Now MySiteApp, the Israeli company that previously put out the UppSite tool for converting websites into native apps, has brought out a new service called Brow.si for making mobile websites behave like apps. Brow.si is a multifunctional toolbar that can be easily inserted in a responsive website through the addition of some Javascript. It’s now in public beta, following a two-week closed beta period in which it was already used by a million people.

Pushing for the web

Much of this functionality is the sort of thing a publisher can put into a mobile website itself – content sharing through social networks, read-later options such as Pocket, font resizing and so on – but Brow.si aims to make its addition easier.

It also introduces something that’s previously only been available on apps: push notifications. Without the user having to install anything, they can subscribe to notifications from all the websites they visit that are using Brow.si, and consume that content through the platform’s own reader. Again, users don’t have to create an account for this – they just need to log into a social network (Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn) for sharing purposes, after which Brow.si will know which user is which.

What’s more, MySiteApp has become a WordPress VIP (see disclosure) feature partner, meaning sites using that publishing platform can easily install the Brow.si plugin. But again, that’s not all: as alluded to above, Brow.si is a platform in its own right, and it aims to help publishers monetize their content.

Cashing in

As MySiteApp CEO Gal Brill explained to me, publishers can add so-called “mini applications” that will only show up when the user activates the Brow.si toolbar. When the toolbar is swiped across the screen, it introduces new real estate below it, so the publisher could for example add a mini-app for the content recommendation engine Taboola, or they could even use this new space for traditional ads.

Mini-apps will be made available through Brow.si’s marketplace, and the company has an open API so third-party developers can help populate that marketplace with their own efforts.

It’s all very clever, and the simplicity of installation should give Brow.si a flying start. It remains to be seen, though, whether this sort of functionality will help publishers monetize their content on the mobile web. There are many variables at play here, from users’ desire for content-related push notifications (granularity seems to be lacking) to publishers’ desire for differentiated presentation.

That said, the addition of a new and relatively unobtrusive patch of mobile screen real estate for advertising purposes could turn out to be a welcome development.

Disclosure: Automattic, maker of WordPress.com, is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, GigaOm. Om Malik, founder of GigaOm, is also a venture partner at True.

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iOS 5 is the biggest update yet to Apple’s mobile operating system. Along with over 100 other features, it brings Notification Center, an improved way to manage push notifications on your iPhone or iPad. Read on to learn how to get started using Notification Center.

What’s a push notification?

Introduced in iOS 3, a push notification is a message sent to your device by an app you have installed. For example, a turn-based multiplayer game may send you a notification to tell you it’s your turn. A lot of apps use push notifications, and a list of the ones on your device that do can be found in Settings > Notifications.

What happens when I receive a notification in iOS 5?

If your device is running iOS 5, then one of two things will happen. If your device is locked (the screen is off), then the screen will turn on temporarily, and the notification will be shown. If you do nothing or are away from your device, notifications will form a list so you can see them all at once.

You can swipe across any of the notifications in this list to open the app they belong to. For example, if you get an SMS, you can swipe across its entry in the list to open the Messages app to reply.

If you are using your iPhone or iPad at the time the notification comes in, it will appear in a banner at the top of the screen, then disappear after a few seconds. This won’t interrupt what you’re currently doing, unlike notifications in iOS 3 and 4, which required you to tap ‘Close’ to dismiss the notification. While these banners are visible, you can tap them to open the corresponding app.

What happens to notifications I don’t respond to straight away?

It might seem like unanswered notifications get sent away, never to be seen again, but don’t worry; iOS 5 is keeping track of them for you. If you’d like to see a list of received notifications, simply swipe downward from the time at the top of your device’s screen. A tray filled with recent notifications, called Notification Center, will slide down. You can then tap a notification in the list to view it in the correct app.

If you’re using an iPhone, this tray will also show a Weather widget and a Stocks widget. These can both be turned off by going to Settings > Notifications, then selecting Weather widget or Stocks widget and sliding the switch to Off.

Can I change which apps show up in Notification Center?

You can indeed, by going to Settings > Notifications, choosing the app you’d like to turn on or off, and changing the Notification Center setting. You can also decide whether apps’ notifications appear in the Lock Screen by changing the setting at the bottom of the screen.

