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Total Mobile eBook Sales Forecast To Reach $10B By 2016; Now Close To 1 Million Books In Kindle Store

Posted: 01 Dec 2011 04:43 AM PST

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With this morning’s addition of 16,000 Italian-language ebooks, and 22,000 Spanish-language books, Amazon has updated the total number of digital books it claims to offer through its Kindle Store. The company says the new Kindle Store now offers over 900,000 titles in English and other languages, and indeed, the eBooks section actually turns up 950,000+ search results.

For the record: this is eBooks only – all in all, there are more than 1 million books, newspapers, magazines and blogs available for Amazon Kindle today, the company professes on this page (see ‘Massive Selection’) and elsewhere.

Conveniently, Juniper Research this morning released a new report on mobile eBook sales, which it forecasts to reach close to $10 billion ($9.7b) by 2016, up from $3.2 billion this year.

The research firm says the expected jump in eBook sales for portable devices can be attributed to the growing number of dedicated eReader devices on the market, an upsurge in usage across smartphones and tablet computers and the rise of brand bookstore apps like Apple’s iBookstore and, of course, Amazon’s Kindle Store.

Juniper Research says the increasing demand for tablets means that such devices will account for nearly 30 percent of all eBook downloads by 2016.

Perhaps surprisingly, the firm claims smartphones are not, and are unlikely to become, a primary reading device in markets other than Japan (due to the manga comics phenomenon there).



Amazon Launches Native-Language Kindle Devices, Kindle Stores In Italy And Spain

Posted: 01 Dec 2011 03:59 AM PST

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Amazon this morning announced the fresh availability of an Italian-language Kindle, and the opening of an Italian Kindle Store, offering customers over 16,000 Italian-language Kindle books. The same thing is happening in Spain, obviously with a Spanish-language Kindle and a custom Spanish Kindle Store (over 22,000 titles).

In addition, Amazon announced that authors and publishers in both countries are now able to make their books available in the new Amazon.es and Amazon.it Kindle Stores using its Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) platform (Spanish / Italian).

Read more at TechCrunch Europe.



Android Smartphone Round-Up: November Edition

Posted: 30 Nov 2011 03:02 PM PST

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Changing Leaves. Black Friday. And Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. These are the cornerstones of the month of November. Releasing new phones, however, is not. Unfortunately, this means that our Android Smartphone Round-Up for November is a bit lean, but we’ve still managed to pick out a few handsets worth your valuable consideration.

Without further ado, these are our favorite November releases of the Gingerbread (2.3) persuasion: The Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket (AT&T), the HTC Rezound (Verizon), and the Samsung Captivate Glide (AT&T). They range between a solid $300 to a cool $149 (all with a two-year agreement, of course), and each has its claim to fame.

Onward!

HTC Rezound:

Features:

  • 4.3-inch 720×1280 S-LCD display
  • 1.5GHz dual-core processor
  • 8MP rear camera (1080p video capture), 2MP front camera
  • Sense 3.5
  • $299.99

Pros:

  • That 720p display is no joke, and one of the first of its kind
  • Beats Audio integration, and accompanying Beats earbuds
  • 4G LTE support from Verizon

Cons:

  • It’s a fat little guy — steer clear, Razr fans
  • 4.3-inch is admittedly a pretty large screen, but we also have a few 4.5-inchers on the market that provide an advantage in gaming
  • Sense 3.5

The HTC Rezound is certainly a powerful little beast, but you can tell it’s already started packing on the pounds for winter (that joke was reaching at best, forgive me). It’s more than half an inch thick, and it feels that way at 6oz. It does have a nice textured finish on the back for extra grip, and seems to pull from the Droid Incredible 2 design style.

Under the hood, things get way more impressive: the combination of that dual-core 1.5GHz processor and Verizon’s LTE is pretty unbeatable. It’s super responsive, and you can’t help but fall in love with its 4.3-inch 720p display. Beats integration doesn’t change my entire perspective on audio or anything, but the included set of Beats ear buds is definitely a plus.

The Rezound is available now from Verizon for $299 on-contract.



Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket

Features:

  • 4.5-inch 480×800 Super AMOLED Plus display
  • 1.5GHz dual-core processor
  • 8MP rear camera (1080p video capture), 1.3MP front camrea
  • 4G LTE support from AT&T
  • $249.99

Pros:

  • The Samsung Galaxy S II is one of the best-selling Android phones out there, and the Skyrocket just adds AT&T 4G LTE
  • Thin, light, elegant design
  • Beautiful Super AMOLED Plus display

Cons:

  • TouchWiz, TouchWiz, TouchWiz…
  • Not everyone lives in one of AT&T’s 14 LTE-supported markets
  • Feels a bit plasticky

I won’t be shy about how much I like the Samsung Galaxy S II, and the Skyrocket merely adds faster speeds. It packs everything you can ask for out of an Android device, and at a relatively reasonable price. The screen is beautiful, the phone itself is super snappy, and it looks and feels pretty slick.

What’s better, AT&T’s 4G support isn’t the only advantage the Skyrocket has over the other Galaxy S II variants. It also upgrades to a 1.5GHz dual-core processor instead of its original 1.2GHz CPU.

The Galaxy S II Skyrocket is available now at AT&T for $249 on-contract.


Samsung Captivate Glide:

Features:

  • 4-inch 800×480 Super AMOLEDdisplay
  • 1GHz dual-core Tegra 2 processor
  • 8MP rear camera (with 1080p video capture), 1.3MP rear camera
  • Full four-row sliding QWERTY keyboard
  • $149.99

Pros:

  • Super responsive
  • Strong battery life
  • It’s a comfortable size for a QWERTY

Cons:

  • Somewhat chintzy build quality
  • Keyboard is super flat, makes typing tough to get used to
  • Too much plastic (again, Samsung)

The Captivate Glide is a nice marriage between the Samsung Galaxy S II and a full QWERTY keyboard, however the keyboard itself seems to be “irritatingly flat.” That said, the specs on this guy are pretty great considering its $149 price point, so if you can deal with a somewhat cheap feeling phone (re: plastic), the Glide certainly performs well. It’s what’s on the inside that counts, right?

The Samsung Captivate Glide is available now at AT&T for $149 on-contract.




Nexus One Gets A Taste Of Ice Cream Sandwich Thanks To CM9

Posted: 30 Nov 2011 02:58 PM PST

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Google may have run out of love for the Nexus One as far as Ice Cream Sandwich is concerned, but that doesn’t mean the legions of loyal Android developers have. An intrepid dev named TexasIce on the XDA forums has managed to get an early build of CyanogenMod 9 up and running on Google’s first Nexus device, and it looks mighty impressive for a work-in-progress.

Most of the basics seem to run without a hitch: text input and phone dialing work with a minimum of lag, as does web browsing and poking around in the Android Market. Nearly all of Ice Cream Sandwich’s functionality is present and accounted for, though it isn’t all sunshine and roses. Neither the camera nor USB mass storage work yet, and the lack of hardware acceleration means the build has a tendency to chug when it comes to some of Ice Cream Sandwich’s more impressive animations.

Fortunately, TexasIce is working to address the ROM’s issues at a respectable clip: the project only went live a few days ago, and already the 9th alpha build went online earlier today.

It’s certainly a work in progress, but I’ve got high hopes for a smooth ride by the time a stable CM9 release sees the light of day. If I may indulge in a little bit of nostalgia, CyanogenMod was one of the first custom ROMs I ever flashed onto a device, and it made my G1 run like butter. Nexus One users who want to join in the fun now can head over to the thread in question, but newbies (as always) should proceed with caution.



Burstly Raises $5.5M For In-App Ad Management; Launches Mobile Offer Mediation For iOS & Android

Posted: 30 Nov 2011 01:34 PM PST

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App developers don’t exactly have a plethora of monetization options, which is why, alongside in-app purchases, they’re becoming increasingly reliant on mobile advertising. For this reason, they want to get the most out of their ads, and, really, they want to sell directly to customers. Unfortunately, for most small teams, this just isn’t in the cards. Which is where startups like Burstly enter the picture.

While there are plenty of mobile ad mediation solutions to choose from, Burstly CEO Evan Rifkin thinks that the current batch isn’t doing enough to empower developers to take complete control over monetization opportunities. For example, the startup offers a storefront for developers that enables them to establish their own branded portal where advertisers can directly purchase placements in their apps.

As to where the space is going, Rifkin says that developers want to control and manage all of their revenue channels from one dashboard so that they can have an apples to apples comparison of what brings in the most money, whether that’s ad networks, offer providers, cross-promotion, or direct sales. To further this goal, the startup is today launching Burstly Rewards, a product that mediates mobile offers both on iOS and Android.

Simply put, Rewards enables developers to mediate multiple providers within one wall, mixing in-house and direct campaigns and the ability to match the UI to their app’s look and feel, as well as support multiple offer types, whether they be videos, offers, downloads (Android only), and shares.

