Mobile Entertainment Issue 55, September 2009 by Intent Media (now Newbay Media Europe)

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SEPTEMBER 2009 ISSUE 55

FOR EVERYONE IN MOBILE CONTENT www.mobile-ent.biz

MOBILE ENTERTAINMENT

Say it with

mobile

Can enhanced messaging relieve tightening SMS and MMS margins in developed markets, and help to fend off the threat of IM?

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CONTENTS

A TOUCH BETTER Simple steps to stickier iPhone apps

GOING, GOING, GONG!

READY TO WHERE?

A look ahead to the ME Awards

We quiz Navteq’s head of mobile

BUILDING SITES

ON MESSAGE

The rise and rise of made-for-mobile

As a gaming platform, it’s fair to say iPhone no longer competes against other mobiles. It’s probably in the same arena as DS and PSP these days. But its outrageous success has been its undoing, to a degree. Developers no longer know how to stand out from the thousands they’re competing against. In this issue of ME, our new online editor Stuart Dredge shares some of the ideas he presented at July’s Develop Conference as to how iPhone games makers can use Facebook data, album art, leader boards and more to stay ahead of the pack. We also look into mobile site building, talk to Navteq’s head of mobile and find out how messaging is moving beyond text and MMS and into avatars, emoticons and animation….

Squeezing new cash from the oldest data

4-6 News 26 Appointments 28 Shows 30 Databox 32 Charts 35 Network subs 37 Marketplace 44 Discontent www.mobile-ent.biz

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NEWS

s it really four years since we hosted the first ME Awards? Each year the event has grown bigger and bigger, and 2009 will be no exception. What’s really interesting though is that the market is almost unrecognisable now compared to 2006. As is ME. But more on that a bit later. In terms of the awards themselves, the categories are broadly the same – but the companies in them are very different (see page 10). Of the class of ‘06, only 22 are back among the 97 finalists this year. And the market is moving faster than it ever has before. Of course, more column inches have been devoted to the app store revolution over the past 12 months than anything else (you’ll

Of the ME Awards class of ‘06, only 22 companies are among the 97 finalists this year. And the market is moving faster than it ever has before... find a few more in the following 47 pages), but it doesn’t stop there. The trend has allowed previously latent segments of the market like LBS (which we’ve spent the last four telling people we don’t write about because it’s “not rich content”) to move to the fore of mobile content innovation. Are we writing about it now? You bet. Likewise, the mobile games market has rediscovered its mojo thanks to its app store liberators. But these new opportunities are also throwing up new challenges – in this issue of ME we take a look at the dark art of creating games for the iPhone (see page 21). It’s not all about apps, however. Our cover feature this month takes a look at how those old stalwarts SMS and MMS are fighting their own war against the grusome twosome of falling margins and IM. Is it a battle they can win? I’d say 3.5bn SMSs sent globally last year on revenue of $89bn counts as ‘higher ground’ in that particular clash. Finally, there’s evolution taking place here at Mobile Entertainment, too. We’re delighted to welcome Stuart Dredge to the ME team as our new Online Editor. I’m sure you’ll all make him feel welcome. And keep an eye on our website this month, as we’ll be making a few changes there, as well... Stuart.OBrien@intentmedia.co.uk 4

September 2009

ME Awards: Book your place now! The ME Awards 2009 is under a month away – will your company be among the lucky winners on the night?

2009

Onwards and up-awards

AWARDS

It will be a packed house on October 1st at the Royal Garden Hotel

ON OCTOBER 1ST the mobile content industry will be descending on the Royal Garden Hotel in London for its biggest night of the year – the ME Awards 2009. Ninety-seven companies have been shortlisted for an award this year and nearly 400 execs will be there for an evening of fun, networking and revelry. There’ll be a few surprises too to keep you all entertained.

Mobile ads to hit $2bn THAT’S the latest prediction from Juniper, which pegs the market at $500m this year. The research firm says growing consumer adoption of the mobile internet and heightened brand engagement will be reflected in a sharp increase in mobile ad spend over the next five years. According to the report, ad spend will approach $500 million globally in 2009, rising to nearly $2 billion per annum by 2014. Juniper’s Windsor Holden said: “Popular mobile internet sites are now attracting levels of usage that provide a strong case for advertising and sponsorship options.” www.juniper.com

In fact, many of you have already booked your tables. For those of you who haven’t, time is running out, especially if you want a spot near the front so you can heckle the host. You can call Jodie Holdway for all bookings and sponsorship enquiries on +44 (0) 1462 456780, or email Jodie.Holdway@bhpr.co.uk. For a full recap of this year’s finalists, turn to page 10, which also gives more

details on how to ensure you, your team and your clients are there on the big night. The ME Awards 2009 has a packed roster of generous sponsors, including Nokia Ovi, Nielsen Mobile, MIG, PlayPhone, Partnertrans and Mplayit. Good luck to all our finalists from the Mobile Entertainment team and all of our sponsors! www.mobile-ent.biz/events

Price disparities on phone apps THE AVERAGE price of a game on the BlackBerry App World’s Top 50 paid games chart is $5.09, compared to the average price of $2.53 for an equivalent game on iPhone’s App Store. That’s what ME has found from crunching today’s charts on both stores – something that’s possible now RIM has launched a browsable webstore for its App World. The finding reflects the popularity of 99-cent games on the Apple App Store, and also Research In Motion’s decision not to allow games on its store to be sold for less than $2.99. Indeed, 25 of the

games on the BlackBerry store’s top 50 are selling for $4.99. By contrast, 24 games on the iPhone top 50 chart cost $0.99. www.blackberry.com

www.mobile-ent.biz

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Social media puts pressure on app store approvals Developers finding smart ways to create a buzz around apps before they’re submitted CONTENT providers are seeking to build buzz around new iPhone apps while (or even before) they’re in the approvals process, with the aim of provoking an almighty stink if it gets delayed or rejected. Streaming music firm Spotify is a good example. It blogged about its iPhone app – with a video demo – days before submitting it to Apple, and has since followed up by giving several journalists hands-on previews of the application. The result: articles highlighting the app’s innovative features, and high-profile media chatter about whether Apple will approve it. RealNetworks is taking a leaf out of Spotify’s book too, having published its own blog post and video demo about its Rhapsody iPhone app – again, before submitting it to Apple. Alongside this trend, companies are increasingly confident about speaking out about the approvals process –

Apple is currently responding to an FCC investigation into the non-approval of the Google Voice app for iPhone. Why? Because Google itself issued a statement in July claiming that “Apple did not approve the Google Voice application we submitted six weeks ago to the Apple App Store”. And last month Facebook software engineer Joe Hewitt went public on his personal blog with his own frustrations at the approvals process. The boot isn’t quite on the other foot just yet, and Hewitt’s demand for Apple to scrap its approvals process altogether seems wishful thinking for now.

www.mobile-ent.biz

BBC geo mash-up The BBC’s Learning Innovations department has unveiled a new mobile internet site called Open Air. It identifies a user’s location, then serves up a blend of event listings from its Breathing Places site, and local weather data from BBC Weather.

In-Fusio lives! Mobile games publisher In-Fusio might have been liquidated in earlyAugust, but its assets have been acquired by a newly-formed company called IF Europe, which intends to keep the In-Fusio brand for the time being. MD Sebastien Martin said the new company will pick up where In-Fusio’s restructuring efforts left off.

LG Arena’s 1m LG says the Arena is being sold in 53 countries and is seeing ‘intense interest and orders’ from new carriers in France, Portugal and Romania. Overall, LG says it sold almost five million handsets in Europe during 2Q09, contributing to a 35 per cent increase in sales compared to the same period in 2008. The South Korean company maintains it is ‘firmly securing a position as one of the top-three handset providers worldwide this year’.

www.apple.com

5230 Comes With Music It’s the phone everyone wants to be on – but how far will you go?

The new Nokia feature phone comes with Ovi integration, A-GPS and all you can eat tunes. The 5230 is aggressively priced at e149 and will include Comes With Music in selected markets (with the price rising to e259 accordingly) when it begins to ship in 4Q09.

Stuart Dredge joins iMusic takes ME team DREDGE joins executive editor Tim Green and associate editor Stuart O’Brien to form a journalistic team without equal in the mobile content world. This is a hugely significant appointment for ME, and consolidates the brand’s position as the premier destination for mobile content news and analysis. Dredge has been writing about the market since 2002, when he became features editor of gadget mag T3. Thereafter he became deputy editor at Mobile Choice magazine and senior analyst at Mobile Media. More recently, he has worked with PocketGamer,

[IN BRIEF]

QuickPlay’s STB play

shape in China

DREDGE: Online Editor

Music Ally, New Media Age and many more. At ME, Dredge will front up the website at www.mobile-ent.biz – bringing fresh news, features, opinion and other content to a site that already has 60,000 unique users a month.

