MobileCrunch |  |
- Siri, Do You Use Nuance Technology? Siri: I’m Sorry, I Can’t Answer That.
- Nokia and Monster To Team Up For New Headphones?
- Apple Finally Shows MicroUSB Some iPhone Love (But Just Barely)
- Lack Of NFC In iPhone 4S Won’t Impact Market
- Local Loyalty: Perkville Wants To Turn Your Email Address Into A Virtual Rewards Card
- AppleCare+ Covers Clumsiness, Too
- Google’s New ‘Our Mobile Planet’ Free Tool Offers A Deep Dive On Smartphone Analysis And Data
- Coming Soon To A Store Near You: Tagtile, A Square-Like Mobile Loyalty Service
- Leaked T-Mobile Roadmap Promises Six New Devices On November 2
- Photo-Sharing App LiveShare Adds News Feed, Local Groups
- Bringing Punch Cards Online, Perka Launches A Nifty Loyalty Platform For Small Businesses
| Siri, Do You Use Nuance Technology? Siri: I’m Sorry, I Can’t Answer That. Posted: 05 Oct 2011 04:18 PM PDT  The most talked about element of yesterday’s Apple event had to be Siri. The new feature of the iPhone 4S, born out of Apple’s purchase of the company by the same name in 2010, looks amazing. But one thing never mentioned during the keynote was a key piece of technology behind Siri: Nuance. We first reported that Siri would be a key part of iOS 5 back in March. As we dug deeper, we learned that Apple and Nuance were involved in negotiations to make sure this could be a reality. You see, Siri does not work without Nuance. Though they initially tried Vlingo, Nuance was found to be the better technology. In fact, Siri was still using Nuance right up until Apple pulled the old standalone app from the App Store yesterday. So, is Nuance a part of Apple’s implementation of Siri as well? Yes. Though, don’t bother trying to get anyone to admit that. Given what we had previously reported about the relationship between Apple and Nuance — such as the presence of Nuance technology on Apple’s remote servers — I just assumed that Nuance was a part of this new Siri package and figured that Apple simply didn’t want to go into the weeds, as it were, about how the technology works. But then I got a strange email pitch immediately following the iPhone event. It was from Nuance’s PR team, sending a release seemingly about nothing. The headline heralded: “Voice: A Mainstream Interface for Mobile”! That may sound like a release about Nuance powering Siri for Apple, but it’s not. In fact, neither Apple nor Siri are ever mentioned once in the entire release. Apple is briefly mentioned in the pitch lead-in I received. That starts:
Hmm. Nuance seemed to be going out of their way to not say that they were powering the awesome new Siri feature of the iPhone 4S. In fact, it almost reads like a company that just got its hat handed to it by Apple, and wanted to give the “it’s great to see a massive company validate the space” statement. So I decided to ask the representative directly: is Nuance powering the new Siri feature? The only thing said in response: “Apple licenses Nuance's voice technology for use in some of its products." Followed by, ”The company is not authorized to comment on specific capabilities or devices.” Heh. In other words, yes, Nuance is powering Siri. But Apple clearly struck a deal with Nuance which precludes them from talking about it. This is Apple technology, this is not about Nuance, is how I imagine Apple may put it. Apparently, Nuance is happy enough with Apple’s undoubtedly large check for this licensing agreement that they are willing to keep quiet. Or could it be about Apple eventually replacing Nuance as the backend to Siri, as Siri co-founder Norman Winarsky told 9to5 Mac a couple days ago? Maybe, but that seems fairly unlikely anytime soon. As Winarsky admits, “Nuance has far and away the most IP in speech synthesis technologies in the industry.” As we’ve stated in our previous posts on the matter, that’s a key here. Even if Apple wanted and tried to come up with their own voice technology backend for Siri, they would have a hard time doing so without infringing on some of Nuance’s patents. Patents which Nuance CEO Paul Ricci is very well known to enforce to their maximum extent. That’s why there are so few players in the space. One of them is Google. And guess who built that technology for them? Another Nuance co-founder (and key patent-holder) Mike Cohen. Apple doesn’t have a Mike Cohen on staff to build their own Nuance-style system. At least not yet. So for now, it’s Apple and Siri sitting in a tree — with Nuance sitting behind Siri in an invisibility cloak. Started by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, Apple has expanded from computers to consumer electronics over the last 30 years, officially changing their name from Apple Computer, Inc. to Apple, Inc. in January 2007. Among the key offerings from Apple’s product line are: Pro line laptops (MacBook Pro) and desktops (Mac Pro), consumer line laptops (MacBook) and desktops (iMac), servers (Xserve), Apple TV, the Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server operating systems, the iPod (offered with... Nuance Communications, Inc. provides speech, imaging and keypad solutions for businesses, organizations and consumers worldwide. The company’s solutions are used every day by people and businesses for tasks and services, such as requesting account information from a phone-based self-service solution, dictating records, searching the mobile Web by voice, entering a destination into a navigation system, or working with PDF documents. The company, through the acquisition of Philips Speech Recognition Systems GMBH (PSRS), provides speech recognition solutions for the European...
