VIRTUAL GIFTS ARE MOBILISED
Fun Text messaging service introduces virtual gifts
DATE: 14 August 2008
Mobile messaging service provider Fun Text has announced the roll-out of virtual gifts on its peer-to-peer messaging services in the US and the UK. For the first time the phenomena of giving virtual gifts extends from web-based social networks such as Facebook to the mobile world.
The exclusive content, commissioned by Fun Text from award-winning mobile production studio Mobstar Media, is now available on major operators such as Sprint, T-Mobile and 3.
Dan Price, Head of Global Accounts at Mobstar said, "Mobstar have a great history of providing groundbreaking mobile content and we were delighted to team up with Fun Text to create a new messaging product that hits the zeitgeist of how modern consumers communicate. We are sure that the gifts will be a great success."
"Mobile messaging needs to stay relevant to a generation growing up on social networks and IM," said James Pycock, business development director at Fun Text. "With millions of virtual gifts being sent on Facebook through applications such as "The Bakery", we felt it was time to move mobile on from so called 'mcards'."
Fun Text’s aim is to enable sending professionally created multimedia on mobile, which covers more than traditional greetings cards.
"Increasingly, all of us have to sustain social relations over physical distance and virtual gifts start to have real emotional meaning," he continued. "Besides, buying someone a virtual martini or giving them a virtual cupcake in the morning is good fun."
Fun Text also drives rich media messaging through innovative business models such as the $3.99 unlimited MMS sending subscription available today on Sprint. Later in the year the virtual gifts service will be opened up to sponsors. Fun Text has a track record in delivering ad-funded peer-to-peer messaging campaigns for major brands.
-ends-
About Fun Text
Fun Text is a leading content-based mobile messaging service that enables consumers to send and share professionally created multimedia on mobile. Deployed by major operators, such as Sprint, 3 and T-Mobile, the Fun Text service drives triple digit growth in MMS revenues.
It represents a new category of messaging between user-generated photo messaging and SMS where users can include professionally created content within messages to clearly express their emotions. While MMS is generally used to send camera phone pictures and SMS is used regularly for brief, functional statements, Fun Text creates a new, high-traffic, emotional communication medium as an alternative to both.
The mass-market messaging service combines the richness of MMS with the ease of use of SMS. Available as a handset application, it accesses an online content store and integrates with the address book on handsets from Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Motorola and other major manufacturers. Backed by global media companies such as Turner Broadcasting and American Greetings, Fun Text was also recently shortlisted as a finalist for best imaging company in the Mobile Entertainment Awards 2008.
For more information:
Fiona Goldsworthy
Red Lorry Yellow Lorry
+44 20 7403 8878