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Thursday, August 2, 2012

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Sharp To Cut 5,000 Jobs Globally

Posted: 02 Aug 2012 09:21 AM PDT

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Reuters is reporting that LCD-maker Sharp is looking at cutting 10 percent of their workforce or about 5,000 jobs globally. Sharp currently has excess LCD panel stock due to a fall in demand this year.

This is the company’s first round of lay-offs and forced retirements since 1950.

Sharp lost $1.76 billion dollars this quarter while projected LCD sales are down two million from 10 million this year. Sharp is working with partners like Foxconn, makers of most Apple products, to place their excess stock.

Sharp is one of the largest LCD manufacturers in the world, supplying glass to nearly every OEM. However, as the demand for large-screen TVs softened, partially due to saturation after the recent 3D screen push, Sharp felt the sting of the recession.

Crane & Canopy Is Bringing Internet Business Models To The Home Goods Market

Posted: 02 Aug 2012 09:15 AM PDT

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Crane & Canopy is a newly launched online home goods store that’s benefitting from the power of the Internet to flatten the traditional supply chain and save on costs. Like many of the new arrivals in the e-commerce space, the company isn’t hiding the same old business model from the brick-and-mortar era behind a shiny new front-end. It’s getting rid of all the extra people and processes in the typical supply chain scenario by handling everything in-house, including design, CAD work, importing and exporting, prep work, and sales.

And if that doesn’t get you excited (what, are you dead inside?), then how about this: Crane & Canopy has some really, really cute duvet covers and shams for super cheap.

The company was founded in mid-2011 by Harvard Business School graduatesChristopher Sun and Karin Shieh, with the former having done time in Silicon Valley as an associate at Storm Ventures. Currently run out of a warehouse in San Carlos, California, Crane & Canopy works directly with overseas factories in Asia, and maybe soon, Portugal, too.

“The concept was conceived when I purchased my first home, and I found it really difficult to furnish with high-quality affordable design without breaking the bank,” explains Shieh of how she became interested in the home goods industry. “I love home goods. I was shopping around a lot, and found it really frustrating. And after talking to all my friends, I found that they had a similar experience.”

But the difference between an entrepreneur and regular folks, is that everyday frustrations like this prompt them to act. Shieh was inspired to start researching the supply chain the home goods industry, to see if there was some way to break through the traditional paradigm with new ways of doing things. And there were. “We found out that there were actually a bunch of externalities in the whole supply chain. So the concept of this is that we cut out the middleman,” she says.

The team decided to start off with bedding after some initial industry surveys identified it as a big pain point in terms of pricing, and because it makes sense to attack the home goods industry slowly, vertical by vertical. “The thing that’s really tricky for us – and that’s really tricky in the home goods space, and honestly, it’s why a lot of the big players are slow to innovate and think about their supply chain,” says Sun, “is that, in the home goods space, each individual product type has its own supply chain challenges.” But Crane & Canopy does want to eventually expand into other areas of home goods to offer things like headboards, footboards, side tables, accessories, and more.

For now, the online selection is limited to just 10 products in its first collection, including one patent-pending duvet cover which is easier to stuff. (Hey, I need that.) The target demographic is women, but Crane & Canopy will expand both in terms of size and scope in the near future.

You might, at first, be taken aback by the thread count on the duvets (a 300 thread count), but the team says the public just needs to be better educated about what this means. 300 is actually a “sweet spot” for durability and softness, they say, and you’re not getting a significantly better cover when you go higher. Still, it’s clear that’s another way to keep costs down while they ramp up production.

The funny thing about Crane & Canopy is that it, in part, owes its existence to the economic downturn. In booming times, factories were less interested in signing up new customers because they were doing well. But now, factories are coming online at the same time as the bedding industry as a whole is flat to shrinking, and suppliers have renewed interest in working with new players. And, despite the downturn, the Internet part of the home goods industry has been growing 20%-30% per year, Sun explains. “[Suppliers] know the Internet is where the growth is,” he says. “Two to three years ago, the factories wouldn’t have even been interested.”

App Analytics Firm Xyologic Goes Consumer With New Search Engine, Gets Backing From Gaming, Music Heavies

Posted: 02 Aug 2012 08:25 AM PDT

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A big step up for Xyologic, the app analytics firm out of Berlin: it's announcing a significant round of funding from Signia Venture Partners, the investment vehicle led by gaming entrepreneur Rick Thompson (Playdom); Klaas Kersting (Gameforge), and Soundcloud founder Eric Wahlforss; and it is setting its sights on the consumer market with the beta launch of a new app search engine — the first, it claims, aimed at mainstream users and specifically at searching for mobile games across the whole of an app store.

The beta launch of the Xyo app store today covers only Android apps, which a user accesses through a browser, but Matthaus Krzykowski, co-founder of Xyologic, says that the plan is to use some of the new funding to extend that to iOS and other platforms in the very near future, as well as launch mobile apps with the same functionality. He will not comment on the amount of the funding, but it's first significant investment in Xyologic after a bootstrapped launch. TechCrunch understands from a separate source that it is in the range of seven figures.

With its search engine, Xyologic is entering an increasingly crowded market, but one that is becoming more and more useful as the world of apps continues to grow into the millions. (And it's an area that got a big vote of endorsement earlier this year when Apple acquired one of the earliest movers in the space, Chomp, to help it improve navigability in its own, very large App Store).

