The new CEO of Cellufun says he’s ready to take the company to the next stage, and that includes more emphasis not only on new games but social networking.
Neil Edwards, whose appointment to the CEO position was announced last week, joined the company back in February. After having served as the founding CEO of dotMobi, he had taken a year off to work as a consultant and look for the next opportunity.
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One of the appealing things about Cellufun is all its revenue is not based on advertising, he says. Cellufun has multiple ways to charge people for content based on what they’re doing.
A lot of people look at Cellufun today and put it in the gaming category, but it has developed full-blown social networking features that work across terminals and networks. Plans call for making the interface more consumer/social media focused; getting more games out quicker; and more entertainment around avatars.
A large user base for the company today is 18- to 34-year-olds, but Edwards expects the company to offer more content geared toward different generations. Cellufun also wants to offer more ways for better self-expression, such as letting users customize a character.
“What we want to do is give people the ability for their online personality to express themselves in a way that is unique and fun,” he says. “We see a big opportunity in the self-expression arena.” Other areas of revenue opportunity are virtual gifting and offering ways for a player to get a better competitive advantage.
“It’s all about execution, awareness… making us the next Facebook for mobile,” he says.
New York-based Cellufun works with companies in the United States such as Verizon Wireless, Cellular South and MetroPCS, in addition to brands like AOL Mobile and USA Today. Its applications have a database of more than 8,000 different phones; the database scans the phone to see what network it’s on.
Edwards says his background of having worked with a lot of companies all over the world should prove helpful as Cellufun aims to grow geographically.