Oz to bring social networking to cell phones

Oz to bring social networking to cell phones

By Reuters Privately held Oz Communications, a maker of wireless messaging technologies, will announce on Wednesday a new product allowing people to access social network sites over their cell phones.

Oz will offer a technology that lets cell phone companies and handset makers load a connection to social networking sites onto phones in a bid to capitalize on the growth of community Web sites like News Corp.'s MySpace and Google's YouTube.

The company already provides technology that lets people access e-mail and instant messaging services from MSN, AOL and Yahoo over their mobile phones, with such customers as Cingular Wireless, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile USA.

Oz will offer the product in the first half of 2007 and is in talks with leading wireless carriers, phone makers and social networking sites for the service, said Chief Executive Skuli Mogensen.

"Clearly the user experience will not be the same as on a desktop (computer)," Mogensen said in an interview. "But the mobile phone has other attributes that are so appealing we think it will fly."

The growing use of cell phones embedded with digital cameras will encourage its use as a device to share photos and video on the spot, he said.

Oz expects to record revenue from the new technology in 2007 and believes social networking revenue could eventually contribute equally to its business with the more established e-mail and instant messaging services, Mogensen said.

The company has already loaded such e-mail or messaging services onto 70 million devices in North America.

A social networking service would appear to users as an icon on a cell phone menu. Selecting the icon would bring the customer to a list of the most popular networking sites among hundreds of nascent Internet communities.

"If a new community arrives and becomes a major hit, our solution allows mobile operators to introduce that new community," Mogensen said.

Oz recently closed a $34 million round of financing. The company is based in Montreal and employs about 230 people.

Story Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

Bluepulse 2.0 Does Not Disappoint

Natali Del Conte

21 comments »

Mobile phone application company bluepulse released version 2.0 today to rave reviews on our sister site, MobileCrunch.

Blogger Oliver Starr could not say enough about the new platform. “I’ve seen quite a number of mobile applications in the last twelve months and many have been very comprehensive but I do not believe that I’ve seen a single platform that had as many different functions as bluepulse 2.0; especially not one with the diversity of widgets or the ability to run on so many phones,” he writes.

Bluepulse 2.0 is a full-fledged multimedia platform that allows users to socially network, create detailed user profiles, chat, text, and link to Flickr, Gmail, Digg, and more. In fact, the Digg widget allows readers to read news, log in, Digg stories, participate in comment forums, and blog and email stories.

Starr writes that this mobile application is groundbreaking for two reasons: because it works on virtually any phone, and because of a combination of the user profiles and the broadcast messaging capability which will allow for “highly targeted broadcast mobile advertising.”

New Phone Uses GPS To Locate Your Contacts

New Phone Uses GPS To Locate Your Contacts

"Palo Alto-based Loopt Inc. has announced an agreement with Sprint Nextel to immediately begin offering their cell phone mapping service to all 3.8 Million Sprint Boost subscribers (Sprint Boost is a service specifically targeting the under-25 market). This service will [1]notify users when another subscriber in their contact list is within 25 miles, providing a real-time map displaying their contacts' locations. According to the article, the only apparent privacy safeguard is to provide users the option to 'temporarily cut out from being spotted by their friends.' Given a retailer's propensity to package together extra services, and the average user's lack of knowledge regarding their phone's capabilities, this new service seems ripe for abuse."

http://www.smh.com.au/news/Technology/New-service-tells-buddies-locations-on-a-cell-phone/2006/11/14/1163266537262.html

The Future of Mobile Phones: Instant Messaging Meets SMS

LOOSE WIRE By JEREMY WAGSTAFF The Future of Mobile Phones: Instant Messaging Meets SMS November 3, 2006

Wandering around a recent mobile-phone expo in Singapore, I was overwhelmed by a sudden desire to collapse in a heap on the floor. It might have been the heavy load of conference papers and trade magazines I was carrying, but I think it was more the dull realization that for all the progress mobile phones have made, we still don't really understand what we're dealing with. Mobile phones, for all their whiz-bang-ness -- music, cameras, TV -- are at their core still a simple communication tool. It's why we love them. So why has so little changed?

Take SMS, also known as short messaging or texting, for example. At a similar mobile-phone expo six years ago, everyone was telling me that we'd soon be sending photos, video clips and multimedia messages via an enhanced version of SMS called MMS. In fact, SMS still dominates nonvoice mobile-phone revenues, while MMS has been a big disappointment.

The problem is that most providers in the industry don't seem to understand why SMS is so popular. It's not evidence that there's a big market for fancier services than SMS; SMS messages work for the very reason that they're not fancy. I can send an SMS message to more or less anyone anywhere in the world who has a mobile phone, and be pretty sure that they'll receive it and, because it's simple text, that they'll see it as I intended it to be seen.

But cellphone manufacturers need to make money, so they're selling us fancier gadgets with lots of bells and whistles, some of which we actually use. Mobile operators realize they have to try to make some of these extra services work (such as mobile TV), although they still aren't clear how they're actually going to make money out of them. On top of that, with more of us accessing the Web on our cellphones, they are terrified that they'll just become a commodity business like Internet service providers.

It isn't surprising, then, that SMS remains the big hope for the mobile industry. Now the idea isn't necessarily to build a more sophisticated service atop SMS, but to improve on the existing service. There are several competing visions of how to go about this, but they share a similar idea: Because we're kind of wedded to them, our phones could actually do a lot of things better than our computers.

So how about, for example, grafting SMS onto its similarly successful Internet cousin. Instant messaging -- sending short text messages in real time to buddies on the same network -- is hugely popular, and not just among teens. Quite a lot of businesses rely on it. Now a number of mobile-phone service developers are hoping to convince operators that mobile instant messaging, or MIM, is their savior.

It isn't a bad idea. One appeal of instant messaging is the idea of presence -- you can tell whether your buddy is online, busy in a meeting or eager to chat, before you actually send him a message. Imagine you could tell all your buddies that you were in a meeting, simply by switching your phone to silent -- your MIM icon would immediately indicate that you were unavailable. This is a feature included in software from United Kingdom-based Followap Inc., whose representatives are in Singapore trying to persuade Asian carriers to adopt its service. And it makes sense -- in a way. The idea of presence is useful when we're sitting at our computers, but might be more useful with our mobile phones, since they move around with us, allowing us to give all sorts of new information if we want ("bored, in the mall," "tired, still waiting at the luggage carousel," "framed, about to enter prison" or whatever).

Instant messaging and presence now are increasingly intertwined on the Internet with voice calls, through free or cheap services such as Skype, the Luxembourg-based Internet phone service owned by eBay Inc. of the U.S. But as mobile-phone networks get faster at handling data, and phones begin to include the capability to switch from the expensive cellular network to cheap or free wireless or WiFi networks, the three elements -- messaging, presence and voice calls -- are going to fuse further. So while Skype has been a little slow in making its service available on all mobile devices, other developers have sneaked in, including U.K.-based Barablu Ltd., which offers Skype-type software that allows free voice calls between WiFi-enabled-phone users, and cheap calls to traditional networks. Barablu Chief Executive Pascal Isbell is at the expo to convince operators to offer his service to their customers. "If they don't do it," he says, "others will."

Another option: Netherlands-based LogicaCMG PLC, whose products store and forward two-thirds of the world's SMS traffic, believes that to make money, carriers need to look at their customers differently. Already, says LogicaCMG's mobile-messaging marketing director Steven van Zanen, operators know each customer well, since they handle all those customers' traffic. Mining this traffic -- including usage patterns, location and contents of SMS messages -- could help them provide more tailored services to individual customers. "People want the killer application after SMS," he says. "But in fact it will be determined by the individual."

For sure, the mobile phone could be a lot smarter than it is -- not so much in terms of features, as in how it connects me to my friends and data. But having trampled these expo corridors of undelivered promises a few times before, I'm not jumping up and down quite yet.

