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) on Sharemo. If the item is useful to another member, it can be rented, used and then relisted. This procedure is repeated until one Sharemo user decides to keep the item. The system keeps track of all actions and allocates points to active members, which can be donated or redeemed to rent items. Sharemo’s crucial point is the complete absence of money and the reliance on trust among the members. In Japan at least, the concept pans out as expected: Although the mobile site isn’’t actively being promoted yet, Sharemo it already racks up 400,000 page views monthly. Sharemo is operated by Enigmo, a company setting itself apart from other Japanese web companies by an international mindset. Their promotion networks rollmio and pressblog are successful outside Japan already, and Sharemo is set to follow suit in the mobile space. Will this concept work outside of Japan? → Read More
There is a lot of hype and hope in the U.S. around taking social networks mobile, but mobile social networking is still in the fledgling stages in the West. In Japan, it is already a reality. One company in particular, DeNA, has taken Japan by storm with its mobile SNS/virtual world/gaming platform Mobage-town. DeNA opened a US office in San Mateo earlier this year, with plans to offer an English version of Mobage-town this fall. Subscribers can exchange messages, chat in communities, share music, read pocket novels, and blog, among other things. The site’s “killer feature”, however, is the vast selection of free games that makes most users register in the first place. Each of the 11 million Mobage-town members is represented by an avatar “living” in a virtual room. Both the characters and rooms can be pimped out with new clothes and wallpaper, for example. In order to do that, users must acquire “Moba Gold”, a virtual currency established by DeNA, by clicking on ads, signing up for affiliate services and inviting new members. The circular business model has paid off for the company, which is listed on the Tokyo stock exchange (market cap: $2.3 billion). Mobage-town alone raked in $46 million in sales in the first quarter of this year and saw nearly 15 billion page views in June. And yes, this is Japan- and mobile-only. CrunchBase Information DeNA Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
Over one billion cell phones have been sold worldwide in the last year, but in the US or Europe, the mobile Internet is still catching on relatively slowly. There even was a heated debate in the blogosphere just recently whether the mobile web has a future at all. However, this has never been a question in one specific region of the world: In Japan, since 2006 more people have been accessing the web through cell phones than through PCs. Is this a picture of things to come in other countries? Not necessarily. The interplay of five specific factors paved the way for the success of the mobile web in Japan (where I live) and largely explains why it hasn’t taken off yet elsewhere: the ubiquity of advanced cell phones combined with a vast selection of tailor-made services tech-savvy customers who often had their first web experience on a cell phone a reliable technical infrastructure symbiotic business relations between carriers and content providers relatively sound regulatory policy Three catalysts for growth: superior phones, a lot of content and demanding customers Japan’s image as a high-speed testbed for the world’s most advanced mobile technology is well-deserved. A staggering 90 million 3G handsets are currently in circulation. Over 70% of people in this nation of 127 million are subscribed to mobile web data plans. By way of comparison: The 3G penetration rate stands at 23.8% in the US (where 52 million 3G handsets are on the market) and at 11.1% in Europe. 15.6% of American mobile subscribers use the mobile web. The country’s three main carriers (SoftBank, KDDI au and market leader NTT Docomo) are churning out around 100 different Internet-enabled 3G handsets per year, each equipped with a whole array of flashy functions (the iPhone made its debut in this country only last month). Japanese people use their “Keitai” for over-the-counter payments (e-wallet), as a commuter pass in public transportation, 2D barcode reader, health control terminal, dictionary, karaoke player, digital TV, music player, e-book, and much more. Some handsets even feature video transfer from Blu-ray recorders, alarm buzzers with direct connection to the nearest police station or voice-to-text translation. In June, Docomo introduced a home service for owners of Wi-Fi-enabled cell phones to access mobile web sites at a maximum of 54 Mbps. The availability of cutting-edge phones is one reason why many Japanese people don’t own a PC but would rather → Read More
