In the 1990s when the world of commerce realized that the Internet was a major new medium, everyone rushed to create an Internet presence. Now, with the realization that the mobile phone is the new window into the Internet, companies are scrambling to create a dominant mobile presence.

The days are gone when mobile content meant a handful of Web sites designed to be viewed on small screen, or using Mobile Favorites or an online service to sync content to your device for offline viewing. The current assumption is that everyone is connected to the Internet all the time.

In this month's column, I want to review some of the ways that you can access this rapidly expanding mobile universe. I've covered some of these before, but I'll also alert you to some new mobile offerings I've discovered in recent months.

Onramps to the mobile universe

There is a wide variety of onramps to this mobile universe. Last year, we covered some of the biggies, such as Microsoft Live Search for Mobile Devices (wls.live.com), Yahoo! Go 2.0 (mobile.yahoo.com/go), and Google Maps (google.com/gmm). These are software programs that, once installed on your device, give you convenient access to the major services of these companies -- especially their local search tools that let you find specific commercial enterprises (say, a Chinese restaurant) near you and give you information, driving directions, contact information, a map, and more.

We've also frequently covered services such as Skweezer (skweezer.net), which is a portal that reformats the regular Internet so that it fits on the small screen of your device.