MobileCrunch |  |
- Three Leading NFC Mobile Marketing Firms Form Global Alliance
- After Nine Months Of Revisions, The Verizon Droid Bionic Is Finally Available
- Turntable.fm Is About To Rock An iPhone App; We Have Screenshots
- Iridium’s New AxcessPoint Hotspot Provides WiFi In The Rainforest
- Evri Launches SportStream Apps To Bring Realtime, Social Sports News To Your Mobile Devices
- Google’s Eric Schmidt Pegs Ice Cream Sandwich For Mid-Fall Release
- Breezy Launches Partner Network, Lets You Print On The Go At 1,000 Locations
- Amazon Tries To Coax Developers Into Their Android App Store With Cloud-service Credit
- South Africa Wants Access To BBM Messages
- Microsoft Job Listing Hints At Locating “Every Windows Phone Device In The World”
- Incentivized Installs Not All Bad, Says New Study…But Consider The Source
- RadiumOne Gets Into The Group Messaging Game, Debuts App For iOS And Android PingMe
| Three Leading NFC Mobile Marketing Firms Form Global Alliance Posted: 08 Sep 2011 12:00 AM PDT  Today, three NFC (near field communication) specialists are announcing a global alliance to help promote the use of the technology as a viable mobile marketing tool. The firms involved in the NFC World Alliance each represent a different geographic region, and include Blue Bite (America’s region), Proxama (EMEA) and Tapit (Asia-Pacific). All three already have experience in running successful NFC-based campaigns that have helped connect brands to their audiences on a large scale. “We’re very excited about the potential of NFC,” says Blue Bite’s VP Business Development Dan Trigub, referring the to short-range, high frequency technology that, these days, is often more associated with mobile wallets and mobile payments systems than it is with advertising. In the future, NFC could provide comparable reach to traditional mobile media, Trigub explains. “NFC is becoming a standard feature on mobile handsets,” adds Neil Garner, CEO of Proxama, “particularly for tag reading.” Tag reading enables a consumer to tap an NFC-enabled item, like a poster or sticker, to receive information or perform an action. Similar to the functions provided now by barcode scanners, with a tap, users of NFC phones could launch an app or visit a website, for example. But NFC can also enable other actions, too, such as “liking” a brand on Facebook, following a Twitter account, or even switching on Bluetooth to opt into direct-to-mobile offers from a retailer. In addition to the combined interest in promoting NFC technology, the three companies involved in the alliance have access to the key media buyers in the region, which makes the newly formed group sort of a one-stop-shop for a brand looking to run or expand a global campaign in other regions. Alliance members will provide support, analytics and other tools to participating brands looking to experiment with the new medium, they say. After a campaign completes, the firms will share the details of what they learned with each other in terms of what worked and what did not, so they can all improve their own systems. At some later point, this information may also be released in the form of research reports or white papers. And, says Tapit CEO Jamie Cunningham, when there is leftover ad inventory, members may also use that space – like the ad panels at a bus stop, for instance – in consumer education efforts about the benefits of NFC and how it works. In short, the participating firms simply believe that when it comes to consumer adoption of NFC, it will be brands leading the way, not the OEMs, handset makers and mobile payments companies. Whether or not that’s accurate remains to be seen, of course. However, the alliance is yet another example of NFC’s upward momentum this year, which in and of itself speaks to the technology’s growing potential. Tapit NFC is an expert in Near Field Communication (NFC) mobile proximity marketing and NFC tag supplier. “Tapit” is the act of tapping your phone to one of our near... Blue Bite is a provider of targeted location-based out-of-home media and marketing solutions reaching captive audiences on their personal mobile devices. The company uses a combination of Bluetooth, WiFi,... Company: PROXAMA Website: http://proxama.com Proxama provides NFC mobile wallet technology, services and support platforms to Mobile Operators and Handset Manufacturers. They work with Card Issuing companies to transition their plastic credit and loyalty...
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| After Nine Months Of Revisions, The Verizon Droid Bionic Is Finally Available Posted: 07 Sep 2011 11:10 PM PDT  January 5th. That’s when Motorola and Verizon first announced the DROID Bionic. 9 months grueling months later, it’s here. It’s seen delay after delay, and revisions to both its internal specs and its outward appearance have made the Droid Bionic we see launching today about as different from what was originally announced as any other Android handset hitting the shelves this month, but still: it’s rocking the Droid Bionic name, built by Motorola for Verizon, and it’s finally, finally here. Given its launch window and positioning at the top of Verizon’s marketing masthead, the Bionic will be amongst but a handful of handsets that’ll be regularly held up against whatever Apple might launch as the next iPhone in the coming weeks. As such, you can be damn sure we’re going to give this thing a thorough examining before we publish our full review. Look for that early next week — but in the mean time, you can find our early impressions here. For those who might be needing a refresher on the specs:
The DROID Bionic is available for $299 on a new 2-year contract, or $599 at full retail.
