Simon Perry

Mobile Media Company Acquires Overload (News release)
News release – Oslo, Norway – January 9, 2006 – The Mobile Media Company, the world’s leading Personal Broadcaster (www.mobilemedia.com) that provides unrivalled one-to-one personal entertainment to mobile communities, today announced the acquisition of Overloaded (www.overloaded.com), a leading developer and publisher of video games for mobile phones and a subsidiary of Endemol (www.endemol.com)
The move further strengthens Mobile Media’s presence in the mobile gaming arena and will present mobile operators and online gaming portals, with access to a rich stream of compelling, high-selling mobile games titles.
As a Mobile Media Company, Overloaded will be a key driver of the company’s global growth strategy developing and producing cutting-edge, made for mobile, interactive games and next generation content.
The Overloaded gaming platform is, worldwide, one of the most advanced and superior gaming platforms and will enable Mobile Media to provide mobile gamers with an exceptional mobile gaming experience.
The acquisition of Overloaded by Mobile Media does not spell the end of a winningpartnership between Overloaded and Endemol.
“Mobile Media is committed to the future of mobile being the 4th screen for information and entertainment,” commented Karsten Hauge, CEO of the Mobile Media Company AS. “We’re already starting to see the growth of new, interactive, mobile-based gaming communities through the launch of next generation networks such as 3G. Mobile is critical for the future of gaming, and mobile gaming is crucial in the promotion of new revenue streams. It is also an excellent stepping stone for Mobile Media to offer other advanced mobile content and services to customers.”
Overloaded develops mobile video games in JAVA, Symbian, BREW and i-mode technologies, with a strong focus on branded game development such as FunkyCops. The company, which markets to both b2b and b2c communities, latterly through its own online games portal www.overloaded.com, currently has agreements to distribute its games in 23 countries through 42 network operators, whose networks serve over 290 million subscribers. Operator customers include Vodafone, T-Mobile, Orange, and 3.
9 January, 2006
Vodafone and Sony NetServices introduce “Vodafone Radio DJ” (News release)
Back in May 05 we did an interview with two senior Sony execs in Europe, Robert Ashcroft, Senior Vice-President of Network Services Europe and Gregory Kukolj, General Manager for Personal Audio Europe. We explored where Sony was, and where it was planning to go. With todays annoucment in mind, it’s probably worth a revisit – The Future of Sony Network Music and Players: Interview
Today, Vodafone and Sony NetServices are announcing a partnership for the global roll-out of the world’sfirst fully convergent music service – Vodafone Radio DJ – offering interactive, personalised radio channelsstreamed to both 3G mobile phones and personal computers.
With Vodafone Radio DJ, customers have access to hundreds of thousands of songs, both current popularhits and back catalogue, from the world’s largest record companies, and many smaller independent labels.Customers can access streamed radio channels, bespoke collections, and channels defined by customersthemselves.
The key feature of Vodafone Radio DJ is its easy-to-use personalization system, which enables customers to”train” the pre-programmed radio channels to their own personal tastes by simply pressing a button toindicate “like” or “dislike” while listening to a song. If a customer presses ‘dislike’, the music skips to the nextsong.
Through Sony NetServices’ detailed classification of each song in the catalogue – analysing beat andharmonies as well as genre and mood – the radio channels that individual customers receive will featuremore songs that have characteristics in common with songs that are liked, whilst avoiding songs withcharacteristics similar to those that the customer dislikes.
The Vodafone Radio DJ service consists of three elements:
- Pre-defined channels. Customers can select a radio channel based on mood or genre. If the customerindicates that they don’t like the song, the channel skips to the next track within the channel. Customers can also buy any songs that they like and these will be automatically available for download to their phone andPC.
- Personal Channels. By rating songs on the existing radio channels, the customer can create a number ofnew, personal channels corresponding to their desired genres, moods or specific themes.
- Collections. Vodafone Radio DJ also presents programmed collections of songs to the customer on mobilephone or PC. These collections will be created by local music experts around a theme (eg Christmas Hits, orthe Best New Hip-Hop), be updated regularly, and will comprise about 15 songs.
Songs purchased on either mobile phone or PC will be available to download on both devices, with aseparate high quality stereo copy being delivered individually to each. Personal settings and personalchannels created on the mobile phone will also be accessible from the PC.
The Radio DJ service will be offered on the basis of a monthly subscription for unlimited listening to music onboth mobile phone and PC. There will be no extra charge to the consumer for the data traffic needed todeliver the music to the phone or PC.
Vodafone Radio DJ will be launched in six European countries in the coming months, namely UK, France,Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain. It will then be rolled out to more than 20 countries worldwide over thefollowing twelve months.
“This is the beginning of a new era in portable music. This partnership with Sony will drive Vodafone’sstrategy to become a leading global music provider. Vodafone Radio DJ is a revolutionary new way todiscover personal music, anytime and anywhere, and we anticipate it will have widespread consumer appealamongst our customers”, said Edward Kershaw, Vodafone’s Head of Music.