I guess people can’t be having that hard of a time inputting web addresses on that fiddly keyboard, because the total people browsing with an iPhone has passed up the years-old WinMo for an impressive 0.09 percent of the browser market. Just below the iPhone, Windows CE accounts for 0.06 percent, and just above it is Windows ME, amazingly enough, with 0.43 percent. This could change, though, as it is a fluid market with lots of new hardware. With only five months on the market, the iPhone seems to have taken the mobile browser world by storm, but it’s an ongoing battle. iPhone browsing marketshare closes in on 0.1% [Computerworld] → Read More
I love Facebook, and I love the mobile Web. That is why I’m on my knees thanking Facebook for the new mobile version at m.facebook.com. It’s one of the best looking and most functional mobile social networking sites out there. From it, you can do pretty much anything you can do on Facebook proper; check your email, poke your friends, view photos, all of it. And it’s fast, so even you iphone users (iphone.facebook.com) are in luck. If you rock a Blackberry, Facebook has also made available a downloadable client, much like Helio’s MySpace client. This gives you more functionality than a Web interface and is also even faster, as many of the site’s assets are already on your handset. I’ve been using it with Opera Mini on my Ocean and it works fantastically. The Palm Centro renders it quite well with the built-in browser, too. If you’re a Facebook fan, give it a whirl. Breaking: Facebook Announces Facebook Platform for Mobile; Facebook for Blackberry [Inside Facebook] → Read More
Yesterday I went along (proof) to the demo by Refresh Mobile of their new service: Mippin. Refresh – backed by Accel Partners – is best known for creating the Mobizines service (which in many ways almost became a noun in it’s own right) only last year. The idea there was that site owners could have their content wrapped in a Mobizine java client and have advertising set against is. But clearly the idea was hard to execute. Refresh had to go to every content owner individually and manually get them onto the service. Plus users had to download the Java client, often a barrier to entry. Even with these limits, Mobizines managed to get almost 300 content owners on board. But as anyone knows, a universe of 300 sites just won’t cut it. So instead Refresh went back to the drawing board and realised what was perhaps obvious from the start. The key to pulling down content for mobile lay in RSS feeds. The resulting Mippin is a kind’ve mashup of the ideas behind various other mobile-enabling services out there. The new service now intelligently sucks in RSS feeds from sites as you surf on your mobile. Once someone has requested a site on Mippin, it remembers and stores that site’s feed, hence why it can scale so much faster than Mobizine, and already has 2,000 feeds in the database. The interface is also very simple and clean to use, in contrast to many Java apps. Mippin reminded me slightly of Mowser. But where where Mowser transcodes a whole site to make it more mobile screen friendly, Mippin is simply taking the RSS feed from a news site or blog and giving it a mobile sheen. That’s where it gets far easier for mainstream mobile users, since all they neeed to do is use their existing mobile browser. Plus, the new model offers greater opportunity for mobile advertising. Co-Founder Scott Beaumont told me that Mippin will pull in any requested feed, but it won’t change the feed, nor set any advertising against it unless they are contacted by the feed owner. Of course, what this means is that Mippin can now approach the sites which appear to be getting a lot of traffic on Mippin, and then sell them an advertising revenue share deal (typically 80 per cent goes to the publisher). Currently Mippin is in open beta while the → Read More
Until an Apple person stands up in front of a bank of journalists and bloggers tomorrow and utters the name of the carrier to win the iPhone, we won’t know for definite. However it is hard to ignore the wave of stories out today naming 02 as the network, with Carphone Warehouse as the independent distributor. These chime in with our own story that 02 won the iPhone deal some weeks ago, after brinkmanship tactics employed by Apple with all the network providers. The Guardian today is reporting that the O2 deal is done, as is the Daily Telegraph, The Independent and the FT yesterday. All say Orange and T-Mobile are signing similar deals in France and Germany respectively – also confirmed today by TechCrunch France. The nature of those deals remain secret, but the rumour-mills are reporting back that the O2/CW deal is punishing, with the carrier agreeing that as much as 40% of revenues from the iPhone will go back to Apple. This is being treated as a money-losing deal by City insiders, and not favourably either. Furthermore, there is a consensus emerging around the view that the recently launched iPod Touch could seriously dent sales of the iPhone, given its similar features. The Touch – launched only at the beginning of this month – had not been announced when the contracts for the iPhone were being signed, though US carrier AT&T may have known about it. We also need a reality check here: Apple is likely to remain a niche player on European mobile scene. It may have sold a million devices in 10 weeks in the US, but Nokia sells a million mobile devices every day. Still, TechCrunch UK will be blogging the event live tomorrow, so stay tuned. → Read More
