MobileCrunch |  |
- Mark Cuban Invests $250,000 In Social Games Maker Mention Mobile
- Samsung VP Gavin Kim Jumps Ship, Joins Windows Phone Team
- Google Ventures Takes A Sip Of Milk, Invests In Kevin Rose’s New Startup
- YouMail Hits 3 Million Downloads, Gets Backed By CrunchFund And Tech Coast Angels
- Rumor: The Quad-Core HTC Edge Breaks Cover
- iVerse Media Receives $4 Million Investment to Grow Its Comics+ App
- Samsung Galaxy Nexus Availability Leaks: Web-Only Launch On November 21
- Spotify Lands On Windows Phone 7.5 Devices Today
- Streaming Music Service MOG To Be Pre-Loaded On AT&T’s New LTE Phones
- Motorola Droid RAZR Review: So Close, Yet So Far
| Mark Cuban Invests $250,000 In Social Games Maker Mention Mobile Posted: 08 Nov 2011 04:15 AM PST  Exclusive - Social gaming startup Mention Mobile has raised $250,000 from billionaire, entrepreneur and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban in exchange for a minority equity stake in the company. Mention Mobile says it specializes in apps that are ‘infused with Facebook content’, and the capital injection is meant to fund the development of new single-title apps. The company’s mobile applications are interesting in that they leverage public information from Facebook to customize games and create personalized content based off a user's friends, preferences, interests and whatnot. Mention Mobile's apps are currently available only for iOS, but the company says upcoming apps will also be available for Android. Founded in 2010, Mention Mobile is based in Los Angeles. Mention Mobile is a young innovative development company that specializes in incorporating real friends into casual social games on facebook & mobile devices. Person: Mark Cuban Website: blogmaverick.com Companies: Assistly, Broadcast.com, Thinkingvoice, Motionloft Mark Cuban is a tech entrepreneur who owns the Dallas Mavericks. He is the founder of Broadcast.com (acquired by Yahoo! in 1999 for $5.04 billion), HDNet, and several other companies. He has also been an angel investor for several startups including SlideShare, Goowy, RedSwoosh, Box.net, Weblogs, Inc., and Mahalo.
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| Samsung VP Gavin Kim Jumps Ship, Joins Windows Phone Team Posted: 07 Nov 2011 12:48 PM PST  Samsung can’t be too pleased about this. Gavin Kim, the company’s VP of Consumer and Enterprise Services, has just announced that he will be leaving in order to join up with Microsoft as general manager of the Windows Phone team. Kim has been with Samsung for several years, and was VP of Content Services before taking up his most current role. In a talk with BGR, Kim briefly outlined some of the new duties he’ll be picking once he and his family relocate to Seattle. “I will be responsible to help set the future direction for the Windows Phone platform and to accelerate Microsoft's trajectory to win the hearts and minds of consumers, carriers, device manufacturers, developers and partners,” said Kim. Those are some lofty ambitions, and Mr. Kim will certainly have his work cut out for him. A recent Nielsen report pegs Windows Phone’s market share at a mere 7%, making it a distant fourth behind Android, iOS, and BlackBerry OS. Even so, that hasn’t stopped Kim from being bullish about Windows Phone Mango. He feels that Microsoft is “closing the gap rapidly and removing all doubt about their place in mobile.” He may well be right — AT&T has already begun to roll out a new line of Windows Phones in time for the holidays, and Nokia is poised to re-enter the U.S. smartphone market with a full portfolio of Windows Phones come next year. If Windows Phone is ever going to break away from the pack it has to move quickly, and Microsoft can’t afford to screw these next few months up. Though I wish him well, I’ve got one bit of advice for Mr. Kim: be careful about what you tweet.
