Blogging network Shiny Media is teaming up with Mobizine producer Refresh Media
to produce four Germany 2006 World Cup mobile blogs, which will be
available to view on the majority of UK mobiles from 8 June. In
addition, sports fans are being offered the chance to have their own
content included in a Mobizine, by submitting a 300-word entry about
their ideal World Cup blog to a dedicated website.
The 20 best entries will be unveiled online on 24 May, with four winners being chosen by a vote of
visitors to the site. The four winning bloggers will
have their content produced and published by Mobizines, with the best
blog comments also being carried by Shiny Medias World Cup fanzine Who Ate All The Bratwurst.
Mobizines enable mobile phone users to receive snack-sized versions of their favourite content on their phones in a rich, colourful format . There are currently 17 live Mobizine titles, from traditional publishing brands including Conde Nast, the BBC and Time Out.
Each Mobizine costs just a few pence, and once downloaded, can be read without a network connection. The consumer can read each Mobizine as often as he or she likes at no extra cost. Each edition is automatically updated when the next edition is published.
Mobizines operate on the Symbian OS, (using Macromedia Flash Lite technology) and on
Java-based mobile handsets. Each handset can store multiple Mobizines, up to a maximum of 50 on some models.
Shiny Media is one of the fastest growing media companies in the UK. Its blog network presently has 20 blogs in many key areas tech, fashion, TV and sport which between them attract 1.1 million unique users per month.
The companies are describing their partnership as: the first to take citizen journalism to the mobile platform, enabling contributors to find an audience via mobile phones in the same way as they can via traditional blogs.
Shiny Media founder Ashley Norris says:
This is an exciting opportunity for wannabe mobile bloggers to get involved with the latest technology in the sector and make their publishing debut via Mobizine. Shiny Media has a commitment to moving away from the traditional blog model and innovating wherever possible. Our partnership with Refresh Mobile will allow us to use Mobizines to make our blogs mobile.
For Refresh Mobile, CEO Scott Beaumont adds:
Mobizines give a mobile audience to people with something to say and everyone has an opinion on the World Cup. By becoming the first blogging network to go mobile, Shiny Media is enabling fans to stay in touch with the latest news and views from Germany 2006 wherever they are. In the long-term, the Shiny Media and Mobizins partnership is the first step towards the uptake of widespread mobile citizen journalism.
