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We’ve been exploring mobile content for the past few weeks on Going Cellular. If nothing else, one thing has been made clear: Mobile content is still in its infancy. Growth is starting to accelerate, though. We’re seeing more and more people on data plans. Revenue from wireless data totaled $23 billion in 2007, a 53 percent increase over 2006. And with the rising use of mobile data, we’re seeing more and more content providers come to the table. They’ll see a larger market share in years to come. While 80 percent of mobile content is currently purchased through carrier web portals, Strategy Analytics predicts that it will fall to 25 percent in five years. So third party content providers have plenty to look forward to. Today we take a look at one of those content providers: UrbanWorld Wireless.

As a content provider, UrbanWorld provides ringtones — including “made from scratch” ringtones — ringbacks, wallpaper, interactive games, and other original content. But beyond being a mere content provider, UrbanWorld also looks to the other end of the business: Marketing and advertising. They partner with companies and artists who want to share their message with UrbanWorld providers. So let’s look at their good, their bad, and their ugly.

The Good

UrbanWorld seems to be in touch with their target audience. Their website is sleek and navigable. An impressively comprehensive news section allows anyone — subscriber or not — to keep up with the world of hip hop. They also have forged partnerships with with various artists in order to provide a more comprehensive service offering to customers. This not only gives people more of what they want, but it provides another outlet for these artists to expand their audiences. The music industry in particular is fiercely competitive, and partnerships with UrbanWorld can help bolster an artist’s career.

This has the ancillary benefit of exposing a whole new world of art to the youth of America. No longer stuck with whatever the mainstream feeds them, people can branch out and discover acts they can identify with.

Their Urban JackAss section is a must-see. There are a few dozen clips of just plain funny stuff that you might pass over as you wade through YouTube.

The Bad

While the website might look nice, it’s not very functional. Nearly every “s” is replaced with a “z”. I suppose that’s what attracts the youth market, but it seems a bit over the top. There’s a section for press releases, most of which actually tell of impressive partnerships. However, the last update is nearly a year old.

While the Urban JackAss and Headline “Newz” sections are updated and quite robust, the “Photo Gallery” icon brings you to a blank page. Their management page has information on who does what, but there are no bios to go along with them. An entire tab up top is dedicated to a quote from the CEO, Mike Johns, stating the company’s mission: “Our explicit intention is to integrate wireless with urban youth lifestyle and change culture forever!”

The most comprehensive portion of the site is actually the mobile marketing section, which describes the benefits of companies partnering with UrbanWorld to spread their messages to a targeted demographic. This strikes me as odd. Why?

After clicking around for a good 45 minutes, I could not find where to sign up for the service. I emailed the company, who send a prompt reply saying that you can sign up on the website (but not where…I suppose the “contact us” section). You can also text “UDUB” to shortcode 44636. I would have done that, except…

The Ugly

Their policy. No, it’s not a privacy policy. In fact, they spell it out that you’ll be receiving contact from third parties:

BY PROVIDING SUCH INFORMATION YOU UNDERSTAND, ACKNOWLEDGE, AND AGREE THAT YOUR CHOICE TO SUBSCRIBE TO URBANWORLD WIRELESS MEANS THAT YOU AGREE TO RECEIVE CONTENT VIA URBANWORLD WIRELESS FROM THIRD PARTIES REGARDLESS OF WHO THE THIRD PARTY MAY BE. YOU ALSO UNDERSTAND THAT THE ONLY WAY TO NOT RECEIVE SUCH CONTENT IS TO CANCEL YOUR URBANWORLD WIRELESS SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES.

They go on to state their anti-spam policy, but that just covers unsolicited communications. But that just means that you won’t receive messages from companies who do not partner with UrbanWorld. The way I read it, it sounds like UrbanWorld partners can message you whenever they want, as frequently as they want. Surely, that’s not the case — we would have read something about that by now. But it does mean that you don’t know how much advertising you’ll see when you sign up for the service.

I’m always wary of recommending a service that doesn’t have a tight privacy policy. After all, there’s not even a portion of the policy that says they’ll only send your data along to approved third parties. As it says in the paragraph above, you must receive content, “regardless of who the third party may be.”

If you’re looking for urban mobile content, then UrbanWorld Wireless might be your ticket. However, please take a note of caution along if you choose to do so.

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