Is there anything else I should know?

When you’re looking at an app’s notification settings, you can decide whether notifications should show up as a banner, an alert, or not at all. An alert is the same as what push notifications were like before iOS 5: when a notification arrives, a box will appear in the middle of the screen, and requires an action to dismiss.

You can also change the order in which notifications show up in the notifications tray: either by time or manually. If you select by time, the most recent notifications will appear at the top of the list. If you select manually, then they will show up grouped by application in the same order you set up in Settings. Once you select to sort them manually, you’ll be able to drag apps around in the list to reorder them.

That’s pretty much all you need to know to get started with Notifications in iOS 5. Any other questions? Feel free to ask in the comments.

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Urban Airship, a Portland, Ore.–based notification provider (see disclosure below), told me it has hit 5 billion push notifications since it delivered its first message on June 14, 2009. The company took 1 year and 3 months to get to 1 billion notifications sent and took just another 11 months to push out another 4 billion messages. Now Urban Airship is delivering 520 million push notifications per month, or roughly 13,000 messages per minute.

The milestone is helpful in understanding how the game has changed for mobile developers. While they used to chase download numbers, they’re now seeing that it’s not enough to get users in the door; it’s about keeping them engaged over time. That’s how developers can keep monetizing them, through in-app purchases and mobile advertising. And one of the most effective things is a timely push notification that can alert a user to new content, an update, a local deal or some other message.

Urban Airship now has more than 20,000 iOS, Android and BlackBerry apps that use its messaging platform. And it’s helping enable more commerce and opportunities for developers. The company said it has enabled and authenticated 4.2 million transactions through its push notifications. Time in apps and app launches also increase with push notifications. A comScore study earlier this year found that 14 percent of Groupon and Living Social users engaged with those companies’ mobile apps after receiving push notifications.

“If I can grab a user back into the app, I can get them to purchase things,” said Urban Airship CEO Scott Kveton. “Push notifications are a great way to get people back into apps and consuming content over time.”

Urban Airship, which has also added Dylan Anderson as its new CFO, sees a bigger play than just mobile phones and is hoping to become a ubiquitous messaging layer between all kinds of connected devices. It’s working to make its notification system even more intelligent, using anonymized data to help determine the best and most effective times to deliver notifications. And because it can see across a number of apps on one device, it can also help direct messaging traffic, staggering notifications so that they’re clumped together. It’s something the company is working on and should help it become even more attractive to publishers.

The company is also building in location information into its notifications with its recent partnership with Simple Geo, which will team with Urban Airship on releasing a co-branded library for developers that leverages both messages and location. That will enable developers to push out location-aware notifications based on a user’s context, where they are, what’s around, what’s going on and other signals. That’s something we’ve talked about before, but it is ramping up as more publishers and advertisers look to better leverage location.

I asked Kveton if there are any signs of push-notification fatigue, and he said at this point, no. But that will be something to watch. People are responding positively to notifications now, but it will be important to not overwhelm users and devalue the power of notifications altogether by inundating them. The new Notifications Center in iOS 5 will certainly help by giving users more power over how they view and organize notifications.

When done right, notifications can really keep people involved in apps and be a primary way they interact with them, rather than launching them from their home screen. If users can come to trust that all the notifications are legitimate and helpful, it strengthens that relationship between publisher and consumer. And it opens the door for a lot of moneymaking opportunities. We still have a lot of apps that don’t utilize push notifications, but that should change quickly as developers learn the value of keeping the channel of communication open with users.

Disclosure: Urban Airship is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, the founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.

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The visuals related to how information might be streamed from your iPhone to your Mac is like something out of my dreams made real. Connected devices would be represented by an icon in your OS X menu bar, and everything from calls, to text message, to FaceTime requests would appear as they arrived in a Growl-notification type window in the corner of your Mac screen. Icons let you know at a glance what type of call or message you’re receiving, and you can take and make calls, plus read and respond to messages right from OS X, over Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and USB, according to the teehan+lax concept design.

iMessage is presented by the design firm basically as built-in feature of OS X mail, and it appears pretty much as it does in iOS 5 on the iPad. Putting it right in the OS X Mail.app is a stroke of genius, but I’d also love an option to break it out and use it more like a separate IM client, while we’re all imagining things.

