Zumobi is a new mobile browsing app that offers an unusual interface and uses cached data to speed up online usage and give the option of offline browsing as well.
Rather than a traditional browser, Zumobi offers a set of sixteen ‘Tiles’, each containing a link to some specially-formatted web content. The user can ‘zoom in’ on a set of four tiles, then zoom further to bring up the relevant page.
There is a Flash demo here that should give a flavour of what that it looks like in practice.
Zumobi’s servers cache the data for your preselected tiles and the mobile app caches it onto your phone so you should be able to keep up to date even if you are in a blackspot or on board a plane.
It all sounds like good fun, but any walled-garden approach to the web lives or dies on its range of content and although Zumobi claim partnerships with big players like Flickr and Amazon, the ability to add your own content could prove crucial to this service taking off.
Targeted advertising is also presented as a feature and while it is admittedly better than spam it’s hard to picture many people walking around thinking “Ooh, do you know what? I could just go for some targeted advertising right about now.”
The beta version launches on the 14th of December and you can sign up here.
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