Xyologic's own approach to the space was borne out of research it has been collating for the last 1.5 years around how users search for apps, covering areas like the queries they type and other search behavior. Consumers are not always very specific (imagine that!), so Xyologic's unique selling point is that it will be able to parse their vagarities into actionable and effective results.

The result, the company says, is a directory that effectively divides up the world of mobile apps into 700 categories, along with 100 for games alone.

It is the fact that there are 100 categories for games was part of the attraction for new investor Klaas Kerting, who noted in a statement: "Xyologic's app search is the first search designed from the ground up for mobile games."

The idea behind this will be not to provide links through to the most popular apps but those that are perhaps less well-known but more accurate for what a user really wants and what others have really rated highly, which it organises not just by apps but by categories that users can select to navigate the store (see screenshot below).

"What users love about mobile apps differs from what they love about desktop apps, with games being the most important among them," Matthaus Krzykowski, Xyologic co-founder, told me earlier. (Other co-founders include Zoe Adamovicz and Marcin Rudolf.)

Krzykowski sees the problem as this: "The mainstream user gets a smartphone and then does not know what options he has. Xyo is built in such a way that she gets recommandations and alternatives that let her know what 'most people search for' or 'other people downloaded.'" He claims that these are features that have not existed before now.

He also points out that today less than 5% of mobile app searches include searches for app brands like Zynga or Angry Birds, and that over 80% of all users put app and game genres like 'puzzle games' or 'music' into the search box. The search engine tries to match this up to what might actually be interesting takes on those ideas. The result is discovery for thousands of apps rather than simply the hundreds that tend to rise to the top with other search engines. That should prove attractive to developers, too.

Amazon Revamps Its Mobile Apps: Adds Browse By Department, Subscription-Based Shopping

Posted: 02 Aug 2012 08:03 AM PDT

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Today, Amazon is updating its mobile applications for Android and iOS with a couple of notable additions that will make using these small-screened counterparts more in line with the desktop-sized website. Probably the most helpful change is the ability to browse and shop by department (finally!). Prior to the change, shopping in Amazon’s mobile app was primarily kicked off by doing product searches.

The other new arrival is the inclusion of Amazon’s Subscribe & Save program, which you can think of as Amazon’s own take on this whole subscription-based e-commerce trend. But instead of sending you carefully curated boxes of stuff monthly, Amazon lets you schedule shipments of items in need of regular replenishment, like pet food, personal care goods, office supplies and more.

It’s funny, because the other day, I joked on Twitter that I was surprised no one had started a subscription based e-commerce play for tampons yet. A friend kindly reminded me that someone had: Amazon. (Also, believe it or not, some startup.) Amazon lets you subscribe to everything that you buy regularly, like diapers, beauty supplies, grocery items, home improvement items, heath and personal care items like lotions and razors, and household goods like batteries and trash bags. But unlike all these other subscription-based startups, Amazon doesn’t lock you into monthly shipments – you can go anywhere from every month to every six, and anything in between.

It’s too soon to say whether the “stuff of the month” trend is a flash in the pan or the future of e-commerce, but one area where it makes a lot sense is on things you need, not things you want. That’s what the 500 Startups-backed NetPlenish is working on, for example.

With Amazon’s program, there are a few more benefits, though – you can pay when the orders ship, not in advance, shipping is free, the products are discounted beyond the everyday price for subscribers, and Amazon Mom members can combine subscriptions with their usual Amazon Mom savings, which can mean up to 20% off diapers and wipes, in some cases.

Now, if there was only a way to import my grocery shopping data into Amazon so I’d know exactly how often I need to buy all this stuff. Anyone building that?

Aereo Offers A “Try For Free” Option In NYC; Android And PC Support Later This Summer

Posted: 02 Aug 2012 07:55 AM PDT

Aereo Pricing Plan Grid (Final Hi Res)

After a small victory in court this past July, NYC-based Aereo today announced a new set of pricing options and the end of the invitation-only rollout for the live broadcast TV over the Internet startup.

The service is still only available to those physically residing in New York City but for those of us elsewhere, we can now choose from four different pricing options and even a free to watch option. The latter gives viewers access to the service for one continuous hour each day, sans DVR functionality. A day pass (read: 24 hours) will set you back one George Washington with monthly and annual pricing at $8, $12 and $80, respectively.

Aereo currently carries 28 channels in New York City, including ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, Telemundo and others. Devices currently supported include the AppleTV, Roku and Safari on iPad, iPhone and Macs. Support for PC’s and Android is expected later this summer. No word on when Aereo will offer its service outside of NYC.

GASP! RIM CEO Details Potential Options For Licensing BB10

Posted: 02 Aug 2012 07:21 AM PDT

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RIM is in trouble and is seemingly finally listening to reason. Speaking to The Telegraph, RIM CEO Thorsten Heins talked about how RIM could go about licensing its next-gen BlackBerry platform. But that’s assuming manufacturers like Samsung or Sony would actually want to build a BlackBerry 10 device.

Heins’ comments show once again that RIM is exploring all the options for the ailing company. After years of failing to innovate and relying on aging platforms, the company lost its once-dominant grip on the smartphone market. Heins previously briefly talked about licensing options but never with these sorts of specifics. But now, after two killer (read: horrible) financial quarters, the Canadian company is likely open to all options.

"We don't have the economy of scale to compete against the guys who crank out 60 handsets a year. We have to differentiate and have a focused platform. To deliver BB10 we may need to look at licensing it to someone who can do this at a way better cost proposition than I can do it. There's different options we could do that we're currently investigating."

“You could think about us building a reference system, and then basically licensing that reference design, have others build the hardware around it – either it’s a BlackBerry or it’s something else being built on the BlackBerry platform.”

All things considered, RIM could do worse to than license out its new OS. The platform still has some teeth in a market dominated by iOS and Android — there isn’t a better emailing/messaging device than a BlackBerry, and broadening that experience with fresh hardware couldn’t hurt. RIM has also led the industry with integration in enterprise systems, but competitors are closing in.

However, since RIM delayed BB10 until 2013, and given its track record and dire financial status, it’s not unreasonable to expect the system to be delayed again. With that thought, it’s hard to see any phone maker throwing major resources into making a killer BB10 device. Once again, RIM might be just too late to the game.

For Better Ad Targeting, Flurry Personas Reveal Mobile App Users’ Interests

Posted: 02 Aug 2012 06:56 AM PDT

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App measurement and ad company Flurry is today releasing a new product which will allow developers to better identify and track various audience types using their apps, while also allowing advertisers to target those audience segments by interest. The product, called “Personas” (yes, like those long-ago Firefox themes), splits app users into over 20 different groups like “business travelers,” “parents,” and “fashion enthusiasts,” for example. By identifying these different groups, app publishers and advertisers alike can use the new feature to deliver better, more relevant ads to an app’s users or to better customize the app with a given group’s needs in mind.

The Personas feature identifies a total of 23 audience segments, which were generated using anonymized data from the over 200,000 apps on Flurry’s network, reaching over 600 million iOS and Android users. These newly identified audience groups include the following: Real Estate Follower, Business Professionals, Personal Finance Geeks, Business Travelers, Value Shoppers, Catalogue Shoppers, Entertainment Enthusiasts, Music Lovers, TV Lovers, Bookworms, News & Magazine Readers, Casual & Social Gamers, Hardcore Gamers, Social Influencer, Sports Fan, Health & Fitness Enthusiasts, Singles, Fashionistas, Parenting & Education, Photo & Video Enthusiasts, Home & Garden Pros, Food & Dining Lovers and Auto Enthusiasts.

In order to be categorized as one of these types of users, a person would have to spend more than 25 times the benchmark average across application clusters that demonstrate interest in that category. This info can be used in combination with the segmenting and targeting tools Flurry already had available, including the ability to target by age, gender, device, language, and geography.

Obviously, some users may fall into more than one of these categories – parents may be music lovers, e.g. The Personas aren’t mutually exclusive, though. So you can’t look at them and say, wow, 60% of my app’s users are business travelers and only 20% are into cars. It may very well be that all 20% of those auto enthusiasts are travelers, too! Instead, the figures are meant to used to learn more about the interests of the app’s users in general.

Personas are available to publishers on Flurry’s AppSpot who want to improve inventory quality, and to advertisers on Flurry’s AppCircle who want to run targeted campaigns. While ad targeting is a key reason to use something like this, the feature is available to developers on Flurry Analytics, too, as they may just want to create new features for their app’s users that are a better fit for their app’s core audience.

AT&T Acquires NextWave (And Its WCS Spectrum) For Up To $50M To Build Out 4G LTE Network

Posted: 02 Aug 2012 06:42 AM PDT

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AT&T has just acquired NextWave Wireless for the purpose of reworking its WCS spectrum for the build-out of AT&T’s 4G LTE network. According to the release, “AT&T will acquire all the equity of NextWave for approximately $25 million plus a contingent payment of up to approximately $25 million and, through a separate agreement with NextWave's debt holders, all of the company's outstanding debt will be acquired by AT&T or retired by NextWave, for a total of $600 million in cash.”

NextWave currently holds licenses in WCS and AWS bands, and for a long while, WCS could not be used for mobile Internet. Sanctioned in 1997, rules were put in place to prevent this so that there would be no interference to satellite radio users in close spectrum bands.

But in June of this year, AT&T and Sirius XM filed a proposal with the FCC to protect the spectrum being used by satellite radio listeners from any interference. The proposal is still under review, but if it passes, it will offer up extra spectrum capacity for AT&T to continue its network evolution.

But it’ll be a while. According to the release, AT&T won’t be able to begin initial deployment of WCS spectrum for its 4G LTE network for another three years.

The deal hasn’t officially closed, and like the WCS proposal, is still under review by the FCC. AT&T anticipates the acquisition will close before year’s end.

Pubslush Founder Jesse Potash On Relaunching The Crowdfunding Platform For Authors

Posted: 02 Aug 2012 06:27 AM PDT

Screen shot 2012-08-02 at 9.53.05 AM

Pubslush has undergone a bit of an evolution. The site is still a platform for authors to crowdfund the publication of their works — make no mistake. But Pubslush used to have a slightly different format. Users would post their book excerpt and summary onto Pubslush, and if they received enough donations from readers, Pubslush would pick up their works and publish them. Don’t forget, Pubslush isn’t just the platform, the company is a publisher, too.

Today, however, the site is taking a slightly different approach. Rather than lock writers into a deal with Pubslush, the platform will work more like Kickstarter, letting authors gauge the viability of their work with no exclusivity to Pubslush. Of course, Pubslush can still cherry pick authors from the platform that have garnered a lot of interest, but authors still have the right to publish elsewhere.

I sat down with founder Jesse Potash to talk about the re-launch, and pre-interview, he mentioned that most people were already mistaking Pubslush for a Kickstarter, not realizing the legal contract the author entered into by putting the work on the site. After seeing this feedback, the company thought it only right to supply what users were demanding, and thus the new model.

