AOL is making further moves into the mobile market with its acquisition of Wildseed, a Kirkland-based company best known for its “SmartSkins” accessory software for handsets. In case you’re feeling like an old fogie and wondering what the heck a “SmartSkin” is, see a product sample here.
This acquisition is one of a series of big guns gunning for a piece of the market. Google, Yahoo, and MSN have all recently made strides toward embedding their services in mobile devices, despite a relatively soft market for mobile services such as email, local search, instant messaging and shopping.
No doubt the revenue potential is big, but the cell phone as a computer stand-in still has a long way to go. AOL exec Craig Eisler says the acquisition of Wildseed “ups the bar” and we agree. Read more on the Wildseed acquisition here.
