August 19, 2005
Melodeo plans free podcast downloads to phones
Seattle company Melodeo, which makes software to download songs to mobile phones, plans to make available free software to download podcasts on mobile phones, reports The Seattle Times.
The Mobilcast software would allow users a way to bypass a computer to download audio content directly to a phone (watch the demo).
The announcement of the pending release of Mobilcast is part of a campaign by the company to draw attention to its full-track music service for mobile phones.
Stan Sorensen, at Melodeo, said if people first learn how to download free podcasts to their mobile phone, then maybe downloading full music tracks will be easy: "This is an awareness drive. If you can download content over the air and its relatively easy to do this, and you know your phone is an adequate device to do it, you can take this stuff and go to town."
When Melodeo first launches the software in September, it will work only with Symbian operating systems. Shortly after the initial launch, Melodeo will launch a Java version.
But most consumers don't know what operating system they have. Another issue will be getting the software on the phone. Melodeo will offer the software for free on its Web site. Most likely, a user will enter their mobile phone number into the site and receive a text message with access to the application.
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