Mobile operators have relied on several core strategies of late to cope with the surge of video traffic on their networks. The traditional approach is to accelerate the build-out of their networks as quickly as possible. Not only is this strategy expensive (albeit a necessary evil in many cases), it runs into the ceiling provided by spectrum allocation – spectrum being something that network operators ultimately run out of. Small cell architecture definitely helps; these smaller radios provide more rapid build-out capacity and more targeted capacity in dense geographies, and work with the larger "macro network". Then there's Wi-Fi offload, which provides more favorable economics, and hands mobile operators much more breathing room for large-file video & multimedia usage by their customers, above and beyond their licensed spectrum allocation.

The trouble with Wi-Fi offload onto a operator-managed network is that even this bandwidth is, alas, not infinite either. This "pipe" can also fill up rapidly, as is apparent when dozens of users cluster with laptops, tablets and smartphones in, say, a Starbucks. This also provides a backhaul problem. While there might be 50+ Mbps capacity available to push through the Wi-Fi network, the actual internet throughput might only be 2MB due to interference and backhaul limitations. Certainly, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Moreover, users have grown accustomed to a first-rate quality of experience on Wi-Fi. When that experience is degraded, and when videos begin to stutter, buffer, pixelate and/or not play at all, that user will blame whomever that network provider might happen to be – and, increasingly, take their "business" back over to the 3G or 4G mobile network.

At Skyfire, we reject the false choice between 3G/4G and Wi-Fi. We designed our cloud-based video optimization solution to allow operators to tap into the same centralized optimization capacity for both their own managed Wi-Fi networks and their mobile networks. Our Rocket Optimizer solution is truly HetNet ready, and because of this, the same rich and flexible software-defined policies can be applied just as easily by operators on both types of network. We believe it's important for operators to optimize only where the congestion is occurring – and if this is on Wi-Fi, our flexible policy management dashboard lets an operator target Wi-Fi, according to parameters they set based on knowledge of their own networks.

Skyfire's legacy inline competitors use increasing amounts of hardware to attempt to solve the problem. Adding more servers in the Wi-Fi component of the network leaves more stranded capacity at the edge of that network, and applies a one-size-fits-all band-aid that's not adapted to the realities and needs of today's network problems.

So how does this play out in the real world? Let me provide you with a real use case from our customers: Real-time events in public spaces. Think of concerts, or large sporting events. These are places where there are huge loads on both mobile and Wi-Fi networks, with transient peaks. Rather than bringing in truckloads of equipment to manage big installs, Skyfire lets operators control the traffic from such events, and send it to the cloud for optimization when congestion arises. Why should operators sweat out such events in a "war room" when they can easily and flexibly control that traffic with the click of a button from an office? We allow operators to combat the data deluge in hotspots like this in minutes, not weeks – and continue to provide their users with a first-rate video-viewing experience as well.

Just before the holiday break, we updated the Skyfire Web Browser for iPad with full, up-to-date functionality from our mobile browser extension platform,  Skyfire Horizon. Skyfire users on iPad were already able to easily share content via Facebook and Twitter before the update, yet now we've added a robust range of built-in browser extensions to allow users to interact with an array of content without leaving their existing browsing session. This ranges from sophisticated sharing on social networks (Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter), to contextual recommendations on apps (powered by Quixey, with recommendations wholly unique to the page you're browsing), to easier Amazon.com shopping to dead-easy content bookmarking & saving with Readability.

Now, Skyfire Horizon developers can extend their applications and contextual & social tools to iPad as well, where nearly 2 million people have downloaded the Skyfire Web Browser. This is in addition to the current rapid deployment of the platform on the devices of one major US-based wireless operator, with more coming in early 2013 (including Sprint). Developers will also see Skyfire Horizon functionality extended to Skyfire's other consumer browsing products in the new year, providing a fantastic opportunity to go where users are spending the most time engaging with content – in their own mobile browsers. If you're interested in partnering with Skyfire and bringing your extensions to the people, please let us know.

We know that many users of Skyfire consumer applications have come to them in order to watch video, particularly Flash (FLV) video that is not formatted for the standard Safari browser in iPad and iPhone, as well as to take advantage of the robust browsing experience provided by Skyfire Horizon's browser extensions. We're listening to user feedback asking for more elegant options to hide or minimize the toolbar at the bottom of the application when not in use, and we have numerous user experience improvements in that area coming that we think users will love.

