Roamware, although making no formal announcements at MWC thus far, divulged its plans in regards to mobile payments and mobile finance in general in an interview with GoMo News today.

Roamware built its business by partnering with operators — 418 total in over 150 countries to be exact — to provide roaming solutions, but has plans to parlay its reach and knowledge into the realm of mobile payments.  The largest problem facing mobile finance today is the interoperability issues between carriers, making mobile payments, for example, hard to accomplish on large scale.

Web Analytics: An Hour a Day

With its knowledge in working with carriers around the world, Roamware has plans to introduce technology that carriers can utilize to “be able to do the job themselves, and do it well.”  In other words, Roamware doesn’t have plans to introduce its own solution, but will aim to provide the necessary technology to help bring everything together from an operator’s point of view.

read full story here.

HipLogic Brings Smartphone-Interface & Real-Time Data To Mass-Market Feature Phones

Mobile startup HipLogic, who has the simple intention of bringing smartphone-like features to simple mass-market “feature phones,” recently debuted a new downloadable app that brings a smartphone-oriented interface combined with real-time information to Windows Mobile or Symbian-based devices, for free.

HipLogic “Live,” as it’s being called, brings an iphone-like interface and content from real-time sources like Facebook and  Twitter, wrapped up in a simple user-friendly, truly smartphone-like package.  The interface itself creates a BlackBerry-type environment, including a variety of apps, widgets, real-time notifications and integrated search bar.

read full story here.

Flurry and Pinch Media to create mobile analytics powerhouse

Two analytics startups, Flurry and Pinch Media, are announcing a merger today as they try to create a mobile data analytics leader. While Flurry has been focused on e-commerce, Pinch Media was focused on ad optimization. Together the companies intend to go beyond just providing data and become a media company that offers services to developers, such as ways to mine data from users and target them with recommendations for mobile apps.

The merger will create a company with 20 employees in San Francisco and New York. When the deal closes, the combined company will be known as Flurry, and its leaders hope it will be better able to keep up with the fast-changing smartphone industry. On the analytics side, the company’s competitors will be Medialets and Mobclix.

read full article.

Flurry unveils deal with comScore for measuring mobile audiences

Mobile analytics firm Flurry is teaming up with web market researcher comScore to help measure the audiences for mobile apps.

The two will combine comScore’s mobile panel data with Flurry’s data on how much mobile apps are used. The companies will thus be able to offer better data to app publishers, ad agencies, marketers, advertisers, ad networks and others. The service will cover the iPhone, Android and BlackBerry mobile phones and will be available through comScore in the first quarter.

Web Analytics: An Hour a Day

Clients will be able to get more accurate data about how consumers use mobile apps. With access to usage on more than 50 million phones, Flurry can measure real-time consumption data for apps that use its analytics system. It can show how frequently and for how long an app is used, where the user is, new versus repeat usage and other data. That lets app publishers and others better target consumers. Meanwhile, comScore offers audience measurement reports.

read full article here.

Google Makes It Easier To Create And Find Mobile Coupons

Google continues to experiment with location-based ads and mobile targeting—and the newest iteration is the launch of mobile coupons. Business owners have been able to offer coupons through their local business listings on Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Maps since 2007, but now Google is making those coupons easily accessible via phone.

Startups like Loopt and Whrrl-creator Pelago have also recently detailed app-based mobile couponing options

It’s a self-serve option; restaurants, spas and other stores add a coupon to their business listing, then click a “mobile distribution” tab, and it sets up a formatted landing page. The coupons are easier to find, and users can show them to a cashier right from their phone. The coupons are also accessible from (and add more value to) the Place Pages—or comprehensive, one-page descriptions of specific locations, landmarks and neighborhoods—that Google rolled out in September. Mobile coupons are currently only available in the U.S.; no details on when or where they’ll launch abroad.

The FoneGigs Directory of Mobile Search Firms

This directory provides a list of mobile search companies along with their profile, contact information, geographies they cover and more. This directory is refreshed monthly! Please let me know if you wish to recommend a mobile search company not covered here or update certain information that is listed. Email Eric at Eric@smartdigitalspending.com. Click on the image below to download the free directory.

FoneGigs Mobile Search Company List

Download a free directory of 40+ Mobile Ad Networks here.

The following mobile technology companies are involved in mobile advertising.

