Verizon Wireless, the number one U.S. mobile carrier, unveiled their new pre-paid mobile options recently.  While American mobile data seekers might be happy to find an option to get online sans a multi-year contract, some perspective is needed in this case.

With Verizon’s new pre-paid mobile data option, customers must first by a $130 EVDO USB modem in order to first access Verizon’s reliable and speedy EVDO data network.  Then, Verizon charges you according to the following schemes:

• Daily: rates are $15 for 75MB (20 cents a MB)
• Weekly: rates are $30 for 250MB (12 cents a MB)
• Monthly: $50 for 500 MB (10 cents a MB)

So, for the ability to get online wherever you happen to get a cell phone signal, you look at paying quite a bit.

For comparison, I pulled up some data from 3, a UK-based 3G mobile provider.  On 3 UK’s site, I see that for a mere £29.99 (roughly USD $50) , you can get 1GB of data for use in your mobile computer.  This includes the dongle and bandwidth – unlike Verizon where these items must be purchased separately and at much higher costs.

The point here is that the US mobile market is vastly more expensive than the UK equivalent, especially with regards to mobile data.  It should also be noted that the US only has 4 major nationwide carriers and, in my opinion, collusion is driving up prices to be way too high.

Perhaps with more market forces driving prices lower, these extraordinarily consumer unfriendly practices will soon be a thing of the past.  I hope so, as a US-based mobile customer.

Recently the research firm ComScore has affirmed what we have seen on the streets : touch-based phones are selling like hotcakes.  According to the figures, touch-based mobile phone adoption grew at an alarming 159% year over year between August 2008 and August 2009.

What phone is leading the way?  The obvious answer is the Apple iPhone, claiming the top touch-screen device spot for users aged 13+.  The iPhone accounted for almost 33% of all touch-screen purchases in the time frame.  The second place device was the LG Dare, claiming a mere 8.7% of the touch-screen phone market.

ComScore’s Mark Donovan doesn’t expect this fast moving smartphone adoption trend to continue, although it might look a bit different going forward.  According to Donovan, additional touchscreen devices will be sold with more and more running the Android operating system.  With all the Android devices including the HTC Hero, Motorola CLIQ (known as DEXT internationally) and the Droid, this Android prediction is not hard to fathom.

It is astounding to note that, as of August 2009, there are 23.8 million touch-phone users in the United States, up from just 9.2 million touch users in August 2008.  This is a huge market opportunity that is just now being realized.

A year ago, it used to be that the iPhone was main touch phone to pay attention to, with many wannabees vying for the rest of the market.  However, with Android now maturing and seeing vast hardware support from multiple manufacturers, along with some great new touch devices from Nokia including the N97, XpressMusic 5800 and N900 tablet, it is apparent that touch devices are here to stay with continued growth being a sure thing.

(Photo Credit: Daniel^1977)

Hear ye, hear ye!  Taptu is hiring!

Are you a smart cookie in addition to being a brilliant code monkey?  Our development team is looking to add a great guy or gal to their team.  You’ll be based in our Cambridge office and have a track record for delivering well-written code.  Additionally,  you should enjoy being a star in a fast-paced and well rewarding environment.

To be a Web App Developer at Taptu, you should be a well rounded programmer who has experience in web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Taptu is a start-up meaning we work hard and play harder.  We have fun in our work but we take our work seriously.

If you are interested in applying, please email us at givemeajob@taptu.com.

Here’s the full description:

As we continue to increase the web functionality and performance of our mobile web search applications, we are again looking to add further great engineers to the talent in Cambridge. With a track record of demonstrable initiative, self direction, ability to deliver well-written applications, and a real love of modern web development technologies, you will use your skills and experience to design and develop world-leading mobile front-end web server technologies

We have a culture of empowering our developers to make the critical design decisions. With this comes the great satisfaction and responsibility of seeing your ideas and technical decisions become reality worldwide.

This work will make the most of your current and past experience in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, working with modern frameworks and libraries. Underpinning your successes will be beautifully written Java and solid experience of the supporting tools and environments.

We will be expecting multi-threaded and distributed application server development to be in your comfort zone. Familiarity with several programming languages, including scripting, C/C++, and functional languages are all big positives.

