Taptu and Pulse

Taptu is a lot like Pulse, which is many peoples' favorite way to read news on an Android Tablet. I mean it's a lot like Pulse, now that it's no longer a mobile search app like it used to be.

The background colors are different. It syncs with social media accounts so you can read updates from LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter alongside topical and source-based feeds. Topic granularity is good, the interface is attractive and the app is free.

Syncing with Google Reader is limited to 100 feeds, which makes it of little use to me personally. Pulse is limited as well, but that might not matter to many other people.

FeedSquares

Feedsquares syncs with Google Reader and displays all your subscriptions and articles in an attractive interface of squares. Feedquares is also free and could be visually ideal for some users.

Feedly

Feedly syncs with Google Reader and has no limit to the number of feeds you can import. It offers updates in a very clean layout with more white space than any of the alternatives. It's a cross-platform app that also works on the iPad, iPhone and in desktop browsers. It's a smart, well-developed service. When the iPhone version launched in January, I said it might be the best mobile feed reader on the market.

Those are the best alternatives to Flipboard that I've been able to find for Android tablets. All of them are pretty good and I think Feedly is great. Many other people swear by Pulse. These aren't quite like the magazine type apps you see on iOS, but they can make for a great weekend afternoon of casual reading none the less.

The update includes a social feature that lets users share content via Facebook, Twitter or email, as was already possible with Taptu's iPhone app. The new version is available now in the Android Market.

A screenshot from the new Taptu Android app.

The Cambridge, England-based company launched the Taptu mobile site in 2007 with the goal of enabling mobile Web users to find the content they're looking for "in 10 taps or less."

Taptu specializes in search for mobile devices, which makes it a convenient way to browse the mobile Web but also limits the number of results for a query. The new Android app will return results from the 60,000-app strong Android Market as well as the "mobile touch Web" - the parts of the Web that are mobile user-friendly. According to Taptu, that includes 411,000 touch and mobile-friendly websites.

The app will also offer category browsing, filtered search, portrait and landscape orientation and a page of bookmarks called My Taptu. The Taptu apps are free and supported by advertising.

Earlier this year, AdMob's CEO and founder Omar Hamoui argued that the mobile Web is going through its "Yahoo phase," as it is still possible to find mobile apps using directory-like app stores instead of having to rely on more advanced search engines. While Hamoui was mostly talking about apps, the same could be said about the mobile Web in general. The number of touch-friendly mobile sites is still relatively small when compared the Web as a whole, and services like Taptu's new directory make sense at this point.

Taptu's Directory

To help its users find the best touch-friendly sites for mobile phones, Taptu decided to create a directory. Taptu notes that phones with touchscreens are quickly becoming mass-market devices, but a lot of these devices don't feature app stores. For Taptu, the top five traffic-generating phones include the Samsung Caliber, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and Samsung Finesse.

Thanks to Taptu's focus on touch-friendly sites, the directory turns out to be a fun way to find interesting sites on the go, without the hassle of having to deal with sites that don't work well on small screens. To access Taptu's directory, just head over to the company's mobile site and look for the Categories icon at the top of the page.

In the company's last report, Taptu estimated that the size of touch-friendly Web would reach half a million sites by the end of the year and about 1 million by the end of 2011. Given these new numbers, however, Taptu now estimates that there will be 1.1 million touch-optimized sites on the Web by the end of 2010.

The reason for this rapid growth is surely the increasing popularity of touch-screen phones and touch-screen enabled devices like the iPad. As touch-enabled mobile devices become more common, having a touch-optimized site is now becoming a necessity for online publishers and retailers, especially as more and more users simply expect these organizations to have sites that are optimized for mobile usage. In Taptu's analysis, shopping and services sites now make up 22.1% of all touch-friendly sites.

