DialPlus wins the 2008 Smaato Mobile Advertising Award

Mobile advertising solutions provider Smaato announced the winner of the Smaato Mobile Advertising Award for this year a couple of days back. The award went to DialPlus, a San Diego based mobile advertising firm, for its mobile application which fetches data relevant to the phone calls you make.

The application from DialPlus works this way – when you make a call, it will fetch whatever data available related to the phone call and show it to you. The information could be anything – restaurant menus, directions, and even profiles from social networking sites. The application won the appreciation of almost all the jury members.

The mobile publishers and developers who participated were allowed to upload a video sales pitch to a website and provide more information through a PDF file. The jury, on seeing the sales pitch and the PDF file, judged the quality and ease of use of various applications and made the final decision.

There were more than a hundred entrants and Smaato was very happy about the fact that its award has garnered so much attention. Also, it indicates an important fact – the healthy competition among mobile advertising companies and the rising number of innovative mobile applications. Both of which are very good for the mobile ecosystem.

Lisa LeVasseur, the CEO of DialPlus, was very happy about her company winning the award and stated that DialPlus has made huge progress in a very short period of time. As the winner of the Smaato Mobile Advertising Award, DialPlus will be able to participate at the 2009 Mobile World Congress free of cost and will get to meet four first class venture capitalists from Europe and the U.S. as well.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising.

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Mobile web to be worth $16 billion in 2011

Apparently, some people are confused as to why there is so much fuss about mobile web. Well; the short answer is - $16 billion.

1. Analysts say that mobile web will be worth a whopping $16 billion in just three years from now. Now, a $16 billion market is something that is too big for even giants like Google and Yahoo to be taken lightly.

2. Also, the size of the mobile phone market is three times bigger than the size of the web market. In other words, there are three mobile phone users for one PC user. Now, where do you see more opportunities?

3. Apple iPhone, in more ways than one, changed the landscape of the mobile world. Since its arrival, mobile internet usage has increased as most of the iPhone users regularly surf the net from their phone. Add more high-end phones like Nokia N95, Blackberry, and other such smart phones to the equation and you have the perfect recipe for a mobile web revolution.

4. With 3G and 3.5G networks, high speed mobile browsing is very much possible for mobile users. This will significantly increase the number of mobile web users in the future.

Hence, the excitement.

While Google is busy with Android, Yahoo has been silently working its way to the top. Both these companies have kept people guessing what would be their next move in the mobile world for quite some time now. In my opinion, Yahoo has a slight edge over Google as it’s already set its foot firmly in the mobile market. However, if Android could do to Google what the iPhone did for Apple, we’d be looking at a completely different situation. Either way, the competition is going to be interesting to watch.

Categories: Mobile Web.

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CNET Networks decides to go mobile

CNET Networks in the U.K. has decided to make its move into the mobile world and it has started quite well by mobilizing two of its famous sites – cnet.co.uk and gamespot.co.uk. From now on, you can access both these sites any time you want, if you have an internet enabled mobile phone.

You will be able to access tons of content from both these sites, including but not limited to news and gadget reviews. CNET Network currently has around 10 million users and it hopes to reach out to them even more effectively through these mobile sites. CNET has joined hands with Nokia’s mobile portal and operator 3 to widen its prospects in the mobile world. The mobile sites of CNET will be managed by MoMac.

This announcement from CNET could not have come at a better time, as mobile industry right now is growing at a fast pace. CNET Network said that the time is ripe for experimenting with mobile content and since U.K. is considered one of the biggest markets for mobile internet, it just makes it even better. The main reason behind this move, according to CNET, is to provide value-added service to its current users and to attract more tech-savvy users who look for information on the move, right on their mobile phone.

CNET has also announced that it will come up with the mobile version of three of its sites – silicon.com, zdnet.com, and SmartPlanet.

I think this is a great move from CNET. Coming at a time when the habit of surfing the web on mobile phones is on the rise, this move might enable CNET to grab a large market share when the market grows further.

Categories: All things mobile phones.

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Free mobile web games from AOL

Seems like ad funded mobile games are the fad of the season. AOL has planned to offer free, ad funded mobile games for its customers. A US firm named Cellufun will offer its games through AOL’s mobile portal. These are not the usual Java games that you usually get, but mobile web games.

You can enjoy some popular games like Space Wars, Ice Fishing, and most importantly Call of the Pharaoh, which won the award for the best mobile game in Mobile World Congress last month. Adverts will be placed within the games and this will be done by Third Screen Media, the mobile advertising subsidiary of AOL. Cellufun has already got five million unique players a month accessing its games, which is a significant feat.

The main news, however, is not that. There is a game called The Mobile Ring, which is basically a boxing game with a twist. The twist is, it’s politically themed. So, you can actually fulfill your fantasy of beating the hell out of Hillary Clinton or Obama. Actually, a lot of people have that fantasy I guess. Apparently the game has been played a whopping two million times in just four months.

So, what are you waiting for? Go here and kick some ass.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones, Mobile Games, Mobile Web.

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