AOL is working to leverage the trends of the times with a new smartphone portal and two Android apps it hopes will capture consumer attention in an increasingly competitive mobile marketplace.
The new portal, m.aol.com, optimizes AOL for smartphones. Meanwhile, an AOL app for Android aims to make it easy for Android-powered smartphone users to access AOL’s most popular properties quickly. AOL credits the new mobile-focused direction to David Temkin, the company’s new vice president of mobile.
“AOL is making a renewed commitment to mobile, recognizing its importance as a distribution platform for the company’s content and publications,” said Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence. “AOL’s choice to do a couple of apps on Android before the iPhone is partly a reflection of Android’s increasing market share — and a calculated PR move that the company knew would get it attention.”
Touch-Driven Interface
AOL’s smartphone portal works on any mobile browser. AOL hopes to drive more mobile traffic to its already-popular mobile web sites, whether consumers are using the iPhone, Droid X, BlackBerry or some other mobile device.
For smartphones supporting HTML5, including iPhone and Android devices, the portal offers a touch-driven interface that lets users to scroll through articles and content. AOL’s mobile portal also offers location-based services that deliver local weather, movie, traffic and other updates. And an application directory works to help users find their favorite mobile apps as well as support for video content.
Snubbing Apple?
The free AOL application for Android-based devices lets users read content from some of AOL’s most popular sites like PopEater, Engadget and FanHouse. Users can also access sites like MapQuest and AOL Mail as well as hit the AOL app list to find links to all available AOL apps for Android.
AOL also announced that its DailyFinance app is now available for Android devices….