These retailers and publishers could obviously also opt to just develop native apps (and many currently do both), but thanks to HTML5 and other new technologies, it will become increasingly possible for developers to create mobile web apps that will feel more and more like native apps. There will always be a role for native apps, but given the choice between developing numerous native apps for an increasingly diverse mobile ecosystem or one mobile web app that works everywhere, many companies will surely opt for developing a touch-friendly website instead of mobile apps.

Taptu estimates that there are 326,000 Mobile Touch Web sites worldwide, which they say compares to 148,000 iPhone apps in the App Store and 24,000 apps in the Android market. Taptu expects the browser-based mobile web market to grow much faster than the app market.

What kinds of sites are more likely to be browser-based for mobile phones? According to the report, 19% of the mobile sites measured were Shopping & Services sites; compared to 3.6% in the same category in the App Store. Content in the 'Social' category also has a higher chance of being a browser-based mobile site, rather than an app (12.9% to 1.7%).

Conversely, just 0.8% of mobile sites were gaming, compared to 18% of apps in the App Store. There is a similar discrepency in the 'Entertainment' category.

It seems then that commerce services are taking more advantage of mobile web browsers than gaming and entertainment providers. But why? Taptu says it's because "many [Commerce] products and services do not really fit into Apple's iTunes content-oriented billing system." Meanwhile, gaming and entertainment content is better delivered as an app, says Taptu, "since apps deliver a much richer, more interactive gaming experience than the casual games available on the Mobile Web."

Taptu says that the increasing sophistication of mobile browsers is one reason why browser-based mobile sites will flourish. In particular, it points to increasing support for HTML 5. See our analysis of Web vs. Native Mobile Apps if you'd like to know more about this.

According to Taptu, "it's getting easier and easier to create rich touch screen user experiences with the browser without having to create platform-specific apps." Taptu also points to increasing usage of open standard APIs, enabling Mobile Web developers to access "deeper device functions such as geolocation."

Taptu does concede that gaming content will probably continue to be delivered predominantly as download apps on iPhone and similar devices. However it claims that for "many other types of app, the economics of software development and publishing favours the Web development route."

Taptu predicts that "the Mobile Touch Web will grow vigorously over the next five years, and will approach the quality of user experience of Mobile Touch Apps across all the app categories except for games."

We should note that Taptu is mostly a browser-based service, although it does offer apps for iPhone and other platforms too. But it obviously has a big stake in the success of the "touchscreen mobile web."

What do you think, do you agree that the future of Mobile Web development will lie in browser-based mobile sites? Or do you think the pull of advanced functionality as an app (on platforms such as iPhone and Android) will draw most types of content and services over time?

Update: The report is now available for download (PDF - 5MB) and a presentation is embedded below.

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There are two ways to access real-time search results in the app. The homepage now displays the hottest trending topics, and a single click on one of these opens up OneRiot search results.

In addition, you can also do a normal search and then select "latest buzz" from the options menu right next to the search box. This same menu also allows you to restrict search to images, videos, blog or Wikipedia articles, as well as to sites and blogs about sports, news or apps.

For a closer look at Taptu's feature set, also have a look at our review of the service's web app.]]> Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/taptu_brings_real-time_search_to_its_mobile_apps.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/taptu_brings_real-time_search_to_its_mobile_apps.php News Tue, 22 Dec 2009 12:30:51 -0800 Frederic Lardinois Having just launched a new real-time mobile search engine in conjunction with OneRiot only weeks ago, mobile search company Taptu is now expanding their revamped service to the Android platform. Today, they're launching a new application designed specifically for Android phones running version 1.5 and above. Like their brand-new mobile website, Taptu for Android includes real-time search results thanks to OneRiot integration. It also offers a touchscreen interface for viewing the results without having to pinch, resize, or refocus the screen.

However, nearly everything else about the new Android application is the same as its mobile counterpart, including its search verticals of "web," "images," and "buzz" which sit above Taptu's search box on the app's main screen.

