MobileCrunch |  |
- Bill Gross On How He Will Avoid Stepping On The Giants’ Toes
- Sony Ericsson Forces A Fan Site Into Submission
- Siri, Could You Pour Me A Beer?
- RIM: Wait! Don’t Switch! Buy Our New Stuff Instead!
- And Now You Have One More Reason To Ignore QR Codes
- iPhone 4S Pre-Orders Go Live In 22 New Countries
- Chupa Launches Mobile App Component Marketplace With Support For iOS, Android & Web
- TomTom’s iOS Navigation App Gets iPad-Friendly Makeover
- Microsoft Looks To Cut Windows Phone Production Costs… In Half
- BrandTable Concept Shows NFC At The Food Court
- Usabilla Launches New Mobile UX Testing Tool
- Shoutz Mobile App Marries Video With A Twitter-Style Social Network
| Bill Gross On How He Will Avoid Stepping On The Giants’ Toes Posted: 21 Oct 2011 11:09 PM PDT  Earlier this week, Bill Gross launched a new mobile app and website called Chime.in at the Web 2.0 Summit. I dragged Gross in front of our cameras in teh hallway, where he gave me a demo and sat down for an interview. “The goal of Chime.in is to make an interest network,” he tells me in the video above. The whole point of Chime.in is to help filter all the noise in social networks. It does this by letting you follow not only people, but also interests, and sort your stream by topic. Reading everything in reverse chronology has its limitations. “The problem with time-descending,” says Gross, “is that it won’t always bring the most relevant things to the top.” In the video below, I argue it is inevitable that other social networks such as Facebook and Twitter will have to add an interest layer at some point as well. How will he avoid stepping on their toes? Gross has experience dancing with Twitter, which has shut off access to his company, UberMedia, and ended up outbidding him for Tweetdeck. As you will see in the video, Gross is not too worried. UberMedia (formerly postup) is the leading independent developer of applications and web-based services that make it easier for users to find, follow and communicate with others on Twitter and other social media platforms. The company is focused on driving innovation in user experiences across a range of online and mobile platforms. UberMedia also provides advertisers and brands with new ways to engage and communicate with consumers via Twitter through its family of apps. Located in Pasadena, California, UberMedia is... Person: Bill Gross Website: idealab.com Companies: Compete, Snap Technologies, eSolar, Idealab, UberMedia, Feedback.com Bill Gross is a lifelong entrepreneur and proponent of solar power. While still in college, Mr. Gross founded Solar Devices, a firm that sold plans and kits for solar energy products. As the CEO of the technology incubator Idealab, Mr. Gross has founded several extremely successful companies, including Overture (acquired by Yahoo!), CarsDirect, and Picasa (acquired by Google). Idealab recently moved into the renewable energy market with Energy Innovations, a sister company to eSolar that focuses on the retail...
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| Sony Ericsson Forces A Fan Site Into Submission Posted: 21 Oct 2011 02:08 PM PDT  Yikes, what a disheartening story. Proving that they don’t know a damned thing about fan communities, Sony Ericsson has filed a formal complaint against the fan-operated blog/forum Xperiablog.net, claiming that the owners were using it in “bad faith”. Fearing the costs of a legal battle, the site says they will be shutting down operations immediately. If there were a class on “How not to handle potentially sticky trademark issues”, this would be lesson one. Here’s the thing about the users in a community like this (I used to run a few, long before my time here at TechCrunch): they love the product. They really, really love it. In most cases, it’s almost an obsession. Think about it: they love it enough to search for other people who love the product, and who want to sit around and talk about nothing but the product. Treat them right, and they’ll be some of the best marketers you’ll ever find. For free. Instead, Sony Ericsson has just gone and turned them all into enemies. A large group of people, all obviously quite vocal about the products they use, now dislike your product. Whoops. The site’s founder on the decision to shutdown:
Admittedly, using a trademarked term wasn’t the best move on their part (at least from a legal standpoint) — but it is pretty much standard. Imagine if Sprint went after SprintUsers, Google after AndroidCentral, or Facebook after InsideFacebook? Was it Sony Ericsson’s job to protect their trademark? Absolutely — but there are better ways to do it. At the very least: reach out, express the company’s concerns, and offer to help them find a new, less trademark-infringing home. When someone’s doing you a service, you don’t hold a gun to their head because they’re not doing it the way you’d like. Company: Sony Ericsson Website: sonyericsson.com Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications is a global provider of mobile multimedia devices, including feature-rich phones, accessories and PC cards. The products combine powerful technology with innovative applications for mobile imaging, music, communications and entertainment. The net result is that Sony Ericsson is an enticing brand that creates compelling business opportunities for mobile operators and desirable, fun products for end users. Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications was established in 2001 by telecommunications leader Ericsson and consumer electronics powerhouse Sony Corporation. The company...
