Hola from S60 Summit

Well that's not completely true .. the conference starts properly tomorrow but I'm here in Barcelona getting ready. I love travelling to new places and getting my expectations of what it will be like completely thrown out the window! Very different to what I imagined, but it's a great city. Did the quick tour of the city yesterday (photos here) and was blown away by the Gaudi buildings - he was a genuis to be sure to have been able to design such weird and wonderful architecture.

Anyway, I'll have more to report on work stuff tomorrow. This afternoon I'm doing a video interview with Nokia (along with the other developers here) about the applications and products we make, and then the fun begins with a Forum Nokia dinner tonight.

See Nokia Web Run-Time at webDU 2008

As part of the always-awesome webDU conference this year, I'm very pleased to see Nokia not just sponsoring the event (which is great on its own), but also presenting on their WRT (Web Run-Time) technology. WRT can of course contain Flash Lite content, becasue essentially is a browser-based experience, and Flash Lite has long been able to be viewed through the S60 browser. But WRT is ultimately based on HTML, Javascript and CSS to create installable widgets for the S60 platform.

Gary Chan from Nokia will be presenting "Beyond Browsing - Web 2.0 goes Mobile" and showing web developers the opportunities to extend their reach into mobile widgets on the WRT platform by using their existing skills.

And as part of my session ("The Not-so Ancient Art of Mobile Flash Video") I might even get time to show the Flash Lite 3.0 video app we build incorporate into a WRT widget.

Moket games on Mobile Hotdog

Moket have launched a new partnership with Mobile Hotdog (based out of Asia) with a couple of games being made available on their website - Eat Them Alive and Jon Burgerman's Sausage Smackdown. Both games are available on a (limited) free trial basis before you can purchase the game.

If you are interested in the Moket Content Network evaluating and potentially distributing your own games through this channel, please let me know.

Polar Cap Blues available now on Smashing Games

Moket's Polar Cap Blues is now available on Smashing Games (available in North America on Verizon Wireless) and is currently in the Spotlight section.

If you're on Verizon Wireless, follow these steps:

• Select "Get it Now" on your Verizon Wireless "Get it Now" enabled handset
• Select Get Fun and Games
• Select Get New
• Select Select Verizon Exclusives
• Select Smashing Games
• Polar Cap Blues can be found in Spotlight, New and Arcade.

While you're there, why not also download Cipher or Dizzy Zub Zub, and do your bit to keeping Moket game developers paying the rent :)

Adobe Mobile Gallery launches

Adobe launched their new Adobe Mobile Gallery today - a nice RIA for demonstrating the depth of Flash Lite products being produced around the world. We're pleased to have a number of Moket products in there, including our GoPets animations, the first Dojo Monkey game, and also our MoCarbon wallpapers. I'm also pleased to see many contributors to the Moket Content Network repesented in the gallery.

Dojo Monkey and Flash Lite in the press

Well, you can never say that Moket doesn't do it's fair share of giving positive media coverage when it comes to Flash Lite and Adobe products :)

The Australian media section has today published a nice article on our Dojo Monkey product and the work we're doing cross-platform with it, including Flash Lite.

Hopefully with all the things we have in the pipleline with Dojo Monkey, there's going to be a lot more coverage like this in the near future.

New Game on Chumby - GRORBS

We just released a new game for the Chumby called GRORBS. You'll also be seeing it soon in the Smashing Ideas catalogue in the US for Verizon customers. Check it out! Expect another announcement soon on where else you can buy GRORBS and other Moket games for your mobile ...

Moket and Forum Nokia Deliver Flash Lite Code Camp

I'm very happy to be involved in this upcoming Flash Lite Code Camp with Forum Nokia - April 3rd 2008, Sydney.

Moket will be part of the one-day session aimed at educating mobile developers on Flash Lite development and how it integrates with Nokia's own roadmap for the platform. This roadmap includes Flash Lite and Nokia's own Web Run Time (WRT) platform for wrapping and distributing Flash Lite content as "widgets" for Series 60 handsets.

Adobe will also be present, delivering important business information regarding their Mobile & Devices platform and future plans.

The current agenda for the day is as follows:

• 9:30am : Registration
• 10:00am-10:30am : Forum Nokia, Flash Lite opportunity - Gary Chan
• 10:30am - 11:00am : Adobe's Mobile & Device Platform - Mark Blair
• 11:00am - 11:20am : Coffee Break
  
• 12:00am -12:30pm: Flash Lite in the Market - Dale Rankine, Moket
• 12:30pm -1:30pm : Lunch
• 1:00pm -3:30pm : Hands-on session with Flash Lite 3 - Dale Rankine
• 3:30pm -4:00pm: Wrap up + networking

For the afternoon hands-on session, I'll be working through developing a Flash Lite 3 video application, and then wrapping it with WRT for distribution.

