Browse by Tags

The BlackBerry Partners Fund, a $150 million pool of money focused on apps and services for the RIM-made device, had a little contest of its own (a la Google's Android developer challenge) and today awarded $150,000 from its venture fund to three companies: Poynt, Strands Social Player and Nobex Radio Companion. The three were named "Best in Show Grand Prize Winners" at the BlackBerry Developer Conference. The winners will be entered into the BlackBerry Partners Fund "Jump Start" program . The developer challenge invited developers to create BlackBerry apps from five categories: Gaming, Multimedia, Personal Productivity and Lifestyle, Enterprise and Web. The grand prize winners were selected from 15 finalists. But judging by the winners, which all fall into the category of music and entertainment, it is either getting increasingly difficult to get developers attention, or $150,000 is simply not enough to get more than a copycat of something already out there. Release . -- Poynt: The company offers a free local search tool that connects people to business, such as movie theaters and retailers. The service uses targeted site browsing, interactive maps, driving directions, GPS, along with show times and movie trailers. -- Strands Social Player: Developed by Strands, the music player includes a social network, which lets you discover new music and connect with people. It shows cover art and provides artist and song recommendations from over 6 million songs featuring free previews. -- Nobex Radio Companion: Developed by Nobex Technologies, the app shows you what song is playing on any of 2700 radio stations and when you hear a song you like click "Get It!" and it will send you an email with a link to buy the song. More than 100 stations are playable on BlackBerries. Register for Future of Business Media: http://fobm2008.eventbrite.com

Verizon Wireless ( NYSE: VZ ) has quietly released Dashboard , a new storefront found on its phones using Adobe's ( NSDQ: ADBE ) Flash technology, mocoNews has learned. So far, Dashboard has launched on the LG Chocolate 3, and more phones are expected by the end of the year, making it one of the largest mobile implementations of Flash in the U.S., both Verizon Wireless and Adobe confirmed. Todd Murphy, Verizon Wireless's director of digital media programming, explained to us the platform stands alongside the carrier's Get It Now platform, and is designed to be an easy place for consumers to find both content from Verizon's deck, but also links that take you to the mobile Web, "It's a dynamic real-time store. It's one click up on the Chocolate 3. We have a system on the back end that allows you to merchandise and change things every couple of hours." The launch of Dashboard comes just before Adobe's CEO Shantanu Narayen keynoted at CTIA , where he pleaded for more standards in the industry, so that content can be developed once and published across many mobile devices and also the Internet and TV. However, operators in the U.S. have been slow to adopt Flash, even though it's embedded in a lot of handsets. Lack of Flash is a constant complaint about the iPhone. Verizon has been one of the more aggressive companies on that front, providing a Flash Lite extension to its Brew platform, which features content from game companies, such as Smashing Ideas and Mobitween, but also videos from MTV's Atom Entertainment. Anup Murarka, Adobe's director for technical marketing, who also appeared at CTIA, told us: "In terms of Flash Lite, Japan has been the first and foremost, and then Europe and now it is gaining in the U.S." For instance, little do people know that Flash is used on some of the popular phones, including the LG (SEO: 066570) Shine, Venus and Voyager. "We can enable these experiences to be richer, or more...

-- AOL ( NYSE: TWX ) Launches iPhone Advertising platform: AOL unveiled an iPhone specific advertising platform today that allows advertisers to specifically target iPhone users. When an iPhone user is browsing a site within AOL's networks, including Third Screen Media or Advertising.com, an iPhone optimized ad. In addition, the network can redirect iPhone users to special versions of the advertisers' site that are optimized for the iPhone. -- Jewel Quest II on iTunes: I-play, which is part of Oberon Media, today released the popular puzzle game Jewel Quest II for iPhone and iPod touch. Jewel Quest II, based on iWin's Jewel Quest franchise, will cost $8.99 from the App store or on iTunes. -- FunMobility launches MoMoney app: FunMobility announced today MoMoney, a free widget that let's bloggers and Web publishers add audio, video and other media to their blog, site or profile. The widget can also be used to generate traffic by allowing the users to make money and generate revenue based on either a per click or per impression basis. The widget is available at at http://funmo.com/MoMoney . MoMoney works with iGoogle ( NSDQ: GOOG ), Netvibes, Pageflakes, MySpace, Facebook, TypePad, Blogger, Freewebs, Friendster, Webwag, and Windows Live. -- Sony ( NYSE: SNE ) Ericsson ( NSDQ: ERIC ) Releases SDK for Xperia: Sony Ericsson Developer World released the beta Software Development Kit (SDK) for Windows Mobile 6.1, which will allow developers to build and test XPERIA Panels and applications for the phone. Panels are a bit like widgets for the homescreen. The SDK is free and available at www.sonyericsson.com/developer . -- Virgin Mobile USA ( NYSE: VM ) Partners with buzzd: Virgin Mobile USA said it has added buzzd , a location-based social network, to its WAP deck. The companies are working on a mobile-enabled location-sensitive city guide and social network. Called "buzzd on Virgin Mobile," the site will offer entertainment information that can be shared...

