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A platform on top of a platform? Seems to have worked out well for Labpixies, the app development firm that was recently acquired by Google. The deal suggests Google’s desired expansion for apps to run on its Android platform, which has staked its claim in the mobile realm and is moving beyond to include other consumer electronic devices. As Google continues to push Android, the need for apps running on the platform continues to grow as well.

Giving the app market a bit of a kick start, Labpixies was acquired in order to incorporate more casual games into options for users. This is a welcome change, as gaming on the Android platform has been relatively dismal, especially when compared to Apple’s mobile platform for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, or even when compared to Facebook.
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Steve Jobs Not Making Apple’s Work Any Easier

by Kristen Nicole on April 20, 2010

The battle between Apple and Google is more than just a contest for who leads in the mobile platform space–it’s an appeal to the masses and their morals. In the ongoing saga regarding Apple’s stance on adult iPhone and iPad apps, Jobs tells customers to go ahead and get an Android. The Jobs jabs at Google’s mobile platform not only indicates that Apple has taken the moral high ground, but that Android is for the heathens that aren’t worthy of an Apple mobile device.

Good play, or bad? Just looking at the Internet at large, it would seem to be that the adult industry is relatively easy to access. Of course, Apple doesn’t have to create an adult category for its mobile apps–that’s its right. But when those morals come into question regarding banned apps with no seeming just cause, the moral police at Apple have a few more decisions to answer for.

Apple has been relatively strict over the accessibility and distribution of content available through its platform, and this goes for content sold through iTunes even before the App Store was opened to third party developers. The pricing and availability of songs, movies and books have been regulated, per Apple’s relationships with content publishers, owners and producers. This has a nice revenue model for Apple, but it also grants a large opportunity for Google to appeal to a large base of developers and consumers.

Sometimes the control Apple retains over these monetary relationships is strong enough to deter competing moves from other businesses, as we saw with Amazon’s Kindle and the pricing model behind its e-book sales. It’s a control that Apple holds dear, and Google is hoping to exploit. Who turns out the winner? It may be more for us to consider more than just the platforms, or the devices, or the companies, or even porn.

The overlap of all these factors means that Jobs could end up making his products and platforms look bad, driving even more support to Android. Though security is still a major source of strife for the Android platform and its apps, ongoing work on the platform, frequent updates, and partnerships with more and more device manufacturers also makes this battle one of numbers and accessibility.

Of course, the battle will live on for quite some time, particularly as Apple and Android continue to represent different aspects and attitudes towards the way in which a mobile platform should be developed. What will make the battle even more relevant towards consumer electronics and mobile devices is the growing presence of additional products and platforms. The resources that mobile platforms make available to developers and the platform owners looks to monetize consumers in an entirely different manner, attracting the likes of HTC, Sony and several others, towards owning as big of a piece of the pie as possible.

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The Death and Rebirth of Twitter Apps

by Kristen Nicole on April 16, 2010

The developer plane around the Twitter market may have room for concern, as Twitter continues to reclaim its empire. The microblogging company has been dropping one bombshell after another, announcing plans for the future and rolling out new features and services. This week we hear of another, as Twitter notes its future plans for creating its own URL shortener.

The announcement comes after other news of Twitter’s plans for an official Android app (created or acquired?), its Promoted Tweets roll out, launch of an official BlackBerry app and acquisition of popular iPhone app Tweetie. While we’re finally seeing what Twitter’s been keeping up its sleeve all this time, we’re also seeing the real world effects its having on its users and developer market.

Twitter has had a long and fruitful relationship with its developers, leaning on them to create apps that filled in the holes for Twitter’s base service. Twitter coasted along this way for a while, eventually making nods to the more successful and useful of the third party apps, while acquiring others. A feature upgrade every now and again may hint at threatening a certain aspect of the developer market, but Twitter’s expeditious move towards filling in its own holes makes us wonder at the causalities that may occur over the greater developer market.

Weeks ago, Twitter noted in a blog post that developers should stop filling these holes, and focus on more game-changing apps with solid business models. The silver lining of this message is that Twitter’s plans (and current revelations) towards reclaiming stake over its expanse insinuates a solid support system for well-designed Twitter apps.

This is an important move that many other companies have made with their own platforms, from Facebook to Android. The iPhone’s platform is one of the most widely adopted for consumer apps, and its market potential has already been established. The desire for other platforms to be as successfully leveraged means big advertising dollars for companies such as Twitter.

So we’re likely to see Twitter leaning on its third-party developers once again, this time to generate revenue around Twitter’s system. It’s a more dually beneficial way to operate the Twitter platform, though security measures will be an early and important concern for Twitter and developers to address.

