Recently, I tried out DudaMobile. They just launched their new, self-serve platform that lets existing website owners create a mobile version of their website and enable auto redirects when accessed via mobile devices.

This is essentially a boon for small business owners. Ones who don’t have much complexity on their website, but since the mobile phones are now an important channel for bringing in more revenues (or providing a better Quality of Service). DudaMobile instantly creates a mobile version of their existing site. For free. This means a LOT of savings in terms of time, effort and money.

The mobile website can also be customized to add themes and custom colors. They also provide some cool widgets - particularly apt for a mobile site: click to call, SMS sender, maps and directions etc. Still, if you happen to have a developer in the office who wants to improve the look and feel, you can choose to do so as well - simply using CSS and HTML.

Behind the scenes, my guess is that there is a service that detects HTML elements like hyperlinks, image divs, tables etc and applies a relevant jQuery layer on top of it. So the cool mobile-optimized buttons, background colors, resized images etc. Anyone who has a different discovery, feel free to share.

Here are two basic advantages over similar competing products:

1. Mobstac: relies mainly on rss, cms etc to draw/paint the site (or so it seems). But seems that they generate automatically. But one MAJOR disadvantage: most of the websites I tried couldn’t be converted. Seems they really have to either rethink their choices or log in a ton of man-hours before this could really knock off everyone else.
2. Moably: asks for email/signup even before previewing. This is SUCH a major turn-off. Totally not done. Also doesn’t appear to automate the process. Seemingly they would offer a quote to develop the website. Hence, not really a true competitor in terms of time/price. Off course, the quality could be fairly different. Haven’t tried, no comments on that.

For the free version, the mobile website will have some ads on every page with a DudaMobile footer. A free site is also limited to 10 pages and 500 MB. The free version URL is also the Duda URL (dudamobile.com/yourcompany) Mobile site analytics are also included in the free version, which in my opinion, is a huge plus.

For $9.99 a month, DudaMobile offers an ad-free site with customizable footer. Also include cool widgets like SMS sender, maps & directions etc. Also the URL for a paid site is personalized (m.yourcompany.com) EMail support is available for the paid version. Per their website, they are soon bringing in Google Adwords integration too.

Now thats the way to go Duda!