Will Anyone Ask Microsoft, Google And Apple: Where Is Their Dream Project?

May 14, 2012

How the technologies are shifting around the world seem from endeavor of tech-giants such as Microsoft, Google and Apple. Last year, Apple demonstrated its Android@Home project and recently, Microsoft has sparked out a discussion on near-future technology, where the home appliances could be operated like personal computer. In addition to these, Apple’ s iHome project is constantly buzzing around and a vast numbers of folks are yet to experience the technology. The tech-giants have envisaged a concept, where Smartphone and Tablet users could handle home appliances through their devices without appearing physically at the spots.

Currently, Microsoft, Google and Apple are working on their projects and it’s speculated that they might accomplish their projects soon in near-future.

Microsoft Dream Project – HomeOS

Microsoft has recently highlighted its HomeOS concept–really, it’s an inevitable innovation. Numbers of home appliances with new technologies such as set top boxes, games consoles, wireless routers, home automation devices, tablet and Smartphones and security camera are coming in the market every day, but their discreteness have bothered users worldwide. Indeed, I agree with Microsoft on this context that it is claiming to bring all these devices together on a cohesive platform so that one could easily control them.

Microsoft stated on its blog, ” Pulling all these different systems together into one cohesive whole is a simple and obvious solution, because all this disparate innovation is breeding heterogeneity and complexity that frustrates even technically savvy users’ attempts to improve day-to-day life by implementing functionality that uses these devices in combination.”

The video might be helpful for you to understand what Microsoft is actually trying to do in near-future:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96jJq1MnUzw

Microsoft is trying to create a common management system for various Smart devices in the house through its HomeOS, which is an eco-management software to control home appliances from outside. For this, user will have to add functionality–which apps they would prefer to run the specific part of the house.

Google Dream Project Android@Home

Last year, Google also revealed Android@Home at Google I/O conference, an ecosystem for managing home appliances such as exercise bike, table lamps and thermostats. Google has primarily focused on electrical gadgets inside the home. Here, the video demonstrates how users can measure and control devices through Android@Home on their Smartphone and Tablet:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD3Q4kJhD5w

Google is going to innovate numbers of apps for specific devices of user home, means if users will have to command their lamp through Smartphone then they will have to install Android app for lamp from Google Play Market. It’s pretty clear that Google is now trying to make your entire home like an Android accessory–which would be controlled through Android devices like a Tablet or a “hub”. The intention of Google is here to manage all home appliances by simple apps connected over wireless links.

Apple Dream Project

In this context, Apple has some different strategies, it is currently busy in patenting Smarthome energy management system to provide more eco-friendly common management system based on intelligent powerline networking to measure and control which devices are consuming more power in the home. Users will have privileges to control and command these devices through iPad and iPhone. Like Google, Apple will also avail device “controlling and commanding” apps through its iCloud, besides, the company is also planning to implement the device control through its “Siri” voice interface.

There is a big question when these companies will introduce their innovations? It has been almost one year since the announce of Android@Home by Google, and Microsoft and Apple are still working on their projects. Indeed, users are very impatient to get their hand on these innovations.

Is Apple’s Stereotype Retail Business Embarrassing To Enterprises?

Abhishek Singh

May 12, 2012

Apple is selling its products through online stores, Apple Retail Store and some selected retail partners and I have no any discrimination with the company’s monopoly that why it’s selling products through some selected stores? We might expect that the company is trying to sustain its exclusiveness in the market what some other premium manufactures such as Bang & Olufsen are doing now. Undoubtedly, the strategy works for consumer point of view but if you think from enterprise perspective it is somewhat embarrassing. Indeed, if the company wants to make a dent in the enterprise sector then it will have to change its stereotype strategies.

Currently, Apple is dominating in the Smartphone (some stats reveal Samsung dominates in Smartphone) and Tablet era with iPhone and iPad worldwide. Recently, a IT market research firm “Context” said that sales of Apple products through non-Apple owned IT distribution channels grew 42% in terms of revenue in the Western Europe in Q1 of this year compare to the same quarter a year before. The sales mounted up in the market due to outburst sales of iPad (almost one million units), sold through IT distribution channel in Western Europe, in the last couples of quarters. The firm has also reported that iPad sales grew by 180% in the market in Q1 2012 compare to the same quarter of the prior year.

