Phones are Changing and Phone Usage is Changing Alone With It. There is a revolution going on all over the world. People from Japan to Korea to Europe to the United States are engaging content on mobile devices in record numbers – in fact mobile access to the Internet has already surpassed desktop access. Also rising are expectations as to how you should be able to share content and communicate with the people around you.

Fueling this increase has been the astonishingly rapid rise of blogs in the last 18 months along with the proliferation of web-enabled phones – the most enthusiastic bloggers could now go mobile and with the adoption of web-enabled phones by the mass market this opportunity is rapidly spreading into mainstream. The market is literally exploding, with 1.2 billion mobile devices currently in use – and is projected to grow to 2 billion by 2006 (Cover Story: “The Next Big Thing . . . Is Now,” Business 2.0. July 2003).

As the World Wide Web showed, things really take off when users build out their own real estate rather than relying on vendors to supply accommodations. The success of the Web was due not to mass production and economies of scale, but rather to distributed development of local content and economies driven by individual passion.

WINKsite Mobile Communities – A Better Way to Stay Connected. The blogging world is overflowing with ways to send information – text, photos, video, geographical data – from a mobile device to a conventional Weblog or Web Site. But, what is blatantly missing and quite critical is a community-based solution that provides a space where individuals can meet, share and interact with content from mobile device to mobile device – “closing the loop.”

Tapping into the metadata capabilities of RSS/ATOM feeds, WINKsite is able to go beyond the limits of basic content publishing to deliver a more relevant, more precise means of information distribution and device independent delivery. WINKsite provides a platform for creating true mobile communities: spaces both publishable and accessible via phones and other mobile devices. Taking that much deeper, WINKsite integrates this content with mobile-to-mobile networking and syndication features, transforming your mobile device into a powerful publishing, collaboration and coordination tool, increasing its utilitarianism.

Critical to the creation of truly useful mobile communities is providing features that support the needs of various social networks (as described in Ross Mayfield's “Ecosystem of Networks”): (1) the “Me” network, consisting of one person who needs personal productivity tools, (2) the “Creative” network, in which a dozen or more people collaborate on a project, (3) the “Social” network, in which hundreds of people share a common interest need to communicate, and (4) the “Political” network, in which thousands of people need to access breaking news and calls to action.

WINKsite Leads the Next Generation of Mobile Applications Delivering Benefits Very Different from Blogger, TypePad, NewBay, TextAmerica, Tagtag, MyWap, UPOC and Blah! et al. We've spent close to three years developing our platform and it lets individuals publish, share, broadcast and interact with mobile content in ways not previously possible. We made WINKsite so simple that if you know how to make a phone call or use voice mail you will understand how to use it after a single glance. Now that the core WINKsite platform is complete and a significant amount of data usage is streaming through the system, WINKsite is growing to include Photoblogging, Downloads, Group Messaging & Coordination, Location-Based Services, Microcontent Catalog & Payment Systems, Personalized Content Feeds, SMS/MMS Feed Notification Services, Personalized Interfaces/Skins, Automated Enterprise Content Syndication, Rich Media Delivery, Social Network Mapping (FOAF), Paid Search & Content Listings, Direct Integration with Weblogs and other valuable features.

As an intrinsically XML-based system, WINKsite will grow into the role of a clearinghouse mobilizing content both local and global in nature supporting a directory, content & community mobilization service, becoming embedded into other companies' web sites in a way not possible for other content publishing or blogging systems. The features that we add to the system will generally have accessible APIs that third parties can use to tap our services at the data level, creating innovative services dependent on WINKsite.