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| Nokia and Monster To Team Up For New Headphones? Posted: 05 Oct 2011 04:15 PM PDT  It wasn’t that long ago that HTC partnered up with Beats Audio to give their phones a boost in the audio department, and now it seems Nokia may be contemplating something similar. A newly leaked pair of images popped up earlier today, and they reveal what may be the first Nokia-Monster phone accessory. Given Monster’s history, it’s really no surprise that the first product to surface would be a pair of headphones. Dubbed the Nokia Purity HD Stereo Headset (try saying that three times fast), the images sent to PocketNow depict an electric blue pair of portable cans that seem to lack cables. There’s a solid chance that if real, the Purity HDs will be run off of a Bluetooth connection, but sometimes headphone manufacturers leave unwieldy cables out of their press shots. With Nokia World just around the corner, more specifics are sure to surface before too long. While it seems doubtful that the partnership could ever reach an HTC/Beats level of cooperation, it still seems like quite a coup for Nokia. I daresay it’s been a long time since the Finnish phone giant was considered cool, so co-branding a product with a known entity like Monster could be a step toward generating some street cred. Then again, the idea could also backfire terribly. Monster Cable is best known to many for peddling overpriced cables, and that ultimately may not sit well with some of Nokia’s customers. We’ll have to wait and see how things play out, but here’s a quick word of advice for Nokia: it doesn’t matter how awesome your new headphones are if your new Windows Phones aren’t up to snuff. Keep those priorities straight, that’s all I’m saying.
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| Apple Finally Shows MicroUSB Some iPhone Love (But Just Barely) Posted: 05 Oct 2011 12:56 PM PDT  Uh oh — your phone’s dying? No big deal, as long as it was made in the past year or two. Just grab a microUSB cable! Unless it’s an iPhone. Then you’re stuck hunting around for the ol’ white 30-pin — which, while ubiquitous in its own right, isn’t nearly as multi-talented. Back in 2009, Apple committed to the European Union that they’d support microUSB — but to what extent? Would they ditch the dock connector altogether? Of course not. Would they add a microUSB port to the device as a handy alternative? Probably not. Would they release a Dock-Connector-to-microUSB adapter and call it a day? We thought so — and sure enough, that’s what they’ve just done. Currently turning up only in Apple’s European stores (sadly), the new dock adapter will go for just £8.00 (around $12.50). Not bad, considering that Apple’s other adapters generally average out between $20 and $30 bucks. It’ll be available on October 14th — which, given that that’s iPhone 4S launch day, suggests that the European iPhone 4S might just include these right in the box. This adapter should work well with most of the previous generation iPhones, save for the original. Does a dock adapter really fix the problem? Ehhh, not really. If you can remember to pack an adapter to make microUSB cables work, you probably could have remembered to pack a 30-pin cable to begin with. But given that Apple is unlikely to sacrifice aesthetics to add a secondary charging port any time soon nor would they willingly stop tapping that sweet, sweet “Made for iPhone” licensing nectar any time soon, this is probably about as good as it’s going to get. Started by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, Apple has expanded from computers to consumer electronics over the last 30 years, officially changing their name from Apple Computer, Inc. to Apple, Inc. in January 2007. Among the key offerings from Apple’s product line are: Pro line laptops (MacBook Pro) and desktops (Mac Pro), consumer line laptops (MacBook) and desktops (iMac), servers (Xserve), Apple TV, the Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server operating systems, the iPod (offered with...
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| Lack Of NFC In iPhone 4S Won’t Impact Market Posted: 05 Oct 2011 12:25 PM PDT  While not entirely surprising, yesterday’s announcement of the new iPhone 4S did not include a mention of NFC (near field communication). Although many hoped for the inclusion of the short-range wireless technology which serves as the backbone for current and planned mobile wallet systems, Apple still has plenty of time to integrate NFC into future handsets. It’s possible that NFC will even arrive in the upcoming iPhone 5. But will Apple’s decision to skip NFC in the iPhone 4S have an impact on today’s market? Not likely, say analysts. NFC forecasts, to date, have varied. ABI Research estimates there will be 35 million handsets shipped this year, and double that will ship next year. IHS iSuppli forecasts nearly 550 million handsets by 2015. Meanwhile, Berg Insight AB expects there to be 400 million handsets by 2015. Whatever the true number may be, the consensus is that the technology is years out from consumer adoption. Apple can wait. Although nothing Apple does goes without notice, ABI analyst John Devlin says he doesn’t believe the news will have an effect on current market conditions or trends. ”Having Apple on-board would have been a great driver for NFC – even if only for competitive reasons,” Devlin tells us. “I don't think it will negatively impact the market. [NFC] has been heating up, companies are now launching, and strategies are in place,” he says. Charles Golvin, Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, agrees, noting that had Apple announced NFC, it would have jump-started the industry and accelerated competitors’ offerings, but the iPhone 4S’s lack of NFC is neither a death knell for the technology, or a statement about NFC’s long-term viability. Apple’s skill is often in reinventing and polishing the end user experience, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be the first to launch a new technology itself. And in the case of NFC, the market just isn’t ready. “Putting devices into customer’s hands is only one step towards adoption,” explains Golvin. There also need to be point-of-sale terminals that support NFC and customers have to be able to input all their credit card information into the mobile version of their wallet. “It doesn’t really fly until the mobile wallet is the same as your real wallet,” Golvin says. Today, for example, only Citibank-branded MasterCards work in Google Wallet, and the carrier-led mobile wallet venture Isis has yet to launch. Another factor influencing Apple’s delay with NFC, besides general market readiness that is, is Apple’s potential to be disruptive upon entering the competitive landscape. ”Apple likes to own the ecosystem, but the incumbent payment networks are too entrenched,” says Devlin. ”However, Apple is incredibly cash rich so the acquisition of a payments-related company would not be out of the question.” “Similarly, in order to maximize NFC and the different user experiences that it could deliver,” he continues, “it would make sense to feature NFC in a range of products, such as the iPad, MacBooks, etc., and these upgrades are not yet ready.” Meanwhile, other companies are now launching their own NFC-enabled payment systems. Google, as noted above, has Google Wallet. Isis, the joint venture between AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon, recently announced support for its mobile wallet system from the majority of leading device makers, including HTC, LG, Motorola, RIM, Samsung and Sony Ericsson. NFC is progressing in other areas, too, such as Windows 8 tablets – something Apple is likely watching closely. ABI says it’s not changing its position on NFC forecasts due to the iPhone 4S. It still expects 80 million NFC handsets in 2012, and believes Apple will enter a more developed ecosystem in a year or two’s time. Forrester doesn’t have a specific handset forecast, but Golvin says that by year-end 2012 to mid-2013, the technology will be much more ubiquitous. By that point, says Golvin, “it will be difficult to find a smartphone that doesn’t include NFC functionality.” Maybe the NFC-enabled 4G iPhone 5 will be there, too.
