MEX

Mobrio, which develops a mobile blogging platform, has struck an agreement to provide its technology to Glue, a London-based creative agency. The first result of the relationship is the MTV Starzine, a mobile community sponsored by Nokia which encourages users to submit photographs by MMS and build their own ‘Features Pages’ as part of an online magazine.

The project has already attracted nearly 1000 photo submissions and is being used by Nokia to promote its 3230 consumer-focused smartphone.

The rise of blogging on the web has been well documented but attempts to encourage its extension to mobile devices have met with limited success. An early pioneer was Newbay Software, an Irish company which has conducted some projects with smaller operators such as Setar on the Caribbean island of Aruba or one-off engagements with larger customers such as T-Mobile USA and O2 Ireland.

Mobrio’s approach is rather different and the company is working primarily with large media companies as they seek to leverage their brand relationships in the mobile environment. Mobrio previously closed a deal to supply its platform to teen site Mykindaplace, which has about 600,000 users.

The Mobrio blogging technology supports both web-based and mobile blogging, enabling users to submit a range of content, including photos and video.

Julian Swallow, CEO of Mobrio, is chairing the session entitled: “Supporting user-driven personalisation” at the MEX conference.