After the year RIM has had, it appears co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie may be losing their co-chairmen titles, according to a report in the Financial Post. But will such a move be enough to right RIM’s ship? Read More »
Bio:Ryan has covered personal technology and wireless for the San Francisco Chronicle before joining GigaOM. He is based in New York and covers a number of topics including mobile development, app economies and East Coast start-ups.
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My Focus
Mobile apps
Gaming
Mobile payments
Personal technology
Recent Posts
PayPal isn’t just building out a point-of-sale transaction network. It’s looking to engage consumers well before they set foot in a store. The company says its WHERE location-based ad network will be key in helping merchants attract consumers into their stores with deals and offers. Read More »
Apps are, at the end of the day, very personal pieces of software. And your favorite mobile app isn’t mine. So we decided to poll the staff here at GigaOM to see what apps changed our lives in 2011. Read More »
That didn’t take long. A day after Verizon confirmed it was going to charge $2 for single credit and debit card payments online and over the phone, it backed down following a chorus of complaints and questions from the FCC. Read More »
While Symbian seems to be Nokia’s unloved child and is fading in terms of worldwide shipments, it isn’t ready to be completely written off yet. The platform is still the leader in mobile web browsing according to StatCounter, which tracks web usage. Read More »
Mobile users love their apps and that love affair has outstripped our interest in browsers. That’s according to comScore’s latest mobile subscriber data, which found that the percentage of users who use apps has finally surpassed the percent of subscribers who turn to a mobile browser. Read More »
Which apps were the best rated and most buzzed about in 2011? That’s a question that app rating analytics firm Mobilewalla tackled, coming up with a list of the top five paid and free apps on four of the biggest mobile platforms. Read More »
More Must Reads
American Express has worked up an infographic charting the rise of mobile payments, highlighting a lot of the milestones over time. All this work in the past is now coming together to make mobile payments a mainstream technology. Read More »
Gogo, an in-flight Wi-fi company, has become the dominant provider of connectivity in the skies and now it’s looking to raise up to $100 million in an IPO. The company plans to use the money to generate working capital and address other general corporate needs. Read More »
Kiip, a mobile monetization startup that offers real rewards to game users who hit in-game milestones, is now going after bigger brand advertisers with a new feature called Swarm, which engages millions of users in multi-player tournaments with the top winners walking away with big prizes. … Read More »
Analysis by Xyologic found that of the top 150 apps downloaded on each the iPhone and Android in 2011, Android leaned toward apps, with 85 of 150 being non-gaming apps, while 100 of the top 150 apps on the iPhone were games. Read More »
Group messaging startup Kik sees a new opportunity in not just connecting users through its own app, but in becoming a content-sharing layer between other apps. Kik is launching a new open API to help app users transmit content directly from one app to another. Read More »
EBay is continuing its buying spree, snapping up Germany’s BillSafe, a payment-by-invoice provider. The new acquisition will be rolled up into PayPal, which made a minority investment in BillSafe last year and collaborated on a joint online invoice payment solution for e-commerce customers. Read More »
Intel provided a glimpse of some reference designs for Android smartphones and tablets built off its Medfield mobile chip, which it believes will finally catapult the company into the mobile market in 2012. This is a refrain Intel has echoed before so will next year be … Read More »
The average web page has grown from 726 KB a year ago to 965 KB now, according to the HTTP Archive. That growth could eventually help put a squeeze on mobile consumers who have to deal with increasing broadband caps. Read More »
Global mobile advertising and marketing is expected to grow from $3.4 billion in 2010 at a compound annual growth rate of 37 percent to $22.5 billion in 2016. Berg Insight said that by 2016, mobile advertising worldwide will represent 15.2 percent of all online ad spending. Read More »
One day after the International Trade Commission approved a formal ban on certain HTC products that infringe on an Apple patent, an ITC administrative law judge has issued an initial determination that Motorola has infringed on four claims of a Microsoft patent with its Android products. … Read More »
App analytics firm Distimo said the iPhone App Store is generating about four times as much revenue for the top 200 apps compared to the top 200 apps in Android Market. The app revenue gap is prompting developers to look for creative ways to make money. Read More »
Nuance and voice recognition rival Vlingo have put away their knives and are now set to become one company with the announcement today that Nuance was buying its competitor. The two companies are set to take on the exploding opportunity in providing natural language interfaces. Read More »
Millennial Media is providing another solid bit of data on Kindle Fire sales, saying that the Fire’s ad impressions have been growing by 19 percent daily since its mid-November launch. The Kindle Fire is now on a faster initial pace than the iPad. Read More »
Wahooly has created a group of 25,000 influential testers and is now opening the doors to startups to apply to engage this group. Startups will create testing groups of 5,000 to 8,000 people, who will share in a pool of equity ranging from 4–6 percent. Read More »
Mainstream mobile users have been slow to embrace location-based services. But location apps could really see a boost through the smart use of voice activated AI systems like Siri, which can help users more easily unlock the world around them. Read More »
NFC has been trashed by critics, who say it adds no value to consumers or is a technology in search of a need. But increasingly, we’re seeing more interesting projects and applications being built that show how NFC will be deployed outside of mobile payment situations. Read More »
