FlyScreen brings Web Services to the Not-So-Idle Screen

It hardly seems like a week has elapsed since TechCrunch 50 brought together 50 (actually 52) of the best and brightest technology starups the internets have to offer, yet here we are 7 days after everything wrapped up and still information is trickling out.One piece of particular interest is the latest from MOPocket creater Justin Oberman, a mobile application called FlyScreen which allows users to add their favorite web services to their phone’s sleep screen.The basic idea is that all that time your phone spends in “idle” mode could be better put to use displaying dynamic content of your choosing, providing zero click access to the content accessed most. Widgets are added via myflyscreen.com and displayed in sequence on the screen when it would otherwise be displaying a clock, animation or some other battery wasting triviality.Widgets are built specifically for the platform. The key advantage is that developers would only need “web level” programming knowledge rather than native calls for each device. FlyScreen is currently only available for Symbianplatforms, but a Blackberry version is in the works as is a version for Android once the platform isactually available.So what does the business opportunity look like? Widgets have been hashed and re-hashed numerous times over, normally with the biggest issue being how to actually monetize content.  In the case of FlyScreen, Justin is not looking just to branding opportunities as already used by numerous other widget producers, but has also included the equivalent of Google AdWords unobtrusively located at the top of the widgets displayed. Given the huge number of Symbian devices currently in use, the market is there to be seized.The company also has plans to license their idle screen technology as an alternative to advertising which is likely to be a more compelling business model for users and investors. FlyScreen is currently in private alpha, but mobilejones.com will provide a hands-on review of the application soon.

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