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| Turntable.fm Is About To Rock An iPhone App; We Have Screenshots Posted: 07 Sep 2011 05:31 PM PDT  For the past few months, few things on the web have been hotter than Turntable.fm. The Stickybits pivot got so hot, so fast, that a “trough of disillusionment” was inevitable — and we’ve probably been seeing that the past couple of weeks. But something is coming very shortly that should supercharge the service once again: an iPhone app. Yes, it was both obvious and inevitable that Turntable.fm would go mobile. But we’ve managed to obtain some details — and most importantly, screenshots. We’re told that the company is hoping to release the app next week. It has been in testing with a few dozen people for the past few weeks, and is solid on WiFi connections, but less so over 3G, we’re told. That’s probably the last issue they have to address given the screenshots below — it looks very polished. We’re told it was built by one teenage iOS developer. As you can see, they’ve done a great job moving the look and feel of the app over to mobile. People who have used the app say it’s “awesome”. Like the site, the app has deep Facebook integration, and we assume you still need to know a Facebook friend with access in order to use it yourself. No word on an Android app at this point. Speaking of Facebook and Turntable.fm, there are also whispers that the music service will be a part of the social network’s upcoming music announcement, likely taking place at f8 in a few weeks. Hopefully Turntable.fm’s Billy Chasen and Seth Goldstein will have more to share at Disrupt next week — they’ll both be there.
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| Iridium’s New AxcessPoint Hotspot Provides WiFi In The Rainforest Posted: 07 Sep 2011 03:37 PM PDT  Perhaps best known for their line of rugged, work-anywhere satellite phones, Iridium Communications has revealed today that they’re looking to try something new. Alongside news of a new handset dubbed the Iridium Extreme, Iridium has also unveiled their new AxcessPoint hotspot, which allows users to get online and get their email fix just about anywhere on the planet. There are, of course, a few caveats. First and foremost, don’t expect to hop between your favorite social media sites with anything resembling speed. Due to the constraints of such a a wide-reaching network, data speeds top out at roughly 2.3 to 2.4 KB/s — slow enough to make the old 56k modem collecting dust in the closet look like a NASCAR engine. With the correct AxcessPoint software in place, though, Iridium claims that effective data speeds can creep as high as “up to 5x, and email transmission up to 15x.” There is also the issue of cost. While the AxcessPoint itself will only cost about $200, it has to be connected to either an Iridium 9555 or an Iridium Extreme to work. No word on cost for the Extreme yet, but the older 9555 retails for a little over $1,000. The data connection itself costs around $1.35 per minute, so it’s in your wallet’s best interest not to get sidetracked on Wikipedia. Of course, if you’re the type to start pulling hair at the first sign of a slow connection and high prices, the AxcessPoint (and Iridium service, naturally) aren’t for you. Iridium’s service has been historically geared toward people and situations where a connection to civilization, however limited, could mean the difference between life and death. However, if Iridium has their way, that may soon change. The AxcessPoint is part of a larger initiative called Iridium Force that’s meant to make mobile satellite communications more relevant to modern needs. In addition making the AxcessPoint compatible with Android, iOS, and BlackBerry OS, Iridium also hopes that it can make its satellite technology easier to integrate into other products. While it’ll likely be some time before a “Powered by Iridium” logo appears on the back of your new phone, it’s sure to come in handy for whenever you wander into the wilderness unprepared.