In 2010, when Apple launched its iPad, it was exclusively available in its retail store–the company left little or no stock even for top level retail partners. Company’s retail partners endeavored to get their hand of the revolutionary Tablet but ironically they could not do so.

But the scenario is changing, numbers of companies around the world are allowing their employees to use their Smartphone and Tablet at workplace. We could see a warm ovation of Bring-your-own-device (BYOD) in the last 12 months worldwide. Apple wants to make its penetration among enterprises, those are seeking to move out from Blackberry and bulky laptops and adopt powerful Smartphone and Sleek Tablets.

Microsoft is going to launch its three editions of Windows 8 worldwide in the second half of this year. According to a report, Microsoft has planned to overtake iPad by next year. Undoubtedly, Microsoft will be target to enterprise sectors–where Apple has poor impression.

Android has become a great threat for iOS devices—iPhone nad Tablet—worldwide, but due to its security vulnerability enterprises are little skeptic to adopt the devices. Ironically, in the last three months, 5,000 new malicious apps have been detected in Android Market (now Google Play Market). Yesterday, I described that Android has reported 3,325% malware growth in the last year. A recent report has also stated that numbers of companies are somewhat precautious about the use of Smartphone and Tablets by their employee during office hours due to security concern. The report stated that enterprises have lack of trust on their mobile devices.

Anyway, the time is demanding little flexibility from Apple side and the company really needs to focus on non-Apple IT distribution channels, recorded 180% growth in the Q1 of this year compare to the same quarter a year back.

Monday Madness: Giveaway – Google AdWords Coupon Worth $100

Dazeinfo

May 12, 2012

We know that many of you are hard-hunters and keep gargling with new ideas, punctuation and funny tags, specially on Monday when you don’t want to get up early and come to office after a relaxed Sunday.

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No, it’s not a week long exercise; just ensure to get back to this page again before you leave the office in evening – You could be a lucky mascot of today !

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Enterprise Users Prefer iOS Over Android; Twitter Over Facebook [Study]

Shikhar Srivastava

May 11, 2012

Apple’s iOS has gone past Google’s Android in enterprise usage, according to a recent study by Zscaler ThreatlabZ, the research arm of SaaS security provider Zscaler. The data is based on more than 200 billion first quarter transactions in its cloud, which serves global companies of all sizes. A transaction, as defined by Zscaler ThreatlabZ senior security researcher Mike Geide, occurs every time a file is accessed from a web server.

The data shows that transactions done from iOS devices were slightly more than 50% of total mobile activity, while the transactions made from Android devices had dropped to 37% by the end of March. According to Mike Geide for the better part of 2011 it was Android who held the lead but iOS steadily caught up with it and recently in December both had about 47% transactions from Zscaler’s enterprise customers.

iOS dominates Android in Enterprise Usage.

BlackBerry devices observed inZscaler’s study experienced a slight decline as it dropped from 18% in January to 15% by the end of March. It is more than likely that the rising number of Apple iPhones and iPads is contributing to this growth in transactions. But according to Geide there are some other factors at work as well. Let’s have a closer look at them.

Geide says that many of Zscaler’s clients set up guest wireless networks, as more companies look to keep personal devices from choking their networks or presenting security risks.
Another contributing factor could be iPhone activity from actual guests using those guest networks. For example, Geide says visitors and patients in hospital waiting rooms are ignoring the magazine rack in favor of their smartphones and tablets connected to the guest network.

“You don’t want to be using your 3G connection to stream Pandora on your iPhone because you’re going to be eating a lot of bandwidth and paying Verizon a ton of money,We’ll see tons of mobile traffic through that guest network because that’s what everybody’s doing in the waiting room”

Apart from these factors, another research from Online data analytics firm Chitika shows that smartphone-specific activity on its advertising network accounted for 67% of mobile traffic from iPhone users, while those using Android phones made up 28.7%.

Some would argue that social media usage by employees also contributes to such data but the fact is that the increasingly strict enterprise policies have started to prevent usage of social media in corporate environments. Zscaler’s cloud has seen Facebook transactions decline from 52.4% of all transactions in its Web Apps category in the first quarter of 2011 to 41.07% in the quarter ending this March. The study shows that the number of organizations blocking access to social networking grew from 2.46% of its user base in January to 3.99% in March, and that gives you a more clear picture of why social media usage is not such a big factor in this study.

