A highlight of the one-day event was the "60 second developer pitch". A great idea, designed to give each developer an equal opportunity to sell his/her application or service. The objective was to make an interesting pitch and stimulate enough interest that would result in one-on-one meetings and networking.
SymbianOne heard all the presentations and even met one-on-one with every developer to get a first-hand look at the latest multi-media apps that are coming to market.
123MULTIMEDIA – a leading European mobile content provider, the company develops, integrates, and hosts mobile services. The company is making available a number of multi-media products and data services including ring tones, logos, chat, games, catalogs, and e-cards… the company’s latest product launch is “The Magic Clock” - See www.123multimedia.com
Acotel, founded in 1992, provides multimedia platforms and applications to network operators. The group combines their own and third-party content to a variety of messaging platforms including MMSC, SMSC, and WAP gateway. The company was pitching compelling, themed product suites and MMS content services. Themed content bundles offer news, clips, multi-media, and wallpaper as an example. The company also promotes the offering of real-time alerts, pay-per-view content, and album reviews to mobile device users. See www.acotel.com
Arcsoft Europe, developer of Arcsoft’s PhotoBase Mobile Edition, was there promoting a couple of new, compelling features now available. The application which brings photo enhancement, file management, and sharing now is even more “slick” with the introduction of a red eye removal capability, and a very cool image stitching app. Think of this… users of camera-enabled mobile devices can now click off several images to create a panoramic mosaic. Use this application to stitch the scenes together and create a 360 degree scene! See www.arcsoft.com
Colibria AS has been a provider of instant messaging and chat solutions since 2001. The company is offering users an OMA IMPS compliant server solutions useful for innovative and interactive activities like mobile voting, mobile chat sessions, and even a friend finder service (with a map interface) See www.colibria.com
Chaoticom reps were showing off the Chaoticom mobile music solution – music content licensed for mobile operators. MicroKOZm music player functions on Symbian OS- based devices enabling users to search a DB of hits while securely streaming music to the mobile device over a gSM/GPRS network. See www.chaoticom.com
conVISUAL AG… aka the MMS Company was announcing their visual text services which enable users to add pictures, video enhancements to their multi-media apps. Under the category of “new” , the company announced they now are capable of sending MMS to TV format. Of particular interest is MMS TV Chat, each user of an MMS device can become a TV-star! See www.convisual.com
Eurofun offers mobile entertainment to users around the Globe. Representatives were boasting about the extensive portfolio of music products, “super” ringtones, downloadable video clips, and even karaoke. See www.eurofun.co.il
IMAGEFUN reps were having fun announcing fotoTXT. This application enables users to send a fun message via email or to a mobile. Using any mobile phone, just create an ordinary text message (SMS) with your own words and they'll add them to a bubble. What do users pay for such a service? Cost: £1.50 plus SMS charges - See www.fototxt.com
Minick Group has one of my personal favorite applications… MMS Postcard. Imagine using your camera-enabled mobile device to capture a scene. The company’s service then processes the MMS delivered scene and delivers it to the requested recipient as a traditional postcard. The company currently handles about 5-6000 requests per day for 4 major operators at an Avg price of 2-3 euro. The MINICK Mobile Application Suite consists of a complete set of powerful and proven mobile application modules, covering a wide range of entertainment and direct marketing needs with powerful info services, voting, chat, mobile commerce and games See www.minick.net/mms2postcard.html
Mobicus Ltd. Is targeting the mobile marketing crowd by offering marketing people a chance to build comprehensive mobile user profiles. According to company reps, the advanced personalization features of Mobicus give marketers the benefit of tailoring their message according to the user and usage situation (time, place, history of usage, or any other variable). This solution is ideal for companies seeking a solution to develop a mobile “loyalty” card solution. See www.mobicus.com
Musicbrigade is a digital content distributor and aggregator of music videos… think of them as a “digital music distributor”. Their “jukebox” contains more than 5000 music videos. The company’s solution offers downloadable, compressed, digitized music for streaming and download. The company prides itself as being “the home of music videos”. See www.musicbrigade.com
