GoMo Mobile Search News

MoMo Peer Awards Barcelona Shortlist

Rating: yeee haaaa

I am delighted to be a judge at the MoMo Peer Awards in Barcelona during Mobile World Congress. It's an honour to be invited and this list of finalists looks super.

There were a couple of super companies in the London section and it was tough - sorry if you didn't make it.

But apart from that the line up looks interesting and I will start doing some digging on the companies I don't know.

I am taking this quite seriously so finalists please feel free to email me gomonews (@) yahoo.com

My PC is still broken so no attachments but if you could say what you do and how you are super in 5 lines - it would be great and I might blog the best answers.

Nuvifone

Rating: touch my GPS advertising device baby

I was going to put this on my birthday wish list -but considering that its not out until Q3 08 - I will have to wait for Christmas.

Garmin (which I think is what the Geek's would buy before the "chav" TomTom) has annouced the Nuvifone.

Ok, I hate the name but I do like the first look of the device. Its like a beefy brick but with strange appeal because of the touch screen.

Garmin has struck a deal with Google but what hit me is that the routes go to Garmin's routes and not Google Maps. This is vital. So users can save and click locations and then save to the device. On my in-car GPS you can a similar system but it works "online" with Google Maps and it can be costly if you are driving for a long time to keep the connectivity via Edge.

Google mobile web - again?

Rating: "we are still testing"

Last week the SEO Principle Nadir Garouche noticed that the Mobile Web results were back on Google when browsing on a mobile device.

I quizzed Google on this at the Mobile Search and Advertising forum in London on Monday and the response was, "we are still testing- to get it right".

So, even though the Mobile Web is back - it's not sure if its there for good or where its place in mobile results will be. I am not a huge fan of transcoding and accessing made for mobile sites via mobile - must be the way forward.

Google improves mobile local search

Rating: sounds like a universal local search box

I hate writing about things I havent' tested. But with a sick laptop a broken hard drive and the loss of my WAP simulator - I am unable to test this search service from the office in Germany.

But apparently Google has re-desiged mobile local search by killing the vertical listing of queries and replacing it with one box with a number of categorized results.

More when I test it.

Mobile Search Analyst February 2008

Rating: Mobile Search Analyst February

The first four articles of the Mobile Search Analyst have been published and the final ones will be live by Monday. If you would like more information on the Mobile Search Analyst - please don't hesitate to contact me.

Apple propels browsers up the agenda, Google wins the Grand Prix
According to internal Google data published by The New York Times, over Christmas the volume of incoming traffic to Google from iPhones was such that it outstripped incoming traffic from any other type of mobile device. Within days, iPhone traffic to Google remained higher than that from all mobile devices except those running the Symbian operating system. While Yahoo! remains a long way from getting its mobile offer right (see analysis Fiddling while Rome burns, below), it seems that Google has found a highly satisfactory way of moving what it does on the desktop onto mobile after all.

Mobile barcodes could and should be a major force for new apps and services

Whether you want to buy the latest TV from Uniden or call a K-cab taxi in the Iwate prefecture, mobile barcodes are part of everyday life for millions of Japanese. Perhaps even more surprisingly for most of the rest of the world, they have been since the late 1990’s. So why have mobile barcodes been staggeringly successful in Japan and made precious little impact elsewhere when could and should be a major force in m-commerce, mobile marketing and advertising, and more?

Yahoo! Go 3.0: fiddling while Rome burns

Yahoo! is in big trouble and looking to mobile to shore up its ailing online business. Certainly its home page (http://beta.m.yahoo.com) is clean and fresh, and navigation is easier, but it isn't nearly enough to make Yahoo! the indispensable starting point for all types of access to the web – the company’s stated aim? There are lots of good ideas poorly executed or not sufficiently developed. Yahoo! needs to address these points as a matter of urgency.

Microsoft buys Fastsearch and Transfer for USD 1.2bn

Norwegian company Fastsearch and Transfer is an enterprise search provider. Its focus from the start has been to provide industrial strength search technology for the mega-web sites run by the world’s biggest corporations. The company’s recognised expertise in this arena was reflected in the fact that it was chosen to power Vodafone’s mobile search in 2002.

