When the composition is recorded, the first copyright owner is not the composer but the party that enables the recording – usually a record company. Developers and their publishers must obtain all consents. Not doing so constitutes unauthorised use and is an infringement of copyright law. Any resulting legal action can lead to damages or a share of the game’s profits. Worse, the rights holder may obtain an
Game developers need to understand the law or face the music...
injunction preventing exploitation of the game, and the destruction of all existing copies. Criminal proceedings against a developer carry the threat of a heavy fine and even a custodial sentence. It is clearly sensible then to obtain all rights before substantial work is done on the game. Developers should be clear what rights are required, and whether the music will need to be adapted for use. Future proofing, and consideration of ancillary rights, is a good idea too. These costs may seem prohibitive given the relative commercial return of current mobile games, but it could be more cost effective to obtain the rights now than later when you’ve a moneyspinner on your hands. www.sheridans.co.uk www.mobile-ent.biz
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MEM 08 PREVIEW
Speak up! BlackBerry, Saatchi, TIM (not Green)... the MEF has lined up speakers from some of the world’s most fascinating companies for this month’s MEM 08. Mobile Entertainment is licking its lips… HE best conference sessions are transparently simple yet tantalisingly hard to get right: find someone who’s done something interesting and get them to tell you how they did it. This year at MEM there should be a whole bunch of sessions like this. Organisers the MEF and Informa have used their influence to attract speakers from companies that are leading mobile into new areas – whether in terms of device, geography or entertainment sector. Here are some of the highlights:
T
BlackBerry As DRM-free music is launched on BlackBerry and Facebook application downloads for the device surpass one million, Rick Costanzo, RIM's VP of commercial operations in Europe, will be speaking about its increasingly consumer-focused devices. TIM The market leading Italian operator has been a pioneer in the content space – especially in the areas of video and TV. Luca Tomassini, head of innovation at TIM, will share his experience on a panel with Russ
Cannes used to play host to 3GSM in this building, but now MEM is the main mobile event in town...
Shaw, global director of innovation at Telefonica, and Javier Foncillas, consumer product marketing director at Vodafone Group. ie:music Tim Clark, director of music management group ie:music, will talk about the groundbreaking deal between Robbie Williams and TMobile. He’ll share his insights into where artist management meets the world of mobile. Saatchi & Saatchi How is the world’s leading ad agency positioning itself with regard to mobile? Tom Eslinger, worldwide creative director of interactive at the agency, will talk about global mobile campaigns for brands including car maker Toyota. MTS Russia is one of the cornerstones of the world’s
developing economy. Pavel Roytberg, director of product and service development at MTS, will discuss how his 20 million customer operator is driving take-up of value added services in Russia. Mediaset and the BBC Two of Europe’s most influential broadcasters opine on mobile TV and the mobile web. Matthew Postgate, of the Beeb and Yves Confalonieri of Mediaset take the stand. Plenty to look forward to there. Generally, the MEF has worked hard to keep improving the show. The move to Cannes has been welcomed by the trade, after the muted reaction to Monaco last year. The MEF hopes that, by locating to the city a week
before the Cannes Film Festival it will attract more film and broadcast execs with a growing interest in the ‘fourth screen’. It has also revised the format, reducing the agenda to one single track and enabling more participation among speakers – and between speakers and audience. This year, the networking component of the show has been revamped too. MEM’s ‘marketplace’ brings together attendees at various meeting points and networking areas. This represents a return to the social spirit of the original MEM events back in the early noughties. Lastly, the event provides the backdrop to the Meffy awards, which have been expanded yet again this year. They will be presented at a gala dinner on the first night of the event.
See ME in MEM 08 Cannes ME is an official MEM media partner and will be highly visible at the show. We’ll send hundreds of magazines to Cannes, and the entire team will be present too. Come and find us.
May 8th-9th, 2008 Hotel Palais Stephanie 50, Boulevard de la Croisette Cannes, France www.mem08.com
Don’t forget MEFCON... The MEF has an extremely busy May in prospect, with its Americas showcase, MEFCON, scheduled for May 28th to May 29th. The venue is the swanky Marriott Marina Del Ray hotel in LA. Go to www.mefcon.net for more details.
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INDIA PROFILE
The times of
India HAT a week for your ME correspondent to visit Mumbai. Within hours of touching down for the FICCI Frames entertainment expo, it was confirmed that the local industrial group Tata had paid $2.3 billion for UK car giants Jaguar and Land Rover. For an
W
www.mobile-ent.biz www.mobile-ent.biz
Englishman who grew up a stone’s throw from the factories where those august motors were made, it was quite a shock. But how that one deal encapsulates the way the world is tilting from West to East. The Jag deal overshadowed another landmark passed during the week – that India notched up its 260
millionth mobile user, thereby moving ahead of the US to become the world’s second largest mobile state behind China. With 75 per cent of the population still to be connected, these are dizzyingly exciting times for the Indian people, and especially its mobile sector. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Tim Green went to Mumbai last month for the FICCI Frames media conference. He filed this report…
India’s sheer size and recent economic progress may make it a commercial powerhouse, but many millions of its people still live in grinding poverty, and even the emergent middle class earn modest incomes. This puts a limit on the domestic scope of the Indian mobile content business and explains why May 2008 11
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INDIA PROFILE
local specialists are so interested in overseas markets. Take the Indian mobile games market, for example. It’s worth around $40 million a year, nearly half of the country’s entire electronic games business. Vibrant, but small. Little wonder that Indiagames chases deals with the likes of PopCap, while Jump Games signs a global three-year deal to publish Manchester United games. This subject was debated during a lively conference session when a local delegate implored the panel to get behind the local creative community and develop an original Indian IP blockbuster. The consensus from the panel was ‘we’d love to, but it’s not the real world’. As was continually stated during FICCI Frames, Indian content means three things: Bollywood, cricket and religion. None of which travel that well. Indeed, it’s estimated 40 per cent of all digital revenues come from Bollywood, and that six per cent come from ‘devotional’ works. It’s why the local content giant Hungama bought a share in religious content aggregator Astute Systems earlier this year. Of course, it’s worth repeating that the rising incomes of the Indian population, and its sheer scale, can only push the mobile entertainment industry one way. This process will be accelerated by a relative lack of landline and broadband infrastructure that makes mobile the premier medium for digital entertainment and web connectivity. This much is clear in two facts: that India has just 30 million broadband subscribers and that mobile gaming grosses three times as much as console gaming. “Mobile has already surpassed online thanks to better availability and a penetration of 18 per cent,” says Manoj Dawane, CEO of local content specialist Mauj. It helps that, culturally, India is so ravenous for entertainment. The awesome power of Bollywood looms large across the whole nation and appears to unite rich and poor, educated and uneducated. There’s far less intellectual elitism than in the West about popular entertainment. According to local research, Bollywood underpinned the downloading of around eight million ringtones a day in 2007. The desire among all sections of the population for mobile entertainment has led local content providers to experiment with flexible pricing and delivery. Both Google and 12
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We feel strongly that we should cater for lower-income groups. Pankaj Sethi, Tata
Times Internet have built voice-based search and IVR systems for illiterate subscribers. Jump Games offers payper-play gaming for the equivalent of 10c a game, which delivers one million plays per title. Meanwhile, operator Tata has developed a browser for ultra-low end handsets. Pankaj Sethi (pictured), president of
VAS at Tata, says: “There’s just as much desire for content among lower income groups, so we feel strongly that we should cater for them. Because we’re a CDMA operator we have certain advantages with BREW that meant we could launch an Opera browser for sub-$50 handsets.” Sethi is a passionate advocate of mobile content and is planning a series of ambitious launches in the mobile ad space later this year, such
as a platform for injecting ads into the SMS that tells pre-pay users how much credit they have left. In a market with 250 million users – of which 90 per cent pay as they go – that’s good business. Sethi is under no illusions that Tata is a content company, but he does recognise the importance of the operator within the Indian content sector. “It’s not our content, but we do take responsibility for marketing it www.mobile-ent.biz
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Batting for India: local content giants HUNGAMA The big daddy of the content market, which owns rights to vast swathes of the Bollywood video and music archive. It also operates a substantial mobile marketing unit that works with most FMCG brands. INDIAGAMES A huge local presence and a player on the world stage in the form of IG Fun. Indiagames has had number one local hits with 2020 Cricket and others, and also distributes titles for EA, THQ, Glu and more. JUMP GAMES Owned by gigantic media group Reliance Entertainment, Jump burst on the world with a three-year deal to publish Man United games. It’s working with Game Federation to bring pay-per-play games to Europe. TANLA MOBILE Expansionist content services provider with 300 software engineers based out of its R&D centre in Hyderabad. Develops mobile products such as billing platforms, iTV services, user-gen apps and 3G video. SPIEL STUDIOS One of India’s emerging band of mobile games studios, specialising in both developing it own titles and handling porting duties for third parties. Has just begun catering for the new Apple iPhone SDK too. MAUJ Content provider that has a spot in the Nokia Catalogs storefront. IMI MOBILE Fast-growing VC-backed VAS specialist whose partners include Disney, Universal, Reuters, Yahoo and Google. NAZARA Games distributor and developer that has partnerships with PlayerOne, Exit and others. well,” he says. He needs to, as offportal has never really taken off in India. Although Buongiorno has launched in India, the Western D2C giants are barely evident and locals like Hungama have stuck close to the carriers instead. Its CEO Neeraj Roy says: “The cost of ad inventory relative to the unit price of content makes it too expensive for any D2C company to make an impact, or for us to try. The only companies that can are TV stations that already have brands and airtime.” In fact, Star TV set up the first Indian short code in 2003, and moved from mere interactivity to delivering rich media content in 2006. Its 7827 shortcode provides a single destination across the 11 Star India TV channels. Star even launched a free on-device portal. www.mobile-ent.biz www.mobile-ent.biz
For the rest, on-portal is the only way. Tata, for example, has 80 content partner deals. But these CPs have the same carrier grumbles as their counterparts overseas, citing billing systems that authorise downloads when there’s insufficient credit and punitive rev shares. On a more general level, there remains a pernicious piracy problem in India. Vipul Pradhan, CEO of the anti-piracy body PPL, believes 80 per cent of ringtones are pirated, which is why, for all their popularity tones account for just 15 per cent of mobile music revenues against 75 per cent for the piracy-proof ringback space. Piracy could be India’s toughest problem of all. But if the country’s tireless entrepreneurial spirit is applied to finding ways round it, trust the Indians to find a way to crack it.