When an author is selected by Pubslush, they then get access to everything a traditional publisher would offer, such as editorial services, distribution, and marketing.

Even better, Pubslush has a cause. Knowing that over 100 million kids in the world don’t have access to books, Pubslush will donate one book to a child in need for every book sold through the Pubslush platform.

Click to view slideshow.


Google Updates The Gmail Android App, Now Works Better With 7-inch Tabs

Posted: 02 Aug 2012 06:16 AM PDT

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The latest Gmail Android app update brings several new features, but this is a must-have for 7-inch tablets. Google slightly reworked the UI and it now works better with 7-inch tablets. Previously, when in landscape mode, the app would occasionally abruptly cut off messages. That’s now fixed for 7-inch tablets running Android 4.0 or later. But sorry, kids, the app is still missing pinch-to-zoom within messages.

The new version also brings a new label API for 3rd-party developers, a feature likely related to homescreen widgets.

This update comes a few weeks after Google released the Nexus 7 to the retail market. Users quickly discovered that Gmail, one of the Nexus 7′s core apps, wasn’t as polished as shiny as it should have been. The updated version is now available from Google Play, which should apply the appropriate sheen to the app.

RIM Reveals The 4G LTE PlayBook, Plans For A Canadian Debut On August 9 (Updated)

Posted: 02 Aug 2012 06:14 AM PDT

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FCC filings, leaked roadmaps, and comments from RIM’s top brass all pointed to the existence of an LTE-capable BlackBerry PlayBook — the only question left was when the thing would finally launch. The answer, according to a new statement released by RIM, is very soon.

RIM’s LTE PlayBook will launch in Canada on August 9 (with support from a handful of Canadian carriers), where it will remain for the time being. The company hasn't provided any specifics on when the 4G-capable tab will trickle into other markets, saying only that it will be available in "the coming months from carriers in the US, Europe, South Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean."

Interestingly enough, there’s very little word on what (if any) changes RIM made to the tablet aside from the inclusion of an LTE radio and a microSD card slot. All that RIM has revealed as far as the refreshed tab’s spec sheet is that it sports 32GB of internal storage — not much of a shock considering RIM killed the 16GB PlayBook line back in June. Also notably absent from today’s announcement are any specifics when it comes to pricing for the tablet, though that’s probably the sort of detail that’s best left for RIM’s carrier partners to disclose.

UPDATE: RIM representatives have just confirmed to me that the LTE PlayBook indeed sports a new 1.5GHz processor, instead of the 1GHz chip seen in the original models.

While the 4G PlayBook’s existence has been an open secret for months now, it’s sort of heartening to see RIM getting ready to push it out the door. If the roadmap I previously alluded to is accurate, then the refreshed tab looks appears to be the last major bit of hardware RIM was planned before the first BlackBerry 10 devices make their debut in early 2013.

Considering how much the company has riding on a successful launch, it’s probably good for them to be able to take one more thing off their already-loaded plate. That said, the market for a RIM tablet appears to be slowly drying up — RIM reported that it shipped 260,000 PlayBooks in its most recent earnings statement, down nearly 50% from the previous quarter — and the inclusion of an LTE radio may not be enough to turn that trend around.

MoneyDesktop Makes Second Acquisition In Eight Months In MoneyReef, Preps iPhone And iPad Launches

Posted: 02 Aug 2012 06:00 AM PDT

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MoneyDesktop has acquired MoneyReef, a financial management application company focused on mobile. It is MoneyDesktop's second acquisition in eight months. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

MoneyDesktop, named Best of Show at FinovateSpring 2012, integrates directly into online banking and payment platforms, providing account aggregation and personal financial management platform to financial institutions, which then offer those tools to customers.

MoneyReef, which was recently awarded a winner of the 2012 Communication Arts' Interactive Annual Awards, develops mobile financial tools.

"What we were missing, MoneyDesktop absolutely has. I don't know if we would have reached our full potential without this merger," MoneyReef President Jason Cragun tells me.

MoneyDesktop has partnerships with 25 of the 55 major online banking and core payment network service providers in the U.S. and has 313 financial institution clients. Cragun says their "excellent path to market" was a major consideration in the deal.

MoneyReef was "about 95% there with the mobile product," and is now revamping the app to work with MoneyDesktop's backend. Cragun says the two companies are playing to each others' strengths, as MoneyDesktop hadn't broken into the mobile space yet. The app will roll out to customers through major financial institutions, piggybacking off of MoneyDesktop's strong distribution.

Cragun said the two companies, which are less than two miles apart in Utah, weren't only building the same technology but have the same long-term vision. Considering how MoneyDesktop has been "cornering the market with financial institutions," Cragun says he had to ask himself, "Can I beat a company in my backyard at what we're going after?"

Both Cragun and MoneyDesktop CEO Ryan Caldwell talked about a shared vision for the future of personal financial management as a driving factor for the acquisition. Caldwell specifically pointed at MoneyReef's "insane passion" and talented team.

Caldwell says MoneyDesktop is always considering acquiring more companies, as many in the space have good products and could benefit from MoneyDesktop's superior distribution. He adds that they are looking at acquiring one specific team right now, which he declined to name.

Four of MoneyReef's eight-person team will be joining MoneyDesktop's 71 person team, including two of the three co-founders.

Caldwell says MoneyDesktop will roll out iPhone and iPad apps "within the next month or so." Cragun says an Android app will follow "in the future," declining to specify a timeline.

