Savvy users

In late 2009, onetime Walt Disney Interactive and Hasbro executive David Etheredge read a report from technology research firm Gartner that predicted 70% of all Web access would be mobile by 2014.
While that projection didn't totally come true, mobile entry to the Internet is clearly the future of technology. And Etheredge wanted to get in early. Says Etheredge: “We knew consumers were going to get to the point where they are searching for services on their phone long before businesses adopted to it.”

The answer to meet that opportunity, hopes Etheredge, is SavvyCard. The St. Petersburg-based firm allows users to create their own personal mobile Web application, akin to a digital business card with lots of tech-heavy bells and whistles. The features, from proprietary software, include call, text and email buttons, business profiles and a share component, where SavvyCard can be a landing page in a marketing campaign.

A SavvyCard user can sign up initially for free on a basic model. Others require a onetime fee and a monthly maintenance fee, under a software-as-a-service model. Advertising through the apps, say company officials, will eventually be a sizable revenue source.