Artificial Life (of V-girl fame) has bought the SMS Galaxy system from Script Avenue AG for cash and equity…”The SMS Galaxy system is a mobile interface that complements live TV shows and allows users to interact with the show and control movements and actions of 3D avatars that represent themselves on the TV screen. Interactions are accomplished through text messages to a designated number,” reports RCR News. Claude Cueni, the owner of Script Avenue, has joined Artificial Life’s corporate advisory board. The system has been in use in Switzerland for a daily show for 4 seasons now.
“The system fits perfectly into our strategy to become the No. 1 player for mobile interactive TV formats and TV show based mobile entertainment and games,” said Eberhard Schoneburg, CEO of Artificial Life. This is a new strategy — on the company’s site it reads that it’s main business areas are “high quality 3D interactive mobile games (2G and 3G), Java games, mobile entertainment and mobile technology platforms (SEMP)”. The company is very good at creating avatars and highly sophisticated interactive games, but has made no mention of TV. It’s technology fits with SMS Galaxy in that it will probably improve the avatars and that area of the business. (release)
This move could be to seek revenue — the company brought in revenues of $856,334 for 2006 (compared to $266,757 for 2005) from licensing its games around the world, but saw a net loss of $2,942,532 for 2006 (of which $1,486,800 was a stock-based compensation expense).
Comments have been disabled for this post