Mobiboo - UK's 1st Wi-fi Mobile Network

Mobiboo have recently launched in the UK with the first wi-fi mobile phone network. The network is being provided in partnership with theCloud and they currently offer three tiers of account, ranging from Free Trial (which includes a 07911 number, softphone and 1UKP credit) to the Plus + account which includes a Starcom L1000 wi-fi handset, free voicemail, 10ukp credit, 07911 number, free voicemail and "follow-me".
I think this is spot-on for the die-hard wi-fi starbucks addicted techno-freak, but this segment will always need a GSM mobile in their back pocket for moments when coverage is poor or unreliable. However, couple this with an MVNO deal, reliable network hand-over, and dual-mode handsets and you have reliable nationwide coverage. The tricky bit is going to be making this digestable to the mass-market consumer - ensuring the technology is hidden from the service experience so that they're not hopping for signal on one foot and balancing different call costs on the other.

Vixo - experimental social network using SMS

Vixo are running a SMS service that enables any group of mobile users to group message one another on a particular topic without (currently) incurring multiple SMS-sending costs. You can set up a topic (e.g. World Cup) and invite other users to join the group. The service includes a "trust" command which when applied in the context of the six degrees of separation, dictates which messages you receive, originated from your group circle. You can modify your "trust" levels (by changing what Vixo describe as the 'volume') to ensure that you only receive messages from close friends, or lower the "trust" volume to include anyone in the six degrees.
Currently only available to UK mobile users.

Oh, Don't Forget... SMS Reminders

Type in your mob number, when you want to be reminded, and what you want to be reminded of, and this service will send you a text. Nice & simple. It also provides an example of how Mobile Party Pays (MPP) can be useful in avoiding complexity in application design through the avoidance of account creation and billing detail submission - although the downside is that you might get spammed.

Vodafone MyPC "Mein PC"

I work in the Future Products team in Vodafone and we focus on new mobile product development in the 18 month to 36 month timeframe. We identify, evaluate and trial new mobile service propositions. Because of this, I have to be selective and somewhat shallow in what i write about on this blog. However, today is different because I can for once talk about something that weve been working on which is now available to the general public.












For the last few months, our team here in Germany has been working on a new mobile service currently labelled "MyPC". The service enables Vodafone customers to get a variety of content streamed from their home PC to their mobile phone; pictures, music, videos and if you have a TV card, you can access a live TV stream direct to your mobile - timely, given that the World Cup kicks off here in Deutschland today ;-)
We have been working on this with very nice folks over at Orb for the last few months and the implementation is now available to Vodafone customers in Germany who have a UMTS (3G) phone and broadband connected home PC. To get the TV stream you will need a TV card from an outfit like Hauppage. The service is free of charge until the end of September, and you need to be on the Happy-Live tariff in order for the service to work (all Vodafone UMTS Live customers are automatically provisioned with Happy-Live).

MyPC works on most mobile handsets with a few notable exceptions; Motorola V3x, Motorola 1050, Motorola V980, Motorola C980, Samsung ZV10, Samsung ZV30, and the Samsung Z107. This is an aweseome service (yeah, im a bit biased) which demonstrates how mobile operators can leverage customers existing content assets. Its also a practical example of how the home environment can be mobilised, a topic that I expect will see significantly more activity in the coming months.





Press coverage in the Register and Engadget Mobile

Zyb release 2.0

Back in May 05, I posted about a SMS service from Zyb which enabled users to send text from their PC, the web or a mobile. Something prompted Zyb to shut this service down and refocus their product strategy on something else. They chose Mobile Sync & backup, which is now what they offer if you visit their site.
I tested the service this morning on my Nokia 6680 and it was a breeze. A short simple registration initiated a configuration SMS which created a new sync profile. I then initiated the sync and you can watch in real time as the Zyb web interface hoovers up your contacts, and organises them within the contacts tab of the webapp. The service also supports Calendar events and To-do lists. It also offers a recovery mode, so should you lose your phone, all you need to do is simply connect the new one to Zyb and your contacts, schedule and tasks are recovered.
A very elegant example of SyncML in action, and although it has some competition from the like of Mightyphone and Phonesync, the service experience is so well executed it should attract a lot of usage which will pave the way for a premium paid-for version.

JigSaw UK Wiki

The Jigsaw Uk Wiki is a great resource for new innovative projects, start-ups and organisations in the Internet, Mobile and Technology space, specifically originating out of the UK.

Futurescape, the creators of the wiki, say they have created the wiki as a "free resource so that young digital media companies and organisations can:
- Showcase new projects, nationally and globally
- Locate potential partners for future projects
- Find the most appropriate sources of advice and funding
- Build and use a knowledge base of experience and ideas for ways forward
- Discuss how to self-organise to make this sector even stronger".

WAMPAD - mobile search verticals

Wampad presents a fresh approach to mobile search. It offers a topic menu from which you can choose the domain which is most relevant to your search query, using best of breed information and content sources from which it extracts your results. For example, if youre looking for news, it draws on Google News, for movie info, you can search IMDB, for images it turns to Flickr and so on.