Come take a look at the improved Skyfire for iPad, and get ready for a smooth, fast, user-friendly and relevant mobile browsing experience.

As the Skyfire Horizon mobile browser extension platform continues to expand to new devices and to new mobile operators, we thought it was important to take a look at some of the early innovators on this platform, companies who have taken functionality or solutions typically associated with "Apps" and brought them directly into the consumer in-browser experience. One such solution is Readability, an extremely useful why-didn't-I-have-this-before sort of extension that allows users to save mobile web content for later reading, both online and offline, or reformat that content to a beautiful, reader-friendly view for reading right now.

We caught up with Rich Ziade, founding partner and CEO of Readability, and asked him a few questions about his company and its part in the expanding world of mobile browser extensions.

Tell us a little bit about Readability – your mission, how the product works, and where users can find it outside of Skyfire Horizon.

Rich Ziade: Readability's mission is dead simple: create a comfortable and consistent reading experience across the web. If you visit Readability.com, you'll find all the tools to get going: browser add-ons, iOS & Android apps and a free account to store stuff you want to read later.

What makes Readability better than, a complement to or a replacement for other platforms our readers might be familiar with like Instapaper and Pocket?

Rich Ziade: I think what makes Readability so compelling is the effort and energy we've put into the parsing engine. It is second to none. Also, we're really wholly focused on the reading experience. Pocket and others have ventured out to video, pictures and the like. We just want to make reading great. Also - we're free!

What makes the availability of Readability within Skyfire Horizon exciting to you and your company?

Rich Ziade: What's so exciting about Readability inside of Skyfire Horizon is that it gets rid of the biggest hurdle for most users: the install process is gone! On mobile browsers, it's notoriously difficult to enhance or add new capabilities onto browsers, if at all. By building it into Skyfire out of the box, the feature is there and ready to go.

How do you see mobile browsing evolving in coming years, and what roles do you see both Readability and Skyfire playing in that evolution?

Rich Ziade: Over time, people are going to come to expect more and more from their mobile browsers. This is due to the fact that the time spent on mobile continues to steadily rise. Our own apps for mobile and Skyfire's sophistication speaks to just how powerful the browser has become. It's no longer a "mini" version of the desktop browser we've become accustomed to. It's a first class citizen.

Like any company, Skyfire's made up of an eclectic group of individuals with their own unique cultural and literary tastes. Users of our products – both operators and consumers – certainly never wonder what books are sitting on the shelves of the people that code, quality-test and sell Skyfire products, but to that we ask: Why Not?

It's clear from our recent internal, just-for-fun survey that we've got a fairly well-read group of individuals sitting under the roofs of our offices. Who knew? We thought we'd take a peek into the private literary lives of Skyfire employees, and ask them what books they've been reading lately. The names may be anonymous, but we assure you, the people are real. Here's what we found out:

Manager, Software Engineering: "Ghost in the Wires" by Kevin Mitnick

I met him at the RSA conference last year (Mitnick is pictured on the left). He was once the world's most wanted computer hacker. I love to understand how hackers manage to break systems and what companies need to do to prevent such attacks.

Senior Software Engineer: "Ugly Americans" by Ben Mezrich

Just a fascinating read on the world of arbitrage back in the 80’s – making tons of money on minute changes in the stock markets, primarily the Nikkei.  A true story told in a manner that reflects Mezrich’s ability to keep you glued to the pages.  A good friend of mine recommended it and now I’m a fan. Mezrich also wrote “The Social Network”.

Accounting Manager: "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie

The title saids it all, it was a very interesting book, I learned a few things out of it, one of a few: appreciate life and enjoy what we have.

CEO: "The Master Switch" by Tim Wu

A sweeping history of the US telecom and media landscape, from a Boston professor who is a net neutrality and anti-trust advocate, that chronicles how policy and lobbying power can encourage or squash innovation and competition.  Particularly good on the early history of radio and the telephone and the formation of the power players like NBC and AT&T.

QE Engineer: “The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies---How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths” by Michael Shermer

Fun and engaging non-technical reading (with lots of references to the various psychological experiments) for anyone who does not hold a tight grip on biology of the human brain but still is interested on why we believe certain things and look for the meaning.

CTO: “The Bonehunters – Book Six of Malazan Book of the Fallen” by Steven Erickson

The epic fantasy series. This series spans 12 years of writing and 10 books with a total of 10,000+ pages. I am 6,000+ pages into it!