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| Evri Launches SportStream Apps To Bring Realtime, Social Sports News To Your Mobile Devices Posted: 07 Sep 2011 03:13 PM PDT  Evri, the realtime content discovery engine, acquired Radar Networks early last year, incorporating the startup’s semantic indexing technology into its products. The move laid the groundwork for Evri’s shift into the mobile space, as it has since used its realtime semantic matching algorithms to begin delivering news in targeted categories and the Twine team to expand into mobile. Last year, the startup launched EvriThing Tech to allow readers to create and add their own channels on any tech topics, as well as those from predefined topics. (Similar to what FLUD, and others are doing in the mobile content space.) Today, Evri is expanding its mobile functionality, launching a suite of sports applications for iOS and Android devices, called SportStream, that will be powered by its eponymous platform. With the NFL season looming, Evri is kicking off its suite of sports apps with SportStream Football, an app that looks to provide readers with realtime push notifications and in-game commentary through social channels — to make your Sunday viewing experience more interactive and a little more Web 2.0. With SportStream Football, Evri is looking to provide an immersive experience for fans that allows them access to realtime news content from thousands of sources, integrating personalized and up-to-date information from fans’ social feeds, enabling readers to live tweet highlights from games as they happen. Viewers can see in-game score updates and play-by-play summaries, with personalization options for specific teams, like key injury and trade news, for example. Just as Taptu has created a fantasy football stream for iPad users, Evri is looking to have its targeted and personalized content stream become a great resource not only for fans but for fantasy football players as well. The objective here, says Evri CEO Will Hunsinger, is not to “out-ESPN ESPN”, but to take advantage of where ESPN’s realtime sports coverage lacks. Not only by scouring the web for information from bloggers and other sports content outside of ESPN’s realm, but by allowing fans of, say, Georgetown sports, to create targeted news feeds for their alma mater’s teams. While ESPN is obviously a robust content source (really, the death star of sports content), there’s plenty of room here for startups to improve on the sports content reading and viewing experience. With Evri’s well-honed semantic indexing data, the SportStream apps are a great resource for personalized sports info. Evri is smart to go after these enthusiastic, underserved niches. Or, even if sports content isn’t exactly sparse, to give sports fans an easier and less “noisy” reading experience, with realtime functionality, adds weight to the startup’s value proposition. Yes, Pulse recently struck a deal with ESPN, and Taptu is offering a great tablet app, but there’s plenty of room in the market, and Evri’s approach to fan engagement via the social graph and realtime tweeting, is a good start. We’ll be looking forward to the startup’s next moves. Evri is a personalized news reader for tablets that makes it easier than ever to keep up with topics that interest you. With Evri, you can: Discover breaking...
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| Google’s Eric Schmidt Pegs Ice Cream Sandwich For Mid-Fall Release Posted: 07 Sep 2011 01:01 PM PDT  While at Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce conference, Google chairman Eric Schmidt let fly a juicy tidbit as he ran through how Android came to be. According to him, the next big version of Android is being prepared for release in the October/November timeframe. Quoth Mr. Schmidt:
This quick blurb has caused many a pair of ears to perk up; Ice Cream Sandwich is widely believed to power Samsung’s rumored Nexus Prime and Droid Prime handsets, which have been spotted receiving their Bluetooth and WiFi certifications respectively. What’s more, the Nexus Prime moniker was tacitly confirmed by Samsung, as a file on Samsung’s site reveals the device’s User Agent Profile. The fact that the devices are far enough along to have received those certifications lend credence to the rumors of a mid-fall release, which (surprise, surprise) line up rather nicely with Schmidt’s timetable. Ice Cream Sandwich, which was briefly spotted a few weeks back, is intended to create a unifying Android experience that reaches across both smartphones and tablets. If the stars align, and Ice Cream Sandwich and the Prime series handsets manage to launch in that autumn window, this holiday season may just be one for the phone geeks’ history books. [via Android and Me]
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| Breezy Launches Partner Network, Lets You Print On The Go At 1,000 Locations Posted: 07 Sep 2011 11:16 AM PDT  Breezy, the Oakland-based mobile printing startup, has been awfully busy since last we heard from them. What started as a BlackBerry-only solution to one man’s mobile printing headache has gone mass market today with the announcement of their new Breezy Partner Network, which allows users to print documents from their smartphones to nearly 1,000 local printers. Here’s how it works: load up a document, be it through the Mail app or Dropbox, and you’ll be given the option to open it in Breezy. Once you’ve selected the document to be printed, just tap the Nearby Printers option to see all the participating printers nearby. Most of the Partner Network’s 1,000 printers are located inside hotels, although Breezy CEO Jared Hansen says that Breezy is making some in-roads with print and copy shops. A quick look revealed that a few Partner Network printers were near my neck of the woods – a pleasant surprise, considering the company hails from California. If there aren’t any near you, fear not — Hansen says that Breezy will have another 2,000 locations going online in coming months. Premium subscribers to the Breezy service are allowed unlimited access to Partner Network printing, but free users have to deal with Breezy’s proprietary credit system. Each document printed costs 3 Breezy credits, which at the most basic level costs around $.60, but prices drop if credits are purchased in bulk. Free users also have to contend with the Breezy watermarks on all of their documents, which may not be a dealbreaker, but could provide just enough impetus for a road warrior to shell out the $29.99/year. Breezy’s Partner Network is a great addition to the service for paper pushers on the go, and the company’s mass market push has continued with the recent release of their iOS app. The Android version promised all those months ago has yet to materialize, although Hansen assures us that it’s in the works. Mobile printing used to be something of a niche market, but with footholds in nearly all of the major mobile operating systems, Breezy’s clearly trying to own it all.
