I encourage you to add the site to your list of must-read destinations. Why? Many of the business models and businesses driving revenues in the Internet are coming soon to mobile. (Search engines and collaborative software companies lead the pack of companies moving out of stealth mode to make some serious waves.) Amidst this change I know of no better source than EContent to stay that extra-important step ahead of the game.

(I will therefore give EContent a top-notch spot in the new-look Knowledge Sharing Zone I wrote about in this earlier post. The goal is to create a comprehensive list of valuable resources and destinations. If you would like your site or blog to be considered, please email it to me (peggy@msearchgroove.com).

As part of the recent Buying and Selling eContent conference, Michelle invited experts and contributors who judged the EContent 100, to give their views on the companies and trends that matter. Michelle reports that the series of video interviews  got good reviews, and the content in them was “extremely well received.”

In Search of Excellence in Content Commerce, Creation, Delivery and CMS

with Tony Byrne, Ron Miller, and Martin White

Cutting Edge Success Stories in Collaboration, Social Media, and Mobile Content

featuring David Meerman Scott, Steve Smith, and Peggy Anne Salz

The Best In Content Collections, DRM, and Search

with Theresa Regli, Steve Sieck, and Paula Hane

Tune in and enjoy!

By way of background, I was chosen to judge the categories Mobile Content, Search Engine & Technologies, Collaboration and Social Media.

My participation in the judging team (of 14 judges) allowed me to introduce my peers to mobile industry innovators high on my radar and emphasize the role of mobile-only search and personalization companies in the scheme of things. As a result, this year saw four new (mobile) additions to the EContent100: ChangingWorlds, CrispWireless JumpTap, MCN and SurfKitchen. They join other movers and shakers that made the list including Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Nokia and Twitter.

If you want to be considered for inclusion in the next EContent 100, contact me directly. I’m always open to new companies and great ideas!

In the meantime, I’ll be back on Thursday with a wrap-up of mobile content issues, challenges and trends from the European Mobile Media Conference.

Today marks the debut of these new segments on the MSG video jukebox (located in the right-hand sidebar). This week’s focus, and feature video in the player, is my interview with Shane Lennon, Senior Vice President, Marketing & Product Development at GyPSii, a must-watch company leading in the race to deliver connected and cool experiences combining information, entertainment, social networks,  and location/navigation. In our interview we connect the dots in the recent string of announcements and discuss the significance for brands and advertisers.

By way of background, I have followed the company – which is a business unit of GeoCentric, a company that provides a geo-integration platform for mobile phones, personal navigation devices, web browsers, and Internet-connected devices, including PCs and set-top boxes – since it broke on the scene last year. Unlike many companies that focus on social networking or enable location-relevant mobile marketing, GyPSii stands out as a company that connects people to people, places, and stuff across all platforms, devices and networks.

Indeed, it’s the raft of announcements over the last weeks — including a partnership to embed GyPSii’s app on a range of LG mobile phones; the tie-up with Nokia and RIM (blackberry) to make the app available on a wide variety of their devices; and a wise decision launch an open API (allowing partners to call the shots on how they integrate GyPSii into their mobile strategy and devices) – that speaks volumes about the company’s new and stronger focus. My take: GyPSii has both the ideas and the impetus to impact our mobile lifestyles.

In addition to the interview and my analysis (below), I also encourage you to read more about GyPSii in my regular column for the bnetTV newsletter, which counts some 10,000 readers. For all my coverage and columns in one place, check out this page on the bnetTV site dedicated to MSG news and views. Thanks again to bnetTV’s Michelle and Tony Sklar for promoting MSG to their growing audience of  industry executives and professionals, and to Nicole Scott for bringing it all together in some great brainstorming sessions!

An excerpt from my weekly column:

Web 2.0 was all about the tools and technologies allowing users to freely create, share, and connect around content with members of a larger mobile community; Web 3.0 places location at the core of this exchange, empowering users to make their experiences personal, relevant, and much more compelling.

The jury is out on whether location – on its own – is a service consumers will pay for. But there is no question that location brings value to a variety of everyday mobile experiences, ranging from social networking to mobile search/shopping services,  to more relevant and engaging mobile marketing campaigns. Indeed, the race is on to offer connected and cool experiences combining information, entertainment, social networks and location/navigation. And companies that deliver products and services that connect people to places and networks, from work to play to home,  across all platforms, devices and networks, will likely lead the pack.

GyPSii stands out as a company that covers all the bases with a suite of applications that seamlessly combine location, social networking, search, and Web 2.0 technologies. I caught up with Shane Lennon, GyPSii Senior Vice President, Marketing & Product Development, during Mobile World Congress to connect the dots in the recent string of announcements and discuss the significance for brands and advertisers. We covered all the key questions, and then some. A special highlight: An explanation of GyPSii’s Open Experience API (called OEx).

