Spotify To Integrate Apps Within Its Application? (Updated)
Later this evening European time, Spotify is holding a Global Press Conference in NYC to announce "a new direction for the company". If the Wall Street Journal is to be believed, Spotify will announce a new push for third party apps to integrate with Spotify, starting with an "app finder" integrated into the service starting tomorrow. Right now we'll speculate away, but will also keep this post updated as more is announced.
(See updates below the fold):
BusyFlow: All Your Productivity Apps In A Single Workspace
Most of us use an array of web-based apps and services each day to carry out different tasks, but have you ever wondered how much time and effort is wasted switching from one app to another while working on a single project? Lithuanian startup BusyFlow aims to rectify the situation with a service that integrates all your favorite productivity tools into a single workspace.
uTales: Everything's Interactive, Why Not Stories?
With digital books expanding beyond print, even outside the bulky desktop computers and laptops to the lighter e-book readers and the tablets, book lovers have more than one option to read books. I mean if everything is available on the go, why not books? uTales, a Swedish startup leverages the existing technology to create digital picture books for kids. The bigger advantage here is to make the book reading experience more interactive and thus interesting.
The startup germinates from the founders’ experience with bed time stories, the art of story telling that so many of us have enjoyed in our childhood and want to preserve the same for future generations. The idea is to engage, inspire and educate kids by bringing high quality picture books to the young ones globally. How exactly?
Study: Tablet Users Spend More Time Web Browsing Than With Apps
There has been quite a lot of development in the smartphone and tablet arena with the plethora of new devices making entry into the market. Not only have they evolved how we communicate and access information online, there has been a transformation how these devices have been used as well.
Think of it, when the iPhone invaded the markets it was considered to be the ultimate in mobility, and even more when Android devices made inroads. However that was just the beginning of a whole new transformation, the advent of the iPad changed a lot, at least in having the tablets flood in from all directions.
Smartphones Are The Future Of Gaming
A mobile is no more your routine device for making calls on the go or texting while you are out of office. It has totally evolved from being a mere lightweight wireless communication device to an all- purpose connection to the entire world and lifestyle. Let's not dwell on emphasizing on communication advantages it gives us and focus on the other aspects - entertainment.
Mobile App Download Will Exceed 44 Billion By 2016
An app for everything is where we are heading onto as almost everything goes mobile. By mobile I simply point at mobility and not just smartphones in the likes of the Android, iPhone, Windows Phone, etc, although these are the devices that take the cake away the instant you mention mobility. We have witnessed how the app stores have swarmed with applications of all sorts, from those associated to communication, social networking to gaming. You think of it and there is something available, a major reason why there is a crazy number of downloads taking places each instant.
A recent study was published by ABI Research, the gist of which states that the current trend of smartphone apps will continue successfully for at least another 5 years. Before I proceed with the exact download numbers, it would be better to jot down the number of applications available for various mobile operating systems:
The Four Favorite Teams From Last Weekend's Garage48 Tallinn Event
While Garage48 is still a little under a month away from the African Safari, the event at Tallinn last weekend has had the curtains dropped. The event saw over 120 people working hard in 18 teams to give their ideas a touch of reality. Garage48 is a weekend type company development project, where people of different crafts get together to work on projects for the duration of 48 hours. After the weekend, teams present their results in front of an audience.
Ovi Store Hits 5 Million Downloads A Day
After quite some brouhaha over the Nokia and Microsoft partnership it appears that Nokia at present is just making news with its Ovi Store. In a recent release Nokia shared pretty impressive stats on the number of downloads at the store; 5 million downloads a day. That’s more than just impressive, meaning that Nokia is still a force to be reckoned with.
Blow'em Now Available For iOS Devices
Ever thought about getting even with someone, but never had the courage to do so? There's a little iPhone app now on the market that might help you in this. The game is called Blow'em and it was started as a Garage48 project in Helsinki, Finland in January. It offers users a great way to have fun with its Perverted Candle, Retarded Tomato, Deep Throat or the Angry Egg. The instructions are simple; point, select your weapon and shoot. That’s it, you don’t really need a user guide on this do you?
Bubbles Emerges From Nokia Beta Labs To Unlock Your Phone In Style
I don’t consider myself pro-Nokia in any way, maybe that’s because I am incapable of witnessing how powerful its devices could be or simply for the fact that there is just too much of Android and iPhone everywhere. While many would agree with the second reason, lets not get into this tangent of discussion.
Applifier Adds Retargeting For Its Ad Publishers
Big day yesterday for Applifier as the cross promotion bar on the popular social network, Facebook closed $2 Million in seed funding and announced its expansion into web based gaming as well. We reported just a couple of weeks back of its plans for expanding into the Silicon Valley, speculating what news it might have for us by spring. All those news are important, but there's another worthwhile mention; the addition of the retargeting to Applifier's cross promotion bar.
Artists Fan Club Go Mobile With FansMagnet
Everyone wants a fanpage, don’t they? At least a few might wish to have one but with artists and celebrities, it is absolutely essential. Which is why almost every artist already has one or two [official and unofficial alike], but that’s old now and mobile is the new path to walk. FansMagnet, a Santa Clara, CA based mobile tech startup headed by Sami Inkiläinen as their CEO, is taking the artists a step forward. The company, Fountainment Oy, is registered to Finland.
Steve Jobs Did It Again – First Content, Then Device And Now Mobile Ads
Apple will be the talk of the town in mobile advertising this year. Last week at Apple’s OS 4 event, Jobs presented what advertising industry has been asking from mobile: iAd - the engagement media with scale and quality.
For brands, mobile advertising has had a big promise but no breakthrough: digital media and technology companies trying to fit the traditional online advertising model - mainly display and search - into mobile have not taken off. Mobile media is different to online: being based on communications and quick tasks one performs, not browsing, mobile requires different user experience. Running banners on mobile is like running radio ads on tv.
GetJar Says Mobile Apps Market Becomes Bigger Than The Internet. We Don't Think So
In an interview with Econsultancy, GetJar CEO Ilja Laurs talked about his vision for apps and how they will take over the internet. We disagree.
GetJar is the world’s second largest mobile app store founded in Lithuania offering over 57,000 apps for all mobile devices and serving over 55m downloads per month. To date they have achieved over 750m downloads and attracted 300,000 registered developers and 50,000 registered beta testers.
In the interview Laurs' says that the battle of the app stores will culminate in a dramatic change to the market over the next 12-18 months, and at least 90% of app stores will fail. Further, the importance of global mobile billing will become critical: Several $10M-a-year mobile app businesses will appear in 2010 as the apps market gathers momentum. The billing processes and agreements will improve in 2011 and 2012, stimulating the app economy and the rise of the $100m app businesses.