A degree in Computer Science, Maths or Physics is ideal; however degree-calibre candidates with the track record to match are equally valued.

For more information, or to be considered for the role, please contact givemeajob (at) taptu.com.

Strictly no agencies.

Our Taptu Search App, version 1.4.3, has been released into the wild iTunes App Store.  This new release addresses a few issues and harnesses some exciting changes on the backend as well.

Here’s what to expect in the newest version:

• 1.4.3 fixes a few memory leaks associated with prior versions.
• Minor design tweaks
• Bug fixes.

On the backend of our search service, we’ve made some more hearty changes that will improve your Taptu user experience.  First of all, we have added thousands and thousands of sites that are touch friendly, making your search results richer.

Also, we have tweaked our engine to allow genre searches.  To check this new feature out – check out our Halloween special that will show you apps and other touch-friendly content with a spooky feel.

As always, we absolutely crave feedback.  Please get back to us if you have any comments or questions.  You can email me at jason@taptu.com or catch us on Twitter as well.

Have fun with the new version of the Taptu Search App!  To give it a whirl, go to the iTunes App Store.

A story circulated around the blogosphere recently that showed mobile web user’s frustration with trying to use their mobile devices to access the Internet. First, the good news: mobile web usage is increasing by about 34% up to 57 million users as of July, 2009. However, it seems that the user experience was poor, with many mobile web users ending up frustrated.

Why all the disdain towards surfing the web on their mobile devices? In the study, users cited reasons such as slow web page loading times, text and images appearing too small due to poor web site formatting, and mobile websites crashing on a routine basis.

So, is all lost for those trying to build and enhance the mobile web?  The answer, from Taptu’s perspective, is an emphatic No!

First off, if you look at the how the Gomez study was conducted, there are some fallacies that should be pointed out.  For example, as our CEO Steve Ives points out, the story that got so much attention earlier this week states:

Unlike some other mobile studies, the Gomez report did not differentiate between regular cell phone and smartphone users.

This means that the firm conducting the study treats an iPhone user (who gets desktop results from Safari search) as equivalent to a RAZR user (who gets an unspecified mix of mobile results plus transcoded desktop results plus actual desktop results)   So it’s impossible to tell whether the problem is “slow mobile Web sites” or “fast desktop sites loading slowly over a wireless link”.

As you may already know, your normal ‘desktop’ web sites (those intended for viewing on your regular computer) are very large sites that have a lot of data.  Downloading all these images, advanced scripts, and text over a wireless link is a slow and frustrating experience.

A more exhaustive survey would have queried more device users and separate categories of devices – probably resulting in more positive user experienced based on the device.

Web authors and website managers should take note – this study shows a high degree of frustration from mobile users.  With more and more mobile customers adopting smartphones, mobile web usage is going to continue to skyrocket.  For the sake of your customers and users, enhance your site(s) for the mobile web.

For those seeking the web’s best mobile-friendly content, look to Taptu. We are constantly indexing and seeking out the greatest content that is specifically formulated for you to use on your mobile device.  We believe the mobile web is an exciting place and we’re striving to show you the best content the mobile web has to offer.

(Photo credit: Flickr User adactio)

Cloud computing is a  that describes a model of computing where by your data is kept on servers that are outside your control and out on the Internet (hence, in the cloud).  According to Wikipedia, cloud computing is:

Cloud computing services often provide common business applications online that are accessed from a web browser, while the software and data are stored on the servers.

Cloud-based services are ideal with devices such as Netbooks and mobile handsets because the mobile devices have little computational horsepower, meager storage, and are typically connected to the ‘Net via data connections, either Wi-Fi or 3G data networks.

The promise of cloud computing for users lies in the assumption that our data is safely held in professionally-managed data centers somewhere in the world.  But as recent events show, this isn’t always the case.  Last week, Microsoft/Danger lost millions of Sidekick users’ data in a botched storage area network upgrade.

Microsoft is supposedly working around the clock to bring back the data.  But, as it stands, millions of Sidekick users are without their contacts, photos, emails, notes, and other valuable data they depend on when utilizing their mobile devices.  Because the Sidekick uses RAM to store all this data, any user who power cycles or lets the battery run out on their device will lose all their data until Microsoft/Danger can recover it – if at all.

