Posted April 27, 2010 by cgseo under under
Pay-Per-Click Brad Stone at the New York Times Bits Blog has an interesting article up in which he talks to Andy Rubin, vice president of engineering at Google and co-founder of Android. While the article is mainly about Android, there’s a part toward the end that is humorous when Stone jokes with him that his press relations colleague wanted to confess that he had left a prototype Android phone at a local bar. “I’d be happy if that happened and someone wrote about it,” Rubin is quoted as saying. “With openness comes less secrets.” Considering all the hubbub about the iPhone/Gizmodo incident (which even led to the police seizing Gizmodo editor Jason Chen’s computers from his home while he was not even there), Rubin’s response is a well-placed jab. In fact, that’s not the only jab at Apple Rubin took in the interview. Stone writes, that he even “seemed to compared [sic] Apple to North Korea.” On the general public caring about mobile software being open or a walled garden like Apple’s, Rubin is quoted, “When they can’t have something, people do care. Look at the way politics work. I just don’t want to live in North Korea.” There’s no question that Google and Apple are becoming much fiercer rivals. It’s always fun to look at the jabs each takes at the other. Apple CEO Steve Jobs recently painted Android as all but the red light district of mobile operating systems.
Tags: Apple, Brad Stone, Gizmodo, iPhone, jab, local bar, rubin, toward-the-end
Posted April 26, 2010 by cgseo under under
Pay-Per-Click Ask’s Dictionary.com has reached the 10 million download milestone for its mobile apps in just over a year. Dictionary.com gets about 50 million unique visitors a month between its site and its mobile apps. The company’s new iPad app already has over 100,000 downloads to date. I spoke with Dictionary.com President Shravan Goli who expressed a great deal of excitement about the iPad and tablet-style devices in general. He says their iPad app already gets a higher level of engagement from users in terms of time spent with the app. Over 40% of users, he says, are coming back 2-5 times a day. Pageviews for the app are nearly 2-3 times what they are for the site. It’s worth noting as well, that the site has games that are not even available through Dictionary.com’s regular apps (though a couple of them have their own apps in Apple’s App Store). While Goli is clearly ecstatic about the popularity Dictionary.com’s iPad app is already receiving, he’s more excited about the future. “What we’re excited about is working on the 2nd generation of the app.” Don’t rule out games in future versions either. Like other smartphone makers have come into play following the iPhone, we’re going to be seeing this big time with tablet devices like the iPad. This is at the beginning of its lifecycle, Goli says. “We look at it as something that’s going to explode.” And Dictionary.com will continue to look for ways to take advantage. “At the end of the day we’re definitely seeing some of our fastest growth.” This a good example of what we’re talking about when we discuss mobile making search more diversified – people are finding different kinds of information in different ways than they might have in the past. Of course Dictionary.com has been around for over a decade, but mobile simply changes the game – someone who may have used Google to look up a word on their computer, may have also downloaded the Dictionary.com app specifically for definitions – or maybe for some of its other features. People aren’t just going to look up words, he says. They’re going for pronunciations, how to use a word in a sentence, word of the day, etc. – things that aren’t incredibly easy to find through “generic search”. Goli says Dictionary.com’s well-recognized brand has played a great role in the success of its apps. “We haven’t done any marketing on the mobile side,” he says. They’ve essentially just marketed the apps on Dictionary.com itself, and they still reached the ten million downloads. Look for an even bigger expansion of Dictionary.com’s presence as they have also opened up their API, giving developers access to words and definitions for use in games and other types of apps.
Tags: api, Apple, apps, ask, decade, dictionary-com, iPhone, rule-out-games
Posted April 26, 2010 by cgseo under under
Pay-Per-Click Rhapsody has introduced a new version of its iPhone app that allows users to store subscription music in the phones memory and stream it when they don’t have an Internet connection. Rhapsody says it is the first U.S. service to allow people to download subscription music to the iPhone. By downloading playlists directly to the device, users can listen to Rhapsody from any location. “Today marks a turning point for Rhapsody and subscription music,” said Jon Irwin, Rhapsody’s president. “By making Rhapsody accessible anywhere people want to hear music — and not just the places where they have an Internet connection — we’re giving music lovers a new way to discover and enjoy music on the devices they love.” Using the iPhone app requires a subscription to Rhapsody for either $10-per-month, which provides access to the music service on one mobile device or for $14.99 which provides access on up to 3 mobile devices. Earlier this month, the company launched a mobile app for the Android platform. Rhapsody said it is developing a new mobile app for BlackBerry users that will launch this summer.
Tags: Apple, Internet, internet connection, mobile devices, music lovers, provides-access, Rhapsody, rhapsody music, summer
Posted April 21, 2010 by cgseo under under
Pay-Per-Click Google continues down its path of acquisitions, as it has now scooped up the mysterious tech startup Agnilux. It’s mysterious because there is very little information about it on the web, and even publications like the New York Times have had a hard time uncovering much information about it. It has been revealed, however, that Agnilux was founded by former employees of P.A. Semi, the chip manufacturer that Apple acquired a couple years ago, which produced chips for the iPhone and iPad. Some of P.A. Semi stayed with Apple, and others went off on their own and formed Agnilux, as the story goes. This Google/Apple competition story just gets more and more interesting. Nobody knows exactly what Google’s plan is with Agnilux, or even what Agnilux does exactly, although the New York Times recently got word from a former P.A. Semi employee that Agnilux was working on “some kind of server, and that the company has a partnership with Cisco.” Agnilux has people who have worked at P.A. Semi, Apple, Cisco, IBM, TiVo, Real Networks, Boeing, and various other tech companies, according to varioud LinkedIn profiles listed under the company.
Tags: acquisitions, agnilux-gets, Apple, apple story, cisco, friendship-gone, mobile advertising, Rsquo
Posted April 19, 2010 by cgseo under under
Pay-Per-Click Google may be stepping up its efforts to have developers pay attention to Android.
Tags: advocacy group, Apple, developers, google-android, iPhone, tactic, texts, three months