CNM Short Takes

Bell launches mobile music serviceBell Canada recently announced the debut of leading mobile music download service Groove Mobile on its network. What’s especially interesting about Groove Mobile’s offering is its rights management approach: users can make up as many as seven copies of each track they download, with three of those copies available for use on separate computers. Offsetting that freedom to make additional copies is the premium price Groove Mobile charges, with tracks costing $3.00 each here in Canada, more than double that of many competing music download services. However, users can also send 30-minute preview clips of songs to their friends, download album art, and search Groove Mobile’s music database by artist and song title. In a media release, Chris Shannon, Bell’s general manager of hardware, logistics and supply, predicted "the mobile phone will become the digital music player of choice for many music lovers" sometime in the future. Rogers releases VOD service in NBRogers Cable Inc. has rolled out the first phase of its video on demand service to digital cable subscribers in six New Brunswick cities. Heralding the service’s arrival in Moncton, Fredericton, Bathurst, Miramichi, Edmundston and Saint John is The Movie Network On Demand, a service free for existing subscribers to The Movie Network. Viewers can use their digital cable set-top box like a PVR or DVD player and rewind, pause and fast-forward shows and movies. Rogers plans to broaden its VOD offering The Movie Network into professional wrestling, Japanese animation, kids’ programming, and more. Lemontonic loses user chargesToronto’s Lemontonic Inc. underwent a change of business model recently: the online dating and personals service is now free to users looking for romance. The firm said in a media release that all of its paying customers have been converted to free accounts, and everyone can now search and respond to personal ads on Lemontonic without having to provide a credit card number or other payment information. Lemontonic did not specify in the release how it plans to generate revenue without charging for a membership, but a cursory look at the service’s website suggests that value-added features – such as live chat and video messaging – might carry a premium. PetitMonde.com and Okiddoo pair upQuebec online parents’ magazine PetitMonde.com said this month that Okiddoo, a kids’ website aimed at two- to six-year-olds, will now provide approximately 30 games for use on the PetitMonde homepage. While basic access to Okiddoo is free, a premium service – dubbed Okiddoo Club – confers more benefits and privileges, such as a T-shirt, additional games and more, for a $39.95 annual subscription fee. Avery Ant for Prime Minister!Big Bang Pictures Ltd., a maker of short-format content for the "cellevision" format, is putting forward its own candidate in the upcoming elections. The company will make episodes of Avery Ant, a series of 60-second rants on all things Canadian starring the animated insect, available for download on the Rogers Wireless and Telus Mobility networks early in the new year. The colourful critter is written by Mike Erskine-Kellie, voiced by Canadian Adrian Truss, who’s lent his talents to a movie by acclaimed director Peter Jackson, and is directed by one-time Halifax Film Company and Alliance Atlantis collaborator Brian McPhail. "A whole generation of Americans are learning about Canada through an animated loud-mouth schnook," said Frank Chindamo, president of Fun Little Movies, a mobile content distributor that supplies Avery Ant to US carriers such as Sprint, among others. "Be mildly, somewhat concerned." Avery Ant has thrown his hat in the ring for previous high-profile appointments in the past, most notably campaigning for Pope after the death of John Paul II. Gambling mag gives CryptoLogic the goldToronto online wagering and gaming software provider CryptoLogic Inc. has been granted top honours by readers of Gambling Online Magazine, based in London. In the magazine’s 2005 Reader Poll Awards, the Canadian firm was awarded the gold medal for Top Casino Software based on the feedback from more than 27,000 online players worldwide. Those who nominated CryptoLogic cited the firm’s "groundbreaking and ingeniously realistic" casino interface, its client roster and impressive online security provided by subsidiary WagerLogic Ltd., according to a media release. "Recognition for Top Casino Software is a proud tribute to the talent and commitment of our employees at CryptoLogic," added CEO and president Lewis Rose. NHL adds a little FUN to online gamesThe National Hockey League has passed the puck to London-registered but Toronto-headquartered skill game developer FUN Technologies plc. FUN subsidiary SkillJam Technologies Corp. will develop, operate and maintain more than 70 tournament-style private-label games of skill with a hockey theme for use on the league’s official Web presence, NHL.com. The games will carry a fee for users, who will be able to compete against each other for cash payouts and other prizes. NHL.com and affiliated sites attract close to six million unique visitors each month. The signing fits in with a broader SkillJam initiative, the Skills Game World Championship, which offers a $1-million purse to the top online gamers. Quebec salary survey back for another roundTECHNOCompétences, a Government of Quebec training and skills development initiative focused on the multimedia, software, IT manufacturing, telecommunications and computer services industries, has launched its 2006 salary survey. For $50, Quebec businesses in those high-tech industries can participate in the survey and receive a special strategic report on the survey’s findings, which won’t be made available to the general public – a broader summary of the results will be, however. TECHNOCompétences is targeting a participation rate of 200 organizations for 2006; last year, more than 150 firms took part in the survey, which discovered that the average salary for a programmer weighed in at $40,800 annually, while directors of development made $90,000 a year on average. More than nine out of every 10 firms surveyed also said their working conditions exceeded minimum provincial standards by a considerable margin. Alternet’s latest "virtual school" software releasedVancouver’s Alternet Systems Inc. has released SchoolWeb 2.4, the latest iteration of its virtual learning environment for educational institutions. The offering features an easy-to-use Web-enabled learning environment that melds online courses through the Learning Management System, a software tool that allows educators to create and distribute lesson plans and assignments to students, and the Learning Object Repository, a virtual online reference library. SchoolWeb is targeted at remote school districts, distance education programs and other environments where classroom-based learning may not be an option. InternationalEA gets more mobile with US$680M Jamdat bidRedwood City CA’s Electronic Arts Inc. is ending the calendar year with a bang by making a US$680 million friendly offer for Los Angeles’ Jamdat Mobile, the largest developer of games for mobile phone platforms. The two firms have announced they plan to roll out more than 50 games next year, including such titles as Tetris, Bejeweled, Jamdat Bowling, Need For Speed, Madden NFL Football and FIFA Soccer. Some analysts were taken back by the large price tag, and said that EA may be paying too much for Jamdat. Many were also surprised at EA’s unwillingness to hold on and build market share for its own fledgling brand, EA Mobile, which had a 2.5% share of the mobile game download market by revenue compared to Jamdat’s 30.6%. DSL’s devotees up 45% in Q3 2005A study conducted for the Fremont CA-based DSL Forum by market research Point Topic claims the user base for broadband Internet access over DSL lines swelled by 100,000 a day for the nine months ending Sept. 30. That growth rate means that 125 million users worldwide now enjoy DSL Internet access, for a growth rate of 45% during the first three quarters of 2005. By the end of the year, the study predicts, DSL will number 140 million users globally. China alone contributed 10 million of those new additions, and 25 million Chinese now subscribe to DSL services. In those countries where DSL access is already commonplace, Australia and the UK posted the fastest rates of growth in their DSL subscriber bases, with 97% and 91% respectively.

CNM Short Takes

News | 12/22/2005 5:00 am EST

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