Tag Archives: Google

Build A Mobile Web Search Site Using Bing or Yahoo Data?

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It looks like it’s  now possible for developers to create a web search engine on the cheap using data from at least two of the big three (Google, Yahoo,  Microsoft Bing) search engines.  Instead of having to build your own army of crawler bots and commanding them to index the mobile web, a prohibitively expensive and time consuming process, you can simply pass a  query in an API call to retrieve search results from at least two of the big … Continue reading →

Glocut – A Mobile Location Mashup With Great Usability

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Glocut is one of the nicest local search web apps I’ve seen yet. What sets it apart from all the others is its deceptively simple but effective user interface. When you launch Glocut the first time you will need to enter your location. It’s not very fussy about  formatting; a full street address, city, country, postal code or a landmark like “Times Square”; they all work . It gets even better, Glocut has a tiny Java or Windows Mobile native … Continue reading →

Microsoft Live Mesh for Mobile

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Microsoft will be announcing a free mobile synchronization service with the highly original name of “My Phone” at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week.  There’s a little more information about it at microsoft.com/windowsmobile/myphone/. My Phone will synchronize contacts, calendar appointments, photos, text messages and files with “the cloud” and will initially be available “by invitation only” for Windows Mobile 6 users. MS is a bit late getting on the mobile cloud synchronization bandwagon.  Apple’s $99/year MobileMe, which does … Continue reading →

AdSense for Mobile Woes

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I’ve been running AdMob’s ads on my mobile sites for a couple of years and have been very happy with both the revenue and AdMob’s service and support.  In the last six months though I’ve seen AdMob’s fill rate decline from nearly 100% to about 60% with a corresponding decrease in revenue.  I suspect the decline is due to the recession combined with the huge increase in the number of mobile sites and mobile web traffic that has occurred this … Continue reading →

Google’s Mobile Tips

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Google has put up a web site “Mobile Countdown to the New Year“, which posts a new mobile tip every day through January 1st. The site is available in a full web version (google.com/mobile/tips) and also as a mobile website at google.com/mobile/m/tips/countdown. The tips demonstrate clever things that you can do with Google’s mobile services.  There have been six tips posted so far and all have involved Google’s mobile search, which is a good place to start.  Search on mobile … Continue reading →

Google’s Disruptive Android Strategy

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The first Android phone will be announced by Google and T-Mobile tomorrow, September 23 at 10:30 AM Eastern time in New York City.  The phone itself is the HTC Dream branded as a T-Mobile G1. Beyond that everything about the phone is conjecture.  Most rumors put the device in stores Oct 13 at $199 on a two year contract.    Further rumor mongering  predicts UK and German releases, also on T-Mobile in October or November.  There’s also  the potential of a … Continue reading →

Mobile Browser Based Applications

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Last week at both Mobile Web Megatrends and the CTIA Mobile Jam Session a major theme using the browser and mobile web technologies as a replacement for Java, BREW and native mobile applications. Many of the developers attending both events who have been doing Java and native applications expressed frustration with the economic and technical inefficiencies of the mobile application model.  They mentioned platform fragmentation that requires hundreds of versions of an app to support even a fraction of the market, … Continue reading →

Google Gears Opens Up Mobile LBS

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As promised in May at Google I/O, Google has added a geolocation API to Gears. It supports IE, Firefox and Mobile Internet Explorer. When the latest Gears is installed on a compatible phone, the API provides JavaScript methods to retrieve the device’s current location using Cell IDs and/or GPS. Gears provides a standards compliant way to share your location with mobile websites, opening up all sorts of possibilities for location based mobile web services. The announcement is on the official … Continue reading →