Squeak of the Week

At the Mobile Premier Awards — an international competition for mobile start-ups held last month at the Mobile World Congress — the message was clear: Web sites are old school, and mobile is a growing requirement for every industry and business.

Investors and entrepreneurs who judged and won at the M.P.A. competition were eager to offer tips and predictions to help all business owners — not just those with technology companies — prepare a mobile strategy. Here are some of their suggestions.

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What kind of brand would want to associate with Chatroulette? Well, French Connection — of FCUK fame — would, and the U.K.-based clothing retailer is using the random, anonymous chat room for a marketing push. No stranger to racy, risk-taking — and some would say outright offensive — marketing, French Connection is embracing a site that connects people to random strangers through webcam chats.

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Cape Town's design-and-innovation conference and expo showcased top names in global design and creativity from developed and emerging markets.

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American Greetings has a new service that transmits a video card chosen from its Web site directly to handsets of nearly all major mobile carriers.

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Excentus holds eight patents for the technology and methodology associated with its fuelperks! rewards program. Clients like Safeway Inc., Publix, Supervalu (which owns the 11 local bigg’s stores), Giant Eagle and Sunoco use the system to provide customers with discounts on fuel. The first of the patents was issued in 2001. Kroger developed its own technology associated with its fuel rewards program in-house, said Meghan Glynn, a Kroger spokeswoman.

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