Mobile Web News: Week of June 25, 2007

June 27, 2007 on 5:00 pm | In Mobile Web News | No Comments

The IPhone Descends to Earth

It’s here. It’s now. It’s happening. It’s the end of the world as we know it. It’s the beginning of a new one. It’s … it’s….THE IPHONE!!!!! Scheduled to launch on June 29th, it represents what is arguably the biggest wireless news of the year.

It has no physical keyboard, only a touch screen, and can be operated with one finger. You can use it to surf the net, you can use it as an Ipod and you can use it as a phone. You can connect it to Wi-fi hotspots or to carrier networks.

Get it only from AT&T at this time. A 2-year service plan is mandatory. The Iphone itself costs $499 for the 4 GB model or $599 for the 8 GB model.

19 million Americans are planning to buy it blind. How about you?

M:Metrics Releases Important Figures regarding Popular Mobile Sites
To access the web you need a smartphone or a PDA. According to M:Metrics, a leading mobile market intelligence company, smartphone users in the US accessed Google’s web site more than any other Internet company’s web site.

62.4% of the user base accessed Google, 33.54% accessed Yahoo, 33.36% accessed Microsoft, 21.22% accessed AT&T and smaller fractions accessed other properties.

Google came out on top in the UK also with 30.94%, followed by Orange at 21.68% and BBC at 20.9%.

Google must feel great, being loved by so many people…

Switch Seamlessly From WiFi to Mobile Carrier and Back
Here’s some good news from GigaOM: the mobile network and the wi-fi network are married!

Mobile carrier networks and WiFi networks have hitherto been two separate methods used for communication. There has been no link between them… until now.

Enter T-Mobile’s HotSpot@Home service. This is the deal: if you are on a mobile call using the regular T-Mobile network, and you walk into a WiFi network, your call is automatically transferred from the regular T-Mobile network to the WiFi network.

The advantage? Unlimited nationwide calling over WiFi is a measly $10 a month with T-Mobile.

---

Mobile Web News: Week of June 18, 2007

June 18, 2007 on 5:00 pm | In Mobile Web News | No Comments

Microsoft Relaunches the MSN Portal Designed for Mobile PhonesJune 18: Microsoft has announced the refurbishment of its all-in-one portal for mobile phones at http://mobile.msn.com . The portal offers news, sports data, entertainment features, e-mail access, search, maps and instant messaging on one page.

When a user accesses this portal via a mobile phone, the portal detects the type of screen the user has and formats the portal to fit nicely onto the screen.

Microsoft and other large companies like Google are gradually pouring money into wooing mobile customers because global mobile marketing and advertising is forecast to increase sixfold to $19 billion by 2011 from an estimated $3 billion by the end of 2007 (according to ABI Research).

This move could be timed in accordance with Apple’s planned release of the super-usable Iphone on June 29, 2007, which is predicted to cause a large increase in mobile web usage.

Source: Reuters

YouTube Makes Some Videos Available on the Mobile Web

June 19: You can now view a selection of YouTube videos on your mobile phone at http://m.youtube.com/, according to Techspot . To make downloading faster, YouTube has reduced the resolution of the videos. The videos are sent to you in 3gp format.

The service is experimental and will be extended to YouTube’s entire catalog only if user response is good. YouTube also cautions users to check their data plan rates for exorbitant download charges.

Opera Releases Opera Mini 4 Browser

June 20: Opera released the latest version of its Opera Mini browser today according to Opera Watch , an Opera-affiliated web site. It’s called the Opera Mini 4 and is code named Dimension.

The new browser will work on any Java (and Windows Mobile) phone such as the T-Mobile Wing, the Nokia N95 or the Palm Treo.

The Mini-4 has been acclaimed by reviewers as being the fastest mobile browser in existence. Unlike its earlier version, which fitted a web page into a single column, the Mini-4 provides a scaled-down desktop page view with a zoom window movable on it. Once in the right position, the user clicks on this window to see the region zoomed on the mobile screen.

Download it free at http://www.operamini.com/beta/

New Services for Making Payment From Your Mobile Phone

June 21: Verizon has integrated the Obopay mobile payment service into its Mobile Web 2.0 service and its Get It Now Catalog. Obopay requires users to buy an Obopay prepaid MasterCard , then receives or makes payment from it according to user cell phone commands. (source: ComputerWorld)

mPoria, who operate mobile web sites for companies (similar to Yahoo Ecommerce stores), have built Paypal into their offering.

I suspect these companies are rushing to make m-commerce easy in time for the Iphone arrival on June 29th…

Have a good week, and don’t go out when the Iphone hurricane hits your area!

---