Real time transit information is something that is a natural for the mobile web. It’s huge in Japan where it’s often combined with QR Codes for almost instant access. Check out the graphic below from Forrester Research via ZD Net’s Russell Shaw to see how it works. Here in the West, using 2D codes for this purpose is in it’s infancy. There’s a pilot project in Paris but widespread adoption seems years away. The big thing holding back the use … Continue reading
Mobile social bookmarking site Tappity (review), seems to be getting pretty popular – at least its users are adding new sites at a rapid clip. I still use del.icio.us for bookmaking with an Opera Mini bookmarklet. I’d like to switch to Tappity but there’s still no way to add a bookmark from Tappity’s mobile site and no way to get to the PC edition from a mobile browser – the site always redirects mobiles, even those using Opera Mini, to … Continue reading
I’ve added Earthcomber, a new mobile web local search site to the WapReview direcctory and Yeswap.com mobile portal under Search/Local. For a search site Earthcomber is unusual in that it’s menu driven – there is no search box. After setting your location, which involves keying in an address or just a zip code, you use a hierarchical menu to drill down to the category you are interested in. So to find a sushi place, chose, Let’s Eat on the home … Continue reading
Mowser.com is Russell Beattie’s latest mobile site. It combines search, a transcoder and a mobile site directory with over 500 links, a directory of over 2000 feeds, chat room, forum and Russ’ new blog. It’s an impressive mobile portal. In brief testing the transcoder worked well. The search results are high quality, I tried to figure out which major search engine Mowser is using by trying the same queries in Mowser, Google, Yahoo and MSN Live. It looks like it’s … Continue reading
America Online, while not the web powerhouse it once was, is still a high traffic site. AOL also has a substantial mobile presence at wap.aol.com. AOL Mobile includes all the features of other big portals like Yahoo, Google, and MSN – search, news, weather, sports and business – plus links to other AOL properties like Mapquest and MovieFone. I’ve reviewed pieces of AOL Mobile before like MapQuest, but I’ve never written about the overall experience. It’s a big site so … Continue reading
It looks like Google has come up with an answer to Yahoo’s oneSearch (review). When you visit mobile Google search (google.com/m), there’s a new link at the top of the page heralding “New Try our new mobile search” Follow that link and you’ll see a page that works a whole lot like oneSearch. Gone are the options to search Web, Images, Local Listings and Mobile Web. In their place is a single search box. Searches now return a mixture of … Continue reading
The mobile web version of Yahoo’s oneSearch (us.m.yahoo.com/p/search) has launched. In addition to that address which takes you to a dedicated oneSearch page, there is a oneSearch box at the top of Yahoo’s US mobile home page at us.m.yahoo.com Yahoo makes some pretty impressive claims regarding oneSearch. According to Yahoo; “Finally, mobile search that really works! Introducing Yahoo! oneSearch, an amazingly better search experience that redefines search for the phone. It’s designed to give you instant answers – exactly what … Continue reading
A meme (rhymes with theme) according to Wikipedia, is a “unit of cultural information” such as “…tunes, catch-phrases, beliefs, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches.” As used in the Web 2.0 world it seems to have come to mean “hot topic” or “the next big thing”. A lot of people have a need to know the day’s newest and hottest memes and a number of Web sites attempt to track just that. The first was probably … Continue reading