TechScape

A survey from RarePlay claims that just 8% of the top 1,000 US brands have websites that are compatible with mobile web browsers, taking into account their limited bandwidth and small screens.

The industries that score best include Internet & ISPs (23%), travel (18%) and entertainment (17%), with sectors like pharmaceutical, retail and education scoring less than 1%. RarePlay – which it has to be said earns its money from making web applications for firms which ARE cross-platform – cites BMW, Red Bull and T.G.I. Friday's as three brands that have commissioned mobile-friendly sites.

That's real-world shopping, I mean. Digital agency IconNicholson has unveiled a concept it calls "social retailing", in a press release that impressively shoehorns in Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Near Field Communication AND Web 2.0.

The concept is being shown off at this week's National Retail Federation show in New York. It's basically a shop that lets The Kids interact using text messaging, IM and email as they browse the frocks (which for the show have been supplied by fashion designer Nanette Lepore). It also includes NFC technology to monitor stock and make the checkout process more secure.

Following last week's iPhone announcement, mobile phone operators have been falling over themselves to improve their mobile internet services, Mobile Marketing Magazine reports. The latest such development stems from the partnership between 3 Group and Yahoo!, who joined forces in June 2006, and will now work together to provide 3 Group customers in Italy, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, and the UK with Yahoo! Go for Mobile 2.0. Irish 3 Group customers will also get access to Yahoo! Search.

The Yahoo! Go for Mobile 2.0 services on offer will include Yahoo! Go 2.0, “an innovative new application that redefines the mobile Internet experience for consumers through a unique product design, ability to personalize with content from the entire Internet and a reinvention of mobile search”, Yahoo! oneSearch, Yahoo! Mail, and Yahoo! Messenger.

The collaboration is not set to end with Europe, however - 3 Group is also looking to expand its existing services within Asia and Australia.

True mobile 2.0 is here at last, or so say Juice Wireless. The authors of JuiceCaster 4.0 claim that their baby is the first application which will allow users to create and share rich media between mobile phones and the internet, Mobile Marketing Magazine reports. In addition to the expected shared and accessible content, JuiceCaster 4.0 will allow real-time distribution of pictures and videos.

Media can be created using either mobile phones or computers, and can then be shared with a range of devices, and is compatible with the majority of cameraphones available in the UK, the US, Finland, Italy, Germany, France, and Spain.

Juicecaster 4.0 is free via the JuiceCaster website, and registration includes a MediaBox, an internet storage device which automatically stores pictures and videos taken with your chosen mobile device. Furthering the whole community social-networking web 2.0 ethos is the MediaBox's shareability: content is easily shared with Xanga, MySpace, Friendster, and Blogger, among other sites. Similar to YouTube, the JuiceCaster MediaBox also features channels for other users to subscribe to; channel content can be displayed on mobile phones, iPods, and computers.

While 3G has been occupying the majority of non-iPhone mobile news, 2.5G handsets have been silently improving, with ROK's push to deliver TV services to the phones, Mobile Marketing Magazine reports. In addition to the existing ROK TV and FreeBe services currently available to 2.5G handsets in the UK, the US, Turkey, China, and Thailand, ROK has launched 'Monkey Sports News', a live sports news channel.

What's newsworthy about Monkey Sports News, however, is the way it's put together. ROK combined speech recognition software with a live text feed of sports news, creating a channel where the news is 'read' by CG animals. The technology is patent-pending, and uses mass-market 2.5G GPRS to stream video.

Amid all that talk about brands getting involved with Second Life, nobody mentioned the idea of brands cutting out the middleman and creating their own virtual worlds. But MTV has gone and done it, albeit for a single show, The Hills, and in partnership with Makena Technologies.

Virtual Hills is a virtual online extension of the show, and follows the same pairing's experiment last year with Virtual Laguna Beach, based on another MTV show. Virtual Hills replicates the show's locations, and will apparently run a series of special events, including fashion challenges, concerts and dance challenges, and a nightclub.

