« More stuff about proof | Main | The Science of Listener Attention »
September 15, 2004
Looks/Brains: skin deep or deep skins?
Check out Wildseed's Identity phone, where you get youth, beauty and brains with SmartSkins. The company just launched it's totally cool, totally new phone with Dobson and CellOne.
Marketing to the changing tastes of teens can be tough, unless you change with them. The folks at Wildseed have really done their playing field homework on this market and found that coolness, personality and the ability to change with changing tastes are key. Teens love to use mobile phones but find the phones themselves pretty boring. They also found this goes way beyond just cosmetics.
So their new phone technology, SmartSkins, allows you to do so much more to personalize your phone than change its' color. No need to be bored with your wireless phone ever again. Different SmartSkins deliver different themes, entertainment assets and styles. When you snap on your own SmartSkin over the phone it takes on a complete new personality to match your tastes from the including ringtones, games, screensavers and much more.
On top of that teens love to message each other so Wildseed built whta they think is the best messaging on any phone in the world. Since the features were designed for and by young consumers, the messaging on Identity looks a lot like IM on the desktop. Conversation boxes capture SMS, MMS and/or email all into one convenient spot. Your top ten friends can be assigned special Speed Lights status for a dedicated number and lights on the keypad tell you which of these friends is trying to contact you.
It is early days but we (and yes, we are investors in the company) think this lauch is very exciting. For additional news on the launch see Wireless Week.
Posted by johnza at September 15, 2004 07:30 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.geekfishing.net/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/1134
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Looks/Brains: skin deep or deep skins?:
» Wildseed Launches Identity Phone from NW Venture Voice
Check it out. Wildseed's very, very cool phone and technology for teens (and anyone who would like a personalized phone) launched with Dobson and CellularOne. This thing is very cool and totally personalizable.... [Read More]
Tracked on September 15, 2004 08:00 AM
» Wildseed launches with new phone concept from Geekfishing Blog
SmartSkins are very cool. Check it out. Wildseed's very, very cool phone and technology for teens (and anyone who... [Read More]
Tracked on September 16, 2004 07:38 AM
Comments
I did a little search on Wildseed. check out their website.. smartskins.com.
To me it seems like they have it right, 30 dollars doesn't seem much for a kid who spends more than that in just a few hours at the mall on clothing.
I have also heard a lot about the companys and cannot wait to get my hands on a phone and smartskins and check it out on my own.
Posted by: islandgirl at September 20, 2004 12:17 PM
Gosh I have been tracking these guys for a long time and its great to see that the SmartSkins and Identity have make it into the market.
I got to play with the phone and skins at CTIA and was very impressed with the content loaded on each skin and the phone's cool features such as Airtext, the radio and their messaging client that supports images, and has smiley icons as a part of the conversation.
Good luck them, and will get a phone and set of skins once my carrier starts selling Identity.
Posted by: simone at September 20, 2004 10:46 AM
How much homework could they have done if you cannot see the screen while you are typing? I'm not trying to start flaming here but I have tried this phone and it is unusable. Also, rumor has it that the skins are quite expensive. Thats not smart in an age where most cell phones are approaching $0. Oh yeah, and the phone costs $249 after rebate (not in most youth's price range). Someday someone will get this right.
Posted by: josh at September 17, 2004 03:23 PM
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)