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How Pebble And Other Product Phenomenons Killed It On Kickstarter
Jul 09, 2:37AM
It's a good time to be Kickstarter. The crowdfunding platform has had a blockbuster year, breaking into mainstream consciousness with campaigns that raised millions of dollars, like the Pebble e-paper watch above. The platform has seen almost $275 million pledged to some 63,000 projects to date, with $231 million going towards successful fundings. As Devin wrote at the time, before February, no Kickstarter project had ever raised over $1 million, but since then, seven projects have surpassed $1 million, including the current #1, Pebble, which raised an astonishing $10 million. And this growth applies to multiple categories, not just sexy wrist watches. Prior to February only one gaming project had reached $100K in funding. Since then? 37. Even something as niche as webcomics saw its number of pledges double in February.Track Record In China Sets Cisco's "TOS" Scandal In A More Sinister Light
Jul 09, 12:32AM
Cisco did some apologizing this past week. The networking giant apologized for all the confusion about Cisco Connect Cloud and the suspect terms of service that many people viewed as a way for the company to monitor behavior and potentially cut off their router if they infringed. Cisco Connect Cloud is a service that updates a router automatically for customers. It's part of Cisco's effort to connect all the "things," in your home, be it your PC, tablet, appliances and anything else you can think of. It limits the owner's capability to control the router itself. The advantage, Cisco claims, is it gives you the ability to manage your router no matter where you are.Impermanent Data Apps, The Newest Weapons In The War For Messaging
Jul 08, 11:37PM
Earlier this week, Josh Constine wrote an epic piece on Facebook, Google and Apple's impending messaging war. As Constine explains, we have most likely reached "peak SMS," that is, text messaging is on the decline and another form of messaging will take its place. But as the major empires wage total war for glorious messaging spoils, there are far smaller, distant tribes that will make their own windfall of riches from the battle. Man I miss playing Age of Empires. As these tech giants extend their reach even further, it is quite possible that users will seek to regain control over their information and embrace applications that quickly erase or encrypt their messages and pictures. Especially if the companies' battle reduces their respect for users' privacy—like Facebook's aggressive email change last month. The real gold mine for these impermanent apps is that they aren't in the war. None of them can come close to these giants and none should try. But while the big three will likely engage in a winner take all battle, one or multiple apps can win side battles.Chirp, Chirp
Jul 08, 11:30PM
In other news....
Your Mobile Phone Is The Least Social Device You Own
Jul 08, 10:30PM
No buzzwords are more prominent in today's Silicon Valley lexicon than social and mobile. They're so big that they have their own love-child buzzword, SoLoMo (social-local-mobile, the nerd equivalent of Brangelina). Sadly for buzzwordians: mobile is not really social, in the consumption context anyway. Building for mobile requires us to dig deeper into the role it fills in our life. When we gather around a movie, TV or even use a desktop, we are carving out time and personally allocating our focus. Mobile does not get the same luxury. Mobile fills the gap of 2 minutes when your date leaves the dinner table; it fills the gap when we have brief moments of downtime.HTC Droid Incredible 4G LTE Review: Solid Little Phone, Awfully Big Name
Jul 08, 9:21PM
Does bigger always mean better? It depends on who you ask of course, but more than a few major smartphone manufacturers would probably say yes. Even the notorious hold-outs at Apple are rumored to be working on something a bit larger than their usual — in short, the race to be the biggest doesn't show any signs of letting up. In a market where big smartphones reign supreme though, Verizon and HTC seem to think that a smaller device can still captivate some jaded consumers. As a result they've put together the Droid Incredible 4G LTE, a poorly named device that manages to squeeze a surprising amount of power into a relatively small frame.Hey, That's Mine! Give It Back! The Fallacy Of The International Clone
Jul 08, 8:00PM
I have spent a lot of time in Brazil, working on my startup Colingo, about a month ago I was in Sao Paulo for Dave McClure's Geeks on A Plane. Brazil is a hot market with many firms like Accel and the famed Sequoia capital searching for opportunities. Many of these investors are looking to fund "copycat," business that emulate successful American startups. Businesses like Peixe Urbano (Groupon), Elo7 ( Etsy), Kekanto (Yelp), and Shoes4You (Shoedazzle). Whenever I come back to the Valley, I often hear whining that clones are the work of unimaginative thieves -- not real innovators. Genuine innovation requires brand new ideas, and is typically the work of a Stanford dropout (or at least Harvard). This is bullshit.Nokia's Richard Kerris: People Won't Remember Our Troubles By Next Spring
Jul 08, 6:40PM
Nokia's troubles today will be all but forgotten come next year, according to Richard Kerris, Nokia's global head of developer relations. By spring, he said during an interview in Sydney, Australia earlier today, people won't talk about the problems the company is having now. That doesn't mean the next months won't be hard for Nokia, but in Kerris' view, the company will come out of this phase stronger than ever before.How Colleges Are Becoming Entrepreneurial
Jul 08, 5:41PM
