Wired profiles Amp’d Mobile, a new service launching this fall that will offer subscribers a wide array of “mobile entertainment” options on a specialized handheld device. Amp’d has marshalled a vast amount of venture capital to bring the cellphone to its full potential as a catch-all media device – video console, gaming handset, ebook reader, web browser, and, if your brain hasn’t been totally fricasseed by that point, still a good old-fashioned telephone.
Amp’d targets consumers in their mid-20s to mid-30s – the bracket that is the most gadget-crazed, the most entertainment-hungry, as well as the most mobile, or so the reasoning goes. At the very least, Amp’d might serve as a catalyst for Verizon, Sprint and the other big mobile service providers to move into this sweet spot of media convergence. It certainly seems that things are going that way.