ReadWriteWeb

Doing research to attract more women to our Mobile Summit on May 7, 2010, I revisited some of ReadWriteWeb's past articles on gender and tech. In January, we discussed "'Sexy Girls,' Smart Women and Tech" in an open thread where we asked for readers' opinions and had an open discussion on women's issues, like whether it's true that some good-looking women get flaunted as sex symbols, while other women get overlooked, are underpaid and not taken seriously.

As noted last week, a group of startups promoting themselves at Mobile 2.0. Part 1 was in the morning. Here now is the afternoon session (note it was just 5 minutes per speaker, so we only got brief overviews of each service).

Webwag Mobile

We've written before about Webwag, a personalized start page. Webwag Mobile is a Java app. It looks very much like a desktop widget service (like Yahoo! Widgets). Certainly looked slick and the ability to sync with the Internet version is useful for heavy Mobile Web users. The TomSoft blog has more details of Webwag Mobile.

Taptu is a new kind of search engine for mobile phones, being launched today at the Mobile 2.0 Conference in San Francisco. Taptu uses a new technique which they call "Social Assisted Search" (SAS) - it combines algorithms with human feedback (from which it derives "social relevancy scores") to deliver the results. Taptu's aim is to enable users to search and find useful content "in 10 taps or less." Taptu CEO Stephen Ives claims that for other mobile search services it “takes an average of 30 taps and scrolls and two-and-a-half minutes to get to good results."

The other notable feature of Taptu is that it includes rich media - e.g. playable audio and video. Here's an example:

As noted last week, a group of startups are launching today at Mobile 2.0. Here are the first lot:

heysan

heysan describes itself as a "mobile meebo" - it's a meta IM service for mobile phones. It is mobile browser based and works on the iPhone. The service is free and features include one single buddy list and a chat conversation view. They launched in April 07, a product of the YCombinator program.

Taptu

See our full review of this product, a new type of mobile search.

Mippin

Mippin connects mobile users to their favorite web content, which for mobile means the freshest content optimized for small screens. It has a search function (although a search for "mobile2.0" didn't discover any R/WW posts), and if you find a good story you can share it - via services like Twitter. It also allows you to publish content.

Update: Prashant Agarwal from Mippin comments: "hey richard, I searched for "Mobile2.0" when I did my demo. But if you search for "Mobile 2.0" you guys come up. Stupid, I know, we're working on it."

Mobile Analytics

MobileResearch is a mobile data company; it sells data feeds, does phone testing, etc. They've done a lot of work on device targeting. The Mobile Analytics product is a stats service for Mobile Web, launching in January. Currently the service is in private beta testing.

I'm at the second annual Mobile 2.0 event in San Francisco. Rudy de Waele of mTrends starts with an overview of Mobile 2.0: an all-IP environment and application mashups are two features. Rudy has been a guest author on Read/WriteWeb before and his Understanding Mobile 2.0 post from December is one of the best introductions to mobile 2.0 that you'll find. Also see: Mobile 2.0 Startup Ecosystem (Sept '07).

Next up is Tomi Ahonen, author and Mobile blogger. His latest book is called 'Digital Korea', about how South Korea established itself as a technology leader. His talk today is about mobile social networking and communities - in particular the business opportunities in Mobile 2.0.

Next week I'll be in San Francisco for the Web 2.0 Summit. I'm also attending the Mobile 2.0 Conference on Monday 15 October, and will pop my head into the Widget Summit event being held by Niall Kennedy on the same day.

Today Read/WriteWeb is the first to announce the Mobile Launch Pad demo companies at Mobile 2.0. These are all exciting and up-and-coming mobile web startups; I'm looking forward to checking them out next week. Here is the launchpad list: