Results were based on user-generated requests for mobile ads during April 2009 as well as on a Gartner report on smartphone sales in Q4 2008.

So, in the smartphone category, which devices were most conducive to consumer interest in ads? We're sure advertisers are dying to know, but this also gives a good picture of browser usability and speed as well as connection reliability.

The iPhone/iTouch group led the pack with 43 percent of mobile web and 65 percent of HTML requests, all on an 8 percent share of the smartphone market. Devices with the Android OS represented less than one percent of the market but accounted for three percent of mobile web and nine percent of HTML ad requests. Though none of us here majored in higher maths, we see this as a sign that if Android devices can capture more of the smartphone market, they might be able to outstrip Apple devices in mobile web use.

The disappointing underacheiver of the report was undoubtedly the Symbian OS, which had 52 percent of the smartphone market but generated only 36 percent of mobile web and 7 percent of HTML requests. This is a fairly good indicator that the Symbian OS might - just might - not be bringing the Internet to life in its truest, most usable form. Satisfied users of Symbian-running devices are invited to rebut this speculation in the comments.

The top devices for web use were from Apple, Sony (the PSP), and HTC.

Overall, smartphones' use of the mobile web (again, according to AdMob) as compared to all mobile devices is up about 10 percent from last year. However, Apple devices' domination of the market has slipped slightly over the past five months, falling from 48 to 43 percent of mobile web use for smartphones.

If you've been waiting a lifetime to get off Skyfire's waiting list, you don't have to wait any longer. With the release of version 0.8 of Skyfire, the application is now available to all Windows Mobile users with compatible devices. So what's new with the app itself?

• New Super Bar that combines search and URL entry into one bar
• Skyfire can now be set as the default browser
• New search bar on the Homescreen
• New start page redesign
• Faster start-up and page loading times
• Share a link via SMS
• Invite friends to download Skyfire via SMS
• Save an image
• Download files

One of the most popular capabilities that Skyfire has over Safari on the iPhone is the ability to play flash videos. This means you can browse popular video sites such as Youtube and Vimeo, or music sites such as Last.FM and Imeem, to play media clips on the go. Playback speed and quality has noticeably improved in the latest Skyfire update. With videos, the mobile browser's playback quality would suffer significantly when zooming into a video while it was playing. In our tests of the latest update, this bug seems to have been fixed and playback quality stayed the same when zooming in and out.

What we think will be a really popular new feature is Skyfire's ability to download files. You may be thinking that you can't download anything outside of a Word or PDF file. Well, you're wrong. We were able to download .mp3 files, Gmail attachments, .CAB files and more to our Windows Mobile handset. Skyfire lets you choose where to save a file and presents you with a progress view of your download. However, you won't be able to do anything else while the file is downloading.

Two Big Problems

We encountered a major bug that we feel users of Skyfire should be aware of. Before the update, if Skyfire lost service we would simply have to quit the application and restart it. In this update, Skyfire attempts to reconnect instead of dropping the connection completely. However, we never got the browser to reconnect. Instead, a continuous loop of reconnection attempts occured and we eventually had to exit the browser and restart it.

Another big problem with Skyfire is that there is still no option to import your Pocket Internet Explorer (PIE) bookmarks. We deemed this to be a high-priority feature in our initial review of Skyfire. For new users, this will be very important and could be a deal breaker for those who live in their mobile browsers and have one too many bookmarks.

Even Better Than Before

Skyfire users will not be disappointed with the latest update. In fact, we feel the small changes that have been made will make the browsing experience with Skyfire even better! Symbian users can expect an update very soon, though Blackberry and Palm devices still aren't supported by Skyfire.

Web Products

Nokia Acquires Symbian; Takes on Google's Android

Nokia isn't finished with its acquisition spree just yet. This week the Finnish company announced a plan to acquire the 52 per cent of Symbian it doesn't already own and make the platform open source. Nokia clearly aims to challenge Android, the open source mobile operating system of Google. Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo says that it wants to create "the most attractive platform for mobile innovation and drive the development of new and compelling web-enabled applications".

