Zumobi goes after BlackBerry crowd

Zumobi launched a version of its free, widget-based content application for users of Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry devices and expanded its content offerings.
A Microsoft Corp. spinoff, Zumobi launched last year as ZenZui and came to market in December with a matrix-like menu for devices running Windows Mobile. The offering allows users to zoom in and out of content-themed “tiles” to access news feeds, games and other mobile goodies.
While the earliest versions of Zumobi suffered from an extremely limited content portfolio and ran smoothly only on a few devices, Ken Willner said the company has added content partners and smoothed out the wrinkles as it worked to expand its addressable market of devices.
“We’ve taken pains to improve the performance itself, and, secondly, we’ve added some new features,” said Willner, VP of market development. “We’ve also added a bunch of tiles, releasing (widgets for) Facebook, Twitter, NPR and Major League Baseball, and we’ll be releasing some tiles around the Olympics.”
Zumobi faces a raft of competitors, though, who are looking to deliver news and other information to on-the-go users with ad-supported services. Internet giants such as Yahoo Inc. and AOL L.L.C., among others, are vying for traction alongside Zumobi and other startups including Viigo and Mobispine, which earlier this week acquired NewsAlloy in an effort to become a cross-platform service.