Looking to entice more of its “basic” phone users to sign up for data services, Verizon Wireless has added a handful of previously premium applications to its bundle for no charge.The carrier is now offering its mobile e-mail, ringback tones and VZ Navigator offering...
Editor's Note: Welcome to our weekly Reader Forum section. In an attempt to broaden our interaction with our readers we have created this forum for those with something meaningful to say to the wireless industry. We want to keep this as open as possible,...
Editor's Note: Welcome to our weekly Reality Check column. We've gathered a group of visionaries and veterans in the mobile industry to give their insights into the marketplace.For many years, wireless operators as a whole have not viewed order management as a top technology...
Editor's Note:This article is an excerpt from RCR Wireless News' March Special Edition, "The Perfect Storm – A Focus on Mobile Messaging, Marketing, Content and Apps." The 80-page special edition is now available at RCRWireless.com.
In recent years, mobile advertising has gained good...
VeriSign Inc. said it partnered with CAQH, a nonprofit alliance of health plans and trade associations, to conduct a pilot program to demonstrate secure authentication for health IT interoperability. The six-month pilot will build on a set of operating rules created by the CAQH...
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York handed a significant victory to Verizon Wireless against the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) by holding that neither the download of a ringtone nor the playing of that ringtone when...
Leap Wireless International Inc. is bringing music to the masses, or at least those wireless consumers packing its Cricket devices.Despite the languid adoption of full-track mobile music download services, the no-contract carrier jumped into the mobile music field today with its Cricket Mobile Music...
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.When Apple launched the iPhone a little over a year ago, they disrupted the industry...
Editor's Note: Welcome to our coverage of 25 years in wireless. RCR Wireless News is celebrating with a package of stories detailing the advances of the past three decades. For full coverage please visit RCRWireless.com/25years.The history of mobile data teems with unrestrained hyperbole and...
SAN FRANCISCO -- Verizon Wireless stoked the white-hot social-networking fire, launching three offerings that allow subscribers to share content and stay in contact with their friends.The carrier yesterday unveiled SocialLife, a $1.50-a-month application that connects users to a host of sites including MySpace, FaithBase,...
Alltel Communications L.L.C. announced a tiered approach to its data pricing, with options starting at $10 per month for unlimited mobile Web access.The carrier - which is in the process of being acquired by Verizon Wireless in a deal expected to close later this...
It's no secret that the recording industry is increasingly looking to mobile to offset plummeting revenues from CDs and other physical goods. But sometimes its strategies seem horribly misguided. Word came over the weekend that Pandora, a streaming-music Internet site that draws roughly 1...
Virgin Mobile USA Inc. has tapped LiveWire Mobile to power a new ringback application that allows subscribers to choose pre-selected content channels rather than individual tracks.Ringback Playlist, as the offering is marketed, offers 12 channels consisting of five ringback tones that are rotated every...
Mobile music has been a one-hit wonder. But the big follow-up to the lucrative ringtone market may not be ringback tones, full-track downloads or any other single application. It may be advertising.Ringtone revenues in the United States will shrink in 2008, falling to $510...
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.The introduction of the iPhone was the most significant event in the 2007 wireless industry....
Full-track music download services continue to spin their wheels in mobile, but Verizon Wireless is hoping to get some traction by overhauling its offering.The carrier last week launched a new offering that couples an all-you-can-eat subscription with an over-the-air option that dispenses with the...
NEW YORK CITY -- The tears, deafening screams and all-around giddiness were nonstop last night as Madonna played a six-song set at the Roseland Ballroom for a select group of wireless subscribers, promotion winners and hardcore fans.The "Material Girl" took the stage shortly after...
Five years after 50 Cent's "In Da Club" helped launch the multibillion-dollar ringtone phenomenon - and as CD sales continue to plummet - the music industry continues to look for its second hit in mobile. We talked to Sean Rosenberg, director of mobile marketing...
NMS Communications Corp. subsidiary LiveWire Mobile is hoping to gain traction in a very slippery space: full-track mobile downloads.LiveWire, which was rolled out as a separate division in December, last week acquired Groove Mobile for $14.5 million - less than half the investment capital...
NMS Communications Corp. subsidiary LiveWire Mobile said it pocketed Groove Mobile for $14.5 million -- less than half the investment capital the startup had attracted in its six-year existence.LiveWire, which was rolled out as a separate division in December, targets carriers with personalization services...
And if he hadn't won? Alltel gave 500 free bonus minutes to new customers and existing customers who added a line of service to celebrate race car driver Ryan Newman's victory in the No. 12 Alltel Dodge at the Daytona 500. The offer was...
The opening day of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, was all about mobile advertising.Nokia Corp. made the biggest splash with its Media Network, an alliance of more than 70 publishers and operators including Sprint Nextel Corp., Discovery, Hearst and Reuters. The company...
Verizon Wireless said its users will get exclusive access to an entire "mobile album" from hip-hop producer Timbaland.Timbaland, a five-time Grammy nominee, will be the first subject of Verizon Wireless' Mobile Producer in Residence program. The program will begin production next month with a...
Many of the sexiest offerings in mobile content will continue to struggle to take flight in 2008. Wireless video will slowly gain steam in the United States, thanks largely to Qualcomm Inc.'s MediaFLO service, but carriers still must find the best ways to monetize...