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| Local Loyalty: Perkville Wants To Turn Your Email Address Into A Virtual Rewards Card Posted: 05 Oct 2011 10:55 AM PDT  Earlier today, I wrote about a new startup called Perka that’s attempting to bring an end to loyalty cards with a kick ass merchant-facing service. Well, it seems that today is the day for launching loyalty program-disrupting startups, as a company named Perkville is coming out stealth mode and launching into the public sphere. Many of us have overflowing wallets due the amount of loyalty cards, buy-five-get-one-free tickets, and Groupons we carry around in our wallet. Or we get to our favorite coffee shop only to remember that we forgot our punch card at home. Perkville, as opposed to Perka, is taking a different approach to providing local merchants with a loyalty solution by turning customers’ email addresses into virtual reward cards. That means no more cards to carry and forget at home, no apps to download — just an email address, and users can participate in any merchant program on Perkville. And for merchants, Perkville is free to use and can be set up in minutes. So how does it work? Merchants decide on what kind of reward program they want to establish for their customers, whether it be per visit or purchase, etc. When customers make a purchase, merchants reward customers with points via an in-store tablet (i.e. iPad) or their point of sale (POS) system. Customers can then track their points online and refer friends to the merchant, who then receive a special deal in return. The referring customer then receives points for a successful referral. Founded in early January of last year by former Senior Product Manager at LinkedIn and Yahoo! Sunil Saha and Eric Bollman, the former Director of UX at Yahoo!, Perkville has been working diligently in stealth to partner with POS software providers to scale the business and get it to a place where it can become a valuable service for merchants. At launch, the startup has already attracted 200+ active merchants across the U.S. and has 100K+ consumers on board, 25 percent of which are registered users. Whether merchants are onboarding with Perkville through POS visual touch solutions like Mindbody, which provides business management software for a wide range of businesses, including salons, spas, fitness studios, yoga, martial arts and retail, or by encouraging iPad adoption at the POS (which the team says work well for places like coffee shops, for cashiers who don’t feel comfortable with complicated approaches), or whether the merchants are entering the customer’s email address manually, once they have the email, the rest of the Perkville process remains the same. The user then gets an invite to join, they register, and the rest is history. The Perkville Co-founders told me that they’ve been seeing low adoption among merchants using mobile solutions, QR code solutions, Shopkick, etc., because they all require downloading an app, scanning, holding a card next to some wonky device — and that this type of friction leads to concern, skepticism, and hesitation from small, local merchants. For companies like Groupon that have large sales forces, or for companies that don’t have such an automated process, there’s a lot of marketing spend and going door-to-door for these types of deals and loyalty solutions, and it can be tough to scale. Perkville doesn’t have to worry about that. Another cool thing about Perkville is in how it’s monetizing. Because its core platform is free for merchants, Perkville is offering merchants the ability to set perpetual deals, or “winback” deals, for example, that lets merchants identify customers who haven’t been back to the store in awhile and send them a deal to get them back and buying. For Perkville’s highly targeted deals, the startup takes a 30 percent cut of profits earned by merchants. But, on the whole, merchants retain full flexibility control and its loyalty program runs in the background — merchants can do as much or as little as they want to once Perkville is set up. To test its new email-based loyalty hypothesis, Perkville established a case study with a yoga studio, and the results they’re seeing are impressive. Of the 9,000 people using Charm City Yoga, 21 percent of those students have joined the loyalty rewards program. These students are taking an average of 70 percent more classes. And since Perkville gives consumers the option of connecting their programs to Facebook and Twitter, the yoga studio has seen 500 postings and 100 tweets, as well as 77 referrals taking an additional 340 more classes. Their “Winback” program has reactivated 150 customers. Perkville is currently actively seeking outside investment, after a $500K raise from friends and family and a year-plus of bootstrapping. It’s an interesting idea to be sure, and their email-based loyalty program seems to proving itself in case studies. Check Perkville out at home here and let us know what you think.
