The World Cup kicks off in Germany on June 9, and beyond its importance in its own right (as well as a lovely summertime distraction), it’s going to be a huge piling-on point for mobile content, as developers and content providers try to capitalize on the excitement. Much of it, judging by past experience, will be crap, but give the general state of current mobile phones and content, there should be some interesting stuff.
So let’s separate the wheat from the chaff — have you seen any World Cup-related mobile content or applications that look good? There’s the “official” application, which looks like it could be pretty cool. What else is out there? Or will the acme of technology and popularity continue to be SMS score alerts?
Please share what you’ve seen in the comments, with links, availability and pricing info if you’ve got it. Bonus points for screenshots of real mobile TV services showing the tournament or the buildup to it 
[tags]mobile, mobile content, world cup[/tags]
Rhetorical Question for the Universe: How is that men won’t dance, but they will wear completely ridiculous outfits (see above photo) in the name of their favorite sports team?
;o)
I’ll kick it off (ha, how clever): Verizon’s launched Spanish language text alerts and trivia here in the US — real cutting-edge stuff. They’re free, at least, beyond normal messaging charges, though I guess if you’re an English speaker, you’re going to miss out on some of the fun.
Hey Carlo,
Since you asked about World Cup apps, mFoundry is working with LatCel to launch Soccer ‘06 in the next week. This app will give people access to current standings, news, game summaries, schedules and trivia. Soccer ‘06 will be available in English, Spanish and Portuguese and sold via Sprint/Nextel and Cingular in the US and through LatCel partners in Mexico, Central America and South America.
I’ve included a screen shot below (I hope it appears). Hope to catch up with you soon.
A screenshot of the Soccer ‘06 Moblet can be found on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mfoundry/149054015/
Carlo
The UK has plenty of mobile World Cup coverage with the two largest tabloid newspapers (The Sun and News of the World) launching free java apps for the phone last weekend - just text SUN or NOTW to 80080 to get them if you’re on a UK mobile. Both are J2ME apps offering world cup content from the sports desks at the newspapers. The content looks pretty good, if you’re a regular reader of the newspapers I guess you’ll love to get more of the same throughout the day, and for free.
Some of the interactive stuff looks pretty interesting, you can text in your comments and the best will get published - haven’t tried this yet but may give it a shot. They also have a couple of interactive quizzes under the trivia section that look good. We wont get to see the quality of the live commentary until the games start in June but given the popularity of the Sun and News of the World football writers it should hopefully be pretty good.
It’s interesting to see newspapers releasing apps with normally paid-for content available for free - aren’t they worried about cannibalising their regular readers? It’ll be interesting to see what the take-up is. There is no video content in the app, although they do have still images, so they are banking on the content and it’s pedigree to make it appealing.
On the advertising front, a big deal for newspapers, they’ve got sponsorship from 3 the mobile network - interesting that the only advertiser/sponsor is a mobile player. Are the normal big spend advertisers playing a wait and see game? I’d have thought it would have been worth their while taking a punt on the huge popularity of the world cup and splashing out some cash to test the waters…
Joe
Guys (& gals)
Hey Jen, my guy dances!
Football isn’t just a male domain! I love the game. The Sun/News of the World app does appear to be well thought out and very much worth looking at. But they are slightly different too. The quizzes are really interesting in the Sun Trivia and the breaking news is good. Just for the hell of it, I took a look at the News of the World at the same time. Their breaking news is terrific, real footy fan stuff. And they have their columnist who is going to add his blog onto the mobile. The install was a synch too so big marks for that one.
I have a mate who works at the paper and he says the plans they have for these apps are really big so I guess its “watch this space” once the tournament gets underway.
Sharon
Looks like Rafat posted some screenshots of the “official” Yahoo FIFA application yesterday.
http://flickr.com/photos/13736953@N00/sets/72057594138597343/
Earlier this month a small shop in Boston put out a press release stating that they created this app.
http://www.mobic.com/news/publisher/view.do?id=3867
Looks like its all vector and push. Wonder how they pull that off. Could be pretty cool -Especially since it appears to be free!
Boris
Hi Carlo,
The official application will be available in 6 languages, and consumers can download it for free on the official FIFA website.
http://p3.qa.fifa.ird.yahoo.com/06/en/m/fifa06_mobile_matchcast.html
It is a vector graphics application that is powered by a true push engine. It will contain real-time play-by-play information, live commentary, stats, news, results and more.
Thanks
Marc at Everypoint
I’m working with a mobile games developer which has just launched a Java app for this year’s football madness. Delivers all the latest news, scores, results, odds, etc. direct to your mobile.
Plus they’re giving away free World Cup themed wallpaper and running competitions to win kit, ipods, etc.
You can find it all on http://www.planyourworldcup.com
[Disclaimer: I'm working with them to help promote it...]
4INFO.net will be launching unlimited World Cup tournament text alerts ($2.99 US) prior to the tournament.
• Receive a text alert each time a goal is scored
• Query by group standings so you know your team’s chances to advance
• Query by team schedule so you don’t miss your team’s next game
• Game previews and recaps via SMS
Sign up for notification when the service is ready, http://www.4info.net/worldcup
Freerange Communications, makers of the Free MobHappy Reader have put together a free Football reader to help all of us who won’t be making it the event, or just want to be in the know.
It has various football related feeds from many sources and has feeds available in 5 languages.
You can get all the info from http://freerangeinc.com/football
Did I mention it’s free?
T-Mobile in the UK has a World Cup offering as seen promoted in a shop window on the Kings Road
http://www.flickr.com/photos/technokitten/148207390/
I had a look on the T-mobile website
http://fc.t-mobile-campaign.co.uk/home/index.php
And saw that the offering includes free text alerts (woohoo! push the boat out T-Mobile) and access to ‘official content’. The competitions sounded more interesting than the mobile offering.