Editor's Note: Welcome to Reality Check, a feature for RCR Wireless News' new weekly e-mail service, Mobile Content and Culture. We've gathered a group of visionaries and veterans in the mobile content industry to give their insights into the marketplace. In the coming weeks...
After more than two years, M:Metrics had its day in court and prevailed. A court has ruled that the mobile research firm did not infringe on a patent owned by its competitor Nielsen Mobile.The battle may be won, but the war seems far from...
The bloom is off the rose. And maybe it's about time.A longtime stage for all sorts of hyperbole, the CTIA I.T. conference this year is different. If Monday's pre-show events were any barometer, those of us in San Francisco this week are in store...
Mobile advertising recently got a boost from two announcements: the launch of advertising-subsidized mobile access to MySpace.com, and the advent of a U.K. mobile virtual network operator offering free wireless calls in exchange for viewing ads.Both developments offer new avenues for brands seeking to...
Americans are more responsive to text ads than their European counterparts, according to new figures from M:Metrics.But that trend isn't likely to last.The Seattle-based market research firm found that Spanish consumers reported the most SMS come-ons, with 75% of mobile users saying they had...
User-generated content is finding an audience in mobile. But it appears the early successes in the space may have more to do with connecting with others and less to do with the content itself.MySpace and Facebook are leveraging valuable deck space to extend their...
Social networking sites MySpace and Facebook are using valuable deck space to extend their offerings to mobile users, according to new figures from M:Metrics.MySpace, which has deals with AT&T Mobility, Helio L.L.C. and Sprint Nextel Corp., attracted about 3.7 million U.S. wireless users in...
TIER-ONE CARRIERS IN THE FALL OF 2004 committed that they would be fully MMS-interoperable, enabling U.S. consumers to send photos, video clips and other goodies to users on any other nationwide network.We're still waiting.U.S. network operators generally claim to be fully interoperable with their...
Editor's Note: Welcome to Reality Check, a feature for RCR Wireless News' new weekly e-mail service, Mobile Content and Culture. We've gathered a group of visionaries and veterans in the mobile content industry to give their insights into the marketplace. In the coming weeks...
Are there lessons to be learned following Amp'd Mobile Inc.'s rapid fall from the grace of mobile entertainment? Will new and existing players be more hesitant in their pursuit of mobile, more conservative in their investment on made-for-mobile production?Analysts say the mobile entertainment market...
HOLLYWOOD, Calif.-Hollywood and gaming have been cohorts for quite a while, but their relationship is budding in new ways as film and TV properties look to drive their brand beyond the big screen.Whereas mobile games may have been an afterthought following the typical course...
AT&T Mobility says more than a million customers have signed up for information regarding the much-hyped iPhone, and Apple Inc.'s Steve Jobs has said that he expects the device to sell around 10 million units in 2008. An April survey by M:Metrics found that...
Like a kid futilely looking for a sugar fix, mobile advertising companies are struggling to cope with an empty cookie jar.Online advertisers and publishers have long used cookies to make surfing the Web easier. Simple text files that are planted on consumers' hard drives,...
The Mobile Marketing Association is going global with a new chapter for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The new chapter comprises more than 150 brands, agencies and other players under Chairman Richard Saggers, who oversees Vodafone Group plc's mobile advertising business. Current national...
M:Metrics launched a meter-based software program that operates in the background of handsets as it compile wireless subscribers usage and behavior data to its clients. MeterDirect has been live as a beta service since December and is being launched as a commercial service.One of...
Developers agree that Flash Lite isn't the best platform for delivering immersive, 3-D titles with eye-popping graphics and console-like gameplay.Which is why it may be perfect for mobile.Developers for years have been trying to leverage their console and PC gaming success by churning out...
In case you've been hiding under a rock, music phones are hot. But simple usability, clear directions and "out of the box" pleasures have varied across the industry, according to analysts. Those two assertions explain, in part, the arrival of Nokia Corp.'s 5300...
THE HEADY MIX of mobility, computing and the Internet now sweeping the mobile industry is akin to getting gassed with nitrous oxide at the dentist. Suddenly, preposterous notions seem plausible, even amusing. Yet, in this pervasive fog, it's difficult to discount the possibilities.Enter the...
Carriers are falling flat in their efforts to become a kind of wireless iTunes, according to new figures from M:Metrics.Less than 1 percent of all U.S. mobile users downloaded songs from a carrier's digital music store, the market research firm reported, while 2.9 percent...
While the wireless world and "Apple fanboys" wait breathlessly for the iPhone, Daren Tsui is hoping to turn mass-market phones already on the market into on-the-go digital music players.The CEO of mSpot this week plans to unveil its Remix software, a kind of place-shifting...
In these early days of mobile entertainment, full-track download services are a bit like the weather: everyone complains about them, but no one seems to be doing much about them.While carriers such as Sprint Nextel Corp. and Verizon Wireless have claimed success hawking tunes...
At the 3GSM World Congress, as at other major industry confabs, there are gadgets galore. And then there are the market-based strategies and financial plans behind them. Attempting to translate one into the other-reading the gadgets' features for clues to a vendor's strategies or...
Former users of mobile TV and video services in Europe outnumber current users by more than 19 percent, according to new research from M:Metrics.Users cited price, reliability and quality issues as the main reasons for not continuing with such services. Nearly half of users...
Editor's Note: Welcome to our weekly feature, Analyst Angle. We've collected a group of the industry's leading analysts to give their outlook on the hot topics in the wireless industry. In the coming weeks look for columns from Strategy Analytics' Chris Ambrosio, Ovum's Roger...
