"m" is for mobile
A blog about mobile websites and applications.

eBay Bids and Updates Go Mobile

Posted In: . By AdamJ


As we all know, the process of online bidding is crucial in the final seconds, in fact, a gNumber research shows, that over 50 percent of bids are placed in the last 5 minutes of an eBay auction (sniping). Did you ever lost an eBay auction, just because you were not able to sit by your computer at the last few minutes of the bidding process? Well, thanks to UnWiredBuyer, you can manage the last few minutes of eBay bidding on your mobile phone, and will never have to worry about finding a way to be able to sit at a computer when a potential eBay auction ends.

With UnWired Buyer 2.0, eBay buyers and sellers can receive updates and place bids in the final minutes of an auction, from any mobile phone or computer. Once registered, your free UnWired Buyer account automatically synchs with your Watch List on eBay, updating several times a day. You choose whether you would like to be notified by email, phone call, or both, when one of your watched auctions is coming to a close. You also set criteria such as target price, to determine whether or not you should be notified as a particular auction ends. Once you receive the phone call from Unwired Buyer (three minutes before an auction ends), you enter your PIN number and can then place bids through your mobile phone. You can get real-time updates, bidder status, automatic price updates, and hear a countdown to the end of the auction. Sellers can also sign up for the service, to use UnWired Buyer for monitoring their sales.



UnWired Buyer provides an innovative voice-based commerce platform that delivers real-time, actionable notifications directly into the consumer's hands anytime, anywhere. UnWired Buyer is able to extend commerce to US based mobile phones, enabling event-triggered transactions via voice. The company's first service offering, UnWired Buyer for eBay, allows users to remotely bid in the final three minutes of an eBay auction.

According to UnWiredBuyer.com, the site has placed over 300,000 calls to eBay shoppers and interacted with 1 million eBay auctions since October 2005. The more users start participating, the more the service will become popular as eBay buyers catch on to the advantage UnWired Buyer members have in an auction. The advantages are many, since the service reminds you of the end of an auction and also gives you the opportunity to quickly update your bids as an auction closes, no matter where you are.

Via: UnWiredBuyer.com

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It's Monday! Mobile Monday!

Posted In: . By AdamJ


Mobile Monday
Anybody interested in the present and future development of the mobile industry, has to start looking out for the Mobile Monday events near him, or at least start visiting the Mobile Monday website. Mobile Monday is a global community of mobile industry visionaries, developers and influentials fostering cooperation and cross-border business development through virtual and live networking events to share ideas, best practices and trends from global markets.

Mobile Monday has the following objectives:
  • To encourage innovation within the mobile sector.
  • To facilitate networking between small and large companies, and between local and foreign.
  • To help local companies effectively participate in international initiatives through the import and export of visions, concepts, technologies, know-how and best practices.
  • To present innovative visions, trends, studies and forecasts from the mobile marketplace.
  • To facilitate and create partnerships.
  • To contribute to the education of the broader public through its publications, online presence and media partnerships.
Mobile Monday is organized by a group of dedicated volunteers from around the world. Originating in Helsinki, Finland, in the year 2000, Mobile Monday has grown into the world’s leading mobile community.

Mobile Monday is a rapidly growing, global community, with events almost every Monday of the year. For example today, 21st April, 2008 there will be four Mobile Monday events held globally with the following topics:

Mobile Monday Frankfurt - Mobile Marketing & Advertising
Mobile Monday Belfast - Mobile Monday Belfast Launches
Mobile Monday Shanghai - LBS and Social Networks
Mobile Monday Madrid - Mobile Messaging 2.0

You can keep track of future Mobile Monday events here: Events

So for example on today's Mobile Monday Madrid event you could listen to speakers like Jan-Joost Kraal, VP of Mobile of eBuddy, Tim von Toerne, founder and VP Product of Hamburg-based Cellity and Enrico Noseda, Skype’s Director of Business Development Telecoms. And if you look at the Mobile Monday websites you can see that all events are packed with other quality speakers and great networking opportunities. Here is great, comprehensive mobile 2.0 presentation from Rudy de Waele, organizer of Mobile Monday Madrid:


Via: MobileMonday Global

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Bring VOIP to your Mobile

Posted In: . By AdamJ


I few days ago I was sitting at a restaurant in Los Angeles and I was browsing my mobile phone's contact list when I realized that it has been quite a while since I talked to one of my friends who currently works in the UK. I asked if the place had free wi-fi, and I was lucky because the answer was yes. I opened an application on my mobile called Fring, and searched for my friend within the contact list. He wasn't on Skype, Google Talk, MSN, etc. at the moment, so I just looked up his mobile phone number and pressed dial. After a few seconds the phone was ringing and he picked up. We talked for quite a while. After we said goodbye I started to calculate, about how much this approximately 10 min phone call cost me..

