VentureBeat

Behold, marketers — some iPhone numbers you can work with, finally

It seems like a report comes out every week with new statistics on the Apple App Store phenomenon. And the story is almost always the same: The App Store is huge and getting bigger.

Today, comScore released the newest such report breaking down the cumulative base of applications installed via iTunes, thereby revealing the true size of the audience an individual app can reach. This actual audience size has been a major point of interest for… Continue Reading

Verisign brings extra security to the iPhone

Worried that someone could steal your online identity, financial assets or data when you sign into accounts on the iPhone? Then Verisign’s free VIP Access app may be just what you’re looking for.

VIP Access, now available in the Apple App Store, adds an extra layer of security on top of online accounts. To do this, it produces a temporary security code that remains valid for only 30 seconds — during which time you must sign… Continue Reading

Kinoma makes finding mobile content a snap on Windows, Nokia’s Ovi

Mobile developer Kinoma announced that its Kinoma Play mobile media browser will be available in Nokia’s Ovi Store and the Windows Marketplace (which will be included on all phones based on Windows Mobile 6.5 this fall). Microsoft has signed Kinoma Play as an anchor application, meaning it will be among the first to offer its application through the Windows Marketplace for Mobile.

At the Mobile World Congress I attended several weeks ago, rumor had it that… Continue Reading

Conveneer’s infrastructure service marries your phone with the web

Apple’s MobileMe and Microsoft’s recently announced MyPhone services focus on giving mobile users more seamless access to internet data services and the mobile address book. Conveneer, launching later this year, wants to help other carriers and manufacturers do the same — or better. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup has just announced a $4.5 million round of funding led by Swedish investor Industrifonden and Silicon Valley-based Broken Arrow Venture Capital.

Conveneer is only the latest service to… Continue Reading

MySpace’s John Faith on mobile revenue and mobile data opportunities

MySpace has seen some impressive traffic growth for its mobile web site and its mobile applications over the last year. And the social network is capitalizing on it by developing new revenue streams and new ways to get its users’ data on more devices.

This is the second part of my interview with MySpace vice president and general manager John Faith from earlier this week at the Mobile World Conference. Below, he discusses how the company… Continue Reading

MySpace’s John Faith sees half of all its users going mobile

MySpace has seen impressive growth in its mobile services over the last six months, especially outside the U.S. At the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona, I recently caught up with John Faith, the vice president and general manager for the social network’s mobile services, to learn more. In the interview below, he tells me about MySpace’s collaborations with mobile carriers, handset manufacturers and content creators around the world, to help it deliver a more compelling… Continue Reading

Android and iPhone are all over MWC (even if Google and Apple aren’t), but where are the U.S. startups?

At last year’s Mobile World Congress I learned something: Given the amount of rumors leading up to the event, you usually don’t know what the conference is actually about until it’s over. That’s why I thought I’d share what I’m actually seeing at this year’s MWC, as the conference continues.

Here are my major takeaways:

Operators may be embracing Microsoft because they want to counter-balance Apple’s rise. I’m constantly overhearing conversations on the floor asking why operators and… Continue Reading

Mobile Peer Award winners

Updated.

The judges have just finished awarding the Mobile Peer Awards here at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

I wrote earlier about the competition. As mentioned, I was on the jury of the early stage startups (with a second set of jurors looking at so-called “emerging” companies).

I should note that the juries felt the standards were very high for the early-stage companies in this competition, but merely okay for the so-called emerging companies. With “high for the… Continue Reading

A dozen mobile startups to pitch at Mobile Peer Awards

Some 50,000 members of the mobile industry will be visiting the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain this coming week. It’s the industry’s largest event. And one of the show’s highlights is the Mobile Peer Awards, for which 12 young mobile companies have been nominated.

The 12 were selected from a pool of 42, each chosen by a regional chapter of MobileMonday, the international group hosting the awards. I’m representing VentureBeat on the jury panel evaluating the final… Continue Reading

O2 Germany alone has 6 to 8 Android phones planned this year

Basic Thinking, the recently sold “German TechCrunch” quotes an O2 product manager saying that “we want to get out 6 to 8 Android devices this year.” (the post is in German). The quote was made yesterday at an official press conference at the O2 Innovation Days 2009 in Munich, Germany.

O2 Germany is a subsidiary of Open Handset Alliance (OHA) member Telefonica — the world’s third largest carrier with over 220 million subscribers. The remark is… Continue Reading

DLD Conference: Europe and U.S. executives debate economy, politics

I’m here at the DLD conference in Munich, Germany, which has become one of the high-end meetups for the European business crowd — and I’m prowling for stories, which I’ll share if I get them.

