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The Walt Disney Internet Group is poised to launch a new mobile effort featuring a digital content storefront, an IM chat system and widgets, Forbes reports. In September, WDIG will begin to more closely integrate its mobile website with its online services, introducing a registration system that enables users to access their Disney.com profiles via mobile device--a retail portal boasting Disney games, ringtones and wallpapers will follow, and from there The Mouse will also port its Speed Chat messaging solution to the mobile platform. Additional plans for Disney to introduce mobile games and widgets tied to its film and television franchises, including a virtual pixie world scheduled to debut imminently. A mobile game tied to the Pirates of the Caribbean online site will also roll out in September or October, with real-time mobile polls and trivia games waiting in the wings. Disney is no stranger to the mobile platform, of course--despite shuttering the Disney Mobile MVNO in the fall of 2007, WDIG has maintained a high profile on wireless, in 2008 alone introducing a Japanese MVNO , an ad-supported mobile portal and a mobile incarnation of its Radio Disney broadcast network. WDIG's executive vice president of business development and operations Larry Shapiro tells Forbes he believes more than 50 percent of 10-year-olds in the U.S. own phones, and Disney wants to "own" those mobile customers. "It's about creating a connected media world," Shapiro says. "If you want to reach tweens, you need mobile." For more on Disney's mobile future: - read this Forbes article

Settlements have been announced in a pair of lawsuits alleging unauthorized mobile data charges. Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum announced a $1 million settlement with Hong Kong-based mobile content publisher and distributor MobileFunster, which does business as FunMobile--per terms of the agreement, FunMobile is now required to fully disclose the price of mobile content or services and other material terms of purchase across all digital retail platforms. The firm will also hand over $1 million to the Florida AG, with the funds earmarked to finance additional investigations into what McCollum calls "CyberFraud." Florida consumers who believe they are the victims of unauthorized mobile content charges are encouraged to contact their wireless operator for refunds. Meanwhile, law firm KamberEdelson, LLC announced a settlement was reached in a class action suit alleging mobile entertainment provider Mobile Messenger with unauthorized mobile content charges of its own. The lawsuit charged the firm with failing to install adequate safeguards to ensure customers are only billed for services they agreed to purchase. Mobile Messenger denies any wrongful conduct. The settlement, which earned preliminary approval from the U.S. District Court in Miami last week, entitles wireless subscribers across the country to receive refunds for unauthorized charges--class members are encouraged to visit www.CellPhoneDownloads.Class-Action-Admin.com to learn more details about the settlement and how to apply for refunds. Mobile Messenger has denied any wrongful conduct. For more on the FunMobile settlement: - read this release For more on the Mobile Messenger settlement: - read this release

Mobile entertainment destination Thumbplay announced an agreement with MTV to manage and expand personalization efforts for the cable giant's MTV Mobile service. Per terms of the deal, Thumbplay will supply MTV Mobile with personalized content including ringtones, applications, games and wallpapers--users will have the choice between a la carte purchases or subscription-based credits, complete with online content lockers that automatically back up purchased items. MTV will promote the service on-air, online and across its WAP sites. For more on the Thumbplay/MTV Mobile deal: - read this release Related articles: Thumbplay tunes in deal with Clear Channel Radio Thumbplay debuts DIY mobile content sales toolkit

More than 2.1 billion subscribers will purchase digital goods via mobile phone in the next five years according to a new forecast released by market analysis firm Juniper Research, which expects users who are presently aged 15 to 20 to drive the premium content surge. Defining digital goods as mobile music, tickets, TV, user-generated content, games and related media, Juniper anticipates significant growth opportunity for m-commerce systems providers, software providers and support and consultancy services vendors, adding that operators are also poised to increase ARPU as mobile transactions become more commonplace. Juniper expects that nearly half of all mobile subscribers will have downloaded premium content to their handsets by 2013, with the average user making at least two mobile payment transactions per month--Western Europe and the Far East/Chinese market will account for over half of total revenue from digital goods, and though most transaction sizes will remain in the $3 to $5 ballpark, Juniper believes gross transaction value grow almost sevenfold in five years. For more on the Juniper forecast: - read this release Related articles: Report: M-commerce apps on the upswing Study: Consumers unaware m-commerce services exist

Mobile data revenues will increase by a compound annual growth rate of 16 percent from $24 billion in 2007 to over $100 billion in 2017 according to a new forecast issued by financial intelligence firm SNL Kagan, which cites the recent launch of Apple's iPhone 3G and other new smartphones as the catalyst behind the expected surge. SNL Kagan's mobile data revenue expectations contrast sharply with the firm's forecast that total wireless service revenues will experience barely a 5 percent CAGR over the same timeframe--its estimates show average data subscribers growing at a CAGR of 5.8 percent to 249.5 million by 2017, comprising 77 percent of the total wireless subscriber base. During the same period, wireless subscriber totals will grow an average of only 2.9 percent per year. SNL Kagan expects wireless subscribers to reach 90 percent per capita penetration by 2017, meaning new data services will emerge as the primary driver of revenue growth as market saturation nears--while 62 percent of all subscribers will embrace messaging and mobile e-mail by 2017, mobile web users will grow from 18 percent of subscribers in 2007 to 52 percent of subscribers in 2017. SNL Kagan expects mobile video and TV to experience a 10-year GAGR of 22.5 percent, followed by mobile music at 13.1 percent CAGR and mobile gaming at 12.7 percent CAGR. The forecast cites handset compatibility with the ATSC-MH mobile broadcast standard as a major impetus behind the expected TV/video uptake. For more on the SNL Kagan forecast: - read this release Related articles: Forecast : SMS to continue driving messaging revenues Forecast : Mobile gaming revs grow to $4.5B in 2008

Thanks to the record-setting box office blockbuster The Dark Knight , the recent Iron Man and Hellboy feature films and this weekend's San Diego Comic-Con International (the geek equivalent of a pilgrimage to Mecca), comic books have never achieved greater mainstream visibility or public respect than right now. And while comics have enjoyed a growing presence on the mobile platform for some time, this week venerable publisher DC Comics and parent firm Warner Bros. upped the ante with Motion Comics , a short-form digital video effort inspired by graphic novels like the classics Batman: Mad Love and Watchmen . Bowing across multiple services including Verizon Wireless' V Cast Video, Apple's iTunes and Microsoft's Xbox Live, Motion Comics promises to update traditional comics storytelling for digital distribution by adding subtle movement, voiceover and musical scores to the original scripts and artwork. The first episode of Watchmen is already available for free on iTunes ... and it underscores the perils of taking content created expressly for one medium and adapting it for another. The problem with the animated Watchmen series is simple: Writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons created the original comic solely for the printed page, not the mobile device screen or any other medium. What Motion Comics offers is an awkward hybrid somewhere between comics and cartoons, hamstrung by rudimentary animation (e.g., smoke billowing or legs walking), miscast voiceover performances and an overbaked score. Perhaps a full-fledged animated Watchmen conceived and produced for the screen would work (and not coincidentally, Warner Bros. will release a live-action feature based on the title next year), but all Motion Comics does is scan over panels of Gibbons' art and add limited audio/visual enhancement, completely disrupting the structure and flow of the original graphic narrative--arguably the apex of the superhero genre--in the process. In its Motion Comics incarnation...