ZYB

Another chunk of V3RT comes to market. ======================================

https://zyb.com/Default.asp

What is ZYB?

Enhance your phone ZYB 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

Works with your phone ZYB works with more than 200 different mobiles. Your mobile just needs to be able receive and send data (the same as you use to go to the internet or download a ringtone)

ZYB is free (forever) All the basic features for securing, manage and share your mobile are free. Some special functions (that you can easily do without) cost 2-4 euros per year.

Wireless: Cellphones get VOIP

Wireless: Cellphones get VOIP By Eric Sylvers International Herald Tribune

Published: October 2, 2006 Skype and similar services have brought the world free calls from computer to computer and cheap calls from computer to phone for those willing to download software and speak while staring at a computer screen. Now a Swedish start-up called Rebtel is using the same technology, Voice Over Internet Protocol, to bring cheap international calls to cellphones. It takes a few minutes to set up an account with Rebtel, and users must do it online at the company's Web site. But once done, the service can be used to call any country in the world from any mobile or fixed-line phone in 37 countries, including the United States, Japan and most of Europe. The mobile and fixed-line numbers of family and friends abroad are entered on the Rebtel Web site, and the company creates a local number that forwards calls to each foreign number. The user can then call internationally by dialing the local numbers and paying the local calling rate. In addition to a base fee of $1 a week that is charged only for weeks the service is used, Rebtel charges a per-minute fee that varies by country called, usually 2 cents to dial fixed-line phones and about 25 cents for cellphones (though calling a cellphone in the United States costs 2 cents). But even the per-minute cost can be avoided. For each contact number a customer enters on the Rebtel Web site, the company creates a local phone number the contact can call. So if a Rebtel user in Paris enters on the Web site the cellphone number of a friend in San Francisco, the person in Paris will be given a local number to call, and a San Francisco number the friend can call. To avoid the per- minute cost, the customer in Paris calls his or her local number, the person in San Francisco answers, then hangs up and calls back his local number. "Now you can make cheap calls from the beach and not just from in front of your computer," said Hjalmar Winbladh, Rebtel's co- founder, chief executive and a self- declared "serial entrepreneur" who sold his previous start-up to Microsoft. Winbladh and Jonas Lindroth founded Rebtel in January, though they had been working on the idea for about a year before that. Services were first offered in July for a trial period and then officially started in September. Winbladh declined to provide sales or profit targets. Since initially signing up customers in 35 countries, Rebtel has added 2 and plans to include 10 more by year-end. "For us, getting $1 a week for unlimited calls is a good business, but for somebody like T-Mobile, it's bad business because of all the costs the company has," Winbladh said. "We are an organization with 20 people - our entire cost base is probably less than what it costs T-Mobile to run the reception in their headquarters." With $20 million in financing raised last week, Winbladh, 37, said Rebtel now had the money needed to get the company to profitability. Index Ventures and Benchmark Capital each invested $10 million in Rebtel, money that will be used to expand to more countries, develop new services and pay for marketing. "We look to invest in businesses that explode traditional ways of doing things by coming up with a better product," said Danny Rimer, a general partner at Index, which also invested in Skype and sold its stake when eBay bought the company last year. Rimer and Winbladh declined to say what percentage stake Index received in Rebtel for $10 million. "We don't think this will be any more successful than other new services where you have to do several steps to make a phone call," said Klaus Czerwinski, a spokesman for T-Mobile. "People prefer simplicity." Mobile phone companies already use Voice Over Internet Protocol, or VOIP, to lower prices and keep customers. Though their services are more expensive than Rebtel's, and in most cases the user must have special software on the mobile phone, analysts say they expect the prices to fall and the services to be simplified. Since Rebtel customers pay local rates to call abroad, Rimer and Winbladh said the success of the company was at least partly linked to increased use of calling plans in which people pay a flat rate for a large or unlimited bucket of minutes. Such plans are prevalent in the United States but not in Europe or Asia, where per-minute calling plans dominate. "We certainly have done quite a bit of analysis," Rimer said, "and we think bucket plans are the inevitable relationship that will develop between mobile phone companies and their customers in the next few years." Skype and similar services have brought the world free calls from computer to computer and cheap calls from computer to phone for those willing to download software and speak while staring at a computer screen. Now a Swedish start-up called Rebtel is using the same technology, Voice Over Internet Protocol, to bring cheap international calls to cellphones. It takes a few minutes to set up an account with Rebtel, and users must do it online at the company's Web site. But once done, the service can be used to call any country in the world from any mobile or fixed-line phone in 37 countries, including the United States, Japan and most of Europe. The mobile and fixed-line numbers of family and friends abroad are entered on the Rebtel Web site, and the company creates a local number that forwards calls to each foreign number. The user can then call internationally by dialing the local numbers and paying the local calling rate. In addition to a base fee of $1 a week that is charged only for weeks the service is used, Rebtel charges a per-minute fee that varies by country called, usually 2 cents to dial fixed-line phones and about 25 cents for cellphones (though calling a cellphone in the United States costs 2 cents). But even the per-minute cost can be avoided. For each contact number a customer enters on the Rebtel Web site, the company creates a local phone number the contact can call. So if a Rebtel user in Paris enters on the Web site the cellphone number of a friend in San Francisco, the person in Paris will be given a local number to call, and a San Francisco number the friend can call. To avoid the per- minute cost, the customer in Paris calls his or her local number, the person in San Francisco answers, then hangs up and calls back his local number. "Now you can make cheap calls from the beach and not just from in front of your computer," said Hjalmar Winbladh, Rebtel's co- founder, chief executive and a self- declared "serial entrepreneur" who sold his previous start-up to Microsoft. Winbladh and Jonas Lindroth founded Rebtel in January, though they had been working on the idea for about a year before that. Services were first offered in July for a trial period and then officially started in September. Winbladh declined to provide sales or profit targets. Since initially signing up customers in 35 countries, Rebtel has added 2 and plans to include 10 more by year-end. "For us, getting $1 a week for unlimited calls is a good business, but for somebody like T-Mobile, it's bad business because of all the costs the company has," Winbladh said. "We are an organization with 20 people - our entire cost base is probably less than what it costs T-Mobile to run the reception in their headquarters." With $20 million in financing raised last week, Winbladh, 37, said Rebtel now had the money needed to get the company to profitability. Index Ventures and Benchmark Capital each invested $10 million in Rebtel, money that will be used to expand to more countries, develop new services and pay for marketing. "We look to invest in businesses that explode traditional ways of doing things by coming up with a better product," said Danny Rimer, a general partner at Index, which also invested in Skype and sold its stake when eBay bought the company last year. Rimer and Winbladh declined to say what percentage stake Index received in Rebtel for $10 million. "We don't think this will be any more successful than other new services where you have to do several steps to make a phone call," said Klaus Czerwinski, a spokesman for T-Mobile. "People prefer simplicity." Mobile phone companies already use Voice Over Internet Protocol, or VOIP, to lower prices and keep customers. Though their services are more expensive than Rebtel's, and in most cases the user must have special software on the mobile phone, analysts say they expect the prices to fall and the services to be simplified. Since Rebtel customers pay local rates to call abroad, Rimer and Winbladh said the success of the company was at least partly linked to increased use of calling plans in which people pay a flat rate for a large or unlimited bucket of minutes. Such plans are prevalent in the United States but not in Europe or Asia, where per-minute calling plans dominate. "We certainly have done quite a bit of analysis," Rimer said, "and we think bucket plans are the inevitable relationship that will develop between mobile phone companies and their customers in the next few years."

Searching for a mobile interface

By Spencer Kelly Click presenter

Nearly a quarter of phones returned for being faulty are working properly, a recent survey suggested. The problem is people just cannot figure out how to use them.

As manufacturers struggle to pack in more features, mobile phone users struggle to get them to work.

