The Skweezer Blog

Mike Dano published an interesting story on Fierce Wireless today. The main gist of the story revolves around a recent report by research group CCS, which indicates that Microsoft’s Windows Mobile operating system is losing ground to Google’s Android. Some reasons to support this claim, according to Dano’s article, include:

• Motorola is betting the farm on Android, a decision notable in light of the company’s heavy reliance on Windows Mobile for its previous smartphone efforts (think the Moto Q). The message from Motorola’s leadership is clear: Windows Mobile can’t turn us around. (I realize that Motorola is still technically a Windows Mobile user, but based on the company’s massive Android push I think it’s safe to remove the company from the Windows Mobile column for the time being.)
• HTC–Microsoft’s first and largest Windows Mobile licensee–continues to pour energy into Android at the expense of Windows Mobile. “CCS Insight predicts that sales of HTC Android devices could outnumber those of its Windows Mobile products in 2010,” the firm said. “This is undoubtedly a worrying prospect for Microsoft given its current reliance on HTC as its biggest licensee.”
• Sony Ericsson’s latest smartphone, the Xperia X2, sports Windows Mobile, though the company also supports Symbian products and has stated its intent to build Android devices. CCS Insight predicts Sony Ericsson’s new management will abandon Windows Mobile in favor of platforms it has more control over, like Android. A Sony Ericsson spokesman however reiterated the company’s support for Windows Mobile, and declined to speculate about Sony Ericsson’s future platform plans.
• LG, the world’s third largest cell phone maker and a latecomer to the smartphone game, recently promised to produce 50 Windows Mobile phones. However, the company also recently announced its first Android device. “Microsoft may have offered LG preferential licensing terms in order to offset weakening commitment from HTC,” posited CCS Insight.
• As for Samsung, the world’s second largest handset maker, it remains a Windows Mobile licensee, though it too has worked with Android lately and has dabbled in Symbian as well.

Of course there are other major players vying for the mobile OS spotlight along with Microsoft and Google–most notably the open-source Symbian OS from Nokia and Research In Motion’s Blackberry platform. And of course there’s Apple’s ridiculously successful iPhone.

When we started Skweezer back in the day, potential investors and partners always asked us, “How does your business relate to Microsoft?” Now the question is usually, “How does your business relate to Google?” Looks like there may be a changing of the guard as Google steps in to replace a faltering Microsoft as the alpha-male at the head of the mobile operating system pack.

Still, as Dano notes in his article:

…as with anything Microsoft, it’s not over until the company says it’s over.

Posted by Mark Sieve

I just read that Twikini, a popular mobile Twitter client for Windows mobile devices, now features an option to launch links through Skweezer. Twikini is the latest of a number of mashups, apps, and services that take advantage of Skweezer’s free API to provide users with mobile-friendy Web browsing.

It’s always interesting to see how different people and programmers use our technology–from Chinese dissidents using Skweezer for anonymous Web access to the folks at Twikini enhancing their Twitter app… it’s gratifying to see that so many people are finding a use for our technology.

If you’re a programmer, you can check out our API information sheet at http://company.skweezer.com/developers.

A little info on Twikini from their site:

“Twikini offers a powerful and efficient way to use Twitter on your phone. It conveniently updates your favorite feeds in the background, and leverages the camera, GPS, media, touch screen, keyboard, graphics and storage capabilities of your device.

Our goal is to make Twikini the best designed Twitter app for Windows devices in the world.”

Posted by Mark Sieve

Update: Posted this 5 minutes ago and was just sent an e-mail about another mobile Twitter client called TinyTwitter that’s also using Skweezer. Guess there are a lot of people building Twitter apps these days…

An interesting perspective from Mike Dano over at FierceWireless… I think it continues to make the case that a need for a quick-access, streamlined view of web content will always be needed in a highly fractured device—and standards—marketplace.

A begrudging farewell to WAP

Posted and commentary by Kevin Perkins

Skweezer on the iPhone

I was just reading an article on FierceMobileContent that announced that mobile Web access is slower than Web access from a desktop computer. This, I must say, was not a terribly earth-shattering revelation for those of us who frequently use our mobile devices to browse the Internet.

