Motorola is doing a nice job of connecting with the open source/web 2.0 enthusiasts with this one...as well as making a very smart move.  They're creating a Moto Q Wiki to "..capture and share the ever-growing knowledge of the great coummunity of Q users."  Pretty cool.

Does iRadio have a wiki?  Yes, it does, but it's farely bare.  In fact, no news of iRadio has been heard for some time.  Perhaps V Cast, XM mobile, and Sirius mobile options have made the Motorola team rethink their their strategy...is it too late?

(via MSMobiles) 

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Motorola won the Gold Award for its Moto Lipsync campaign the "Most Effective Use of Interactive Marketing - New Media" at the Asian Marketing Effectiveness Awards 2006 a couple days ago.

The campaign was inpired by the oh-so-famous, viral video sensation, the Backdorm Boys, two Chinese students whose first "I Want It That Way" lipsync video exploded.  You can check out that first video here, check out their ad with Motorola here, or read more about them here.  Fun stuff.

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Motorola, Yahoo! Music, and PepsiCo launched an entertainment site called Cool Tones & Motorola Phones.  While Mariah Carey, the All American Rejects, and Mary J. Blige croon in the background, users can check out a ringtone store, a wierd robot game, a motorola phone collage, or just stare at one of the sections that are "Coming Soon" (including IMV download, the ability to stick your mug in a ringtone video, etc etc).

I tried the robot game out -- see the screenshot below?  That's me, the ROKR robot on the left, opening a can of whoopass on the RAZR on the right.  (Hey, I used to play Street Fighter II.  Don't mess with me.)

Cheesy, fun, a tad buggy, but amusing overall.  For those of you who've got phone-on-the-brain, here's that collage I mentioned:

...Nice...but...look, is an iRadio-enabled ROKR E2 too much to ask for?  :)

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Amp'd Mobile's entertainment-focused mobile service (an MVNO using Verizon's network) is now up and running.  Three different phones are currently available, the most premium of which is the Motorola Hollywood, an enhanced version of the Motorola E816.  CNET recently published a review of the Hollywood here, giving it decent marks (7.6 of 10).

Motorola Hollywood features:

• 3G EV-DO (Evolution Data Optimized)
• Amp'd User Interface (BREW)
• 1.3 megapixel camera
• Mp3 player 
• Speakerphone
• USB
• Transflash card slot

CNET gave the phone high marks for the phone's user interface, call clarity, and fluid navigation, but commented on the touch-and-go EV-DO reception and occasional tendency freeze up when accessing Amp'd Live (the media browser and player).

Not bad for a first shot.  MVNOs in general seem to be facing a lot of challenges launching their services.  It will be interesting to see how Motorola iRadio will compare against entertainment-focused services such as Amp'd. 

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The team at Engadget scored a few photos of the upcoming Motorola Canary (RAZR 2) from someone calling himself the Boy Genius For Engadget (a groupie, I assume)-- you can check them out here and here. 

According to the team, these are the Canary's features:

• 2.0 megapixel camera
• Bluetooth
• MicroSD slot
• Same software as RAZR V3x (possibly)
• UMTS device (possibly) 
• Same thickness as RAZR, but thinner
• Due Q4 2006 or Q1 2007

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Hooray!  The Motorola Q was finally approved by the FCC, so we may be seeing it soon after several delays.

The specs for this thing rocks -- it's a CDMA EV-DO handset running Windows Mobile 5 for Smartphone.  A QWERTY keyboard, bluetooth, 1.3 Megapixel camera and SD slot all grace this superphone's feature list.

Another good sign -- a photo of the phone (shown above) was displayed on Verizon.com (but has since been pulled).

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MotorolaFans

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Well, CTIA Wireless 2006 is now over, and Motorola CEO Ed Zander will be returning home with a stack of coasters bling award plaques from the Emerging Technology Awards and Technology Marketing Awards ceremony.

Check out Motorola's winnings:

Category: Hardware - Mobile Phone/Camera Phone
1st place for Motorola SLVR L7

Category: Best Overall Campaign
1st place for Motorola RAZR & PEBL

Category: Broadcast Media - Television
1st place for Motorola PEBL

Category: Direct Mail & Collateral
1st place for Motorola SLVR

Category: Print Advertising - Color
2nd place for Motorola RAZR

Category: Print Advertising - Color
2nd place for Motorola RAZR
3rd place for Motorola PEBL

Category: Hardware - Wearable Wireless Device
3rd place - for Motorola and Burton Audex(TM) Jacket

Category: Consumer Application - Mobile Entertainment Application
Honorable Mention - Motorola Inc. Connected Home Solutions for Motorola iRadio(R)

Add iRadio's honorable mention above to the DEMExpo "Best Radio Service" award, and you're got a nice set of bling for a service that hasn't even launched yet..!  But a nice showing by Moto in all of its recent ad campaigns -- kudos to the marketing team.

