Editor’s Note: RCR Wireless News goes all in for “Throwback Thursdays,” tapping into our archives to resuscitate the top headlines from the past. Fire up the time machine, put on the sepia-tinted shades, set the date for #TBT and enjoy the memories!
MySpace video goes mobile
Move over YouTube. MySpace lovers can now access video from the social-networking monster on their handsets. MySpace, along with video technology vendor RipCode, announced that MySpace mobile users can view all MySpace video content on compatible phones. “Video is a natural next step for us in mobile,” said John Faith, VP and general manager of Mobile for MySpace, available at m.myspace.com. “MySpace will continue to grow our video library as we increase delivery channels in order to keep pace with our users’ accelerating desire for video consumption.” Though MySpace mobile video will be rolled out globally, the service will only be available on select RTSP-streaming enabled mobile devices. This means Apple Inc.’s 3G iPhone, which supports progressive downloads, will be left out. But, because the videos are also streaming, users won’t be forced to sit and wait for enough of the video to be downloaded in order to start watching. Compatible devices for MySpace mobile video include the BlackBerry Bold, Palm Inc. Centro, Motorola Inc. Q9, LG Electronic Co. Ltd. Voyager, Nokia Corp. N95 and the Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. Instinct. … Read more
BlackBerry Curve, iPhone top most popular phones list
Editor’s Note: The following lists ranks the 10 most popular handsets in the United States for the month of October. Rankings were provided by AvianResearch L.L.C. The firm derives its ranking via its Monthly Retail Store Survey, which is based on responses from 100 service representatives and store managers at retail stores of the four major U.S. wireless carriers (AT&T Mobility, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel Corp. and T-Mobile USA Inc.). The survey is designed to be reflective of the U.S. wireless market from both a carrier market share and geographic standpoint. Collectively, AvianResearch said the four largest carriers represent 85% of the U.S. wireless market on a subscriber basis. For the purposes of this list, RCR Wireless News has added carrier information beyond the four largest carriers surveyed by Avian. Research In Motion Ltd. has held the top spot on the ranking for five straight months, with the BlackBerry Pearl topping the list in April, and the Blackberry Curve dominating the list from May through October. … Read more
Nokia shows Ovi some love
Nokia Corp. continued to build out its Ovi service with new e-mail and instant messaging solutions as well as an enhanced mapping offering. The handset-maker-cum-Internet-services-company unveiled Mail on Ovi, an online portal that offers 1GB of storage space and spam filters for Ovi e-mail account holders. A beta version of the service is slated for global rollout later this year in 12 languages including English, Spanish, Portuguese and French; a Web version will launch in February. Another new service, Nokia Messaging, will allow instant messaging users to access services such as AOL Mail, Google Talk, Gmail, Windows Live Hotmail and Yahoo Mail and Messenger. Nokia Messaging will launch in the first quarter of next year in Australia, Singapore, Venezuela and five European countries through a free, limited-period beta trial. Nokia also upgraded its navigation service, adding features such as high-resolution aerial images, 3-D landmarks and a route overview. The combination of Nokia Maps and Ovi enables users to plan journeys at home on desktop computers and synch them with mobile handsets. … Read more
Clearwire WiMAX JV with Sprint erases Xohm
With a $3.2 billion in investment from its new partners, Clearwire Corp officially closed on its joint venture with Sprint Nextel Corp. to offer WiMAX services under the Clearwire name. Mobile WiMAX services will from now on be branded as “Clear,” ultimately replacing Sprint Nextel’s Xohm service name, which Sprint Nextel used when launching its WiMAX services a few months ago in Baltimore. The company also announced its accompanying marketing tagline, “Let’s Be Clear.” Partners contributing the more than $3 billion to the new company are Comcast Corp., Intel Corp. through Intel Capital, Time Warner Cable Inc., Google Inc. and Bright House Networks. Clearwire also said it will receive an additional investment of $10 million from Trilogy Equity Partners in the coming months. Clearwire leadership largely will stay intact under the new company. Benjamin Wolff, who touted the WiMAX promise at this year’s WiMAX World, will continue his position as Clearwire’s CEO and Perry Satterlee will retain his position as the company’s COO. The company will also inherit some Sprint faces; Barry West, CTO at Sprint Nextel, will be president and chief architect of Clearwire, while Atish Gude, SVP of Sprint’s Xohm unit, is now SVP and CMO of Clearwire. Under the terms of the transaction, Sprint Nextel contributes its entire 2.4 GHz spectrum holdings to Clearwire, thus the WiMAX venture will have more than “100 MHz or more of optimal 4G spectrum in most markets across the U.S.,” according to the company. … Read more
What would you take to a desert island: TV or cell phone?
Best Buy Co. Inc. has recently taken a deeper step into the wireless industry. The retailer sells 90 different handsets from nine different carriers in its stores and recently began opening standalone Best Buy Mobile stores. The company also completed a mobile life survey to find out what was most important for its wireless customers. Scott Moore, VP of marketing for Best Buy Mobile, said its Best Buy Mobile partner U.K.-based CarPhone had been administering this survey for the past five years and this year was the first go at it in the United States. Moore said what stood out most in the results was the generational effects. “There is a different way that baby boomers view and use technology from Gen Xers and millennials,” Moore said. “For example, if going to a desert island and they could bring one thing, baby boomers’ one thing is television. For millennials, it’s absolutely not about television, it’s about the mobile phone, while Gen Xers were somewhere in the middle.” In fact, the results found that if millennials (ages 11 through 18) were asked to give up either their television or cellphone they were twice as likely to give up their TV. And while only 7% of the total sample sends over 16 text messages per day; 1 in 5 millennials does the same amount of texting. When asked about what would be an ideal phone, responses were also mixed. … Read more
MVNOs face tough holiday season
Mobile virtual network operators will likely join the ranks with most Americans facing a tough holiday season with mixed forecasts as to whether MVNOs will come out strong or gasping for breath. Tole Hart, analyst for Gartner, thinks the next few months will be tough on MVNOs, indeed, as it will be tough on many other consumer goods and services. “The silver lining is that they are prepaid so people may look to use these services as they budget more, but ARPU should be impacted due to more spending restrictions,” Hart said. Hart noted that MVNOs have been getting creative lately, trying to mimic top national carriers. However, in times like these, it might be best for the operators to stick to their roots, offering prepaid, cheap and no-contract based plans to potential customers. Cato Rasmussen, head of solution strategy for Martin Dawes Systems, an international provider of services to help set up and run MVNOs, said this might be the perfect time for a new MVNO to enter the market and try its luck, even while many U.S. MVNOs have tanked in the past few years. “Big brands don’t guarantee success,” Rasmussen said. “MVNO success doesn’t appear to come from spending millions of dollars on high-profile ad campaigns or acquiring “premium” content. It comes from careful investment, market research, targeted marketing and finding the right partner.” … Read more
AOL users search most for ‘MySpace’
On-the-go consumers are using their phones to stay connected to their social networking communities, according to new data from AOL. The portal said MySpace was the most popular mobile search term this year, followed in order by AIM, iPhone, MocoSpace and Facebook. Other popular search terms included Craigslist, weather, MapQuest and Match.com. MySpace and Facebook also ranked among the top 10 search terms last year. … Read more
Check out the RCR Wireless News Archives for more stories from the past.