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| Google Ventures Takes A Sip Of Milk, Invests In Kevin Rose’s New Startup Posted: 07 Nov 2011 11:55 AM PST  Kevin Rose’s mobile lab, Milk, has a new investor: Google Ventures. The startup raised $1.5 million in a seed round last April from investors including Chris Sacca, Evan Williams, Dave Morin, Joshua Schachter, Ron Conway, Chamath Palihapitiya, TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, First Round Capital, and True Ventures. The total amount now raised in the seed is $1.7 million. “We started talking to Google after we closed our round,” says Rose, “but decided to open it up for them as they’ve been adding a ton of value right away.” Google Maps is a big part of Milk’s first mobile app, Oink. And Rose wants to build in more Google technology in future updates. Oink lets people rate and discover things in the places around them. It is a first step at creating a directory and recommendation system for things in the physical world. When it launched last week, Rose gave me a demo, which you can watch below. Milk is a mobile development lab founded by Kevin Rose, Jeff Hodsdon, and Daniel Burka. Milk has announced its first mobile app, Oink, to be released this fall. Person: Kevin Rose Website: kevinrose.com Kevin Rose is an angel investor and serial entrepreneur. He is the Co-Founder of Milk and previously the founder of Digg and WeFollow. Rose also co-founded Revision3, and Pownce (acquired by Six Apart). In addition, Rose is also the co-host of the tech news podcast Diggnation and founder of Foundation, a private newsletter and podcast. Financial-organization: Google Ventures Website: googleventures.com Google Ventures was founded in March 2009. Google Ventures is broadly interested in startups in industries including consumer Internet, software, hardware, clean-tech, bio-tech, health care and others. They invest amounts ranging from seed funding to tens of millions of dollars, depending on the stage of the opportunity and the company’s need for capital.
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| YouMail Hits 3 Million Downloads, Gets Backed By CrunchFund And Tech Coast Angels Posted: 07 Nov 2011 11:27 AM PST  It’s kind of hard to believe: even 4 years after the launch of the iPhone, visual voicemail still isn’t ubiquitous. That’s where YouMail comes in. Filling in the gaps where most platforms fall short, YouMail brings visual voicemail (and myriad other features, like visual caller ID and smart greetings) to BlackBerry, Windows Phone 7, and Android. Come Wednesday morning, YouMail will be making two landmark announcements: they’ve surpassed 3 million downloads, and have nabbed a small round of funding from the Tech Coast Angels ACE Fund and Michael Arrington’s CrunchFund. The funding round isn’t the largest YouMail has ever pulled, but is presumably as much about bringing certain investors on board as it is about the funding itself. YouMail raised $4M in a Series B back in July of this year, bringing their total funding up to around $12.5M. With this latest addition, the company says their total investment raised is “nearly $13 million” — in other words, this round comes it at around $400k between the two investors. Update: Pinned down a more exact number. Sounds like it was $355k between the two. For the sake of full disclosure (though, presumably, most reading this are already well aware): one of the investment groups mentioned here, CrunchFund, was started by TechCrunch Founder Michael Arrington shortly before everything went crazy. YouMail is a free service that lets you change your cellphone’s voicemail greeting according to who’s calling. You could record a separate personalized voicemail announcement for every entry in your phone book.
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| Rumor: The Quad-Core HTC Edge Breaks Cover Posted: 07 Nov 2011 10:57 AM PST  Dual-core processors? How passé. If the story surrounding this leaked render holds true, then HTC is already hard at work on their first quad-core powerhouse of a smartphone: the Edge. At first glance, it doesn’t look much different than any other device HTC has put out in recent memory. The Edge reportedly sports a 4.7-inch 720p display and 1GB of RAM, which is great but let’s face it — that’s not why you’re here. The big draw here is the 1.5GHz quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 chipset it’s got under the hood, making it one of the world’s first quad-core smartphones. Its release window is set for early next year, which makes the inclusion of Ice Cream Sandwich a tantalizing possibility since PocketNow’s sources don’t mention a particular Android build. Sadly, there isn’t much detail when it comes to connectivity. The Edge is said to have support for 21Mbps HSDPA but no LTE radio, though PocketNow admits it’s possible that certain carriers may get LTE-tweaked variants. Add a 10mm thick chassis, 32GB of internal storage, and HTC’s full suite of media apps (HTC Watch, HTC Play, etc.), and suddenly we’re looking at a device that seems too good to be true. While I always make it a point to have a grain of salt at the ready when these sorts of things pop up, the Edge is a compelling enough package that I find myself hoping against hope that it’s real.