MoneyDesktop has passed on this exclusive (gasp!) video of the iPad app:

Do you know how hard it was to write this whole post without writing "MonkeyDeskop?" I wish my desk had a monkey.

Google Brings Street View To NASA’s Kennedy Space Center

Posted: 02 Aug 2012 06:00 AM PDT

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To celebrate Kennedy Space Center’s 50th birthday, Google just added the Space Shuttle Program’s former launch facilities to its Street View service. With over 6,000 panoramic views, this is Google’s largest special collection of Street View imagery yet. This new collection gives users access to areas of the Space Center that are normally off-limits for visitors and also preserves an interesting moment in time, as the Street View team took these images just after the end of the Shuttle Program. At the time the images were taken, both the Atlantis and Endeavour were still in NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building.

As Ryan Falor, Google’s product manager for Street View Special Collections, told me yesterday, his team aims to take Street View to places that are culturally significant. So far, that has meant locations like Stonehenge, Versailles and a number of museums around the world. Kennedy Space Center is somewhat unique in this group, Falor noted, because it is the first location that is mostly about technology and because NASA’s teams were still hard at work while Google was taking its images.

While visiting the Space Center, Google’s team use almost all of the standard Street View tools at its disposal, including the basic Street View car to get images of the runway, as well as its Street View trikes and trolleys to get images in areas where the car couldn’t go. Among the other areas featured in this collection are the space shuttle launch pad, Vehicle Assembly Building and Launch Firing Room #4.

Here, for example, is the space shuttle Atlantis in NASA’s Vehicle Assembly building (and you can also take a stroll around the fifth and sixteenth floor of the building):

View Larger Map

And here is the view from the top of Launch Pad 39A (including a view of the escape ‘baskets’ the shuttle crew would have used in case of an emergency):


View Larger Map


IDC: Apple’s iPad Grew Q2 Tablet Share To 68% As It Braces For Windows 8, Amazon And Nexus Competition

Posted: 02 Aug 2012 05:59 AM PDT

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After Amazon launched its $199 Kindle Fire tablet last autumn, a lot of observers thought it could prove to be the competition to Apple’s iPad that other Android tablets had so far failed to deliver. Some numbers out from IDC today, however, show that as Amazon continues to sell the device in the U.S. alone, that has failed to become the case, as Apple continues to increase its worldwide market share against competitors.

Quarterly tablet shipments worldwide (defined by IDC as devices sent through to distribution channels  like operators, retailers or end users) totaled 25 million, with Apple, on the back of the new iPad launch in March, blowing everyone out of the water with record-breaking shipments of 17 million+ iPad tablets, working out to a 68% market share (up by nearly 7 percentage points on last year). Ironically, as competition continues to increase, IDC thinks that might only strengthen Apple’s position, with “baffled” consumers faced with “too many options” opting instead for the market leader.

After a “sluggish” Q1, IDC said that Amazon rebounded this quarter with estimated shipments of 1.3 million units, enough to give it a number-three ranking after Samsung’s 2.4 million sales worldwide, and putting it ahead of other companies that also sell globally, Asus and Acer — signs that seem to indicate that if Amazon had rolled out the tablet more widely, it might have made significant headway.

(As a point of comparison, Strategy Analytics, which ranks by platform not vendor, gave Apple essentially the same marketshare last week).

Overall tablet shipments continue to grow at a stronger pace than smartphones at the moment. IDC says that globally tablet shipments were up by 66% on the same quarter in 2011 (smartphone shipments grew by about 32%), and the largest players are outpacing that: Apple saw growth of 84%; Samsung saw growth of 118%; and Asus was up by 116%. Amazon only launched its tablet in Q4 2011 so has no comparative number.

Perhaps because it doesn’t have a strong-enough global competitor, Apple continues to be the consumers’ preferred tablet choice, with the company capitalizing on that by making further inroads into particular segments. “The vast majority of consumers continue to favor the iPad over competitors, and Apple is seeing increasingly strong interest in the device from vertical markets—especially education,” noted Tom Mainelli, IDC’s research director for mobile connected devices, in a statement. But he also points out, as Apple’s Tim Cook did, that iPad shipments in mature markets are slowing down, although growth in emerging markets “is clearly more than making up the difference.”

There are a few curve balls that could come into play in the second half of the year, IDC notes.

For starters, there is the Google/ASUS co-branded Nexus 7 tablet. These only began shipping recently and are now facing production delays, although early reviews have been largely very positive, they saw huge pre-order demand and the price is Amazon-right: $199.

Another is the fact that we may well see a bigger tablet from Amazon, a smaller tablet from Apple, and Windows 8 tablets enter the market. “In addition to major new products from Amazon and quite likely Apple, we can also expect an influx of Microsoft Windows 8 and Windows RT-based tablets starting in late October,” writes Bob O’Donnell, IDC vice president for clients and displays.

Ironically, rather than shaking up the market, he thinks this could actually be to Apple’s advantage: “If anything, there’s a real risk that people will have too many options from which to choose this holiday season. Consumers baffled by the differences between Amazon and Google versions of Android, or Windows 8 and Windows RT, may well default to market leader Apple,” he writes. “Or they may simply choose to remain on the sideline for another cycle.”

In-Image Ad Startup Cortica Raises $7M From Li Ka-Shing’s Horizons Ventures And Ynon Kreiz

Posted: 02 Aug 2012 05:00 AM PDT

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Cortica, a company developing image recognition technology to improve ads, just announced that it has raised $7 million in new funding.