If you're in the Sydney area or can get there, this is a fantastic opportunity to come and hear and learn from the experts, and to get hands-on experience with Flash Lite.

Register for the event here.

Dojo Hits MTV

MTV Asia has added the Dojo Monkey trailer to their video/media player, helping to further excite the Asian market about the impending release of further Dojo content. The Moket animation team have completed pre-production on the upcoming mini-episode, and as you can see from the story boards below, it's sure to be cooler than the trailer!

Dojo Trailer posted on Animation Portals - VOTE NOW!

Play your part in making Dojo Monkey famous - vote for the trailer now on Newgrounds and Deviant Art. The trailer has already received a "Daily Deviation" award on the DA site, which was the first DD award for James, Moket's lead animator and Dojo trailer magician, in his 6 years in submitting content on the site. Well done James!

So vote now, and keep an eye out for some cool Dojo Flash Lite content and new episiodes coming out soon!

Dojo Monkey has arrived!

For those of you that may remember back to when Moket was starting out, we talked about a character that we had designed for some games called "Dojo Monkey". It's taken us some time (ok, a LONG time) but we have something to finally show you.

As well as the Flash Lite 2.0 game that we have completed (more news on its release shortly), we have launched dojomonkey.com featuring a new animated trailer from the forth-coming, made-for-mobile, animated series. You can also download some Dojo desktops from the site and also some mobile wallpapers via SMS from of course, Club Moket.

Dojo is the first title that we will be looking to release under the new MoketTV brand - a division of Moket that focuses on releasing high quality Flash animation to the mobile market.

You can also watch (and vote for!) the trailer direct on YouTube and via the MoketTV YouTube channel.

Would love to hear your feedback on the trailer as we work towards releasing more Dojo content and products.

Moket launches "Cipher" on the Chumby

Today, Moket launched their latest mobile game title that has been Chumby-fied - Cipher.

Moket presents Cipher - a challenging memory game that isn't for the faint hearted. In a mix of classic Mastermind and memory-style gameplay, you must find the colours in the random code to complete each level. There are bonus tiles to help you beat the clock and to go further into this frenetic puzzle - but time is running out!

Cipher is also available for your mobile this Friday through Smashing Games.

Buy Club Moket Flash Lite content now from the desktop website

We've just launched and update to the Club Moket desktop website to allow customers to browse certain products and initiate the sales process from the desktop.

We've been spending a lot of time evaluating the early traffic coming to Club Moket (clubmoket.mobi), and have been looking at ways to make it easier for people to access the Flash Lite content we have available. One of the "restrictions" we have at the moment is not being able to represent the Flash Lite content AS Flash in the mobile browser, due to the overall lack of support for Flash Lite in the browser across the vast majority of handsets. This this is something we will look at again in the new year, but we decided that it was important to try and get across to the potential customers how cool the animations were so they could see that they were different to normal static wallpapers.

So we've created a system whereby for certain products on the Club Moket mobile site:

• we have Flash previews online
• there is a form for each product that allows you to provide your mobile number and receive a free SMS link to the purchase page for that product
• and also a Datamatrix barcode that can be scanned to get the same direct link

We're always looking for feedback, so please let us know what you think. This is just another example of Moket being extremely proactive in further the distribution and sales for Moket Content Network members and Flash Lite content in general.

Moket goes Jingle Bowls

We had the Moket Christmas party for the team this week at the Strike Bowling Bar here in Brisbane. Basically ten-pin bowling with a bar tab and catered food :) Loads of fun ... here are some pics from Dominic.

Moket games out now through Smashing Games

Good news for the Flash Lite community and mobile gamers - the Smashing Games catalogue has been launched on Verizon Wireless! There are many great games available now to over 18 million subscribers in North America, including our very own Dizzy Zub Zub and Cipher.

Moket has many more titles in the pipeline for the Smashing Games catalogue over the coming months, so watch this space for more news on our latest releases. In some cases, you'll also be able to play ported versions of the games on the Chumby - like the Chumby-fied Dizzy Zub Zub.

Well done to the Smashing team on getting this baby born. It's another piece of the puzzle for Flash Lite content making an impact on the mobile content industry and one that I know will do very well. For those Verizon customers out there - go and buy some Flash Lite gaming goodness and help feed starving independent Flash Lite game developers around the world :)

Buy Flash Lite content now from Club Moket!

