Ken McGuire

DeviantART Mobile

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Ken McGuire

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I’m a subscriber to DeviantART and this year will mark my second year (in April) as a subscribed member. Us subscribers are allowed into the ‘beta’ program, which allows us beta test a load of new features in DA and one of those is Deviant Mobile. At least to an extent. When uploading new photos and ‘deviations’ we can choose whether or not to allow our works appear on the mobile edition of DA, which has gone live according to Mobile Crunch.

Users, mainly in the US, can then log on to Deviant Mobile, scan through thousands of submissions, pick up new works for your phone, leave comments and all the rest. Of course, if you have a have decent phone or PDA you could browse DA regularly as well. Mobile Crunch warns users about data charges, and I’ve got to second that. The size of deviations on DA from people not used to publishing images to the web can be ridiculous, expect downloads of up to 1mb in size and beyond for full view.

That and the fact that your own work is available on mobile medium leads to doubts I have about the distribution of works of art via mobile, especially since I recently had one of my own photos ripped off on DA. No doubt there will be tons of feedback on this over the coming weeks but can’t say that I have use for the service.

Comments

11 responses to “DeviantART Mobile”

  1. Rob Comber Avatar
    Rob Comber

    can’t imagine ever wanting to browse dA on my mobile, just for cost alone, but small screen and useless keyboard, I can’t imagine why anyone would bother. Artsy backgrounds for your phone?

  2. Ken Avatar
    Ken

    thats the only real reason i can think of, bar the comments. i used the phone (sony ericsson p900) last year to browse DA getting in from college as we had no net connection in the apartment, only thing i used it for was comments and replying to them, i had the images turned off by default. could just imagine the O2 phone bill otherwise!

  3. Rob Comber Avatar
    Rob Comber

    i recently checked my e-mail, g-mail and a college account and it set me back nearly 4 euro and i didn’t even read any e-mails! i think i can wait till i get to the office to check for any new deviations instead of not eating for a day or two!

  4. Ken Avatar
    Ken

    jesus thats fairly expensive. i’ve noticed the GPRS costs of recent hitting my poor speakeasy phone. poor as in bankrupt for credit! the thing is, it used to be free….

  5. HNB Avatar
    HNB

    That’s been around for ages man, not botered about it myself, I have a lead to hook my phone up to my pc and put whatever I want onto it for free! Though I would love one of those PDA phones ^_^

  6. Ken Avatar
    Ken

    ah yeah its been around forever and a day as the beta thing. i think its a waste on DA’s part to be honest, there’s so many rows as to how the revenue generated from subscriptions is being put back into the community and I don’t think that mobile solutions are the answer when they could do an awful lot more to enhance the functionality of the actual site itself. free GPRS was doing it for me or I can hook up the phone, but I know I’ve got no interest at all in browsing DA on a mobile phone for the sake of finding new art!

  7. HNB Avatar
    HNB

    Yeah, I totally agree, especialy since they never really did anything with the beta tester thing since easay reply, I turned mine off just the other ay and went back to being a normal subscriber!

    I thought deviant mbile was jsut a way to send phone walpaper version of art to your phone though, not browsing art on DA via your mobile!

    We’re still waiting on all that stuff promised way back in ’03, the new groups thing and the improved devpacks! Devart hasn’t significantly changed since V2, only gone backwards in my opinion

  8. Ken Avatar
    Ken

    Ah there’s a load of stuff about DA Mobile i’m not a big fan of, namely that they’ve developed it as an opt out service, so those people who overlook the obvious are sending out their material regardless.

    They need to bring a whole lot of things back that they got rid of in V3/4 and they’ve a long way to go in terms of implementing the promised goods. Rather than focussing on pushing their brand through clothes and mobile solutions they should really be looking towards the people that are paying for the service on a whole!

  9. HNB Avatar
    HNB

    Yeah I totaly agree, the T-shirts are all well and good but I don’t go there for the clothing line!

  10. allie Avatar
    allie

    It’s useful for the people that only have internet on their phones. It seems a little weird to think now that some people still don’t have a laptop with wireless or even a dialup comnection to an old fashioned modem but it’s true. My phone is my computer basically and I love Deviantart, I think making a mobile, easier to go through and see, version of the site is great.

  11. allie Avatar
    allie

    *connection sorry.(I’m on my phone right now…hah.)

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