3GSM: LANDMAT TIES M-BLOGGING TO REVENUE

Carriers hoping to grab the tail of the cultural comet that is mobile Web-logging (or m-blogging) will have a better tool with which to do so after this week's 3GSM World Congress. Landmat will debut its mBlog application for supporting multimedia mobile blogging through MMS systems.

The vendor, based in Rekjavik, Iceland, and funded by Nokia Venture Partners, will demonstrate mBlog in the Nokia booth at 3GSM.

“We focus on applications for a young adult market, and m-blogging already is growing virally in that market,” said Haukur Hardarson, CEO of Landmat. “Carriers want to turn this into greater [average revenue per user].”

The mBlog application is one of a family of community applications provided by Landmat. It allows users to employ their existing messaging services to create and receive mobile blogs. mBlog users create blogs by taking pictures and adding text, which are instantly published to the Web or sent to any number of subscribers.

The application supports MMS, WAP, PML, J2ME, Symbian, BREW and i-Mode, among other technologies. It also allows instant updates to m-blogs, viewing of blogs via mobile or desktop Internet devices, joint blogging, rating, polling, photo printing and other capabilities.

Iceland Telecom and several other European carriers have adopted Landmat's mBlog application. The company also is working with both Cingular Wireless and AT&T Wireless. Hardarson said that in Europe, about 5% of all MMS users already have signed up for the application. Users of the service currently range from families sharing personal blogs to celebrities sending subscription-only blogs to large numbers of fans.