Wearable Hypertags used in field marketing

Read about Hypertag's new wearable tags being used by field marketers to hand out ringtones to fans at gigs and to greet homecomng rugby fans at the airport with national anthem ringtones. In Ringtonia.com today.

SMS tie-in for the launch of Sony's new «Primal» video game

SMS campaigns for the launch of DVDs and video games are the next big thing.

Phonevalley is another favorite wireless technology company, based in France and run by 29 year old CEO Alexandre Mars. This leading company has provided the technology and SMS solutions for TV broadcasters such as M6 web and Canal+, radio station NRJ, retailers Auchan and Carrefour, as well as Vizzavi, Selftrade, Nike...

In a press release received this morning, Phonevalley has announced their partnership with Sony Computer Entertainment for a series of SMS tie-ins to be launched with the release of the new Playstation 2 video game, « Primal ».

Sony's "Very Important Players" will be receiving text messages giving them a special code to access a reserved part of Sony website where they will be able to download for free, ringtones and graphics from the video. As well as a coupon offer, offering a rebate on the retail price. A series of games and contests will also be offered by SMS.

Just recently, Phonevalley partnered with Gaumont Columbia Tristar Home Video in a direct marketing campaign for the launch of the new DVD « XxX », an action filmed signed by Rob Cohen.

Works of Art and Litterary Content for your cell phones

See My SMS, a Paris based company run by Alexandra de Waresquiel, is single handedly raising the level of quality for content on mobile phones.

In February, for Valentine's Day, the company provided French Internet provider Wanadoo with a new SMS service enabling users to chose from passionate litterary text messages written by 30 of the best contemporary French writers (Marc Lambron, Denis Robert, André Bercoff, Frédéric Beigbeder and François Mitterand's daughter, Mazzarine Pingeot, amongst others) and send them off to their loved ones - giving them the choice of crediting the author, or just signing their own name. And in a more sophisticated version of Nando Times' famous (but now disabled) Cyrano Server, the automated interface allowed the user to select the type of message (love, shy, agressive, breaking up) and who it is was to be sent to (man or woman).

All of these wonderful short messages on love -- acknowledging that passion can be expressed in very few words -- have been collected and published in a book entitled «Sexe More Sexe».

And just recently, SeeMySMS has come out with designer logos for cell phone screens which are available for download on French mobile operator SFR and portal Vizzavi. Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, Lolita Lempicka, Inès de la Fressange, Eric Bergère, Chantal Thomass, Chayan Khoï ... are all contributers to this collection of over 300 works of art.

See My SMS has signed up over 60 authors and 25 creative artists to bring cell phones to a more refined level and an upscale market. Definitely a company to keep an eye on.

Art Litterary content for your cell phones

See My SMS, a Paris based company run by Alexandra de Waresquiel, is single handedly raising the level of quality for content on mobile phones.

In February, for Valentine's Day, the company provided French Internet provider Wanadoo with a new SMS service enabling users to chose from passionate litterary text messages written by 30 of the best contemporary French writers (Marc Lambron, Denis Robert, André Bercoff, Frédéric Beigbeder and François Mitterand's daughter, Mazzarine Pingeot, amongst others) and send them off to their loved ones - giving them the choice of crediting the author, or just signing their own name. And in an more sophisticated version of Nando Times' famous (but now disabled) Cyrano Server, the automated interface allowed the user to select the type of message (love, shy, agressive, breaking up) and who it is was to be sent to (man or woman).

All of these wonderful short messages on love -- acknowledging that passion can be expressed in very few words -- have been collected and published in a book entitled «Sexe More Sexe».

And just recently, SeeMySMS has come out with designer logos for cell phone screens which are available for download on French mobile operator SFR's website. Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, Lolita Lempicka, Inès de la Fressange, Eric Bergère, Chantal Thomass, Chayan Khoï ... are all contributers to this collection of over 300 works of art.

See My SMS has signed up over 60 authors and 25 creative artists to bring cell phones to a ore refined level and an upscale market. Definitely a company to keep an eye on.

Interest Groups and Community Texting on Upoc.com

New York based Upoc.com is the first wireless company I fell in love with, in September 2000, after reading an article in Wired about one of their community text messaging groups, «New York Celebrity Sightings», where members of the group send out an SMS to each other whenever they sight someone famous.

Over the years I have checked on them periodically to take the pulse of what this mobile community is texting about. They share hobbies, where to find better bargains, restaurants, music and movie reviews, discuss the news as it is or in a positive light, buzz about start-ups, gripe about New York, offer positive reinforcement to reformed smokers and drinkers. I delighted in some of the more whacky groups that came up such as "Worst Dates", "Fat Chick sightings", "Bush-isms" and "Boring People", and my heart went out to them following 9/11 – when members shared personal stories and offered support.

I often wrote about their "Featured Channels" in my daily French Chronicle on SMS, where members sign up for special text and audio messages about hot new movies, favorite bands, celebs.

In the next few months, the company is expected to take its messaging features to the next level by launching support for MMS. As a result of the offering, members of Upoc's "Crazy Stuff I Saw" or "NYC Celeb Sightings" groups should be able to send photos taken with camera-enabled phones to the rest of the group. As with voice messages, Upoc group members (about 500,000 users) who don't have MMS-enabled phones can go to the site to view the sent images. For more on news and trends related to camera phones, check out Picturephoning.com