Hello! And welcome to our Thursday column, Worst of the Week. There's a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way....
Mobile application retailer Handmark announced a deal to acquire FreeRange Communications, a Portland, Ore.-based mobile technology firm, for an undisclosed amount.FreeRange offers a publishing platform designed to help media companies and content owners to create branded, downloadable smartphone applications. The company also offers mobile...
Google Inc. is jumping headfirst into the location-aware social networking space.The Internet titan unveiled Latitude, a Google Maps feature that allows users to share their location information and check the whereabouts of friends who opt to divulge that information. The offering is integrated with...
The land rush is on for the new .tel domain. The question is, why?The U.K.-based firm Telnic is hoping to create a "phone book for the Internet" with the new top-level domain, providing a place where companies can join a global directory and allow...
Smartphones are no longer the exclusive domain of high-powered executives and road warriors. But what that means for the mobile e-mail space - which seems perennially on the verge of reaching a tipping point - has yet to be determined.Handset manufacturers and application developers...
Motorola Inc. today posted a $3.6 billion loss for the fourth quarter, down from $100 million earned in the year-ago quarter. The news - and weaker than expected guidance on the current quarter - sent the ailing company's stock tumbling more than 11% in...
Bebo launched a program designed to help operators, handset manufacturers and mobile application developers to reach its 50 million registered users.The social networking site - which was acquired by AOL last year for $850 million - unveiled Bebo Open Mobile, a suite of tools...
The fourth-quarter slugfest between Research In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry Storm, HTC Corp's G1 and Apple Inc.'s iPhone 3G - all heavily subsidized and marketed exclusives - reflected several major currents running through the consumer-based wireless industry. Carriers need to drive data usage to pay...
The short-term forecast for the handset market calls for pain and belt-tightening, no matter which market analysis you favor. And those analyses range from pretty harsh to very harsh. "We expect the first quarter of 2009 to be the absolute volume bottom in the...
Businesses in nearly every industry seem to be adopting a bunker mentality and shedding workers in an effort to weather an increasingly brutal economic storm. But wireless software developers are more bullish than ever on their industry.Evans Data last week released a report indicating...
With full fourth-quarter results in for the top two U.S. wireless providers, one thing is clear, Apple Inc.'s iPhone is still playing a large role in AT&T Mobility's success. The carrier posted 2.1 million net adds during the fourth quarter and 1.9 million 3G...
Editor's Note: Welcome to our weekly feature, Yay or Nay. Every week we'll review a new wireless application or service from the user's point of view, with the goal of highlighting what works and what doesn't. If you wish to submit your application or...
Editor's Note: Welcome to our weekly Reality Check column. We've gathered a group of visionaries and veterans in the mobile industry to give their insights into the marketplace.The concept of open wireless networks is not new. In fact, an obligation to support "reselling" was...
The U.S. mobile imaging market is expected to generate more than $500 million in revenues in 2013, according to a new report form research firm Parks Associates.The company said it believes the mobile imaging market will grow beyond photo-sharing services to include personalized content...
No one can miss the dark clouds streaming overhead, but analysts say that without the expected growth in smartphone sales, those clouds might blot out the sun altogether. Handset sales, of course, drive chip sales, and most analysts have been revising their forecasts downward...
With just two markets launched, Clearwire Corp.'s mobile WiMAX service is already facing an identity crisis. Unveiled late last year in Baltimore by joint venture partner Sprint Nextel Corp. under the Xohm brand name, the service has since expanded to Portland, Ore., by Clearwire...
A handful of forces appear to be shaping a year to come that is likely to include numerous device launches featuring the fledgling Android operating system. Whether that will spell success for the license-free, Linux-based, open source OS is far from assured, though at...
Google Inc. will pull the plug on Dodgeball, cease development of its microblogging service Jaiku and slash roughly 100 jobs as it streamlines its operations in a struggling economy.An SMS-based, location-based service, Dodgeball gained traction in the early days of mobile social networks and...
LAS VEGAS-Following a one-on-one meeting with Palm Inc. executives today and a chance to play with the company's new Pre device, I found the new operating system to be pretty well baked. For instance, the accelerometer worked very quickly to rotate pictures, much faster...
Microsoft has elbowed out the much larger competition to become the default search engine on Verizon Wireless handsets, ending a drawn-out battle to mine advertising revenue from what is expected to be the largest U.S. cellular subscriber base.Under the five-year deal which begins in...
Only 45% of U.S. mobile consumers use their phones for anything more than making calls, according to figures released this week from NPD Group. But nearly lost in the press release is this little tidbit: Verizon Wireless' customers are less likely than those of...
Swedish smartphone user interface vendor UIQ has filed for bankruptcy, according to media reports.Indeed, the move was foreshadowed in June when UIQ announced it would layoff 200 of its 375 employees and seek new lines of business. However, it seems the company's efforts did...
It appears there's room for plenty of winners in the booming segment of mobile social networking sites. But it's still unclear how lucrative the space will be.Virtual, on-the-go communities are a driving force as the wireless Web rapidly expands from a curiosity into a...
Apple continues to draw flak for keeping a tight rein on its App Store, but T-Mobile USA is learning that Google's free-for-all marketplace can be a dangerous place to play.The latest offering to get the boot from Apple is a mobile version of "Knife...