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| Amazon Tries To Coax Developers Into Their Android App Store With Cloud-service Credit Posted: 07 Sep 2011 10:10 AM PDT  If you’re an Android developer, there’s not really any reason why you shouldn’t submit your App to Amazon’s alternative App Store. It’s extra exposure, won’t cost you a dime, and, because there’s considerably less competition, you actually might have better results there than in Google’s official app depot. Just make sure that if you agree to be the Free App of the Day, you completely understand what you’re getting yourself into. Anyway, Amazon has gone ahead and sweetened the deal just a bit: beginning this morning, anyone who submits an app to the Amazon App Store store will get a free chunk of change to check out the Amazon Web Services suite. Rather than being specifically purposed for any one of Amazon’s web services, the credit can be applied to:
Now, don’t expect to run your app forever on the free credit: it’s only 50 bucks. Depending on which services you apply, that’s probably enough to cover your app’s costs through the testing phase and the early days of launch — but if things really start to take off, it’ll be a drop in the bucket before too long. Amazon specifically says that this deal is good for any developers that “submit an app”, so it doesn’t sound like your App even necessarily needs to get approved. If you’re interested, make sure you get your app submitted by November 15th. Here’s Amazon’s page on the deal.
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| South Africa Wants Access To BBM Messages Posted: 07 Sep 2011 09:42 AM PDT  “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” And then times got worse, and worse, and worse. At least for RIM. After jumping through hoops for the Saudi Arabian government, and then doing the same in India, South Africa has decided to get in on the fun and ask for access to BBM messages. The government’s reasoning was security-related, of course, but also had to do with the fact that UK has plans to do the same. Deputy communications minister Obed Bapela told delegates at the Southern Africa Telecommunication Networks and Applications Conference on Monday that “there is evidence that criminals are now using BBM to plan and execute crime. We want to review BBM like in the UK and Saudi Arabia,” reports the AFP. And honestly, the country probably needs it. South Africa sees an average of 46 murders a day, and BBM has already proven itself a popular way to organize crime.
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| Microsoft Job Listing Hints At Locating “Every Windows Phone Device In The World” Posted: 07 Sep 2011 07:44 AM PDT  Microsoft has set out a pretty lofty goal for whomever applies to their latest job listing — they want some deeply technical people who, among other things, will help “find the location of every Windows Phone device in the world.” Useful location-based services like “Find My Phone” and Bing Maps have been baked into Windows Phone 7 since day one, but Microsoft seems to have something slightly different in mind for their location team. The listing specifically seeks people to work on their forthcoming core location service, details of which are largely unknown. The job listing, spotted by Neowin, does however make mention of what the core location service will be expected to do. Among the priorities for the core location team will be working on more accurate ways to determine a device’s location even without assistance from the built-in GPS. Next up on the list is solving the problem of determining a device’s position while indoors — a truly dicey one because the device usually can’t rely on GPS, and wireless network coverage can take a hit within walls. It seems as though much of Microsoft’s focus here is building a strong team to boost the overall accuracy of their location services, and while no specific applications are mentioned, it’s easy to see how such improvements could enhance Windows Phone’s user experience. Find My Phone and Bing Maps performance could improve tremendously, and if offered to developers, core location services could make location-based apps even more accurate and more worth using. Pragmatic causes aside, this isn’t great timing on Microsoft’s part. Their recent legal kerfuffle over storing and transmitting user location data without consent is still fresh in people’s minds, and perhaps because of that, Microsoft has already pulled the listing. The full text is reproduced below, but hopefully Microsoft gets their issues ironed out and posts it again. Better location services can only improve the Windows Phone experience, so long as it plays by the user’s rules.
