Not only might TarotReading Mobile help you figure out your future, it certainly features something I think we’ll start to see more of in the future - mobile social bookmarking.

URL:
TarotReading.mobi

Quick Site Description:
TarotReading Mobile offers a three card tarot reading in the palm of your hand.

First Impression:
I don’t know much about Tarot, but it sounds like fun. The site looks good and inviting.

What’s Here:
The home page is perfect for mobile. It leads with a question box to ask your question and is followed by a Shuffle Your Cards button. I love that it is all right here and fits into my screen.

Ease of Use:
Wow. It is so fast. Once the cards are shuffled I get to choose three numbers that select the cards I’ll get for my reading. The card graphics are very nice looking and show up well on my screen. The text that accompanies the cards is short and easy to read. Very easy site to use and is mobilized well.

Find Stuff Factor:
Everything is on the home page and it is easy to use this site.

Best Part:
This is the first mobile site I’ve seen with social bookmarking buttons.

Worst Part:
Bookmarking on mobile is not as easy as bookmarking on the desktop. I tried to Stumble TarotReading Mobile, but something was amiss with logging into my Stumble account via mobile. Then I tried to Digg it. I was able to log into Digg, but this button did not link to a mobile site, which effectively rendered it useless for me. (Anybody know if Digg or StumbleUpon has a mobile site?) Alas, I was not able to bookmark TarotReading Mobile socially. Nice try.

Where to Use It:
Anywhere you are and want some quick Tarot-type input on a situation.

Bottom Line:
If you like and/or believe in Tarot, you will love this site.

Score:
5 out of 5 for ease of use and great graphics. Also for trying to combine mobile with social bookmarking.

Site Powered by:
Not sure what the back end is, but it is designed and built by Sargeant Jones Media based in Auckland, New Zealand.

Found: mtld.mobi/showcase

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We reported on a company called HooHaa recently that pays it’s user for receiving SMS messages, but now it’s been taken a step further.� What if you could get paid every time someone called you?

Brring! does just that.� It gives you a free local phone number that you can give out to your friends and family and when they call you, they hear a short 10 second advertisement.� For that, you receive $.05.� After the ad, they’re forwarded to you on your LAN line or mobile phone.� Once you reach $10 or more in earnings, they mail you a check.

It raises the question again of whether or not this is too intrusive and annoying, but if you keep it focused on people you’d rather not give your personal number to, it’s really no skin off your back.� It’s actually easier than receiving several text messages throughout the day to earn a little cash.� As you sign up, you do select a few categories of what you think your callers might want to hear, so while this isn’t the best targeting, some people might actually find some of the offers useful.

They offer an affiliate program that pays $1 per sign-up, so undoubtedly, you’re going to see large groups of friends signing up as many people as they can to receive commissions, and then calling one another to rack up their earnings.� I couldn’t find anything regarding whether there’s a limit to the amount of ad-plays per day, but I’m sure they’ll monitor the quality for their advertisers.

Personally, I would set up a Brring! number to give away when signing up for things that require a phone number, that way when they call you to try and sell you something, they in return hear an advertisement and you get paid!

It’s another interesting service, and we’ll have to see how it catches on.� Would you use it?

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As I was surfing around this morning� via iPhone, I noticed a few sites that� sported brand new iPhone-specific mobile themes.� After doing some quick research, I found that MoFuse� has added new iPhone integration into their platform, which enables site owners and bloggers alike to� instantly create mobile-versions of their content.

By simply providing MoFuse with your sites RSS feed, the service automatically creates a very user-friendly mobile-version of your website or blog, and� now one that’s perfect for iPhone consumption.� You can customize your mobile site by adding links, or RSS pages, and even customize your logo, header,� or domain name� by upgrading to a Pro account.

MoFuse gives you access to a set of promotional tools for your newly created mobile site as well.� You can do things like create an “SMS widget” to place on your site, place “redirect” PHP code on your site for automatic redirection for your mobile readers, and even generate a QR code that’s readable from camera phones that you can promote offline.� For a free service, it’s an impressive set of tools.

