Another month, another catch-up, and once again, it strikes me just what a long time a month is in the fast-moving world of mobile marketing. Those consumers out there just dont know how lucky they are.
In the past four weeks alone, we have seen move magazine Empire make its move onto mobile via a tie-up with Filmnight Digital. We have seen UK company mixipix launch a mobile portal that enables users to send cartoon messages direct from their phone to other handsets. And we have seen the irrepressible ROK Entertainment launch another half dozen of its ROK Chip titles, including Little Britain, South Park and The Office, and still find time to do a deal with China Mobile, the worlds largest mobile phone company, to provide eight Mobile TV channels, three in English, five in Chinese, to the companys 350 millions subscribers, or at least, those of them prepared to pay 3.20 a month for the service.
Add to this the GAME Stores Groups launch of a range of age-rated Java games, H. Bauer and Mobias release of the addictive puzzle, Codebreakers, for the mobile, and Planet Funks announcement that when its latest single, Stop Me launches next Monday, it will be available exclusively via mobile on 3, and you realise that if theres one thing you cant afford to leave home without these days, its your mobile.
And on the subject of cool mobile applications, one of the companies in at the start of the mobile revolution, Shazam, was also in the news this month, when it announced that its awesome music recognition service would be made available as an in-device application – its usually accessed over the air – for Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0-powered Smartphones. If awesome sounds a bit strong, try Shazam out on one of your favourite records. Play the record, hold your phone towards one of the speakers and call 2580 on your mobile, then see what happens next. Like we said, awesome.