AOL Announces Several New Mobile Services

AOL is the latest company that has jumped on the mobile bandwagon, with new services targeted at users of the mobile web being launched at the CTIA Wireless I.T. & Entertainment event taking place this week in San Francisco.

In today's press release, AOL announced several new mobile services which are “designed to create rich mobile experiences that take customization, ease-of-use and experience-sharing to a new level.” These include new mobile-friendly features for myAOL, AOL Mail, AOL Search, AOL CityGuide, MapQuest, Winamp and other existing AOL services.

The new mobile portal, which publicly launches today, has been available for a couple of months to users, but has remained in beta stage. Now, having graduated from beta testing, AOL Mobile offers users a customizable interface with access to the new features and services. Mobile users even have a friendly, short URL (AOL.com) to type in for access, thanks to AOL's integration of advanced device detection technology.

?We've listened to our users and are giving them more ways to tailor the AOL mobile experience just for them,? said Scott Falconer, Executive Vice President of AOL Mobile. ?These new products reflect our commitment to being the mobile leader in offering users more engaging, easier to use, customized mobile experiences on their most personal of devices, their cell phones.?

AOL Mobile offers users:

• AOL Mobile Search: Designed for on-the-go mobile users looking for immediate answers, not just a list of links. With a minimum number of clicks, AOL Mobile Search provides more relevant search results, pulling content from across the online and mobile web as well as from Moviefone, MapQuest and AOL® CityGuide.
• AOL Mail: The redesigned mobile AOL Mail provides a rich email experience for mobile web users, offering faster performance and greater ease of use through an improved look and feel, email and contact search capabilities, and full folder access.
• myAOL: Gives mobile users access to their personalized news headlines, sticky notes, pictures, weather and RSS feeds within the AOL mobile web experience.
• AOL Shopping Mobile: Consumers can now quickly and easily search more than 20 million products from 10,000 stores while on-the-go. AOL Shopping Mobile allows users to compare prices, find nearby retailers and click-to-call to find out whether a product is in stock or to make a purchase from their cell phones.
• Information Services: Includes Moviefone, AOL CityGuide and MapQuest. The new MapQuest upgrades even include pedestrian directions, multi-point routing and gas prices (similar to GasBuddy which also has a mobile service).

Additionally, AOL is offering a downloadable application for Windows Mobile devices, known as AOL MyMobile. This software is intended on providing even easier access to all of AOL's mobile services from within one application. It's “easy-to-use carousel navigation, along with drop-down lists and intuitive menus, enables users to easily scroll through the applications and content most important to them for access to key mobile services in the fewest number of clicks.”

Other new features announced include a new text message-based AIM short code service, the GPS-enabled AIM Buddy Finder widget, and Winamp Remote. The short code service, currently only available for Verizon and Alltel users, offers AIM instant messaging through text messaging using the ?AIMAIM' (246246) short code. AIM Buddy Finder allows users (who have a GPS-enabled cell phone) to share their locations with AIM buddies. Winamp Remote is a free service designed to allow people to use their cell phone to access and listen to music stored on their computers.

The mobile web has increasingly been becoming more popular and several high-profile web companies have been quick to offer users mobile-specific features.”I would say it's still an open market,” said Falconer. “Google, of course, is the leader in online search, but mobile search is fundamentally different.”

Find out more about AOL's mobile services at the AOL Mobile Web homepage.