By: AllPennyStocks.com News

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

We’ve written on several occasions about mobile applications and it’s hard to overlook news streaming in again this week in the industry. The popularity of mobile devices and applications is like the second coming of the internet and generating billions in revenue for companies all over the world. Making news on Monday as it looked to get its hands on a popular medical application, athenahealth, Inc. (Nasdaq:ATHN) agreed to pay $293 million to buy Epocrates, Inc. (Nasdaq:EPOC). The Epocrates app is used by more than 330,000 physicians in the United States to look-up information on drugs. Also in the mobile space, NeoMedia Technologies, Inc. (OTCBB:NEOM) said Tuesday morning that it has licensed its barcode technology to Progressive Insurance (NYSE:PGR) as Progressive looks to leverage the technology in its mobile offerings. Shares of NEOM are trading ahead about 10 percent on the news.

Another junior in the news Tuesday is Voice Assist, Inc. (OTCBB:VSST) as the company announced that its Voice Assist app is now available at the Apple (Nasdaq:AAPL) App Store. The Lake Forest, California-based company makes mobile speech solutions that can be used without users having to press any buttons on a smartphone, tablet or other network-connected devices once the app is opened.

Through the app, users can make calls, email, text and even post to social media sites like Twitter and Facebook all through voice recognition technology; no typing necessary. Once opened, a continuous voice connection is maintained, allowing the user to switch from one task to another without even looking at the phone, a clear benefit to drivers, especially with more and more states adopting anti-texting and phone use laws.

The application became available for Android phones through Google (Nasdaq:GOOG) Play last September. In the first 30 days, the company added more than 2 million contacts that could be dialed or texted by voice, according to Voice Assist CEO Michael Metcalf.

Akin to other applications, the free version displays ads and has limitations in usage (up to 25 minutes per month), but the ads and usage constraints can be eliminated via a subscription upgrade.

Shares of the thinly-traded stock recently dipped to 52-week lows of 4.1 cents in December, but bounced right back up to 8 cents. Settling in the middle, shares are trading today at 6 cents with little activity even given the news of being available for the iOS platform. Shares had been holding steady in the 16 to 25 cent range in mid-2012. With the market capitalization pulled down to only $2.5 million now, this little company could be worthy of a closer look at this point to see if it is going to line-up advertisers and expand its customer base. Proper due diligence is, as always, encouraged.

Its obvious from the above listed Companies, mobile is rapidly growing, here to stay and taking revenue away from other industries so savvy investors should recognize this ongoing trend and look to capitalize on it and reap the rewards from smart investments.

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