TxtRoo, a company that was invented and coded into existence from the Stanford StartupBus headed to SXSW in Austin, Texas last week, can best be described as a Yelp for the feature phone market. Like Yelp, which delivers user reviews and other local business information to both web and smartphone users, TxtRoo aims to do the same using SMS text messages.
What’s most interesting about TxtRoo, however, is how quickly it was able to sign up customers. The team had commitments from half a dozen local businesses before the prototype was even finished – about 6 hours into its development. → Read More
One of the biggest challenges we’re facing as we move into the post-PC era is the challenge of navigating through a disconnected web of applications. Bought and sold as self-contained packages of code, apps are independent little creations, boxes you tap for specific functions. Single purpose beings.
Unlike the web, apps are not connected to each other through links (although they could be), nor are they yet accessible through next-generation discovery tools like Apple’s Siri. And today’s companies are so focused on helping push more and more apps on users through app discovery services, they’re forgetting to solve the very real problem of providing a window into the existing ones. How do you Google a database of apps? How do you know which app to launch for the job at hand?
The solution to this problem could look something like this: The Everything Project, an engine that searches not for apps, but in mobile web versions of them. → Read More
Mobile application discovery service Crosswa.lk has just debuted its much anticipated native counterpart, in the form of a new iPhone application. The app soft-launched over the weekend, allowing users to see what apps their friends are using as well as those that are popular on the wider Crosswa.lk network. It also allows users to quickly rate apps and receive recommendations of apps they might like to try.
As a self-described app addict, I’ve enjoyed using Crosswa.lk’s online service since its November launch. The user interface for the website is well-designed, easy to use, and feels more like a social network than an app search engine or app ratings and review site. → Read More
Women Innovate Mobile (WIM), the new accelerator aimed to help promote companies started by female entrepreneurs, is ready to debut its first class. Like other incubators, WIM provides mentoring, support, free office space, and seed funding. Participants in the program receive $18,000 to help get their companies get off the ground.
Except unlike the majority of other programs, WIM requires not only that the companies focus on mobile, but also that one of the co-founders must be a woman.
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Consumers may be ready for mobile wallets, but the marketplace is not. Especially if stuff like this keeps happening. Apparently, some two dozen retailers, including big names like Walmart and Target, are working together to create their own mobile payments system, according to sources at the WSJ. That means in addition to mobile wallets provided by banks, mobile operators (Isis), credit card networks, startups (like Square and Dwolla) and tech companies like Google (Google Wallet) and PayPal, consumers will be asked to wrap their heads around yet another mobile payment method: one from the retailers themselves.
That’s bad news for consumers, as an addition like this can create confusion. But it could end up being great news for more disruptive payment systems like Square. → Read More
What’s the hardest thing about building a successful mobile app? If you answered “building a mobile app,” you’re wrong. It’s getting your app found. With over 600,000+ iOS applications, and now some 450,000 on Android, the real challenge for developers is having their app surfaced higher than hundreds of other competitors in the app store search results. Doing this correctly involves ASO, or app store optimization. It’s basically SEO repurposed for mobile, and because we’re still in the early days of the mobile ecosystem, it’s simpler to optimize apps than webpages.
But developers are often lacking knowledge, and especially tools, to help them out on this front. That’s where the newly launched App Store Optimization Keyword Volume estimator (whew!) comes in. → Read More
Popset, a new mobile app from the current Winter 2012 batch of Y Combinator startups, is a way for groups of friends to privately share photos. Oh what, you’ve heard that one before? Yes, it’s true – mobile photo-sharing is a crowded space. However, there hasn’t been a de facto leader established in the particular category Popset is after: sharing photos in private groups, easy photo album creation, and support for exporting entire albums to Facebook.
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Smartphone users are, country by country, starting to gradually outnumber those who are using feature phones, and at the same time, consumers have passed a different kind of penetration: a majority are now using mobile devices to do a lot more than just make phone calls.
A lengthy annual report out from comScore today, surveying mobile usage across Canada, France, Germany Italy, Japan, Spain, the U.S. and U.K., found that mobile media usage has passed the 50 percent mark, meaning that more than half of us are accessing the web, apps and content downloads on our smartphones. But it’s not always the case that more smartphones always equals more media usage. In fact, the highest usage of mobile media comes from the country with the lowest smartphone penetration. → Read More
Geoloqi, a name you may know because of the mobile app that once provided automatic Foursquare check-ins and geofenced reminders, is today launching its next-generation location platform as an SDK. Although previously available in API format for developers’ use, the new iOS and Android SDK makes it even easier for developers to drop in location services into their apps, whether those are consumer-facing apps, apps for government, carriers, or the enterprise.
