We normally do not promote individual products or companies, but with all of the talk about GPS and navigation systems as presents this year, we had to jump in.
The best site online for information, reviews and deals on navigation devices is Personal Navigation Device Reviews. The site is kind of plain, but […]

Navio Systems has closed its second round of funding with $25.4 million of venture funding.

Navio sells multimedia networking software to media companies that allows subscribers to buy, share, download, store and access content while protecting the content. Their technology can be integrated into customers’ storefronts through the internet, mobile devices and peer-to-peer networks. It also allows customers access and redownload their purchased content when they lose or upgrade their devices.

Lead participants in this round were the WK Technology Fund and VantagePoint Venture Partners.

The Wireless Association (CTIA) has announced plans to adopt a voluntary content guideline system, similar to the ESRB, to “proactively provide tools and controls to manage wireless content offered by the carriers”.
The system will not only provide ratings for content but will also allow parents to block access to particular content on their […]

The Walt Disney Internet Group (WDIG) is acquiring Living Mobile, a European mobile game developer and publisher, as part of its ongoing strategy to expand its footprint in the mobile games category.
Disney first entered the mobile market in Japan through a deal in August 2000 with NTT DoCoMo which propelled its to become the number […]

MFORMA, a publisher of mobile entertainment, has raised $30 million in its third round of institutional financing. Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) led the round of financing, which included participation from existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and General Catalyst Partners.

New research from TNS shows that mobile users across the world want one thing from device manufactures – better battery life. Consumers are definitely interested in converging devices and new features, but as we pointed out with phones capable of playing music, consumers will not accept these new features at the expense of battery life.

TNS asked 7,000 mobile users in 15 countries regarding their preferences for device capabilities and features. Over 75% of respondents said better battery life is the main feature they want from phones, PDAs and similar devices.

For converged devices (with a phone), the top required feature in 14 of the 15 was “two days of battery life during active use”. In China, the 15th country, respondents most requested “20 Gigabytes of memory” as the key feature in the future. Along the same lines, battery life was listed as one of the top reasons “consumers do not use games, music, and TV applications on their mobile more frequently”.

Carl Geppert, the Communications & Media National Sector Leader for KPMG, gives a great overview of the growing problem of billing and tracking for carriers as sales of mobile content increase in a new article.
Carriers setup their internal tracking systems to handle consumers’ usage of one type of product – voice minutes. To a […]

Jamster!, a provider of mobile content, is offering a new service that allows parents to enter a mobile phone number to prevent content from being downloaded to that phone.
Jamster! has received quite a bit of attention in the past for being both widely successful and widely controversial. Youths know the company as a frequent […]

At the Digital Hollywood conference today, MobiTV announced that it has 500k subscribers across all carriers offering its service. MobiTV offers mobile video/TV on several U.S. carriers, through two carriers in Canada and on Orange in the UK.

This may seem like a small number of total users, but it is a respectable start for a new content service that has only recently entered the market. Using the $9.99 per month price charged for the service on Sprint as a benchmark, carriers are already receiving $5 million per month ($60 million per year). Estimates have not been released yet for the revenue share paid to MobiTV or to networks for content.

Nintendo has been the single most dominant force in mobile console gaming with its various GameBoy models and the newer DS (no offense to our Sony comrades, but you are still new to the area). However, we have heard almost nothing from the company in the mobile non-console market (e.g. cellphones).

Nintendo has corrected that and taken the first step into mobile content outside of core gaming devices by creating Nintendo Mobile. Nintendo Mobile will begin by offering sounds and graphics related to the Super Mario series and upcoming Nintendo games, but we can only hope that mobile games will soon follow.

Consumers on NTT DoCoMo will have the first access to the new offering on October 17th, with releases on KDDI on October 20th and Vodafone on November 1st. Some content will be free, but most initial content will be available for a subscription of ¥210 ($2) per month.

KT Corporation, Korea’s largest fixed-line telephone and high-speed internet provider, continues to invest in an attempt to transform itself into a multi-media industry group. KT Corp. has just acquired 51% of Sidus FNH. Sidus FNH is the largest filmmaker in South Korea. This follows an 8 billion won ($7.8 million) June investment in a 30 billion won movie investment fund established by Show Box, Korea’s second-largest movie distributor. Analysts also believe that KT is currently negotiating a contract with Walt Disney to distribute the company’s content through mobile channels.

Nam Joong-soo, KT’s newly appointed CEO, told reporters that “contents, handsets and networks will be converged, putting the focus on customers.’. He also said that the company will invest 10.4 trillion won ($10 billion) between now and 2010, with 7.8 trillion won being used to strengthen South Korea’s telecom infrastructure and 2.6 trillion being spent on new growth areas.

[…]

Content companies and telecoms in Europe and North America need to keep a close eye on the consolidation and developments in the content and distribution within South Korea. For good or bad, South Korea’s increased combination of content and distribution will help accelerate the market by removing discussions over pieces of the value chain. This may not be the best for the overall market, but it is sure to provide a consumer test bed for consumers’ opinions on digital content and access technologies.

In continuing our recent coverage of the mobile music sector, we found a truly interesting article from MobileMentalism (MM).

MM makes some great points about how device convergence is different for the mobile phone is different for the camera than for the portable music player. In the case of digital cameras, stand-alone cameras still offer an advantage over their camera-phone counterparts at the same price. This leaves a place for both combined and stand-alone cameras in the market.

Music capable cellphones though offer almost the same functionality as stand-alone music players such as iPods and Mp3 players. While this is true, battery life is still a major concern for consumers in the phone market. The devices may have the same capabilities, but the functionalities are very different.

Nic Fildes from the Dow Jones recently wrote an interesting article on the shifting advertising practices of European mobile phone companies.
Mobile companies have historically spent the largest amount of their marketing budgets on sponsoring sporting events and sports teams. However, this may be changing as these companies are drastically increasing the advertising budgets for […]

Reports on the mobile industry from around 2000 predicted that adult content on mobile devices, as well as mobile content in general, would be key revenue sources for mobile phone operators. The industry has seen exceptional content revenues from ringtones and SMS but has only seen modest development in other areas of mobile content. […]

Vindigo and Zingy were both acquired by the Japanese mobile content company For-Side.com last year. For-Side.com representatives have talked for months about the possibility of rolling up U.S. operations under the Zingy brand, and the consolidation of Vindigo appears to be the first step. It is unclear of additional For-Side companies such as […]