Google thinks that there aren’t enough mobile-friendly websites, and many with smartphones may tend to agree, albeit for different reasons. More mobile sites potentially means more money for Google through mobile ad campaigns, and more mobile sites mean better accessibility to the web for smartphone users.

Those are the reasons why the folks at Google have launched their project HowToGoMo.com. GoMo is essentially a tech-related awareness campaign with profit potential, aiming to promote the building of mobile sites.

Visitors to the sleek, user-friendly GoMo site are informed about why Google thinks they need a mobile version of their website using quick blurbs and cute, quirky illustrations and informative graphs. Additionally, Google provides visitors with best practices information for their mobile site, current mobile trends, mobile projections and case studies of how mobile sites worked for others to show why a mobile site should be seen as a necessity. If a visitor isn’t convinced yet, they can use the “GoMoMeter” to see how their existing site looks on a smartphone and to learn how to make it better.

Once a visitor has been won over by GoMo’s message, visitors can use a search tool to find a web developer, agency or service that specializes in building mobile websites. Information is provided for services in a wide variety of price ranges and time frames for full service and do-it-yourself solutions.

As Google’s stats state, mobile searches have grown 4X since the last year and by 2013, more people will surf the web from phones than PCs. Now may really be the time for even more sites to Go Mo.

The post Google’s GoMo Initiative Aims To Mobilize The Web appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

YouTube Mobile with Mazda3 Ad

Oh Google. Why must you own every aspect of my life and then choose to fill it with advertisements and monetization attempts? While I’m not as inclined to watch YouTube videos on my phone, there are many people who do and, well, Google wants its cut. As such, mobile ads will now be showing up on the mobile YouTube site.

The annoucement mentions that the banner ads will be displayed in several areas on m.youtube.com, but they’re only targeting the United States and Japan in the short term. The ads will be shown on the home page, search page, and “browse” pages of the mobile site.

Advertisers can purchase space on the mobile YouTube site on a per-day basis, which is the same model that they use for monetizing the desktop YouTube homepage. The push toward ads in the mobile space come hot on the heels that the mobile YouTube site grew 160 percent in 2009, representing “millions” of mobile users streaming “tens of millions” of videos each day.

Interestingly enough YouTube is still bleeding money everywhere. It’s been “in the red” for quite some time, but Google isn’t exactly forthcoming with how much money the site is losing. That is a lot of bandwidth, after all.

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Opera Mini 5 Beta 2 web browser for Windows Mobile devices without Java. Photo: Opera Software

What the Safari browser is to the iPhone, the Opera browser shall be to Windows Mobile devices.  Today Opera Software announced a native version of Opera Mini 5 beta 2 for Windows Mobile 5 and 6-based smartphones.  Opera on your Windows Mobile will give you a dramatic increase in browsing speed, tabs, and no more java.

How the browser works is by compressing up to 90 percent of the data traffic coming from websites before they get to your handset, thus delivering you a really fast browsing experience, and ultimately lowering your data fees.

The new version as removed Java, meaning it will work on any Windows Mobile phone, that’s a great thing for emerging markets where support for java may not always be offered on the majority of handsets. Features include tabbed browsing, password manager, bookmarks and Speed Dial.

“Windows Mobile deserves a mobile browser that looks better, handles better and delivers better than the default browser,” said Dag Olav Norem, Vice President of Products, Opera Software. “Even though Opera has 50 million satisfied Opera Mini users, we always seek ways to improve our browser for each and every mobile phone user out there. Now, we are pleased to offer the world’s most popular mobile Web browser as a native Windows Mobile application.”

You can also download Opera Mini directly from your phone for free from m.opera.com/next/.

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Hopping over to the United States, we find that Cricket Wireless is offering one of the better plans available today and the quoted price is the price you actually pay. The price includes your minutes and such, but it also includes taxes and other fees too. This is great for budget-conscious consumers.

The new $40 Cricket PayGo plan includes unlimited talk, unlimited domestic long distance, and unlimited text/picture messaging. For five bucks more, you can upgrade to the $45 PayGo plan to get unlimited mobile web. Do note that this is “mobile web” and not “unlimited data.” I can’t say for sure, but I’m thinking this “mobile web” thing doesn’t apply to smartphones.

If you’re more inclined to get wireless connectivity on your laptop, Cricket Wireless is also introducing a new unlimited $50 Cricket Broadband plan. Like the $40 and $45 unlimited PAYGo plans, this broadband plan presumably includes taxes and fees as well.

Source: Mobileburn

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Along with what will likely be a slew of other new features, BlackBerry OS 5.0 will add tabbed browsing to the BlackBerry Browser, allowing you to navigate more than one webpage at a time. Other smartphone mobile browsers have been able to handle this for a little while, so it’s good to see that RIM is catching up.

This is still very much a work in progress, but the current build has you going through the BlackBerry menu in order to access the currently opened tabs. There are no keyboard shortcuts set up for the time being, but I hope that they add this before pushing the OS into primetime.

Then again, if you could probably just download any number of third-party browsers onto your BlackBerry to get in on the tabbed surfing action. If you’re feeling exceptionally brave, there is a leaked copy of BB OS 5.0 for the 8900 and Bold, but know that it’s totally unofficial and can be totally filled with bugs.

Source: Intomobile

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