Colleges are starting to become startup incubators by offering a variety of classes and programs in order to help students pursue their entrepreneurial ambitions. This is good news for students because employers feel that they should gain entrepreneurship experience before graduating. Many professors are current or former entrepreneurs who act as mentors to students and teach them critical marketing, sales, and operation skills. The Kaufman Foundation estimates that more than 2,000 colleges and universities in the US, two thirds of the total, offer a course in entrepreneurship. There are now approximately 5,000 courses on entrepreneurship, up from 250 back in 1985. There are a few famous college dropouts, including Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, that didn't need a business curriculum to start their companies, and a few lucky students who were selected as part of Peter Thiel's "Thiel Fellowship" program, but they are outliers. Zuckerberg was in the right place at the right time and most students don't get into Thiel's program. Many students could use the education, network and support of an entrepreneurial institution.Ad Retargeter Criteo: People Who Click On Ads Totally Aren't Losers
Jul 08, 4:06PM
What kind of person clicks ads? When I talk to ad companies, there's a lot of discussion about how ads are supposed to be relevant, targeted based on user intent, and so on, but I've never entirely shaken the suspicion that the real answer is: Suckers. A company called Criteo just released some research saying that's pretty much a myth. Keep in mind that Criteo offers ad retargeting for e-commerce sites (which usually means targeting ads at people who visited a site but left without making or completing their purchase), so it's not exactly surprising that the company would say this. On the other hand, the research is supposedly based on the 147 million unique browsers who saw a Criteo retargeted in the first seven days of March, so there's some real data here.India's Prizm Payments On Track To Hit $50B In Transactions, Plans Square-Style Service For Feature Phones
Jul 08, 3:40PM
One of the more innovative moves in mobile commerce has been the rise of services like Square, PayPal's Here, iZettle, Payleven, and mPowa, which are based around using a dongle to turn a smartphone into a payment processor. Now Prizm Payments, an India-based payments company, is eyeing up how to bring that concept to its home market's 670 million+ mobile subscribers, by offering a similar service that will work not just with smartphones, but with the feature phones as well. A limited rollout of its service, covering about 200 merchants, is expected to begin this month, with a wider-scale deployment coming down the road. The move comes at the same time that Prizm, which counts Sequoia Capital India as one of its main investors (others include Axis Bank and Silicon Valley Bank), has hit other milestones the point to a rising use of non-cash payments in the country: Prizm is on track to process $50 billion in transactions this year, up from $35 billion last year; and it now has 30,000 point of sale processing devices and 10,000 ATMs in the country.The 20 Best iOS And Android Apps Of 2012 (So Far)
Jul 08, 1:00PM
Halfway into 2012, there are now more than 1.2 million mobile applications available to download to iOS and Android devices. With so many options literally at our fingertips – including dozens of worthy titles introduced to us each day – the task of compiling a mid-year "best of" list of new apps is more challenging (and enjoyable) than ever. Out of the hundreds (if not thousands) of titles worthy of inclusion, our favorite 20 iOS and Android apps released so far in 2012 can do everything from appraise the value of a home merely by taking its picture, to supplying users with loyalty swag merely for checking-in to their favorite TV shows. We also salute a highly anticipated game sequel that somehow catapulted beyond its otherworldly hype.Tmura: The Non-Profit that Uses Israeli Startup Exits to Do Good
Jul 08, 11:25AM
Tmura, an Israeli non-profit, is closing on its 10-year anniversary. In a decade's worth of work it has contributed a whopping $6.3M+ to educational programs. The extraordinary amount isn't the result of efficient fundraising, rather, of having been allotted small amounts of options by early-stage startups. Tmura then exercises these options when the startups see a liquidation event. Out of a portfolio of 240 companies, 40 saw exits, the most recent of which XtremIO's acquisition by EMC netted Tmura $450,000.8 Ways Mobile Developers Can Make The Most Money On Their Apps
Jul 08, 9:30AM
Have a mobile app? Wondering if advertising can help you make money from that app? Here are eight must-know tips to help you turn mobile app inventory into dollars. 1. It takes customers to make money While this is a piece about monetizing apps, the amount of money you can generate from an app is highly dependent upon the number of users you have. Once apps achieve popularity, their success spirals. In order to reach critical user adoption levels, engage in user acquisition best practices, from cross-promotion to viral distribution, and from PR to paid in-app advertising. Try multiple channels to see what works for you, and stick to vendors who allow you to pay based on the performance metrics that are relevant for your unique business needs. For example, don't pay for clicks if what you really care about is installs.Bringing Technologies To Mobile Applications
Jul 08, 4:08AM
I started as a mobile entrepreneur in the pre-iPhone era in 2006 as the founder of SnapTell, the first successful mobile app in the image recognition space. SnapTell was acquired by Amazon's subsidiary A9 in 2009. In 2011, I left Amazon to join Charles River Ventures to start a new company, Concept.io, which launches later this year. I reflected on lessons learned before embarking on the new venture and wanted to share them with the community. This article shares lessons I learned and discusses mobile trends that have emerged since.Could Cloud Gaming Kill The Next-Generation Video Game Console?