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| AppleCare+ Covers Clumsiness, Too Posted: 05 Oct 2011 10:09 AM PDT  I drop my iPhone a lot. In fact, since I decided to hang on to my 3GS and hold out for what ended up being a pretty disappointing announcement yesterday, I’ve cared increasingly less each time that thing hits the floor. Once I get my hands on the iPhone 4S… Well, that’s another story. Still, accidents happen all the time and for the cash Apple’s asking, a little insurance never hurt. Enter: AppleCare+. If you’ve ever had an Apple product then you’ve heard about AppleCare. In the case of the iPhone, AppleCare offers you two years of technical support and hardware repair so long as the damage to the phone wasn’t caused by your own clumsiness or liquid. Now Apple has bumped the fee from $69.99 to $99.99 and has added some tweaks to the agreement. AppleCare+ offers up two years of the same technical support and hardware repair, except this time Apple has included “accidental damage due to handling” to its coverage. However, don’t get all excited and throw your phone across the room just for the heck of it. You only get two chances when it comes to “accidental handling,” each of which will cost an added $49. So if you drop your iPhone in the toilet, which happens way more than you think it would, don’t fret. Grab a Benjamin and head over to Apple, and the problem should be resolved in no time. As far as pricing goes, it’s a little unclear why Apple raised the price of the AppleCare+ to $99.99 if we’re still paying a fee for accidental handling. On the other hand, even with the extra $30 down payment, $50 bucks is still less than the cost of replacing a screen or buying a new iPhone entirely. Started by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, Apple has expanded from computers to consumer electronics over the last 30 years, officially changing their name from Apple Computer, Inc. to Apple, Inc. in January 2007. Among the key offerings from Apple’s product line are: Pro line laptops (MacBook Pro) and desktops (Mac Pro), consumer line laptops (MacBook) and desktops (iMac), servers (Xserve), Apple TV, the Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server operating systems, the iPod (offered with...
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| Google’s New ‘Our Mobile Planet’ Free Tool Offers A Deep Dive On Smartphone Analysis And Data Posted: 05 Oct 2011 08:37 AM PDT  Google is rolling out a new data and analysis tool, called Our Mobile Planet, which gives anyone access to data and research on smartphone usage. The site features an interactive tool that anyone can use to create custom charts from data from the Google’s "Global Mobile Research: The Smartphone User & The Mobile Marketer" report conducted earlier this year (you can read more about the data here). OurMobilePlanet provides deep dives into consumer search, video, social and email behavior, as well as mobile research and purchase intentions. You can choose from the type of smartphone data you want view, including penetration of consumer adoption of smartphones, behavior (why and how consumers are using these devices), activities (what consumers are doing on smartphones), commerce (purchasing behavior on smartphones) and advertising (consumer engagement with mobile advertising). Each of these data sets has subsets so you can really drill down on specific research. For example, under commerce, you can choose mobile commerce, research and purchase by vertical and statements. Under each of those, you can choose a number of data points including purchases by type of payment, NFC, etc. You can then select to filter the data by country, and Google offers data from 30 different countries worldwide. You can add other filters to the chart such as age, gender and mobile internet usage. And you can export the chart into a JPG, CSV or XLS file. Clearly the platform provides a massive amount of data, and you can get information as simple as smartphone penetration in a certain country to more in-depth analysis like how many consumers in the country visit a store after doing a local search on their smartphone. Google says this is the first time a study this extensive has been made available for free. And obviously anyone can use Our Mobile Planet.
