Archive for: app
All the main news sites and aggregators are developing apps to keep their readers informed on the go. This is turning out to be a lucrative moneymaking opportunity via advertising as mobile web usage doubled in 2009. So why can’t you or I get in on the action, promote our blog, gain readers and look pretty darn cool at the same time? Well for $199, you can!
You see, most of the apps which blogs release are nothing more than glorified RSS readers. Pretty simple when it all boils down to it. So you could easily release your own by using AppMakr – basically the bare bones of an RSS App. This will take your blogs feed, enable you to add some images, alter the interface design, change buttons and rearrange your app and then publish it live; all in less than 30 minute if you’re taking it slow.
There are two price models. Here’s what they say on their website:
$199 – The Easy Way: AppMakr Publishes Your App
Submit your app in minutes, with AppMakr as the publisher. Skip the difficult parts of making an iPhone app, like having to work with Xcode and figuring out the app certification and provisional process. You can even insert your own ads in the app. Apps built with this option will have a small AppMakr logo on the app splash screen.
$499 – You’re In Control: Publish Under Your Own Brand
Take control of the app building process by creating an Apple Developer Account and loading your certificates into AppMakr. We’ll take care of the rest, including the provisioning, building and management of your apps. You’ll also be able to test apps on your own phone with Ad Hoc builds.
Pretty cool, no? Check it out at AppMakr
With the new year having just rolled around it’s that time of year again when gym memberships are at an all-time high as people promise themselves they’ll loose weight and get in shape for the new year. No better time then to join a new fitness community called Phitter which claims to have “given phittness a phacelife”.
The service is similar to Twitter in that users are encouraged to post their daily exercise news, tips, advice and benchmarks. Also, you can post to your stream via the traditional web route or from mobile services such as SMS.
In a press release, the company said Phitter.com is a “phitness phocused community that encourages members to talk, or “Phit,” about fitness, weight loss, working out, dieting, exercising, and healthy living while making new “Phriends” and having “Phun!”
I think this is a great idea. Twitter has proven itself to be one of the most engaging of the social networks. Furthermore, lack of companionship and encouragement is the number one reason why people quit exercise programs. Phitter overcomes that problem by creating a real-time community for those getting fit, something forums and networks have failed to do in the past.
If you post “Feeling down, not in the mood for a run” you’ll be bombarded with inspiration and encouragement to get out there and get Phit!
Over a year after a third-party app was released for Yammer users with an Android, Yammer have decided it’s time to release their own official app to compliment their service which enables people working within a company or group to send updates as to what they’re doing which is fed into a constant stream, like Twitter.
The app can be ran in the background while you use the phone on a day to day basis. It will vibrate or make a noise when the stream is updated by a colleague answering the boilerplate Yammer question, ‘What are you doing?’
The pre-release version is still reported to contain many bugs and I doubt it will be ready until late Spring of next year.
I think that this app will make switching from the iPhone to cheaper android devices much easier. Many people depend on Apple’s device purely because of the apps – now with many alternatives in the hands of the competitors, the iPhone could be in trouble. Expect a price drop in early 2010.
Over the past week, Yelp and Google have been in heated debates concerning Google acquiring the service which was founded by two former PayPal employees and allows users to submit reviews of their local services. After days of deliberation both parties had agreed on a price – half a billion dollars. It seemed that everyone was quite happy with the deal until the CEO of Yelp Jeremy Stoppleman notified Google over the weekend that the deal was off.
What happened?
Well nobody knows for sure but it must have taken something big for Yelp to walk away from half a billion dollars and pressure from internet giant Google. My guess is that another offer has been tabled. Obviously, Yelp wan to keep their cards close to their chest should this deal fall through and need to go back to Google. Perhaps one of Google’s rivals such as Microsoft or Apple have decided they want Yelp?
There’s a lot of apps out there, both mobile and desktop, that use the Twitter API to make it more “functional” for power users. What’s a power user? Well if you’ve got more than one account on Twitter, have over 1000 friends, and like to have your posts link to other social networks where you have a community, then you are probably a power user.
In the race to be the most dominant desktop application for Twitter, TweetDeck is definitely one of the leading contenders. Having been around for about a year, TweetDeck has taken the Twitter experience to a whole new level. It’s integrating the use of multiple columns, and attaching itself to URL shorteners, photo posting apps like Twitpic, and the ability link to other network like Facebook, all under one app. But just recently TweetDeck has evolved again, and this time, making it even more useful for power users to extend their reach further into the social web.