So the wi-fi was free (of course if we calculate my lunch, it wasn't..), with SkypeOut a 10 minute call to a UK mobile line is 2.91 USD (incl Tax), and that's about it. Wow! That is really cheap! And what if I could call him on his land line? It would have cost me about 0.24 USD! And what if he was sitting at his PC with Skype (or other VOIP program) turned on? Absolutely free! And what if I had used my data plan instead of the free wi-fi? Fring would have consumed about 133.17 kb per minute on a Symbian phone, so I would have used about 1331.7 kb data, that I would have to pay for in addition. With an unlimited data plan that is not a problem at all, otherwise it varies from network provider to network provider, but it shouldn't be a significant amount. So anyway, I just wanted to share this little story because my next post is about a great mobile application called Fring, and I hope you will find it useful too in the future.

Fring
Fring

Fring is a mobile application that enables users to use VOIP technology on their mobile phone. This means you can use Skype, MSN Messenger, Google Talk, ICQ, AIM, Twitter, Yahoo! and SIP just as you would use it on your PC (or Mac). The great thing is that it is absolutely free, and all you need is a smartphone with Internet capabilities and a data plan. So you can make for example Skype calls via your mobile free to other Skype users who are at their PC or have Fring already on their mobile, or make SkypeOut calls anywhere in the world, paying only the Skype fee, and still saving tons on those long distance calls. You can also send messages with all the IM services listed above (or Tweets as they call it at Twitter) without worrying about the texting charge. No more charges for sms, text your friends with Fring for free! To take advantage of Fring you just need a 3G enabled handset with a data usage plan, or if you are lucky enough to have a phone with wi-fi connection, Fring works with wi-fi spots too, so you don´t even have to use your data plan.



Some of Fring's great features:

FringTake all IM buddies mobile
The main screen is the contact list of all your Fringster friends, Skype, MSN Messenger, ICQ, Google Talk, Twitter, AIM and Yahoo! buddies, AND those from your handset’s regular contact list. Through one interface, you can browse contacts, check presence status, view contacts’ network quality, initiate voice calls to Fring, IM contacts, or to regular phone lines using GSM, SkypeOut or any SIP provider, and lot more.

FringFree calls
Make free calls to all your IM buddies from wherever you are.







FringLive chat instead of SMS
Fring’s chat feature means you can view entire chat conversations in real-time on your handset and reduce the lag time and high accumulated costs of SMS.




FringCall landlines and regular cellular contacts using SkypeOut or SIP
Make cheap local and international calls to landlines and regular mobile contacts using your SkypeOut account or hundreds of SIP-based providers such as Eutelia, GizmoProject, VoipCheap, VoipStunt and SIPNET over Fring, even from non-SIP enabled handsets.


FringView call history
Fring’s voice call log includes:
- contact name
- contact type: GSM, Skype, Google, ICQ, MSN, Twitter, AIM, Yahoo! and Fring
- date and time of call
- outgoing vs received status

FringInvite friends to Fring
Search for your friends in the Fring directory, and if they do not yet have Fring, you can send them an SMS invitation to join (for free).





FringSend and receive files
Send and receive videos, music, games, ringtones, docs and more with Fring’s file transfer feature.






FringChoose incoming call and message tones
Fring-a-ling along with Fringtones! :) You can choose your incoming call and message tones, select from Fring's own fringtones, or any already in your phone.




FringAuto-roam in and out of wi-fi hotspots
You can automatically login to wi-fi hotspots with Fring’s auto-roaming feature. It saves lots of time and hassle as you no longer have to search for access points, and it also saves money by automatically using free wi-fi instead of your 3G data plan.


Via: Fring

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Whenever, Wherever: Weather

Posted In: . By AdamJ


As we know, and as Yonderboi sang about it: People always talk about the weather. As we probably don't know, people not just talk about the weather often, but also like to look up forecasts and all kinds of related information via their mobile phones. Actually, according to Nielsen Mobile's Mobile Internet Report, "the weather" is one of the top reasons why consumers browse the Internet on their mobile devices. Even the numbers are quite amazing: February, 2008 was a record-breaking month for the AccuWeather.com mobile website regarding the number of visits to its site (Page Impressions). The site chalked up a new monthly record with 32,760,743 PIs, and the mobile site also set a new record for daily impressions with 1,792,492 on February 12th.

