Eight years ago, mobile veteran Satoshi Nakajima founded UIEvolution, a company that addressed a very technical and prevalent problem in mobile — trying to get applications to run across all handsets without a lot of work. Arguably, the company was a success, and was acquired by Japanese-based Square Enix in 2004. But interestingly, for Nakajima’s second start-up, he is now approaching mobile in a completely different way. The company, Big Canvas, is building consumer-facing applications, and rather than trying to get in front of as many consumers as possible, they are focused on only one phone — the iPhone.
UIEvolution still exists today, and is now an independent company after the management team conducted a buyout from Square Enix. Nakajima remains on the board and is an investor, but recognizes what a dramatic change he has made. It’s a testament to how different the iPhone is approaching the market, he says. Nakajima: “I think the iPhone presents something really new. Not just new to developers, but new to users….UIEvolution was a technical play to solve the problems in the industry, and Big Canvas is more of a lifestyle, communication play.”
More after the jump, including a video demonstration of Holiday Frames..,.
Big Canvas PhotoShare: The company’s first product is called PhotoShare, which Nakajima explains as the photo version of Twitter. The application has been available in the iTunes App store since it opened on July 11. The free app allows people to easily share photos — take a pic with your iPhone, add a comment and then upload. Then friends and family can view them based on whether the user made them public or not. Nakajima says it’s a “lighter” way of sharing photos with your friends, compared to email or SMS, which is very intrusive. So far, Big Canvas has more than 100,000 users.
Big Canvas Business Model: Twitter’s well-reported problem is that it does not know how it will make money yet. Nakajima doesn’t believe he’s solved that problem, but he is making money, which is critical because he doesn’t want to have to raise venture capital in this environment to support the three-person company. Although the initial PhotoShare app is free, there’s add-ons which cost a fee. For instance, yesterday the company announced its fifth application, HolidayFrames. The application allows users to customize photos with holiday-themed photo frames. The app costs $1.99. Nakajima hopes to release a new app every month. Another one is called Oil Canvas, which allows to turn photos into paintings by using their finger to brush over the image to create a certain affect.
The iPhone’s limitations: Right now, the company is focused on the iPhone, primarily because it doesn’t have the resources to target other phones. “We
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