Have a merry Connected Christmas

MANILA, Philippines - For a number of Filipinos, Christmas is the best time to purchase that new gadget, that one personal reward you saved up for. Whether you’re upgrading to the latest smartphone or tablet, or buying the device for the first time, maximize your “new baby” by loading it with apps that can provide great content.

Traditionally, the only way to pay for content is through a credit card. Not anymore. Smart Communications, Inc. has paved the way for everyone to have and celebrate a “connected Christmas.” Even time spent queuing to pay for goods when shopping will be entertaining. You can watch a movie or TV series, listen to good music and read a book or magazine, thanks to Smart’s data services plus mobile apps like Blink, Spinnr and Buqo.

Blink takes care of your viewing needs while Spinnr has the soundtrack part-covered. Buqo’s reading selections offer perfect ideas. All these are under Smart’s “great content is here” campaign.

“Smart is a pioneer in innovations for digital goods payments, which allow our customers to ‘live more’ by giving them a wide variety of great content they can enjoy on their phones anytime, anywhere. With Smart, these great mobile content are now within your reach. All you need is your prepaid load or postpaid account, and you’ll be on your way to binge-watching, music-tripping or book-hoarding on your mobile phones,” said Mellissa Limcaoco, Innovation and Product Development head at Smart.

Blink allows you to break away from boxed-in scheduled TV programming and start shaping your personal viewing experience. Watch classic Christmas movies to the latest titles as Blink offers this season’s line-up. Movies like Russel Crowe’s Noah to updated episodes of The Vampire Diaries. Blink has license to hundreds of titles from Disney, Warner, Marvel, CBS and Sony Pictures.

To access Blink, download the app on your iPhones or Android devices, go to www.blink-now.com and sign up for an account. Try it out for free by checking out the live TV broadcasts of such popular channels as etc, 2nd Avenue, Jack City and BTV.

Meanwhile, enjoy your soundtrack on the go with Spinnr. The latest from the homegrown music app is Spinnr Radio, a feature that lets music lovers listen to songs from OPM and international artists for free. Spinnr Radio offers unlimited music with no subscription, no additional data charges and unlimited skips.

For greater access to stream millions of songs, create playlists and sync music for offline playback, Spinnr allows its subscribers this privilege for only P2.50/day or P49/month.

Spinnr has the latest from Taylor Swift and One Direction to Christmas compilations like the I’ll Be Home For Christmas and the exclusive OPM My Christmas Album (All Stars) collections.

With Spinnr on your mobile phones, keep tabs of the promos like fly-offs and meet-and-greets with your favorite artists.

Bookworms, on the other hand, may turn to Buqo for a reading fix. For magazines and even books, Smart collaborates with the e-bookstore of Summit Media to provide a quick flick-through by browsing the latest issues without hitting the newsstand or even serial reading with many book titles to choose from.

Contents from Blink, SPINNR and Buqo can be accessed either for free (via existing promos) or purchased by users using their Smart prepaid or postpaid accounts, eliminating the need for a credit card for online transactions.

However, under the same powerhouse content line that Smart is offering, there’s also GameX, Google Play and Viewstream, which holds licensed streaming of PBA games and TV5’s Wattpad-generated modern romance serials.

For details, visit smart.com.ph.