Longtime player in the UK mobile scene Enpocket is to be aquired by Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia. Boston-based Enpocket provides technology and services centered on mobile advertising. Enpocket’s platform delivers mobile advertising across multiple formats including SMS, MMS, mobile Internet advertising, and video. Nokia plans to used the deal to accelerate its mobile advertising business by leveraging Enpocket’s platform and strong partnerships with advertisers, publishers and operators. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Nokia first went into the mobile advertising space in March with two products: Nokia Ad Service and Nokia Advertising Connector. See TechCrunch US for more. → Read More
TechCrunch France has broken a story saying the iPhone will be launched in France with Orange at a 300 euro price-point. The phone will be available from 29th November and announced on the 24th September during the Apple Expo in Paris. Going against predictions so far, the story says there won’t be any unlimited data plan (as there is in the US) nor will the phone be a 3G version of the iPhone, which is something of a disappointment. TechCrunch France editor Ouriel Ohayon has a first picture of the Orange iPhone with a French menu (operated in roaming mode). CrunchGear has more on the story. Apple is making an announcement about the iPhone in London tomorrow, and it’ll be interesting to see if many of the above details turn out to be the case in the UK. We’ll be bringing you live blog coverage of the event. → Read More
Blyk, the much anticipated ad-supported mobile network, is to reveal its colours soon. A press conference is scheduled for Monday 24th September. Announced earlier this year, Blyk will offer free calls to its audience of 16–24 year olds via targetted advertising on their phones. The launch is timed for the start of the new school term in the UK. The virtual operator is using the Orange network. Co-founder and backer Pekka Ala-Pietila is a former president of Nokia, so it’s perhaps no surprise that it will also use technology from Nokia Siemens Networks. Blyk, which is giving itself 3-4 months to make an impact on the UK market, will use real-time feedback on what “the kids” are doing to help brands with the targetting process. They seem to be biting. Back in March advertisers, including Buena Vista, Coca-Cola, I-play Mobile Gaming, L’Oreal Paris, StepStone and Yell.com confirmed that they will be among the first advertisers to use the Blyk network. At the Mobile User Experience conference in London earlier this month, Antti Ohrling, co-founder, said that messaging, not WAP or data services, remains the most effective mobile advertising and marketing tactic for younger audiences since 73% do not use expensive mobile data services. Ohrling’s research suggests that 71% of mobile phone customers would appreciate receiving advertising messages targeted to their interests. → Read More
SEEDCAMP COVERAGE: In Japan and South Korea it is so common now for people to whip out their cell phones and use the camera to connect to online content from a newspaper or magazine that it is no longer commented on. This wave of adoption has yet to go mainstream in Europe or the US, but plenty of companies are trying to get in early before consumers arrive. The technology – not unlike barcodes – is called “visual tags” and consists usually of black and white ink-blot style images which some reader software on the phone can use to link to a web page or other online service. Until recently most companies trying to work with this techonology have based their strategy on the phone software. TagMore is, instead, going to attempt to put intelligence into the cloud which connects these mobile services. In particular it aims to create a platform for the delivery of content and micropayments which publishers, retailers – you name it – can hook into. In fact, visual tags are set to become “the next Bluetooth” because there is no need to create a “handshake” with the phone since the response of the mobile to what its camera is seeing is almost instantaneous. There already exists an ecosystem for the the creation of visual tags, as there are many open source systems, including Semacode, QR (Quick