We've been working hard at Moket on delivering a new sales channel for Flash Lite content, and I'm happy to say that it has finally arrived!

Club Moket (clubmoket.mobi on your phone browser) is, to our knowledge, the first off-deck mobile portal dedicated to selling Flash Lite content. We have launched first with our "Mokimations" catalogue, featuring animated wallpapers and screensavers. Q1-2 2008 will see games, applications and mobile video added to the service. We're really pushing out content that shows off the great visual nature of Flash, as well as handset interactivity (for clocks, random animations, MoCarbon products, etc)

Club Moket is available to most global mobile internet users, with payment for content managed via on-bill (SMS), PayPal or secure credit-debit card. The best option for you, depending on where you are and what relationship our billing gateway has with your carrier, will be the one/s offered to you (currently PayPal is upgrading their system so it is temporarily unavailable at the moment). Right now SMS is not an option for North American customers as out application is still being processed but you could still use your credit/debit card. However USA makes up a smaller customer base for something like Club Moket which is off-deck, so markets with customers on more open handsets (Nokia, Sony Ericsson) and with flexible web-browsing such as UK, Europe, Sth East Asia are where we are seeing the most demand.

This presents an entirely new and accessible channel for global customers, and one that we look forward to filling with great content from the wider FL community through the Moket Content Network. MCN partners will be receiving a Club Moket Toolkit to help promote the site and their content. The toolkit includes banners, SMS widgets (as seen on the right here) and also free SMS marketing tools to send out txt messages to their immediate circle of friends and networks.

If you would like to add some banners to your blogs, sites, etc to help get the word out, please email me. I hope that the FL community will get behind us and help promote what is I think one of the most open FL sales channels out there.

Moket in the press

Today, Moket appeared in an article in the leading Fairax Media newspapers (Sydney Morning Herald, The Age) relating to mobile gaming. "The Big Money in Mobile Gaming" looks at the emergence and growth of mobile gaming, and how Australia is already producing worthy titles for the various sections of the global market. Flash Lite (although wrongly spelt in the article!) gets a great mention as well ... "With most mobile phones now running flash, a massive new platform has emerged for videogame developers."

Read the article here.

First Moket game on the Chumby

Today Moket launched its first game on the Chumby - a ported version of one of its leading casual mobile games, "Dizzy Zub Zub".

This is one of many games that Moket is either porting from mobile or creating specifically for the Chumby. You can find "Dizzy" in the Games widget category on the Chumby site.

Stay tuned for more Chumby titles soon!

Beta testers needed for Moket Chumby games

If you are a Chumby owner and would like to help out Moket by testing the games that we are porting from mobile to Chumby, then please email me (dale AT moket DOT com) with your Chumby account name so I can make you a Moket "Chum" and send you the games through to your channel. The games will be set as Private widgets until we launch.

We're officially cool!

Moket has been named one of 2007's "Top 50 Cool Companies" by Australian Anthill Magazine (an Aussie business magazine dedicated to innovation, entrepreneurship and rapid business growth).

“Most business award programs are only interested in two little words: Revenue growth. Anthill is not simply about wealth creation. Of course, the ultimate goal is to make a profit, but never to profit at all cost. Cool companies are creative, fun loving and commercially astute. Moket joins a growing ‘alumni’ of cool companies, focused on innovation, entrepreneurship and business success through clever thinking.”

Read news article here.

Cool!

Moket releases "MoCarbon" brand of Flash Lite products

Moket has just released a range of innovative and educational mobile wallpaper products under the new "MoCarbon" brand name.

These wallpapers are aimed at educating users about the wasted electricity, and associated additional carbon in the atmosphere, that comes from leaving their phone chargers plugged into the power socket when the phone does not require charging. They're also just cool animations for your mobile wallpaper.

The initial range of animations were created in conjunction with Matt Pollitt and the team at Outside Media. If you are interested in opportunities to be part of further creative MoCarbon projects, please drop me a line.

The wallpapers have already been licensed by international aggregators, and have been featured in some upcoming Adobe marketing including the new "Getting Started with Flash Lite" whitepaper released this week. You may have also seen some sneak peeks around Flashforward last week.

News article here MoCarbon website here

Polar Cap Blues from Moket

We've just completed a new game this week that will be available for download very shortly - Polar Cap Blues.

