Archive for the ‘Analysis’ Category
OneForty is a new Twitter App Directory that has been around for a while now. Today, it has been announced that they have received $1.6 million in funding. I would like to congratulate the team on receiving funding, but what the hell are the investors thinking!
A Twitter app directory seems like an addon to an already developed site and not a project in itself I dont see why someone would fund this project because it just seems very limited. A Twitter directory can gain decent traction but no where near what is needed to get the returns on advertising, thus they must be after an exit eventually. However, the only company that would be interested in purchasing such a site is probably Twitter, and Oneforty just seems to poorly developed and designed to get an exit to Twitter.
Am I missing the point here?
It’s no big secret that the Russian market has been a tough one to crack for major western companies. Nintendo wouldn’t even bother trying to sell the Wii there as they feel Russia just isn’t ready for social gaming and the internet seems to hold less cultural value when compared to other countries.
However, Google are trying desperately to get a firm foot-hold in the market and as such have made a bid of around the $200 million mark for the country’s most popular instant messaging service; ICQ. Skype are also rumoured to be interested in the deal.
AOL owns ICQ at the minute having bought it in 1998 for $400 million (they’ll be making a loss). It now has over 30 million users with in excess of eight million of them living in Russia. So getting such a huge chunk of the market instantly would be a huge help for Google. Or whatever Western company manages to close the deal for that matter.
Nintendo’s resident name jotter-downer and kiester-kicker recently divulged to BMO Capital Markets attendees that the Wii is outperforming its rivals when it comes to female gamers. According to its estimates (via Kotaku), 80 percent of the female console gaming crowd prefers Wii over the alternatives. With an estimated 11.7 million female console gamers in the Americas — it’s important to note this data of Nintendo’s doesn’t take into account DS owners or PC users — the figure comes out to roughly nine million ladies waggling their way into the fun zone.
There has long been uncertainty on the exact process that it takes to get an application passed the Apple powers that be. Their ability to simply turn down an application from the approval process seems to be loosely defined, or undefined depending on how you see it. So it begs to question how one developer was able to get over 1,000 apps into the Apple store without raising any flags. (Molinker apps)
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If there’s one corporation that can make a business venture a success, it’s Google. If your company is lucky enough to be taken under its wing then you know your in for success. Or at least a ton of money.
A bunch of ex-Google employees founded a service called Ardvark which allows users to ask people for information and post questions. It was originally developed as a mobile-only app but has recently launched a website version.
They have just received a huge offer from Google amounting to $30 million dollars. Despite all the benefits that an investment from Google would bring to Ardvark the original creators are left with a dilemma. Clearly the project has promise if Google are showing interest, so they may like to roll the dice on this one and refuse to sell hoping for more money in the long run. But then if it’s a flop they could be $30 million down and looking rather foolish indeed.
Other investors and bidders are said to be making offers. To be honest, I can’t see them holding out much longer. That much outside pressure and money dangled in front of them must be swaying debates in the conference room.
In the battle over email application supremacy, Thunderbird has been one of the most highly developed for web application next to Google’s Gmail. Consistently we’re treated to new releases, updates, and efforts to make the user experience more comfortable and seamless with other email providers as it works to be the catch all for all of our digital communication. Most recently Thunderbird introduced a bevy of plug-ins over the summer that increased the usability of the application, but also made it more fun. Millions of dedicated Thunderbird users keep this email client in constant development and whats being released this week is no exception.
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A while ago the team over at Mozy put together a great illustration to show how the world of music storage has changed in the digital age.
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There’s no doubt that the skeptics who thought that Apple had no chance in theportable music player department hid when Apple’s iPod hit the market and took the mp3 music players by storm. Very few technological innovations make such an impact on our culture and yet Apple redefined what it is to listen, interact, and engage our music. Their style of minimalist design served them well with the generations of iPods to come down the line, but now times have changed.
The market for mp3 players has widened with lots of entrants, but few are capable of toppling the giant, so instead they offer an alternative to those not willing to give into Apple’s tight restriction to the Apple iTunes store. Nevertheless, iPods have had to redefine how they are interacted with and that’s when the iTouch came out. This unique tactile surface mp3 player gave users a unique experience that was unseen in the market for portable music players. Since then Apple has never looked back, and the iTouch has swelled in huge numbers.
From June to November alone, the market share grew 5%, which in Apple’s world is a huge market. Most of this is attributed to the apps that you can install on the mobile device and the bevy of games that Apple is turning to to keep users entertained and constantly in contact with their device.
But is there a deeper agenda then just the one present? Mac Rumors suggests that Apple is quietly turning the iTouch into the gateway device for future iPhone users. Similar to the concept of a gateway drug, it’s opening doors and increasing familiarity that users will appreciate and then look for something more substantial. That’s where the iPhone comes into play.
