Thwapr Powers Mobile Video Service For NHL's Coyotes

The NHL season may be drawing to a close, but mobile video is just kicking off for one franchise. The Phoenix Coyotes have teamed with mobile-to-mobile video platform Thwapr on a service that delivers team news, game highlights and player interviews directly to their mobile phones regardless of device type.

Launched in beta earlier this year, the new video offering is now available for Coyotes home games for the rest of the 2010 season and throughout the playoffs. To sign up, fans text "coyotes" to short code 757575 or click the Thwapr link on the team's Web site.

They can then start receiving mobile updates after each home game and share clips directly with other mobile users or post them to their Twitter and Facebook pages. The Coyotes are also promoting Thwapr via in-stadium announcements and on the Jumbotron display.

Highlights of post-game press conferences and interviews with player and coaches are sent via Thwapr to more than 250 different types of mobile phones including the iPhone, BlackBerry Curve, Motorola Droid and popular handsets from LG and Samsung, among others.

"We want to create a 360-degree approach to engage our fans by intensifying their experience and interaction with the team and players," said Michael Sharer, manager of new media for the Phoenix Coyotes, in a statement. "To achieve this, we selected Thwapr's video service as an important component of our new media communication outreach."

Developed by founders of Apple's QuickTime team, Thwapr promises to improve upon technologies such as MMS (multimedia messaging service) for mobile video- and photo-sharing by adapting content to different video formats, screen sizes, wireless carriers and other phone attributes on the fly.

And while formats like MMS may be limited to up to 30 seconds of video, Thwapr has enabled the Coyotes to provide five to six minutes of streaming video of press conferences to smartphones including the iPhone 3GS and Android-powered devices.

To tap into social networking activity, the New York-based company in February introduced one-click sharing on Facebook and Twitter to videos hosted at Thwapr as well as a "Thwap It" button to send to one or more mobile devices.

To date, the company founded in 2007 has received $4 million in angel funding, according to TechCrunch. Last month, Thwapr went public through a reverse merger with Las Vegas-based Seaospa. As a result of the voluntary share exchange, Thwapr is now Seaospa's sole business and Seaospa has changed its name to Thwapr.

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