The Skweezer Blog

Our sincere thanks to all the Skweezer users who participated in the Mobile Search Survey we conducted last month. 1,112 Skweezer users in 26 countries answered our questions about how they use mobile search, what new search features they’d find useful, and the importance of mobile search in their day-to-day lives. The findings of the survey are going to be the subject of an upcoming press release, so visit our press room at company.skweezer.com/press in a couple of days to see what we learned.The five survey participants who won Skweezer T-shirts in our prize drawing are:

• Yuson Shin - Milpitas CA, USA
• Blake Jeffries - Estancia NM, USA
• Chitraksh Sherawat - Bhopal, India
• Graham McCalmon - Gosport, England
• Eileen Eckerhardt - Ashland OR, USA

Many thanks, once again, to all who took the time to answer our questions and help us make Skweezer better than ever.

Posted by Mark Sieve

We’ve just put up a new page on the Skweezer, Inc. company site that describes the technologies behind our products as well as a list of our intellectual properties. The new page can be found at http://company.skweezer.com/technologies.

Posted by Monica Sato

Recently, dotMobi released a study that suggests end-users desire more practical mobile content rather than consumable (entertainment) content. Frankly, our company has known this for awhile as we’ve been analyzing the behaviors of general web use since 2004. Since then, one thing we quickly learned—which has helped shape our product over the years—is end-users want to access content transactionally. That is, users want to get to the part of a Web page that feeds their interest or activity. People, generally, don’t sit around browsing on their phones for the sake of browsing. Therefore, we’ve adopted the position that people are finding more on mobile Web than they are browsing.

This has helped us shape innovation “firsts” like our Find-in-Page™ feature, that jumps the user to the keywords they are looking for that are carried over from a search query. Hit highlighting is another “helper” to let people identify what they are looking for.  This also seems to be validated by the much higher-than-normal click-through rates from our mobile ads with search partners.

One of those transactional pieces that’s mentioned in the dotMobi survey is online banking. Unless the banking site has a mobile interface with SSL, most phone users would need a transcoding proxy to access the site in order to gain access. (This would be nearly 90% of the phones in the world, BTW.) As far as mobilizing 3rd-party Web sites go, Skweezer is the only transcoder that I know of (also since 2004, by the way) that keeps a fully SSL-encoded transaction from beginning-to-end on behalf of a user. Since Skweezer isn’t a gateway service hosted directly in an operator’s datacenter like Sprint, Skweezer can talk to any Web site—through SSL—and encode it from start to finish where it’s available.

For users using dotMobi’s recently acquired Mowser—or even the big guys like Google or Yahoo!… none of these services do that. Which is curious to me why dotMobi would bring up the notion of accessing anything securely. For example, if you wanted to check your Union Bank of California account online in Mowser, you would not have an end-to-end SSL connection. Notice that when you go to a secure page in Mowser, the Mowser protocol is “http” wrapped around Union Bank’s “https”…

Mowser Mobile Web Transcoder (Phonifier-adapted)

That’s scary. So, you enter all your personally identifiable info for the bank and it goes to Mowser as clear text before they securely send it to UBOC! Or in the case of Google, they just punt…

Google Mobile Web Transcoder

Google doesn’t even allow SSL connections on their transcoder. Whether they can’t surmount the 80/20 “wall” of transcoding state—or if their legal department feels that it’s somehow a liability—they just have a user go directly to the site, leaving the end-user hung out to dry. Yahoo! is similar, but they don’t even allow you to connect to them in the first place via SSL. Whether it’s Novarra (their partner) not being able to support it, or again, a business reason, users are left with no access to 3rd-party SSL sites…

Yahoo! Mobile Web Transcoder (Novarra)

If this isn’t quite clear, another way you can look at this is there are three parts to any given transaction: the end-user, the transcoding proxy, and the content site. The aforementioned proxies don’t have a secure connection between them and the end-user when the proxy is fetching secure information:

But Skweezer, on the other hand, does. And it does so with up to 256-bit encryption (depending on what your browser supports) to create an end-to-end SSL transaction of 3rd-party websites:

So, if you’re going to access content transactionally, i.e. your bank balance, etc, through a transcoder, be sure the information you’re providing isn’t being sent with just regular HTTP regardless of whether the intended URL is in SSL.

