Tonethephone

Nokia signs Sony BMG to Comes with Music

I trotted down to London's Covent Garden to hear Nokia announce that it has definitely done the deal with Sony BMG to participate in its 'Comes with Music' offering. I also discovered 'Say and Play'.

Tone vs Tanla Mobile – an update

Having complained to the UK regulator, PhonepayPlus, about a service which Tanla Mobile operates, I was amazed to discover it's exactly the same company I'd 'exposed' some 12 months ago.
Meanwhile, premium rate texts continue to pile up against my Orange account at the rate of £4.50 per week.

Mission impossible: watch the racing live on a handset

One of the UK's major sporting and social events is the Grand National horse race which takes place today [5th April] in Aintree. So I set myself the task of trying to discover if I could watch the race live on a mobile phone. In theory it should have been possible. In practice, it wasn't. But I did upgrade my N95 in the process.

WDS & MX Telecom in profit league table

Interesting to see which innovative wireless companies made it into the 'Britain's 100 fastest profit-growth firms' survey. Easy winner was WDS Global at No: 15 with MX Telecom coming in at 80. Both provide services which are well-targeted for consumers.

Child Abuse content targeted at MCW

Rating: International effort to battle child porn

Although the mobile internet can be a major force for good, it can also prove a major tool for evil child pornographers. This was the theme for a major press conference held here at the MCW show in Barcelona.

MWC: MSN Direct will be ad funded

Rating: Microsoft promises personalised MSN for mobile

One of the Microsoft announcements which got buried at today´s MWC in Barcelona was the fact that a beta version (well, this is Microsoft) of a service called MSN Direct is available now.

MWC: Global Mobile Awards 2008

Rating: Robert Redford appeals for mobile films

I’ve just got back from the GSM’s industry’s annual bun fight - the Global Mobile Awards, and overall I’m pretty impressed by the results. It was also highly amusing that the night’s compere, Graham Norton, got in a joke at EU Comms Commissioner, Viviane Reding’s expense.

MWC: Openwave moves into contextual merchandising

Rating: Mobile operators can play on their existing strengths

I had a very interesting chat with Openwave CEO Robet Vrij at MWC about the direction the company is taking to help its impressive list of established Tier One clients.
The message which came across is that Openwave is determined to help its clientele ‘monetarise’ the many service they already provide to subscribers. Including making money out of email.

M:metrics reveals games download stats

Rating: Less people downloading than a year ago

by Tony Dennis

Only about a quarter of those that play games on their mobile phones, are playing a game that has been downloaded rather than coming pre-installed on the handset. Smartphones user are, however, over twice as likely to download a game than owners of regular handsets, says M:metrics, the mobile data gatherer.

Vringo tries for new mobile rich media format

Rating: Will anyone bother with video ringtones, though?
by Tony Dennis

Calling yourself the sponsor of the 'World's Tiniest Film Festival' does at least generate a modicum of interest. Following up with a claim that you're making Personalisation 2.0 a reality is the clincher.
What are the guys at Vringo up to with their video ringtone sharing, then? After a little bit of investigation, it turned out that while I liked the idea, I'm not entirely convinced that video ringtones will take off as a fad. The whole thing is too fiddly.