If you’re an eBay user, you already know that the final minutes can be the hardest part. Is someone going to jump in and snipe, will you have to put in a last second bid, and do you really want to pay THAT MUCH for that used Rolling Stones concert T-shirt from 1971? And don’t get me started about realizing you’re at dinner and the auction is going to end! The only feeling worse is realizing that you forgot to set the DVR.

eAuctionAlerts is a new service that can send a free SMS text message to warn you that your auction is about to close. eBay’s own paid service costs about 25 cents, but eAuctionAlerts is completely free, and doesn’t require registration. We’re not sure how they plan to make money, but as a self-confessed “Power Buyer” on eBay I’ll be checking out the service for sure.

eAuctionAlerts

Verizon Wireless said it filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Trenton, N.J. against several Miami-based companies and individuals for leaving pre-recorded messages in Spanish through an unwanted and illegal telemarketing campaign. The defendants: Mega Travel Inc., Mega Travel, All Star Market Corp., Chile Insider Corp. are Miami-based agencies conducting travel-related telemarketing

Verizon alleges the calls are originated from the companies’ South Florida offices, though the Caller ID makes suggests the calls are being made from an 859 area code in Kentucky. The mobile phone carrier says almost 900,000 calls were made to Verizon Wireless accounts since April 2007. The lawsuit alleges violations of the Federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

Verizon Wireless

Apple fanboys aren’t the only one’s getting giddy over the iPhone. Opera has released a 4.0 beta browser (as we just reported) with 100% more iPhone, commercial parody and all.

The new browser brings the iPhone’s surf and zoom web browser to even the humblest handset. More than 15 million people already have Opera installed on their handsets, according to their press release. Check out their video and emulator below (doesn’t work in Firefox) or download it here:

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A handful of stakeholders in the $3.3 billion mobile games industry have gotten together to organize an event to gather movers and influencers in the space. Digital Media Wire, I-play, Nokia and Qualcomm will host Mobile Games Insider on July 10 in Santa Monica, CA. The afternoon event’s goal is to explore the $3.3 billion mobile games industry and highlight the opportunities. It will also serve to discuss challenges the space needs to overcome to reach mass market adoption.

Speakers include a host of mobile and gaming industry professionals from companies like Glu Mobile, IGN Wireless, I-Play, Jamba, Nokia, Walt Disney Internet Group, Qualcomm. Analysts Billy Pidgeon from IDC and Seamus McAteer from M:Metrics are also scheduled to speak.

Mobile Games Insider

Opera Software is about to enter a new Dimension. The company has just released the beta version, codenamed Dimension, of their Opera Mini 4 mobile Web browser. This new version features a zoom option, based on the original Opera feature introduced on the mobile browser for the Nintendo Wii.

“We are excited to share the beta with the fast-growing community of Opera Mini users,” said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera. “The feedback from the beta users will go to make Opera Mini even better and we thank the community for their efforts. Opera Mini has succeeded only due to the support of the people who have made it the most popular mobile browser available today.”

The new Opera Mini has been designed to work with almost any mobile phone, to allow users to browse their favorite sites.

Opera Mini 4 beta

With the Alltel acquisition by Texas Pacific Group for $26.3 billion underway, execs of the regional cellular carrier are reportedly taking their $2 billion payout and go home, to their very nice homes, according to Service Employees International Union found at behindthebuyouts.org.

A release issued by the watchdog group for responsible corporate governance practices says five of the company insiders and executives stand to walk away with a minimum of $31 million, and as much as $281 million if they leave the company when the deal closes due to “change of control” clauses in their contracts. The Alltel board members are in line to collect $1.975 billion for their 8 percent stake in the company.

Concerned shareholders are questioning whether the board and top-level executives acted in the shareholders’ best interests, and are filing suit with claims the deal was “grossly unfair” to shareholders, and the acquisition price was “far below the maximum value.”

Behindthebuyouts
Alltelrevealed

Three new handsets using the newest 65-nanometer (nm) chipsets are now commercially available, and more than 40 additional models using this new technology will be released from QUALCOMM this year. The company has announced this significant milestone in semiconductor process this week, and these new models offer greater power efficiency, slimmer form factors and greater support for high-speed data capabilities.

“QUALCOMM is committed to continually raising the bar for wireless users, delivering richer functionality that is more affordable and offers a better experience,” said Steve Mollenkopf, senior vice president of product management for QUALCOMM CDMA Technologies. “We are pleased to reach this milestone in cutting-edge process technology, together with our customers, and we look forward to enabling additional slim, smart and power-efficient 3G devices for the worldwide market.”