CHINA Telecom has launched several musicfocused handsets to tie in with the launch of its new iMusic service. They’re from manufacturers including Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, LG and Huawei. The service will offer ringtones, music news, social networking features and full-track downloads. Earlier it was announced that digital music distributor The Orchard was working

with China Telecom on the Western music section of the new service. iMusic will also be a crossplatform service according to China Telecom’s announcement, accessible through computers and IPTV as well as handsets. In separate news, China Telecom has also teamed up with China’s official Xinhua News Agency to offer mobile TV news reports to its 3G subscribers in Shangai. www.chinatelecom-h.com

QuickPlay has unveiled a new platform that allows viewers to access content stored on a set-top box and download it (with usage rights) over-the-air/wi-fi/sideloading to various types of consumer electronics and mobile devices. It sounds like the Canadian company is pitching the mobile set-top box technology as a pay TV providerfriendly solution that offers capabilities similar to Slingbox.

RIM trumps Windows Handango has published its latest Yardstick report, tracking sales trends on its mobile applications store in the first six months of 2009. It’ll make happy reading for Research In Motion. According to Handango, BlackBerry apps accounted for 44 per cent of all sales during that period, up from 31 per cent in the first six months of 2008, overtaking Windows Mobile as the most popular smartphone in terms of downloads from the store.

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NEWS

MobiTV plots more apps What’s the best way to follow March Madness? By introducing even more live TV applications on Apple’s App Store MOBILE TV firm MobiTV is set to launch three more live TV iPhone apps for big sports brands, following the success of its March Madness app for CBS Sports earlier this year. Although none of the three have been announced yet, ME can reveal that two are for big US sports brands, while one is for a more global sporting organisation. Meanwhile, the learnings from these applicationss are beginning to filter through to MobiTV’s core mobile TV service, which is offered on a monthly subscription via carriers. “It’s much easier for us to innovate with these applications: we can build new functionality, and then transfer it to our core TV

Spin3’s Instant Win for smartphones Users can win 20,000 times original bet

Ray DeRenzo, MobiTV

product,” chief marketing officer Ray DeRenzo tells ME, explaining that the core service is only refreshed twice a year. “However, in a six-month period, we might be able to do ten applications, and every one affords us a new

opportunity to introduce a new feature.” MobiTV is also increasing D2C distribution for its core service and plotting a return to Europe – but with a different strategy from the one it tried three years ago. www.mobitv.com

Microsoft’s OneApp set for emerging markets J2ME solution will optimise web apps for lower-spec handsets MICROSOFT is aiming its sights on emerging markets with a new application called OneApp. It’s a Java application for feature phones that lets people access Facebook, Twitter, Windows Live Messenger and other web services. OneApp will launch with partners around the world, kicking off in South Africa with Blue Label Telecoms’ mibli service. Users install the 150KB client app on their phones, while the bulk of the processing is crunched on a server elsewhere. Individual apps for it are only 30KB in size. The slimline client is designed to work over slower GPRS and 6

September 2009

The OneApp aims to make social networking simpler than ever

EDGE networks, rather than requiring 3G. Other widgets offered include news, weather and

stocks information, contacts backup, a mobile wallet, an RSS reader and even games. www.microsoft.com

SPIN3’S oriental-themed Dragon’s Fortune game is a six panel, instant win card game and the company’s seventh web-based game. The game, powered by the Microgaming platform, will be available through Spin3’s mobile casino clients over the coming weeks and the firm is confident about its success.

Matti Zinder, head of Spin3, said: “Instant win card games are suited to the mobile platform because they are quick, simple to play and hugely entertaining. Dragon’s Fortune is a great twist on the classic card game and will be popular in both the Chinese and global markets.” www.spin3.com

Gorillabox offers full mobile TV VoD and live streaming platform backed up by deals with BBC, CNN and Mofilm GORILLABOX has secured more than a hundred licences to augment its mobile, TV and video technology offering, including the BBC, CNN, France 24, Met Office, Bebo, Mofilm, Splash News and Mobstar. The new managed service is already available through the 3 Ireland portal and comprises a range of mobile videos funded through advertising in the form of pre and post roll spots. Gorillabox will handle the advertising and capturing the customer data of each consumer and expects to announce new operator partnerships soon. Gorillabox CEO Christian Harris said: “Distributors and operators today don’t purely want the full delivery of

streaming video which we have traditionally offered. “They want more from single suppliers, which is why we have moved to licence a now vast array of video and audio content. We can cover every major genre of content and stream it over any mobile network either as ad-funded or as a paid-for service.” www.gorillabox.com

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BRAND LICENSING EUROPE

IP department Where does Stewie from Family Guy compete against Man Utd? At Brand Licensing Europe 2009, where you can learn about IP and how to monetise it... ver the last few years, the primary reason for mobile content providers to pay attention to brands lay in their potential to secure deck placement. Of course, in the brave new world of apps, there’s a whole new channel through which branded IP can reach mobile consumers. Suddenly there are games, wacky utilities (Zippo lighter, anyone?) and more. This transition is speeding up brands’ collective engagement with mobile – and explains why companies from the FT to Liverpool FC now operate their own flourishing mobile licensing divisions. The desire of major IP holders to monetise via wireless – and for mobile publishers to acquire these rights – should make next month’s Brand Licensing Europe 2009 show in London worth a look. To date, around 130 exhibitors have signed up for the event, including Aardman Animations, BBC Worldwide and LEGO Group, to name but a few. Alongside the opportunity to develop new business leads, there is the chance to learn more about the market in general at the Licensing Academy, with sessions on a wide range of topics and trends. The subjects include how to make the best of games IP – hosted by ME’s sister publication MCV.

Learn something! Although you don’t need to pay for the Licensing Academy, you must still register – and get there early! Go to www.brandlicensingeurope.com. Here are some highlights… September 30th 9.45am Digital strategies for licensed characters in an ever-evolving world Seminar by Gary Pope, MD, Kids Industries Digital Back again, after last year’s popular seminar looking at licensed characters in the digital space. Fresh research, insight and tips to be found here. 12.15pm How to negotiate a better licensing contract Seminar leader is John Burns, Partner Halliwells LLP Two groups will perform live roleplay in the advanced stages of negotiating a licensing contract. 4pm Licensing in a Recession: The essential ingredients Discover current market trends and the key ingredients brands need, to develop robust lifestyle licensing programmes in the downturn. The 2009 Brand Licensing Europe show will take place in London next month

Selected exhibitors Aardman Animations BBC Worldwide Licensing HIT Entertainment Consumer Products Hong Kong Trade Development Council Kocca Europe Manchester United, FC Barcelona, Juventus Marvel Entertainment International NBA Europe Nickelodeon & Viacom Consumer Products Sony Pictures Entertainment Twentieth Century Fox Licensing Ubisoft Entertainment www.mobile-ent.biz

Brand Licensing 2009 in brief In 2008, 4,279 retailers, licensees and marketers attended Brand Licensing Europe from 60 countries. Around 190 companies from all over the world exhibited at Brand Licensing Europe 2008, representing film, TV, entertainment, sports, publishing, art and design, fashion and heritage licensing categories. This year, there will be around 200 brand owners bringing over 2,000 properties to the event, including Family Guy, Ghostbusters, NBA teams, Pepsi/7UP, Yu-Gi-Oh! and loads more.

Brand Licensing Europe 2009 September 30th (9am to 6pm) to October 1st (9am to 5pm) Grand Hall, Olympia, Kensington, London www.brandlicensingeurope.com

October 1st 9.30am Royalties, pricing and financial know-how This session will provide advanced insights into setting, calculating, reporting and collecting royalties. 1.15pm Cross-border licensing in Europe – managing the legal landscape International lawyer Christian Fortmann will lead this seminar for those embarking on licensing deals with partners across Europe. 2.30pm Gaming to win in licensing Michael French, MCV Editor-inChief (ME’s IntentMedia stablemate), will lead a panel of experts on how to use licensing to best advantage in games.

