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Posts Tagged ‘Visibility’

Prepare for an iPad App Explosion: Developer Activity Up 185%

Recent data from mobile analytics firm Flurry shows iPhone OS developer activity has increased by 185% since Apple announced their upcoming slate computing device known as the iPad earlier this year. By measuring new application starts within the Flurry community, the firm was able to determine significant increases in developer activity, including the largest spike ever in their recorded history during the month of January after the announcement occurred. The growth continued in February and now the company reports that a large proportion of the new applications they are seeing are custom version of existing applications tailored specifically for use on the iPad.

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When Apple began taking pre-orders for the iPad on Friday, March 12th, the Apple.com website was updated with new information about the device. One of the most significant reveals was that iPad applications would soon have their own dedicated section within the iTunes App Store. The website text reads:

Browse a section of the store that features apps designed specifically for iPad. You’ll find hundreds that make the most of its large display, responsive performance, and Multi-Touch interface.

Although current iPhone applications will work on the new Apple device without modifications, developers who want to take advantage of the larger screen could use the updated iPhone SDK (software development kit) to modify their apps in order to release custom iPad-only versions. Now it appears that those who chose to do so will be rewarded for their efforts by having their apps made more visible via this new section of the iTunes Store. Considering that the number of  iPhone apps now in existence is somewhere near 140,000, being able to achieve this increased visibility will allow developers “the opportunity to establish an early presence on this new device and drive more downloads,” says Flurry.

Last week, we took a look at some of the iPad applications we’re looking forward to, including things like comic books, magazines and games, but there’s clearly a lot of others we haven’t even anticipated yet. We’re only days away from knowing what those will be: Apple’s iPad will be available for sale starting April 3rd, and along with its launch, the new iPad App Store will go live as well.

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CA Acquires Cloud Monitoring Company Nimsoft For $350 Million

IT software giant CA has acquired cloud monitoring startup Nimsoft for $350 million according to a release issued today. Nimsoft offers performance monitoring software to businesses.

CA is making a big move towards the cloud. The company just bought up 3Tera, Cassatt, NetQoS and Oblicore.

Nimsoft’s solutions gives companies visibility into the performance and availability of their customers’ business applications across both internal and external IT infrastructures. Nimsoft has developed monitoring and reporting solutions for public cloud and on-demand offerings like Google Apps for Business, The Rackspace Cloud, Amazon Web Services and EC2, Salesforce.com, as well as internal applications, databases, and physical and virtual server environments. CA says that Nimsoft will help the company capitalize on the growth of cloud computing. CA will also leverage Nimsoft’s customer base in Europe; Nimsoft has approximately 800 customers.

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How To Find a Great Startup Mentor

If you’re an early-stage entrepreneur and this is your first startup company, you are not alone. Thousands are toiling over code in the hopes that their product will gain users and revenue. The problem with being someone who can build a great product is that you might know more about your core technology then you do about the business of startups. In the past few weeks ReadWriteWeb has covered emerging tech hubs in Israel, Austin and Boulder and the common thread amongst them is that each community encourages mentorship. Today we’re looking at what you need to know to find a great mentor.

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Says Union Square Ventures VC Fred Wilson in a recent blog post, “The young entrepreneurs who are starting companies for the first time are best served by seeking out and getting experienced serial entrepreneurs as angel investors, board members, and mentors. We encourage all of the first time entrepreneurs we work with to do this.”

In a perfect world, launching a successful product would simply equate to building something phenomenal. But in reality, an isolated phenom can get buried beneath the noise of thousands of other startups. Wilson and a number of other investors ask first-time entrepreneurs to bring on trusted advisors in the hopes that newbies will broaden their social graph and avoid making the mistakes that others have already made. Below are some of the things you should consider before choosing a mentor.

Success: Just because someone speaks at conferences and has been in the industry for 10 years, does not mean they are qualified to be your mentor. Look at the individual’s past successes and find out exactly how they’ve contributed to them. Check with others to gauge this person’s visibility in the industry and determine whether or not that success is directly related to the type of business you want to build.

Connections: A good advisor/mentor will open doors in the places you need doors opened. If you’re a music content provider and you need help with licensing, find someone who knows the legal and business development side of major labels. If your revenue model is based on advertising, find someone who can help broker deals with ad networks and agencies. If you’re building your business on a 3rd party platform, get an advisor with friends on the inside.

Personality: Determine whether or not your potential advisor is famous or infamous. Sites like The Funded allow entrepreneurs to share their good and bad experiences of investment groups and individuals. While these reviews should be taken with a grain of salt, you want a mentor that is present to answer your questions, engaged enough to offer suggestions, patient enough to explain some of the basic tenets of startup life, and finally, mature enough to have their suggestions occasionally rejected.

Let us know how you chose your mentor/advisor in the comments below.

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Zuckerberg Changes His Own Privacy Settings

Following one of the biggest changes to the culture of Facebook in years, founder Mark Zuckerberg has changed his own privacy settings to reflect what’s now recommended for everyone else.

“For those wondering,” he wrote this afternoon, “I set most of my content on my personal Facebook page to be open so people could see it. I set some of my content to be more private, but I didn’t see a need to limit visibility of pics with my friends, family or my teddy bear ” Hopefully he’ll remember that not everyone feels the same way about privacy.

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Zuckerberg has both a personal profile and a Facebook page on the site. Most of his photos are on his personal profile.

As of this week, Facebook users are no longer able to make their profile photos, home towns and friends lists viewable only by approved friends. Those are all public now. Posted content, like status messages and photos, are for the first time “recommended” as a new default setting to be public – for any users who hadn’t edited their privacy settings before. The company told us last night that only 15 to 20% of Facebook users had changed their settings before.

As a public figure it would be understandable if Zuckerberg didn’t want his friends and family photos exposed to 350 million Facebook users and the web at large – but as the founder of a world-changing company that just did an about-face on the privacy recommendations that have been at its core throughout this massive period of growth, it makes more sense for Zuckerberg’s photos to be as public as he recommends yours be.

Of course if you’re a person who wants to show your status messages and photos only to approved friends, you can opt-out of the new settings at any time. And if there are specific people you don’t want to see those things, you can easily block them as individuals.

But after years of saying that Facebook data is private between friends because that’s what makes people comfortable enough to share – this is a radical change. Zuckerberg used to post his photos privately, what made him change his comfort level? (And how do the people in those pictures with him feel?)

It’s a good thing you’ve got that teddy bear to squeeze, Mark. These changes are likely to get pretty rocky. Especially given that you’re probably not going to stop suggesting that people open up publicly after this campaign alone.

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BlackBerrys for coppers: UK law enforcement to smarten up in 2010

Police men and women of Blighty are about to step into the 21st century, albeit a decade late, with a new weapon in the fight against boredom on the beat. The BBC reports that smartphones will become standard issue throughout the Queen’s realm by March 2010, as a result of successful trials carried out in 30 constabularies through this year. Improved “operational efficiency” and reduced bureaucracy are argued as the key benefits, with a solid 30 minutes less time being spent in police stations each day. And we’re absolutely positive that extra half hour will go toward increased “visibility in the community” and not checking out friends’ Facebook status updates. No, really!

Read — BBC report
Read — Bedfordshire case study

Filed under: Cellphones

BlackBerrys for coppers: UK law enforcement to smarten up in 2010 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Oct 2009 09:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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