Cellphone 'entertainment' a fast-growing market

Video games, songs, tide charts, Scrabble, and instant-messaging platforms are just a handful of the fun services and time-wasters you can download to a cellphone these days.

And their popularity is booming. Every week, Verizon Wireless subscribers pull 1.2 million games, ringtones, and other features from its ''Get it Now" service. Market researchers Frost & Sullivan forecast that ''wireless personalization and entertainment" -- including games, graphics, and snippets of songs that play when your phone rings -- will become a $1 billion industry by 2006.

However, services including Verizon Wireless's ''Get it Now," AT&T Wireless' mMode, and T-Mobile's t-zones operate very much like the wireless handset version of the America Online ''walled garden" of content. Like cable firms that sign deals with TV channels, wireless carriers have built offerings that generally feature a limited, exclusive selection of games, sports, weather, financial, news, entertainment, and other information from big-media providers like MSNBC, The Weather Channel, and ESPN.

But a market that counts 155 million US wireless phone owners is offering demand and opportunities for the cellular world's version of indie music labels, Weblogs, and alternative newspapers. ''The biggest challenges here," said Mark Lowenstein, managing director of Wellesley wireless consulting firm Mobile Ecosystem, ''are when you have 30,000-plus wireless applications out there, as you do now, how do you even get on the deck or make sure you are easy to find, given the limited screen size and navigation capabilities" of today's phones.

Most consumers are likely to find more content than they could ever hope to use within their carrier's offer. But if you're one of those who can't resist looking over the garden wall to see what else is out there, here are four examples:

Name: Thunderhawk What it does: Renders Web pages on phone screen in same rich computer ''hypertext markup" format

Vendor: Bitstream Inc., Cambridge

Price: Free 30-day trial, then $5.95/month or $44.95/year

Works on the following handset models and carrier networks: Smart phones that run on Microsoft SmartPhone 2002 and 2003 operating systems, including Motorola MPX200 from AT&T Wireless and Samsung i600 from Verizon Wireless.

How to get it: www.bitstream.com/wireless/smartphone/index.html

Name: Opening Day WeatherWhat it does: Sends you live photo image of current weather conditions at your favorite ballpark or 130 cities and airports

Vendor: Weathernews Americas Inc., San Francisco

Price: $3/month

Works on the following handset models and carrier networks: AT&T Wireless, Sprint PCS, Verizon Wireless, on multiple Audiovox, Kyocera, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, and Sanyo devices

How to get it: Go through AT&T mMode, Sprint PCS Vision, or Verizon ''Get It Now" on phone

Name: uLocateWhat it does: Lets you track the location of GPS-enabled cellphones through a password-protected Web site

Vendor: uLocate Communications, Newton Centre

Price: Free trial now, moving to $12.95/first phone/month and $9.95/additional phone/month

Works on the following handset models and carrier networks: Nextel Communications and Telus Mobility (Canada) on Motorola i730, i88s, or i58sr; AT&T Wireless and T-Mobile USA on any Benefon Track Pro model

How to get it: Free download at uLocate.com .

Name: Pope John Paul II ''Thought of the Day"What it does: Sends a daily aphorism or observation from the pope as a text message

Vendor: Acotel, Rome/Boston

Price: Covered by your carrier's text-messaging charge, typically 10 cents, or discounts for ''buckets" of messages

Works on Verizon Wireless now, AT&T Wireless and Cingular soon, on any phone that can get text messages

How to get it: Send the message ''POPE ON" to the number 24444, and SMS will arrive every day at noon