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| Coming Soon To A Store Near You: Tagtile, A Square-Like Mobile Loyalty Service Posted: 05 Oct 2011 08:17 AM PDT  Tagtile is a new company (and recent TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Alley participant), which is using the Square model involving free hardware to address the issues surrounding customer loyalty, management and rewards for brick-and-mortar merchants. Like mobile payments service Square, which uses a free hardware dongle that attaches to a mobile phone, Tagtile also provides its merchants with a free hardware device – in this case, a white cube for customers to tap with their phone at checkout. The cube is meant to serve as a stopgap solution until NFC (near field communication) really takes off in mobile. “In spite of all its promise,” explains Tagtile Co-founder and CEO Abheek Anand, “NFC has always been a technology that’s 3 years away…We want to focus on only one thing – changing consumer behavior.” (Devices in stores – this is a thing now! See also: the iPod-based Perka, launched today). What Tagtile provides is a simple way for customers to register their visit to a participating merchant, in exchange for points, coupons, discounts or whatever other loyalty rewards the merchant wants to distribute. The customer simply launches an app on their smartphone (iPhone or Android, BlackBerry soon) and taps the cube at checkout to get the rewards. They can also check-in on Foursquare or Facebook via the app, or (soon) tweet about their visit. The experience is very much like what an NFC-enabled solution would provide – it just doesn’t use NFC. Instead Tagtile leverages sensors common to mobile phones today to make the connection, but Anand doesn’t want to publicly discuss which sensors or how Tagtile is using them. On the merchant side, the cube either plugs into a PC via USB to integrate with any existing point-of-sale system offering an SDK (software development kit). For those merchants without the USB option, Tagtile can plug directly into a wall outlet. In that case, the cube borrows the data connection on the user’s smartphone to send data back to Tagtile servers. For consumers with privacy concerns, Tagtile is clear in that personally identifiable isn’t shared with merchants, only with Tagtile itself. Focused on the security of that data is Tagtile’s other founder, Soham Mazumdar, who spent six years at Google working on infrastructure and data mining for Google Search. Meanwhile, Anand previously worked in Product Management at Engine Yard, as an investor at Lightspeed Venture Partners, and as an early engineer at VMware. Tagtile merchants can go beyond the basic “punch card” rewards system with service, getting access to something that’s more akin to a “Google analytics” for their store. Who shopped there, how often, when, etc. is displayed in a dashboard-like interface. Merchants can also narrowly target customers via campaigns – e.g. “everyone who hasn’t been back to the store in the past 2 months.” Tagtile serves as the middleman, delivering the message from the merchant to the shopper. Currently, the company has 35 merchants across different verticals testing the service in San Francisco, New York, Florida, and the Maryland/New Jersey area. Tagtile is a few weeks away from closing its first seed round, expected at around $1 million. The round may also coincide with its public launch, also a month out. In the meantime, interested merchants can sign up here. Company: Tagtile Website: tagtile.com Tagtile helps local businesses identify, engage and increase repeat purchases from customers through a frictionless loyalty and direct marketing solution. The Tagtile product consists of a custom hardware device, the Tagtile Cube, that merchants place at their cash counter. Users record their transactions at these businesses by tapping their smartphone against the Tagtile Cube, and get rewarded for being a loyal customer. Merchants can access user information and purchase history through an online dashboard, and use this information to...
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| Leaked T-Mobile Roadmap Promises Six New Devices On November 2 Posted: 05 Oct 2011 07:35 AM PDT  It looks like Christmas may come early for T-Mobile customers. Internal documents show four device launches this month and twice as many in November, including the Samsung Galaxy 7.0 Plus tablet. What’s odd is that pieces of this roadmap seem dead-on, while others don’t make a whole lot of sense. So we’ll proceed with caution and figure it out together, shall we? First on the list are three “October 19″ launches: the HTC “Ruby” (officially known as the HTC Amaze 4G), the Samsung “Hercules” (the Galaxy S II), and the Huawei “Wayne,” which you may recognize as the Huawei Sonic 4G Mobile Hotspot. The Hotspot is pretty self-explanatory, so I’ll spend my words on the two beastly smartphones supposedly hitting shelves on the 19th. To start, this is the most flawed part of the roadmap, as noted by