But interestingly the study also reveals that Twitter transactions increased from 6.39% to 7.44%. Geide aptly puts forward the possible reasons for this increase in Twitter activity:

“While Twitter is still under the umbrella of social networks and social media, Twitter itself can, in some ways, be explained as a micro-blog, so it’s still a way of exchanging information, where Facebook may have the perception as a platform for potentially goofing off. You can install games and do a variety of things on Facebook that you wouldn’t be able to do on Twitter.” – Mike Geide.

And he goes on to add that security is another reason for social media usage decline in enterprise environment, and the fact that Twitter when compared to Facebook is considered slightly more secure also helped Twitter gain a few points. In the study, transactions on LinkedIn saw a slight decline, from 1.55% to 1.45% over the quarter.

Mainly these statistics highlighted the fact that iOS is gaining momentum over Android, at least in the enterprise user scenario and that social media’s usage is now being curbed by organizations by implementing strict no-usage policies.

Android Reported 3,325% Malware Growth In 2011[Study]

Abhishek Singh

May 11, 2012

Mobile malware are growing with galloping swift worldwide year-over-year and it has intensified to mobile platforms. A mobile security analysis firm “Juniper” has reportedly revealed that mobile malware grew with leaps and bound in the last year and it’s expected that it will continuously be growing this year. Indeed, these malware attacks have affected a lot to individual as well as businesses worldwide.

Malware growth has more worsened to Android compare to other platforms. Last year, Microsoft announced to offer Windows Phone to Android victims after sharing of their malware story to the software giant. Recently, I have discussed about the vulnerability of Android platform in the security concern. However, a chart has been provided below, which compares malware growth on different mobile OS platforms.

It’s quite clear from the above chart that Android has astoundingly recorded highest malware growth, unbelievable 3,325% in the last year, followed by Java Me, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry and Symbian with 49%, 21%, 8% and over 1% respectively during the same period. Malware growth was all time highest in the last year—Google Android platform alone accounted 46.9% of malware attacks.

However, developers endeavored their label base to eradicate malware from different platforms, but ironically, mobile malware were getting smarter day-over-day. It’s true that hackers are really smarter and they are more sophisticated. They are always seeking an innovative to exploit security vulnerability across the platform and devices.

Last year, majority of mobile devices were getting affected from either SMS Trojans or online applications. The firm has reported that 36% of mobile malware comprised SMS Trojans in the last year, while 30% applications installed on devices exposed the location of the devices to hackers without users’ consent. In addition to these, 14.7% of all applications have the ability to make phone calls without the user’s consent.

Over 10 billion applications were downloaded by users worldwide last year, which was the highest downloads ever. The firm has also reported that hackers face lower barrier to enter into apps store and that’s the reason why app stores are quickly becoming the main point of entry for malware.

Source: Juniper

Want To Become Top App Developer: Invest $30,000 And 14% Of Your Marketing Time [Study]

Abhishek Singh

May 11, 2012

Yesterday, I have described why 80% app developers are impotent to generate even minimal revenue to standalone their business in the market. The reason is quite obvious that majority of developers are not conscious about their apps marketing despite of knowing that it’s mandatory for the success of any app business. An analysis portal “Apps Promo” has revealed that 51% developers are willing to develop apps for iPhone, while 54.5% and 48.9% are emphasizing on iPad and Android devices respectively.

The firm has also reported that only 28.4% developers have developed more than 10 apps in their career so far. Most important paraphernalia is here that 35.2% developers are offering their apps at free of cost, while 30.7% are offering their apps for $0.99. At present, paid apps, advertising and premium services are the revenue models for employee worldwide. Undoubtedly, everyone wants to launch their apps in the market, the reason is clear that they want to have a cash hoard, but unfortunately, only meager percentages are capable to generate sufficient revenue from their apps.

I have explained earlier that 59% of app developers are unable to make as much of money to recover even apps development costs. Ironically, 52% of app developers had $0 set aside for marketing and they spent less than 5% of their time for promoting their app in the market.

