Round 1 of the Android Contest isn't even over yet, and it seems developers already have plenty to gripe about. At first, it was the Android SDK and simulator, which was buggy and didn't include several important features. Google responded by releasing an updated SDK one month before the contest was to expire and extended the deadline of contest until April 14th. Now more cracks have begun to appear. Developers on the mailing list have been complaining about the lack of web-based submission system to track their entries. Comments ranged from disappointment to disbelief:
"Maybe google have no time for better support. Maybe they have no resources or idea for this at this time. But I work hard and hope, that we and our work will be treated seriously. "
"So... it seems Google is kind of "unprepared" for this contest... I would assume if Android is such a big deal in Google's mobile strategy, they'd be putting mountains of resources in it to
make sure it reaches the maximum potential"
It is pretty incredible for a company, whose business is to create webapps, not to have a web-based submission of their own for contests. Especially one as important as Android. This ought to be raising questions about Google's priorities considering it recently announced a competition for sending robots to the moon, with the total prize money being three times that of the Android prize.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Should Apple sell 3rd party iPhone apps with ITunes
Wired is saying that apps for iPhones developed using Apple's official SDK will be sold on iTunes. Just like how iPod touch users can buy the 1.1.3 maps, emails apps from iTunes store. While there is no confirmation yet, if Apple goes ahead, it will position the iPhone app platform as a serious alternative to the Android platform. There are numerous benefits to developers:
1. Apps can make real money and not just pie-in-the sky advertising dollars (which is as low as $0.15 CPM for facebook apps).
2. Apple will create a directory for apps and possibly vet them for quality and trustworthiness. Conversely, this will mean that to succeed any app must be approved by Apple.
3. No stupid apps or app spam because people won't pay real money for them. Instead of contrived metrics like "number of daily active users", iTunes can use the number of paying customers and their average feedback. Smart developers will let users try their apps for free, and the willingness to pay is the best measure of quality.
4. Successful apps will be able to demonstrate their commercial potential and get funding to release on other platforms such as Android or Windows Mobile or J2Me. Android is offering prizes of $20,000 - $100,000 to developers, but winning a prize from a committee of technologists doesn't demonstrate market acceptance.
This could really be a huge development for the mobile industry. Up until now, a few games companies like Jamdat mobile has monopolized the development of games for cellphones, which imo range from the trivial to the infantile. Operators have been unwilling to sign deals with developers without the "right" pedigree and the "right" set of ideas. This is about openness and open markets succeeding where walled gardens and planned economies have failed
1. Apps can make real money and not just pie-in-the sky advertising dollars (which is as low as $0.15 CPM for facebook apps).
2. Apple will create a directory for apps and possibly vet them for quality and trustworthiness. Conversely, this will mean that to succeed any app must be approved by Apple.
3. No stupid apps or app spam because people won't pay real money for them. Instead of contrived metrics like "number of daily active users", iTunes can use the number of paying customers and their average feedback. Smart developers will let users try their apps for free, and the willingness to pay is the best measure of quality.
4. Successful apps will be able to demonstrate their commercial potential and get funding to release on other platforms such as Android or Windows Mobile or J2Me. Android is offering prizes of $20,000 - $100,000 to developers, but winning a prize from a committee of technologists doesn't demonstrate market acceptance.
This could really be a huge development for the mobile industry. Up until now, a few games companies like Jamdat mobile has monopolized the development of games for cellphones, which imo range from the trivial to the infantile. Operators have been unwilling to sign deals with developers without the "right" pedigree and the "right" set of ideas. This is about openness and open markets succeeding where walled gardens and planned economies have failed
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Mobile industry creating FUD around Android
As if sensing the threat of an open platform to their world of closed gardens, companies from the mobile space are trying to create FUD around the Android platform before it even launches. This from CNET, mobile security companies claim open Android and open iPhone will be a security threat. The claim that closed mobile operating systems like Symbian will be more secure than future open phones is a naked attempt to talk up their own business models in the 'mobile security' biz.
The irony is if Android or the iPhone platform turn out to be half as insecure as existing cellphones, then users will be well advised to turn off their bluetooth. There's plenty of bluetooth hacks floating out there in the wild. But its hard for users to gauge the threat of those bluetooth viruses, because until now cellphones have been closed and cellphone companies don't like to talk about bugs in their phones or offer patches.
Having open platform means security companies and developers can test the vulnerabilities of a platform and make Google or Apple to fix them. Open-ness doesn't mean that consumers will be able to trust and install every application that presents itself as benevolent. After all if anyone can write an app for Android, there will be spammers writing apps which steal your contacts or even worse. That is already scary enough; but take a look at existing mobile phones with their 'App Spam'. Like a cheap PC from a discount store, they often come preloaded with annoying and useless apps, and I can't even uninstall or replace them.
