Those with an iPhone, Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre, or any Android device will be happy to hear about some new changes to the mobile Google (NSDQ: GOOG) News. The new version allows you to add custom keyword, local, and recommended sections, as well as shuffle and move the sections as you like. That’s the main thing, but it looks like there are a lot of optimizations in terms of layout and navigation that make Google News on mobile all the better. Personally, I’m still waiting for an official Google Reader application, which would make News pretty much a moot point, but you might as well go ahead and check out news.google.com in your mobile browser in the meantime.

[via Official Google Mobile Blog]

I’m not sure why it took so long for Sony’s music publishing arm to fully “go mobile,” but whatever the reasoning is, it’s good to see them finally taking this route.

The company has partnered with Azuki Systems to optimize the web destinations of its artists for viewing on mobile phones. Not surprisingly, Michael Jackson’s official website is the first site to launch under the initiative.

Located at m.michaeljackson.com, the Michael Jackson mobile website features news, photos and streaming access to classic videos such as “Billie Jean,” “Beat It,” and “Thriller.” The site is optimized to work with all of the latest higher-end devices such as the iPhone/iPod Touch, BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) Store, Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre and Android-powered devices; though we’re guessing some other phones will do the job just as well (Symbian S60 devices)…

And of course, Sony Music wowed to roll out mobile versions of other artists’ websites in the coming months.

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) has updated the Bing mobile website, located at m.bing.com. Here’s what’s new:

• NFL feature – type a team or player and see upcoming games, stats, and scores. While the game is on, you can get real-time updates on the plays. (U.S. only)
• Flight status – enter the airline and flight number to get the latest departure and landing times.
• Support for touch-enabled devices – mobile website can detect high-end devices and show a better and touch-friendlier version of the site. A new Movies feature is also included, allowing “Search for Movies” in your city, showtimes, overviews, and even trailers and video clips. Supported devices include the iPhone, Zune HD, T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) G1, Verizon (NYSE: VZ) Imagio, Samsung Omnia, with more devices to get supported over the next couple of months.

And that’s about it. It’s nice to see Microsoft pushing its search engine forward…

[Via: Bing Blog]

Opera Software is out with their monthly “State of the Mobile Web” report and we bring you some cool highlights:

• You know Opera Mini works through proxy server that compresses data and sends you the user more bandwidth friendly version of the site. Well, thanks to that compression, Opera Software said that their mobile web browser has saved their users in top ten countries approximately $8.1 billion in mobile data costs! It’s important to note that this survey reflects metered rates only, not flat-rate subscription options.
• In September 2009, more than 35.6 million people used Opera Mini, an 11.5% increase from August 2009 and more than 150% compared to September 2008. These people viewed 15 billion pages in the period – 7.2% increase since August and 230% since September of last year. In terms of data usage, September 2009 accounted for nearly 227 million MB of data for operators worldwide.
• The top 10 countries for Opera Mini usage are (in order): Russia, Indonesia, India, China, Ukraine, South Africa, United States, United Kingdom, Poland and Vietnam.

As usual, you can get the full report from Opera’s website.

Mobile marketing company Quattro Wireless and Ford launched a new website for the car company’s Lincoln brand. Specially designed for smartphone users (which smartphone models exactly?), the new mobile site boasts a virtual showroom with vehicle specification, photos and video; shopping tools including a dealer locator and inventory information; as well as information for owners including click-to-call roadside assistance.

In addition to mobile website, Quattro Wireless also manages the SMS functionality associated with the cross-channel campaign. Thus, you can receive an SMS introduction to Lincoln vehicles by texting “MKStag” or “MKSDemo1″ to 4LINC.

Finally, those with barcode reading app installed on their smartphones can point their device at the barcodes in Lincoln print catalogs to access the mobile website and get all the relevant information.

This one’s for mobile site webmasters/owners. Now they can add the Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Custom Search to their mobile site, just like they could do it on a full-blown website. The reason is obvious – Google wants to serve ads wherever they can, while providing a great service to the site visitors, no matter which device they [users] use to browse the Internet.

Here’s how it works:

If you own a web site and add a Google Custom Search box to it, when your users access the site on an Android-powered phone, iPhone, iPod Touch, or Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre, they will can see optimized search results formatted for these devices. When they search on your web site, they are can be redirected to a Google-hosted Custom Search mobile results page created specifically for your Custom Search engine. If you’d like to serve these mobile results from your own web site, you can host your own version of the mobile Custom Search home page.

Another great move by Google. I’m guessing we’ll soon see similar things released by Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) and Yahoo, though they first need to offer the “standard” custom search feature and then eventually “go mobile.”

[Via: Google Mobile Blog]

The United States Postal Service has embraced the mobile web with a new mobile site. The site, located at m.usps.com features many of the popular features found on their main website, including the track and confirm tool, post office locations, ZIP code lookup, and more. In addition to the new mobile site, the USPS is apparently working on some new apps for the BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) and iPhone… and GPS features are said to be in the mix. Will have to keep an eye out for more on that!

In the meantime, check out m.usps.com from your mobile. Give me the thumbs up or thumbs down on the new site when you do so.

Read the full article »

When RIM acquired Torch Mobile, I think all of us on the BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) scene were convinced Waterloo had big plans for its mobile browser… and with good reason, as in my opinion, the thing needs a LOT of work. With that in mind, RIM may have accidentally (or maybe they just don’t care) spilled the beans on their plans. Well, maybe we already knew they had big plans for their browser, but at the very least they’re showing off the fact that they need HELP!

Check out this job posting over at LinkedIn, where you can see RIM is actively looking for a WebKit developer to assist with the development of a new-and-improved BlackBerry browser. Interesting for sure. Kind of makes you wonder what RIM has in mind, and if they’re struggling for brain power to make the thing work.

I’m pullin’ for ya RIM, but I can’t honestly say I’m optimistic. There’s a lot of solid browsers out there in the mobile world. You’ve got a lot of work ahead of you!

Stay tuned.

[Via: MobileCrunch]

China’s leading search engine Baidu has entered into a partnership deal with China Unicom to provide search services for the carrier’s 3G mobile subscribers.

Under the agreement, Baidu will be the default search engine on China Unicom’s handsets. In addition, few Baidu apps will also be pre-installed, enabling users to quickly access Baidu Knows, Baidu Post Bar, image search, news search, MP3 search and other services. Finally, China Unicom’s mobile website will be powered by Baidu’s search engine.

As a reminder, in May of this year, Baidu announced a similar deal with China Telecom…

[Via: CellularNews]

Following a recent interview, Mozilla CEO John Lilly let slip that “Mozilla will release an app to the iPhone App Store in the next few weeks. … It’ll surprise people.” Further prodding revealed that both the AwesomeBar and Weave (which let you access cloud-stored bookmarks and history, much like Opera Link) will be a part of the picture. After a bit of wrestling, Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) began allowing third-party web browsers into the App Store last January, but the big worry, of course, is that they’ll see Firefox as too much competition with the iPhone’s native Safari browser and not allow it.

If that were the case, Mozilla would likely see it coming a mile away and could be creating something other than a browser for the iPhone. Perhaps some kind of third-party bookmark sync? Maybe Apple let them create a plug-in engine for Safari? It’s hard to tell, but we should be finding out “in the next few weeks”. The Nokia (NYSE: NOK) N900 is currently rocking flash-enabled web browsing thanks to Mozilla, and they’ve already announced their intentions for Windows Mobile and Android with Fennec, but iPhone is a juicy market segment that would significantly expand Firefox’s reach. What would you guys like to see from Mozilla on the iPhone?

[via GigaOm]