- October 15th, 2007
- 3:29 pm
Things really do come in threes: Days after the exits of Sprint Nextel CEO Gary Forsee and Jamba/Fox Mobile Entertainment head Lucy Hood, AT&T’s president and CEO of wireless Stan Sigman announced his retirement Thursday, effective immediately. AT&T named COO Ralph de la Vega to fill Sigman’s vacancy–de la Vega had been considered a front runner to replace Forsee at the helm of Sprint. A 42-year AT&T veteran, Sigman exits months after negotiating exclusive U.S. rights to Apple’s iPhone–he was named president and CEO of the former Cingular Wireless in 2002 following the merger of SBC Communications and BellSouth.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
- October 12th, 2007
- 2:03 pm
Lucy Hood, the high profile CEO News-Corp owned Jamba, has resigned.
Ex-Vodafone content exec and current Jamba COO Lee Fenton has assumed Hood’s duties until a replacement can be found.
Hood had been instrumental in re-shaping D2C giant Jamba following News Corp’s acquisition of a 51 per cent stake in the business for $187 million 12 months ago.
The launch of the Yellow Plan D2C offering for Simpson’s content in the US this summer was the culmination of those efforts (which included the integration of the Fox Mobile Entertainment unit with Jamba).
A statement from News Corp stresses that the parting of the waves is amicable. Hood said: “It’s been extremely exciting and rewarding for me to help build News Corporation’s mobile business over the past few years, but I’m eager to pursue more entrepreneurial ventures and I’m looking forward to the next opportunity.”
Peter Chernin, president and COO at News Corp, added: “Lucy has been a key architect of News Corp’s mobile strategy over the past few years and we’re grateful for her many contributions to our business.”
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
Electronic Arts will be releasing The Simpsons: Minutes to Meltdown to coincide with the movie release, on Mobile Entertainment.
The game is part of the Yellow Plan, a push from Jamba to market the movie with voicetones, wallpaper, videos–and, of course games. The game will be available from operators in North America later this mont, and from Europe near the end of the year. The other content will only be available by subscribing to the Yellow Plan for $9.99.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
Jamba is ready to unleash the biggest direct-to-consumer (D2C) content campaign the US has ever seen.
The next few days will see the launch of the Yellow Plan, with content from TV show The Simpsons becoming available on mobile for the first time to tie in with the release of the eponymous movie on July 27th.
Crucially, none of the content – with the exception of EA Mobile’s Minutes to Meltdown game – will be available from operator decks. Instead, News Corp subsidiary Jamba will be running storefronts at Jamster.com and TheSimpsonsMobile.com (not currently live, so you’ll have to wait).
For $9.99 a month, the Yellow Plan will offer fans credit for six downloads from a selection of The Simpsons content, such as made-for-mobile voicetones, wallpapers and polytones. Video is in the pipeline and the plan will also include EA’s game.
Speaking exclusively to ME, Jamba COO Lee Fenton said: “The way we’re going to bring The Simpsons content to market in the US is an industry first, but one that we’re quite confident about. The Yellow Plan is a huge moment for the US D2C content market and it’s also a rare example of a standalone content offering based around a single entertainment brand.”
Jamba will be riding the coat tails of The Simpsons Movie’s multi-million dollar global marketing campaign, with the Yellow Plan set to feature in ads on Fox TV, web banners, inserts in DVDs and call outs on movie posters. This should deliver massive awareness for little direct cost.
“In terms of subscriber acquisition we don’t expect to have a huge on-air advertising push. We expect to generate most of our traffic from other Simpsons and News Corp online destinations and from the compelling nature of brand itself,” said Fenton.
Simpsons content will be made available globally a short time after the US launch, with subs models equivalent to Jamster plans in other markets.
In Europe the game will be available on-deck, but again no operator deals are in place for the wider content suite.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
- February 7th, 2007
- 3:10 pm
WirelessWeek writes…European operators and content providers are banding together to build a framework for safer use of mobile phones and mobile content by young people. The European Framework on Safer Mobile Use by Younger Teenagers and Children accord was signed by the operators as the EU kicked off Safer Internet Day.
The firms agreed to help parents customize their children’s access to content, offer safety information and promote discussion about risks. The agreement forms the basis of a national code of conduct that will be used across the EU and is derived from steps already taken by member states such as Britain, Germany, Italy and France. Mobile content also will be classified according to decency standards, and operators agree to fight illegal content.
The accord is the result of discussions set up by Viviane Reding, EU commissioner, in September 2006. Participants in the accord plan to develop national self-regulatory codes by February 2008. The EU will monitor and assess its efficiency after 12 months.
“This is an important step forward for child safety,? said Reding in a statement. “I congratulate the mobile phone industry for moving toward protecting minors. It shows that responsible self-regulation can work at European level.?
Current participants in the European Framework on Safer Mobile Use by Younger Teenagers and Children include Bouygues Telecom, Cosmote, Debitel AG, Deutsche Telekom Group, Go Mobile, Hutchison 3G Europe, Jamba!, Mobile Entertainment Forum, Orange Group, Royal KPN N.V., SFR, Telecom Italia, Telefonica Movilers, S.A., Telenor, TeliaSonera and Vodafone.
Wireless Mobile Telecom
AT&T CEO Sigman out, de la Vega in (USA)
