Matt Kapko

Did you get a text message or e-mail from the Barack Obama campaign late Friday night (on the West Coast)? I didn’t and I’m supposing a few others didn’t receive one either. Earlier this month the campaign said the vice president pick would first be announced via SMS and email. Instead the choice came to us through more traditional means, such as the LAT Top Of The Ticket blog where I first caught the news. Sure, it’s a blog, but it’s also the LA Times. The leak from a “Democratic official” up-ended whatever power SMS and email might have wrested from traditional media as a mass communication tool in politics. The Obama campaign planned to do a first for SMS and it didn’t happen. If the leak was authorized — which seems likely since cable news networks and news outlets were confirming the news directly within minutes — did the Obama campaign abandon the first-of-its-kind plan to break the news via SMS and email or did it simply fail on the backend? After all, this wouldn’t be the first problem we’ve encountered with breaking news text alerts.

Update: Well, the Obama website has finally been updated. And here’s some of the text message we received at 12:58 a.m. (PT) Saturday, almost three hours after the news first broke: “Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee.” The email from the campaign finally arrived in our inbox at 8:43 a.m. (PT) Saturday although some people received it at least six hours before then. Ironically, One.org sent us the news in an email at 12:29 a.m. (PT) Saturday, before the campaign’s text message or email arrived.

When it comes to Olympics coverage on the mobile phone, the best Olympics coverage hands-down was found at mobile.NBCOlympics.com.  That’s likely not surprising given NBC’s exclusive rights to the game, but it’s the kind of experience that may turn first-time visitors into long-term mobile users. Today’s review is part of a series we are conducting during the Olympics, which is expected to be one of the biggest digital events ever. Last week, we reviewed the general sports WAP sites from ESPN, CBS, NBC and Fox. In that comparative review we gave the gold to ESPN while NBC tied for the bronze with CBS. The Olympics-focused site easily picked up the baton where NBC’s generic sports Wap site lacked content. For the purposes of this review we tested mobile.NBCOlympics.com on the browser of a Nokia E71.

Features: At the top of the page, NBCOlympics highlights a couple of feature pieces that include photos and text stories. Sitting below that are three news headlines, a link for more stories and then a section of 10 categories where the fun really begins. The categories include: medal count, results and schedules, TV and online listings, video, photos, top stories, team USA, inside the sport, about Beijing and polls.  Some of the categories like medal count are pretty straightforward, but quickly get the point across. The TV and online listings are a great resource for those of you like us who are depriving themselves of sleep to make sure they don’t miss a tape-delayed competition they badly want to see. The TV schedule information has much more detail than what most cable providers are offering in their guides. Aside from video clips, which we’ll address below in more detail, we particularly liked some of the basic, yet informative sections on China and the various competitions underway in Beijing. Did you know, for example, that Tiananmen Square is the size of 75 football fields or that China only has one time zone? The photo galleries were also fun, but they didn’t keep our attention for long.

Video: This is what sets NBCOlympics.com apart from its other U.S. mobile competitors. Having locked up exclusive U.S. rights to the games, NBC can’t do enough with all the video available as far as we’re concerned. We’ll always want more, so keeping that in mind NBC has done a pretty good job when we look at this through the mobile lens. It was a little hard searching for specific videos, even though there wasn’t a ton of inventory. NBC broke videos down into categories ranging from sport type to date and popularity. We’re not sure exactly where the fault lies on this, but this was some jerky video that often became too pixilated to make out anything distinguishable. We tested the site over a WiFi connection so we know it’s not the carrier network. The video clips varied from more than 7 minutes for the Daily Olympics Recap to less than two minutes for snippets on single competitions or interviews. The site gets credit for having video, but the quality can’t top either SlingPlayer Mobile or MediaFLO, but those are in different leagues all together.

Ads: At the top of the homepage we saw banner ads for GE and Visa and there were pre-rolls for DirecTV in the video clips.

The surprisingly popular iPhone application, Pandora, may not be around much longer. The company, which began online and quickly grew on the mobile front, lets users sample new music and create personalized radio stations that recommend other songs and artists based on hundreds of musical attributes. This is some potentially sad news for music fans who like their music free, but don’t want to risk the recording industry’s wrath. Pandora founder Tim Westergren has turned up what can only be seen as a lobbying effort in an interview with the Washington Post. Pandora is “approaching a pull-the-plug kind of decision,” a potential “last stand for webcasting” as royalty fee increases begin to take hold. It’s clear he wants legislative support — and if that can be helped by spurning a coordinated outcry from the company’s million-plus users who listen to Pandora daily so be it. “We’re losing money as it is,” he told WaPo. “The moment we think this problem in Washington is not going to get solved, we have to pull the plug because all we’re doing is wasting money.”