"There's a common idea in psychology that users can only cope with a certain number of choices at once," explains Geoff Kendall of Next Device, "And that number is roughly seven, plus or minus two.

"So anything more than between nine or five choices then users will get confused and actually only look at the top few items anyway."

With increasing depths of lists and menus making the user experience more complex, designers are looking for ways to help users to understand what is happening on the screen. A popular solution is animation.

"Some people think animation is just for eye candy, to make things look good, but it can actually enhance usability," said Mr Kendall.

"For example, on the Apple Mac when you want to minimise a window and you click the button to do so, to take it out of the desktop and away to an icon in the corner, the window appears to be hovered away into the icon.

"On one level that's just a nice visual effect, but on another level, new users who've never clicked that button before can instantly see what's happened to that window, where it's gone. So they can instantly click back on that icon and get the window back."

Keypad design

One solution is called Ninespace, an interface in which every level of the menu is presented as an animated 3x3 grid, with each option corresponding to a number on the keypad.

Perhaps instead of trying to build a menu system around the existing keypad, maybe it is the keypad itself that needs to change.

Certainly some makers have tried mixing things up a bit, with full qwerty keyboards for the serious typist, or crazy keypads for those that want to stand out from the crowd.

If manufacturers want to highlight the second function of a phone, for example its music playing capabilities, they can build in an extra set of controls.

When you just want to listen to tunes, swivel or slide the keypad out the way, and your phone becomes an mp3 player.

In fact it is in a digital music player that we find one of the few real breaks from the norm that really worked - the wheel that sits on the front of the iPod.

It is a user interface that dares to be different and ticks all the boxes - it looks cool, and actually makes life easier.

Whether or not Apple pinched the menu layout idea from Creative, the iPod has become an icon, its much-copied scroll wheel has become the centre of attention.

'Wheel of fortune'

Geoff Kendall believes the iPod is an example of a mobile experience that works.

"The scroll wheel gives you the same kind of dexterity as a mouse. Within second you can go from top to bottom of a list just by changing the speed your thumb rotates on the wheel.

"This is very different from an up and down cursor, when all you can do is just click through one item at a time over and over again."

I don't think the scroll wheel is the answer to all user interface problems Geoff Kendall, Next Device

Nowadays it seems everyone wants a piece of Apple's wheel of fortune. To really make a style statement, some manufacturers seem to think your controls have to be round - some even think that you can do away with the keypad entirely.

On one new phone we tested, the scroll wheel is all you have to navigate the menus, type texts and dial numbers, which can be a bit tedious.

"The iPod scroll wheel is exceptionally good at solving one particular problem, which is navigating through menus where there might be huge long lists of options," Mr Kendall said.

"The problem we have with mobile phones, for example, is that they do much more than just show lists of albums and artists and so on - we have to take pictures, send messages, take calls etc. So I don't think the scroll wheel is the answer to all user interface problems."

Virtual controls

So the wheel is best for lists, the keypad is better for numbers, and other controls are better for other functions. How do you fit that all on a phone?

The answer may be simpler than you think. The phones of the future will perhaps sport the user interface some believe is the best set of controls ever designed - a touch sensitive LCD screen where the buttons should be.

This virtual keypad will mean that whatever mode the phone is in, you get a different set of controls.

"You don't always need or want 12 keys, you might want a scroller, or a wheel, or a joystick, or a navigator, or one key, or three keys," said Nina Warburton of Alloy Product Design.

The idea of a virtual keypad is not brand new - PDAs have been using them for a while - but some designers believe there is still room for improvement.

"Virtual keypads have been tried before and they have experienced lots of problems," said Nina Warburton.

"One of the key problems with them is that you can't feel what you're doing, you're just touching a screen."

Motion sensors

By using a finely honed vibrate function, and audible clicks, it may be possible to recreate the feel of a button being pressed, or even a slider being slid.

Other phone makers are looking at even more radical user interfaces, such as taking a leaf from the new Nintendo Wii games console's motion sensitive controllers.

We have seen footage of a Korean phone with a motion sensor, which supposedly lets you write your numbers in the air.

But for any new user interface to go from good idea to workable product, serious money needs to be invested in its development.

"Even if something is better, users can be a bit reticent about taking it up if it is unknown," said Geoff Kendall.

"I think one of the problems that we have right now is that the market is very conservative.

"Manufacturers don't want to invest a lot of money doing something brand new if users aren't going to buy it if it isn't as thin as the Motorola Razr, for example."

So the question remains - will any manufacturer be willing to take the leap of faith to a new user interface? And if they do, will these new user interfaces catch on? Only time will tell.

WATCH ON TV:

WATCH ONLINE:

Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/programmes/click_online/5244584.stm

RE: Skype Wi-Fi phones to eliminate PC dependency

As someone in the connectivity and convergence businesses I'd be curious to see how reliably it actually connects to various WiFi hotspots: - made by different manufacturers - with different log in sequences and re-direct screens that make you accept terms and conditions etc. - with different authentication methods (enterprises with 802.1x enabled, e.g.) - with link security enabled (WEP, WPA etc.) - how do you enter the alphanumeric key on the handset?

There's a lot more to it than they probably realize... C>

==========================

I have been happily using the Linksys Skype wireless phone, but it needs Skype to be logged in and a base station attached to a PC. This sounds even better - any WiFi hotspot and go. _______________________________________________________________

Today's focus: Skype Wi-Fi phones to eliminate PC dependency

By Joanie Wexler

In a move that could slowly suck the life out of the cellular carriers' voice cash cow, Skype last week said its popular VoIP software will be available bundled with several standalone Wi-Fi handsets in the third quarter. The setup eliminates the need for connections to a computer to make free Internet phone calls.

Four handset partners will be assembling the devices, which will be available directly from the Skype online store. The hardware partners are Belkin, Edge-Core, NetGear, and SMC.

Skype said the devices will be usable with any personal, business or free public Wi-Fi access point that does not require browser authentication. The key point here is that you can make free calls Internet-to-Internet (or very inexpensive ones to those that terminate on the PSTN) without having to be tied to a computer. If the devices are popular, the cellular carriers (and landline telephony providers, too) will be facing further erosion of their significant revenues derived from voice minutes.

Granted, Wi-Fi coverage isn't nearly as pervasive as cellular coverage. And so far, the devices sound like they will be fairly expensive (about $250 to $300). Still, depending on your users' business habits, the capital investment could quickly be recouped in discarded fee-based cellular minutes.

The announcement adds yet another dimension to the evolving and converging world of telephone calling in which, for example:

* Carriers are considering dual-mode Wi-Fi/cellular handsets and associated services. When you roam onto your company's own wireless LAN, you switch over to a less expensive per-minute rate.

* RIM, whose forte historically has been messaging handsets with cellular connections, introduced the Wi-Fi-enabled BlackBerry 7270 last year. The 7270 ties to your corporate WLAN and your IP PBX (via the SIP protocol), throwing some competition at the likes of Wi-Fi handset makers SpectraLink and Cisco. To date, however, none of these vendors' devices work with any old "open" Wi-Fi network; they must be used locally on your business campus in conjunction with your organization's own access points.

* Mobility server companies, such as Ascendent (purchased earlier this year by RIM), extend PBX capabilities to cellular phones and allow cellular users to leverage their business's dial plans, PBX features, and calling rates when connected to cellular networks.

Amid this evolving telephony landscape, will you consider using a Skype Wi-Fi handset? Why or why not? How might such a device fit into your company's wired/wireless/voice/data convergence plans? Enquiring minds want to know, so please send me a message with your thoughts.

Long live V3RT!

