Personalized widgets on mobiles! How? When?
By Vivek | July 5th, 2007 at 10:27 pm ET
Not that I hadn’t expected this to come sooner, but as the launch is near I would better talk about it. Starting next month(August 1st), Mobio Networks web application will get a significant feature release that will deliver personalized widgets/apps right on your mobile phone.
Although the idea might sound trivial to start with, it can alleviate the big issue of low mobile app uptake. How? Well, instead of users having to search or ask around for an already scant amount of mobile app information, Mobio will be looking at your interaction with the mobile app to recommend to highly relevant apps.
So, where do the apps fit into the mobile phone? For those of you who are already hooked to Mobio on your mobile, the second tab in the app will get a new life next month. You will be in full control of the tab and will have the ability to add, remove, and use widgets on your mobile phone itself. This feature something that has not been delivered by any of the mobile widget startups, especially in a tabbed UI that most of the users are already using on the web.
Looking at the bigger picture of what all Mobio offers, it does seem to be leading the mobile widgets pack. Especially if you look at the transactional apps from Mobio, like the one for OpenTable where you can make a booking right from the mobile app, that do 2 way data interaction instead of being just a API call or RSS feed display app. Still, Mobio has to watchout for Boston based uLocate that is betting heavily on GPS enabled mobile apps and wireless carrier partnerships, and also Nokia backed Widsets that has the big brand and device list to ride on.
on July 6th, 2007 at 9:22 am
It seems that this feature has already been delivered by Webwag!: we launched the first true mobile widget engine, fully sycnhronized with the Web: most of the users are not mobile only or web only: they use both, and they want to access to their data from these different devices.
And of course, widget could be added/removed directly from mobile, or from web…..
So I would arge that this approach is much more advanced than any of the competitor you’ve mentionned.
http://webwag.com or http://webwag.com/mobile
on July 6th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
Thomas, I am aware that Webwag also offers mobile widgets, but there are few differences the the approach take by you and and Mobio. While Mobio is focusing more on transactional apps, Webwag is delivering web experience onto mobile phones. Both have their advantages. Personally i prefer Mobio since they are working on bringing some of the most needed web services onto mobile phones in a clean UI that requires 3-4 clicks to get to the end point. And not to forget, Mobio supports far more number of mobile devices as compared to Webwag/m, especially my Blackberry. Still, the space is wide open for anyone to capture
on July 11th, 2007 at 11:32 am
One way that Webwag Mobile is way better than Mobio is if you are outside the US - Mobio has no presence anywhere but America. Webwag is almost universal.
on July 11th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
I think Mobio will not try to go for Europe right now since Widsets will become the default install on all the Nokia devices, wiping out everyone else in process. Given the amount of resources required to support a particular device category, it is a wise decision by Mobio.
In my opinion, in the longer run only thing that will matter is which widget service shows up by default on the mobile phones.