Wap Review

TV Listings for your market including broadcast, cable and satellite. Brief descriptions of each show.  Requires you to "register" with a mobile mobile number and receive and enter an SMS validation code before you can view the TV listings which strikes me as unnecessarily complex and a potential privacy issue.

Television program listing and guide.  The program grids are well designed and look good on most phones.

However the mobile version of TitanTV is not usable without a PC as it requires an account that can only be set up on the desktop site at www.titantv.com. Even after you have an account you can't change the listing to a different city or timezone without using the desktop site.

Mobile sites that require you to use a PC to setup effectively discourage anyone who discovers the site while browsing on the phone  from using it.  Not to mention that there are many mobile web users who don't have a computer.

As I'm sure everyone in the US, Canada, Mexico, Australia and Taiwan knows, Tivo is Linux based television digital video recorder and service that is a bit of an obsession with many folks.  I don't have a Tivo but it's appears to be a very smart service that among other things insures that you will never miss your favorite shows even if the broadcast schedule changes and also analyzes your viewing habits and recommends similar programs.

Tivo now has a mobile site at m.tivo.com that lets you program you Tivo using your phone wherever you are.  That's not all it does either, Tivo Mobile also provides a television programing guide that can be used even if you are not a Tivo subscriber.  Just enter your zip-code and provider and Tivo Mobile will list daily favorites and  let you search for shows.  Show listings include time, channel, synopsis, cast list, ratings and an "If you like this..." link to the recommendation engine.  Unlike most other online guides. there is no hour by hour grid.

Tivo Mobile appears to be US only.  At least it wouldn't recognize Canadian postal codes.  But then again may be it's doing IP sniffing and knows I'm not in Canada.  If you get this to work north or south of the border (or in Taiwan or Australia) I'd love to hear about it. Source: MobileCrunch

AT&T has lauched  this mobile web interface to U-verse DVRs. It lets U-Verse customers schedule and manage TV recordings from their mobile phones. U-Verse is a high DSL service providing IPTV, VOIP and  Internet with speeds up to 24 Mbps. Source: Tappity.

Direct TV's DVR Scheduler lets you remotely program your Direct TV Digital Video Recorder using a mobile web interface. I don't have Direct TV so I haven't tried it but Carlo at MobHappy has and reports success. I'm a little disappointed that you have to go www.directtv.com to register, there's no reason using a mobile service should also require PC access.

This new mobile web service lets you control your Verizon FiOS digital video recorders (DVRs) from anywhere using almost any web capable mobile phone. The mobile interface lets you program your DVR to record a show, browse TV schedules and turn parental controls on and off.

Tvbuddies combines a TV listing grid with chat. Find out what's showing right now on US TV channels and chat about what you are watching with fans & friends.

The mobile web home of NBC Universal's SyFy cable TV network (formerly called the "SciFi Chanel"). It has TV programming schedules, star bios, episode guides, photos and free streaming clips from the network's most popular shows.  The site also has a frequently updated news section covering science fiction in general including new Sci-Fi book and movie releases and interviews with authors and directors. Source Tappity

UK television news,updates tonight's top TV picks, listings, competitions, photos, games and tv catch ups.

Official American Idol site. I found this on the ATT/Cingular's portal but most features including Contestant bio's and show recapswill work from any network. ATT customers can also buy and download ringtones, participate in contests and chat with contestants.

Home of Oxygen, a US cable and satellite TV network featuring "reality" TV shows targeted at women viewers.  Top shows include Coolio's Rules and The Bad Girls. The mobile site has photos, video clips and character bios for Oxygen's top shows. Source Oh! Mobile Directory

Got To Dance is a popular dance contest and reality TV show on the UK's Sky satellite TV network.  It's similar to the US TV show "So You Think You Can Dance". The show's mobile web site has free videos from the show, judge and contestant profiles, previews of upcoming shows,  a photo gallery, links to the show's Twitter feed and instructions on using Sky's SMS interface to remotely program your SkyTV box to record the next show.

Discovery Communications, which operates 28 cable TV networks including the Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, Discovery Health Channel and Travel Channel recently launched this mobile portal which features selected content including news, videos and games from across the Discovery properties. The site also includes links to the various channel's individual mobile sites and TV schedules.

Discovery Mobile site, which was created by Crisp Wireless, won top honors in the Mobile Entertainment category at the 2009 Webby Awards.

High School Musical 2 is the second in a series of made for TV Disney movies which are cult classics with the grade school set. It's much in the news lately for reasons you won't find on the official mobile site. If there are preteens in your household and you have an unlimited data plan on their phones show them hsm2.mobi and become a hero. The site has star photos, polls, text messages "from" the principal players and a free wallpaper download.