All the Good Ones Have Been Taken -- In Domain Names, Too It's hardly secret knowledge, though perhaps only Dennis Forbes has seen it in all its glory. There are roughly 47 million domain names that end with ".com," making that space the biggest and most prestigious piece of real estate on the Internet. Getting a URL listed as a dot-com involves, ultimately, checking in with a database at Verisign, the Mountain View, Calif., company that keeps tabs on the dot-com world, the way your state's DMV knows about which cars have which license plates. If you know who at Verisign to ask, you can get the complete dot-com list. Mr. Forbes, an analyst at Vastardis Capital Services, a New York mutual-fund service company, got it and has since made a hobby of studying the list, something he does in his spare time. He has, in the process, become the world's pre-eminent domainologist. His findings ought to be relevant to aspiring Web entrepreneurs everywhere. For the rest of us, they are an amusement. (Registering a dot-com domain costs around $9 a year. After the initial registration period is purchased, you have to re-register the name or risk losing it to someone else.) Most people trying to do business online will tell you that the good domain names are already taken. Mr. Forbes's research proves them out. For example, for every possible two-character and three-character combination -- including both letters and numbers -- all possible domains are taken. Virtually all English words with four letters are claimed; those that aren't are usually contractions, and Web rules don't allow apostrophes. All of the 1,000 most common English words have been snatched up. The word "a" appears more than any other, though most of the time, of course, it's just a letter in a longer word. The least-used common word is "consonant," Mr. Forbes says, which is in just 42 domains, including "consonantpain.com," which isn't a misspelling but a word game. Mr. Forbes checked the U.S. Census Bureau's 1,219 most-common male names, the 2,841 most-common female names and the 10,000 most-common surnames; all were booked. Not only that, but when you link the top 300 first names with the top 300 last names, 89% of the resulting combinations are taken for male names and 84% for female ones. Beyond single-letter words like "a," it's hard to say what is the most common word in all the URLs. It's the same for all short words that tend to be portions of other words. The most common word four letters or longer, though, is "home"; 719,000 domains have some sort of home in them. Given the economics of the Web, chances are that many of those involve refinancing: 114,700 URLs mention "mortgage," which is more than discuss "science," "nature" or "children." Because you might be curious, "sex" appears in 257,000 domains. It may be tied to one of the most popular uses of the Web, but the word itself is only the 89th most-popular in dot-com domains. Incidentally, what is perhaps the naughtiest English word -- the one with four letters -- appears nearly 38,000 times. So smutty is so much of the Web, that often the best way to figure out what a certain word might be doing in a domain is to think of the most indecent activity you could possibly imagine associated with that word. The word "imagine," for instance, appears in 3,700 URLs, one of which asks us to imagine a certain actress without her clothes. Half of all domains are between nine and 15 characters long; the average length is 13. A domain can have, at most, 63 characters, and there are 550 such domains. In fact, some people have made a haiku-like art out of 63-character domain names. "I hope you have a pen and paper handy cause this is a crazy long domain name man," says one. (Spaces have been added in the interest of readability.) "Did you know that you can only have sixty-three characters in a domain name?" asks another. There are other oddities in this fringe world of hyperlong domains. For example, each of the 26 letters of the alphabet has a domain in which the letter is repeated 63 times until there is no room left. While much has been made of domain names like business.com being bought and sold for millions of dollars, Mr. Forbes is dubious about the value of expensive domains. Most people now search for Web sites using a descriptive word or phrase, or else are introduced to a site by a friend or colleague who emails the URL. So, domains don't need to be short and snappy the way they had to be in the earliest days of the Web. A large percentage of these domains don't even have working Web sites attached to them. So why do people bother to register them? Besides whimsy, Mr. Forbes credits a lingering spirit of bubble-era speculation -- however improbable it may be. "Someone out there," he said, "is still hoping that someone will come along and form a corporation called uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.com, and when that happens, they will be sitting on a gold mine and will reap the rewards." Write to Lee Gomes at lee.gomes@wsj.com1 URL for this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115326960876810574.html Hyperlinks in this Article: (1) mailto:lee.gomes@wsj.com

The Bar Code Gets a Hip New Life

Another of the V3RT services we defined becomes real... --------------------------------------------- The Bar Code Gets a Hip New Life Cellphone Services Read Codes On Ads, Products, Buildings And Link to Details Online By JESSICA E. VASCELLARO May 24, 2006; Page D1 While shopping at a Whole Foods store in Los Angeles, Richard Jefferson spotted a curious sticker with tiny black squares on a package of Yum Tum raw vegan pizza. Intrigued, he sent a text message to a number listed on the package and received a link prompting him to download software to his Sony Ericsson cellphone to decipher what turned out to be a bar code. The software allowed him to snap a picture of the bar code to be connected to a Web page with recipes and health tips from Yum Tum, a raw-foods brand in Los Angeles. "This could be huge," he says. A rising number of people are using new free services to connect to the mobile Internet by photographing bar codes. The codes -- either conventional bar codes or digital ones -- are showing up on more products, advertisements, books and even buildings. The technology is popular in Asia but previously failed to catch on in the U.S. after several attempts. Now, improving technologies and the ubiquity of camera phones are triggering a host of new bar-code services. Nokia Corp. has built its own bar-code reader into new models of two camera phones that are scheduled to become available in the U.S. this fall. Scanbuy Inc.'s. Scanbuy Shopper, expected to be live in the next few weeks, grabs Shopping.com prices and reviews, for example, from a Universal Product Code, or UPC. Nextcode Corp. has launched ConnexTo, mobile software for reading digital bar codes that are cropping up on food packaging and posters. NeoMedia Technologies Inc., which owns mobile-ad firms, will launch its bar-code reader PaperClick later this year. The codes are appearing gradually in grocery stores, embedded in business cards, on promotional posters and T-shirts and even near landmarks like the Chrysler Building, around where people placed a code linking to the building's Wikipedia entry. They are piquing the interest of advertisers who see the potential to serve up more relevant ads -- a trailer downloaded off a movie billboard, for instance -- and consumer-product companies trying to make products more interactive. The technology, part of the mobile industry's push to embed more functions and features into mobile devices, is still in its early stages, meaning the new services may only work with some camera phone models and service providers. While there is vast potential for the technology -- from downloading movies off billboards to helping diabetics purchase food safe for them to eat -- a range of hurdles have some questioning whether the applications are functional enough to succeed. SHOOT AND SCAN See more information on the programs that allow you to scan bar codes with your camera phone. Not all software programs can read all types of bar codes. This means consumers must, for now, pick and choose among services. Scanbuy, for instance, works with standard bar codes while Semacode Corp. uses a code standard called Data Matrix. When PaperClick launches it is likely to used a third symbology, Aztec. The new services also have some competition from other companies working to provide similar services off existing logos and images, not bar codes. Mobot Inc., owned by PaperClick's parent company NeoMedia, lets users snap images directly from a magazine or billboard. The user sends the picture to an address, and Mobot's technology reads the contours of the image stored in its database and sends a message back with the relevant content, such as promotion details. Companies are seeking to make the bar-code technology easier to use by preloading it on mobile devices. Consumers, who are turning to their phones for a multitude of functions from downloading ringtones to text messaging to mobile Web browsing, also appear more ready for the services, which are free excluding data fees. About 15% of U.S. cellphone users accessed the Web on their phone last month, according to Seattle-based mobile-research firm M:Metrics. While two Nokia models will come with bar-code readers standard in a few months, consumers for now have to get the software themselves. Most services can be downloaded to a camera phone by typing a Web address into the device's browser. Some applications, such as PaperClick, ask those who sign up for some demographic information such as age and location to better tailor the types of results they see. From there, users click on the application icon, hold the camera a few inches away from the code, and click as if taking a photo. (Some detect the code automatically and register it without clicking.) The software decodes the information, typically a Web link, and quickly directs the user to the relevant Web page. It's a new chapter in bar-code history. In the 1950s, two inventors filed the first bar-code patent, which included a sketch of a ring of concentric circles. In later decades the Universal Product Code, a symbol whose fine lines could be scanned at a checkout counter, for instance, emerged. Today, commercial uses of bar codes proliferate. Airlines use them to shuttle around baggage and delivery services rely on them to help track packages. Packages of Yum Tum's raw food use a new-style bar code that links customers to recipes and ingredient information. Scott Shaffer, 39 years old, a private investor in Boca Raton, Fla., recently went to the ConnexTo Web site to create his own bar code that he now puts on his business cards. Now, anyone with the ConnexTo reader downloaded to their phone can snap one of his cards to be routed to a Web site with his name, address, phone number and email. Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. already offer mobile versions of shopping Web sites or text-messaging services that pull up a few lines of abbreviated text per query. Scanbuy Shopper promises to deliver more information like reviews and comparison statistics through miniature Web pages. The new service, which will allow users without the appropriate camera phone or lens to key in the bar-code number manually, has also been updated to read codes in dim light and at odd angles. Textbook publisher Prentice Hall will be putting PaperClick smart codes in the next edition of one of its introductory-marketing textbooks expected to be released in January 2007. A handful of codes will appear in some entries in the text linking to further examples and related news articles. Nonprofit groups also are using bar codes for new purposes. A world-wide project called Semapedia involves people creating more than 2,500 codes that they are sticking to or near landmarks like the Leaning Tower of Pisa or Machu Pichu. The codes link to the Wikipedia entry for the location. Write to Jessica E. Vascellaro at jessica.vascellaro@wsj.com1 URL for this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114843472842861406.html Hyperlinks in this Article: (1) mailto:jessica.vascellaro@wsj.com