If you’re a free subscriber, you can even monetize your mobile site with a 50/50 revenue share� program through AdSense or AdMob.� Upgrade to a Pro account for $6 a month, and you can keep all the profits.� MoFuse will automatically insert small contextual ad-units at either the top or bottom of your site, or both.� Of course, MoFuse also gives you some mobile analytics data as well.�

There’s similar services around that will quickly convert your site to a mobile version, but none that take such a comprehensive approach as MoFuse.� With their iPhone integration, they’re standing out again by offering one of the first automatic iPhone web application creators available.� With Google reporting that they receive almost 50 times more searches from iPhone’s than with any other mobile device, it’s no secret the ease of use and intuitiveness have lead to more mobile browsing.� With MoFuse, you can now take advantage of this.

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NBC Sports has announced their partnership with Crisp Wireless to “build, manage and monetize” the official NBC Sports mobile website.

While the other major networks offer a similar mobile platform exclusive for news and sports coverage, NBC is hoping to capitalize on the experience of Crisp Wireless, a rapidly expanding company aiming to power mobile businesses for media and entertainment brands, to promote March Madness and the Olympics. According to the official press release, Crisp will be responsible for all of the mobile advertising behind this partnership.

“The ad-supported, interactive NBC Sports Mobile website offers consumers the best mobile fantasy news site in the market, with real-time scores, player statistics for games and seasons, and exclusive fantasy advice, player news, and injury reports.”

As reported, Crisp Wireless secured a deal NBC Sports by creating an easy-to-use interface that incorporated the complicated data feeds that provide the pertinent statistics that fantasy sports players need.

“NBC Sports Mobile wanted to develop a mobile website,” said Perkins Miller, Senior Vice President, Digital Media, NBC Sports & Olympics, “that targeted both casual sports fans and the fantasy sports enthusiasts.”

As one would expect, the official NBC Sports Mobile website offers a variety of written and multimedia content, including news and photos, real-time scores, stats, and standings for virtually all professional and college teams, not to mention NASCAR, golf, and tennis. Exclusive content is also provided from the Rotoworld.com fantasy news website, which features similar sports-related material.

The NBC Sports Mobile website is currently available with several major wireless carriers including Verizon Wireless Mobile Web and Alltel Axcess Web. Mobile customers can also access the site from their phone’s webs browser by going to http://mobile.nbcsports.com.

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In a move that could dramatically influence the future of mobile marketing opportunities, a little known private company called Akoo International has developed a network of digital television screens that can both send and receive messages from cell phones.

According to Akoo’s Vice President of marketing, Andy Stankiewicz, the company is hoping to mold mobile devices into universal remote controls that can “select on-demand content from big-screen TVs in airports, bars, restaurants, etc.”

Akoo’s network called m-Venue enables cell phone users to send a text-message request for a video clip, sports and music videos, or just about any other conceivable video content. It is then delivered to their phone or played on a nearby Akoo television screen. Overall, the service would act much like a mobile phone-based on-demand cable television service or a “high-tech jukebox.”

How the mobile marketing industry would grow in response to this technology is apparent. In return for a text messaged video request, companies can deliver digital coupons or other relevant promotions to the cell phone that made the request. “For instance,” says Stankiewicz “a customer at a John Barleycorn restaurant in Chicago, part of the m-Venue network, might select a text message code displayed on a big television screen above the bar —one that would deliver Gwen Stefani’s new music video. The customer would then receive a text message to the effect of, ‘Thanks! Gwen Stefani will play shortly. Show this text to your server and get any appetizer for $1.’”

Akoo is banking on the absorbed belief that ads on cell phones and digital signs that can be activated by consumers are on the frontlines of the rapidly expanding business of mobile marketing.

According to the New York Times, The Carmel Group - a research firm in California - predicts that revenue in the US from digital signs will grow to $2.6 billion by the end of 2010. That’s up from $1.5 billion in 2007.

To date, only a small number of companies utilize digital signs for one-way communication (e.g., sending promotional coupons to cell phones). Akoo, however, claims its technology is different because it allows consumers to control content on digital advertising screens. “This is the only digital out-of-home billboard network that’s fully interactive with mobile phones,” said Stankiewicz.

Founded in 2001, Akoo has already worked in a limited capacity with McDonalds. At one location in Chicago, Akoo claims that their two week trial with the digital screens at McDonalds helped increase business by nearly twenty percent.