ONMOBILE VAS specialist, which recently launched a public flotation. MOBIE2WIN Offers its own shortcode and powers voting on Indian Idol.
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MARKETING
Communication
breakdown? Mobile marketing is far from straightforward. In a second extract from its new Mobile Advertising and Marketing Guide, Tanla’s COO Gerry Drew describes some of the potential pitfalls... NTRODUCING mobile to the marketing mix represents the single largest evolution in the past decade for brand and content owners alike. But this brave new world is not without its challenges. Those adopting it will need the right tools, teams and partners to truly understand the sector. After all, the quality of your relationship with the customer is the only competitive advantage that cannot be copied by other brands. Here, then, are some of the challenges to watch out for...
I
Technology constraints On average customers upgrade handsets every 18 months, compared to seven years for landlines. All the major handset companies bring out new models every few months, each with fresh feature sets, operating systems, screen sizes and functionality. Some devices have a bigger impact on the market than others. The Nokia N95 has become very popular with 3G and data users, while the iPhone is already causing big ripples. Colour screens and cameras are now mainstream, as is Java. However, each manufacturer implements Java differently so games 14
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Measurement
applications need to be tailored to makes sure they are optimised for specific phones.
There’s no magic formula. You can measure response rates, how many new people on the list, competition entries, repeat entries, click through rates and unsubscribe messages. There’s nothing to stop you texting a sample to find out what they thought of the campaign.
Visual limitations Marketers whose focus has been on a visual brand image can be wary about communicating with customers via text message. Plain text limited to 160 characters is not that exciting when you’re used to seeing your brand in a clever and witty TV ad. However, today’s colour phones with net access and video capability offer more scope to run interesting and integrated campaigns.
The novelty factor Evidence suggests that the more mobile marketing is used, the less effective it can become as the novelty wares off.
Production/fulfilment
The ‘spam’ worry There’s a perception that text messaging equals spam. Experience with email spam and viruses makes people wary about allowing access to their mobile in case the same problems arise. This has been exacerbated by abuses such as those ‘you have a hot date waiting for you, call 0909 XXX XXXX’ messages that encoruage consumers to call a premium rate number. Permission is essential for any push campaign. You can collect it a number of ways – internet, postcard, survey, mobile web. It’s a good idea to check rules
and regs such as the EU Data privacy act with your company lawyer.
Copywriting It’s only a small screen with 160 characters, so copywriting needs to reflect that. Markets should be wary of text speak, as the youth audience could feel patronised and the older demographic may not understand it. The first screen is paramount and should contain all key messages. All writing needs to be tested across different devices to see where the line breaks occur and so on.
Because mobile is a relatively new medium, there can be too much focus on the technology at the expense of management and customer service issues. A large confectionary brand came unstuck when it failed to arrange for the collation of winners’ details. The fulfilment house had to call them individually, which added lots of cost to the overall campaign. Tanla Mobile's Mobile Advertising and Marketing Guide is free to download as a pdf at www.tanlamobile.com
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Growth from Knowledge
Mobile Entertainment spend exceeded 2 billion euros in the last year Spend on Full Track Music has doubled over the past 12 months 50 million euros is spent on downloading games each month in Europe Ringtones still dominate European spend with over half a billion euros spent in the pats twelve months 70 pence of every pound spent on downloads is on deck. GfK track the sales of downloads and mobile content. By receiving the data direct from both ‘on’ and ‘off deck’ portals GfK m2 are able to track the sales and values of mobile content markets down to title level . GfK also analyse the device to which the content is downloaded to: GfK m2 is enabling all parties throughout the value chain to:
Track new products Measure the impact of promotions Increase and track distribution Set Optimal prices Highlight the best performing titles and genres Identify market niches and growth opportunities Accurately quantify the market Gain insight into competitor performance Benchmark and measure KPIs Forecasting and budget
Aaron Rattue Telephone: +44 7819 633117 or email aaron.rattue@gfk.com www.gfkrt.com
www.gfkrt.com
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UE ROUNDTABLE
A roundtable of forward thinkers convened in London last month to debate mobile user experience in advance of the forthcoming MEX conference. ME listened in…
Valuable
experience HE iPhone may not be the perfect device, but in one area it undoubtedly trumps everything that has come before it: user experience. Apple’s big gamble has thrown into sharp relief the shortcomings of most other devices. ME joined an industry thintank into UE, and here are the highlights... Marek Pawlowski, PMN: User experience is suddenly at the fore of mobile thinking. Why is that? Mike Short, 02: Three reasons. First, the mobile industry is now global, but we mustn’t forget local
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requirements. Second, many countries are heavily penetrated, so the only route to growth is through increased usage. Thirdly, people are using mobile devices in a broader range of contexts. Steve Ives, Taptu: UE has become magnified because the complexity of services has escalated. The ‘soft key’ templates for calling and texting are no longer up to the job. John West, Nuance: The key thing is making sure people can find content and services from the handset. In the PC world, apps like Google Desktop Search can find
almost anything from one box. That’s the way mobile will have to go. Marek Pawlowski: Mobile is becoming more integrated in people’s lives. That throws up a whole new list of UE requirements. This is as much about social as technological change. Even aeroplanes are no longer a refuge from the ringtone. Steve Ives: Exactly. And it’s not just talking and texting – younger people especially seem to have no problem with playing their favourite music with their phones on loudspeaker at the back of the bus!
MEX, the Mobile User Experience conference May 27th - 28th 2008 WallaceSpace St. Pancras London www.pmn.co.uk/mex
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iPhone is closer to the Starck way of thinking. It’s not feature rich. In fact it’s the only device I’ve ever owned on which I use every app. I had an N95 before it and used about three per cent of what it offered. John West: We also have to look at the correlation between features and price. Going back to the car analogy, what makes someone pay £50,000 for a BMW over an £8,000 KIA? It’s a complex marriage between brand equity, personal style and functionality. But that relationship is turned on its head in emerging markets where people need affordable phones with web access as there’s no fixed line internet. Marek Pawlowski: What about search? Is it a distinct app, or could it be a whole new way to interface with the device like Google Desktop? Do we need to move away from the traditional 3x3 icon grid? Norman Lewis: I think the term ‘search’ is too narrow for what’s
at sharing results. Mobile search doesn’t end when the user has found something, it must address what they do with that information. Stuart O’Brien: This touches on a huge UE issue that’s consuming developers at the moment. It’s about transcoding and whether mobile users should be surfing the full web or an optimised version of it through dotmobi sites and the like. iPhone is based around the former, but even Apple has evangelists asking big media companies to tailor sites specifically for their device… Mike Short: I personally think this pattern will evolve to reflect the number of full web browsing devices in the market. But I also believe we’re going to see more and more devices tailored to specific experiences, whether that’s web browsing or watching video. John West: In that respect I think we’ll have a similar situation with the evolution of the mobile internet as we
The ‘soft key’ templates developed over the last 20 years for calling and texting are no longer up to the job. Norman Lewis, Wireless Grids: You have to look at other industries to see how good, standardised UE can benefit everyone. No matter where you are in the world, if you get in a car the basic controls will be in the same place. We need to have that mindset in mobile. Steve Ives: But don’t standards stifle innovation? The iPhone UE truly breaks the mould, but it’s something Apple conjured by itself. Marek Pawlowski: The car example is interesting because aside from safety requirements I expect all the other design conventions were set in place by the industry itself rather than through some kind of mandate. Thomas Kleist, Native: That’s right. But in the car industry the trend is for technological innovation to be linked to the manufacturer’s brand. Sometimes this leads to a great UE, sometimes it’s abysmal. Marek Pawlowski: If you ask people about mobile products with great UE the iPhone and BlackBerry come up a lot. These are companies that have built infrastructure by themselves. Last year Motorola lost about $6.40 for every handset it sold www.mobile-ent.biz
– that’s a negative margin of 5.4 per cent. Apple is making a 50 per cent margin on each device. Steve Ives: It sounds like we’re talking about a feature war. If you listen to the designer Philippe Starck he talks about products that are 90 per cent crap. He argues that products should be de-featured. Joia Shillingford, Freelance: I wouldn’t say operators and handset manufacturers need to pack more features into their products, but they absolutely need to find something new that will make people buy. That could even be a single-feature phone. Norman Lewis: I’d argue the
possible today. Mobile has a great opportunity to become the unifying device to keep users in contact with things that are important – both people and content. We’re working on a technology like Google Desktop for an entire personal ‘infrastructure’. Mike Short: But if that’s not search what is it? Maybe we’re going to need a few more verbs… Steve Ives: Mobile is super-social device but that’s something regular desktop search isn’t good at – it’s very hard for example to find social networking results in a Google search as that kind of stuff is hidden in the ‘deep’ web. Desktop search is also bad
have with digital TV – soon analogue signals will be switched off and digital TV will be the only option left. In a few years from now even basic handsets may pre-load full web browsers, so that will just become the norm. Mike Short: One thing we should do more of as an industry is think about what impact newcomers to mobile with fresh thoughts could have on UE. For example, TATA in India is both a mobile company and the new owner of Jaguar and Land Rover – what could it bring to the party? Or Unilever – what’s its impact going to be as the mobile ad sector grows?