QE Engineer: "The Birth of Complexity" by Alexander Markov

Russian evolutionary biologist Alexander Markov retells the current scientific views on the emergence and evolution of life on Earth, taking special consideration to include most up to date findings on the subject.

VP Finance: "The Map of My Dead Pilots: The Dangerous Game of Flying in Alaska" by Colleen Mondor

Each year I find a book to read with my grandfather – a man whose lifelong vocation and avocation was flying. Past choices include "West with the Night" by Beryl Markham, "Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand and "Wind, Sand and Stars" by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

Sr. Web Developer: "JavaScript Web Applications" by Alex MacCaw

I read this book about a month ago to learn more about Javascript frameworks and techniques I haven't used yet. But mainly because I had nothing better to do at the time.

Director of Quality Engineering

Currently I am reading the following 2 books in parallel:

"I'm Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen" by Sylvie Simmons

Leonard Cohen is one of favorite singers & poets. Despite his old age, he still sings great in his concerts. His music & poems appeal to young & old.

and

"The Best Writing on Mathematics 2010" by Micera Pitici and William Thurston

I am an amateur mathematician, hence reading the collection of articles listed in the book

Agile Scrum Master: “Foraging Flavor: Finding Fabulous Ingredients in Your Backyard” by Wong, Leroux, Boulud

Preparation for the zombie apocalypse, with approval from NY’s Daniel Boulud.

Sr. Director of Marketing: "Inferno: The World at War 1939-45" by Max Hastings

A fantastic one-volume history of all aspects of World War II that somehow simultaneously provides a deep dive into neglected and little known chapters of the war (the British defeat in Burma, for example) and loads of personal stories from the civilians and soldiers who lived through everything from Stalingrad to Treblinka to the Egyptian desert battles to the fall of France.

Partnerships & iOS Products Manager: "Cursor's Fury" by Jim Butcher

Third book in the "Codex Alera" Fantasy series. I bought the fantasy series on iBooks to read on my iPad Mini on flights over Thanksgiving break.

Director, Technical Account Management: "The Grand Design" by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow

Because I want to pretend to be a rocket scientist.

Operations Manager: "The 4-Hour Chef" by Timothy Ferris

A "cookbook" that is likened to "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". The author provides philosophies which asks its readers to put aside how we have been taught to learn and what we already know and provides thoughts on how to out perform in a multitude of tasks… including cooking.

UX Director: "Ready Player One" by Ernest Cline

This is a "nerdgasm" book filled with references to video games, virtual reality, ’80s pop-culture trivia, and geek heroes.

iOS Lead: "The Price of Everything: Solving the Mystery of Why We Pay What We Do" by Eduardo Porter

Accidentally started to read this book and as the title says, deals with logic of cost(not just dollars) of most of the things we want to know including happiness, health, products of branded items and even family. Understanding some of the reasons make me better appreciate the issues now in day to day life.

Vice President of Americas: "The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life" by Tim Ferriss

I've been a fan of Tim's two other '4-hour' books but specifically his concept in this book of  using cooking to explain “meta-learning,” a step-by-step process that can be used to master anything, whether searing steak or shooting 3-pointers in basketball, was too much to resist.  I enjoy cooking and learning, so its the perfect combo.

Sr. Systems Administrator: "Wolfheart" by Richard A. Knaack

Wolfheart is a work of fantasy based on the widely popular MMORPG World of Warcraft. I have read many books by this author and they all are tied together telling different aspects of a much larger story and all of them have been the type of book that is hard to put down for me. Better yet, they are all available as ebooks which is my preferred medium.

EMEA Sales: "An Idiot Abroad" by Karl Pilkington

Ricky Gervais (creator of the The Office, and notorious for his Golden Globe antics insulting Hollywood A-Listers) sends his friend on a mission round the world to visit the Seven Wonders. Pure British inane humour at its best for some very light relief.

Skyfire's CEO Jeff Glueck contributed an article today to Sarah Reedy's excellent new Innovation Generation tech business website & community entitled "Mobile Browsing Gets Personal". He took a look at how mobile browsing is evolving, thanks to Skyfire Horizon, into an extension platform that has plenty to offer both consumers and their mobile operators. We thought Skyfire blog readers might want to take a look at the article in its entirety, so in case you missed it, we're reposting it here.