its original poster TmoNews. Both the Amaze 4G and the Galaxy S II are slated for pre-order on October 10 and in-store releases on October 12. Though it’s odd, the incorrect dates probably have something to do with the fact that this roadmap is just a bit old, and probably not the most up-to-date version in T-Mobile’s system. Moving along you’ll find the Samsung “Arnold,” not nearly a hot enough codename for the Galaxy Tab 10.1, which will launch on October 26. Specs on Apple’s least favorite “copycat” include a dual-core 1GHz processor, a 10.1-inch 1280×800 WXGA display, and a waist line of just 8.6mm. The November 2 mega-launch day seems pretty legit, since TmoNews found another internal T-Mo document (pictured at right) promising six launches on November 2. Lo and behold, six devices are slated for that date within the roadmap. Devices scheduled for the 2nd include two new myTouch handsets from LG (the Maxx and Maxx Touch), the LG Flip II (a baffling dual-screen Android slider), the HTC Omega (officially known as the Radar 4G), the Huawei “Tallsome” (which looks a lot like a little 7 or 8-inch tablet), and the Samsung “Ancora” (likely a mid-range to low-end Galaxy device). Last but certainly not least, November 9 should bring us face-to-face with the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus and the BlackBerry Torch (codenamed “Dumoine”). Since the roadmap cuts off at November 9, we wouldn’t be surprised to see plenty more out of T-Mo in the latter half of November and early December. Especially since the carrier made such a fuss over holiday sales when taking Samsung’s side in its infamous battle with Apple. T-Mobile is a mobile telephone operator headquartered in Bonn, Germany. It is a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom. T-Mobile has 101 million subscribers making it the worlds sixth largest mobile phone service provider globally.
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| Photo-Sharing App LiveShare Adds News Feed, Local Groups Posted: 05 Oct 2011 06:56 AM PDT  Cooliris’ photo-sharing app LiveShare is all-new today, with two major additions: a Facebook-like News Feed and enhanced geolocation features that let you share photos with others in your same vicinity. The latter feature, seemingly reminiscent of the failed location-based photo-sharing app from Color, is different in that it doesn’t just work on mobile – it works in a Web browser, too. For those unfamiliar with LiveShare (not surprising, given the crowded photo-sharing space), it’s trying differentiate itself by being an app you can choose to use, but that doesn’t require everyone else in your network to use in order to be effective. It’s a photo-sharing tool, in other words, but doesn’t necessarily have to be your photo-sharing social network. This, frankly, has been one of LiveShare’s best qualities. There are far too many apps that require a “network effect” to function properly. It’s a breath of fresh air to find one where that’s just an added bonus. When you post photos in LiveShare, to either a public or private group, you can share those pics out via email or SMS or cross-post them to Facebook and Twitter. It also offers dynamically generated suggestions of folks to add to a group’s list during its creation, including those who you only share with over email or text messaging, for example. Coming soon, if a friend replies via SMS or email, that message will be added to the LiveShare group, too, making it a one-stop shop for everything that’s going on with your photos. Today’s addition of the News Feed inches LiveShare back into “photo social networking” territory, however, bringing the focus back to the in-app groups. Like Facebook’s News Feed, you can comment on the posts and those comments are syndicated back to Facebook. Unfortunately, LiveShare says that comments on Facebook won’t be synced back to the in-app group. There’s a reason for this (they claim it would be “too confusing”), but from my perspective, it feels like a mistake. After all, in every other capacity, LiveShare is helping to centralize the photo-sharing experience. The other new feature, location-based public groups, lets anyone contribute to a photo collection, and works especially well for real-time events, like parties, weddings, or nights out on the town. For those who don’t have the app, they can email in photos to a main address instead or post online. Photos are then available for later viewing both in the app and on the Web. The new LiveShare app goes live on both Android and iPhone today, at 10 AM EST. Cooliris was founded in January 2006 with a simple mantra: “Think beyond the browser”. The company creates products that transform the browsing experience across screens, making discovering and enjoying media more exciting, efficient, and personal. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, Cooliris is backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, DAG Ventures, The Westly Group, and T-Venture. For more information, please visit www.cooliris.com.