Roundtable participants: MAREK PAWLOWSKI .....................................................Editorial Director, PMN & founder of the MEX conference STEVE IVES .................................................................................................................................................CEO, Taptu DR. NORMAN LEWIS .................................................................Chief Strategy Officer, Wireless Grids Corporation MIKE SHORT ........................................................Vice President, R&D, O2 & Chairman, Mobile Data Association JOHN WEST ..............................................................................................Director, Business Development, Nuance THOMAS KLEIST .........................................................................Director of Interaction Experience Design, Native EWAN MACLEOD ..............................................................................................................Editor, SMSTextNews.com STUART O'BRIEN ........................................................................................Editor, Mobile Entertainment Magazine JOIA SHILLINGFORD .................................................Freelance (The Independent, Financial Times and The Sun)
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JAVA, FLASH & BREW
Figuring out games In Part Two of The Multimedia Research Consultancy’s review of the world’s mobile gaming landscape, Vic Whiting looks at Java, BREW, Flash and new emerging concepts…
W
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heartland (Canada and the US), where nine per cent of developers create games for it. The European number is five per cent. Flash Lite is now being used by four per cent of mobile games developers, whilst MMS and SMS games have been produced by 10 per cent. We only found a handful of studios developing games for Apple’s iPhone, but as we finalised our update it was clear many developers were gearing up for it, so considerable expansion of the Apple platform is envisaged. Moving on to new mobile games ‘specialisms’ we found that 53 per cent of the world’s developers now offer 3D support, while 43 per cent create multiplayer games, ranging from simple ‘pass and play/hot seat’ titles to sophisticated connected offerings. This latter category is offered by 30 per cent of developers. In the linked area of Bluetooth, seven per cent of developers have produced games, with over half of them based in Europe. Meanwhile, seven per cent have developed ad-funded or ad-supported mobile games. This represents pretty slow progress considering that the first mobile game to feature advertising appeared in 2001. However, if Greystripe's claimed success with its advergaming portal is any indication this area could be set for considerable expansion. Two further areas have potential for healthy future growth, although both are at a nascent stage. Location-based games have yet to take off, with only three per cent of the world’s developers having created LBGs so far. Then there is the area of Motion Sensing Games (MSG) for mobile. Only six enterprises are offering what many consider to be a poor man’s Nintendo Wii experience on mobile. Nevertheless, we are confident that both LBGs and MSGs will provide new creative and business
MOBILE GAMES DEVELOPMENT PLATFORMS: GLOBAL RANKING (mobile games developers only) JAVA/J2ME and other varients
1,070 514
BREW 223
i-mode / Doja SMS and/or MMS
138
Windows CE Variants
138 121
Palm Variants Symbian Variants
121
Blackberry
72 56
Flash Lite Open Source
17
Others
248 200
0
400
600
800
1000
1200
No. of Developers Using Java/J2ME and its variants are are the most popular platform in terms of usage among mobile game developers, followed by Qualcomm’s BREW. Interestingly, Microsoft’s mobile OSes are proving more popular as a target platform among developers than the more widely available Symbian OS according to TMRC figures
ADVANCED MOBILE GAMES SPECIALISMS: GLOBAL RANKING (mobile games developers only) 800
No. of developers specialising in
HEN Java for mobile (J2ME) emerged in 2002, the industry breathed a sigh of relief. Goodbye SMS and turn-based WAP games. Now, mobile gaming would have one downloadable platform we could all agree on. But as we all know Java has a myriad different flavours and resolving them (and thereby porting one game across hundreds of handsets) has become an industry sector in itself. Despite this, figures from The Multimedia Research Consultancy (TMRC) show that Java/J2ME is resoundingly the dominant development platform on the world stage, with 74 per cent of developers having used it to create mobile games. Taking into account all variants of Java (Kjava, Unija, etc) this figure rises to 76 per cent, peaking at 83 per cent in Europe. Qualcomm’s BREW emerges as a distant second, with 37 per cent of the world’s 1,403 developers favouring its use. Given BREW’s historical strength in the Americas it is hardly surprising that 50 per cent of developers in that part of the world profess to having used it. By comparison, it has made relatively little impact in Europe, where just over a fifth of developers use BREW. Ranked third is i-mode/Doja/iappli. Just 16 per cent of developers worldwide have created games using this platform, rising to 29 per cent in Japan and South Korea (driven by DoCoMo’s 1999 i-mode launch). In the Americas, only 10 per cent of developers have produced i-mode compatible games. After i-mode there’s a sharp drop to Microsoft’s Windows Mobile and Windows for Smartphones (both Windows CE Variants) with 10 per cent, Symbian with nine per cent and Palm variants also with nine per cent. Not surprisingly, RIM’s Blackberry enjoys modest support in its
738
700 610 600 500 422 400 300 200 99
100
94 53
36
6
0 3D Games
Multiplayer Games
Online/ Connected Gaming
Bluetooth Advergaming/ Community Games Ad funded/ Games ad supported Games
Location based Gaming
Motion Sensing Gaming
The majority of mobile game developers surveyed by TMRC have created titles that us 3D graphics, with multiplayer game development almost as popular. Emerging techniques like motion-sensing, adver-gaming and LBS score much lower, but are ripe for growth
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GUITAR HERO
Heroic success How did Hands-On re-make Guitar Hero, a console game requiring a full-size replica guitar, for mobile’s tiny screen – and then make it a huge success in the US? Hands-On’s Greg Robinson explains… NYONE who’s played Guitar Hero will know that it couldn’t possibly work on mobile. Right? Well, I would be lying if I told you there weren’t some furrowed brows when we were first offered the licence. Most people in the business will have heard of, or even personally enjoyed, the immense pleasures of the Activision-published game. Put simply, it adds an air of undeserved legitimacy to sad air guitar moments by allowing the musically untalented to plug a replica life-size guitar into a console and then jump around in their underpants pretending they are a living rock god. The original Guitar Hero launched on the PlayStation 2 in November 2005 and received critical acclaim with its unique guitar controller and impressive soundtrack. Guitar Hero II followed a year later to become the fifth highest selling title of 2006, while Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock was released at the end of 2007. Without doubt it’s a colossal brand. The challenge we faced was: how do we translate a console game with a two foot long plastic peripheral onto the mobile platform? Of course, we know big brands tend to sell well anyway, but there is no guarantee that bringing console quality experiences to mobiles will
A
drive revenue. Simply delivering a big name brand that bears little relation to its console cousin is unlikely to endear gamers to mobile. On the other hand, a carefully thought out approach that delivers on the spirit of the original title is likely to see uptake of the product. Our recent launch of Guitar Hero III Mobile in the US has proved it’s possible: the response from consumers has blown us and our operator partners away. We released Guitar Hero III Mobile on one US operator in December. Within a month it had become the third biggest selling game of entire year on that operator alone and one of the fastest selling games in mobile gaming history. A large part of this success is to do with the brand but there are several key features that have kept it true to the original. The quality of the soundtrack on the BREW version has been outstanding. Using BREW meant that the game’s soundtrack, encoded on PMD, is not compromised – the experience delivered on mobile is aurally identical to the high quality console soundtracks. The increased capacity of the high-end handsets has also allowed for greater flexibility in the size of the game, allowing more sound and stronger graphics. Aside from this
faithful and sympathetic translation of a much-loved franchise the other key to success has been the availability of monthly downloadable song packs coupled with a strong sense of community through online leader boards By utilising the phones’ connected elements, more than 250,000 songs are played every day by mobile subscribers across the US with over 7.5 million played each month – that’s around 200GB of songs downloaded from our servers every day. There are also over 100,000 users listed on the online leaderboard.
The success of Guitar Hero III: Mobile demonstrates that, done correctly, mobile versions of console games can generate a new wave of players. We were able to deliver top quality sound and graphics, and enabled operators to maximise revenue from mobile players by offering the downloadable songs that have so enthused the players of the console game. We’ll be releasing Guitar Hero III on mobile in Europe this summer. Get ready to rock. Greg Robinson is Hands-On’s general manager for Europe, SE Asia and Latin America.
Hands-On serves up a face-melter with Guitar Hero III Mobile
Be a guitar hero at the ME Meet-Up! Hands-On Mobile wants to launch Guitar Hero III: Mobile in Europe with a bang... and a scream of feedback. That’s why it’s teamed up with ME magazine to present a special Meet-Up networking event. There, in addition to drinking and socialising, guests will get a chance to be rock gods before a baying industry crowd. Go on, unleash your inner Slash. You know you want to. Guitar Hero Meet-Up Slug and Lettuce, 80-82 Wardour Street, London W1 June 5th, from 7pm To register, send a mail to meetup@intentmedia.co.uk
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Picsel Technologies Ltd. | T itanium House, Braehead Business Park, Kings Inch Road Glasgow, G51 4BP UK. Tel: +44 (0) 141 885 5588 | Fax: +44 (0) 141 885 5599 | Email: info@picsel.com | www.picsel.com | Offices in Scotland, Japan, China, Korea, Malaysia, USA. © Copyright 2008. Picsel Technologies Ltd. All Rights Reserved. This document carries no warranty, and does not form part of any contract.
