RIM BlackBerry: Canadian Data

by matt on August 2, 2010

(Hi everyone, sorry I haven’t posted in such a long time. Moving cuts into valuable blogging time.)

Today I ran across an article in Bloomberg about Dubai and Saudi Arabia threatening to ban BlackBerry usage because of national security risks.

BlackBerries, through their push email and BlackBerry Messenger service, send encrypted data through proxy servers in Waterloo, Canada. According to some UAE representatives, this violates UAE legislation regarding hosting sensitive data offshore. (Many countries, particularly those in Europe, have similar rules about keeping sensitive data within the country’s borders. In my opinion, all of these rules hold back the tremendous economic, environmental, and technical advantages of cloud computing from being fully realized. This is not a smart move.)

But let’s dig a little deeper. Certainly Saudi Arabia and the UAE minsters couldn’t have just woke up this morning, and suddenly realized their BlackBerry data is in Canada. These are some of the most popular smartphones in these countries.

In an article in CIO, the whole statement from the UAE is printed:

“Certain Blackberry applications allow people to misuse the service, causing serious social, judicial and national security repercussions,” and because related data is potentially stored outside of UAE territory, it is “beyond the jurisdiction of national legislation.”

How interesting – notice that the first repercussion is social, not judicial or security related. Much of the media coverage around this issue has pointed to protests organized via BBM. There are, of course, the obvious issues surrounding the inability of nationalized carriers to invade user’s privacy when they use BBM rather than SMS. I have also heard that due to this same lack of carrier visibility, BBM is one of the few ways unmarried men and women can communicate and flirt in countries where such is frowned upon. In some of those Middle Eastern countries, a gray market for easy-to-remember BBM PINs has emerged. (I have reached out to a couple of people to find the link – I will update the post once I get it.)

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Why We Need Location-Aware App Stores

by matt on July 9, 2010

Many of the most useful mobile apps are location-specific. From the best local search apps to public transit schedules that only work in some cities to tourist guides and maps (like the Not for Tourists series), location-specific apps can provide ultra-relevant information at the right place and the right time.

However, these apps are hard to find. If you look for Not for Tourists in the app store, you find more than 12 apps. There’s no way to look at the various offerings for your location side-by-side. This is why we need a location-aware app store.

What’s a location-aware app store?

A location aware app store recommends the apps most relevant to where you are. Rather than some obscure category label, a location aware app-store would show you all of the apps that could help you wherever you may be. This includes everything from apps for events and sports teams to apps for cities.

How could you implement it?

Implementing location intelligence in an App Store would be relatively easy. Developers could target specific locations by adding a GPS coordinate and a ‘Radius of Relevance’, specifying the area in which the app would be useful. (There will need to be some editorial vetting around this feature as part of the approval process – unscrupulous app developers with no regard for user experience would probably try to spam something like this.)

When the user opens the app store, the app store asks the user to use their current location, and adds a “Apps for My Area” category. All of the apps that the user is within the radius of display, with the app with the smallest radius topping the list. (There are certainly more complex and correct ways to implement this feature, and there are no doubt problems with this approach. Feel free to point them out in the comments.)

What do you think? How can we make app stores better? Please share with the community and leave a comment…

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App Review: Dragon Dictation (for iPhone)

by matt on July 7, 2010

(I was going to write a long post about Dragon Dictation, but I found this and it seems more descriptive.)

What she doesn’t mention is Dragon Dictation cuts off after thirty seconds – so it’s appropriate for SMS or Twitter messages, not writing blog posts or book chapters. Beyond that, it’s a great piece of software. With the new multitasking capabilities in iOS4, it will become more powerful and thus more popular.

Oh, and just because they’re a sponsor on the video, I want to say that I do not endorse GoDaddy.com. I have had a much more positive experience with Bluehost.

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VisionMobile Mobile Developer Economics Report: Some Thoughts

by matt on July 6, 2010

Excellent ‘Mobile Developer Economics 2010′ Report from VisionMobile

VisionMobile’s ‘Mobile Developer Economics 2010‘ Report came out today. It’s detailed and excellent – you should go download it right now. It’s also free in exchange for your email, so it’s an excellent value. VisionMobile’s blog is one of my favorite mobile analysis sites, and those guys definitely know their stuff. However, I disagree with a couple of the report’s conclusions.

The Most Important Chart in the Report is in the Back

Before you read any of the press around the report, or look at all of the cool infographics, you need to understand where the data is drawn from. (All charts will enlarge when clicked.)

Geographic Distribution of VisionMobile Survey

The majority of the developers in the study come from Europe and India. This is important to understand in interpreting the results of the study – largely because mobile markets are dramatically different in different countries.

Is Android Really Winning Developer’s Hearts and Minds?

The VisionMobile team asserts:

One can easily see that Android stands out as the top platform according to developer experience, with close to 60 percent of developers having recently developed on Android, assuming an equal number of developers with experience on each of eight major platforms. iOS (iPhone) follows closely as the next most popular platform, outranking both Symbian and Java ME, which until 2008 were in pole position.

