Scooopy – Scoops about Gadget, Mobile & Technology
Archive for November, 2009
Microsoft Rolls Out Marketplaces for Mobiles
Nov 24th
Jamie Wells of MSFT just made a blog post about Microsoft’s Marketplaces for Mobile.
Here is the brief of that post:
Earlier in the month we rolled out “Microsoft Mobile Marketplaces,” a new mobile ad product that illustrates the performance advantage gained by combining the power of mobile search and display.
We launched the Marketplace to a select group of advertisers during the critical holiday shopping season, when consumers often are on the go and pressed for time. So far, we’ve launched Marketplaces for Ringtones, and additional Microsoft Mobile Marketplaces are already in the works, including Holiday Shopping, Mobile Games and Wallpapers slated for release in the coming days.
Here’s how Marketplaces work: A user browsing a Microsoft mobile media property, such as Mobile MSN, Hotmail, Messenger, CNBC or FOX Sports, is presented with a display ad promoting a specific consumer product vertical, such as “Last Minute Holiday Deals” or “Hot Ringtones.” When the user clicks on a mobile display banner they are then re-directed to a mobile landing page that contains a list of sponsored links from Bing for Mobile that are based on the specific theme or set of keywords associated with that Marketplace.
In effect, the Mobile Marketplace acts as a transformational mobile ad product, converting a generally reactive medium like mobile display into a more intent-based mobile search product. Benefits to the advertiser are many, but two of note are cost savings and ease of implementation. Advertisers are able to increase their ROI by extending their mobile search campaign across key Microsoft Mobile display properties, and it’s simple to implement – advertisers can participate in the Marketplace simply by setting up a typical Bing for Mobile ad campaign and bidding on just one keyword.
The early results are in and we’re off to a great start. Average Marketplace campaign click-through rates (CTR) are currently running in excess of 20 percent, which is over five times more than the average CTR for a mobile search campaign.
Stay tuned as we launch additional Microsoft Mobile Marketplaces over the next few months. In the meantime, please contact our Mobile Sales Specialists at mobads@microsoft.com if you are interested in participating. Also, leave a comment below if you have any thoughts on specific Mobile Marketplaces you’d like to see brought to life, or if you have any additional thoughts you’d like to share on this new product.
Opera Mobile 10 Beta Released for Windows Mobile Phones
Nov 23rd
This version for Windows Mobile users elevates mobile browsing to a desktop-like experience, helping people to search, socialize and stay connected while on-the-go.
The Opera Mobile 10 beta for Windows Mobile looks and feels similar to the Opera 10 desktop browser and Opera Mini 5 beta. Opera is creating more cohesion between its products by introducing a unified look across many of its platforms. Opera maintains its powerful arsenal of features in this beta, including Speed Dial, tabbed browsing, a password manager and its super, server-side compressor, Opera Turbo.
Read more and get to know all the techy details on our mobile pages.
If you don’t care about that, download Opera Mobile 10 Beta for Windows Mobile phones.
Opera Mobile 10 Beta works on both Classic and Professional editions of Windows Mobile 6.5, Windows Mobile 6.1, Windows Mobile 6.0 and on Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC.
Devices tested: Acer N311, HTC Touch 2, HTC Touch Pro 2 (Rhodium), HTC Touch Diamond 2, HTC Touch HD, HTC Pure, HTC Touch Diamond, HTC Touch Pro, HTC Touch Viva, HTC Touch 3G, HTC Touch, HTC Tilt 2, HTC Touch Cruise, HTC Touch Cruise 2 (Iolite), HTC TyTn II, HTC TyTn, HTC Touch Pro (Raphael), Motorola Attila (A3100), Oki C4, Samsung Omnia i900, Samsung Omina II, Samsung SWD-M100, Sony Ericsson Xperia X1, Toshiba Portege, Toshiba TG01, Xda Zest.
Devices tested: Acer N311, HTC Touch 2, HTC Touch Pro 2 (Rhodium), HTC Touch Diamond 2, HTC Touch HD, HTC Pure, HTC Touch Diamond, HTC Touch Pro, HTC Touch Viva, HTC Touch 3G, HTC Touch, HTC Tilt 2, HTC Touch Cruise, HTC Touch Cruise 2 (Iolite), HTC TyTn II, HTC TyTn, HTC Touch Pro (Raphael), Motorola Attila (A3100), Oki C4, Samsung Omnia i900, Samsung Omina II, Samsung SWD-M100, Sony Ericsson Xperia X1, Toshiba Portege, Toshiba TG01, Xda Zest.
Opera Mobile 10 Beta Released for Symbian S60 Devices
Nov 23rd
Nokia owners just got a load of win delivered with the release of Opera Mobile 10 beta. Opera Mobile’s facelift hits harder than office linebacker Terry Tate – Yes, the beta actually merges the best from your favorite desktop experience into a traditional sleek minimal Mobile interface!
