A Library and Cinema in Your Pocket

Doreen Carvajal for The New York Times looks into "phone soap operas and made-for-mobile dramas that can be absorbed in less time than it takes to flick through a book introduction".

-- One pioneer is Media Republic, an Amsterdam company that is successfully reaching young women with the mobile equivalent of the French "roman photo," a sentimental genre of romantic still photos and text that dates to the postwar period.

-- Dutch users register their mobile phones to follow the adventures of the hormone-driven characters of "Jong Zuid," or "Young South," which is now in production for its fourth season. Customers receive two episodes daily, each with six photographs of well-known Dutch actors and text describing the travails of glamorous young people seeking their fortune in the big city.

-- Media Republic and a partner are to produce a similar English-language version, which will start appearing in Australia this month, using local actors and scenes. Called "My Way," it is calculated to appeal to young women, as did the Dutch phone soap, which attracted 78,000 subscribers, 68 percent of them women, with an average age of about 18.

-- The giant British mobile-phone company Vodafone has struck a partnership with 20th Century Fox to create a made-for-cellphone video series, based on the television show "24," which will start appearing next month in the first of 13 countries.

-- In Japan, major publishers like Shinchosha and Kadokawa Shoten have created Web sites to offer telephone reading material. Japan is also home to probably the most successful telephone venture. Earlier this year a mobile novel jumped from phone screens to the silver screen, evolving into a feature film, "Deep Love."

-- This month Langenscheidt started offering a phone-size flirting dictionary that is its way of promoting international understanding. For about $5, the service offers 600 or so phrases in the chosen language, and practical advice including phonetic pronunciations of polite brushoffs.

-- Related articles on mobile Soap Operas

-- Related articles on SMS novels

The Year in Review and What's Ahead

MERRY CHRISTMAS

I'll be offline for a few days, until Monday December 29.

Best wishes to all of you and your families.

In the meantime, here's a round-up in 10 chapters of mobile news for 2003 and a look at what's ahead in 2004:

2003: Cell Phones - for so much more than just talking

2003: The figures that counted

2003: Cell Phones' Bad Rap

2003: SMS, good for the soul

2003: Some outstanding SMS Services

2003: How people are using camera phones

2003: Best SMS and Camera phone news coverage

2003: Ringtone Medley

2003: Favorite companies

What to look out for in 2004

How people are using camera phones

For Textually 2003 - The Year in Review, here is a round up of the novel ways camera phones have been used this year by individuals and businesses. And as these phones, widely popular, go mainstream, with image quality and picture snapping features improving with the launch of each new model, it is clear we have yet to scratch the surface on how private individuals and businesses will find ways to use them.

-- Women have been taking shots of clothing items in stores, then e-mailing them to friends for instant advice on whether they should buy. And in Japan young girls have taken pictures of hair styles in fashion magazines and sent them off to their friends to know what they think. In this case, admittedly, something referred to as digital shoplifing.

-- On a related note, but business oriented and a very clever marketing idea, the Toni&Guy chain of upmarket hair salons in the UK offers their customers the option to download pictures of hairstyles from a large gallery of photos online, onto their mobile phone. Allowing them discuss their potential new look with family and friends before visiting a hairsalon.

-- At concerts, instead of using lighters, fans raise their cell phones, and snap away - despite the standard ban on cameras - and hold them up so their buddy at home can hear, something referred to as a "cellcert".

-- People have been taking pictures of washing machines or plumbing fixtures that need repairing, then sending them off to the repairman so he'll bring the right parts.

-- Camera phones have been used by real estate agents enabling them to forward pictures to prospective buyers, giving a speedy edge in a competite market.

-- In the same field, a company, RealSafe.net Network , is suggesting real estate agents user their camera phones - not to shoot property - but to snap pictures of their clients (with their permission), as a form of insurance and stored in a secure database, which can only be accessed by court order.

-- At a Welsh hospital, senior doctors are allowing interns to send them pictures of an x-ray, thanks to pioneering mobile phone technology, speeding up the diagnosis and suggested treatment process.

-- And firefighters in Scotland have been equiped with camera phones to send pictures of injuries to doctors by MMS before the patients reach the hospital. Seeing the images beforehand allows the doctors to assess how serious the injury is, allowing for vital treatment in the early stages.

-- Canada's national multimedia news agency offers downloads to mobile phones of images from today's top news stories and sports photo agency Empics has announced the launch of picture alerts of the latest sports news.

-- Readers are contributing to newspapers in new ways with special sections such as "In Pictures" from The BBC Online launched last March, asking readers to send in pictures of newsworthy events to document "their perspective on the world". And in America this year, citizens have contributed to news coverage by sending in pictures of Hurricane Isabel, or the Columbia debris.

-- Fashion webiste Show Studio's speedy coverage of the collections during the Paris Prêt-à-porter, allowed them to scoop more established fashion news organisations.

-- Officers in Scotland are now photographing graffiti with their camera phones. The images are stored away in a database for matching and identifying with the individuals responsible.

-- At the Emmy Awards, mobile users were able to end special requests to a Nokia observation camera by text messaging, for a photo of their favorite star to be sent directly to their mobile phone.

-- A contractor in the business of sealing driveways, has been taking pictures of any pre-existing tar splatters on a customer's garage or house. "Just so if a customer asks, I can say, "Here, look, that was there before I started."

-- The owner of a fence company in Kansas City, uses his camera phone to click and e-mail pictures of fence parts to suppliers.

-- Adrian Contreras of San Mateo, saved himself a San Francisco parking ticket by "phone-ographing" his correctly placed wheels after receiving a citation for not turning them toward the curb. And the city accepted the photo as proof.

-- A blatant act of racism by the Portland police was snapped by a "citizen reporter" armed with a camera phone. The story and the photos were published in the Portland Tribune and broadcasted on television.

-- The Malaysian police and the Australian government have set up systems to monitor picture messages sent in by citizens reporting crimes.

-- When someone backed into a car, got out and inspected the damage - then drove off without leaving any details - a passerby took a shot of his car and the rear number plate, and left a note for the victim. Later e-mailing him a shot of the car for his insurance claim.

-- And camera phones have brought about the onset of a whole new form of online diaries, called photoblogs, where camera phone users can post their pictures while on the move. Mostly of a personal nature, next year is sure to see a widespread use of professional moblogs, such as Textamerica 's launch of the official moblog for the CTIA event held in Las Vegas or news reporting photoblogs such as those documenting the New York blackout, the anti war protests around the world, the California fire, The California grocery worker strike - all reaching a larger audience than just family and friends.

I've purposely focused here on the positive applications of camera phones, there have been of course stories of misuse and abuse, raising serious privacy concerns which you can read all about here.

Update: A couple of days after publishing this roundup, Patricia Fusco for Internet News posted a wonderful piece describing how small businesses in the US are using camera phones to save their businesses time and money. cf Get the Picture?