Archive for: market
Google’s Nexus One smartphone is already being sold in different locations around the world, but so far not in India. It has now been reported that Google is planning a launch of a ’scaled down’ version of the Nexus One for the Indian market.
Currently details havent been release, but im sure the price would hopefully reflect the market and also the specs. There is a very big mobile phone market in India which is dominated by Nokia and Blackberry.
The original Nexus One features 5 megapixel camera with auto focus and LED flash, 3.7 inch AMOLED touch screen, 512MB Flash along with a 4GB microSD slot, video recording at 20 frames per second and numerous Google services such as Gmail, Google Search etc.
For all that’s in the air for now, a report suggests that the new Nexus One for India will have a 3.7 inch AMOLED touch screen and Snapdragon processor but with a downgraded memory and Camera. Now, let’s wait and watch if Google really makes a hit on this one.
It has been reported in the last few days that the iPhone has been losing some of its smartphone marketshare, maybe the new Android powered phone from Motorola could impact this even further. Motorola is releasing their Motorola Devour.
Features:
- Touchscreen display
- Pre-loaded applications such as Gmail, Gtalk, YouTube, Google Maps (Basically everything Google!)
Well it looks like Motorola has another good mobile handset here and Verizon is more than willing to take it in to its fold. But wait, why drop the “Droid” branding? The Motorola DROID sort of put Motorola back into the smartphone map if only Google did not spoil it with the release of the Nexus One.
Is the Motorola Devour just a teaser of a better Motorola Android device to come? I’ll leave that to your wild imagination folks. In the meantime, in case you find this Android device interesting, Verizon is offering it through various plans such as Nationwide Talk plans for $39.99 monthly access, Nationwide Talk & Text plans at $59.99 monthly access and an unlimited data package access that will cost you $29.99 monthly.
Nokia has always been a company to diversify. They started out as a logging company for god’s sake and now they’re making the worlds greatest smart phones. Now, company bosses have confirmed that Nokia is currently looking into the netbook market to see if they can get a slice of the action.
The Nokia CEO said “the PC and the mobile will continue to come closer and merge.”
NetBooks are becoming increasingly popular over the past few years. People need more mobility than ever. When their smart phone doesn’t quite pack the punch they need they can take out their thin 11” netbook.
A netbook from Nokia might not be such a bad idea. I would imagine it would run windows XP given the limited computing power available on netbooks. If they were to release one, their very image as a mobile phone company would certainly rub off on a small, portable netbook.
However, I wouldn’t get my hopes up just yet until we hear back from Nokia. Many times companies have announced plans that have never bore fruit.
Spotify has received a lot of press in the last few days cause they are planning to move their European only service into the US market. The story was broken over at Forbes and I think this could be a very big move for the music industry as a whole. Spotify is a free ad supported music streaming service which allows users to listen to anything in their catalogue as often as they want. Spotify offers a free service which is advertising supports, a day of free advertising and then also a full unlimited service. Users can also build and store playlists; so that if you turn on shuffle, after awhile it feels like a Pandora 
station with only your favorites or the iTunes collection you wish you could afford.
Ive used Spotify since private launch and it is so addictive and one of the best services I have ever used. Their currently library has over 5 million tracks with thousands more uploaded on a daily basis. Spotify has attracted more than 2 million users in the UK and another 4 million across Europe. The company also wants to let you take you playlists with you anywhere you want. An Android app is in beta and an iPhone app is being tested.
Key issues when entering the US market is:
- Can they afford the crippling royalty rates that all the majors will want in the US? These rates already killed Spiral Frog and other services.
- Microsoft UK executive already leaked that they are readying a launch of a competitive product that will be tied in with the Zune. However, it is Microsoft and they always seem to get new products wrong recently.
- The economy needs to turn around because Spotify is 95% ad-supported. “If you look at the market today, who knows where it’s going to be in the next two, three years?”. Spotify founder Daniel Ek told Forbes. “We are doubling our revenues month-on-month–that’s a very good sign.”
Online dating is a huge market online and today I wanted to introduce yet another player to the game, Luuvee.com. Luuvee is a UK based paid online dating service in which users pay £4.50 per month to go through their huge database and hopefully find their love match.
Currently Luuvee is offering one month free if you signup now, but I don’t really understand why this site is technologically better than the leaders in the market, like Match.com and Plentyoffish? Previously we have profile dating sites like Smooch and BuddyFetch, but I cant see Luuvee gaining market share unless they come up with a brilliant piece of technology or become a free dating site and make their revenues from advertising.
What Luuvee say about Luuvee:
We made Luuvee to give people a choice – between the expensive, intimidating, scientific sites and the free sites that offer little in the way of quality people. We made Luuvee to fill that rather large void – oh and to help people have fun. After all, isn’t that what dating should be all about?
I guess they are right and that it is what its all about, however I don’t think can expect to make any money from this service. I simply dont understand why they didn’t put the site into private beta to build up the database and then launch the site for free, probably with some advertising in the footer, then introduce paid options once they have market share and a decent size database!
Palm actually wants to get back into the smartphone race. Today the shares of Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ:PALM) rose about 15%. The company increased the size of their secondary offering and raised $83.9 million as part of the process. The company sold 23.13 million shares as part of the secondary offering taking place between now and March 31.
Palm was initially expecting to sell 18.5 million shares being held by investor Elevation Partners. Palm added the extra 4.63 million shares at a price of $6 per share. Through the offering, Elevation Partners made about $49 million. Palm plans to use the capital raised to push the hype of the Pre in the smartphone market.
So far the Pre is looking great but is this one product really going to put Palm back on the map?
Peer39 is a natural language processing and machine learning, Peer39’s patented algorithms understand page meaning and sentiment, and deliver the most relevant and effective brand safe display and text advertising. Headquartered in New York City, Peer39 maintains a research and development center in Israel.
Teaming with the founders of the market-leading contextual and behavioral targeting technologies, Peer39 aims to create the next generation online advertising and content monetization platform. The company was founded in early 2006 by engineers, scientists, and entrepreneurs from leading internet companies and academic research centers. The company has raised $12 million in two rounds of financing led by top-tier investors including Canaan Partners and JPMorgan, Dawntreader Ventures, and leading industry insiders.
When looking at the progress of Peer39 it seems to be very mixed. According to Compete they have a growing website with a huge amount of traffic, but according to Alexa it is the complete opposite. Peer39 sounds like a very interesting concept and I’m looking forward to actually testing them out and letting everyone know my results.
