Wireless Business Forecast articles from March 2006

Wireless Business Forecast archives from March 2006

Play That Funky V-Music: Verizon's First Music Download Recital.(V Cast Music service introduction of Verizon Wireless)
March 9, 2006... Verizon Wireless' V Cast Music is a bit like listening to a recital by a promising young newcomer. The tune is recognizable and even pleasant at times, but the full effect is far from polished or soothing. As one of the first full- track...

Whither MMS: When Does The Sleeping Giant Of Mobile Wake Up?(Multimedia Messaging System)
March 9, 2006... Imagine a time when content providers can push daily animated cartoon series to a user's phone...without their having to drill down to a single menu or recall that they actually own a specific subscription? Imagine sending and receiving lush...

Gentlemen, Start Your Engines: The Strategic Importance Of Mobile Search.
March 9, 2006... Only a year ago, the mobile search box was a simple curio whenever it popped up in Google or Yahoo! "early beta" experiments. No one seemed to take seriously the idea that anyone would want to search the Web, or even local data, on a handset...

J2ME Joins The Virus Fraternity.(Trojan-SMS.J@ME.RedBrowser virus )
March 9, 2006... The first mobile virus aimed at standard Java-enabled handsets emerged in Russia last week, a dark-side, proof-of-concept of things to come. According to Kapersky Lab, the Trojan-SMS.J@ME.RedBrowser.a virus is a Java application that can be...

U.S. Mobile Gaming Lags The Field.(reports of parks associates)
March 9, 2006... U.S. data customers buy mobile games at less than half the rate of Europeans, according to the latest sales figures from m-commerce enabler Qpass coupled with a recent report issued by Parks Associates that underscores the relatively sluggish...

CBS Just Adds Clutter.
March 9, 2006... Continuing to pursue a very independent digital-distribution strategy, CBS announced last week it will start selling direct-to-consumer video and picture alerts for monthly fees. The "CBS News TO GO" alerts (99 cents a month) will push text...

Dotmobi Gets a Plan.(Mobile Top Level Domain (mTLD). registration for .mobi URLS)(Brief Article)
March 9, 2006... The long-promised dedicated domain for mobile Web sites -- .mobi -- finally got a launch plan from its controlling corporation, Mobile Top Level Domain (mTLD). Registration will for the .mobi URLS will start in June under a "sunrise...

Deal Sheet 03/09/06.(industry overview)(Industry Overview)
March 9, 2006... Who's Doing What? Motorola Ventures [MOT], headquartered in Schaumburg, Ill.; 847/576-1638 Makes a venture-capital investment in Netomat Inc., headquartered in New York City; 212/594-1955 What to Expect Short-Term ...

The Mobile Revolution Will Be Advertised.
March 23, 2006... Was it only a year ago that most mobile-industry pundits continued to dismiss and diminish the potential role advertising would play in the emerging value chain of mobile content? Now, as we move into the year of a major 3G pushed by all of...

Magazines And Mobile: Test, Wait And Watch.
March 23, 2006... In a new survey from sister publication Media Industry Newsletter (min) and IWantMedia, most magazine-publishing executives say that despite the hype surrounding mobile data platforms, their expectations and plans to go mobile remain modest....

Mobile TV's Signal Remains Scrambled.
March 23, 2006... Even as the investment dollars and creative energy flow into the mobile video space, this emerging platform -- so integral to carrier plans for future data service revenue -- remains the biggest, baddest question mark in the industry....

Changing Worlds: Assuring Intuitive Communications Through IMS.(Information Management System)
March 23, 2006... For more than a century, the telecom market has been seen as a utility selling a service. However, with the changing demands of 21st-century users, operators are under increasing pressure from their customers to provide an attractive...

From Deck To Direct: As The Data Channel Turns.
March 23, 2006... Expect a tectonic shift in the cellphone distribution channel as content becomes increasingly important to the value chain and more sales dollars come from direct-to-consumer (D2C) channels like the Web, says Informa Telecom Media....

U.S. Ringtone Market Share Gets Louder.
March 23, 2006... Last year at this time, many in the ringtone market were predicting some inevitable pullback in sales after the monstrous, surprising explosion of user interest in personalizing cellphones with overpriced and crummy-sounding ringtones. The...

McAfee And SmartTrust Partner: And the Carriers Shall Heal Us.
March 23, 2006... Mobile carriers have pushed so hard to control the user experience and the network that users will hold them responsible for protecting the networks from viruses, says SmartTrust, a device management company that just partnered with McAfee...

Can Carriers Really Go Granular?
March 23, 2006... Sources in the advertising community tell Wireless Business Forecast Sprint Nextel will be revamping its marketing and merchandising strategies to take a more segmented approach to the market. Traditionally, the major carriers were notorious...

Mobile Gaming Is No Slam Dunk.(GDC Mobile conference held )(Brief article)
March 23, 2006... It's refreshing to see a note of honesty and modest concern from an otherwise over-hyped mobile game industry. Throughout the past year, third-party analysts like M:Metrics have been reporting that mobile-game downloads have not grown...

Deal Sheet.(partners among sports club and music industry)
March 23, 2006... Who's Doing What With Whom? VeriSign [VRSN], headquartered in Mountain View, Calif.; 650/961-7500 Signs a definitive agreement to purchase m-Qube, headquartered in Waterton, Mass.; 612/673-2400 >>The Short Term One of the...