The post at teehan+lax goes into more detail about each feature, so be sure to check it out in full when you get a chance. Any additional features you’d recommend for greater iPhone/OS X integration?

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That has increased the importance of mobile push notifications, which are poised to become even more vital tools for developers as they look to retain and engage users. Many developers already employ notifications to send out alerts, offers and remind users of updates. But now, the messages are taking on even more significance, because developers are being judged more on how often users are coming back to their apps. Android Market and Apple’s App Store both altered their app store ranking formula recently, apparently rewarding apps that have better regular use by users. Apple has also started rejecting apps that use cost-per-install ad campaigns, which was apparently targeted for manipulating the download numbers of apps that used it to gain users. Now with fewer tools to drive downloads, it becomes even more important to hold on to the users they have.

“2009 and 2010 were about the number of apps and downloads but it’s not about downloads anymore,” said Scott Kveton, CEO of Urban Airship, (see full disclosure below) a major push notification platform. “It’s more about the users who come back again and again. Even if it’s only 10 percent, that’s still huge. We’re still early on in the mobile game and getting users and engaging them is critical now.”

Retention Already a Challenge

Even before the app store changes, retention was already an issue for mobile developers. A study last year by Localytics found 26 percent of apps were only opened once. If you factor apps that were opened less than four times, the rate is 55 percent. But if you can get users to agree to notifications for things they care about, it can keep people coming back. Dictionary.com, for example, started pushing out notifications for its Word of the Day earlier this year and saw active usage grow by 6 percent.

That’s why it’s becoming critical to keep users involved in the app, because even a modest increase in usage means saving an app from abandonment and potentially making more money through advertising and in-app purchase. One obvious way is to just build a really good app. But with all the software on people’s phones — 48 apps on the average iPhone and 35 on Android devices — it’s still a challenge to get people to come back. Notifications, when used well, can keep a conversation going between an app maker and their customers. As Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures noted recently, if you have good notifications, it keeps users involved in more apps, even if the programs are buried on hidden screens or files. Notification inboxes can almost become the new home screen for users, who don’t have to delve into apps as often.

“I think notifications will become the primary way that we consume on the mobile device and may be the reason we move away from downloadable software and back to web-based software on our mobile devices.” Fred Wilson

Keep It Relevant

There are still a lot of pitfalls for utilizing notifications. If users aren’t prepared for the flow of messages, the notifications can quickly become seen as spam. At that point, consumers will either delete the app or turn off the notifications, which ends the chance to keep talking to that consumer. Kveton put together a white paper on the best practices of notifications recently, noting that developers need to get users to opt-in with a clear value proposition about why they’re being asked to receive them. Users need to be given ways to configure their notifications. And most importantly, developers need to figure out the best way to reach their users, which can be an art.

Jonathan George, CEO of Boxcar, a notification platform, said it’s all about understanding the threshold of users, and learning to stay within their limits. He said the majority of iOS users only get one message every three days. But it’s important to be mindful of what is too much and when is the best time. Apps that push out notifications at the same time every day might be missing out on opportunities to hit users when the message may be more relevant to what they’re doing. When it’s done right, with user consent and notifications that have value, it can strengthen the relationship between users and the app, he said.

“Because it’s opt-in, it’s like getting a card from your grandmother,” George said. “You know generally what it is, but you’re excited that it’s coming because it’s relevant to you.”

George said notifications are becoming a major marketing channel that can surpass SMS text messages. He said 25-30 percent of the time, users open notifications within the first 30 seconds, about twice as high as SMS messages. And it’s easier to measure the effectiveness of notifications because they can use rich analytics. Notifications can also be built with rich media, allowing for more appealing and effective messages.