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| Siri, Could You Pour Me A Beer? Posted: 21 Oct 2011 10:59 AM PDT  It’s Friday. Time to sit back, put your feet up, and crack open a cold one. Better yet, why not let Siri pour your beer for you? All you need is an iPhone 4S and a can of somethin’ nice. And an R/C car. And an Arduino hooked up to a Twitter account. And a sharp tack, and…. yeah, you get the point. Sure, it’s pretty much the modern day equivalent of The Breakfast Machine. And yeah, it spills at least half of the beer. But having to pour your own beer is a real problem these days (AOL actually refuses to hire someone to pour my beer. I know, right?) — and gosh darn it, we just love problem-solvers here at TechCrunch. High fives to the folks at redpepper for this one, if only for the laughs.
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| RIM: Wait! Don’t Switch! Buy Our New Stuff Instead! Posted: 21 Oct 2011 10:52 AM PDT  According to a recent statement from RIM, business customers who aren’t completely satisfied with their BlackBerrys must be working with outdated hardware. Their answer to these customers’ woes? Just get a new BlackBerry. My response? Make them want one. Let’s back up a bit. The customers RIM refers to were ones surveyed by a research firm called Enterprise Management Associates. Two days ago, the EMA released a study that dissected BlackBerry’s corporate userbase, and posited that enterprise and small business users would soon be leaving the platform in droves. The key cause, according to their release, was customer satisfaction (or lack thereof). A scant 16% of those queried said that they were fully satisfied with their devices, compared to 44% of iPhone users. The kicker? EMA’s research was conducted before RIM’s multi-continent outage. Though the outage reportedly didn’t affect enterprise customers, one has to wonder how RIM’s reputation is holding up. In reference to their recent device releases, RIM has said that they “are the fastest, most powerful BlackBerry smartphones yet and we encourage comparisons with these current BlackBerry smartphones versus earlier models.” Here’s where RIM’s argument gets stuck in the mud: they don’t need to prove to their customers that their new devices outperform their old ones. They need to prove that their new devices can fill their customers needs better than any other device out there, and that’s getting to be a tougher proposition every time a new smartphone launches. To say that enterprise smartphone competition is getting stiffer would probably be the understatement of the month. RIM spent the first half of this past decade positioning their myriad BlackBerrys as the de facto business phone, and then scrambled to make them a viable mainstream choice in the second. Meanwhile, more consumer-friendly devices have gone in the opposite direction — creating hardware and software that people are excited about, and making them work in business environments. To wit, we couldn’t sit through the Samsung Galaxy S II and the Motorola Droid Razr launch events without getting an earful on how they fit into business situations as well as personal ones. The business space is one that RIM can’t afford to alienate. RIM’s priority at this point has to be about providing a compelling upgrade path for all those corporate customers who are considering jumping ship. It’s not an impossible task for RIM, but it’s only made more difficult by the handful of recent issues that have painted them in a particularly dim light. They have just recently revealed the BBX operating system at DevCon 2011, and it may well be the panacea that the folks in Waterloo have been praying for. I certainly hope so — I’ll be the first to admit I’ve been harsh on RIM recently, but what I haven’t mentioned is that it’s because I used to be a huge fan. I cut my teeth on a BlackBerry Pearl, and jumped for joy when I worked my way up to a BlackBerry Tour. RIM has worked their BlackBerry portfolio to the top of the business heap once, and they can stay there so long as they axe the small stuff and put their game faces on again.
