Posts Tagged ‘Mobile’

It’s back…Social Media Revolution 2 (Refresh)

May 7th, 2010

When I started this blog back on September 25, 2009 my first post was a simple “welcome” message with a YouTube video clip produced by Erik Qualman author of the blog called Socialnomics. Interestingly enough, YouTube subsequently removed that video for copyright issues. The video was titled Social Media Revolution, and it was a series of very interesting facts and stats that demonstrated the massive change social media is making on our lives. A good introduction to the reason I started this blog.

Well Mr. Qualman is back at it again with his latest creation, Social Media Revolution 2 (Refresh). In this latest creation Qualman has included some pretty interesting and powerful social media stats, such as;

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Posted in Facebook, Google, Twitter, YouTube

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Phillies fan tasered, news at 11…from YouTube

May 5th, 2010

Earlier this week a fan of the Philadelphia Phillies jumped on the field while the game was in progress, was chased down and tasered by security and escorted from the stadium. This is actually not a unique experience in the world of professional sports, or for Philadelphia fans. All TV broadcasts of the game cut away from the fans antics as FCC law instructs them to so other rouge fans don’t have any wild ideas. Problem solved for network TV and the G-rated masses of viewers who would be corrupted by such hijinks (insert sarcasm icon here).

But wait, not so fast. In this case, the running fan was captured by numerous fans’ smartphone video cameras and the footage was quickly uploaded to YouTube for the world to see.

What happen next was quite interesting. Hundreds, if not thousands, of news organizations – including those same TV broadcasters – started showing the YouTube videos that captured the event. Anyone else see the obvious hypocrisy here?

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Posted in Mobile, YouTube

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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

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The real scoop on Google’s Nexus One

January 6th, 2010

As I’m sure everyone has seen, Google has entered the mobile phone business.  While the Silicon Valley giant has historically resided in the mobile operating system or applications space, their launch earlier this week of the Google Nexus One moves them into a very real player in the mobile personal devices marketplace.

Many technology pundits have hinted for some time that Google may have Apple envy and the launch of the Google Nexus One seems to prove it.

How deep does this envy go?  Check out this video:

All kidding aside, the early reports on the Google Nexus One are quite positive.  Not only does the hardware capabilities surpass those of the iPhone, but the Android operating system and Google applications are really impressive.  That said, creating a huge application marketplace and ecosystem that Apple has done may be out of reach for the Mountain View Googlers.

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Posted in Apple, Google, Mobile

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Gowalla’s 10 and a half days of Christmas game

December 17th, 2009

gowallaLocation-based game and social networking company Gowalla has announced its push for the holidays with their “10 and a half days of Christmas” game (because the 12 days of Christmas is too predictable).  Foursquare competitor Gowalla recently closed a Series B investment round from an all-star Silicon Valley cast earlier this month in an effort to unseat Foursquare in the buzz-worthy location-based game/social network race.

While we have covered Foursquare in the past, we haven’t yet profiled Gowalla’s service.  Similar to Foursquare, the Austin, Texas-based Gowalla game is all about checking into various places, sharing them with your friends and competing for prizes.  Gowalla does have a slightly different spin on their game platform such as enabling virtual goods at different location points.  You can see a brief demo of the service in action below:

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Posted in Mobile, Startups

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Shoot live video with your phone and share in real-time with Qik-in-Touch

December 14th, 2009

qikintouchQik, the mobile live video sharing startup, has launched their new invitation-only beta service called Qik-in-Touch.  It’s been an active two weeks for the Redwood City, CA-based startup with last week’s iPhone app announcement and this week’s Qik-in-Touch beta launch.  The new Qik-in-Touch service brings the Qik live video sharing experience to your desktop and makes it really easy to share video clips with your friends in real-time.  Check out the Qik-in-Touch concept below courtesy of the company’s blog.