IM-Based Social Networking

Startup imeem thinks it has an insight.

By Wade Roush

With more than 70 million users, MySpace has proven that Internet users are hungry for Internet tools that let them network with friends, share photos and blogs, and advertise their activities. But MySpace is social networking for the masses. A growing number of Web companies are betting that Internet users want more sophisticated social-networking and media-sharing tools.

Last week we profiled one such outfit, Wallop, a Microsoft spinout that's building an immersive new social-networking environment scheduled to debut this summer (see "New Social Networking Technology Packs a Wallop"). But Palo Alto, CA-based startup imeem is going in a different direction. It's reconceiving social networking around a familiar platform: instant messaging.

The 21-employee company, backed by venture capital firm Morgenthaler Ventures, makes a downloadable application that complements existing IM systems, letting users build buddy lists, see rich profiles of each buddy, track who's online, and share photos, video files, and streaming audio instantly.

On April 8, Technology Review inquired about imeem's approach with CEO Dalton Caldwell, 26, who has dual Bachelor's degrees in psychology and symbolic systems from Stanford and is a former programmer for the open-source Jabber instant-messaging project.

Technology Review: What's the basic philosophy behind imeem, and what makes it different from other social networking services?

Dalton Caldwell: The focal point of imeem is instant messaging. We think the buddy list should be the focus of your social universe online, and for social media -- blogging, photo sharing, video sharing, audio sharing. You can tag things and see how the community is tagging things, you can rate things. In other words, the center of the imeem universe is you and your friends, and all the "stuff" around them. The stuff is what makes it interesting.

TR: What made the instant-messaging model attractive to you?

DC: I'm definitely a member of the IM generation. I'm 26. It was such an important part of my life when I was in high school. And it's continued to be this powerful social phenomenon. There's a similar phenomenon happening now with social networking. But if you think about the usage model of instant messaging -- always on, seeing who's present, dynamic interaction -- it's a much more social operation than just clicking on some social networking website. You could tell that the people who worked on the first generation of social networking services were not members of the IM generation.

V3RT goes live

A small startup VCEL (Virtual Communication Expression & Lifestyle) has unveiled a new [0]social networking service for cell phones. All you need to do to keep in contact with your friends 24/7 is to [1]create a profile with their website, download a Java application for your cell phone (more than 20 models are supported already), and send an invitation to your buddies. Here we go: you can exchange comments, pictures, plan on activities together, etc. You'd have the same control over your profile either from phone or from web browser. They have a nice Java applet for your page, so you can leave your buddies a voice message right from your computer and so on.

Links: 0. http://www.vcellvibes.com/ 1. http://join.vcellvibes.com/

Will the Mobile Phone Become the Dominant Internet Platform?

The personal computer remains the dominant platform for accessing the Internet around the world. However, in many countries Internet access via the mobile phone is actually outpacing wireless access from a notebook PC. After all, there is a massive installed base of mobile phones globally, and wireless networks are expanding every day.

According to A.T.Kearney, while in 2004 only 36% of mobile phone users browsed the Internet or downloaded e-mail, that figure rose to 56%. In Japan 92% of users went online via their mobiles.

In a study just released, "The Face of the Web," Ipsos Insight found that 28% of mobile phone owners worldwide had browsed the Internet on a wireless handset, up slightly from 25% at the end 2004.

Brian Cruikshank of Ipsos noted, "Accessing the Internet on a wireless handheld device is no longer a novelty for consumers in the major global economies. It's becoming a common, everyday occurrence for many people."

In fact, it was the Ipsos study that posited that mobile phones are poised to become the dominant Internet platform outside the home. "In the long term, many of today's PC-centric online activities could be complemented through the mobile phone or migrate to the mobile phone altogether, due to greater convenience and faster connection speeds," said Mr. Cruikshank. p>Mobile phone ownership is certainly on the rise around the world. The Ipsos survey showed ownership in major countries ranging from 61% of consumers in Canada to 95% in Japan.

Internet browsing via a wireless device is also growing in many global markets. France and the UK are exhibiting the strongest growth, while Internet usage via mobile phone in Japan also continues to grow rapidly. Today, four in 10 adults browse the Internet on their wireless handset in Japan, double the rate in 2003.

Over half (52%) of all mobile phone households today have sent or received a text message, and over a third (37%) have sent or received e-mail on a mobile phone. In general, almost all wireless device activities experienced growth in 2005 — including m-commerce, financial transactions, sending or receiving digital pictures and downloading entertainment.

Japan — followed by the UK, US and South Korea — leads the world in browsing the Internet via mobile phone for news and information.

All this activity aside, however, it should be noted that Ipsos found that the growth in Internet browsing on a mobile phone was flattening in some markets, specifically the US and Canada, where wireless Internet access via notebook PC appears to be emerging as the stronger out-of-home Internet platform.

M1 lowers 3G data prices

M1 lowers 3G data prices By Aaron Tan, ZDNet Asia 17/4/2006 URL: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/communications/0,39044192,39352523,00.htm

SINGAPORE--Mobile operator MobileOne (M1) has slashed the price of its unlimited 3G data plan by 65 percent, in a bid to spur mobile broadband adoption in the island-state.

According to a statement Monday, M1 announced that from May, its premium SunSurf 100 3G data plan will cost S$68 (US$42) a month, instead of S$199 (US$124). The company hopes that the move will help align the benefits of 3G with that of fixed-line broadband, and make the service more affordable for business and individual users.

Rivals SingTel and StarHub currently price their unlimited 3G data plans at S$208.95 (US$130) and S$105 (US$65) respectively. Elsewhere in Asia, Malaysia's Maxis offers unlimited 3G data plans for RM120 (US$33) a month, while Hong Kong's 3 Hong Kong subscribers have yet to see unlimited 3G data packages from their mobile operator.

Said M1 chief executive officer Neil Montefiore: "The challenge for M1 is to help our customers access information, regardless of time or place. This very economical data plan will make it very convenient and cost-effective for our customers to switch from fixed-line broadband to 3G mobility."

He added: "We want to set a new price benchmark for wireless broadband access and to this end, the attractive rates we are offering should help increase 3G adoption as well as data usage."

Subscribers of M1's Sunsurf 100 3G data plan will receive a free Vodafone Mobile Connect Card (VMCC) that allows them to track data usage.

Montefiore also revealed M1's move to high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA), dubbed 3.5G.

"M1 customers can look forward to much faster data speeds with the upgrade to HSDPA by the end of this year, taking wireless Internet access and the advantages of mobility in Singapore to a whole new level," he said.

