Irish mobile media technology firm NewBay has confirmed it has signed a contract worth several million euros with global mobile operator T-Mobile to provide the company with technology to power its European social media service MyFaves.
NewBay, which is currently one of the many Irish mobile companies attending the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, told Siliconrepublic.com that this is one of the largest single deals the company has made to date.
However, the company does already provide T-Mobile in the US with its LifeCache technology to power the mobile operator’s online blog and album services.
Paddy Holahan, CEO of NewBay, explained that LifeCache is the family name for NewBay’s products, which are all centred around user generated content (UGC), a strong growth area on the web and the mobile because the individual’s life is increasingly lived online through the various services where they can share video, write blogs, update photos etc.
“UGC is the huge transition; it is what Web 2.0 is about. In 2010 it is estimated that 70pc of all content on the internet will be UGC, despite the presence of Hollywood films, the online music industry and online TV channels,” said Holahan.
“While premium content is replaceable, what really matters to people is making home videos and sharing pictures of their children.”
Holahan, like many others, feels that UGC is the new value area for operators and is what is driving the rapid growth and development of the internet: “Sites like Bebo and Facebook are essentially UGC aggregators.”
NewBay started off five years ago in order to specifically address this area but it wasn’t until the beginning of 2007 that mobile operators began moving in this direction says Holahan, and this expertise is why NewBay is winning deals such as the one with T-Mobile.
“We look at the world though the eyes of the operator and the end user, so we offer branded services but of course users want to be able to use their network of choice for interoperability, as well as operators wanting to use their own services.
“We say that one of our functions is helping the operator become the centre of the user’s digital life because they want a unified experience: the user want to go to one place and live their life online and we help operators to uniquely provide this service.”
By Marie Boran