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Family Guy fans the world over are diverse and dedicated. These same fans fought to get the show back on the network and it worked. Since then the show’s creators never looked back. Perhaps ahead of it’s time when it was released the show has now brought in older and newer fans for episodes that hold no punches, targeting insults and satire in every direction.
The immersion of Family Guy into our pop culture is undeniable, and so much so, that even George Lucas approved a parody for the recreation of Star Wars, starring the characters of Family Guy fame. The working title which was “Blue Harvest“, the original fake working title for Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, celebrated the 30th Anniversary of the Star Wars franchise. This episode showed as the first episode of the sixth season that ran an hour long.
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Viruses are a huge deal online and Crenk thought we would put together a list of the top 10 most famous computer viruses.
1. ILOVEYOU - (2000) One of the most widespread and rapidly spreading viruses ever, the ILOVEYOU virus spread via e-mail, posing as an executable attachment sent by a friend from the target’s contact list.
2. Code Red – (2001) IIS on Windows servers were the target of this virus. It also launched denial of service (DoS) attacks.
3. Nimda – (2001) Nimda used seemingly every possible method to spread, and was very effective at doing so. Nimda is notable for being one of the fastest spreading and most widespread viruses ever.
4. Melissa - (1999) The Melissa virus is notable because it is a Word macro virus. It cleverly spread via e-mails sent to contacts from the infected users’ address books.
5. Sasser – (2004) Sasser exploited a buffer overflow and spread by connecting to port 445 on networked Windows systems. The chaos caused was possibly the worst ever, as systems restarted or crashed.
6. The Morris Internet Worm – (1988) The grandfather of computer worms, the Morris worm infected Unix systems and was notable for its “accidental” virulence.
7. Blaster - (2003) Blaster exploited a Windows operating system vulnerability and let users know of its presence with a system shutdown warning.
8. SQL Slammer – (2003) This tiny virus infected servers running Microsoft’s SQL Server Desktop Engine, and was very fast to spread.
9. Elk Cloner - (1982) Despite Apple’s marketing that their systems are less prone to viruses that was not always the case. Notable as possible the first personal computer virus, Elk Cloner infected the boot sector of Apple II floppies.
10. Creeper - (1971) This is noted as possibly the first ever computer virus. It infected computers on ARPANET. Mostly harmless, the concept of Creeper has infected the minds of rogue programmers through today.
Within the first 24 hours after jack Dorsey (Twitter co-founder) launched his new product called Square, he is already getting a lot of mixed press.
What is Square?
Square is a magnetic card reader that plugins into the headphone jack of an iPhone. Gigaom explains it as:
A credit card (or a debit card) is swiped through the reader, it reads the data and converts it into an audio signal. The microphone picks up the audio, sends it through the processors and then is routed to Square’s software application on the iPhone. From there the encrypted data is transmitted using either Wi-Fi (for iPod touch) or a 3G Internet connection to back-end severs, which in turn communicate with the payment networks to complete the transactions.
No information is stores on the iPhone or ont he device, plus Square is able to work on any device: Android, Blackberry, Symbian and even computers. “As long as we have software on that device, our reader works,” said Dorsey. Square basically makes any iPhone the equivalent to a $900 wireless credit card terminal.
Our thoughts so far!
Other press sources are reporting that Square is already worth $40 million on the day of launch. However, I think this number is very low! I can see this product has a lot of potential and can be adopted very easily. However, it has a huge amount of limitations. If Square gets mass adoption then the card companies like Visa and Mastercard could easily just develop their own similar product, and maybe even work out a way to block Square from accepting their cards. Additionally, established customers will already be tied into long term contracts with other merchants
Whats your thoughts on Square?
Other reports
Gigaom – Jack Dorsey on Square, How It Works & Why It Disrupts
Switched – Twitter Co-Founder Launches Square, the iPod-Ready Payment System
The Inquistr – Am I The Only Person Not Excited About Square?
Techcrunch – Square Worth $40 Million Before Launch
Quantcast is an analytics tool that has been around for quite a while, yet it seems as though most web developers either havent heard about it or dont use it.
Quantcast works in a very similar way to Google Analytics. The website owner ads some code to their site and then Quantcast brings in the relevant data and then adds it to their platform. However, unlike Google Analytics which is private, Quantcast allows the website own to then either display their analytics publicly or keep them private.
Unlike other online analytics software like Alexa and Compete (which estimate data based on a set of user stats), Quantcast provides exact analytical information and then only if it doesnt have that exact information, then it estimates traffic numbers. Thus, providing a much better indexing of what the world’s most popular websites are.
Here at Crenk we arent afraid to hide our stats like most other website owners, so here is a link to our Quantcast profile.