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ME AWARDS

The stage is set Judges are cogitating, finalists are fidgeting and tension is mounting: yes, it’s that time of year again – there’s one month to go to the ME Awards 2009. Can you feel the excitement...? s it really three years since the first ME Awards? Wasn’t it, like, three months ago or something? We were told, back in 2006 when planning was underway for that first event, that our corner of mobile wasn’t big enough to support a glitzy showcase like this. Wrong. Every year we sell out and have to move tables around to get 380 in. I’m certain this year will be no different. Downturn be damned! If our nominations inbox is any guide (there have been hundreds of entries), the industry is more confident about its long-term future than ever. And why shouldn’t it be? There’s all that potential in the mobile-mad emerging markets and so much attention on content in the app-mad west. The ME Awards 2009 takes place in the context of embedded app stores from every major handset company, massive commitment to mobile from Apple, Google and Microsoft, and a serious widgety surge from Vodafone and Orange. All the focus is on our space – and I for one am absolutely loving it. But then I am an attention-seeking old bore. So here once again is a list of the finalists for our big event. I hope to see them – and you – in West London on Thursday October 1st.

September 2009

DEVELOPMENT & PUBLISHING BEST GAMBLING COMPANY Cellectivity Spin3 Probability Gamesys Netplay Last year’s winner: Probability BEST ADULT COMPANY Mobile Streams Cherry Media Private Katina A3 Media Network (formerly Brickhouse Mobile) Last year’s winner: Waat Media BEST D2C COMPANY Neomobile Hungama Playphone TIM w.e. Flycell Last year’s winner: Zed BEST GAMES DEVELOPER Firemint Digital Chocolate Gamelion Fishlabs Mr Goodliving Dynamic Pixels Last year’s winner: Ideaworks3D

BEST GAMES PUBLISHER Gameloft Glu EA Mobile Ngmoco Connect2Media Namco Last year’s winner: EA Mobile BEST MUSIC PUBLISHER Sony Music Ministry of Sound UrbanWorld Wireless Universal Music Last year’s winner: Sony Music BEST VIDEO COMPANY Fun Little Movies Orange France Sky Mofilm BBC Last year’s winner: Sky BEST SOCIAL MEDIA COMPANY Mocospace Buongiorno Flirtomatic GoFresh BuzzCity Last year’s winner: Flirtomatic www.mobile-ent.biz

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ME AWARDS Sponsor form ME would like to thank its partners for supporting this year’s event. They are:

The Nielsen Company Silver Partner

Mobile Interactive Group Best Operator Award Partner

PlayPhone Best Games Publisher Award Partner

When are the Awards? Thursday, October 1st at The Royal Garden Hotel, London, UK

shortlisted companies. They base their decisions on this document and their own industry experience.

What’s the judging process?

How much is it to attend?

The winners are decided by a judging panel, which is drawn from the ME contacts book and consists of around 400 execs from all sectors of the business. Members of the jury are sent a PDF containing details of the

A single place costs £295 +VAT and tables of ten are priced at £2750 +VAT. For details of table sales and other ticket enquiries contact Jodie.Holdway@bhpr.co.uk or +44 (0) 1462 456 780.

SERVICES BEST MOBILE PUBLISHING PLATFORM Mobile IQ Wapple NetBiscuits Kilrush Mobrool Fonestarz Last year’s winner: Volantis

BEST GAMES SERVICE PROVIDER Selatra Partnertrans Mplayit Babel Accumulate Metaflow Last year’s winner: Selatra

BEST SEARCH AND LOCATION COMPANY abphone Useful Networks Taptu MCN Yahoo Last year’s winner: Taptu

BEST TRANSACTIONS PROVIDER Mobile Interactive Technology Ericsson IPX Bango mBlox txtNation Netsize Last year’s winner: Bango www.mobile-ent.biz

Partnertrans Drinks Reception Partner

OPERATORS & HANDSETS

BEST VIDEO & TV SERVICE PROVIDER Quickplay Mobiclip Saffron Player X Dilithium Mobix Last year’s winner: QuickPlay

BEST MUSIC SERVICE PROVIDER Shazam Omnifone 24/7 Muzicall RealNetworks Last year’s winner: Shazam

Mplayit Best Social Media Company Award Partner

BEST MARKETING & ADVERTISING COMPANY Velti Out There mKhoj/inMobi AdMob 4th Screen RingRing Media Last year’s winner: AdMob

BEST HANDSET COMPANY Apple Nokia Sony Ericsson INQ RIM Last year’s winner: Apple BEST OPERATOR Orange Vodafone O2 Telenor Vodacom Last year’s winner: O2

SPECIAL AWARD OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTION TO MOBILE CONTENT Last year’s winner: Anssi Vanjoki

BEST APP STORE GetJar Mobango Nokia Ovi Apple App Store BlackBerry App World Android Market September 2009 11

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Q&A: NAVTEQ

The road ahead Location is the daddy of all mobile USPs. So where is it at? Tim Green quizzed Navteq’s VP of consumer and wireless, Serge Bussat, on the PND market... hen people think of location services, most would first think of satnav. How do you see that market right now? It’s strange, because the personal navigation device (PND) sector has been the fastest growing consumer market ever. Certainly, that’s what the GfK numbers say (sales for Western Europe went from 7.4 million units in 2006 to 11.8 million in 2007 – Ed). I see signs that it’s in a bit of trouble now. Basically, it grew in an uncontrolled and fast way. There are over 100 companies in it, but none of the big players like Sony, Philips or Samsung. It’s too unstable, and now prices are starting to fall.

NAVTEQ opens 2010 Global LBS Challenge The seventh NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge has now opened, and this year it spans all regions including EMEA, North America, South America, Asia-Pacific and India. The contest invites developers to build apps for devices using dynamic positioning technology and NAVTEQ maps. The total prize pool starts at $6.7 million in cash and licences. The EMEA competition closes on Friday October 30th, with the finals taking place at Poble Espanyol on February 14th during Mobile World Congress 2010. For details of other regions, check the website at www.LBSChallenge.com. This year, in addition to prizes given for the three apps in each region, NAVTEQ will award “Best Of…” recognitions to individual apps in UGC, Location-Based Advertising, and Pedestrian Content.

So the inevitable question: can the mobile cannibalise the PND market? No, I don’t think so. I just can’t see the mobile on a cradle in a car. But I do know there are 100 million GPSenabled phones in Europe and that GPS will be ubiquitous on mobile handsets eventually. The key is to develop applications that do simple things very well and respond to genuine consumer needs. How is NAVTEQ making that happen? Well, we have the NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge, which encourages developers to think hard about how to build LBS into applications over and above satnav. We’ve developed a solution for pedestrians called Discover Cities that’s now available for 40 city locations in America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. Why are apps so interesting? Navigation is just the start of the LBS market. There are many ways it can go in terms of social networking and games. We’re ten years behind gaming so there’s much improvement in 3D acceleration to be made – and I’m sure developers will invent apps that no-one’s thought of yet. This brings new revenue opportunities, especially in advertising. 12

September 2009

Navteq VP of consumer and wireless Serge Bussat thinks 3D acceleration needs improving

Has NAVTEQ made progress in ads? It’s early days, but we’re working with Garmin on an ad-supported, realtime traffic service in North America. It delivers data via the RDS radio network conveying location-based advertising and traffic information.

The Nokia N95 (right) and NAVTEQ’s Discover Cities app (above)

Does being owned by Nokia cause problems for NAVTEQ? Absolutely not. Nokia’s goal is to differentiate its own phones, we work with other manufacturers to do the same. NAVTEQ is a B2B brand, so we’re not competing with anyone in the consumer space; we create whitelabel solutions for operators. www.mobile-ent.biz

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MOBILE WEB

Web in hand

The mobile internet is exploding, and so are mobile-optimised sites – no matter what the app makers and transcoders say. Tim Green takes a closer look at the space... t’s a truism in tech sectors, that we over-estimate the short-term impact of new technologies while under-estimating their longer-term effects. Never was this more amply demonstrated than in the cringemaking 1999 ad campaign in which BT Cellnet, pissed up on WAP euphoria, advised mobile users to ‘surf the net! Surf the BT Cellnet!’ You’re reddening up just thinking about it, aren’t you? The advert showed a silvery digital man, surfing across a ticker tape of cyber-data. Seductive. Far more seductive than the reality of a mono phone loading WAP pages slowly and at great financial cost to the hapless subscriber. Such was the derision piled on the campaign that ‘WAP is crap’ became a commonly-held belief. It took years to remove the stain. Gradually, though, the mobile internet has moved into the mainstream. According to the Mobile Data Association around 17.4 million UK consumers browse the mobile internet every month (as at December 2008). And what they are browsing is no longer the simple menu-driven page of WAP’s first iteration. Social media sites like Facebook and Bebo are driving huge amounts of traffic, as is YouTube – proving that rich media browsing is absolutely possible on the mobile web.

