Alltel customers can now get more from their cell phone - even when they're not using it. The telco has come out with an app that delivers customized content to the phone's idle screen so it will be ready and updated when the consumer wants it, with no waiting.

Powered by Mobile Posse, the new Alltel Perks app is the first in the US to take advantage of idle-screen advertising.

Users can download the app and then sign up to receive sports scores, weather info, trivia, discount offers from local businesses and the like. The desired content is delivered with a banner ad. Clicking on the banner brings up more info on the offer; clicking anywhere else makes the offer go away and stores it in a "recent offer menu" folder for a limited time.

Downloading the app itself is free; downloading content might incur data charges.

Dada Entertainment isn't only donating money, but it's making money as well. The mobile music service is hosting the first major mobile promotion for the best-selling CD compilation series NOW That's What I Call Music! The promotion is timed to coincide with NOW's 10th anniversary CD and Volume 29 of the series.

As part of the celebration, music fans who subscribe to Dada's premium content club can get up to 15 MP3s, ringtones or other premium content items from the NOW catalog and the rest of the Dada library for $9.99 a month. Since that seems to be Dada's normal subscription fee, we can only assume that the addition of the NOW content is the "special" part of the deal.

All music downloaded from Dada is in MP3 format, so the tracks can be copied from a PC to any cell phone, iPod or other digital music player.

Japanese indie music distributor BounDEE and global digital music distributor IODA have partnered to deliver tunes from IODA's catalog to more than 200 mobile and online music stores in Japan. The deal also calls for IODA to market and distribute music from BounDEE artists and labels worldwide.

In Japan, mobile accounts for more than 90% of all digital music sales, according to IFPI numbers. BounDEE's relationships with mobile music retailers, particularly mobile music giant Label Mobile, will enable IODA's clients to take advantage of this huge market, the companies say.

BounDEE also gains access to IODA's Promonet digital marketing platform to promote its music to mobile and online retailers, social networks, blogs, podcasters and Internet radio.

The first artist IODA is marketing worldwide for BounDEE is Genki Rockets, a band featuring a virtual vocalist.

Walt Disney and Verizon have teamed in a first-of-its-kind relationship that adds all sorts of mobile goodies to visitors' Disney World and Disneyland experiences.

Part of the deal turns Verizon Wireless cell phones into personal tour guides to help visitors find shows, restaurants, characters and real-time attraction availability. When the service goes live early next year, Disney resort guests will also be able to sign up to get text messages from park characters.

Oh, and Verizon is making its network inside the parks more reliable, too.

Additionally, Disney and Verizon are working to make some of the info available to folks who get their mobile service from other carriers.

Verizon Wireless and Microsoft are inching closer to a deal that would make the software giant the default search provider on VZW's cell phones, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

Citing sources close to the talks, the Journal said the proposed agreement would guarantee Verizon Wireless $550 million-$650 million from the revenue-share deal over five years. That's reportedly twice what the carrier would net from a deal it's been negotiating with Google.

Although the operator is still courting both search services, Microsoft is said to be the frontrunner because Verizon stands to make a lot more money from the arrangement.

[Via Reuters]

Microsoft is trying to woo Verizon Wireless away from an ad partnership that Google has been trying for months to forge with the carrier.

The Wall Street Journal first reported Microsoft's intent yesterday. Citing "sources," the paper said the software giant determined that with Google distracted trying to salvage its deal with Yahoo (before that fell apart on Wednesday), it might as well try to sneak in under the radar and try to hook up with Verizon Wireless.

According to a MocoNews piece on the report, Google's proposed deal with Verizon Wireless would have made it the default search provider and called for the two to share ad revenue.

Microsoft must have come in with a juicier offer, because the scales are reportedly tipped in its favor, although the second-largest US wireless operator has yet to make a final decision.

3rd Dimension, the mobile traffic reporting company, has launched a new national mobile advertising network that features live video of traffic conditions in many of the nation's largest cities.

The Mobileyes Advertising Network consists of nine current U.S. markets where 3rd Dimension's free consumer real-time traffic service is operating, the company said in a statement. The service lets customers use their cell phones to look ahead at traffic conditions and plan the best route before driving away.

The offering faces increased competition, now that more phones offer turn-by-turn voice enabled GPS directions with real-time traffic reporting, although nothing comes close to 3rd Dimension's ability to show live video feeds from hundreds of traffic cams. The company said that on the new ad platform, interactive ads appear during the six to ten second intervals preceding the display of live traffic video; the company will serve the ads in rotation and offer them for specific day parts and locations.

Mobile Posse and WeatherBug have hooked up to make good use of the idle screen on your cell phone - displaying your local weather info. Mobile Posse's technology delivers permission-based content and ads to a phone's idle screen, so the advertising doesn't get in the way of whatever else you want to do.

With the addition of WeatherBug content, Mobile Posse is now poised to ink ad-supported sponsorships to help brands get their message in front of consumers in a non-intrusive way, by sponsoring one of the most popular mobile services: the weather.

Mobile content and services provider Mobile Messenger has inked a deal to offer ringtones from EMI Music. The ringtones, from EMI classics such as Frank Sinatra and Miles Davis as well as current artists like Coldplay, Katy Perry and Norah Jones, will be available on an individual basis and will also be offered as part of a subscription package.

Mobile Messenger provides brands and marketers with consulting, marketing, customer support, premium SMS billing, infrastructure and reporting software and services. It currently operates in the US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, UK and South Africa and plans to expand to other parts of the world within the next year.

The start-up intends for its content partnership with EMI to not only expand its product portfolio, but also "further solidify its position as the global leader in the wireless industry."

Music subscription services don't do all that well on the desktop. At last count, Napster had about 700,000 subscribers at the time of last month's Best Buy acquisition. But as FierceMobileContent reports, it may be a different story with cell phones.

According to a new study from market analysis firm TNS, more than 25 percent of mobile subscribers are interested in signing up for all-you-can-eat music download services from Nokia and Sony Ericsson. "Subscribers in the U.K. alone could download as many as 2.1 billion songs from services like Nokia's Comes With Music and Sony Ericsson's Play Now plus—by comparison, TNS notes that legal music downloads in the U.K. market during 2007 amounted to just 1.5 billion across all channels."

The study also said that just under half of participants said they'd buy fewer CDs and fewer online digital albums if they signed up for one of these services as a result. 38 percent of current music sharers (otherwise known as pirates) also said they would curtail their habits if they signed on—though we doubt it. The question here, nevertheless, is how marketers can monetize such services, given that Nokia seems media platform.