Nokia on route to total solution provider

October 5th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Smartphones & Tablets | No Comments »

Nokia announced it will aim itself more as a solution provider. Nokia already included services like Flickr and Yahoo! Mail in their handsets, but will look more into providing services next to their hardware. Nokia follows the PC market where hardware vendors also started working with software solutions. Nokia’s Widsets service which we spoke off earlier, was one of the first steps in this direction. To facilitate this move, Nokia’s CTO moved to New York as multiple industry leaders are based there. Also Nokia hopes this will open up the path to silicon valley.

Vodafone content guru steps down

October 5th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in People | No Comments »

Graeme Ferguson, global head of content development At Vodafone UK, resigned from his job. Vodafone will replace him with Dirk Wierzbitzki. It’s unclear if this is because of the major reorganization.

The first Flash Lite markets

October 5th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Platforms: Adobe Flash & Air | 4 Comments »

Flash Lite has already reached the status of buzzword 2006 on the mobile games blog here with all the discussions about how to create it and where in theory you could put it on. One of the problem area’s we didn’t really find a solution for is how to put your games and apps on the market. Thanks to the Biskero blog, we found out that Moket has introduced a distribution network on which you can sign up.

Buy the game, get on the show!

October 5th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Brand Licensing | No Comments »

Capcom enters a new level of mobile marketing with it’s Who want’s to be a millionaire title. Together with Verizon, Capcom offers downloaders a chance to win tickets to New York to actually participate on the show.

"Millionaire 2007 is a very important brand for Capcom and we’re tremendously excited to offer fans of the franchise the chance to experience this once in a lifetime opportunity," said Midori Yuasa, president of Capcom Interactive.

Black Citadel II for I-Play

October 5th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Games | No Comments »

I-Play launched the Black Citadel II from French developer Kaolink. The game is well known in the industry for it’s CTIA nomination back in 2004 where it got a lot of attention for it’s gameplay and graphics.

David Gosen, CEO of I-Play, commented: “Black Citadel II is easy to play yet totally addictive

Verisign and JoWood, what’s this about!?

October 5th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Brand Licensing | No Comments »

Verisign and JoWood seem to have conceived a deal in which the JoWood games portfolio will be converted to mobile games. If this also hold’s JoWood’s Yetisports range is not expected as those are allready available for some time. We expect the games to pop up trough Verisign’s Ojom unit.

“VeriSign is committed to providing the richest content with an exceptional user experience that is most relevant to our customer’s customer,” said Kevin Dent, Head of International Licensing and Syndication for VeriSign. “JoWooD has great blockbuster brands which we feel can make an easy transition to the mobile space. The combination of expertise from JoWooD and VeriSign brings a new force to the gaming marketplace.”

“VeriSign has always been committed to the growth of the global premium mobile content markets,” said Vikrant Gandhi, Industry Analyst for Frost & Sullivan. “The VeriSign and JoWooD partnership will allow consumers to play the most popular computer, online

Press releases accepted

October 5th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in 1 | 1 Comment »

We receive a lot of pressreleases about distribution deals lately. As most of you have noticed, we didn’t really pace them as we never felt like writing stories about them. However since today we chose to place them in the press releases category and post them just the way we receive them. So bring on your pressreleases!

Press Release: Cooperation agreement between IndiaGames and Touchlink Mobile

October 5th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in 1 | 1 Comment »

HERNING, DENMARK, September 27, 2006

Avoid console mistakes warns I-Play

October 4th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Analysis & Editorial | 1 Comment »

David Gosen, CEO of I-Play warned the mobile industry in an article at gameindustry.biz. He pointed out that the mobile industry is already advancing in the way of user acceptance as the console market can only dream of numbers like a 50% female audience. He still sees a lot of potential in this market as in the last 25 years, 250 million consoles where sold whereas on a yearly basis, 800 million phones end up in the hands of consumers. He explains that the mobile developers must create a broad offering to avoid turning the market in a niche industry where growth is slow. The mobile industry must do whatever is needed to remain open to all consumers.

"What the mobile developer has to do is make sure it does not create barriers for entry for consumers. We’re starting to see that carriers understand that mobile phone decks are in effect retail stores, so they need to be merchandised and able to help consumers to the right content for them." said David Gosen.

Widsets officially launched BETA

October 4th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Other news | No Comments »

Nokia yesterday officially launched the Widsets.com website. Widsets are widgets for your mobile. Nokia didn’t really put their name on the service and that appears to be a wise move as they are targeting more then just Nokia handsets as they also target handsets from device manufacturers like HTC, Motorola and Samsung.

Since widget services are known for often supporting simple games, my fear directly was this service could seriously target that five minutes of fun we are all aiming at. Installing the service was easy. I filled in my mobile number and received a download link via sms push. After downloading it allowed me to easily select widgets on both PC and mobile. The PC selection was much better though as it allowed me to fine-tune much more about the widgets.

Widsets indeed supports small mobile games, but at this moment development is not open to the public which means there is only Sudoku for now. The public at this moment is only allowed to build widgets based on RSS readers. Also, there are plans to make available commercial widgets in the near future.

Of course, we couldn’t finish this article without at least releasing a widget ourselves. It’s still a bit simple and not at all where we want it to be on a design level, but here you can get our RSS reader. Along the week we will dive into the XML of the application and release a definitive version just before the weekend.

Nokia has released a lot of products in the last year to broaden the consumer’s use of the mobile phone and its many capabilities. However, initiatives like Nokia Sensor and Nokia Flier never really took off. Even at Nokia events, until now I discovered only one person using such a service. Nevertheless, the fact that this service is not Nokia branded and aimed at multiple devices might make it really interesting for consumers.

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