By Kevin Perkins

Web site publishers and bloggers can now create and manage Skweezer Ads feeds through the new Skweezer Reports & Analytics Web site.

IRVINE, Calif., June 4, 2008—Skweezer, Inc. today announced the launch of the Skweezer Reports & Analytics Web site, located at http://reports.skweezer.com, which provides online reporting for the company’s Skweezer Ads and Skweezer Private Label customers.

“Skweezer is in the unique position of having collected very detailed mobile advertising and mobile browsing data for several years,” said Skweezer, Inc. president Mark Sieve. “This initial release of the Skweezer Reports and Analytics site provides a wealth of information to our customers and, with a host of new reports and features planned for release this summer, promises to become a powerful and comprehensive mobile analytics solution.”

The new Skweezer Reports & Analytics site provides Skweezer Ads customers with detailed reports on their ad campaigns, including match rate, cost-per-click, and click-through data. The site also provides publishers with the ability to create multiple feeds, design custom ad layouts, and monitor their payment history.  Skweezer Ads currently captures a wide range of additional data for each ad that is requested and displayed, such as geographic location of user, device type, and keyword and category information of the requesting page; this information will also be made available to Skweezer Ads customers in upcoming months.

The Skweezer Reports & Analytics site also tracks data for Skweezer Private Label implementations. Wireless operators, search engines, and other enterprise level customers using Skweezer Private Label to mobilize desktop Web content can use the site to track traffic levels and manage subscribers. Detailed aggregate data regarding geographic location, browsing history, device type, and other useful information will be made available in forthcoming updates to the site.

Skweezer Ads is an online advertising service that supplies both desktop and mobile ads in a single ad feed, automatically displaying the correct type of ad to each visitor. Skweezer Ads customers have the added benefit of being able to use Skweezer’s mobilization technology to automatically create a mobile version of their Web site, which is dynamically created whenever a mobile visitor is detected.

Skweezer Ads is the world’s first internationally-consumed mobile advertising service, having served mobile ads in over 175 countries since its release in 2004, and was voted Best Mobile Marketing Product in the 2007 Mobile Star Awards.

Skweezer’s award-winning content mobilization technology can be seamlessly integrated into any wireless data offering, search engine, or other large-scale portal or Web property through a Skweezer Private Label implementation. Skweezer Private Label allows wireless carriers and other service providers allow access to the “whole Internet”, including the vast majority of online content that was not designed to accommodate mobile browsers. Skweezer Private Label works seamlessly with any mobile device regardless of platform and is available as either a hosted or installed solution.

About Skweezer, Inc.:
Skweezer, Inc. has been a key innovator of mobile content optimization technologies since 2001, creating award-winning solutions that have accelerated mobile Web adoption and consistently raised the bar in terms of users’ expectations and feature development. Skweezer Ads, launched in 2004, provides publishers and ad networks with desktop and mobile ads through a single ad feed and includes Skweezer’s optimization technology that automatically mobilizes site content for mobile visitors. Skweezer’s scalable, time-tested “carrier grade” content optimization and converged advertising products are relied upon by some of the largest wireless operators, search engines, ad networks, and enterprises in the world.

Skweezer company site: company.skweezer.com
Skweezer Reports & Analytics site: reports.skweezer.com
Skweezer Ads page: ads.skweezer.com

Posted by Monica Sato

Skweezer Ads gets a major upgrade including technological innovations that are online advertising firsts.

IRVINE, Calif., May 29, 2008—Skweezer, Inc. today announced a major upgrade to its Skweezer Ads service, which allows customers to serve ads to a wide variety of mobile, desktop, and other Web-enabled consoles through a single ad feed.

