America Online has made its first mobile content related acquisition (as far as I know)...it has bought out a peculiar company, someone we’ve written about couple of times before (with some amount of ridicule, to tell you the truth): it has bought out Wildseed, a Seattle-based company which develops intelligent faceplates for mobile phones, aimed at the teen market. Terms of the deal, which was closed on Friday, were not disclosed.
The company has also formed a new “AOL Wireless Group” (I thought they always had AOL Mobile group, but oh well...). The unit is now headed by Craig Eisler, the former CEO of mobile app. company Action Engine. AOL also hopes the deal, and the formation of a new division focusing on wireless, will help it to pull ahead of its competitors.
With this Wildseed deal, AOL wants to pre-load functions into a phone so users can listen to music, look at pictures or play games without long waits for applications to be transmitted. Wildseed has developed a snap-on faceplate called ”Smart Skin” that lets users change the personality of their phone from the inside out...The various skins contain memory that alters the content of the phone to match the accompanying skin.
Reuters: While AOL does not intend to create phone operating systems with Wildseed technology, it does hopes to create new applications, such as one to quickly access AOL’s music service on wireless devices
Related:
-- Dobson Debuts SmartSkins
-- Wildseed: a startup on the cusp of success with teens