Having fallen on particularly hard times, these arctic animals don't have much more to hang on to. With each fearing the bitter trials of relocation, keep each animal on the ice for as long as possible. Watch out though, the ice is melting!You are in control of an artic animal who is clinging to the last bit of polar ice they have called home. Keep your character from sliding from the ice, avoiding the buffeting winds, and try and collect bonus ice cubes to keep your score up.

Watch this space for more announcements over the coming weeks regarding new content and applciations from Moket!

The Mad Dash to MAX

With one week to go before I'm on a plane to the US, things are getting a bit hectic here!

Fortunately for me, with the winding down of web-development studio I don't have the "client" headaches I normally have when going away for an extended period of time like this. This will be one of the first times in 6 years where I won't be worry about who's website has crashed and trying to get it back online for the Aussie timezone :)

I'm also in the fortunate position of now having a growing team to leave behind (sorry guys, maybe next year!) to continue development of our next range of products. On that note, I'd like to welcome to the team our recent additions of James Lee (animator) and Sam Boss-Walker (Flash Lite/Flex/AS3 developer) . We also have 3 interns from Qantm College starting this week, so welcome Tegan, Tom and Jonathan.

Before I leave next week there are a couple product launches to announce or "hint" at, a couple of new game titles to complete and several more to start, new computers to set up, and some presentations to write.

I'm very much looking forward though to MAX and catching up again with the wider mobile / Flash Lite community. There are some larger efforts being put into mobile this year (e.g. MaD Boot Camp) which will gives us all a better sense of growth in the area of Flash Lite, and a chance to neet new guys being attracted to the platform. Honestly though a big part of the trip will be my wife and I just getting away from the kids for a little bit - we need a holiday!

Moket - an Adobe Case Study

Moket has been featured on Adobe.com in the Showcase section. It's a pleasure to be up there alongside some of the great Flash Lite related companies going around at the moment.

New viral Flash game for web and mobile

Moket has just launched a new viral Flash game (web+mobile) for Wotif.com called "Ruck-a-mole". It's just one of the many campaigns that you'll see starting to popup around the place based around the upcoming Rugby World Cup, but this one doesn't take itself too seriously.

There's a whole lot more that we could have done with it probably if we had more time (we only had 2 weeks to do it) but we're pretty happy with how it turned out. We wanted to try a few different angles on helping this go viral, so we added a quick link to post the game to your Facebook account, the mobile version, and a copy'n'paste HTML block for adding a banner to your site. So far we've had over 1000 plays in the first 24 hours.

From the mobile perspective, we wanted to try out some new frameworks Moket has been developing for game development, and see how easy it would be to port something from the browser to FLash Lite 2.0. In the end, we proably spent about 2-3 days on the mobile version, out of the 2 weeks we spent on the web version+database. Not bad I reckon. It's a good case study in approaches to cross-platform marketing for companies willing to go the extra mile and get more bang for their buck when using Flash.

Anyway, check out www.ruckamole.com

(in case you're trying to work it out, it's a whack-a-mole style game but with rugby playing moles popping up from a rugby field. And in rugby, you have this thing called a "ruck")

Moket featured in latest Adobe "Plugged In"

I've been very kindly featured in the latest Adobe (ANZ) "Plugged In" eNewsletter, talking about Moket and Flash Lite - click here for the online version. Thanks to Mark and the Sydney office for the support!

Moket office growing

I don't know about you, but I love going shopping for new computers. On one hand I get a little frustrated because my budget never extends to where I would like it to go, but then I just love the smell of a new laptop when you take it out for the first time ... I'm such a nerd!

We are expanding here at Moket - this week welcoming our new Flash developer Michael Heydon to the Moket team. Michael did an internship with Moket following on from graduating with a Bachelor of Multimedia from Qantm College here in Brisbane. Michael (or "Donny") has been working on our upcoming titles "Polar Cap" and "Cipher", and also has been thrown in the deep end with the development of a viral Flash game we're doing for both desktop and mobile. So, welcome aboard Donny!

New laptop for me, new desktops arriving for more developers next week ... now ... I just have to find a place for all these guys to sit!

Angel Investment Article

Recently I was interviewed for an article being written about the angel investment scene in Australia, with specific relation to my experiences with growing Moket. The article is for a section of our national broadcaster's website - the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). It may give some of you an insight into life as a start-up company - hard enough as it is most times without also working in an emerging technology such as Flash Lite :)

You can read the article here.

You'll notice that despite whatever hardship I described in the article, we are supremely optimistic about our future. The company motto at the moment is simply, "Onwards!".

