Mobile phones as blog tools

I meant to blog this yesterday, but I've been tied up with Ourmedia duties. One of our main content contributors -- a former exec at mp3.com -- is Derrick Oien, who is now one of the masterminds behind Rabble.

San Jose Mercury News: Mobile phones as blog tools.

A new technology expected to launch in April promises to turn cellular phones into mobile blogging tools.

The application, called ``Rabble,'' streamlines the now-cumbersome process for publishing text or images from a cell phone to a Weblog. It also creates a way to search mobile blogs for items of interest -- from homes for sale in a particular neighborhood to updated tour information for a favorite band.

``This is a personal publishing platform,'' said Shawn Conahan, chief executive of Intercasting, the San Diego start-up that created Rabble.

The creators of Rabble see the software as more than a mere mobile blogging tool. It combines the social-networking aspects of a Friendster with the enhanced search capabilities of a Google. A major national wireless phone carrier is expected to offer Rabble next month for a monthly fee.

So in addition to creating original content, Rabble subscribers will be able to use their phones to find and read mobile blog posts from magazines like ``Spin.'' They can follow the exploits of budding celebrities like singer-songwriter Aslyn or the social commentary of Stowe Boyd. And, as with traditional blogs, mobile users can subscribe to the content to receive the latest posts automatically. ...

All the content published with Rabble has a location associated with it, to take advantage of an emerging class of wireless features known as location-based services. Only Nextel and Cingular currently offer location-based services. But the service expected to become more widely available.

This would allow people of common interests to find one another in a community -- because the blog posts can be searched both by topic and region. ...