Mobile Podcasting.

Mobile Broadcasting is predicted to hit bigtime  this year.
Check out the major vendors

xandmail
melodeo
kimia
upsnap

Google starts Mobile Social Networking, via SMS service on orkut

"With orkut's new SMS feature, you can scrap your friends, look up their contact information and receive scrap notifications. Now you can send scraps from the bus, bar or bathroom, and your friends can get notified of those scraps when on bicycle, beach or bed. Along with the standard orkut features, we've included a few hidden goodies for the adventurous to find."

This is the first step towards social networking via sms. Soon with Location Enabled Services, you could be able to find friends in any area etc. There you go , Google !!!

33 Billion SMS Messages on New Year

It is estimated that there were 33 Billion SMS Messages on  new Year.
Considering that the current world population is around 6.6 Billion, that's a lot of messages.

So it seems, SMS is the communication of choice when it comes to sending greetings !

Mogmo. Search web for mobile contents

Mogmo is vertical search engine, focusing on mobile phones.
"Mogmo is the world's first search engine of mobile content all over the world. Mogmo search system offers thousands of games, office applications, wallpapers , themes, and ringtones . Mogmo Crawler scans hundreds of major mobile application provider's websites and supplements the database with novelties."

App's for mobile can vary based on the country, service provider and the handset. Mogmo is trying to cater to the demands of this market.

MobileSearching, the 411sync way

Using 411sync u can mobile search

1) using SMS (Text Message). Send SMS search queries to 415-676-8397
2) using Email. Send Email search queries to sms@411sync.com
3) using WAP. See 411Sync Mobile Web Search
4) using Toolbar. See below on details of installing 411Sync Mobile Search in your toolbar

Some other features include,

Configure SMS Reminders and Alerts and have updates sent to you automatically
Create SMS Shortcuts and get instant search results without typing anything in the SMS body. Share the shortcuts with other users.

The service comes free of cost.

The most nifty feature of the service is Keyword browsing
Create keywords while browsing and then use this keywords for incredibly fast browsing.
" When you view websites on your cell phone it can tedious to get to the section you want even if you have Blackberry, Sidekick or any other Smartphone. You will simply spend a lot of time scrolling up and down. You want to get to your content fast in just one single click. Use the Clip & Mobilize bookmark/favorite tool to highlight a section of a page and create a keyword that you want to access from the cell phone. Use the keyword from the cell phone to get the data in one click. No more XML feeds needed. Go to any website and start clipping the sections that you would like to carry on your cell phones."
Wow !

Popular mobile search keywords

The findings of mobilePeople's 'Mobile Search Trends 2006' study showed that

1)  6% of all mobile searches were for jobs and recruitment consultants just before Christmas 2006.

2)   The top mobile search categories before and during the festive perior, in order of popularity,

Taxis

Takeaways

Restaurants

Supermarkets

        Consumer electronics

Surprised Stocks/movies/buses-train time  are not there !

Zyb, the Mobile back up service grows big

ZYB is a mobile service that creates a backup of your contacts and calendar. You can share your contacts and calendar with your friends, family, sports club etc. and manage your mobile

To use this service you need to have either GPRS or WAP service.

In just six months since launching in June 2006, the company's user base has risen from zero users to 70,000 users using the free online mobile data backup service to "ZYB their mobile" and safeguard valuable mobile data.

Back up of mobile data is a concept, still in nascent stage.
But experience says, memory will keep getting cheaper and so will backup service work ?

UK local search engine yell improves its Mobile Search

UK local search engine yell updated its mobile search services yesterday.
Features include:
1) Search directory of business names, addresses and telephone numbers.
2) Free maps and directions along with search results.
3) Save the search results, into phones contacts.
4) Share the search results with other users.

UK has estimated 15.7 million mobile Internet users and yell claims to have 2 million business listings already.

Currently available for
Nokia, samsung, sony ericsson, blackberry, motorola and siemens phones

Cheap mobile phones are not the Future.

It easy to read the market and predict that, cheap mobile phones are the future.
"The demand for cell phones has never been higher, thanks to the demand for voice and text message services in emerging economies around the world. India, China, Brazil, and Africa – everywhere you look, citizens are clamoring to talk on their mobiles. They don't want expensive $500 iPhones – they want a handset that is good for SMS, voice, and maybe a few other basic features."
I beg to disagree.
The mobile phones are getting cheaper, because there are not much services available. In past 7-8 years, what innovative service have mobile phone vendors provided?
SMS/Alerts/ and of course talk. There is nothing else happening. And that's where the consumer says, "My $300 phone use is pretty much same as $100 phone. Then why don't buy the $100 phone "
That's the reason iPhone success is so important to this industry. In one stroke, they have given features, which will make consumers pay that extra. But in my view, its not the iPhone, but a open standard phone (allows third party applications), with features similiar to iphone, which will push the market. And ofcourse, how to fit the service providers into this is the OPEN PROBLEM.
Mark my words. This market, haven't started yet !

SugarMama Incentives

Intresting ways by which biz'ness are trying to pull in the mobile users

Give us a minute of your time, get a minute of airtime.


1) Watch short online video spots and give your feedback.

2) Answer questions via text message.

3) Fill out brief surveys about brands, products, and services.

I am sure there are more creative ways. Anyone ?

Voice Enabled Mobile Search Arrives: TellMe

TellMe launched there voice activitated Mobile search today.



Its like yellow pages on your mobile using voice recognition.



The 411 service provider, which includes American Airlines among its
clients, will allow mobile users to use its application for free. The
search uses a robot to help you find what you need, and it’s voice
activated. Tell your phone which city and state you’re in then say the
name of what you’re looking for and a map with direction comes up.