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They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Done right, it can also help the imitator tap into the zeitgeist and pick up more followers as a result.
That looks like it might have been some of the logic behind the relaunch of the website of Easy Living, a UK magazine published by Conde Nast, which relaunched this month with a Pinterest-like grid interface on its home page. → Read More
Twitter, Facebook and other social networks have long counted on the rise in smartphone usage to help fuel their growth: that trend, however, seems to also be taking a toll on mobile carriers — specifically in the form of revenues.
The analyst firm of Ovum, part of the Informa Group, has estimated that operators lost $13.9 billion in SMS revenue in 2011, as a result of their customers using services like Twitter and Facebook to message each other instead of the carriers’ own text messaging services — a big rise on the $8.7 billion Ovum estimates was lost in 2010. A separate report from mobile analytics firm Bytemobile has also charted huge growth in the use of social media on mobile — with operators getting virtually no benefit as a result. → Read More
Following its recent raise of $2 million in seed funding, the still invite-only mobile payments startup Zipmark is today announcing the launch of its developer program and API. The New York-based company, founded in 2010 by Citigroup alum Jay Bhattacharya and CTO Jake Howerton, leverages the existing check processing network to allow users to avoid credit card fees while also eliminating the risk of bounced checks.
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Software and SaaS security company Cenzic is today launching a new security product for mobile application developers which will allow for the testing of mobile apps on any platform – iOS, Android, J2ME, and more. The product will be the first that can test products without requiring developers to submit the source code, as all the testing is done through the cloud, while the app is up-and-running.
The service will then be able to tell what sorts of security vulnerabilities an app has, what sensitive data it could leak, what other sorts of security threats it may be vulnerable to, and what to do about it. → Read More
In the latest monthly report from app analytics firm Distimo, the company delved into the revenue generating possibilites for apps sold through both Google’s Android Market and the Amazon Appstore. Looking at the top 110 apps available in both marketplaces, Distimo found some surprising data: 42 of those top apps made more money on Amazon’s store than in the more widely available Android Market.
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Mobilisafe, the stealthy Seattle-based mobile security startup with $1.2 million in funding from Madrona Venture Group and Trilogy Equity Partnership, is opening up access to its private beta program today (invite link below) for a handful of TechCrunch readers.
In addition, the company is revealing new insights it gained during its private beta period related to the penetration of mobile devices in the SMB market – the area which happens to be the startup’s current area of focus. → Read More
Forkly, the food rating app from Brightkite founders Brady Becker and Martin May, just launched a major update dubbed “Forkly 2.0.” Along with a user interface overhaul which features a faster feed, bigger photos and an upgraded user profile design, the app update also includes improved menus and a “Discover” function to offer better, personalized recommendations. Hey, your Forkly “taste graph” just got useful!
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New data from Nielsen released this morning takes a look at the typical U.S. smartphone user, specifically their age and income, as well as the penetration of smartphones into various demographic groups. Data like this can help developers, publishers and advertisers better understand who owns a smartphone, but it can also help to determine if the devices are successfully penetrating the low-end income brackets thanks to lower price points.
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I believe the children are the future. (What, too soon?) But in the case of the new FTC report on mobile applications for kids, which references the current data handling practices employed by mobile developers, the children are the future. They’re the future indicators of how our personal information needs to be handled in today’s mobile app ecosystem.
Although the new report makes recommendations specifically for children’s applications, there’s obviously an undercurrent of outrage and violation underway now (thanks mainly to addressgate). People, not just parents, need to control and understand how and why their data is being collected, used, and shared, and what that really means. The question is, how is this done? → Read More
You can’t call StackMob a “backend service provider for mobile” anymore, because as of now, it’s a full end-to-end solution. The cloud-based platform for mobile developers is today launching hosted HTML5 services that tie to StackMob’s backend, making it the first platform offering integrated HTML5.
Developers can use the new service to host full HTML5 apps for desktop, tablet or mobile, or can use it to host the HTML5 running within their native apps.
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We’ve seen handset makers like HTC, LG and Nokia all warning of declines in smartphone sales. But if there is a slowdown affecting some, it’s not because people are not buying smartphones; it’s because they’re all buying iPhones.
Figures out from Gartner today say that smartphone sales totalled 149 million units in Q4 2011 — 47.3 percent higher than the same quarter a year ago, led by none other than Apple’s iPhone, which its analysts noted “saved” the smartphone market after two quarters of declining sales. → Read More
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