Mobile social networking on both sides of the pond is dominated by MySpace and Windows Live Spaces, new research from Telephia has found. Brits uploading mobile phone content onto the web are most likely to use MySpace, Windows Live Spaces, and YouTube, while in America YouTube is replaced with the college students' favourite, Facebook.

Telephia's statistics, reported by Mobile Marketing Magazine, shows that 21% of British mobile social networkers are devoted to MySpace, 18% are enamoured with Windows Live Spaces, 9% are dedicated YouTubers, and a further 9% love Bebo. While PCs are still used to upload media onto the internet, Telephia points to the recent rise in mobile social networking as a sign that 2007 will be the year in which the medium begins to benefit from its staggering growth potential.

The majority of mobile social networkers are in their teens and early twenties, with twice as many UK mobile social networkers coming from the 15-17 age group as from the population as a whole.

In the US MySpace has effectively cornered the market in mobile social networking in the 15-17 market, with 69% of that age group using it as their primary host of photos and videos. Mobile social networkers as a whole also prefer to use MySpace, which was the top choice of 32% of mobile social networkers. Facebook has a 13% share, and Windows Live Spaces 11%.

Eager to see what News Corp has planned next in the Web 2.0 world? Rupert Murdoch is one of the keynote interviews at next month's 2007 Media Summit in New York, where he'll be fielding questions from BusinessWeek's Stephen Adler.

What questions would you like to ask Rupe? I'd be keen to know if he ever considered buying YouTube, how MySpace could interact more with News Corp's various media properties, and whether he'll give me several million quid for the vague idea for a Web 2.0 service that I sketched on the back of a napkin last night (sorry, can't say more, it's pre-Alpha...)

That interview's on February 8th, but the previous day, Barry Diller of InterActiveCorp and Expedia will be doing a similar Q&A session. It's a formiddable pairing, although wouldn't it be more fun if the two media moguls had to interview each other? Just a thought.

Who said the Web 2.0 world had to be about Old Media versus New Media? The BBC is rumoured to be in the midst of negotiations with Google to launch a branded Beeb channel on the company's video-sharing service, which would show clips of new BBC shows.

Yes, that's Google Video, not YouTube, but MediaGuardian is reporting that the agreement would probably eventually expand to YouTube too. It's thought that the deal may be announced tomorrow at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

As pleased as I am at the opportunity to watch the Beeb's programme plugs on my computer, I wish they'd get a move on and sort some proper full-length downloads, whether through their own site or iTunes. If I want to see endless plugs for the Corporation's latest shows, I can just watch the last hour of BBC Breakfast on the TV...

(via MediaGuardian)

Anheuser-Busch has announced plans to adopt Aristotle's age-verification technology for all its beer-branded websites, including Budweiser.com and the upcoming Bud.tv, which is launching on Super Bowl weekend (that's 4th February, for us Brits who don't set our watches by the NFL calendar).

Apparently, this makes the company the first booze firm to use an independent age-verification system for its sites. Is this a good thing? Okay, so US consumers can't legally swig beer until they're 21, but surely they're allowed to read about it on the internetweb? Seemingly not.

Brands are splashing their cash on Web 2.0 tech like blogs, podcasts and user-generated content, but is their investment paying off? And is anyone brave enough to ask that question right now? Neil Morgan from Omniture Revolution is, over on Brand Republic:

"If we are to avoid a second boom and bust, we need to be sure investment in user-generated content has a positive impact on online business. Most companies measure hits to their site or page views, but few measure the impact of web 2.0 applications on business objectives. Are they investing in applications that don't deliver?"

I'm sure many of the Web 2.0 investments are well thought out and carefully monitored, but with so many technovangelists out there, there are sure to be some misfiring campaigns too.

Castrol is the latest brand to leap onto the Web 2.0 bandwagon, with plans to launch a website for the Euro 2008 soccerball tournament in April this year.

OgilvyOne is creating the site, and apparently giving it a Web 2.0 sheen which will let fans upload their own "user generated content" and create their own "personalised football blogs".