PS:
It seems google hold a patent over this. The patent says,

"A system provides search results from a voice search query. The system receives a voice search query from a user, derives one or more recognition hypotheses, each being associated with a weight, from the voice search query, and constructs a weighted boolean query using the recognition hypotheses. The system then provides the weighted boolean query to a search system and provides the results of the search system to a user."

Worlds First Location enabled mobile website

go2wintersports from go2 is a mobile website launched for sports enthusiasts.

They claim it as the world's first GPS-like location-enabled mobile website dedicated to providing winter sports enthusiasts and vacation resort travelers with the most comprehensive information on weather, snow and ski conditions, lodging, dining, entertainment and travel services for more than 500 ski destinations and resorts in the U.S.

"All go2 websites can also utilize new GPS-like technologies (referred to as Location-Based Services or LBS) where available by the major carriers in the U.S. LBS technologies enable mobile phone users to automatically determine their precise location at the touch of a button using their phones and carriers mobile network, facilitating go2's delivery of localized search results sorted by distance from the user's location. In addition, go2 uses its patented location management system to make it easier for users to personalize their go2 experience and utilize LBS across the entire go2 Mobile Content Network."

Getting local search on the mobile

Finding the local content using a search engine is at the heart of Mobile search.



Intrestingly there are applications like 877-520-FIND.



This is like Yellow pages on your mobile

If you are searching for a shop in near vicinity, Just sms the name shop/biz you are looking for to 877-520-3463.

And service is free of charge and Ads. So how do they make money ?



"However surprisingly it's turning out to be much tougher to find a
local pizza restaurant than it is to search the globe. There's a lot of
effort going into Local Search and it's tough to stay on top of it and
see the wood for the trees"



That sums it up.

MCN raises second round of funding

Mobile Content Networks, Inc. (“MCN”), a leading provider of mobile
search solutions, announced today it has closed its Series B funding
round led by Meritage Funds with the participation of Dentsu.com,
Netage Capital Partners, UniqueLab, Suneight and Intellect Capital
Ventures. The company will use the funds to further expand the
development and marketing of MobileSearch.net, the wireless industry’s
first real-time search management platform.



The company will use the funds to give other white-label search
providers (specifically Medio Systems, JumpTap and FAST) a run for
their money and show that an open mobile search scheme – that is, one
that doesn’t lock users or operators into search results determined by
one or two search engines



MCN Product Architecture:

"The MobileSearch.net platform is comprised of a set
of unique components, designed to rapidly deliver the optimum mobile
search experience, while keeping service providers in complete control.

The
User Interface Controller handles search and browse capabilities and
supports virtually all mobile devices, providing minimal clicks to
content, contextual navigation, and localized content. All elements in
the user display can be configured, and custom phone client software
can be easily supported.

The Query
Broker and Taxonomy Components combine patent-pending query
classification and dynamic source selection to improve relevancy, with
a highly scalable connector framework and a growing library of content
sources.

The Monetization Engine
dynamically applies your business rules to place banner ads, premium
placement, sponsored, pay-per-click, pay-per-call, and direct links to
organic and paid content anywhere in the world."

Service providers blocking url's clicks by sms? A Open problem.

One of the easiest way of sharing a link , is just send it as an sms. But some of this links can automatically download some malicious code taking down the entire network with it. And that is the reason that service providers are so wary of these features and have blocked it.



But, this is an intresting proposition for security services on mobile phones. With more and more interesting sms applications,service providers will have to open up there shackles and strengthen themself using strong mobile security services.

powered by performancing firefox

Web2.0 on Mobile ?

Web2.0 has spilled over to the mobile area.



LogicaCMG announced speedbrowsing tool for service providers. This optimises the online content for mobile users, to deliver them web2.0 ..aka..desktop like experience.



"The mobile form factor adds another complication to content delivery,
requiring it to be individually manipulated for the mobile environment.
High Speed Proxy, the product at the core of LogicaCMG’s SpeedBrowsing
proposition, automatically reformats each web page, ensuring that
everything on the users screen is optimised for the mobile environment.
In addition, the image compression engine reduces the download size of
graphics, while still ensuring that they can be properly viewed on the
recipient device"

mobile search offerings from google

Google is currently the most active player in the mobile search arena.

These are the offerings from them,

sms
web search on mobile
image search
mobile search
local search
xhtml
wml
mobile gmaps
mobile news

Some interesting information, from the faq’s

"Google automatically translates these pages by analysing the original HTML code and converting it to a mobile-ready format. To ensure that the highest quality and most useable web page is displayed on your mobile phone or device, Google may resize, adjust or convert images, text formatting and/or certain aspects of web page functionality.”

That means, your webpage may look different to mobile users.

Some inside stuff,

“XHTML (WAP 2.0) areWML (1.2) and iMode are different formats for mobile websites. XHTML is what most phones sold in the last couple years support, and will enable you to view images and text on your phone along with iMode. WML is an older format that doesn't enable you to view images.
With these formats, Google automatically translates regular Web pages into pages that your phone understands. But since these formats support different content, your Google Mobile experience will vary as follows:
With XHTML you can conduct both Google Web Search and Image Search.
With WML, you can only conduct Google Web Search.”

So look into your phone manual to find, whether it is mobile-search enabled.

This is interesting,

“No, you can't send cell phone search results to a friend.”

A Warm Welcome .

"The question of mobile search's significance is made more difficult to answer because of the complexity of defining exactly what it is. Online, we're all accustomed to a search box and a results page filled with an assortment of links with short descriptions. That interface is well suited to the large screens enjoyed by Blackberry and Treo users. But given the smaller screens of the majority of handsets, a panoply of interfaces are vying for dominance."

When you read/feel like things , you are witnessing the birth pangs of a new technology.

The purpose of creating this blog is keep following the trends to that moment, when we know mobile search has arrived.

I welcome all to join me in this journey.