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| iVerse Media Receives $4 Million Investment to Grow Its Comics+ App Posted: 07 Nov 2011 10:35 AM PST  Cross-publisher digital comics distributor iVerse Media today announced a $4 million private equity investment from PS&J Group. The money will go towards expanding marketing and product development for its iOS comics reader app Comics+. While publishers such as Archie Comics, Dynamite Entertainment, and Marvel maintain standalone reader apps, Comics+ aggregates content from dozens of publishers to offer a one-stop comics purchasing and reading experience. PS&J’s investment indicates its belief that the newsstand is quickly giving way to the App Store in terms of where readers get their comics. Apps have high monetization potential, as users can instantly buy the next installment of their favorite series. This facilitates purchasing binges where readers might spend more than $20 in a single reading session, rather than leaving a bookstore with just a few $1.99 issues or a single graphic novel. Pierre LeRoy, PS&J Group chairman says that "Through digital comic sales, software licensing, and strategic partnerships, iVerse has been financially solvent for some time now.” Currently, iVerse offers its Comics+ app which includes video capabilities, and Comics+Kids which exclusively provides family friendly comics. Both iOS apps are free but charge users the standard newsstand price of $1.99 per issue through in-app purchases. Comics+ already includes titles from many of the most popular publishers, but is missing some heavyweights such as DC Comics which can be found in competitor comiXology’s app. The funding could help it secure distribution deals to round out its content offering. Marketing will also be an important use of the funding as comiXology’s Comics app currently has a higher search ranking in the App Store for the query ‘Comics’. If iVerse can get more downloads and increase its average rating, it could improve its discoverability. Product development that would allow Comics+ to host innovative new multimedia reading experiences could also aid its quest to become the #1 digital comics reader. iVerse already powers standalone reader apps for Archie, Star Trek, and other titles, and product development could attract more publishers to build on the company’s technology. With brick and mortar comic book stores going out of business or diversifying into more lifestyle products, finding comics in paper form is getting more difficult. Still, the medium is very much alive with Marvel releasing big-budget films featuring super heroes and television shows like The Walking Dead being adapted from comics. The PS&J Group investment will give iVerse’s Comics+ apps a better chance of picking up first time readers and those switching to digital. iVerse Media, LLC is a digital content distributor for mobile platforms. Established in 2008, iVerse has quickly emerged as an innovator and leader in the mobile publishing field specializing in digital comic books. Partnerships with high profile brands like Archie Comics, and leading industry publishers like IDW Publishing ("Star Trek"), Ape Entertainment ("Pocket God"), Marvel Comics ("Spider-Man"), and many more have made it possible for over FIVE million downloads of applications powered by iVerse since first launching in the App...
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| Samsung Galaxy Nexus Availability Leaks: Web-Only Launch On November 21 Posted: 07 Nov 2011 09:29 AM PST  The pending launch date of the next Google phone, Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus, has been a bit of a mystery up until now. “November” has always been a sure thing, but when exactly we’d be able to get up close and personal was as yet unknown. However, Droid-Life seems to have stumbled upon a Verizon roadmap, which should give us a clear peek at the Nexus’ availability, as well as that of couple other forthcoming phones. Let’s take a look, shall we? According to the leaked image (below), availability for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus will begin on November 21, four days after the international launch. We’re still unsure whether or not this handset will only be available online as its forefather the Nexus One was, but that “w/o” seems to suggest a web only launch. Luckily, this bad boy will be on sale through Black Friday, which falls on November 25 this year. The roadmap also outlines availability for a few other special devices, including the duo of new XOOM tablets we heard about last week (launching on November 30), as well as the Samsung Illusion and the BlackBerry Curve 9370, both of which will hit shelves on November 17. Samsung is one of the largest super-multinational companies in the world. It’s possibly best known for it’s subsidiary, Samsung Electronics, the largest electronics company in the world.