I've just added the international music oriented television station VH1's mobile site wap.vh1.com to the WapReview directory. VH1 Mobile is really loaded with content. It's a complete mobile entertainment site with news, gossip, photos, videos, contests  and polls.

The photo selection is particularly extensive with hundreds of photos organized into "FlipBooks" - slide shows based on a theme like "Reality Girls Gone Bad" or "Hottest Hunks Under 25".

VH1's video section contains around 20 free clips in low resolution, but compatible with almost any phone, 176x144 H.263 format. Depending on the handset each video is available as either a download, stream or both. The video's are a mix of entertainment news, music videos, star bios and trailers promoting VH1 shows.

Entertainment news and gossip is covered by a news section and several gossipy "blogs". There are also star and band bios, and contests on the site.

Although VH1 started as an MTV clone with music videos round the clock, the channel is better known today for its reality shows with celebrity casts like "Flavor of Love", where 20 women compete for the affections of rapper Flavor Flav.  VH1 mobile includes a mini Flavor of Love site with photos, contestant bios and polls.  There are similar mobile mini sites for two upcoming VH1 shows; game show series "I Love Money" and live concert show, "Remembering The Who".

The VH1 mobile site is uses color and images effectively to createthe feel of a modern full web site. It's a one size fits all design apparently targeted at higher end handsets with about 13KB of markup and a rather hefty 73KB worth of 300px wide images on the front page.  The site looks great in S60 WebKit and Opera Mini. Even the Openwave browser on a Motorola i855 managed to load the site completely if a little slowly but I'm sure there are a sizable number of mobile browsers that would run out of memory trying to load such a large site.  I'd like to see VH1 use browser detwection and image resizing to creat a site that works on all devices.

Music TV has a mobile site. Content consists of entertainment news, photos and entertainer bios - and a Brittney Spears video. But the video is served in as embedded Flash player! Not even Flash Light this is the same video and player that MTV uses on it's web site! I'm pretty sure there is no phone that can play that video.

Discovery Channel mobile site featured shows are Myth Busters, Dirty Jobs, Cash Cab and Man vs. Wild. There are star biographies, photos and synopses of future and past episodes for each program.

Attractive site with travel news,  program schedules, show descriptions, video excerpts from Travel Chanel shows and lots of photos. Source Oh! Mobile Directory

The rather barebones mobile site of TeenNick a spinoff from US cable and satellite TV channel Nickelodeon.  Obviously targeted at teenagers, TeenNick's top programs include Zoey 101 and Drake & Josh.  The mobile site has today's broadcast schedule, polls, quizzes and a sign up form for text alerts.  Source: Oh! Mobile Directory

I love the National Geographic. The 120 year old monthly magazine, published by the tax-exempt National Geographic Society, covers world history and culture, geography, archeology and natural science with articles that are thoroughly researched yet highly readable and entertaining. It's full of interesting, high quality photographs and maps too. The Society also produces films and television programs, hosts a popular website at nationalgeographic.com and operates the National Geographic Channel on cable TV.   Earlier this year the Society added a  National Geographic Channel mobile web site at ngc.mobi.

The mobile site's homepage is currently dominated by promotions of a couple of upcoming National Geographic TV specials; one on identical twins and the other on the connection between Kung Fu and the Shaolin Temple.  The Channel's detailed TV schedule is a click away and there are 15 short articles under the banner "Behind the scenes at the National Graphic". These cover topics ranging from an interview with former president George Bush about his game fishing exploits to an ex-con's struggle to survive "outside".  There's a poll too, today's question is; "Do you think your genes control your sexual orientation?".  The site also has a SMS trivial game based on the show "Dangerous Encounters" which follows a fearless herpetologist around the world in his quest to capture and study all the world's crocodile species.

I found the National Geographic Channel's mobile site surprising light on content.  The TV schedule is useful but not as useful as ones that show all channels like wireless.tvguide.com.  The  "Behind the scenes..." stories are short and tend toward the superficial. I expected better based on the quality of writing in the magazine and the Society's TV programs.  I don't understand why publishers dumb down their mobile sites like this. Content is king on the mobile web too. The news and information sites on the mobile web that get the most traffic like m.cnn.com and espn.mobi feature a hundred or more long-format articles.  National Geographic has plenty of great content, why aren't they putting it on the mobile web?

