Posts Tagged ‘MobileBeat’
Deadline approaches for DiscoveryBeat 2010 Needle in the Haystack business idea contest
We’ve got just a couple of hours left until the deadline for our for DiscoveryBeat 2010.
At our first last December, Ge Wang, chief technology officer and co-founder of Smule spoke about how his company made a deliberate effort to create humorous videos of people using Smule’s apps for the iPhone. Some were so entertaining they were viewed millions of times, giving Smule great exposure for its products. Lots of users discovered the Smule apps through YouTube, whose do-it-yourself, youth-oriented culture was a great match for the audience Smule was targeting on the iPhone. Overall, the marriage of the iPhone app and YouTube turned out to be a great idea for content discovery.
That’s the kind of story we’re looking for from entrants to the for the best business idea related to discovery of content. If you’d like to enter the contest, click on this and fill out the form before 5 pm today, PST, Oct. 1. There is no fee for entering the contest, which is open to companies big and small. The winner will get to go on stage before our audience of movers and shakers at DiscoveryBeat 2010, which takes place Oct. 18 at the Mission Bay conference center in San Francisco.
Getting content noticed is a challenge for everyone making apps. We’ll cover the topic at . Early bird discounts are available until September 22. Sponsors can contact us at sponsors@venturebeat.com. To buy tickets, .
Microsoft sues Motorola in a roundabout Android attack
We’ve seen this before: Microsoft today filed a patent lawsuit against Motorola, saying that the device maker’s Android phones infringed on nine of its patents.
Microsoft filed the action in both a Washington District Court and the International Trade Commission.
In a statement, Microsoft deputy general counsel and corporate vice president Horacio Gutierrez said that the patents relate to functionality in Motorola’s Android devices that are “essential to the smartphone user experience” — including meeting scheduling, contacts and calendars, email synchronization, and reporting changes in battery and cellular signal strength to applications.
In March, against phone maker HTC for its Android device. Apple later , but , alleging that Apple was infringing on its patents.
Microsoft , which may have given it some protection against further Apple bullying. The agreement gives HTC coverage under Microsoft’s patent portfolio for its Android phones, and Microsoft will receive royalties from the company in exchange.
It’s strange that Microsoft resorted to a lawsuit for Motorola, instead of forming a similar patent agreement. (Then again, this lawsuit may be the result of Motorola refusing such an agreement.) The action also coincides with — including Andy Lees, who spearheaded Windows Phone 7 development and is now president of the mobile communications division.
Motorola used to be a big Windows Mobile partner, so the lawsuit may be some sort of roundabout revenge by Microsoft. Motorola has no plans for Windows Phone 7 devices and is instead devoting itself to Android.
View Microsoft’s full suit below:
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After big departures, Microsoft promotes three new presidents
Microsoft today that it’s promoting three executives to serve as the presidents of its Office, mobile, and interactive entertainment divisions.
Several Microsoft veterans departed this year. , and last month, business division chief .
The promotions include:
- Kurt DelBene, who recently led engineering and development on Office 2010, is now president of the Microsoft Office division.
- Andy Lees, who led marketing and product development of Windows Phone 7, is now president of the mobile communications division.
- Don Mattrick, who had a leadership role on Microsoft’s Xbox products, is now president of the interactive entertainment business.
If it sounds like not much is changing, well, that’s also the analysis of Cnet’s Microsoft reporter Ina Fried: “The moves essentially leave all of Microsoft’s businesses in largely the same shoes.”
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Verizon plans point to Motorola “Stingray” tablet, no BlackBerry Storm 3
A glimpse at Verizon Wireless’s product roadmap reveals “Stingray” as a potential name for Motorola’s 10-inch tablet, some new devices, as well as the fact that the carrier doesn’t want the BlackBerry Storm 3, according to .
We on Verizon’s potential Motorola tablet, but now there are even more details. The tipsters say that it’s a 10-inch device called the “Stingray” running Android 3.0 (codenamed “Gingerbread”, due for release later this year) and Nvidia’s Tegra 2 chip. It will include 16GB of storage and will be upgradable to Verizon’s upcoming 4G network built on the LTE wireless standard — although we’re not quite sure how that will happen yet. The Stingray is expected to land in early 2011.
It’s not at all surprising that Verizon may forgo the BlackBerry Storm 3. The first two Storms were ill-fated attempts at bringing iPhone-like touchscreen devices to the BlackBerry family. , it doesn’t appear to be much different from its predecessor. Verizon’s potential rejection of the device doesn’t exclude other carriers from adopting it, so the Storm’s handful of fans could fulfill their curious desires elsewhere.