Burstly’s product aims to put the controls in the hands of developers so that they make immediate changes without having to make an SDK update — if they need to shut off a certain partner who isn’t in compliance, for example, they can do so quickly, or add new partners without updating their SDK.

The product has two essential components: The Rewards Wall, which allows app developers to mix and match third-party networks, in-house, and directly-sold offers in one place, along with selecting which providers (and the number of offers) to be displayed. Second is the Rewards Page, which allows them to run reward-driven campaigns through a customizable, branded page that fills the app’s entire screen. Users can access the Rewards page through custom buttons and/or banners throughout the apps.

The idea behind these new products, and Burstly’s existing feature set is to try to give developers every conceivable monetization opportunity for their apps. As the ad mediation space evolves, Rifkin says that, rather than view others in the space as competitors, the startup is working to plug other players into their solution to do just that, for example, Smaato, Mobclix, Nexage, and MoPub are all on the list. With more coming soon.

To support the launch of its new products, and further development to its Storefront offering, Burstly is today announcing that it has raised $5.5 million in series B financing from GRP Partners, Rincon Venture Partners, and SoftBank Capital. These existing investors were the main contributors to the company’s $1.8 million series A raise back in March of last year. The company’s total investment now stands at just north of $7.3 million.

Burstly Rewards is in beta starting today and developers can request to join. Rifkin says that the company will have several “well-known” titles launching with the Rewards product before the holidays.

For more, check out Burstly at home here.



Foursquare Launches Redesigned Developer Website

Posted: 30 Nov 2011 10:23 AM PST

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Everyone’s favorite check-in service Foursquare is rolling out a major redesign of its developer site today, with a focus on making it easier for new developers to find their way around. The website now offers better organized links to guides and resources, a revamped Getting Started Guide and a new “Showcase” section which promotes some of Foursquare’s own favorite apps.

The company originally launched its developer website back in December 2010 and is now seeing nearly 2,000 requests per second to its API from a community that includes over 10,000 developers. In fact, there are so many applications being built on top of the Foursquare platform, that the company launched its very own app store last year just to keep them all organized. Of those apps, only nine have the honor of being listed as Foursquare’s favorite case studies in the Developer Showcase: Instagram, Thrillist, Localmind, Foodspotting, GoSocial by American Express, Tasti D-Lite, Quora, The Conan Blimp and Locamoda. (Of course, some of these represent brand partnerships, so it’s not surprising to see them featured here.)

Foursquare has been steadily progressing over the course of the past year or so, moving beyond the check-in with the addition of several new features. From integrations with deal providers, the social recommendations via Explore and Radar, event checkins and more, it’s clear Foursquare has been busy addressing the big question some users once had: why check-in? The answer: because now you actually get something from your use of the app – and it’s not just a discount on your next latte for becoming “mayor.”

With over a billion checkins now behind it, it’s going to be hard for a new “checkin” app to take on Foursquare, but that hasn’t prevented some brave (foolhardy?) companies from trying. Heck, even Facebook had to pivot its location-based Places product, thanks to Foursquare’s continued dominance in this space.

Today’s update to the developer website follows the recent overhaul of the consumer-facing site from earlier this month which brought the ability to checkin via the Web, improvements to Foursquare lists, and new ways to explore your city.



Clearwire Faces Critical Decision Over Big Debt Payment

Posted: 30 Nov 2011 10:13 AM PST

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WiMax network operator Clearwire may not be long for this world if they don’t make the the right decision about a looming debt payment. Bloomberg reports that the company owes $237 million in the form of an interest payment due on Thursday, and the wrong choice could spell the end of the beleaguered network operator.

Clearwire brass has been mulling over the decision for a while now; rumblings that the company would skip the debt payment began not too long ago, but their time is quickly running out.

At least part of Clearwire’s financial woes can be attributed to their sudden devotion to rolling out an LTE network. I like to think Clearwire brass saw the writing on the wall when it came to WiMax’s competitiveness, but it’s opened up a pretty sizeable can of worms. Building the sort of network Clearwire wants will take gobs of capital (around $1 billion, actually) and they’re not far off.

The company has around $700 million cash in hand right now — it’s clearly more than enough to cover their bill should they decide to pay, but it could severely dent their LTE network expansion plans for the time being.

Things could get a little dicier should Clearwire fail to make the payment. If Clearwire spoils their relationship with their creditors, then the potential for future funding becomes much more questionable. On top of that, future instability also means that Sprint (and all the other companies that resell Clearwire’s WiMax service) could be left in a weaker position if the company is forced to reorganize.