A side note worth mentioning, CTIA Wireless attendees voted the Samsung T509 camera phone "Best In Show"...as a direct competitor with the RAZR, and the slimmest US handset to date, it's worth checking out.

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Sure, eye-catching phone designs always help to boost sales.  But a little sex never hurts to bring future quarters' sales to a climax.  For example...

Check out this 'suggestive' Motorola Slider ad making the rounds in South Korea:

Or, check out this Motorola SLVR ad that was included in an email from HelloMoto:

Lately, I've been feeling like I need WAY more cell phones in my life...  That said, Motorola should be wary of alienating a female audience (the email may have been customized for males, of course).

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Recognizing that teeny-boppers and teeny-bopper wanna-bes enjoy personalizing their phones, Motorola recently decided to look beyond 'Darth Vader black' for its PEBL phone, and is now offering an assortment of "Fruity PEBLs" to choose from.  (Uh-oh, watch out for Barney as he tries to trick Fred...nevermind, a cereal reference)  They even wrote a press release about the phones, which should be available by Q2 2006.

Now they'll have to re-do the PEBL commet commercial with different colored commets... 

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Motorola's (excuse me, MOTO's) 4-letter naming scheme is catching on globally.  The Motorola A1200, a smart phone being released in China, was recently renamed the Motorola MING. Here's the reasoning from Terrance Ma in the MING press release:

"The name MING was chosen to resonate more deeply with people in Hong kong than a traditional model name or number can," said Terence Ma, director of sales, Mobile Devices Business, Motorola Hong Kong. "Like the design and usability of the phone itself, MING will help bring our smart phones into entirely new market segments."

Personally, it's a far more interesting approach.  Unless you're closely involved in the industry in some way, alphanumeric digits don't mean squat to most people, especially consumers.

The Motorola MING targets business folk with several cool features, including:

• Clamshell phone with transparent cover
• Uses Linux software
• Antenna-free
• 2 megapixel camera
• Business card scanner with optical-character recognition software
• Speakerphone
• Document viewer
• POP3 e-mail
• Calendar, task list, and contact manager
• Music player
• FM-Stereo radio receiver
• Bluetooth® wireless technology

It'll hit Hong Kong quite soon, apparently.  LinuxDevices presents a few interesting pics of the phone taken apart here, in case you're curious.  I'm not sure if the phone will be iRadio compatible...I'm assuming not, at least initially.

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Last week, a manufacturing flaw found in a small group RAZR phones led to a halt in sales and a flurry of press.  (A flaw in any other handset probably wouldn't have attracted as much attention, but this was, after all, the mighty mighty RAZR.)  Apparently, some phones sold after Feb 1 were dropping calls and rebooting upon opening.  Oops.

Fortunately, according to Motorola, only a small batch of phones were affected, and sales would be able to resume by the end of this week.  And in fact, RAZRs are already returning to store shelves.  You can't keep a good phone down.

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You know hype is getting a little out of control when all the recent rave revolves around a product prototype whose predecessor has yet to be released.  In any case, Engadget scored a few first hand pics of the ROKR E3 yesterday, which includes a faux iPod-like music wheel, and a few other features:

Tentative ROKR E3 Features (Official Specs not available):

• GSM/GPRS/EDGE
• 512MB of internal memory
• Bluetooth
• 1.3 megapixel camera
• TransFlash memory card slot
• 3.5mm headphone jack
• Multimedia software (not iTunes -- perhaps iRadio?)

Veeery interesting.  But let's not forget about the ROKR E2, which should be out in mid 2006...

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My friends, THIS is the iPod killer we've all been looking for.

Motorola is patenting a phone that will be able to act as a musical instrument.  The mobile screen will display a guitar neck, while the keys will trigger "strums" on the guitar.  The guitar chord can be shifted by turning a knob, and can also be switched from major to minor, etc.  The phone can be converted into a violin or banjo...  Barry Fox at NewScientist found the full patent here.

Sounds like fun...but it presents a whole new level of pain in terms of annoying cell phone users... :)

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