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Over the last week I’ve been busy with some projects that had me writing some software for my mobile phone. Up until now I typically used my phone to call, text, play casual games on the train, read an RSS feed or two using the reader that came with the phone, but I was barely using the Internet. I just figured because my phone has a standard numeric keypad it would be too much of a pain to surf.

I was so wrong! Once I had the phone apps I wanted installed and web pages that are important to me bookmarked I was all set. I realized I was able to quickly check the web content I’m usually checking when I’m at my laptop without any pain. Everything was only 1 or 2 clicks away.

Some of the cool stuff I’ve been playing with:

1. Gmail phone app: On google’s mobile page they have an installable Gmail phone app. You only need to login the first time, after that launching the app brings you right to your inbox. It’s easy to quickly scroll through messages and see if anything new has come in. Reply functionality is fine, T9 kicks in and it’s just as easy as sending an SMS.

2. Google Reader m-page: On the same mobile page for google there is a link to a google reader page optimized for mobiles. You only need to login once and the credentials are stored in a cookie in your browser. First screen is a random mix of all the rss feeds you’ve already set up on google reader, you can mark things a page at a time as read. I think this is a good first page as I’m often going there if I’m killing time and a random story does the trick. The one negative is that when I clicked on linkes to my individual RSS feeds I got a 404 error, so there is some sort of bug between the Google Reader app and my Sony-Ericsson browser.

3. Mobile Facebook : Man this mobile web-app impressed me. Again once I logged in once I don’t have to do it again. The initial page shows me stories from my news feed from my friends, their current status, my inbox. From there I can view a simple version of my profile, other people profiles and photo albums. Really nice and quick, something I’ll check frequently on my phone.

4. Mobile Youtube:  Simple web-app  that gives you the features, top rates, recently added, or a search box for your favourite Youtube vids. Playing them on my current GPRS connection is way to clunky though, so you need a nice 3G connection to enjoy it (more motivation to get a new handset asap!).

5. EQO: EQO is an installable app that takes care of all your instant messaging and international calling needs. In terms of IM you have access to AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Google Talk, ICQ and Jabber. Once your logged in you can run EQO in the background so you can do other things with your phone but still be connects with Gtalk.

The other thing you can do is place international calls for 1.7 cents a minute plus local air time. Basically when you are in the EQO phonebook you dial the international number into the app. It then comes up with a dialog with a local number and prompts you to call it. Once the local number is dialed you hear it ringing through and the person you are calling is none the wiser. Perfect for calling Canadians when I’m on the road ;-).

6.  Widsets:  This is the freaking coolest app of the bunch! I cannot speak highly enough about it. Basically it’s iGoogle or netvibes for your phone. But these guys new exactly what to do to make it nice for the phone. You select the widgets you want, and bam, you get nice icons on the main screen, one screen holds two or three widgets and you can scroll left or right to move to other widgets you have selected.

T he reason why a widget platform is even more useful for the mobile than a widget platform for the computer is that there is a lot of web content that is not mobile friendly. Since this widget platform is open, anyone can take there favourite web site mash-it-up into a widget that looks nice on the phone, and there you have it, you don’t have to wait for every website to come up with there own mobile strategy. There are litterally hundreds maybe thousands of widset widgets already.

The ones I currently have on my dashboard are:

i) Wikipedia: widget is a search box, gives me a nicely formatted wikipage back matching my result

ii) Techcrunch: all the latest storied from techcrunch.

iii) BBC news: just what you’d think it’d be :-).

iv) Ebay: lets me search for items on ebay, great to price check when i’m in a store thinking about buying something that looks to expensive.

v) IMDB: search box to give you the # of stars of a particular movie. Good if you’re going to blow some money on cinema tickets.

vi) Nu.nl: Keeps me up to date with the Dutch news

vii) Digg, Newsvines, etc etc… so many possibilities

I hope I at least inspire you to go out there and make the most of your mobile phone!