The irony is if Android or the iPhone platform turn out to be half as insecure as existing cellphones, then users will be well advised to turn off their bluetooth. There's plenty of bluetooth hacks floating out there in the wild. But its hard for users to gauge the threat of those bluetooth viruses, because until now cellphones have been closed and cellphone companies don't like to talk about bugs in their phones or offer patches.
Having open platform means security companies and developers can test the vulnerabilities of a platform and make Google or Apple to fix them. Open-ness doesn't mean that consumers will be able to trust and install every application that presents itself as benevolent. After all if anyone can write an app for Android, there will be spammers writing apps which steal your contacts or even worse. That is already scary enough; but take a look at existing mobile phones with their 'App Spam'. Like a cheap PC from a discount store, they often come preloaded with annoying and useless apps, and I can't even uninstall or replace them.
Yahoo acquisition by MSFT good for startups
The pundits commenting on the MSFT-Yahoo deal are missing one obvious reason why the deal is going to be good for startups and good for Silicon Valley: People still hate Microsoft and once the deal is completed, that just means startups will have a captive audience of 300 million users to poach
Facebook, MySpace Valuation
As per my last post, Google's missed earnings had led to questions about the revenue and valuation of social networks. Soon afterwards, Facebook revealed that it was targeting a revenue figure of $300 - $350 million this year with a EBITDA of $50 million. When Facebook raised money from Microsoft, their valuation was $15 billion giving the company a PE of nearly 300x.
Now, MySpace and Yahoo are in talks to merge, and supposedly Rupert Murdoch wants $6 - $10 billion for MySpace. Murdoch is a pretty shrewd dealmaker, so we assume thats the maximum he can squeeze out of this deal. But that means Facebook is worth 2-3x what Myspace is. Although Facebook is growing faster than MySpace, it still has only half as many users, and it's recent growth spurt has ended because of Facebook Beacon and because users are un-installing useless and annoying apps. (Also, note that Bebo is rumoured to be on sale for $1 billion) Its seems more likely, Facebook raised money at an inflated valuation and Microsoft should think twice about the value of their investment.
Now, MySpace and Yahoo are in talks to merge, and supposedly Rupert Murdoch wants $6 - $10 billion for MySpace. Murdoch is a pretty shrewd dealmaker, so we assume thats the maximum he can squeeze out of this deal. But that means Facebook is worth 2-3x what Myspace is. Although Facebook is growing faster than MySpace, it still has only half as many users, and it's recent growth spurt has ended because of Facebook Beacon and because users are un-installing useless and annoying apps. (Also, note that Bebo is rumoured to be on sale for $1 billion) Its seems more likely, Facebook raised money at an inflated valuation and Microsoft should think twice about the value of their investment.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Is Google's Earnings Miss A Disaster for Facebook?
Google's revenue was up 51% but still missed Wall Street's forecasts. It reported revenue of $3.39 billion, which was slightly short of an expected $3.45 billion. Being Google, the stock tanked after-hours as the market has come to expect stellar earnings every quarter. What was interesting was that Google's CFO blamed the weak numbers on difficulty monetizing social networking traffic such as with its major partner, MySpace. This had led many analysts to question whether monetizing social networking sites is really much hard than we expect.
Microsoft was quick to counter that ad networks on Facebook were doing better than expected. But what exactly does Microsoft expect? Take at MSN Live Search and you'll see Microsoft standards for search are not very high indeed. Meanwhile Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, has been going around selling slices of Facebook priced at $15 billion with nothing but a story as how he plans to make billions. It seems even when Google does badly, it can pull down its competitors. Was there a jedi mind-trick behind Google's earning's explaination? Facebook took a beating after Zuckerberg's failed Beacon initiative and even the once adoring media has now decided Facebook Apps are 'a waste of time'. Are fundamental questions about the viability of advertising on social networks going to undermine Facebook's bubble-like valuation of $15 billion. If Facebook was a publicly traded company, I think traders would be dumping the stock right about now.
Microsoft was quick to counter that ad networks on Facebook were doing better than expected. But what exactly does Microsoft expect? Take at MSN Live Search and you'll see Microsoft standards for search are not very high indeed. Meanwhile Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, has been going around selling slices of Facebook priced at $15 billion with nothing but a story as how he plans to make billions. It seems even when Google does badly, it can pull down its competitors. Was there a jedi mind-trick behind Google's earning's explaination? Facebook took a beating after Zuckerberg's failed Beacon initiative and even the once adoring media has now decided Facebook Apps are 'a waste of time'. Are fundamental questions about the viability of advertising on social networks going to undermine Facebook's bubble-like valuation of $15 billion. If Facebook was a publicly traded company, I think traders would be dumping the stock right about now.
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