I’m not sure just how “mobile” this news is, but it’s interesting nonetheless. The company called Kirusa has launched the Call-n-Tweet service, which allows Twitter users to send Voice Tweets (short audio snippets) to update their Twitter status!

The service is still in alpha and is available to U.S. residents, only, but we expect it grow, considering just how popular Twitter is these days.

Here’s how it works:

• Sign up at callntweet.com.
• Then when you want to update your Twitter status, simply call +1 212-796-6975, speak a tweet and hang up.
• Your status on twitter.com is automatically updated with a URL link to the voice tweet. A follower can click on the link to hear the voice tweet and comment on it.
• Additionally, you can search for interesting audio clips, rate and comment on them at callntweet.com.

Now, the perfect thing would be to include some voice-to-text technology to the mix and eventually enable Skype calls. But that’s another story…

Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has tweaked some of its mobile web apps for Android-powered smartphones and the iPhone. Affected services include GMail, Latitude, Calendar and Tasks. The whole point of the tweak is to make the services slightly user friendlier with a bit larger, darker buttons. The image above illustrates best what’s new, so I’ll stop there leaving you only with the URLs of the tweaked services:

• Gmail – gmail.com
• Calendar – google.com/calendar
• Latitude – google.com/latitude
• Tasks – gmail.com/tasks

Or just visit google.com on your Android device/iPhone and look for these services under the “more” link.

[Via: Google Mobile Blog]

Social networking in Latin America and Africa is set to increase ten-fold to 527 million users by 2015, according to research by Frost & Sullivan and Colibria. Within six years, the research company estimates the combined market will be worth almost $2.4 billion, with growth being driven by increased availability of the mobile internet.

In Africa, there are ten times more mobiles than landlines. Similarly, in South America, 80% of the population have a mobile phone compared to just 25% with regular fixed internet access.

Not surprisingly, mobile is the channel of choice for many social networks to get more customers. On that note, Colibria’s CEO Keith Gibson said: “The specific conditions in these markets have led to an increased need for solutions that make Mobilised Social Networking affordable and easy to implement. This is why we developed the Social Center – to provide operators with a reliable and cost-effective solution that provides all of their subscribers with access to social networks. With the growing consumer interest in social networks, it is important for operators to be able to deliver these services on top of the basic offerings to attract new customers.”

At the end, Colibria talks about its Social Center, which is presented in more details at their website.

[Via: CellularNews]

As we near the end of the month, it is time to read the latest “State of the Mobile Web” from Opera. Thanks to Opera Mini’s server-client architecture, the Opera folks in Norway have the ability to provide detailed analytics and insight as to what is popular in various parts of the world. This month’s episode focuses on Latin America, but let us focus on the global statistics:

• Opera saw double digit growth in unique users, pages viewed and data consumed
• There are now 39.6 million Opera Mini users, 11.3% more than September 2009, and 155% more compared to October 2008
• Those users viewed 17.2 billion websites, up 14.8% compared to last month, and up 238% compared to October 2008
• Opera’s server pumped out 250.8 TB, 16% more than last month, and 233% more than October 2008
• 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

We’re still waiting for Opera Mini 5 to get out of beta. It’s by far one of the best browsers on the market, and it’s my browser of choice on my Nokia (NYSE: NOK) E71. That’s right, even with Opera 10 Mobile available for Symbian devices, I still prefer the J2ME Opera Mini 5 beta. Read my review to find out why I love it so much. Hint: SPEED.

Denmark. Beautiful country, filled with beautiful people, and one of the leaders in green thinking. Like many countries in Europe, Denmark’s public toilets are not free. This explains why no one goes out for a nice walk on Sunday morning, those are not rain puddles if you catch my drift. The capital of Denmark, Copenhagen, is looking to make paying to pee a bit easier by enabling SMS payments on several toilets in Gråbrødre Torv, Hans Knudsens Plads and Borgergade. This luxury will not cost you anything extra. The fee is still 2 Danish Krone ($0.40), plus whatever it is you pay your operator to send an SMS. UNWIRE and Låsepartner City are the two companies responsible for deploying these new fangled pieces of technology, and they’re going to collect some data over the next 6 months to decide whether or not they should deploy more text to piss public toilets. I’m a little ashamed of you Denmark. Urine has been proven to be a fantastic fertilizer. Why not simply put trees next to taxi queues, liquor stores, and night clubs?

