First GPS-equipped mass market phone out in Europe

It's out of its cage! Nokia tells us it started shipping the brand-spanking new N95, which includes - a first outside advanced markets such as Japan - GPS on board of a mobile phone (next to MP3 player with proper 3.5mm audio connector [!], 3D hardware acceleration, WLAN and a 5 mega pixel camera with Carl Zeiss lense)

Now, not only does the phone have GPS but also comes preloaded with Nokia Maps, an application that has the street maps for 150 countries in (the few remaining countries that presumably include such remote places like Queen Anne land in Antarctica probably don't have streets!).

This would arguably be into the face of Roger McNamee (see yesterday's post on this) concerning the defeat of multi-purpose devices. If the N95 would take over, it would probably be bye-bye to TomTom and other SatNav single-purpose devices. Since you are carrying your phone with you, it would also reduce the risk of your car being broken into: thieves apparently are mainly to into SatNav devices these days...

FHM & Heat bet on UGC - EMAP puts Yospace to work

It took them a short while to wrap the acquisition of Yospace up and digest everything but now EMAP announced they'll be relaunching their FHM and Heat brands on mobile centered around the coveted UGC; and all will of course be driven by Yospace's platform. The blurb published by NMA (you need a subscription to read the full article) reports that "it is still too early to officially talk about the services" [why do they then???] but the intention is basically to leverage the brands to drive user-generated video content.

For those not so familiar: Yospace powers the successful SeeMeTV service of UK operator 3. FierceMobileContent tells you why it's great.

I am curious as to what this will mean other than the EMAP team seemingly struggling to transfer editorial onto the mobile platform in a successful business model...

12Snap back at home...

Neomedia has sold 12Snap back to its management incl co-founder Birkel for $5m (remuneration is $1.1m cash plus debt, services, etc), reports PR Newswire.

That means that Neomedia wiped out a cool $17m value in little more than a year: you may remember they acquired 12snap for $22m early 2006.

All the very best to the good folks of 12snap!!!

Which mobile are you?

Here's who you are according to the mobile phone brand you carry:

Nokia - the choice of family-minded, middle aged managers
Motorola - favoured by fashion conscious under 24s
Sony Ericsson - for ambitious young men trying to make their mark
LG - favoured by mums
Samsung - for young women focused on their career

That's at least what Nielsen Media Research says... I wonder where all the divorced, child-less middle managers are...