According to the study referenced in the article, mobile Web access is 30% slower than the average Internet connection used from a desktop computer. This seems a bit optimistic to me. Most of the people I know have DSL in their homes (3.5 Mbps appears to be the norm these days here in L.A.) and I don’t get anything like two-thirds of that when I’m out and about with my iPhone. This is probably why the YouTube app, App Store access, and other cool iPhone features only work when connected to the Net via WiFi. A wise call on Apple’s part, as slow network speeds would suck all the coolness right out of these apps.

All this is to say that waiting for sites to load on your phone can be slow and tedious. And this is the reason that Skweezer is still a great product, despite the proliferation of high-end handsets that promise the World Wide Web at your fingertips. Yes, your new phone might have a great browser and gigabytes of memory… but that won’t matter if the sites you visit take forever to load. Skweezer makes Web pages load faster and easier to read on any mobile device—from Paleolithic circa-1998 flip-phones to the iPhone 3G. And it’s completely free. Check Skweezer out at www.skweezer.com and see for yourself if it makes browsing on the mobile Web easier and better.

Posted by Mark Sieve

I’ve been asked by several people to provide feedback about Russell Beattie and Mike Rowehl shuttering Mowser. So, I’m just going to post something on our blog rather than respond to everyone individually.

Let me first say that it’s too easy to jump on the pile without first acknowledging those guys’ bravery. It takes a lot of guts to put it all on the line. I really hope they land on their feet.

That said, the Mobile Web is not dead. Are those who are claiming it serious? That’s a preposterous and naive position; it’s just getting started. Contrary to what Russ has put out there about this space, Skweezer has had many successes. And our company continues to innovate and execute in a very steady, patient manner. This is a nascent market, not a dead one.

There are some other invalid assumptions being raised as well–that some people think transcoding is: unnecessary, without a business model, or just plain “easy” to do. Russell represents this in one of his posts on how a transcoder works. Just add Mowser to the other Skweezer clones who thought along those lines (baresite, IYHY, et al) as well.

There’s a fundamental problem with the implementation strategy of leveraging open-source: to do a proper transcoder—and to do it well—these projects only get you about 80% of the way there. Then, that last 20%… is extremely difficult. All of a sudden issues of security, scalability, localization, private-labeling, new feature implementation, personalization, liability, etc. rear their ugly head. And this is what separates the men from the boys. As an example, Yahoo (Novarra), AOL (InfoGin), Mowser and Google can’t even support SSL in their mobile transcoding (Skweezer does). I’m telling you, this isn’t as easy as it looks, folks!

Aside from the Google’s and the Yahoo’s of the world, new entrants like Mowser will always be at a disadvantage because we’ve put in the time, energy, and money LONG AGO. Here are some of the milestones:

• Skweezer firsts…
  • Skweezer invented; patent filed (2001)
  • Portal-based transcoding engine: Skweezer (2003)
  • Globally distributed mobile ad platform: Skweezer Ads (2004)
  • Pagination system that splits large Web pages up for viewing on cell phones (2005)
  • Mobile Web page translation feature (2005)
  • Portal-based mobile RSS reader (2005)
  • “Find in page” search that carries Web search keywords into search result pages (2007)
• Awards and Honors…
  • 2007 Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine’s Best Software Awards: Winner - Pocket PC Internet: Web Compression Service
  • 2007 MobileVillage Mobile Star Awards: Gold Star - Consumer Software: Mobile Web Content Aggregator / Portal
  • 2007 MobileVillage Mobile Star Awards: Gold Star - Enterprise Software: Mobile Marketing
  • 2007 MobileVillage Mobile Star Awards: Gold Star - Visionary: Wireless Services (Skweezer founders Kevin Perkins and Mark Sieve)
  • 2007 PDA Friendly Website Awards: Winner - PDA Home Page
  • 2006 MobileVillage Mobile Star Awards: Gold Star - Personal Software: Mobile Web Content Provider
  • 2005 MobileVillage Mobile Star Awards: Gold Star - Personal Software: Mobile Web Content Provider

Forgive the commercial, but I bring it up only to illustrate that—even with all the goodness—it still only represents 50% of the game. The other half is the execution of the innovation, delivered in a simple and clear way, that enables business partners to monetize mobile traffic. Unfortunately, Mowser failed to deliver on that statement. Running interstitials between pages killed the user experience despite the glowing praises of bloggers, who were undoubtedly motivated by commissions from Mowser’s Affiliate Linking Program. (”Find Mowser through me, and I get a rev share of whatever ads get clicked!”)