The money comes from Horizons Ventures, the firm owned by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-Shing, and from Ynon Kreiz, the former chairman and CEO of the Endemol Group, which claims to be the world’s largest independent TV production company. Kreiz is also joining Cortica as chairman.

Cortica’s technology analyzes images and videos to identify the core concepts, which can then be used to place ads alongside relevant media. For example, Cortica could analyze a photo of a Mini Cooper, understand that it is, in fact, a Mini Cooper, then overlay the photo with an ad for, yes, a Mini Cooper. Or it could analyze a photo of Sacha Baron Cohen, then match it up with an ad that plays the trailer for his new movie The Dictator.

The technology was first developed by neuroscientists Yehoshua (Josh) Zeevi and Karina Odinaev when they were at the Technion, a prestigious university in Israel. Zeevi and Odinaev co-founded the company with engineer Igal Raichelgauz, who is still the company’s CEO. Cortica says the tech “was derived from scientific research focused on understanding how neural networks of the human cortex perform complex computational tasks, such as identifying patterns, classifying natural signals and understanding concepts.”

Kreiz tells me the company has spent the last few years “fine-tuning the technology.” He claims that it’s so good at this point that it delivers zero false positives (i.e., it never incorrectly identifies what a photo is portraying). Now the time has come for commercialization — hence the funding — so Cortica is developing its own commercial applications, as well as talking to potential partners. As part of that commercialization, the Tel Aviv-based company is moving its commercial operations to New York, and it’s also opening an office in Silicon Valley.

Cortica has raised $11 million total.

Another WPP Digital Acquisition: Possible Worldwide Buys Fortune Cookie For Eastern European Expansion

Posted: 02 Aug 2012 04:57 AM PDT

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The advertising giant WPP continues its strategy to build up its digital business through acquisitions: today Possible Worldwide, a WPP-owned digital agency that has strong operations in emerging markets, announced that it has purchased Fortune Cookie, a 190-person, UK-based firm with operations also in Poland, the U.S. and Australia. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The deal follows closely on the heels of WPP taking control of AKQA in June, and is part of company’s ambition to have 40% of its revenues coming from digital in the next five years.

Possible Worldwide has been shaping itself up as a digital marketing agency with particularly strong focus on emerging markets. It has operations in Brazil, India and China as well as Eastern Europe, with offices in Russia, Hungary, Romania and Serbia.

Now that will be extended with Fortune Cookie’s existing operations. “The deal gives us a greatly expanded footprint in the UK market and builds upon our strength in Eastern Europe with a major new office in Poland,” noted Shane Atchison, global CEO of Possible Worldwide, in a statement.

With the deal comes contracts with existing Fortune Cookie clients including Canon, AEGON, NetJets and BP, which will now get added to Possible’s own client list, which includes AT&T, Barclays, Comcast, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Procter & Gamble, Nokia, Microsoft, Mazda and Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide.

WPP has been making a strong effort up to now on its digital business organically. In 2011 around a quarter of its revenues came from digital operations: $4.8 billion from total revenues of $16 billion. But to reach its goal of having 40% of its business being digital, it has been making some strategic investments and acquisitions. In addition to Fortune Cookie and AKQA, earlier this year it also led a $10 million round of funding in mySupermarket, an online/shopping aggregation service.

The focus on emerging markets is one that WPP’s CEO Martin Sorrell has long been emphasizing. “I think their importance continues to be underestimated,” he said back in June 2011, particularly as more mature markets continue to see economic slowdown. “In that context the BRICs and next 11 as engines of growth for our business become more and more important.”

WPP has made other acquisitions and investments that also help focus its presence in developing countries. In June 2012, its JWT operating unit took a majority stake in Hungama Digital Services; in July 2012, its subsidiary Millward Brown took a stake in Chilean market research firm Cadem; back in January 2012 its Ogilvy unit took a 33% stake in DTDigital in Australia for more Asia Pacific focus.

Fortune Cookie’s CEO Justin Cooke will now become CEO of Possible Worldwide UK.

Parking Payment Startup QuickPay Raises $3.5M, Powerset Founder Barney Pell Becomes CEO

Posted: 02 Aug 2012 04:30 AM PDT

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QuickPay, a startup that helps drivers find and pay for parking, has brought on a new CEO — Barney Pell, the founder of semantic search company Powerset (which was acquired by Microsoft in 2008 for a reported $100 million). It’s also announcing $3.5 million in seed funding.

Pell (pictured below) isn’t exactly new to the company. He tells me he first met founder Carl Muirbook about a year ago in, yes, a parking lot in San Francisco’s Mission District, where Muirbook was showing off his payment technology. Pell joined the company as a co-founder and executive chairman shortly after, and now he’s stepping up his involvement even further. Meanwhile Muirbook, who was CEO until now, will continue to serve as QuickPay’s president.

The goal, Pell says, is to create a smarter approach to parking — and not just on the payment side. Particularly if you live in a big city, you can probably think of times you’ve been driving around, desperately trying to find parking. There may have been spots in a parking lot nearby, but there was no way to know until you drove over there and checked. And of course, if you did find a lot with open spaces, you had to fish around for cash to pay the attendant.

So when a driver downloads the company’s mobile app, they can bring up a map showing parking lots that accept QuickPay payments. Then they can check out the current rates in those lots, reserve a space for a certain period of time, and pay within the app. (Even if they don’t have a smartphone, they can still pay via text or voice.) When they arrive at the lot, instead of paying the attendant, they just show off their confirmation code.

