Time goes by and Modu the Israeli device manufacturer that started with big noise continue to fade slowly. We hear about delays and layoffs, difficulties to raise new funds, and about the intentions to build a modu touch screen device.
The most recent official announcement stated that the launch will be on June… but Modu’s launch day is still not here.

With all these factors, the company can use some more money (the estimations are that Modu raised 85-95 million dollars). Today it was published that Israel’s Chief Scientist office granted a 1 million dollar investment in Modu.

Dov Moran the founder and CEO spoke  about the procedures / obstacles that caused (and still are) the delay.
“At first we did not know how to build a mobile device, we consulted with experts, that were charlatan.
Moreover there is no experience building a mobile device in Israel [not true, IXI Mobile, Motorola, Emblaze H.S) so we connected companies that were hurt from the global economy crisis, such as Texas Instruments and Sky Mobile”.
But Dov Moran also dropped a bomb and said that “Canon examines a co-op with Modu”

via TheMarker

We are just a few days away from the Palm Pre launch, the “Synergy” mobile device and Fring the VOIP and IM mobile application is proving that synergy can be achieved by using its mobile application.
So what is that “Synergy” and should we be more worried about it?!

Plam Pre tactic is that all features of the mobile devices can “sing” together and make our lives easier.
one picture is batter than thousand words, in this case a quick preview of the “Palm Synergy”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItmmptNkJi4[/youtube]

Palm was not the first company that thought that mobile applications should work together, Apple thought the same when an address became a hyperlink to Google Maps, Google hooked up all her services to that mission to its mobile OS, the Andriod. Symbian also provided developers the tools to integrate to the core of the OS but only with special API and it is much easier when you own the device and the OS (like in Palm and Apple) where the hardware / software / working space is designed by the same company.
But still the contact list, our basic friend list, did not draw Apple and Google attention, until INQ came.
INQ was the first to acknowledge that our address book is no longer living inside the mobile device, it is out there, in social networks.
The contact list is now sync with your Facbook friends and you can choose to send them an sms, a Facebook message or just do it the old way and give them a call.

Apps like Cellity are trying to become your alternative contact list, but they have less power than Fring.
Today Fring has launched its version for the online address book,   a step which holds a huge potential.
First, due to the great success of Fring and the huge number of users its built up a mini social network, moreover with its open API approach it open the door for more services to ride on the platform.
So as for now Fring would like you to stop using your classic address book and use Fring, and it is worth it.
You can save money using VOIP calls, or using the IM option, or again just give your friend a simple GSM call.
On the other hand Fring will become an inherent part of your mobile device meaning messenger, icq, fring im, facebook and others become part of your contact list giving you room to do a lot of cool stuff.

Privacy issues will rise, they must, but however I think it is worth giving it a try.
Using a Nokia E61 device the app is not stable and it resets a lot but on e71 it looks more stable, you must remember it is a beta version.

The mobile advertising market holds a big promise.
According to eMarketer, mobile search ad revenues will reach $715 million in 2011 whereas mobile advertising in general  is estimated to generate billions of dollars.

Having said that, mobile advertising is still in early stages and there is no verified and long-lasting model for ROI.
We sat down with Moshe Vaknin founder & CEO of Toda!Cell to learn more about the company and to understand where mobile advertising is going.

Activity started at – May 2007
Entrepreneurs – Moshe Vaknin
Invesments – seed – $1M AfterDox and Fore-Group
Targeted markets – Japan and USA
Customers – ( not yet public) Mobile Content search Provider and Mobile Instant Messaging.

Q: Companies like Microsoft (with its dedicated platform), Media Layers, Amobee, adinfuse etc. supply Platforms that offer the management of advertisement in SMS, MMS, Wap, and Video. What is Toda!Cell’s offer to its clients?

A: Toda!Cell , does not target carriers at all. Our solution has been developed from day one only for off portal content providers. Toda!Cell believes that off portal browsing over the mobile internet is going to grow rapidly. Premium content providers don’t like to be associated or accessible via mobile carrier.
Publishers can benefit from our solution because our core system has been developed to increase their CTR; therefore, increasing the inventory value for them and providing high ROI to advertisers; so both publishers and advertisers are beneficial from the solution significantly. Unlike others we do not push ads, but only pull mode.
Our major differences  from our competitors are that we focus only on premium content that was optimized to the mobile medium and we collect data for six months activities, then we generate an optimization process to target accurately the users based on their behavior and not based on content. With the cooperation of the content provider, we use advanced profiling to enhance their inventory to achieve the maximum value for their ads.

Q: It seems like you chose to work in Japan which is an unfamiliar and distant market. Can you please share with us your insight about the Japanese Mobile advertisement market?

A: the Japanese market is the most advanced  mobile market in the world. With 3G all across the country, flat fee to access the web, and advanced mobile devices, it is a perfect market for off portal mobile advertising market. The Japanese people access the web over the mobile more than PC. Another important factor is that revenues from ad placement in Japan is about 70 percent from the 700M dollars marker while the rest is in other forms. In USA for example it is 50%. The mobile advertising as of today in Japan is about 1% from the total advertising budget while in USA it is about 0.3 percent. In Japan the off market mobile content portals already serve about 100B ads a month!

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