Kik’s Cross-Platform Messaging App Makes Its Public Debut On Symbian (Yes, Symbian)

Kik, the cross-platform messaging app that works on iOS, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone, is today publicly launching on Symbian after a month of private beta testing. The new Kik Messenger for Symbian brings improved group texting, sent, delivered, and received receipts, notifications to indicate when someone is typing, support for photo sharing, and the ability to locate your contacts who already using Kik.
But I know what you’re thinking: why Symbian?
According to Kik CEO Ted Livingston, Symbian was “a logical next step” given the app’s recent return to BlackBerry devices. The company feels that to be truly a cross-platform application, you can’t just focus on the leaders, iPhone and Android, you have to address the needs of the complete smartphone market.
Says Livington, “frankly, I think writing Symbian off is a very North American centric perspective and is quite premature. There are hundreds of millions of Symbian users globally, with millions more expected to be added to the platform with the last generations of Symbian devices.”
“That’s a huge, diverse, global group of users who are hungry to use their smartphones in new ways,” he says. “If you want to truly change the way the world communicates, you can’t ignore Symbian users.”
So there. That’s why.
It’s also not a bad strategy for user adoption, either. The problem with many of today’s messaging apps (or voice apps, video chat apps, “social” apps, etc.) is that you’re expected to use them with others, but the app doesn’t run on but one or two platforms. As an iPhone/Android household ourselves, there’s an endless frustration with today’s iOS-centric marketing focus alone. Android users are people too!, I want to scream. I can’t imagine how the poor, slighted Symbian folks must feel then. (But seriously, maybe you should upgrade.)
If you’re still a Symbian user, though, at least you now have a great new app to try. You can grab Kik from the Ovi Store here. Everyone else can get their version from the mobile Kik homepage: justclick here from your phone’s browser.
Source:http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/01/kiks-cross-platform-messaging-app-makes-its-public-debut-on-symbian-yes-symbian/

New Social Discovery App Ntro Launches, Backed By $1.7 Million In Funding

The L.A.-based startup nProgress is launching a new social discovery app ntro this morning, backed by over $1.7 million in funding from Jarl Mohn, Gordon Crawford, Kevin Wall, Activation Media Partners, Baroda Ventures, SV Angel, Jeff Pulver and Richard Crowell. The app, available now for iPhone and Android, is meant to connect you with others around who you may know through mutual friends or with those who share a common interest.
But unlike the others in this space (and there are plenty), ntro is staging its rollout to its target markets. It launches today in L.A. and the San Francisco Bay area, with additional cities planned for the future.
Ntro is offering an interesting combination of features we’ve previously seen in other “social discovery” apps, like Sonar, Banjo, Mingle and Holler, to name just a few. Like Sonar, ntro highlights those nearby you may know through mutual friends. Like Holler, it connects people around interests. Like Mingle, it’s focused on making introductions. And like Banjo, it does it all automatically.
Where ntro may have a bit of an edge, at least for now, is in terms of the customizations it provides. There are extensive filters and controls offered, allowing you to set your top interests as well as filter and search the surrounding crowd by very narrow interests. That is, not just “music” or “rock music” but the name of a favorite band, for example.
There’s also a heavy focus on privacy – the app never shares your location, nor does it share your personal info (like your phone number, email or even last name) without your consent.
With these extensive protections in place, there’s a bit of distance between you and those around you, which is quite unlike thecreepy/awesomeness that is the social stalkerish Banjo or Sonar. In testing ntro, I couldn’t even see users’ profile photos, which is either due to the photo approval process (there’s a delay) or users’ own choice to not show their face (that’s an option). But if you really think you’ve found your soulmate/business connection/new best friend based on interests, you can message them via the app.
The other standout feature from ntro is the cover flow-esque way you browse through interests, where every item, whether a band, a book, a sport, an activity, etc., is given its own thumbnail. You then just tap the thumbnail to who else likes that item and is nearby.
At present, anyone can download the app and poke around, but only those in L.A. and S.F. will find nearby matches. The focus for the rollout is on large metro areas, with the next cities planned being New York, Chicago, D.C. and Boston.
Source:http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/01/new-social-discovery-app-ntro-launches-backed-by-1-7-million-in-funding/

W3i Announces $10 Million Marketing Fund For Indie Game Developers

W3i, a monetization and distribution network for mobile app developers, is announcing the launch of a new $10 million “AppX Game Developer Marketing Fund” at this week’s AppNation conference in San Francisco. The fund will provide developers with a suite of free services that offer production support, analytics and user acquisition channel analysis, all of which are designed to help indie developers compete with today’s “AAA” gaming giants.
The company says that it wants to help level the playing field for indie game developers by providing them with better analytics on their mobile apps, allowing them to make better business decisions. This, in turn, will help developers with the increasing challenge of user acquisition and monetization in the ever-crowded Apple and Android app stores.
The AppX services will be provided to the developers who qualify (sign up is here) for no charge and without any long-term revenue share. Developers don’t have to give up IP rights either, says W3i.
Riptide Games, makers of My Pet Zombie, is one of the first to use the AppX suite of services, and claims it helped them become profitable and increase the lifetime value of its users by three times.
Source:http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/30/w3i-announces-10-million-marketing-fund-for-indie-game-developers/