Read more and get to know all the techy details on opera’s mobile pages. If you don’t care about that, simply download for your Nokia, Samsung or Sony Ericsson S60 device.
Opera Mobile 10 Beta works on Nokia, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson smartphones running Symbian/S60, 3rd edition FP1 and FP2 & 5th edition.
Devices Tested:Nokia E51, E52, E55, E63, E66, E71, E75, N78, N79, N81, N82, N85, N86, N95 8GB, N96, N97, 5320, 5630, 5800, 6220c, 6720c
Samsung i7110, Samsung i550, Samsung Omnia HD, Samsung Innov8
Sony Ericsson Satio
Opera 10.10 with Opera Unite is now Available
Nov 23rd
Opera Software released Opera 10.10 with Opera Unite, a powerful technology for personal content sharing directly between all your devices!
Opera’s latest Web browser introduces a new technology platform, Opera Unite, allowing you to stream music or share files, photos and more, right from the browser. Learn more about our latest browser innovations.
Here are three things you can do with Opera Unite:
- Have you ever shared 10 GB of photos directly from your browser? Try the Photo Sharing application.
- Have you ever streamed your entire music library to another computer, mobile phone or game console? We recommend you try the Media Player application.
- Have you ever had time to brew a cup of coffee while you wait for a Web page to load? Opera Turbo speeds up your network connection, giving you eight-times-faster Web surfing over slow connections than other browsers.
Opera’s Unique Features
1 Opera Unite Use applications to share content with others in a quick and easy way.
2 Opera Turbo Boost your speed with our powerful servers to compress Web pages, so you get them faster.
3 Visual tabs Drag the handle underneath the tabs to reveal thumbnails of your open Web pages.
4 Customizable Speed Dial Get easy access to your favorite sites every time you open a new tab. Choose the layout and the background you prefer.
5 Opera Link Synchronize your Speed Dial, bookmarks, notes and other useful data.
And, so much more:
Content blocking
Make Web pages load more quickly—block images, pop-ups, and plug-ins, as you wish.
Mouse gestures
Perform movements with your mouse to navigate the Web with Opera’s mouse gestures.
E-mail and feed integration
Use the built-in mail client and online feed reader as your default clients.
Reopen closed tabs
If you accidentally close a tab, you can retrieve it from the Closed Tabs button.
Password manager
Store usernames and passwords, so they will be at your fingertips.
Sessions
Save your open tabs, or start with the pages you had open when Opera was last closed.
Inline spell checker
Spell-check quickly as you type, with support for 48 languages.
Opera Dragonfly
Debug in a cross-device, cross-platform environment with the Opera Dragonfly tools.
Opera Mail
Access, organize and search all of your e-mail with the fastest mail client available.
Quick Find
Search the full text from any Web site you visit, right from your address bar.
Personalize Opera
Choose from hundreds of skins, add or remove buttons, toolbars, or change the entire layout.
Feed Preview
Preview a feed in a clean, multiple-column layout before subscribing to it.
Get started today and download Opera 10.10!
Nokia’s Netbook Comes With Marathon 12-hour Battery Life
Nov 22nd
Nokia is entering the personal computer market with a small netbook computer, the Booklet 3G, which has specifications much like a cellphone: 3G, Bluetooth, GPS, and a headphone and microphone combined on one jack. It’s also got a price that gets a lot better if you sign up for a two-year contract for wireless data on AT&T $299. (It costs $599 without the $60-a-month commitment.)
The Booklet, which will be on sale exclusively at Best Buy starting in mid-November, runs Windows 7. And like Apple’s MacBooks, it is cut out of a single piece of aluminum.
The most intriguing feature, however, is not common on laptops or cellphones: 12-hour battery life.
Nokia is trying to carve out a premium segment in the netbook market, which has largely seen a race to the bottom in prices. Best Buy’s current assortment ranges from $250 to $500 for netbooks without a wireless contract and subsidy. AT&T offers three netbook models with a contract for $200 each.
AT&T’s best seller, the Acer Aspire, claims only three hours of battery life.
One way that Nokia was able to extend the battery life was to use the slowest of Intel’s Atom processors. That raises the risk that the Booklet, like other Atom-based devices, will be sluggish to use.
Nokia is clear that you wouldn’t want to use the machine to play intensive video games or to do bridge engineering. But when I played with one at Nokia’s press conference in New York Wednesday, it seemed fast enough rendering complex Web pages and displaying YouTube videos.
At the event, Glenn Lurie, the president of AT&T’s emerging device unit, said he understood that a $60-a-month data plan put the device out of the range of many potential consumers. He said that AT&T would introduce other data plans with lower prices before the end of the year, possibly including prepaid plans and those that charge users only for the days they are actually online.
