You might have seen MG’s article titled, “Big in Japan Has a Massive Goal.“ He pretty much hit the nail on the head, but I thought I would explain further. Here was the release that Scott Baradell put together:
Big in Japan, a Dallas-based idea factory for mobile applications, today announced that its newly formed iPhone Dev Team plans to introduce 100 iPhone applications by the end of 2010. The iPhone Dev Team — a revenue-sharing partnership between the company and individual developers — has already created five apps, ranging from utilities to games, that are available in the iTunes Store.
“With the success of our comparison shopping app ShopSavvy, Big in Japan has negotiated a wide range of distribution, promotion and sponsorship agreements, and has built relationships with agencies and brands such as WPP, Omnicom and Visa,” said Alexander Muse, Big in Japan co-founder. “In essence, we have created a business and marketing pipeline for mobile apps.
“By partnering with individual developers to form the iPhone Dev Team, we enable developers to access this pipeline – reaching more consumers, generating more advertising revenue, and taking advantage of our ability to scale as new applications come on board. Our plan is to fill this pipeline to the tune of 100 iPhone applications over the course of the next 15 months.”
In September, the iPhone Dev Team made its first five applications available for free download at the iTunes Store: Classic Pen and Paper Games, featuring Tic Tac Toe, Hangman and Dots and Boxes; Gravitron X, a gravity-simulator app; Pickr, which polls users with a question of the day; PocketDice, a 3D dice app for role-playing games; and SportsStar, a utility that turns photos into sports trading cards.
Developers who are interested in joining the iPhone Dev Team may contact Big in Japan at sales@biggu.com.
I was pumped to learn that Best Buy was taking pre-orders for the newest Android phone from Motorola called the Droid. Here is the announcement. I ran over to the Park Lane Best Buy store in Dallas only to find the mobile associate and manager had no idea what the DROID was, much less any idea how I could pre-order it. I called Best Buy and managed to talk to someone on their mobile team who called the store, gave them the SKU and helped me complete the pre-order. My advice? Call the store before you go – location search here..
The emails are constant, “When is the iPhone version coming out?” Our goal was to release sometime this summer. This summer turned into this fall. I can assure you that we are very, very close – the second very only necessary because I have said ‘very close’ previously. The good news is that the version of ShopSavvy that will hit the market will be far more polished than a 1.0 release. It will be BETTER than the original Android version launched last year (and if I don’t say so, that is saying a lot). Here is a short sneak peek video I shot yesterday:
So what is the problem? It is actually pretty silly. One of our developers (i.e. our lead developer) uploaded an older version of ShopSavvy to his iTunes account last year. It came to our attention TODAY that ShopSavvy was going to be released using his personal account and NOT our corporate account. When we tried to rectify this error the iTunes store told us that the name was taken – i.e. by our developer – and that we needed to pick a new name. I reached out to Philip Schiller from Apple and asked him for help moving the name and application from our developer’s account to our corporate account and I am hopeful he will be able to help.
Om Malik is asking, “Will there be an Android App Boom Soon?“ I can’t imagine that there won’t be one. Just look at the number of Android smartphones coming out:
Holy Cow! Flurry is reporting that new Android project starts are up 94% in November. Check it out:
Rylan and I are taking ShopSavvy on the road next week. There are a number of you who have suggested we get together when we get to San Francisco – well, we are headed west next week. Here is our schedule:
Monday (morning booked, open for meetings in afternoon)
Tuesday (PayPal Innovate09 Conference, open for some meetings in afternoon)
Wednesday (PayPal Innovate09 Conference, open for meetings in afternoon)
Thursday (open for meetings in morning and afternoon)
Friday (booked)
Email jdonica@architel.com to schedule a meeting. We are staying at the Parc 55 so lets try to meet there or close by.
It is an awesome phone and now everybody has it. The ‘everybody has it’ part is what bothers me. I like to have the latest greatest gadgets. I got the iPhone the first day it was released – I have been waiting for the next big thing. At first I thought the G1 was going to be IT, but while Android held promise the device wasn’t exactly an iPhone-killer. That is all about to change – if Mike Arrington is right.
