Mobile content and community were the hot topics during the opening day of Demo, a semi-annual conference designed to highlight emerging technologies and new products.GoWare Inc., an Arizona-based developer, used Demo 07 to launch a service that allows users to create personalized mobile portals...
Amp'd Mobile Inc. is continuing to build on its appeal to younger mobile phone users. The mobile virtual network operator has further expanded its mobile entertainment portal through fresh deals with Facebook.com, Freewebs.com and Livejournal.com, having created one of the largest collections of social...
Pump up the mobile motivationPeople who made a get-fit new year's resolution this year can find motivation to stick with their goals on their cellphones. PumpOne, a company that provides visual personal training programs for handheld devices like iPods, is offering a service called...
A startup focused on mobile media sharing has aborted plans to auction itself off after receiving zero bids on eBay.Mojungle.com allows users to record text messages, photos and videos with their mobile phones and post them to the company's site, a MySpace profile or...
Mdog.com is the latest player in the mobile blogging arena with a portal for mobile phones.The offering allows users of Web-enabled phones to post and read blog entries, upload photos and respond to comments on major blog services including Blogger, Wordpress, Typepad, Xanga, AOL...
Time was when the wireless industry's major, marketshaping impact in the telecom sphere was defined by the number of mobile phones that became substitutes for landline telephones, which historically consumers have relied on for day-to-day communications.Just as Ma Bell back in the day grossly...
SANTA CLARA, Calif.-PixSense is jumping on the user-generated mobile content bandwagon after snaring $5.4 million in Series A funding.ATA Ventures and Innovacom led the financing round.PixSense's downloadable application allows users to manage photos, videos, audio content and text from a mobile phone. The company...
For those of you yearning to edit your MySpace page while on the go, supreme happiness has arrived: Cingular Wireless and MySpace.com have struck a deal. Cingular customers can use MySpace Mobile to edit their profiles, view and add "friends," post photos and blogs...
Hello!And welcome to our Thursday column, Worst of the Week. There's a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCR to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We...
Yahoo Inc. became the latest-and perhaps the largest-player in the nascent but rapidly growing mobile social networking playground with a new service that allows users to set up group events through text messaging. The service, dubbed Mixd, acts as a sort of go-between for...
While most U.S. consumers still see a mobile phone as, well, a phone, young wireless users increasingly view it as a way to meet new friends, share pictures and maybe, to find love.The rise of community-based Internet sites and services has been as well-documented...
Research In Motion Ltd.'s co-chief executive officer, Jim Balsillie, is dabbling in the world of professional sports. Balsillie reportedly has signed an agreement to buy the Pittsburgh Penguins National Hockey League franchise for about $175 million. The team's current owner, Mario Lemieux, put the...
NEW YORK-Fatherhood was the inspiration for creating and naming mobile virtual network operator Kajeet Inc., and the market will test whether those fathers really do know best when it comes to offering a wireless service that will appeal to kids. Daniel Neal, Kajeet's chief...
VeriSign Inc. finally jettisoned the bulk of its direct-to-consumer mobile content business, selling a 51-percent stake in its Jamba subsidiary to News Corp. for $188 million. The companies announced plans to form a mobile entertainment joint venture, with Fox Mobile Entertainment retaining the Jamster...
LOS ANGELES--A quick tour of last week's CTIA I.T. Wireless & Entertainment event showed there's no shortage of hype regarding the future of wireless data. But there's also plenty of uncertainty. News Corp. President and Chief Executive Officer Peter Chernin did his best to...
LOS ANGELES—Social-networking Internet site MySpace.com has tapped mobile software developer UIEvolution to provide a user interface for its wireless offering. The news marks a big win for UIEvolution, a Bellevue, Wash.-based developer that offers technology designed to allow users to access content across devices...
LOS ANGELES-A quick tour of this week’s show indicates there’s no shortage of hype regarding the future of wireless data. But there’s also plenty of uncertainty. News Corp. President and Chief Executive Officer Peter Chernin did his best to add to the hype with...
LOS ANGELES—News Corp. and VeriSign announced plans to form a mobile entertainment joint venture in which News Corp. will have a controlling interest in VeriSign’s Jamba subsidiary. News Corp. said it plans to pay $188 million for the ability to combine Jamba with Fox...
The buzz surrounding mobile TV and full-track downloads grows increasingly deafening as the industry heads into next month's CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment show in Los Angeles. But for now, at least, the most lucrative application in wireless may be in simple, community-based applications....
Why is everybody in wireless chasing the youth demographic? To steal a line from bank robber Eddie Sutton, that's where the money is. Today's average 10-year-old will spend nearly $30,000 on wireless services over the course of his lifetime, according to new figures from...
LOS ANGELES—Helio L.L.C. is appealing to its 102,600 MySpace friends by offering to drop its standard two-year contract requirement. However, the carrier is not offering discounts on its phones. According to Helio’s MySpace page, the site’s members can get Helio service without a contract...
Helio L.L.C. has 90,000 MySpace friends and counting—and how many wireless companies can say that? Cingular Wireless L.L.C.'s "Cingular Sounds" MySpace page only has about 35,000 friends, while the "Sprint Guy" character formerly featured in Sprint Nextel Corp. ads has a scant 203 friends....
For more than a few mobile startups, MySpace has become MyObsession. The most popular of a throng of new Web sites featuring user-generated content, MySpace.com has an estimated 55 million users and reportedly accounts for 12 percent of online advertising. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp....
SEATTLE-Direct-to-consumer mobile content provider 3GUpload is the latest to join the user-generated content rush. The company rebranded as Mixxer and launched a package of Web-to-mobile features designed to help members create ringtones, publish songs and discover music from emerging acts. The site, www.mixxer.com, offers...