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NETBISCUITS Q&A
Tasty Biscuits Netbiscuits has already worked with Yahoo, ebay and others. Now it wants help brands, media companies and agencies mobilise their content. Stuart O’Brien spoke to its CEO Michael Neidhofer… What is Netbiscuits all about? Our goal is to provide B2B toolkit software that makes it extremely easy for brands and media companies to build their own mobile sites, without the need to go to a slow-moving managed service provider. What makes us special is we also have a content adaptation API that renders in high quality to all mobile web browsers. The big difference between us and other toolkits like Google Android is that our stuff works on all handsets globally once you hit the ‘publish’ button. Which companies are using it? Content publishers, retailers and media brands. We recently signed a deal to mobilise eBay’s WAP sites in ten countries and also worked with Yahoo to helped mobilise its March Madness sports coverage in the US. Everyone wants to open themselves up to a new medium and audience. We always tell customers if they have a business model working on the web it will work on mobile too. However, you have to create an experience for the phone. That’s what we want to facilitate with Netbiscuits. How can you help with ad-funding? We have an integrated advertising engine that can interface easily with ad-servers that a media company may already have. We can mobilise the inventory of that ad server and offer a media repository. The system detects which media player is installed on a device, so we do the transcoding automatically; the guy creating the site can just upload the video in the background. You recently teamed with Device Anywhere… Device Anywhere is a very interesting partner for us. We have our own rendering engine, but to create something like that you need very accurate device data. So we need them to improve our device database, but also to provide our customers with real network testing. www.mobile-ent.biz www.mobile-ent.biz
And you’ve also added a messaging tool to the Netbiscuits toolkit… This is aimed primarily at US agencies. Lots of people there are thinking about starting with a messaging campaign first and then supporting it with a mobile website. If fact we’re we’re signing agencies up at the rate of one a week. Messaging is an important tool to drive traffic to WAP sites. For example, eBay integrates messaging into its mobile offering, so also sends bidding text alerts that then direct the user to the its site, which it doesn’t yet openly promote as a standalone offering. Where’s the Netbiscuits focus geographically? Obviously we’re a European company so we’re strong there with a marketleading position in Germany, where we serve 80 per cent of the advertisable traffic and count Bild magazine, Speigel and eBay among our clients. Elsewhere, the focus is the UK, followed by Italy, Spain and France. The US is of growing importance too. A year ago we had to tell people what a mobile website was good for. Now they come to us. What challenges does the industry need to overcome? A lot of people try to squeeze the internet onto a phone with transcoding. But it’s best to build a tailored experience. Sure, you can use part of an existing website, but people using our client’s sites go to the mobile version first even if they have full web browsers. Even the majority of iPhone users go to the mobile optimised version of sites. People get annoyed at having to scroll round a site. Even in 20 years mobile screens will always be limited to a certain size – the iPhone is the maximum size you’ll ever get. Again, it’s about the experience. Even Apple has iPhone evangelists running around asking big publishers to optimize their sites for its device. May 2008 23
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RECRUITMENT
Sponsored by
Darren’s new Accent
Recruitment Specialists www.aspire-mobile.com +44(0)207 297 2060
Vogel’s got a Real new job, while EMI googled ‘head of digital’ and came up with Douglas Merrill… Mobile Streams has confirmed that SABRINA ZAREMBA has joined its London office to become account manager for UK operators. She previously spent more six years at TIM in Brazil. At Mobile Streams, Zaremba will also manage the roll out of consumer services such as Private.mobi.
EMI has hired Google’s DOUGLAS MERRILL to be president of its digital unit. The former chief information officer at Google will replace BARNEY WRAGG, who was one of the big hitters of the digital music scene before he departed EMI in January.
One of the industry’s founding fathers, TAKESHI NATSUNO, is changing jobs. The mastermind behind i-mode is leaving NTT DoCoMo at the end of April. Natsuno launched i-mode in 1999, and gathered 25 million users in two years. US D2C specialist 9 Squared will formally combine operations with its parent Zed Worldwide. The merged entity will be led by 9
Squared co-founder BRIAN CASAZZA. STEVE ELFMAN is to leave Motricity. He is going to Sprint Nextel to be president of network operations and wholesale business. Island Def Jam Music Group has tapped former Flycell web marketing VP MARK LEHMANN for its newly created role of VP of web and mobile marketing. Hands-On Mobile has hired exMonstermob CEO NICCOLO DE MASI as president of the games and applications company. Ex-Comcast exec ELIZABETH SCHIMEL is Nokia's new head of global music. She will will report to TERO OJANPERA.
Former Real Networks exec DARREN VOGEL has re-emerged with Accenture Digital Media Services. He’ll bring his mobile music industry expertise to bear as business development director of the firm. Accenture increased its presence in the space last year.
Aspire Mobile is an international recruitment consultancy working exclusively in the Mobile Markets. We specialise in supplying mid-senior level commercial and technical professionals to a number of companies involved in Mobile activities.
Sales Manager x 2 – Content Delivery Network – London c£50,000 + bonus + package Strategic Business Development Director – Mobile Media – International c£85,000 + bonus + stock options Sales Director – Mobile Media – International c£80,000 + bonus + stock options New Business Director – Mobile Marketing – London c£65,000 + bonus + stock options Product Manager – Broadcaster – London C£40,000 + bonus + package Account Director - Mobile Advertising – London c£55,000 + bonus + package J2ME developer – Mobile Advertising – London c£50,000 + package C++ Developer – Mobile Video – London c£40,000 + package Sales Director – Mobile Content – Berlin, Germany c€85,000 + bonus + package
For more information please call Aspire on: 0044 (0) 207 297 2060 or e-mail info@aspire-mobile.com
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SOURCE Stuck for a stat or just looking to expand your mind? Find everything you need right here... umbers. We love them. You love them. And they’re all here in Mobile Entertainment magazine’s reference section. It’s a one-stop shop for all the content-based numerological and statological information you can possibly imagine. Our Games Spotlight pages focus on the hot new titles coming out soon. We also have our games publisher release schedule, a round-up of all the latest research, a comprehensive show guide and a run down of charts from across the market. There’s also the Product Focus, which picks out a selection of the content, hardware and services either just
N
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launched or coming to market. What’s more, every month Mobile Entertainment magazine publishes the Mobile Marketplace, an ever-growing directory of key product and service providers in the content space. It’s a resource backed by editorial spotlights on companies from each category every month. Put simply, there’s something in here to satisfy every number cruncher and any Powerpoint presentation. If you have any queries about the data, or would like to submit information for any of the pages in this section of the magazine, just send an email to: stuart.obrien@intentmedia.co.uk
INDEX PRODUCT FOCUS Best of this month’s content, hardware and services
P29
GAME RELEASES Release schedules from key publishers
P32
DATABOX We love stats. You love stats
P33
CHARTS All the movers and shakers
P36
SHOWS Conferences, exhibitions and seminars
P38
MARKETPLACE Key product and service providers
P39
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FEATURES
Coming Up... The definitive guide to what Mobile Entertainment magazine has in store for the next 12 months...
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May 2008
JUNE2008
AUGUST2008
OCTOBER2008
Licensing IP for mobile Mobile search Mobile marketing MEM show report
India market focus The future of content billing Recruitment special 3o under 30
ME Awards review Mobile video special Movie studios in mobile South Africa focus
Editorial deadline: May 8th Advertising deadline: May 8th
Editorial deadline: July 17th Advertising deadline: July 17th
Editorial deadline: Sept 18th Advertising deadline: Sept 18th
JULY2008
SEPTEMBER2008
NOVEMBER2008
Games sector profile Content testing & certification Mobile advertising D2C market focus
CTIA Show Issue ME Awards preview US market focus Top 30 US content execs
Managed service provision Ringback tones Content for niche groups
Editorial deadline: June 12th Advertising deadline: June 12th
Editorial deadline: Aug 21st Advertising deadline: Aug 21st
Editorial deadline: Oct 16th Advertising deadline: Oct 16th
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SOURCE: PRODUCT FOCUS
NEW STUFF A selection of new content, hardware and services...
N-Gage (Nokia)
MobileTracker
Available: Out Now
(Spiel Studios)
NOKIA has now officially confirmed the launch of its next-gen N-Gage mobile games platform following an eight-week 'First Access' beta phase. The full version of the N-Gage app is initially compatible with three devices: Nokia N81 (inc N81 8GB), N82, N95 (inc N95 8GB). Five games from three publishers are available (priced ÂŁ6-8), including Brain Challenge (Gameloft), Asphalt 3: Street Rules (Gameloft), World Series of Poker Pro Challenge (Glu Mobile), Hooked On: Creatures of the Deep (Nokia Publishing), System Rush: Evolution (Nokia Publishing). Nokia says these will be 'followed closely' by FIFA 08 (EA
Mobile), Tetris (EA Mobile), The Sims 2 Pets (EA Mobile), Block Breaker Deluxe (Gameloft), Dogz (Gameloft), Snakes Subsonic (Nokia Publishing), Space Impact: Kappa Base (Nokia Publishing) and Mile High Pinball (Nokia Publishing). www.n-gage.com
Available: Out Now SPIEL Studios has teamed with BPL Mobile to create MobileTracker, a downloadable app that can help trace and recover lost mobile phones. Once installed on a phone the app will act as a watchdog. Once the MobileTracker detects any change in SIM, it will start sending SMS messages discreetly to two recipient numbers nominated by the user. The message will contain the phone number of the thief and the IMEI number of the handset, with which the user can make a police complaint or know the whereabouts of the device. The thief will be unaware of any messages sent, as there will be no delivery report. They will also not be able to delete the application as it’s password protected. MobileTracker is available across all Series 60 Nokia phones and will soon be available for other OSes. Mobile Tracker is Symbian Signed & Approved. www.spielstudios.com
MediaFLO (Qualcomm) Available: Out Now HAVING signed two huge US operators (AT&T, Verizon Wireless) and a good few handset manufacturers, Qualcomm is now setting it sights on making MediaFLO an in-car entertainment platform. At the NAB broadcasting industry trade show last month the company was showing off proof of concept demos of MediaFLO-powered broadcast mobile TV services running on two seat-mounted VGA screens in an SUV. The hope is that MediaFLO can become a platform to stream content to a host of moving targets, be they cars, trains or buses. Qualcomm also used NAB to announce that it is working with Irdeto, Nagravision and NDS to integrate their conditional access (CA) solutions within MediaFLO. www.mediaflo.com
www.mobile-ent.biz
May 2008 29
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The Mobile Content Industry’s Premier Awards Event Thursday, September 25th 2008 Palace Suite, Kensington Royal Garden Hotel London
CATEGORIES DEVELOPMENT AND PUBLISHING CONTENT SERVICES OPERATORS AND HANDSETS
ME awards_v2:Layout 1
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For more information contact: Jodie Holdway on +44 (0) 1462 456780 or email jodie.holdway@bhpr.co.uk
32 ME39_final:38 ME34
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SOURCE: GAME RELEASES
Game On!