DLD stands for “Digital, Life, Design.” The conference focuses on those themes and how they’re shaping our world today. It’s organized by giant European publisher Burda.

Here’s my observation so far: US attendees tend to be more obsessed about the financial crisis… Continue Reading

An FAQ about those Android netbooks

Since our post yesterday about Google’s Android platform running on netbooks, we’ve been asked a lot of questions. Here are the most frequent questions, along with our answers.

Do you think Android could run on laptops or PCs?

The simple answer is “yes, with an asterisk.” The operating system Linux runs on PCs and laptops, and Android uses a Linux core. But the reason for the “asterisk” boils down to an important difference between Android and Linux.

Android… Continue Reading

Android netbooks on their way, likely by 2010

[Update: Since posting this story, we've had a lot of inquiries from readers, with questions ranging from whether Android is ready for laptops and full-scale PCs, why Android can't rely fully on Linux, and so on. See our follow-up Android FAQ post.]

The image above shows a netbook Asus EEEPC 1000H running on Google’s mobile operating system Android. Huh? You thought Android was for mobile phones, right? Well, as we’ve written before, Google is planning to… Continue Reading

Interview with Litmus James Parton on the launch of O2 UK mobile developer program

The UK carrier O2 UK will launch a developer platform called Litmus tomorrow, giving international developers potential access to O2 UK’s 18 million subscribers.

Developers can upload their applications into an app store to get user feedback and sales from a pre-selected, early adopter Litmus community. Litmus users will be incented to download, rate and otherwise give feedback to app developers. For O2 UK, the platform aims to be an “early radar” on good apps. If… Continue Reading

Interview with Symbian’s David Wood: We can match iPhone’s success

The Goliath of the mobile world, Nokia, is holding an event for its partners today, that will likely further outline the action plan for its phone operating system, Symbian, for the near future.

The Symbian Partner Event, as it’s called, takes place just two days after Nokia finalized the complete acquisition of Symbian, and is significant because it comes at a time when Nokia is under immense pressure from competing mobile platforms.

Right now, the coolest apps… Continue Reading

Mobile ad spending rises as iPhone effect kicks in

In recent weeks, we’ve been hearing rumors that companies are canceling their mobile display advertising budgets. But when we looked into it, we found that overall demand for mobile display advertising is actually increasing.

What we’ve started seeing over the last few months is that advertisers increasingly buy ads based on experience they gained testing the medium in recent months. The main driver appears to be successes brand companies have had particularly with iPhone users. This… Continue Reading

Applications are reshaping mobile industry competition

Remember when consumers picked their network carrier first and their phone second? When mobile phone makers competed based on what functions they’d built into their devices — screen size, battery life, camera, and handy carrier-selected applications? Well, those days are all but gone. As independent developers continue to churn out increasing varieties of mobile applications, many consumers will choose a device not for the network it runs on or for what functions are built in… Continue Reading

T-Mobile does the talk: Third party applications will be able to get on its app store “in days”

“Historically, we, as carriers, have been been very difficult with doing business with,” says Venetia Espinoza, T-Mobile’s Director of Mobile Applications and Partner Programs, today at GigaOm’s mobile conference, Mobilize.

She disclosed details for a new “flip-through agreement” for third party applications in the new app store — which is how she hopes to speed up the application approval process. “What used to be months, we are hoping to become days,” she says.

The new agreement is… Continue Reading

Android roundup: Google’s web-wide plan, Ericsson to join OHA?, and more

The hype is continuing to build as Android’s launch looms next month. Here’s the latest:

Google wants there to be more internet on more devices — Google’s strategy is becoming clearer as more details emerge. The single best way to reach mobile users today is by serving them on the web, not by trying to access the phone’s deck, which is owned by closed and sometimes jealous carriers. So, through “the 1-2-3 combination of Android, Chrome, and Gears,”… Continue Reading

Mobile advertising: Nielsen’s Jesse Goranson on risks and opportunities

Our coverage of the CTIA continues. This is a Q&A with Jesse Goranson, Senior Vice President of Mobile Media, Nielsen (pictured). Nielsen is a leading source of data for the mobile industry. VentureBeat’s mobile expert Matthaus Krzykowski led the questioning. This is the second part of an extended series by Krzykowski on mobile advertising.

VentureBeat: Next to the discussion on “open networks” the other big debate at the CTIA is on mobile advertising. Is a boom in… Continue Reading