Now the problems has been solved and everyone who wanted to create an account in Fortumo got their passwords.

On Monday we decided we are going to public beta, we won’t promote our service for some time, get quality feedback and improve our service. I pictured it as a relaxing time when we will get useful information and make last changes before the launch.

It turned out otherwise, some bloggers picked up our site and right away i noticed changes in traffic. Things went more interesting when Mashable introduced Fortumo. After that we got loads of e-mails mainly from US but also from all over the globe from people asking about our service. I will use the chance and say thanks to everyone for good words about our service. Since we have said it several times in last 48 hours i’ll make a public statement.

Our first step is setting up a solid and quality service in Baltic States and Scandinavia and then expand to other countries. At the moment we are already negotiating for new countries and names with dates will be made public when everything is clear and we have agreements. Meanwhile it is possible to create services in 7 countries and pretty soon the amount of services will increase. We’ll provide operatively development news and information about our plans in the blog. We still appreciate a constructive feedback about our service and are really thankful for those who have given us useful ideas so far.

Meanwhile stay tuned and keep an eye on Fortumo and of course read our blog.

We have had some reports that there are some people in US who haven’t got the password while registering.
We are apologizing for this problem and dealing with it.

When we launched public beta few days ago we were ready for users in different countries but we weren’t expecting so big attention from US at this phase and it caused some problems.

Thank you for being patient, we are dealing with the problem and let you know when it is fixed.

For a some time we have been writing here about mobile solutions and mobile marketing. But we haven’t told exactly what Fortumo really is and what we are standing for. Now when everyone have an access and can create the first services in Fortumo is suitable time to talk about what Fortumo is and what are our values.

In the past, creating mobile services used to be a difficult and expensive undertaking, and revenue streams from mobile applications were available only for mobile operators and large technology corporations. Mobile services were technologically complex and time-consuming to create. This is not the case anymore.

Fortumo’s goal is to make creating mobile services as easy as it is to create a blog or a home page. Anyone, from students and home-based workers to web entrepreneurs, can create their own SMS service in 5 minutes and start earning revenue. Moreover, Fortumo services have a number of advanced features and competitive revenue sharing, which makes it a good choice for large-volume mobile services.

We believe that creating mobile services should be easy and free. This way, you will have more time and resources to promote and improve your business.

Fortumo isn’t the only way to make mobile services… but it should be!

Last weeks we had a lot of constructive feedback,thanks again to everybody for helping us to improve the product.
Now we have decided to make Fortumo as “public beta”, i can promise that Fortumo won’t stay in beta stage for a long .

Now everyone can get an access to Fortumo right after asking an invitation. This phase is important to get wider feedback from different people before public lauch.

Please if you have any problems or suggestions, let us know via e-mail support@fotumo.com.

Google launched AdSense for mobile 7 months later than Yahoo! its mobile display ad system for its Mobile Web service. When Yahoo! started with 19 countries Google replied with six fewer, they are offering AdSense for Mobile in 13 countries: US, England, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Ireland, Russia, Netherlands, Australia, India, China, and Japan (available in the coming weeks).

It was just a matter of time when AdSense was developed for mobiles. Since there are about 6.6 billion people in the world and about half that many mobile phone subscriptions and there are currently more mobile devices worldwide than personal computers and televisions combined so it could be a promised land for Google. But the best part is that ad blocking on mobile handsets isn’t an issue. No worries it will be pretty soon.

Google’s ability to profit from mobile advertising will depend largely on how much it knows about those viewing its mobile ads and the extent to which it can convert that knowledge into ad targeting data. While telecom companies typically know a great deal about their subscribers, they tend not to share that information without compensation, if at all. That leaves Google to either make deals with telecom partners or to deepen its own data about those using its services both on the Internet and mobile devices.

We will see how it goes, meanwhile you can keep an eye on AdSence blog.

Last week i promised to tell you a little about our new services and development plans. Today is the time to give a little overview about our ideas.

Well since we believe that creating mobile services should be easy, we are starting to provide constantly new fixed services after the launch. Technical skills shouldn’t be obstacles for making your own mobile business. Everyone should have a chance to execute great ideas. That is what Fortumo stands for- we are providing simple mobile based entrepreneurial platform that gives everyone a chance to create mobile services despite their technical knowledge .

Next few monts we are focusing on fixed services. We want to provide a wide choice of different services. First priorities are subscription services, content providing services and so called password services.

We are also planning to provide some cool advanced services, some of them are even voice based. I’ll promise soon we will give more information about advanced services as well.

I read from UTalkMarketing that a company called Bluepod Media has developed hardware which can communicate with Bluetooth enabled handsets over a radius of 100 metres.

They are saying that this device is going to fly mobile marketing to the whole new level. The company is stressing the necessity of this device with facts like:

* There are now more Bluetooth-enabled handsets worldwide than there are PC-s
* The use of bluetooth is extremely high amongst teenagers who advertisers find traditionally hard to reach (37 per cent of all UK teenagers are regular users)
* Bluetooth content is the most popular form of mobile advertising
* It operates on pay-per-download model

But this is just a beginning imagine with few years from now we can get personal offers and pay via bluetooth.
You are going to cinema and you don’t have to pay for the ticket, you’ll be charged via bluetooth. But wait while you are watching Harry Potter you’ll be sent everything related with Harry Potter. Also you’ll get information about upcoming movies by categories you have previously chosen. When the movie has ended you are walking by the newspaper-booth and you’ll get all the hot topics you are monitoring via bluetooth. It’s like google alert on your mobile. These are only small things that came in my mind, wouldn’t it be great?

Well i see some disadvantages as well. This may get really disturbing, if i want to be alone i’ll switch bluetooth off. Actually i would like to know how much bluetooth-enabled devices have bluetooth enabled all the time- in cinema, walking by newspaper-booth, watching football etc. I’m afraid that the number isn’t so large since blutooth is eating battery, there are some securitity risks etc. It seems that this device is great for seducing marketing people, but there still remains a question does the message get through, how wide is the target group etc. In my opinion it isn’t the best channel to market something but the time will tell us am i right.

Today we enabled services also in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Everyone who already have Fortumo’s account can start their first services in these countries as well.

Also thank you all for letting us know about bugs and things that could be better you have helped us a lot. During the last week we have made heavy improvements and next week you can see some surprising changes.

As promised, second wave of people got an access to Fortumo today in the afternoon and we hope you will like it like we do . We are still thankful for any feedback.

Stay tuned because next week i will reveal some information about Fortumo’s new services.

RailsConf Europe 2007, the number one European Rails event is taking place already next week in Berlin, and Fortumo will be there. The conference is apparently sold out, so we’re expecting a fabulous event and lots of fun. Looking forward to meet the European Rails community, find out the bleeding edge of Rails development, and see how other European web start-ups are doing.

The sad thing is that there are so many interesting talks and sessions, that we’re having hard time picking the ones we’re going to attend. Luckily there are two of us, so we can spread. I’m especially excited about the ones about scaling by Joyent and Twitter, as well as the one about applying AI methods in Ruby.

We will be arriving on Sunday evening and head right to the Bratwurst on Rails kick off party. See you there.