“Google is a crack dealer” is a phrase Larry Page never wanted to hear: but as the company’s relationships with developers begin to fracture across the board — from the web to mobile to apps — it is losing its grip on its own destiny. Read more »
Could the app economy be the cure for United States’ employment doldrums? A new report suggests that the nascent app economy spurred on by iOS, Android and Facebook apps has generated 466,000 jobs in the U.S. economy since 2007. Read more »
AppFog CEO Lucas Carlson isn’t shy about touting PaaS as the ideal way for developers to access cloud computing resources, but he also knows it’s not mainstream. In this inforgraphic illustrating the evolution of cloud computing, Carlson says PaaS will hit its stride in 2013. Read more »
CES and Macworld are hogging the event spotlight right now, but what about events for developers? Last year’s WWDC sold out quick, and this year’s probably will too, so you may want to plan on alternate conference and training opportunities in 2012. Here’s a list. Read more »
Forrester CEO George Colony reignited a minor firestorm recently by saying “the web is dead” and the app ecosystem is replacing it. Others, however, argue that the open web has benefits that apps do not have, and that losing these features would have serious consequences. Read more »
Twilio, a cloud communication platform powering a wide array of apps, is capping off a huge year of growth with $17 million in Series funding from existing investors Union Square Ventures and Bessemer Ventures. The new money will be used to continue Twilio’s worldwide expansion. Read more »
Amazon’s Kindle Fire has only been on the market for a few weeks but developers saying it’s providing a very significant lift in app sales because of its easy buying process. It’s giving Android tablet developers reason for a lot of optimism. Read more »
Spotify is opening up its service to developers to create free applications inside its desktop app. The company is now enabling much more robust integration of apps inside its desktop client, allowing developers to tap into Spotify’s 15 million songs and fast growing user base. Read more »
The Kindle Fire isn’t just getting attention from consumers. Developer interest is on the rise, making Amazon’s new device the top Android tablet developers want to code for in North America, just a few points behind where the iPad debuted, according to a new developer survey. Read more »
Apkudo, a start-up, is about to unveil a new free testing service for Android developers that allows them to see how their apps will perform on almost 300 actual Android devices. It should be a help for developers frustrated with testing apps for Android. Read more »
Many newspapers still think of themselves as delivering content in a specific format, but some forward-thinking outlets — including USA Today and The Guardian in Britain — are thinking of themselves more as platforms, and opening up their content for use by others via their APIs. Read more »
Google unveiled its effort to create a programming language solely for building web apps. Much like there’s a shift in computer hardware to take advantage of a more connected and mobile world, Google is attempting to push a concurrent shift in software. Read more »
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the social-reading apps the network launched with The Washington Post and other outlets would change the “way the news industry works,” but it feels more like those outlets have signed over a big part of their destiny to an AOL-style portal. Read more »
A new study from the University of Maryland’s business school claims that Facebook’s “app economy” has created almost a quarter of a million new jobs and over $15 billion in spinoff benefits for the U.S. economy. But do those estimates really stand up to scrutiny? Read more »
Subscription streaming music service Spotify launched an API on Wednesday that allows third-party iOS developers to integrate Spotify into their apps. Called libspotify, the new resource should allow for some fairly innovative uses of Spotify services, like game and AR integration. Read more »
Diffbot is trying help developers build apps that read the web like humans. The company’s technology uses visual learning robotics and artificial intelligence to view web content visually, helping apps analyze web data like humans. The company is releasing its first APIs to developers today. Read more »
Skype is helping introduce its third-party apps to consumers with a new app directory that lets people browse and access apps that are built on Skype’s API. The directory features dozens of free and paid apps that are available on both Windows and Mac. Read more »
Android users have about 250,000 apps to choose from but most have little use for any of them outside the top 50. New data from Nielsen found that 61 percent of the time spent on apps by Android users are in the top 50 apps. Read more »
Come August 20 and 21, the next Instagram and Hipstamatic could emerge in New York City, ready to do battle in the increasingly tough photo app market. Those are the dates for the Photo Hack Day, billed as the largest photo hackathon for developers. Read more »
Android Market is paced by a number of very prolific app makers and it also sees more updates per app than the App Store, according to app ratings analytics and discovery firm Mobilewalla. The company found that Android users are also focused more on popular apps. Read more »