Asian operators have been publicizing their HSDPA plans in recent weeks. Maxis expects to launch HSDPA services by year-end. Other countries in the Asia-Pacific region that plan to do likewise include China, South Korea, Japan, Philippines, Taiwan and Australia.

Hot to trot

Hot to trot

Mar 30th 2006
From The Economist print edition

A new service hopes to do for texting what Skype did for voice calls

TALK is cheap—particularly since the appearance of voice-over-internet services such as Skype. Such services, which make possible very cheap (or even free) calls by routing part or all of each call over the internet, have forced traditional telecoms firms to cut their prices. And now the same thing could be about to happen to mobile-phone text messages, following the launch this week of Hotxt, a British start-up.

Users download the Hotxt software to their handsets, just as they would a game or a ringtone. They choose a user name, and can then exchange as many messages as they like with other Hotxt users for £1 ($1.75) per week. The messages are sent as data packets across the internet, rather than being routed through operators' text-messaging infrastructure. As a result, users pay only a tiny data-transport charge, typically of a penny or so per message. Since text messages typically cost 10p, this is a big saving—particularly for the cost-conscious teenagers at whom the service is aimed.

Most teenagers in Britain, and elsewhere in Europe, pay for their mobile phones on a “pre-paid” basis, rather than having a monthly contract with a regular bill. Pre-paid tariffs are far more expensive: bundles of free texts and other special deals, which can reduce the cost of text messaging, are generally not available. For a teenager who sends seven messages a day, Hotxt can cut the cost of texting by 75%, saving £210 per year, says Doug Richard, the firm's co-founder. For really intensive text-messagers, the savings could be even bigger: Josh Dhaliwal of mobileYouth, a market-research firm, says that some teenagers—chiefly boys aged 15-16 and girls aged 14-15—are “supertexters” who send as many as 50 messages per day.

While this sounds like good news for users, it could prove painful for mobile operators. Text-messaging accounts for around 20% of a typical operator's revenues. With margins on text messages in excess of 90%, texting also accounts for nearly half of an operator's profits. Mr Richard is confident that there is no legal way that operators can block his service; they could raise data-transport costs, but that would undermine their own efforts to push new services. Hotxt plans to launch in other countries soon.

“The challenge is getting that initial momentum,” says Mr Dhaliwal. Hotxt needs to persuade people to sign up, so that they will persuade their friends to sign up, and so on. Unlike Skype, Hotxt is not free, so users may be less inclined to give it a try. But as Skype has also shown, once a disruptive, low-cost communications service starts to spread, it can quickly become very big indeed. And that in turn can lead to lower prices, not just for its users, but for everyone.

MySpacenomics

MySpacenomics
Commentary: Who's influencing consumption now?

By Bambi Francisco, MarketWatch
Last Update: 12:01 AM ET Apr 13, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- These days a couple of ways to get distribution on the Internet are to make friends with the kids on MySpace, and those prolific opinion writers in the blogosphere.

Perhaps this doesn't come as a surprise to those in Silicon Valley. Over the last six months, a number of startup founders, CEOs and venture capitalists have said to me that a good way to get their service noticed is to get someone on MySpace to start evangelizing.

Indeed, MySpace -- the explosively popular social network site owned by News Corp (NWS) -- represents the generation Y consumer -- those born between 1981 and 1995. At 57 million strong, this demographic is the largest consumer group in the history of the U.S., according to OnPoint. See OnPoint site.

In other words, MySpace, which saw 36 million unique visitors in March and 19.6 billion page views, can drive consumption habits across the Web.

The traffic numbers are starting to bear this out.

Apparently, someone at MySpace has been proselytizing about the virtues of Technorati, which is the de facto search engine for blogs. San Francisco-based Technorati claims to capture about 95% of the blogs in existence. (The other 5% of blogs not indexed are private.)

Traffic to Technorati doubled to 1.8 million unique visitors in March from 962,000 in February, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. Technorati CEO and co-founder David Sifry visited the MarketWatch studios earlier this week to explain why his service saw such explosive growth in traffic in a month's time.

 Watch my video interview with Sifry

Sifry said the traffic increases were due to the rise in blog popularity. Technorati now tracks 33.7 million blogs, about 60 times larger than the blogosphere three years ago. MarketWatch is helping to expand the blogosphere as Frank Barnako's blog was just launched this week.

The biggest drivers of traffic had always been the usual suspects, Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO), Time Warner's (TWX) AOL and Microsoft's (MSFT) MSN.

But according to Nielsen//NetRatings, nearly 15% of traffic from users logging on at home and going to Technorati came from MySpace blogs. In February, Technorati received no traffic references from MySpace, according to the Internet-traffic measurement company.

Given MySpace's significant audience base, any reference from MySpacers would give any service a nice boost.

YouTube has watched its traffic explode. In March, the video-hosting site saw 12.8 million unique visitors generating 486 million page views, which equated to the same number of page views to Google Video, NBC Universal, Walt Disney's (DIS) ABC.com, CBS Television combined. About 2% of YouTube traffic came from MySpace blogs. That's not a heck of a lot, but enough. Additionally, MySpace users are helping to create the videos. As of today, there are 5,378 videos tagged "MySpace." Other video and photo-sharing sites are also allowing their services to be easily integrated with MySpace in order to capture the MySpace generation. Go onto Slide.com, a photo-sharing site and you'll see a big banner that says: "Show off your pics on MySpace profile with Slide."

MySpacers could lead consumer trends, as long as News Corp keeps the technology robust enough to support their virtual lives. Here's an idea, why not start a MySpace consumer confidence index?

Now, before I'm accused of being hyperbolic, I do acknowledge that it's easier said than done.

Yahoo (YHOO) was once the place to go too.

Nonetheless, MySpace has the user today. So, there's much that can be offered to this virtual playground filled with eager experimenters and creators.

Services that specialize in areas such as health, business, or sports could create search boxes so that MySpacers can do specified searches in their space.

For instance, if someone is interested in trading stocks only, this would-be stock trader might want a little search box on his blog that only provides stock-market information.

MySpace started off as a place where would-be musicians could get noticed. It's not hard to imagine that others in that virtual world have other passions as well.

Imagine the possibilities?

Link to me please

Besides MySpace as a traffic driver, links have become the means to getting noticed as well.

Technorati's Sifry and I looked over the Technorati top 20 blogs. Boing Boing is No. 1 with 66,219 links from 20,223 sites. This site saw traffic jump to 760,000 unique visitors. Engadget is No. 2 and at No. 3 is PostSecret. Post secret has 64,307 links. It started off as a school project and a place where people could post secrets.

This blog fits the criteria of what makes a blog popular. The PostSecret blog writer is prolific and the subject matter is compelling, said Sifry. Being prolific and authoritative gets you an audience.

But there's more to it than just being a big mouth with an insatiable desire to share thoughts. It's about scratching someone's back so they can scratch yours.

"Getting even larger requires a lot of linking," he said. "If you "really want to drive distribution, you have to give it away," he said. For instance, many bloggers write mere snippets and link like crazy. Yes, I've taken note of many of them. They're considered the curators or synthesizers, said Sifry. If you link to someone, there is a higher probability that they will link back to you.

"Hyper-linking is a form of etiquette," said Sifry. "It's a way of tapping someone on the shoulder with a sign of respect."

Sign of respect, or an in-kind gesture? You decide.

'I'm the Google of... '

Last week, my column on search investments received a lot of attention. Ever since I quoted the founders of Truveo and Krugle referring to themselves as the Google of their respective specialties, I've received a number of e-mails from others who want to be Google, and maybe even better.

For instance, I received an e-mail with the slug: "Vertical search that's Smarter than Google." That came from someone at Ziff Davis Group alerting me to a new search engine focusing on the gaming space. This nameless search engine will be announced at E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo), to be held in Las Vegas in May.

