#mstory channel

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Added: ViziApps


Another app-building tool to consider:

"Mobile apps today are very expensive and take months to develop. With ViziApps, you can create native mobile apps in hours to days for a small monthly fee. By reshaping the economics and distribution of native mobile apps, ViziApps fundamentally changes the way apps are used to engage workers and customers."

Added: UbiComp conference


The 14th International Conference onUbiquitous Computing (Ubicomp 2012) will be held in Pittsburgh, PA, USA on September 5-8 (Wednesday through Saturday), 2012.

"Ubicomp is the premier outlet for novel research contributions that advance the state of the art in the design, development, deployment, evaluation and understanding of ubiquitous computing systems. Ubicomp is an interdisciplinary field of research and development that utilizes and integrates pervasive, wireless, embedded, wearable, and/or mobile technologies to bridge the gaps between the digital and physical worlds. The Ubicomp 2012 program will feature keynotes, technical paper sessions, specialized workshops, live demonstrations, posters, video presentations, panels, an industrial exhibition and a Doctoral Colloquium."

Friday, June 15, 2012

Added: Mount Rushmore app


"The audio-narrated tour within the app is great for taking along on your next visit to Mount Rushmore--you can learn about the history of the monument and its sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, and his artist studio. The virtual tour is also great for planning your trip or virtually exploring the memorial from anywhere in the world." 

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

App economy stats

Many good sources mentioned, with link to original here:

Study: App economy is a booming jobs engine
SAN FRANCISCO – Looking for a promising career in a lousy economy? A new study suggests you're apt to find it in apps — the services and tools built to run on smartphones, computer tablets and Facebook's online social network. The demand for applications for everything ranging from games to quantum physics has created 466,000 jobs in the U.S. since 2007, according to an analysis released Tuesday by technology trade group TechNet.
The estimate counts 311,000 jobs at companies making the apps and another 155,000 at local merchants who have expanded their payrolls in an economic ripple effect caused by increased spending at their businesses.
The study asserts this so­called "app economy" is still in the early stages of a boom driven by the mobile computing and social networking crazes unleashed by Apple's iPhone and Facebook's online hangout.
"This is a telescope into what the future looks like," said Michael Mandel, the economist hired by TechNet to put together the report. "This is one part of the economy that is actually expanding and hiring. Once you point people in that direction, they can realign their compass pretty quickly."
Apps makers were adding jobs even when the overall U.S. unemployment rate climbed to as high as 10 percent in late 2009, Mandel said. That bodes well for even more vigorous growth if the economy can extend a gradual recovery from the Great Recession. The national unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent in January, the lowest level in three years.
Government labor statistics don't yet track jobs focused on apps, partly because the market is still relatively new. That prompted TechNet to try to fill the void. The 15­-year­-old group represents executives at companies that employ more than 2 million people and generate more than $800 billion in annual revenue combined.
The app economy began to percolate in 2007 — the year that Apple introduced the iPhone and Facebook turned its website into a platform for other programs designed for its rapidly growing audience.
Today, there are more than 500,000 apps available for the iPhone and Apple's iPad tablet. Some are given away for free in an attempt to make money from ads. Others are sold by young and old entrepreneurs, as well as major companies.
As its audience has grown from about 58 million users in 2007 to 845 million today, Facebook has hatched perhaps the most successful apps company so far in Zynga Inc.
The San Francisco-­based maker of online games such as FarmVille and Words With Friends already employs about 2,800 people and has leased enough office space to hire thousands more during the next few years.
The seeds for even more job growth have been planted by a proliferation of other mobile devices designed to run on operating systems made by Google Inc., Research in Motion Ltd. and Microsoft Corp. More apps are likely to be coming into homes as more TVs and appliances, including refrigerators and washing machines, are wired for Internet access.
For all its progress and future promise, the app economy remains a small fraction of the broader technology industry. TechNet estimates about 3.5 million people are working in technology jobs — occupations revolving around computers and mathematics. But not all the jobs being created in the app economy require geeky credentials.
TechNet reasons every apps programming job hatches another position in other non­technical areas such as sales, marketing, human resources and other administrative chores.
The study also presumes the job growth in apps spurs more local spending on goods and services that encourages more hiring at neighboring businesses. Quantifying this domino effect can be tricky.
Mandel, president of the consulting firm South Mountain Economics says he believes he was conservative in his calculations. He estimates that one peripheral job is created for every two jobs added to the payroll of an apps maker.
The TechNet study found that the highest concentration of app jobs is in the technology hotbeds of the San Francisco Bay area (nearly 15 percent), New York (9 percent) and Seattle (nearly 6 percent).
But the study also found app jobs cropping up in places such as Philadelphia (nearly 2 percent), Detroit (1 percent) and Phoenix (1 percent).
TechNet CEO Rey Ramsey is optimistic apps jobs will be widely dispersed across the country because it's a specialty that doesn't require big factories, close proximity to railroads and highways or even other technology hubs. All that is really required, he said, is a good idea and online access.

