TVSquad

Sling Media officially launched SlingPlayer for Symbian phones today. That means Slingbox users who have Palm, Windows Mobile, or Symbian phones can stream live TV over the internet from their home to their phones.

The Symbian version of the SlingPlayer software has been available to beta testers for the past few months. The application is designed to work with Nokia N75, N95, and E65 phones, but may also run on other phones using the Symbian operating system. You'll need a Wi-Fi or 3G internet connection in order to stream video at a decent rate.

SlingPlayer Mobile software usually costs $30, but Sling Media is also announcing a partnership with Nokia to offer the application free to all N95 users. Of course, the software is useless if you don't shell out the $130+ to get a Slingbox, so the move makes good marketing sense from Sling Media's perspective. In fact, we wouldn't be too surprised to see the company negotiate similar deals with other companies to build a market for Slingboxes.

On the other hand, once EchoStar completes its acquisition of Sling Media, the company might not have to work so hard to build brand recognition.