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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Written on June 13, 2008 – 10:30 am
David Petherick, Contributing Editor, United Kingdom
Google Reader has changed. Accessing my favourite feeds on my Nokia N95 this morning, I found something unfamiliar on my screen - as illustrated below on an iPhone browser simulator.
So what’s new? Well, firstly, here’s what the old one looked like:
The new look allows one to swap views between the ‘classic’ old style view to a feed view, where each individual feed you have subscribed to is shown, with the number of unread stories shown for each resource, or a ‘tags view, as shown here, where the categories and tags that you assign to your feeds is presented.
This last feature is one I really appreciate, as it means that I can jump straight to the topics that I’m interested in right now - which of course may change. The fonts are a lot bigger than previously, which I find a bit tedious, as I don’t enjoy having to scroll to see ten headlines - I like seeing them all at the same time - it sort of misses the point not being able to read quickly. I’m sure Google will be adding the ability to customise the display or set defaults, and I also think that adding the ‘three buttons’ at the bottom of the page, or ot least having quick shortcuts to provide these functions will be appreciated.
Nice additional functionality, and very much focused on making the way you view content very personalised, but it could benefit from a little more flexibility in terms of font sizes and rapid one-handed navigation aids to get through the content.
Point your mobile phone to Google Reader.
Update: See Google Reader Blog for news of what was announced on Monday as a Beta for iPhones “and other mobile phones with advanced browsers”.
Written on March 31, 2008 – 1:27 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
UPDATE: Caleb Elston from Toluu supplied us with 100 invites. Thanks Caleb! Leave a comment if you’d like to receive one.
Ok, it’s not like Friendfeed, but RSS service Toluu is getting a fair amount of attention in the blogosphere. After receiving a beta invite from founder Caleb Elston, I figured it was about time to test the service myself.
So, you could use Toluu as a RSS reader, but it’s not the main purpose of the service. On Toluu it’s all about importing, sharing and discovering. Or like they say themselves: “Feeds locked away in a solitary feedreader? Set them free!” The idea is that you should share your RSS feeds with friends, because the best way to discover new talented bloggers is through the recommendations of your pals. Toluu makes this whole sharing part pretty easy by just asking for an OPML file. Moreover, they offer OpenId support so signing up shouldn’t be all too hard either.
The fun part starts after uploading your feeds. Toluu matches you with people who have the same taste in blogs and recommends feeds ‘you might like’. In my case, the recommended blogs turn out to be Copyblogger and the personal writings of Jason Calacanis and Steve Rubel. Oh well, why not following some more web celebs? However, the recommendations do make sense, since I’m really into blogging and Web 2.0.
Another interesting feature is the Activity page. You’ll get a neat overview of what feeds your friends are adding (with the easy-to-use bookmarklet) and who they’ve added as a contact.
The RSS service is still in beta so I will forgive them some mishaps in the interface. For example, the amount of clicks can be drastically reduced by showing the recommend feeds on the ‘Matches’ page.
ReadWriteWeb really digs this service and even gives you 10 Reasons Why You’re Going to Love Toluu, and they’re not the only one. Yet I have a major concern why Toluu might have some trouble attracting a larger crowd.
The thing is, I’m not sure whether Toluu can survive the community-creating efforts of Google. In case you haven’t noticed yet, Google is adding more and more social features.
One of the latest examples of this strategy happened to be Google Reader-related. Last December, the Internet giant linked Gtalk with Reader so that you can see what your contacts like. This move is based on the same philosophy of Toluu: nobody can make better recommendations than your friends. You trust them, probably have some similar interests and moreover, they’re important to you. Before I was introduced to Toluu, this was THE way for me to discover new blogs and interesting articles.
Another Google Reader feature that might be a threat to Toluu is the recommendations box. It’s right in your face when open Reader and it often comes up with some good blogs.
Despite these overlapping functions, I did decide to use Toluu. Yet I guess this has more to do with my natural interest for new services rather than that I had the feeling I missed something. Moreover, I think Toluu is a very sympathetic service as they promote sharing and have also joined the open data movement.
However, I’m afraid that a lot of Google Readers will just think: “Well, I already know what my Gtalk contacts read, why would I join this new service where none of my friends are?”.
Well, I can just hope that the invite-function and badges like the one the left will do their viral job.
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