Newspaper chain Gannett, has launched free local mobile news sites to complement its newspaper websites. The service spans across some 84 daily newspapers and 19 broadcast station websites, including USA Today.
Users can access Gannett’s mobile news sites by simply adding an ‘m’ before the newspaper’s regular URL (ie: http://m.tennessean.com or http://m.usatoday.com/) or by texting a unique daily short code to 59523.
“Local news and information is more in demand than ever by consumers across the country. Making it easily available by mobile device takes Gannett’s local information expertise and puts it in consumers’ hands,” said Jack Williams, president of Gannett Digital.
The sites, which are free aside from carrier data charges, are updated by local Gannett “information centers” that deliver real-time information to the company’s Web and print properties. The offerings carry local and national ads and include links to national stories from Gannett’s USA Today.
Gannett recently invested $10 million in 4INFO, a wireless search services provider that powers an ad-supported, text-message news alert service for USA Today.
AOL which launched a mobile search services in July 2005, has added a new “Surf the Web” option to its mobile search (http://mobile.aolsearch.com) which makes it easy to view web pages without the scrolling that’s often necessary on mobile devices.
Google Mobile News, Yahoo Mobile News and MSN Mobile News get their feeds from a variety of sources, of course, mostly newspapers. PocketPC Mag has a variety of mobile sites optimized for the Small Screen.
Drop-Down Maps & Other Enhanced Data (above) are appearing in Yahoo Hotel Search Results, says Search Engine Land.
Webware asks — What are the best Web 2.0 services?
Check out their Mobile category which includes:
- Google 411- get phone numbers or addresses while on the go
- 3Jam - lets mobile phone users do a reply-all to their friends via SMS
- 4Info - a mobile SMS alert service
- Cellfire - delivers coupons to your cell phone
- Google Gmail Mobile - mobile version of Google’s Web mail
- Google Maps Mobile - Get directions and find places
- GoWare DoMo - create a home page for your mobile phone
- JuiceCaster - post pictures, videos, and text online
- KushCash - Manage your money on your cell phone
- Kyte.tv - create their own TV network with photos, videos, and music
- Mobivox - Skype users keep in touch with their mobile phone
- Mundu Radio - puts Internet radio stations on your mobile phone
- MyStrands - create their own parties and share music
- Pinger - text messaging by voice, and group calling
- Plusmo - delivers slide shows
- Radar.net - share camera-phone pictures
- ScanR - processes pictures of documents, whiteboards, and business cards, making them readable
- ShoZu- get photos and music on to and off of your phone
- SimulScribe - converts voice mail to text
- SoonR - connects your phone to your PC-based files and programs
- Tellme - free 411 service for directions and search for local businesses
- uLocate - customizable widgets that display your current location using GPS
- WidSets - makes content widgets for your mobile phone
- Winksite - tool for publishing mobile Web sites
- Yahoo OneSearch - integrates all of Yahoo’s mobile services in one lightweight application
Mobile Content is expected to grow from $18bn in 2005 (Informa Telecoms & Media, 2006) to $42.8bn in 2010:
- Music - $11.4bn
- Mobile Games - $11.2bn
- Gambling - $7.6bn
- Adult Content - $2.3bn
- Rest of market - WAP browsing, Infotainment, dating and other applications
Microsoft owns the largest interactive ad agency in the U.S., Avenue A | Razorfish, which it bought in May for $6 billion in cash. That puts Microsoft in the drivers seat for both buying and selling online ads, says AdWeek.
Microsoft today announced the Advertiser and Publisher Solutions (APS) Group. This new business group will be responsible for building Microsoft’s monetization engine to serve the advertiser and publisher community. The APS team will assume responsibility for building and marketing all ad platforms, including Atlas, DRIVEpm, MSN Direct Response and Microsoft AdCenter, along with emerging media types such as in-game and mobile ads, and the agency arm Avenue A | Razorfish.
Google recently bought New York-based Double-Click for $3 billion. DoubleClick deals in banners, videos and other display ads often intended to promote brands.
Internet advertising is expected to become the largest ad segment in 2011, surpassing newspapers. Internet, mobile, videogames and digital out-of-home, among others – grew 36.6 percent to $26.53 billion in 2006 and posted a CAGR of 23.9 percent from 2001 to 2006. Traditional advertising spending, however, grew only 2.4 percent to $183.21 billion in 2006.
The Bivings Report has created a list of top 10 Newspaper Websites.
- New York Times — loaded with great features, and, as of August 7, the website dropped its paid-for content.
- Washington Post — Not only do we like the design and the navigability of the Post’s website, but we really love its database applications.
- USA Today — Social networking. Social networking. Social networking.
- Houston Chronicle — We like the non-newspaperish feeling that this homepage exudes.
- Denver Post — Registering with the site automatically gives you your own blog and your own photo gallery for uploading and sharing photos.
- Knoxville News Sentinel — When we talk about de-cluttering sites and making them look “clean”, this is what we mean.
- Fresno Bee — Great homepage, interesting CrimeMap feature, and overall just a solid site with lots of technology.
- Austin American Statesman — Unique layout and coloring, also giving points for allowing anyone to blog and for linking to them from the homepage.
- Tennessean — Blog-like feel of this site’s homepage helped it make our list.
- San Jose Mercury New — We like the simple layout and the inclusion blog headlines, user photos, forum titles, and podcasts.
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