So here is what one of the most popular mobile weather service providers has to offer its users:
AccuWeatherAlready rated among the top ten mobile brands, AccuWeather.com delivers accurate and up-to-date weather on the mobile web. The main features of its services are as follows:

Mobile Web

AccuWeather.com Mobile WebsiteYou can access basic weather content anytime, anywhere and on any carrier through the AccuWeather.com Mobile Website. Features include: zoomable radar and satellite, animation and panning capabilities; severe weather warning alerts; 15-Day forecasts; hour-by-hour forecasts up to 48 hours; detailed localized current conditions; weather news and weather blogs; you can access the AccuWeather.com Storm Center and receive severe weather warnings for your area, as well as hurricane information and details; you may select U.S. and Canada locations by ZIP code, postal code, city/state, airport code, or easy browse selections and save up to ten preset locations.

AccuWeather.com Global Mobile WebsiteYou may access up-to-date, detailed weather information for all locations worldwide with the AccuWeather.com Global Mobile Website. Unlike North America-centric mobile web sites, AccuWeather.com Global is designed specifically with world citizens and travelers in mind. It provides up-to-the-minute conditions, 15-day and hourly forecasts, and satellite for users on the go - no matter where your destination.

Applications

AccuWeather.com PremiumAccuWeather.com Premium, a downloadable application provides access to AccuWeather.com's detailed weather forecasts and radar imagery, plus the latest severe weather alerts and hurricane data. Just enter your zip code or city/state for complete weather information. You may save multiple locations, including cities worldwide, for quick and convenient access to the latest weather data; view continuously updated, zoomable, animated radar and satellite at national, regional and metro levels; get detailed current conditions, hour-by-hour forecasts and ten-day outlooks; you can even check the Hurricane Center or severe weather warnings for your area.

AccuWeather.com Premium v3.0In addition to AccuWeather.com Premium AccuWeather.com Premium v3.0 has FirstWarn Alerts that can help save your life or property by sending severe weather warnings directly to your phone as they're issued; lets you look after your family's health with information on pollen, humidity, air quality and UV levels; includes FirstCast – a convenient alarm-clock feature that gives you the forecast as soon as you wake up, to help you get ready for the day ahead; AccuPOP tells the specific time periods, probabilities and types of precipitation over the next few days, so you'll know just when you'll need an umbrella and when to wear snow boots; with it you can even set the background of your phone to your favorite screen, such as radar, satellite, hour-by-hour forecasts or current conditions; it allows you to enter and save multiple favorite locations, includes tips that pop up to help you get the most out of using the application and it's shortcut keys make navigation extra fast and easy.

AccuWeather.com WHERE WidgetWith the AccuWeather.com WHERE Widget you can get location-based weather on your mobile phone: get detailed location-based weather data; see your 2-day forecast; find wind, humidity, pressure & visbility conditions.

Video

AccuWeather.com VideoSee and hear the latest weather wherever you go with AccuWeather.com Video weather on your mobile phone - wherever and whenever you need it. View presenter-led forecasts, current weather conditions and animated radar for your city, as well as regularly updated regional and national forecasts. All are designed for optimum viewing on mobile handsets with sharp images and clear, informative graphics. In addition to local forecasts, you can watch breaking news regarding severe weather watches and warnings, winter storms and hurricanes. You can even view special daily weather features for business travelers and sports fans.

PDA Services

AccuWeather.com for PDAYou can get the latest AccuWeather.com current conditions, localized 5-day forecasts, state and regional radar, color-enhanced infrared satellite images, and national and special weather summaries with AccuWeather.com for PDA.

AccuWeather.com Professional for PDAWith AccuWeather.com Professional for PDA subscribers can access detailed 15-day forecasts, hourly forecasts, radar and satellite images, severe weather information, Joe Bastardi's column, national weather information, weather summaries, and more on the go with a PDA.

AccuWeather.com AvantGo ChannelWith AccuWeather.com AvantGo Channel you can get the latest AccuWeather.com forecasts via wireless connection or desktop synchronization. Access content such as current weather conditions, pinpointed 24-hour forecasts, localized 5-day forecasts, state and regional radar, severe and other weather summaries, and more.