“Subscribers to Vodafone Radio DJ can listen to all the music they like, and discover new music to love.Vodafone Radio DJ opens a world of music discovery and listening pleasure on both the mobile phone andon the PC”>
9 January, 2006
MacWorld 2006
9.Jan.06 – 11.Jan.06 Every year there’s big annoucements at MacWorld and this year the expectations are very high. Will the new Intel-based machines be shown, or will it be the rumoured Media Centre? http://www.macworldexpo.com/live/20/
9 January, 2006
AJAX Alert: Opera Browser With AJAX To Sigma CE Chip Range
Web browser company Opera today announce they’re bring their Web browser with AJAX support to chips for use in Consumer Electronics (CE) applications.
It’s not long back that Opera made the decision to give their Web browser away after a long period of charging for it. A very brave and noble act many though – not a bad way to raise your profile we thought.
They’ve been putting their browsers on different platforms for a while, like the mini-browser for mobile phones they brought out back in August 05.
The reasoning behind the give-away move becomes clearer today as they announce that they’ve been working with US chip company Sigma Designs to bring their browser software to embedded hardware via Sigma’s SMP8630 family of chipsets.
Clearly looking to tread on Intel’s toes, Sigma say the SMP8630 family of chipsets can be used in digital media adapters, IPTV set-top boxes and networked DVD players that OEM’s may want to build.
To get to use the browser and the oh-so-desirable AJAX, OEM’s will need to get in touch with Opera to license their Software Development Kit (SDK). Once familiar with it they should be able to create some snazzy application.
So what’s so exciting about embedded Web browsing software? Their supports the darling of the hour buzzword – AJAX.
We’re sure you, dear reader, know what AJAX is, but just incase – it stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. This translates to being able to use a Web browser more like a computer-based application.
The most notable difference from a ‘normal’ Web app is information and updates can be carried out without needing reload the Web page each time. It’s an intergral part of the Web 2.0 landscape.
The most often cited example is Google’s Gmail.
We at Digital-Lifestyles see the rise of AJAX as the event that broke Microsoft’s domination of computers. So pretty significant really.
Expect this news to generate great excitement in the Blog-world.
Opera
Sigma
Opera-related stories on Digital-Lifestyles
5 January, 2006
Google Music Search Launched
Google have thrown the switch on the latest addition to their search results – music.
Searching is either directly to Google Music Search, or if the music/band/song is well enough known, results can also appear in ‘normal’ Google results. Either way, it’s currently only working on the US (.com) site.
Initial music search results are split down to three sections Artists; Album; Songs. The information available is comprehensive.
- Artists not only showing all of their records, but links through to Google images of them; discussions about them on Google Groups; and their site.
- Albums give the break down of each of the tracks, and reviews that are available. A list of where the record can be bought is shown, complete with the comparative price they are charging against the name of the shops. Links to digital delivery sites like Apple’s iTunes and Real Rhapsody are also shown.
- Songs show the start of the lyrics, linking to source for the full versions, links to any other version of the song as well as links to the expected artist information.
15 December, 2005
ITV Buy Friends Reunited: Why?
The Digital-Lifestyles office is in a state of total confusion over major UK broadcaster, ITV, buying the Web Site, Friends Reunited (FR).
Our reaction when we initially heard of the deal was – What? Why? How much!?
It’s been widely reported that ITV is paying £120m + £55m in bonuses for FR. The site that has been running for four years, currently has 12m members and is expected to make revenues of £12.4m this year.
It’s not that we don’t think that businesses should appear to diversify. We’ve been clear that we think eBay’s purchase of Skype was genius. The major difference, beyond the value to the transaction, is that Skype is still growing.
What?
We think that FR has done an amazing sales job on ITV. It’s a site that would appear to be in decline rather than its ascendancy. Their expansion into Genes Reunited, Dating and Jobs Reunited would appear to point to them thinking the same.
If you look at why FR worked, we think it’s because there were generations of school leavers going their separate ways prior to the Internet, leading them a very limited means of contacting their previous peers.
The school leavers departing since the wide use of the Internet, will not have to resort to third-party services – the majority of them will have an online presence, allowing direct contact, if desired.
Why?
ITV are suffering. The business that, when it was launched fifty years ago, was described as a ‘license to print money’ has gradually slipped to a low grade, trashy set of channels. It’s widely thought of as a bit of a joke with appalling programming.
70% of ITV’s revenues come from Ad sales on its flagship channel, ITV1. The word in media circles is that ITV1 is now struggling to sell ads, as the audience generally drops off (the exception to this being their recent reality show, ‘I’m a celebrity, get me out of here’), and goes down market.
ITV do have a huge advertising sales department that has been merged across all of its regions. Bringing FR into this sales force will give better economies for ITV, letting them squeeze additional profits from FR. It will also give ITV the chance of selling adverts across TV and the Web – extracting additional cash from the advertiser.
Another benefit will be letting ITV have access to the 12m members of FR, allowing them to expose the online FR audience to promotion of ITV’s programming, if they’re UK based. Later this can be expanded to on-demand sales.
