AOL Offers New Services For Mobile Users

AOL is offering new information and location services, including an integrated addition to mobile AOL Search suite and a Web-enabled MapQuest service. The company announced the news Monday, saying it represents an expansion of partnerships with Sprint and InfoGin Ltd.

The new service automatically adapts Web pages for Web-enabled wireless customers' screens. AOL uses InfoGin's transcoding and content analysis technologies to extend the ease of desktop search and navigation to wireless devices.

Sprint PCS Vision and Sprint Power Vision subscribers in the United States can access AOL's new portal services through the "portals" category on the Vision home page. The services offer access to enhanced AOL Search, AIM, Buddy List, mail, two-way desktop mobile-to-mobile messaging services, pictures, news, entertainment, sports and weather.

MapQuest improvements pave the way for another soon-to-be-offered feature: Global Positioning Service (GPS) and turn-by-turn, voice-guided directions on mobile phones.

More than 30 percent of adults report wanting to search and browse the Web from their cell phones, while 47 percent say they want mobile maps and driving directions with their next cell phones, according to an Associated Press and Pew Research Center poll released Monday. The poll also showed that 52 percent of adults keep their mobile phones on all day and 40 percent of people ages 18 to 29 plan to drop their landlines."We are committed to providing people with easy access to the Web's full range of information, location, and communications services wherever they may go," Eric Engstrom, senior vice president of Products for AOL's wireless group, said in a prepared statement.