So this was AccuWeather Mobile, personally my favorite source for mobile weather forecast. Just in case you would like to check out a few other mobile weather service providers, here are a few links:

Via: AccuWeather.com

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Social Networking Moves to the Mobile

Posted In: . By AdamJ

A few days ago when I was looking at mobile social networking sites I ran into the following surprising message:

mobile MySpaceWow! The server of MySpace is too busy?! How could that happen?! The one and only explanation is that social networking is going mobile way faster than we (and in this case MySpace) might think so. So here goes the next post about mobile social networking:

Several years of competition among the big social networking sites have generated tens of millions of members. Now the market is teeming with companies that want to bring the same phenomenon to the cellphone. First of all Myspace, Friendster, Facebook, etc. all are trying to keep (and expand the number of) their members by enabling their social networking features for their users on their mobile phones. Nokia, Yahoo, etc., huge technology companies, but newcomers to the social networking business also have initiatives to create discrete communities out of cellphone users. And last, but not least there are the mobile social networking start-ups, like the ones you will find later in this blog. Here is a short video about how social networking is going mobile:



The prize, as these companies see it, is the 3.3 billion cellphone subscribers, a number that far surpasses the total of Internet users. The advantage over computer-based communities, they believe, is the ability to know where a cellphone is, thanks to global positioning satellites (GPS) and related technologies, and most mobile social networks seek to capitalize on this location information. [Users of course need a GPS receiver, either integrated into the phone or standalone (e.g. via bluetooth).]

The market research company Informa Telecoms said in a report last month that about 50 million people, or about 2.3 percent of all mobile users, already use the cellphone for social networking, from chat services to multimedia sharing. The company forecast that the penetration rate would mushroom to at least 12.5 percent in five years.

A few "must watch" start-ups:
GyPSiiGyPSii, one of the most promising mobile social networking sites, serves it's members three cool ways:

PlaceMe: Lets users record their life in photo, video and audio on their mobile phone, automatically geotag their content and share it with friends in real time on their mobiles and on the web.

SpaceMe: Enables members to see where friends and (optionally) other GyPSii users are in real time on their mobile and on the web. The motto: "Call them, email them or send them text messages. Share your lives with each other."

Search: With Search users can explore the world around them and find nearby places which friends and other GyPSii users have created. It enables users to see photos and videos about the selected places, locate them on a map and share them with other people.

For the mobile website click here: GyPSii
BliinBliin, another network that started in Amsterdam, lets users update and post their whereabouts every 15 seconds, and enables users to take geo-annotated pictures with their mobile phone cam and share these experiences with others via the internet (”geotagging”). Bliin also makes it possible to locate people and their preferences, and trace users movements live on the map (”social proximity”).

Users' position is sent to the Bliin server in realtime over an always-on data connection. Users can capture photos with their mobile phone camera (in the future also audio, video and text) and attach description and tags. When users publish the photo, GPS coordinates are automatically attached. It appears as a geographically positioned photo on the Bliin web interface, based on Google Maps.

For the mobile website click here: Bliin
For this network, geography and “presence” information is not as critical. MyGamma, a social network run by BuzzCity, based in Singapore, draws most of its 2.5 million users from developing countries in Asia and Africa.

MyGamma
MyGamma is a Phone and Web community where you can interact with people and showcase yourself. You can create a private community with only invited friends to chat and share your blogs and photos with. Or you can start a public persona to tell the world your story and get them to join your groups and write you testimonials, get voted and be ranked. In addition, members get to download games and ringtones, and take part in contests to win cool prizes.

A real innovation of the MyGamma website was the launch of a distribution agreement with SBS Transit, Singapore's public transport conglomerate. Through this agreement, now the site distributes SBS Transit's IRIS NextBus service to its members and visitors. IRIS - an acronym for Intelligent Route Information System' - offers bus arrival times on a real time basis. Commuters now have the convenience of knowing how many minutes away the next bus is from the bus stop, simply by looking at their mobile phone.
ItsmyItsmy.com is a completely new mobile way to communicate with friends and to get in touch with people from all around the world! The brandname of GOFRESH's mobile community, is the fastest growing mobile picture&video community in the world generating more than 200 million mobile web PIs a month! Itsmy.com's philosophy is to give every mobile phone user a personal homepage in the mobile internet, a startpage, from where he/she can start exploring the various community services such as mobileTV, chats, picture&video blogs, homepages, user personalized content tools, galleries, tones and many, many more.

Itsmy, which says it has more than a million registered users, opened its Italian-language service on Wednesday. It was already available in English, German and Spanish, and a Japanese version is planned.

