Mobile gaming - everything to play for
Author: Christopher Smith
Chances are that you or someone you know is affected by the
mobile gaming virus. There is a lot of it about and developments
in technology are helping it to spread like wildfire. Even if
you do not consider yourself a gamer you could one day be
exposed to its effects. All it takes is a Java-enabled mobile
phone and there are already over 150 million of them in the US
alone.
What we are really talking about of course is the growth in
popularity of mobile gaming; in other words, playing games on
your mobile phone. Mobile gaming is set to become big business
in 2004 as the number of BREW (Binary Runtime Environment for
Wireless) and Java-enabled mobile phones in circulation
continues to grow. In addition, manufacturers are continually
adding colored screens and advanced features to their latest
models, making mobile gaming a rich and vibrant experience for
users.
The games themselves are readily available from a wide range of
sources and can be easily downloaded from numerous web sites,
with prices starting at $2.99 or less. There is something for
everyone with games ranging from favorites such as PacMan, chess
and checkers to motor racing, jet-skiing and even erotic games.
Many people consider online gaming to be a predominantly male
activity and a young male activity at that. Last fall, at a
conference on mobile gaming, Mark Stanger from game developers
Eidos suggested that 92% of PlayStation 2 players are men.
Whilst it is probably true that online and console gamers are
mainly male (how many women do you know that own a Sony
PlayStation 2) analysis suggests that mobile phone gaming could
be encouraging a growing percentage of women to play games.
Downloading games to a mobile phone can be done from anywhere.
Women do not need to venture into the testosterone-laden
atmosphere of game shops and this may account for why an
increasing number of females are entering the world of mobile
gaming. Interestingly, it also appears that women are playing
the more traditional games such as solitaire and backgammon
rather than the 'shoot 'em dead' kind.
Just as more women are playing games, so to are an increasing
number of older people. Figures from the Entertainment Software
Association released in August 2003 indicate that a full 17% of
game players are over age 50, up from 13% in 2000.
This would suggest that gamers are an increasingly diverse group
and the appeal of gaming is spreading across the sexes and
across different ages and socio-economic backgrounds. People
seem to be more and more at ease playing games on consoles,
online and now on mobile phones.
With growing awareness of mobile gaming, improved and ever-wider
distribution channels for mobile games, and an increasing degree
of comfort with payment and delivery over the air amongst
subscribers, everything points to an explosion in growth. This
translates into a multi-billion dollar market for providers of
mobile technology, game developers and retailers and a
completely new way of looking at mobile phones.
Copyright © 2004, Christopher Smith
About the author:
Christopher Smith is a marketer and copywriter.
How Reliable are Cell Phones?
Author: Sharon Housley
Article:
How Reliable are Cell Phones? Cellular phones and pagers are
part of the "now" generation, instant contact, anywhere at any
time. People are looking for convenience, comfort and security.
The question is how instantaneous and reliable is the contact?
Talking with someone is the main use for a cell phone, yet due
to poor reception how often do calls not go through, or
important calls "dropped" due to flaky coverage? Let us not
forget, that in a time of tragedy, lines were congested and the
resounding "all circuits busy" messages were heard from coast to
coast. There is certainly room for improvement if you want to
reach out and touch someone.
The alternative to voice communication is traditional text
messaging, enjoyed by the young as SMS, a 'hip' communication
method, and the older as the tried and true paging, a
trustworthy means of communication. A carrier receives pages or
text messages via a traditional dial up modem or Internet
connection to their terminal, and then broadcasts the messages
over their network to the appropriate wireless device. How
instant is sending a text message? The answer might surprise
you...it depends.
Traditional means of sending text messages is surprisingly
reliable and fast. However, many cellular carriers, wishing to
merge technologies while keeping costs down, have opted to
utilize email technology to send text messages. Why not, an
email is nothing more than a text message, using the Simple Mail
Transfer Protocol (SMTP). On the surface this sounds like a
great idea, nearly everyone has email access, and the use of the
Internet streamlines the sending of messages.
What is often overlooked, is the fact that email was not
designed to be time sensitive. There can be significant delays
and an instantaneous receipt can be lost when sending email to a
pager or cell phone. Text messages sent via the email protocol
SMTP could take a more scenic delivery route. While in many
cases, receiving messages in a timely fashion is not critical;
some industries require and benefit from the receipt of urgent
messages. It is therefore important to realize and make a
distinction between the protocols that are designed for
instantaneous communication and those that are not.
If sending messages immediately to a cell phone or pager is
required, more reliable protocols are available. When sending
text messages, via a modem, the Telocator Alphanumeric Protocol
(TAP) is extremely dependable, albeit slower due to the modem
dialing. If sending messages with a high-speed Internet
connection use the newer time sensitive Internet protocols:
Simple Network Paging Protocol (SNPP) and Wireless Communication
Transfer Protocol (WCTP). If your carrier supports these
protocols they are the better options for sending important
messages.
If carriers understand the "now" generation is about speed and
reliability, customer satisfaction will improve. Text messaging
is a reliable and useful communication method, especially since
voice is not always convenient or possible. With public
awareness and urging, carriers will increase their offerings of
text messaging protocols. Carriers should offer email or SMTP,
but they must also support time sensitive protocols, regardless,
of whether the protocols are older such as TAP or newer such as
WCTP.
Resources - Carriers supporting SNPP -
http://www.notepage.net/snpp.htm Carriers supporting WCTP -
http://www.notepage.net/wctp.htm
About the author:
About the Author - Sharon Housley manages marketing for
NotePage, Inc. http://www.notepage.net a company specializing in
alphanumeric paging, SMS and wireless messaging software
solutions. Other sites by Sharon can be found at
http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com , and
http://www.small-business-software.net
