Solid State launches mobile Sudoku service
Posted on 15 February 2006.
New Guardian joint venture allows readers to play Sudoku on their mobile phones.
Solid State Group and the Guardian have formed a joint venture which allows readers of the newspaper and visitors to the Guardian Unlimited website to play Sudoku, the world's most popular game, on their mobile phones. This is part of an ongoing process of change at the Guardian group to increase circulation and enhance revenues.
Sudoku, a game of numerical logic, has captured the attention of millions in its rapid rise to becoming the world's most popular game. By introducing a leader board for players on their mobile phone, Solid State Group believes it can garner greater reader loyalty. Ben Rometsch, co-founder of Solid State Group, says "Uniquely, players can compete against each other by entering their scores into a newly developed website which tracks their performance and ranks them as scores are submitted. This connection between the normally disparate mobile and web platforms is seen as a key part of the Guardian Unlimited strategy to enhance the user experience."
Downloadable games to mobile phones have become an ever increasing way for newspapers to maintain their existing readership and appeal to a new generation of younger readers, who typically spurn traditional printed titles in favour of online news editions and blogs. As the youth market becomes increasingly harder to reach, traditional media companies have been forced to adapt their service from pure news to infotainment, countering the declining circulations of the last 20 years.
Solid State Group is a technical agency that delivers content management, mobile and web application development and services. The London based company was founded in 2002 and has developed mobile applications for Yahoo and Ericsson in the mobile arena, and web applications for 20th Century Fox and the BRIT Awards.