As yet another sign of growing recognition to the Israeli start up schene,
HooQs is a proud sponsor of the event. We will be celebrating the launch of HooQs v2 (currently in Alpha) which includes the first personalized mobile media recommender system.
These are very exiting times. The party will be held at the Galina Beach Club. Full details here.
See you there!
There's a lot of fun you can have on MySpace, especially with widgets. So, we created a cool HooQs widget you can put on your MySpace profile or add to your blog.
This widget featured our recently added channels. You can see all the latest channels and then you are one click away from sending those cool clips to your mobile phone for FREE.
Here's how the widget looks like:
This week eSpew took 'music on demand' a step further by joining forces with HooQs (TM) (http://www.hooqs.com) to release a new innovative feature allowing audio enthusiasts to share music for free via eSpew.com, using The HooQs' Web to Mobile service.
eSpew, the world's largest online Free Audio MP3 Music Search Engine, displaying over 19 million MP3 songs and attracting over 1.3 million unique visitors a month and growing.
"Sending music to your mobile is as simple as selecting a song, entering in your friend's telephone number and clicking the websites 'Send to Mobile' option," say's Daniel Cohen, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at eSpew.
The eSpew Search Engine allows users to Search & Play Music for Free, Chat with Friends, Share Music, Create Multiple Online MP3 Music Play Lists, Save Favorite MP3 Music, and more without users being required to download or install 3rd party software on their computers or provide personal information.
According to Itay Gissin, founder of HooQs (TM), the music found on eSpew.com can immediately be accessed by any web-enabled mobile device worldwide. Users are not required to provide any personal details about themselves to send music via HooQs (TM). "HooQs makes sure users get what they want on their phones. Leveraging the wealth of music content on the Web, while offering a truly personal mobile experience will revolutionize mobile media. Media companies use HooQs (TM) to set up an effective, targeted mobile channel, directly from their website." explains Mr. Gissin.
We are very happy to announce that an embedding option has been added to each of our video channels. Now you can add our fully functional video player to your blog or site. Just grab the code at the bottom of your favorite channel, and embed away!
Here's how it looks like:
HooQs is being mentioned and reviewed in many places over the net, and of course - we love it!!!
Here are some of the places where we were mentioned:
MobileCrunch: "...We’re following the beta launch of HooQs, which is a portal for all your video needs. The company has been partnering with various media companies for distribution of mobile video content..."
Mashable: "...With HooQs, you can create your own channels, or browse the site to watch those that have been created by others. You can add other users to your watchlist, and subscribe to each channel’s feed..."
the.co.ils (Hebrew)
Ouriel Ohayon: "...The service is young but good enough to interest me and my friends at TechCrunch..."
inbabble: "...HooQs has made a good decision in trying to differentiate through personalization and relevance..."
msearchgroove: "...Kudos to them for working on personalization – an element many other offers have ignored entirely…"
KillerStartups: "...HooQs makes it incredibly easy to create and share channels. It’s a good point of departure for anyone just starting to experiment with feeds, since the site is really user-friendly and not full of complicated terminology..."
Nothing is better than technology that's working for you. Time is a very precious resource, and every day we need to find new ways to handle the flow of information on the web and in the media.
Time is even more of the essence when you are surfing with your mobile phone. Trying to stay up-to-date on the mobile internet was almost impossible.
Impossible until now, that is, because HooQs provides you with an excellent solution - your personal, auto-updated, FRESH video channels.
Want to stay updated with news on the stock market? No problem - create your channel, mark it as "Fresh", and it will be updated once a day with the freshest videos about the financial world. Need to know the news about the Utah Mine Disaster or the Earthquake in Peru? Create a channel and it will keep you up-to-date.
It doesn't have to be all about hard-core news, by the way. If Scuba Diving is your favorite hobby, create a channel and enjoy the freshest clips on that sport - right on your mobile phone - no hassle and no software needed. Easy as pie. Keep it simple, keep it FRESH.
Good morning world!
This is certainly a very exciting day for us at Syncho. After a lot of hard work and effort, HooQs launched its new look and feel - with some major changes to the site and service!
As you can see, the Homepage and the entire site have been completely remodeled. You can now enjoy our bigger, sleeker, video player, which offers you a better viewing experience. Now you can watch your favorite channels and send them to your friends via SMS - in a much easier fashion.
Another huge change was made to the Search option. We implemented a more sophisticated search engine, which brings you faster and more varied results. For each search you get up to 50 clips to choose from, all from many different sources of video on the net.
If you feel the need to stay updated and entertained without working too hard - we have got just the thing for you! We have launched HooQ of the Day - subscribe to the service, choose your areas of interest, and we will send you short clips that match your taste. One time registration and you are into a world of fun!
People are coming to HooQs from all over the world, and we are enjoying a surge in site traffic. Of course, we are still in Beta, which means you might still encounter some bugs and glitches - in which case you are more than welcome to let us know about them. Please contact us with ANYTHING you might feel like saying!
We are working hard to continue and improve HooQs, and to make it a better experience for you all. So go on - have fun and don't forget - Go Mobile!
Barry Bonds is a remarkable athlete, no doubt. His achievements are extraordinary under any circumstances. But Barry Bonds is also (most probably) a product of steroids. I don't care what the investigation committee ever comes up with, nobody starts excelling so steeply at the age of 38. It just doesn't happen. Not naturally.