The "buzz" section contains real-time results pulled from sites like Twitter and Digg as well as from other social sharing websites, blogs, and data pulled from select panel of internet users who have downloaded the OneRiot toolbar and are anonymously sharing their web-browsing data with the company. This aggregate information is actually the most prominent source of real-time data for OneRiot's search service. As of September of this year, OneRiot claimed to have 3 million active toolbar users out of the 20 million or so who have downloaded the toolbar to date. Meanwhile, they're indexing around 20,000 links from Digg and 5 million from Twitter.

It's this data which powers Taptu's "buzz" section where you can find breaking news and other currently "hot topics" being discussed on the web. And unlike Twitter's trending topics, for instance, OneRiot doesn't link to raw tweets but to the actual news stories and blog posts that are sharing the information.

The main Taptu homepage also links to these trending items by way of a tag cloud whose colorful blue bubbles take you directly to the buzz section when tapped.

If you're interested in trying the new Android application, you can download a free copy from the Android Market on your mobile phone. If you don't own an Android device (or iPhone), you can still use Taptu via its mobile website available at www.taptu.com.

Using the OneRiot API, Taptu's new homepage presents a mobile-friendly search engine interface complete with search box and verticals for searching just the web, images, and now, "buzz." Previously, the site included verticals for music and video searches too, but those have seemingly been done away with in an effort to simplify the interface.

The new "buzz" section is where you can find the real-time results. Here you'll find content pulled from sites like Twitter, Digg, other social sharing sites and the company's own panel of users who have downloaded the OneRiot toolbar and are sharing their web-browsing data in anonymous aggregate.

While Twitter is clearly a source of breaking news, we've always found it a bit odd that OneRiot includes Digg in its "real-time" search engine. We've never thought of Digg as anything near real-time - in fact, it pales in comparison to Twitter when it comes to the speed with which information spreads. With the immediacy possible on today's web, sites like Digg seem much slower - painfully slow at times - often taking hours on end to feature the news that had already been buzzing on Twitter for half a day.

That said, Digg and other social news sharing sites can sometimes unearth news that had been overlooked by major media outlets, especially when focused on a particular niche like technology. For example, just think of how many stories you read on someone's personal blog or Reddit and never saw anywhere else on the web. By tracking niche websites like these as well as Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, social bookmarking sites like Delicious and StumbleUpon, microblogs and URL-shortening services, Oneriot can discover links that may have otherwise gone unnoticed.

Taptu's new mobile search engine interface currently works on major touch-enabled devices including the iPhone, iPod touch, G1, Nokia N97 and 5800, and the BlackBerry Storm 1. The Taptu iPhone application will also be updated soon to include the additional functionality. You can test the new service yourself starting at 9 AM EST by pointing your mobile browser to www.taptu.com.

Of course, a search engine that doesn't return good results is useless, no matter how good the interface, but Taptu's search results are generally good. While focusing on sites that work well on mobile devices is great, it limits the number of results which can often be a disadvantage. Modern phones also tend to be rather good at displaying any web site you throw at them, so Taptu's advantage here (if it really is one), might only be temporary.

Oddly, especially for a mobile search engine, Taptu doesn't feature any maps in its search results and it doesn't seem to optimize its search based on your location.

Taptu has a good number of very interesting features, though. You can, for example, choose if you want to be taken to a slightly stripped down version of a site it found, or if you want to see the full version of that site. Especially on older phones and slow connections, this can be a real advantage.

iPhone App Coming Soon

Taptu also announced that it is working on a native iPhone app, which should be available soon. Taptu heralds its iPhone app as the "world's first search service specifically for touch devices and the touch web." This does sound intriguing, but without being able to test drive the app, we will have to sit back and see if Taptu can live up to its promise. We do hope, though, that the app will fix some of the shortcomings of Taptu's mobile site. The company already offers an iPhone app (iTunes link) that gives users access to an iPhone-optimized view of Wikipedia.