In other news revealed by the tipsters, may hit Verizon in October, and it may be accompanied by Motorola’s Venus — an Android phone with a full keyboard below the screen (like the Palm Pre or BlackBerry Torch) — and . There’s also word that will launch on October 7, and that the carrier will bring out LTE modems from LG, Pantech, and Novatel in November. An LTE-capable Wi-Fi router under the MiFi brand is expected some time afterwards.
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Four reasons why Facebook should acquire Skype
Andreas Bernström is chief executive of , a VOIP calling service.
Voice is the new black. Seems like after all the hype of apps, the world still wants to connect in real-time and in many cases is willing to pay for such value. In the battle of voice, Skype, Google, Apple, telecom operators and independent outfits are gearing up for battle. The trillion-dollar land grab is officially on.
Apple launched FaceTime video chat. Google Talk is turning into the new pay phone. Oh, and Skype has filed for an IPO as well as announcing plans to enter the enterprise space.
But besides the indie stalwarts, who’s the dark horse in the room?
Facebook.
What should it do? How should it enter the space? The answer is clear. Buy Skype.
Yes, despite the rumors you may have heard that , or working on the software that a third party hardware device would support, the company has clear ambitions to leverage their massive contact lists and the opportunities to do that go well beyond a simple Facebook phone.
I’m not the only person to think of this. Following , GigaOm wondered, “” Here are four reasons why a Skype purchase makes sense:
1. Facebook’s social graph is the best phonebook in the world built from their mission statement up.
Facebook’s mission statement reads:
Facebook is a social utility that helps people communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers. The company develops technologies that facilitate the sharing of information through the social graph, the digital mapping of people’s real-world social connections.
Sounds like a calling option fits right in. What could be more real-time?
The list of companies that have had a similar mission statement is long. However, what sets Facebook apart from its predecessors is the unique critical mass of users. Let’s be honest here. Do you know anyone who matters to you (other than possibly your grandparents) who you cannot get a hold of through Facebook?
From a network perspective, Facebook epitomizes . What that means for people is that the value of joining Facebook is simply too great to ignore just because it is so ubiquitous. Facebook is the sole social network to ever exist that plays host to a social graph made up of our real-world social connections. I am not talking about the same people we follow on Twitter and enjoy the occasional update from. I am talking about people we actually know.
Sure Facebook could try to build this themselves but Skype has a lot of things that Facebook doesn’t including excellence in calling service, routing, origination and termination. Skype owns relationships with carriers, operators and suppliers worldwide. They have built out online fraud and payment expertise. This isn’t rocket science for Facebook to build, but takes a lot of time and talent.
2. Facebook and Skype have a common lineage.
These social behemoths intersect at Marc Andreessen, whom VentureBeat has called . Andreessen’s venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, which he cofounded with longtime business partner Ben Horowitz, was a lead firm in the buyout of Skype from eBay only a few months ago. In addition, he also holds a position on the Facebook board of directors and is widely known as a close advisor to Mark Zuckerberg himself.
If there is anyone who could build a bridge between Skype and Facebook and turn them into one symbiotic entity, it is Andreessen. With regards to the rumored (and probably imminent) social networking war between Facebook and Google, it is rather unlikely Andreessen hasn’t noticed the synergies and end user value a marriage between Skype and Facebook would entail.
If are true, Facebook is bound to create a more holistic and compelling ecosystem, similar to Google’s. A lot of us are already heavily invested in Google and it is absolutely vital for Facebook to include voice as a cornerstone in the project of building a social eco-system appealing and competitive enough to go against Google.
3. Facebook is already the most popular mobile app of all time, ready for a turn-key global calling play.
The most recent numbers speak for themselves. Out of more than 500 million people using Facebook, 30 percent, or approximately 150 million, interact with the service on a regular basis using a mobile device. They access the service either through the Facebook mobile website or by way of any of the mobile apps Facebook has made available for the Android, Blackberry and iPhone platforms. With the continuous proliferation in the use of third-party apps on mobile devices, this figure is bound to keep soaring.
Other than the obvious value of being able to connect with friends while on the go (for free), users also have access to the most comprehensive, cloud-based contact list out there. The tedious process of constantly making sure all contacts details to your friends are current is no longer a concern either, as a Facebook Phone Book manages itself by having all the personal details in it tied to Facebook profiles.
Facebook becoming our de facto address book is a vision bound to become reality in a not too distant future. It is a highly utilitarian aspect of the service that hasn’t been properly exploited. By deeply integrating Skype, the most recognized consumer calling service with the greatest mind share, Facebook would not only boost its revenue to greater heights but also position the company very favorably in the war against Google.
4. Skype wants a big exit but also a better fit than last time.
Let’s face it. eBay didn’t know how to properly leverage Skype. It was a
failed premise from the start that sellers would want to talk to their buyers on eBay. This time around Skype certainly wants the best financial exit. Besides pure cash
liquidity, who has the fastest rising private stock? It’s got to be Facebook
in the last 6 months, with analysts valuation having been raised from $10 billion to
$33 billion.
