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Just as advertisements have enabled the broadcast of free-to-air TV programmes for many decades, Kasatria Technologies is confident that mobile advertising will soon subsidise the cost of data services and make them cheaper, if not free to subscribers.
Based in Leisure Commerce Square, Petaling Jaya, Kasatria ( www.kasatria.com) is both an engineering firm and creative agency founded in 2003 by software engineer Chan Kin Peng and electrical & electronics engineer Hiew Chee Choong.
It initially created TV commercials, animated and interactive advertisements, promotional content and solutions for clients like Aquaria@KLCC, building developers, architectural firms, telcos, local corporations, and government agencies.
“For example, our Mobile Device Library developed using Adobe Flex is used on PCs in a local mobile operator’s help desk to help agents identify their subscriber’s phone model, even from its features so they can help solve the problem or conversely, it could help agents advise customers on which phones to buy, which have the features they want, within their budget,” said Chan.
While Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash) enables the creation of animated and interactive content on PC and phone web browsers, Flex enables the integration of Flash with data from a database.
The Mobile Device Library contains a large number of pictures of phones, their price, features and specifications, and it automatically narrows down the range of phones according to the set of criteria.
As a Microsoft and Adobe partner, Kasatria began porting their Flash Lite-based advertising content and applications to phones since around October last year.
“Most phones manufactures are Flash-enabling their phones,” said Chan. For that reason, Kasatria believes Flash will increasingly become dominant as the runtime environment of choice for applications and content on phones.
Meanwhile, unlike pop-ups and obtrusive active or animated content on web pages which tend to put off most viewers, mobile advertising will consist of relevant content pushed only to interested users.
“For example, advertisers can push short tips on golfing to golfers, cooking to gourmets, hotels to travelers, wedding dresses to couples getting married or tips on baby care to couples who’ve just had a child,” said Chan.
“Telcos and content providers could also produce animated e-magazines for phones, which will electronically flip through its pages to tell the story,” he added.
For example, they’ve recently created an animated screensaver for phones using Flash based on scenes from the Aquaria@KLCC’s Jewels in the Jungle display.
With Flash Lite, developers can also create widgets running on phones which pull information from live feeds, stock market information, train time tables, air fares and so on based upon various rules and criteria set by the users.
“Flash enables graphic and animation designers, rather than engineers to develop content, applications and games for phones, which look more realistic and refined,” said Chan.
However, for all this magic to work, telcos must enable Flashcasting on their networks, which will broadcast the Flash content and applications to the phones of customers wanting them.
“Unfortunately, no mobile operator in Malaysia or Singapore has enabled Flashcasting yet, so in the meantime, the Flash content could be downloaded using phones’ WAP browser to a PC and transferred to the phone,” said Chan.
Kasatria is currently negotiating with Maxis and DiGi to enable Flashcasting over their networks.
It’s grateful for the material and promotional assistance provided by the Maxis Developer Programme (MDP).
“MDP provided us with phones, SIM cards and a network to test our applications,” said Chan. “It also provided us with a platform to showcase our applications and it introduced us to Adobe which was elated that a Malaysian developer was already exploring the application of Flash on phones,” he added.
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