Google’s VP of engineering Vic Gundotra (left) and Matt Diss, director of site builder bemoko (right)

Yet, while the public has discovered and embraced small screen surfing in a smooth upwards curve, there’s been all manner of discord within the space itself. Two years ago came the big transcoding row. ME covered this in July, but to briefly re-cap, a group of companies launched technologies for reformatting full web pages on the fly to mobile. In theory, this makes made-for-mobile sites redundant,

right? Well, that’s arguable. What caused a near riot was the effect these transcoders would have on sites already configured for the small screen, in some cases removing ads. Meanwhile, the rise of browsers such as Opera Mini and Bolt was making it possible to scroll smartly around full websites using smart new UIs. Then came the biggest challenge to the made-for-mobile site cause of all. Inevitably perhaps, it came from

Apple. The game-changing success of its App Store led some free thinkers to utter this radical thought: maybe apps and widgets are not the gateway to the mobile internet. Maybe they are the mobile internet. If football results are what you want, or train times – why browse at all? Why not open an app? The argument has some noisy proponents. GetJar, the indy app store (yes, the one you find on the

Maybe apps and widgets are not the gateway to the mobile internet. Maybe they are the mobile internet

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MOBILE WEB

mobile internet), is one. Its CEO Ilja Laurs said apps will be “as big if not bigger than the internet” at San Francisco’s MobileBeat conference earlier this year. There are powerful voices though, who think just the opposite. The comments of Google’s VP of engineering, Vic Gundotra, went around the world when he said: “Never underestimate the web,” and recalled how Google acquired a company called Keyhole, which made geo-visualisation software that was considered far too complex to run anywhere other than on the desktop. Shortly after, it was reborn as Google Maps. “We knew then that the web had won. What was once thought impossible is now commonplace,” says Gundotra. So what of mobile browsing? Well, you can imagine how Rich Holdsworth, the always-outspoken CTO of mobile site maker Wapple, feels. “Strange isn’t it, how the PC is moving to the cloud – even Microsoft is going that way – and everyone in mobile is suddenly into clients. It’s so backward-looking. The fact is sites give their owners control, in a way that’s not possible with apps. Most important of all, though, every mobile user can access a site, not just the ones with marketing managers with iPhones.” Holdsworth is also keen to stress the richness of today’s mobile sites, which allow drop-down menus and (sometimes) Flash/Ajax. It’s prompting High-Street brands to take the mobile seriously for the first time. This change explains why the multipurpose mobile group MIG formed its own site-building division, Kilrush, this summer.

Netbiscuits’ Lars Hartkopf (above, left); Wapple’s Rich Holdsworth (top right) and Matt Crockett from MIG’s site building division Kilrush

that Kilrush exists within the MIG ‘mothership’ and can call on the ad expertise of 4th Screen, the transactional nous of MIG. It’s already working with ITV, Five and Rimmel. Kilrush’s preferred model is to licence a platform to its customers, which they can integrate into an existing content management system. This is the general drift across the space now.

obsession with apps. Lars Hartkopf, Netbiscuits’ head of marketing, says: “There’s always a trade-off between the rich native functions possible with an app, and the coverage possible with a site. But you can work around it. We did a site campaign with Sixt that went across 80 countries and five languages. Yet once it was live, we noticed that 60 per cent of traffic came from three

We did a site campaign with Sixt across 80 countries and five languages. Once live, we noticed 60 per cent of traffic came from three device families, so decided to build versions for iPhone and RIM Matt Crockett, Kilrush’s commercial director, says: “Brands have all got digital strategies and digital agencies now, so it’s natural that they should take mobile seriously in its own right. Without a properly optimised site, you can’t do data capture, analytics and search engine optimisation. And if you’ve got consumers coming to your site from mobile devices, you’re losing out without a mobile strategy.” It helps 16

September 2009

This explains why Germany’s Netbiscuits has grown so fast. Its development platform has a dragand-drop web-based interface and offers downloadable plug-in ‘biscuits’ to achieve professional looking results. It serves more than 1.5 billion optimised mobile pages and works with eBay, Yahoo and many more huge brands. With so many customers, Netbiscuits is keenly aware of the

device families, so we then decided to build versions for iPhone, RIM and so on. Now we’re looking at developing shell apps that act as a gateway to mobile sites.” The question is, how long before the richness and native connectivity of apps comes to sites? For Matt Diss, director of site builder bemoko, there are glimpses of what’s possible in early developments around HTML5, the next generation mark-up

language for the internet. He says: “We’re seeing it in the iPhone 3.0 geolocation support, and I can see HTML5 bringing location tags to most phones in two years.” Intriguingly, aside from Google, there’s another great mobile behemoth placing its faith in the rich mobile internet: Vodafone. Its JIL collaboration with China Mobile, Verizon and Softbank will encourage app development in the ‘web runtime’. Indeed, at MEM this summer, Vodafone’s head of mobile internet, Pieter Knook, said: “For a large catalogue of apps – particularly those like stocks and weather – the browser run-time is perfect. Then, you don’t have to make an app for Windows Mobile, Android, S60 – each of which require testing and a commercial model. Every high school graduate can write a Javascript widget – which is certainly not true of the C++ that you need to write an app store app.” It will be fascinating to see how it all plays out. But we’ll leave the last word as ever to Wapple’s Holdsworth. “I’m just not keen on apps. If I have to put a shelf up, I can use a real spirit level.” www.mobile-ent.biz

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September 2009 17

18-19 ME55_Final

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ENHANCED MESSAGING

messaging Every day people send billions of text messages. It’s a huge business. So wouldn’t it make sense to enhance messages with rich media? Tim Green talks to the companies that think so… s much as we love mobile content here at ME, we have to admit that when it comes to data services, messaging still rules. In 2008 Informa said 3.5 trillion SMS messages were sent globally, generating $89 billion. And even MMS – perceived to be the sickly sibling of SMS – is expected to generate $31 billion in 2009. Impressive numbers. But all is not rosy in messaging. Although new subscribers in emerging markets are driving overall numbers up – and commercial use of SMS keeps rising – there’s a downwards pressure on revenue-per-message-sent thanks to price competition and bundles in mature regions. To compound this, SMS finally has some competition from instant messaging within social media sites and VoIP clients. Aram Krol, director of product marketing (messaging) at Acision, says operators are addressing this: “Yes, volumes are rising, but revenue per message isn’t. This is why operators are now looking at new markets – from enterprise messaging to ads to fixed-mobile convergence, personalisation and rich media.” It’s in the latter area that some of the most intriguing ideas are being explored, with some innovative companies trying to breathe new life into the space. Actually, they’ve been trying for years, but only now is the market starting to pick up. An indication of this came when Fun Text was acquired by MobiSpine last month. Fun Text has been hammering away at its ‘emotional messaging’ concept for years, teaming with operators and handset firms to

September 2009

give consumers the option to superpower their messages with avatars, greetings, backgrounds and so on. It’s had limited success, but now with MobiSpine’s support (and that of strategic partner Acision), it’s hopeful of breaking into the mainstream. The company admits that the main barrier to enhanced messaging is the need to download the app. When the client is pre-loaded into the handset, volumes soar, as Fun Text has found from its trial with 3UK. James Pycock, director of business development at Fun Text, says: “You can’t expect people to download and install a client, but we know that when it’s pre-loaded people will use it. And the merger with MobiSpine will help us scale.”

Fun Text’s close competitor Sharpcards has been through the same pain. It started life selling e-greetings and soon realised mobile would be a more natural home for its offerings. This led to a spell on operator decks. But this was never the right setting, says CEO Will Walsh: “Decks are for content, not messaging. So we did okay because we had lots of licensed partners and we were selling wallpapers. But we always felt that there could be a huge market for mobile greetings. After all, there’s no education process needed – everyone gets it. You’ve just got to get the app in people’s hands. ” Sharpcards is now trialling with Orange on selected Sony Ericsson

phones, with a T-Mobile/Samsung combo and various 3 Sweden and Telenor devices. It’s seen dramatic results. “Ten per cent of people click on the enhanced messaging option, and of them, 25 per cent send a message. That’s huge,” says Walsh. Of course, operators can decide how to price these messages, but whether charging a premium or using them as a catalyst for more messaging activity, everybody wins. And this includes the brands (Sharpcards works with Disney, Purple Ronnie and all the usual suspects) that can attach their IP to a valued and nonintrusive form of communication. This form of enhanced messaging may also be helping operators to www.mobile-ent.biz

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ENHANCED MESSAGING

Speaking Zlang For the millions who can’t read – and the many who can but prefer emoticons – Israeli company Zlango has developed an intriguing new means of communicating by mobile. Zlango’s system uses ‘universal’ symbols to replace speech – and it claims to have over one million users in 12 countries.