Welcome to our games releases section. It’s pretty straightforward: you send us your game release schedules, we’ll print ‘em here...
RELEASES GAME/PUBLISHER
RELEASE
TERRITORY
GENRE
DEVELOPER
GLU MOBILE Castlevania Diner Dash 2 Sonic Dash Super Monkey Ball Top 'n Tilt Speed Racer Racedriver Grid Super Political Boxing Super Breakout Brian Lara Cricket 2008 Brain Genius 2 Get Cookin' Virtua Fighter Mobile
Out Now Out Now Out Now Out Now Out Now Out Now Out Now May-08 May-08 Jun-08 Jun-08 Jun-08
EMEA EMEA EMEA EMEA EMEA EMEA EMEA US, CAN, EMEA EMEA EMEA EMEA EMEA
Adventure Action Arcade Arcade Racing Racing Sports Arcade Sports Quiz Action Arcade
Glu Mobile Glu Mobile Glu Mobile Glu Mobile Glu Mobile Glu Mobile Glu Mobile Glu Mobile Glu Mobile Glu Mobile Glu Mobile Glu Mobile
2Q08 2Q08 2Q08 2Q/3Q08 Summer-08 Summer-08
EMEA Global EMEA Global Global Global
Card Arcade Sports Action Arcade Arcade
Dynamo Kiloo Dynamo Progressive Rockpool JavArt SRL
Out Now Out Now Out Now
Global Global Global
RPG RTS Sports
Handy-Games Handy-Games Handy-Games
Out Now May-08 May-08 May-08 June-08 June-08 July-08 July-08
Global Global EMEA EMEA Global EMEA EMEA EMEA
Action Action Puzzle Quiz Rhythm Racing Arcade Puzzle/Strategy
Octane Hands-On Mobile Cobra Finblade Machine Works Finblade Xendex Vivid
Out Now Out Now Out Now Out Now Out Now Out Now Out Now Out Now Out Now Out Now 2Q08 2Q08 2Q08 2Q08 2Q08
EMEA, US & APAC EMEA, US & APAC EMEA, US & APAC EMEA, US & APAC EMEA, US & APAC EMEA, US & APAC US US US US EMEA, US & APAC EMEA, US & APAC EMEA, US & APAC EMEA, US & APAC EMEA, US & APAC
Casino Arcade Trivia Casual Action Sports Action Sports Puzzle Puzzle Action Sim Puzzle Action Sport
I-play I-play I-play I-play I-play I-play I-play I-play I-play I-play I-play I-play I-play I-play I-play
Out Now Out Now
Global Global
Sport Sport
Player One Sports Player One Sports
2Q08 2Q08 May-08 Jun-08 Jul-08 Jul-08 Aug-08 Aug-08 Sep-08 3Q08 3Q08
Global Global Global Global Global Global Global Global Global Global Global
Action Adventure Action Action Action Action Action Racing/Action Puzzle Action Puzzle
Universomo - THQ Universomo - THQ Mnemonic Universomo - THQ Universomo - THQ Universomo - THQ Universomo - THQ G5, (Russia) Universomo - THQ CodeGlue (Netherlands) Universomo - THQ
Out Now Out Now Out Now 1H08 1H08 1H08
EMEA EMEA UK EMEA EMEA EMEA
Adventure Word Sim Action Action Racing
VGM VGM VGM/Centerscore VGM VGM VGM
EIDOS MOBILE Dr Who Top Trumps Jupiter Lander CM 2008 FIS Just Cause 2 California Games Minesweeper Mobile
HANDY-GAMES Gothic 3 – The Beginning The Egyptians Dynamite Fishing
HANDS-ON MOBILE Iron Man (Movie) The Incredible Hulk (Movie) Numba Total Film Quiz Guitar Hero III BMW Racing Icy Towers Shogun Legacy
I-PLAY 5 card Slingo Poker Bubble Town The Weakest Link: Movie & TV Edition I-play Bowling Wanted World Snooker Championship 2008 The King of Fighters The Fast & The Furious: Fugitive 3D Jewel Quest II 3D Flowerz Mercenaries 2 Eye Spy Paparazzi Jenga Mobile Turbo Pizza Real Cast Bass Fishing
PLAYER ONE SPORTS Tribal Baseball Amped Snowboarding
THQ WIRELESS Indiana Jones: Crystal Skull Prehistoric Tribes Worms 2008: A Space Oddity Wall-E Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (N-Gage) Star Wars The Force Unleashed ( Java) Playboy Games: Pool Party Saints Row 2 de Blob Worms World Party N-Gage Pass The Pigs
VG MOBILE Spiderwick Chronicle s Wordox Surviving Hollywood The Bourne Conspiracy Prison Break Crash Nitro Kart 2
32
May 2008
www.mobile-ent.biz
33 ME39_final:data box
17/4/08
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DATABOX: SOURCE
databox Mobile buries landlines
US ad spending to pass $1bn
Are the dog and bone’s days numbered?
US mobile ad spending could reach $1.7bn in 2008, up from $878m in 2007, says eMarketer. It also asserts that advertisers worldwide are expected to spend $19 billion on the platform in 2012. The vast majority of this will be spent on SMS campaigns, with display ads and search making up the remainder.
Mobiles are replacing landline telephony, with one in seven adults now ‘mobile-only’. A Harris Interactive survey of US consumers showed that 89 per cent of adults have mobile, up from 77 per cent year-on-year to December 2007. However, 14 per cent use only their mobile, while just nine per cent only use a landline phone – down from 18 per cent in 2006. About one in six use VoIP.
2007: half a billion music phones sold
iPhone users – fingers do the talking iPhone owners may possess a phone but they use it for voice less than half the time. iSuppli says they spend just 46.5 per cent of their time with the product making calls compared with a general average for ‘standard’ handsets of 71.7 per cent. For the remainder of the time, they spend 12.1 per cent accessing the internet, 11.9 per cent of listening to music or other audio and 10.4 per cent on email. The findings complement M:Metrics research that shows 85 per cent of iPhone users browse the mobile web, and 30.9 per cent use it to watch video.
www.mobile-ent.biz www.mobile-ent.biz
Mobile search windfall Mobile search revenues could hit $4.8bn in 2013, according to Juniper. It claims that while revenue generated by data charges associated with search is significantly higher than that generated by mobile advertising at the present time, the gap will close over the next five years. However, the researcher cautions against 'advertising overload' and raises security/privacy concerns.
Search figures good news for Yahoo
MultiMedia Intelligence reckons half a billion music phones were sold in 2007. The research company says the figure beats the iPod and other personal media players by 300 million units, making phones the most popular portable music device.
The $47.5 billion content market? Mass market adoption of 3G will drive global mobile entertainment revenues to $47.5 billion by 2010. Juniper Research asserts China and the Far East currently provide the largest market for mobile content services and contribute around 41 per cent of global revenues.
May 2008 33
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Some of our speakers at MEX 2008 include… Carl Taylor Director of Applications & Services Three Cyrus Allen Director of Customer Experience Telstra Scott Jenson Manager for Mobile User Interface Design Google JD Moore User Interface Designer Nokia Fabio Sergio Creative Director Frog Design Tim Haysom Chief Marketing Officer OMTP Steve Chambers President, Mobile & Consumer Services Nuance JoEllen Kames Senior Manager for Experience Planning Motorola Dr Norman Lewis Chief Strategy Officer Wireless Grids Corporation Thomas Kleist Director of Interaction Design Native Mike Short Vice President of R&D O2 and Chairman of the Mobile Data Association Allen Scott General Manager NeuStar NGM Steve Ives CEO Taptu Sofia Svanteson CEO and founder Ocean Observations
MEX is a very different kind of conference We bring together 100 of the leading thinkers in mobile telecoms and challenge them to define the cutting edge of user experience through 2 days of learning, debate and networking. We pride ourselves on the depth of our research, the diversity of our speakers and the relaxed and inspiring environment our venues. Join us in London on 27th – 28th May for the 4th annual MEX conference, as we strive to improve the industry’s understanding of customers and deliver better mobile products. Read our Manifesto at www.pmn.co.uk/mex/
What | 4th annual MEX conference When | 27th – 28th May 2008 Where | WallaceSpace St Pancras, London, UK Price | £1499 (+ VAT @ 17.5% where applicable) Registration | www.pmn.co.uk/mex/ or contact Marek Pawlowski (marekpawlowski@pmn.co.uk or 44 (0)7767 622957
MEX proof_v4:Layout 1
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MOBILE USER EXPERIENCE
36 ME39_final:charts
18/4/08
10:26
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SOURCE: CHARTS
charts Check here every month for the best selling games, ringtones and mobile apps from across the market...