The newly released 65nm handset models include:

QUALCOMM

Scanning the classifieds in the paper is so last millennium, and even scanning online is last year’s news. Soon you’ll be able to search for used tennis rackets, sub-lets and other hard-to-find items via your mobile phone. Gumiyo and edgio announced a new partnership to bring online classifieds to the mobile space, and this will commence with edgeio’s real estate section, which Gumiyo will deliver via listings to interested people. Potential buyers will soon be able to review listings on their mobile phones, complete with photos.

“Our partnership with edgeio is very complementary and it makes perfect sense,” says Shuki Lehavi, CEO and co-founder of Gumiyo. “edgeio is committed to innovation in the world of online classifieds, and has enabled a rich set of open APIs that we can use. This is a big reason why we’ve been syndicating Gumiyo listings to them since day one. Now, edgeio sellers can enter the mobile space with little to no effort.”

Future possibilities for the partnership could see Gumiyo building applications utilizing MMS, SMS, WAP and widgets to enhance the search interface. Search on!

Edgeio
Gumiyo

This month Vodafone in the U.K. announced it would offer flat-rate data plans to its subscribers. I have seen Vodafone’s director of new business development Frank Boulben speak a handful of times this spring, and he can’t stop talking about how the service will encourage mobile Web usage, and says it’s an industry breakthrough because the Vodafone price point beats some of the U.S. equivalent, so-called unlimited data plans.

We all have heard stories of U.S. carriers like Verizon throttling data usage once it reaches a certain point. Well Om Malik is reporting on GigaOm that the $15 per month charged as a flat rate by Vodafone only gets you 120 MB, and additional data usage costs $4 per megabyte. Let’s see how well-received this ground-breaking price structure is when U.K.-based subscribers get their bills in big, fat envelopes.

GigaOm

Last week we posted about the recent announcement by Vodafone that it would be utilizing a transcoding application from Novarra for better viewing of traditional Web sites on mobile phones. Since that time, there have been numerous responses that “this transcoding process reduces every Web site to the lowest common denominator.”

And more importantly some industry watchers have suggested that Vodafone UK subscribers would no longer be able to use traditional mobile Web offerings including mCommerce. Kevin McCloskey, CEO of MobileAware, offered his opinion on what carriers such Vodafone are doing to mobile Web browsing.

Read More

You can use a mobile phone to play games, take photos, even order lunch. But now you can use it as a tool to help search for employees. Head Resourcing, the U.K.’s fifth fastest growing company, has now become the first recruitment company to launch a mobile phone-based service. HEADMobile uses the AD360 mobile platform created by Rapid Mobile to give employers and potential employees a way to connect. This service offers discreet recruitment options that users can access from anywhere.

“HEADMobile was developed to give people a discreet and convenient way to find out about premium job opportunities across a broad range of industries such as IT, HR, Procurement, Sales and Accounting and Finance,” says Paul Atkinson, Executive Chairman of Head Resourcing. “Now they can be sure they are not going to miss out simply because they were in an office environment or traveling away from a PC.”

Users download a small app to their handset, and this provides instant access to the latest job listings in their sector from Head Resourcing, which they can then apply to or forward to their friends.

Head Resourcing

The Web search site Clusty.com has been optimized for mobile devices, according to an announcement from Vivismo, a provider of search software and developer of the popular search site. Clusty Mobile (m.clusty.com) offers increased navigational capabilities and featured sources for the most common searches performed by mobile users. The search results are organized by relevant topics and categories rather than pages of search results, and Clusty Mobile optimizes all Web site for mobile viewing, by streamlining the pages into text versions.

“Nobody wants to wade through thousands of links to access Web information via their mobile devices,” said Raul Valdes-Perez, CEO, Vivisimo. “We’ve combined the reliability of Clusty’s search capabilities with navigation appropriate for mobile users and given them the ability to find exactly what they’re looking for right at their fingertips.”

Additionally feature content targeted at mobile searches can be called-out above the search results from other sources. This includes such common searches as weather forecasts, stock quotes and movie reviews.

Vivismo

Ad firm Ogilvy has delivered a new mobile content ad campaign for international shipper DHL Ogilvy’s Digital Innovations Group is launching their ad effort as part of DHL’s “Customer Service in Back in Shipping” brand campaign, and includes such content as a DHL-provided five-day weather report that users can get delivered directly to their mobile phones.

Another component of the campaign is a downloadable game called “Stack-It,” which lets users shift DHL-labeled boxes to fill empty spaces, ala Tetris. Could this be a training tool for future DHL employees? Probably not, but it certainly does the job of building brand awareness.

DHL Delivers Bay Area Mobile Campaign [ClickZ News]

ESPN is taking another swing at the third screen, and the leading sports channel believes it is only a matter of time of “phone watching” becomes as common as phone calling. The New York Times today has a profile on ESPN’s latest move to the mobile space, including a look at new division that produces content specifically for the mobile platform.

