@ CTIA: Mobile Bits: AOL Games; Vringo Calls Facebook; Verizon’s Five Phones; MySpace Mobile Alerts
By Tricia Duryee - Mon 31 Mar 2008 08:38 AM PST
—AOL (NYSE: TWX) Offers WAP Games: AOL plans to announce today that it is offering free WAP-based mobile games to wireless subscribers, so they don’t have to download anything to the phone. Such games as Call of the Pharaoh, Space Wars and Ice Fishing will be provided by Cellufun through AOL’s mobile portal at http://wap.aol.com/games. The free games will be subsidized by ads sold by AOL’s Third Screen Media.
—Ringing Up Facebook photos: Vringo said it will launch a new Facebook application today that lets users import their friend’s photos from Facebook to their phones and syncs them with the appropriate contact. When a Facebook friend calls, their photo will appear on their phone screen as part of caller ID. For now, the app will be free, and available to BlackBerrys Windows Mobile devices.
—Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ) Launches Five New Phones: RIM’s BlackBerry Curve will be available in May on its EV-DO network, and come with navigation service; The LG (SEO: 066570) enV2 (think squared), the successor to the popular enV, will launch with ton of music services and have dual speakers. The phone will be slimmer and come in a black or maroon finish and be available in April; the white XV6900 will be available in April, targeting business users with a touchscreen and Windows Mobile 6; the MOTO Q 9c will also come in April, and be loaded with navigation; and finally Verizon’s launching the Samsung Alias, the successor to the SCH-u74. it will be available mid-April and have a silver finish, a full-QWERTY keyboard when opened horizontally, and will be a normal clamshell when opened vertically.
—MySpace CTIA Presence: MySpace plans to announce today that subscribers of five more carriers will be able to sign up for a text alerts that provides users almost immediate notification of new messages, friend requests, comments and other stuff. Through the help of mBlox, the five new carriers are: Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile USA, Alltel Wireless (NYSE: AT), U.S. Cellular and Virgin Mobile USA (NYSE: VM). MySpace also announced last week that Verizon Wireless users will have direct access to its new WAP site, joining both Sprint (NYSE: S) and Helio. And, the company is saying it will have a presence at CTIA because mobile is not a side business, but its core. By the end of the year, it expects to have a relationship with every major carrier (they must mean in the U.S.).
Posted in: Companies, Microsoft, Motorola, Operators, Cingular-AT&T, MVNO, Helio, Virgin, SprintNextel, T-Mobile, Verizon, Entertainment, Mobile Gaming, Mobile Music, Mobile Video, Mobile TV, Conferences, CTIA