This latest release of Skweezer Ads includes innovations that are firsts for the online advertising community. One such innovation is a patent-pending algorithm that dynamically converts conventional text-based cost-per-click (CPC) ads into mobile-friendly ads complaint with standards set by the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA). Another key innovation is Skweezer Ads’ cut-and-paste code that detects a visitor’s device type, retrieves appropriate mobile or desktop ads accordingly, and optionally reformats and compresses the Web content for mobile viewing.

Skweezer Ads is now available to publishers through ASP, ASP.NET, PHP, or JavaScript code. This latest version of Skweezer Ads uses “short URL” for easier inclusion into Web sites, RSS feeds, mobile applications, and SMS messages.

The Skweezer Ads back office, located at http://reports.skweezer.com, has also been updated and includes a new ad formatting wizard allows publishers to use a “What You See is What You Get” (WYSIWYG) interface to customize the way their ads look. Customers also now have the ability to create multiple ads feeds, or channels, for a single account. The signup process has also been greatly streamlined and is accessible at http://reports.skweezer.com/open/signup.aspx.

“We’ve finally created a viable AdSense alternative to help publishers monetize every square inch of their Web sites and RSS feeds,” said Skweezer CEO Kevin Perkins. “Our ad technology truly fulfills the Web 2.0 promise: we not only help publishers instantaneously create mobile content from their desktop pages, but our patent-pending algorithm also knows the right ad to show for the right modality.”

Skweezer Ads is an online advertising service that supplies both desktop and mobile ads in a single ad feed, automatically displaying the correct type of ad to each visitor. Skweezer Ads customers have the added benefit of being able to use Skweezer’s mobilization technology to automatically create a mobile version of their Web site, which is dynamically created whenever a mobile visitor is detected.

Skweezer Ads is the world’s first internationally-consumed mobile advertising service, having served mobile ads in over 175 countries since its release in 2004, and was voted Best Mobile Marketing Product in the 2007 Mobile Star Awards.

About Skweezer, Inc.:
Skweezer, Inc. has been a key innovator of mobile content optimization technologies since 2001, creating award-winning solutions that have accelerated mobile Web adoption and consistently raised the bar in terms of users’ expectations and feature development. Skweezer Ads, launched in 2004, provides publishers and ad networks with desktop and mobile ads through a single ad feed and includes Skweezer’s optimization technology that automatically mobilizes site content for mobile visitors. Skweezer’s scalable, time-tested “carrier grade” content optimization and converged advertising products are relied upon by some of the largest wireless operators, search engines, ad networks, and enterprises in the world.

On the Net: Skweezer company site: company.skweezer.com
Skweezer Reports & Analytics site: reports.skweezer.com
Skweezer Ads page: ads.skweezer.com

Posted by Monica Sato

Skweezer Ads is launching a new mobile banner feed through partnership with Smaato Inc.

IRVINE, Calif., May 19, 2008—Skweezer, Inc. today announced it will begin distributing a new mobile banner advertising feed through partnership with Smaato, Inc.

“Smaato’s open architecture platform allows us to dramatically expand our mobile advertising capabilities,” said Skweezer, Inc. CEO Kevin Perkins. “By combining the breadth of multiple banner ad networks via Smaato, our premium publishers will have more opportunity to monetize their offerings world-wide with their Skweezer Ads feed.”

Skweezer Ads is an online advertising service that provides text-based cost-per-click (CPC) ads to both mobile and desktop environments through a single ad feed. The new partnership with Smaato will allow Skweezer to start offering banner-based cost-per-impression (CPM) ads created specifically for display on mobile platforms. This mobile banner feed is available for international distribution, which supports Skweezer’s presence in over 175 countries.

Initial traffic for the new mobile banner feed will be confined to 200 million requests per month and will be served to Skweezer Ads’ India market. Once the new feed has been thoroughly appraised and validated, it will be distributed throughout Skweezer Ads’ global network of publishers, carriers and ad providers.