Ofcom bewails data roaming charges

Rating: GSMA points out they're falling rapidly, anyway
by Tony Dennis

High data roaming charges within the EU are hurting content providers given that it can cost almost three times as much to download one megabyte's worth of data abroad as opposed to in the UK.
Or so Ofcom's Ed Richards is claiming. He calculates that it costs a typical Brit subscriber £1.50 ($3) per megabyte at home compared to £4.10 ($8.20) when roaming.
He's therefore told a meeting of the ERG (European regulators Group) that prices must drop as they're hurting business competitiveness.

Blyk Ad-Funded MVNO goes to smoke in the Netherlands

For those few who don't know - Blyk is the ad-funded MVNO now live in the UK gunning for 50K or something users.

I wish I had something nice to say about Blyk. I have liked Antii Ohrling (co-founder) from day one and I have always wished the company success.

But after a number of PR blunders, invitations which are then retracted and failure to secure a date to meet after really really trying- I am stuck for words.

I have seen Blyk's services from afar. So I haven't tested it. So, as an analyst its VERY tough to have an opionion when all you hear is hype and guarded information passed to other news agencies that are kinder than GoMo?

So in short from the press release

Blyk, the new mobile network for 16-24 year olds funded by advertising, today announced its expansion to the Dutch market. Blyk will use Vodafone Netherlands as its host operator, which means that Blyk members in the Netherlands will be able to use voice, text and data services across the Vodafone network.

Blyk’s CEO and Co-founder, Pekka Ala-Pietilä said, “For advertisers Blyk is a pan-European youth medium and the Netherlands is among the three highest advertising spend per capita in Europe. It is also a key target market for those brands with international campaigns.”

att.net powered by Yahoo! Ad-Funded content rules.

Rating: Revenue Share Wins!

Big companies are partnerng with other big companies and saving money by using the revenue share model. This way - the sales process seems to get easier and Yahoo! can win (much needed) ground on rivals.

After display ad deals in the UK and Germany (Voda and T-Mobile) Yahoo is now loving AT&T. The new portal for AT&T content att.net will be powered by Yahoo! and display adverts will fund it.

GoMo News New Website on its way

Due to technical difficulties (my laptop died on me and I am out of the office and blogging from anywhere possible - apart from mobile as the user interface is terrible)... I have just managed to view the all new 2.0 GoMo News.

It should be live before Mobile World Congress and its definitely very impressive. Say bye bye to the green and orange and this template and a get ready for a more readable user experience. The banners from our sponsors are also placed well and look much better.

We aim to bring the press releases to the home page as well (sponsored by Webitpr) and add a number of features such as video that will make GoMo a lot better.

2.0? GoMo News? Yeah, baby!

vybemobile Germany launches 100 free SMS and WAP portal

Rating: Vybe it, baby

by Bena Roberts

From 1st February 2008 anyone that signs up for a Vybemobile Top 10-Tarif gets 100 free SMS for two years. All additional SMS is 10 cents.

On top of that Vybemobile surf&music Portal 10 is offering the opportunity to download the top ten charts. This is only if users surf on the wap.vybemobile.de site.

This tariff is available online and should be a hit with yoof.

How to view GoMo News via Myiota

Rating: Plus a DIY guide to finding THE MWC party listing
by Tony Dennis

I was half way through road testing the Myiota guide to free parties at the forthcoming Mobile World Congress (MWC) show in Barcelona when I noticed that Bena had actually beaten me to announcing the news here.

Well, never mind, because I think the subject still deserves a quick guide as to how to install this useful facility onto your handset. Especially since Myiota has the good taste to feature GoMo News as one of the prime sources of news to (hopefully) emanate from the forthcoming Barcelona show.

A crucial point about Myiota is that you have to access its site directly to download the appropriate piece of software – it's no good surfing to the site on your PC and trying to side-load the application afterwards.

Qtrax- a music lesson lesson to be learnt by all

Rating: Moral of the story is first make sure they've signed the contracts
by Tony Dennis

I've been following the trails and tribulations of the freshly launched music service, Qtrax, with considerable interest. After all, it is an ad-funded, free music service. While it only works (and even that's disputable) with PCs at present, hopefully the model can be transferred to the mobile world.

So what's gone wrong? Well, the service was feted with a launch budget of over $500,000 at the music industry bean-fest that is Midem in Cannes. [Lucky beggars. They haven't been forcefully evicted to Barcelona like us.]

Anyway, no sooner had Qtrax - a unit of New York-based Brilliant Technologies - arrived claiming a catalogue of some 25 to 30 million tracks, than all four big players - EMI, Warner, Sony BMG and Universal - all said they hadn't actually agreed deals.

