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June 4, 2008

For the past year, social networking sites and Web communities have been extremely popular and are growing even faster.

From teen social networking sites like MySpace to specialized niche discussion forums to blogs with a commercial undertone.

However, some are now realizing that there’s no effective way to bring that Web content to handsets and MIDs (Mobile Internet Devices).

One company is trying to capitalize on this opportunity. Azuki is announcing its first product, called MashMedia. The product uses an API (Application Programmable Interface) to let content providers develop very personalized and ad-supported versions of their traditional Websites, which then can be accessed by mobile devices.

MashMedia is currently starting its beta phase and should be in production later in 2008, company officials said.

Azuki plans to target such content companies first and wireless carriers second, offering its software as a hosted service and taking a slice of the advertising revenue for itself.

The company has about thirty employees and raised $6.6 million in Series A funding in May.

To this date, the only announced beta customer is Automotive Networks’ WheelsTV.net site. There should be others, “including some big-name media companies who are in discussions,” Azuki said.

After talking with television networks, Azuki CEO Jim Ricotta understood the scope of the problem: “They all have a vice president of mobile somewhere and they all say the same thing ‘we want to make money on the third screen’ and then they can’t do it right now,” he said.

Ricotta said “the basic problem are the special qualities of the mobile device: the small screen, the limited bandwidth, the battery power issues, etc. You need to put more intelligence into the Internet to really create a good experience for the consumers.”

WheelsTV CEO Jim Barisano is using MashMedia to give viewers custom versions of content such as car reviews and social networking. The company already partners with AOL, AutoTrader.com, Comcast Video-On-Demand and Vehix.com.

Barisano added “we’re very excited about all of this! It really takes what you see online these days, in the form of what you see in niche communities, and it takes it to cell phones. It’s actually building up your virtual space with all the things you love,” he said, referring to the My WheelsTV feature.

MashMedia users can forward content to business associates or friends and upload their own video as well.

Ricotta has already led other startups such as DataPower Technology and SightPath, which were sold to IBM and Cisco Systems.

In total, Ricotta sold those five startups for more than $7 billion over the past two years.

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    This article was featured on Business 5.0.

Source: Azuki.