MAX + more speaking gigs in the US

As many of you may know I've been fortunate enough to be invited to speak again at this year's Adobe MAX conference in Chicago in October. Things are coming together for the session Alessandro and I are doing together, and also for the Mobile and Devices Boot Camp. If you haven't decided on going yet - get cracking and get yourself there!

To add to my speaking duties while in the US, I've been invited to deliver a session at Entertainment Technology Centre in Pittsburgh, part of the Carnegie Mellon University.

The Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) at Carnegie Mellon University offers a two-year Masters of Entertainment Technology degree, jointly conferred by Carnegie Mellon University's College of Fine Arts and School of Computer Science. Carnegie Mellon is relatively unique among U.S. Universities in being able to offer this kind of degree, as we have both top-quality fine arts and top-quality technology programs.

ETC has a campus in Adelaide (Australia) as well, and Moket recently hosted a group of students and faculty at the Moket offices, giving them an insight into mobile gaming and Flash Lite. It was a great afternoon and met some very talented young game developer superstars of the future. I'm honored to be asked to come and give a repeat performance to the Pittsburgh student body, and to keep sharing the Moket / Flash Lite vision.

Oh, and they also introduced me to Tower of Goo - on par with Desktop Tower Defence as one of the more addicitive online games I've played!

Moket partners 2007 IMGAwards

I'm happy to announce that Moket will be a Promotional Partner for the 2007 International Mobile Gaming Awards (IMGA). We're very pleased to have an association with this annual event and look forward to bringing the awards to a greater number of mobile game developers.

Immediate opportunities for Flash Lite animations through the Moket Content Network

Over at Moket we've been "kicking some goals" as they say with regards to distribution of Flash Lite content. We now have an opportunity for designers and developers to submit content to the Moket Content Network for consideration in a global distribution deal.

You can read thr email I sent out about it here, but we're very excited to be able to provide an opportunity for Flash Lite guys to see their content out in the market. Right now we're needing animations that can be used for wallpapers, screensavers or animated ringtones. Games will become more of a focus in the coming months.

We've already been able to secure licensing for animations/wallpapers done by Jim and Matt in the first round of ordering which has been great.

So, if you're sitting on some Flash Lite animation content (or have some Flash content you think we can port to Flash Lite easily enough), then please let us know by email at mcn@moket.com.au

Fever Animation signs content deal with Moket

We're happy to announce today that Fever Animation has signed a deal with Moket for the development of Flash Lite mobile content (including games and personalisation content) for their incredible short animated film, "FEVER".



We'd like to thank Charlie Griak and the team there for getting on board with Moket and we're really excited about the content we have planned for later this year. If you haven't heard of "FEVER" before, check out the website for the trailer and downloads.

More news to come as we announce the release of content and where you can find it. If you're interested in licensing and distribution, drop us a line. Moket has been actively developing relationships with film makers, designers, animators and the creative industry in general to uncover and license content that we feel will generate some very exciting and compelling Flash mobile content. It's all about bringing out content that leverages the abilities of Flash Lite and creating new experiences for mobile consumers.

Gone missing, but I'm still here.

it's been a while since my last post ... let's see, what have I been doing of late?

I got a Nintendo Wii over Easter ("for the kids") so there's been a lot of tennis and boxing going on at my place. I've been doing some investigation on possible mobile tie-in apps for the Wii, since the Wiimotes are using Bluetooth to connect up and transfer data, but let's be honest, I really got it to play games! Very addicitive and funny for people walking along my street who can see in my lounge room window I'm sure.

Moket has been very busy on some projects - new games and content, plus some applications for carriers which I'll post about soon (hopefully) when we can talk about things publically. One of our new games will be available in the US later on this month which we're really happy about.

We've got a new student intern working at Moket now as well. Michael Heydon (or "Donny to his mates") has been working with Moket on Flash Lite 2.x game development and soon we'll be getting him into some animation as well. Michael graduated from Qantm College here in Brisbane last year, and we're really excited to have him on board. Michael is here on our Intern program, which you can find more about here.

Well that's about all for the time being. You'll see a lot more news and posts in the coming months as I drag myself out of business and development team meetings, and back into the "marketing" side of my job :) Cheers.

New Creative Director for Moket

Today Moket welcomed Thomas Hamlyn-Harris to the team as Creative Director. Thomas brings years of experience in illustration and design, as well as mobile marketing and product development. Avid Moket fans will know Thomas as the illustrator for Dojo Monkey (still in development - don't worry, we haven't forgotten him!)

We're looking forward to bring you some more news shortly on some of Moket's 2007 initiatives and new products. In the meantime, welcome aboard Thomas!