Sports is a natural it seems for the mobile, and we have to agree with the Times’ take. It is easy enough to check scores, watch some replays and get recaps. And for sports fans this can mean going to the mobile site to view the content, or have quick updates and briefs sent directly to them via text messages.

ESPN is still rebounding from the failed launch of their own mobile phone service, but in the world of sports we know a comeback is never impossible.

Yes, the Screen Is Tiny, but the Plans Are Big [NY Times]

Long distance on a mobile handset can be extremely expensive. bOK Systems is a newly launched mobile VoIP company that lets you make those other expensive calls cheaply, and without having to download software. No PC is required, North American calls are currently free, and if you have unlimited incoming calls you won’t use your minutes.

You can even test out the system and make your first five-minute phone call in order to test the system before signing up. Calling rates and other information about the service is available on the company’s Web site.

bOK

MiTV Corporation and Nokia have announced plans to collaborate on the launch of a commercial mobile broadcast TV service. This service will be based on the DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcast – Handheld) technology, and will be available in Malaysia in the second half of this year. This deal was unveiled at Nokia Connection 2007 in Singapore, and also in conjunction with Broadcast Asia 2007. This is the first of Nokia’ commercial mobile TV service ventures using DVB-H technology globally, and last year Vietnam became the first market to roll out commercial DVB-H services.

As per the deal, Nokia Siemens will provide MiTV’s 018 mobile TV service an end-to-end deployment process, and this will include implementation, integration and application development services.

“This latest collaboration with Nokia marks another important milestone in our preparation to launch our high speed mobile 3G service in the second half of this year,” said Dato IR Hj. Rosman bin Ridzwan, Chairman, MiTV Corporation. “With strong industry players behind us in network infrastructure, coverage and other technologies, we are absolutely confident that we can deliver genuinely customer-driven products and services that we believe will bring the work-life balance back into their lives.”

Nokia
MiTV

Buy an LG Mobile Phone and it could be chocolate filled, or at least filled with content from Digital Chocolate. The mobile video game developer has signed a deal with LG Mobile Phone to make games available, and pre-loaded on mobile handsets.

Digital Chocolate was launched Trip Hawkins, who had previously founded Electronic Arts, as well as the 3DO game console, and later software development firm. LG Mobile Phones, according to Strategy Analytic’s Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, shipped more than 24 million handsets in the U.S. in 2006 and captured the number one spot in WCDMA market in the same year. So if LG sales keep up, it looks like Digital Chocolate could be in a lot of hands this year! Good move Trip!

[Via Cellular News]

Do you have those friends who leave you LONG rambling messages? Well, if your friends can’t be concise and to the point, soon you can have CallWave help give you the abridged version. Coming soon is their new Vtxt service takes your mobile voicemail and translates it to a text format sent directly to your mobile phone or e-mail. But the key is that it isn’t a word-for-word message but rather a brief, to-the-point summary of the message.

Additionally, the company is also introducing PhonePage, a permanent, searchable Web-based archive that let’s you treat all your mobile messages just like e-mail. You can use PhonePage to read, hear and save your messages, as well as to organize your contacts. These services will be available later this summer.

CallWave

YouTube is enough of a time killer on the Web, now you can access a selection of the popular video-sharing site’s videos via the Mobile Web. YouTube Mobile is available on handsets capable of playing back .3gp video. A data plan is also required. The first time you log on to m.youtube.com you’ll get the message, “YouTube Mobile is a data intensive application. We highly recommend that you upgrade to an unlimited data plan with your mobile service provider to avoid additional charges.” Is it possible YouTube’s boiler plate advisory to upgrade to an unlimited data plan will upsell subscriptions? When Coca-Cola launched its Sprite Yard mobile social networking site, it said subscribers would upgrade to larger data plans in order to take part in the Yard.

Last100 has a review of YouTube Mobile. It mentions the videos available on the mobile platform are a selection of those most popular, and others hand-picked by the YouTube team.

Property-by-property, Google is bringing its fixed Web services over to the mobile Web. Search, e-mail, maps, and video, among other properties, are available for mobile consumption.

[Via Last 100]

There’s a debate raging over how traditional Web sites should be viewed on mobile devices. We’ve been hearing that many users aren’t happy with the options provided by Novarra, which we posted about earlier this week. This is an issue we’re going to monitor very closely.

So today we heard from BareSite.com, and despite the name it isn’t a mobile porn site. Actually, BareSite was developed to make mobile browsing easy. The company has developed a Web based browser that “strips” Web sites of what they call all “unneeded content,” and create an extremely light mobile version that can be displayed on mobile devices, and on average according to the company sites are crunched over 90 percent.

This is a Web based, rather than browser based solution, and no downloads are required. Users retain full control over appearance and browsing settings, and users can enter URLs, feeds or even choose from a directory that holds 100 of the most popular Web sites. Registration is not needed and no ads are displayed.

Baresite