The chart (above) is clearly depicting that only 12% app developers are making more than $50,000, while 20% are making in between $5,000-$50,000 from their apps. The graph depicts that the condition of Majority (68%) app developers are very pitiable.

It’s quite clear from the above chart that gaming apps are dominating among other apps, followed by entertainment and social media apps worldwide.

It’s clear from the firm’s study that app developers those are more focusing on app marketing, are outstandingly performing in the market at present. The firm has released some traits of top app developers (found during study period) that they were prime focused on app marketing, invested nearly an average of $30,000 for their apps promotions, and besides, spent an average of their 14% of time on apps marketing. It’s quite obvious that a better marketing strategies is necessary for success of any app business.

Facebook Don’t Want To See Its Mobile Users Growing; Atleast For Now !

Shikhar Srivastava

May 11, 2012

More and more users are now using mobile devices to access Facebook rather than the desktops and this trend is starting to worry Facebook. Facebook with its 900 million odd users is the world’s favorite social network on the desktop as well as on the move.
A recent report by comScore’s new Mobile Metrix 2.0 showed U.S. smartphone users spent 441 minutes per month, or 7 hours and 21 minutes, on Facebook in March, compared with 391 minutes via computer. That’s miles if not light years ahead the second and third place Foursquare and Twitter with 146 minutes and 114 minutes respectively, while Tumblr drops in at fourth with 68 minutes.

You might be wondering with such great stats in their favor why on earth would Facebook be worried? Facebook is ahead of its competition without doubt but when you compare Facebook on the desktop with Facebook on mobile, then it gets really interesting. According to Reuters, Facebook has about 158.9 million unique U.S. visitors who access the site on computers and 78 million who access it via mobile phones, although there is an overlap between the two groups, which essentially means that the number of people who are accessing their facebook accounts on the move is fast closing in on those who access it on the desktop.

More and more users now prefer using Facebook on the move.

Now this is where it gets interesting, you see when Facebook filed its IPO it highlighted the fact that it does not generate meaningful revenue from mobile users.

“If users increasingly access mobile products as a substitute for access through personal computers and if we are unable to successfully implement monetization strategies for our mobile users, our financial performance and ability to grow revenue would be negatively affected.” – Facebook wrote in its filing documents.

This essentially means that even though Facebook would be delighted with the increasing traffic in terms of the exposure it is getting on mobile devices, it is skeptical about generating more revenue from the mobile platforms. Facebook hasn’t been too keen to show ads to mobile users, but starting now all that might change.

The changes made to the filing indicate that Facebook is clearly concerned about how to grow its mobile revenue in order to sustain its incredible financial growth. In fact The Telegraph went on to report that the statement was effectively a ‘profit warning’. Some analysts are saying that the move to buy Instagram for $1 billion was part of Facebook’s efforts to increase mobile revenue.

“It was a reactive, almost panicked reaction to usage statistics” Sam Hamadeh, founder, research firm PrivCo to The Telegraph.

Facebook also recently announced the app center, a place to find all social apps for mobile users. They are also introducing popular apps like the game Draw Something, on Apple’s and Google’s app stores and guess what, they will take 30% share of revenues. These are indeed being done to further increase user engagement and – generate more revenues from the mobile devices.

Facebook’s valuation is fast approaching $100 billion and of course they are very publicly going public with the IPO and expecting to break all previous IPO records in the history of Silicon Valley based IPOs. So it is but obvious that after the IPO they need to not only continue growing but sustain those high levels of growth, which (if at all possible) can be achieved by strategically monetizing their mobile revenues.

For Google, India Is Still A Weak Contributor In Smartphone App Market !

Abhishek Singh

May 11, 2012

The tradition of mobile market is continuously shifting to other horizon, now mobile payment has become quite popular worldwide. However, the Indian market is somewhat behind in this aspect than other matured markets of the world. Generally, online shopping in India is not up-to-the-level; however, an advent of number of retail giants has created a mobile friendly ecosystem in the country. Recently, we have elaborated an Indian Telecom giant “Tata Docomo” inked a deal with the country’s largest online deal portal “Sanpdeal” to provide SMS alert to folks related to products and services of their localities at discount rate.