02/06 great in-depth review of wampad at wapreview

MyNuMo

Mobile Crunch recently profiled MyNuMo, which is an awesome new service enabling anyone to create and sell mobile content (vids, pics, ringtones etc). Further evidence of the "democratisation" of content.

related wiki post

Phonephlash

Does your phone take murky pictures in the dark? - then how about PhonePhlash - sticks on the back of your phone and when pressed - lights up the subject via a cluster of powerful little LEDs to improve the shot - neat.

Mig33

Hot on the heels of Hotxt and Tex2me is Mig33 which provides cheap international calling, support for both MSN and Yahoo IM, and cheap text. You can also set up a chat room for group chatter amongst buddies.
Java and Internet required...

April round-up

Things have been busy this month and my postings have dwindled, so my last April post is designed as more of a radar round-up.

There has been a lot of recent activity in the mobile payments space following announcements re: PayPal Mobile, Obopay funding, and PayWi. Another new start-up on the radar is Luup who currently provides services in the UK, Germany and Norway. You can send and receive money online and via SMS, provided the recipient is also using the service. MoniLINK (UK only) also announced that HSBC and FirstDirect would be the first partners to support their mobile banking service (provided via application download) which is scheduled to launch in the UK later this year.

If you liked the idea of Hotxt, but weren’t prepared to stump up the 1 pound per week then take a look at Tex2 – providing a similar service for free. The application downloads, installs and works well but the website side of things needs some refinement. SMS is ripe for some disruption – it accounts for a significant proportion of operator revenue and is the killer mobile app for most users. The younger user segment will be prepared to accept some service misgivings provided that they can reduce their bills and with something like txt2, they can. Mobile-IM has yet to ramp up so there is likely to be a window of opportunity in this product space, but marketing dollars will ultimately dictate who gets the critical mass.

Stanford University is hosting Startup School this Saturday. Topics covered include what makes a good startup idea and where to get them; what to look for in a co-founder; how to get angel and VC funding; how to incorporate a company and what agreements founders should have among themselves; when and how to apply for patents; what can go wrong in a startup; what acquirers look for; and how the acquisition process works. The speaker list is very impressive.

Cool Hunting profiles the Orange shop in Notting Hill, London, UK. It’s an experimental new retail format incorporating chill sales staff who know their product and awarded on customer feedback not sales. “Customers are encouraged to come back often—in the shop you can grab a coffee while your mobile is charged and cleaned or you can learn how to load music and read email on your particular device”. Neat.



My Fon wi-fi router has arrived, but has yet to be configured due to it not behaving as the instructions suggested it would. The weekend should crack that though, so if you're in Düsseldorf and need internet access... will update next week

Cudlz - mobile dating startup

Alan Brandburne (founder of Phlog) and Max Niederhofer (co-founder of 20six) teamed up at the end of last year to found IncrediblInc. First of the applications to bolt out their stable is Cudlz - a mobile+online dating service currently restricted to UK residents (so unfortunately I cant post any test screenshots or post much comment). You can build a tag cloud of your likes and dislikes, job, profile etc and seek out and smooch up to those that match.
The gadget wielding duo claim that "the integration of your phone as your personal networked media production and consumption device into a social software web platform is complete. cudlz' messaging is perfectly sync'ed between PC and mobile,messages are distributed as WAP-Pushes, users are billed directly through their phone, photo uploads from the mobile are placed immediately on a user's profile... and of course, there are lots and lots of tags to simplify finding that significant other".
Only just in Beta, but one to watch...

the Skype of SMS? - Hotxt

Hotxt has been launched in the UK to provide UK mobile users with a cheaper alternative to SMS text. Simply download a java app and you can hotxt to other hotxt users as much as you like for 1 Ukpounds per month.
The propositon is clear and the cost benefit to heavy texters is obvious. It seems positoined at the mass-market younger user but may face a few adoption barriers in that it requires your group of friends to all have a java compatible phone, and the user has to pay for the service. A service like this needs to create a critical mass to overcome the adoption and maturity curves, and I dont think that charging 4 UKP/month from the outset is perhaps the best way of doing this. IMHO - the chances of getting a circle of friends all with a compatible phone and a willingness to to pay the fee is pretty slim - it would have been better to launch for free and monetise it through a weekly paid ad or the like. I would also worry about battery life with something like this - presumably the client has to regularly poll for new messages which drains a lot of power. But hey - good luck to them! I'll be watching its del.icio.us ranking to see its popularity amongst the early adopters...


WirelessWorld Forum has discussion on this here

21/04 - see also tex2

Netvibes seeded

Netvibes announced on Wednesday that it had received undisclosed seed funding from Index Ventures; Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape; PierreChappaz (founder of Kelkoo and Wikio (and an EIR at Index)); and Martin Varsavsky (founder of Jazztel, Ya.com and Fon).

Netvibes provides a very cool AJAX powered webapp that aggregates email, RSS, price watch, and weather and more from a variety of content providers including most of the usual 'web2.0' (i hate that phrase) suspects including del.icio.us, yahoo, gmail, flickr, blogmarks etc.

