Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

nSphere Acquires Couponing Startup Peekaboo Mobile

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/11/nsphere-acquires-couponing-startup-peekaboo-mobile/

Online business directory company nSphere has acquired mobile couponing startup Peekaboo Mobile. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but we hear the transaction was in the seven-figures. Peekaboo's team will also join nSphere to manage its new mobile marketplace and future mobile-related initiatives.

Peekaboo Mobile provides a platform to local businesses looking to connect to consumers with location-targeted offers. Peekaboo says that it currently reaches over 50 million smartphone users through its Android and iPhone deal applications and partner network.

nSphere’s technology powers search results for local services, events, relevant news articles and more. The acquisition will be used by nSphere to establish a mobile platform to deliver hyper-local coupons and information on any search topic directly to mobile handsets. Peekaboo Mobile will continue to run its mobile couponing company and will eliminate all monthly or yearly service fees required of current business owners and provide the Peekaboo platform free of charge for all future clients.

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Peekaboo Mobile

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Video Apps Vs. Web Video: Apps Are Invisible To Search

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/11/video-apps-web-invisible/

Videos on the iPad and other tablets look great, and increasingly apps are being created specifically for watching videos on tablets. There is just one problem: they cannot be found by search. This problem is true for information in all apps in general, but it is particularly one for video.

A couple weeks ago, I moderated a panel at Beet.TV’s Video Strategy Summit where this topic came up. In the video clip above, Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis at the NPD Group, points out that there is no electronic program guide for video apps, which “makes it very difficult to discover video.” If you have a thousand video apps, that makes it very hard to find any one video. Akamai chief strategist Chris Van Noy says that apps have the upper hand when it comes to video viewing right now, but he suspects that will change over the next 18 months as HTML5 makes it easier for video to be published once and played anywhere across devices.

Kevin Krim, head of Bloomberg’s web properties, thinks apps can create loyal relationships, but they depend on home runs. He prefers to play short ball and get “good search exposure.” Bloomberg currently has 13,000 videos archived online and adds 50 to 100 every weekday. “I want that to all be in Google search results and get traffic from that,” he says, “you can’t do that in apps. Every time someone watches our video, that’s a single. I can pile those up all day long.”

In the video below, ABC Digital Media executive VP Paul Slavin agrees that search and other forms of Web discovery are key. He estimates that 70 percent of ABCNews.com’s video views come in “through the side door” from search or links from other sites.

Locking up videos in apps makes them invisible to most of the people who might otherwise watch them. Of course, that is why video publishers double up their videos on the Web and inside apps. But someone needs to figure out how to search inside apps, and not just for videos.

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Run iPhone Apps Directly From Your Browser With Pieceable Viewer

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/11/pieceable-viewer/

Part of i/o Ventures first cohort, Pieceable is launching its first product today, the Pieceable Viewer. As you can see above with the Yelp app or here with apps like Hipmunk or Foodspotting, the viewer allows you to run and test out embeddable iPhone apps from your web browser.

Developers can publish their apps directly to the service and the Pieceable team will create a web page that displays a fully functional copy of the app. Developers or anyone who needs to share an app can then send a link to whomever they’d like to give the demo to.

“It ends up being the easiest way ever to share an iPhone app on the web,” CEO Fred Potter tells me. “There’s no UDID exchange, there’s no worry about the 100-device limit Apple places on dev accounts – it’s zero friction and hassle.”

Using Flash to simulate the app’s functionality, Pieceable Viewer works without any code modifications on the developer’s side, “It’s literally a one line command to publish an existing app to the viewer service,” says Potter.

But Pieceable Viewer isn’t Pieceable’s core product. The company itself, in the same space as Mobile Roadie and AppMakr, aims to be a WordPress for mobile platforms, helping people write apps even if they don’t know how to code.

Potter explains, “We’re focusing a lot on making sure people can build rich apps that have a very custom look and feel. But at the same time, we’re trying to make app creation as easy as it can be (on the same level as setting up something like a blog).” The company should be fully launching in the next couple of months.

Helping non-techies make apps is cool and all but I’m pretty satisfied with just the Pieceable Viewer, which should also support Android in the coming weeks. My grand vision for this is that tech reporters can use the service to include working app demos along with app reviews. Imagine how cool it would be if readers could actually try out the app while reading about it?

Currently the Viewer has a tiered-pricing plan, with Free getting you 1 simultaneous viewer, 1 app and a link that expires, $30 getting you 3 simultaneous viewers and 5 iPhone apps, and $60 getting you 10 viewers, unlimited apps in addition to app links that never expire.

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Pieceable

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G-Technology crashes NAB with portable, Thunderbolt-equipped RAID arrays

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/12/g-technology-crashes-nab-with-portable-thunderbolt-equipped-rai/

The Thunderbolt goodness just keeps on rolling out at NAB. G-Technology just announced it will be adding support for the high-speed connection to its line of RAID devices for those who spend their days chopping up HD video. The first batch of products will hit in either Q3 or Q4 and start with the company's smaller arrays in the four to eight-disc size. A prototype of a four-drive model can be seen in the photo above, which rep Pete Schlatter described to us as "the sweet spot" in terms of portability and storage. Sure, calling an eight drive array "portable" sounds like a stretch, but don't forget: these are designed to be paired with laptops and carried people editing video on the go -- you know, guys with giant cases of equipment and biceps to match.

G-Technology crashes NAB with portable, Thunderbolt-equipped RAID arrays originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 12 Apr 2011 01:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Eye-Fi launching new 8GB wireless SD card today, kicking out Direct Mode for iOS and Android next week

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/12/eye-fi-launching-new-8gb-wireless-sd-card-today-kicking-out-dir/

Remember how Eye-Fi was cooking up some software to let their WiFi-enabled SD memory cards sling photos directly to your tablet or phone? Here's some sweet news -- starting next week, Direct Mode will be a free download for any Eye-Fi X2 card, and debut alongside companion apps in the Android Market and iTunes App Store. Moreover, the company's celebrating the launch of the new transfer protocol with a brand-new card, the $80 Eye-Fi Mobile X2, which should be available for purchase online momentarily and make its merry way to Best Buy and Apple stores by April 17th. Basically, the Mobile is a redux of the $50 Connect X2, but with double the storage capacity (8GB) and Direct Mode pre-installed -- though a price drop on the top-of-the-line Pro X2 (to $100) will add geotagging and RAW support for just one Jackson more. Need a refresher on how Direct Mode works? Peek our CES video demo (and a hefty press release) after the break.

Continue reading Eye-Fi launching new 8GB wireless SD card today, kicking out Direct Mode for iOS and Android next week

Eye-Fi launching new 8GB wireless SD card today, kicking out Direct Mode for iOS and Android next week originally appeared on Engadget on Tu e, 12 Apr 2011 03:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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