Mobile Websites and Phone Apps

Be a Mobile Maven

August 11th, 2006 MobileFreak

Need to do some quick research on a potential client on your way to a meeting? Want to make a sell/hold decision on one of your stocks right now, but are away from your PC? Now you can.

With the increasing number of business and financial cell phone apps now available, scenarios like these are no longer a challenge. Let’s take a closer look at some of the most mobile financial information services available today.

Stock Quotes & Trading

Receiving stock quotes on your mobile phone or PDA is certainly not new. Many early mobile applications provided stock quote services through SMS (Short Message Service), also known as text messaging. More recently, this same service has been migrated over to the mobile web. And while using SMS to request and receive stock quotes remains a very useful service today, that same service over the mobile web opens up a host of additional features and options.

As you can imagine, the big search engine companies have offered mobile information services for some time now. Google’s stock quote feature, available through Google SMS, is rather interesting in the amount of information provided in the response. Here’s a sample output they have provided on their site:

Compare that to a similar service by San Francisco upstart Synfonic, and you can see quite a difference in the amount of data provided (image is an example from the Synfonic site):

We will get into more detail on various stock quote services in future articles. For now, let’s move on to a few other services available today.
Business Headlines & Company Research

While it may seem impractical to do any significant amount of company research on a mobile screen, many folks are pleasantly surprised at what today’s cell phone tools can do. Bloomberg, for example, provides mobile company research through AvantGo for the PDA, and through specific wireless providers for its mobile phone users. Financial Times users can select Market Headlines, Company News, and Index information via it’s WAP-enabled mobile web site. Of course, The Wall Street Journal also provides business news and information to Blackberries, cell phones, and even to GM cars via the OnStar service. Further details about the mobile services available can be found on their cell phone services page.

Other financial information services available through your mobile device today include mobile banking, stock trades, and much more.

What types of financial-related cell phone apps do you use on your mobile phone or PDA?

Entry Filed under: Business, SMS, Tools

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