Categorie: mobile

7-Weeks In, Dalton Caldwell’s App.net Gets First Dedicated iOS App, Passes 17,500 Users

App.net, apps, Dalton Caldwell, mobile, social, Startups, TC, Twitter

mzl.rvtbbxxb.320x480-75Back in July, Dalton Caldwell (of imeem and picplz fame) announced an “audacious” goal: To create a better, developer-and-user-supported (and ad-free) alternative to Twitter. And so App.net was born. About a month later, the subscription-based, third party app-supporting Twitter clone reached its fund-raising goal of $500K — all of which came from a community of 7,500+ enthusiastic supporters.

Though the service has a long way to go before it can compete with the big boys, today, the App.net founder announced some milestones that show it’s making some solid progress. Over 250K posts have been created in the 7-weeks since App.net’s debut, with some 50 percent of posts coming from third-party clients. As of August 28th, the service has over 17,500 (paying) users, which works out to about 14 posts per user. Not only that, but as reported by The Next Web, today the service’s first dedicated iOS client officially hit the App Store.

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biNu Socializes Its Feature Phone App Platform

binu, mobile, social, Startups, TC

galaxy_homebiNu, a startup backed by Eric Schmidt’s TomorrowVentures, allows owners of feature phones and lower-end smartphones to access apps like Facebook and Twitter. Now the company is getting more ambitious on the social networking side.

CEO Gour Lentell tells me that it wasn’t really his plan to build a social network. Instead, biNu focused initially on making content accessible — whether it’s Wikipedia, the Bible, or a news site like TechCrunch. But users wanted to share and interact around the content, so biNu has been slowly adding social features over time, until the team realized that it was becoming “fully social,” Lentell says. A few weeks ago, the company launched its own social app on biNu home screen, and next week, it’s adding the last big piece, a news stream where you can follow updates from other users.

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Facebook Saturation?: Twitter, Skype, Instagram & Other Apps Downloaded More In July

apps, distimo, facebook, Instagram, mobile, Mobile & Apps, social, Social Networking, social networks, TC, WhatsApp

Apple FacebookBased on downloads, Facebook’s iPhone app was no longer the most popular mobile social networking app in many Asian countries and elsewhere from July 2011 to June 2012. This, according to the latest report from app store analytics firm Distimo, which took a look at trends surrounding mobile social networking applications over the past two years. Distimo found that apps like LINE, WeChat and Viber took over the leading position of Facebook in some countries, and Instagram become the second most popular app on iPhone within one year, after examining data aggregated over the 20 largest countries.

In addition, in July 2012, Instagram had more downloads than Facebook, and apps like Twitter, Skype and Whatsapp were also popular.

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Facebook Saturation?: Twitter, Skype, Instagram & Other Apps Downloaded More In July

apps, distimo, facebook, Instagram, mobile, Mobile & Apps, social, Social Networking, social networks, TC, WhatsApp

Apple FacebookBased on downloads, Facebook’s iPhone app was no longer the most popular mobile social networking app in many Asian countries and elsewhere from July 2011 to June 2012. This, according to the latest report from app store analytics firm Distimo, which took a look at trends surrounding mobile social networking applications over the past two years. Distimo found that apps like LINE, WeChat and Viber took over the leading position of Facebook in some countries, and Instagram become the second most popular app on iPhone within one year, after examining data aggregated over the 20 largest countries.

In addition, in July 2012, Instagram had more downloads than Facebook, and apps like Twitter, Skype and Whatsapp were also popular.

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Shuffler.fm Brings Its “Flipboard For Music” Service To iPhone, Offers Sneak Peek At Spotify App

apps, ios, Media, mobile, Music, music blogs, music discovery, musictech, radio, radiozine, Shuffler.fm, social, Startups, TC

Screen shot 2012-08-29 at 8.28.38 PMAs the Web is stuffed with more and more content, we’re increasingly in need of good curators to help us discover the things we’ll love amidst the noise. Flipboard, for one, rose to popularity by transforming your favorite digital news sources into a socially-curated mobile magazine. Shuffler.fm is on a mission to do the same for music discovery, combining Flipboard’s successful formula with a little Pandora and a little ex.fm. The result is what the Amsterdam-based startup is calling a “radiozine” — a music discovery guide that turns the industry’s popular blogs and websites into mobile radio stations.

