Digital & Mobile Media, Content & Applications Archive

Back to Blighty - Land of the Quick Workaround

1/4/2010 2:55:01 PM

Just returned from annual hols to the mother country, insulated from the savage East Coast wind by an extra layer of lard from too many pints, pies and ultra-fat cream. As usual, England impresses as a country teeming with would-be entrepreneurs. Half the people you meet have got some idea for a short-cut, a scam or a start-up; or know someone who’s already doing what you’ve been thinking about on the plane over. It’s like going to Ireland and asking the cabbie for a bookshop recommendation (you’ll wind up feeling like you’ve been hanging out with James Joyce’s brother-in-law), except in England the driver turns out to be an expert on new media and digital business. In San Francisco the limo drivers have got the ...

Full story

Comments (0)

Author TF

Category Enterprise

Tags iPhone New Ventures Creative Networking Entertainment
Red Laser - more than just a mobile wallet, baby

12/3/2009 3:21:11 PM

If Nav has been the killer phone feature of late, M Payments seem set to dominate the conversation next year. Protagonists like Visa and Amex are finally getting their acts together; Paypal is integrated with Blackberry; even Bank of America has a handy personal banking app that may foreseeably allow direct debit; iPhone apps like Zenius enable merchants to process credit card transactions; and today saw Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey showing off “Square”, a card-swipe gizmo that plugs into the headphone jack (sweeeeet!) and syncs with a register on the screen.
There are at least two troublesome issues with most of these innovations. Firstly, why the hell has it taken them so long, given the enormous value to customers and profit to providers that the ...

Full story

Comments (0)

Author

Category Mobile Applications

Tags NFC Applications SMS Smartphone M-commerce
iPhone gets the Gucci treatment

11/6/2009 2:35:49 PM

At last, I have a Gucci app on my phone. It accessorizes handsomely with what I’m wearing. Beautifully designed, of course, and free to download, and some would say, you can’t argue with that. Except that there’s nothing special about being free anymore on the app store, is there? We all know that brands have some ulterior motive in offering free stuff for the phone. Without wanting to sound like a spoilt New Yorker, I’ve got an opportunity cost in checking it out, so What, beyond a cool icon, is Gucci actually going to give me?

Well, for starters there’s the platform extension: pics of the latest collections and videos of their ads, rendered in a sleek mobile interface, and lovely eye candy it is ...

Full story

Comments (4)

Author TF

Category Mobile Applications

Tags iPhone Branding Applications Fashion Lifestyle Music
Classic Poetry by Capelli for iPhone

11/3/2009 9:53:16 AM

Full marks for getting this visibility in the App store - 1000 of the greatest poems make tasty short form content for the ADHD crowd to consume in an idle minute of service downtime. Personally I have always wondered why they choose such odd poems to feature on the subway when the classics still don't get much airplay. These are all public domain of course, so no royalties to pay and at $1.99 to download I hope the publishers can make some money out of this. No doubt you can source it all free online but I'm heavily on the side of the Convenience Economists and reckon this app will help to prove them right.
On the endorsement side, literature generally makes a pleasant bedfellow ...

Full story

Comments (1)

Author

Category Mobile Applications

Tags iPhone Apps Smartphone Lifestyle Entertainment
Hung Up - is your phone a sex toy?

9/16/2009 8:57:20 AM

It’s smooth, it’s curved, it vibrates; it could even, if so desired, animate pictures of George Clooney’s fingers. It’s no surprise then that there are already some 25 “massage” apps competing on the iTunes Store, jostling for attention like so many buxom babes in the back of a local city guide. Some focus on the serious business of physical therapy and raise the bar with yogic text and oriental graphics; others coyly reference ‘emotional stimulation’; few come out and risk the wrath of Apple’s censors by telling it like it is.

Which is, Ladies and Gentlemen (or just you ladies then, since the lads are on Safari searching for visual titillation), a Pocket Rocket you can talk on! A mini orgasmatron that integrates with your ...

Full story

Comments (77)

Author TF

Category Mobile Applications

Tags Humor iPhone Apps Mobile Lifestyle
3-in-1 Mosquito Repeller by Vanilla Breeze for iPhone

7/30/2009 7:43:49 AM

Did you know there are at least 14 mosquito repellent applications on the iPhone store? They all work by emitting sound frequencies that mimic unfriendly insects (largely male mozzies that scare off the females that bite you) and most of them claim to be “Not just another mosquito repellent app!”.
So, which one to choose? Vanilla Breeze 3-1 has probably thought through the differentiation piece the best, with its built-in timer and music overlay, plus 2 types of mosquito sound and a dragonfly thrown in for good measure. Plug the phone into your hifi and before you can say “Buzz Kill” your home could hum like a veritable bug sausage fest. But it’s hard to tell if it works until you actually buy it and ...

