901am

New Media News Every Morning

Punch Entertainment introduces social networking to mobile games with EGO

By

Punch Entertainment announced the launch EGO, a new social networking game for mobile phones. As the first game of its kind to be made available in the U.S., the game allows you to create your own customized super-avatar that has emotions, abilities, needs and an evolving personality based on your actions within the game. Through EGO, users can meet and interact with friends on buddy list, as well as with other EGOs in the virtual world in real-time. As a community-based game geared towards teens and up, EGO introduces a new type of platform for communication and interaction.

EGO is designed to be played on mobile phone but also features a web component that allows you to interact further within the virtual world of EGO. The mobile phone and web versions of EGO are synched with each other.

Originally posted on March 3, 2008 @ 12:58 pm

58 million U.S. mobile subscribers have seen advertising over their phones

By

Twenty-three percent (58 million) of all U.S. mobile subscribers say they’ve been exposed to advertising on their phones in the past 30 days, according to a new report from The Nielsen Company. Half (51% or 28 million) of all data users who recall seeing mobile advertising in the previous 30 days say they responded to a mobile ad in some way.

The findings come from the bi-annual Mobile Advertising Report from Nielsen Mobile, a service of The Nielsen Company, and are based on a survey of more than 22,000 active mobile data users who used at least one non-voice mobile service in the fourth quarter. In the report, Nielsen examines consumer recall, responses and attitudes toward banner ads on mobile web pages, SMS text-message advertising, sponsored applications, video advertising and other types of advertising that reach consumers while using data applications on their mobile phones. [Read more…]

Originally posted on March 4, 2008 @ 4:40 am

Aussie farmers want better internet and cellphone service

By

atsign.gifOverall, 81% of Australians are generally happy with their Internet and mobile phone service. More than that, about 60% said they will not switch to other Internet service providers.

Unfortunately, Australian farmers do not share the same sentiment. In the latest study by Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), this group is less satisfied about these services compared to small to medium business owners.

Poor speed is to blame why about a quarter of Aussie farmers are dissatisfied with Internet service. Given the growing importance of Internet, 70% say broadband access is a very essential service in the future.

On the other hand, 35% are not happy with mobile phone services due to drop-outs, poor call quality and interference. It’s worse in Western Australia where 44% of the farmers are complaining about this service.

Via The Age

Originally posted on February 28, 2008 @ 11:49 am

Vivendi Games Mobile launches Urban Attack on mobile phones

By

urbanattack.pngVivendi Games Mobile announced the North American launch of Urban Attack, the long-awaited, original and inventive first-person-shooter mobile game. Urban Attack for mobile, which was recently released throughout Europe, has already received a number of impressive review scores and previews from press and fans around the world.

The Urban Attack game for mobile is the result of considerable research and development involving advanced 3D vectorial graphics and is designed to deliver 3D shooting action across more than 400 handsets, from mid-range 2D devices to smartphones. Urban Attack takes the shooting genre to an entirely new level with a number of features never before seen on mobile phones.

Originally posted on February 25, 2008 @ 4:39 pm

Major media companies adopt Newsgator’s widget services and mobile services

By

newsgator.pngNewsGator’s widget services and mobile readers are now being adopted by a growing number of media companies including Reuters, Cox Newspapers, washingtonpost.com and Newsweek, enabling these companies to bring new dimension of portability and social interaction to their online content. In Q4 of 2007 alone, NewsGator signed more than 20 media companies as customers, helping them distribute branded content across the Web and mobile devices.

NewsGator’s widget services and mobile readers enable media companies to extend the reach of their brands by empowering users to easily port content to blogs, social networking sites, home pages and mobile devices. These widgets engage audiences by providing extensive collaboration features that allow users to email, rate, comment on and share content. This expanded reach and greater user interaction can be tracked using NewsGator’s extensive reporting capabilities, enabling media customers to drive additional monetization opportunities through higher click-through rates and increased page views.

Originally posted on February 26, 2008 @ 5:12 am