Yankee Group reviewed mobile consumer-facing sites in several categories: user, device, network, design and effectiveness.

Here are the results:

Financial services mobile Web sites ranked best overall, with only
two sites scoring below 50. Bank of America’s score of 67 topped the
financial services category; two regional banks—U.S. Bancorp and First
Interstate Bank—tied for second place.

Air travel mobile Web
sites are inconsistent in offering help to Web users on the go.
American Airlines topped the category with a score of 65 for
prioritized same-day information.

Shopping mobile Web sites
provide a broad array of services with variable mobile experiences.
Edmunds received the highest overall score in this category, earning a
grade of 67 for making checking car prices simple. Amazon.com and Best
Buy provide the broadest shopping experiences, with Amazon.com
prioritizing and marketing mobile products over traditional products.

Source

Nokia, still the world’s largest phone maker decided to pull out of the world’s largest
handset market.

“In the current global economic climate, we have concluded that the
continuation of our investment in Japan-specific localized products is
no longer sustainable,” Nokia executive vice president Timo Ihamuotila
said in a statement

Pretty drastic move if you ask me…but since I’ve met Nokia’s Eastern Hemisphere President in Beijing last year……I am sure they know why.

Smart phones, but dumb approach? When will users have more control over key elements of buying and using their mobile phone? Join moderator Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal, cellular thought leaders and rabble rousers as we look into the future of mobile telephony, asking questions such below.

− Where is mobility really going?

− Is it a phone or a TV set?

− What are the limitations of our mobile devices?

− When will we have more control over the phone/carrier combination?

− What opportunities still exist for entrepreneurs?

QRCode (or in this case Blotcode) meets fashion and art. Mobile Barcamp is always inspiring:

Via Demarketplace.com/blog

Just trying to dig a little in the Mobile Social Network space. These are the ones that I found so far:

Mocospace
Myspace
Facebook
High5
Peepsnation
Dodgeball (closed?)
JuiceCaster
Zingku
Rablle
Moblabber
Wadja
Treemo
Veeker
Zemble
Sociallight
Nakama
Jaiku (Google)
Jambo
Flagr
Hobnobster
….

I am here at Mobilecam NYC 3 in the Microsoft offices.
I couldn’t find the SMS Election session, so I am here in another great session called “How To Add SMS To Your Business”. I’ve been to the session last year and launched a few SMS campaigns since…..but I hope to get an idea about the adaption of SMS (which always was my biggest problem).

SMS is not Email. Technical Reasons: 120 bytes, only  160 characters in English (Chinese other  characters take even more). No unique means of tracking a conversation.

SMS is a Privilege not a Right.
All Carriers will audit your application. If there are issues come up, you have 4 days to come up with a fix or carrier will shut you down. Aggregators like MxTelecom. Mblox or Textopoly can usually help to avoid this situation. (Also Marketing Guide).

Opt-in, Opt-out, Quit/end service needs to be in place (see marketing guide):

The Future about SMS:..Hopefully free. SMS costs in Europe are almost half of US, Asia about 1 Cent. There is currently no Mobile SMS advertising network for smaller SMS sites).

The Pomegranate phone is the ultimate all-in-one device. It puts more things in the palm of your hand than you ever thought possible: phone, email, full internet browsing, camera, video, MP3 player, GPS navigation. …

Since I am a huge fan of the Mobile Barcamp in New York, I’ll try to live blog some of the sessions.

Here some of the topics:

• Future of Wireless by Ian Spalter, Creative Director of Mobile/Emerging Platforms at R/GA
• Location-based mobile social networking + proximity-based marketing by Murat Aktihanoglu
• Web-based mobile games and social interaction within mobile  by Nick Smolney & Karen Schrier.
• Barcodes in Mobile.
• Getting started on iPhone by Nick Clarey.
• Android development

Cannot wait to get there….

Oh this is so offtopic, but if you want or need a dog, go to a shelter. My friends over at Scoopnewsnow just posted this. How can someone not adopt this little doggie: