MocoNews: MocoInterview: Bob Hitching On Lonely Planet’s Mobile Plans

Lonely Planet are planning a smorgasbord of mobile content for its readers, ranging across SMS, WAP, downloadable Java apps and rich content. A couple of years ago mobile versions of the guidebooks were released, but the new efforts will take a slightly different tack. “It was (a success) but we now know a lot more about how travellers are going to consume these services,” said Hitching. “It’s more obvious now how to provide services that work across both mobile and web.”

Death by data roaming: Pretty much by definition, the people who use Lonely Planet’s mobile services will be doing so in countries other than the ones they live in. “Probably the most significant piece that we believe is coming soon but isn’t quite there yet is data roaming costs,” said Hitching. “That’s probably the biggest barrier to these applications that exists right now.”

Should be quite interesting to brainstorm about mobile application with those guys with very pertinent content for the mobile users.

Just found out this very nice ToDo application: RememberTheMilk.com, a web 2.0 application with lots of Ajax, RSS feed, tags and so on... but also a very nice mobile application since you can update your liste by email (ie. MMS works also ;-) and you can access your account on your mobile (as shown above).
Nice... this kind of application is another proof (if needed) that the mobile web is taking off.

Then there is a "Remember the milk" module you can add to your Netvibes which in turn also has a mobile version (Om Malik likes it...)

I am currently playing around with Twitter, a nice tiny community tool that basically lets you log what you are doing at any time from the web, your mobile (through SMS) or IM... (basically a tool inbetween the blog and IM).
You can then also add friends to your list and when logged in your homepage will then aggregate all their posts.

Few thoughts...
Why not providing a mobile web interface to update your twitter ? This tool targets also - mainly ? - people on the move! You can update your feed by SMS but why not making it possible through the mobile web ?
Maybe even more important, why can't I check my friends timeline through my mobile ? Nothing difficult there (it is just text and a picture for the avatar) ?

Using Feed2Mobile...
Thanks to RSS feed provided by Twitter and Feed2Mobile you can read your friends twitter on your mobile and imho this is getting really interesting. Here is my Twitter timeline. There is even a feed for the aggregating view of your friend, you can then just read all your aggregated friends content on your mobile..

Twitter also has an API

Verifying mobile phone number...
Somehow this is a "personnal" note as I find the process interesting...

(peronnal bookmarks)

Applications:

• TypePad Mobile
• Nokia Vox
• ZoneTag
• Shozu
• Nokia Lifeblog
• Kablog (#)

API

• MetaWeblog API
• Atom Publishing Protocol
• YouTube API
• Flickr API

Excellent piece of writing from Tommi over on S60 application blog: 2D Barcode Manifesto. The discussion that follows is also very interesting (as much as the post itself) with Dennis from ShotCode ans Stan from Semapedia around the content of the codes... shortcode vs. url

I believe there is a market and an use for both... shortcode has some advantages over url! Size is one advanatge and then there is all the services you can provide on top of it.

 

I don't see a solution for ID's unless there is open number space for ID url mappings. (#)

Yes...

In my view codes should be like the internet, you don’t earn money with the internet, you earn money with the solutions you provide via the internet. (#)

I think that for instance kaywa is heading in the right direction by creating a browser and by providing solutions and concepts. The only thing is that kaywa should be blamed for misusing the open standard by creating a adding an own shortcode in the system. (#)

 

 

Access your PC from your mobile... swisscom.soonr.com

There is even a Media Bridge Uploader that lets you send directly to your home computer pictures you take from your mobile phone. Pictures are sent "Over the Air" and the good news is that there is NO data transfer fee... as long as it is in beta!!!

I tried to install the uploader tool on my Nokia 6630 but it did not work... too bad!

Following this thread of discussion I though I would share one tip to start quickly the KAYWA Reader.

On Series60 phones you can assign an application to almost every meta-key on the keyboard... Tools -> Settings -> Phone -> Standy mode

I just need to press on the key up on my phone to launch the KAYWA Reader... easy step to the mobile world ;-)

Mob-it.com

Mob-it.com generates a mobile portal from virtually any website available on the web through its RSS feed. Just enter the RSS feed URL in the box above and follow the instructions.

Mob-it.com generates a Java application to download on your mobile, you can download Smoothplanet feeds here: http://wap.mob-it.eu/3652.jad (QR Code)

Solutions already existed... this one sounds promising... 2d code is above, if you feel like entering the URL by hand on your mobie here it is: wikipedia.7val.com