and mobile sync for the mass market, today announced it has added mobile ads to the myFUNAMBOL portal. The result is the first live proving ground for understanding how mass market users accept and respond to a free open source Mobile'We' service that is funded by mobile advertising.

myFUNAMBOL is an online portal that provides mass market users with free mobile email and sync for contacts, calendars, tasks, notes and other content with popular desktop clients such as Outlook and webmail services such as Yahoo!, Gmail and AOL, on 1.5 billion devices. Introduced in July 2007, myFUNAMBOL provides the first over-the-air mobile contacts sync apps for the iPhone and the Google Android G1 phone.

"By combining mobile open source with mobile advertising, we will unleash a major revenue opportunity for service providers, portals and mobile operators," said Fabrizio Capobianco, Funambol CEO. "Ad-enabling our popular myFUNAMBOL portal allows us to share real data with our partners and customers that reveal the advantages of the ad-funded model and the requirements for making it hum."

The Funambol open source ad-funded solution displays micro-banner ads in several areas of its mobile email client, such as the inbox, message view and message send screens. It strikes a balance between maximizing ad impressions with usability such that ads are prominent yet non-intrusive. The "push" aspect of mobile email makes it a natural vehicle for mobile advertising as it provides a major impetus for people to check their email often, thus seeing more ads. Ad calls to action include launching a browser to visit a mobile website, calling a phone number or sending an SMS for more info. Targeting options include age, gender, time-of-day and location.

Funambol's mobile advertising partnerships include strategic relationships with Amobee and Smaato, among other mobile ad providers and networks. Together, the companies are able to combine open source software and mobile advertising to put mobile email into the hands of billions of mobile users. Open source enables mobile email to work on billions of handsets, while an ad-funded model enables mobile email to be provided for free or very low cost, while generating significant revenue for those throughout the value chain.

Ads for myFUNAMBOL are provided by Smaato. They are initially on some Nokia Series 60 devices, with support for more phones to be added over time. People are invited to sign up for the free myFUNAMBOL portal at http://my.funambol.com where they can experience the free open source ad-funded mobile email and sync service.

Funambol provides mobile email and PIM sync for everyone, not just the small percentage of iPhone or smartphone users worldwide.

About Funambol

Funambol is a leading provider of open source push email and mobile sync for the mass market. Funambol open source software has been downloaded more than 2.5 million times by 50,000 developers and project participants in 200 countries. The commercial version of Funambol has been deployed at service providers, mobile operators, portals, device manufacturers and ISVs including customers such as AOL, 1&1, Earthlink and CA, Inc. Funambol is headquartered in Redwood City, California with an R&D center in Italy.

Information Source:    Funambol

Image courtesy of Funambol