Full story

Comments (0)

Author

Category Mobile Applications

Tags iPhone Applications Apps Sport Lifestyle
iHotDog by Cool Carat for iPhone

7/28/2009 11:56:29 AM

Not even going to dignify this geek chic accessory with a thumbnail. There are times when the enthusiastic hand of Riverphonic must clench into the crushing fist of criticism, and iHotDog has got it coming. Has our culture really come to this? A simulated virtual sausage sizzling on your handset, with eye-wateringly fatuous accelerometer controls. According to the App store blurb (which btw is too long and suggests everyone related to this atrocity had far too much time on their hands), this could help you "be the coolest guy at dinner, attract your love date, impress your pal, command attention from girls and women over lunch" (it actually uses those words). And it goes on...
Puhlease Give The World A Break! Try explaining the point ...

Full story

Comments (0)

Author

Category Mobile Applications

Tags Humor iPhone Applications Apps Lifestyle
Balance of Power favors ISPs more than Record Labels

7/27/2009 12:35:54 PM

The most striking point about [last month’s UK] announcement from Virgin Media and Universal Music about the launch of the subscription service is that it has taken so long. Virgin Media says it’ll offer unlimited downloads for around the cost of 2 CDs a month. This is all well and good but comes almost a year after a virtually identical deal between Universal Music and Sky which has yet to result in a live service. So why haven’t more labels signed up, especially with findings such as Music Ally’s that 46% of people would prefer to get music from their ISP?

This is striking because record labels have transformed their attitudes to digital over the last couple of years. They’ve knocked down the protectionist walls ...

Full story

Comments (0)

Author TF

Category Enterprise
Will the Mobile phone be a ghetto-blaster for the micro-blogging generation?

7/20/2009 7:18:00 AM

It’s probably not PC to use the term ‘ghetto’ in anything but an historical context these days. But "ghetto-blaster" has always kinda rocked and - I’m sorry but – lame substitutes like ‘boombox’ simply won’t do. And besides, demographics have a lot to do with it, as you’ll see.

Firstly, why did people stop walking around with ghetto-blasters, like they used to in the 70s? Was it the cost of batteries, combined with the invention of the Walkman, so you no longer had the excuse that it was primarily for your own personal enjoyment and that the showing off and invasion of everyone else’s sound space were simply coincidental? Whatever the case, two decades have gone by and the sight of anyone loping down the ...

Full story

Comments (0)

Author TF

Category Music

Tags Lifestyle Music
Dub Siren by Sawa Digital

7/1/2009 11:29:17 AM

Nuff respek for the tip from da Mighty G, the Riverphonic iPhone just went from zero to dub factor 10 with this excellent mobile radio aggregator, streaming 24/7 from reggae stations around the globe. Studio One to Nuskool Breaks, it's all here at a roll of the dial, with a DJ Selekta FX box for live jammin should you feel so inclined. It works pretty well when stationary and outside, but patchy reception spoils the walkabout listening experience in the city, and as for risking a public performance using the FX tool, yours truly would rather walk over hot coals in a pick tutu on American Idol before going in front of a dancehall crowd relying on AT&T not to drop the signal.
Brand match: ...

Full story

Comments (2)

Author

Category Music

Tags Developers iPhone Applications Apps Mobile Entertainment Music
How fast is your phone? – A bluffer’s guide.

6/16/2009 7:17:09 AM

Spare a thought for those poor iPhoners that woke up recently to the unveiling of the 3GS. Imagine you’ve got the sleekest piece of hardware on the market and then there’s another, better, faster one, with 3 megapix video cam, a landscape fix of the really annoying keyboard, and “2x” the browsing power. Worse still, there’s that S, which stands for Speed, and makes you feel about as inadequate as not having ‘Turbo’ on the back of your black Porsche 911. Which is now a Mazda. And let’s not even talk about the $499 to upgrade, when any old Joe can sign up for a new one for just $199!

Instead, let’s remember last year’s fuss about the iPhone 3G ads vs the real experience (They ...

Full story

Comments (0)

Author TF

Category Digital media

Tags Jargon iPhone WAP Applications Apps Mobile Smartphone Lifestyle
Mobile Analytics for Monkeys Pt 1

6/8/2009 1:34:58 PM

Welcome to ‘Mobile Analytics for Monkeys – Pt 1” - a collaborative study into the evolving economics of Mobile media. It comes in two parts, which readers are invited to contribute to (right here). [* When posting comments, please reference in your opening sentence any comments or key points that you are addressing].

Let’s start from the following premise: Mobile entertainment plus advertising promises to evolve into a multi-billion-dollar industry but so far it hasn’t, and won’t until the insiders do more to clarify it. The flow of mobile ad $ has been stymied by fragmentation of the market, unreliable performance, subjective analytics and other factors to be expected of nascent industries with lots of competing technologies, but Wireless has shown that it can learn ...

