IP: Buying virtual furniture for a virtual hotel room

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> From: "Gillmor, Dan" <DGillmor () sjmercury com>
> To: "'Dave Farber'" <>To: "'Dave Farber'" <dave () farber neti>
> Subject: FYI
> Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2001 12:33:35 -0700
> X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2448.0)
>
> http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/opinion/dgillmor/dg072201.htm
>
> HELSINKI -- Buying virtual furniture for a virtual hotel room may seem like
> an odd enough exercise. Now add this: You pay by mobile phone.
>
> That's how it works at online chat sites Hotelli Kultakala and Habbo Hotel,
> operated by a small Finnish company called Sulake. And people, mostly young
> people, are paying -- with real money -- by calling a special phone number,
> entering a few digits and having the cost of virtual furniture added to
> their next month's phone bills.
>
> Across town, meanwhile, Riot Entertainment is getting ready to beam messages
> from Frodo the Hobbit to the mobile phones of ``Lord of the Rings'' fans.
> The messages from Frodo and other denizens of Middle Earth will be part of a
> movie marketing campaign when the first of three Rings movies opens later
> this year.
>
> Some of the most intriguing ideas about tomorrow's mobile communications and
> commerce are coming from the people of this small Nordic nation, whose
> influence on the world's telecommunications stage has long outweighed the
> size of its population.



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