dot.life

Building mobile bridges

• Darren Waters
• 3 Apr 08, 10:34 GMT

While in San Francisco I called into see mobile firm Shozu, whose application had been powering my transfer of video direct from the phone to the BBC, and other online destinations.

I was interested in finding out why Nigel Clifford, the chief executive of Symbian, the world's most popular mobile OS, had cited the application as an example of the always-on, always-connected mobile experience when I had spoken to him during the Mobile World Congress.

I have been using Shozu mainly as a heavy lifter; my phone uploads to Shozu once and then it pushes the content out to other destinations.

But the application on your phone also works as a bridge to your online content, including your friends. For example, you can configure Shozu to notify you whenever one of your Flickr friends has posted new pictures.

The firm's Jen Grenz showed me the latest version of the Shozu client, and how the firm is re-packaging itself as more of a community bridge.

Instead of an application centred on distributing your content the new client is focused on your online communities - be it Facebook or Flickr, for example.

From Shozu you can change your Facebook status, see your Friends latest photos, or upload news ones of your own.

As the mobile web finally begins to coalesce around your communities Shozu is clearly gearing up to be one of the glues that bind those friendships and your shared content.

The new client will also feature adverts for the first time on Shozu. Adverts always tend to divide users but Shozu is promising they will be low bandwidth and won't interrupt the user experience.