Given the geographic bias in the sample, I think a better statement may be “In our sample of predominantly European and Indian developers, we found Android to edge out iPhone slightly.” Certainly in the United States, where I have been involved in app development, almost all of the interest is around iOS apps – maybe 85% iOS to 12% Android to 3% everything else. Outside data supports this conclusion.

Furthermore, the Android Market has barred developers from most of the countries in the world – including India, China, and others, from selling apps. In fact, only residents of Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Spain, UK, or the US may sell apps in the Android market. This has created a cottage industry in pass-thru companies that will sell paid apps for you on the Android market, in exchange for large chunks of the revenue. I can’t imagine this policy wins converts to Android around the world.

Why is Android ‘Winning’?

In VisionMobile’s study, they attribute two major reasons for Android’s ‘victory’ over iOS in developer mindshare.
- Android’s ‘Open Source’ Nature
- the $100 fee to submit apps

This is particularly interesting, largely because Android isn’t that open and software developers generally don’t respond positively to mis-labeled marketing spin. All of the good parts – the Android Market, the Google Apps, the almighty GTalk XMPP connection – are quite closed, and commercially licensed. Furthermore, should you do something amazing and choose to contribute it to the Android code base, you would have a good deal of trouble if you did not work at Google. (This article from Andreas at VisionMobile actually sums it up perfectly.) If developers are truly attracted by openness, they must be picking the most open of two or three different options. By contrast, Palm attempted to embrace open source developers at the end of the mismanagement of the WebOS developer community, and it generated no particular traction or love with developers.

I’m not sure I believe that a $100 fee is a real barrier either. A test device will cost well more than that, as will a development machine. It may be a barrier to some developers in developing countries, however, these developers are not allowed to make money selling apps directly on the Android Market.

I have a different thesis for the prevalence of Android mindshare:

- Apple’s capricious app approval process is scary, and could result in hundreds of hours of work down the drain. Even if your app is ignored or unsellable, at least you can show it to people on the Android market.

- There’s an obvious (but not necessarily correct) metaphor between the early days of the smartphone market and the early days of the PC market, and if the market evolves in the same way the PC market does, Android will achieve OS hegemony. (I do not think this is the right analogy and the smartphone is a fundamentally different market. But I will address that in a future post.)

It’s a great, well-researched report, and an interesting read. Go over to mobiledevelopereconomics.com and check it out.

What platform do you think is winning? Leave a comment…

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Video Friday: Meego for Tablets

by matt on July 2, 2010

Looks pretty neat – I like the five finger multi-touch.

The tablet OS market is up in the air at the moment – Meego is a strong offering, as is Android, and of course, the iPad. However, the Android – Chromium transition that Google hopes to make is confusing the market. WebOS is a dark-horse competitor coming from HP. We’ll see what happens when Android tablets start shipping in large numbers this Winter.

Who will win the tablet OS war? Leave a comment…

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Geodelic: a New Take on Local Search

by matt on July 1, 2010

In honor of their recent $7 million funding round, I thought I’d write about an innovative mobile app: Geodelic. (Go download it right now and come right back here. It’s awesome and it’s free.)

Geodelic: the Locational Browser

Geodelic is a location based browser

Geodelic is a locational browser, enabling you to search for things around you like bars, restaurants, coffee shops, movie theaters, etc. Local search has the potential to be a very lucrative space, as more and more Yellow Pages dollar migrate towards paid search. It’s also very crowded, including players like Yelp, Foursquare (somewhat), Poynt, traditional yellow pages companies, and many others. (What we’re seeing in this space is the earliest parts of the coming integration of real life with virtual information. Who would’ve guessed it would start with Foursquare.) However, Geodelic’s approach is fundamentally different – Geodelic is a locational browser, mashing up data from other services and presenting it in an attractive and useful way.

More than simply being a front-end for other services on the mobile phone, Geodelic also has some innovative user-focused features. It judges distance against relevance in search results, enables “searchless search” through their nav bar (very cool UI), and it uses passive personalization – so the app learns about you.

Searchless Search in Geodelic

The local business data set in the application is not perfect. If you’ve tried to build any kind of locational search app, you know this data is almost impossible to get. It needs to be up-to-date, correctly categorized, and accurate – which is really, really hard to find. The companies that own these data sets (e.g. Yelp) are reluctant to share them with competitors. Most of the criticism in the app store is leveled at the quality of the listings. But this is ultimately a white-labeled play to sell to large companies with perfect data sets, so while that is a problem with the mass market app, it is not a problem with the business.

Geodelic’s Revenue Model

Geodelic makes money by selling a white-labeled version of their platform, enabling businesses to roll easily roll out location-based apps. It’s a B2B2C play. They also provide LBS ads for brands, but it seems like the white-labeled experiences are doing better. They’ve provided experiences for notable customers like Universal Studios (see the picture of the customized Universal Studios app). Theme parks are a natural for technology like this, as are sports venues, conventions, and other large events.