So, is Mowser’s death also the death of the Mobile Web? Hardly. Matthew Miller raises a number of key points why the Mobile Web will continue on. One thing that I’d like to add to Matthew’s “environment-optimized, one Web” notion… is that there’s a bigger picture here than just “desktop” and “mobile”. As “Web” content finds its way outside of these environments more and more (handheld games, cars, SMS, etc), users and publishers will need a solution that will continue to provide semantic access to content while providing publishers with tools to monetize this activity.

Such is Skweezer.

Posted by Kevin Perkins

Recently, someone at a conference was telling me how much he liked using the Google Mobile Transcoder.

Having not used it in ages, I decided to check it out and see how their product has developed over the last few years.

Here was my experience:

• I loaded up Firefox and emulated as an Ericsson T616. It has a 10k deck size.
• I went to Google.com, and the user interface was their mobile interface.
• I typed in the search term Chile.
• So, going in sequential order of their search results, I clicked the first Related News link. It went to a dead page. I clicked the second Related News link, and it went to another dead page.
• Next, I went back to the search results, and clicked the More Related News link. It took me to another search result page—just about News. About half of all of the links there went to dead pages as well. Of the remaining, 30% were WAP 1.0/WML pages, and the last 20% were mobilized versions of content.
• In going back to the original Chile search result page, I clicked the first Web pages search result. It took me to a Wikipedia page about Chile. Per the profile of my device, Google cut up the Wikipedia page into 78 pieces with links to Google Reader, and the Wikipedia TOC at the top. (See picture at right.)
• Back on the Chile search result page again, I clicked the second link in the result set, and went to a geography-encyclopedia–like page about Chile. Google cut it into 4 pages. I clicked on Google’s Show Section button (the little “+” sign), and went to the portion of the web page that contained its link navigation. At that point, Google said I was on page 2/8. I clicked the Hide Section button, and it took me back to the homepage… or so I thought. It  apparently cut off the top graphic that was there just a few seconds ago. In addition, Google said I was
  on page 2/5.
• The third link that I tested in the Chile search result list took me to The CIA World Factbook about Chile. Upon clicking that link, the Google Mobile Transcoder took me to a page that said “Google will not reformat for your phone“, and gave me a link to access the page directly. Upon clicking that link, I went to the CIA site directly without the Google Mobile Transcoder. But, in doing so, I noticed why Google can’t (won’t?) transcode this page: it’s because the CIA site is in Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). So, apparently the Google Mobile Transcoder does not support SSL transactions.

If I have my test methodology wrong, or if someone has a different—or similar experience—please comment so that I can adjust my test. It’s possible this term was the exception, and not the rule.

By Kevin Perkins

Skweezer technology can now be easily integrated into Web application “mashups”.

IRVINE, Calif., April 2, 2008—Greenlight Wireless today announced the release of the Skweezer Application Programming Interface (API), found online at www.greenlightwireless.net/developers, which assists developers with integrating Skweezer’s content mobilization technology into new applications.

Skweezer, a Web-based service that compresses desktop Web content for use on cell phones, has been integrated into a wide range of applications since its release in 2003. Installed mobile browsers, mobile Web site directories, and even Apple widgets are just a few ways that Skweezer has been integrated into the latest wave of Web application mashups.

“In the past, enterprising programmers needed to experiment with Skweezer parameters through trial and error,” said Greenlight Wireless president Mark Sieve. “The Skweezer API makes integrating Skweezer technology very easy and, once our advertising component is in place, profitable as well.”

The Skweezer API will shortly be integrated with Greenlight Wireless’ converged online advertising solution, which provides ads to both desktop and mobile traffic. This combination will allow programmers to add Skweezer technology to their application and at the same time monetize their mobile Web traffic with high-yielding cost-per-click ads.