One could argue that there really isn’t a “right” decision to be made here, though I personally think they’re better off making the payment and living to fight another day. Fortunately for Clearwire execs, they may have a bit more time to decide if they feel it’s worth the risk. According to Bloomberg, Clearwire can take advantage of a 30-day grace period, but a representative from the S&P has said they may downgrade the company’s credit rating to a D if they don’t pay up within five days.

Barring any sort of miracle (like Sprint buying them completely) things are looking pretty hairy for Clearwire. It looks like the sort of situation that won’t be resolved without the company getting screwed somehow, and all I can do is wait with bated breath to see what happens next.



100Plus Raises $1.25M From Greylock and Band Of Angels To Make You Live Longer

Posted: 30 Nov 2011 10:07 AM PST

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Less than a month after securing $500K from Founders Fund, health prediction service 100Plus has brought its funding up to $1.25 million. The new $750K in funding comes from Reid Hoffman and John Lilly via Greylock Partners’ Discovery Fund, Aydin Senkut of Felicis Ventures, and Ian Sobieski and Nicola Corzine via Band Of Angels’ Acorn Fund. The plan for the money? Developing the front and back end of the forthcoming 100Plus product so it can increase your lifespan. Co-founder Ryan Howard tells me the team is almost ready to launch its “crystal ball for your future, with insight into the 2 different versions of you — one that eats cheesecake for breakfast, and one that drinks a powershake.” Given the rate it’s taking funding and the quality of its investors, some see riches in 100Plus’ future.

Howard is also the founder and CEO of free electronic medical records provider Practice Fusion. He says that startup’s goal is to help sick patients get better, while 100Plus is designed to prevent people from getting sick in the first place. Users log their diet, exercise, and other decisions, which 100Plus compares against its datasets from Practice Fusion, Health.gov, and the CDC. It then shows you the path your life will take given those decisions. That means showing you how you’ll get diabetes at 40 and die at 55 if you’re making poor choices, and how you could be bicycling with your grandkids if you improve.

With the funding, 100Plus has hired design firm Cooper to create an elegant, beautiful user experience that takes advantages of all of the capabilities of iOS. It’s also hiring engineers, predicting its own growth and need for scalability.

Next 100Plus plans to build out gamification elements, allowing you to compare scores privately or anonymously with friends, family, coworkers, or global averages. Howard tells me him and co-founder Chris Hogg want to “leverage the human ego to get the end user to live longer. Older people are going to love it because it lets them maximize their lifespan. College kids are going to love it because they’re competitive.”

100Plus also has enterprise prospects. Companies are interested in getting employees tracking their health and rewarding them with gym memberships and other healthy perks if they keep their score ups — and keep the company’s health insurance rates down. With multiple prospective revenue streams and booming interest in personal wellness, 100Plus looks like it has a healthy life ahead of it.



W3i Announces $10 Million Marketing Fund For Indie Game Developers

Posted: 30 Nov 2011 08:40 AM PST

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W3i, a monetization and distribution network for mobile app developers, is announcing the launch of a new $10 million “AppX Game Developer Marketing Fund” at this week’s AppNation conference in San Francisco. The fund will provide developers with a suite of free services that offer production support, analytics and user acquisition channel analysis, all of which are designed to help indie developers compete with today’s “AAA” gaming giants.

The company says that it wants to help level the playing field for indie game developers by providing them with better analytics on their mobile apps, allowing them to make better business decisions. This, in turn, will help developers with the increasing challenge of user acquisition and monetization in the ever-crowded Apple and Android app stores.

The AppX services will be provided to the developers who qualify (sign up is here) for no charge and without any long-term revenue share. Developers don’t have to give up IP rights either, says W3i.

Riptide Games, makers of My Pet Zombie, is one of the first to use the AppX suite of services, and claims it helped them become profitable and increase the lifetime value of its users by three times.



Proximiant Launches “Tap And Go” Digital Receipts For Retailers

Posted: 30 Nov 2011 07:59 AM PST

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Proximiant just launched a new service that provides digital receipts to customers of brick-and-mortar merchants. Like Square, the service involves the use of a low-cost hardware dongle that’s given away for free. But unlike Square, Proximiant leverages NFC (near field communication) to send the receipt from the cash register to the mobile phone.

