We saw the following on my-symbian.com:

     My-Symbian have teamed up with ZingMagic to offer you a selection of
     premium quality applications for FREE. These applications are ad-funded.

The ads are shown on your phone's display when you receive calls and text messages.

They are delivered via an application called adtronic. It sounded interesting so we decided to test it out for ourselves. The adtronic application is produced by Liquid Air Lab GmbH.

They have a Flash based demo here.



Our tests demonstrated adtronic to be a well behaving application that did exactly what it said it would.

The user interface was easy to locate, the instructions to set the minimum/maximum limits were clear, and the ads themselves weren't actually all that intrusive. Downloading the ad banners requires a data connection and that is clearly stated. It was also easy to uninstall when we were done testing.

Combined with a set of free applications that people really want, this could be a successful business model. Success interests us because a money making business model will be noticed by eCrime.

Advertising revenue is the target of many DNSChanger PC malware families.

Also, while there are still some good Windows based ad supported applications, there are many more that crossover into adware and spyware.

Tell us, what do you think?

Question — Would you use ad supported software on your phone?

And something else we're interested in… What about mobile phone proximity based services?

Stuff like ad2hand, BlueBlitz, and Hypertag.

The basic idea is special offers and promotions are pushed out to those within Bluetooth range.

  •  Come visit our shop and receive a 10% discount!

Question — How would you feel if you were pushed an ad via Bluetooth?

Perhaps it would make a difference if the marketing material is pulled rather than pushed?

Your comments are welcome.