GoDaddy, the web-hosting and domain registration giant, is taking one more step into the world of mobile, and another into offering small businesses a one-stop shop for all of their online activities with a freemium sweetener. Today, it is announcing the acquisition of M.dot, a startup that has developed an iOS mobile app that lets users create mobile websites from the app itself. Financial terms… → Read More
bMobilized, a New York-based mobile web startup offering small businesses a way to convert their existing websites into HTML5, mobile-optimized sites, has raised an additional $2.5 million in Series A funding, the company is announcing today. The new funding comes from previous investors Norway’s Alliance Venture and Investinor, as well Alden AS. The funding also comes on top of the $1.5… → Read More
Apple’s share of mobile web traffic rose 5.96 percent between September and October, thanks no doubt to the introduction of the iPhone 5, and likely also helped by the shipping of the 4th generation iPod touch. Apple controlled 65.38 percent of the traffic advertising network and research firm Chitika saw across the millions of devices, and Samsung gave up the most ground. → Read More
Apple’s web traffic share among mobile devices is huge, according to new numbers from Chitika. The online ad network is seeing 43 percent of smartphone web usage coming through iPhones up to the 4S, plus another 3 percent from the iPhone 5 alone. By contrast, the Samsung Galaxy S III is driving 2 percent of mobile web traffic on its network, combined with 15 percent across all other Samsung mobile… → Read More
Netbiscuits, the mobile development platform that has worked with the likes of eBay, Google, Coca-Cola and 15,000 other developers on their mobile web services, is ramping up its game as smartphone usage continues to accelerate worldwide. The company today is announcing that it has raised $27 million in a Series C round. This also marks the first time that Netbiscuits, which says it hosts over… → Read More
The buzz about a possible acquisition by Facebook has almost completely died down, but Opera today released an update on the state of its business that nevertheless highlights how its own strategic direction is closely following that of its rumored suitor.
The combined number of active users of Opera’s mobile internet browsers has now topped 200 million, nearly double the figure a year ago… → Read More
Google+ is obviously a major focus for Google these days, but until now, the company hasn’t really focused on extending the Google platform beyond its own services and its +1 buttons. Now, however, the company is extending the Google+ platform to mobile with the upcoming release of its Google+ SDKs for iOS and Android. This new platform will allow developers to use Google+ sign-in buttons, sharing… → Read More
Crashlytics, a Cambridge-based startup that helps developers understand why their mobile apps are crashing, has just beat out an unnamed competitor to acquire the bootstrapped startup called FireTower.app. The FireTower solution was focused not on mobile apps, but on web applications, allowing developers to find javascript errors in their websites. Now, Crashlytics will be repurposing that… → Read More
Talk about coincidence. Just earlier this week, in a post on Facebook and the possibility of buying web browsing company Opera and facial recognition company Face.com, we highlighted how a new version of Opera Mini would feature much stronger social integration — specifically aimed at the feature phone segment — both key points for Facebook. Today, Opera came good with a full release of that… → Read More
Javascript Web app framework provider Sencha is today announcing the public beta launch of Sencha.io, its new HTML5 mobile cloud service. The service will allow Sencha app developers to build “shared experiences” in the browser, without having to write server code or manage hosting.
At launch, Sencha.io will provide a set of cloud services, including Sencha.io Data, Sencha.io Messages… → Read More
Ever since I started contributing to the TechCrunch empire, my inbox has received a pretty steady stream of pitches for new (and not-so-new) products and services. Some of them merit a post, but the overwhelming majority of these emails are skimmed and then deleted. Sometimes, though, I’ll engage the sender in a discussion about the product or service they’re pitching, asking about details… → Read More
Small businesses often have trouble developing and maintaining traditional websites, so it should be no surprise that adding a mobile-friendly website is a cost that many SMBs simply won’t be able to justify. The folks behind the .mobi domain are trying to remedy that with their new GoMobi initiative. They’re rolling out a setup assistant and hosting deals with a few select registrar partners… → Read More
Taptu, the company indexing mobile touch friendly content, announces today that they’re opening an office in the U.S. to drive business development, marketing and product management in response to rapid growth in the North American audience. The new office, to be located in Denver, Colorado will be lead by Mitch Lazar, formerly of Yahoo! Mobile Europe. → Read More
While the iPad may be too confusing for the British, that’s not stopping UK retailer Marks and Spencer from rolling out a mobile version of their website. I guess if you’re the kind of person who shops at Marks and Spencer this might be good news for you. And while m.marksandspencer.com is not a particularly mobile-friendly URL to key in, the site does helpfully explain upon your first visit how… → Read More
The proliferation of mobile content has caught Taptu (and a lot of other people) by surprise. Perhaps unsurprisingly the number of mobile applications has also increased rather dramatically. There’s an interesting balance to be struck for content producers between device-specific applications and app stores, and the general availability, but reduced functionality, of a mobile web site. Taptu’s… → Read More
The iPad hasn’t landed in Japan yet, giving domestic competitors some room for their own announcements for tablet PCs. Sharp, for example, today unveiled [JP] the NetWalker PC-T1, which looks like a tablet variant of the PC-Z1 the company introduced last year. Both models look pretty similar, it’s just that the older device lost the keyboard to become the T1. → Read More
As smartphones like the iPhone and Android take over the mobile Web, the amount of data traffic going over cellular networks is expected to grow 40-fold over the next five years. UK firm Coda Research Consultancy forecasts that in the U.S. alone mobile handset data traffic will grow from 8 terabytes/month this year to 327 terabytes/month in 2015. That amounts to a 117 percent compound annual… → Read More
Taptu, the mobile search solution, has been keeping an eye on the mobile web — specifically what they’re calling the mobile touch web, which I guess is slightly different from the non-touch mobile web — and has produced a fairly comprehensive report of their findings. Of particular interest is the fact that “there are a higher proportion of shopping and services sites on the mobile touch Web… → Read More
For all of you waiting for mobile data networks to catch up to broadband speeds on cable and DSL, the first 4G/LTE network has arrived . . . in Sweden (and Norway too). The Scandinavians get everything first when it comes to mobile, except the iPhone. TeliaSonera launched the first two cities of its 4G network, which promises wireless download speeds of up to 100 megabits per second (yeah… → Read More
National Public Radio has the fourth most popular news app in the iTunes store in the U.S., but now it is taking some of that Appalicious goodness to the mobile browser. Today it launched a new version of its mobile website at http://m.npr.org/ which looks like a stripped down version of the iPhone app but doesn’t require a download.