What is the lesson here? If you have a device you care about that contains data you find valuable, you must seek and constantly update your backups.  If you rely upon hosted services to house your data in the cloud, I suggest seeking ways to backup your phone’s data locally as well.

For example, iPhone users are in luck because of the way iTunes is structured.  In addition to the availability of Apple’s MobileMe service, the iPhone/iPod Touch is automatically backed up each time you sync your phone with iTunes.  Likewise, Nokia N Series and E Series users have access to some Ovi services that back up your photos/contacts and other data, but if you want a local copy of these types of data – Nokia users must use PC Suite on a regular basis.

There are services for many platforms that allow you to backup and maintain your data and I suggest you evaluate our options.  Blackberry users have online and offline backup options and using Google’s mobile web services, you can backup your contacts to their services as well.

Don’t take the Sidekick data loss and assume this type of catastrophe couldn’t happen to you.  With mobile devices becoming a part of our daily lives, there are likely contacts, photos and videos you care about.  Take a minute to back up and ensure your data is safe! 

(Photo credit: Flickr User kevindooley)

Taptu is hiring!

We are looking to take our Wapedia iPhone application international!  Taptu seeks contractors to help us translate our Taptu Wapedia application into the languages listed below.  Depending on how it goes with our Wapedia application, we might enlist your help in translating the main Taptu application as well.

Here are the details on what we’re seeking:

Seeking speakers in: Dutch, Russian, Cantonese, Mandarin, Hindi, Swedish, Greek, Finnish, Czech, Norwegian and Spanish (from South America or preferably Mexico).

You should use the web frequently, especially Wikipedia, and should know Internet terms and have some experience in translation or Computer Science (students are preferable). We’re not offering full time employment but work as either contractor or on pay roll (for UK residents). The wage depends on the amount of work to be done.

If you are interested, please send your CV and cover letter to givemeajob@taptu.com.

Please NO Agencies – We WILL route you to /dev/null

In the spirit of building community and talking with other bloggers and mobile aficionados, Taptu will be sponsoring Beer and Blog in Portland, Oregon this Friday, October 16, 2009.

Beer and Blog takes place every Friday at the Green Dragon Brewpub in southeast Portland, Oregon.  What started out as “bloggers helping bloggers over beers” is now that plus a bloggers’ happy hour.

This Friday will be great because Chris Moisan, our VP of Product and Market Development will be joining me in Portland to meet and greet people interested in Taptu.

Come on out and join us at Green Dragon!

As posted last week, we have some fans of Wapedia on the Android platform.  After looking at some more figures, we have some fanatics in Japan as well.

This week we have learned that Wapedia amongst the top free apps in the Japanese iTunes Music Store!

Many moons ago, Florian Amrhein launched Wapedia as a way to bring the ever-popular Wikipedia online encyclopedia to those accessing the site on their mobile phone.  Since then, we have released a Wapedia application on both the iPhone and on the Android platforms.

The take-up and feedback of Wapedia on Android has been fantastic. We’re over the moon with it’s early success. Thanks to all of you that have become regular users and provided feedback.

Here are a few highlights so far:

• On September 19 of this year, the Wapedia application surpassed the 100,000 download mark on the Android Market.
• As of yesterday, September 30, the application has been downloaded more than 120,000 times.
• The Wapedia Android application has received over 20 5-star ratings from Android users at cryket.com.
• The Wapedia application has a very high satisfaction rating on Androlib.com.

New Features Abound

The most recent version of Wapedia which was just released to the Android Market has a few new features that are sure to gain notice.

First of all, the newest version supports the most recent 1.6 ‘Donut’ revision of the Android OS.  Also, the latest Wapedia app supports the creation of bookmarks of Wikipedia content and an all new history functionality.

As you can see, Wapedia on Android is growing strong.  With the new features, and others we have coming down the pike, we expect our Android Wapedia users to continue to be happy with the product.

As always, if you have any feedback on how to make our apps and services better, please reach out.  My email address is jason@taptu.com and we’re on Twitter as well.