Telus adds Handmark Pocket Express to new Smartphones

November 28, 2007

Douglas Edwards, co-founder and chief marketing officer of Handmark

Mobile applications developer Handmark and Canadian telecommunications company Telus have agreed to bring Pocket Express 4.0, Handmark's entertainment and business applications client, to Telus customers.

Pocket Express 4.0 has content that is similar to mobile news outlets offering news, sports and weather updates. The difference is it requires no browsing and provides users fast access to a wealth of information.

"Our service is for the business traveler and anyone else who cares to stay in touch with what's happening," said Douglas Edwards, co-founder and chief marketing officer of Handmark, Kansas City, MO.

"We periodically download news headlines and summaries and other things of particular interest to a user, so you don't have to go browsing and looking for this content -- it's already there," he said. "We give them what we call info-snacking."

Info-snacking is a small bite of information that consumers can digest quickly and navigate through in a manner of seconds, Mr. Edwards said.

The agreement will give Telus phone consumers access to Pocket Express content directly onto their smartphones. The goal is to appeal to an increasingly mobile demographic with fresh and relevant content.

The new Pocket Express also features an Express Travel application tailored for the mobile professional that will be preloaded on most Telus smartphones.

Travel Express will enable Telus' target of on-the-go professionals to receive airline schedules and flight status updates directly on their mobile device. It provides details on more than 75,000 daily departures from more than 3,500 airports around the world.

For marketers, Pocket Express has the ability to incorporate traditional advertising, such as banners, and also has the ability to provide search- based advertising.

They also have strategic search marketing partnerships with companies such as hotels.com.

"Users can get the information they are looking for," Mr. Edwards said. "It's a form of mobile marketing that's not annoying or obtrusive to the user."

Pocket Express is compatible with all smartphones, including BlackBerry, Palm Treo, Symbian and Windows Mobile devices.

Customers can buy additional Handmark services through their Telus smartphone via an integrated billing system. Purchases made at the Pocket Express store on Telus smartphones, or through the Web store at www.Telusmobility.com/mobileapps will appear on a customer's monthly Telus bill.

Pocket Express is expanding its enterprise as a tool for mobile marketing around the world. Nokia is using Pocket Express for mobile marketing with a Symbian version focused on the British market to be shipped in the next few weeks.

Comments on "Telus adds Handmark Pocket Express to new Smartphones "

1. hub fink says:

   June 13, 2008 at 9:36pm

   I put Pocket Express on my smart phone....then over the next two months my bill skyrocketed by an additional $120 / month.....Telus was quick to call to "check on my service" and immediately removed the charges....the service person then wanted to put me in touch with tech support to figure out how to adjust settings or something...but tech refused to talk to me as it was a 3rd party application....All seems a bit sneaky to me...like hey....let us install this on everyones phones and we'll guarantee you and increase in your data usage that you can charge your customers....Sneakey Bastards.....
   
   Don't install Handmark Pocket Express!!!!!!!!!!!