Reading phone text one word at a time

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makes them an attractive target for developing mobile applications.

Yahoo, for example, recently expanded its ability to tap short message queries as a way to get search results.

But figuring out ways to overcome the screen limitations of the mobile phone has proved tricky.

Researchers at the IBM conference discussed a number of ideas. A few paces from the Stanford booth, Motorola demonstrated an idea called Screen3, in which headlines scroll across a cell phone's screen. Clicking a button on the phone once pops up a paragraph-long summary of the story, while another click pulls up the entire story. Other researchers focused on other ideas, such as opportunistic annexing, a way to use the cell phone to grab the content, but tap nearby larger screens to display the information.

In India, Rediff.com, a portal that many consumers access through cell phones, the company is working on ways to restructure news stories to make them more palatable on mobile devices. One idea, already implemented, involves writing quick summaries of news stories and drastically limiting the length of news stories.

BuddyBuzz was developed as a research effort, but the Stanford team is now looking at how to commercialize it and sounding out venture investors.

One of the challenges for BuddyBuzz will be figuring out how to sell advertising in a medium where every word counts, but Eckles thinks he has an answer there, as well. Even a tiny advertisement in the top corner that ran throughout a story would be a pretty good branding opportunity, he reasons. Larger, graphical ads could also be placed in between stories.

"You know someone is focused on a very small area," he said. "It's like a guaranteed pretty long impression."

[Sboston]

I have an idea...

How about people get glasses that they need to read.
Computer users are complaining about that all the time. I need a bigger monitor (so they can make the text HUGE so they can read it.)

Get your eyes checked and get a good pair of glasses!

[TV James]

Or...

stop trying to use your cell phone for reading text. What a horribly awful idea. It would only work if things were well written, which most things are not. (Try reading that fast! ha!)

If they can project a keyboard on a flat surface, why not project a larger screen?

Or maybe someone can connect a cell phone with those cool glasses that put the image right in front of your eye, so that it looks like a full-screen monitor?

[aabcdefghij987654321]

A Question.

Does anyone else find it revealing that they continually keep looking for ways to add advertisements?

[wowandflutter]

Google thrives because of advertising

Google makes most of its money from advertising and yet, people love Google. Advertising is not annoying when it is well targeted.

[kieranmullen]

What ads?

What ads? I use adblock with firefox. Blocks the ads from even downloading from the ad server.

Kieran Mullen
Portland OR

[xinship]

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