Launching its iPad app in November, Shuffler.fm aggregates content from a long list of mainstream and niche music sites, allowing users to peruse, discover and listen to tunes based on genre, style and what’s trending. And now Shuffler is spreading to the rest of iOS, bringing its radiozine-style music discovery service to the iPhone and iPod Touch, along with giving us a sneak peek at the debut of its Spotify app.

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Nielsen: Native Travel Apps Trump Mobile Web By 95%, Google Maps Top Travel Service By A Mile [Updated]

apps, google maps, maps, mobile, navigation, Nielsen, social, TC, travel, waze

google maps iphoneNative app usage has been edging just ahead of mobile web usage among U.S. smartphone owners in the last few months, but when it comes to the category of travel, mobile web use all but disappears from the map. According to figures out today from Nielsen, 95% of all mobile traffic for travel-related content comes from native mobile apps — specifically on iOS and Android platforms. Mobile web — and traffic on operating systems that are not Android and iOS, for that matter — accounts for only 5% of visits.

And just as Google has come to dominate search, it looks to be carving out a similar position in travel, a mobile-friendly category by its nature: Google Maps — in its combined native app and mobile web forms — accounted for 78% of all time spent in the travel category in June 2012, with a total of 78 million app users, and another 17 million on mobile web. It will be interesting to see how that transforms as Apple drops Google Maps in favor of its own mapping service in iOS 6.

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Tripbirds Pivots From Social Travel Omnibus To Social Hotel Booking Site

Europe, mobile, social, social travel, Startups, TC, travel, tripbirds

tripbirds-03-instagramWhen I interviewed Tripbirds co-founder Ted Valentin before the social travel recommendation site’s launch in March, he told me that hotel bookings formed the core of Tripbirds’ revenue-generation model. “If we can nail hotel recommendations, you don’t have to do more to have a valuable business,” he said. Now, Tripbirds is taking this idea to heart: the social travel network is from today paring down and relaunching as a social hotel bookings site, using friend recommendations and Instagram photos, supplemented by traditional hotel listings, to help you figure out the best place to stay wherever you are going.

The reason for Tripbirds’ pivot? The company — backed by Index Ventures, Passion Capital and Creandum, angel investors Peter Read, Wrapp’s Andreas Ehn, Soundcloud’s Eric Wahlforss and Alexander Ljung, and Path’s Dave Morin — decided that its service needed to be pared down and “easier to understand,” according to Martina Elm, communications manager for the site. Before the relaunch, the social travel site was more open-ended — the recommendations could be for places to stay, but they could also be about sites, bars and whatever else people wanted to post.

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How to Become a Mobile App Developer [Infographic]

app, careers, developer, education, Infographics, iphone, mobile

Software development is going mobile, bringing applications to phones, laptops and tablets everywhere. Gartner predicts that by 2015 mobile app development projects will outnumber PC application projects by 4 to 1.Mobile app developers are reaping the benefits of 45 percent year over year employment growth, according to Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Dice.com reported a 100 percent increase […]

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Ex-Digg Engineers Launch “Well,” A Social List-Making App That Thinks Beyond The To-Do

apps, mobile, mobile app, social, social app, Startups, TC, to-do, well

wellWell, a new social and collaborative to-do list application from former Digg, Blip.fm and Rackspace engineers, is officially launching today on iPhone, web and mobile web. But according to ex-Digg engineer and Well CEO Arin Sarkissian, the focus for the application isn’t only on typical “to-dos” which is why the app’s name doesn’t include “to-do” in its title. Instead, the idea for Well is to serve as a repository for any type of list, whether that’s books to read, movies to see, things you like or don’t like, or even a collection of things you may be comparing in advance of a future purchase.

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Pocket Gems Eyes A Younger Female Audience With Tap Campus Life

Gaming, mobile, social, TC

Screen Shot 2012-08-27 at 5.46.07 AMPocket Gems, a Sequoia Capital-backed mobile gaming startup, is eyeing a younger female demographic with a new game out today — Tap Campus Life. It puts the company in more direct competition with rivals like Crowdstar, which is behind fashion-focused Top Girl and Social Girl. Tap Campus Life is a sorority and fashion game where players have to build up a house by recruiting new members and decorating.

Like other freemium gaming companies, Pocket Gems should be facing some heat or downward pressure on valuations after Zynga’s tumultuous decline from a $14 billion valuation before its IPO to its current $2.5 billion market capitalization. But the company says it has had its best month ever in terms of revenues, particularly with games like Tap Paradise Cove.

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