Unlike other mobile social networking platforms such as Facebook, which offer a subset of desktop functionality, GyPSii has effectively given its partners the last word in how GyPSii is integrated into their devices and apps – and how much of the functionality they want in the first place. Put another way, GyPSii allows its partners to do more than location-enable/community-enable their apps and devices; it gives them control of the UI and with it the user experience they deliver to their customer base. Partners can integrate anything from a single app (create a piece of geo-tagged content) to a feature (find a friend) to full-blown social network.

By way of background, features/services include: User-Gen Content (create and share geo-tagged content); Friends (create and manage relationships with GyPSii members); Explore (find places, people and stuff nearby); Communication (keep in touch using messages, email and more); Profile (tell the community who you are and what you’re doing/feeling); and Advertising (integrating GyPSii’s location-based and contextually-tuned advertising service). To round out the offer, partners leverage GyPSii’s infrastructure to get streamline delivery of services to their customers.

As Shane put it: “We decided to have a next-generation approach to [mobile phone] client development….As we looked beyond smartphones it became clear to us that taking our user interface and jamming down into a Java enabled platform or WAP-like [platform] wasn’t going to work.” The way for this to succeed is to take a more embedded client approach, which is why GyPSii’s strategy is focused on embedding GyPSii on as many devices as possible, where the actual user experience (via the UI) is owned by the customer/partner company. (GyPSii’s platform is device and network agnostic, and works across iPhone, Symbian, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Web-based operating systems.)

A big part of GyPSii plans going forward is focused on mobile advertising. And with good reason since the disconnect between mobile advertising efforts and results is a growing cause for concern. Predictably, the lack of real mobile marketing success stories reduces the enthusiasm of major brands to invest in mobile advertising in the first place. And around we go. But it’s more than a catch-22 for advertisers and carriers. It’s a vicious cycle that threatens the health of the global mobile business ecosystem if we consider that the vast majority of content companies, app store developers, and mobile carriers have already bet the farm on the uptake of mobile services increasingly subsidized by mobile advertising.

Against this backdrop, GyPSii has purposely made Advertising a central focus of its OEx API, beefing up the offer with a location-specific targeting capability and the ability to deliver an integrated advertising experience/message across devices and platforms – even  gaming consoles in the future. (Makes good sense given the perfect fit between games, location, and community…)

We wrapped up the interview with an interesting look at the future of content types and what might evolve from experiences that bring together information, entertainment, social networks, location/navigation, advertising, and search on all devices everywhere. It’s early days, but GyPSii is beginning to break down the content and comments it sees into its smallest components, allowing it to recognize the associations and relationships between the content and the context. “When someone looks for something or wants it [relevant information] in a mini-feed, we want to make sure it is relevant and [fits] in the context of their world.”

The right content to the right person at the right time and in-tune with their lifestyle/life stage? It’s a challenge. However, GyPSii has the capabilities (information, entertainment, social networks, location/navigation, advertising, and search) and mindset (open APIs and a sharp focus on the user experience) that may get us there.

I am proud that EContent named me to its panel of 14 judges to evaluate the 100+ candidates across the categories: classification & taxonomy; collaboration; content commerce; content creation, production, & digital publishing; content delivery; content management; content security; fee-based info services; intranets & portals; mobile content; search engines & technologies; and social media. (We spent one month in our judging wiki, reviewing previous list members and considering a slew of worthy new contenders. In addition to casting votes, we were involved in lively discussion and debate – a process that was daunting at times, but always incredibly rewarding.)

More importantly, my participation in the judging team allowed me to introduce my peers to mobile industry innovators high on my radar and emphasize the role of mobile-only search and personalization companies in the scheme of things.

Content may not be convergent yet, but the all-pervasive nature of digital content reinforces how important it is for organizations of all kinds to maximize this essential resource and, as my dear friend and mentor Tomi Ahonen would say, Think mobile.

Congratulations are in order for the four new (mobile) additions to the EContent100: ChangingWorlds, CrispWireless JumpTap, MCN and SurfKitchen. They join other movers and shakers that made the list including Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Nokia and Twitter. As today’s press releases show, SurfKitchen was recognized for its innovation and influence in mobile content and service delivery; MCN was commended for its position as a leader in federated mobile search and search merchandising; and JumpTap was honored for its advances in mobile search and advertising. (Click here for the full EContent list.)

A special thanks to Julie Ginches at JumpTap for not only issuing a press release, but also recognizing my involvement in the judging team. I would also like to extend my personal thanks to the dozens of mobile content and search companies that reached out to me directly and encourage you to keep the conversation going. I will be a member of the judging team for years to come – and will work with EContent in every way I can to ensure that those companies hard at work to make digital content work are recognized for their accomplishments.

On a personal note: I invite you to peruse my EContent columns (aptly titled Agile Minds) here. EContent has also promoted me to the position of contributing editor, so please reach out to me directly with your pitches. I am always open to good ideas! As I have said many times, my mission, and the purpose of MSG, is to identify and amplify voices the industry should hear.

