With the ubiquitous presence of mobile phones and their ever-expanding functionality, AOL has taken steps to make its services more available to mobile phone users.
In the results of a recent survey conducted by AOL with Pew Research and AP, AOL has found the mobile phone stays on all the time for more than half of all adults. Even better, 40 percent of the richly coveted 18-29 demographic has dumped landlines in favor of their wireless phone.
To achieve a greater hold on its part of the hotly competitive mobile market, AOL has partnered with InfoGin Ltd to transcode web pages for viewing on the smaller handheld screens.
Most importantly, the expanded alliance with InfoGin extends PC browser-based search to the mobile platform. This provides AOL with greater opportunities to deliver paid search ads, particularly local business ads, to users. Local search figures to be a multi-billion dollar market in a few years.
The updates made by AOL to mobile browsing integrate with the company’s current suite of mobile services. While many users want various search options at their fingertips, the Mobile Lifestyle survey shows they have other needs too.
Using mobile maps placed at the top of the list of activities Americans like to do or want to do with wireless phones. More than have of those surveyed (51 percent) cited maps as the top choice for mobile activity.
Users also like to send text messages and take photos with their phones, as nearly half the respondents listed those activities. Despite all the current hype over mobile television, watching video or TV shows on a mobile phone only attracted interest from 16 percent of respondents.
AOL also announced at CTIA Wireless 2006 in Las Vegas that it would expand the existing relationship with Sprint, and brings its mobile portal services to Sprint subscribers.
This includes access to the new AOL mobile search as well as the popular AIM instant messaging system. Users can download mobile AIM applications or connect to AIM through their wireless Internet connection.
AOL noted that “presence awareness via the mobile Buddy List feature, IM Forwarding and two-way desktop-to-mobile (IM2SMS) messaging services” would be available to those Sprint subscribers.
Soon, AOL plans to provide a mobile picture upload feature that users on any wireless carrier can access for automatic photo posting. They will also enable mobile blogging for users to place photos on AOL Journals or AIM Blogs.
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David Utter is a staff writer for webproworld covering technology and business.