Opportunities Abound

The growing popularity is opening up opportunities for Urban Airship, Boxcar and Xtify, another push notification service. Kveton said since launching in June 2009, Urban Airship is being used in 13,000 apps and has delivered 3 billion notifications, including almost 1 billion in the last quarter. Boxcar has built a notification inbox service developers can plug into, allowing users who download Boxcar to get notifications from multiple apps through a single manageable inbox. It’s an idea that works well especially on iOS, with its simple and sometimes annoying notification system. But it will likely be something we’ll see more fully fleshed out on all platforms as notifications grow in popularity. Even with the growth of notification services, there are still a lot of apps that don’t use push notifications, something these companies are looking to correct.

Xtify recently put out a new plug-and-play tool called Xtify Retain, a free self-service notification platform that allows developers to easily set notifications based on pre-configured times or after certain periods, such as a number of days after the app has been opened or last used. Josh Rochlin, CEO of Xtify said it’s all about helping developers keep customers, rather having to spend more money to get new ones. Already, 2,000 developers have downloaded the Retain SDK. Rochlin said Xtify made the Retain tool free and is looking to make money off of premium services around location-based notifications and analytics.

“The least expensive acquisition of a user is the one you save from the dead pool,” said Rochlin. “This is about keeping apps out of the dead pool.”

Disclosure: Urban Airship is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.

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One thing I miss about the home screen of the Samsung Galaxy Tab I briefly owned (there isn’t much) are the widgets that provide information without actually requiring a user to fully open an application. Apple only allows icons to be displayed on the home screen, and the only dynamic one of those is its own Calendar app. Third-party developers can’t use dynamic icons, and Apple doesn’t seem eager to give any other of its own first-party icons a dynamic makeover. Even its own Weather app always shows it as sunny, clear and 73 degrees, which can be annoying when it’s grey and hovering around zero with sleet falling everywhere. The only way to change an icon on the home screen is with a numbered badge, and that’s just how Fahrenheit and Celsius work.

Simply open the app, allow it to detect your location, and allow it to send push notifications. It’ll find the weather info for your area (which it displays in a very attractive interface, complete with three-hour forecast breakdowns and weather maps), and it’ll display the current temperature as a numbered badge on the app’s icon once you exit. Thanks to Apple’s iOS multitasking, it also updates the temperature every hour in the background.

Apple’s badge system doesn’t support negative numbers, so the apps provide a few different options for cold-weather climates. Either the app can display the negative temp as a positive number (so -3 would show as 3), you can display no temperature at all when it drops below zero, or the app can send a notification when the temperature swings into the negatives so you don’t get confused. Considering the software limitations, I think it’s a solid workaround.

Both Fahrenheit and Celsius are universal apps, so they’re optimized on both the iPhone and the iPad. Also remember that they’re distinct apps, so if you buy the wrong one, you’ll have to pay for the other to change units. Each only costs $0.99, though, so even if you do buy both it won’t break the bank. Plus, with both, you can have them side-by-side on your home screen for instant, at-a-glance temperature unit conversion.

I’d love some dynamically updating weather conditions in addition to the temperature, but until Apple makes some major changes to iOS, that’s not going to happen. For now, Fahrenheit and Celsius more than fit the bill, thanks in no small part to smart app icon design that makes it instantly apparent that the badge is telling you the current temperature. It may not be as fancy as an Android widget, but it’s simple, smart and it gets the job done.

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Fueled by a burning desire to bring you the latest iPhone app recommendations, I’ve kept a keen eye on the new App Store releases this week. As ever, I’ve hand-picked four apps for you to check out.

This week I’ve given my picks a social twist, whether it’s tweeting, traveling or just talking. My top pick for this week is Ping!, plus I’ve also been looking at TwitMusic, Papaya Farm and Nearest Places.

Ping! (Free)

In just over a year I’ve purchased two iPhones — a 3G and a 3GS — totaling just over €1,000. Alongside the two iPhones, I’ve also paid €15 per month for my 3G connection, €2 per month for my carrier contract and countless euros per day on apps.

I’m not actually going to tally all of that up. My brain refuses to let me. Let’s all agree that it’s a lot of money and I’d be forgiven for leaping on any opportunity to save a bit of my hard-earned cash.

With that in mind, Ping! is the perfect antidote to a dwindling bank account. Currently free to download, the app allows you to send SMS-style messages over your data connection, which are then delivered via push to other contacts who are also registered with Ping!.

