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)

Homemade 3G/Wifi StompBox...

"A Stompbox is a home-brew WWAN (Wireless Wide Area Network) router. In more human terms, it's a compact little box that gets data from cellular towers and re-shares it for multiple computers to use".
go here

IBM next generation mobile devices

heres a link to the next generation mobile device research team at IBM. Super high-resolution organic LED (OLEO) displays, Linux OS's and voice enabled Bluetooth!

Vodafone and Google team to create innovative mobile search experience for mobile phone users

more here

Demo & 3GSM

It's that time of the year again.... texhibition month
the Demo 06 conference is being held in Phoenix, AZ, and 3GSM starts on Monday next week in Barcelona. For more info on Demo, read Oliver Starr at MobileCrunch (my favourite is Riya, an automatic face-in-photo recognition technology). I dont think Im going to be able to make it to 3GSM this year, but I expect there to be a lot of new product buzz, some of which I will try and post about next week.

Google makes Independent front page...

This is the Independents front page today.
The analysts over-excitement and 2000'esque type trading does feel like a bad case of deja-vu.

Kajeet - new US MVNO

Kajeet is currently in start-up mode, having recently raised $27m in first-round funding. 'Kajeet' (an anagram of the founders kids names, and a name I expect they will change) is targeting the tween segment, and the wallets of their parents. Im not hugely familiar with the US operator market but it appears that their focus in on addressing the younger customer who isnt tall enough for an Amp'd or Boost type offering. There is plenty of room in improving the service experience for this segment.
Parents needs to keep in touch with their kids and keep track of where they are and what they are doing on their phones. I expect that the product offering will include a number of kid orientated devices, ranging from the simple 3 button type terminal, up to the pre-teen multimedia flip. I also expect that the proposition will be targeted to parents on the basis of family-connectivity, safety, cost and content control.

Via MobileCrunch

AdMob - mobile advertising

Omar Hamoui, one of the chaps behind Fotochatter (see August 05 post) has put on a flak jacket and started the "worlds first pay-per-click" mobile advertising broker, Admob. He clearly has some seriously huge competition but this industry prefers 'Davids' to 'Goliaths' so I expect Admob to pick up a lot of business for their pure courage. "Who dares wins" as Del Trotter once said...

22/03/06



21/04/06



23/05/06



28/06/06



31/07/06

30/08/06

Update 12/09 - Admob raises Series A from Seqouia