[Via: Textually and The Copenhagen Post]

Taptu has grown up quite a lot since I last played with their service. In my September 2007 review I said:

“If you’re adapt at Google (NSDQ: GOOG) (NSDQ: GOOG) than Taptu may or may not be useful to you. Simply adding words such as “wiki” or “lyrics” after a search query usually makes Google get an idea of what it is you’re trying to find.”

With the release of their Android application today, things are looking mighty different from the original, almost laughable, user interface. They’ve put a filter on web results so you only see content optimized for mobile devices. Whether or not that is a good thing is debatable. Would you prefer more search results or fewer search results optimized for your screen? They’ve also integrated the “OneRiot” service which aggregates what people are talking about at this very second on Twitter, Digg, and other social networking sites, and present those terms to you as queries you may want to plug into the Taptu service. Chances are you open a search application to find an answer to a question in your mind, not to see what the world is talking about. Then again, there may be a few of you out there who are concerned with appearing to be “in the loop” as Malcolm Tucker from “The Thick of It” would say. If you’re one of those people, then Taptu rocks.

Look, is it smart for a company like Taptu to compete with Google? Yes and No. Yes, it’s nice to see something different than the usual list of 10 links Google’s mobile optimized search engine provides. No, it’s stupid to pour resources into what is nothing more than a fancy front end, which Google can copy, to a search engine that crawls a very small subset of the internet.

Give the Taptu application a go on your Android device and let me know in the comments what you think about it.

They’ve also got an iPhone application.

I’m not sure whether to call an end of the mobile coupon services, but when Google (NSDQ: GOOG) enters your market, you know there’s a reason to worry. On that note, the search giant is bringing coupons to the mobile local search, just in time for the holiday season.

So, if a business adds a mobile coupon to its Google Local Business Center listing, you’ll be able to access it from your mobile phone. When you search for local stuff and land on some “Place Page,” you’ll see any coupon or discount that might be available at that place. Then, when you’re in the store, simply show it (right from the phone – no need for printing) to redeem the offer. It’s that easy and unfortunately a U.S. thing only at the moment, though I’m sure that will change during 2010…

[Via: Google Mobile Blog]

Onebox — a service that brings voice, fax, email and conference calling together into a suite of communications services — is mobilizing its offering with dedicated apps for the BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) and iPhone platforms. These applications are designed to extend the functionality of Onebox’s web-based interface for mobile users, adding “Message Center” access, voicemail search/display/playback, voice-to-text transcription display, and Click-to-Call via SpeedDial list or phone-based contact lists.

However, only BlackBerry app is available at the moment, but the iPhone app will be released in the near future (till the end of the year).

In addition to mobile apps, OneBox also announced new optional features (Call Record and Web Conferencing) and a new 5,000 minute/20-extension phone service plan which costs $99.99/month. Moreover, existing $79.99/month and $49.99/month plans have been restructured and now include 3,000 and 2,000 minutes, respectively.

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) Money, which was announced in August, and is expected to launch in Q1 2010, is being shown off in the video below by Waltteri Karhusari at the Nokia “Way We Live Next” conference in Finland. The UI is fairly basic, but that’s do to the demo being done on a fairly low end device. Nokia Money’s target audience is emerging economies after all. It’s safe to say that Visa’s stuff is much more impressive, but sadly their solutions are due to hit the market at an even later point in time. Mobile Payments will be the next killer application, much like GPS was the killer application for smartphones in 2007/2008, but the question on everyone’s mind is when will Mobile Payments take off? Juniper Research predicts that in 2012 there will be $30 billion worth of transactions taking place, while ABI Research predicts that by 2011, only 2 years from now, there will be 170 million people taking advantage of mobile payments.

[Via: Nokia Conversations]

By now I would expect that every single bank in the western hemisphere has a mobile banking option. Not so, as I just caught the press release from Frost Bank, which has launched Frost Mobile “just in time for the holidays.”

Frost Mobile allows users to view account balances, account activity, pay bills, and transfer funds between Frost accounts and between financial institutions.

It’s not a mobile application, but a mobile website, which works from (almost) any phone’s web browser. The service is free to all Frost customers who are registered for My Frost Online Banking, exclusive of any fees that mobile carriers charge for data services.

Finally, before I wrap this up, Frost wants us to know they’ll add an SMS service next year, “making mobile banking even more accessible.”