Myk Willis, CEO and founder of Myxer, the Florida-based firm specializing in free mobile content, says that the company represents a new form of mobile economy. “Our set of services is outside the carrier’s ecosystem but still augments it,” he says. “Services like Myxer are major drivers of data usage.”

According to a recent report by research firm Informa Telecoms & Media, mobile data usage in the US and Canada grew by over 41 percent between the first quarters of 2007 and 2008.

Myxer too has been growing at a breakneck pace, adding about 40,000 new users per day. In July of 2008, it recorded over 20 million downloads and on average sends out about 50 million text messages each month.

Its flagship mobile content delivery service offers free ringtones, wallpapers, videos and games to members who in exchange view ads that are displayed on the Myxer website, WAP site, in SMS alerts and while downloading content.

And while brands like Ford, ATT and the US Army use Myxer mainly as a straightforward advertising medium, others have seen it as an opportunity to offer customers a different kind of experience. During the US launch of Volkswagen’s new hatchback model R32, the automobile maker used Myxer to offer mobile videos of the new car as well as ringtones of its engine sounds.

Founded in 2005, Myxer has a catalogue of almost 1.2 million mobile items for download. Its WAP portal hosts a catalogue of music, videos and wallpapers, and generates about 85 million page impressions per month.

The service originally began as a channel for “independent-minded” bands who wanted to get their content out into the mobile universe. Using Myxer’s mobile music toolkit, artists can create a complete mobile store which includes all of their content, a mobile web page, a mobile fan-list to send text messages and a personalized text code.

“Mobile represents an important way for bands to connect with their audiences,” says Willis.

Myxer’s fans are primarily located in the US with the majority between the ages of 13 and 24. Ringtones represent about 90 percent of all downloads while wallpapers and video are about 5 percent.

Willis says that Myxer recently began to offer mobile games through a partnership with Greystripe and these downloads have been growing significantly but still represent only a fraction of the total.

The main beneficiaries of Myxer’s service, according to Willis, are the network providers. “Myxer is injecting money into the system by driving data traffic usage,” he says.

David Francisco