About Smaato Inc.:
Smaato Inc. is a leading mobile advertising technology company that provides the open mobile advertising platform called SOMA™ (Smaato Open Mobile Advertising) for developers, publishers, ad sales networks and operators. The SOMA platform enables the delivery of targeted display advertising to mobile phones within applications and on mobile sites. SOMA’s unique feature is the SOMA client, which is a mobile ad server on the handset that optimizes the process of ad-enabling applications for mobile software developers. SOMA can be easily integrated with 3rd party ad sales networks, ad inventory owners (developers, publishers, operators) and ad technology providers.

On the Net: Smaato site: www.smaato.com

About Skweezer, Inc.:
Skweezer, Inc. has been a key innovator of mobile content optimization technologies since 2001, creating award-winning solutions that have accelerated mobile Web adoption and consistently raised the bar in terms of users’ expectations and feature development. Skweezer Ads, launched in 2004, provides publishers and ad networks with desktop and mobile ads through a single ad feed and includes Skweezer’s optimization technology that automatically mobilizes site content for mobile visitors. Skweezer’s scalable, time-tested “carrier grade” content optimization and converged advertising products are relied upon by some of the largest wireless operators, search engines, ad networks, and enterprises in the world.

On the Net: Skweezer site: www.skweezer.com
Skweezer company site: company.skweezer.com
Skweezer RSS Feed: rss.skweezer.com

Posted by Monica Sato

Greenlight Wireless has been rebranded using its widely-known Skweezer trademark.

IRVINE, Calif., May 5, 2008—Greenlight Wireless Corporation today announced that the company will now be doing business as Skweezer, Inc.

Skweezer has become an increasingly strong brand and is now frequently used as a generic term of art for mobilizing Web content. Uniting Greenlight Wireless and its products under the Skweezer brand will take advantage of this name recognition and serve to create a more streamlined marketing profile.

“It had become increasing clear that our marketing message lacked focus due to the diverse company and product names we were using,” said Greenlight Wireless president Mark Sieve. “We see this branding initiative as an important step towards developing a clear and concise message that will appeal to both our users in the public as well as our institutional customers.”

The following products, Web sites, and contact information has changed as a result of the recent rebranding initiative:

Web addresses:
– The Skweezer, Inc. company site is located at company.skweezer.com
– The Skweezer Reports & Analytics site is located at reports.skweezer.com
– The Skweezer Blog is located at blog.skweezer.com
– The Skweezer Ads page is located at ads.skweezer.com
– The Skweezer Press Release RSS feed is rss.skweezer.com

Products:
– Advertizer® is now Skweezer Ads®

E-mail addresses:
– All company e-mail addresses have been changed to “@skweezer.com” (e.g. employee_name@skweezer.com“)

About Skweezer, Inc.:
Skweezer has been a key innovator of mobile content optimization technologies since 2001, creating award-winning solutions that have accelerated mobile Web adoption and consistently raised the bar in terms of users’ expectations and feature development. Skweezer Ads, launched in 2004, provides publishers and ad networks with desktop and mobile ads through a single ad feed and includes Skweezer’s optimization technology that automatically mobilizes site content for mobile visitors. Skweezer’s scalable, time-tested “carrier grade” content optimization and converged advertising products are relied upon by some of the largest wireless operators, search engines, ad networks, and enterprises in the world.

On the Net: Skweezer site: www.skweezer.com

Posted by Monica Sato

We’ll be launching the new company branding next Monday, May 5th. To let the cat out of the bag, we’re re-branding Greenlight Wireless Corp. as Skweezer, Inc. It had become increasing clear that our marketing message lacked focus due to the diverse company and product names we were using. We see this branding initiative as an important step in developing a clear and concise message that will appeal to both our users in the public as well as our institutional customers. Here’s a sneak peek at the new site that will go live on Monday.

