Heeding the call: Ninja looking beyond games to new era of lifestyle applications.

JEFF Capdeville remembers when a cell phone was just a device for having mobile conversations. Now he is staking his future on making the cell phone a fisherman s best friend, an exercise junkie's conscience and even a spiritual anchor.

Capdeville's company, Ninja Mobile Inc., is tapping a fast-growing niche in the wireless world: lifestyle applications.

Last year, the three-year-old Torrance company introduced surfers to real-time mobile beach information--complete with streaming video of surf scenes. It's about to roll out other applications. "I'm not bullish on games so much," said Capdeville. "I think (cell phones) will be a lifestyle device."

Surfline Mobile LE, which has an estimated 2,500 paid users, was developed by Ninja and Surfline Inc., an Orange County sports media company that created the original Surfline for home computers.

"What Ninja is doing is really something that needs to be done, which is really uniquely taking advantage of the portability of the mobile phone as a lifestyle device," said Ira Brodsky, president of St. Louis-based Datacomm Research Co.

The Surfline product is the only lifestyle application Ninja currently has on the market, but three others are in various stages of development: one that allows exercise fanatics to track calories, another that will give fishing conditions and a third that will allow searches of the King James Bible.

Old friends

Capdeville and Kiyoto Hirai started up Ninja in 2002 after working together at the L.A. office of TIS Inc., a Japanese software developer and systems integrator.

Hirai, who had worked as a software developer in his native Japan, saw the market for cell phone applications boom in that country and teamed with Capdeville to tap what they anticipated would be a growing U.S. market.

In its original incarnation, Ninja was solely financed by Hirai and Capdeville, who together put in $750,000 and worked on ring tones, cell-based games and screensavers. Last year, they received a minority investment from a group of Japanese investors as the portfolio of mobile applications was expanded.

The business is run unusually, with Capdeville commuting between homes in Florida and Redondo Beach and Hirai splitting his time between California and Japan. There is a staff of about 16, most of them software developers. Contractors work on specific projects.

Ninja's applications can be directly downloaded onto Verizon subscribers, or via computer for TMobile, Cingular or Sprint subscribers. Ninja gets 60 percent of the monthly subscription fee while the mobile carrier gets the rest. The company, which recorded $500,000 in revenues in 2004, expects to generate almost $2 million this year, largely from increased sales of the Surfline application.

This fall, there are plans to roll out Wireless Angler, which will include forecasts and fishing conditions at various lakes and streams and allow users to customize the application according to where they live and which types of fish they're after. There's also a feature for taking pictures of the catch, which can be sent to other users.

Slated for early next year is the Wireless Workout, which will allow users to track calories, and view video clips of different exercises. Also planned for next year is cellular-based software allowing phone users to post photos and text to blogs.

Coming soon is the King James Bible application that will include biblical ring tones, cell phone wallpaper and even games featuring biblical trivia. "Our creative juices are flowing and we are creating new ways of delivering data," Capdeville said.

There is still a question about how much users are willing to pay for mobile applications. Surfline Mobile LE runs $4.95 a month, another recurring subscription fee for computer users whose credit-card bills already are overrun with such charges.

Jack Herrick, a 36-year-old Palo Alto resident who has been testing a free version of Surfline Mobile, loves the application but wishes it were free. "I used to check (surfing conditions and forecasts) from a computer, but when you surf you're not always near a computer," he said.

Several analysts said Ninja has leapfrogged ahead of many wireless content developers who are still profiting from ring tones and video games--many of them adapted for cell phones from desktop computers.

"This could really be the next big thing," said Andrew Seybold, president of the wireless consultancy Outlook 4 Mobility Inc. in Santa Barbara and talking about the space in general. "But the issue is, there is absolutely no market research on where we're going in wireless."

Ninja Mobile Inc.

Year Founded: 2002

Core Business: Games and applications for cellular phone users

Revenues in 2003: $200,000

Revenues in 2004: $500,000

Employees in 2003: 12

Employees in 2004: 17

Goal: To develop a portfolio of useful applications for cellular phone users

Driving Force: The transformation of the cellular phone from a communications device to an all-purpose lifestyle tool