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| And Now You Have One More Reason To Ignore QR Codes Posted: 21 Oct 2011 10:10 AM PDT  QR codes are a wonderfully charming technology… demonstration. But how many of us actually use them on a regular basis? Outside of Japan (the birthplace of QR), the only use cases I’ve seen with any real prevalence are: 1) Quickly getting to an Android app’s download page from a review site. You might want to avoid that last one from here on out. The baddies of the world have caught on to QR codes, so scanning that stray QR code might lead you to some nasty, nasty malware. Now, to be clear: there’s nothing inherently wrong with the QR code itself. The QR code is just a visual representation of data which gets passed to the phone — so even if there were some way to directly exploit QR codes, its effect would vary greatly based on how each respective platform handles the data passed to it. Instead, the nasties are using QR codes to lure people into downloading Android malware. While some users are likely to assume that QR codes are unique to the Android market and thus be comfortable scanning them, these codes actually take you to an Android install package hosted on some third-party server. The QR code itself isn’t bad — but the link it’s obfuscating is. Once downloaded, the dirty app (which, in the most recent case, was a hacked version of the Russian ICQ client, Jimm) begins firing off text messages to a premium number. Each text it sends (without your knowledge) sets you back around $5+. You can find an outline of the method by Kaspersky Labs here. It’s not hard to imagine how this concept could get nasty quick. Users, for the most part, would trust a QR code the same way they just a link on a company’s own website. Take a QR-enabled ad on a public wall, for example; how simple would it be for the “hacker” to simply slap a sticker of his nefarious QR code on top of yours? Would anyone notice?
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| iPhone 4S Pre-Orders Go Live In 22 New Countries Posted: 21 Oct 2011 08:57 AM PDT  If you’re one of the many Apple fanbois outside of the original seven countries in which Apple initially launched the iPhone 4S, I feel your pain. Though I placed my pre-order early, “complications” at AT&T have forced me to endure another 18-21 days and suffice it to say, I’ve turned a nice pukey shade of green with envy. But it’s possible you may get your new iPhone 4S before I do. Apple has today opened up pre-orders in 22 new countries, including Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. The 4S will be available in-store next Friday, October 28, reports MacRumors. However, a good number of those new countries don’t have an online Apple store, meaning that the option to pre-order an unlocked version of the handset direct from Apple only extends to the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Still, if you’re from Estonia, Latvia, Leichtenstein, Lithuania, or Slovakia, you may still be able to place a pre-order on a subsidized on-contract iPhone 4S through your local carrier of choice. Though the iPhone 4S is scheduled to be available October 28, Apple doesn’t seem to be standing behind that so firmly at this point. The 4S sold 1 million units in its first 24 hours of pre-order availability, and a record-breaking 4 million units over its first weekend of in-store availability. With demand like that, it’s no surprise that Apple is merely giving a “1-2 week” estimate for shipments. 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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| Chupa Launches Mobile App Component Marketplace With Support For iOS, Android & Web Posted: 21 Oct 2011 07:58 AM PDT  Chupa is a newly launched mobile app component marketplace that joins the ranks of sites like TechCrunch Disrupt finalist Verious and Appcelerator’s Open Mobile Marketplace. However, there is one key difference between competitors’ sites and Chupa: in addition to native applications (iOS and Android), it also supports a variety of frameworks, including Appcelerator’s Titanium, PhoneGap, JQuery and Sencha Touch. Like Verious and Appcelerator’s Open Mobile Marketplace, the idea with Chupa is to help developers speed their time to market by offering app components they can license and use in their apps for a fee, instead of having to write their own code. Based in Italy, Chupa was first launched in July as an invitation-only marketplace, where it quickly acquired over 300 mobile app component developers wanting to sell their code on the site. It’s now exiting its private beta period and is open to all as a public beta. The site lets you browse, search and filter the listings by platform (iOS, Android, Titanium or Web app) and it further breaks down the components into categories based on function (e.g., utilities, audio, image, video, navigation, UI elements, etc.). Prices appear to be reasonable, with some components available for as little as $12.00 (USD). Unfortunately, it appears that although support will be provided for a wide variety of platforms, the site is still lacking an abundance of actual code. Many of the sections are currently empty, making Verious the better choice for now for those looking for sheer quantity in terms of resources. (Verious launched with 1,000 components, for example, while Appcelerator launched with 50). Developers who write app components themselves can list them on Chupa for sale. Chupa took a 20% commission on component sales during its private beta, which is in line with the offer Verious was providing to its charter members. (Verious may go up to 40% over time, however). Appcelerator, meanwhile, takes the standard 70/30 (developer/app store) split, which is what Chupa is listing on its site now. Chupa was founded by Stefano Argiolas and Paolo De Santis, who are also the co-founders of Dlite, a multimedia digital marketing company which has previously provided mobile campaigns to brands like Nike, Renault, 20th Century Fox and Nokia.