There are some dire economics standing in the way of web radio. Last year, the Copyright Royalty Board ordered per-song performance royalties to be more than doubled for use online. Rates will increase from 8/100 of a cent per song per listener to 19/100 of a cent per song per listener by 2010. Pandora’s royalty fees this year are projected to hit $17 million, about 70 percent of its projected revenue for the year. The fee increases don’t effect traditional or satellite radio, but SoundExchange, an organization that represents artists and record companies, is trying to up those rates as well.

Pandora makes most of its revenue by placing ads on its website. Currently, no commercials run between songs, but the company plans to start airing brief sponsor ads in the audio feed — a la NPR. “We’re funded by venture capital… They’re not going to chase a company whose business model has been broken. So if it doesn’t feel like it’s headed towards a solution, we’re done.” Read more at paidContent, our sister site.

In our second  of a series (first is here) of reviews on mobile content from the Olympics, we took a look at the major sports news sites – ESPN, NBC Sports, CBS Sports and Fox Sports – to see which is providing the best mobile experience on their mobile site’s homepages. Using a Nokia E71 and Nokia’s web browser, we compared each of the companies’ mobile WAP sites to determine which gave more credence to the global competition and how each presented Olympics-related content on a mobile phone. Albeit richer experiences can be had outside the constraints of WAP, results we encountered for purposes of this review were disappointing. Most notably, there was no video to be found on these sites. Keep in mind that we’re only comparing each of the main sports news homepages and not the specialized sites that have been launched in tandem with the games. Still, we expected to find at least some video. We’re awarding ESPN with the gold medal because it offered the richest, deepest and most visually appealing of the four sites we visited.

Gold: ESPN

– Features and overall review: ESPN beat out the competition mostly because it seemed to be the only site developed for mobile phones built in the last two years. At the top of the page, you see photos of the U.S. mens swimming team, analysis, scores and schedules and a series of Olympics-related headlines. You can track down medal counts by sport and then deeper in the site you encounter sections dedicated to different sports at the games that include news headlines and more detail. The site also presented an Olympics sport guide, overview, a section titled “Beijing Experience” and a detailed Olympic history section. So needless to say, I learned a few things about Taekwando and enjoyed reading through some of the history of the games, noting gaps in competition during both World Wars. ESPN also has a simple Olympics trivia section – I went two for five, and by pure luck.

– Ads: Bank of America and Tropic Thunder both had banner ads sitting at the top of the site on different days.

Silver: Fox Sports

– Features and overall review: Right at the top of the page we encountered a nice-sized photo of Michael Phelps biting ever-so-slightly into his latest gold medal.  Then Fox laid out a series of mixed headlines on the homepage, but there was no separate Olympics category or section. Headlines from the Olympics were mostly aggregated from multiple sources along with a few FoxSports.com stories. Overall, nothing special, but visually pleasing and Olympics coverage got some good real estate on the screen.

– Ads: There were some MSN Mobile-related banner ads, but nothing from outside advertisers that we saw.

Bronze: NBC Sports

– Features and overall review: NBC has built a separate site, NBCOlympics.com, for all of its Olympics coverage, which we plan to review in a more detailed review next week. But for this review, we’re only looking at NBC Sports’ mobile site, which is pretty basic compared to some of its competitors. Other than the banner ad linking to its separate Olympics site there was no mention of the games on the main page. The Olympics didn’t even qualify for one of the categories the site uses to organize sports news headlines under. Headlines are simply mixed together in a general section. Disappointing overall for the outlet that has exclusive rights to Olympics coverage for the U.S. market.

– Ads: There were two banner ads for NBC Sports and its Olympics site and then one for a ringtone company.

Bronze: CBS Sports/Sportsline

– Features and overall review: Not a single mention of the Olympics on CBS Sports Mobile main page and nothing under its menus and categories. Only after clicking on “more headlines” did we pull up a few Olympics-related stories. After searching specifically for “Olympics,” the site returned more than 100 links to news articles aggregated from various news outlets.

– Ads: There was a banner ad for the Hampton, and then banner ads for a few CBS properties.

Sirius XM might be making its first play as a combined platform on the iPhone, according to Orbitcast. This would be the first time programming from the two could be accessed together. The iPhone application called StarPlayr, which is being developed by GeeksToolBox, could be released months before Sirius XM sells its first receiver capable of pulling content from both Sirius and XM. The company has hinted at numerous combined programming options but post-merger details are still scant.

