WIRELESS AND MOBILE NEWS

GetJar  announced the launch of App Download Page, a new service for mobile developers and content owners seeking to provide a simple experience for their users to download the right mobile app for their phone, independent of device platform, model or carrier.

App Download Page works by providing mobile developers and content owners with a simple mobile webpage that can be linked to from any mobile site. When the mobile webpage is displayed on a phone, the device is automatically detected and the user is directed to the appropriate version of the partner's mobile application for their phone located on GetJar. If no application exists, GetJar provides a free Mobile Site Shortcut (MSS), which is a small application that launches any phone's native Web browser and redirects it to the appropriate mobile site.

To trial the service the GetJar worked with Facebook, whose mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. To help fulfill that mission in an increasingly complex mobile environment, Facebook was one of the first companies to successfully use GetJar's new service.

Developers upload and manage all of their applications on the GetJar Developer site at http://my.getjar.com/site/Developers. Based on the experience gained over four years and over a half a billion downloads, the App Download Page service is a world-class solution for accurately detecting phones and quickly serving downloads to consumers independent of device, platform or carrier.

"The rapid adoption and growth of mobile apps and sites makes discovery and promotion of mobile properties a critical component of any mobile strategy," commented Ilja Lars, GetJar CEO and founder. "However, with literally thousands of different mobile phone models and a variety of popular mobile operating systems and browsers, getting the user the right mobile application has become an increasingly complex problem for even the largest of Internet brands. As we have seen with the initial Facebook launch, App Download Page helps take brands where they really want to be: on the consumers' handset."

Photobucket, the Web's premier standalone photo and video-sharing site, has confirmed that it will be next on deck to roll out the service which will start later this fall - more companies are also lined up to do the same. Like Facebook, the company sees an increasing number of its Web users moving to mobile, but also faces the enormous challenge of handset fragmentation and platform proliferation.

"Due to the explosive growth of Photobucket Mobile, we've been seeking a simple solution for our users to find and download the right versions of our mobile apps, and we are delighted to be able to leverage GetJar's expertise gained from their 500 million downloads," said Michael Clark, senior vice president of technology and partnerships for Photobucket.