Mobifun’s Weblog

The restricted size of mobile games files and the relatively poor audio quality on handsets means that the sound of mobile games has been neglected, but that will soon change according to this ZDNet Asia article in Business Week. “The received wisdom until recently has been that mobile games are played in public. And that means, “the first thing people do is turn the sound off,” said [Stuart Dredge, a blogger for mobile gaming site, Pocket Gamer]. “But the rise of music phones like Sony Ericsson’s Walkman series means that more people are carrying headphones with their handset.” At the moment the sound is from MIDI files, which are small and simple, but as files get bigger and handset capabilities improve MP3-style audio files will be used—probably even licensed music. Of course, mobile games are played for a much shorter time than console or computer games so they don’t need as much sound…and at some point people are going to be looking to hear their music saved on the handset while they’re playing, which I’m pretty sure is available in some handsets already.

EJL Wireless Research has predicted that the global mobile advertising market will reach $9.5 billion in gross revenues by 2011, of which the largest segment is expected to be mobile coupons which will bring in almost $4 billion by 2011, or 42 percent of the overall market. Other forms of mobile advertising will include SMS/MMS, search, video, display, sponsored content, ad-supported MVNOs and proximity advertising. The US willl account for about a quarter of the total with a $2.3 billion market, and EJL expects more M&A activy. “We believe that the recent transaction involving Third Screen Media and AOL is the tip of the M&A iceberg for the mobile advertising industry and anticipate and recommend a significant consolidation of the industry to create market efficiencies that will eventually lead to explosive growth,” said president Earl Lum. He also warned of “significant market barriers” including issues regarding 3G services, data plan pricing, ARPU, personal behaviour and a negative advertising stigma. (release)

Telecom companies are once again attracting investment money, with venture capital firms putting $2.6 billion into the telecommunication industry last year according to MoneyTree Report from accounting and research firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Xchange writes that “without question, wireless content is king” and gives a couple of examples to back that up—although it appears to be ignoring the $900 million gained by Clearwire last year.

Anyway, in the last year’s fourth quarter $469 million was invested in the telecom sector, of which “three mobile content aggregators and distributors received a total of $112 million”. Those were Cellfish Media with $50 million, Motricity with $32 million and MobiTV with $30 million. Both Cellfish and Motricity have gained more investment since then