Other search sites I was alerted to were Pixsy, a visual search site, Wandic.com, a search site for local search, and RedZee, a site that offers kid-safe Internet searches. Hmm. That could be interesting.

Meanwhile, Google finally got its voice patent granted. Bear Stearns analyst Bob Peck alerted me to the fact that Google was just granted a patent from the U.S. Patent Office. According to the patent office, "the voice patent provides search results from a voice search query."

Even though Google had tried to test this voice technology out several years ago, it has no plans on using that voice search technology any time soon, according to Google spokesperson Barry Schnitt. "Prospective product announcements should not be inferred from our patent applications," he said. Google also confirmed that it purchased the rights to a search technology developed by a 26-year-old PhD student at University of New South Wales. Read about the technology.

We're only 10 years into the commercialization of search. And, in the last five years 130 new search startups have been invested in by the venture community. I'm sure we're just getting started.

Mobile communities could fill 3G pipes

Mobile communities could fill 3G pipes

By Marguerite Reardon Story last modified Thu Apr 06 06:57:40 PDT 2006

LAS VEGAS--Social networking Web sites such as MySpace.com, which will soon go mobile, could become key applications driving data usage on new 3G wireless networks.

For years, mobile operators, which have spent billions of dollars to upgrade their networks to 3G wireless technologies, have tried to get customers to do more than talk on their cell phones. Despite their efforts, the vast majority of revenue still comes from voice calling.

But that could change in the next few years. A lot of fuss has already been made about people watching TV on their cell phones and downloading music over the mobile Net, but there's another application that could also generate significant 3G data usage--social networking.

"Carriers have invested a lot of money in their networks," said Charles Golvin, an analyst with Forrester Research. "And at this point it's a lot like throwing spaghetti on the wall to see which applications will stick. I doubt there will be any single killer application, but social networking on mobile phones could certainly be one that generates usage."

Within the last year social networking and community Web sites on the fixed-line Internet have really taken off, especially among teens and twentysomethings, who spend hours online creating profiles and sharing photos, videos and blogs.

MySpace, the most popular of the social networking sites, has more than 67 million members, and it adds roughly 250,000 members every day. MySpace is ranked as the second-most visited Web site on the Internet in terms of unique users, after Yahoo, according to ComScore Media Metrix. Last year Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. bought the company for $580 million.

Though MySpace may be among the most famous of these sites, it's certainly not the only one on the Net. There are dozens of them, including Facebook.com, which is geared toward college students. There are also photo-sharing sites, such as Flickr, that have created popular online communities.

In the past, people using these services could access them only from their desktops or laptops. But now social networking is going mobile, allowing people to use their cell phones to upload pictures or send updates to blogs.

In March, MySpace announced a deal with the soon-to-be-launched wireless reseller Helio. And earlier this week, Facebook announced deals with Cingular Wireless, Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless to enable users to post messages to their Facebook profiles via SMS text messaging. Flickr also lets people post photos from their cell phones and view them from handsets as well. Sprint Nextel has created its own photo-sharing site, called PCS Picture mail. It's expected to launch this spring.

There also are new companies in the game, such as San Diego-based Intercasting, which is offering a service called Rabble. Like MySpace and Facebook, Rabble lets users create profiles so they can share photos, videos and blogs with other members of the Rabble group. Cingular and Verizon Wireless have already signed up to offer the service, charging customers $2.99 per month for access to the community.

Ubiquitous and wireless In many ways, cell phones are the ideal tools for social networking and building online communities. Not only are people rarely without their phones, but today's handsets come equipped with sophisticated tools as well, such as cameras and digital music and video players and recorders, that can be used for documenting life. Mobile-handset makers Nokia and Sony Ericsson are even embedding technology into some of their phones that's designed to make it easier for users to upload pictures and text to blogs. These phones are solid tools for people wanting to share photos, video clips or songs with their online communities.

"Cell phones have become essential accessories," said Anil Malhotra, chief alliance officer for Bango, a company that helps wireless-content providers charge users for accessing their content. "And they're also perfect capture devices. You can take pictures, record sound, send text messages. It's a great tool for creating your own content."

What's more, those in the teen and twentysomething crowd--the biggest users of online social networks--also happen to be some of the heaviest users of mobile data services such as text messaging and downloadable ring tones.

As major mobile operators in the U.S. roll out their new 3G wireless services, more people are using them to create their own mobile Web sites. A German company called Peperoni Mobile and Internet Software, which since 2001 has provided software tools that let people all over the world build their own mobile Web sites, said it has seen an increase within the last six months of people using its software to create their own mobile Web pages. Though the company has only about 500,000 users today, it says it's signing up new ones at the rate of about 20 percent to 25 percent per month, many of them in the U.S.

When people publish a mobile Web site, they don't want to think about which phones people will use to view it. That's why network operators and cell phone makers need to work together to make it easier for users to have a unified experience.

--Marcus Ladwig, chief operating officer, Peperoni

"Phone penetration in the U.S. has pretty much caught up with Europe in the last couple of years," said Marcus Ladwig, chief operating officer for Peperoni. "And now we're seeing a lot of these people wanting to use the capabilities on their phones to share images and other things, so they're using our tools to build their own mobile Web sites."

Peperoni struck a deal earlier this year with Bango to allow its users to set up shop on the mobile Internet. Bango's technology lets people who've created mobile Web sites charge for content they distribute on their site.

Fixing the bugs Experts say these are still the early days for the mobile Internet in general. And there still are significant issues that need to be worked out. For one, cell phone makers have been building products with different mobile Web requirements, which makes it difficult for software developers to adapt existing Web pages for the mobile Internet.

"When people publish a mobile Web site, they don't want to think about which phones people will use to view it," said Ladwig. "That's why network operators and cell phone makers need to work together to make it easier for users to have a unified experience."

Another problem is that the sophisticated cell phones capable of taking pictures and playing video and music are expensive, with some costing as much as $300. Additionally, people uploading or downloading information from these social networking mobile Web sites will also have to pay for the bandwidth they use while doing so over the mobile network. Prices on data packages vary between $10 and $25 per month.

And even though mobile operators want people to use their new 3G services, they've been reluctant to give up control of where customers go on the mobile Internet. Some carriers, such as Verizon Wireless, restrict users to their own menu of services.

And some experts, such as Forrester Research's Golvin, are skeptical that cell phones will ever be able to offer enough functionality to replace PCs when it comes to creating and sharing content.

"Cell phones are great enhancements and tools for existing bloggers or for people who are already sharing photos online," he said. "Cell phones might be good for updating sites on the fly, but the PC is still the best place to sit down and organize your content."

Copyright ©1995-2006 CNET Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.

Singapore startup takes on BlackBerry market

Singapore startup takes on BlackBerry market

By Aaron Tan, ZDNet Asia 5/4/2006 URL: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/communications/0,39044192,39348402,00.htm

SINGAPORE--A local startup has unveiled a Java-based mobile application suite that could give Blackberry a run for its money.

According to Michael Yin, CEO of Singapore-based Mozat, the company's mOrange software for cellphones combines commonly-used Internet services into a single application.

Developed by a 10-man development team, mOrange includes push e-mail, RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds, Webcam, remote desktop access, calendaring and contact list services, Yin said. The tools, developed at a cost of S$500,000 (US$308,900), are platform-independent and work on top of 3G (Third-Generation) and GPRS (general packet radio service) cellular networks.

"We hope to be the Google of the mobile world," Yin said, adding that the software and its accompanying services will be offered for free. mOrange will be officially launched in June this year.

Mozat is targeting young professionals and students who may not have ready access to Research In Motion's Blackberry push-email devices. Future iterations of the software would allow the company to provide paid services such as Internet telephony, Yin said.

Beta testing for mOrange started in February this year, and Mozat has since gathered more than 100 users who signed up to evaluate and provide feedback on the product, Yin said.