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| Bringing Punch Cards Online, Perka Launches A Nifty Loyalty Platform For Small Businesses Posted: 05 Oct 2011 06:00 AM PDT  Perka, a startup coming out of stealth and launching into the public today, wants to offer merchants a new spin on loyalty rewards programs in an effort to become the “antidote” to the 300-plus daily deal sites out there cannibalizing each other’s revenues and user bases. Perka is essentially bringing those “buy 10, get 1 free” punch cards we know and love online — and to our mobile devices. And, rather than just being another consumer-facing loyalty offering, the startup is looking to flip the deck and instead go after small, local businesses, as it looks to enable these merchants to effectively compete with the sophisticated loyalty programs of multibillion dollar companies like Starbucks and American Airlines, to name a few notable loyalty players. With Groupon, LivingSocial and the daily deals model, merchants are already offering a product or a service for less, but Perka wants to put a device in a merchant’s local store, providing an app for both customers and merchants to allows merchants to easily track purchases, and get to know and reward their loyal customers. On the other side, consumers get the benefit of being able to easily checkin to Perka on their mobile device from the store, or via SMS from any phone, to earn stamps in pursuit of rewards. Perka is hoping that by offering a simple solution and working individually, face-to-face with small local businesses, they will be able to convince merchants that Perka offers a better way to get at that much-coveted retention — to keep customers coming back. Through Perka, merchants can decide what they want to give away, how much, and how many checkins (or stamps) it will take for customers to receive rewards. When a customer comes into a store and checks in via their iPhone or Android app, using their Perka-enabled device (at this point an iPod Touch), merchants can see who their customers are, and that they are, say, $2.50 away from the $25 goal. The merchant can address the customer by name and tell them that with another small purchase they can get a free coffee or a coupon for a free massage. For merchants, Perka will cost $85 by way of a monthly subscription, which includes the addition of a Perka iPod at their cash register to validate customer purchases. Transactions are recorded in a centralized database, and a single registration allows members to participate in any Perka merchant program. The startup also will work with individual businesses to tailor their loyalty program to whatever suits their current needs, whether that’s to encourage repeat visits, improve sales of a particular product, or increase transactions. Merchants can run multiple programs through Perka, and include rewards for multiple products or services at once. What’s more, local businesses can sign up for free consultation with the Perka team to see if the service is right for them and how to best meet their goals, as well as apply for "Perka Pros" — on-site account managers who consult with merchant owners and managers, provide in-store marketing materials, design custom incentive programs and monitor results. Perka is launching its service in Portland, where the startup is based, to begin with and has already partnered with 30 partners in the Portland area. Over the next year, Perka’s team of 16 will roll out its services in another 20 cities and regions across the country. The startup is co-founded by Alan Chung, Rob Coury and Rob Bethge, all three serial entrepreneurs who count six exits between them ranging from $25 million to $1.5 billion, with buyers including Facebook (Zenbe), Aol, Sun Microsystems, and TD Ameritrade. The startup is currently bootstrapping, but has also recently begun talks on Sand Hill Road for its first round of venture investment, Chung told TechCrunch. The key value proposition here for Perka, in the long term, is its centralized database that tracks real customer purchases. Currently, there are many consumer web companies collective massive amounts of data on consumer activity, checkins, purchases, spending trends, and so on, but few companies have been able to easily tap into the actual real world, offline buying habits of average people at small, local merchants. This data can become an invaluable resource for local businesses looking to get to know their consumers better — just as it can be a highly leverage-able asset for Perka. For the startup to succeed, it’s all about providing a seamless setup and onboarding process for local merchants. From what I’ve seen, the process is just that. And because Perka only requires a few merchants to adopt the service (and sign up their own customers) to be able to create a useful network for local customers and participating merchants, it may just have a leg up on other services targeting local merchants, like Foursquare. And, hey, ePunchcard company Punchd was recently acquired by Google for $10 million. In terms of the mountain a loyalty program-focused startup has to climb, sure, only 12 to 15 percent of customers are loyal to a single retailer. But then again, that relatively small percentage of customers drives 55 to 75 percent of sales, according to Chung, so by reducing customer attrition by just 5 percent, a company can improve its bottom line significantly. Increasing that customer loyalty by just 1 percent equivalent to reducing costs by 10 percent, he said — something that will surely be of interest to local business owners. For more on Perka, check them out at home here or on the App Store here.
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