Airtel has putted its all afford to persuade Indian banks for Open wallet service to folks. The telecom operator is endeavoring to provide number of services by associating multiple banks through single wallet to users, so that they could deposit the cash in Airtel Money from multiple banks (where they have account). The service will also privilege them to transfer their money to other accounts or withdraw the money according to their wish.

Recently, the Finish mobile handset manufacturer “Nokia” has inked a deal with two Indian telecom vendors—Vodafone and Airtel. The deal will facilitate Vodafone and Airtel subscribers to download apps from Nokia Store without an use of credit card, the amount will be deducted from their prepaid balance or will be added to their monthly phone bill. However, the mobile handset manufacturer has already tied-up the same deal with another Indian telecom operator “Reliance” in the prior year, but question is here that why the handset manufacturer has taken so much of time to extend its deal with other telcos in India?

Undoubtedly, India is one of the biggest markets of the Finnish handset manufacturer in terms of revenue generation. However, company’s market share is continuously declining in the country due to increasing demand of Samsung and local brands handsets. Nokia Store, erstwhile Ovi Store, is not as matured as Apple and Google’s app stores. Last year, the company launched Windows Phone based its Lumia 800 and 710 model, and this year, it has released Lumia 900 model. In these models, the apps are being downloaded through Microsoft’s Windows Phone App Marketplace, not from Nokia Store. It’s quite clear that Nokia is unable to generate revenue from its apps on Windows Phone platform worldwide.

After teaming up with Reliance, Vodafone and Airtel, the company would have a greater opportunity to lure a vast numbers of Indian folks towards its Nokia Store. The users would not be bothered about how to pay the cash for the apps or need to have credit card. However, Nokia is presently offering two most popular apps– “Angry Birds” for Asha 303 model for just RS 5 and “Gravity” (a popular social networking app) for Rs 35–at the nominal price. Nokia’s “WhatApp Messenger” is quite popular among Indian women, play three times more compare to men across the country.

Recently, Google announced more than 15 billion apps download from its Google Play Market. But it’s astounding me a lot that Google has not yet deployed “Operator Billing” with Indian telcos. India is undoubtedly one of the fastest emerging market around the world and Android penetration is substantially increasing day-over-day across the country.

One thing is pretty clear that Google’s teaming-up with Indian telcos will lure a large number of folks towards Android platform. However, it will benefit to both in the sense of, if any telecom operator is offering apps download privilege to folks from Google Play Market across the country, definitely, it will attract more numbers of the subscribers towards the particular networks. If number of users will increase then obviously, number of downloads will increase. In other words, it will create more revenue directly for the app developer and indirectly to the operators. However, in the last year, Uninor announced to bring operator billing and India-centric mobile apps on Android Marketplace (now Google Play Marketplace) for Indian users in 2012, but it’s yet to come.

Qualcomm Finally Gets An Approval To Roll Out 4G Services In India: [Report]

Abhishek Singh

May 11, 2012

After a long struggle, Qualcomm has finally got BWA spectrum license approval to roll out its 4G services in India. In June 2010, Qualcomm succeeded to get licenses from BWA Auction for four circles in India, but a year ahead in September, DoT rejected the company’s application. There was only one option remained for the company and it decided to move out to the “Telecom Dispute Settlement & Appellate Tribunal” (TDSAT) in October 2011, however, DOT agreed to give one ISP license to the US telecom giant but on some conditions.

The struggle of Qualcomm did not yet accomplish, however, the company was concordant to pay all dispute dues to its partners in India. Later in February this year, TDSAT asked to DoT to issue licence within a week to Qualcomm if the company would pay dues of its Indian partner. And finally, DoT has issued a letter of allotment of BWA spectrum to the US telecom giant after reducing the spectrum validity from 20 years to 18.5 years, reduced by 18 months. In addition to this, the DoT has also made the roll-out allocation tougher for the US telecom giant by reducing it from five years to three and a half year.

The US telecom giant will have BWA spectrum license ( for INR 4,900 crore in 2010) in four circles such as Delhi, Mumbai, Kerala and Haryana. However, the decision came somewhat earlier March of this year, but it was delayed due to a linger regulatory maneuver between TDSAT and DoT for the payment of Qualcomm’s Indian partner. It’s well-known that Tulip Telecom as well as GTL together hold 26 per cent stake in the BWA company.