MYiOTA WONDER BROWSER

Rating: Thank-you MYiOTA for putting us on this and everyone reading this please sign up for the MYiOTA ODP or get WAPPING on the new browser.

MYiOTA today launched a central repository of information and mobile blog on the best parties and news at this years’ Mobile World Congress 2008.

The free service allows users to post comments, interact, collate information, and find the best parties at Europe’s premier mobile conference and exhibition – all from a simple application which delivers a browser experience all from and an SMS style interface.

In addition to the party list MYiOTA’s service also provides feeds and links to leading mobile news services including: GoMo News, Mobile Entertainment, Pocket Picks, Total Telecom, Telecom Asia, Telecoms Insight and Wireless Week.

The free service, launched today, already has a growing list of top destinations for mobile executives hungry to network and sample some of the party delights of Barcelona.

To get up and running on the MYiOTA service simply type: wap.myiota.co.uk/mwc into your browser.

Bruce Eley, CEO, MYiOTA, said: “With more than 100,000 users MYiOTA is fast becoming the service of choice for mobile content aficionados. 25 second access to mobile content without the browsing hassle is now a reality thanks to our ‘what the consumer wants’ philosophy. We hope that this specially developed Mobile World Congress service will strike a c

Changing Worlds Collaborates with O2 on personalisation

Rating: only blogging big headlines!

by Bena Roberts

I am at the BKI HQ in Norwich today and am desperately trying to work on an Apple. But will try and blog some headlines.

What is the story?
O2 Active is now using the ClixSmart personalised content platform from O2. Personalisation is a buzz word but this is the type of personalisation that drives what users click on most to the top of the page. So something that has been available for a long time.

If you read my analysis of the O2 Active Portal in The Mobile Search Analyst its clear to see that the portal even with a face lift isn't very good and O2 is way behind in the portal race. This personalised addition might be a giant step for O2 - but its a very small step for mobility

From the press release

Mobile Search and advertising forum London and GoMo News Update

Rating: Oh dear

by Bena Roberts

Sorry for the lack of blogs today - I am currently at an Easy Cafe as my laptop died on me this morning as I finishing my report on Mobile SEO. Which I fear is lost.

But I didn't let that ruin my day. The only thing that I couldn't do at Mobile Search and Advertising Forum in London today was actually "live blog".

I was the chair peson and I moderated two panels - the first on "Innovative mobile search" and the second on "Making money from search and advertising".

I quizzed Google's David Thacker on Mobile SEO and I also think I managed to pull at least six new subscribers to the Mobile Search Analyst. There was one point in the forum - that I was the only one that could actually answer a question. Which proves how new the market is.

So, please bear with me - I can't do much without a PC and tomorrow I am in client sales all day - but when I see an internet cafe - or get the (laptop) fixed - I will be back!

Tony Alton is in New Zealand - Tony Dennis - if you read this please can you blog (!) and Annie is writing The Search Analyst.

More on the conference when I can but first a thank-you to organisers W2Forum.

Also companies that stood out today - Superlocal and Jentro.
Also person most impressive (huge surprise) Mandeep Mason from Nokia Ad Business who answered tough questions with conviction.
Nice new SEO friend - Charles Sword Head of Monetisation, Yahoo!

Zodiac Interactive Announces Zodigo mobile content search engine

Rating: it is in the stars

Zodiac Interactive, a multiple Emmy-nominated and Emmy award-winning developer of software for interactive television, today launched a new mobile content search engine, Zodigo[TM]. Much like a Movies-On-Demand service from cable operators, Zodigo is navigated either by remote control or by keyboard and mouse and includes revolutionary features that make it easy for consumers to discover and download mobile content instantly to their mobile phones. Zodigo is also the first and only software platform built for release on digital TV systems (cable, satellite, & telco), Blu-ray & HD-DVD players, all next-gen gaming consoles (Wii , Xbox 360 , and the Playstation® 3), as well as at Zodigo.com and many other Web distribution partners. Perhaps most importantly, Zodigo is an intelligent system that quickly and automatically learns about users' preferences, as well as their exact mobile phone type, and recommends only content that works for that phone.

Nokia and Kooxoo and mobile search?

Rating: Kooxoo?

by Bena Roberts

I hate not knowing a company even if its in China when the topic is mobile search. So I saw article on Pacific Epoch and even though I am going to be late for our local village Fasching (carnival) start party – I decided to do some digging.

Basically, it reported that Nokia is partering with Kooxoo search in China.