Geodelic White Labeleled App for Universal Studios

Analysis

The designers of Geodelic “get” mobile apps. Let’s take a closer look:

Passive personalization While most technologies like this ask you to fill out some sort of series of forms, Geodelic learns from your likes and dislikes as you use the system. I think this is a great feature, and we’ll see more and more of this as time moves forward (I hope). Much like how you become a regular at a restaurant, things are slowly personalized more and more to your needs as you use the service more, creating a virtuous cycle of user adoption and usage.

More is worse One key to mobile app success is doing one thing incredibly well rather than doing lots of things clumsily. It would’ve been easy to get caught up in the check-in world, becoming another check-in, social network driven player in an already incredibly crowded market. I think concentration on one core experience and delivering it in an excellent way that also pays lots of attention to UI and UX is key to success on the mobile phone. Apps must delight consumers for the entire short time they use them, and Geodelic is both functional and captivating.

Think differently about an old standard Every search interface I’ve ever seen is based on entering text into a box and pressing enter, and then showing the user a list. Geodelic’s gone in a completely different direction that still retains that functionality while taking unique advantage of the mobile device.

According to CEO Rahul Sonnad, Geodelic is about to make some major announcements, and presumably scale operations with the new money. I hope they add social features – it seems strange to use a location-based service without them. It will be really interesting to see what reception the Geodelic products receive, given the last 12 months incredible advancement in the local/mobile/social market. However, I also wonder if people will go through the trouble of downloading an app just for an airport or theme park that will most likely be used only once.

Go check out the Geodelic app now! It’s awesome and it’s free.

What do you think about Geodelic? What’s the future of local search? Leave a comment and share with the community…

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Sorry for the RSS Strangeness…

by matt on July 1, 2010

Hi Everyone
We managed to get everything back up. Thanks for your patience and sorry for any strangeness in your RSS feeds.

Now I can get back to my matter at hand: posting the great piece of analysis I have for you tomorrow.

Happy Friday!
Thanks,
Matt

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Kevin Kelly on the Future of the Mobile Internet

by matt on July 1, 2010

Kevin Kelly talks a little about the next 5000 days of the internet. In the first 5000 days, we’ve build something roughly as complex as the human brain. Now, with the rise of the mobile internet, we’re building a body for this construct. Neat talk, all in all.

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5 Marketing Books Every App Developer Needs to Read

by matt on July 1, 2010

Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind

In the world of the app stores, making your island of excellence stand out among the ocean of crap is critically important. Positioning your app, from day one, before development even starts, is the key to creating and sustaining this differentiation.

Positioning is a short book (fantastic airplane read), and every chapter is full of punchy ‘positioning thinking’ lessons, drawing samples from companies like 7-UP, Hertz, and many others.

The Four Steps to the Epiphany

This is probably my favorite start-up book – if you (for some reason) could only read one book about starting a company, I would choose this one.

This book is about how to find and scale a business model. Most startups, he says, don’t fail because their technology is inadequate; they fail because they build something no one wants. This book provides a structured process to create and market a new product that people actually want. It’s truly a great book.

The same is true with apps – almost none fail because they technically can’t deliver their functionality, but rather go ignored because they don’t do something people want.

Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable

This book is about how to stick out in today’s world: be remarkable. Not remarkable in the “that’s great” sense, but in the original meaning of the word: worthy of remark.

Blippy is perhaps my favorite example of this idea. If you haven’t heard of Blippy, the services enables you to share all of your credit card transactions with your friends. Most people say “Why would I possibly want to do that?” but some people say, “That’s awesome! How do I sign up?” The important thing is that both parties will remember Blippy.

Your app should be the same way (except never show users’ credit card numbers to Google.) Being that remarkable purple cow is what your app aspires to be – read this book and learn how.

Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers

No technology product (that I am aware of) is immune to the technology adoption lifecycle curve. This book is about going from early adopters (who will use your product if it’s hard to install, hard to use, or, quite frankly, broken) to mainstream customers.

Moore’s solution is “niche to win,” ensuring a complete product is available for a specific segment. This product, of course, rapidly moves to dominate this segment, and then takes on related segments.

While Moore’s focus in the book is enterprise technology, the ideas contained in it are particularly relevant to anyone working on a network-effect based app.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

This book is one of the bibles’ of the modern influence professional. Robert Cialdini, a professor of blank at blank, systematically studied influence professionals – everyone from direct marketers to pan handlers to sales professionals of all stripes. In this book, he shows how they make statistically significant changes in people’s behavior and reactions by using social proof, reciprocation, and other methods. (In a future post, I will go through this book and apply each of the Cialdini persuasive techniques to app marketing.)

If you thought marketing was at best mythology and at worst black magic, this book will show otherwise. Through the correct application of persuasive techniques, you can help people choose your app.

What are your favorite influence books? What marketing books do you like?

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