New weblog software on way

Newbay Software, a privately-funded start-up headed by a former Baltimore Technologies executive, is to offer software that enables people to create weblogs using only a mobile phone.

Weblogs, or "blogs", are online journals that have seen explosive growth in the past year, with some 5,000 created daily and over 500,000 in existence. They include personal diaries, sports and news sites, political commentary, technology and opinion sites.

Blogging software is available commercially and for free over the internet, but the sites must be created and managed on a PC.

NewBay chief executive Mr Paddy Holahan, former vice president of marketing with Baltimore, said that with NewBay's product, FoneBlog, "no computer is needed to have a website. You can do the whole thing from a phone. You don't even need to own a PC".

Mr Holahan said Dublin-based NewBay would offer FoneBlog to mobile operators, who can then brand the offering as a service for customers. The software, along with customer's weblogs, is managed either by the operator or NewBay. No software is needed on the mobile phone.

Customers can send blog entries by SMS (short message service) to their website, or send images from camera phones using MMS (multimedia messaging service).

Mr Holahan believes the blogging software will help drive the sale and use of camera phones and will boost network traffic for operators. Camera phones are expected to make up 11 per cent of phone sales by next year, and are expected to surpass the sales of digital cameras, according to Strategy Analytics, while 50 million MMS handsets will be in the European market by 2004.

NewBay (www.newbay.com) was formed in November. FoneBlog will be available to operators later this month, with new features added regularly, including instant messaging capability next month.