Pell says QuickPay is taking a fundamentally different approach compared to the other companies offering parking payment technology. For one thing, those other companies have focused on street parking meters. As Pell puts it, their customers are usually local governments and they’re trying to create “virtual parking meters in the cloud.” QuickPay, on the other hand, works with off-street parking lots, and he says, “We’re thinking about this as addressing the needs of local businesses.” After all, the parking lot owners are businesses.

For example, the app already allows lot owners to change the parking rates whenever they like, perhaps by increasing prices on a weekend or a busy day. They can also offer exclusive spaces to QuickPay users. Over time, Pell says the company could offer a more sophisticated approach to dynamic pricing, and more tools (such as coupons) that help parking lots promote themselves.

QuickPay says it’s now live in more than 100 locations across 12 cities in California, Colorado, and Nevad, adding up to 12,500 parking spaces. Those numbers should go up, because the company just announced that it now works at gated parking facilities, which supposedly account for 50 percent of all spaces. (The parking lot owners will need to install a GateKit at their entrances and exits in order to work with QuickPay.)

As for the funding, it comes from Fontinalis Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Advanced Technology Ventures, and angels including Accelerator Venture Partners, David Jeske, Alfred Mandel, Louis Monier, Matt Ocko, Lior Ron, Ofer Ronen, and Ben Smith IV. This actually marks the completion of a round that was first announced in February.

Brazilian Accelerator Appies Closes Seed Round To Concentrate Only On Mobile Apps

Posted: 02 Aug 2012 02:59 AM PDT

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If you think about it, Instagram, originally developed as a silly app to check into bars and take pictures of beer, had it right. The world is about ‘mobile first’. And to that end, the emerging worlds of the so-called BRICK nations are clearly ‘mobile first’. So it’s interesting that Appies, an accelerator out of Brazil, has now announced its first seed round, (terms not undisclosed) from Trindade Investimentos.

Appies plans to back mobile application developers not startups, and sees where that takes it. Admittedly, not every app developer wants to start a business or a startup. They just have a good idea for an app.

The company has been created by long time Brazilian entrepreneur Bob Wollheim and app developer Dirceu Paula.

"Everyone is aiming at Silicon Valley. We look horizontally towards India, Russia, China, Brazil and beyond. Devs know how to code, we will help them with the business and will transform them into geekpreneurs,” says Wollheim.

Why are apps a big deal in Brazil? According to national telecom agency Anatel, Brazil has 224 million cell phones for 190 million inhabitants. So mobile development is a big deal.

Appies is, at the moment, based in Sao Paulo, Brazil. It’s Creating a co-working space for app developers, running events and programs, hackathons, the usual thing.

Partners now include mobile operators Telefonica, Vivo and affiliate program Lomadee.

Canalys Q2: 68% Of All Smartphones Shipped Were Android; China’s The Biggest Market By A Wide Margin

Posted: 02 Aug 2012 02:55 AM PDT

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One more analyst house, Canalys, has released its numbers on global smartphone sales in Q2, and unlike Strategy Analytics and IDC, it has focused on sales by platforms rather than OEMs. In that light, Google’s Android was the clear, all-out winner: in a market that saw 158 million smartphone shipments worldwide, Android accounted for 68% of them, with its 108 million units an increase of 110% over the same period a year ago. And given that Apple seems to actually be holding its own quite well in countries like the U.S., the strong performance of Android can be largely attributed to how well it’s playing in emerging countries, and in one in particular: the world’s largest smartphone market at the moment, China.

China had “phenomenal” growth this year, Canalys says, and that’s no understatemet. Some 42 million smartphones were shipped in China in Q2, which works out to growth of 199% over last year (and 32% over Q1). By comparison, smartphone sales worldwide grew by only 47%, says Canalys. In other words, China grew at a rate more than four times that of the rest of the world. China, it says, accounted for 27% of the world’s smartphone shipments, with number-two U.S. at 16%.

Android and forked versions of Android are leading the charge in China, accounting for 81% of all smartphone shipments. The other big trend is that domestic vendors are closing in on Samsung, the world’s biggest Android vendor at the moment. Samsung continued to remain in the lead with 17% of all shipments, but Canalys notes that in fact Samsung’s volumes were flat and ZTE, Lenovo and Huawei in strong 2nd, 3rd and 4th positions and making up about a third of all smartphone shipments. Those three also grew by a massive amount, respectively 171%, 2,665% and 252% over last year. Altogether, domestic vendors, Canalys says, shipping 25.6 million units, grew 518% over last year and made up 60% of the market. International vendors grew only by 67%, shipping 16.7 million units.

Apple, as the company itself admitted last week, had a more challenging Q2 in China. Yes, it was the fifth-largest handset player, with shipments up by 102% over last year, but they were down 37% compared to Q1.

Canalys puts the power of domestic vendors down to their “deep understanding of local consumer behaviour.” Nicole Peng, research director for China, notes that bigger players like ZTE, Lenovo and Huawei are all raising brand awareness and building stronger relationships with operators, but the smaller players are also not to be dismissed. “Tier-two vendors — the likes of Oppo, K-Touch and Gionee — have also stamped their mark, boosting smart phone shipments into tier-three and tier-four cities, predominantly through the open channels,” she writes. “As feature phone vendors, they already have established partnerships and strong brand awareness. These domestic vendors are making significant progress transitioning their portfolios and customer bases to be more focused on smart phones.”