The debate sort of quieted down as Barry Bonds approaches 756 (if you missed number 754 last night, here is it). There seems to be a growing media consensus around respecting the moment now. No one wants to be accountable for spinning Baseball into a vertigo that one can only see the beginning of. Bud Selig, for example, clearly doesn't believe Barry Bonds "not guilty" pleas, but he will attend his games from now on out of "respect for the game". If you ask me, "respecting the game" means getting to the bottom of the investigation quickly and, if needed, tossing Bonds out of the record books. Ben Johnson broke an amazing record once during the Olympics, got caught, got tossed, and no one remembers the damage he did to the 100M race by now. The immediate action restored fan support and healed the wounded sport. The same should be applied with baseball or else we are most probably looking at the Tour de France in no more than a few years.
Barry Bonds is a remarkable athlete, no doubt, which is why he should be used to set the example of how that doesn't stop justice.
Yep, we got our first-ever feature in a leading Israeli newspaper - TheMarker. HooQs is famous!
It's in Hebrew, so I guess most of you won't be able to read it. Still, it's nice to be out there, and we hope more and more people will come and enjoy our great service.
While you're at it, you are more than welcome to try out HooQs, which enables you to create your own personal mobile portal - without being dependent on your local cellular provider. Just register (20 seconds and it's FREE), search for something you like and create your own cool media channels.
By the way, despite all the Harry Potter madness, our most popular channel is, by far, the Kittens channel! I guess cute pets are cooler than annoying boy-wizards.
The following was published yesterday at DeGardener.
I spent the week in Monaco at MEM2007. From the personal perspective it was a very exciting show, after all, first time HOOQs was on display. From that perspective we had an excellent show - great feedback and lots of users and leads. We have work cut out for us, but the good news is that the market is HOT! The need for personalized, open, operator independent web to mobile services is all over the place and is welcomed by users, operators, content providers, analysts and bloggers.
MEM2007 is not really a classic exhibition, it's more of a conference. Participation is nearly exclusive to industry insiders and the tracks, therefore, are very professional. To a start-up-ist, these represent rare opportunities to take a 30,000 feet view and collect some insights that extend beyond the daily challenges. My own personal climax was not a single industry lecture or panel, even though all were very interesting at their own merit. To me, the most insightful session was a focus group with 10 different teenagers. These young adults were gathered from different countries - Australia, England, France, Italy, Finland, Germany - and were all surveyed about their digital lives. Here is some of what they told us:
1. The key elements teenagers look for in their mobile phones is appearance. Then come ability to play music, quality of camera and feature richness.
2. Nokia is the most popular handset brand. Out of the 10 participants, 5 had Nokias, 2 had Samsungs, 2 had LGs (Chocolate) and 1 had a Sony Ericsson. 7 out of 10 devices were 3G.
3. They don't do mobile clients - only 1 participant ever downloaded a mobile application. A game. Used it a couple of times and ditched it.
4. Teenagers are smart shoppers. They don't mind paying for Internet content, but hate buying stuff they can easily find for free. In other words, they will not buy songs for 3 Euros a pop. Contrary to popular belief, they buy a lot of CDs in addition to downloading free music. They know how to manage their music collection and how to get their favorite music on their mobile device.
5. On they other hand, all participants testified they would gladly buy new content if only they could find it easily. All participants agreed that the mobile operator portals are close to impossible to navigate through.
6. On top, the differences between operators and handsets make it impossible for users to share experiences. Not tracks or clips - pure information about where and how to find them!
7. They things they on their handsets are better Internet browsing and memory. They really don't get why MP3 and Video enabled phones come with such little memory.
8. They don't mind advertising if it makes content free. They are already used to online ant TV advertising, why object to mobile ads?
9. They all tried Google on their mobile and didn't like it. The mobile experience does not provide anything close to the internet experience.
10. They don't do MMS. All of them tried and all of them claim that "it doesn't work".
11. If they had to give up their TV, Mobile Phone or PC, 9 out of 10 would give up their TV (the only other answer was PC). None would let go of their mobile phone.
These young adults were not screaming in a vacuum. It was great to hear executives from operators presenting plans to further breakdown their walled gardens and push flat data rates. It seems like it's only a question of price points now. This is music to the ears of user centric service providers. To me, however, getting the bartenders in front of our booth excited and HooQed was most rewarding than anything!
HooQs is in Beta!
The Syncho team have worked quietly (& very hard) over the last year on building an open & personal environment for the mobile media user. We are still ramping up with enhancements but it's out and we would love to hear what you think and how we can make it work better for you.
The mobile Internet is full of hurdles (we overcome daily!), but it is still the same Internet!People tend to forget it & operators are not helping to explain it very well. So against the odds & with all of the wealth of Web 2.0 on our side, we are taking it on & directly offering it here (& on your own mobile Internet device).
We would like to start a conversation on how YOU would like to use the Internet on your phone. So give us a minute, we will make it worth you while!
Stay Tuned!
The Cavaliers are on their way to the NBA Finals. The Cavs, who won only 17 games the year before LeBron arrived, will meet the San Antonio Spurs in Game 1 of the finals on Thursday night. The fun just begins. Check out the Cleveland Cavaliers channel on HooQs!