GSMA’s Suite deal If you accept that interoperability and a pre-loaded client are the essential pre-requisites of a successful enhanced messaging system, then there’s only one body capable of pushing them through. Step forward the GSM Association. It’s been developing the Rich Communication Suite (RCS) specifications for years, working with over 60 operators, OEMs and tech companies to ‘unleash’ the user’s phone book in one click, and enable the sharing of rich content, buddy lists, presence capability (that includes taglines and status) and more. RCS is a clear attempt to wrest back some initiative from IM and social media messaging. “RCS bases everything around the

Main pic: Messaging is evolving Right – top to bottom: Acision’s Aram Krol; Comverse’s Gabriel Racah; Sharpcards’ Will Walsh

monetise – rather than compete against – social networks. In February, for example, Fun Text launched a platform to enable users to send content from within Facebook to mobiles using MMS. This simultaneously gives operators a branded presence on the service, and a chance to monetise some of the billion items exchanged a week by its users. Elsewhere, operators are seeking to embrace IM rather than fight against it. They’re working with companies like Miyowa to pre-load IM clients that integrate into the native address book. Miyowa now has 25 operator partners worldwide. Meanwhile, the firms formerly identified with ringtones and other D2C standbys – www.mobile-ent.biz

Zed, Buongiorno – are experimenting with multi-purpose clients that let users share content, chat and message for a monthly subscription. But the most significant development in the space may be the GSMA’s Rich Communication Suite – an initiative to standardise enhanced messaging standards (see box). Major infrastructure firms like Comverse, Tekelec and Movius are working with the GSMA on this, creating platforms that let operators add their own layers of differentiation. Gabriel Racah, Comverse’s director of messaging marketing, says: “The ubiquity and access of SMS is not easy to replicate, so operators have a real advantage providing they can make it richer.”

phone book,” says the GSMA’s Graham Trickey. “While there is a lot of interest in communities and social networking, our own personal community is hidden away in our address book.” RCS is already being implemented in South Korea by all three operators, and trials are underway in many other territories.

Motion’s Bubbling over For all the obsession with rich media, voice reigns supreme across the world’s mobile networks. This might explain why Bubble Motion keeps raising VC funds ($30m in four rounds to date). Bubble Motion makes it possible to send voice clips as a message, thereby opening the market for non-literate users and an intriguing option for brands. The firm claims its platform has sent over one billion messages to date. According to the firm’s CEO To Clayton, there are three main user groups. “First are the teens and tweens, then there are young

adults and finally the older groups who are uncertain how to use text messaging, but understand this.” He explains that some users have also created a trend for sending saucy voice clips, inevitably termed Bubble Sex. Although the company’s biggest market by miles is India, Clayton is confident the viral effect of Bubble Motion will see it proliferate. He says: “Messages can be received by users on any network, but you can’t reply without the client – and this invariably leads to a demand from new users.”

September 2009 19

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IPHONE GAMES

iPhones ’

indie games innovators B efore Apple launched its App Store in July last year, mobile gaming was dominated by big publishers with big brands. It wasn’t the dodgy-quality cesspool that revisionists now like to paint it as, but the mobile games landscape did contain more than its fair share of middling titles. The fact that big publishers preferred to boast about their porting capabilities rather than their game quality is pretty telling. iPhone has thrown a rock in the mobile games pond, to say the least. Apple’s (almost) open-door policy and complete lack of buyable deck space means smaller independent developers have gone toe-to-toe with their bigger rivals. Indeed, some of the most innovative iPhone games have come from the indies, from whom the big fish are learning a thing or two. Some are quite simple games with technical tricks up their sleeves. FaceFighter lets players take a photo of a friend with their iPhone camera, then warp it onto the head of an animated boxer. Underworld is an update of the age-old Dope Wars drug-dealing game, with the twist that your deals are conducted on a GPSpowered map of your current realworld location. Before you froth up with tabloidesque rage, said deals are for sweets, not drugs. Talking of criminality, Car Jack Streets is a Grand Theft Auto style game that ties in with real-world time – players must earn $50,000 a week to settle gambling debts, or face the music. Even brand new features in the iPhone 3GS handset, such as the compass, are getting games that make use of them – like first-person shooter SurrounDEAD. Others focus on connectivity to hook players. My Brute, designed by French developer Bulkypix, involves building up a stable of warriors by battling others online, winning www.mobile-ent.biz

Mobile gaming has seen big brand publishers taking a back seat, while indies break the mould with innovative games and designs. Stuart Dredge investigates...

Clockwise from top; FaceFighter from Appy Entertainment, WordFu from Ngmoco and SGNs multiplayer dogfighting game, F.A.S.T.

rewards for signing up friends to your ‘dojo’. The fact that players don’t need to be online at the same time to battle is perfect for mobile play. Meanwhile, Leaf Trombone World Stage is part game, part X-Factor style talent contest where people play popular tunes on virtual trombones, and are rated by panels of other players, live. It may sound quirky – it is – but in its first fortnight of availability, more than 100,000 people played it online.

Australian developer Firemint is currently the toast of the iPhone indie world, thanks to the hugeselling success of its Flight Control game, which pioneered a touchscreen gameplay mechanic called ‘linedrawing’ (players trace routes on the screen for planes to land without hitting) that has already spawned numerous imitators. Meanwhile, the same company’s Real Racing included a hugely innovative feature allowing players to

Most innovative iPhone games come from the indies, from whom the big fish are learning a thing or two September 2009 21

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IPHONE GAMES

Clockwise from top left; Flight Control from Firemint, Pocket God – innovation at its best – from Bolt Creative, Firemint’s Real Racing and Rolando from Ngmoco

upload video replays of their best laps to YouTube, while also building a community of gamers with competitive leagues. Aurora Feint started off as a fun puzzle game with RPG elements wrapped around it, developed by two US coders. However, it’s since spawned an entire technology platform allowing other indie developers to put community features in their games. Perhaps the most innovative indie iPhone game so far is Pocket God. It has blazed a trail for episodic content, with a new update released every week introducing new characters, features and themes. Recently, it has included characters from other iPhone games – a neat promotional mash-up that’s also being used by action game Minigore. At its peak, Pocket God sold 18,000 copies a day thanks to word-of-mouth buzz around its charms. 22

September 2009

Ngmoco isn’t exactly an indie developer – it’s a startup publisher backed by big VC funding. Even so, it’s been responsible for some innovative ideas, including the use of Twitter challenges in Star Defense and WordFu, and pulling names from players’ iPhone contacts into Dr. Awesome: Microsurgeon MD. It, too, has launched its own social games platform, called Plus+. The same company’s Rolando – developed by UK firm Handcircus – has won unanimous critical acclaim for the quality of its gameplay, with its recent sequel following suit. Social games companies have brought their skills from Facebook to iPhone, making use of connectivity for games like Who Has The Biggest Brain? and Bumper Stars. Digital Chocolate, too, has linked the iPhone and Facebook versions of its Tower Bloxx game. Meanwhile, SGN’s

App Store has put iPhone at the forefront of handheld games innovation – leaving Sony’s PSP and Nintendo’s DS hurriedly courting developers to catch up

multiplayer dogfighting game F.A.S.T. has shown that social features and cutting-edge 3D visuals aren’t mutually exclusive. None of this is to suggest that indie developers are innovating and big publishers aren’t. EA Mobile, Gameloft and Glu Mobile have all launched innovative iPhone games, while mid-tier publishers like I-play and Connect2Media are actively hunting for indies to work with on a publishing basis. Apple’s key achievement in a gaming sense has been to stimulate all this creativity among large and small firms alike. The App Store is a crowded playing field, but its level nature has put iPhone at the forefront of handheld games innovation – leaving even established rivals like Sony’s PSP and Nintendo’s DS hurriedly courting independent developers to catch up. www.mobile-ent.biz

23 ME55_Final

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REUTTER

JOE BRICHLER has joined Moderati as chief financial officer. He previously filled the same role for Wild Brain, which produces the Yo Gabba Gabba show on Nickelodeon.

at the top of EA’s management structure after VP of European publishing, JAVIER FERREIRA, and TIM HARRISON both left. Pagano is replaced as head of Buongiorno UK and International by former O2 Germany head of content JUERGEN REUTTER.

Mobile Streams has appointed three new VPs to help drive global expansion. JAVIER NOGUIERA will head the Latin American technology operation; JACKY LEE takes charge of Asia Pacific; and ALEXANDER YEZHOV will manage Europe and North America.

