cingular to launch iTunes phone?

link to reuters article suggesting that motorola and cingular are working out final revenue sharing details on the much-talked about iTunes phone.

My personal opinion on this is that there are a lot of crappy mp3 phones starting to inundate the market -- apple and motorola had best be sure that the iTunes phone is that perfect mix of consumer friendliness and and chic design, or else I think it might get forgotten.

Word on the street is that the phone, as it currently stands, is not all that hip / cool / whatever.

mobile gaming innovation

here's an interesting "industry" talk given by Qualcomm's Mike Yuen at this year's MEM conference in London. Starting with a quick history of innovation in the games market, from pac man to super mario to GTA, Yeun moves into talking about mobile games (quoted from article below):

"it's like the beginning of the gaming market, but all over again". Yuen is a firm believer that the growth explosion of increasingly sophisticated handsets, and higher customer expectations will force all developers to find new ways of thinking about mobile game design.

Urging developers to consider mobile from the outset, Yuen continued to identify six design considerations that would lead to the mass adoption that so many publishers covet. Leveraging mobile DNA and utilising the uniqueness of the platform, incentivised play, pre-launch teaser content, loyalty programmes, viral marketing and, most importantly, integration with other traditional gaming platforms.

read the rest here

so much going on

so much happening in mobile sphere these days...

2 recent interesting articles:

this one is about how mobile carriers may start integrating wifi into phones to counter "dead spots" by using voip -- seems interesting but a slippery slope for them to start offering these cheaper services.

this one is another look at how now that mobile content is getting to a certain breaking point, the carriers are having to rethink their business models, specifically the slow decline of their portals vs. MVNO stuff. Basically, this article is saying that big music labels no longer want to let verizon, et al take a huge cut of their downloads for stuff like ringtones, etc., and feel that their brands are strong enough to drive consumer demand -- they don't think they need the carriers anymore to generate revenue.

This is just another trend that is going to eventually break the "walled garden" and make the mobile content space much more open and participatory.

mobisodes in duke city shootout

article from the hollywood reporter about the upcoming christopher coppola film fest duke city shootout and the emergence of mobisodes as a viable new filmic medium.

mobile album

huh. this chinese songstress just released an entire album exclusively to mobile phones...

maybe the new coldplay single should have been released to mobiles -- then perhaps it would have beaten out that horrible frog thing.

link