In an apparent effort to close the gap on iOS and its developer advantage, Google has announced a new set of Android developer classes aimed at helping walk developers through a series of lessons. Android Training will offer more than 30 lessons on larger topics. Read More »
Kapture, a new start-up from an original member of Qwiki, lets business reward users for sharing pictures about their establishment through their social networks. It allows merchants to leverage user generated content to help spread the word about their businesses and strengthen their relationships with consumers. Read More »
Though historically secretive about Kindle sales, Amazon is finally giving a glimpse of how its e-readers and tablets are doing. The company said that for the third straight week, it has sold well over 1 million Kindle units a week and Kindle Fire sales are increasing. Read More »
Dwolla, an alternative payment system built off cash networks, is taking the next step forward by offering a new feature called Instant, which addresses one of the lingering pain points in the system: the three to five day delay in accessing cash for users. Read More »
Nokia’s Lumia 710 is leading the phone maker’s Windows Phone 7 charge in the U.S. and is set to go on sale January 11 with T-Mobile. T-Mobile announced that the 710 will sell for $50 with a two year contract and will ride atop its 4G … Read More »
Chip maker Intel has been getting some NFC religion lately as it looks to incorporate the short-distance radio technology into its chipset. The latest sign is an agreement with French NFC chip maker Inside Secure, which will provide NFC technology and products to Intel. Read More »
Outbrain, a content discovery platform that helps online publishers drive engagement, has raised $35 million in a Series D round led by Index Ventures with participation from existing investors Carmel Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners. That brings Outbrain’s total funding to $64 million dollars. Read More »
Zipmark, a New York start-up that recently graduated from the FinTech Innovation Lab, has raised $2 million to build out its alternative mobile payment system. Zipmark relies on the existing check-processing infrastructure to create a payment system that is fast, simple and cheap for users. Read More »
Google announced it has bought Clever Sense, maker of the smart local recommendations app Alfred. The deal arms Google with another tool to attack the local market, as it seeks to scoop up more ad dollars and be the go-to resource for all things local. Read More »
Despite the confident words of Google chairman Eric Schmidt, who predicted that Android would be the primary platform for developers, the current trends are still decidedly leaning toward iOS. Mobile analytics firm Flurry found that developers are picking iOS over Android by a 3-1 ratio. Read More »
Life360, a mobile family safety app, has been on a tear and is now up to 10 million users. That growth has helped the San Francisco start-up pull in a $3.5 million Series A round from a host of investors. Read More »
Gogii, the maker of popular messaging app TextPlus, is launching a service called TextPlus Free Calls that enables a host of devices, even Wi-Fi-only devices, to make and receive phone calls for free or very cheaply. Free Calls joins a growing number of IP-based communications competitors. … Read More »
Fiksu, a Boston-based start-up that helps developers obtain loyal app users, is training its sights on helping drive paid downloads with a new product called FreeMyApps. The service incentivizes iOS users to try traditional paid apps that have been made free. Read More »
A study suggests that apps downloaded through incentives are largely abandoned or uninstalled, providing little long-term benefit to the app developers who use these app distribution campaigns. According to a Harris online survey, only 3 percent of apps downloaded through incentivized install campaigns are used frequently. Read More »
Fast Society, a group messaging app that competed against the likes of GroupMe, WhatsApp, Kik and others, has announced it will end its messaging service on Wednesday but has plans to launch a new product called Cameo early in the new year. Read More »
PlaceIQ, a Boulder Colo. location startup, just raised $4.2 million to build up its index of location profiles that can be used to better anonymously target ads to mobile users.The company is relocating to New York City, to be closer to customers and partners. Read More »
British supermarket chain Asda conducted a survey and found parents were increasingly using technology as a form of in-home intercom with their kids, calling them to dinner or telling them to do homework. One in five used gadgets to communicate with children inside the home. Read More »
Isis, the near field communication mobile wallet venture from Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile, took another step forward with the announcement that it has selected SIM card maker and digital security specialist Gemalto as its trusted service manager for its mobile wallet. Read More »
While the Kindle Fire has its share of hardware and software shortcomings, a bigger concern is emerging for parents who are thinking of buying the Kindle Fire: it has almost no restrictions to prevent children from accessing inappropriate content or buying whatever they like. Read More »
Spotify is relaunching its Spotify Radio feature, enabling unlimited channels and skipping and more targeted channels in a bid to better take on Pandora. The improvements are limited to the desktop for now, but a mobile version is coming soon. Read More »
Companies are realizing that gamification, or the use of key game concepts to engage users and solve problems, can be a powerful way to create happiness and innovation and spur on results and education among their workforce, said Gabe Zichermann, CEO of Gamification.Co. Read More »
Jawbone’s UP wristband endured some glitches and bugs that have marred its launch and prompted some reviewers to withhold their full blessing. Now, the company is addressing those concerns by identifying the problems, pausing production while it fixes them and offering a money back guarantee to … Read More »
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