The website of Alex Kinch, live from London
Posts tagged Mobile Applications
T-Mobile and Three splash the poker pot
May 28th
Link: The online poker craze is set to go mobile with network operators T-Mobile and 3 offering British customers access to Bwin’s multi-player application PokerRoom.com.
Since it was launched in 2005, PokerRoom has attracted 11 million registered customers over the internet and hopes to replicate that success in the mobile market. Bwin, an Austrian online bookmaker, has signed up mobile gaming specialist Cellectivity to launch PokerRoom over the T-Mobile and 3 networks, the first time that live multi-player poker has been marketed directly to mobile phone users. The service will guarantee access to poker tables anywhere at anytime. A play-for-fun version will also be launched for those customers put off by the prospect of losing money playing against serious players.
Do you Mobilcast?
May 24th
Link: This is one of Ewan’s favourite apps, so when they emailed about a survey I thought it’d be worth a post.
If you haven’t used Mobilcast before, they’ve put together a nice demo video here. However if you do use the app, give them a couple of minutes of your time and fill our their short 10-question survey.
Hotxt co-founder profiled in The Independent
May 24th
Link: Doug Richard: Exit the dragon – Independent Online Edition > Profiles
But Richard, an American who has lived in the UK for five years, has high hopes that Hotxt can become a seriously big business. The start-up has already secured nearly £4m in funding, and its founder believes it can be a big hit with mobile users around the world. The Hotxt website says that the company offers a service that enables mobile users to send text messages to each other over the internet. But this is not a clue to what the company will become, according to Richard. “What it is now will not be what it becomes in the future,” he says.
Thanks for John and Tom for spotting this!
Sky launch Anytime for Motorola Z8
May 23rd
Not even 24 hours ago, Motorola announced that their new Z8 phone had been used to make the world’s highest phone call, from the top of Mount Everest. Bet you reckon they couldn’t top that? Not for want of trying!
weComm, the leader in interactive mobile data solutions, today announced that it has delivered Sky Anytime on Mobile for Motorola’s recently announced MOTO Z8.
weComm develops the Sky Anytime on Mobile application for BSkyB, and has worked closely with Motorola to port the application to the MOTO(tm) Z8 for pre-installation in the factory. The Z8 is a ‘kick-slider’smartphone running the UIQ on Symbian OS platform with a Motorola soft key implementation.
Nice. Now if only they could get it working on some other popular phones (it won’t work on my N80 or my E61 for a start), I’d be a happy bunny. Market size of the Z8 vs the Nokia handsets that don’t support Sky Anytime? Doesn’t take a genius to work out they’re missing a trick here. Still, if you’re lucky enough to have – or be getting – a Motorola Z8, and you wanted Sky Anytime, worry no more!
Mobizines working on LG Prada app
May 22nd
Link: Mobizines – Update All: The Devil Wears…
The guys at Mobizines have got their hands on one of the very sexy LG Prada phones – and haven’t wasted any time on making their app work on it. It’s not quite there yet, but they’re working on it!
Now – as you know the other day we finally got our hands on a brand new LG Prada phone… We’re all busying away on our next big release and we haven’t really got time to develop a whole brand new variant of the Mobizines client to work on this handset…
So imagine our surprise to find that our touchscreen client, very nearly, works on the Prada! Admittedly it does need a small bit of tweaking here and there… But our resident touchscreen guru Andre, (Big up the Dre!), is on the case.
If you’ve got an LG Prada and want to help beta test the app, drop an email to bloggers@mobizines.com (with LG PRADA in the subject line) and they’ll be in touch when it’s ready to be unleashed.
spodtronic – radio on your Nokia
May 22nd
Link: E-Series » Blog Archive » spodtronic – Radio Application
Now this is rather neat. It’s a radio player for Nokia S60 mobiles, and although it’s heavily branded by Virgin Radio, I’m very impressed. In fact I’m so impressed that everytime I go to write the main bit of this blog entry I find another feature to rant about.
So, what can you listen to? Apart from the Virgin stations (Virgin Radio UK, Classic Rock, Groove and Extreme) there’s also a selection of genres from Sky Radio, Digitally Imported if you’re into dance, and a few others to choose from.
It’s a free download and doesn’t appear to cost anything apart from data charges to run, so I don’t mind the odd bit of advertising. So far I’ve seen album cover art, now playing info, and been asked to rate songs. Quite impressive. And the interface.. slicker than a (insert clever analogy here) 
Go grab yourself a copy at www.spodtronic.com, and let me know what you think. I would have done some nice pretty screen grabs, but all that hard work streaming and displaying pretty visuals is proving a bit much for my poor little E61.
Fring adds Twitter support
May 18th
Link: fring » Twitter inside!
I’ve been waxing lyrically about Fring to my mates after finding it a couple of weeks ago. If you don’t know about Fring, go to their website and check it out – or alternatively wait a day or two longer til I get my arse in gear and finish off the review I’ve been slaving over for this very blog
Anyway, some great news – Fring have just added Twitter support. This means I can use just one application for Twitter, MSN, Skype, SIP, and Google Talk. If you’ve already got Fring, you don’t have to upgrade the software – just go to Settings > Configure Services and scroll down, where you should see Twitter.
Fring have even made a nice video and put it on their blog to show you how to add Twitter.
Q&A with Twitter founders
May 18th
Link: MediaShift . Digging Deeper::Twitter Founders Thrive on Micro-Blogging Constraints | PBS
As mentioned in a post a couple of days ago, PBS tech blog MediaShift have published their interview with Twitter founders Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone.
I touched on the business model of Twitter when I posted about my experiences with Twitter the other day, and asked how they plan to make money whilst picking up the tab for my texts. Here’s a snippet from the article that asks the same question:
How does the cost of Twitter work? I know that I pay for my SMS messages through my service provider. Do you pay for text messages sent and received as well?
Dorsey: So we pay for every SMS message sent. We’re looking to get into relationships where we can minimize those costs or potentially make that a revenue stream. So that’s another thing we need to scale, and it’s a matter of figuring out the industry more than anything else.
You can read the full interview here.
Will mobile banking succeed?
May 18th
Link: Success or Failure for the Re-Launch of Mobile Banking
A series of new mobile reports from Javelin Strategy & Research has uncovers significant product marketing requirements for building banks’ consumer usage of mobile services. While consumers are better primed for mobile banking now than they were in 2000, financial institutions (FIs) should not consider the mere availability of mobile banking a guarantee of success. FIs should prepare for measured, rather than widespread and immediate, adoption, even though consumers, handsets and mobile networks have made tremendous advancements.
Interesting research – although it’s quite US-centric it’s worth a read if you’re involved in the mobile banking sector, or considering it for the future.
SMS is dead – Twitter proves it
May 16th
Link: SMS is dead – Twitter proves it | Roland Tanglao’s Weblog
SMS sucks and twitter proves it. When a well funded startup like Twitter which is full of smart people can’t get SMS to scale, then something is wrong. And the something that is wrong is wait for it …. the carriers. The carriers control SMS which is why it sucks. If SMS were NEA it wouldn’t suck but it is not so good-bye and good riddance.
Oh dear me. So based on that argument, the reason I’ve never got the hang of skiing is all the fault of the ski resort, the holiday company, the instructer, the snow itself, and everyone apart from me damnit. I mean, I’m clever – my mum used to tell me that as a kid (and still does on the odd occasion).
I particularly like the thought that ‘SMS sucks because the carriers control it’. Er dude, have you ever wondered how mobile data works – maybe pixie magic? And what does Twitter use? For the love of..
(Thanks Stefan for the tip!)
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