The redesigned NPR mobile site shows top stories and lets you… → Read More
Earlier this week, I was in Kunshan, China, to attend the 3G Industry Summit [CN], a four-day event that has attracted a few dozen speakers and an audience of over 200 people, making it one of the biggest of its kind in this country. The annual event is organized by the Kunshan government and Mobile 2.0 Forum, a communication platform with more than 1,500 members, almost single-handedly run by… → Read More
Vodafone today launched Vodafone 360 (its replacement for Vodafone Live) which brings together mobile phone contacts, social networking accounts, email, IM, etc. so they can be accessed seamlessly on phone or PC. It currently covers Facebook, Live Messenger and Google Talk. Twitter will be added soon. Vodafone has also added a range of new apps, games, music and mapping services as part of the… → Read More
I was out for my evening constitutional last night, enjoying the sight of “For Sale” signs on homes throughout my neighborhood, when I spied with my little eye something new and novel. I’ve seen URLs on For Sale signs a couple of times, and always thought that that was a fine way to attract eyeballs to your property. Let’s face it: trawling though MLS listings sucks, so going directly to a… → Read More
The mobile content service which Yahoo previewed at Mobile World Congress in February launched today across eight countries, available both as an iPhone app and a mobile content site optimised for 300 devices ‘with HTML-enabled mobile browsers’. Yahoo Mobile, available at http://new.m.yahoo.com or from the App Store, combines what you’d expect from Yahoo’s services —… → Read More
Here’s something from the department of Quelle Surprise: Bango (AIM: BGO) reckons the iPhone lags behind the top 20 mobile handsets most used in browsing and buying on the mobile web. The Bango Top 20 handset list, based on Bango’s February statistics, puts the Nokia 3110c on top, followed by the Samsung M800 in 2nd and the Nokia 6300 in 3rd place. On the whole, smartphones account for… → Read More
Google may be the leader in the worldwide search engine market, but in Nippon, it has some catching up to do: In 2007, Yahoo Japan saw a whopping 76% of the nearly 350 billion search engine and portal-related pageviews registered in the country, clearly outperforming Google (second with 5.4%, according to Nielsen Japan). More recently, ComScore shows that in July, Yahoo Japan had ten times as… → Read More
Cricket today announced a new level of service to their unlimited talk and data plans. The 5-dollar a month plan is available immediately and allows users to view one-to-four-minute-long video clips directly from select handsets. Plans are pretty cheap at the growing wireless provider, starting at $45 for unlimited access. Even if the 5-buck charge is thrown on top, it’s still a pretty good… → Read More
Disney embarked on a cellular phone business in the US as early as June 2006 but pulled the plug at the end of last year, citing delays in the spread of 3G networks as the major reason. In March this year, Disney carried out another attempt, but this time in Japan, where the brand has been super-popular for decades now. Disney Japan teamed up with local telecom conglomerate SoftBank to become the… → Read More
On Facebook, there is no shortage of apps that tell you what celebrity you look like based on your photo (FaceDouble is the most popular), but in Japan we like our vanity apps on our mobile phones. After all, the camera is built in. Take the case of Kao Chekki (Face Check) by J-Magic, a web company that was totally unknown until the end of April 2007, when it caused a Japan-wide frenzy with its… → Read More
Swapping sites are nothing new (see Dig N’ Swap), but in Japan we like to trade our junk via our mobile phones. That is what the Japanese social sharing service Sharemo is all about. The site’s ambitious idea is to contribute to overcoming Japan’s throwaway society. This is how it works: Users can offer any item they don’t need anymore (DVDs, comics and clothes are especially popular)… → Read More
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