Disclaimer: JumpTap has sponsored an MSG podcast series; MCN is an MSG supporter

Or is the hype around mobile browsers distracting us from widgets as the approach to bank on? Certainly the move toward web-based applications and away from native applications makes customized widgets a key component in our personal mobility experiences. (Peggy S. tells me we can look forward to a lively debate on this topic, beginning with a thought-provoking column from her favourite widget guru, Dave Evans, SurfKitchen CTO, so check back regularly.)

Logically, the browser is not likely to control our mobile Web experience (we really may not choose to replicate our Internet experience on mobile devices, which speaks in favor of a new made-for-mobile approach). However, the browser is in a pivotal position to drive our mobile Web experience, and this alone is reason to examine recent commercial solutions and their potential impacts on how we interface and interact with mobile content.

The last weeks have seen some milestones developments that will no doubt impact how we experience the Internet on our phones. There’s the trickle of news about what we can expect from Mozilla; the news that Skyfire has rolled out the beta release of its mobile browser (an excellent review is here); and a mobile browser speed test of Skyfire, Opera 9.5.1 and Safari from Laptop Magazine, to name just a few examples of the attention mobile browsers are getting lately.

And while we’re at it, who said the winner’s circle won’t include a few surprises?

I’m thinking here of Bitstream, a U.S.-based company that introduced one of the first real mobile browsers some six (!) years ago. Because a mobile browser that targeted smartphones was years ahead of the market, Bitstream shifted its strategy to adapt the technology for use on both high-end and mass-market devices.

The result of that effort is ThunderHawk version 3.0, a browser that marks a comeback for Bitstream and a turning point in how we can access, navigate and enjoy Internet content on our mobile phones.

I caught up with Anna Chagnon, Bitstream’s CEO, for a demo of the browser and an in-depth briefing on where it all goes from here.

What does Bitstream have in mind?
In terms of distribution, Bitstream has devoted 2008 corporate funds and personnel to promote its browser technology to mobile operators and OEMs. Anna tells me the company is pursuing a multi-pronged business model, which is smart.

Bitstream has a client/server version of ThunderHawk that can be scaled to all kinds of phones and a server-based “client-less” solution that eases deployment to all of an operators’ handsets, and, Anna tells me, work is under way on a client-only browser for high-end phones. 

While the company is aggressively targeting operators and device manufacturers with ThunderHawk, it is also targeting content companies and enterprise IT departments that want digital content sent to mobile devices. And Bitstream is also considering the option of licensing ThunderHawk as a white-label product. As Anna puts it: “It’s possible that if people approached us from other browsing companies we’d be open to that, and clearly what we want to do is get the technology out in the marketplace.”

What does Bitstream offer?

At its heart, Bitstream is a digital font company, and it drew from this core competency when creating the ThunderHawk browser. In fact, ThunderHawk effectively replaces the fonts used in the original content contained in a Web page with a proprietary font technology that has several positives. It is more readable and scalable on mobile devices, minimizes the scrolling needed to scan content, and eliminates a lot of the heavy lifting in a network that is required to send data streams associated with fonts in the first place. In fact, it substantially cuts the time needed to load pages – period.

So what is Anna’s assessment of the browser market today? “Some of what the iPhone has taught us is that people will browse on phones that have the right experience level, but until the market takes off there will always be questions about how many and how far the technology goes,” she acknowledged to me.

But it is her view that “until you have a full desktop browsing experience, [the market is] not going to go very far, which is why our experience is really the image of the desktop and tools to help users navigate through that on a smaller screen.”

To this end, the ThunderHawk browser offers patented zoom-in and out modes and a split-view screen feature that gives users the ability to simultaneously view a miniaturized display of a full HTML Web page as it would appear on a desktop, as well as a section of highlighted text, in a larger typeface that the user scrolls through for reading. (Opera Mini, to name just one comparison, gives a layout-perspective and the zoom in-zoom out capability, but not the split-screen feature.)

ThunderHawk users can also employ the browser and assorted soft-keys to open links and conduct Web searches and make one-click calls directly to phone numbers on Web pages.

But grabbing a piece of the action in the mobile browser market will hardly be an easy task for Bitstream. Opera, ACCESS and open source solutions, such as Webkit, are likewise jockeying for position in the marketplace. But the pay-off will be worth it. ABI Research reckons this segment of the mobile browser market (which it calls open-Internet browser, or OIB) will skyrocket, with nearly 700 million browsers delivered in 2013, up from 76 million in 2007.

The bottom line:

As in any mobile technology marketplace, vendors that have differentiating solutions as well as a breadth of products can find advantage. Frank Dickson, co-founder and chief research officer at MultiMedia Intelligence, a market research firm, is impressed by the ThunderHawk browser, as I am. But Bitstream might have a better chance at the big leagues if it focuses on helping mobile content companies and application developers exploit its enabling technologies (which Frank describes as ahead-of-their-time and core to Bitstream’s “strategic competitiveness”).

Bitstream should also borrow a page from the way Adobe Systems licenses its products in the online world, and license its technologies for use in creating mobile content too. “That would be the holy grail for them,” Frank suggested. And I couldn’t agree more.