(Credit:
BlackBerry Partner's Fund)
So you have a great idea for a BlackBerry application, but like the rest of us in the poor old U. S. of A., you have no money to develop it.
Enter the Jump Start Financing Initiative, which provides entrepreneurs with capital infusions of up to $250,000. The initiative is designed to bring new and innovative ideas into the development process faster, allowing entrepreneurs to focus on building smartphone applications instead of raising capital.
Announced Monday, the initiative is funded by the BlackBerry Partners Fund, a $150 million venture capital fund formed to focus on applications and services for the BlackBerry and other mobile platforms.
Interested entrepreneurs should go here.
Yahoo is on a mobile roll.
The Internet company on Tuesday unveiled a new bookmarking tool for cell phones that lets people keep track of favorite Web content--news feeds, search results, Web sites--from one place on their handheld. The technology, called Yahoo OnePlace, will be available in the second quarter of 2008, according to Yahoo.
The tool builds on other new mobile applications from Yahoo. Those include OneConnect, a tool to update social-networking messaging on the phone (announced in February), and OneSearch, which aggregates news, weather, financial data, photos, and Web links based on search queries.
Users will be able to create and access social bookmarks on their phones with OnePlace.
(Credit: Yahoo Inc.)Yahoo has heavy competition in mobile. Earlier Tuesday at Germany's annual CeBit conference, Google demonstrated Google Gears, an open-source browser extension for mobile phones that lets developers create Web applications that can run offline. For now, Google Gears supports Internet Explorer on Windows Mobile 5 and 6 phones, but not Apple's iPhone or other smart phones running Opera browsers.
Last month, Opera also switched out Yahoo and made Google the default search engine for its Opera Mobile and Opera Mini Web browsers designed for handheld devices.
Still, Yahoo's aim is to become the default access point for mobile-phone users accessing the Web. The idea behind OnePlace is to let people bookmark any piece of Web content--news feeds, sites, videos, images, e-mails, search queries--and put that material into a topic category such as travel or "trip to Paris." That material will be automatically updated and accessible from the phone. People can sort their bookmarks by local relevance or popularity with friends; and they can organize the material in any way they like.
"Yahoo OnePlace is where users will be able to find what matters to them the most, no matter where their interests, passions and information come from," Marco Boerries, Yahoo's executive vice president of "connected life," said in a statement.
Here at the Under the Radar conference in Mountain View, Calif., three companies pitched interesting concepts for reshaping the way users will interact with mobile applications and content.
Microsoft-backed Zumobi (previously ZenZui,) will be a free downloadable application featuring 16 tiles (application widgets) that zoom in with touch, tap, or button clicks. Users can customize tiles by picking from the device or Zumobi's online gallery. Zooming into a tile takes you into the always-on application, which contains multiple search functions and a banner ad. Developers, keep an eye out for the software developer's kit announcement. Users, keep an eye out for the upcoming beta.
Mobio lets users create a portal of Web applications on their mobile phones. Since the applications, currently totaling 40, are all provided by Mobio, they share a similar look and feel across all handsets and carriers. Mobio, as a platform, renders images and sizes so users will share an identical experience, regardless of handset and carrier differences. Here's the latest coverage from Webware.com.
FoneMine is one Web 2.0 company that's working to make the Internet more mobile-friendly by offering business partners an XMS-powered scalable platform to build mobile applications for consumer use. Businesses using FoneMine's integrated mobile services can quickly create Java applications using widgets, voice, data messaging, and social networking.
(Credit:
Mobio)
GetMobio is a mobile lifestyle application that's trying to put your social life at your fingertips, literally.
The downloadable app helps you find places to go, get reservations, buy tickets, browse movie reviews and get directions--and it can all be done in very few clicks and with minimum data entry, according to Mobio, the company that created it.
The product is launching this week at Demo 07 in Palm Desert, CA, but the executive team dropped by the CNET offices last week to do a quick demo.
GetMobio is organized as a series of "collections," which is the company's way of saying "themes." Personally, I appreciate that almost every theme revolves around eating. Themes like "After Midnight," "Chilling Out" and "Urban Trekker" offer ideas for destinations--restaurants, clubs, lounges, shopping, cultural activities--and help you plan how to make it happen.
Mobio also has partnered with a few Web services for some feature applications, like Open Table Mobile, Mobile Flight Times and Mobile Movie Times.
The application definitely piqued my interest, but, of course, it helps that I occupy the midrange of their core demographic: 18- to 34-year-olds. To that end, GetMobio is optimized for use on a Motorola Razr, which is a good call, since according to The NPD Group, Motorola sold about 12 million of those phones last year. It will work best for Cingular/AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile users with all-you-can-eat data plans.
GetMobio is free to download, but expect to see ads running underneath the applications, sponsored business listings, and targeted offers like restaurant coupons.
You can get just about anything on your cell phone these days--ESPN, the latest Green Day video, a game of "Resident Evil: The Missions." Now you can add the Pauline Epistles to that list.
South African company ChristianMobile (tagline: "Powered by God") has announced what it says is the world's first Christian mobile-phone chat application, CmChat. The app lets mobile-phone subscribers send text or SMS messages, but adds in Christian news feeds, daily prayers, devotionals and Bible verses, plus information on new Christian publications, weather and sports reports.
Christian Mobile says it created CmChat, in part, to provide kids (and adults) with a safer alternative to less wholesome mobile Internet chat rooms. CmChat functions in much the same way as sending an SMS; you must know the number of the person you are sending the message to and they will receive your number. The company says it verifies numbers when subscribers register; it's unclear, however, exactly what that process entails.
ChristianMobile also recently launched VirtualBible (pictured), which delivers the complete Old Testament or New Testament to cell phones.
(Photo: PRWeb)
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