Is the modern mobile biz living up to its rep?
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Effective or not? The continued evolution of the mobile business has made terms like "out of the office" almost feel redundant.â¦
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DotMobi, the group that promotes and manages the mobile-phone top-level domain, is publishing a list of specifications for virtually all phones on the market in a bid to make life easier for developers.While such lists are available from other companies, this one will be cheaper, making it more accessible to smaller developer companies and individuals, said Paul Nerger, vice president of advanced services and applications for dotMobi.Unlike the PC market, where most computers and widely used browsers comply with accepted standards, mobile phones each have different specifications and attributes. Developers must tweak their applications and content for different phones, even those running the same operating systems, so that the content fits onto the phone screen and so that applications work properly on phones that might not have certain capabilities.In the U.S., the same phone might even have different requirements based on the operator that sells it, since service providers sometimes disable features. That makes it hard for developers to build applications that can be used by a very wide population of phone owners.While dotMobi&#39;s list doesn&#39;t solve that problem, it does make it easier for developers to identify characteristics of phones and deliver applications to them that will work well. That should encourage more mobile development, Nerger said. &quot;Our job is to make the mobile &#39;Net happen,&quot; he said.The database will be free for anyone to view and browse. Developers can also choose to buy dotMobi&#39;s device detection software, which they can use to detect attributes of phones that are connecting to their Web pages in order to deliver content and services that best suit the devices. The price for that was set to cover costs for dotMobi, Nerger said. Developers will pay US$99 a year for the software; dotMobi customers will pay $79.DotMobi first announced that it was developing the list, which aims to include phones for sale worldwide, in the middle of last year and originally intended to release it at the end of 2007.One developer of a similar list thinks the dotMobi effort will be good for smaller developers, but likely won&#39;t meet the needs of bigger companies. Mobile Research maintains a database of all phones sold in the U.S. Workers there actually buy each phone, testing them for over a thousand different attributes, said David Adams, the founder of Mobile Research.Subscribers to the list, such as mobile Web sites, mobile application developers and content providers, plug it into their databases so that when a phone hits their sites, they can deliver the formatted site or content to fit the phone.Subscribers pay upwards of $10,000 per year for the list, which is continually updated.DotMobi is compiling its list by collecting information from a variety of sources, including phone makers like Nokia and operators like Vodafone. It will also use the data available from WURFL (Wireless Universal Resource File), an open-source project that compiles information about phones around the world, collected from users and developers. DotMobi isn&#39;t planning to buy and individually test each phone and so Adams suspects the list won&#39;t cover as many attributes as his.Mobile Research counts Microsoft, Google and T-Mobile among its customers.
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When it comes to advertising on the mobile Web, online retailers are treading carefully. But some say they have found enticing success from early marketing efforts.
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InfoWorld - Spending on mobile search and display advertising will skyrocket in the coming years in the U.S., finally making cell phones a viable vehicle for this type of online marketing, according to research firm The Kelsey Group.
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SAN FRANCISCO (Billboard) - This past year marked the  beginning of a revolutionary experiment to sell and distribute  digital music to and from mobile phones. The stage is only just  being set, with the business models, pricing and marketing  issues still evolving.
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Palm announced the online availability of its newest Treo today, the 755p. Will this device be a strong opening to 2008 for the company that has recently been faltering?
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While SMS traffic increases too Mobile operators have reported increased revenue from services other than SMS in the first quarter of 2007 when compared with the same period last year.â¦
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âiPhone buyers have no regrets,â says Edward C. Baig (USA Today). Baig spoke with Jason Kramer, the chief strategy officer of Interpret, a market research firm that conducted a survey of recent iPhone purchasers. The study found that â90% of 200 owners said they were âextremelyâ or âveryâ satisfied with their phone. And 85% said they are âextremelyâ or âveryâ likely to recommend the device to others.â  The findings, says Kramer âare âpretty much off the charts.ââ
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There is no sign of customer loyalty among Finnish mobile subscribers. Over one million Finns have switched their mobile operators in the past year and pace show no sign on letting up.
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While Google is currently the undisputed king (making others the queen, prince, baron, duke and viscount) of search that&#8217;s not necessarily going to automatically translate into mobile &#8212; the next big opportunity. Indeed, mobile is potentially disruptive (ring the bell!) of online market share. GigaOm&#8217;s Katie Fehrenbacher has a good post on Google and mobile along [...]
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KPIs show network is performing Vodafone has published its key performance indicators for the last year, and things are looking good for the world's second largest mobile phone operator.â¦
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Not bad out of 21 Over the past few weeks, weâve been looking at the various rationales as to why people might want to collaborate, or access applications, when they are mobile. But just how much of a concern is it to the corporation itself? According to a recent Reg reader poll, the answer is "quite a lot". Indeed, initiatives for mobile and remote access ranked third out of a total of 21 potential activities, with 60 per cent of respondents saying their organisations were planning to roll out such technologies within the next six months. Ranking above mobility were only infrastructure optimisation and custom app development.â¦
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SAN FRANCISCO (Billboard) - As lucrative as the global mobile music business is today -- projected to be worth $9 billion by the end of the year -- times are tough for the companies that started it all.
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&quot;We donât see this [market] as crowded. There is tremendous growth potential&quot; - Zack Zalon, Virgin Digital president. Story in full VIRGIN Mobile, part of billionaire Sir Richard Bransonâs sprawling business
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Just how much will the iPhone boost AT&T's business?
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Here&#8217;s a detailed post (widely picked up) by Simeon Simeonov about Google developing a mobile phone. Here&#8217;s the reported strategy: Apparently, Google is planning to build distribution relationships with multiple carriers by allowing them to minimize subscription and marketing costs. In other words, Google will market the phone online and carriers will fulfill. How fast can [...]
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Does Apple's latest innovation match the hype?