LG Prada mobile phone

"LG says it will sell more than 700,000 units of the Prada phone by the end of 2007." ME December 2007

Read it free, buy the book??

' Three years ago “Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” a children’s novel illustrated with cartoons, was published online, where anyone could read it free. To this day anyone still can, at Funbrain.com, an educational Web site. Despite laments about youngsters spending too much time surfing the Web and not enough time reading, it turns out that many of them still want the format of old-fashioned paper stuck between two covers. Since an edited form of “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” was published as a traditional book in April by Amulet, an imprint of Harry N. Abrams, it has sold 147,000 copies, according to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks 50 percent to 70 percent of retail sales. The book, written and drawn by Jeff Kinney, has spent 33 weeks on The New York Times best-seller list. This Sunday, it will be No. 1 on the Children’s Chapter Books list. That a book derived from free online content has sold so well may allay some fears that giving something away means nobody will want to pay for it. It also encourages publishers who increasingly scour the Internet for talent, hoping to capitalize on the audiences that a popular Web site can deliver.
“I think books are still things, thank goodness, that people want to own,” said Michael Jacobs, chief executive of Abrams. “The package of the book and the way it feels is something apart and separate from being able to read it online.” ' New York Times, December 2007

Itsmy.com mobile social network

'Mobile social network notches 300,000 users in the UK. Itsmy.com, the mobile/PC social networking site operated by Germany-based Gofresh, has amassed 300,000 members in the UK.And its reckons lazy, work shy Brits are flocking to mobile because 49 per cent of them can't access social networks from their office PCs.Gofresh surveyed 5,000 people between 16 and 54 years old across Europe and compares the UK figure to mainland Europe, where only a third of lazy employees are unable to check their profiles from their desks, presumably due to lax firewalls.Gofresh CEO Vince Staybl said: "People want to be connected with their friends 24/7 wherever they are. This becomes more and more difficult, as PC internet access is limited or not available at all." ' Mobile Entertainment, December 2007

For Toddlers, Toy of Choice Is Tech Device

"Cellphones, laptops, digital cameras and MP3 music players are among the hottest gift items this year. For preschoolers. Toy makers and retailers are filling shelves with new tech devices for children ages 3 and up, and sometimes even down. They say they are catering to junior consumers who want to emulate their parents and are not satisfied with fake gadgets. Consider the “hottest toys” list on Amazon.com, which includes the Easy Link Internet Launch Pad from Fisher-Price (to help children surf on “preschool-appropriate Web sites”) and the Smart Cycle, an exercise bike connected to a video game. Jim Silver, editor of Toy Wishes magazine and an industry analyst for 24 years, said there had been “a huge jump in the last 12 months” in toys that involve looking at a screen. “The bigger toy companies don’t even call it the toy business anymore,” Mr. Silver said. “They’re in the family entertainment business and the leisure business. What they’re saying is, ‘We’re vying for kids’ leisure time.’ ” Technology has been slowly permeating the toy business for a number of years, but the trend has been accelerating. On Wednesday, six of the nine best-selling toys for 5- to 7-year-olds on Amazon.com were tech gadgets. For all of 2006, three of the top nine toys for that age group were tech-related. The trend concerns pediatricians and educators, who say excessive screen time stifles the imagination. But more traditional toys — ones without computer monitors, U.S.B. cables and memory cards — are seen by many children as obsolete." NY Times, December 2007

Japan's hit novel written on mobile

"One of Japan’s best selling books Moshimo Kimiga was written entirely on a phone.
The 142-page book has sold more than 420,000 copies since it was converted into hardcopy format in January. It was originally marketed in instalments from an internet site and pushed to mobile, only to be converted into paper when it became a ‘new media’ hit. Writer Rin said: "I started writing novels on my mobile when I was in junior high school and I got really quick with my thumbs, so after a while it didn't take so long.”Her story is fairly typical of a new trend in Japanese publishing where mobile novels – called ‘keitai shousetsu’ – have become a publishing phenomenon. They are especially popular among younger women. Indeed, half of Japan's top-10 selling works of fiction in the first six months of the year were composed the same on a mobile phone." Mobile Entertainment, December 2007