• posted yesterday

    How The Future of Mobile Lies in the Developing World

    unicef-1

    In less than three decades, the mobile phone has gone from being a status symbol to being a ubiquitous technology that facilitates almost every interaction in our daily lives. One month after the world’s population topped 7 billion in October 2011, the GSM Association announced that mobile SIM cards had reached 6 billion. A 2009 study in India illustrated that every 10 percent increase in mobile penetration leads to a 1.2 percent increase in GDP.

    Yet patterns of mobile phone use in developing countries are vastly different from what you see on the streets of New York, San Francisco, and Berlin. This is a market underserved by technologists and startups. This is where the majority of future growth lies, and Silicon Valley has yet to realize the huge economic opportunities for network operators, handset developers, and mobile startups. Where are these opportunities? → Read More

    May 18th, 2012

    GameStop To Sell SIM Cards

    Screen Shot 2012-05-18 at 5.20.40 PM

    GameStop is hurting. Same store sales fell 5%-11% and revenue was down 17% to $2 billion. Profit fell to $72.5 million. Arguably, those are still huge numbers and presumably a new console refresh should push the company out of the doldrums. But what the company has just launched – a new MVNO called GameStop Mobile – is almost inexplicable.

    GameStop Mobile is, in short, an unlimited data and voice offering for $55 a month (down to $20 a month for pay-as-you-go plans.) Gamestop is just selling SIM cards and service and is running on AT&T’s network with some notable dead spots.
    → Read More

    May 16th, 2012

    Mobile Payments Startup Jumio Takes On Card.io With Credit Card Scanning Toolkit For App Developers

    Netswipe_mobile_scan_v5-300x228

    Mobile payments and identity verification company Jumio is introducing its Netswipe Mobile SDK today, which allows developers to add credit card scanning functionality to their mobile applications. The SDK (software development kit), is available now for iOS, but an Android version is coming soon, the company says.

    To jump start usage, Jumio is also waiving transaction fees for the SDK’s first users for a temporary period of time. → Read More

    May 16th, 2012

    Gartner: Q1 2012 Phone Sales Declined 2%, Dragged Down By Asia-Pacific. Samsung Leads All

    samsung-logo-sign110324120125-260x152

    Sign of a maturing marketing flattening out, a lack of compelling devices, or a contraction in the economy? Gartner today released figures that note that worldwide sales of mobile phones were actually down by two percent this quarter, to reach a total of 419.1 million units — the first time the market has declined since the second quarter of 2009, the analysts say.

    Gartner’s explanation is a slowdown in demand from Asia-Pacific, because of a lack of compelling new devices getting launched in the period: users are simply holding out until something better comes along. Nevertheless, of the vendors that are doing well, Samsung is riding at the top of the list, with 20.7 percent of all mobile sales globally, and among smartphones, it is the only Android vendor to have more than 10 percent market share — with Android now accounting for 56 percent of all smartphone sales in the quarter.
    → Read More

    May 15th, 2012

    White Label App Platform Appia Rolls Out Pay Per Install Service For Google Play

    appia-1

    Appia, an app marketplace and white-label app platform, is broadening its support for Android with the introduction of Pay Per Install App Advertising for Google Play (formerly known as the Android Market). Up until now, all the downloads generated through PPD (pay per download) were done through an Appia-powered app store, but now developers can purchase a Pay Per Install campaign and drive traffic back to Google Play. This, in turn, can then boost their app’s install numbers and rank.

    The news comes at a time when Appia is hitting another notable milestone: its network has passed 500 million mobile consumers worldwide. → Read More

    May 14th, 2012

    BenchPrep Teams Up With The Princeton Review To Gamify Test Prep

    Screen shot 2012-05-14 at 3.23.34 PM

    For a while now “gamification” has largely existed as a buzz word. It’s felt just as ridiculous to write the word as it is to read it. However, as Tim Chang pointed out this weekend, although it’s important to avoid thinking of “gamification as the panacea,” it’s real, it’s moving beyond media and fitness, and it needs to be taken seriously. When it comes to educational tools, gamification has real value in its ability to make learning more fun and engaging. But as with all emerging trends, it can’t be applied willy-nilly.

