With Bling, translate your Web site to mobile AJAX

January 30, 2007 | Matt Marshall | Comments | |

blingsoftware.bmpBling Software, a start-up that launches today at DEMO, helps translate your Web site into a visually rich mobile version.

Your regular site can not be duplicated on a cellphone’s tiny screen, so you have to customize it. This can cost serious bucks.

Now, Pleasanton’s Bling has unveiled an AJAX-based software that publishers can use to transform their sites into visually rich mobile versions. Bling’s chief executive, Roy Satterthwaite, tells VentureBeat the company is the first to guarantee the AJAX application will work across cell-phone platforms, and small enough to be distributed via cellular networks.

Until now, if you’ve wanted to create a good mobile application, it is developed with Java and C+, and you have to pretty much hire a specialty firm to tailor it for use on hundreds of handsets • just like ten years ago you had to hire a specialty firm to develop a regular Web site.

Bling handles the basic translation for you. However, it does require the publisher to set specifications — and this means having a Javascript-capable in-house IT staff — although Bling will help if you don’t have that.

blingimage.bmpSee images (left) for examples of some apps Bling has already made. The apps can be pre-loaded onto phones by the carrier or, as in the Bonds example, the application is not preloaded: A user must go to the Bonds site, and download it. It comes via an SMS message, and you just follow the directions.

Bling licenses its software (client) to Web publishers. It doesn’t have a set pricing schedule. Sometimes, it negotiates a licensing arrangement, sometimes a revenue share • in the case of Jay-Z, for example, it is a split of revenue from his music sales.

Eighteen months ago, Bling won $2.5 million in backing from Edge Ventures (run by Will Chang, a part-owner in the SF Giants), and B3 Ventures (namely, partner Peggy Taylor, an ex-Peoplesoft executive; Satterthwaite is also a former Peoplesoft exec). Bling has ten customers.

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About the Author, Matt Marshall

Matt Marshall is editor and CEO of VentureBeat. Follow him on Twitter at @mmarshall, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.

  • Bling is a great start. And what a company name: I love it!! One of those obvious names that somebody should have grabbed years ago.

    This is an area where China-based firms may dominate. Two reasons: First, cost (as always when thinking about China). Second, it isn't just about AJAX, but really about understanding the underlying hardware limitations. Most firms don't get this; in China, we get this.

    For example, our firm designs AdvancedTCA boards and systems. This is the next generation of data communications, where a lot of the sex and sizzle is, but ask the average software industry or web design firm exec what it is and they'd be clueless. They can tell you that their laptop runs on AMD or Intel, but they'd be much less likely to know which core processors are running their iPhone, Treo or Blackberry.

    But in the embedded systems sector, hardware limitations are a pain-in-the-butt. How about writing VLIW architecture-friendly code? How about migrating DSP code to FPGAs? No clue what I'm talking about, eh? Well, that is the reality of pervasive computing, ubiquitous computing. The embedded world is VERY different than the enterprise world ... but all (or most) things are migrating to embedded platforms.

    Something like Bling helps. But to really understand the pervasive ecosystem requires knowing a lot more than what is typically understood by design firms or software vendors.
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