It is the biggest sporting extravaganza in the world and the most-watched event around the globe on TV screens. This time, however, the mobile screen would be jostling equally hard to grab your attention during the football World Cup.
A plethora of apps, games, match alerts and quizzes are waiting to be downloaded on to mobile phones. We give you a lowdown on what's good out there:
Apps
EA Sport's FIFA World Cup 2010 is now available at the iTunes store for $6.99 (Rs 320). With 105 International teams and every stadium in the tournament faithfully recreated, you can enjoy all the action and atmosphere from the most popular sporting event in the world. EA Sports' football games have a massive fan following and expect this game to be one of the most downloaded in the next 30 days.
'South Africa on BlackBerry' is RIM's application, which allows the brand's push technology to give Blackberry users real-time updates about matches and scores, and is integrated with social messaging platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
If you intend to travel to South Africa and are an iPhone user, download the Lonely Planet guide to Johannesburg. The final match is being played there and for $5.99 (Rs 380), you can explore Johannesburg through your iPhone.
Nokia's Ovi store has applications and features dedicated to the game of football like free audio and video downloads dedicated to great goals scored by great players. Apart from that live update applications. Games available on the Ovi store include Gameloft's Real Football 2010 and Real Football Manager 2010, which can be downloaded.
Games
Games2Win's Football Kick Off is available on Facebook. It's a simple game which offers two modes - single player mode and the challenge mode. A player may play either as a striker or a defender.
Service providers
Airtel has launched a special campaign called Football Fever for all its subscribers. This includes a special WAP portal through which customers can get all the updates, news and statistics. In addition to this, you can subscribe to the Hall of Fame service, which will give you all the information you need about the top 20 footballers of the world at Re 1. For match alerts and updates, you will have to spend Rs 3 per match day.
SMSGYAN, an SMS-based encyclopaedia, will also provide instant access to live match scores and upcoming matches. All that users have to do is send sms "GYAN WORLDCUP" to 56161 to avail this service on mobile.
Websites
Our pick is ESPN's Soccernet.com that is one of the best sites dedicated to World Cup coverage. You can also find reviews, previews, match reports and special reports on the past editions of the World Cup.