Who can scale Skype to the biggest user base? It has to be
Facebook again. Skype may want $5 billion but would it settle for $4 billion and the
promise of a fast rising stock like Facebook. Skype founders would
ideally like to stay involved if such an acquisition happened, but that seems doubtful with Zennstrom and Friis being notoriously difficult and probably not compatible with Facebook’s intent on running a tight ship.
Why does a combined SkypeBook beat Google? The graph is greater.
By building the social graph for all Google services of any remote social nature based on the people we send emails to, Google committed a cardinal sin that might prove detrimental. The connections tied to your Gmail account that now also double as your Google Chat contacts (yes, the same ones Google wants you to call), are predominantly formal contacts. Your co-workers, your real estate agent and so on. The people that we send emails to are not the same people that we want to have a voice, let alone a video conversation with.
Email was, is, and will be the main standard for formal communication for a foreseeable future. We use it to communicate with our co-workers, to send customer support requests and to contact our real estate agent when we want to sell our house.
Dan Tapscott (celebrated author of Wikinomics and Grown Up Digital), frequently touches on this in the context of media habits for the generation of Digital Natives:
Young people don’t use email anymore. They see it as a traditional form of communication. They use it to thank their grandparents for a Birthday gift (or other times when they have to speak with old people).
So, where are all these friends that we want call? Chances are you’ll find them on Facebook.
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Eniac Ventures raises $1.6M fund for mobile startups
A team of four mobile entrepreneurs and investors just announced that they’ve formed , a seed investment firm aiming to back in mobile startups.
The firm says it has raised $1.6 million in its first fund, which it will invest in $25,000 to $100,000 chunks over the next four years or so.
Eniac is the supposedly the first seed fund with an exclusive focus on the mobile industry. And its partners Hadley Harris, Nihal Mehta, Vic Singh, and Tim Young aren’t just investors — they all have high-level positions at mobile startups right now. Mehta, for example, was an angel investor in AdMob (which was ), but he’s also the chief executive of mobile startup .
The firm is named after . The idea is that the mobile phones are the next big computing platform and will, in Mehta’s words, become “bigger than the Web giants that emerged a decade ago.” (Plus, Eniac was built at the University of Pennsylvania, which is where the four partners met as well.)
Eniac says it has already invested in six startups, including , , , and .
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Magic Solver filters the crowded App Store to find apps that are “magical” (video)
is attacking the app discovery problem head on. With more than 250,000 apps on the iPhone and iPad, it’s easy for developers’ apps to get lost and it’s hard for users to find they really enjoy.
So Magic Solver has created the Daily Magic Cube app, which you can see in the picture and the video below in its iPad format. The company finds magical apps, or those that are delightful or surprisingly good in some way (it doesn’t refer to magic tricks). The Daily Magic Cube app presents you with just a single “magical” app each day that the company believes will knock your socks off. You can tap the screen to buy it if you want it. It also presents you with other highly filtered selections of news, videos or music. It thus reduces the complex, crowded App Store into a very simple app.
I caught up with the company today at the in Sunnyvale, Calif. Emmanuel Carraud, chief executive of Magic Solver, was one of 40 executives that spoke about startups before a crowd of investors. His company is addressing the key issue of app discovery that we will address at our DiscoveryBeat 2010 conference on Oct. 18.
The point of the app is to save you time sorting through all of the content to find twhat you want, said Carraud, whose company is based in Cambridge, U.K. The presentation is cute as an animation reveals the app of the day to you. If you want more than just one app, you can browse through a bunch of categories such as Top Stories, Gossip, Sports, or Health. You can view the top-rated and most-watched video on YouTube. You can check out tweets, view pictures, listen to songs and find other cool stuff.
Magic Solver is getting ready to launch the app in the U.S., where the company hasn’t had much of a presence yet. It has set up an office at the Plug and Play Tech Center in order to pull off the launch.
The company was formed in 2008 by Carraud and two friends, Oliver Lamming and Leon Palm, from Cambridge University. They created a Sudoku Solver that worked by taking a photo of a Sudoku puzzle and then solving it for you. They went on to win a business competition at Cambridge and have since created a bunch of games and other apps — Daily Magic Cube is the 15th — that have been downloaded more than 2.5 million times.
Getting content noticed is a challenge for everyone making apps. Join us at DiscoveryBeat 2010 and hear secrets from top industry executives about how to break through and profit in the new cross-platform app ecosystem. From metrics to monetization, we’ll take an in depth look at the best discovery strategies and why they’re working. The conference takes place on October 18th at the Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco. Sponsors can contact us at sponsors@venturebeat.com. To buy tickets, .
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