WRITTEN BY CHARLES F. MOREIRA (Contributing Editor of Mobile World Magazine) SUNDAY, 28 DECEMBER 2008 07:50
Close to 58,000 visitors thronged GoMobile 2008 and a lucky winner of a phone.
Our GoMobile 2008 exhibition jointly organised with LTT Global Communications received close to 58,000 visitors over its three days at the Putra World Trade Centre in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia in November.
Many came to see what’s available in the Malaysian mobile world and to take advantages of the special offers on mobile phones and perhaps to be the lucky ones to get a prize of a free LG mobile available to every 1,000th visitor.
However, GoMobile wasn’t all about phones and accessories launches and special offers, though there were many of those. It also was a showcase of imported and locally developed content and applications for mobile phones which is what we will talk about here.
Mobizads – Zeemote control
Unlike playing games on a PC, controlling a game on a cellular phone is usually achieved by pressing its left, right, up or down buttons but Java games developer, Mobizads develops games which work with the Zeemote JS1 handheld controller from Massachusetts-based Zeemote, Inc, http://zeemote.com, which enables a more intuitive
mobile games playing experience. The JS1 which interacts with newer Java-based phones using Bluetooth, has a joystick, a fire button and a grenade thrower button similar to game joysticks used with PCs.
It’s currently being bundled with the Nokia N85 in Germany, the Sony Ericsson W760i in the Netherlands and the Sony Ericsson K530i in Spain.
“Mobizads will help Zeemote coordinate the development of games for the JS1 and to attract mobile advertising. The games will be given away for free in return for the player watching advertisements on their phone before they start (to) play,” said Mobizads regional manager, Alan Chan.
The company Mobizads launched its Mobizads mobile advertising at GoMobile 2008 and places two graphic or text advertisements in its free games which players must view
before playing their game.
Its advertisers currently include Tune Hotels, Pit Green, Mobile Wallet Magazine, BAK2u, and the Travclass.com travel portal and others.
The games can be downloaded to a PC from www.pokit.mobi or directly to a phone from http://wap.pokit.mobi.
“We have no hard figures about the return-on-investment from mobile advertising but with the current economic downturn, advertisers will be looking for other channels to complement print and TV advertisements,” said Chan.
Mobizads had two booths – one as winner of the MSC-IPCC 2007 award and one under the Mobile Learning pavilion under the Maxis Developer Programme. Bak2u donated RM800 worth of its PhoneBAK phone anti-theft software for Mobizads lucky draw plus the time of two of its key staff. It was developed under the MSC Malaysia Creative Multimedia Content Initiative with financial assistance from MDeC.