Mobile Browsing Gets Personal - Jeff Glueck, CEO, Skyfire

Since the dawn of the desktop Internet browser -- I'm talking Netscape Navigator and early versions of Internet Explorer in the mid-1990s -- it's been fun, and yet frustrating, watching the digital contortions that users have tied themselves into trying to customize and personalize their browsing experience.

A few years ago, alternative desktop browsers like Chrome, Safari, and Firefox began tapping into latent user discontent and the burgeoning popularity of mobile apps, and began adding user-picked and even user-curated extensions to browser interfaces. When a user didn't have to leave his or her browsing session to actually do things -- snag a deal, post a tweet, "like" a page, and so on -- it exponentially changed browsing for the better.

Alas, it arrived just as a massive and ever-growing chunk of that browsing traffic began shifting over to mobile.

The extensions we all enjoy on desktop browsers are missing in mobile. There have been many obstacles at play. For one, opening up a “Wild West” library of extensions can mean many of them will slow page load times, strain power consumption, or expose privacy or security risks. On mobile, spotty bandwidth, limited battery, and privacy concerns are even more critical than on your desktop, with a power plug in the wall and a nice fixed line connection. Limited screen real estate is also an obvious difference.

For these reasons, it is understandable that OEM-supplied browsers on Android and even from Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) have offered little more "extra" functionality

than those 1996 desktop browsers did. For smartphone consumers looking to take back some degree of personalization and for operators looking for incremental monetization opportunities and a more “sticky” user experience, it's clear that the time for robust, contextual mobile browser extensions is long overdue.

Consumers should have same-screen access to social tools like Facebook (Nasdaq: FB), Twitter Inc. , and Pinterest when mobile, rather than having to jump out of a browsing session and into an app. Firefox and Opera Mobile have released, or are planning to releae, some form of extension capabilities into their browsers. My company Skyfire's mobile browser extension framework, Skyfire Horizon, was also developed specifically for operators and their customers.

Operators are able to use this browser extension framework as a means for recommendations, promotion, and advertising to their customers, should they wish to do so. Mobile extensions can also enable the operator’s users to add, delete, and change the initial extensions selected by the carrier, as often as they want, from a curated list of contextual and social extensions made by third-party developers. All are vetted to protect browser performance, battery life, privacy, and network radio load. With a click, users can access their social media feeds, and share any content to their social networks, as well as browse any page on the Web and find contextually relevant deals or apps to download, all without leaving the page.

Operators who’ve watched their mobile browsers morph from captive, “walled garden” WAP experiences to today’s wide-open generic browsing landscape now have the opportunity to claw back some of that heretofore lost real estate -- all while providing users with a configurable and unobtrusive experience.

A key to mobile extensions is allowing users to control their own extensions, including being able to go into browser settings and turn the entire framework off if it’s not to their liking. So far, less than 1 percent of users on shipping devices have chosen to turn off Horizon, and a majority of users have been engaging with and personalizing their extensions, as mentioned before -- so operators are already seeing great user feedback. Giving their consumers that freedom is paramount. May the next generation of mobile browsing be born!

We noticed an interesting article late last week on the BBC's website called "Data Jam Threat to UK Mobile Networks". Ofcom, the UK telecommunications regulatory agency (for our US readers: think FCC), is sounding the alarm for innovative data traffic management approaches on UK mobile networks, without which "mobile networks will gradually grind to a halt". Ofcom says that if current trends play out, demand for mobile data will grow by 80 times by 2030, with consumers' love for mobile video, TV and films driving this data deluge. The article says that "the amount of data Britons consume on the move each month has hit 20 million gigabytes".

Ofcom has a variety of suggested tactics to help combat this, all of which we applaud. Among them are the release of more spectrum and innovative wi-fi offload plans. Making use of the industry's existing spectrum – and dramatically improving bandwidth for capacity-constrained operators – is where companies like Skyfire come in. We see the explosion of data consumption just as Ofcom does, and we've spent years bringing our cloud-based video optimization solution to the point where it can save an operator – even a massive European or North American telco – an average of 60% bandwidth across all forms of data. It goes without saying that this is a radical improvement over the status quo, a status quo that Ofcom, the BBC and global operators know is wholly unsustainable without disruptive, next-generation solutions.

As we continue deploying our solution on live networks, as we're doing now, we'll keep you appraised on the success our operator partners have in mitigating the capacity crunch on their networks.

