Russell Beattie

Since Gabe has helpfully included an OPML list in Techmeme's new Top 100 list, I threw together a quick mashup on Mowser which parsed it out, and paged it for mobiles. You can check it out at http://mowser.com/techmeme via your browser or your mobile. I decided to link to the feed (if there is one) rather than the site itself as it's faster for browsing.

I also added some other tweaks over the past couple weeks, including cleaning up the home page a bit. I'm no longer using the Scuttle based mobile-link site because of spammers, so the mobile site directory is now static and may disappear all together someday. I've cleaned the URLs (finally), so instead of mowser.com/web?url=example.com, you can now just use mowser.com/web/example.com, which is *much* cleaner. That also goes for feeds as well, such as mowser.com/feed/example.com/rss . And I've also continued to integrate advertising through the site, which is (slowly) increasing my revenues.

All of this is procrastination while I avoid getting a final summary/presentation for funding done. The elevator pitch goes something like this:

Mowser is focused on a very simple goal: Help small to medium sized publishers go mobile with a self-serve content adaption service. The business model is equally as simple: As publishers use Mowser, they include a link back to the home page which advertises the service to other publishers, and attracts mobile users via direct clicks and search engines. The Mowser home page can then be monetized as a portal for mobile content via advertising, sales, etc.

The problem is the 'etc' part and, of course, the rest of the details. But the core of the service and offering is solid, I think.

One of the things I'm also trying to do is parse through 18GB of log files that I've saved over the past few months. Not only do I have the normal Apache logs, but I also dumped all the requests into a database (including the geodata) so that I can analyze the various device and carrier headers that are passed. What I hope to do is figure out where the "sweet spot" is for mobile devices right now and the places where people are most interested in using an adaption service, as well as get some solid numbers to help extrapolate for a business plan. I'm overthinking all of this of course, but hey.

Tick, tock... Is it October already?

-Russ