Full story

Comments (2)

Author TF

Category Mobile Marketing

Tags Advertising Branding New Ventures Applications Mobile Marketing
iBanter, developed by Poke/Cobra for iPhone

6/1/2009 7:10:00 AM

Those cheeky Brits. Of course it had to happen, and it’s no surprise to see this coming out of the land of classic comedy TV, lager-drinking and curry (three national obsessions that make living in the rain-drenched UK almost ...

Full story

Comments (2)

Author

Category Mobile Applications

Tags Humor iPhone Branding Applications Apps Mobile
SitorSquat, for iPhone & Blackberry

5/1/2009 7:07:00 AM

In many ways, SitorSquat is the ideal archetype for a brandable mobile app. It started online in 2007 as Google Maps mashed up into a wiki for ladies to list convenient & salubrious bathroom facilities. Add time and virality ...

Full story

Comments (0)

Author

Category Mobile Applications

Tags Developers iPhone Branding Social Networking Blackberry Applications Apps Mobile Smartphone Lifestyle
Cor.kz by Applied Ambiguities, for iPhone

4/15/2009 7:04:00 AM

Application: Compare this visually to its worthy-but-ugly online engine Cellar Tracker and no further words are needed to sum up the difference between the fragmented, utilitarian world of internet commerce and the mobile experience at its most tactile, instant ...

Full story

Comments (0)

Author

Category Mobile Applications

Tags iPhone Blackberry Applications Apps Mobile Lifestyle
Why Search on Twitter changes everything, as seen through the window of Last.FM

4/2/2009 8:43:00 AM

What has the virtual landfill of spent Tweets got in common with the deluded output of indie bands who are only listened to by their mothers? Aside from the obvious, complete lack of lasting impact on popular culture, they are both good examples of how the increasingly sophisticated calibration of search engines makes it possible for everyone to be heard.

Last year the 3 guys that founded Last.FM presented in New York and told the story of how the 2 German guys had developed a distribution platform for long tail bands to be heard online, and how they teamed up with the Brit who had developed a search engine for music based on a sort of collaborative filter-meets-recommendation engine built around lists of what the ...

Full story

Comments (0)

Author TF

Category Digital media
Has mobile content become commoditized?

3/24/2009 2:07:00 PM

What is it about the word ‘content’ that makes everyone so sick of it? On the one hand it rings of smugness. Undeserved contentment, like that of some super-sized media exec comfortable in the assumption that consumers will lap up whatever they throw at them. Smug like those fond of saying ‘No one ever went bust by underestimating the bad taste of the general public’. And on the other hand it sounds like ‘product': bland and monolithic, stuff you churn out by the batch. Nothing in there that reflects the passion and risk involved in creating something of lasting value, not like ‘record’ or ‘photo’ or ‘editorial’ or even ‘catalog’. Chris Blackwell (who got very rich betting on the mass appeal of Bob Marley rather ...

Full story

Comments (0)

Author TF

Category Branded Entertainment

Tags Games New Ventures Mobile Entertainment Film
Bow Cam for iPhone

3/20/2009 6:55:00 AM

Application: Plays a selection of dog barks, allowing the user to attract the attention of dogs, rather than whistling, clicking fingers or yelling ‘Hair boy!’ like those Welsh blokes on TV. Could potentially be improved with pictures of chocolate buttons on the screen.

Brand match: This offers a limited amount of content so any brand in the dawg business could get a good scratch behind the ears for offering a range of additional barks. If I had my druthers I’d be programming an ancillary website with Crufts-certified “ringbark tones” and dandy doggie wallpapers for users to assign to different callers. Aunt Sallie, poodle; ex-girlfriend, pug; Dad, St Bernard… you get the picture.

Full story

Comments (0)

Author

Category Mobile Applications

Tags Applications Apps Mobile
03.18.09 @ Dow Jones Wireless Innovation 09. What we didn’t hear last year, Pt 3

3/19/2009 2:06:00 PM

“The world is open to us, and we are open to the world,” Anthony Lewis from Verizon. “I’m just a very easy and simple ramp to what the possibilities might be.”

Full story

Comments (0)

Author TF

Category Digital media
03.17.09 @ Dow Jones Wireless Innovation 09. What we didn’t hear last year, Pt 2

3/18/2009 2:04:00 PM

“What’s different this year is that the carriers are calling us.”

Full story

Comments (0)

Author TF

Category Digital media
03.17.09 @ Dow Jones Wireless Innovation 09. What we didn’t hear last year, Pt 1

3/17/2009 2:02:00 PM

"Downloadable apps are where it’s at.". From J2ME nightmare to Apple App store nirvana.

Full story

Comments (0)

Author TF

Category Digital media
Ocarina by Smule

3/1/2009 9:01:00 AM

Application: This may seem a bit obvious given the massive popularity of this app, but it’s a fitting one to kick off with because it is So F-ing Cool. It’s not just the design and functionality of the app, ...

Full story

Comments (0)

Author

Category Mobile Applications

Tags iPhone Branding Applications Apps Mobile Creative Networking Entertainment Music