CTIA: Motricity mobile services can help carriers up their games

With so many carriers, operating systems and device makers saturating the mobile world, the potential for fragmentation that's becoming increasingly evident in this market could grow even bigger and more complex. Motricity, a Bellevue, Wash. company focused on direct-to-carrier mobile services, is trying to bring some simplicity to the system.

At the CTIA show today, the company will introduce three products/services that will up the stakes in the mobile game. They are:

mCore Connect: If you've seen the social and communication features of the Motorola Cliq, then you know the power of consolidating all of your mail, social updates and more to a single user interface on a mobile device. It's a nice feature, I'm sure - but it's only on one device made by one device maker on one carrier. Motricity has developed a way for other carriers to be able to bring that sort of functionality to other devices.

mCore Marketplace: There's plenty of shopping that can be done on a mobile device now - ringtones, games and so on. That's small potatoes right now. The number of things you'll be able to buy via a phone in the future is only going to get bigger. Motricity's products is working to deliver tools so that carriers can bring buyers and sellers together in a mobile marketplace that goes beyond app stores and traditional storefronts and offers consumers a personalized mobile shopping experience.

Campaign Manager: As smartphones become less like phones and more like handheld computers, the ability to "link" them with other forms of media becomes more enticing. For marketing types, Motricity's campaign manager is designed to give them a one-stop-shop create, launch and manage mobile campaigns. The A&E television network, for example, is using the service to create a campaign that integrates mobile into live television broadcasts, encouraging people to participate. Maybe it's a poll or some trivia or some games. Regardless, it opens the door to multi-platform interaction - and for marketers, that's gold.