Kooxoo
By the looks of its, Kooxoo is a local online search provider in China. It only focuses on major cities in China and its value add is that it finds places to live – shared or private.

You can also purchase tickets and things with the search so its targeted at an 18 to 35 target market which a disposable income.

What is Nokia doing?
I think that Nokia will just add this to its local search index via its mobile search application. The Yellow Pages and all other directories are on this too.

There you go – did the earth move for you too?

GoMo News Sponsor Update

Rating: I thank you

By Bena Roberts

Just a regular thank-you to our site sponsors and introducing our new headline sponsor GetMobile from Quattro Wireless.

Thank-you to Mixipix.

Also to MCN, Medio and JumpTap for supporting our GoMo News Newsletter.

A huge thank-you to MyStrands for sponsoring the MyStrands GoMo News Blender at Mobile World Congress on February 13th from 6pm in BelChica, Barcelona.

We will be introducing three new sponsors in February – if you want exposure at The Mobile World Congress and would like to support GoMo News– please email me!

Google CEO thinks mobile advertising is a “huge revolution”

Rating: um, Yes. That is your business model

by Bena Roberts

Eric Schmidt thinks that the mobile web is reaching tipping point and I have to say, I agree with him.
As long as value is including in the mobile advertising.

AdStar and Relevantis collaborate on Mobile Advertising

Rating: who?

Every day I learn about another company in the mobile ad space. This time its AdStar and Relevantis. Basically Relevantis has licensed AdStar’s Mobile Advertising Dashboard.

Mobile Search and Advertising Forum London next week

Rating: I look forward to seeing you there and blogging it as much as possible

I will be at this W2Forum event on Monday 28th in London. I am moderating two panels and am looking forward to it!

08:30 Registration and tea/coffee
09:00 Opening Remarks: Graham Brown, CEO, Wireless World Forum
09:15 Presentation: Hugh Griffiths, Director of Mobile, MSN
09:25 Case Study Presentations
10:15 Panel Discussion “Innovative mobile search”
• Mobile search technology and applications: location-aware browsing, voice
recognition, text messaging
• How to improve the mobile search experience?
• W3C POWDER: Describing content for accurate discovery and targeting.
• Hugh Griffiths, Director of Mobile, MSN
• Supratim Biswas, Vice President - Products and Technology, Infospace

Quattro Wireless GetMobile Review

Rating: gomonews.getmobile.com we have been juiced!

by Bena Roberts

Earlier on this week the Quattro Wireless a Mobile Advertising company that squeezes and re-renders websites to mobile sites launched GetMobile. GetMobile is a self-service website to WAP maker that literally juices the website to a mobile site.

Simyo Spain?

Rating: the discount card glory?

by Bena Roberts

I got an email from a client asking if I had seen or could confirm the Reuters story about Simyo going to Spain.

O2 and Vodafone in Germany create new mobile payment system

Rating: O2, Vodafone what happend to E-Plus and T-Mobile?

Vodafone Gemany and O2 are going to launch a new Bezhal- Service. This service will enable consumers with a Intenret handset to may secure payments via the phone on the move.

The new Bezahl System works by combinging requests with SMS. So the user orders a product via the mobile portal or Internet shop. He/she gives the mobile phone number and password. Then an SMS is sent with the confirmation and the money is booked from the bank account.

This is a free service for post and prepaid users.

Microsoft buys Fastsearch and Transfer for USD 1.2bn – latest Mobile Search Analyst Report

Rating: first report from the Mobile Search Analyst published today.

by Bena Roberts

Norwegian company Fastsearch and Transfer is an enterprise search provider. Its focus from the start has been to provide industrial strength search technology for the mega-web sites run by the world’s biggest corporations. The company’s recognised expertise in this arena was reflected in the fact that it was chosen to power Vodafone’s mobile search in 2002.

However, as has become patently clear, being good at online search does not automatically transfer to being expert at doing the same thing on mobile...

To read more or find out more please contact annie@bkimedia.com

Next analysis on Yahoo! Go 3.0 and Uta Search out soon.

Surf joins mobile ads mix with hardware

Rating: Claims unique mid-stream ad capability
by Tony Dennis

Three briefings in four days all on the same subject – mobile advertising – by three separate companies each with Israeli R&D units must set some kind of record. But that's what just happened to me.

Today's briefing came from Surf Communication Solutions  who's come up with a very hardware approach to tackling the nugget that is cracking the mobile advertising market.