Twitter acquires dynamic duo at Whisper Systems, works to beef up privacy / security

You know that tweet you just wrote about your innermost emotions and the tasty sandwich you just ate? It's about to become that much more secure. Adding to its list of available resources, Twitter has acquired Whisper Systems, a two-man security outfit specializing in mobile device security and data scrambling on the Android operating system. Whisper, founded in 2010 by security industry mainstays Moxie Marlinspike and Stuart Anderson, has garnered a reputation for exposing high-profile vulnerabilities in systems that encrypt data over the Internet and WiFi networks. An exact buyout price for the company has yet to be released publicly -- though Marlinspike has released tools like SSLStrip that demonstrate vulnerabilities in supposedly secure web sites and has been working on a tool known as 'Convergence' -- which helps point out unreliable web certificate authorities. Not a bad find for Twitter, a company that has yet to switch over to a default HTTPS option for its 100 million active members' posts.

Source:  http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/29/twitter-acquires-dynamic-duo-at-whisper-systems-works-to-beef-u/

Samsung Wave 3 crashes onto French shores

Samsung's new Bada flagship has just docked into our illustrative French port. Announced back in thesummer, the Wave 3 arrives on the refreshed Bada 2.0 OS, powered by a 1.4GHz processor and packing a four-inch 800 x 480 Super AMOLED display. Storage matches the watery iteration, with 3GB of memory baked-in, with expansion possible through microSD. Meanwhile, an auto-focus five megapixel shooter will do its best to fill all that space. Not content with France (where Bada-powered handsets have established a niche fanbase), the HSPA-connected smartphone is also penned to hit Germany, Russia and Italy before the end of the year.

Source:http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/28/samsung-wave-3-crashes-onto-french-shores/

It’s Still A Feature Phone World: Global Smartphone Penetration At 27%

With all the talk of iPhone vs. Android these days, it’s easy to forget how the majority of the world’s mobile users still make calls and access data: via feature phones. A recently releasedreport (download) from mobile strategy firm VisionMobile takes a look at today’s mobile marketplace finding that, despite the sharp rise in smartphone shipments over 2010 and 2011, global smartphone penetration (by OS) is at just 27%.

Smartphone adoption varies wildly by region, the report finds. Not surprisingly, those markets where 3G coverage is extensive and subscription plans are “post-paid” (as opposed to pre-paid) see the highest smartphone adoption rates. Meanwhile, in markets dominated by pre-paid subscriptions, the real battle is price. Here, Nokia’s mid-tier Symbian platforms and BlackBerry consumer-targeted models are still holding onto significant market share. However, both platforms are now facing threats from low-cost Android phones, thanks to the latter’s pricing versatility. Android devices today sell for anywhere from $100 to $750 (USD), allowing the phones to compete both on the high-end and the low-end of the pricing spectrum.

In the North American and European markets, smartphone penetration is the highest, with 63% and 51% market share, respectively. In the Asia-Pacific region (19%), Africa/Middle East region (18%) and Latin America (17%), it’s much lower.

As for today’s smartphone leaders, it really is an iPhone vs. Android world out there, since former mobile leader Nokia was slow to react to the iPhone’s coming, and steadily lost ground in the high-end smartphone market. Nokia’s decision to move from Symbian to Windows Phone allowed other Android players an edge, including Samsung, HTC, Motorola, LG, Sony-Ericsson as well as newcomers like Huawei, ZTE, Acer, Dell and Asus.

Despite the numerous differences between the two leading smartphone platforms, iOS and Android, there are some notable similarities. Both originate from non-telecom players. Both are monetized indirectly. (Instead of software license sales, they either profit from high-margin device sales or, in Google’s case, enhancing its online ad business). And both are driven by companies able to sustain investments of billions of dollars in order to develop an OS and create the accompanying developer and app ecosystems.

And yet, even though it’s “Android vs. iPhone” in terms of consumer choice, VisionMobile says there won’t be a single winner in the smartphone race. Both platforms have reached critical mass with hundreds of millions of users, making it almost impossible to displace them. As for RIM and Windows Phone, the jury’s still out on whether or not there’s even room for a third player and whether Microsoft, with Nokia’s help, can move into position number three.

Although the report doesn’t dive into speculation about what happens next, when the rest of the non-smartphone world upgrades their handsets, it does examine the network effects belonging to today’s dominant players. Not only are these platforms winning because of their technological sophistication, but also because of their application ecosystems. With 500,000+ iOS apps and 300,000 on Android, both platforms have reached critical mass. When that occurs, the platform begins to grow exponentially. However, app counts alone aren’t the ultimate measure of long-term health – the sustainability of the developer ecosystem is.

What’s interesting is to see the network effects in terms of mobile apps plotted out for all the top smartphone players. Below, the graphs show the number of apps available on a particular platform at a particular point in time, and the number of devices shipped for that platform in the quarter just preceding it. The resulting charts show just how popular Android and iOS are, and how difficult a battle it will be for a third major smartphone player to emerge.

