Online movie ticket retailer Fandango is giving the mobile platform the old college try in eight markets for a new mobile ticket program.

The program in question, aptly dubbed “Mobile Ticket,” is a barcode-based solution that is getting a trial run in hopes of widespread launch in the coming months.

Fandango says “Mobile Ticket” presents theater tickets or passes as barcodes, which are sent to the mobile device of a moviegoer. At the theater, the barcode is scanned much the way a mobile coupon would be scanned at the point of sale. The advantage for moviegoers? No long wait at the box office ticket window.

Fandango’s Mobile Ticket doesn’t require a smartphone and works with the majority of mobile carriers. Initially, the program will reach more than one hundred screens in the Reading Cinemas circuit, including locations in New Jersey, Houston, Dallas, San Diego, Bakersfield, Sonoma County, and parts of Hawaii.

“We’ve already seen success in the mobile space with our variety of apps for the iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Palm and others,” says Rick Butler, COO of Fandango. “We know that Mobile Ticket will be one more Fandango convenience that moviegoers will enjoy. Our cell phones are with us all the time – so what better way to ensure you have your movie ticket?”

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I came across an interesting study today that claims Blackberry users are wishing for other smartphones in large numbers- particularly the iPhone and Google’s Nexus One.

While, like most studies, the data should be taken with a grain of salt, the study indicates that roughly 40 percent of BlackBerry users would rather have an Apple iPhone, while one-third are eying Google’s Nexus One as their next smartphone purchase, according to the study released by Crowd Science.

While this seems to show a large dissatisfaction with Blackberry by its users, it’s likely due to the fact many business users forced into using Blackberries for enterprise use would rather have a more consumer-friendly iPhone or Android device.  The sample used in this survey may be slightly skewed- however, the results are interesting.

Beyond this, the study also found that users of the Nexus One rivaled iPhone users in terms of brand loyalty, with both groups registered at 90 percent for those who plan to continue with their current brand when it comes to their next phone purchase.  On the other end of the spectrum, however, only 32 percent of BlackBerry users plan to continue with their smartphones upon their next purchase.

“These results show that the restlessness of Blackberry users with their current brand hasn’t just been driven by the allure of [the] iPhone,” says Crowd Science CEO John Martin.  ”The figures show deep dissatisfaction with BlackBerry that goes beyond simple jealousy of the attractive iPhone user interface.”

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Microsoft has always had high hopes for Silverlight, it’s Flash alternative, and has announced its availability to mobile developers in hopes of gaining usage in the explosion of mobile gaming and the future of 3D development on mobile devices.

Developers can download a comprehensive set of tools for Silverlight development on the Windows Phone 7 Series, including Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone, Windows Phone 7 Series add-in to use with Visual Studio 2010 RC, XNA Game Studio 4.0, Windows Phone 7 Series emulator for application testing and a separate downloadable Expression Blend for Windows Phone Community Technology Preview.

Though there’s hardly a thriving development community waiting in the wings to develop apps for the Windows Phone 7 Series, doing so using the newly released Silverlight development toolset allows access for things such as the accelerometer, a Microsoft Location Service for  location information, the Microsoft Notification Service to push information, regardless of whether or not an application is running and hardware-accelerated video with DRM, among other things.

It’s definitely a comprehensive suite of tools, but the problem remains that there’s simply no interest in developing for Windows Mobile devices- at least not yet, or anytime in the near future.  Developers focus on platforms that sell, and that are popular with users.  At the moment that’s iPhone and Android, bottom line.  This isn’t to say that Microsoft isn’t doing the right things to set the stage for increased consumer enthusiasm and interest from developers, but there’s still a long way to go.

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I spoke briefly yesterday in a post regarding the emphasis on location apps at SXSWi, and one in particular that has a lot of potential is Brightkite’s “Check.In” multi check-in app for services such as Gowalla, Foursquare, Yelp and others.  TechCrunch’s Jay Donovan had a chance to sit down with Brightkite founders Brady Becker and Martin May to demo the yet-to-be-released app and talk a little bit more about its future plans.