It might be a legitimate assumption if it were true – that a cloud-based video optimization solution like Skyfire's Rocket Optimizer necessarily encounters "latency" issues that prevent video or other multimedia from being delivered faster than legacy inline options deliver them. Far from it! Skyfire's optimization solution not only delivers 2x bandwidth savings vs. competing solutions, it provides global mobile operators and their consumers with a faster video delivery system at a percentage of the cost, with quality of the consumer video-viewing experience a given.

Here's how it works. Latency occurs when a web page is loading and fetching a series of small objects, like javascript and images. Anyone who's watched a web page or mobile web page load, whether in the dial-up era or in 2012, knows the sequence. Little objects like text will render first, followed by the larger ones like pictures and videos. That's latency – the large objects are being pushed through constrained network pipes, and therefore need more time to get to your screen. The largest objects, and increasingly the most popular ones these days, tend to be video. You're going to pay some kind of latency penalty no matter what for that video – for instance, it typically needs 4-5 seconds of pre-buffering to get started, or worse on a constrained operator network.

So sending that video out to the cloud to be optimized (i.e. reduced in network-clogging bandwidth) will make the delivery even slower, right? Wrong. The beauty of Skyfire's cloud-based optimization solution is that the millisecond-level "hit" you take in routing that video to the cloud for optimization is made up for - and then some! - in the optimization itself. That customer sitting with phone in hand is going to see that video sooner than they otherwise would have with an inline solution, because dollars to donuts it has been optimized, and therefore delivered much more quickly. Competing solutions don't catch all video format types, and when they do, they optimize at less than half the bandwidth savings of Skyfire's solution.

Wouldn't that then mean that the video is so compromised – so over-optimized – that users will have a terrible viewing experience? Au contraire. Skyfire has invested much of our R&D over the years in ensuring a terrific quality of experience for our operator customers, and numerous internal and external studies confirm that users of our cloud-based solution simply can't tell when their video is "optimized". They certainly love the quick start-up time and non-buffered experience – to say nothing about the bandwidth savings and hits to their bucket of megabytes in this new era of capped data plans. Nearly seven out of eight U.S. smartphone owners say they care more about smoothness and less buffering time on a standard definition video over high definition pixel quality while watching mobile video over a poor connection, according to results from a survey conducted online in May/June 2012 by Harris Interactive.

In addition, the cloud itself in many cases will have a much fatter internet pipe than the distribution center does, due to backhaul constraints inherent in an inline architecture. Skyfire can get that video to our servers more quickly, and thereby deliver it to the user more quickly. Users tend to appreciate that, and they tend to reward their mobile operators accordingly for good service delivery by sticking around and not churning. Given an operator's reliance on cloud-based architecture instead of an inline legacy model, Skyfire also helps reduce consumption in that operator's backhaul, because videos are now optimized before they even reach the distribution center. That leaves more room for other data in that backhaul, and it helps postpone the day of reckoning when more equipment must be ordered to keep up with ravenous consumer video consumption.

The major global operators with whom we're working get it, and they trust the optimization of video on their busy networks to Skyfire because they've seen it work in action. If you're an operator interested in testing out our cloud-based solution, please let us know – we can get you up and running in less than 48 hours, and you'll very quickly see the "cloud latency" myths exposed for what they are.

One of the common concerns we hear as we meet with mobile operators around the world is just how long and complex the installation cycle can be when they work with traditional hardware-dependent "inline" optimization solutions. That's just for testing these legacy solutions in a data center environment, to say nothing of actually installing them throughout the breadth and depth of a modern operator network. As an industry, we've probably shortchanged our operator partners over the years by subjecting them to lengthy testing cycles and to testing deployments that take many months. That's about to change.

We're announcing our RocketTest program today, which slashes the setup time for mobile video and image optimization testing from months to mere days. Our lightweight, flexible, cloud-based architecture allows us to offer global mobile operators the opportunity to test Skyfire's Rocket Optimizer in their own environments, and on any devices on their network - smartphones, laptops and tablets. Skyfire recognizes that operators in increasingly competitive markets must be efficient and timely with their testing programs – or they risk falling behind.

Our RocketTest program shines a beacon on the benefits and the flexibility of Rocket Optimizer, the industry’s broadest and most powerful mobile video optimization solution. Rocket Optimizer delivers video bandwidth savings of 64 per cent on average and an average of 50 per cent on images – again, across smartphones, laptops and tablets. Our platform can be deployed in the operator cloud, in the Skyfire cloud, or in a hybrid, ‘cloud burst’ architecture - depending on the operator's preference. This approach allows Skyfire to provide instant capacity; ensuring extra flexibility, faster deployment and the ability to enable operators to begin saving bandwidth instantly.