In a letter, Dot said to Qualcommm that the BWA spectrum would be valid till November 7, 2030 from the effective date of issuance of spectrum, the date of letter issue. The regulator has also mentioned in its letter that the US telecom giant would have to ensure at least 50% of rural area covered up to October 11, 2015, besides, the company would not start its commercial operations prior to operating license grant. In addition to these, the telecom regulator has also rigorously said that if the US telecom giant infringes any roll out obligation then its spectrum licenses will be withdrawn.

However, the DoT advocating about the license tenure of Reliance Infotel, which has pan-India BWA spectrum, should be extended to 22 years. The regulatory authority has said that Reliance Infotel’s wants to adopt Long Term Evolution (LTE) for its 4G networks, which is expected to take more time, in order to provide cheaper data plans to folks across the country.

via: Business Standard

Visa’s Digital Wallet Is Here To Change The Whole Paradigm Of EShopping – V.me ![video]

raghu

May 11, 2012

Visa’s vision of V.me can now allow them to compete with PayPal, Google Wallet and expand its radiant future all over the world.The online service of V.me by Visa will now allow customers to store cards from different agencies like American Express, Discover, MasterCard and Visa card for online payment via PC, laptop, tablet or smartphone. It’s a similar service like PayPal, which allows customers to purchase items by simply logging into their accounts, rather than entering their credit card information.

As Visa tied up with Intel, payment can be made by a single tap of smartphone on the NFC enabled cash register. NFC (Near field communication) is a set of standards for smartphone and similar devices to establish radio communication with each other by touching them together or bringing them into close proximity.

Visa has announced that its digital wallet solution V.me will be launching in the UK, France, and Spain starting this fall. Visa says that V.me will be available through its member banks and will let users add multiple cards to their wallets. At launch it will only be available as a website, though mobile apps and NFC-based payment solutions are expected to be added in the future. Visa has also announced that they were working in partnership with handset manufacturer Samsung, to launch an NFC-enabled phone especially for the 2012 Olympics.

V.me launched in beta with online retailer Buy.com, just a few days after rival MasterCard debuted a similar payment platform, with its PayPass Wallet Services. Buy.com’s 18 million customers will now see the option to enroll in V.me. The customers of Buy.com can create their own online V.me accounts which they can fund with any American Express, Discover, MasterCard, or Visa card. Customers can also use V.me to receive alerts and notifications about any activity on their Visa accounts and can receive personalized offers and discounts also.

Mariano Dima, Executive Vice President of Product and Marketing Solutions at Visa Europe, said:

“Our intention is that V.me will ultimately be able to incorporate any or all of our new payment technologies, allowing our members to deliver the best possible payments experience whether face-to-face, online or in a mobile environment. This comprehensive service suite, delivered under the V.me umbrella, will offer an easy way to benefit from the scale, security and reliability of Visa.”

More than 80 % of Americans believe smartphone as a portable cash and credit card machine, which are the future of e-commerce. With the availability of V.me in the U.S, it will catch up with the Visa Europe program. Due to the increase in E-commerce of Visa Europe from 22% to 44% between 2009 to 2011 and the increasing demand of shoppers for convenient, secure and safe online transaction, Visa’s V.me could change the paradigm of e-shopping.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90cKvmj2dyA

Why 80% App Developers Are Impotent To Standalone Their Business?

Abhishek Singh

May 10, 2012

Undoubtedly, over a million applications are available in the market across different platforms. Apple surpassed 25 billion apps downloads prior to March of this year and Android has also reportedly surpassed 15 billion apps download from its Google Play Marketplace this week. Apps download play a vital role in revenue generation for developers, but majority of apps remain undiscovered from users across the world. An analysis firm “App Promo” has revealed a reality of mobile developers in rushed app space. The firm has reported that 59% of apps are unable to generate break even revenue (invested in their development), while 68% of apps developers earned $5,000 or less with their most successful app.

It is true that only 12% of app developers are currently generating $50,000 or more revenue, on the contrary, 80% are unable to generate even minimal amount of revenue to keep their business stand. The report has depicted that 11% of app developers have 500,000 or more downloads, while 63% have 50,000 or less downloads for their most successful app.