I have to say, I really like the new look… 

Posted by Mark Sieve

You may have noticed the new look on our blog.  This is actually a small step toward launching our new branding initiative, which will be going live soon. Stay tuned for details…

Posted by Monica Sato

Today I was reading Doug Mohney’s editorial about online video needing to be "good enough". He commented very nicely on a new product called The Flip that makes it extremely easy to take short video clips, and quickly post them to YouTube, or wherever. Even though the product doesn’t capture at the best resolution… and isn’t going to produce video that you could marvel at on a HD large-screen… it certainly satisfies. Interesting notion. It made me think up The "Good Enough Principle" (GEP), and how it applies to what Greenlight Wireless does.

Here is the typical product cycle for consumer electronics:

• In early markets, where the knowledgeable know what they want, they are the "prosumers"—professional consumers—who are picky, and buy professional products at professional prices
• Usually, these professional products are unfriendly to the mainstreet user. And, prosumers are usually the gear-heads who can make sense of professional products, or who are willing to put the time into learning
• After professional product prices drop far enough, mainstreet users no longer have a barrier to entry to spend the time learning something complicated without feeling like they wasted their money. Example: a mainstreet user can’t figure out how to reset the blinking "12:00" on the $49 VCR they just bought. But they’re over it because they acquired the thing that allows them to play videos regardless if it’s not working at its optimum

The Good Enough Principle (GEP)

In terms of guidance, I’ve usually deferred to Geoffrey Moore’s Chasm model in describing market acceptance for consumer electronics and software. However, the GEP is likely more about the Power Law in terms of  "head and tail"—a concept made popular recently to describe the effectiveness of Google’s AdSense product—rather than a Bell Curve the way Moore has it. I think GEP starts with a "head" where a number of companies are competing for the wealthiest 10%-20% of
a market. (Many people colloquially refer to this principle as the "80/20 rule" where a majority of the resources come from a vital few.)

However, the challenge with 80/20 in terms of the "technology" business is that price alone doesn’t allow for a predictable product acceptance with mainstreet. It has to be easy AND "good enough" in order for the masses to accept it. Therefore, few companies generally actually attack the other 80% of the market because it costs too much in education and awareness of all the product features. (Again, think of the blinking "12:00".) That’s where KISS comes in. Those that can combine "easy" and "good enough" obtain GEP… and more importantly… access to the broad—and lucrative—market that nobody wants. (Why was there even a clock on the VCR in the first place?)

This is where it makes sense for The Flip. As Mohney writes:

"It’s not the best solution, but it is good enough. And that’s the way a lot of people need to start thinking about online video. Ultimately, you’d like to have HD and a lot of other features, but right now it is good enough to start using and making money."

So examine the reasoning why GEP proves out for The Flip. Take a look at the model:

(Click to Enlarge…)

As a user, my daughter’s friend brought a Flip to a sleep-over, and I was struck at how simple—and cool—that thing was. Maybe a step or two above Fisher-Price… but this thing was easily 9-year old-friendly. And thus The Flip’s simplicity inherently expands the market further: the youth are the ones doing the most online video! Next step for Pure Digital? Introduce more sophisticated products as this segment grows up meanwhile eating up marketshare.

GEP in Mobile Web

This sort of thing strikes me as very typical in the mobile phone space as well, particularly with data apps other than SMS. Now that the price points of "all-you-can-eat" mobile internet are coming down, people can "bother" to explore more functionality on their phones—namely, Mobile Web. Every time I speak to someone about what we do, they’re like "wow, your technology can do that?! Cool!"

The challenge is, are there other companies that have more features and coolness than what Greenlight does? It’s all relative, I guess—but sure. But let me suggest to you that those kinds of companies are addressing an even smaller market share of those willing to pay professional prices for a professional Mobile Web experience. One of Skweezer’s key strengths is helping people find Web information and providing transactional access to it in a very simple way. The other strength is providing mobile ads that don’t require publishers to do anything but copy/paste code that mobilizes AND monetizes their pages!

So while the debates rage on about whether Mobile Web is dead, or if the iPhone makes Mobile Web unnecessary, or whatever… while everyone’s trying to make the Mobile Web perfect, we’ll be taking a cue from The Flip.

By Kevin Perkins