This coming week in Las Vegas, NV, the CTIA mobile conference will get underway.  This is the largest mobile phone conference in the United States and is much like Mobile World Congress, just on a smaller scale.

So, what is coming up as the conference begins next weeks?  I have a few ideas that will represent some significance in the mobile market.

Verizon Wireless Launches Skype Handsets

Back in February, Skype and Verizon Wireless announced the coming availability of Skype features on smart phones.  This great piece of news means Verizon customers in the United States can make voice calls, conduct instant messaging, and see availability of their Skype contacts, all on their mobile phone.

It’s my prediction that the phones are actually launched with updated firmware, with appropriate updates being made over the air to updates on the announced phones, including Android and BlackBerry models.  So hopefully by this time next week, VZW customers will be making Skype calls to contacts worldwide.

Nexus One Comes to Sprint

Sprint announced today via Twitter and a few articles here and there that the Nexus One phone from Google will soon be on the CMDA based network.

This is a smart move by Google, as getting this phone on another Android phone, especially the exciting Nexus One onto a third mobile network (the phone was launched for AT&T 2 days ago).  Getting Google mobile services in the hands of more people will advance the platform any more.

Sprint said today they wouldn’t announce dates or specifics, but I would bet that by the time CTIA comes to a close, we have a firm date and pricing for the Nexus one on the Sprint Network

Windows 7 Mobile Goes Big

Windows 7 Mobile has been making a few ripples in the blogosphere this week.  In fact, there has been news that the phone won’t support copy and paste or multitasking for that matter.  I don’t really think this rumor is true…Microsoft would be stupid to not learn from the iPhone’s lack of these features at launch.

I’m hoping CTIA will give us some clear insights into Windows 7 Mobile.  We have seen screenshots that show a very Zune-like UI that is a welcome change.  Also, as a developer, I’m excited that Windows 7 Mobile will run Silverlight on the mobile platform.

As they say, time will tell!

What are you hoping to see at CTIA?  Lets discuss below.

South By Southwest (aka SXSW) is fast approaching!  Taptu will be in full force at the annual gathering in Austin, Texas starting next weekend.  That’s right, Chris Moisan and myself (Jason Harris) will be in Austin to meet new folks, learn a bunch, and show off the latest stuff from Taptu as well.

Along with our friends at OneRiot (our real-time search partner) and Loopt (the social mapping service), we bring you:

Dining with Dino

On the days of March 14, 15, and 16, our team will be placing 30 inflatable and very scary dinosaurs around SXSW hot spots including the conference halls, get-togethers and other key spots.  To accompany their terrifying looks, the dinos will be wearing nametags and a set of instructions.

So, if you are lucky enough to find a Dino around the panels, parties, and other gatherings in downtown Austin, keep ahold of him and you can unlock free meals at select destinations.

Keep an eye on @Taptu and @OneRiot on Twitter to learn when and where the dinosaurs will be placed and for your chance to win free drinks and grub for you and a handful of friends!

Samsung continues to perform consistently and this fact cannot be denied.  As mobile thought leader Tomi Ahonen points out, Samsung is the number 2 worldwide market share leader in the year 2009 with a whopping 20% market share.

Now, Samsung is trying to re-invent itself as a company focused mainly on feature phones to one squarely in the “smartphone” category.  I constantly question what a “smartphone” means, but to Samsung, the label means a graduation to a new line of features and capabilities to their customers.

Samsung is about to unveil the Bada OS.  At the recent Mobile World Congress, they announced a device called Wave.  This phone impresses in the hardware category with a 1Ghz CPU, a 3.3″ AMOLED hi-res screen, and a 5 megapixel camera.  Add to this a multi-touch and mult-tasking capabilities, and this device seems to have an amazing base to build upon.

The Big Question

However, the question remains: Is there room in today’s mobile market for *another* operating system?  We have a few main players in a crowded field including: iPhone OS, Symbian, BlackBerry OS, Android, Palm’s WebOS, and Windows Mobile.  Until we see the Wave, I guess we won’t really know.

Samsung better impress with Bada.  They are positioning Bada to be the smartphone OS for everyone on a device at any price point.  Samsung has said that Bada is their “vision to advance the democratization of the smartphone era, regardless of cost, or lifestyle or geographic location.”

However, in my eye, this is a spot that Nokia has already filled.  For example, the Nokia XpressMusic 5800 is a device that can be had for $200.  Since the 5800’s release a year ago, Nokia has come out with devices with more capabilities at cheaper prices.  But, these devices run Symbian — perhaps Bada can take on Symbian and win with features and beauty?

