Fonolo has been awarded the Judges’ Prize at Mobilize 2008, GigaOM’s conference on the future of the broadband mobile Web.

The judges’ scores at the conference’s high-profile Launchpad segment placed Fonolo best among the 13 innovative new companies evaluated. Fonolo was the only company to receive a perfect score from a judge.

Excitement over Fonolo was best expressed by judge Nagraj Kashyap, Sr. Director, Qualcomm Ventures, who exclaimed “I love the app, this is the first thing I’m going to do when I get home.”

The four-minute presentation showcased Fonolo’s innovative new iPhone application. “Deep Dialing” directly from the iPhone allows users to skip through phone menus of large companies and navigate immediately to the information they require.

“The appeal of Fonolo is truly universal” said Fonolo founder and CEO Shai Berger. “We’re thrilled that our concept resonated with so many people at Mobilize. Tonight’s recognition underscores the fact that people are frustrated with phone menus.”

The Deep Dialing process is simple: Users find the particular company they want to contact, visually scan through the phone menu and click on the appropriate link. Fonolo then dials the company, navigates the phone system and calls the user’s phone. The user answers and is connected to the desired point in the phone menu.
Fonolo’s services are powered through proprietary technology that automatically “spiders” phone systems, thus building and maintaining a database of the numbers that consumers typically call. This “map of phonespace” is a dataset that has never been built before.

Fonolo further helps consumers by providing an “Intelligent Call History” which automatically tracks calls made to a given company, complete with recordings and user notes, regardless of the phone used.

Named “Best New Product” when it was unveiled at the Emerging Communication Conference in March, Fonolo is currently in private beta.