InfoSpace buys Atlas Mobile, hosts Verizon Wireless

Application service provider InfoSpace has acquired the assets of Atlas Mobile, a pioneer developer of multi-player tournament games for mobile users. The Bellevue, Wash., company also announced that it is hosting Verizon Wireless’ new Mobile Web 2.0 offering.

The Atlas Mobile deal is InfoSpace’s first investment in gaming applications, but is aimed at putting InfoSpace at the forefront of community gaming, something it believes is the new, big trend in mobile gaming. "We were looking to gain entry to the gaming space, and found that community gaming is the next wave in interesting gaming applications," said Kendra VanderMeulen, executive vice president of InfoSpace Mobile. "We want to get in on the beginning of that curve."

Atlas Mobile has made its mark so far with a string of increasingly successful tournament games, such as Tetris Tournament for Prizes, Hold’em Poker+ for Prizes and Solitaire for Prizes. Atlas’ client-server tournament service lets multiple mobile phone players compete against each other to win prizes in continuous head-to-head and progressive tournaments. Its service debuted on Verizon Wireless’ network late last year, but since has also been adopted by Alltel, Midwest Wireless, U.S. Cellular and Western Wireless.

"We looked around different gaming companies, and Atlas had the same carrier relationships we had," VanderMeulen said. "They also had revenue coming in from a very successful subscription-based model."

InfoSpace can help Atlas gain exposure to other carriers, and its distribution capabilities can give Atlas Mobile’s applications greater potential scale, VanderMeulen said.

Regarding the Verizon Wireless Mobile Web announcement, InfoSpace Mobile is providing infrastructure and subscription management capabilities for the new Mobile Web WAP 2.0 portal. The portal allows users to personalize their mobile experience and helps Verizon Wireless to more easily offer them subscriptions to applications.