RIM puts BlackBerry Playbook on massive sale; Android Market shoehorned onto rooted units

Research in Motion may not have found itself in a coveted spot as 2011 ended, but if it’s learned anything from HP, there’s a surefire way to rid itself of remaining BlackBerry PlayBook inventory: sell ‘em for a loss. After the unloved slate went on sale in its native land, Americans can now save up to $400 on a PlayBook through February 4th. RIM’s official webstore is offering the 16GB, 32GB and 64GB model for $299, leaving us to wonder who would ever choose the smaller two if all three remain in stock. In related news, those who take the company up on the offer can now gain access to the Android Market with a few choice moves.

Read story at engadget

Social Media – Worth the Investment or Money Down the Drain?

Is social media worth the investment or money down the drain? From an engagement perspective there are definite benefits to having a social media presence, particularly as they provide free platforms to place content and interact with key audiences. But is the ROI proportionate?

huffingtonpost

Kinect Motion Controller Coming To Windows; Microsoft To Fund Developers Building Apps For Kinect

Forbes.com writes:
Some assembly required, at this point, but exciting news, especially if you’re a tinkerer.

Microsoft will build a special version of the Kinect motion controller for the Windows, Craig Eisler, general manager of Kinect for Windows wrote in a blog post Tuesday. The Kinect has been a hit on Microsoft’s XBox360 gaming console, but the motion-sensor has also sparked widespread interest from tinkerers, hackers, scientists and startups.

The new version of Kinect will arrive with ‘numerous upgrades and improvements’ to the Kinect software development kit (SDK) and runtime. Among them: a ‘near mode,’ that will enable a new class of ‘close up’ applications,’ Eisler explained. The motion controller itself will get a shorter USB cable, and a small dongle so that it will work with other USB-based peripherals.

Skandia lanserar Sveriges första bankapp för Windows-mobiler

Skandias bankkunder blir först i Sverige med att kunna göra sina bankärenden även i Windows Phone-mobiltelefoner. Appen är skräddarsydd för att dra nytta av Windows Phones unika gränssnitt och kompletterar Skandias appar för iPhone och Android.
Nyligen var Skandia tillsammans med Swedbank även först med att lansera Mobilt BankID, en e-legitimation för mobiltelefoner och surfplattor som på kort tid laddats ner mer än 10 000 gånger.Läs hela pressmeddelandet på cisionwire

Qubulus och Combain är nominerade till årets Guldmobiler

Fyrtiofem av Sveriges hetaste mobilföretag och tjänster är nominerade till tio guldmobiler som delas ut på Mobilgalan den 10 november.
Nominerade till Årets innovativa teknik är både Qubulus som “använder radiomiljön för att positionera mobilen inomhus” och Combain “Billig och precis positionering för med wlan och mobilnät i stället för gps”.

Läs mer om de nominerade på mobil.se

Why Women Rule The Internet

“It feels like we’re in a Golden Age of the web, led by consumer internet services and e-commerce.  Just consider these stats: Facebook—over 600 million users.  Twitter—25 billion tweets last year. Tumblr—1 billion page views a week.  Zynga—100 million users on Cityville in just 6 weeks.  We’re witnessing a generation of consumer web companies growing at an unprecedented rate in terms of both user adoption and revenue.

But here’s a little secret that’s gone unnoticed by most.  It’s women.  Female users are the unsung heroines behind the most engaging, fastest growing, and most valuable consumer internet and e-commerce companies.  Especially when it comes to social and shopping, women rule the Internet…”
Read Aileen Lee’s guest post at techcrunch.com

Dyster framtid för WebOS

“Trots många goda omdömen hann HPs mobiloperativ WebOS aldrig locka utvecklare i någon högre grad. Det gör att det är svårt att se någon framtid för operativsystemet.” skriver Lars Danielsson i Computer Sweden.
“– Man hann aldrig bygga upp ett utvecklarcommunity kring WebOS och utan ett sådant och en marknadsplats för appar är en sådan här produkt död. Det behövs ett helt ekosystem” säger Andreas Sjöström, ansvarig för Sogetis appcenter.

Läs hela artikeln i Computer Sweden

Nielsen: majority of US app purchases are games, iOS users play twice as long

http://www.engadget.com

By Joe Pollicino posted Jul 7th 2011 6:14AM

tipstack till @andreassjostrom

Android-First!

The starting point of LBS wasn’t the release of iPhones, there where a lot of geeky stuff around before. But the explosion and exploitation of location as part of our Smartphone experience within apps came with the rapid growth of iPhone sales. It’s indisputable the number one gadget to create mainstream usage of LBS and who thought there would be a shift?

Last year we saw Google’s Android coming from nowhere and today it’s the dominating OS for Smartphones, but the flood of LBS apps hasn’t been as creative and fast growing as it was on Android; instead it is almost like two religions popped up. Pro iOS (now incorporating the iPads and iTouch as well) and Pro Android. Either or. Which is kind of stupid and stone age, think if someone said today “no, I can only use a Philips TV!”?

Anyway it has been a very strong trend for mobile service developers to first go iOS and then maybe Android if they could muster the challenge of moving to another platform (which means – is there enough money?). The standard analysis is that the consumer segments that run after iOS devices are not the same as the Android buyers. Arguments like these are common:

“they know it’s an iPhone they want while the ordinary consumer don’t know what Android means”

“The status of an iOS device is so much higher than of an Android device”

“iOS is for design people and Android is for Tech people”

These statements could be true, I doubt it, and I think all of this is now changing. A really interesting sign came today with Foursquare announcing that they will go Android first with their updated check-in LBS app. The pure amount of Android devices (independent if user knows Android or not) and the spread to continents, consumer groups and Smartphone models leads to the logical decision.

If it’s going to continue? I think so as long as the sales and activation of Android OS models continue. I’ll leave it to others to decide if it’s bad religion .

Mobile value

With social networks and search going mobile the location comes into play for consumers all over the globe. It’s no longer who you are connected to its more and more who and where, the possibility to engage IRL, In Real Life, as an important functionality.

So the common ads that we are now used to see in the search and social network pages are less and less relevant unless they also tap into the location of where the viewer is using the service.

But then comes an interesting effect which Maartje Wouters, Interactive Marketer at Wecanbeheroes, reveals in her book ‘Location-based Services, from hype to hyper’. The consumer doesn’t see ads as enough, 63% think that mobile coupons are the most valuable form of mobile marketing.

So it’s obvious that GroupOn has some serious problems in customer acquisitions with skyrocketing costs and a constant? need  for new investments; could that have anything to do with the fact that they aren’t a social network or search service?

In the light of Google+ launch and what seems to be coming from Facebook, it might be relevant to also look at what Maartje Wouters lists as the six key drivers for mobile marketing value:

• Location search marketing: search engine marketing based on location is one of the most significant developments in location-based advertising.
• Gamification: it is expected that playing games on smartphones and tablets which are linked to location information are becoming more popular.
• Geospatial networking: More and more social networks are being equipped with location information which makes it possible to communicate with people in your close vicinity.
• The use of sensors: Smartphones are being equipped with more and more sensors, which can measure an array of metrics, such as temperature or energy use. This information can be combined with location information.
• Indoor navigation: The combination of different location techniques will make it possible to give more accurate and detailed information about a person’s location in the future. This creates opportunities for indoor navigation and advertising.
• Virtual money: Mobile payments will have a huge impact on the way we perceive money in general.