Round Up: UGC Vs Smut; Google IPhone; Carbon Footprint; Mizpee
By James Quintana Pearce - Wed 05 Dec 2007 06:30 PM PST
-- Australian incumbent Telstra has learned the dangers of unmoderated user-generated content… Its mobile video sharing site Wotnext.com.au has been taken down for emergency maintenance after being overrun by smutty video clips. People pay $1 to view the clips, of which Telstra gets half. “Telstra made assurances at the time of the launch that all clips would be checked by moderators before they were published, but as of this morning most of the most-viewed clips were clearly designed for sexual gratification” notes the SMH.
-- Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has launched an iPhone-specific interface, apparently without fanfare reports TechCrunch. Kudos on not making a big deal out of what is essentially another handset port. Google is also releasing a new application for the iPhone which combines e-mail, search and calendar into a single interface, reports Reuters.
-- The European Commission has launched a mobile application to let people calculate their carbon footprint and compare that with national and world averages, reports ZDNet UK. MobGAS is available in 21 languages.
-- MIzpee, a mobile service which lets you locate the nearest toilet developed by Yojo Mobile, went live today. “You visit the service on your mobile phone browser, and search for bathrooms by city and street address, then see a list of the nearest ones. It includes user-created rankings for how clean each bathroom is, as well as a note about any access fee. It also says whether or not a bathroom has a diaper-changing station, and whether its restricted to a premise’s customers.” It’s a reasonably good idea although I’m not sure there’s a viable busines model for something restricted to toilets. (VentureBeat)
-- Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys will be appearing on mobile in comic form. Uclick has teamed up with Papercutz, which publishes the titles as graphic novels, to launch the service.
Posted in: Companies, Google, Countries, Australia/NZ, Europe, Entertainment, Mobile Search






