Product screenshots of My WAP Page by room33
room33 with My WAP Page
At the CeBIT 2001 I met Peo Olsson (at that time Communications Director) from room33 AB – originally known as Palm Reach – and had a short chat about WAP. room33 was founded in May 1998 by Zaheed Haque, who said „The mobile phone will become a credit card with an antenna“ (Source: room33’s view of the mobile Internet 2001-2005). The investors behind room33 were Nutek and EuroSeek and they had more than 75 people with offices in Stockholm, London, Paris, Madrid and New York. room33 AB was also a member of the WAP Forum, the Mobile Applications Initiative (formerly the GPRS Application Alliance), Bluetooth SIG and W3C.
In 2001 room33 launched a product called Cafe33 – an application supporting mobile communities. Cafe33 incorporated a range of chat functions, accessible from any device supporting WAP or Web clipping (Palm) technologies, in addition to the Web and SMS (text) messaging. On of the interesting elements was the „My WAP Page“; „the ultimate personalised service allows users to create their own WAP page hosted by the application owner and helps build a user community focusing on mobile devices. Page cration does not require programming skills. The service is primarily targeted towards the youth and early adopter segment, …“. Sounds quite similar to our service WAPmatic which we launched it in January 2000 :o)
Another interesting thing is the fact that already in the beginnings room33 aimed for partner alliances with advertising networks – somehow a pioneer: „As a complement to the Internet and traditional media, room33 is creating new vehicles for advertising on wireless devices connected to the Internet. In close collaboration with advertising networks, we intend to utilize the new technology to the full.“
I can’t figure out the date of the end of room33, but I still like their vision; „Our vision is to become the key to the mobile Internet.“