Skweezer technology compresses and reformats content being downloaded, so that it loads faster, looks better, and is easier to navigate. Skweezer has introduced many mobile browsing innovations and has won several awards in 2007, including a Gold Star in the Mobile Star Awards and Best Web Compression Service in the Smartphone and Pocket PC Magazine Best Software Awards. Skweezer is completely platform-independent and can be accessed from Pocket PC, Palm, MS Smartphone, Blackberry, iPhone, Symbian, PSP2, and WAP 2.0 compliant devices.

About Greenlight Wireless:
Greenlight Wireless is a leading innovator of wireless technologies, providing mobile solutions for enterprise-level businesses, Web portals, and wireless carriers. Greenlight Wireless’ consumer-oriented Skweezer service optimizes Web content for handheld devices, providing a richer browsing experience and adding value to wireless data offerings. Greenlight’s Advertizer product is a cutting-edge advertising program for operators, search engines, and publishers who want to monetize their content in the mobile environment.

On the Net: Greenlight Wireless site: www.greenlightwireless.net
Skweezer Public API page: www.greenlightwireless.net/developers

Posted by Monica Sato

Skweezer technology provides optimized Web access to Orange Madagascar’s 1.4 million customers.

IRVINE, Calif., March 19, 2008—Orange Madagascar S.A. has released its new Orange World portal powered by Greenlight Wireless’ Skweezer technology, which optimizes Web pages and searches for mobile handsets.

Orange World is a mobile Internet portal that provides Orange Madagascar’s 1.4 million customers with access to Web content, such as news and sports scores, from their mobile phones and PDAs. Skweezer Private Label has been integrated into this portal so that Orange customers will be able to browse off-portal and visit any Web site on the Internet, whether it’s mobile-friendly or not.

“Orange Madagascar has chosen to work with Greenlight Wireless to integrate Skweezer into its WAP portal because of Greenlight’s experience, knowledge and expertise in the technology of reformatting pages to adapt them to the screens of mobile phones,” said Orange Madagascar Product Manager Tohiniaina Raherimanantsoa.

Approximately 24% of all Skweezer users are from so-called “emerging markets”. The growth in this sector is an ongoing tend that became apparent in mid-2005, when Skweezer penetration in Latin America, China, and India began to accelerate. Skweezer Private Label is also used by Orange Dominicana’s 850,000-plus customers, with further Private Label implementations due to be deployed in upcoming months.

Orange Madagascar is using Skweezer Private Label, which is a carrier-grade solution that optimizes Web content for PDAs and cell phones. Skweezer compresses and reformats content being downloaded, so that it loads faster, looks better, and is easier to navigate. Skweezer has introduced many mobile browsing innovations and has won several awards in 2007, including a Gold Star in the Mobile Star Awards and Best Web Compression Service in the Smartphone and Pocket PC Magazine Best Software Awards. Skweezer is completely platform-independent and can be accessed from Pocket PC, Palm, MS Smartphone, Blackberry, iPhone, Symbian, PSP2, and WAP 2.0 compliant devices.

About Greenlight Wireless:
Greenlight Wireless is a leading innovator of wireless technologies, providing mobile solutions for enterprise-level businesses, Web portals, and wireless carriers. Greenlight Wireless’ consumer-oriented Skweezer service optimizes Web content for handheld devices, providing a richer browsing experience and adding value to wireless data offerings. Greenlight’s Advertizer product is a cutting-edge advertising program for operators, search engines, and publishers who want to monetize their content in the mobile environment.

On the Net: Greenlight Wireless site: www.greenlightwireless.net

Posted by Monica Sato

Today Vodafone launched its Othello Image Service where users can snap photos of physical places and get search results about their surroundings.

Fascinating!

Of course, the general concept isn’t totally new given NeoMedia’s NeoReader and OP3’s ShotCode that drive information about the physical world based on bar codes. And really, Denso has made the QR ubiquitous in Japan since 1994 where you can get info throughout Japan from menus, street signs, billboards, etc. More thoughts here.