Sirius XM is trying to diversify its revenue streams as car sales drag. Until only recently, it was hard to imagine the day when Apple would let any potential competitor to its iTunes service on the App Store and millions of potential iPhones. Apple is now partnering with numerous services that stream music, but this would be the first built around a subscription model. How will Sirius XM package the content on the iPhone? Will non-existing subscribers get to purchase monthly access to Howard Stern for $5? Or will it even offer access to its premium content on the iPhone? If not, it’s hard to imagine the company will gain many new paying customers from a platform that already offers similar choices for free. Sirius and XM have offered limited online and mobile access to their programming for years now. XM set up its mobile shop on AT&T while Sirius went with Sprint. As with the online access offered by both companies, programming is mostly limited to the music channels and some talk radio, but no sports or premium content. Aside from exclusive programming, it’s the satellite company’s infrastructure and near-nationwide coverage that’s been its longest-standing selling point. The programming delivered by Sirius XM on mobile and online is streamed purely through the internet and not the more trusty satellite or terrestrial radio infrastructure.

MocoNews has learned that mobile games developer Hands-On Mobile is shedding its European game business six years after acquiring the company. This division, which also covers the Middle East and Africa, will be transferred to an expanded Connect 2 Media, a cross-platform game developer. The business goes right back into the hands of Eric Hobson, CEO of Connect 2 Media, who originally sold the earlier incarnation of the division, Blue Beck Media, to Hands-On six years ago. He left Hands-On earlier this year to join Connect 2 Media. Hands-On will retain a minority stake in the operation, which at the same time is receiving a $6.7 million investment from Acuity. Hands-On injected some cash into the deal, as well, but it was minimal since the deal was mostly pegged around the transfer of its EMEA assets. This follows Hands-On’s sale of its Korean division to EA less than two months ago for $29 million in cash.

Niccolo de Masi, president of Hands-On, explained the move in an interview today: “We’ve been looking at how we can bulk up our distributing ability in EMEA for a while now.” The company had to buy or build in order to achieve that and thinks it’s getting both with this deal. By “rolling ourselves into one vehicle,” the company’s opportunity will grow substantially by getting more boots on the ground and combining each of the parties’ areas of expertise across multiple platforms. “We’ve effectively taken a smaller stake in a much larger entity… We don’t consider ourselves to be selling anything to be honest.” Hands-On wouldn’t disclose how much of a share it gets in the bigger company, but said it retains all the rights that come with being a minority shareholder. Acuity and Connect 2 Media will also be minority shareholders in the newly merged company, leaving no party with a majority share. Hands-On plans to increase its equity in the company through continued investment, De Masi said, adding that exact terms should be cleared up by the end of the year.

Global reach is essentially required for any mobile games publisher to make money off a particular title and to compete with the likes of Glu Mobile and Gameloft, which have large reach and a global footprint. De Masi agreed and said the deal will give all parties a wider reach and expertise on multiple platforms. “We’ve really done this mostly because we’re getting more monetization” out of the titles, he said. As for bringing the division back full circle, De Masi said: “We wouldn’t be doing this if we didn’t have faith in our ability to continue working together.” Terms of the deal that originally brought the business to Hands-On have not been made public and so it’s difficult to say how well the company fared on the acquisition. “Ultimately it’s hard to put a value on those sorts of things. We’ve done well in the short term in our investment in EMEA,” De Masi said.

Korean sale: Hands-On originally bought the Korean business in 2004 under the name MobileGame Korea, which it later re-branded to Hands-On Korea. Following this latest deal, the company’s only other business outside the U.S. is in China, where it admittedly faces difficult regulatory issues. Asked if the company made a concerted decision to focus internally on the U.S. market, De Masi replied: “We are, of course, big believers in the U.S. That’s not to say we’re looking to reduce our exposure anywhere else in the world.” Overall, the company’s strategy is to reach more platforms with its titles, he added.

Verizon Wireless and RealNetworks put on a lunch-time event in West Hollywood today, but hardly anyone showed up – making the intimate affair seem even smaller than planned. The five journalists that did make it to the event were handily outnumbered by the Verizon and RealNetworks employees who were on hand to discuss the Music Without Limits service that launched earlier this summer. Ed Ruth, director of music for Verizon Wireless, said the concept and value of mobile music has always been “amazing,” but the connectivity piece with multiple devices and platforms has been missing. He and many others working on the new service believe this turns the corner on that bottleneck for many consumers. Ruth added that Music Without Limits has taken down the “one-to-many paradigm that exists in music today… In this model it’s brought to you. It’s more of a push than a pull.”

