Vodafone live! was the brand name for the multimedia portal service of

mobile phone A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable telephone that allows users to make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while moving within a designated telephone service area, unlike fixed-location phones ( landline phones). This rad ...

operator

Vodafone Vodafone Group Public Limited Company () is a British Multinational company, multinational telecommunications company. Its registered office and global headquarters are in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It predominantly operates Service (economic ...

, offering news content, picture messaging,

instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of synchronous computer-mediated communication involving the immediate ( real-time) transmission of messages between two or more parties over the Internet or another computer network. Originally involv ...

, email, and downloadable ringtones and games. The service officially launched on 24 October 2002, originally in eight countries. The first compatible phones were the Japanese Sharp GX10 and Panasonic GD87, and the

Nokia 7650 The Nokia 7650 is a consumer-oriented GSM mobile phone developed by Nokia,announced in 19 November 2001 and released in June 2002. Belonging to the fashion and experimental (List of Nokia products#Fashion and Experimental Series .287xxx Series.29 ...

. It was initially developed by Japan's J-Phone under the J-Sky brand; Vodafone acquired J-Phone in August 2001, and the J-Sky service in Japan was rebranded in line as Vodafone live! in 2003. In addition, London-based Vizzavi which provided media content was taken full control by Vodafone (previously 50% owned) in 2002 and the brand name was dropped, being integrated into Vodafone live! The service and its content are modelled largely on NTT DoCoMo's successful

i-mode i-mode (, ) is a Japanese mobile internet (distinct from wireless internet) service operated by NTT DoCoMo. Unlike Wireless Application Protocols, i-mode encompasses a wider variety of internet standards, including web access, e-mail, and ...

service. The service was marketed extensively, using stars such as footballer

David Beckham Sir David Robert Joseph Beckham ( ; born 2 May 1975) is an English former professional footballer, the president and co-owner of Inter Miami CF and co-owner of Salford City. Primarily a right winger and known for his range of passing, cross ...

in the UK, Spain and Japan. As of May 2003 there were 1.5 million customers. In the UK market its main competing WAP portals were O2 Active and Orange World. While the service itself could be looked at with any WAP browser, Vodafone live! handsets marketed by the company integrated the service with each handset's core functions. All handsets included a colour screen, a digital camera and the capability to send and receive email,

SMS Short Message Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile phones exchange short text messages, t ...

and MMS messages. Vodafone live! had an icon-driven interface that was the same on all compatible models regardless of

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

. In December 2004, Vodafone live! with 3G services was launched. Vodafone live! was struggling against competitors

and EZweb in Japan, and in 2006, it announced that its Japanese division will be sold to

SoftBank Group is a Japanese multinational investment holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, that focuses on investment management. The group primarily invests in companies operating in technology that offer goods and services to customers in a m ...

. Vodafone live! was replaced there by

Yahoo! Keitai Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, and its a ...

. In September 2009, Vodafone 360 and Vodafone My Web were announced to replace Vodafone live!

References

External links

Official site
{{vodafone

Live Live may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Live!'' (2007 film), 2007 American film * ''Live'' (2014 film), a 2014 Japanese film * ''Live'' (2023 film), a Malayalam-language film *'' Live: Phát Trực Tiếp'', a Vietnamese-langua ...

Telecommunications-related introductions in 2002 Products introduced in 2002 Products introduced in 2003 Products and services discontinued in 2009