Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Row 44 Inks Partners For Shopping Portal

Westlake Village-based Row 44, a developer of satellite-based, wireless Internet connectivity for commercial aircraft, said today that it has created a "walled-garden" portal for airlines. The firm--which is powering wireless Internet for airlines such as Southwest and Alaska Airlines--said that its "Skytown Center" will offer shopping from SkyMall, video programming form HSN, and other services from JiWire, BeDynamic, and Pinger. The firm said the "walled garden" will be accessible at no charge to passenger with Wi-Fi enabled devices, allowing those customers to shop at retailers, view live television, and access information about destination cities. In addition to the new portal, Row 44 also said it is adding a paid, SMS-gateway texting feature to its service, to allow customers to send and receive SMS messages to mobile phone users.

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