'Moblogs' Get Personal
CYBERSPACE - Cellular carriers and equipment manufacturers are watching an emerging trend with an eye to ways to make it pay big dividends.
'Moblogs' - the marriage of camera-equipped cell phones and Weblogs - are an increasingly popular pursuit among the young and technically adept. Many mobloggers update their personal blogs several times daily with audio clips and candid, often racy, pictures taken with their cell phones and uploaded to the Web via standard wired terminals. The most popular use is personal currently, but analysts see a potential for the phenomenon in some professional circles, too - like real estate.
The challenge for cash-strapped carriers is in convincing people to upload the images immediately via wireless networks at a cost of perhaps 25 cents per pic. That sort of investment by a sufficient number of mobloggers could represent a significant boost to companies with huge investments in new high-speed networks and fancy phones.
"We're definitely looking at this," Ritch Blasi, an AT&T Wireless spokesman, told CNet. "You could take a picture and shoot it over to the laptop, but that does me no good because it doesn't use the network. The same way people don't think twice about making a phone call, you want to get them comfortable with how this is done and how much it's going to cost."
Interoperability between the major cellular carriers in the U.S. remains the foremost issue in widespread adoption of the idea, analysts agree. That's not expected to occur until sometime around the end of the year.
AT&T Offering Bikini Babe Backgrounds
CYBERSPACE - In an effort to stem the tide of subscribers jumping ship from its services, AT&T Mobile has become the first wireless carrier in the U.S. to offer the Sports Illustrated swimsuit collection as mobile-phone wallpaper.
"Each month, a new model will be featured through new photographs, including exclusive photos not available anywhere else," content provider Summus Inc. said in a statement released Wednesday. The company expects the photos to be available eventually to 100 million cell phone subscribers.
The photos will be available for $1.99 each through AT&T Wireless's mMode service.
Free Running
LONDON - Gotta love the Brits' dedication to sports technology. Runners in this year's Flora London Marathon will be able to keep friends and family up-to-minute on their progress thanks to a free, automated SMS service provided by Orange.
Prior to the race, each runner will be given a tiny timing chip that attaches to his or her shoelaces. The chips track the runners' time per 10km leg and for the race as a whole as the runners cross electronic detectors set along the route and at the finish line. Orange, the official Communications Partner to the 2004 Flora London Marathon, then sends the times, as text messages, to up to three pre-selected mobile phones free of charge.
The Flora London Marathon will be run April 18. The service represents the first time a text-timing service has been used in the UK.
Camera Phone Sales Mushroom
AMSTERDAM - Camera phones now outpace digital cameras in sales volume worldwide, according to market research group Strategy Analytics. In 2003, 84 million camera-bearing mobile phone handsets were sold, compared to 40 million digital cameras, a report released by the group on March 29 revealed. The figures represent a leap of nearly 500 percent in camera phone sales over 2002's numbers.
Among the top manufacturers of camera handsets during 2003, in terms of numbers shipped, were:
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- NEC (Japan), 13.1 million units.
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- Nokia (Finland), with 11 million units.
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- Samsung Electronics, 10 million units.
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- Panasonic (Japan), 9.2 million units.
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- Sony Ericsson (Japan/Sweden), 8.2 million units.
U.S.-based Motorola and Germany's Siemens both were replaced on the list by Japanese companies.
Investment bank UBS forecasts camera phone sales will rise to 44 percent of all mobile phones sold during 2004. In 2003, camera phones represented 15 percent of the total handset market.
ARC Group: Mobile Industry Optimistic
CYBERSPACE - The mobile telecom industry expects 2004 to be a banner year, according to a survey just published by ARC Group. Of 157 operators surveyed worldwide for the 3GSM 2004 Survey, 74 percent believe their business will improve this year. Among individual industry professionals, 85 percent expect their companies to be more profitable this year than last, with 16 percent predicting jumps in revenue of more than 20 percent.
While in the past many mobile carriers have looked forward to impending third-generation wireless technologies (3G) to provide profit boosts, this year's survey respondents seem to be more grounded in the here and now. More than 50 percent believe 3G will have little influence this year; only 8 percent expect it to be very influential.
Other key findings from the survey include:
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- The majority of respondents believe Asian handset manufacturers will continue to increase their market shares in 2004.
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- 35 percent of respondents feel mobile enterprise applications will be the hottest products in 2004.
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- The vast majority of operators expect content providers to provide opportunities - as opposed to threats - for them.
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- Almost all respondents believe the two most widely used short-range technologies this year will be Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
Verizon Takes Users Out to the Ballgame
BEDMINSTER, N.J. - Diehard baseball fans across the U.S can stay connected to their dream with new downloadable games and applications from Verizon Wireless.
Fox Sports Hit the Pros and MLB Slam let Verizon users play along with the pros on their cellular phones. Personalized ring tones and wallpapers from ESPN's "Baseball Tonight" allow fans to customize their handsets. By signing up at vtext.com, users can receive SMS alerts about the latest scores, standings, and news, even when they can't watch the games. Verizon's Pix Place Website and getPIX service allow the sharing of images directly from the field via the Web or mobile-to-mobile, respectively. And of course users can send mobile text messages to baseball-obsessed friends.
Verizon Customers can pay as they go for TXT Messaging, which is $0.02 for each message received and $0.10 for each message sent, or select from bundled plans for $2.99 per month for 100 messages sent and/or received and $3.99 per month for 200 messages sent and/or received. New customers who sign up for TXT Messaging can get 500 TXT Messages for just $4.99 per month through December 31, 2005. Download charges for games and applications vary and airtime charges apply when browsing, downloading, and using certain features.
More information is available here.