But this is interesting because it’s leveraging the growing movement of geo-targeting the world. Yahoo! has been doing this with Flickr (pic) for some time, and Microsoft has a similar initiative called Photosynth (pic), which, is quite amazing. Based on some insider knowledge that I have, Microsoft will eventually plop an ad model around the physical locations that get uploaded as well.

With that in mind, there’s definitely an opportunity for Vodafone to monetize Othello with local ads. As others pontificate about what is the application to make this happen, Vodafone is definitely executing on its innovation. Whether Vodafone provides results via search, or via SMS… it seems a no-brainer to attach targeted advertising. Here’s what the experience might look like:

1. My wife and I go to the Foo Fighters concert in San Diego, CA and figure it’s going to be a long night. We snap a pic of SDSU’s Cox Arena and MMS it to Vodafone (if Vodafone, and this service, existed in the US). We hope to find info about the surrounding area (restaurants, hotels, etc)
2. Vodafone understands this pic (the building even has the name on it, so I hope so!), and sends me back either a text message pointing to a search result list

   OR…Vodafone sends me just a straight text message about the building’s general information:

Seems like it would be a cool service and a very targeted way to advertise relevant content. Although, if you’re at the building already, you probably don’t want directions, a map, the address or the phone number, right?!  So, I think this completely plays up an intuitive local and sponsored results list for services and products near the location, where each link is a monetizable click.

It’ll be interesting to see more and more operators start executing on these innovations and start giving search engines a run for their money.

By Kevin Perkins

The days after Christmas see a dramatic increase in mobile Web activity.

IRVINE, Calif., December 28, 2007—Greenlight Wireless Corporation today announced that usage of its Skweezer mobile browsing service has dramatically increased since December 26th, which appears to support industry speculation that mobile handsets were a popular item under the Christmas tree.

Aggregated mobile Web traffic data from the Skweezer portal and Skweezer Private Label implementations indicate the following:

– An average month-to-month growth rate of 11% between January and November 2007
– A 21% increase in worldwide traffic from December 25th to December 26th 2007
– Traffic from North America experienced the highest post-Christmas increase in traffic at 28%
– Mobile Web traffic from Blackberries, iPhones, Blackjacks, and other “smartphone” devices increased 19%, indicating that high-end handsets received as gifts may be responsible for the increased mobile Web usage

While Skweezer traffic has been growing steadily month-to-month, this year’s post-Christmas spike is the most dramatic increase on record. Past years have seen a similar yet more modest average increase of 17% in Skweezer page views immediately following the holidays. While usage historically corrects itself after the initial spike in traffic, 71% of post-holiday traffic is maintained after the second week of January.

Greenlight Wireless has been accumulating and analyzing demographic and behavioral data from Skweezer users in over 175 countries since 2003 and there is historical evidence that trends uncovered in Skweezer closely mirror trends in the overall industry.

Skweezer is a free service that optimizes Web pages and searches for use on PDAs and cell phones. Mobile Internet users access Skweezer by visiting www.skweezer.net, then use the portal as a “wireless gateway” to browse and search the Web. Skweezer compresses and reformats content being downloaded, so that it loads faster, looks better, and is easier to navigate. Skweezer has introduced many mobile browsing innovations and has won several awards in 2007, including a Gold Star in the Mobile Star Awards and Best Web Compression Service in the Smartphone and Pocket PC Magazine Best Software Awards. Skweezer is completely platform-independent and can be accessed from Pocket PC, Palm, MS Smartphone, Blackberry, iPhone, Symbian, PSP2, and WAP 2.0 compliant devices. Skweezer is also available as a “private label” solution for wireless carriers, search engines, and content providers.

About Greenlight Wireless:
Greenlight Wireless is a leading innovator of wireless technologies, providing mobile solutions for enterprise-level businesses, Web portals, and wireless carriers. Greenlight Wireless’ consumer-oriented Skweezer service optimizes Web content for handheld devices, providing a richer browsing experience and adding value to wireless data offerings. Greenlight’s Advertizer product is a cutting-edge advertising program for operators, search engines, and publishers who want to monetize their content in the mobile environment.

On the Net: Greenlight Wireless site: www.greenlightwireless.net
Skweezer site: www.skweezer.net

Posted by Monica Sato