Tagging
Ringtones
Ringtones & games
Ringtones.com top Euro trues, 11 Mar - 11 Apr Artist
Jamster UK real tones, 11 March - 11 April
Rockstar
Nickelback
Song
Artist
2
Mercy
Duffy
1
American Boy
Estelle
1
Simpsons - M To M
EA Mobile
3
Now You’re Gone
Basshunter
2
Rockstar
Nickelback
2
Casino 12 Pack
Digital Chocolate
4
American Boy
Estelle
3
4 Minutes
Madonna
3
Bejeweled
EA Mobile
5
Gin & Juice
Snoop Dogg
4
What's It Gonna Be?
H2O Feat Platnum 4
2-4-1 Action pack
EA Mobile
6
Dirty Dancing - Hungry Eyes OST
5
Low
Flo Rida
5
Devil May Cry
Capcom
7
Kung Fu Fighting
Carl Douglas
6
Now You're Gone
Basshunter
6
The Sims 2 Castaway
EA Mobile
8
You’ll Never Walk Alone
Liverpool FC
7
Can't Speak French
Girls Aloud
7
C&C 3: Tiberium Wars
EA Mobile
9
The Great Escape
OST
8
With You
Chris Brown
8
Mini Golf 99 Holes
Digital Chocolate
James Bond
OST
9
Toca's Miracle 2008
Fragma
9
Need for Speed ProStreet EA Mobile
10
Always Where I Need To Be The Kooks
10
Super Pac-Man
10
Source: Mobile Streams Ringtones.com top Euro voice, 11 Mar - 11 Apr 1
Say Hello To My Little Friend Scarface
2
Not Answering The Phone Gran
3
Who The Hell's Ringing? Peter Kay
4
Full Length Spider Pig
Simpsons
5
You’re A Lightweight
The Apprentice
6
What A Load Of B**locks Gran
7
It’s Spittin'
Peter Kay
8
You Call Me, I Like
Borat
9
Phone Bovvered
Lauren
10
Giggerty Giggerty
Family Guy
Source: Mobile Streams
Ringtones
11 March - 11 April 1 Wearing My Rolex Wiley 2 Low Flo Rida 3 Black And Gold Sam Sparro 4 Cry For You September 5 American Boy Estelle Feat. Kanye West 6 Fascination Alphabeat 7 Mercy Duffy 8 Come On Girl Taio Cruz 9 What's It Gonna Be H 'Two' O Feat. Platnum 10 Trippin On You Cahill Feat. Nikki Belle Source: Shazam
Zed top games, 7 Feb - 6 Mar
Games
1
Pinball Rocks
Zed
2
Brain Coach
Zed
3
Life Is A Fiesta
Zed
4
Formula Racing 3D
Zed
5
Texas Hold ‘Em Online
Zed
Elspa UK game downloads chart, Jan
6
Alexa Episode 2
Zed
1 Catchphrase
7
Neenya Ninja
Zed
8
Alexa Deadly Agent
Zed
9
GP Racer
Zed
10
Cafu Football
Zed
Zed truetone soundalikes, 7 Feb - 6 Mar 1
Goodbye Mr A
The Hoosiers
2
Bleeding Love
Leona Lewis
3
Ayo Technology
50 Cent/Justin Timberlake
4
Rule the World
Take That
5
The Pretender
The Foo Fighters
6
What I've Done
Linkin Park
7
Ruby
Kaiser Chiefs
8
Valerie
Amy Winehouse
9
Umbrella
Rihanna ft Jay Z
10
Apologize
Timbaland ft. One Republic
Source: Zed
May 2008
Gameloft
2 Tetris EA Mobile
Game
Publisher
Namco-Bandai
Source: Jamster
Source: Jamster
Music South Africa full-track downloads, April
South Africa realtone soundalikes, April
1
Bleeding Love
Leona Lewis
1
Love Is All Around
Jody Williams
2
If That’s Ok With You
Shayne Ward
2
No One
Alicia Keys
3
I Can Do Better
Avril Lavigne
3
Taking Chances
Celine Dion
4
Hot Stuff (Let’s Dance)
Craig David
4
No You Hang Up
Shayne Ward
5
Bel, Bel, Bel
Lianie May
5
Home
Daughtry
6
Hey There Delilah
Plain White Ts
6
Blow Your Mind
Loyiso
7
68 Chevy
Bok Van Blerk
7
Helpless When She Smiles Backstreet Boys
8
Coward Of The County
Kenny Rogers
8
Gimme More
Britney Spears
9
Male En Pale
Pieter Vincent
9
Piece of Me
Britney Spears
10
Top Gear
TV Theme
10
Acceptable in the 80's
Calvin Harris
Source: Melodi Media
Source: Melodi Media
3 Monopoly: Here And Now Glu Mobile
4 …Millionaire? 2nd Edition
Source: Zed
36
Jamster UK games, 11 March - 11 April
Song 1
Video & wallpaper
Glu Mobile
Fonestarz top videos, April
5 Deal Or No Deal
Fonestarz top wallpapers, April
1
Man Utd – Ronaldo’s Best Goal Ever
1
2
You Make My Heart Smile
2
Say It In Style
7 Brain Genuis
3
Kiss Me Kwick
3
Fanatical Animals – Metal Dog
Glu Mobile
4
Brand New Sexy Cam
4
Liverpool Animations – Anfield Badge
5
Violent Veg – Banana v Blender
5
Scrolls of Wisdom
9 Sonic Part One
6
Hilarious Retro Greetings
6
3D Spinning Man Utd Logo
Glu Mobile
7
He-Man Videos
7
Send a Sheep
8
Very Hot Hayley
8
Club Nite Euphoria
9
Valentine Love Monster
9
Gemma Atkinson
10
Funny Easter Vids
10
Disney – Piglet & Eeyore
Gameloft
6 Pac-Man Namco Mobile
8 Champion Manager 08 Eidos Mobile
10 The Sims 2 EA Mobile Source: 3, O2, Orange, T-Mobile, Vodafone
Source: FoneStarz
I Love You Animated Love Msg
Source: FoneStarz
www.mobile-ent.biz
37 ME39_v1:Layout 1
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U.S. CHARTS Tones
Games
Wallpapers
Titles
Publisher
Titles
Artist
Titles
Collection
1
Monopoly Here & Now
Glu
1
Suffocate
J. Holiday
1
Angela Denim
Bikini Babes
2
Fast & Furious: Fugitive
I-play
2
Kiss Kiss
Chris Brown ft. T-Pain
2
Transformers One Shall Stand
Transformers
3
American Gangster
Gameloft
3
Bleeding Love
Leona Lewis
3
Ben in Suit
21 Movie
4
Call of Duty 4
Glu
4
No Air
Jordin Sparks featuring Chris Brown
4
Dirty Money
Pink Frosty
5
Project Gotham Racing
Glu
5
I'm So Hood
DJ Khaled feat. T Pain, Trick Daddy, Rick Ross
5
Kari Sweets
Babes
6
America's Next Top Model 9
Artificial Life
6
Chicks Dig It
Chris Cagle
6
Angel
Greetings
7
Diner Dash 2
Glu
7
Feel Good Inc.
Gorillaz
7
Glade
Bikini Babes
8
Family Feud Deluxe
Mobliss
8
Angel
Amanda Perez
8
Haters Make Us Famous
Pink Frosty
9
Legend of Spyro: Eternal Night
Vivendi
9
Cyclone
Baby Bash
9
This Is Why Im Hot
Pink Frosty
10
1vs100
Gameloft
10
Talk Dirty To Me
Poison
10
Keep Hating
Pink Frosty
11
American Popstar
Gameloft
11
You'll Think Of Me
Keith Urban
11
Sports Car
Speed
12
Assassins Creed
Gameloft
12
Love Song
Sara Bareilles
12
Ashley Hay
Bikini Babes
13
Cake Mania
Real Networks
13
Crying Out For Me
Mario
13
We Fly High
Pink Frosty
14
Centipede
Glu
14
Single Again
Trina
14
Beach
Image Chef
15
Bourne Ultimatum
Vivendi
15
Hero/Heroine
Boys Like Girls
15
Amanda Lynn Bluefire
Start Mobile
16
Jewel Quest(r) Solitaire
I-play
16
Stay
Sugarland
16
Metallica Rebel Black
Rock Bands
17
Spider-Man 3
Sony Pictures
17
Spider Pig
The Simpsons Movie
17
Chained Heart
Image Chef
18
Rocky Legacy
Skyzone Mobile
18
Girlfriend
Bow Wow & Omarion
18
Single and Loving It
Pink Frosty
19
Tamagotchi
Bandai
19
Honky Tonk Badonkadonk Trace Adkins
19
Free Style
Glu
20
Beautiful
20 Squirt Swims Through the EAC
20 The Game of Life
Snoop Dogg Featuring
Sierra online Finding Nemo
The PlayPhone featured content listing is created and compiled utilizing download data results from strong sellers, fast movers and top-rated mobile content available across PlayPhone Web and WAP mobile destinations. (c) PlayPhone, Inc. All Rights Reserved. All other phone images, trademarks, logos and copyrights are property of their respective owners.
38 ME39_final:Conferences
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SOURCE: EVENTS
THIS MONTH’S HIGHLIGHTS May 6th-9th Java One
May 7th-9th MVNO Executive Forum
May 8th-9th MEM 2008
May 14th-15th Nordic Games
May 20th-21st Mobile Location Services
May 27th-28th MEX Mobile User Experience
2008-2009 CALENDAR May 2008 May 6th-9th Java One San Francisco, USA www.java.sun.com Sun’s annual talking shop for all things Java related. Mobile is always high on the agenda. May 7th-9th MVNO Executive Forum Barcelona, Spain www.marcusevansuk.com May 8th-9th MEM 2008 Cannes, France www.mem08.com After a brief flirtation with Monaco, Mobile Entertainment Market moves up the French Riviera for 2008.