-- 2.9 million text messages sent from Obama campaign: Nielsen Mobile estimates 2.9 million people received a text message from the Obama campaign that named its vice president over the weekend. Nic Covey, director of insights at the firm: "While much has been said of the timing and the scoop by news outlets, Obama's VP text-message still ranks as one of the most important text messages even sent and one of the most successful brand engagements using mobile media. The value of the message goes far beyond the 26 words and 2.9 million recipients. Here, Obama branded himself as cutting edge, inflated the already enormous press attention paid to his VP pick and further established a list of supporters' most coveted form of contact: their cell phone numbers." ( Release ). -- Kinoma releases mobile media Browser and player: Kinoma has launched Kinoma Play, a new mobile media browser and player that brings media capabilities to Windows Mobile smartphones. The application includes Kinoma Guide, a built-in search mechanism and catalog of more than a terabyte of media available online. Kinoma Play costs $29.99 and is compatible with Windows Mobile 5.0 and higher. ( Release ). -- Hi5 Mobile launches in 26 languages: San Francisco-based Hi5 launched a mobile version of its social network service in 26 languages, CNET reports . The site, which is used a lot in Latin America, has been optimized for the iPhone, BlackBerry and handsets from Nokia ( NYSE: NOK ) and Samsung. Hi5 doubled its visitor count over the past year, and recent comScore statistics show the social-networking space in Latin America has grown by a third since mid-2007. -- USOpen.org launches WAP site: USOpen.org has launched a WAP site and a variety of fresh mobile content ( http://www.usopen.org/en_US/interactive/sms/index.html?promo=hp_features ) along with almost 50 different types of text alerts, MobileContentToday reports . The site also launched a mobile sweepstakes with an opportunity to win...

The Olympics are now in full swing. Countless records have been broken and the touchy-feely stories and analysis often hit the point of nausea. Still, there's plenty more to come – programming choices are being coordinated across multiple screens and continents every day. NBC Universal ( NYSE: GE ) is already reflecting on the Beijing Games with eyes wide open. It talks about a surprising surge of mobile usage that seemingly surpassed its own predictions. On the flip side of the coin, there's already been some text alert snafus and the network's online property mostly ignored Usain Bolt of Jamaica's world record performance on the 100 meter dash . On Friday afternoon (early Saturday morning in Beijing) we caught up with Perkins Millers, SVP of digital media at NBC Sports and Olympics (and our co-editor, Staci D. Kramer interviewed him the other week ), as he and his team were winding down after a long day in Beijing, only to wake up (if there was any sleep at all) a few hours later to do it all over again. These are some excerpts from our interview: What resources is NBC putting into mobile platforms for its Olympics coverage? The network is taking advantage of its scale and weaving its strengths together with partners, particularly a large number of video vendors. This project requires the resources of the company and its vendors so that content can get pushed out to all channels at the same time. The feeds first land in New York where they're transcoded, processed and put into batches of clips for short-form viewing. What are some of the features you're seeing the most success with on mobile? Are you trying anything new and/or innovative? The alert programs are the most popular… We quickly exceeded the total page views our site tracked in (the 2006 winter Olympics)… The biggest challenge was to push viewers to the mobile platform. We have half a million unique visitors everyday on mobile, about half of which are accessing mobile for the first...

A trio of new research reports detail the dramatic and swift rise of mobile in terms of subscription growth, mobile web usage and mobile payments for goods downloaded to mobile phones. On Pace For 5.2 Billion Mobile Subscribers By 2011 Last year there were three times as many people using mobile phones than land lines worldwide (3.3 billion and 1.1 billion respectively), according to Infonetics Research. Mobile subscriptions jumped 31 percent year-over-year while land line subscriptions declined 5 percent in the same period. Latin America and the Caribbean are the only regions where land lines are expected to grow. Strong growth, no surprise, is expected to be primarily driven by voice services in Brazil, Russia, India and China – countries where double-digit GSM subscriber growth rates are common, the firm concluded. Based on the current rate of growth, it predicts there will be 5.2 billion mobile subscribers by 2011, at which time there will also be one wireless broadband subscriber for every four wireline broadband subscribers. ( Release ). 1.7 Mobile Web Users By 2013 The number of subscribers using the internet on their mobile phones is expect to nearly triple from 577 million today to more than 1.7 billion by 2013, according to a new report from Juniper Research. Social networking, user-generated content, instant messaging, location-based services and search and discovery are all driving a more open environment where users can share, collaborate and exploit content free from carrier restrictions, the firm wrote. Asia is expected to be the largest market for mobile web where almost 416 million users are anticipated to be surfing the internet on mobile phones in five years. Currently, 190 million users are accessing the mobile web there in those regions. Juniper Research predicts South America holds the "greatest untapped potential for mobile web" because of relatively low wireline broadband penetration in those countries. ( Release ). 2.1 Billion Mobile...