One side, where Google and Apple are announcing that more than 1 billion apps are being downloaded from their apps store every month, while on the other side, majority of app developers are unable to generate enough revenue to standalone their business in the market.

Have you ever think that why these apps developers are unable to standalone their business?

The main reason behind this is app marketing, yes, it’s true. Big giants like Apple, Google, Amazon and more have lots media to expose their apps before users worldwide. But, other players don’t have such privileges to expose their apps prior to launch in the market. The report also unveils that 52% of developers had $0 set aside for app marketing during the study period, despite 91% were knowing that marketing is pre-requisite for generating revenue from the apps. The firm has also reported that 52% app developers spend 5% or less of their time for promoting their apps in the market.

Indeed, it’s not possible to discovered specific app from over one million of apps, which are being provided on different platform by developers across the world. Hence, an extensive apps marketing is required in order to attract a vast numbers of users across the world. However, majority of apps are similar to other in logical algorithms and most of them are available on Android and other platform either free of cost or at the nominal price. Indiscriminately, there is an intense competition in the market among app developers.

Must see the infographic (below) for getting more information:

Image courtesy: App Promo

Users Still Resist Towards Secure Data Access Through Mobile Devices: [Report]

Abhishek Singh

May 10, 2012

Number of Smartphone and Tablet are substantially increasing day-by-day, despite of this, majority of users are not yet trusting on mobile or online services to be secured. A research analysis firm “Juniper Networks” has conducted a survey over 4,037 respondents across five countries in March of this year and said that only 15% respondents (involved in survey) were satisfied with mobile security. The survey also included numbers of online services such as banking, healthcare and shopping. However, 51% of respondents believed online banking services were secured to be accessed on mobile devices.

According to the firm’s report, number of companies (asked during the survey period) were precautious about the access of corporate networks on mobile devices by their employees. These companies understood that exposing the networks on mobile device meant to invite intruders to conceal secrete database. However, Juniper stated that the mobile devices, which were being operated on AT&T carrier especially Samsung (Seoul: 005930), were secured.

On asking about mobile security to respondents, 63% told that mobile phone providers were responsible for security vulnerabilities. Social networking websites were considered as most sensitive media in concern of security risk, only 36% users supported that it was safe to use. On the contrary, online shopping sites ranked top with 60% of respondents support, while online banking got 51% reliability from users during survey period.

Juniper Networks’ chief mobile security evangelist –Dan Hoffman—said, “Some of the biggest news [to come from the study] was that despite the number of people using mobile devices, their level of those trust in the security of those devices is really low. Only 15% of the respondents indicated they had a ‘great deal of confidence’ in the security of those devices.”

In addition to these, 71% users said that they changed the usage of the services, if once, they found that it was not secure. In this set, 52% accepted that they left viewing the material from workplace, while 78% said they discontinued their online banking through their mobile device.

Previously, I have discussed that how mobile OS are vulnerable in security concern. Android OS has now become a challenge for device manufactures. However, Windows Phone, iOS and Blackberry mobile OS are more safer in security space compare to Android worldwide.

Twitpoker: Can You Dare To Bet Your Twitter Followers On Poker ? [Video]

Nrusinha

May 10, 2012

Poker being one of the most popular online played game, Twitpoker now gives a chance to those poker addicted players to quench their poker thirst. Not only in computers but also in social networking sites, it is a way to interact with people through Twitter and to follow them, add comments, and receive too. 27,000 plus Twitter account holders had played this game in a single table, but not with cards and money; with their twitter followers putting on bet. There is nothing to surprise that Colombian Twitter made it possible.

To make the app and concept more visible, Y&R Colombia – developers of this interesting game – had selected 5 biggest twitter users to play Twitpoker. The players were ZarateCamilam with 45,334 followers, Jorgitomacumba with 8,613 followers, AlejandroRai with 104,230 followers, Antoniosanint with 11,552 followers, and Soymuyaburrido with 16,244 followers. This time the followers are given the privilege to decided the “poke”(players decision of showing the playing card) . With the help of webcam, players and followers had shown their cards to the team-mate. The Winner took over all 180,000 Twitter followers as a winning prize and losers left with no followers they earned.

