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 RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way....
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 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.Data usage is an important component for future revenue growth as it becomes an ever...
Thumbplay Inc. bulked up its library off-deck goodies with a full-track mobile download service.The New York-based wireless content company launched a beta version of the offering, which delivers DRM-free tunes directly to MP3-enabled phones as well as PCs. The songs are available for $1...
PlayPhone Inc. notched its fourth and final major record label, securing a deal to distribute mastertones from Universal Music Group.A division of Vivendi, UMG claims nearly 20 subsidiary labels and artists such as 50 Cent, Kanye West, Mariah Carey, The Killers and U2. PlayPhone...
BOSTON - Nuance Communications Inc. is pulling the cloud into the speech-recognition space, and appears to be in the advanced stages of rolling out new services based on the technology with top-tier carriers Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA Inc.Nuance's activities come as it works...
Two weeks after swallowing the rest of the Crazy Frog, News Corp. is reorganizing its mobile business.Rupert Murdoch's media giant this week will unveil Fox Mobile Group, a three-pronged operation created to leverage its immense portfolio, content-creation capabilities and distribution channels. The company also...
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 last few years have seen significant growth in the U.S. teen market, a market...
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...
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 wireless industry's evolution from that first call placed 25...
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 RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way....
VeriSign Inc. finally left the mobile content space, unloading its stake in Jamba to News Corp. for $200 million.A pioneer in the early days of ringtones and other mobile goodies, Jamba was picked up by VeriSign for $273 million in June 2004. But the...
The mobile Internet has officially gone to the dogs.Nestle Purina PetCare Company with the help of go2 Media has launched two mobile Web sites for pet owners. With the launch of Purina.mobi and go2pets, the home computer no longer has pet owners on a...
SAN FRANCISCO -- There is no shortage of challenges in getting m-commerce off the ground in the United States. But maybe the most important factor is time.That was the takeaway from yesterday's afternoon session on all facets of mobile commerce, from contactless payments to...
Zed said it will work with Lionsgate to develop mobile entertainment projects based on the studio's films.The Spanish content titan will help create and distribute mobile video as well as ringtones, wallpaper and games from Lionsgate properties, and will develop wireless interactive communities centered...
SAN FRANCISCO -- Sprint Nextel Corp. prepped for the holiday shopping rush with a lineup of new devices, and a few customer incentives.The carrier presented five new handsets based on popular trends. Two of the phones will be text-message savvy -- the Samsung Electronics...
Yahoo Inc. will serve as AT&T Mobility's on-deck search vendor, and will aggregate both Internet information as well as listings from the carrier's content catalogue - including ringtones, wallpaper and games - into its search results. Yahoo replaces InfoSpace Inc. as AT&T Mobility's search...
Advertisers looking to reach consumers through their phones should offer a little something in the process, according to new figures from ABI Research.A recent study from the market research firm found that roughly 37% of those who received text-message ads indicated they are more...
Carriers are beginning to use carrot-and-stick strategies to bring their third-party content partners to heel. And both the carrot and the stick are made of cash.Sprint Nextel Corp. earlier this year became the first U.S. carrier to formally tie revenue shares to business practices,...
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...
Verizon Wireless ranked highest in J.D. Power and Associates' 2008 Wireless Customer Care Performance study. The results, which normally find T-Mobile USA Inc. on top, included more than 11,000 respondents and were based on three areas, including telephone calls with a service representative and/or...
Mobile content behemoth Zed announced an exclusive deal to distribute ringtones from the digital-only record label Nappy Boy Digital.Nappy Boy, which was founded by hip-hop star T-Pain, serves as a direct-to-consumer conduit for emerging artists such as Tay Dizm, Jay Lyriq and Sophia Fresh....
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...