Framesocket is the latest in a series of emerging online video platforms with affordable pricing plans. But while most have been focused on capturing small and medium-sized businesses that don’t have a ton of video expertise, Framesocket is hoping to gain interest from third-party developers. Read more »
Apps will save the world. Or at least are providing an important way for the developer community to give back and work on rewarding projects, while at the same time adding some much needed innovation around data sets for the public good. Read more »
While smartphone consumers are still taking their time embracing Windows Phone 7, Microsoft appears to be having more luck with developers. The mobile platform has reportedly crested the 25,000 app mark for Windows Phone Marketplace, according to at least one tracker site. Read more »
According to a news report on Thursday, the Federal Trade Commission is looking into Twitter’s business practices. Although that doesn’t mean Twitter is under official investigation, it means the company’s behavior must have raised enough critical flags to catch the regulator’s attention, which is rarely good. Read more »
With WWDC well underway, you might have heard a few words related to computer programming that even Mac experts have trouble understanding, but it happens to the best of us. Here’s a quick glossary of the programming terms that are probably most likely to confuse. Read more »
Developers building atop platforms like iOS and Twitter should plan for the day when platform owners work against their interests, said Union Square Ventures partner Fred Wilson, who reminded entrepreneurs about the dangers of relying on someone else’s APIs. Read more »
Twitter is expected to offer a photo-sharing feature soon, something that seems so obvious it should have been added a long time ago. While this will spark renewed concerns about Twitter bulldozing its ecosystem, the big question is whether it will help Twitter monetize its network. Read more »
While the Android Market is on pace to overtake Apple’s App Store in overall apps later this year in terms of sheer volume, it is trailing far behind as a money-making platform for developers, according to new analysis from app research firm Distimo. Read more »
Android Market has hit 4.5 billion app downloads, but it’s sometimes been in spite of the store experience not because of it. Today, Google announced a set of improvements to Android Market meant to highlight more apps and developers and help guide consumers to relevant content. Read more »
The benefits of building apps for Apple’s iOS are pretty obvious — among other things, access to a huge base of users. But iFlowReader’s experience shows there are some significant downsides as well: the company says Apple’s 30-percent transaction fees have forced it out of business. Read more »
Applications represent a gigantic leap forward in terms of mobile functionality. They have opened up new ways of accessing data, connecting to services, and interacting with people. Why, though, are mobile applications so dumb as to what is going on in the rest of your phone? Read more »
Rdio, the social music subscription service built by Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, is one of the later entrants to the digital music space. But it’s working hard to catch up by tapping developers to make its service widely available. Read more »
Twitter is rumored to be acquiring TweetDeck, and one of the big questions is whether it will keep the app alive or not. But if it does decide to kill it, the company could do further damage to the already tense relationship it has with developers. Read more »
According to a news report, Twitter is in talks to acquire the U.K.-based developer of Tweetdeck for as much as $50 million. Although the deal could obviously still go off the rails, buying Tweetdeck would be a smart move for Twitter on a number of levels. Read more »
Apple is apparently also tweaking its App Store rankings to factor in more than pure download numbers, a welcome sign if true. It could be an attempt to mimic what Google’s done with the Android Market, which now appears to take into account engagement data. Read more »
LinkedIn has launched a series of website plugins that effectively duplicate the features of the “open graph” platform Facebook launched last year — a move that throws the business-oriented network into what looks like head-to-head competition with Facebook for the clicks and identities of web users. Read more »
Appia, a white-label mobile application marketplace, announced $10 million in funding from Venrock today, brining total funding to $28.5 million. Casting a wider net with an app store builder may be the better play as opposed to raising millions for a single application. Read more »
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey is taking on an expanded role at the company, in what seems to be an attempt to show that Twitter is putting more emphasis back on the product after some recent mis-steps. Can Dorsey help put things back on the right track? Read more »
There are common patterns in API programs that succeed – in planning, management, and organization. Programs that fail have commonalities too. Here’s a nine-box model for API program management that helps track how both strategy and execution must come together to build a successful API effort. Read more »
What the CES or the Mobile World Congress is to gadgets, SXSW is to apps. I’m amazed by not only the number of apps that are launching, but by how prepared attendees are to try new apps out. Mobile-focused development has reached a tipping point. Read more »