MEX is the two-day strategy forum for the leading minds in the mobile telecoms space. The next event will be held in London on May 27th-28th. Join more than a hundred other delegates to debate the MEX Manifesto and set the mobile user experience agenda.
May 14th-15th Nordic Games Malmo, Sweden www.nordicgame.com May 20th-21st Mobile Location Services 2008 Prague, Czech Republic www.informatm.com May 27th-28th MEX Mobile User Experience London, UK www.pmn.co.uk/mex June 28th-29th MEFCON Los Angeles, USA www.m-e-f.org
Mobile Applications & Terminals will compare the available platforms, address standardisation issues and discuss handset fragmentation challenges. Delegates will walk away with the necessary tools to develop new applications, improve service time to market and increase usage. The event takes place in Madrid on June 4th-6th.
38
May 2008
After MEF Live! in Hong Kong last year, the North American arm of the MEF kicks of its own event in Los Angeles this summer. May 28th-30th BREW 2008 San Diego, USA www.brew.qualcomm.com
The BREW ecosystem converges in one place.
The second, more entertainmentfocussed CTIA of 2008 takes up residence in San Francisco.
June 2008 June 4th-6th Mobile Applications & Terminals Madrid, Spain www.marcusevansuk.com June 10th-12th Licensing International Expo New York, USA www.licensingexpo.com Looking for the next big entertainment or toy brand to take to mobile? You may well find it in New York at Licensing International. June 16th-18th Mobile Payments Forum Madrid, Spain www.marcusevansuk.com June 17th-18th WIMAX Forum Global Congress Amsterdam, Netherlands www.wimax-vision.com
September 11th-16th IBC Amsterdam, Netherlands www.ibc.org The biggest technology event in the broadcasting industry calendar has developed a considerable mobile presence over the last two years. September 15th Austin Games Developer Conference Austin, USA www.austingdc.net This long-running event attracts more than 1,100 attendees and provides educational, networking and business opportunities for game development professionals from all over the world. October 2008 October 13th-17th MIPCOM Cannes, France www.mipcom.com
August 2008 August 17th-28th Mobile Marketing & Entertainment Expo Atlanta, USA www.exponation.com August 20th-24th Leipzig Games Convention Leipzig, Germany www.gc-germany.com Europe’s largest games industry show will boast a sizeable mobile presence.
MIPCOM 2007 drew 13,371 participants, a seven per cent increase on the 12,509 industry professionals present in 2006. October 18th-21st E For All Expo Los Angeles, USA www.eforallexpo.com The big games show. October 21st-22nd Symbian Smartphone Show London, UK www.symbiansmartphoneshow.com
September 2008 September 10th-12th CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment San Francisco, USA www.wirelessit.com
This London show pretty much has everything to do with Symbian-based smartphones all under one roof, encompassing everything from devices right through to content and apps.
www.mobile-ent.biz
39-45 ME39_final:75-77
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MOBILE MARKETPLACE
MOBILE
GAME DEVELOPMENT STUDIO
MARKETPLACE
MARKETPLACE INDEX 26 CONTENT............................................+49 9547 870 120 www.26content.com ABSOLUTE QUALITY ...............................+44 141 220 5600 www.absolutequality.com BANGO...................................................+44 08700 340 365 www.bango.com CHERRY SAUCE .........................................+34 663 036 054 www.cherrysauce.com COMMUNIGATE .........................................+1 415 383 71 64 www.communigate.com DIALOGUE COMMUNICATIONS ..............08700 790 300 www.dialogue.net ELITE ........................................................+44 01543 268826 www.elite-systems.co.uk FLUID PIXEL STUDIOS ...........................+44 01642 384336 www.fpstudios.com FROGGIE....................................................+34 954 96 25 78 www.fpstudios.com HANDS-ON ............................................+44 0207 763 5830 www.handson.com METISMO ....................................................+44 7773 351164 www.metismo.com MOBIVENTION.....................................+49 2203 906 0210 www.mobivention.com
LOCALISATION
NOSTROMO ............................................+420 222 592 655 wireless.nostromo.cz PARTNERTRANS ....................................+44 01480 210 621 info_UK@partnertrans.co.uk PICSEL ......................................................+44 0141 885 5588 www.picsel.com SPIEL STUDIOS ........................................+91 22 2611 5995 www.splashnews.com SPLASH .......................................................+1 310 8212 666 www.spiel-s.com TAG GAMES ..............................................+44 1382 220 925 www.tag-games.com VANTRIX .......................................................+1 514 866-1717 www.vantrix.com VOEVEO ...............................................media@voeveo.com www.voeveo.com
The Mobile Marketplace offers a complete marketing package of print, online and editorial visibility, allowing companies to maintain that contact with readers each month without the associated cost of full display advertising. The Mobile Marketplace and its associated online version has also been designed to offer readers a directory of all products and services in the content industry. A presence in this section ensures that your company's details are easily found, keeping you one step ahead of your competitors.
universally speaking localisation quality assurance audio services
localisation services • all languages • translations • voice over's • marketing services
quality assurance services • all platforms • localisation QA • functionality QA
The standard package includes: 1/4 page advert in each issue Regular editorial coverage in the dedicated column Company details listed in the online directory with web link Company details listed in the marketplace index
To get your company featured here contact tom.roberts@intentmedia.co.uk t: +44 (0) 1992 535647 www.mobile-ent.biz
• compliance and standards QA
make contact tel: ++44 (0) 1480 210621 email: info_uk@partnertrans.co.uk www.partnertrans.co.uk Partnertrans UK Ltd., Priory Chambers, Priory Road, St Neots, Cambridgeshire, PE19 2BH, United Kingdom
May 2008 39
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MOBILE MARKETPLACE
40
GAMES DEVELOPER
MOBILE COMMUNITIES
SALES AND MARKETING
MOBILE APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT
May 2008
www.mobile-ent.biz
39-45 ME39_final:75-77
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MOBILE MARKETPLACE MOBILE PUBLISHING
COMPANY SPOTLIGHT
ADULT CONTENT SCOTLAND has quite a track record in electronic gaming, and the rise of Dundee-based Tag Games proves that this enviable tradition is alive and well in mobile too. The indie studio was formed in 2006 by three console industry veterans (who worked on the original Grand Theft Auto and others) and has been expanding since its first title, Dead Water, was released in September 2006. The quality of the game generated interest around the world, and Tag soon secured distribution with Indiagames across the subcontinent and Redboss in Eastern Europe. The company become profitable in early-2007 and consequently raised seed investment to expand capacity and to fund more aggressive licensing activity. Dead Water’s success also opened the way for Tag to develop Granny In Paradise, a casual PC hit from
www.mobile-ent.biz
Sandlot Games. The mobile conversion went on to win a Silver Award from the consumer gaming website MobileGameFaqs.com. It followed up with its first sport game, Football Pro, and the highly praised Rock’n’Roll, an innovative casual action/puzzle title with one button game-play. It’s currently working on Car Jack City, a Grand Theft Autostyle game but with a unique gameplay twist specifically for mobile. Given the founders’ backgrounds, they should know what they’re doing. In addition to developing its own mobile titles, Tag is also available to create games for third parties and execute licensed and even advergames for major brands. Its global distribution network means it can deliver content in any territory or language using traditional, advertising-funded or free-to-play distribution methods.
May 2008 41
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MOBILE MARKETPLACE INTERACTIVE MOBILE SOLUTIONS
Need a mobile site? Dialogue’s Mobile Site Builder offers you the full end-to-end solution to publish your mobile site - all you need is the content. Mobile site builder allows you to: • • • • • • •
Promote & expose your business Sell content through a trusted payment service Run viral marketing campaigns Include marketing subscriptions Drive traffic to sites with text-to-browse campaigns Generate Revenue Monitor user behaviour
Visit: www.dialogue.net/mobilesitebuilder.pdf Email: info@dialogue.net Tel: 08700 790 300
ADULT CONTENT
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VIDEO/PICTURE AGGREGATION
Splash News is the worlds biggest paparazzi agency bringing the top showbiz news, photos and video to mobile media. We shoot the good, the bad and the ugly of Hollywood's A-list stars using our global network of 1000 photographers. Wherever your favourite celebrity is, we will be there. Whatever your mobile needs - entertainment programming, wallpaper, text alerts and mobile video - the largest paparazzi archive with more than 15000 videos, over a million images and a comprehensive daily text feed is at your disposal.
