PavingWays

I found an interesting list of the most downloaded mobile games in the UK.

Top 10 mobile games downloaded in the UK in July:

•    1. Tetris — EA Mobile / Blue Lava Wireless
•    2. Sonic the Hedgehog: Part One — Sega/Glu Mobile
•    3. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 — EA Sports / EA Canada
•    4. Worms — THQ / Kiloo
•    5. My Dog — I-play / I-play
•    6. Street Fighter II — Capcom / Capcom Mobile
•    7. The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo — I-play / I-play
•    8. The Sims 2 — EA Mobile / Ideaworks3D
•    9. Ms Pac-Man — Namco Mobile / Namco Networks
•    10. Blockbusters — Player X / Qbranch Wireless

source: http://www.moconews.net/uk-top-10-mobile-games-july.html

Top 10 mobile games downloaded in the UK in June:

•    1. Tetris — EA
•    2. Worms — THQ
•    3. Sonic The Hedgehog — Sega/Glu Mobile
•    4. FIFA World Cup Germany — EA
•    5. The Sims 2 — EA
•    6. Who Wants to be a Millionaire 2nd Ed — Glu Mobile
•    7. Championship Manager 2006 — Eidos
•    8. The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift — I-play
•    9. Block Breaker Deluxe — Gameloft
•    10. Monopoly — Glu Mobile

source: http://www.moconews.net/uk-top-10-mobile-games-june.html

Today we received an interesting newsletter from 1&1 Internet AG, a German ISP. 1&1 now offers a Pocket Web Flat for 9.99 EUR per month (powered by Vodafone). There are no time or volume limitations and no additional basic fee, the offer is valid until 30 September 2006.

The service comes with a mobile handset that lacks the ability to make regular phonecalls, except if you are using a bluetooth headset (and pay from 0.29 EUR/Minute) and can therefore be best described as a PDA with phone abilities. However it supports push E-Mail and sports a webbrowser which is “optimized for the mobile internet”. It also has a calendar and a contact manager installed. There are no further information available about the platform or the software, so we will probably have to buy one of these to get more info.

Probably this whole offer is Vodafone’s way to get real-life data about people using the mobile internet and to figure out if they could offer a mobile flatrate within their own data plans. At the moment what you get from Vodafone for 9.95 a month is 30MB and that’s not a lot and quite a difference to a real flatrate or other offers - BASE offers a mobile flatrate for 25.00 EUR / month, but only if you are a BASE customer which makes another 25.00 EUR / month for  the voice service (also flat).

So let’s hope the test works well and we’ll see the mobile flatrate available as regular data plans soon.
For more information see http://pocketweb.1und1.de

What is the current level of usage and consumer interest for data services?

What is important to consumers, both for mobile and voice services?

What implications can be drawn from usage differences between segments, geographies or even between the distinct customer bases of operators and device manufacturers?

These questions were examined in the 2005 A.T.Kearney Mobinet study, which is an assessment of global consumer trends in mobile usage. By interviewing mobile users in 21 countries the company researched the degree to which consumers are adopting mobile data services.

Mobile phones - only for making phone calls?

Nearly 60% of the customers expect to use their mobile phone to make the majority of their calls over the next year. Only 4% of consumers expect to use VoIP for the majority of their calls next year. Alarmingly a significant number of consumers are not convinced that their mobile operator should offer anything more than basic voice service. The majority (80%) of the 65-year olds (or older) reject data services compared to 25% of the under 24-year olds. Probably one reason for this is, that older people are more afraid of new technologies/services.
Another important aspect is the price. 70% of mobile phone users see the price as the primary factor in choosing operator.

What is the current level of usage and consumer interest for data services?

Because the penetration of data-enabled, multimedia phones has increased to 53%, more consumers across all age groups are adopting mobile data services. Most of them (56%) use it (more…)

Our hosting company (Schlund) informed us about the .mobi time frame:

Sunrise Phase 2 (Trademark Sunrise)
=================================
Start/End: 12 June - 22 September 2006
Duration: at least 2 years, after that yearly renewal

Landrush Phase (Live Registration with increased pricing)
=====================================
Start/End: 26 September - 10 October 2006
Deadline: 26 September 2006
Duration: at least 2 years, after that yearly renewal

Live Phase
==========
Deadline: 11 October 2006
Duration: at least 2 years, after that yearly renewal

For more information see our earlier post.

Jeff Barr of Amazon has just finished his talk about all the APIs and web services of Amazon and Alexa. That means d.construct 2006 has officially started.

For those who saw Jeff’s presentations at e.g. Xtech earlier this year, there was not much new stuff to be heard, except maybe the EC2 service of Amazon. The EC2 is sort of a root server providing on demand offered by Amazon for 0.20 $ per hour. This would mean you pay about 144 USD per month for a decent root server. Not really cheap, but since the service works on a on-demand basis and you only have to pay when you are actually using the server it might be an interesting alternative to renting a real server.

The service is in beta testing still and Jeff mentioned that it might be hard to get in right now, but he promised the situation will improve soon. Maybe we’ll give it a try.