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DAVID GLENNIE is the new group product director of Mobile Interactive Group (MIG), and will be responsible for all product strategy and development. He’s been with MIG since 2008 as technical director, helping develop the Kilrush mobile internet business. UK regulator PhonepayPlus has confirmed BRADLEY BRADY will be its new director of strategy and stakeholder relations. He will start in October.

RIM’s COO for product development and manufacturing, LARRY CONLEE, will retire at the end of the summer aged 61. Will he switch his BlackBerry off when he’s on the golf course? We may be a bit late reporting this, but GEORGE FRASER has returned to the UK to join mobile video solutions firm Limelight as VP of EMEA and Asia Pacific. Englishman Fraser had been working in America with Motrocity, which he left back in April.

Skyfire has a new CEO. He is JEFFREY GLUECK, who joins the mobile browser specialist from Travelocity.

JAMES SCALPELLO’S brief time away from mobile gaming didn’t last long: he’s become EMEA marketing director of Glu Mobile. The move marks a return to the thick of things for Scalpello, who departed THQ when the publisher rationalised its operation away from Java and WAP gaming last year.

Buongiorno’s LUCA PAGANO will join EA Mobile as its European chief from this month. He fills a vacancy

After much speculation, Google CEO ERIC SCHMIDT has left the Apple board. With Google moving

Does your firm have a position to fill? If so, you should advertise on the appointments page that’s read by everyone in the content business: yes, this one. We also offer a complementary online service. Either way, every exec in the business will be reading about your vacancy. Contact Tom Roberts at tom.roberts@intentmedia.co.uk or +44 (0)1992 535647 for more info. www.mobile-ent.biz

26-27 ME55_Final

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Category

Publisher

Texas Hold'em King 3

Cards/Casino

Magmic

iBerry 2.0 Today Plus

Next Gen

Magmic

Medieval Kings Chess II

Strategy/Board

Magmic

Baseball

Icon

Magmic

Brain Up

Puzzle

Magmic

Studio Flowers

Next Gen

Magmic

Mahjong Solitaire

Cards/Casino

Magmic

Beaches of the World

Next Gen

Magmic

Backgammon King

Strategy/Board

Magmic

iBerry Pink Today Plus

Next Gen

Magmic

Spider Solitaire

Cards/Casino

Magmic

Saltwater

Animated

Magmic

Solitaire Legends

Cards/Casino

Magmic

Deep Blue 2.0

Animated

Magmic

Cribbage

Cards/Casino

Magmic

iBerry Neo Today Plus

Next Gen

Magmic

Hearts

Cards/Casino

Magmic

Tinker Bell

Disney

Daytona USA

Action/Arcade

Magmic

iBerry 2.0 Today

Today

Magmic Magmic

Ka-Glom

Puzzle

Magmic

Cities of the World

Next Gen

Tiger Woods '09

Action/Arcade

Amaranth Zen

Zen

Magmic

Spades

Cards/Casino

Magmic

iBerry 2.0 Zen

Zen

Magmic

Frogger

Action/Arcade

Konami

Alchemy

Zen

Airborne

Bookworm

Puzzle

PopCap

iBerry Neo Zen

Zen

Magmic

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Puzzle

Digital Chocolate

Tranquil Garden

Animated

Magmic

Hearts

Cards/Casino

Magmic

Beachfront

Animated

Magmic

Wheel of Fortune Deluxe

Strategy/Board

Sony/Handmark

Pooh and Tigger

Disney

Who Wants to be a Millionaire 2010

Strategy/Board

Sony/Handmark

Mickey and Minnie

Disney

Guitar Hero 3 Mobile

Action/Arcade

Hands-On

Tinker Bell Pink

Disney

www.mobile-ent.biz

September 2009 33

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SOURCE: OPERATORS

network subs Key operator subscriber numbers from around the world Country

Operator

Subscribers

Western Europe UK

Vodafone

18,716,000

T-Mobile

16,675,000

3 (includes 3 Ireland) O2

Germany

Italy

France

Spain

Netherlands

Ireland

Sweden

Norway Denmark

Greece

Belguim

Portugal

Switzerland

Austria Eastern Europe Poland

Hungary Czech Republic

Country

Operator

Subscribers

4,782,800

Megafon

43,500,000

5,381,000

Mobile TeleSystems

65,100,000

20,416,500

VimpelCom

49,400,000

Orange

15,850,000

Tele2

10,642,000

Vodafone

35,471,000

Kyivstar GSM

23,052,000

T-Mobile

38,984,000

Ukrainian Mobile (MTS)

17,900,000

14,506,000

365200

E-Plus

18,038,000

Orange

2,901,000

Freenet (debitel + mobilcom)

18,530,000

T-Mobile

2,331,000

Drillisch (Victorvox)

2,310,000

Vodafone

22,914,000

2,190,000

8,885,000

Optus

7,789,000

Wind

16,900,000

Telstra

9,300,000

TIM

34,797,000

Vodafone

3,970,000

Orange

25,076,000

China Mobile

477,164,000

SFR

19,652,000

Bouygues

9,594,000

Vodafone

16,910,000

Movistar

23,614,700

Russia

Ukraine Slovakia

Asia Pacific Australia

China Hong Kong India

China Unicom

137,692,000

1,340,000

SmartTone

1,139,000

Bharti Airtel

93,923,248

Orange

11,426,000

BSNL

52,144,234

Vodafone

4,618,000

Tata Indicom

35,121,964

T-Mobile

5,235,000

Reliance

72,666,192

KPN

6,821,000

Vodafone

2,175,000

Japan

NTT DoCoMo

54,601,000

Softbank

20,630,000

KDDI

30,840,000

AIS

27,582,000

1,024,000

Dtac

19,985,000

1,293,000

True Move

15,000,000

Singtel

2,976,000

1,710,600

3 (included in 3 UK)

n/a

Meteor 3 (includes 3 Denmark) Telenor

1,912,000

Thailand

Singapore

Tele 2

3,380,000

StarHub

1,815,000

Netcom

5,412,000

MobileOne

1,619,000

Telenor

2,900,000

Netcom

1,591,000

Movistar

15,002,400

3 (included in 3 Sweden)

n/a

Vivo

45,641,500

TDC

3,096,000

Sonofon

1,833,000

Vodafone

5,906,000

Cosmote

7,690,000

Latin America Argentina Brazil Mexico North America Canada

Claro

39,587,000

Telcel

57,533,000

Movistar

15,517,700

Bell

6,527,000

Wind (Previously Q-Telecom)

5,267,000

Mobistar (Orange)

3,421,000

Rogers

8,014,000

BASE

3,497,000

Telus

6,177,000

Belgacom Mobile

3,787,000

Sprint

49,083,000

Vodafone

5,639,000

T-Mobile USA

33,173,000

TMN

6,959,000

Verizon Wireless

86,552,000

Optimus

3,219,800

AT&T

78,232,000

Vodafone

18,941,000

Orange

1,558,000

Swisscom

5,414,000

Sunrise

1,770,000

T-mobile

3,418,000

Vodafone

5,639,000

Orange

13,681,000

T-Mobile

13,287,000

T-Mobile

5,347,000

T-Mobile

5,411,000

Vodafone

2,909,000

www.mobile-ent.biz

USA

Africa Egypt Morocco Nigeria South Africa

ECMS

21,180,000

Ittissalat Al-Maghrib

14,456,000

Globacom

22,000,000

MTN Nigeria

23,000,000

MTN

17,000,000

Vodacom

19,807,000

Source: Mediacells was established in 2004 to assist clients in making more money out of mobile. The company provides accurate and actionable intelligence to the mobile, media, retail, research and information sectors. www.mediacells.com

September 2009 35

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MARKETPLACE INDEX ADMODA ........................................................08707 661 992 www.admoda.com BANGO............................................................08700 340 365 www.bango.com BRIGHTSHARE ......................................+972 (54) 307 49157 www.brightshare.com DIALOGUE COMMUNICATIONS ...............08700 790 300 www.dialogue.net DYNAMO..........................................................01382 348 635 www.dynamogames.com ELITE ................................................................01543 268 826 www.elite-systems.co.uk FLUID PIXEL STUDIOS ...................................01642 384 336 www.fpstudios.com FROGGIE ....................................................+34 954 98 08 48 www.froggie-mm.com GENIE................................................................0844 415 5531 www.broadbandgenie.co.uk/mobile HANDS-ON MOBILE DEVELOPER NETWORK (HDN) hdn-affiliate@handson.com......http://developer.handson.com/ INLOGIC ....................................................+421 904 628 889 www.inlogic.eu