Indeed, there’s a few other IM apps that handle push, but it’s worth noting that Ping! isn’t instant messaging as such, it’s much more akin to SMS. You don’t pay to send messages, or receive, and your account is free too. Registration literally takes ten seconds, from within the app, so you’ve got no excuses — grab that app!

TwitMusic (99 cents)

Earlier this week, Loren Brichter finally announced that he has submitted the long-awaited update to Tweetie, his Apple Design Award-winning Twitter client for iPhone. If this is news to you then check out my in depth preview from earlier this week.

The latest version of Tweetie, a complete overhaul of the original app, packs in an overwhelming array of new features. However, there’s a few features missing — such as groups, push and music tweeting — that would have certainly bolstered the app’s offering even more.

The latter of the three features I just mentioned is covered by TwitMusic. It’s an app designed for just one function: tweeting whatever song you’re listening to right now. The app will grab all the details about whatever tune you’re rocking at that moment and push it to Twitter. An excellent app for those who like sharing their personal soundtrack with the world.

Papaya Farm (Free)

A few weeks back I tried out Button, an unsettling multiplayer game in which the only objective is to push the big green button. Randomly tapping the mysterious button throughout the day has given me a test for more multiplayer gaming on my iPhone.

Compared to Button, Papaya Farm, despite it’s slightly more complex gameplay, is much more relaxing. The game finds you tending to your own digital farm: a place where the virtual grass is lush and green, and, with your assistance, the harvest is fruitful.

The real game begins when you start playing with your friends. Your fellow farmers play dirty and attempt to steal your crops. In retaliation, you install security dogs. Your friends then send you abusive messages via Ping! You subsequently forget that all you really wanted to do was grow a carrot. The game descends into chaos. It’s great fun.

Nearest Places ($1.99)

The final app this week is just for 3GS owners. Nearest Places is an app that makes use of augmented reality (subscription required). This buzzword seems to have just become fashionable again but it does mean something pretty cool: you can look through your camera and see lots of extra data about the world around you, Terminator style!

Rather than point you in the direction of your local subway or tube station, Nearest Places brings just about everything else to you. Through your iPhone’s camera you’ll be able to locate the nearest bars, museums, ATMs and more.

Acrossair, the folks behind the app, have uploaded several videos on YouTube showing how its augmented reality technology works on iPhone. If you’re still unsure how it’ll actually work on your 3GS, you can also check out Yelp’s app, available for free, which contains an augmented reality Easter egg.

That’s all the picks for this week. I’ll be back in seven days with a fresh selection of App Store recommendations.

In the meantime, what apps have you been using this week?

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Among console gaming fans, there is little doubt that Xbox Live is the current pinnacle of social online gaming. Sharing stats, matchmaking, ranked play, and messaging are all combined in a symphony of interactivity unmatched by the PS3, and certainly not by the Wii. Ngmoco wants to bring some of that social connectivity to iPhone gaming, and has thus launched Plus+.

Plus+ is initially launching only on Star Defense, an update to which is now live in the App Store with the added features. You can sign up for an account from within Star Defense, and registration is relatively painless. Plus+ is also one way to test out push notifications, if you’re looking for more apps that can handle the new iPhone OS 3.0 feature.

Services offered via Plus+ are game awards (like achievements or trophies on Xbox or PS3), leaderboards, a friends list and direct challenges. You can have two types of contacts in Plus+, followers and friends. The names might be familiar if you’re a Twitter user, and for good reason: They represent exactly the same types of relationships. Followers are people who’ve added you, but who you’ve not added, and Friends are people you’ve added yourself.

Push notifications come in when you complete a challenge map. Once you’ve lost your base, you have to option to Direct Challenge any of your Plus+ friends, which will send them a push notification making them aware of the fact. You can also issue an open challenge via Twitter.

I’m excited for what Plus+ will do for asynchronous multiplayer gaming on the iPhone platform. Hopefully Gameloft, EA and other major iPhone publishers will follow suit with gaming networks of their own. I have no friends yet, so I can’t tell if push notifications are working well. Add me and let’s tango, if you’re a Star Defense owner. My Plus+ name is in the screenshot.

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