For the mobile website click here: Itsmy


Ok, so these were just a few of the many great start-ups ready to conquer the mobile platform and serve as a social networking place for millions and millions of mobile users. The big question is if these new mobile communities will be able to develop fast enough not to be overrun by the the big Internet names — like MySpace and Facebook — as their plans to invade the cellphone universe is also loud and clear. As Mr. Lai, BuzzCity's chief executive said, the newcomers are not at all concerned about their success: “We don’t think any of them will make a big splash in the mobile space. They view mobile as an extension of the online site, while we know our members use mobile much differently.” It's going to be interesting to see if Mr Lai's prognosis will stand it's ground or not...

This is it for now, but if you have tested (or are already active user of) any of these (or other) mobile social networks, I would love to hear your thoughts.

Via: NyTimes

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LinkedIn Goes Mobile

Posted In: . By AdamJ

LinkedIn, the world's largest professional network, has announced that its 19 million members can now access LinkedIn Mobile via pointing their web-enabled mobile phones to:


Initial features available on the mobile version will allow users to search and view profiles and invite new connections into their networks without having to know the e-mail addresses of invitees. Such capabilities will help users identify people they are meeting for the first time, by having access to their photos and profiles. Eliminating the requirement that a mobile user know needs an e-mail address to send an invitation will help users to more quickly expand their networks.

The mobile version will also let users get and act on updates from people in their network. For example, if a user gets a notice about a new job posting, he can immediately forward that posting to someone who may be a good fit for the job.



The company also launched a customized beta version of the mobile product for iPhone users. Future versions of LinkedIn Mobile will be optimized for BlackBerries, Treos and other popular devices.

LinkedIn also plans to provide mobile access to its LinkedIn Experts and Answers, which would allow users to track down an expert while traveling. For example, a user visiting Tokyo on business could find an attorney recommended by other users to help with a specific type of contract or find a certain kind of restaurant when traveling to another locale.

Also, within the next few weeks, the mobile version will add one-to-one messaging capabilities to allow users to send a message from a mobile device to another LinkedIn user's e-mail address — even if the user doesn't know the address.

LinkedIn Mobile is currently available in English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese and Chinese, with additional languages to follow, according to LinkedIn.

Ok, I think LinkedIn Mobile is a great and very innovative step. Users can stay connected professionally anytime and anywhere. Congrats to the LinkedIn Team! So what do you think about LinkedIn Mobile?

Via: Computerworld

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The Changing Telecom Industry

Posted In: . By AdamJ


Ever since technology enabled the Internet to "arrive on our mobile phones", some could - but most couldn't - feel that this development will change the core business model of the telecom industry. Currently the two main source of profit for the mobile service providers are telephony and SMS, but according to some recent studies this might not be this way a few years form now. Lee S Dryburgh (organizer of the eComm conference) urges the industry to wake-up:

"The cost of voice transmission will reach near-zero although this is not the only telephony service killer. Voice will become just another mode within a multi-modal offering. The multi-modal offering (be it device/client/site) will itself be integrated with content sharing, commerce, search, discovery and possibly most prized of all-"relationships" (what we call "contacts" today). It makes no sense then to imagine much of future for standalone discrete audio streams known as telephone calls, rather voice will become a supplement. SMS will be replaced by instant messaging long term."

The core products of the telecom industry - telephony and SMS - are threatened by the industries own innovation: enabling Internet on mobile phones. While the consumer is an absolute winner, the telecom companies might loose quite a lot (and I am talking about revenues) by this "cannibalism". For example, thanks to numerous mobile VOIP website and application providers (such as Fring, Jajah, eBuddy, etc.) and unlimited data plans of telecom service providers, consumers can manage to talk and/or IM limitless for free.

At the same time this innovation revives the demand for web based content (or apps) for mobile devices. The supply of this content will probably develop in the next few years rapidly, as - according to Google Mobile Ads and Google Mobile Blog - this market holds a lot of potential for companies whom invest in developing mobile applications or websites. For example:
  • There are already 405 million mobile internet users worldwide, according to Internet research firm eMarketer, and within four years this number is expected to double.
  • There are nearly more cell phones in the world than televisions, telephones, and personal computers combined.
  • Smartphones that offer unlimited data plans and easy mobile web browsing are becoming increasingly popular.
  • Smartphones already account for a majority of data traffic and are gaining in sales.
  • Mobile ads are still cheaper than their online counterparts right now.
Ok, so these were the "warm-up" posts, from now on I'll be back with some really great mobile websites and applications.

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