All in all, you could sense a little unease in the room considering the low turnout. The companies have been putting some marketing dollars behind the new initiative and this was clearly an attempt at keeping the chatter going. The room that was booked for the event was small so neither company was planning a big show, but only about half of those that were invited showed up. You’d think a free LG Chocolate 3, a Jabra stereo Bluetooth headset and three months of Verizon Wireless and Rhapsody service would be enough to get people’s attention, but that didn’t pan out. The companies are planning a similar event in New York City Thursday. I get the sense they’re holding out hope for a larger audience. I’ll be checking out the Music Without Limits service over the next few days. Be sure to check back here soon for a detailed review.

Although the company has been hinting at this achievement since April, MobiTV is now officially saying it has four million subscribers. Despite the new heights reached by the Emeryville, CA-based company, its growth seems to be slowing somewhat. It reached three million subscribers last October, but took another 10 months to add that fourth million. It took nearly 30 months for the mobile TV provider to hit that first million after it got off the ground in 2003. The second million came 10 months later and the third million eight months after that. But this fourth million took at least 20 percent longer to reach than the previous million. And no word why the company was talking about reaching this mark many months ago. MobiTV has typically been a bellwether guide for the mobile TV market overall in the U.S. –  one that hasn’t made any big splashes and might even be slowing down in growth.

MobiTV has brought in $130 million in venture capital and there have been whispers about an IPO, but nothing has materialized yet. MobiTV was the top-selling application for AT&T in the first quarter of the year, but the company’s facing increased pressure from newer players like Qualcomm’s MediaFLO USA. As more capable devices enter the market AT&T and Verizon, both of which offer MediaFLO’s broadcast TV service, are starting to hedge more of their bets on MediaFLO when it comes to mobile TV. If MobiTV falls from the carriers’ on-deck graces or gets overlooked in the face of newer technology, it stands to lose much of the growth its achieved thus far. That said, there’s no evidence that MediaFLO is running away with all the prizes. The company declines to report subscriber numbers, but Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs hasn’t hid from the fact it’s taking longer to reach scale than they originally planned. MediaFLO has at least 200,000 subscribers, sources tell us, a small slice of the action MobiTV currently enjoys in much greater numbers. (Release).

Did you feel that? A little before noon today an earthquake measuring 5.4 on the Richter scale rolled through Southern California and sent much of the region’s wireless infrastructure on the fritz immediately after. Countless reports indicate wireless networks experienced temporary outages due to network congestion for at least 90 minutes following the rattler. Some calls would go through while others would drop uneventfully as disruptions continued throughout the area for much of the lunch hour. AT&T spokesman Wes Warnock told us the carrier experienced heavy network congestion immediately after the earthquake, which is to be expected. The company hasn’t discovered any damage to its wireless or wireline networks as a result of the earthquake.

Due to the overloaded networks, customers reported busy signals, error messages or just silence when they tried making a call, LA Times reports. The newspaper’s web site went down due to heavy traffic at one point as well. Sprint said it saw an 800 percent increase over normal call volume for at least 30 minutes following the quake. Verizon Wireless said its calls jumped even 40 percent higher than it predicts for during disasters.

Skyfire threw another hat in the mobile browser ring recently with the launch of its second private beta program. So far the new beta has been pretty limited in reach, but a stroke of luck came my way last Thursday during a break at MobileBeat 2008. That’s when I managed to win an HTC Tilt in a text-in-to-win promotion from the makers of the new mobile browser out of Mountain View, Calif. Within a minute of texting the company’s name to a short code I got a reply telling me a new device running the mobile browser’s second beta was waiting for me.
(published in mocoNews.net)

I’ve been wanting to get some hands-on time with the mobile browser that’s been making lots of promises of late and after a couple days of use, I’m thoroughly impressed. Web pages are loading faster than they would on Internet Explorer, Opera or Safari. Safari comes closest however. The support for Java, Flash and Ajax makes browsing even more PC-like than competing mobile browsers. I checked out a few sites that typically have some problems on Opera, for example, but they’re working fine on Skyfire. Video streams clearly on YouTube although I had some video framing issues when I zoomed in. The browser’s intuitiveness and ease of use is on par with Safari – simple clicks and drags do exactly what you expect them to, zoom and move the page in a smoother fashion. I’ve only used Skyfire on a Windows Mobile touchscreen device, but look forward to installing it on a Nokia (NYSE: NOK) Series60 device soon. The company has raised $17.8 million in venture capital thus far, but it’s still a tough ring its entering and one that’s expected to get even more crowded with the likes of Android in the coming. Still, the capabilities and full web support Skyfire offers are a much needed and welcome addition.