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For those of us in the business of online marketing, brand building, or building web strategies for companies, Jeremiah Owyang is a familiar name. His innovative thought leadership has defined the world of online web strategies and how companies interact with audiences.
His blogs have been a ranked as one of the top sites in Technorati, and his career board has increased the number of visitors to his website simply because of his strong belief in connecting people. Jeremiah “strives to define and deliver user and community needs, business goals, and web technology to craft and deliver long term successful web programs for companies.”
Most recently the web strategy guru has released a mobile app that now allows fans and followers to keep up with what’s happening on the blog and career board via their iPhone or iTouch. MotherApp‘s creative innovation has brought to life a clean and intuitive application to life. Via the interface you get access to his thoughts via the blog, his Twitter stream, and the ability to favorite tweets or blogs posts you find interesting.
If you’re into online marketing or strategizing web initiatives, check this app out. I’ve found that the information on here is useful and applicable immediately for just about any brand you develop for.
Recently, Nokia (perhaps foolishly) released a video of their new N900 smart phone running an SNES emulator playing some classic titles. The video had a voiceover which clearly amped up the phones gaming capabilities for classic emulators:
“There’s already a bunch of great retro gaming emulator apps available for you to download,” says the video voiceover which clearly shows options to use emulators for consoles such as the NES, SNES and GameBoy.
SO Nintendo got a little angry. But to be honest, I think they’re taking this too far. If anything, they should be considering releasing emulators for old-school games on smart phones like the have with the Wii. There’s definitely a market there and people would definitely jump at an official emulator rather than a third party one which is difficult to set up.
Whilst most other smart phone companies have got their app stores well and truly grounded such as Apple and Android, Blackberry are only now catching up. The latest most notable addition to their store is the official EBay app.
This cool app will allow people to bid, watch and pay for items on EBay right from their smart phones. However, that’s not that impressive because you can do that from a mobile browser. What is impressive is how it looks. As you can see from the screenshot below all the auction information is combines into one, easy-to-use screen.
Also, the app is integrated with the phone’s other features such as the calendar. Say you have a bid on an item and the auction is ending soon. Well an alarm will be set from the app on the phones colander and it will notify you if it needs and interaction on your part. It will also tell you if you won or lost the auction right away.
Unfortunately, the only method of payment using the app is PayPal – which i guess is for security reasons.
Many of you may be aware of an existing third-party EBay app for the Blackberry and wonder why you should bother with this one. Well this one doesn’t cost $10 – it’s free!
Everyone hates waking up, looking around the room from the cosy cocoon that is their beds and knowing that in ten minutes they’ll have to get up and start your day. For the most part, this is down to feeling groggy and unenergized even if they’ve just slept for eight hours.
WakeMate is an upcoming web app which is paired with a wristband (which you have to buy for $50) that aims to solve that problem. Here’s how it works:
You put the wristband on and power it up. It’s Bluetooth enabled. You then pair it with your phone (can be anything from an iPhone right down to your basic run-of-the-mill cell phone). When you hit the hay, the device monitors your sleep movements and cycles and records them on an internal flash drive. When you phone’s alarm is triggered by the wristband, you wake up and start your day. Your wristband will then have sent your sleep data to your phone which will in turn have uploaded it to you online account. You can then monitor you sleep patterns and quality on your account.
I think this is quite a useful app which may help thousands of people. You can pre-order your wristband from their site and pay just $5 now, and the rest when it ships. They’re due to ship in January. As for now, the app is a stand-alone product.
Back in 2006 before the average Joe on the street had a smart phone – we all used our cell phones to check our e-mails, Flickr, news, weather and other such services. The main port of call for this was Yahoo Go – a mobile client released by Yahoo!
However, Yahoo! have just announced that Go is to suffer the same fate as GeoCities did last month – it’ll be leaving us. Come January 12th next year, when you turn on Yahoo! Go on your mobile you’ll get an error message.
Undoubtedly this is because of the competition from more powerful apps and platforms such as those on the iPhone.
However I think this might be slightly pre-mature because the app is still being sold on phones as you read this. Perhaps Yahoo! are trying to push us into the smart phone market?
All the main news sites and aggregators are developing apps to keep their readers informed on the go. This is turning out to be a lucrative moneymaking opportunity via advertising as mobile web usage doubled in 2009. So why can’t you or I get in on the action, promote our blog, gain readers and look pretty darn cool at the same time? Well for $199, you can!
