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New Mobile Company Creates Cell Phone Avatars

Sean Ryan, the founder of the online subscription service Rhapsody, is launching a new venture that aims to capitalize on teens' fascination with cell phones upgrades. It's a fact that the vast majority of game, ringtone and wallpaper downloads are teens, so why wouldn't they be willing to shell out some cash to create cartoonish caricatures of themselves? That's the idea behind Ryan's latest venture, called Meez, which lets users create their own images, and then upload them wherever they want. This could absolutely be a big hit for the former Rhapsody chief, as teens willing to personalize their phones with ringtones, wallpaper and other downloadable content will likely be interested in anything that lets them express themselves further--as long as it's cool. Ryan says he came up with the idea while visiting South Korea, where the ultra-wired population enjoys buying similar "avatars" or digital personas to place on their cell phone screens, Web pages and instant messaging applications. Meez offers thousands of facial and costume combinations for free, but Ryan hopes to license and sell brand names users can put on their avatars' clothing. Each piece of clothing will likely sell for between $1.50 and $2.50. The big question for Meez is whether or not there is a sizable enough market for this. Some 68 million people use instant messaging services, and 60 percent of those say they download free icons to represent themselves. That said, it may be easy to get users to create online images of themselves, but difficult to get them to pay for branded clothing.

Read the whole story at Forbes.com »

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