To discuss licensing our content or partnering with us on portals contact us : Phone: Jessica Townsend on +448709342666 Email: jtownsend@splashnews.com or mobile@splashnews.com Blog: www.splashnewsonline.com Web: www.splashnews.com Video: www.splash-video.com
MOBILE ANALYTICS
www.mobile-ent.biz
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MOBILE MARKETPLACE DEVELOPER
COMPANY SPOTLIGHT
DIALOGUE
CARRIER/ISP SOLUTIONS
www.mobile-ent.biz
UK-BASED mobile content and billing specialist Dialogue has been growing fast for over 13 years. But this year it is going all out to capitalise on the escalating interest in the mobile internet. In February it announced the launch of its new Mobile Site Builder, an application that enables global brands to build mobile internet sites and storefronts quickly and easily. Mobile Site Builder (MSB) is the most advanced application for companies looking to enter the mobile market. But the toolkit does more than just offer easy site building. Crucially it also lets users enhance their mobile shop windows with marketing subscription campaigns, voting capability, competitions, refer a friend, click to call, bookmark capabilities and RSS feed options. Even better, it then allows customers to build in a payment mechanism, along with many other marketing features. It does all this via a simple user interface and has been designed so that the user can just drag and drop text, images and other components onto the mobile screen through any internet web browser. This way, sites can be built and launched within minutes by non-technical staff. The licensed Mobile SIte Builder package
comes with full reporting and auditing capabilities. Dialogue was able to build the solution as a result of years of experience in mobile. Its Mobile Applications Portal (MAP) offers a range of mobile campaigns from SMS to MMS that can be used in conjunction with other marketing channels to engage the audience. Meanwhile its mobile entertainment solution provides a hosted content management system that supports:
Content management Media Campaigns Content Delivery Mobile Billing
Meanwhile, underneath all this, is Dialogue’s mobile billing platform. This enables the charging of the consumer for using SMS Billing, WAP billing and (coming soon)* PayPal and credit cards. Dialogue recently appointed Peter Button, a former telecoms industry CEO, as non-executive director. Button will provide strategic assistance and expertise to the board, and help to further facilitate the growth of the company following a record year in 2007. www.dialogue.co.uk
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MOBILE MARKETPLACE CONTENT PROVIDER
TESTING AND LOCALISTION GLASGOW BALTIMORE BANGALORE MUNICH
www.absolutequality.co.uk
QUALITY ASSURANCE TESTING SERVICES ABSOLUTE QUALITY QUALITY ASSURANCE TESTING AND LOCALISATION
OUTSTANDING SERVICE QUALITY AND VALUE Absolute Quality, an e4e company, is one of the world’s leading providers of quality assurance testing, technical support and content localisation to the games and interactive entertainment industry.
TAILORED QUALITY ASSURANCE TESTING • Quality Assurance Testing including Functionality, Localisation, Compatibility and Compliance Testing, etc. • QA Testing on Mobile, PS3, PS2, PSP, Wii, DS, Xbox 360 and PC. • Porting and Platform conversion on J2ME, Windows ME, Symbian, Brew, etc. • Localisation, Translation and Games Technical Support Services. • Native European languages including English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Polish, etc.
Tel : + 44 (0)141 220 5600 email : europeansales@absolutequality.co.uk
Absolute Quality - an e4e company - www.e4e.com
MOBILE VIDEO
TESTING AND LOCALISTION
SEE IT CLEARER
HEAR IT SHARPER
GET IT FASTER
To learn how Vantrix can put video to work for you, visit www.vantrix.com 42
May 2008
www.mobile-ent.biz
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MOBILE MARKETPLACE LOCALISATION
COMPANY SPOTLIGHT
MOBIVENTION
MOBILE PUBLISHING
www.mobile-ent.biz
MOBIVENTION changed its name earlier this year, much to the relief f the Mobile Entertainment Forum no doubt. Under its previous name of the Mobile Entertainment Factory it did cause some confusion in the trade. However, the Cologne-based company didn’t take long to establish itself under its new guise. As Mobivention the company provides a range of content products to operators, service providers, portals, media companies and handset manufacturers. It was founded in early 2003 and has built up a significant international footprint embracing Europe, North America and Asia. To co-incide with its re-brand, the company launched a range of new products, including: UI themes. These skins personalise the user interface of a mobile, changing the wallpaper, screensaver and ringtone as well as bars and buttons. A portfolio of 600 themes is available and more than 400 handsets are supported. Animated themes. Mobivention enhanced these products with
animated backgrounds based upon Flash Lite, SVG-T or GIF. NexGen wallpapers and screensavers. Using Flash Lite and Java makes it feasible to complete background images with active components. Flash Lite animations offer a much higher frame rate and a smaller file size than normal animations in GIF format. Time-based wallpapers can change three times a day, presenting a different background wallpaper before the user gets bored with the one they’ve got. Mobivention’s growing reputation has alerted games developers too. Earlier this year, 3D gaming specialist Fishlabs agreed to supply its entire games catalogue through Mobivention. This secured distribution across more than 20 local mobile operators and several international and local portal operators in Eastern Europe. Elsewhere, Mobivention’s games catalogue comprises titles such as Sad Sam & Honey, AH-64D Apache and F/A-18 Hornet. It distributes its content in 53 countries. www.mobivention.com
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BACK PAGE MOBILE ENTERTAINMENT
We take content extremely seriously in Mobile Entertainment. But not here... O’Brien
Green
Editor: Stuart O’Brien
(Dis)content
Stuart.Obrien@intentmedia.co.uk
Executive Editor: Tim Green Tim.Green@intentmedia.co.uk
Managing Editor: Lisa Foster Lisa.Foster@intentmedia.co.uk
ME’s Tim Green had a wonderful three days in Mumbai where he was invited to take part in a panel session on mobile during the FICCI Frames entertainment expo. After the completion of the talk-in alongside execs from Soundbuzz, MediaFLO, Turner, Tata and others, one excited audience member ran up to ME’s exec ed and told him he was the spitting image of Bollywood action man Akshay Kumar. Flattered, Tim made a note of the name, Googled the image and shared the information with the team at home. Their verdict? Looks nothing like you, you idiot… Regular visitors to the ME website may have perused a story about George Clooney playing the role of Crazy Frog in the film version of the ringtone. The date of publication was, of course, April 1st, but we still had two readers who bought the whole thing. We’ll spare their embarrassment and keep their identities secret… there was even more credulity in Vegas at CTIA Wireless where Richard Branson revealed a JV with Google to fly a 21st century ark to Mars. Cue huge applause, and dozens of volunteers when he offered audience members the chance to take part. In fact, the CTIA show was the venue for all manner of fun and misbehaviour for
mobile content industry execs who really should know better. In the UK we don’t ordinarily have access to automatic weapons, so when the games bosses at O2, Orange and Player X bunked off from the show to venture down to the shooting range one afternoon it’s a wonder any of them came back alive. We’ve covered Neil Holroyd of Orange’s expertise with firearms in this column before, but there’s something very scary about the pose being struck here by Player X’s Monty Munford. Wouldn’t be surprised if he turns up as an extra on CSI: Vegas... Meanwhile, we wouldn’t be doing our job without reporting the shenanigans at the Miss Playboy Mobile 2008 VIP Grand Finale. Held in the luxurious Hugh Hefner Sky Villa at the Palms resort, pretty much everyone in the content biz turned up – including quite a few prenteding to be on the guest list when in reality they weren’t anywhere near it. By the end of the evening there were a lot of drunken faces and an awful lot of seminaked bodies. The latter group included one so-far nameless exec who stripped down to his undies and jumped in the splash pool with the bunnies. Do you know who he was? If so, email us!
Does this man look like Tim Green?
favourites
Greg Clayman, EVP of digital, MTV Networks What's your current handset? Verizon Voyager, iPhone and Blackberry Curve (yes, I carry all three).
Bookmarked mobile internet sites? Flickr, Facebook, Google, Wikipedia, ESPN, Youtube and Mywaves to name but a few.
Which handset do you want next? LG's enV2 and a 3G iPhone.
What will be the next big thing in mobile content? Off-deck video in the US.
Current ringtone? It Takes Two by Nice & Smooth. Favourite mobile game? Anything poker-themed.
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What's all hype and no substance? Well, I’m still waiting for an location-based services app that I actually want to use.
Advertising Manager: Chris Buckley Chris.Buckley@intentmedia.co.uk
Advertising Sales Executive: Tom Roberts Tom.Roberts@intentmedia.co.uk
Design: Rebecca Almond Rebecca.Almond@intentmedia.co.uk
Production Manager: Abigail Fanger Abigail.Fanger@intentmedia.co.uk
Subscriptions Manager: Hannah Short Hannah.Short@intentmedia.co.uk
Publisher/Managing Director: Stuart Dinsey Stuart.Dinsey@intentmedia.co.uk Mobile Entertainment is published 12 times a year by Intent Media ~ Saxon House, 6A St. Andrew Street, Hertford, Herts SG14 1JA, England
CONTACTS EDITORIAL: +44 (0)1992 535646 ADVERTISING: +44 (0)1992 535647 FAX: +44 (0)1992 535648
SUBSCRIPTIONS UK: £50 Europe: £75 Rest of World: £90 If you or one of your colleagues would like to request a subscription to Mobile Entertainment, please email mob.subscriptions@c-cms.com or call 01580 883848 Please note that this is a controlled circulation title and subscription criteria will be strictly adhered to.
Intent Media is a member of the Audit Bureau of Circulation and the Periodical Publishers Association
Total average monthly net circulation per issue for January 1st 2007 to December 31st 2007 was 8,012. © Intent Media 2007. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior permission of the copyright owners. Printed by Pensord Press, NP12 2YA
www.mobile-ent.biz
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Empowering mobile marketing & advertising Connecting with customers connectingthedots
Complete mobile solutions for brands, marketing agencies and merchants. Mobile Marketing Solutions
Mobile Internet Solutions
Campaign Management Direct Marketing SMS & MMS Marketing Video Marketing Mobile CRM Interactive Competitions On Pack Promotions Mobile Advertising
Mobile Payments Content Management Banner Advertising Media Streaming Affiliate Marketing Mobile CRM Mobile Search Bespoke Mobile Portals
For more information contact GERRY DREW +44 (0) 20 7494 5600 mobilemarketing@tanlamobile.com mobileinternet@tanlamobile.com www.tanlamobile.com
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More Media. More Mobile. More You. The MediaFLO system is real-time mobile media done right. A robust and open global standard that is purpose-built from the ground up to deliver live TV and other compelling media to mobile devices. All with super-smooth video and CD-quality sound on eye-friendly displays. It ’s mobile media without mobile compromise. ™
www.mediaflo.com ©2008 QUALCOMM Incorporated. All rights reserved.
MediaFLO is a trademark of QUALCOMM Incorporated.