The drive away from international brands is affecting others, too, although these are vendors that have seen declines worldwide as well, so the trend may be larger than China itself. Canalys notes that Nokia’s volumes in China were down by 47% in Q2, and Motorola also saw a decline. The only one that really did well was the Taiwanese HTC, which has been pushing models designed to be integrated tightly with local Chinese services (and price points). HTC’s shipments gew 389% to 1.8 million units.

Globally, Samsung continued to be the main driver of Android’s strength. Canalys estimates that Samsung shipped “over 45 million handsets” — not too far off Strategy Analytics’ estimate of 50.5 million. (Samsung, unhelpfully, doesn’t provide these numbers itself.) Whichever number you choose to believe, it puts Samsung at the top of the pile, and for the same reasons: a strong product portfolio covering different price points, and a savvy marketing strategy, including a key Olympics sponsorship. Canalys says that Samsung worldwide currently has a 31% share of the global smartphone market (SA by comparison put it at 34.6%; IDC at 33.6%).

Apple and Nokia followed as the second and third-largest smartphone makers, with HTC taking fourth and RIM barely scraping in at 8.5 million units in Q2.

FabKids Launches Subscription-Based Kids Clothing Service, Actress Christina Applegate Partners

Posted: 02 Aug 2012 01:30 AM PDT

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San Francisco-based FabKids is the latest startup to try its hand at subscription-based e-commerce, taking on competitors like Wittlebee in the kids’ apparel space, but with a slightly different twist. Instead of offering a box of separates shipped monthly, FabKids will send out one complete outfit it has designed in-house and personalized to the child, based on a custom profile filled out at signup.

There’s a bit more news about the new company, too. It’s also the latest to see participation from a celebrity partner. In FabKids’ case, actress Christina Applegate is providing design input in exchange for equity in the company. However, Applegate was not a part of FabKid’s recent $2.6 million Series A round of funding, which was led by Hillsven Capital, and saw involvement from Sugar Inc.’s Brian and Lisa Sugar, as well as other Silicon Valley angels.

FabKids was created by serial entrepreneur Andy Moss who previously founded fashion search engine ShopStyle.com, which merged with Sugar, Inc. in 2007. Moss ran ShopStyle through last summer, which is when he began work on FabKids.

At ShopStyle, explains Moss, customers often said that it would be great if the service could recommend specific styles or outfits. “It really got me intrigued with the concept of personalized e-commerce – and how do you actually deliver to a consumer based on the things you know about them?” His own experience as a parent (son is 13, daughter is 8) played into this, too, he says. “It was fun to see their personalities change as they grew up, and the different clothes they liked or wore through that process.”

Moss thinks that personalized e-commerce will eventually apply across the board, but kids and baby was an easier entry point into the space. Unlike many competitors in the subscription e-commerce business, FabKids doesn’t aggregate from various designers. It’s developing its own label in-house. Competitively priced with something like Gap Kids or J Crew’s Crew Cuts, for example, the entire outfit that’s shipped will be sold for a flat rate of $49.95 per month (with free shipping and returns). This could include a top, bottoms and accessory, perhaps, or dress, leggings and socks, for example.

The company is starting out with a focus on girls’ clothes, sizes 2 through 8, but plans to expand in September to sizes 10 and 12, then to boys and infants in 2013. Taking a page from ShoeDazzle’s book (the personalized shopping service for shoes and handbags), FabKids steps parent and child through a sign-up process to determine what they like. The 15-question quiz, asks not only for name, age and gender, but also things like what’s the child’s favorite outfit, color, or pet. There are 100+ different outfit combinations available at launch that fit different “personality” types like princess, boho beach, fashionista, or even just jeans-and-tees.

FabKids makes it easy to skip a month, and has also set up another revenue generating feature via an option which allows friends and family to “gift” an outfit from the site with no further commitment. It will be interesting to see how the subscription angle plays out, especially since ShoeDazzle recently dropped that as the only way to shop. For what it’s worth, Moss says he thinks subscriptions make sense for the kids’ market, because here, it’s about a need, not just a “want.” (Kids, they grow so fast!).

Besides Ross, the founding team includes clothing experts and e-commerce veterans Lauren Uppington (VP Merchandising), Vincent Lo (VP Engineering) and Allison Vigil (VP Planning & Operations), Denise Kalinowski (Head of Design) with experience from Tea Collection, Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy, and One Kings Lane, as well as, of course, Shop Style.

Christina Applegate’s Role: Creative Input (Could Product Placement On TV Be Next?)

Applegate’s involvement came after FabKids reached out to her through a friend. ”What we really like about Christina is that she’s a new mom herself, has a wonderful TV show that’s super popular where she’s in that same mom role, and she’s someone everyone has grown up with in our target demographic,” says Ross. He also notes she has a strong personal sense of style and strong opinions about what works. But her involvement sounds minimal – “creative guidance.” The designs are actually created by in-house designer Kalinowski.

We asked if the collaboration would mean FabKids’ clothes would start showing up on Christina’s show (“Up All Night,” a comedy about new parents adjusting to post-baby life), especially given that it features a toddler who could serve as a live model? Moss insisted that the deal was done with Christina herself, and they hadn’t established any deal with the show’s producers at this point. “But we’re obviously still talking about those kinds of things,” says Moss.

The new site is live now, and is offering parents 15% off their first purchase to try it out. We wonder if Fab.com is OK with the name?
at 9:37 AM

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