Kuneri, a startup based in Oulu, Finland, has launched a new service called Pikkoo [pik-koo] in closed beta. Pikkoo is a social community allowing free downloading, creating, and sharing mobile screensavers and wallpapers [UGC]. Kuneri was also just selected as one of the nine companies (six North American and only two European) to join 2008 Forum Nokia Innovation Series program. That’s a great achiement, and as part of the program Kuneri will receive business and marketing support.

The service is designed to support Flash Lite screensavers, but the funky thing is that Pikkoo can also create an animated gif file for phones not supporting Flash Lite, so practically the service works with all available phones.

The service looks good, and creating your own screensaver is really easy and fun. Using any of the numerous provided templates I was able to create a pretty nice looking one within minutes. You can also upload own images. All graphics objects can be twisted, resized, and rotated. You can also add various effects to the objects like movement and blinks. It’s also possible to put in a clock, battery level, or network strength indicator. After you’ve happy with the design, you can choose to publish the screensaver in the service, or keep it private. Also Facebookand MySpace apps for marketing and publishing the screensavers are coming up.

There are a few drawbacks in the current version though. First of all, not all the icons in the editor interface are that intuitive, and it takes some time and trials before you realize all things that you can do. The website menu system is also slightly unpolished. The biggest weakness I see at the moment is that you’re not able to download the screensaver directly to your phone from web, instead you have to download it to your PC and then send it to phone with your tools of choice. That’s not going to work with mass market, even I didn’t bother to do it the first night I tried out the service. A related issue is that the file is named after the unique “Pikkoo code” instead of the given screensaver name, which makes it hard to find from the PC - another thing sure to confuse the average Joe. Kuneri is hopefully adding some kind of SMS link push shortly. However, for Series 60 devices Kuneri will offer soon a downloadable Pikkoo client, which allows easy finding, downloading, and installing of screensavers on-device. That really makes using the screensavers easy. Kuneri is also thinking to make a Java-based client for S40 and other handsets.

Once you get the screensaver installed on the actual device, it looks just great. However, on S60 without the Pikkoo client, when the backlight turns off and you press a key after that, the screensaver’s gone right away. With the Pikkoo client the screensaver stays on until you purpose close it, so there’s more value to it. There are also several fancy things you can do with Flash Lite screensavers, including network connection, so we’ll be most likely hearing about very interesting concepts from Kuneri.

The company has been working on, and more known of, their technology tools for creating and distributing Flash Lite applications (e.g. SWFPack launched also recently), but Pikkoo is their step into consumer services. CEO Ugur Kaner hints that they’ve been building the technology base bit by bit, but now they are ready to launch Pikkoo as the first step of their big vision. Kuneri is currently looking for partners who could provide branded content and traffic into the service, getting a new unique marketing channel in return. Ugur commented the revenue model for Pikkoo isn’t that clear yet, and needs to be still worked out.

If you’re eager to try it out, we’re giving out 15 invites to Pikkoo to first 15 who post here a comment asking for one.

Blyk, the free Finnish born (but operates only in UK) mobile network for 16 to 24 year-olds funded by advertising, has signed a frame agreement with Aito Technologies, a Customer Experience Management (CEM) solution provider, for the delivery and implementation of its Business-Driven CEM software product, Aito, to UK market. This follows a successful 3-month pilot installation, which began in May.

Aito takes business intelligence from network traffic data and offers Blyk an easy-to-understand, in-depth analysis of service usage, member behavior patterns and trends.

The information that the software generates is given to key staff directly involved in business management – sales and marketing managers, member service teams, product managers – in a form which is easy to use and act on.

In essence, Aito is an easy-to-implement tool that’s a user-friendly method of making sure mobile subscribers are having a great network experience, at all times, whether making a voice call, sending a text or MMS, or, in the case of Blyk, receiving relevant mobile adverts with their services. The carrier-grade Aito will provide Blyk with a 360° view of the activities and overall experience of its entire subscriber base. .

CEO of Aito Technologies, Anssi Tauriainen, said, “Like Blyk, we know that mobile advertising is set to be one of the most important business models and revenue-generating network activities offered by operators in the future [...]“

Mobile advertising has been already coming from years and is still as annoying as ever. Yet, this is hardly Aito’s fault and I admit not having tried Blyk services. That said, even if Blyk works like charm, I already pay fixed monthly sum for practically unlimited calls, SMS and data and can’t really imagine the future any other way. For cash-strapped 16 to 24 year-olds teens who adore brands there seems to be something there though. Blyk users receive 6 sms/mms from the chosen brands per day in exchange for 217 txts and 43 minutes of voice calls each month.

For the segment the service seems to be working: Blyk has currently 200,000 member in the UK, which is the only market they are currently serving. Now Blyk is ready to slice and dice the market data into an easy-to-use format with Aito Technologies’ help and are well equipped to follow their plans to go pan-European in 2009 potentially reaching 40 million young consumers.

The advertisers seems to be happy as well: Big brands like L’Oreal have seen tremendous results with average click through rates of 29% (ranges between 12 and 43%). Quite a lead from the average mobile advertising average CTR that hovers around 3-6%.

Finnish media Digitoday knows that in addition to Blyk, Aito Technologies has currently six commercial pilots running in Europe, including Finland. Digitoday also reports that Aito has around 700 potential customers, traditional and virtual mobile operators. Along with these, Aito is going after ring tone, community and added value service providers in the mobile space, which there are around 2000 to 3000.

Aito Technologies is owned by the employees as well as two reputable Nordic investement funds, Creandum and Conor. The company has currently 25 employees.

LeWeb has announced their startup contestors and judges for this year’s Startup Competition. From the 30 companies there is one from China and Israel, five from US and 23 European companies, including Finnish Zipipop(previously covered) and Estonian based instant website creator Edicy.

The deal is that each company gets 7 minutes to pitch to the judges on the day. Winners of the competition will then have a chance to present their companies on the LeWeb main stage and additionally SUN Microsystems will offer a server to three final winners.

We at ArcticStartup congratulate and hope for the best for all startups but especially for our own Zipipop and Edicy. At least Zipipop has a nice track record with a win at Mobile 2.0 Europe and recent experience at Mindrek Startup Launchpad.
See the full list.

Seems that Engadget Mobile got its hands on at least a partial roadmap or a list of S60 prototype devices available within Nokia or for the third-party developers. Roadmap starting from 2007 through 2009 lists product codes and codenames, operating system versions, prototype availability, development status and some of the actual features.

For example, list includes a upcoming Qwerty-slider model for AT&T and model with a 3 inch sized VGA display. See the full list.

Read More »

This is a reminder that ArcticStartup and Nordic Mobile Media Conference are looking for the “most interesting Nordic/Baltic mobile startup”. The winner startup will get 2 free passes to the event in Tallinn, Estonia on December 3-4th. To apply, please tell us why you should be selected by sending mail to mart.kikas [at] aspiro.ee and info [at] arcticstartup.com. As I didn’t remember post the reminder earlier, the time for applications will be extended until this Friday, November 7th. So send in your application if you haven’t already!

In addition to the entrance, the winners will get an exhibition stand in the exhibition hall in the networking/coffee breaks area, along with a table, chairs, electricity and WIFI internet connection for introducing your startup to the conference delegates and to demo what you are doing.

If getting a free pass isn’t your bag, you may also register to the conference on the event web page.