REVIEW: Slim pickings for Zumobi spell disaster in crowded mobile Web space

Application: Zumobi
Running on: Samsung ACE running Windows Mobile 6 on Sprint Nextel’s EV-DO network.
Yay: Zumobi usually runs in the background and updates content regularly, allowing us to call up the app and check headlines in just a couple of seconds. The widget-based menu made for an attractive user interface – one that should have been easy to navigate – and the banner ads that support the free service were well presented and unobtrusive.
Nay: The offering is in beta, but our version of Zumobi seemed like early alpha – at best. The application was often slow to respond, recalling memories of dial-up Internet service, and we were completely unable to use some tiles. Also, for a product that’s been in the market for more than a year – Zumobi launched as ZenZui at CTIA Wireless 2007 – the application offers disappointingly few interesting content channels.
We say: We’re fond of applications that update content automatically as they run in the background, and Zumobi’s menu of tiles is an innovative way to present a host of content options within the confines of a mobile phone. Also, we love the idea of an application that functions as a kind of on-device portal that lets us choose the content channels. But Zumobi was so limited and so kludgy that firing up the app consistently fired up our blood pressure.
Review: It’s no secret that the wireless Web is unpleasant terrain. Strolling off the deck can be painful even on some high-end devices, and entering URLs can be as time-consuming as it can be fruitless, given the fact that Internet destinations are often lost in translation to mobile.
Zumobi seeks to address those ills with a “tile”-based menu that allows users to navigate a host of content channels with just a few clicks. Users can sign up for the service online by entering a few lines of information on the company’s site to receive a text link. The 2.29 MB file took a full minute for us to download, and another five minutes to install, but the simple process was completed without any flaws.
Unfortunately, the rest of our Zumobi experience was decidedly less productive than the download process. The company claims the application is compatible with “most phones running Windows Mobile 5 or 6,” so we thought we’d have no problem using the Samsung ACE, which launched three months ago. (The company recommends only four devices for Zumobi: the Motorola Q, Samsung Blackjack 1.0, HTC Dash and HTC Touch.)
We were wrong. The offering seemed to render beautifully, presenting a home page of 16 icons. Four tiles surrounded each of four numbers – 1, 3, 7 and 9 – allowing us to click the number for a close-up view of the four tiles, then click again to access content. Clicking once on Flickr, for example, presented a smattering of photos and a few options, while clicking again allowed us to move outside the application and into Flickr’s mobile Web site. Backing out of the site got us back into Zumobi quickly and easily without having to relaunch the application – a very cool feature. Yelp, the popular user-generated content site, delivered solid information including restaurant reviews and contact information, and even provided a click-to-call feature.
But other widgets performed horribly. A branded game from Mountain Dew proved unplayable, and the Family Guy widget left us scratching our heads, presenting an angry, blinking monkey but nothing more. (We’re pretty sure there was more content to be had there, but we had no idea how to access it.) Comedy Central’s Indecision 2008 delivered a similar experience, offering one talking point for each party (“Today’s Liberal Agenda: Make up a children’s song about hating our troops”) but nothing more.
Users are encouraged to go online to manage their tiles and customize their content channels, and the service delivers several dozen options. But closer inspection reveals slim pickings: Associated Press content accounts for 11 of 37 news options, and – inexplicably – 33 of the 35 sports offerings consist of NCAA content. Such limited options might have been acceptable at launch a year ago, but we were astounded to see so few compelling offerings.
We still like Zumobi’s concept, and its business model – delivering appealing ads through branded content channels – shows promise. But the application will have to offer more content more effectively through far more handsets if it’s going to gain traction in the competitive mobile Web arena.