response), Qode, Spotcode, Shotcode and ColorCode. TagMore will allow any of these systems to be used, thus riding the wave of visual tagging (if TagMore succeeds, of course). Client reader software for the mobile includes Kaywa, QuickMark, among others. What are the applications? Visual tags can be applied to absolutely anything, just like barcodes, so a visual tag on the back of a business card can prompt the mobile to put those contact details into the phone. You can put them on stickers. You name it. Anyone can generates these visual codes, but the question is, can you hook into a platform that monetises that transaction somehow? TagMore could well be one of these firms that benefits from the MC2 (Mobile Codes Consortium) which involves Nokia, HP, Deustche Telekon, and advertising agencies like Publicis. This consortium is basically out to pre-install visual tag readers inside all mobiles globally from 2008, largely to create marketing opportunities. Does TagMore have competitors? Perhaps not, so far at least. Abaxia in France has designed → Read More
LG and Yahoo! announced today that Yahoo! Go 2.0 service will begin shipping on LG’s mobile phones. The service is said to redefine the mobile Internet experience for users. With its unique design, users are able to personalize content and search efficiently with Yahoo!’s oneSearch function. The service also features Yahoo! Go widgets, personal channels for email, local information, maps and news. It also has photo sharing, which hopefully integrates with Flickr. It will be available in more than 70 countries later in 2007. More info as it becomes available. LG Electronics and Yahoo! Announce Strategic Mobile Partnership → Read More
Opera arguably reinvented the mobile browser with the original release of Opera Mini. The innovation of Opera Mini was to be able to fit four quarts into a one pint jug. By putting most of the guts of the browser into a smart proxy layer, they were able to create a smart browser that could be downloaded and installed on most phones, not just so-called smart phones. Opera’s new Mini, announced this week, isn’t just an incremental upgrade. The new Opera Mini plugs directly in to the phone camera to allow photo blogging directly from within the browser environment. See here for an example of this (Charles McCathieNevile snapped this at the W3C Advisory Committee meeting here in Tokyo – I think he got my good side). So why is this revolutionary? Of course, it allows users to bypass MMS and other operator-sanctioned photo sharing mechanisms, but that’s no big news. Other downloadable applications have enabled photo upload and mobile blogging, but in integrating this function into the browser, Opera has turned Mini into a read/write application. The browser, traditionally the tool used to consume information, becomes a sophisticated content creation mechanism as well. Users who otherwise might not go through the trouble to download and install a photo blogging application will suddenly find they have this capability. Of course, desktop browser users already enjoy this kind of capability through Ajax applications and browser plug-ins but these capabilities have not been present on the mobile platform. And by the way, photo blogging isn’t the only new feature. The new Mini also allows users to directly access RSS feeds and enables secure Web site access. → Read More
If you’re on your phone and see something along the lines of “Punch K-Fed to win an iPod!,” with an animated GIF of the mook, you can blame Yahoo!. The geniuses at the Y have decided that your mobile phone screen is a prime place to show “graphical advertisements,” which sounds a lot like banner ads to these ears. If you’re on a metered data plan (most cell phone users who use the mobile web are), then this could suck worse than Rumsfeld’s week. Hopefully operators who place the mobile Yahoo! links on their mobile homepages will work out some sort of deal to offset this, as they have with services like Google’s mobile sites, but we’re not counting on it. The good news is that Yahoo! is sticking to the mobile Web for now, meaning you won’t get animated (and costly) MMS messages, at least not yet, though it’s a realistic and bleak view of the future of Man. Yahoo! Launches Graphical Advertising on Mobile Web in United States → Read More
