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BBC targets football fans with mobile site relaunch

Posted: 10/03/08 By: Oliver Luft
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The BBC is targeting football fans with the relaunch its mobile website.

The launch of the revamped mobile service, which takes advantage of the development of full-colour screen technology becoming more common on phones, is being supported by a four-week marketing campaign aimed at football fans across the UK.

The BBC aims to rapidly extend the range and use of its mobile service for gathering of sports news and information ahead of Olympic Games, where it will debut several new mobile services.

The campaign to engage more people across the mobile platform will see in-ground media and ad-vans at leading club matches over the next month, urging fans to text FOOTBALL to 81010 for a link to the BBC football site.

At selected football grounds, Bluetooth technology will also be used to send links to the site.

Its mobile browser service currently attracts nearly three million unique users per month, according to Nielsen Mobile, making it the UK's most popular mobile site.

"The refresh of our mobile browser service comes at a critical moment in the development of mobile in the UK," said Matthew Postgate, controller of BBC Mobile.

"It is the first step to transforming bbc.co.uk on mobile into a much richer and more engaging experience.

"In the coming months, our mobile proposition will develop significantly, and include coverage of the summer's biggest sport events including Euro 2008, the Beijing Olympics and Wimbledon."

The mobile revamp follows, and closely resembles, the recent redesign of BBC.co.uk homepage.

The new site also includes a new entertainment news section, based around BBC Radio 1's Newsbeat programmes.