The boys and girls that created Four11 (early webail provider acquired by Yahoo), tried this type of concept a few years back with desktop.com(domain now owned by Mr Gross's Idealab) but lack of business model ended in closure. Netvibes must have montesation plans, but I expect it will get acquired before it gets to squeezing out dollars through ads, subs or other.

I use netvibes and I love it, although my only gripe is the name. I bought the deskweb.com domain back in 2000 with a view to doing something similar, so although I'm clearly heavily biased, I think this name would suit the product much better (go on....sensible offers.....;-)

AirPlay

PopIdol showed the world that the mobile phone can add a degree of involvement and interactivity with what we see on TV. Redpoint and Qualcomm backed AirPlay, plans to extend the level of interactivity further by enabling mobile phone users bet on events, contribute content, pick winners, compete with friends - all within the context of a specific broadcast feed.
"AirPlay can give any television viewer with a mobile phone the ability to go from the couch to the game show studio or even to the sidelines of a major broadcast sporting event and test his or her skills against friends, family or the world," said Morgan Guenther, CEO of AirPlay. "We're going to offer carriers, broadcasters and advertisers new opportunities to connect television with wireless devices and transform TV from a passive pastime to an engaging, competitive experience."

StartMobile

StartMobile offers an alternative to the usual standard content that Jamba and Co. serve up. “START MOBILE features artists whose work is in museums + artists whose work appears exclusively on the streets - and pretty much everything in between,” according to START SOMA founder John Doffing. “We have created an unprecedented mix of creative talent from around the world, and their art is now available to anyone with a cell phone for less than the price of a cup of coffee.” Nice.

Intel in Apple Ad

very funny

SixApart, Splashblog and $12m

Earlier this week, SixApart announced the acquisition of Splashblog, (a mobile photo blogging service) which nicely compliments the rest of the product stable which includes Movable Type (the software) , TypePad (the hosted software) and Livejournal (the hosted blogging service and community). Yesterday, Sixapart said that it has raised $12 million in its third round of funding. The round was led by Focus Ventures, and also included participation from Intel Capital and previous investor August Capital. SixApart said that later this year, they will launch a new service, code named Comet, which, along with LiveJournal, promises to bring blogging and social networking into the mainstream. The press release claims that over 15 million people around the world use Six Apart’s blogging software and services and over 30 million visit its hosted sites every month.
I think this is all encouraging evidence to suggest that blogging is moving quickly up the product maturity curve....but its still got a bit of a way to go...

MobileGlu

Justin Davies at Buddyping has an incredible work rate. In between launching a global SMS location finder and information platform, writing a Linux blog and holding down a day job, he has developed and launched MobileGlu, a J2ME app that pulls the data from your online life and automiatically optimises it for your mobile phone.
"mobileGlu will allow you to post to your online services from your mobile. (It) currently supports del.icio.us, Flickr, moblogUK, upcoming.org, Blogger, and RSS feeds with more being added as time goes on".

Obopay raises $10m

"Obopay, which will soon bring to market the first comprehensive mobile payment service in the U.S. that allows subscribers to get, send and spend money directly from their mobile phones, announced today it has received $10 million in funding in a Series A round. Obopay's intuitive and easy to use mobile application will work on any mobile phone and is the most convenient way for consumers to get, send and spend money instantly".

more here

Sharpcast raises $13.5m

Sharpcast, who recently demo'd at DEMO, have secured $13.5 million. Sigma Partners led the investment, with Series A investors Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Selby Venture Partners aslo participating. Sharpcast are developing a product designed to keep all the digital media on your mobile and PC in sync, with a backup accessible via the web. The product has been in development for over a year and the team are planning to launch a beta in the Spring. The sharpcast founders have a good track record, having developed the Blazer browser which they sold to Handspring back in 2000.

Skinkers raises £2m from NewMediaSpark

NewMediaSpark have ignited their investment engines again, and recently provided Skinkers with £2 million in funding to promote, expand and develop their desktop push-alert technology. The Skinkers product enables brands, media owners and corporates to immediately push multimedia information to their PC connected subscriber bases - cutting through the murk of other distrubtion channels such as web, email, RSS readers etc. (Sounds a bit like the original late 90's Pointcast revisited, refined and monetised??).
It will be interesting to see how Skinkers can translate their model and product to mobile. If I get the alerts on my PC during the day - presumably I'm up for getting them on my mobile when I'm out and about. MMS, Skinkers java reader app, good 'ol SMS??

Cellpup Mobile Flashcards for Cell Phones

New US start-up with an interesting approach to the mobile learning agenda...

Bluepulse

Ben Keighran is the founder of Bluepulse, a company that has developed an Open Application Development Platform (OADP) and Small Portable Object Technology (SPOT). The technology "enables the delivery of data, based on a user's profile, to a mobile end-station, regardless of the network and device used, via small software applications called "bluepulse widgets". It's a bit like Konfabulator, but for mobile and addresses the core mobile application development challenges including "compatability, billing, connectivity and distribution".
Developers can access an SDK for the platform and revenue-share from the distribution and sale of widgets across the installed base (no details on size of base available).
(Java MIDP 1 & 2 + Symbian compatible)