As one might logically expect, advertisers have been attracted to Akoo’s network almost exclusively by its potential customers – the young and difficult to reach variety. Akoo is also particularly attractive to marketers given its likely proximity to the cash register, where nearly three quarters of purchase decisions are reportedly made.

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Since I just recently started my yoga practice (That’s what our teacher Tina calls it. My friends and I just call it “doing yoga.”) I’ve become drawn to all things related to yoga. Naturally when I saw a mobile yoga site I knew it had to be reviewed.

URL:
MobiYogi.mobi

Quick Site Description:
MobiYogi, a mobile yoga site because you deserve a Zen moment. Anywhere. Anytime.

First Impression:
I love the site on first glance. The header photo is perfect and already gives me a tiny zen moment just by logging in. I’m ready…

What’s Here:
Four yoga moves (not really yoga postures, because they are more like stretches) that help to get the energy moving in your Neck, Shoulders and Legs. There’s also an all over body move under Greeting the Heavens.

Ease of Use:
The site works exactly as expected. It is easy enough to find what I want on the site. Without photos of the moves it is hard to read the tiny text and then do what I am supposed to do while still glancing down to see what is next. But the information is short enough I can read it all through and then just do it.

Find Stuff Factor:
The navigation is not consistent page to page, but it is still easy enough to find what I want. What is here is right where I’d expect it and nothing is too far away because there is nothing too much deeper on the site.

This could be one of the problems for the site owner – there’s not enough here to get me to come back. Once I’ve been here and memorized the moves there is nothing else I need here.

Best Part(s):
The name – what’s not to love about MobiYogi.Mobi?

Where to Use It:
The office. It would help break up a long day of sitting at the computer.

Bottom Line:
I want more from this site. I want photos and I want to be able to sign up for yoga text reminders. Oh, and I’d love to have a little “message from the yogi” that changes all the time. Also, maybe a Yoga Move of the Day so that I knew something new would be there waiting for me. Just in case the owners do add more I will keep checking back.

Score:
3 1/2 of 5 (This site has so much potential.)

Site Powered by:
Website Tonight from GoDaddy.com

Site found at wapreview.com.

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Once a day I check Google search results for several things including Mobile Marketing to see what’s shaking. Over the last couple of days I’ve noticed this Google News result that appeared in Fox Business getting thrown into the mix. It’s a garden variety press release from Mvive regarding their “Get Mobilized” campaign, a mobile website coupon promotion that ran recently in Canada.

What I find interesting about this press release is the fact that Mvive choose to report the number of mobile web site hits and not the number of visitors or users generated by the campaign. Better yet, what was the conversion rate on that mobile coupon? I read this press release and came away thinking that it maybe didn’t do so well because of the fact that the press release talked up “hits”.

I could be entirely wrong too, but that’s my own personal opinion because I know that a “hit” represents not just the page view but all of the objects on the page including images, css files… pretty much everything in the page. To give you an idea, if you’re reading my blog in your web browser the page you’re looking at probably generated 50-100 hits for this one single page view. Suppose you cruise around my site and view 15 pages? See the problem, now you’re talking about 1 visitor, 15 pages and 750 to 1,500 hits.

Here’s a quote from Roy Choi, President of Mvive.

“There are so many statistics out there which validate the fact that marketing through mobile cell phones, Blackberrys, etc., is the hot, technology wave of the future and receiving 5.5M website hits during a testing program is just another indication of the interest and soon the demand, for this application of mobile devices. At Mvive, we look forward to leading the technology charge in the mobile marketing arena”

Anyone that’s got web in their background knows that web hits are relatively meaningless. Well, not entirely, I mean I suppose one could argue that they do in fact have a purpose but I’m fairly certain that it’s not a marketing metric. Web hits in my mind are something that you might want to consider tracking for capacity planning purposes. Bandwidth usage can help out with that too. Those things help you determine when you might need an additional server or a fatter bandwidth pipe right? From an analytics perspective they’re not your lead dog when touting your campaign stats are they? Go take a look at the Mobilytics features… you won’t find “hits” on the list.

5.5M hits is a decent enough number that probably represents something worth talking about in regards to Page Views, I’m just puzzled that they decided to promote hits vs. Page Views, Visitors or Conversions though. That would have been something to talk up in my opinion.

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