12 February 2008

Skyfire Mobile Browser Gets Social
With Sizzling New Version Of Symbian Client!

Today Skyfire, the makers of the same-name PC-like browser for mobile devices, released Skyfire Beta 0.9 to bring people closer to each other and their favorite content.

This new version of Skyfire integrates a desktop experience browser with the best of the Social Web.

In addition, this release significantly improves the reading experience, making it as enjoyable as Skyfire’s unique ability to play any Web video and render any rich content on your phone.

Social Media Heats Up in Skyfire
The most noticeable change in the new version of Skyfire is a real-time activity wall which aggregates customized feeds from news, media, Facebook and Twitter.

Skyfire is preconfigured with feeds from Digg, ESPN, Google News, Hulu, YouTube and Yahoo! News that display real-time updates on the start page. It is easy to customize your experience and add new feeds from your favorite Websites. Skyfire now always keeps you connected with the newest content that is relevant to you.

As part of the 0.9 release, users with Facebook and Twitter accounts can import their news feeds and Twitter streams into Skyfire and easily publish their status to these networks. Users can also share and publish any Web page to their Facebook and Twitter streams by simply going to the share menu in the Skyfire browser. This is an evolution in sharing, “…an industry first in mobile browsing,” states Skyfire CEO, Nitin Bandari – now you can share one-to-one via SMS and share one-to-many via your social network.

“Mobile browsing has traditionally been about viewing Web pages. Now, for the first time, Skyfire enables users to stay connected with their friends in real time – both share and receive. We enable interactive social browsing - videos not just plain text - just like you do on your PC.”

Text’s Turn to Shine

Skyfire, known for its unique ability to play any video on the Web, has made great leaps in improving the experience of reading large blocks of text without the need to horizontally scroll. This is a major boon for usability and perfect for catching up with the latest text heavy news and blogs. This solution addresses the challenge of rendering Web text designed to be viewed on the PC to be easily read on the phone. The implementation solves the complexity of supporting a multitude of screen resolutions across various phone models.

“We went out the door delivering rich media – whether it was video, images, or audio – Skyfire delivered it to your phone just like your PC browser.” said Tracy DeMiroz, Skyfire VP of Marketing. “In this release of Skyfire, we concentrated on improving the experience of reading text in Skyfire. The strides we made now give our users the best of both experiences whether they are watching a show on Hulu or reading an article in the New York Times.”

Sizzling New Symbian Client

In addition, the Skyfire Symbian client for Nokia E and N Series phones has been much improved. Significantly reduced files sizes and improved installation makes for a simplified experience.