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Posts Tagged ‘iTunes’

The Extraordinaries brings crowdsourcing to micro-volunteerism

May 4th, 2010

The San Francisco-based startup called The Extraordinaries just announced its raising $750,000 in funding, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Extraordinaries allows its members to complete altruistic tasks on their mobile phones, effectively bringing together the power of crowdsourcing with volunteerism.

The company offers its users a way to take advantage of small moments of free time they have during the day to participate in volunteer tasks. The idea is that you may not have a lot of time to dedicate to volunteer for a cause, but everyone can probably find five to ten minutes here and there. With The Extraordinaries iPhone app (iTunes link), you can perform small tasks for nonprofits ranging from reviewing images for the Smithsonian to mapping playgrounds for KaBoom or identifying craters in photos for NASA.

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Posted in Apple, Mobile, Startups

Tags: Apple iPhone iTunes Mobile

Have you Bumped your friends yet? Bump Technologies gets funded.

October 25th, 2009

Bump Technologies, the Mountain View, CA-based startup, has some added fuel in their tank after the recent investment led by Sequoia Capital. Details of the funding round have not yet been disclosed. Known for their rather simple, but incredibly useful Apple iPhone app called Bump – this marks what could be the beginning of a new form of ‘Friend Connection’. The app is very simple to use – check out the video demo below:

As you can see by the clip – this app is a must have for any iPhone user out there. The current functionality for information sharing is clean and elegant – contact information, your entire contact card or even other files you may have stored on your iPhone.

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Posted in Apple, Mobile, Startups

Tags: Apple iPhone iTunes Mobile Personal Device

Google about to enter the music biz

October 21st, 2009

Rumor has it that Google is about to enter the online music business. Apparently, the Silicon Valley giant is about to announce a partnership with iLike and LaLa to launch a new music service on October 28th. The launch event is being hosted by iLike and LaLa and is entitled ‘Discover Music!’.

So far the rumors are that this will be a joint partnership deal between Google, iLike and LaLa – but since MySpace recently acquired iLike, they may be involved in the deal as well.

How will Google be involved in this deal – you may ask? It sounds like users will be able to stream songs directly from performing a Google search. So effectively, your search results from Google could turn into your playlist. In addition, it also sounds like users may be able to also purchases songs directly from these search results in addition to streaming them (see sample Google Music search below):

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Posted in Google, MySpace, Startups

Tags: Digital Media Google iTunes MySpace Search

Rock Band hits the iPhone and iPod Touch

October 19th, 2009

The super popular Electronic Arts title, Rock Band, was just released for the iPhone and iPod Touch and is available on iTunes for $9.99 (iTunes link). The newly released game features a multi-player mode (via Bluetooth), which allows up to 4 players to jam together. Another cool feature of the game is its integration with Facebook Connect which allows users to invite their friends to play – building on the social gaming craze that’s hit all gamemakers.

In addition to the multi-player functionality and sync capabilities with Facebook Connect, the new game also comes with the ability to purchase additional tracks from within the game – which was just announced by Apple last week. Users can choose between vocals, drums, bass or guitar and have 20 tracks to play upon download (song list below):

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Posted in Apple, Facebook, Gaming, Mobile

Tags: Apple Facebook Gaming iPhone iTunes Mobile Gaming Multi-Player Games Social Gaming

Big news for iPhone developers, Apple announces ‘In App Purchase’ capability

October 15th, 2009

Apple announced today that it will now allow the capability to purchase virtual goods in its free apps on the iPhone and iPod Touch. This is a huge deal for app developers worldwide. The new capability will enable free apps to be created leveraging the wildly successful virtual goods model that social networking platforms like Facebook and MySpace have enabled. This move will certainly start a wave of new iPhone app innovation as now developers can upsell virtual goods within their free apps.

This move should have a huge impact on all the free games that live off of the sale of virtual goods. Up until now game developers had to offer ‘Lite’ versions of the games on the Apple app store and try to up sell their users to the paid-for more robust games – typically with low conversion rates. Now game developers can release their titles and enable their in-game virtual goods engines to build revenue as they have been able to do in the social network world.

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Posted in Apple, Gaming

Tags: Apple Gaming iPhone iTunes Mobile Mobile Gaming Multi-Player Games Personal Device Social Gaming Social Media

Sky Songs to take on iTunes and Spotify

October 12th, 2009

BSkyB, Ltd., the UK-based media company, announced that it will be launching an online digital music service called Sky Songs. BSkyB has deals in place with EMI, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music, as well a some high profile independents like The Beggars Group and PIAS Entertainment Group. Sky Songs is the first Internet Service Provider to sign deals with major music labels, trying to lure music fans away from iTunes and Spotify.

The new service is scheduled to launch on October 19th in the UK. Sky Songs will be launched as a monthly subscription that gives users unlimited online streaming as well as the ability to download songs in MP3 format. In addition, the new service will also give user the ability to purchase individual tracks and full albums. On launch, Sky Songs will have two subscription options available:

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Posted in Apple, Sony, Startups

Tags: Apple Digital Media iTunes Sony

Adobe labs demonstrates Flash apps for the iPhone

October 5th, 2009

At Adobe’s annual MAX event, Adobe Labs demonstrated a couple of Flash applications for the iPhone/iPod Touch platform. They showed off a small handful of apps designed by 3rd party developers – plus these apps are already on the Apple App Store. These new Flash enabled apps were built using Adobe’s new Flash Professional CS5 (still in beta).

As reported on TechCrunch, the new Flash Professional CS5 tool converts Flash apps to work on the iPhone (currently the iPhone doesn’t support Flash). Developers can use the new tool to re-write existing apps or develop new apps for the iPhone platform. That said, unfortunately the new tool will NOT allow users to browse and view content developed with Flash Player on the iPhone just yet. No Flash movies on your iPhone quite yet – but only a matter of time.

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Posted in Apple, Mobile

Tags: Adobe Apple iPhone iTunes Mobile Personal Device

Mobile Web 2.0 Rental Cars

October 2nd, 2009

Zipcar, a Web 2.0 rental car company, launched a new iPhone application for its service that in addition to delivering Zipcar’s core functionality can also unlock the rental car’s doors. Pretty cool. Zipcar’s service allows members to use their vehicles which are parked in various central locations around a metropolitan area on an hourly basis. By adding this new level of mobility, Zipcar has the tools in place to really disruptive the stagnant rental car industry.

Zipcar’s core service is already pretty cool. You can reserve cars online, and, without ever visiting a traditional rental office, go straight to your car, unlock it by tapping your RFID-enabled membership card to a windshield sensor, and drive away.

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Posted in Apple, Mobile, Startups

Tags: Apple iPhone iTunes Mobile Personal Device

Sony takes mobile gaming to the next level

September 30th, 2009

Sony newly announced PSPgo (seen on VentureBeat) is poised to battle the ever growing iPhone online mobile gaming platform. Or should we say “take the lead” in the online mobile gaming space.

While iPhone still has the trump card on distribution (iTunes rules the world). The Sony PSPgo is the clear leader in actual “gaming”. The interface, graphics, controls, performance,….on the PSPgo blow away any iPhone gaming app.