The Etech Conference (2007) is once again shortly upon us. It begins March 26th and goes on for 3 days until 29th March, 2007. This year it will be at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego, California. If you think you have a cool technology worth showcasing, then why not submit your proposal. The submission deadline for all proposals is October 9, 2006. Speakers will be notified by October 30, 2006. Final session details, speaker bios, and tutorial materials are due by February 16, 2007. “For the last two years, ETech has reached capacity. However, we anticipate that we’ll sell every seat before ETech 2007 begins, so if you’d like to attend, we recommend that you sign up early. Registration will open in December 2006.” Of course this is not the only O’Reilly conference worth attending. There is the “third annual” Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco. Sadly if you haven’t already registered and got a place it’s now sold out but the speaker roster read’s like the who’s who of the web (2.0) right now. Sadly, yet unsurprisingly, there is only one “Brit?” on the speaker list, that is Index Ventures very own Danny Rimer. The other glaring omission is the lack of a Mobile Web theme for the conference!? Luckily Daniel Appelquist, guest contributor here on TechCrunch UK, has decided to hold a Mobile 2.0 conference the day before (in collaboration with Mike Rowehl). Equally if you cannot make the trip over to San Francisco fear not. There is a Mobile Web 2.0 event here in London which is organised by Tony Fish on 3rd October , starting at 2pm, in the Olswang offices 90, High Holborn, London WC1V 6XX. This event should be very interesting because Tony recently co-authored the book Mobile Web 2.0 which is worth reading to set the scene for this discussion. If you would like to attend please register here → Read More
This morning’s paper featured something interesting: a full page ad for 3 featuring the Nokia N73 with the Yahoo! Go application front and centre. 3 has certainly been daring where others fear to tread, recently launching a partnership with Skype, and now Yahoo! One wonders how this meshes with 3′s over-all content strategy since the Yahoo! Go application essentially makes the phone into a Yahoo! phone. One also wonders what is next for Yahoo! Go. This application was released in January last year and presented at Mobile Monday London by Christian Lindholm of Yahoo! (after he debuted it at the less-well-known CES in Las Vegas). At the time, it got a great reception, but there have been few updates (although the team was probably working on the recently released Windows mobile version). The 3 tie-up is definitely a coup for Yahoo! however and could spell the beginning of something new for the Go mobile application. Christian is no doubt pleased that this campaign also features the N73, which he recently praised on his blog. → Read More
Like London buses you wait an age for one to come along and then two appear at the same time!? Yesterday I heard about two UK start-ups. TruPhone and ConnectMeAnyWhere that want to save you money by routing your calls over the internet rather than via traditional telephone operators. Truphone is a piece of free software, you download, that enables Mobile over IP (MoIP). Once downloaded, you will be allocatted a Truphone number, which you can use to get a number of benefits over your current mobile. To begin with only users in the UK and US will get Truphone numbers appropriate to their countries (i.e. +44 and +1 respectively) but more countries are coming shortly. Truphone works wherever you have access to the internet via Wi-Fi. i.e your home, office, public areas or commercial hotspots (coffee shops, airports etc). which means free mobile calls to other Truphone users or very cheap calls to anyone else. And as a remarkable launch offer, they are offering free calls to 1.6 billion landlines until Dec 31st 2006. Much like the recent SkypeOut offers in France and America which Skype haven’t yet introduced in the UK? One of the unqiue and most impressive things about Truphone, apart from the company started out in a cow-shed in Kent, is the fact that they are a software-only network operator and better still, have built the network using freely-available open source technology and internationally-recognised open standards. For example, the core PBX platform is based on Asterisk. If you want to know more about the software used, you can read about it here. They also have a very interesting http://www.testyourvoip.com/ service to help you configure your wifi which was very enlightening about the different wifi standards. At the moment, Truphone is only available on the Nokia’s E-series, but there aim is to quickly be available on other compatible phones. In contrast London based ConnectMeAnywhere (CMA) also would like you to use your mobile phone for international calls, also saving you money by using VoIP network (SIP backbone), but they can do so without you having to download any software or install any new hardware. In fact users don’t even need to connect to a computer to make a call. What makes us different is that we allow anyone who can register to call almost anyone else from a real phone, not a pc. This means that you can call from your mobile, your land line and/or your work number. We do almost the opposite that Skype are doing with the DDIs. We don’t route inbound calls to → Read More
San Francisco, CA
