MobileCrunch |  |
- Siine Launches Innovative Icon-Based Keyboard For Mobile Phones, Tablets
- Floxx Pivots Towards Location-Based Offers
- eBay VP Steve Yankovich: En Route To $4B In Gross Mobile Sales (TCTV)
| Siine Launches Innovative Icon-Based Keyboard For Mobile Phones, Tablets Posted: 10 Oct 2011 04:19 AM PDT  Think there’s only one way to type on your phone? Think again. Siine, a Spain/UK-based developer of software that aims to change the way we communicate using touch-screen phones and tablets, is today formally launching Siine Writer for Android, a keyboard application that basically lets people personalize text messages and save time while they’re at it, in public beta. In addition to a traditional keyboard with letters and numbers, Siine Writer features a screen with special icons (called Siines, pronounced ‘signs’) that people can tap to build messages phrase-by-phrase, thus cutting short the time it takes to add greetings, signoffs, contact info and whatnot. The keyboard app can be downloaded with several Siines pre-loaded, but user can change them to fit their own styles, create new icons or adopt new ones from a virtual gallery. From my limited testing, I’d say it takes a while to get used to Siine, but once you do you start seeing the potential of the app rather quickly. I suspect it could be a hit with the teen crowd. Siine was founded in 2007 by Ed Maklouf, who previously did communication research at Stanford University. Earlier this year, the startup raised £550,000 in seed funding from Atomico Ventures, the investment vehicle established by Skype founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis. Siine was founded in 2007 by Ed Maklouf. The name is pronounced just like "Sign". Its software development operation is based in Barcelona, though it also has an office in London. The company mission is to improve the most-used interface on the planet – the keyboard interface.
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| Floxx Pivots Towards Location-Based Offers Posted: 10 Oct 2011 01:00 AM PDT  22-year-old British entrepreneur Rich Martell – who mirrored Mark Zuckerberg’s experience in almost being sacked from his university for developing a flirting social network – is pivoting his company towards location-based offers. In fact, it’s reminiscent of the Amen app launched at TechCrunch Disrupt SF, though more overtly geared towards monetization than Amen’s more Twitter-like experience. Martell developed the FitFinder mobile social network for students, renamed Floxx, but has clearly realised that this is a narrow niche and is now working on Spottd, which received approval by Apple over the weekend and is now live on the App Store.
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| eBay VP Steve Yankovich: En Route To $4B In Gross Mobile Sales (TCTV) Posted: 09 Oct 2011 03:37 AM PDT  Last week, I moderated a panel at the Planet Of The Apps conference in London, which included Steve Yankovich, head of eBay’s mobile business operations and development. I caught up with Steve after our panel to talk more about eBay’s strides in introducing mobile commerce to a mainstream audience. Yankovich tells me eBay is on its way to process around $4 billion in mobile sales (= gross merchandise volume, not revenue) in 2011, double the number it logged last year. The company’s mobile apps for iPhone, iPad, Android, WP7 and whatnot have been downloaded over 50 million times, and its Marketplace app alone has seen about 20 million downloads. Furthermore, three purchases are made through eBay’s mobile applications every second. Approximately half of eBay's mobile purchases came from outside the United States (mostly from English-speaking countries like the UK, Australia and Canada but also Germany and France). More stats (for September 2011, as relayed by eBay PR): - More than 117,000 car parts and accessories are sold through eBay's core iPhone apps every week And it’s not just buyers using eBay’s apps, Yankovich points out. In fact, as of September 2011, eBay sellers are listing over 700,000 new items through their mobile applications on a weekly basis. You can see the video interview below – apologies for having to switch cameras in the middle of it. Also read: Connecting The Dots On eBay’s Local Shopping Strategy Founded in 1995 in San Jose, CA, eBay connects millions of buyers and sellers globally in the world’s largest online marketplace, utilizing PayPal to ensure secure transactions. The company also operates specialized marketplaces such as StubHub, the world’s largest ticket marketplace, and eBay Classifieds sites, which together have a presence in more than 1,000 cities around the world. eBay items can be sold either via a silent auction, in which users input the maximum price they are willing to... Person: Steve Yankovich Website: ebay.com Companies: eBay, Adobe Systems, Movaris, HaL Computer, Aida, American Super Computer, Trilogy Experienced valley technical executive, application architect, product visionary and inventor.
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