Usability of ngc.mobi is reasonably good except on phones with limited memory which won't be able to load the site's 50 KB home page.  The "Behind the scenes..." stories are text only and aggressively paginated and only average about 7 KB. The pagination requires you to click "More" several times to read the whole story, which is annoying. It's  also unnecessary as any browser that can load the homepage to reach the articles could also load any of the stories as a single page.

TLC which used to stand for "The Learning Channel" now mainly runs reality based shows like Miami Ink and LA Ink which about are tattoo artists. The mobile site includes a series of step by step photos of the application of a complex tattoo design. The site also highlights cooking show Take Out Chef and the Miss America pageant which TLC will be broadcasting this year.

TV news, celebrity gossip and TV schedules from the online edition of South African entertainment magazine tvplus.  Source: Oh! Mobile Directory

MTVBase is the name that US music television network MTV uses in the African market. The site features entertainment news, star bios of African and international artists,TV schedules, charts and playlists and a live events search engine which is currently broken.  Wallpapers, Videos and music downloads are available for purchase. Source: Mobility.mobi

The mobile Web site of the UK's oldest commercial TV network. News, sports & weather plus lots of promotional material for the network's TV shows. For Formula One motor racing fans, ITV has a page of FI results and news

TV show reviews, industry news and star gossip.

The animal lover's favorite TV network's mobile site highlights the show Merkat Manor, a reality show about the life and death struggles of several colonies of African mammal. The site also has a directory of the US's best dog parks.

Mobile web site of Canada's Slice cable TV channel. Television schedules, celebrity gossip, horoscopes and details of Slice shows including Project Runway Canada, Til Debt Do Us Part, Superstar Hair Challenge, The Mom Show, Mr. Friday, Party Mamas, Shear Genius, The List and Wedding SOS. Source: Oh! Mobile Directory

UK cable TV entertainment channel E4's mobile site features TV listings, star photos and bios (called "blogs"for some reason) and downloadable videos and ringtones from shows including Ali G, Ugly Betty, Big Brother and Friends. Some of the ringtones are free others are a semi-reasonable 50p. For some reason, E4 claimed that both my N95 and Z8 didn't support about half the videos including the Ali G ones. I wonder why? About the only format those phones don't support is Windows Mobile, could E4 be using WMV's? Another annoyance is that you can't even load the site in Opera Mini, getting an "Opera Mini-browser is not supported" message! Source: SMS Text News

Discovery Health Mobile has recipes, health quizzes and TV schedules for Discovery's channel on health issues.

The Discovery Channel's newest network, Green Planet, won't launch until later this year but the web and mobile web sites have been up for a while spreading their environmental message with an extensive collection of articles focusing on the message that we can and must alter our lifestyles to prevent the destruction of our ecosystem.

The Discovery Channel's newest network, Planet Green , won't launch until later this year but the web and mobile web sites have been up for a while spreading their environmental message with an extensive collection of articles focusing on the message that we can and must alter our lifestyles to prevent the destruction of our ecosystem.

A&E (mobile.aetv.com) Cable TV network A&E's mobile site carries brief summaries of tonight's lineup of shows and longer pieces promoting recently launched shows, currently Parking Wars, Paranormal State and Intervention. There is also a selection of polls where users vote on such burning issues as whether Gene Simmons and Shannon Tweed should get married.

Bio. (mobile.biography.com) The mobile site of cable TV's The Biography Channel. You can deficiently kill some time on this site which features well-written, in-dept bios of what Biography calls the "Top 100 Biography Subjects" in such varied categories as Actors, Royalty, Military Figures, Musicians, Inventors and Athletes. Each bio averages a a dozen mobile screenfulls so there's a lot of content here.

The UK edition of The History Channel has launched a mobile site featuring their broadcast calendar with promotional descriptions of upcoming shows and a This Day in Historyy feature.

The US edition of The History Channel (mobile.history.com) mobile site listing tonight's lineup with a description of each show's next episode, a "This day in History" item and several feature articles on historical topics.

A site for fans of the most on NBCTV's hit shows The Office, The Tonight Show, Conan, The Biggest Loser, Pale Force, Coastal Dreams, 30 Rock, Bionic Woman, Chuck, My Name Is Earl, Scrubs, Medium, Friday Night Lights, Life, Las Vegas and cult favorite Heroes . There are episode recaps, streaming videos, actor bios and blogs, message boards and the opportunity to buy wallpapers and ringtones which have been listed as "coming soon" for months. Not that I'd actually pay for a TV show ringtone but how hard can it be!

Bravo is a cable TV network with a number of hot shows currently including Top Chef and Project Runway. The mobile site features photos, blogs and a store where you can buy ringtones and wallpapers and have videos MMS'ed to your phone.