Representatives at the company said content from the COLT, Minute Man, Buckshot, Legendary Bodies and COLT Calendar lines is set to be featured with mobile video clips, graphics and wallpaper downloads. The companies also are planning to market COLT-branded ringtones, a web-based storefront and other mobile applications that tie back to COLT’s extensive existing sales channels.
“No one in the mobile business today has the mobile content experience, distribution relationships and product plans we found at Decade Mobile,” John Rutherford of COLT Studio Group said. “They’re developing products that take the consumer wireless experience in directions that others haven’t even thought of, and we want those products in the COLT portfolio.”
Saran Ganesh, Decade Mobile’s director of products and programming, said her company would support the new deal through sales and distribution offices in the United States, Europe and Australia.
Ganesh added that the biggest issue facing the company in the mobile space right now would be concerns over age verification, regional obscenity laws and legal compliance.
“Both the biggest opportunity and challenge in this market is legal compliance and age verification,” Ganesh said. “A number of our competitors are turning a blind eye to Section 2257 and regional obscenity issues. Given today’s legal environment, they run the very real risk of getting themselves or their content partners in serious trouble.”
Ganesh stressed that distribution, production, billing and legal compliance were critical to a successful mobile strategy, and said Decade Mobile had already partnered with several top-name billing system providers for carrier and off-network distribution and billing, including Network Telephone Services.
“Working together, Decade Mobile and COLT will expand COLT’s market position in the mobile space,” she said.
Decade Mobile plans to employ extensive chat and voice applications around COLT’s content, Ganesh said.