More Free Resources for Mobile Content
Mobile content continues to explode as mobile carriers and major Web sites realize that cell phone users are a huge new audience for content.
Just two issues ago (Feb/Mar ‘08) I wrote about all the mobile portals available to you. And now I'm here yet again to write about additional convenient ways to get Internet content on your device. These include free applications for searching and watching videos and free mobile widget platforms.
Mobile video via vTap
vTap (vtap.com), one of the more impressive freeware applications I've tried, lets you search for videos on the Web and then play them on your device. It gives you access to the universe of Web video, from YouTube to Yahoo Video to Metacafe. You simply type in a keyword, and as you enter letters, vTap immediately starts showing a list of results. This character-based incremental search expedites your search.
Figs. 1 & 2: vTap allows you to search on any topic and displays a list of related videos (left). Tap the desired video and select the Play button to stream it to the vTap player (right).
When you select a search result (Fig. 1), the video downloads to your device and plays in the vTap player (Fig. 2). I tried videos from several different services, and they all worked fine. However, my Verizon Treo broadband connection downloads at about 100k, which is faster than some data services but not as speedy as Wi-Fi. Because of this, I typically had to wait while the video downloaded.
The vTap Tools menu lets you access other features, including Bookmarks, History, Past Queries, Safe Search, and more. In addition to the ability to search for a video by name, vTap lets you search on topic Categories, which include News, Sports, Music, TV Shows, Movies, Science & Technology, Travel & Places, How-To, and User Videos. It also lets you access Wikipedia—again via character-based incremental search.
You can download vTap directly to your device by going to vTap's mobile site (m.vtap.com). Go to vTap.com to find out more about the product and see it in action on your desktop PC.
Fig. 3: Zumobi's main screen displays 16 user-definable tiles that let you access Internet content quickly.
Zumobi, a free "mobile widget platform"
Zumobi (zumobi.com) is a free "mobile widget platform." (As used here, a "widget" is a small, single-function application that gives you convenient and quick access to specific information or that lets you perform a specific task.) Instead of using a mobile Web browser to access Internet content, you use Zumobi widgets (or "tiles") to access AccuWeather, stock quotes, AP national news, AP sports, Flickr, MTV movie news, and even a couple games. Zumobi includes a default set of 16 tiles, which are displayed on Zumobi's main screen (Fig. 3).
You can go to the gallery on the Zumobi Web site to select from scores of additional tiles in 10 categories to create a set of 16 tiles that most suit your interests. The categories include Entertainment, Finance, Games & Humor, Kids, News, See & Hear, Shopping, Sports, and Travel & Weather. While many of the tiles are related to Internet content, some are small applications such as a Check List utility. When you find one you want to add, you send it to yourself and it arrives in your Zumobi Inbox on your device. You then select which of the default tiles to replace with the new tile.
You need to register on the Zumobi site in order to use the application, which you can download via your desktop computer or directly to your device.
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