• Airwide Solutions
• Amethon Solutions
• BLUUSH
• CloudTrade
• Comverse
• Crisp Wireless
• Edioma
• Enough Software
• FuturLink (Barcelona, Spain)
• GoFresh
• Golden Gekko
• Hypertag
• i-movo
• iconmobile
• Infiniq
• io global
• LiveWire Mobile

Download the Mobile Ad Networks Directory Here

• mixipix
• Mobile Acuity
• Mobile Commerce
• Mobile Complete
• Mobiqa
• Mobivity
• NeuStar
• Openwave
• Opera
• Picsel Technologies
• Quattro Wireless
• Roundpoint
• Serious Knowledge
• Streamezzo
• Surfkitchen
• TacTable
• uLocate
• Ultra-Net
• Unipier
• UpCode (UK)
• Wirenode
• Xtract (Finland)

Gofresh, the company behind off-deck mobile community “itsmy.com”, has launched the world’s first mobile social ad-network. It is not a competitive product to traditional mobile advertising, but offers the opportunity to integrate targeted user profiles within the existing ad-channels of the big ad-networks.

The service works on an ad-platform developed by Gofresh and offers most mobiles advertising formats: banner ads, click-to-call, in-game advertising, WAP-site branding, Mobile TV and personalized content downloads. Gofresh’s ad-platform offers more than 100 targeting parameters (from age to special interests and location based information).

“The concept behind Gofresh’s new mobile advertising idea is simple: Don’t book channels, reach people on their mobile phones,” says Sabine Irrgang, COO Gofresh. “To make advertising a success on mobiles, ads have to be relevant for the user and targeted for the brands.”

It will also offer a “one user exclusive per day” deal. Prices start at $0.60 per user and day, including three different forms of advertising. (Like video downloads, animated banners and background images). The “exclusive” part is that users will not get any other brand advert during the same time period (excluding text ads).

“If the development of mobile advertising keeps the current pace of growth, the traditional advertising industry must pay attention not to be overtaken by us,” comments Antonio Vince Staybl, CEO Gofresh.

Mobile ads three-to-five times more effective than online: analyst

via: Mobile Marketer

NEW YORK – Mobile advertising is three-to-five times more effective than online advertising, according to an ad:tech panelist.

Bruce Braun, CEO of Agent-M, moderated the “Measuring Mobile—Exploring the Metrics” panel. He asked the panelists questions such as “What are the tools and metrics used to justify brands expanding into mobile?”, “Can we apply the same tactics to our mobile campaigns that we’re using in our other digital marketing efforts?” and “How do you measure the unique value of mobile to engage your target in new ways and places?”

“Everyone has a different mechanism for measuring the success of a campaign, but we have normative databases tracking what brands can expect from advertising campaigns on mobile,” said Ali Rana, vice president of digital strategy at Dynamic Logic, New York. “There is still a ways to go but we’re made making progress.

read full article here

Where to recruit Mobile Game Developers.

If you are trying to find out where mobile application developers hangout, check out some of these groups.

FoneGigs is the first social community that is dedicated to making it easier and faster for web and mobile developers to hear about jobs. They are the first company to use mobile as the primary channel to reach job candidates as they send job alerts via text message (or email if candidates prefer to receive emails instead of sms).

AppForce.org is a highly experienced team of developers, dedicated to produce quality Android software. They confront the challenging projects with passion and dedication, and  have many successful accomplishments. Their primary goal is to keep the products quality high and publishers satisfied.

Find out the toughest and easiest cities for Android and iPhone developers to find jobs here.

The Android Developers community is a gret forum for both new and experienced android developers. You can get help with the first steps of Android development – your first User Interface, your first permission, your first file on the Android filesystem, your first app on the Android Market.

The iPhone Web Development community is a great source for general, development, page display, browsing and more questions.

Fieldstone is a group of software developers based out of Virginia. They are experienced in a wide range of technologies but specialize in creating apps for the web and major mobile platforms: Android, Blackberry, iPhone, and iPad.

The L4 Mobile development team specializes in designing, developing and delivering innovative mobile applications and services to ensure customers reach the mobile marketplace on-time and on budget.
Website: www.l4mobile.com
Email: info@l4mobile.com
Phone: 425-605-7030

iDev Games has a great forum that provides tips for Mac and iPhone game developers. Learn about game programming fundamentals, graphics and audio programming, programming languages & scripts and more.

The community of Atlanta iPhone Designers and Developers. Okay, maybe you don’t live in Atlanta, but you can still search Meetup.com to see if there are any iPhone or Android developer groups where you live.

Check out LinkedIn for Mobile Application groups. There are quite a few, some that specialize in iPhone, in Android, and both.

If you’d like to recommend a group that is not listed here, please email me at eric@fonegigs.com and I will include it in this post. Thanks.