Village Gamer

Toronto – TVOKids has launched its first iPhone app for preschoolers. As a leading provider of innovative, educational and entertaining multi media content, TVOKids is excited to add Melvin’s Marvellous Words to its offerings.

Based on the Ontario kindergarten curriculum, Melvin’s Marvellous Words is teacher tested and developed in conjunction with TVO’s in-house educational specialist. Inspired by the popular TVOKids and tvokids.com game of the same name, the app is a fun and interactive word-matching game that helps preschoolers learn to read common, high-frequency words. Learning these words prepares preschoolers for reading, and makes them feel more confident as they begin to read.

“Parents will find that Melvin’s Marvellous Words is an effective educational tool for preschoolers who are always on the go,” says Patricia Ellingson, TVO’s creative head of Children’s Media Content and Programming. “It challenges young minds in an interactive and educational literacy game that makes learning fun.”

Now, for a limited time only, Melvin’s Marvellous Words is available free at the Apple App Store. The app will be on sale for $1.99 at the Apple App Store starting February 1.

Vancouver – Mingleverse Laboratories is offering Vancouver organizations free use of its award-winning 3D Audio Visual internet communication service for the entire duration of the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. The offer is being made in response to the call by Translink, the City of Vancouver and the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) for a massive reduction in vehicle trips in Vancouver during the games.

“The Mingleverse Mingle Room service is for everyone and is the first real alternative to travel. By providing organizations with our immersive communication service they will sound and interact just like being in the same room together,” said Ron Stevens, Co-Founder and CEO of Mingleverse. “Instead of clogging up the streets, and having staff delayed and frustrated, any Vancouver company or organization can use Mingleverse to work, collaborate and communicate as if they were physically together – for free – during the games.”

Translink, metro Vancouver’s regional transportation authority, made the call this week via a statement on their website, which reads in part: “Our public transit and road networks will experience a significant increase in traffic, and there will be road and parking restrictions close to Games venues, particularly in downtown Vancouver, and along key routes. Whether it’s changing travel choices to leave the car at home, shifting travel times to avoid peak periods or removing the need to travel altogether – it all helps get athletes and officials to their events, while reducing the number of vehicles on the road.”

In addition, Translink has initiated a voluntary “TravelSmart Olympic Pledge” program designed to provide a way for all Vancouver businesses and organizations to publicly demonstrate their commitment to traffic reductions during the games. To obtain a free Mingle Room, simply sign up for a Mingleverse account and mention Mingleverse in your organization’s pledge.

Several high profile organizations in Vancouver have already signed on to use Mingleverse during the games, including representatives of the Vancouver Board of Trade and The Telus World of Science.

“Science World will certainly be looking at using Mingle Rooms to help manage teams that will be working remotely during the Olympics. It could also help to coordinate some of our province-wide science programming,” said Bryan Tisdall, President & CEO. To further encourage Vancouver organizations to participate, Mingleverse pledges to provide the top 5 most active “teleworking” companies with a free virtual Mingle Room for a year.

“Mingles can replace the need for most physical meetings and live venues,” Stevens said. “We encourage businesses to make use of this technology, try something new and help make the logistics of the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in Vancouver much more efficient, reducing traffic, emissions and frustration.”

Canada-wide – Mplayit, the company best known for its groundbreaking new social mobile app stores on the Facebook platform, today announced plans to bring their technology to major new international carrier partners. Mplayit has been available for Telefonica O2 customers in the United Kingdom since November 2009 and today the company announced new partnerships in Canada with Rogers and with Australian market-leader Telstra.

Mplayit has been helping major U.S. carriers like Sprint and AT&T and publishers, including EA offer playable discovery for mobile games and apps since late 2008. The new deals point to a broader trend in the carrier market. Traditionally, mobile operators have failed to properly exploit the power of the Web in merchandising their application catalogs to customers. The rapid growth in the social Web in the past two years has left many even further behind. Now, with the growth in smartphone penetration and increased competition from device manufacturers themselves, mobile operators are recognizing the need to improve mobile application discovery and provide their customers with the best experience possible. Mplayit is increasingly partnering with operators to help them achieve these goals.

“Carriers throughout the world are facing unprecedented competitive pressure in terms of both app downloads and customer mindshare,” said Michael Powers, founder and CEO of Mplayit. “We offer them a simple and cost effective way to plug into users’ social graphs, massively improve their service proposition and help drive additional app downloads like never before.”

Mplayit offers search and try-before-you-buy playable previews of popular mobile applications on leading mobile platforms and accessible from a standard Web or mobile browser. Users can rate, comment, and recommend individual apps to their social network including Facebook and Twitter. In addition, Mplayit’s unique ‘Apptivity’ feed gives users a view of the most played and recommended apps in real time adding a useful and entertaining element to regular lists or rankings.

In December 2009, Mplayit launched full support for Android, on top of it’s existing iPhone, mobile Java and BlackBerry services. With the launch of scores of new Android devices in 2010, its an aspect of the service that is proving particalarly appealing to carriers. It all adds up to a truly cross-platform solution for all the best-selling smartphone devices which offers mobile carriers the only one-stop mobile apps megastore for merchandising content.

“Integrating Mplayit’s ‘playable discovery’ experience with a mobile user’s social network is a powerful combination that drives valuable discovery and viral marketing opportunities in the face of skyrocketing numbers of mobile applications,” continued Mplayit’s Powers. “And because we support multiple platforms – mobile Java, Blackberry, iPhone and Android – we’re best placed to help carriers monetise their whole user base.”