There was an exciting offer for one of the followers of which the winner got a winning flight ticket to Las Vegas and all the company bared all the holiday expenses and the losers had to slip away empty-handed.

Twitter users who keep up a huge number of followers will usually not dare to bet their followers on Twitpoker. However, with these exiting offers the users might take the leap of faith of betting their followers on the line in Twitpoker which could result in doubling their followers in no time.

This is much appreciated move by Y&R Columbia who has finally got something to cheer for Gambling industry which was in hunt for a significant reason to use social media. I am sure with the launch of such games, twitter users will not only have a great fun but also end up poking others’ followers and will strengthen their presence on social media.

Have a look on this interesting video after this break and enjoy !

[vimeo=41158438]

Scrubby Internet Connections In India: Only 0.4% Rural Households Have Internet Connectivity

Abhishek Singh

May 10, 2012

In India, almost 50% users are accessing internet through their mobile device rather than the PC. A recent report has placed the country on 114^th position on the basis of internet speed worldwide. An Indian government undertaking survey firm “National Sample Survey Organization” (NSSO) has revealed that only 3.5 among 1000 rural households had internet connectivity during 2009-10. However, internet connectivity in urban households were somewhat greater than the rural households; 59.5 among 1000 households had internet connectivity during the survey period. It quite clear from the above information that the ratio of internet connections in Urban and rural India was 17- to- one (17:1) during 2009-10.

The report has also elaborated state wise distribution of internet connections across the country. In terms of internet penetration in rural households, GOA ranked first with 50 per 1000 households, followed by Kerala and Arunachal Pradesh with 34 and 19 per 1000 households respectively during July 2009 to June 2010.

The internet penetration was even shabby in the elite cities of the country such as Mumbai and Delhi. In Mumbai, just 104 among 1000 households had internet connection during the survey period, followed by Himachal Pradesh and Delhi with 95 and 89.5 among 1000 households respectively during the same period.

The report, which has been provided by NSSO, is based on information collected during July 2009-June 2010 from 7,428 villages and 5,263 urban blocks spread throughout the country. All stats have been gathered in two different scheduled by taking slots of 100,855 and 100,794 households respectively for the survey.

However, the data provided by NSSO is somewhat obsolete, almost one year back, and I think the ineternet users might increase with a significant figure during this period due to strong penetrations of cheaper Smartphone and proliferation of Aakash Tablets across the country. Also, the report has not yet differentiated mobile and PC internet users across the country. In the last couple of years, the mobile internet users are outstandingly increasing and users are often using internet with their web-enabled feature phone in India.

EBay To Strengthen Its Human Assets In Bangalore: 1,000 Jobs To Grab !

raghu

May 10, 2012

With the success of EBay Inc, an acquisition of PayPal, a Global commerce platform and payment leader, anticipatory planning is being made to expand its foot prints over the “garden city- Bangalore” in India. EBay is one of the leading online trading communities where anyone can sell and buy almost anything in India. EBay is now endeavoring to open a Global Development center in Bangalore, India.

‘Anupam Pahuja’, GM, PayPal IDC, in Chennai announced:

“Our new center in Bangalore will feature several centers of excellence and will house technologists from both eBay Marketplaces and PayPal. We expect to hire up to 1,000 technologists over the next three years”.

Due to the abundant software engineers, Bangalore has been chosen as its next spot in order to replicate the success of EBay in Chennai. EBay is in a quest to hire strong senior technologists over the years to come.

EBay’s total revenue was US$ 11.651 billion in 2011 with a net income of US$ 3.299 billion. EBay Inc reported strong first quarter results of 2012. The revenue for the first quarter ended March 31, 2012, increased 29% to $3.3 billion, compared to the same period of 2011.There is an expectation of revenue of $13.7 – $14.0 billion by the management in 2012. The wall street Journal said India’s online shopping market was expected to reach US$ 70 billion by 2020.

India is among the fastest-growing markets and has been identified as one of the significant potential markets for eBay. Reports depicted that about 80% of the transaction is from India. If this continues to be the situation than the probability of new openings of eBay’s centers across India could gradually increase.

With the expansion of eBay’s dart on top of the map of many Indian cities, it could be a good start after the installation of Global Development center in Bangalore, India.

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