Sweden First Out With MMS News
World Premier at the Soccer World Cup
A unique Swedish cooperation between five companies has opened up the door to the World’s
first Multimedia Messaging News Service, it was announced in Stockholm Wednesday.
The breaking news service provides text and three colour photos to owners of Sony Ericsson’s
T68i mobile telephones in Sweden from every match in the Soccer World Cup in Japan/South
Korea set to kick-off May 31.
This content-rich application, offering a dramatic in crease in messaging capabilities in mobile
phones, is probably the first such commercial Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) of any
kind in the World.
MMS goes beyond simple text messaging by increasing the length of messages beyond the
current 160 charact er SMS-limit. MMS can also be used to send messages including photos,
video, and sound.
The companies promoting the service are mobile telephone maker Sony Ericsson, Sweden’s
news agency TT, the picture agency Pressens Bild, Sweden’s leading commercial TV-station
TV4 and Drutt Corporation, provider of the MMS-platform.
Drawing advantage of the MMS-technology from Drutt Corporation, TT and Pressens Bild
will jointly deliver the goals, the sweet victories and the bitter taste of disappointments in text
and photo sequences straight to the mobile phones.
The service is promoted by TV4, initially giving 200 of its viewers the opportunity to follow
the World Cup with MMS, adding value to its live televised broadcast of the tournament.
“We will promote the service on our internet site www.tv4.se/vm2002 where 200 Swedes will
become our first MMS-users, said Michael Knutas, project manager at the TV4 Interactive
department.
Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB recently launched the Sony Ericsson T68i – the
first commercial phone to support MMS.
”This is a splendid opportunity for us to show the expressive way of communicating with
MMS in a T68i and the World Cup is a perfect opportunity to launch such a service, said Per
Alksten, Product Marketing Manager at Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications in the Nordic
region.
”There is no such thing as a killer-application, but what you can create is a killer-constellation
and this is an example of such a dream team. The key to successful mobile services in the
future is intelligent co-operations between all parties from the content provider to the phone
makers, said Paul Burman, Marketing Director at Sweden’s news agency TT.
TT:s reporters will cover the World Cup and their news-flashes will be illustrated in the MMS
with photos from Pressens Bild.
”We will create photo-sequences where three colour photos from each match will illustrate
actions and emotions in a completely new fashion compared to the 160 characters you can see
in today’s SMS, said Tobias Rostlund, Managing Editor, Pressens Bild.
TT and Pressens Bild have been ready for some time to deliver their automatic news service
as MMS - the successor to SMS in the mobile phones.
The service became a reality with TT:s long-time partner Drutt Corporation presented the
technical solution for a fully-fledged Multimedia Messaging Service.
"We want to shift focus from the current technology-driven discussion about MMS-to how
the technology can be deployed in a service context. The World Cup-coverage is a brilliant –
and cost effective – example of how you can create innovative value added services, said
Roland Svensson, CEO of Drutt Corporation.
Contacts:
Jonas Wilhelmsson Drutt Corporation
+46-70-655 1321
Paul Burman TT
+46-70-325 5774
Tobias Rostlund Pressens Bild
+46-70-555 3166
Michael Knutas TV4
+46-70-630 9824
Per Alksten Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB
+46-70-216 4291
Download the Press Release in PDF 
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