What are your thoughts – do you think there is room for yet another mobile OS?  Would you consider a ’smartphone’ device from Samsung?  Please weigh in by leaving a comment below!

From the App Store

“It really gnarly”

“Let me just say it plain & simple, I LOVE IT!! The best search app for the iPhone & iPod touch EVER!!”

“I’m amzed”

“Bonerlicious!!!!!!”

“It nice get it if if u don’t got it I’m just say”

“This app us freaking awesome I love it I use it all the time fir everything I do. It gives me great and vivid results and pics for whatever I need or want. U MUST GET THIS APP. . A billion gazillion fafillion.”

“Best freaking app ever!!! Plus it’s free!!!!”

“I have only had the app for 3 hours and it is already a game-changer. I love that the search engine is tailored to iPhone apps and Internet material.”

“It is sick nasty”

“Nicely”

and I think this is our favorite ever review. Thanks again to everyone that supports what we do.

“well taptu as I think it is called is one o the most resourceful apps!
=) it’s everything I need!! it’s pretty much one of my favorite apps!
it’s sooo awesome<3 there’s not an app tht can reach the level of
awesomeness that taptu is at!!:) thank you to whom ever created this
app!!!:3
forever and always, yarethecreamchesse ^________^”

This release is aimed at expanding the international reach of Wapedia by adding 5 new languages.  Also, we have aimed at improving several user interface elements.

So, what exactly is new in this release?

• We have added the following languages: Portuguese,  Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Swedish and Simplified Chinese.
• You can now select alternate Wikis right from the home page…no more going through menus to switch.
• Ads are now displayed in a more user-friendly manner.

So, as you can see, we have tried to make Wapedia more accessible to those in different parts of the world.  In future releases coming soon, expect more UI enhancements and additional languages.

Here is what you expect from the 1.7x version:

• Thousands of new touch friendly sites to search and discover!
• Brand new image and wallpaper sources
• Backend engine tuning: new speed for your searches!
• Bug fixes and enhancements (please let us know if you find others)

As you can see, this release is aimed at making sure your search results are richer and more valuable.  With new images to choose from, you have a whole slew of options for saving images for your background on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Also, our backend enhancements should quicken your searches and improve your overall experience inside the application.

As always, if you find new bugs or have any positive or negative feedback, please connect with us on Twitter or via email at jason@taptu.com, your choice!

Since Taptu began indexing the mobile web back in 2007, we have been in a position to see first hand how mobile-optimized content has grown, evolved and matured. Today, we are observing a new shift in content, one that is democratic, not tied to certain handsets or platforms and with no barriers to entry or gatekeepers to accept or reject your content.

For a while now the media has talked about the ‘app revolution’ or the ‘app economy’ and whilst this has been a revolution of sorts, the ‘app economy’ does not even make up half of the mobile touch ecosystem, that is, content specifically designed and optimized for mobile touchscreen devices.

The new phenomenon we have observed in the last six months is the rise of the mobile touch web. According to our most recent estimate there are around 326,000 touch-friendly sites whereas the total number of apps across all stores is only around 180,000.

Why are businesses embracing the mobile touch web? Because these touch-friendly sites can be consumed by any touchscreen device, they’re universally accessible. Building touch-friendly mobile content allows you to reach the widest possible audience in a way that apps can’t.

To date, there has been no detailed analysis of this big second wave of touch screen content so today we’re publishing the first in a monthly series of reports on “The State of the Mobile Touch Web”. In the report, we offer a slew of facts, figures, screenshots, together with our insights into which areas of the Mobile Touch Web are growing fastest and why certain categories are growing faster than others.

We’re expecting this report to generate a fair bit of debate and we’d like to include the most interesting feedback in a follow up paper that we’re compiling to issue just before Mobile World Congress so don’t forget to comment below or get in touch directly us on Twitter at @Taptu.

Check out the report and the accompanying slidedeck below, available on Slideshare

Spending the last two weeks traveling around the U.S of A, my addiction came out in full force. It is, I’m afraid to say, an addiction to broadcasting our Taptu iPhone application. Every time I see an iPhone in the hands of someone I don’t know, I spontaneously breakout into conversation. “I see you have an iPhone,” “ How do you get on with the iPhone?” and like clockwork “would you like to see our iPhone app…”.

