Just like everything else you've been reading, Twitter saves the day, but on mobile it saves much more of the day. Does anyone know Twitter's mobile web traffic based on their ~1MM users? Has anyone really commented about how this is the most global platform the web has ever seen? Even Facebook has to translate into each language to become relevant and Google has to strategize about how to win in China. Twitter does not. I wouldn't have known since it's been 5 years since I've been back to China but Paul Denlinger asked on Twitter if Twitter was the US's QQ. [The background is Chinese startup Tencent developed QQ, which is like AIM and a Twitter-like mobile site TaoTao, which has Chinese carrier SMS support.] QQ has not made Chinese users ignore Twitter - and why is that? It's because once Twitter users anywhere figure out that they can twitter without text messaging there is an epiphany for each user as the text buzzing silences. We see Twitter as the asynchronous IM platform that only shows us what we choose to see from anywhere in the world at all times of day (sounds like the promise from web 1.0 doesn't it?). The only difference between silicon valley and silicon alley is exactly 3 hours of twitter posts, china 12 hours (for half the year :-) ). Twitter is the first platform to actually address what people in mobile marketing conferences have said over and over with each successive death of mobile web: "It's the most personal device, that people would less likely leave at home than their keys." If you carry your phone 18 hours a day that means that you have a much better shot at catching Robert Scoble's updates about being on his startup tour in Israel this week on mobile. As I'm writing this I've just noticed that Kaiser Kuo is now following me. Kaiser blogs from Ogilvy in China, and if you follow him on Twitter (go ahead,) you might see some interesting stuff from him at 9pm as China wakes. If you get all of your information while at your desktop then you are missing out - you can catch updates as you wait for the bartender to pour your beer. I also can't wait to see people from Cuba start twittering. I wouldn't be able to deal with direct dialogue, but as Ian Schafer points out it's the way to peek into our neighbor's windows, because Twitter gets the rules of engagement just right. Evan Neufeld from M:Metrics explained recently that mobile is about creating multi modal access in a world where mass marketing is dying. So for now WAP, (m.twitter.com, twapper.com) iPhone Twitter sites (itweet.net, hahlo.com, twitter.thincloud.com) and whatever else you use to access Twitter is making your mobile phone a great place for mobile content discovery, especially for breaking news and even with news features and commentary. Once you land from Twitter to a blog or news site you might find a neatly placed advertisement if the site is optimized for mobile devices. Twitter helps us find things and as Mark Cuban recently said if news is important it will find me. Michael Arrington showed us last week in his comcast/chicken example how Twitter can be used in emergencies, and Bill Thompson showed us how we can participate in conferences that we cannot attend, like SXSW during the Zuckerberg/Lacey panel.

According to Nielsen Mobile, more than 13 percent of the (oops, thanks for the correction)32 40 million mobile subscribers in the U.S. access the Internet from their phone monthly (as per Nielsen.) Of the sites that consumers are visiting, we see over 60 percent of them are still going to "on-deck" sites, with another 27 percent of traffic going direct to the address or bookmarked sites. In fact, only a mere 4 percent of mobile web traffic is driven from search. This shows that consumers are looking for information that not only is fast and relevant, but also from publishers that they trust.

Given the awkwardness of the phone interface, the size of the screen, and the nature of the medium, the average consumer does not want to take chances on sources they are not familiar with. In other words, quality counts. Crisp understands these needs and how to automatically optimize content for a myriad of device types. So it is no wonder that five sites that were created and powered by Crisp have been nominated for Webby Awards.

In the News category, Crisp-powered sites dominate, with three out of five nominations -- CNN, USA Today, and NPR. Under Entertainment, two of the five sites nominated are powered by Crisp -- Bravo and Cosmopolitan.

Crisp also recently launched a site with Time Magazine that has been optimized for the iPhone and iPod Touch. This site was chosen as a "Staff Pick" by Apple and featured at Apple.com.

Premium publishers turn to Crisp for sites that are scalable, reliable, well-designed and superiorly constructed--making our Mobile Publisher network of over 200 sites one of the largest in the United States.

The other day I got involved in a conversation with some members of the mobile software engineering experts at Crisp Wireless. They were reacting to my blog post about iPhone and Android. The sentiment of the developers was that the open source community is supporting Android and developers in general prefer the more open nature when writing software. Furthermore, the iPhone SDK is limiting compared to Android and a lot of interesting application ideas require capabilities not currently included as part of the iPhone SDK and UELA. For instance, letting the application run in the background is something the developer may need.

Since Android is less limiting, then that’s better? Both to the benefit of the end-user, the mobile operator, the manufacturer and the developer, there are arguments against that. Respectively: Do we want to run concurrent applications on our phone to drain the battery as quickly as possible? Do we want an application to mess with the network when you’re in the middle of a call? Do we want to allow applications that compete with the manufacturers built-in applications? Do we want an insanely complex certification path before the applications are deemed safe enough to allow distribution?

Android is supported by the open source community, so developers must like it a lot? Well, there is no single open source community. Developers are collaborating on other mobile software projects besides Android and I would be surprised if they are willing to drop whatever has been achieved and focus instead on something that Google just kind of threw over the wall. Gnome mobile and GPE Phone Edition comes to mind. Limo Foundation is another. The point being that those new mobile platforms are great for innovation but you can’t pick just one out, build your app for it and think you’re done. Porting to many platforms is expensive and it is in the best interest of Google to realize that being a good citizen of the open source community is helping with avoiding fragmented efforts.

Some of the developers that currently have the iPhone SDK in their hands and are able to have a compelling application written by this summer can likely avoid any porting and make a good enough of a return through iTunes alone. That’s not to say they shouldn’t port their app on Android or any of the other platforms, but at the end of the day, will they still like Android better?Crisp Wireless is interested in hiring talented mobile developers to work at their offices in New York. Please send your resume to jobs@crispwireless.com