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When a TV star based in Hollywood is engaged to a basketball player, she's
going to spend a lot of time apart from him. But San Antonio Spur Tony
Parker's fiancée, Eva Longoria of ABC's Desperate Housewives, catches up
with his latest exploits using a new cell phone that picks up scores and video
clips from ESPN. “I just whip out my ESPN phone,” Longoria told David
Letterman recently.
Increasingly, media powerhouses such as ESPN , MTV, and Walt Disney are
adding customized content to their own brands of cell phones. At $50 a month and
more, the handsets and service, aimed at sports fans, teens, and parents who
want to keep track of their cell-toting kids, aren't cheap, and the content is
a work in progress. Still, some show promise, others are pretty good already.
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Tailor-Made Phones
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Phone
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Amp'd Mobile
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Disney Mobile
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ESPN Mobile
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Helio Mobile
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Virgin Mobile
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Price
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$49 or $99, after
rebates, plus $ 50 to $119 a month
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$60 or $110, plus
service (price not announced)
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$99, plus $35 to $225 a
month
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$250 or $275, plus $85
to $135 in a month
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$30 to $180, plus 10¢
a minute and 10¢ per text message
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The Good
The Bad
The Bottom line |
A young guy's fantasy
diet of ultimate fighting, comedy concerts, and Naked News anchors, but
picture is tiny and often dark
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Launching in June,
kid-friendly phones will let parents limit phone time and use GPS to track
them, but such controls will irk
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A sports fan's buffet
of realtime stats and ESPN video, but no access to ESPN's TV feed
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Korean import offers
cool phones and exclusive connection to MySpace, but pricey and light on
other content
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Cool features like rap
ringtones and MTV music videos makethis the hiphop generation's choice,
but prepaid price plan is a headscratcher
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The ESPN phone is a sleek black-and-red handset with the
kind of instant access to sports scores and scrolling news tickers that would
appeal to die-hard sports fans.
Hit the little “E” at the top of the menu, and you get the phone's
sports page. I easily found the box score for a just-concluded Los Angeles
Lakers-Phoenix Suns basketball game, along with short clips featuring Lakers
star Kobe Bryant and coach Phil Jackson.
Like other so-called Mobile Virtual Network Operators, ESPN markets the
service but buys phone capacity from a carrier (in this case, Sprint Nextel. And
like multimedia on most cell phones, the service stutters when the signal is
weak. There's also a delay while videos are loaded. ESPN does its best to
compensate during your wait by offering trivia questions. The phone's only
problem is that it doesn't receive actual ESPN telecasts. It just gets some
video clips and the network's nightly schedule. You can buy the phone at
espn.com or electronics retailer Best Buy.
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Get the 411 by Text
Message
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Need info on the go?
You don't have to use a BlackBerry or Treo. And you don't need to pay
the dollar or more it costs to dial 411 either. Weather forecasts,
directions, stock quotes, traffic reports, and more can be at your
fingertips with simple text messages on any mobile phone. It's just a
matter of knowing where to look. Below are a few of the best services.
They don't cost more than what your carrier charges for a text
message-so whip out your phone and give them a whirl. –By Burt Helm
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SERVICE
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WHAT IT'S FOR
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TRY IT OUT
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DODGEBALL.COM
Send query to: Varies by city. Examples: nyc@dodgeball.com,
chicago@dodgeball.com,
la@dodgeball.com |
Lets you notify friends
where you are, and can blast a text message to several friends at once.
There's also a handy lookup feature for local bars and restaurants. If
several friends aren't signed up for Dodgeball, too, the mass
text-messaging isn't much use.
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“@” followed by a
bar or restaurant name tells friends where you are. “!” followed by a
message sends a group text message. “?bar name” sends you the address
and phone number of the bar.
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GOOGLE SMS,
YAHOO! MOBILE
Send query to: 46645 (GOOGL) or 92466 (YAHOO) |
Just about anything.
Both will send directions, weather, stock prices, and more. But you have
to remember the dozen or so shortcuts (they're listed on the Google and
Yahoo sites).
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Text “weather”
followed by a zip code or city for a local forecast. Text “stock”
followed by a ticker symbol for a quote.
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HOPSTOP.COM
Send query to: Varies by city. Examples: nyc@hopstop.com,
boston@hopstop.com
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Think MapQuest for mass
transit. Send two addresses and Hopstop zaps back subway and bus
directions. Currently works in only four US cities: New York, Boston,
Washington, and San Francisco.
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Text “1221 Avenue of
the Americas to 350 5th Ave” for subway directions from the BusinessWeek
offices to the Empire State building. |
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PAYPAL MOBILE
Send query to: 729725 (PAYPAL) after you set up a PayPal account.
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Wires money from your
credit card or checking to any PayPal account. It's handy for splitting
the tab at a bar with friends, buying items on sites like Craigslist, or
subbing for a personal check. If you're the receiver, it takes 3 to 4
days for money to transfer from PayPal to your bank account.
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“Send 15 to
[friend's cell phone number]” will wire $15 to that friend. To
complete the transaction and ensure security, PayPal calls your phone and
requests a PIN.
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TICTAP.COM
Send query to: 763-807-3927
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Comparison shop from
anywhere. Send TicTap what you're looking for and it beams back the
price and average review rating from Amazon.com.
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Text the name of an
author, book, or any other product Amazon.com sells.
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TRAFFIC.COM
Send query to: Must be scheduled from a PC. |
Receive custom traffic
reports daily with delay estimates and incident reports.
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After entering your
route on the Traffic.com site, click the option to have reports arrive via
e-mail or via automated voice call.
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With young teens spending much of their lives on their
cells, Richard Branson's Virgin Mobile has signed 4 mn customers since
launching nearly four years ago. Virgin's service offers hip-hop ringtones,
jokes from Comedy Central as a voice mail greeting, and such rough-and-tumble
games as True Crime: Streets of L.A.
My 16-year-old daughter was especially taken with the high-end Virgin phone
that opens to reveal a tiny keyboard and screen for text messaging. She loves
the phone's ability to recognize and send her, via text message, the names of
songs she hears on the radio for $1 a pop. (You hold the phone up to the radio,
push *43.) The big drawback: It's a prepaid plan-you buy minutes before you
use them-instead of pay-as-you-go pricing.
Amp'd Mobile, a glitzy service backed by MTV and Universal Records intended
for dudes under 30, launched earlier this year. It has crisp video streams of
Motocross races and female anchors from the Web's Naked News who strip and
read. The picture, however, is tiny.
Helio, another entry for young adults, just landed this month. If your kids
are younger, Walt Disney aims to help you control their cell-phone usage with
models due in June that let you limit their minutes and restrict use to certain
times of day and specific phone numbers. With the phones' built-in GPS
receivers, you can locate your offspring via a map on your own Disney handset or
the service's Web site. A “family alert” feature will send messages to
family members with Disney phones.
Most of these specialty phones offer video snippets or plan to, but real-time
TV isn't in the picture for now. For that you'll need a service such as
MobiTV, available for about $10 a month on compatible phones through Sprint and
Cingular Wireless. MobiTV offers 25 or so cable channels, including MSNBC, Fox
Sports Net, the Discovery Channel-and ESPN. Perfect for Longoria if she ever
wants to catch more than her fiancé.
By Ronald Grover Page(s) 1
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