Mobile News Network from the Associated Press

Joining the list of companies that have launched their own mobile portals, the Associated Press released a multimedia news portal for mobile users called Mobile News Network. This news portal will have everything from local news to national news and international news and you can access it any time you want to, right on your mobile phone.

Unlike the usual run-of-the-mill news sites, the Mobile News Network aims to offer a complete multimedia experience for mobile users as it lets you access photo galleries, videos, and a variety of other news content. You can get your daily dosage of entertainment, breaking news, weather forecasts, sports, and finance right from this portal. Also, you will be able to rate the news items and share them with your friends on the go, which I think is a very useful feature.

If you are an iPhone user, you’ll find this news portal even more interesting, as this web application is optimized for Apple iPhone. You can access it from www.iphone.com/webapps. Since it’s optimized to offer a rich experience for smart phone users, AP is sure that they will find this app very appealing. I think this news portal has the potential to serve as a single access point for all sorts of news, especially for smart phone users.

AP has also mentioned that it will release improved versions of this app in future which will have additional content from other broadcasters and special features to improve user experience.

Categories: All things mobile phones.

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Google being noncompliant to MMA guidelines?

A few days back, the Mobile Marketing Association made an announcement about new guidelines for mobile ads. At the same time, Google announced its decision to come up with custom-made mobile image ads. Now, that is coincidence. But the irony, however, is not in the timing of these two announcements.

Google image ads differ in size from the ad formats specified by the MMA. Let’s take a look at the dimensions.

The MMA specified four different sizes for mobile ads – 300×50 pixels, 216×36 pixels, 168×28 pixels, and 120×20 pixels. However, Google’s banner ads are in the following range – 305×64 pixels, 215 x 34 pixels; 192 x 34 pixels; and 167 x 30 pixels.

When asked about this noncompliance, Google’s authorities said that the MMA’s guidelines were not rules, but just guidelines. They also said that Google image ads are compliant with MMA’s previous guidelines, which they thought were ideal for mobile phones.

Google, though, has promised that it will work with the MMA to improve user experience and work on these noncompliance issues.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, Google, All things mobile phones, Mobile Marketing Association.

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