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| TomTom’s iOS Navigation App Gets iPad-Friendly Makeover Posted: 21 Oct 2011 07:44 AM PDT  The weekend is nearly upon us, and what better way to celebrate than going for a long meandering drive into the middle of nowhere. Roadtrippers may want to take their iPads along for the ride too, as TomTom has just announced an update to their U.S. iOS app that optimizes it for use on Apple’s tablet. TomTom has tweaked their layout of their navigation app to make better use of all the screen real estate that the iPad offers. It can now, for example, display both the full-on route display and the lane guidance window at the same time — great news for people like me who can never seem to get those lane changes down pat. Aside from the tab-friendly interface, a new map update is included, so you’ll never miss a far-flung Waffle House again. The app, as always, will run new customers $49.99, but existing users can download the app to their iPads free of charge.
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| Microsoft Looks To Cut Windows Phone Production Costs… In Half Posted: 21 Oct 2011 07:41 AM PDT  Microsoft is looking to cut manufacturing costs on its Windows Phone 7 handsets, according to statements made by WinPho boss Andy Lees in Hong Kong today. The company has struggled through its push into mobile since the launch of the Windows Phone platform last year, which honestly made more of a ripple than a splash in the market. Now that Mango is ready to emerge as a “third mobile ecosystem,” as Verizon CEO Lowell McAdams would put it, Microsoft wants to step up its volume, and cutting production costs seems to be the means to that end. Lees said Redmond is looking to cut manufacturing costs in half, taking them from around $400 per handset (which was the cost when the software debuted last year) to less than $200 per handset. Strangely, though, Microsoft seems to be fine with the catch involved with cutting these costs. Due to Microsoft’s royalty structure, vendors pay the company for handsets based on a percentage of manufacturing costs rather than a fixed rate. If Microsoft can really bring its production costs down to less than $200, it may very well be making half of what it did last year per handset. But for every goal, sacrifices must be made. And in the case of Windows Phone, profit isn’t necessarily the name of the game. Microsoft already makes plenty off of Android courtesy of patent royalty deals — in fact, last time we had specific numbers Redmond was seeing upwards of around $150,000,000 on Android from HTC alone, and that was before they signed a deal with Samsung. In the words of Lees, the goal here is “volume, volume, volume,” reports Bloomberg. “We are supporting componentry that will allow us to go below $200.” But if volume is the plan here, there may be some other obstacles for Microsoft to worry about. In the opinion of some Windows Phone enthusiasts, namely Robert McLaws, vendors seem to push the iPhone and Android devices much harder than they market Windows Phone 7 handsets. McLaws even created a website dedicated to harping on retailers for poor WinPho sales. If the issue McLaws outlines is, in fact, a real problem, perhaps volume (x3) coupled with the much-improved Mango platform will help turn the tide. Microsoft, founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, is a veteran software company, best known for its Microsoft Windows operating system and the Microsoft Office suite of productivity software. Starting in 1980 Microsoft formed a partnership with IBM allowing Microsoft to sell its software package with the computers IBM manufactured. Microsoft is widely used by professionals worldwide and largely dominates the American corporate market. Additionally, the company has ventured into hardware with consumer products such as the Zune and...
