Vodafone & 3 are favourite mobile portals

Research from Strategy Analytics says that consumers in the UK prefer the usability and design of Vodafone and 3's mobile internet portals in preference to those from O2, Orange, T-Mobile and even MSN. They've also recently published a report that says an increasing number of consumers are happy with navigation on their phones, with the usability of Vodafone's Telmap Navigator software winning over two dedicated navigation devices. [Portal press release; Navigation press release]

Mobile Content Platform Market up 20% in 2007

The market for premium mobile content platforms - web sites that aren't operated by mobile networks - grew almost 20% in 2007, resulting in a $3.4 billion share of the total $18.5 billion generated by the mobile premium content market, according to figures from MultiMedia Intelligence. However, the company points out that ringtone sales figures are dropping, other content categories aren't making as much as expected and mobile networks have their own compelling services. [Press release]

Orange launches ad-funded download trial

Orange is launching an ad-funded download service on its Orange World mobile internet service. 800,000 Orange customers in the UK will be able to download music to their phone at a discounted rate or completely free. The three-month trial will display advertising banners while customers download their music from a choice of 500 tracks. Advertising company ScreenTonic, which was bought by Microsoft last year, is managing the banner ads for the campaign. In addition, Orange says it's done a deal with film website Icewhole.com to allow customers to download short films for £1.

Vodafone and 3 lead the UK's mobile portals

A new research report from Strategy Analytics called "UK Mobile Portals: One Click Access and Simple Layout Enhance Experience" has taken a look at the mobile internet portals operated by the UK's networks. 3's Planet Three and Vodafone's Vodafone Live! both achieved a 4-star rating (presumably out of a maximum 5 stars) for their overall portal experience, with O2, Orange and T-Mobile all receiving a 3-star rating. 3 and Vodafone performed particularly well for portal discoverability, while Vodafone was commended for its News & Info service and 3 for its Mobile TV offering. Strategy Analytics said Full Track Music and Games downloads were significant areas of weakness in terms of user satisfaction across all networks.

Yahoo! revamps 'Go' and invites third-party developers

Yahoo! is planning to help software developers put their applications on mobile phones. It’s opening up the Yahoo! Go mobile internet service to third-party developers, allowing them to create small 'widget' programs that’ll work on a variety of handsets without the need to write a new program for each device. In addition, the company has enhanced the service -now Yahoo! Go 3.0 Beta. [Source: Press releases and BBC News]