Vodafone to offer RealNetworks’ RealTimes to cloud customers

Video streaming specialist RealNetworks is making its RealTimes app, its highlight product from this week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, available to Vodafone Backup+ users via a partnership between the pair.

RealTimes provides edited versions of users’ personal media including video via an algorithm that automatically selects the best content created by consumers on their phones, sets them to music and creates ‘stories’ based on a range of factors including location, enabling them to be uploaded to social media.

“We are getting good traction with the Real Player base. To charge our distribution we want to team up with strategic partners,” said Max Pellegrini president products and marketing RealNetworks at MWC. He said the app was useful for mobile carriers in creating loyalty and fidelity to the brand among customers.

Vodafone is enabling users to ‘bring their own cloud’, with the ability to access content via Dropbox and other web-based services, said Pellegrini.

Separately, RealNetworks has also struck an agreement with cloud services provider Funambol, to bring the app to Funambol’s mobile operator customers.

RealNetworks has already teamed up with carriers including KDDI, with which it has a co-marketing agreement for the app, and Verizon, where the RealTimes app is integrated with Verizon’s existing cloud app.