NFC is a newer technology that ships in many modern mobile phones allowing for data exchanges over short distances. In Android 4.0, for example, NFC has been re-branded “Android Beam,” allowing users to share contacts, links, maps and more through a simple tap.

In Proximiant’s case, the service uses NFC to send out digital copies of a store’s receipts to a customer’s phone, also with a tap. For non-NFC devices, like the iPhone, an NFC tag (a keychain tag) is provided instead. Merchants give these tags away for free to customers who then pair them with their own mobile phone.

The Proximiant transceiver, a phone-sized device that plugs into a store’s computerized cash register via the USB port, will sit at the merchant’s checkout counter. The setup process take two minutes, the company claims. However, the device doesn’t integrate with POS systems. That’s by design, says Proximiant – it’s meant to support any software the merchant is using. Instead, the transceiver grabs the receipt data from the PC when a receipt is printed and sends it over a secure connection to the customer’s phone (upon tapping) as a digital image. A scannable barcode on the receipt allows the merchant to scan the phone itself in the event of a customer return or refund request, and the accompanying mobile app on the customer’s phone provides an archive of their transactions.

For merchants, adoption is relatively painless. There’s no upfront service cost, the system is plug-and-play and the hardware is free. However, merchants are charged on a pay-by-sales model for results Proximiant achieves. The retailers can choose to leverage the system to market to their customers via the digital receipts. (Yep, no good mobile commerce app would be any good these days without offers, right?)

Proximiant supports various marketing efforts, promotions, referral programs and loyalty programs, without requiring customers to hand over personal info like their email address or phone number. Merchants manage the programs via an online interface. Meanwhile, customers can save coupons phones within the Proximiant mobile app (Android/iPhone), redeem coupons at checkout by showing a barcode, share the coupons via email, SMS and social networks, configure reminders based on time or location, and access their receipts via the Web or phone.

The company is led by Fang Cheng (CEO), who previously co-founded Touchco, Inc., which was later acquired by a Fortune 100 company. Edwin Evans, who serves as VP of Engineering, co-found Quinly, a mobile app development shop, and worked on Motorola’s Android project and at Good Technology. Thomas Ahn previously worked for a network and data compression software startup, ViaSat. Rich Geruson, CEO of Phoenix Technologies and former SVP at Nokia, and Chung-Man Tam, now the entrepreneur-in-residence at Sequoia and formerly with Google, are serving as advisors.

Proximiant is certainly an interesting idea – from a consumer’s standpoint, I’d love to have digital receipts without having to snap photos of them with apps like Lemon, Expensify, Shoeboxed, and others or provide inbox access as with Slice and OneReceipt. However, Proximiant’s real competition doesn’t come from other receipt organizers – it comes from services like Square, which is already well on its way to building a viable m-commerce platform without having to workaround the fact that not all phones have NFC. Having to use a keychain tag, as all iPhone users will need to do with Proximiant (unless Apple decides to join the NFC bandwagon with the iPhone 5), isn’t as simple as tapping your phone. Keychain tags fall off, keys get buried in purses and bags, and frankly, some people just hate the keychain clutter they cause. Meanwhile, a phone is almost always in a pocket or hand, easily accessible.

Proximiant is fully self-funded and is currently running beta trials in a dozen stores in the San Francisco Bay area and Palo Alto.



First BBX-Powered BlackBerry To Be Called The Surfboard?

Posted: 30 Nov 2011 06:16 AM PST

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We’ve gotten a few discreet glances as what could be RIM’s first next-generation BlackBerry in the past, and now we may have a name to go with it. Originally code-named “London,” BlackBerryOS reports that the BBX-powered device will henceforth be known as the “Surfboard.”

Erm, yeah. I”m not thrilled either.

As odd as the name may be, it doesn’t come completely out of the blue. RIM filed for the BlackBerry Surfboard trademark in the Canadian Intellectual Property Office in July 2010, and has been sitting on it ever since. It seemed for a while like one of those names RIM would never get around to using, but they subsequently filed for an extension of time this past May — it’s possible that RIM has chosen to dust off a name from the archives to use for their latest smartphone.

Then again, the BlackBerry PlayBook was rumored to be called the “SurfBook” for a while thanks to another trademark also filed in 2010, and we all know how that one turned out. I sort of doubt that the London/Surfboard will make it all the way to its reported June 2012 launch date without a few more tweaks to the branding, but then again that’s really the least of their problems. Older specs aside, RIM needs to make absolutely sure that their new-fangled OS is up to snuff before people will even consider choosing it over every other compelling smartphone option under the sun.