The approaches which differentiate Surf with OnSurf from its rivals include the fact that this is an unashamedly a pitch to the mobile network operators. Not surprisingly several Tier One operators feature as Surf's ecustomers.

The company also claims to be unique in offering mid-stream mobile advertising.

Orange turns up music services with Radio FG

Rating: its all about the Soundtribes or Pikeo and reality radio, man

Orange has teamed up with Radio FG to offer mobile and internet services to users with exclusive editorial and music content.

What?
Basically, Orange customers can now listen to Radio FG live on the mobile device or the Internet when it is broadcast over Liveradio.

What else?
Radio FG can also plug into Orange flagship services Soundtribes and Pikeo.

Soundtribes?

Quattro Wireless juices the WEB with Getmobile.com

Rating: juice it up!

Quattro Wireless has unveiled GetMobile.com. This is a self-service Website “juicer” that squeezes existing websites and makes them WAP sites.

It’s for anyone with a ASP, PHP, JAVA website.

An unexpected reason to buy an iPhone

Rating: dunking Apples By Annie Turner

My Apple-fiend, geek friend Andy has just texted me to say that he dropped his iPhone down the loo last night (he was at a party, surprise, surprise) and although it was a bit temperamental for 12 hours, it's now working perfectly. Don't try this at home though.

mDog Flash based search ad based portal

Rating: this looks very impressive

You have to see this demo (source here).

http://www.bizreport.com/2008/01/mdog_launches_flashmobile_platform.html

It’s a flash advertising based platform for mobile.
It looks great,
I want one.

Disney mobile in Japan to target women? Yikes.

Rating: it gets worse

Disney mobile in Japan is going to target women with a Sharp phone that is a flip and is a pink and has a Disney head at the bottom.

OMG. How awful. As a mother of two and having had holidays at Disneyland and Centre Parcs with the kids (Sequoia National Park is next) – I have to say that holidays are great for Disney etc. But seeing that head every day. Brandishing the trademark as a mother?

Docomo Google for i-mode search

Rating: I thought i-mode wasn’t that big anymore?

OK, i-mode was the rage in Japan but then FOMA 3G arrived. NTTDoCoMo was the king of i-mode but since its rise uptake has stalled and is it now banking on Google to help to revive the service?

Maybe I am wrong as it seems that DoCoMo is banging the drums for i-mode with Google.

The plans are:

Amobee new ad and sales partnership with Canada Target Broadcast

Rating: Target ads

I keep going hot cold hot on Amobee. Just as I think that they are going to be stuck under the thumb of Vodafone for the rest of its days before one of the operators swallows it – some thing new happens.

This time its in Canada and Amobee and Target Broadcast. Basically Amobee will manage the ad-inventory for Target Broadcast.

Target Broadcast is Canada’s only independently owned national sales organization.

(All articles written on Amobee here)

Mobixell launches Ad-It solution

Rating: the focus is on the ad-inventory

Mobixell has launched an new ad delivery engine which it touts can smartly inject and enhance mobile ad inventory.

(See first article on Mobixell here)

Buzzcity launches wireless community report

Rating: it’s the buzz

The main point of the Buzzcity global report:

90% access social networking sites 1-5 times a day; 80% accessing the site while at home, at work or at a desk

And

Ad Infuse raises USD 12 million in funding

Rating: personalization is in

Ad Infuse the mobile advertising company has won USD 12 million from SoftBank Capital, ComVentures and Strom Ventures.

The investment is aimed at positioning Ad Infuse as a leader in premium mobile advertising and to push the adInMotion network.

(All articles on Ad Infuse here)

Jump Games jumps into bed with Manchester United for mobile games deal

Rating: I have to say, I used to really like Manchester United, I even was at the 1999 Champions league win again Bayern Munich in Barcelona - but after all the roasting and rape allegations am not too impressed anymore.

But, back to the point.

Jump Games has signed an exclusive global deal to design, develop and distribute mobile games with Manchester United

Six games will be launched the first called Manchester United Word It and they will each cost GBP 5.

Chinese Search Provider Baidu goes to Japan

Rating: Big in Japan

According to Bloomberg, Baidu.com is going to Japan to launch mobile focused search services and is in talks with mobile operators in Japan.

This is the first time Baidu has moved out of its homeland China and the Japanese Baidu is the first local language service.

Jumptap vs Britney Spears

Rating: you wanna piece of me?

I got this email from JumpTap this morning. It’s the company campaign pushing its services at the Mobile World Congress.