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Flickr CC: The Rocketeer

You think you can’t make your videos and photos look astonishing? Yes, You can.

Sweden is not only a playground for savvy online music innovators, but a place that also hearts for online creativity, making advanced online video and image editing super simple to use. In Flash. In the cloud. Bye bye heavy downloads and installations.

Jaycut, online video editor, and Pixlr, online image editor, are two Swedish startups bringing cutting egde video and image editing easily accessible to everyone with a browser and Internet connection. One is surprised how fast these editors load in the browser considering their feature rich libraries. Especially Pixlr has been dedicating to offer the fastest loading image editor. I have been testing, and it sure beats its online competitors FotoFlexer, Photoshop.comPicnik, acquired by Google in March, and Sumo Paint. For those small image quick fixes, Pixlr also offers Pixlr Express, a light version of the editor.

Both Jaycut and Pixlr are B2B white label solutions, yet offering their respective editors free to individuals. Being super focused on delivering the best editing experience, they were early on to acknowledge the importance of fans and a user community for feedback. Pixlr has a very active user community with 60% recurring visitors, which also has helped translate the service to 23 different languages and create user tutorials. Working closely with its users, Pixlr’s has released many appreciated features such as image grabbers for various browsers and a recent neat social sharing feature immo.io.

Video editing and collaboration regardless place or device

With JayCut’s online video editor one can create a movie or a slideshow by adding text, sound effects and smooth transitions. Its newly relaunched community has also focused on the one click social sharing features. Besides from storing, collaborating, and sharing, all content is easily published to YouTube, blogs, or downloaded to iPhone (available in H.264/Mpeg-4, Avi and Flv formats). After having announced its support for Moblin-based ultra-portable devices like netbooks and mobile internet devices (MIDs) last fall, it has also just released an open API to work on.

The one thing I’m currently missing on both JayCut and Pixlr, is the ability to access and upload my content from other services, for example like Animoto does with SmugMug. Pixlr, although, allows image upload directly from URL, making editing my Flickr pictures easy.

Editing as a tool to increase user engagement

Online video is a powerful tool for creating user engagement, and not just in terms of consuming video content. As JayCut’s editor is being used in various brand campaigns (e.g. by Procter & Gamble), it has been able to gather statistics regarding user engagement. On average, a user spends 5 minutes on creating and editing a video. That is a very high number compared to the time spent on regular banner ads, campaign or landing pages. Of course, there’s no magic sauce to create user engagement, but encouraging people’s creativity and allowing them to interact with one’s brand can be very fruitful in building brand awareness and relationships.

So, if you just wish to plug and play, yet have an itch to express your creativity, go and polish up your holidays pictures on Pixlr, upload together with your videos to Jaycut, give your story its own voice – and share it with the rest of the world.

Warning: Don’t try this on your iPad :)

Paula is online strategist and startup evangelist. She blogs at paulamarttila.com and here at Bub.blicio.us.
Follow her on Twitter:
@paulamarttila
Drop her email at paula.marttila[at]gmail[dot]com

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This past Monday, Microsoft’s Windows Phone team unveiled the latest addition to their phone collection designed to meet the needs of the socially connected. Called the “Kin”, this new phone comes in two different versions and is geared towards the younger generation – think high school and college students – who want to post their phones and videos directly from their phone. These “lifecasters” are typically concerned with seeing what their friends are up to and even more focused about broadcasting what they’re doing – even updating their status messages on popular social networks like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Twitter. In a slight twist, the Kin is one of the first phones that is supposedly going to let you share music and other data with others and also utilizes new software called Kin Studio which is pretty much like iTunes for the iPhone, in my opinion.

The Windows Phone event was held in San Francisco at Mighty and a slew of journalists and bloggers were on hand to cover the story, including folks from Mashable, ReadWriteWeb, GDGT, Technologizer, VentureBeat, SFWeekly and many more, including some local television crews. No word yet on how much the phone will cost, but it will be available on Verizon Wireless soon. And by soon, I mean next month. After the event, attendees were invited to check out the Kin and get a hands-on feel for what awaits the next generation of social saavy individuals.

Here are some photos from the event:

Windows Phone Launch Event
Welcome to the Windows Phone Launch Event – we’re in this together, it seems.

Windows Phone Launch Event
Talking about the concept behind the Kin.

Windows Phone Launch Event
Demonstrating the Kin.

Windows Phone Launch Event
Demonstrating Kin Studios and how you can share content with others.

Windows Phone Launch Event
Announcing the Kin will be available on Verizon Wireless next month.

Windows Phone Launch Event
Showcasing the Kin to the media.

Windows Phone Launch Event

Windows Phone Launch Event

Windows Phone Launch Event

Photo above were taken by Kenneth Yeung.

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