    BenchPrep, a young edtech startup backed by $2.2 million from Lightbank, launched last year to convert content from big educational publishers, like McGraw-Hill, into interactive web and mobile courses. While the startup expanded beyond college admission test prep in January, today it’s announcing that it is teaming up with Princeton Review to contemporize test prep for students, using game mechanics, leaderboards, and social features to make the tedious and teeth-grinding process of test prep more engaging and, hopefully, more effective. → Read More

    May 13th, 2012

    With Its New Google+ iPhone App, Google Finally Gets It Right

    gplus_logo

    Some people just love Google+ and others just hate the company’s efforts to create a social network and a social layer across all of its services. Google itself seems to be pretty happy with the results it is getting from Google+ so far – or at least that’s what the company is saying publicly. No matter your overall feelings about Google+, though, Google’s new native Google+ app for iPhone is worth a look, especially because it’s hopefully just a first glimpse at what more of Google’s mobile apps will look like in the near future. → Read More

    May 8th, 2012

    Mobile Component Marketplace Verious Expands, Adds Hundreds Of Windows Phone & HTML5 Listings To Site

    verious_logo

    Verious, a new mobile component marketplace (and recent Disrupt finalist), is announcing an expansion of its service today, to also include components for Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform as well as those for HTML5 mobile apps. The addition means there are now hundreds more components, SDKs, and open source projects available on Verious’s platform, which previously focused primarily on offerings for iOS and Android.
    → Read More

    May 7th, 2012

    Study: Our Smartphones Are Turning Us Into “Real-Time Information Seekers And Problem Solvers”

    pew_Internet_american_life_logo

    Do you regularly use your cell phone to coordinate meetings, solve an unexpected problem, decide which restaurant to eat at, look up the score of a sporting event, check traffic, call help in an emergency situation or find information to help settle an argument? These activities make you a “just-in-time” cell user according to the latest study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. According to this report, 70% of all cell phone owners in the U.S. and 86% of smartphone owners have used their phones to perform at least one of these activities over the last 30 days. → Read More

    May 7th, 2012

    comScore: Google Sites Top Facebook On Mobile; 4 Out Of 5 Mobile Media Minutes Spent In Apps

    comScore -1

    Online and mobile research company comScore just released its newly rebooted and retooled Mobile Metrix report this morning, which examines mobile media usage across both apps and mobile web browsing. According to the new data, Google sites led as the top property on iOS, Android and RIM devices, reaching 96.9% of the U.S. mobile audience, followed by Facebook, Yahoo sites and Amazon sites. But apps dominated in terms of usage, says comScore, with 4 out of every 5 mobile media minutes spent in apps.
    → Read More

    May 4th, 2012

    Why Can’t BlackBerry Muddle Through? They’re Not The 99%

    Screen-Shot-2012-05-03-at-5-3-10.33

    Horace Dediu at Asymco has run the numbers and it’s not looking good. Samsung and Apple now control an estimated 99% of vendor profits with HTC scraping in with 1%. BlackBerry and Nokia barely register and, in fact, form a loss.

    First, I’d like to note why Dediu believes carriers are willing to cede so much of their profit to Apple and, presumably, Samsung. It’s mostly about lock-in, a sort of bear hug that encourages customers to stay put in the long run. He writes: → Read More

    May 2nd, 2012

    DIY Mobile Website Creator bMobilized Raises $1.5M Series A, Prepares To Take On DudaMobile

    bmobilized

    NY-based mobile web startup bMobilized, which bills itself as a competitor to the well-heeled new Google partner DudaMobile, has just closed its Series A round of funding to the tune of $1.5 million. The funding was raised from two early stage European VC firms, Alliance Venture and Investinor.

