With stronger interactive and multimedia features, mobile phones are enabling more services to be delivered to a user’s hand. One True Media Inc., which recently launched a Web service that allows users to share home videos with TiVo users, is experimenting with the transfer of home videos to mobile phones. Pinger Inc., taking a page from old-school voice messaging systems, has launched a new voice-messaging service optimized for cell phone users. Tiny Pictures Inc. has chosen pictures as its communication of choice, allowing cameraphone users to share pictures with friends in real time. All these mobile services are still in beta.
One True Media’s TiVo
TiVo users can now share home videos or photo montages with other users thanks to a service launched by One True Media. Users can upload videos or images to the One True Media Web service — which stores, shares and manages home videos and image files — which in turn sends them to the TiVo boxes of friends and family.
Users need to create a “TiVo Channel” on their One True Media account, which also creates a personal channel on the TiVo service. After uploading a video to the TiVo Channel on One True Media’s site, it automatically gets transferred to the user’s personal channel on TiVo’s back end, from where other users can download it to their boxes. An account code ensures that only selected TiVo users subscribe to the channel to access the videos.
One True Media’s site is central to this service — it provides excellent online editing features to brush up video and images before sending them. It provides up to 200M bytes of storage space for video or images. At US$4 per month, users can update the storage capacity to 20G bytes. Pricing for the TiVo service hasn’t been determined yet, said Brett Elizabeth Gardner, vice president of marketing at One True Media, though users will be able to try the service for free before buying it.
Videos on One True Media, stored in a 720 pixel by 480 pixel resolution, can be sent to mobile devices on major mobile service providers in the U.S. and Canada, Gardner said. The videos can also be posted to YouTube and other widely used blogs through direct URL linking.
Users can sign up for the service at One True Media’s Web site.
Pinger that message
If Pinger has its way, voice messaging may compete with text messaging as the next rage. Pinger is building on the functionality of text messaging to enable users to exchange quickfire mobile-to-mobile voice messages. The technology is not real-time, but it has the element of urgency and has some advanced features that make it unique.
To leave a voice message, a user needs to call the Pinger service, narrate the name of the recipient — which is recognized by Pinger’s voice-enabled back end — and leave a message. The recipient gets a text message notifying of a waiting message that can be retrieved by calling the Pinger service.
While it may sound no different than your traditional voice-mail service, the urgent nature of Pinger’s service and specific features like group messaging put it a step ahead of text messaging and traditional voice messages. With the group messaging feature, a user can send voice messages to multiple group members at once. This could be useful when sending an urgent message to multiple members of a baseball group, for example, said Joe Sipher, Pinger’s founder. Calling or text-messaging all group members instead could be time-consuming and arduous.
The service, still in beta, is free for users and works with major mobile service providers in the U.S. Being a penny pincher, I hope the company works with mobile carriers to cut the costs users may incur when receiving text messages and airtime for calls to the Pinger service. Users can sign up for the service at Pinger’s Web site. The service does not work on landline phones as they don’t support text messaging.
In the Radar
A viral delight can be had exchanging pictures with friends while on the go, and Tiny Pictures’ Radar service does just that. Radar allows users to snap pictures with a cameraphone and instantly share it via the Internet with other friends who have cameraphones.
“It provides a visual context to conversations,” said Tiny Pictures’ Founder John Poisson. “It’s another way to stay in touch.”
Radar takes on a life of its own as a picture blog to share with friends. The service formats each image for appropriate screen size and users can leave comments for each picture. It can be fairly addictive, especially with its simple, no-nonsense user software interface to view and share photographs.
The service is accessible through a WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) based interface from a phone’s mobile browser. Though the product was conceived as a mobile service, cameraphone pictures can be viewed on the service through a traditional Internet browser, Poisson said. Users can sign up at Radar’s Web site.
While the service is free to users, the company is working with hardware and mobile providers to develop custom applications, Poisson said. In February, the company announced a customized, downloadable version of the Radar client for SunCom Wireless Inc. mobile phone customers using Danger smart phone devices. At $3 per month, the smart phone provides instant notifications when a user receives new photographs on the Radar service. The Radar client is optimized for use with Danger’s widescreen display, keyboard and other input controls.
The company will also announce partnerships with carriers worldwide in the near future, Poisson said.
While the service can already share video, Poisson seems to focus more on the service’s strength to share pictures. However, as cameraphones evolve into videophones, Tiny Pictures could potentially enable users to share full-blown videos through the Radar service. Nevertheless, expect big things from this company.