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| BrandTable Concept Shows NFC At The Food Court Posted: 21 Oct 2011 07:08 AM PDT  Australian design firm S-Digital has created an interesting concept application for the use of NFC (near field communication) in food courts. Yes, food courts – like those found at your local mall. The project, dubbed “BrandTable,” involves circular stickers containing NFC tags secured to the tabletop that, when tapped with an NFC phone, launch a menu and ordering page for a particular restaurant. Using the mobile site, customers can place their order and even pay, without having to visit the counter or wait in line. When the order is ready, the phone buzzes so you can go pick it up. BrandTable uses NFC in combination with Java and the Android SDK to pull up menu ordering system, and is demonstrated (see below) using Google’s Samsung Nexus S. S-Digital built and designed the concept in conjunction with the University of Sydney, Mojo and Amnesia Razorfish. Although NFC’s widespread adoption is still several years out, it’s concepts like this that help us to envision what the world may be like when the technology is more ubiquitous and accessible than it is today. And, admit it – doesn’t that look like a fun way to order food?
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| Usabilla Launches New Mobile UX Testing Tool Posted: 21 Oct 2011 06:46 AM PDT  Usabilla, makers of usability testing tools for websites, is today launching a new mobile tool that lets companies test how their apps or mobile websites perform on the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch or Android devices. The new tool overlays questions or notes on top of the mobile app or website’s user interface, like “where would you click to filter the search results?,” for example. The testers can then tap a part of the app or mobile site’s webpage in response. As the testing takes place, Usabilla’s mobile web UX (user experience) tool collects the aggregated feedback from the participants, analyzes it, and presents it to the site’s designers using charts and heatmaps. To set up the tests, designers and developers must either provide the mobile URL or a screenshot of the mobile app. It does not support live app testing, however. But the tool does have a unique social feature – it lets you recruit participants to join the test by posting links to Facebook and Twitter. You can see an example of the tool in action in the video below or take a sample test for yourself by clicking here. Usabilla raised $1 million in funding earlier this summer, in a round led by Dutch venture fund Boralis and five undisclosed investors. The company’s customers now include Disney, Levi's and Electronic Arts.
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| Shoutz Mobile App Marries Video With A Twitter-Style Social Network Posted: 20 Oct 2011 09:00 PM PDT  To add to the ever growing list of social networks out there, a “Twitter for video” mobile application called Shoutz is just making its way into the App Store and Android Market. The app allows users to connect with friends (or followers), along with their favorite sports stars or celebrities by both sending and receiving 15-second video clips, aka Shoutz. Much like Google+ and now Facebook, Shoutz lets you choose who you’d like to share certain Shoutz with, whether it be a one-on-one convo, a message to your family, your weekend softball team, gambling buddies, or your entire community of followers. The app has also partnered with different groups like the Nascar Members Club and NFL Alumni to let users join fan clubs, through which they can see Shoutz from their favorite drivers, players, artists etc. Users can only send Shoutz from the mobile application, but there is a view-only desktop site that lets Shoutz users check in on the clips streaming across the Shoutz platform. The interface features tabs for trending Shoutz, a Fanclub-only stream, and Shoutz that are posted by friends. The app also integrates Facebook and Twitter, naturally. This, along with Shoutz role as a partner to many of these celebrities, brands, and advertisers, offers up what could be an interesting ad platform. For each public shout, Shoutz will display a small banner ad along the bottom of the screen, micro-targeted based on age, location, and the users’ social behavior. In the same way that celebrities have actively engaged with their fans on Twitter, the same could be true for Shoutz in video form — as long as the app breaks through its “empty room” phase quickly. The Shoutz app is available now from the Android Market and Apple App Store.
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