Qik-in-Touch is in private beta, but you can request an invite by going to http://qik.com/qntbeta.

qikhow

Qik-in-Touch is an Adobe Air application, so it runs on Windows, Mac and Linux platforms. The Adobe Air app runs behind the scenes when you go “live” on you account so your friends can watch and chat instantly as you’re recording the event.

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Posted in Mobile, Startups

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No smartphone? No worries. HipLogic brings smartphone functionality to the masses.

December 2nd, 2009

hiplogiclogo_200x135HipLogic announced today they have have closed a $7 million in Series B round from Benchmark Capital, Stage 1 Ventures, Bay Partners, and Accrue Sports and Entertainment Ventures to bring smartphone intelligence to mass market phones.  Don’t have an iPhone, Droid, Blackberry or Palm – no worries.  HipLogic’s platform enables smartphone-like applications to work on non-smartphone’s.  With all the attention on the many rich applications hitting the smartphone market, its important to note that smartphones are still the global minority when it comes to cell phone usage.  HipLogic’s solution targets that large mass market segment, bring cool apps to the masses.

This new round of financing follows a Series A round the company raised back in 2008 when it was called Numobiq.  With new round, HipLogic is looking to accelerate their rollout of their easy-to-use application platform for lightweight mass market phones.

hiplogphone

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Posted in Mobile, Startups

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RunKeeper raises seed round, social mobile fitness ready for primetime

November 30th, 2009

runkeeperFitnessKeeper, the Boston startup behind the GPS-based RunKeeper iPhone application, announced today a seed round of $400,000 from a group of local angel and venture investors.  While a $400k investment is small news by venture capital standards, this investment may have a bit more meaning behind it.  This funding marks the evolution of what I’m calling “social mobile fitness”.

runscreen

The mobile RunKeeper app gives fitness buffs the ability to train socially.  By using RunKeeper on your iPhone you can track your workouts – running, walking or cycling, build and communicate with your “Street Team”, and seamless update your progress by clean and simple integration with Facebook and Twitter.  This really brings a new level to not only iPhone training applications, but also potentially all mobile fitness applications.  Full integration with social networking applications really expands and enriches the fitness experience.

runshare

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Posted in Apple, Facebook, Mobile, Startups, Twitter

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Foursquare aims for world domination – one pub at a time

November 19th, 2009

foursquare_logoOnly a few days after their announcement of a new API, Foursquare is at it again.  The location-based mobile application and game has announced 50 more cities to its highly addictive and rapidly growing service bringing the global total to over 100 different cities worldwide.  A little over a month ago, Foursquare announced 15 new cities to its service all of which were in North America.  The 50 new cities announced today definitely have a more global theme to the Foursquare service.

The list of the new cities are outlined below.  As you scan through the list, you quickly see the significant part of today’s announcement.  This time, the highly popular service includes cities from South America, Australia, Asia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East.  This rapid global expansion, super addictive gameplay and intensely dedicated user base has led some anoint Foursquare as 2010′s next Twitter (via Mashable).

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Posted in Gaming, Startups, Twitter

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Google acquires AdMob for $750 million

November 9th, 2009

Headlining a busy day in Silicon Valley for acquisitions, Google has just announced its has pugooglerchased AdMob for $750 million in stock.  AdMob is a leading startup in the mobile advertising space effectively delivering a Google-like service on a mobile platform.  The move by Google expands their advertising reach past the desktop and into the handheld market.  Google has created a microsite which highlights the acquisition and their strategy for mobile advertising - which the following graphic demonstrating the synergy between the two companies offerings.

mobileads

On Google’s official blog, Susan Wojcicki, Vice President, Product Management and Vic Gundotra, Vice President, Engineering outline some of the benefits they expected to deliver with this new move.  For publishers of mobiles sites and apps, the deal promise a new suite of tools which enable a greater reach to monetize their content.  For advertisers, the deal promises more targeted reach and exposure to users on the go.

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Posted in Google

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