by Steve Smith on Mar 31, 10:43 AM
CEO Geoff Cook tells me that the mobile traffic for now is fairly evenly distributed across the iPhone, Android and mobile Web platforms. MyYearbook has seven apps in all, and it sees 25,000 new installs a day. The apps represent the fastest-growing segment of mobile traffic and, within the apps, the Android platform is getting 30% to 40% more installs a day than iPhone at this point.
by Steve Smith on Mar 29, 3:32 PM
Don't call mobile news app Newsy a mere "aggregator." They prefer "curator," thank you very much. And now they get a bit of investor cred with which to put on airs. The Missouri company just closed a $1.5 million funding round. By recent Web investment standards that may seem like a lunch tip, but consider that Newsy is a small start-up in Columbia, Mo. partnered with the Missouri School of Journalism. Its singular business right now is creating two-minute video news clips for apps that sit on the iPad, iPhone, Android and BlackBerry devices. Somewhere in this cool experiment is …
by Steve Smith on Mar 24, 3:30 PM
In my life, search is fast becoming a better experience on a handset than it is on the web. In some ways the imperatives of the small screen, bandwidth constraints, and relevance appear to be driving the search providers to real innovation here.
by Steve Smith on Mar 22, 4:30 PM
"Google it on your thingie." Much as I would like to say that this is secret sexual code between me and my partner, it is just the way that my beloved college computer science instructor refers to mobile search. Now that our wedding is fast approaching, we are on the road a lot meeting with DJs, photographers, going to truly nightmarish wedding fairs and expos (no, really -- scary stuff) and getting lost in more ways than we knew were possible. The mobile phones are now the search tool of choice even when we sit in front of computers.
by Steve Smith on Mar 17, 5:33 PM
The iPad iAds are here! The iPad iAds are here! Oh, give me a break. Maybe I am still hung over from the iPad 2 hype-apalooza of last weekend. While lines formed outside the local Apple store on Friday to nab a modestly updated version of the iPad, I decided to pass up even going to observe. But hot on the heels of one gasp of breathless press coverage, Apple launches iAds for the iPad this week with an inaugural campaign from Unilever (Dove Men+Care).
by Steve Smith on Mar 15, 4:32 PM
There is something to be said for Hollywood's experience in entertaining people, a quality that is absent in the new channels we like to think are smarter and more fleet of foot than those tired old media models. Mobile and tablet apps may actually give the movie makers themselves another crack at the consumer and recreate a bit of the magic that is lost in a digital catalog of box art and pop-up synopses.
by Steve Smith on Mar 10, 2:45 PM
From the new iOS 4.3 and Apple TV OS updates that flew yesterday, it's s becoming clearer how Apple is starting to settle into the home environment and knit together mobile and home entertainment experiences. Let the tech dweeb do timed test runs of the new Safari engine or gush over iPad 2 specs. The upgrades to Apple's OS that are of the greatest long-term consequence involve integration across devices.
by Steve Smith on Mar 8, 3:15 PM
At last week's OMMA Global Mobile Insider track, PCWorld/Macworld's head of mobile Ulla McGee reiterated that you have to iterate. On the panel discussion about app development for publishers, it was apparent that the most advanced content providers have gotten the message about how much like traditional publishing this platform really is. The audience needs to be kept interested. Downloaded apps are easily forgotten. Even minor tweaks and updates can bring your app back into someone's update column in their app store to remind them you are still there.
by Steve Smith on Mar 4, 4:00 PM
We have to watch Bambi tonight," I tell my fiancée, who is now accustomed to my offbeat pop culture obsessions. Her typical wry response to my sojourns into obscure silent era animation, exploitation flicks of the '70s and the rural sitcoms of Paul "Beverly Hillbillies" Henning is also standard now. "Are we going to be discussing the 'sub-textual' references and deconstructing the underlying politics of 'Green Acres' tonight -- or just watching like normal people for a change?" Wiseass. We need to watch Bambi's new Blu-ray iteration because a "Disney Second Screen" iPad app also dropped this week.
by Steve Smith on Mar 2, 10:45 AM
Good thing for ABC's digital wing that the first screen was barely worth watching at this year's Academy Awards. Considering the godawfulness of James Franco's stoned hosting and the otherwise endearing Anne Hathaway's compensatory earnestness, it isn't saying much that the second screen experience was probably the only thing worth watching. It wasn't quite that bad, of course. The best-case scenario might have been adding the live TV feed in with the Oscar.com All Access and mobile Backstage Pass products this year. I happened to watch all three at once and ended up sticking with a combination of the iPad …
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