Engaging with N-Gage
The UK's 3G licences were sold off in 2000 and as we approach 2008 it's a tad depressing to look at the lack of any proper traction within the mobile content arena. Most services & applications beyond basic voice and 
text services are, well, crap and the long-promised value ot the mobile phone as a comms vehicle seems to be restricted to Burger King vouchers and SMS campaigns.
So it's nice to see that Nokia is getting its act together in the mobile gaming space with the re-launch of their 'nearly-good-last-time' N-Gage service. This time it's not a product but a service which is a very smart move and one which now allows all the big game publishers to develop multi-phone, big title games for their multi-media phone range. The initial reaction looks good [example] so we're doubly curious: will it provide us with new ways to connect with a mobile gaming audience?....and could it (just could it) finally get people using their phones beyond voice, text and the odd uninspired web surf?....
Posted by: Brad at 5 ish on Friday, 7th September 2007
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Apples third leg
Having described the Mac & iPod as 'two strong legs' on his chair, Apple's Steve Jobs is now banking on the hotly anticipated iPhone to provide a third leg to his business (aside: won't that make his chair wobbly?). Certainly, the hefty price tag is not deterring US consumers who have queued up overnight in the rain to
snaffle up the first batch, due out today.
Universal McCann, however, don't believe in all the hype. They've just launched some, ahem, 'international research' which concludes that Apple's ambitions of selling 10m units by 2008 are too lofty. The claim is based on findings such as "only 31% of US consumers surveyed said they wanted a converged device". Well what would you expect them to say?
Apple are in the business of creating demand and they'll certainly do that when it finally arrives over in the UK. It might not replace Nokia as the worlds leading handset manufacturer but it'll probably shift as many as it can physically produce. Nice resource [here].
Thanks to Arikan on Flickr for the photo.
Posted by: Brad at 4 ish on Friday, 29th June 2007
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Widgets
The importance of internet widgets [define] has been highlighted this week with news that Myspace have paid a reported US$300m for the photosharing site, Photobucket. 
Ker-ching indeed.
Indeed, the clever folk at Photobucket have been living off MySpace's ecosystem for some time now, offering & providing smart & valuable photosets & slide shows for its member base. Nice work - build a business on the back of MySpace, fall out with them in the process, kiss & make up and then sell to them. Double your money.
See brands like Slide, RockYou and the new Flektor for similar services.
As marketers continue to grapple with how to best enter social networks & create relationships with the users within them, they could do worse than consider how to develop really useful & relevant widgets for their audience. We're doing some work in this area for Nokia at the moment [watch this space on The Toofs] and believe it's a big trend for the future.
Posted by: Brad at 3pm on Friday, 11th May 2007
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