You can also see the challenge that Apple faces as it attempts entry into emerging markets to take its share of the feature phone upgraders. As the report notes, Apple has high margin device sales, which means it doesn’t have as much flexibility in terms of hardware discounts as Android does with its $100 phones. But Apple did something else recently – when it brought out the iPhone 4S, it greatly discounted the prices of older model iPhones. The iPhone 3GS became free and the iPhone 4 was just $99, both with 2-year commitments. However, while that’s a viable strategy in attracting price-sensitive consumers in post-paid markets, it’s not necessarily going to be enough to attract pre-paid consumers to switch subscription plans. It’s the data bill that’s the killer, not the initial cost of the phone.

Apple knows that it needs compete in the pre-paid market, though. On its Q3 2011 earnings call, COO, now CEO, Tim Cook said, Apple is not avoiding that market. ”We don’t want to avoid that market. We know that we need to play there in order to have the kind of volumes that we’d like to have.”

And yet, when it came to its pre-paid strategy, Cook only mentioned getting customers to switch plans. ”In some cases, we convince someone to start a post-paid plan because in the long-term, I think, that’s better for the customer, the carrier and us.”

If that’s Apple’s pre-paid strategy, it looks like the iOS vs. Android battle in emerging markets may just now be heating up. And given how much of the world is still yet to upgrade, it’s a long fight ahead.

Source:http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/28/its-still-a-feature-phone-world-global-smartphone-penetration-at-27/

Windows Phone Marketplace: One Year In

Mobile analytics firm Distimo has taken a look at Microsoft’s Windows Phone Marketplace one year after its launch in November 2010. Now available in 35 countries worldwide, the store has grown consistently in size and scope since its debut, at a rate of 700 new publishers added per month. But its app download volume, in comparison with market leader iTunes, is still quite small. In fact, it’s 39 times smaller relative to Apple’s App Store for the iPhone.
The Windows Phone Marketplace was initially available to 17 countries with 18 added later on.* Distimo’s report examines trends among all 35.
Today, Microsoft’s Windows Phone is being hyped as the 3rd major mobile ecosystem, with some analysts even predicting it will steal huge chunks of mobile market share away from Apple’s iPhone by 2015. However, in terms of its app store, it’s still the 5th largest in size, behind Apple, Android, BlackBerry and Nokia.

At its launch, 70% of the mobile apps in the Windows Phone app store were paid and this continued to be the case up until February 2011. At that point, the number of free apps began growing exponentially. By June, there were 900 more free apps than paid apps in the store. But the following month, Microsoft kicked out over a thousand free apps due to developer violations with regards to their policy on “app spam.” (According to Microsoft’s rules, a developer cannot publish more than 20 apps with similar functionalities per day.) Even with the crackdown, the number of free apps continued to grow again, and by October, there were again more free apps than paid ones in the store.
Distimo found that paid apps increased steadily over the past 12 months, with nearly 1,300 new apps per month, while free apps grew by 1,650 new apps per month. As is par for the course in other app stores, games are the most popular category of app for Windows Phone, too, whether free (33% of the top 100) or paid (54% of the top 100).  (As of Oct. 2011)

However, when examining local markets, the free/paid mix isn’t always as consistent. For example, in the U.S. and Australian Marketplaces, 50% of the top 100 free apps are games. But in Brazil, South Korea, Norway and The Netherlands, games account for only 15% to 20% of the top free apps. Meanwhile, in the U.K and South Africa, games account for 64% of the top paid apps and in Brazil and South Korea only 10% of the top paid apps are games. This latter situation is likely impacted by those countries’ “notorious” game rating policies, says Distimo.
In terms of downloads, the U.S. leads, with 101,000 free app downloads and 20,000 paid app downloads per day (out of the top 300 most downloaded apps). Compared with the iPhone, though, these numbers are chump change – that market saw 43 times more free downloads and 16 times more paid downloads daily (also out of the top 300).

In addition, when calculating paid downloads, it’s important to note that paid downloads on Windows Phone include free trials. These types of “paid” apps account for 80% of the downloads, which means that only 4,000 downloads (out of the top 300 paid) are generating revenue in the U.S. Marketplace.
Outside of the U.S., the other top download spots include Germany, the U.K., France and Italy, which hold spots 2 through 5. Out of the more recently added countries, Japan has to largest download volume with 6,000 apps (in the top 300) downloaded per day.
Japan and the U.S. also have the most unique content in their stores, with 215 and 1,361 unique apps, respectively. Chile, Portugal, Colombia and South Africa have no unique content. For the most part, the overlap of free apps is lower compared with the overlap of paid apps. This holds true everywhere but Brazil and South Korea, Distimo found.

One not too pleasant finding: nearly half of the applications are only available in the original 17 countries. That means developers did not take advantage of the new countries when launching their apps or have not updated their older pre-Mango apps since the Mango 7.5 release, which brought the additional countries on board. That may be the most interesting finding of all, as it speaks to developer inertia in this app store.
Source: http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/22/windows-phone-marketplace-one-year-in/