    Like DudaMobile, bMobilized is focused on enabling SMBs to convert their existing websites into HTML5-enabled mobile sites that work on any device, OS, or web browser. → Read More

    May 1st, 2012

    Microsoft Asks Windows Phone Developers To Keep The Quality Up And The Sex Down

    Marketplace search results

    Microsoft is trying to clean up the Windows Phone Marketplace and as part of this effort, the company just clarified some of its guidelines for developers who want to sell their apps in Microsoft’s app store. Among other things, Microsoft has decided to move to “a more stringent interpretation and enforcement of our existing content policy” for apps that are “‘racy’ or sexual in nature.” This is a problem we pointed out early last month. As Matt Burns put it, Windows Phone has a nasty porn addiction. Microsoft clearly agrees and is thankfully trying to kick the habit.

    Microsoft, just like most of its competitors, doesn’t allow apps that contain “sexually suggestive or provocative” images or content. Swimsuits are fine. The company says that it will now pay “more attention to the icons, titles, and content of these apps and expects them to be more subtle and modest in the imagery and terms used.” → Read More

    May 1st, 2012

    ComScore: Samsung Widens Lead As Top Mobile Brand In U.S., Android 51% Of All Smartphones

    samsung_galaxy_s_ii

    Samsung doesn’t break out actual unit sales figures for its mobile handset business, but among analyst houses, many are estimating that it is the brand to beat anyway. The latest comes from ComScore, which today released the results of a poll of 30,000 U.S. consumers. It found that Samsung accounted for 26 percent of all handsets — smartphone or otherwise — used in the U.S. in the last three months. LG came in second position at 19.3 percent.

    And smartphone use continues to grow: there are now 106 million smartphones in use in the U.S., a nine percent increase over the previous quarter, and so do the services associated with them: a full 50 percent of consumers have now downloaded and used mobile apps. → Read More

    April 30th, 2012

    Research: $1.5 Trillion In Mobile Revenues In 2012, U.S. Accounting For 40% Of All Smartphone Sales

    mobile pile

    The mobile industry will reel in more than $1.5 trillion in revenues in 2012, with 28 percent of that, $400 billion, attributable to mobile data, according to new research out from analyst Chetan Sharma.

    He notes that within the revenues expected for mobile data, non-messaging revenues led by apps, mobile web browsing and streaming media have finally overtaken those of traditional messaging like SMS as smartphone usage continues to grow. Non-messaging, he says, will account for 53 percent of the total: in other words, some $212 billion will come from apps, music and video streaming, games and mobile web browsing. → Read More

    April 27th, 2012

    Report: 69% Of Tablet Owners Watch TV And Surf The Web Simultaneously

    3 screen summer event viewing | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

    Just watching TV without also using a tablet or smartphone at the same time seems to be on its way out. Earlier this month, Nielsen launched the first part of its report on primetime TV viewers in the U.S. and today, the analytics company is taking a deeper dive into the demographics of those who simultaneously watch TV and use their tablets. According to Nielsen, 45% of tablet owners watch TV and use their tablet together at least once a day. A whopping 69% say they do so at least several times a week and only 12% say they never do this. → Read More

    April 26th, 2012

    With $3M In Hand, Gopogo Launches To Let You Create, Share & Discover Location-Based Stories

    Screen shot 2012-04-26 at 8.19.18 AM

    With the rise of social networks, people are now sharing more information about themselves online than ever before. Sharing is happening at an unprecedented volume, with some calling it … “The Sharepocalypse”. Social feeds now disseminate content in realtime, but the problem of course is that a lot of this sharing gets lost in the noise — and with content piling up so quickly, stuff quickly gets lost. Want to find a tweet you wrote a year ago? Good luck.