Motorola and Verizon have teamed up to build the Droid – an Android phone that is every bit as cool as the iPhone. According to Mike, “Make no mistake, this is Android’s flagship product, and the first phone that will pose a significant threat to Apple’s iPhone.” High praise indeed. The Droid is thinner than the iPhone, but has a physical keyboard and is on a decent network (AT&T has been having a hard time keeping pace with iPhone growth). Mike also points out that the Droid is built on the TI processor (i.e. the same as iPhone) which is much faster than the Qualcomm processor that existing Android phones have used.
I have been very bullish about Android in the past. More recently I have been frustrated – i.e. every OS has growing pains. But at the end of the day I think Google has a real winner on its hands – 2010 is going to be the year of Android. Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt announced on an earnings call yesterday that, “Android adoption is about to explode.“ I tend to agree with him. Why? There is simply too much momentum behind Android for it to fail. Too many HUGE companies are betting the farm on Android. There are now 12 handsets available for Android, 32 carriers have or are about to launch an Android phone in more than 26 countries.
Whatever the fate of our little business, our success will be a direct result of Google’s strategy of ‘giving it away’. Google had a bold idea: provide a free worldwide license to users, developers and carriers for a cutting edge mobile phone operating system. Google’s CFO, Patrick Pichette, described the smart-phone as a trans-formative device – “transforming how people live on a mobile basis”. Google is changing the lives of thousands of developers around the world. It is true. I have had the privileged of traveling the world to meet other Android developers and I have been floored by all of the innovation and creativity that Google has unleashed. Apple has made a similar impact, but in the long run I believe in people more than I believe in corporations – I believe people will make Android great. Thanks again Google!
Would you be surprised to learn that in less than a year Android has gobbled up 5% of the US smartphone market in the US? Based on this number we calculate that ShopSavvy was installed on 3.4% of all smartphones in the US. Gartner released sales forecasts for the entire smartphone market for 2012. These three numbers really stuck in my head:
Android 2012 Sales: 94.5 million units
iPhone 2012 Sales: 71.5 million units
WinMo 2012 Sales: 47.7 million units
What if 10% of Android users were active ShopSavvy users (our current penetration is MUCH higher)? This would mean we had 9 million active users. What if we could get 5% of iPhone users? This would result in around 4 million more active users. I am not very hopeful that we will have any meaningful user base on Windows Mobile so I won’t even speculate. But 13 million active shoppers scanning an average of 26 items per month is a very interesting opportunity. This would be more than 4 billion scans a year or about $200 million in yearly revenue. Hm…
Great news if you are a retailer that offers Amazon Payments (i.e. Amazon’s version of PayPal) – Amazon has built a fairly simple and straightforward mobile payments service. We are exploring including Amazon’s MPS in ShopSavvy, but Rylan noted that we wouldn’t be able to offer it for items listed on Amazon’s own site. Why? Because Amazon won’t allow mobile developers to use their products API. Sort of ironic. Sarah Perez has the full story here.
You might have seen MG’s article titled, “Big in Japan Has a Massive Goal.“ He pretty much hit the nail on the head, but I thought I would explain further. Here was the release that Scott Baradell put together:
I was pumped to learn that Best Buy was taking pre-orders for the newest Android phone from Motorola called the Droid. Here is the 
Rylan and I are taking ShopSavvy on the road next week. There are a number of you who have suggested we get together when we get to San Francisco – well, we are headed west next week. Here is our schedule:
It is an awesome phone and now everybody has it. The ‘everybody has it’ part is what bothers me. I like to have the latest greatest gadgets. I got the iPhone the first day it was released – I have been waiting for the next big thing. At first I thought the G1 was going to be IT, but while Android held promise the device wasn’t exactly an iPhone-killer. That is all about to change – if 
I have been very bullish about Android in the past. More recently I have been frustrated – i.e. every OS has growing pains. But at the end of the day I think Google has a real winner on its hands – 2010 is going to be the year of Android. Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt announced on an earnings call yesterday that, “
Would you be surprised to learn that in less than a year Android has gobbled up 5% of the US smartphone market in the US? Based on this number we calculate that ShopSavvy was installed on 3.4% of all smartphones in the US. Gartner released sales forecasts for the entire smartphone market for 2012. These three numbers really stuck in my head: