Nokia announces bFree - the birth of MobSharing
Nokia have just announced the introduction of a new music service for mobile phones called bFree, which looks set to kick start the whole MobSharing revolution. From Nokia:
“Consumers in Finland can download the latest music and related content from EMI artists to their phones in selected Free Record Shop music stores and Robert’s Coffee cafés in Helsinki area, Finland.
The bFree service offers the consumers not only music, ringtones, wallpapers and videos but also CD and video top 10 lists, and coupons to participating stores. Once music fans enter a participating store, they can download the bFree application to their phone, enabling them to browse available content. During the trial period, content downloads are free of charge, and closely linked to existing campaigns in the store.
The content download is made possible with Nokia Local Content Channel Solution, CoolZone, launched earlier today. CoolZone is a local delivery channel for any digital content and uses Bluetooth technology to distribute the content to the consumers’ phones in retail locations. The service is always customized according to the retailer’s or service provider’s own brand.”
Now, forgive me for being smug, but isn’t this MobSharing in the flesh? OK so I got a few details wrong: I said WLAN, Nokia are using Bluetooth; I said Starbucks, Nokia have chosen Robert’s. But other than that, this seems to be a real live MobSharing service.
Read more on my ideas behind MobSharing in MobileMentalism’s articles section. Then keep reading MobileMentalism in the coming months, and we’ll see how accurate my MobSharing predictions were, and how many more of my mad schemes become reality.