Bringing news to this part of the site

As part of the redesign of this blog, I'm going to start posting news here, rather than in a static format, just to make organization and distribution of such material easier to manage and produce. So here are the older pieces carried forward. ...

2011

Apple Leads Smartphone Race, while Android Attracts Most Recent Customers


"The race for the lead in U.S. smartphone operating system (OS) consumer market share is tighter than it has ever been. According to November data from The Nielsen Company, the popularity of the Android OS among those who purchased a smartphone in the last six months (40%) makes it the leading OS among recent acquirers. But despite its surge among recent acquirers, when it comes to overall consumer market share, Android OS (25.8%) is still behind Apple iOS (28.6%). RIM Blackberry’s position is less clear: Its share (26.1%) puts it within the margin of error of both Apple iOS and Android. In other words, RIM remains statistically tied with both Apple for first and Android for third. Apple’s clear lead over Android notwithstanding, this race might still be too close to call."

- The Nielsen Company report on smartphone market share, Jan. 3, 2011

2010

"Smartphones" to overtake "feature" phones by 2011


"The iPhone, Blackberry, Droid and smartphones in general dominate the buzz in the mobile market, but only 21% of American wireless subscribers are using a smartphone as of the fourth quarter 2009 compared to 19% in Q3 2009 and 14% at the end of 2008. We are just at the beginning of a new wireless era where smartphones will become the standard device consumers will use to connect to friends, the internet and the world at large. The share of smartphones as a proportion of overall device sales has increased to 29% for phone purchasers in the last six months and 45% of respondents to a Nielsen survey indicated that their next device will be a smartphone."

- Nielsen report by Roger Entner, Senior V.P., Research and Insights, Telecom Practice, March 26, 2010

Cell phone use rises rapidly in the U.S., in minutes, texts, data


"In particular, wireless data service revenues increased 25.7% from the last half of 2008 to reach more than $22 billion for the last half of 2009. Wireless data revenues, which represent what consumers spend on non-voice services, were more than 28% of all wireless service revenues. In addition, there are now more than 257 million data-capable devices in consumers’ hands, up from 228 million at the end of 2008. 50 million of these devices are smart phones or wireless-enabled PDAs."

CTIA - The Wireless Association report, March 23, 2010

Mobile app revenue to increase 60 percent in 2010, then grow four-fold by 2013


"Worldwide mobile application stores’ download revenue exceeded $4.2 billion in 2009 (is expected to be $6.7 billion in 2010) and will grow to $29.5 billion by the end of 2013."

- Gartner consultants press release, Jan. 18, 2010

Many in the world are getting initial exposure to Internet through mobile devices


There are about 4.6 billion mobile subscriptions among the planet's 6.8 billion people today." ... "For the majority of the world's people, their first and only access to the Internet will be through a mobile device - not a PC. And this access is spreading very, very fast."

Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, Jan. 8, 2010

Smartphone penetration growing rapidly


"Smartphones reached 17 percent share of US adult (subscribers in 2009), up from 11 percent at the end of 2008 and 7 precent a year earlier."

-- Forrester Research blog, Jan. 4, 2010 entry by Charles S. Golvin.

2009


About 24 million Americans using smartphones now, up 159 percent in a year


"(The smartphone industry) showed a significant 159-percent growth rate during the past year to 23.8 million users in August 2009. The growth in touchscreen device adoption substantially outpaced the already strong 63-percent growth in U.S. adoption of smartphones. ... The Apple iPhone ranked as the top touchscreen device family with 32.9 percent of touchscreen device users age 13 and older, nearly four times larger than the market share of the next largest device family, the LG Dare (8.7 percent). LG Voyager ranked third with 7.8 percent of the market, followed by the Blackberry Storm (7.0 percent) and Palm Treo (6.5 percent). "

- ComScore consultants, Nov. 3, 2009 press release

Almost all of American adults have cell phones; data delivery on those coming next


"93 percent of U.S. adults own a cell phone." And, "The mobile device will be the world's primary connection tool to the Internet in 2020."

-- "Did You Know 4.0, Shift Happens" by XPlane consultants, September 2009, in partnership with The Economist.

Potential is 'immense' for mobile data sharing and Internet access


There are nearly 4 billion mobile subscribers (in the world, at year end 2009), but only 260 million of them on 3G networks, or about 7 percent penetration, indicating immense potential demand for the mobile Internet.

- Morgan Stanley report "The Mobile Internet," Dec. 15, 2009.

More than 1 billion mobile devices on the Internet


"By year end, IDC expects more than 1 billion mobile devices will be accessing the Internet."

-- IDC.com press release, Dec. 3, 2009, authored by the consulting firm's Frank Gens and Michael Shirer

Amazing speed of adoption of this technology, includes major data jump


A comparison of American cellular phone usage over the decade, from CTIA, the international association for the wireless telecommunications industry (U.S. market only):

Wireless subscribers: 97 million in June 2000, 277 million in June 2009

Wireless penetration: 34 percent in 2000, 89 percent in 2009

Wireless-only households: NA in 2000, 20 percent in 2009

Total annual wireless revenues: $45 billion in 2000, $151 billion in 2009

Annual wireless revenues from data-sharing: $140 million in 2000, $37 billion in 2009

Annual minutes of use: 194 billion in 2000, 2.23 trillion in 2009

Monthly text messages: 12.2 million in 2000, 135 billion in 2009

-- CTIA

More than 2 billion mobile phones, compared to 305 million desktop computers


"There are 2.2 billion mobile phones in the developing world, 305 million computers but only 11 million hospital beds," said Terry Kramer, strategy director at British operator Vodafone at the Mobile World Congress held in Barcelona" in February 2009 in this ReadWriteWeb piece published about the desire to use mobile phones to improve healthcare in the developing world.

-- Terry Kramer, strategy director at Vodafone.

Accessibility to phones is high, among all levels of income


In low-income countries, Internet subscribers per 100 people grew only from 0.1 to 0.8 in data gathered from 2000 to 2007. According to The World Bank's Little Data Book on Information and Communication Technologies, though, mobile cellular subscriptions over that same time period grew from 0.3 to 21.5 per 100 people.

-- The World Bank's Little Data Book on Information and Communication 2009

More than 30 million iPhones already in circulation


"More than 30 (million iPhones) have been sold so far, 5.2 (million) in the quarter ending in June. ... The App Store now boasts 85,000 applications and a total of more than 2 billion downloads."

-- "Clash of the Clouds," Oct. 15, 2009, The Economist

Added: Ubipix

"Use Ubipix to record your trips, trails, and pursuits."

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