Aza Raskin shows an interesting concept for Firefox Mobile. Microformats are also mentioned in the video.
Firefox Mobile Concept Video from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.
Tag Archive for 'Mobile Web'
Did you ever wonder what is going on in the mobile startup scene in Germany?
I crawled through the German web and - besides noticing and wondering how many new mom&dad, sport and pet communities we have - collected a decent list of mobile startups.
If you know a company that is missing please add it in the comments. I will keep an eye on any new startups and follow up on this in the future.
| Mobile Content | |
|---|---|
| dailyme.tv | Application to automatically grab videos to your phone. Nokia only so far. |
| hiogi | Text any question when you are on the go to a short code number and the community will reply with an answer. |
| itsmy | Mobile content community. Site looks like Jamba TV ads. |
| ViiF | Stream yourself with video telephony function of your phone and view videos. See the detailed report. |
| yasssu | Reformat content to mobile. For media companies. |
| Mobile Gaming | |
|---|---|
| ewave | Provider of mobile multiplayer games. |
| Mobile Services | |
|---|---|
| Beem it up Scotty | Send any file over the web to your mobile device. |
| cellity | Application for your phone to make cheap phone calls |
| indyphone | Create wallpapers for your mobile phone. |
| Mobile Social Networks | |
|---|---|
| aka-aki | Creative and promising startup. Uses Bluetooth technology to connect with people around you. |
| KWICK! | German social network with new large mobile website. |
| Plazes | Create activities to let your friends know what you are doing where. See recent coverage. |
| peperonity | Mobile community. Did they do this retro-design on purpose? |
| plexme | Connect with people in your region. SMS-based. |
| qeep | Nice design. Cheap messages to other devices. |
| Qiro | Promising application for your phone. Similar to loopt. |
| Rock-It-Mobile | Create your own groups and chat with SMS. |
| scaanoo | Mobile messenger community. Do they think the design of the logo brings success? |
| TownKings | Explore your city. |
| Townster | See above. |
| Youni-mobile | Community and virtual network operator. |
| Microblogging | |
|---|---|
| 1you | Seems like Twitter for dating. Did the designers actually look at the rendered page? |
| baluu | Basis microblogging. Only a few posts a day on the system. |
| brabblr | Broadcasts messages to various microblogging platforms (Twitter, Jaiku, tumblr, …) |
| dasbeep | Another Twitter-clone |
| dukudu | Good looking clone. Not much going on anymore. |
| Frazr | Most active German microblogging service. |
| niimo | Former texteln.de. Quite active. |
| Slogr | *Yawn* |
| Wamadu | Number for each mobile operator so most folks can use their included messages. |
| Was geht bei dir? | *Yawn* again… |
| Mobile Tagging | |
|---|---|
| BeeTag | Mobile Tagging system (Switzerland) |
| KAYWA | Provides mobile blogs and QR reader + other services. (Switzerland) |
| kooaba | Make a picture of the real-world object and easily get further information. (Switzerland) |
| TagYourCity | Post stickers with encoded information in your city. (Austria) |
German Facebook clone StudiVZ is now getting serious competition in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Facebook just launched a localized German version of their social network. Today all Germans have to learn English in school, but most - even college students - prefer to do everything in their primary language.
Many successful international startups do not have the resources to localize right away and focus on the U.S. market first, which gave the various German Web 2.0 clones like StudiVZ a chance to grow. StudiVZ launched in fall 2005 and claims that they are having about 4.9 Million users today. Facebook, with about 700,000 members in Germany, only has a fraction of the users but the user base is expected to raise significantly now that the app is localized.
The German translation is still far from perfect but students and others will begin to see that the Facebook platform is way superior to the poorly copied StudiVZ. StudiVZ basically looks the same as Facebook did several years ago (besides the colors) and doesn’t provide applications, an activity stream or a mobile version.
Although StudiVZ has better connections to German media partners I do not think they can compete against the well-funded giant Facebook. In the end Facebook’s rumored cooperation with Nokia, where all Nokia devices might come with a pre-installed Facebook client, and similar deals will break StudiVZ’s neck. Only the people that have spent hours on StudiVZ collecting friends will have doubts to switch and stay loyal first. However, when more and more of their friends have left StudiVZ they will also embrace the change and join Facebook.
It will be exciting to watch the social networking war and Facebook’s launch will hopefully help to boost the German Web 2.0. You can count that I will keep an eye on this and in particular the usage of the already localized mobile version of Facebook here in Germany.
Kudos to zweinull.cc for pointing the German release out.
Plazes is an the first (?) international location-aware social network and has already been around since 2004. I didn’t come along the term for a long time but back in those days this has been called MoSoSo (= Mobile Social Software). You can discover “Plazes” anywhere in the world, share your location, hook up with your mates or other people in your vicinity and all the usual social networking features such as groups, messaging and commenting are included as well.
The venture has been founded in 2005 by Felix Petersen and Stefan Kellner in Berlin, Germany. By 2006 Plazes had secured seed financing from business angels such as Esther Dyson, Marc Andreessen and Martin Varsavsky. In 2007 Plazes raised €2.7 Million from Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures in another round of funding.
Plazes originally started to map a user’s location based on the MAC address of the wireless network that was being used. New routers were discovered by users and tagged with geo-coordinates. After having downloaded a “Plazer” your notebook was capable of detecting your current location by investigating the network you were using.
Nowadays there are plenty of different locations, which are not tied to wireless networks anymore, in the system. The tracking no longer relies on wireless networks. A user can submit his location by SMS, the website or an updated version of the “Plazer”. The new activity concept adds a Twittery Twist to Plazes so that I can describe what I am doing when broadcasting my whereabouts to the world. The latest version is also preserving a user’s update history and allows planning meetings in the future. Recently a new API has been released to enable developers to build their own applications and to extend the reach of the Plazes network.
Even though Plazes is based in Germany its majority of users is from the United States. Many similar location-aware services like Loopt, Helio or Dodgeball (still alive?) exist and similarities between Plazes and websites like Twitter and Jaiku are evident.
To gain more users the challenge for Plazes will be to distinguish itself from comparable services. Opening the system with a new API is definitely a step in the right direction. It will be interesting to watch the fight between the mobile social networks and how Plazes evolves in the future. I will keep an eye on them and inform you about any interesting updates.
Are you using Plazes? What do you think should Plazes do?
Do interesting German mobile startups exist or is this area occupied by the often-quoted German Copy/Paste Innovation that has been dominating the German Web 2.0?
Damn sure there are! During my research I was not bombarded with dozens of mobile startups, but I found a hand full of interesting and innovative companies I want to further elaborate on in future posts. Partly those companies are even targeting an international market and are not only focused on Germany. Stay tuned for the next posts!
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