Third-party mobile browser Dolphin is releasing a new version of its Android product today that brings a host of improvements and features that will keep it competitive in the crowded mobile browser market. Dolphin for Android 7.0 introduces Dolphin Connect, which allows users to access their personalized settings from any Android device, such as browsing preferences, bookmarks and gestures.
The trick for Connect is that you have to sign up for a Dolphin account. A lot of users do not understand why or how browsers make money and can continue to survive. Mozilla made $200 $123 million this year (across its platforms) and even its investors are not really sure how. The answer (along with various other factors) rests with data.
At emTech – MIT and Technology Reviews’ conference in Cambridge, Mass. yesterday – Tom Digman of Reputation.com called data the oil that runs the Web. We have expressed similar sentiments on the pages of ReadWriteWeb before. Data is like the dark matter that holds the Internet universe together.
That is why we are seeing a lot of the third-party browsers start moving systems to the cloud. Either for acceleration (such as what Opera and Amazon are doing) or to offer features such as personalized sync. Data can be acted upon by browser makers to offer better features or can be sold as non-personally identifiable packets to other entities for a variety of uses, such as advertising, marketing trends, Web development and so on.
The new Dolphin for Android also revamps its Webzine product, which is a unique feature in the third-party Android browser wars. It will showcase the 16 most popular Webzine channels for access to on-demand content. The interface will supposedly be smoother with the ability to move between the Webzine, mobile and desktop versions of the browser from the address bar.
Dolphin is partnering with third-party application store Getjar for its release and will only be available there until this Sunday, Oct. 23. The new iOS version of Dolphin is in the works and probably has gotten hung up in the Apple App Store approval process. That is another trend from developers creating simultaneously for both platforms – release Android first while waiting for Apple to approve. Many times Apple will kick applications back to developers for tweaks or modifications before allowing it in the App Store.
Update Oct. 19, 2:46 p.m. EST — Made clarifications to Mozilla’s earnings.