Cellular South introduces LOC-AID Technologies

Rating: is it a bird, is it a drink no its LOC-AID LBS!

Location Based Services (LBS) provided by LOC-AID Technologies portfolio of applications (Find LOC-AID People, LOC-AID LITE and LOC-AID Web Portal) makes use of position data from wireless devices, including latitude/longitude, speed and heading.

Cellular South is working with LOC-AID to find point of interest and local attractions using Geo-Fencing.

KPN takes over SMS Michel

Rating: sexy message sugar?

After years of successful collaboration, mobile operator KPN has bought SMS Michel GmbH for its subsidiary E-Plus.

The aim is to change the name of SMS from short message service to Smart Mobile Services – which is pretty nifty.

Google bans GoMo News for Adsense – Do No Evil? Yeah, right.

Rating: this is poor customer service, confusing and even more downright confusing

This morning I received this email from out of the blue.

Hello bena basudev roberts,

While going through our records recently, we found that your AdSense account has posed a significant risk to our AdWords advertisers. Since keeping your account in our publisher network may financially damage our advertisers in the future, we have decided to disable your account.

Please understand that we consider this a necessary step to protect the interests of both our advertisers and our other AdSense publishers. We realise the inconvenience that this may cause you and we thank you in advance for your understanding and cooperation.

If you have any questions about your account or the actions that we have taken, please do not reply to this email. You can find more information by visiting https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57153&hl=en_GB.

Yours sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

Well. Blow me away? I am very confused as I haven’t done anything wrong. I have never clicked on my own advert and have no idea what Google is going on about.

All I can see now is a white mark on the page where the Google adverts were – but via the other online adverts I am currently testing – Google is still there?

The only difference is that this section of the site is managed by Adify; a competing ad network and that might have something to do with it.

To be honest, I find this terrible, poor and unfortunate customer service.

No real explanation is given. You can’t respond to the email you are offered a link to a site that gives you a list of what might be the problem and you are asked to reapply.

So I checked stats on the Yahoo! owned myblog log.
Yesterday I managed 30 clicks on that particular Google banner and they day before 13 and the day before 54 clicks. That is not staggering the PPC for advertisers was extremely low how this can financially damage anyone – is beyond me.

I only expect that our hits have increased because of Mobile World Congress. Last year when we became media partners with the conference (and we didn’t have any advertising at that time) we managed 1 million hits in the second month of business. Our traffic has started to take off again and more traffic means more clicks. I am not sure why Google doesn’t like this – I use Google Analytics, Webmaster tools, Maps and nearly every other service so analysis of my use and site is particularly easy.

Anyway – I am now on a Google downer (the mobile search is bad enough and it seems as though online is going the same way).

I just checked and my Google Mobile Adsense also seems not to be working – just as I was testing it.

Hmmm. More on this conspiracy as I get feedback.

T-Mobile researches Brits

Rating: who doesn’t love choice and flexibility?

T-Mobile has conducted some search in the UK. The findings are:
- Consumers demand more choice and flexibility in 2008

- Over two thirds who joined a gym as a New Year’s resolution said it didn’t deliver value for money

- Nearly a quarter of respondents (22%) with membership fees and subscriptions wasted more than £50 on unused memberships and a further 12% wasted £26 - £50

- 27% would like pay-as-you-go satellite or digital television services and a quarter opted for pay-as-you-go car insurance

innerActive migrates tech to IM

Rating: ads to fund free mobile IM service
by Tony Dennis

Crickey. Another day and another company claiming it's got the best ad serving technology for the mobile sector. Fortunately, innerActive's demo was very impressive.

What the company's two founders Offer Yehudai and co-CEO, Ziv Elul, were itching to tell me is that they've broken out of just offering in-game ad serving.

Their technology has been ported over to another field – IM [Instant Messaging]. We're going to have to wait for MWC in Barcelona for the provider's name. But a Redmond or Newbury based company is probably in the frame.

Litmus test for a compromised brand

Rating: Some of our mobile videos are missing
by Tony Dennis

It's a standard phrase which all vendors of mobile advertising solutions seem trot out. "The brand name won't be compromised," they claim. I've lost count of how many times I've heard this particular mantra uttered by executives with regards to their mobile based ad platform.

It was only during yesterday's conversation with ad newcomers, Mobixell, that I realised I'd actually encountered an instance of this promise going very horribly wrong. Nothing to do with Mobixell, mind you.