The Rapid Financial Success of Messaging and Downloading Mobile Content Will Soon Grow Beyond Fragmented, Single-Focus Services. Therein lies a phenomenal market for brands, entertainment, portals & directory services, financial institutions and media companies to leverage their culture, messages, and offerings through mobile communities – extending their brands in a mobile environment. WINKsite offers the world's leading brands an opportunity to integrate mobile as part of the company's everyday media mix or service process. WINKsite's systems integration approach to the production and distribution of wireless online content services eliminates the barriers that have limited the “adoption of” or “traffic to” wireless applications in the past. WINKsite provides a suite of turnkey applications and mobile channels that enable brands to manage and distribute mobile content, media and promotions to the masses within a community-based environment. The result, their audience be it subscribers, customers, or fans can easily interact with the brand's programs via their mobile device within an environment that's useful, sticky and builds loyalty. These mobile concepts can be implemented together with a client or in cooperation with a third partner such as a systems integrator, advertising companies, carrier or media company. Wireless Ink is already working with various players in the television, music and publishing industries to mobilize their offerings.

The moblogging world is overflowing with ingenious ways to send information – text, photos, geographical data – from a mobile device to a conventional Web Site. But what is blatantly missing and quite critical is a product or service that provides a space where individuals can meet then share and interact with content from mobile device to mobile device – “closing the loop.”

Winksite provides a tool for creating true moblogs: sites both publishable and accessible via phones and other mobile devices. Taking that much deeper, Winksite integrates this content with mobile-to-mobile networking features, transforming your mobile device into a powerful publishing, collaboration and coordination tool, increasing its utilitarianism.

Winksite offers a feature-set unusual in the mobile space: user-configurable chatrooms, standard-issue blogs, RSS-to-Mobile aggregation, form wizards for audience surveys, and more. Navigating a Winksite will be familiar to anyone who’s ever used menu-driven iMode sites – or voicemail, for that matter: it’s a simple matter of paging down through screens of options. Simplicity is key to its appeal. No programming knowledge or software skills are necessary.

What Makes A Moblog Useful?
The concepts of networking analysis and socially translucent systems are critical to the creation of truly useful mobile communities. After all, it’s really all about providing features that support the needs of various networks (as described in Ross Mayfield’s “Ecosystem of Networks”): (1) the “Me” network, consisting of one person who needs personal productivity tools, (2) the “Creative” network, in which a dozen or more people collaborate on a project, (3) the “Social” network, in which hundreds of people share a common interest need to communicate, and (4) the “Political” network, in which thousands of people need to access breaking news and calls to action.

“It's not about visualization (which is just the means to the end), it's about identity. For the next phase of computerization, accurate understanding of the physical world will be key.”– Esther Dyson

Geolocation – knowing where an individual has been, where they currently are and where they are going, is information vital to making mobile applications more user-friendly and accessible. Combining an individual's “location identity” information to other location content and data provides the means to make mobile content and applications more useful and empowering.

The question is: More useful and empowering to whom?

Our thought is – the masses.

How? By providing people with the tools to do both the ordinary and extraordinary. Social software that combines location information with actionable content within a creative, social or political mobile network. Social software that closes the loop, mobile-to-mobile. No longer limiting the usefulness to the traditional beneficiaries of geolocation data as it has been utilized on the wired web. (i.e. Marketing, Compliance, Network Security and Fraud Applications)

WINKsite is establishing a framework to enable the immediate connection of a user to customized and shared mobile content, enhancing both usability and the user experience with personalized content and geographically relevant data. The next step for WINKsite is partnering with complimentary information and mapping companies.

Another question is: What will the masses do with it?

First the ordinary, then the extraordinary.The ordinary, everyday uses:

• Based on the address of an event provide visitors to your mobile event site directions, weather, or items of local interest.
• Finding people of similar interests at sporting event, local ski area, convention, travel destination, airport or concert.
• Real time journalism, breaking news, unique events, public interest occurrences blogged from your current location.
• Coordination of meetings with associates and/or friends whom are also wireless. (i.e. Ability to respond from your mobile to Dave Wiener, Robert Scobie,or Joi Ito's announcements of possible dinners and access location-based directions to the venue.)
• Hide a geocache then provide a mobile site to connect everyone on the hunt.

The extraordinary, futuristic and “Smart Mob” uses:

• Volunteers coordinating food and supply distribution in developing countries lacking the necessary infrastructure.
• A community coordinating search & rescue efforts in situations where established agencies are slow or unable to respond with the ability to report on the whereabouts and status of those affected.
• Activists coordinating a mass gathering then sustaining on-going efforts via mobile community site.