The thing is, if you travel a lot, especially in the US, you see iPhones everywhere. At the check-in queue, on the bus transfer to the plane, in the seat in front of me and even my adjoining seat passengers. They are just everywhere, like cups of Starbucks-coloured water and Media Studies students.

Next comes my follow-up line, “have you heard of the app Taptu? that’s T-A-P-T-U, we’re a touch-friendly …”. Now we have millions of users, but aside from attending mobile industry events, the answer is always a friendly “no”. This says so much about just how big the iPhone community already is and where those 20 million or so iPhones in the US are. Answer: many of them are firmly in the hands of the traveling public. Now here comes the best bit, usually before I’ve said another word, the very same iPhone user is already in the App Store and I’m hearing “sorry that spelling was T-A-P-T …”. And then they have downloaded the app, and we haven’t even been introduced!

Of course it doesn’t always run like this, sometimes it can be much scarier. Like the cab from Sunnyvale to San Francisco airport. We were doing 75mph in the rain, the cabby has 2 phones, texting on one and downloading Taptu on the other. “Let me do that for you”, I say, terrified, wishing that I had kept my Taptu broadcast mouth firmly shut and hoping to live another day. “No problem Sir!” says the entrepreneurial gent from Bombay, “Sometimes I carry three phones at the weekend and I haven’t had a crash yet!” Or the delightful lady in McDonalds in New York who downloaded the app whilst I manage to tip my breakfast remnants off of my tray into the trash can, along with my iPhone!

It gets worse. I feel compelled to ask them what their favourite apps are? The most common responses are Google Maps (“just soooo useful…”) and “that one that you hold up and it tells you the song name, you know, Shazam”. In answer to my next question, “What about your favourite website for the iPhone?” All of last year I didn’t get one real response at this point. But this year I have had a few responses. Twice I’ve heard Amazon, once the BBC and once ESPN.

“… and that’s what Taptu is for”, they hear me say, “to find these great sites for the iPhone”. At this point thankfully I usually feel pangs of guilt as I’m sure people may well wish to get a break from iPhone evangelism and I revert to type. That is, the slightly awkward, polite English gentlemen understating everything – as accurately portrayed by Hugh Grant in the only character-acting part he knows. Sadly for me, this never lands me Julia Roberts or Sandra Bullock – which I put down to bad genes and being “over 40”.

So anyway, there you are, I’ve admitted it. For other app developers out there, if you want to avoid the humbling experience of digging around in a bin for your iPhone that’s covered in someone else’s half-eaten Big Mac or needing new underwear after even the shortest of cab rides – don’t do it. Stick with “How are you?” or if you are English, talk about the weather app.

This is why we have taken Wapedia from the mobile web to the iPhone platform, onto Android, and today we’re announcing the availability of Wapedia on our newest platform, WebOS!

We’re very excited about the new version that is available immediately in the Palm Catalog for the Palm Pre and the newly released Palm Pixi.  Using Wapedia on WebOS, you can browse articles and search for the articles you’re interested in with predictive search (very cool!).

So, Palm Pre and Pixi users, welcome to the world of Wapedia – we believe using it is the best way to browse and experience Wikipedia (and other wikis, too!) on your mobile handset.

Since we started looking at the Palm community around WebOS…we found this really cool site we wanted to share.  It’s called House of Palm and it is a great site to discover and find new apps for your beloved Palm device.  The page for our Wapedia app is brand new (as our app is) and has fantastic info including ratings, screenshots, and other goodies for discovering new apps to trial.

As always, we’re always looking for feedback.  Please email comments to jason@taptu.com and connect with us on Twitter.

UPDATE: As of Tuesday at around 8:00AM, we just learned that we already surpassed 10,000 downloads of the Wapedia app for WebOS!  Thanks to everyone who has checked out the app!

More screenshots below:

First of all, we have reached a major milestone with regards to our Wapedia app on Android.  On Friday, we surpassed 250,000 downloads from the Android Market.  This is a huge accomplishment for us and we’re very excited to thank our awesome Wapedia community for helping our Android app be so successful!

Secondly, on the Android platform, we are pleased to announce a brand new version of the Wapedia application, now available in the Android Market.

The biggest piece of new functionality with version 1.6 is a great new home screen widget that allows for searching Wapedia right from the home screen.  This is perfect if you utilize Wikipedia for reference and don’t want to have to load the full Wapedia app every time.

Check the new app out and let us know if you have any feedback!  We monitor the Android Market and also are on Twitter, if that tickles your fancy!