Flash Devices
Flash enabled phones: 89 Nokia, 75 Sony Ericsson, 19 Verizon, 150 NTT DoCoMo, 111 KDDI, 60 Softbank
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Verizon Wireless Media Store Built With Flex
Verizon Wireless Media Store

This isn't directly related to Flash Lite or Flash Cast but it's an example of a mobile operator that's using Adobe technologies to provide a great user experience via the PC web.  The Verizon Wireless Media Store was built using Adobe Flex and allows Verizon Wireless to provide their customers with an easy to navigate and use web-based interface to search, preview and purchase ringtones and ringback tones.  The site uses Flash 9 and AS3 and ties into a back-end database for all of the data that's rendered including the text, thumbnails and MP3 previews.

Verizon Wireless Media Store
The home screen looks similar to other media catalogs and gives the user a high-level overview of the different sections including promotions, genres, featured artists, top ringtones and a search box at the top. The screen shot above is showing the artists that are listed in the What's New section on the home page.

Verizon Wireless Media Store
Once you select an artist (in this case Lil Wayne) you'll see a nice screen transition and then you'll be presented with an interactive table that shows you all of the songs available from that artist and if it's a ringtone or ringback tone.

Verizon Wireless Media Store
You can then preview any of the songs by hovering your mouse over the song and selecting the preview button.  A short audio clip will play and the art work for that song/album will appear.

Verizon Wireless Media Store
The cool thing is the purchasing aspect, the user is prompted to enter in their mobile phone number and password and then the item they selected is sent over the air to their mobile phone. Pretty neat.

I'd recommend you check out the media store to see how improved discoverability of media and a simplified way to purchase media can benefit consumers.  If you have a Verizon Wireless phone and are interested in purchasing a ringtone or ringback tone then try it out and tell us know what you think.

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