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| Incentivized Installs Not All Bad, Says New Study…But Consider The Source Posted: 07 Sep 2011 07:36 AM PDT  Mobile users acquired through “incentivized” installs can be valuable, according to a new study, if managed properly. The term refers to users who download a mobile application in exchange for something else – usually in-game virtual currency or goods. Traditionally, these sorts of users are thought of as somewhat disposable, simply serving as a way to boost an app’s rankings in iTunes…at least until Apple cracked down on the now-banned practice. But a new study of mobile app traffic shows that, in certain cases, incentivized traffic can outperform organic traffic. Unfortunately, given the report’s source, it still leaves us with quite a bit of doubt. The study was performed by W3i, an application distribution and monetization network. And what does W3i engage in? Yes, incentivized installs. Well, sort of. Given Apple’s ban, W3i now focuses on promoting free-to-play applications through its mobile ad platform. It’s a kinder, gentler way to encourage installs that’s quite different from how its original incentivized installs program worked. That said, to claim that W3i doesn’t have the world to gain by promoting the benefits of incentivized installs would be naive. But let’s look at the data. Between December 2010 and April 2011, W3i looked at the 30-day retention rates per traffic source for one of its burst campaigns for a popular game. It also calculated the volume per traffic source (see below chart, each color designates a different app). The top paid volume source (77,541 installs) produced the second best 30-day retention rate (6.22%). But the second-top volume source (64,497 installs) performed the worst (2.16%). Why the difference? Both were incentivized traffic sources, but both had dramatically different retention rates. Clearly, not every traffic source is the same. In this case, the traffic sources were individual applications where the game was being promoted. One app led to higher retention rates after a month than the other. Revenue, too, saw similar trends. (The letters refer to apps, whose names can’t be listed). In addition, there were even cases where the organic traffic performed worse than the incentivized traffic, in terms of ARPU (average revenue per user). Unfortunately, while this (far too narrow) slice of data does seem to show that incentivized installs aren’t necessarily the monster that Apple makes them out to be in all cases, the source of this data is suspect. It would be interesting to see a broader study from a less-biased company. In the meantime, the big takeaway from these findings is that incentivized installs, can, in fact, deliver valuable new users for some when implemented correctly. But how regularly does that happen? In what apps? What’s the general trend here? Were these findings a fluke or par for the course? These are all questions W3i fails to answer with this study, instead showcasing trends for a single game. Not good enough to prove Apple wrong, we’d say. W3i increases revenue, distribution, and engagement for consumer desktop applications, browser add-ons and mobile applications. On the desktop app side, app publishers get paid for recommending relevant applications...
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| RadiumOne Gets Into The Group Messaging Game, Debuts App For iOS And Android PingMe Posted: 07 Sep 2011 05:57 AM PDT  RadiumOne, an online ad network that aims to combine social and intent data to serve ads, is getting into the group messaging space today. The company is releasing a free, group messaging app for iOS and Android called PingMe Messenger that allows users to message each other in real-time, across platforms. The app has actually come out of RadiumOne Labs, a division of RadiumOne, which incubates what the company calls ‘first-party products’ for the publisher community they serve. The first product to be released by RadiumOne Labs is PingMe. Similar to other group messaging apps, PingMe gives users the ability to send realtime messages to friends and family without incurring text messaging costrs, similar to the act of sending a BBM on a BlackBerry phone. Once downloaded, the app allows users to connect with their friends through their telephone's address book, Facebook, or the PingMe network. The registration process is fairly simple—your phone number is your user ID, and you don't need a password or hard-to-remember PIN to connect with your friends. With the app, which only cost $160K and took 4 months to develop, you can chat with friends in groups or individually with the same speed of messaging as BBM. And PingMe is free in the U.S. and worldwide and offers unlimited messaging. Some of the more unique features of PingMe include an opt-in geo-location functionality that lets friends find each other based on their location, the ability to post status updates a news feed and PingMe tells you when someone sends you a message – even when PingMe is closed. So why is a social advertising company getting into the group messaging game? Eventually, the goal is to offer a white label, skinned version of the app to publishers and advertisers that they can offer to customers, says founder Gurbaksh Chahal. For background, RadiumOne mines social data and use this information to identify relevant consumers for brands. Through what Chahal calls "social retargeting,” RadiumOne analyzes how users interact with one another on social networks to find the consumers that identify with a brand's current customer base, and then serves advertisements to this audience across the company’s network of publishers. The company just raised $21 million in new funding at a $200 million valuation. RadiumOne Labs will be launching a number of similar white-label offerings for advertisers and publishers in the future for various products, Chahal explains. While PingMe will go head to head with GroupMe (recently acquired by Skype), Facebook, and others; Chahal doesn’t seem to be too worried about the competition and believes there’s still room for innovation in the group messaging space. RadiumOne will launch PingMe apps for BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 devices in the next few weeks.
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