    A New York-based startup called Gopogo is launching in beta today to address this problem, with a geo-location platform for recording, sharing and discovering connected experiences. → Read More

    April 23rd, 2012

    InMobi: Android & iOS Eat Away At RIM’s Share In North America; Globally, Nokia Devices Dominate

    mobile-devices

    Independent mobile ad network InMobi released its Q1 2012 Ad Data report for North America this morning, covering the mobile ad landscape for the first part of the year. Not surprisingly, the report found the top two mobile operating systems were, again, iOS and Android, each with a sizeable chunk of market share and growing. RIM, meanwhile, was still clinging to spot #3, but has dropped 4.6% since Q1 2011, the report found, going from a 11.9% share to 7.3%. this past quarter.
    → Read More

    April 20th, 2012

    Tiggzi’s Drag-And-Drop Mobile App Builder Goes Beyond Templates

    Tiggzi - Features

    There are plenty of services out there that will let you build simple mobile apps without the need to know how to program. The problem with most of these is that you quickly reach their limits once you want to build more complex apps. Tiggzi, a new cloud-based service by software engineering company Exadel, wants to provide a bridge between the world of drag-and-drop app builders and more complex tools. With Tiggzi, you could build a basic app without any programming knowledge, but the service is really meant for more advanced users who can use it to design complex apps that can hook into virtually any REST API on the net. → Read More

    Hispanics-nielsen
    April 20th, 2012

    NielsenFindsU.S.HispanicsTopsInMobile,SocialActivity

    A new report from Nielsen this morning delves into the mobile and social behavior of U.S. Hispanic consumers, finding they’re highly engaged in their usage of smartphones, online video, social networking and other types of entertainment. According to the study, Hispanics outpace all over ethnic groups in mobile downloads of music and photos, and are more likely to watch video online and on the their mobile phones than others. → Read More

    Upcoming Events

    Disrupt SF 2012

    San Francisco, CA

    Real-Time
    Crunchbase

    Copperfasten — Received €500k in Unattributed funding from Enterprise Ireland and Oyster Technology Investments
    5.27.2012
    Himax Technologies — Company added to CrunchBase
    5.28.2012
    5.27.2012
    Compliance11 — Acquired by Compliance11, Inc..
    11.15.2012
    Facebook — Went public with stock symbol NASDAQ:FB.
    5.18.2012
    Compliance11 — Acquired by Compliance11, Inc..
    11.15.2012
    Bolt | Peters — Acquired by Facebook for $50M.
    6.21.2012
    GlobalEnglish — Acquired by Pearson for $90M.
    5.25.2012
    Chick Approved — Acquired by Lockerz.
    5.25.2012
    PowerReviews — Acquired by Bazaarvoice for $151M.
    5.24.2012
    Copperfasten — Received €500k in Unattributed funding from Enterprise Ireland and Oyster Technology Investments
    5.27.2012
    Undo Software — Received Unattributed funding from Cambridge Angels group
    5.27.2012
    Soteira — Received $375k in Debt funding
    5.25.2012
    Spectra Analysis — Received $125k in Debt funding
    5.25.2012
    Exec — Received $3.3M in Seed funding
    5.25.2012
    5.27.2012
    Enterprise Ireland — Invested in Copperfasten.
    5.27.2012
    5.27.2012
    NextView Ventures — Invested in TurningArt.
    5.23.2012
    TELUS — Invested in SecureKey Technologies.
    5.25.2012
    Facebook — Went public with stock symbol NASDAQ:FB.
    5.18.2012
    Himax Technologies — Company added to CrunchBase
    5.28.2012
    Medivation — Company added to CrunchBase
    5.28.2012
    Copperfasten — Company added to CrunchBase
    5.28.2012
    Undo Software — Company added to CrunchBase
    5.28.2012
    Z Glass Design — Company added to CrunchBase
    5.26.2012
    Google Chromium — Product added to CrunchBase
    5.26.2012
    cloudbank — Product added to CrunchBase
    5.26.2012
    mywheebox — Product added to CrunchBase
    5.26.2012
    Antifraud publications — Product added to CrunchBase
    5.26.2012
    The Permissioner — Product added to CrunchBase
    5.26.2012
    CrunchBase