Starting as a pet-project internally at Brightkite, based on frustration in checking-in via multiple services, Check.In was created to solve the growing problem that many face as more and more services integrate check-ins.  While basic in nature, the app allows you to log-in, choose your location or recognize via GPS and use it to check-in to all integrated services.

For the time-being, Gowalla, Foursquare and Brightkite are included, though some mention of Gowalla being removed at launch was made due to the fact that Gowalla has yet to release formal APIs to allow for such integration.  For testing purposes, Brightkite was able to get around the lack of APIs from Gowalla, but has been asked not to include such integration on launch for some reason.

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I’ve always had a keen interest in Skyhook Wireless.  The company has been building a massive database of location information since its founding over 7 years ago.  Dubbed “XPS,” its location gathering technology combines GPS, cell tower triangulation and Wi-Fi positioning to create the “first true hybrid positioning system.”

With location being the hottest topic at the moment in the mobile realm, Skyhook’s technology has never been more relevant.  To put its hat into the ring, the company today announced the launch of SpotRank, a firehose of sorts to allow developers to tap into its wealth of location information.

SpotRank data is based around hundreds of millions of anonymous location lookups processed daily through Skyhook’s core hybrid positioning system.  Since Skyhook has been used on numerous devices around the world (including every iPhone) for location-based services, the platform powers positioning requests on tens of millions of devices and applications around the world.  Skyhook continually mines this data to create detailed behavioral intelligence profiles for over half a billion 100 meter “spots” around the world.

While companies like Gowalla and Foursquare rely on “check-ins” to accrue location-data, Skyhook’s system works far different in that it logs data everytime a device needs location for anything, creating a valuable resource for developers never before available until the launch of SpotRank.

Read the rest

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While many have hailed the iPad as a future mainstay of targeted mobile marketing campaigns, no shortage of advertisers are taking a wait and see approach with regard to the new Apple tablet. However, if the pre-order stats from this past weekend are any indication, the iPad could very well have a much larger than expected audience right out of the gate.

The unofficial count of first day orders for the iPad presents an estimated 120,000 tablets were sold. And according to the information and sources cited in a multitude of media reports, that estimate could very well be a low-end conservative one.

A truly remarkable fact about the iPad’s pre-order explosion is that tens of thousands of consumers are purchasing a device that they have never before seen, touched, or experimented with in person. But if the tablet resonates with consumers as the iPhone has, it’s easy to understand why many industry analysts predict millions of iPads could be sold before the end of 2010.

With the iPad’s already established popularity will come an array of unique digital content offerings to the tablet, like the freshly announced Barnes & Noble e-book reader app. An application designed exclusively for the iPad, the e-reader app will provide access to the B&N eBookstore as well as any ebooks already located in the user’s digital library.

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A new survey published by Compete.com indicates smartphone owners are very receptive to mobile coupons, especially when it comes to grocery coupons that are easily redeemable via barcodes scanned directly from the device.

The survey, which looked at the time of day most smartphone owners use their devices, as well as what mobile advertising concepts they’re most interested in, found that usage during commutes to work and while watching TV were the highest on the list by far.

To find out their receptiveness, the survey asked smartphone owners how interested they were in receiving various types of mobile advertising.  The results were quite interesting, indicating consumers were most interested in receiving grocery coupons (36%), scanable barcodes (29%), offers to save and pursue at leisure (26%), movie theater offers (26%) and ads via SMS when going by a retailer with a promotion / coupon (21%).

The fact that over 1 in 5 smartphone owners would be interested in these top-5 concepts is very promising for the mobile marketing industry, considering that it’s still in the early stages of mainstream adoption.  Given the nature of smartphones, adoption via this user-group will signal what works and what doesn’t- with concepts that do see mainstream adoption via smartphones making their way to feature phones eventually.

It’s not surprising that barcodes, coupons and other retail-oriented mobile technologies are the first to catch on with consumers.  It’s a concept that provides the most value to users, while not interfering with daily usage like some other concepts.

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