"We hope to attract 500 million users within the next three to five years," he said.

The push e-mail tool in mOrange can be deployed by users of Web-based e-mail services such as Gmail, as well as corporate e-mail applications based on Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Notes and POP (Post Office Protocol).

Yin said POP e-mail support means companies no longer need a BlackBerry server or purchase server software from the likes of Good Technology, to deliver push e-mail to employees' mobile devices. Telecommuters can also reply to and send e-mail messages on the go, together with file attachments, according to Yin.

He also assured cellphone users that the mOrange service is reliable, and that the company is mindful about ensuring data security.

"Our infrastructure is made up of both Windows and Linux servers, and can support up to 100,000 concurrent users," he explained. "User data is also encrypted with SSL (Secure Socket Layer) technology, and is as secure as the BlackBerry service."

Another popular feature among mOrange beta testers, Yin said, is remote desktop, where users can drag-and-drop files into a designated folder on their PCs and access it through their mobile devices. "This allows sales representatives, for example, to [browse the folder and] pull out product brochures for their customers directly via their mobile phones," he explained.

With the push RSS, he added, users will be automatically informed each time their favorite Web sites are updated, including stock alerts, entertainment news and blogs.

Mozat has also worked with local shopping malls such as Wisma Atria, to provide live camera feeds to mobile devices. These users can also watch video streams from Webcams that are attached to their PCs, on their cellphones, Yin said, noting this application can be used for surveillance purposes. He added that this service can be used to stream live traffic video, and monitor traffic conditions, of major highways and roads in Singapore.

Several local and overseas telecoms operators including StarHub in Singapore, Canada's SaskTel, South America's Tigo as well as Vodafone, are currently evaluating mOrange, Yin said. But he could not put a time frame on when the telcos would introduce the software to their subscribers.

Yin noted that as telcos face falling revenues from voice traffic, applications such as mOrange could encourage consumption of data services among cellphone users, and increase the service provider's average revenues per user.

Mozart's company profile Founded in 2002, Mozat received first-round funding worth S$600,000 (US$370,860) from Singapore's Economic Development Board and the National University of Singapore. The company is now in talks with several venture capitalists in Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States, to secure another round of funds that will be pumped into product research and development.

Social Networking Goes Mobile

Social Networking Goes Mobile MySpace, Facebook Strike Deals With Cell Companies; A New Set of Safety Concerns By LI YUAN and REBECCA BUCKMAN April 4, 2006; Page D1

In a development likely to generate dismay from some parents and teachers, social networking sites MySpace and Facebook are going mobile.

Tens of millions of teenagers spend countless hours logging on to such sites, updating their profiles, posting pictures, writing blogs and exchanging messages. Until now, the services have been largely tethered to desktops or laptops. Now, Facebook Inc., a popular social-networking Web site among college students, and Cingular Wireless, Sprint Nextel Corp. and Verizon Wireless are starting a service that will make it possible for users to post messages on Facebook's home pages or search for other users' phone numbers and email addresses from a cellphone.

MySpace, the most popular social networking Web site in terms of unique visitors, has made a deal with wireless venture Helio Inc. that later this spring will allow MySpace users to do such things as send photos and update the blogs on their MySpace online profile by cellphone. Others who access that profile would instantly be able to see and read about what's happening at, say, a local hot spot.

Wireless companies are pushing to offer more social-networking features because the young people that gravitate to these services also tend to be the heaviest users of text messaging, picture messaging and ring-tone downloads. These services are becoming increasingly important as growth in cellphone service subscription is expected to decline and rate competition intensifies.

Some parents, educators and law-enforcement officials have concerns about the potential dangers of social-networking sites. Some of the sites have been accused of exposing children to risqué content and sexual predators. The possible role of MySpace also surfaced in separate investigations into the deaths of two teens, one in New Jersey and one in California. Jo Anne Swyers, a lieutenant at a sheriff's department in Dodge County, Wis., says the new wireless social-networking features will make it harder for law enforcement to protect children.

All major cellphone carriers say they offer free parental-control services. Parents can either disable or lock data services if they want to keep their children from using social-networking services, or they can call the providers to turn off features. Chris DeWolfe, MySpace chief executive officer, says that the Web site "takes our users' safety very seriously" and reviews pictures and other materials. Helio says it will require MySpace users to affirm that they're 18 years or older when signing in. AirG Inc. has a staff of 15 that monitors traffic and filters out inappropriate words, pictures, and numbers and texts that look like phone numbers and addresses.

The cellphone services of MySpace and Facebook, so far, have been mostly limited to text messages, and some new features don't go much beyond that. John Harrobin, a Verizon Wireless vice president, says safety concerns about social-networking sites are one reason the company's deal with Facebook is limited to text messaging for now. A Facebook spokeswoman says that extending some Facebook services to cellphones "doesn't pose any additional privacy risks" since the same privacy settings and controls that people put on Facebook apply to phone services.

While scaled-down social-networking services have been available to cellphone users for a few years, the latest deals aim to make the sites' core features and functions available anywhere. Previously, such mobile features consisted of updates and alerts via text message that often required users to log back on to the Web site to respond. The new features, while not the equivalent of using the full Web site on the go, are a significant step forward for the social-networking concept, in some cases allowing users to look up names and browse message boards wirelessly.

Social-networking sites have become hugely popular on the Internet by allowing users to create personalized Web pages and share them with others. In February, Facebook sites had 10.5 million unique visitors, compared with 37.3 million visitors to rival MySpace.com, according to research firm comScore Media Metrix, which makes it the second most-visited site on the Internet, behind Yahoo.com of Yahoo Inc. Facebook has recently talked with media and Internet companies, including Viacom Inc., about possible partnerships or being acquired by them. News Corp. last year paid $580 million, plus a $69 million loan, to buy the parent company, Intermix Media Inc., of MySpace.com.

Cellphones can also take social networking beyond what is possible on computers because they make it possible to identify the approximate location of callers. Cingular subscribers, for example, have access to CoolTalk, a service from AirG, and Rabble, developed by Intercasting Corp. Users of these services can specify whether they want to search for other members within a one-mile, five-mile or 20-mile radius or search by ZIP Code, neighborhood or city. Once they get in touch, users can communicate by phone, text message or even send photographs before deciding to meet. So if the other person is nearby, such as in a coffee shop, the two people can meet immediately.

Wireless companies usually charge five to 10 cents for each text message received and sent. They also sell a bucket of text messages for $5 to $10 a month. Picture messaging costs much more. Sprint charges $5 a month plus bandwidth usage if phone users send only a few messages a month. For people who send a lot of pictures or want to browse the Web on their phones, Sprint recommends $15-to-$25-a-month data packages that allow unlimited usage.

Yesterday Facebook's new mobile services were made available to students at three colleges -- Harvard University, Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley. They will be available to students at more than 2,000 universities by the end of this month and high-school users of Facebook by early May, company officials say.

Any phones with text-messaging capabilities can support the new Facebook services; students don't have to download special software or pay extra, though they may pay more total fees for data usage if they send more text messages.

Facebook also has moved its popular "poking" application to phones: Users "poke" others on Facebook by sending quick, blank messages -- recipients get a notification that says "you've been poked" -- that indicates someone is thinking about them. In addition, students can now use their phones to locate phone numbers or email addresses of other Facebook users; they send a text message to the address "fbook," a centralized directory that looks up the name. (Facebook users can use privacy controls to limit those who can access phone numbers and other identifying information.)

Industry analysts say that social networking on cellphone is still in its early stage, and it isn't clear if it will become popular. Cellphones that support more sophisticated services can cost as much as $300, which may be out of reach for many teenagers and college students. They also would have to pay an extra $10 to $25 a month for data packages.

--Jessica E. Vascellaro contributed to this article.

Write to Li Yuan at li.yuan@wsj.com1 and Rebecca Buckman at rebecca.buckman@wsj.com2 URL for this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114411026875415973.html

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