3999.com is counting on the fact that people can't remember contact details, but can remember how they found them, to attract users to its multiplatform search engine. The system only works with structured data, including phone books, stock prices, sports scores and flight or cinema times, but the search engine will return the same search results in response to a query submitted on the Web, from a mobile browser, via SMS (Short Message Service) or through a voice recognition system. That's not necessarily the case with competing services, which often require searches to be submitted with a different syntax via SMS than on the Web, said a company representative. 3999.com hopes to make its money by offering sponsored search results.
Shout'em is hoping to win over the many Le Web attendees who blogged the conference on services like Twitter. Shout'em offers a white-label microblogging service that companies can brand with their own visual styles, or that groups such as sports teams can use to exchange information without the clutter found on more general microblogging services. Posts are limited to 140 characters, ideal for transmission by SMS, although the company has not yet struck a deal with an SMS carrier, said developer Matija Smalcelj.
OOdesk already has 20,000 users of the beta version of its virtual desktop service, said Mahidine Mendjeli, one of its developers. OOdesk allows them to access virtual, hosted applications from any device equipped with a browser through a familiar interface. Its newest creation is OOdisk, a virtual filing system for documents and multimedia files that goes beyond offerings such as Google Docs by allowing remote access to files stored on PCs as well as those hosted on OOdisk servers, and offering a simple interface by which such documents can be shared with friends. While OOdesk is in an open beta trial, OOdisk users are a very select bunch: just eight of them are testing the software for the moment.