Skweezer, formally known as a

mobile browser A mobile browser is a web browser designed for use on a mobile device such as a mobile phone, PDA, smartphone, or tablet. Mobile browsers are optimized to display web content most effectively on small screens on portable devices. Some mobile bro ...

. It reformatted and compressed web content in order to reduce a web page's file size and make the downloaded content easier to view on a small screen. It was developed by Skweezer, Inc. and initially released in 2003. Skweezer's technology is used to mobilize Web content service by

search engines Search engines, including web search engines, selection-based search engines, metasearch engines, desktop search tools, and web portals and vertical market websites have a search facility for online databases. By content/topic Gene ...

Web portal A web portal is a specially designed website that brings information from diverse sources, like emails, online forums and search engines, together in a uniform way. Usually, each information source gets its dedicated area on the page for displayin ...

s, and

wireless carrier A mobile network operator (MNO), also known as a mobile network provider, mobile network carrier, mobile , wireless service provider, wireless carrier, wireless operator, wireless telco, or cellular company, is a telecommunications provider of se ...

s such as

IAC/InterActiveCorp IAC Inc. is an American holding company that owns brands across 100 countries, mostly in media and Internet. The company originated in 1996 as HSN Inc. as the holding company of Home Shopping Network and USA Network before changing its name to ...

Bloglines Bloglines was a web-based news aggregator for reading Web syndication, syndicated feeds using the RSS and Atom (standard), Atom formats. Users could subscribe to the syndicated feeds for free using a web browser. Bloglines offered an application ...

, and

Orange SA Orange S.A. (; formerly , stylised as france telecom) is a French multinational telecommunications corporation founded in 1988 and headquartered in Issy-les-Moulineaux, near Paris. ''Orange'' has been the corporation's main brand for mobile, ...

. Skweezer was available in English, French,

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

, Portuguese,

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

, and

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

languages and serves customers in over 175 countries worldwide.

Mobile browsing innovations

Skweezer introduced several mobile browsing innovations since its inception, including the first: * Portal-based

transcoding Transcoding is the direct digital-to-digital conversion of one encoding to another, such as for video data files, audio files (e.g., MP3, WAV), or character encoding (e.g., UTF-8, ISO/IEC 8859). This is usually done in cases where a target ...

engine: Skweezer (2003) * Globally distributed

mobile advertising Mobile advertising is a form of advertising via mobile (wireless) phones or other mobile devices. It is a subset of mobile marketing, mobile advertising can take place as text ads via SMS, or banner advertisements that appear embedded in a ...

platform:

Skweezer Ads Skweezer, formally known as a mobile browser. It reformatted and compressed web content in order to reduce a web page's file size and make the downloaded content easier to view on a small screen. It was developed by Skweezer, Inc. and initially r ...

(2004) * Pagination system that splits large

Web pages A web page (or webpage) is a World Wide Web, Web document that is accessed in a web browser. A website typically consists of many web pages hyperlink, linked together under a common domain name. The term "web page" is therefore a metaphor of pap ...

up for viewing on

cell phone A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable telephone that allows users to make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while moving within a designated telephone service area, unlike fixed-location phones ( landline phones). This radio ...

s (2005) * Mobile Web page translation feature (2005) * Portal-based mobile RSS reader (2005) * "Find in page" search that carries Web search keywords into search result pages (2007)

Controversy

In 2004 Skweezer became the subject of controversy when

blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

ger Jason Calcanis objected to advertisements being placed by Skweezer on transcoded versions of blog content. A debate ensued over the legality and propriety of proxy-based services such as

anonymizer An anonymizer or an anonymous proxy is a tool that attempts to make activity on the Internet untraceable. It is a proxy server computer that acts as an intermediary and privacy shield between a client computer and the rest of the Internet. It acc ...

s and

transcode Transcoding is the direct digital-to-digital conversion of one encoding to another, such as for video data files, audio files (e.g., MP3, WAV), or character encoding (e.g., UTF-8, ISO/IEC 8859). This is usually done in cases where a target de ...

rs placing ads against other publishers' content and the scope of coverage under "

fair use Fair use is a Legal doctrine, doctrine in United States law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to bal ...

" copyright protection. While the subject is still under debate, Greenlight Wireless stopped placing ads on transcoded content in early 2005. As of June 2010, the ads were being displayed again.

Awards

* 2008 Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine's Best Software Awards: Winner - Pocket PC Internet: Web Compression Service * 2007 MobileVillage Mobile Star Awards: Gold Star - Consumer Software: Mobile Web Content Aggregator / Portal * 2007 PDA Friendly Website Awards: Winner - PDA Home Page category * 2007 Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine's Best Software Awards: Winner - Pocket PC Internet: Web Compression Service * 2006 MobileVillage Mobile Star Awards: Gold Star - Personal Software: Mobile Web Content Provider category * 2005 MobileVillage Mobile Star Awards: Gold Star - Personal Software: Mobile Web Content Provider category * 2005 Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine Best Software awards: Finalist - Browsers & Web Utilities category

Similar services

* Google Web Light, but without a URL form. A user-created form is hosted at Neocities. * Loband by Aptivate * Skweezer, an online Instagram growth service similar named to Skweezer Inc.

References

{{web browsers Discontinued mobile web browsers Advertising Marketing