Jul 07, 11:00PM
The current generation of game consoles is getting a bit long in the tooth, but signs point to late 2013 as the earliest that a replacement for either the PlayStation or Xbox consoles will come online. But then something interesting happened this past week, which could change the way that console makers think about their hardware and software service: Sony bought cloud gaming company GaiKai for $380 million. Sure, rumors abound about what hardware, chips, and specs these devices will have when or if they're eventually released. All indications point to about the same type of hardware development we've seen in past consoles -- including high-performance, next-gen CPUs and GPUs to power even more robust gameplay and graphics capabilities. But if I were Microsoft or Sony right now, I'm not sure I'd be betting on an ever-more powerful box to power its new game platforms. In fact, I'd take a contrarian approach and make as lean of a box as possible, and put all the processing power up in the cloud.Fly Or Die: Samsung Galaxy S III
Jul 07, 9:00PM
I said in my review that the Samsung Galaxy S III is the phone you've been waiting for, and the same holds true in this latest episode of Fly Or Die. John and I took a look at the various specs, namely the NFC-style features and S-Voice, and we both walked away with a warm, fuzzy feeling. To put it quite bluntly, the Galaxy S III is far and away the best Android phone you can buy today. Sure, the plastic back panel is a bit "chintzy," as John would say, but that's irrelevant when you look at the value in this phone.To Subscribe Or Not Subscribe? That Is The eCommerce Question
Jul 07, 8:00PM
According to my twitter feed subscription commerce is an overblown, shark jumping smoke screen and the companies that created the model are abandoning it left and right. The comparison to the flash sale model and to group buying seems to fit because the subscription commerce category has a few leaders and a ton of "me too" companies. On the surface it looks like all of them are just putting shit in a box and money in the bank but this is pattern matching gone wrong.Is The Lumia 1001 Nokia's First Windows Phone 8 Device?
Jul 07, 7:50PM
With Windows Phone 8's launch fast approaching, it not exactly a surprise to hear that Nokia is slaving away on some new hardware. The Nokia Lumia 910 -- which some suspect is a Lumia 900 meant for T-Mobile USA -- was recently spotted thanks to Nokia's Remote Device Access service, but that's not all the Finnish company seems to have in the works. A new device called the Nokia Lumia 1001 was also detected by one of Nokia's remotely-accessible phones, and its significant model number jump could mean it's the company's first Windows Phone 8 device. Or does it?UserVOD Helps Mobile Developers (Virtually) Look Over Users' Shoulders
Jul 07, 7:00PM
It must be something in the air. A few weeks ago, ClickTale released a version of its visitor recording and activity heatmap product for the mobile web. On Thursday, we wrote about Delight.io's service for recording user sessions in mobile apps. And now a startup called UserVOD is announcing the public beta of, yes, a product for recording user sessions in mobile apps. Co-founders Zahi Boussiba and Yani Douek were previously working together on a mobile social shopping app called ShopTalk. One of the challenges they discovered was the fact that all the feedback was written or verbal, which could sometimes be hard to understand, and didn't really convey the full user experience.If at any time you'd like to stop receiving these messages, just send an email to feeds_feedburner_com_techcrunch+unsubscribe-hmdtechnology=gmail.com@mail.feed2email.net.
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