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| Spotify Lands On Windows Phone 7.5 Devices Today Posted: 07 Nov 2011 08:58 AM PST  Spotify just seems to be popping up everywhere, doesn’t it? In addition to the myriad media streamers and network receivers that Spotify has been appearing on lately, the music streaming service has just entered some wild and woolly new territory: Windows Phone 7.5. Yep, it took the Spotify team long enough (especially considering they’ve been working on it since at least April), but Redmond devotees will finally be able to get their streaming groove on. Spotify has been available on most major smartphone platforms for a while now, from mainstays like Android and iOS to even dying operating systems like MeeGo. All that extra time seems to have gone into giving the app a nice Metro facelift though, which is sure to please ardent Mango fans. Swiping back and forth in typical Windows Phone fashion allows users to navigate between new releases, playlists, friend feeds, and the like. Spotify also wins a few brownie points (in my book, anyway) for setting up their live tile to display playlist information — a particularly thoughtful use of live tiles if ever there was one. The new Spotify Mango app is set to go live in the Windows Phone Marketplace sometime today, but no further details were divulged. Sorry Spotifans: guess you’ll just have to stick it out a little longer. Image credit: @tomwarren
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| Streaming Music Service MOG To Be Pre-Loaded On AT&T’s New LTE Phones Posted: 07 Nov 2011 06:34 AM PST  Unlimited streaming music service MOG is expanding its footprint yet again with a new AT&T deal that will see its mobile application pre-installed on AT&T’s first new LTE smartphones: the Samsung Galaxy S Skyrocket and the HTC Vivid. The app will be pre-loaded onto these two AT&T 4G (LTE) phones, and customers will be able to try the service for free for a week. In addition, the company has integrated with AT&T’s billing system, so customers can pay for MOG via their regular phone bill. This is the first carrier pre-load deal for the all-you-can-eat streaming music service which is now offering a catalog of over 13 million songs for $9.99/month on mobile. MOG is already available as a standalone iOS app, Android app, desktop app, in BMW vehicles, and on media centers, TVs and Blu-ray players, including LG and Samsung TVs, Samsung Blu-ray players, Boxee, Roku, Sonos and more. The service also recently saw a big bump in usage thanks to the Facebook integration. Over the past month, MOG reported seeing its monthly active users jump over 264%, reaching 160,000 users via its Facebook app during the month of October (source: AppData). If the growth rate continues, that could bring MOG to 2 million Facebook users by year-end, CEO David Hyman says. Now as a pre-installed app on AT&T’s new LTE phones, the removal of the pre-registration process eliminates a big hurdle in acquiring new mobile user sign-ups. However, MOG will not disclose the current size of its user base, or how many more it expects the AT&T deal to bring, only saying that it expects the growth to be “significant.” MOG Inc. is a next-generation music media company founded in June 2005 by David Hyman, former CEO for Gracenote. MOG has one simple goal: to perfect your music listening experience. MOG's on-demand streaming music service provides multi-platform access to a deep library of over 13 million songs from over a million albums through its award-winning mobile apps on iPhone and Android, on the Web, desktop app for Mac and soon for Windows, streaming entertainment devices such as Roku, Sonos and...
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| Motorola Droid RAZR Review: So Close, Yet So Far Posted: 07 Nov 2011 06:07 AM PST  Short VersionThe Droid RAZR has been one highly anticipated phone, but can its performance keep up with the hype? Is it too big to be comfortable? Is there a catch that comes along with that 7.1mm waist line? Does 4G LTE paired with a dual-core processor really make a difference? Well, it’s basically the entire point of my existence to answer these questions for you. So off we go. Features:
Pros:
Cons:
Long Version:The Droid RAZR for Verizon is no doubt a beastly little phone. The combination of 4G LTE support and a dual-core processing chip makes for quite the snappy experience, and the design speaks for itself. While I’m not sure I can tell you it justifies its $299 price tag, I can say it certainly deserves its spot as one of the top contenders for this holiday season. Hardware:There’s one thing to be said for the Droid RAZR’s design before all else: it’s crazy thin. So thin, in fact, that I’m not sure pictures or video will do it justice. If you’re on the fence, please go pick up a device in-store and get a good feel for it in the hand because I have a feeling the RAZR suits a certain type of taste. To start, it was a tad big for me. I’ve always thought I had pretty large hands for a girl and I still felt awkward maneuvering around with the RAZR, pulling it in and out of pockets, or simply switching from portrait to landscape. Perhaps comfort with that is something that will happen over time, but it’s worth considering. Then there’s the matter of weight. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but just because this or that gadget is the “lightest” doesn’t mean that’s a good thing. The lightest gadgets are usually the cheaper gadgets, made of plastic and thus easily damaged. The Droid RAZR teeters on that line pretty nicely, but I have to admit that at times it felt a bit lighter than I wanted it to. Especially for a phone so thin, a little heft in the hand would go a long way to ensure sturdiness. Design-wise, I’m pretty much infatuated with the RAZR. Android devices tend to all blend in together, and when you venture deeper into the category of Motorola-branded Android devices it only gets worse. The RAZR has a different style than its fellow Moto brethren — while it keeps some of the design language like that classic Moto hump on the back, the sharpened and squared off corners and Kevlar fiber casing give it a distinct look. Not to mention, that back panel feels really nice in the hand, like a pricey alternative to soft touch rubber. If anything shines on the Droid RAZR at first glance, it’s the screen. The 4.3-inch display is a beauty in its own right, and if you enjoy gaming or mobile video you definitely need to think twice about this guy. Plus, the display is coated with Gorilla Glass to protect against small drops and the ever-famous “back pocket test.” Software:As you should already know, the Motorola Droid RAZR runs Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread and (thank the heavens!) without MotoBLUR in the way. There is still some form of a manufacturer skin running over Android, but it’s not nearly as heavy and annoying as Blur, by any stretch of the imagination. Quite unexpectedly, the majority of the Droid RAZR’s pre-loaded apps are actually useful, and may even play a role in your purchasing decisions. For one, NFL Mobile is free to 4G LTE customers through the 2011 season. Then, we have Netflix HD which simply must be put to use on such a stunning and massive display. I assume the MotoCast integration will also be a big pull for many consumers, and in my time with it it proved to be a nifty little service. It’s a similar idea to Apple’s iCloud, albeit less comprehensive. But on the whole the service is quick, easy and reliable, which is all you can ask out of streaming media between devices. It makes tasks that used to be tedious seamless, and makes you wonder why we haven’t been doing this all along. Verizon’s left its print on the RAZR, in the form of the V CAST Tones, Verizon Video, and VZW Navigator apps. Meanwhile, Moto has included MOTOPRINT and the MotoACTV app, which lets you sync information between your MotoACTV smart watch and the RAZR. Quickoffice also made its way into the RAZR, along with GoToMeeting, which is sure to keep any suit satisfied and smiling. Verizon included the BlockBuster app as well, along with a trial version of Madden NFL 12. Performance:Speaking of Madden, it killed the RAZR. Motorola made all kinds of unrealistic promises about the RAZR’s battery life at the unveiling in NYC, and none were more skeptical than myself. 4G radios suck up a ton of power — they don’t mean to, they just can’t help it. That said, 4G LTE devices will always be positioned for swifter deaths, and the RAZR was no exception. With about six hours of standby and about 3 hours of pretty intensive use, including gaming, video, and browsing, the Droid RAZR let me sleep in this morning after it died. Motorola’s thrown in a number of battery saving tools, which I highly recommend for any potential owners of the RAZR. As far as basic performance goes, I didn’t have much to gripe about with the RAZR. Switching between home screens, scrolling within the browser, and pinch-to-zoom commands within the image gallery were all as smooth and snappy as I had hoped. The browser loaded up pages with no trouble at all, but I was surprised to find that the Android browser got beat by both my iPhone 4S’s Safari browser and the Focus Flash’s IE9 Windows Phone browser. I ran the tests both over WiFi and the phone’s respective networks and in both instances, the Droid RAZR came in third. Still, there’s no reason to complain. IE9 is one of the fastest browsers I’ve seen on a phone, and the iPhone 4S… well, that’s where the real decision-making needs to happen. If you’re an Android loyalist, try not to let this particular speed factor matter too much. Otherwise, consider the iPhone 4S. Especially if you’re always surfing the interwebs. One thing I noticed rather quickly is that the Droid RAZR is hot. Yes, it’s a sexy phone to say the least, but it also overheats really easily. Within moments of booting up the phone and getting started it was burning up, and did so each time I used it. The slow-down in performance is a small one, to be sure, but if you’re paying attention you’ll notice it. The hotter the phone gets, the longer it takes to load up apps, or resume apps during multi-tasking. The camera on this bad boy simply can’t be ignored. Still images taken with the 8-megapixel shooter are high-quality to say the least, but what really impressed me was the RAZR’s video capture abilities. Taking stills, the camera adjusts for a while to get focused, and then takes another second or two to snap the picture. Mobile photography obviously doesn’t do well with any form of lag, so that was a bit sad to see. But video capture, on the other hand, is quick and responsive. The camera seems to focus well, even if you’re a bit shaky. Plus, I noticed that while shooting video the camera adjusts really quickly between dark and light settings. On many phones, the time it takes to go from a dark room out into the sunlight can be excessive, but I found the RAZR to squash those concerns pretty quickly. Naturally, the Droid RAZR packs a port for HDMI-out, so you don’t have to be shy with your 1080p videos either. Conclusion:All of Motorola’s pre-release hype set my expectations pretty high, but did the Droid RAZR manage to win me over? Almost. I still don’t think the lightweight feel lends itself well to the premium sort of experience Motorola was going for, and the RAZR’s battery left a lot to be desired. Even so, Motorola has managed to put together a really impressive (not to mention gorgeous) package with the Droid RAZR, and there’s a lot to like if you can live with a few shortcomings.
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