Mobango Mobile Entertainment

Recently I discovered a mobile web service called Mobango. I found them searching for ring tones for my new cell phone, and decided to stick around and explore their site.  When I saw that they offered games and other fun things as well as ring tones, plus a "friend" feature, I got excited. I'm always looking for new things to do when I'm stuck waiting somewhere, and cell phone content is a great way to  kill time.

Right away Mobango offers one stand out feature that other similar sites don't have: accessible storage you can access from your mobile phone. This means instead of having to Bluetooth, email or message yourself files right away, you can store them as you go. This allows you to download them to your phone later when you have time to really set them up or play with them.

This mobile storage feature is called your "WAP locker".  Mobango offers a generous 2GB of storage in your WAP locker.  Not only that, you have a way to organize the files and use them in your blog and web site as well as on your phone.  If you want to put the theme to the Jetsons on your site to make a point, Mobango offers a free player for that. If you want the Rocky theme to play each time your web page loads, Mobango offers a player for that, and they back up the offer with storage space.

The look and feel of the site leaves a little something to be desired. It feels a bit cluttered for a Web 2.0 site, yet it offers all of the requisite Web 2.0 points: free service, social aspect, simple color scheme, catchy name, free "stuff" to play with, a way to share the stuff with the web and more. In fact, they have a "Tools" page listing some of their offerings that is pretty impressive for a freebie site aimed at the mobile market.

Another aspect of Mobango that sets it apart is that it encourages user generated content, then makes it simple to add to the site.  If you create the perfect ring-tone, design beautiful mobile wallpaper or write a simple cell phone game, Mobango has a place for you to put it and an auto uploader to handle the job. 

Using Mobango to make friends online is fairly simple. You can find friends by inviting them from your address book or contact list on a variety of sites from Gmail to Digg. You can also click on a user's user-name under whatever content thay's uploaded, adding friend who create content that you like or that is similar to what you make yourself. You can also search the site for member names or content and find people that way. Much like MySpace, everyone starts out with the site creator, Chris, as a friend. 

Mobango sorts their content by category (videos, true tones, polyphonics, documents, images, wallpapers, games, applications, and more). This means you can search for specific content, or you can browse your way through the site in a more leisurely fashion. I was pleasantly surprised at the amount and variety of content there.

I also liked that they included a free messaging service for their users that was compatible with most phones and that also worked on your computer. You won't lose touch with the friends you find on Mobango if you switch carriers or phones, because everything you can do on your cell you can also do on their web site through your profile page. Unlike some "freebie" sites, Mobango has a lot to offer for anyone who wants to have more fun on the go.