Interested operators simply need to send us an email, or fill out a quick form here, and exclusive of processing time (essentially, the time it takes to send operators an email and receive an evaluation license back), Skyfire will provide a kit, whatever the operator’s location, inside of 48 hours. The RocketTest kit is easily set up and comprises sample test cases to enable operators to start testing multimedia optimization immediately.

The first RocketTest kits will be sent out on November 30th, but if you're a mobile operator interested in testing video and multimedia optimization in your own environment, and you'd like to pre-register now for yours, let's get going today. Talk is cheap, and we want operators to witness Rocket Optimizer's bandwidth savings and improved end-user experience for themselves.

Several months ago we worked with Harris Interactive to poll US and UK-based smartphone users on a variety of questions, each designed to learn more about how users consume mobile video in a day in age in which video use on smartphones and elsewhere is exploding. We learned then, and we reported in July, that nearly 7 out of 8 U.S. smartphone owners would care more about smoothness and less buffering time on a standard definition video over high definition pixel quality while watching mobile video over a poor connection. It was a very telling statistic, in that it showed how important simply watching a video is most users, as opposed to having a superlative, "high-def" experience. After all, what good is a killer smartphone and a beautiful video encoded at a high bitrate if you can't watch it, right?

It certainly underscored the need for operators to deploy flexible and robust video optimization solutions to ensure that their customers can watch YouTube, Netflix and operator-branded video services whenever and wherever they want to. Yet consumer are often gun-shy about watching at all, and some research Harris uncovered in the same survey shows why there are still barriers to watching video on smartphones.

In both the US and UK, consumers cited "fear of going over their data plan" as their main reason for not watching video. Nearly one third (31%) of American smartphone owners who hadn't watched a video on their smartphone in the past month affirmed that they were interested in watching, but something prevented them from doing so. One third (33%) of non-watching British smartphone owners said the same thing. The top reason cited in both countries was that they were afraid of going over their data limit and getting charged an overage fee (10% of all surveyed smartphone users in the US, 13% in the UK), followed by the fact that users pay for mobile data by use, and it is not worth buying more data to watch a video (9% of surveyed users in the US, 11% in the UK).

The disconnect is apparent, and the need for innovative solutions is clear. Many consumers, most of whom are no longer on or never were on an unlimited data bundle, have to ration out their usage of mobile video - or avoid it entirely! - because of the intense bandwidth–hogging of mobile video delivery on operator networks today. As we saw in the Standard Definition vs. High Definition report we issued earlier, however, users will gladly submit to having their videos optimized, as long as they play successfully and look good. Skyfire's Rocket Optimizer allows global mobile operators to keep those users happy and helps keep them from avoiding ugly tradeoffs between rate plan-busting video consumption and a quality, uninterrupted viewing experience. It's a solution that has arrived right when the operators (coping with a data deluge from over-the-top video providers on their networks) and their consumers (learning to adjust to rate caps on their data plans, while demanding more and more video & multimedia on their phones) need it the most.

We are announcing our partnership today with Sprint, which brings to 3 the number of US-based major mobile operators with whom we're working closely. Sprint is adding Skyfire, and more specifically our Skyfire Horizon browser extension platform, to their recently announced Pinsight Media+ ecosystem. This is Sprint's new advertising service that gives advertisers the power to reach consumers on their mobile device in a more personalized way, and which allows developers to optimize their applications for discovery by those consumers in a far easier manner than before.

Skyfire Horizon is a perfect fit. Our core value proposition to the developer community is that their apps and extensions can now be part of the most-used "app" on the device: the mobile browser. Mobile browser usage as a percentage of time spent on a device is increasing greatly, powered by better devices, better networks, better content and by multimedia optimization. Making that usage contextual and social – and allowing consumers to do more within that browsing environment than ever before – is fundamental to Skyfire Horizon.

Sprint continues to build robust programs for their developer and advertising community as well. Their innovations and ideas will be on full display at the Sprint Open Solutions Conference in San Jose, CA this week. In fact. Skyfire will be presenting with our Skyfire Horizon partner Quixey tomorrow morning, Tuesday October 24th, from 10:10am-11am. Our session is called “Optimizing Your Apps for Discovery & Browsers on Sprint Phones”, and hey, if you're coming to the conference, we'd love it if you'd drop by to learn about what we're all up to together.