Net-mobile AG, another mobile entertainment company provides integrated Multi- Channel-Communication made up of added value data services such as SMS, WAP, MMS and i -mode, speech applications, Internet and a multitude of micropayment solutions. Services include LiveChat and Televoting. The company’s Mobile Karaoke is a very cool app that offers users a chance to sing along with their favorite tune while the lyrics are boldly displayed. Full length MIDI downloads are offered with an integrated automated payment system. See www.net-m.de
NewBay Software (Dublin, Ireland) was another developer that got my attention. You may have read about the company’s mobile website development tool… FoneBlog. Powered by a mobile device and designed to increase MMS usage, users of FoneBlog can instantly post photographs, text, audio, and video to a personal website, instantly viewable over the web or using a WAP enabled mobile device. This is very cool… be sure to check out the online demo! One of our favorite blogs was this one… Are you sick of the high prices in pubs? Why not let everyone know the last time & place you paid crazy prices for a drink. click here for blog - See www.newbay.com & www.foneblog.ie
PAC LTd. (Finland) Creates music/audio software and entertainment solutions for mobile devices. The company’s Rmxr solution is a service platform that enables the creation of “DJ-style” custom poly ringtones. It allows the user to modify, record and use/order the result as a new ringtone. The remixing functions offered include looping, tempo and instrument changes, adding effects, rhythms, melodies and shuffle See www.pac.fi
Plan_b_media, is a spin-off of the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, Germany. They focus and specialize in developing media content for TV, web, and mobile devices. Having loads of licensed content, the company offers MMS animations, Java games and apps, Video, and interactive screen savers. See planb-media.de & planb-mobile.com
Pulse (La Jolla, Calif) was at the event to promote their latest mobile solution, mobile veepers. This amazing solution is a rapid, easy-to-use solution for building photo-real virtual humans and other characters from a single 2D image. An example showed us how a virtual Arnold Schwarzenegger was used to provide a video message encouraging California voters to hit the polls and even offered directions… very slick! See www.pulse3d.com
Rivals Digital Media AG provides live and editorial sports content to mobile platforms. The very cool Java Football Match Center (www.football365.com) provides subscribers with live feeds, updates, scores, and news about their favorite football club. Football365 has 457,482 unique users per month generating 6,239,053 page impressions. See www.rivalsdm.com
Sliding Pictures, an Italian mobile content provider, was demonstrating Cellphonenovel – an interactive video novel for MMS enabled devices. For marketing purposes, video novels can be branded and customized. See www.slidingpictures.com
Soundonweb “a one-stop content factory” offers ringtones, javagames, cartoons, videos, AV content, etc… for SMS and MMS enabled devices. The company boasts more than 30,000 products are available. See www.soundonweb.com
TomTom is a developer of hardware and software, particularly for travel and/or location-based applications. At the event the company was boasting about the availability of their CityMaps for all Symbian 60 based mobile devices. These navigational aids are available for some 60 major cities (Europe) and enable users to track progress (in real time), plan journeys, and enter POI information. TomTom CityMaps are available to download for US$ 4.99 each and have an average size of 1 MB. See www.tomtom.com
Trimalkio / Wine Academy of Helsinki, experts in the wine and spirit business has announced their MAtchart Wine application. The software is designed to enable mobile users to select an appropriate wine to accompany virtually any meal. Users select a detailed meal planner and upon completion are presented with suitable options for an accompanying wine. See www.windeacademy.net
Viderent Inc. was excited to present us with details of the Message Puzzler, a multi-media application that combines text messaging, images, puzzles, and surprises to users. Suitable for mobile marketing, users can customize their puzzle (think of a “slider” puzzle missing one piece) and are presented with a custom message upon completion of the solution… very innovative! See www.viderent.com
YellowPepper Inc. (Boston, Mass.) gets our award for coolest name! The company offers numerous mobile marketing solutions and demographic mapping services. Popular customers include Dow Jones (dow jones news alerts) and Forbes wireless alerts. They also have a creative application designed to help mobile users identify a song. Simply hear a song, dial their number, point your phone at the music source, receive information about the song, including title and artist. See www.yellowpepper.com
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