See also: last100's analysis and Setbacks for Google's Android

Evernote Opens to All: Fantastic Promise, Disappointing Execution

The highly anticipated "memory augmentation" service Evernote opened to the public this week and you'll probably want to check this service out just to see what it tries to do. We may change our minds after more lengthy testing, but so far this combination of a bookmarking, note taking and photo cataloging service with apps for the desktop, web and mobile - not to mention the Optical Character Recognition powered search - adds up to a whole lot of potential ... and frustration.

Evri Beta Launches: Search Less - Understand More

Evri, a Paul Allen backed semantic search engine, launched into a limited beta this week. Evri was first shown publicly at the D6 conference. Evri's CEO Neil Roseman likes to talk about Evri in terms of organizing content instead of calling it a search engine. At its core, however, Evri definitely is a search engine, though it adds a very sophisticated semantic layer on top of its results that emphasizes the relationships between different search terms.

Facebook Targets Chinese Market

Social networking site Facebook has launched a Chinese-language version of its web site. Users logging into the site from the Chinese mainland are now being redirected to zh-cn.facebook.com, where users can choose between a version in simplified or traditional Chinese.

See also: China's Facebook Clones

LinkedIn and The Strange Case of The Disappearing (IPO) Market

Is LinkedIn worth $1bn? Yes. Why? Because Bain Capital says it is. The stock is not public, so you and I cannot trade it. The whole notion of the average punter trading tech stocks (or the average punter's pension fund trading it on your behalf) seems rather quaint, from some bygone era. But why has the public market for tech stocks disappeared? Where has it disappeared to? Will it ever return? The LinkedIn financing offers some clues to these questions.

SEE MORE WEB PRODUCTS COVERAGE IN OUR PRODUCTS CATEGORY

Web Trends

Yet Another Unsolicited Yahoo Turnaround Strategy - YAUYTS

Watching Yahoo's decline is rather sad. It is the result of nothing more or less than creative destruction. Meeting that challenge head-on is incredibly tough. Very, very few companies make the transition. IBM, led by Lou Gerstner, met the challenge of the PC era in his epic turnaround (described in the book Who Says Elephants Can't Dance). Microsoft has struggled mightily to remain relevant in the Web era and they are as smart and driven as it gets. What's so incredible is seeing the speed of these transitions - to see a big successful Web start-up like Yahoo marginalized by technology shifts.

Our Kids Are Failing - And It's All Wikipedia's Fault!

Talk about a knee-jerk reaction. This week news broke out in Scotland about how the internet was to blame for Scotland's failing exam pass rates. According to the Scottish Parent Teacher Council (SPTC), Wikipedia, among other sources, was cited as the reason as to why the students were failing. Is this a case of the internet making us stupid? Or do students just need to learn how to use the new research tools of the web a little more appropriately?

Bored With Web 2.0? Demand Change

In April, Umair Haque posted a manifesto on his blog on the Harvard Business Publishing web site where he called for today's investors and start-ups to start building applications to "change the world" instead of just making apps that make money. He challenged Silicon Valley to find a problem to fix that will change the world for the better and then pledged that he would help by providing free consulting. Recently, he revisited this topic...

YouTube Continues to Destroy All Competitors in Declining Video Market

YouTube's huge lead in market share over other online video sites continues to get bigger, even as the over all video viewing market continues a decline. According to traffic analysts Hitwise, YouTube now sees 75.43% of traffic to the online video category; that's up 26% from it's May 2007 marketshare of 59.95%. The nearest competitor is still MySpaceTV, which was down a whopping 44% to 9% marketshare. (Full chart of top 5 sites below.) In April we reported that YouTube's dominance in online video was bigger than Google's dominance in search (67%). The new Hitwise numbers raise a number of questions for us.

See also: The Top 40 Online Video Producers in May - This List Might Surprise You

SEE MORE WEB TRENDS COVERAGE IN OUR TRENDS CATEGORY

That's a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone.

All of the major stakeholders in Symbian, including Sony Ericsson, Panasonic, and Siemens, have accepted the offer, representing approximately 91% of the Symbian shares.  Nokia doesn't have a definitive answer form Samsung Electronics yet, but expects them to accept the offer as well.  

As Techcraver.com points out, part of this move might be an answer to the delays Google's Android operating system is currently experiencing. But at the same time, this could also be driven by Nokia wanting to have more control over both the hardware and software side of its business, similar to how Apple has created its own operating system for the iPhone.

UPDATE: last100 has a great analysis of the deal.