Google ports Calendar to mobile
May 25, 2007
Great news if like me you rely on Google Calendar to keep your life in order! They’ve just released a mobile version of the site where you can log in and get access to your calendar on the go.
It’s really intuitive to use on the small screen, they’ve done a great job of porting it over. All it needs now is to build in some functionality to sync with your phone calendar!
Banking on your mobile
May 23, 2007
Barclays Bank has launched Barclays.mobi allowing customers to access their online banking facilities on their mobile phones. At the moment all you can do is access account balances and statements but I should think it won’t be long until you can do transfers, pay bills and more.
It makes sense to do this now and especially to be the first entrant to this new channel. Whether users take up the offering remains to be seen!
ZenZui, a usable mobile interface?
March 27, 2007
ZenZui is a new mobile phone interface being developed by a company which came out of Microsoft Research and now runs independently although funded by Microsoft’s IP Ventures.
They’ve created a zoomable interface for mbile phones which is looking pretty good from the demo video they’ve created.
Designed by experts in human computer interaction it really does look like a step forwards in how we can access information on the small screen. Just looking at the demo video shows me that the interface has the potential to remove a lot of the frustrations that I come across while browsing the web on my N73.
Check out the demo below:
YouTube signs deal with Vodafone
February 9, 2007
News out today that YouTube will be accessible from Vodafone mobiles in the near future. Mobile users will be able to view a selection of videos which are updated daily, forward their favourite links to friends and upload videos from their own phones.
Vodafone announced deals to make MySpace and eBay available on their mobiles earlier this week.
These services will be accessed through the Vodafone Live! portal which is currently available on 4.7 million handsets in the UK.
YouTube Mobile will be available later in this year. Mobile is starting to look better to me, there are so many services that could work on the small screen and it’s nice to see them beginning to be ported over!
Vodafone to link with MySpace
February 7, 2007
Vodafone mobile subscribers will soon be able to access and update their MySpace pages on the go according to this BBC story. It’s the first joint venture between MySpace and a mobile company, seems a very smart move for both parties. They will then be able to edit their MySpace profiles, post photos and blogs and send and receive MySpace messages.
NTT Docomo were doing this kind of thing ages ago with iMode in Japan so it’s good to see the UK catching up with what is a relatively straightforward and easy to use application.
Perhaps something location based would be cool for those GPS users amongst us? Some way of letting your MySpace friends know where you are perhaps?
Mobile giants to start search engine?
February 5, 2007
An article in the Telegraph this weekend surmises that some of the large mobile companies may be plotting a new search engine to rival Google on mobiles. It seems the mobile giants are wary of Google muscling in and taking all the real estate on mobile web, especially the search area which is of course the start page of choice for web users everywhere.
Get mobile search right and it could be even more pervasive a start page on the small screen than it is on the big screen. It’s vital to get to the information you require quickly and easily on mobiles, you don’t have the bandwidth or processor to deal with downloading loads of pages, and when people are mobile they are unlikely to have the patience to put up with a poor search experience.
Vodafone, France Telecom, Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom, Hutchison Whampoa, Telecom Italia and one American network, Cingular, are some of the companies that will come together for talks at the mobile industry’s biggest trade show in Barcelona next week. If anyone is going to be able to challenge Google’s dominance in search then companies such as these are surely the type of calibre needed. A joint approach is required in order to have the pull that advertisers will want to see, and any new search (even for mobile) is of course going to have to have an advertising component.
It will be interesting to see how Google responds to this. Faced with losing search in the mobile sector they surely must do everything they can to remain as dominant in mobile as they are on PC’s. If they lost the battle for mobile search how would that affect search on the web as a whole? With mobile technology becoming increasingly important it’s possible that the winner on the small screen may be able to translate at least a modicum of that success onto the larger screens… and what would that mean for Google??
iPhone: aesthetically pleasing but not for me
January 23, 2007
So, the iPhone gets announced to much fanfare by Mr Jobs and the Apple PR engine moves into top gear to push yet another guaranteed hit.
And yes, it does look rather impressive! Aesthetically, it’s the first phone I’ve seen that really looks like it deserves to be part of the 21st century of technology that we currently live in, the departure from standard candy bar/clam shell etc style is a welcome relief.
The iTunes/iPod connection will I’m sure make this a massive success for Apple and guarantee the revenue streams in, but there are aspects to this phone that make me think it is definitely not for me!
My main gripe is that it’s not an open platform. Being unable to install software from other manufacturers is a killer for me. Every smartphone I’ve owned has allowed me to install anything I want that is compatible and that’s the way my phone use will continue, so iPhone wil not be for me!
Google in your pocket…
December 17, 2006
News today in the Guardian that execs from Orange (the mobile company) have visited the Googleplex to discuss the possibility of a tie-up between the two companies to offer a Google based mobile phone. The idea apparently is to bring the full internet to people’s mobile phones using Google software and services as a starting point.
A collaboration of two such well recognised brands could be just what the mobile web needs to really penetrate into people’s lives.
The ‘Google Phone’ would apparently be created by HTC, a Taiwanese manufacturer of smart phones and PDA’s. It would use Google software such as the ongoing work on technology to compress data to manageable sizes for download to portable devices. Of course I’d also expect to see an integration of Google’s Adwords thrown in to the search for good measure.
As long as this effort is an open platform and not the usual walled (or semi-walled) garden approach of mobile operators to date it would be a huge leap forwards for the mobile web. Google’s been on board for a long while offering search to operators portals etc but to have them developing applications to make the mobile web more accessible and usable can only be a good thing!
MySpace getting into mobile? pt 2
November 13, 2006
I posted some time ago about the possibility of MySpace moving into the mobile arena with an app that reskinned the MySpace experience for the mobile user. News out today confirms that they are in talks with O2 amongst others to create and launch an app for UK mobile users.
Great news as I said before as getting the huge user base to start using their mobiles for something other than text messaging would be very cool. It can only benefit other companies planning on getting into mobile as it means the potential audience will be so much bigger!
Windows Live Mobile released
October 27, 2006
Microsoft has released it’s version of Live for mobile devices today. Windows Live Local is looking quite promising and brings a fair bit of functionality for users of Live to make use of when they are on the go.
Including web search, Spaces (including the ability to blog from your phone), Local (so you can search for local businesses etc), Mail (Hotmail I presume), IM (coming soon) and the ability to customise your homepage it’s a pretty good initial offering.
I’m still waiting for something really compelling to come out for mobiles, this isn’t it, but as a first foray for Live into the mobile world it’s not a bad start!