When we sat around at Digital-Lifestyles to come up with other reasons, one that came up was the possible creation of a programming strand or, heaven forbid, whole channel covering the now-various services of FR. eg reality programming following a group of FR subscribers going through the steps to ‘reunited’, with the trial, tribulations and toe-curingly moments that it would entail.
The question we keep on coming back to is, Is this this really worth £10-£14.50 per FR member?
Even after ITV boss Charles Allen has tried to explain the deals advantages, we’re still not convinced.
This deal brings to mind ITV’s disastrous, misguided huge, £788m investment into ITV Digital – their attempt to take on BSkyB in the UK. The service collapsed in 2002, later to reborn as Freeview.
7 December, 2005
IPTV Asia Forum
Key themes at the IPTV Asia Forum 2005 event will include; Different roll out and launch strategies of Asian IPTV Operators How Asian IPTV operators can clearly differentiate themselves from other pay TV operators New partnerships between operator and content provider; what is the role of IPTV within existing digital TV strategies? New business models emerging around IPTV services; bundling the triple play, what the consumer is prepared to pay for?Hong Konghttp://www.iptv-asia.net/
28 November, 2005
MetroNet Bought By PlusNet in £1.7m UK Broadband Deal
MetroNet, UK broadband ISP, has been purchased by PlusNet in an all cash deal for £1.7m.
MetroNet, who came first in the most recent Which? survey of UK ISPs, happens to be the broadband provider to Digital-Lifestyles HQ. We’ve found them very impressive – the speed of the service is good, the customer services is rapid and responsive and their online software is solid.
MetroNet has grown since their start in 2003 to 16,000 subscribers, turning over £2.1m bringing an operating profit of £40,000 in the year ended 31 March 2005. They have net cash of over ~~£200,000~~ (update, final figures) £400,000. Bearing this in mind, we estimate that each subscriber has been valued at ~~£93.75~~ £81.25.
PlusNet have been running for over eight years, and were, out of interest, 7th in the Which? survey that MetroNet topped. They currently have 150k users.
Speaking to PlusNet about the future of MetroNet, we were told that short term nothing will change. But longer term, as the purchase sinks in, MetroNet subscribers will be moved over to PlusNet network and 24-hour support system. They thought that longer term translated to some time next year.
PlusNet offer a number of services that MetroNet currently don’t, including a SIP-based VoIP system called PlusTalk which connects to other open standard systems like SIPGate.
We, and we assume other MetroNet subscribers, hope that the high quality of service that we’ve received from them continues, without interruption, in the transition to PlusNet.
An interesting feature of the broadband market in the UK is that changing to another provider is relatively painless, which makes it all the more important that a consistently good service is delivered to the subscriber.
MetroNet
PlusNet
28 November, 2005
IE2005: The Second Australasian Conference On Interactive Entertainment
The computer game and interactive entertainment industry is now a multi-billion industry driving new computer technologies and defining a new set of cultural conventions. The lack of game-specific academic conferences has prevented many academics from fully embracing game development as a serious field of study. As a result, although current research in games and interactive entertainment is published in a wide range of specialised conferences/journals, there is limited collaboration between researchers from different academic fields. The Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment is a cross-disciplinary conference that will bring together researchers from artificial intelligence, cognitive science, media studies, drama, HCI, psychology, interactive media, cultural studies, graphics, audio, as well as researchers from other disciplines working on new game specific technologies or providing critical analysis of games and interactive environments. The conference will accept different submission types that present new scientific ideas, improvements to existing techniques or provide a new ways of examining, designing and using computer games. Sydney, Australia http://research.it.uts.edu.au/creative/ie/05/
23 November, 2005
Mesh Networks Discovered By The Mainstream
Mesh Networks are going to grow enormously by the end of the decade, according to ABI research. This ‘revalation’ is following years technical-types raving on about them.
While predicting “stellar growth rate”, they don’t think it will eat into current providers of current infrastructure, but instead new markets will emerge such as alternative service providers, municipalities and college campus’s. Oh and buy happy co-incidence, ABI have a report that you can buy about the subject, “Wireless Mesh Networking: Technologies and Deployment Strategies for Metropolitan and Campus Networks.”
Indeed, at the launch of the One Laptop Per Child event earlier in the week, Nicholas Negroponte explained that Mesh Networking was intrinsic to the success of the project, as many countries it would be used in do not have communication infrastructures.
Mesh Networks explained
Mesh Networks, have been spoken about, and set up by some, for many years. The idea behind it is simple. Each user of the network expands the reach of the network, by letting information pass through their machine to its eventual destination, be that another user of the network, or an external connection.
Using this a small community of people could share a single network connection. The network is ‘organic’ – everyone who uses it, contributes to it.
There are technical challenges. As each person on the network could disappear at any time, the routing of the information needs to be highly dynamic.
At the start of this week, Cisco announced their first Mesh network products, following their purchase of Airespace for $450 million in December of 2004.
ABI Research
18 November, 2005