The Next Web

Mippin brings back the Pepsi Challenge by reading Engadget

Written on July 9, 2008 – 12:14 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

Mippin, a London-based start-up that redesigns online content for mobile consumption, has welcomed a new CEO and reached a fairly impressive milestone of a half million users. The new CEO, Judy Gibbons, runs a company that has developed a mobile portal which allows its users to easily browse through news sites and blogs. It also remembers what you kind of articles you like, offering a personalized news selection.

Gibbons told GigaOM blogger Stacey Higginbotham that she believes there’s only one Internet, and no separate mobile one. But browsing with a mobile phone comes with a lot of challenges, which her company is willing to meet.

So far they seem to handle them pretty well. Even with my own backward Nokia phone, I can easily browse through my favorite blogs. Though Higginbotham questions Mippin’s ability to stay alive, as in a world where mobile portals keep popping up - it’s hard to survive as a start-up based on a advertisement-driven business model. She does have a point, yet I believe she somewhat underestimates the potential of Mippin, as their service is well-executed (”nice” in Higginbotham’s words) and knows how to use the power of the iPhone for its own good.

Mippin launched an iPhone version that allows you to browse through web content superfast. They know how to promote this, and started a viral-sensitive Pepsi Challenge - in reference to the cola-tasting tests Pepsi always won. Two Mippin employees show how much faster Mippin loads their favorite blog, Engagdet, and how easily you can browse to the next or previous post. The latter is particularly important, as an iPhone RSS reader (like the one by Google) also loads fast - yet they don’t have the next/ previous buttons.

Although I share some of the doubts of Higginbotham - it remains hard to tempt the early adopters -, I do give Mippin a higher chance of succeeding than many of its competitors. Why? Simple. They have developed a really good product.

I hope you like that post!

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gigaom, iphone, london, mippin, mobile, portal, rss, rss reader, united kingdom

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The REAL competition to Search Engines?

Written on April 22, 2008 – 7:52 am
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten,

One of the theories discussed at the Alt Search Engines meeting was that the competition for Search Engines might not just be in different, faster or better search engines but in alternative ways of finding information.

The AllTh.at team

One example is Smart Agents like AllTh.at and Google Alerts. Lots of people use Google Alerts to keep them up-to-date of new information. AllTh.at saves your searches and keeps looking for new results and notifies you via email or RSS. Previously users might have used search engines to find new information. Now there is a continuously updating search query active in the background that notifies us of new results.

Services such as Symbaloo and Netvibes make it easier to manage lots of information. This makes it easier to browse the web and find stuff. For a lot of people Google is THE portal to the web. They don’t use bookmarks or even URLs but simply open a browser, wait for Google to appear and type in what they need. As portal services (like Symbaloo) gain traction people will be less inclined to use Google to navigate the web.

What are the alternatives to Google?

A third example are the vertical search engines. You can use Google to search for words but it is more logical to use a dedicated dictionary search engine like Answers.com and a car search engine like UsedCars.com. The vertical search engines are becoming more popular every day and more verticals appear left and right.

Can you think of more ways to get to information without using Google? WikiPedia is a good alternative to Google is you are looking for specific information. What other alternatives are there?

allth.at, alternative search, altsearchengines, google, portal, san francisco, Symbaloo

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