INTERACTIVE MOBILE SOLUTIONS

KATINA.............................................................078 3366 4075 www.rawmobileporn.com MKHOJ...........................................................+1 650 521 6150 www.mkhoj.com PARTNERTRANS ................................................01753 247731 info@partnertrans.com SPIEL STUDIOS ........................................info@spiel-s.com www.spielstudios.com SPLASH ..........................................................0870 934 2666 www.splashnews.com THUMBSTAR ....................................................0151 203 3445 www.thumbstargames.com UNIVERSALLY SPEAKING ..............................01480 210 621 www.usspeaking.com XIAM..............................................................+353 1 483 2000 www.xiam.com

The Mobile Marketplace offers a complete marketing package of print, online and editorial visibility, allowing companies to maintain contact with readers each month without the 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 companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s details are easily found, keeping you one step ahead of your competitors. 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 and marketplace index

To get your company featured here contact tom.roberts@intentmedia.co.uk t: +44 (0) 1992 535647 www.mobile-ent.biz

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MOBILE MARKETPLACE GAMES DEVELOPER

MOBILE GAMING PARTNERSHIPS

BAFTA award winners DYNAMO GAMES are celebrating their FIFTH BIRTHDAY in style with their latest games excelling in the market: CRYSTAL MAZE Retro Classic - Best selling mobile game in June, Mobile Game FAQ’s - 82% - Gold Award

CHAMPIONSHIP MANAGER MOBILE SERIES Winner of a prestigous BAFTA award. Five versions and counting. 98% - MobileGameFAQ’s, 9/10 PocketGamer Gold Award

DYNAMO SPORTS Under a new branding of games from the company, Dynamo will be specializing in Sports Strategy games for Football, Baseball, American Football, Basketball, Ice Hockey, Golf, F1, NASCAR, Cricket & Tennis.

FOOTBALL TYCOON ® This is Dynamo’s first game to be unveiled under the Dynamo Sports umbrella. It is due for release at the end of May 2009 and has already been nominated for an IGF Mobile award. www.football-tycoon.net

If you are looking for high-quality mobile game development by an experienced player, look no further:

J2ME development BREW iPhone development Handheld Console development for DS and PSP Google Android, Flash Lite & Blackberry

Check out our new company website: www.dynamogames.com and get in touch.

PUBLISHER

September 2009

MOBILE BROADBAND

www.mobile-ent.biz

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MOBILE MARKETPLACE SOFTWARE DEVELOPER

MARKETPLACE NEWS

Elite Systems: The first 25 years UK-BASED games developer Elite Systems is celebrating its 25th year in business with a continued focus on classic arcade titles reinvented for mobile. Elite was incorporated in the UK in 1984 as a games developer and publisher for the Sinclair Spectrum and Commodore 64 home computer systems. Today, it’s still providing publishers and distributors with a portfolio of classics. Releases include R-Type and Paperboy. Elite enjoyed particular success in the Danger format, which obtained cult status in the US. Its version of Sonic the Hedgehog Part 1 hit the top on the format.

Elite established itself with the licensed product of hit American TV series Airwolf. Since then it’s become one of the first European companies to enter an agreement with Nintendo, worked with Twentieth Century Fox Merchandising and Licensing on Alien vs Predator, and signed deals with Vodafone and T-Mobile.

Dialogue enables mobile payment for online goods

AFFILIATE PROGRAMS

A PARTNERSHIP between Dialogue, paysafecard and BT will give 70 million mobile users the chance to buy online by charging the purchase to their mobile phone. The scheme launched with all the UK’s major operators – Vodafone, O2, Orange, T-Mobile and 3. It means all subscribers can pay for goods at any of paysafecard’s 2,700 integrated websites, without having to disclose financial details. Until paysafecard pioneered the prepaid voucher for online payments, consumers without credit or debit cards were excluded from the space. BT worked with Dialogue Communications to make the user experience pleasurable, while

conforming to the UK mobile industry standard Payforit. David Hunter, UK CEO of paysafecard, said: “Millions of people could benefit from the ability to pay online without plastic, which is incredibly exciting.” Paysafecards and vouchers are available at 20,000 PayPoint shops across the UK.

All Slots launches millionaire tournament ALL SLOTS Online Casino is now selling tickets for the ¤1 million Grand Slam of Slots. The firm is awarding up to 2,000 tickets to the tournament, which is scheduled to begin on October 22nd. Players who want to secure their spot pay ¤150 for a ticket and then compete in the casino’s Grand Slam tournaments running daily throughout October. All Slots Casino is part of the Jackpot factory and is available through online and mobile. Partners can add links to existing websites via WAP, iPhone, iPod Touch and Android, where players can play on the browser without downloading. David Brickman, Jackpot Factory’s VP of player affairs, said: “We are excited to offer players the option to buy tickets

directly to the Grand Slam of Slots. Very few participating casinos offer this.” Last month, the Jackpot Factory Group opened its doors to players from 41 new countries and territories, previously excluded from registering at the casinos. Many Eastern European countries including Russia are among them, as well as China and South Africaoffering an excellent potential source of new players.

SEND YOUR NEWS TO TIM.GREEN@INTENTMEDIA.CO.UK www.mobile-ent.biz

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MOBILE MARKETPLACE

GAMES DISTRIBUTOR

GAME DEVELOPMENT STUDIO

LOCALISATION

VIDEO/PICTURE AGGREGATION

September 2009

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MOBILE MARKETPLACE DEVELOPER

MARKETPLACE NEWS

Spiel’s Shrinking feeling

LOCALISATION

Specialist Games Services Localisation • Global network of games specialised linguists • Translators to cover all genres of games • All languages covered • In game, scripts, paper parts and marketing translations

Quality Assurance • All platforms (Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, PC and Mobile) • Localisation QA • Compliance checks for TRC, TCR and LOT approval • Functionality QA

Audio • Voice overs across all languages • Full casting service • Pre and post production including lip synching • Highly experienced voice directors and engineers

Universally Speaking Priory Chambers, Priory Lane, St Neots, Cambs, PE19 2BH, UK Tel: +44 (0)1480 210621 info@usspeaking.com www.usspeaking.com

www.mobile-ent.biz

INDIAN games developer Spiel Studios has teamed up with fellow codeshop Mind Gamz to bring Think Like A Shrink to the iPhone. The title takes the brain training genre and gives it a Freudian twist by inviting the player to think like a therapist. It’s set in Ancient Greece and invites the player to become shrink Doctor Z, treating famous mythical figures such as Achilles. Not sure if Narcissus is in

there, but he should be charged double. “Think Like A Shrink creates a new genre by testing the emotional quotient and understanding of the player in reading minds,” said Spiel Studios’ CEO Mohit Sureka. The product design team worked closely with psychiatrist CL Zois, author of the self-help book ‘Think Like a Shrink’ and the classic text ‘Short-Term Therapy Techniques’.

Fluid Pixel’s iPhone Cleopatra, coming at ya FLUID PIXEL has launched its second release, Cleopatra, in collaboration with Million-2-1 and International Game Technology. The play-for-fun title, available now for iPhone and iPod Touch, is based on one of the most popular ‘real life’ slot games, which is played in casinos around the world. It’s a five-reel, 20-line game that replicates the original slot game authentically. Chris Sheffield, general manager of remote gaming for Million-2-1, said: “After enjoying many years of success with the Cleo slots in real casinos, we’re thrilled to allow players to enjoy it now on the iPhone and iPod Touch.” This Apple-based version includes a motion-senstitive option that lets players shake the phone to spin the reels. It also offers a ‘tournament’ mode, allowing players to challenge others around the world and earn a place on the global leader board. This is the second full release from developer Fluid Pixel. Its previous game

Fluid Pixel’s Cleopatra game for Apple

KamiCrazy has been downloaded over 500,000 times and hit the top of the charts around the world.

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MOBILE MARKETPLACE GAMES PUBLISHER

CONTENT DISCOVERY

MOBILE ADVERTISING

September 2009

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MOBILE MARKETPLACE MOBILE ANALYTICS

MARKETPLACE NEWS

mKhoj is re-born as InMobi

CEO of InMobi, Naveen Tewari

MOBILE ADVERTISING

INDIA’S fast-growing mobile ad network mKhoj has changed its name to InMobi to speed its push into European markets. InMobi runs a self-service ad exchange that’s achieved spectacular results since launching across India and Asia last year. It claims its targeting technology is good enough to take on powerful incumbents like AdMob. The firm has already soft launched in the UK, France, Italy, Germany and Spain. Its total network now spans 23 countries.

Naveen Tewari, CEO of InMobi, said: “So far, focus has been on the Asian and African mobile markets. Now we feel it’s the right time to leap to the global stage. We are rebranding as ‘InMobi’ to reinforce and simplify our service offering. InMobi symbolises our longterm goal of being a global player in mobile internet advertising.” The company’s first InMobi appearance will be at the DigiDay Mobile trade show in New York starting September 14th.

