By Karlin Lillington

NewBay Software, a privately-funded start-up headed by a former
Baltimore Technologies executive, is to offer software than enables people to
create weblogs using only a mobile phone.

Weblogs, or ‘blogs’, are online journals that have seen explosive
growth in the past year, with some 5,000 created daily and over 500,000 in
existence. Updated regularly by their creators, they include personal
diaries, sports and news sites, political commentary, technology and
opinion sites.

Blogging software is available commercially and for free over the
internet, but the sites must be created and managed on a PC.

NewBay chief executive Mr Paddy Holahan, the former vice president of
marketing with Baltimore, said that with NewBay’s product, FoneBlog, “No
computer is needed to have a website. You can do the whole thing from a
phone. You don’t even need to own a PC.”

Mr Holahan said Dublin-based NewBay will offer FoneBlog to mobile
operators, who can then brand the offering as a service for customers.  The
software, along with customer’s weblogs, is managed either by the
operator or NewBay.

No software is needed on the mobile phone. Customers can send blog
entries by SMS to their website, or send images from camera phones using
MMS. Mr Holahan said he believes the blogging software will help drive
the sale and use of camera phones and will push up network traffic for
operators.

Camera phones are expected to make up 11 per cent of phone sales by
next year, and are expected to surpass the sales of digital cameras,
according to Strategy Analytics. while 50 million MMS handsets will be in
the European market by 2004.

Mr Holahan said the phones would be ideal for micropayments and that
operators could charge for specialised features for weblogs.

The FoneBlog software reduces weblog management to a set of dropdown
menus, although more advanced users can go in on a PC and fiddle with
website code.

FoneBlog is intended as a standalone blogging system and phone users
would only be able to SMS or MMS directly to their FoneBlog site rather
than other blog programs. Websites could be viewed on a mobile, but Mr
Holahan said he expected most people would use PCs.

NewBay (www.newbay.com) was formed in November and has a number of
private investors including Mr Holahan. He declined to reveal the other
investors. FoneBlog will be available to operators later this month, with
new features added regularly, including instant messaging capability
next month. Mr Holahan said he was talking to both Irish and
international operators.

This Page was last update: 30/03/2003; 12:39:07
Copyright 2003 Karlin Lillington
Theme Design by Bryan Bell