Bango boosts sales with launch of wi-fi billing ENABLING on-bill payment via wi-fi targets the rising numbers of users with enabled smartphones, says Bango. The payment and analytics company launched a solution to enable billing over wi-fi in response to the rise of smartphones that can connect to the web using the protocol. It claimed 20 per cent of potential sales could be lost without catering for these users. It found the addition of on-bill wi-fi drove sales to new heights. “Over 25 per cent of our customers have a Blackberry or Windows Mobile phone, and an increasing number are using wi-fi for the faster connection speeds on offer,” said Steve Crawford, GoSpoken’s operations director. “Since using Bango to deliver a consistent operator payment experience to all our customers, we have seen a marked increase in sales.” Bango predicts over a third of mobile customers will use wi-fi by 2010. Ray Anderson, CEO of Bango, said: “We

Ray Anderson, CEO of Bango

strive to offer the most advanced technology to promote the best possible mobile web experience. Only Bango has the ability to provide smartphone users with consistent, easy, click-to-pay billing across wi-fi and operator connections. This new service gives the highest possible conversion rate for the content provider, resulting in additional revenue from end users.”

SEND YOUR NEWS TO TIM.GREEN@INTENTMEDIA.CO.UK www.mobile-ent.biz

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DISCONTENT

(Dis)content

We take content extremely seriously in Mobile Entertainment. But not here...

I have to take this Ever wished your mobile would ring when you’re stuck in the middle of an insanely boring situation? A meeting about European regulation, perhaps? Or an interview with ME’s Stuart O’Brien? Well, thanks to iBeSilly’s iSoBusy app, you can. It uses 23 fake ‘accomplices’ to interrupt you just when O’Brien is about to start talking about his golf swing. The saviours include a contractor with ADD, an oriental dry cleaner calling about that stain he can’t get out, and even a ‘millionaire’ Nigerian statesman with some money to send to you.

Heads in a spin(vox) Who would have wanted to be working for Spinvox over the last few weeks? It’s been a truly hideous summer, and the fact that everyone we know who worked there has now left tells its own story. ME had been a little gullible believing the system functioned without human operators (“You didn’t know that? You idiots,” was a common response), and is now a little disenchanted. It works so well. Hasn’t been much of a summer for Motricity either, losing a chunk of AT&T biz to Amdocs. But here’s a zinger – we heard Motricity made a bid for Spinvox just before the storm broke…

September 2009

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Send your pictures and gossip to tim.green@intentmedia.co.uk

IT’S TERMINALS! ME remembers the weird and the woeful...

THIS MONTH’S PHONE:

THE HUMMER

What’s in a name? In 2008, at MEM in Cannes, the MEF’s Patrick Parodi wondered aloud on stage whether it might be a good thing for the MEF and the MMA to merge. It wasn’t a shocking thought. Indeed, plenty of people had wondered the same thing. Why? Because the gap between the two trade bodies has closed so much, what with the MEF commissioning so much research into ad-funding, and the MMA diversifying away from advertising/marketing and into content. But, still, not many people voice it publicly. Well, ME has heard a rumour that the two are now talking. They’ve stayed schtum. Might never happen. But if it does, you heard it here first.

A couple of years ago there was a brief trend for mainstream consumer brands to launch their own phones. They’d done credit cards and perfumes, so it seemed the sensible thing to do. The partnership between LG (sensible, utilitarian, Korean) and Prada (exotic, prissy, a bit camp) was a weird one, but the handset was cool. But then came Levi’s. And then Hummer, for God’s sake. It should have been a great beast of a phone – brick-sized with brick fascia – but actually came in Tonka yellow and didn’t even have wheels. We never saw any in the shops, but it was said to retail for a truckload of cash.

For adults only No matter how hard Steve Jobs resists, the porn industry will not leave his iPhone alone. It’s irrepressible – like a male star’s erection. And so we hear of the first movie to be shot using an iPhone 3GS. Its producer Pink Visual will no doubt save on camera crews, and will benefit from lots of PR (like this). Also, it may be one way to avoid the harsh glare of hi-def, which we hear is terrifying porn stars because of its ability to reveal every stray hair that the waxer missed. We’re sticking to journalism.

Velt-tip pen The guys at Velti were delighted to be shortlisted for a best marketing and advertising company gong at the ME Awards. It’s their first time, so they asked ME’s Tim Green how they can improve their chances of winning. He replied (jokingly!) that they should try bribing him. Within days, a pen that glows in the dark had been received. If Velti are victorious and you see Tim Green making notes with an illuminated biro, contact Stuart Dinsey, MD of Intent Media, immediately. www.mobile-ent.biz

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DISCONTENT

FAVOURITES GIANLUCA D’AGOSTINO, CEO, Neomobile Which phone do you currently own? A BlackBerry Bold and iPhone 3G. What’s the best phone you’ve ever had and why? Nokia 6600 purchased in 2003, the first real smartphone, a quantum leap at the time. What phone would you like next? A mix of iPhone and BlackBerry, but better made than the Storm.

We’re not afraid to print ‘cornhole’ The news that Apple had 17-rated the Ninjawords dictionary even after it had gutted it of rude words prompted some outrage and lots of immature giggling across the blogosphere last month. We at ME were delighted with the opportunity it gave us to publish the word ‘tit’ on our website, and we seized it with both hands, as it were. Later Apple contradicted the story, claiming Ninjawords was rejected for using ‘urban slang’ that more traditional dictionaries don’t, and that Ninjawords’ developer wanted a quick approval. Whatever, we were thrilled that Bango got in touch to remind us

of some of the words US operators won’t permit on their portals. We have much lower standards, so here’s a cherry-picked selection: anal, ass, bastard, beatoff, cornhole, dickwad, eatme, fleshpopsicle, hairpie, manloaf, nutsack, pubic, rimjob, scrotum, shit, sitonmyface, spankthemonkey, teabagging, testicles, twat, whipitout. As out Bango source pointed out, the inclusion of ‘eatme’ seems a little unfair on a much-loved brand of dates, while ‘rimjob’ must surely have BlackBerry repairers up in arms.

Wallpaper? A picture of me and my kid having a beer (I’m the only one drinking) on a beach. Favourite mobile internet sites? Our Dindo Brasil m-site. Very funny. Which company do you most admire? It was Dada for years, led by a true industry visionary – Marco Argenti. What’s the worst idea you’ve seen in mobile? Omnitel 2000 voice recognition portal.

Life on the (phone) line If you thought the Tamogotchi was so 1999, you haven’t been to Israel lately. The country’s big operator Cellcom has taken the concept of playing god (or maybe playing ‘Elohim’) with tiny creatures to the next level by launching a TV show called Megudalim on web and mobile. The idea is to take eight human contestants and let viewers control every aspect of their lives. They even get a life meter each. After 21 days, the winner gets a sports car, and the losers are terminated (that’s a joke). Cellcom tells us that it was receiving 450,000 votes a day, and that 10,000 were watching on mobile. Oy veh!

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Tim Green

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Please note that this is a controlled circulation title and subscription criteria will be strictly adhered to.

Executive Editor: Tim Green Tim.Green@intentmedia.co.uk

Advertising Sales Executive: Tom Roberts Tom.Roberts@intentmedia.co.uk

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Design: James Martin James.Martin@intentmedia.co.uk

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Mobile Entertainment is published 12 times a year by Intent Media ~ Saxon House, 6A St. Andrew Street, Hertford, Herts SG14 1JA, England

Managing Editor: Lisa Foster Lisa.Foster@intentmedia.co.uk

Intent Media is a member of the Periodical Publishers Association.

Total average monthly net circulation per issue for January 1st 2007 to December 31st 2007 was 8,012.

Mobile Entertainment magazine – your direct link to the content biz No other B2B mobile content news source hits more eyeballs. Here’s why: Monthly direct-to-desk print circ: 8,012 Monthly digital downloads: 2,236 Online uniques: 50,379 (Google Analytics) Email news digest subscribers: 13,869 Need to get your message across? Work with Mobile Entertainment magazine to maximise your exposure and reach all sectors of the industry, using print, online and events. Contact Tom.Roberts@intentmedia.co.uk for more details or call +44 (0) 1992 535647

EDITORIAL: +44 (0)1992 535646 ADVERTISING: +44 (0)1992 535647 FAX: +44 (0)1992 535648 46

September 2009

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Good luck to all ME Award nominees

Experiences are better when theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re shared. www.ovi.com ME_AWARDS_AD.indd 1

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