Claritics expands into mobile analytics for Android apps

Social analytics firm Claritics said today it has launched a new analytics platform for games and apps on Android mobile devices.

Back in May, Claritics raised a $1.5 million round as it talked about helping social game and app developers analyze their data and reap more money from their efforts. Now the company is extending that effort to mobile apps on Google’s mobile operating system.

Mountain View, Calif.-based Claritics calls its work “social intelligence.” Claritics has been testing its cloud-based analytics with partners that range from game companies to utilities and media companies. It’s all about getting enough data and organizing it so that it becomes “actionable.”

The company’s vision is to leverage the immediacy of the social web and its rich profile and behavioral data and to create automated processes around it. That allows developers to optimize their reach, retain users, and launch revenue campaigns on the fly. The real-time data become useful not just for looking back but for predicting the future.

The new mobile platform is self-service and allows developers to figure out in real-time what is working well — or not so well — in their mobile games. Claritics lets users segment their data based on device type, carrier, campaigns, location and other factors. Claritics says it has made its sign-up process and instrumentation more intuitive to dramatically reduce the time it takes to get the analytics up and running. App makers can use the service to evaluate user engagement and the behavior of those who buy things in games. Other services provide rudimentary analysis of user behavior, while Claritics’ service is more granular, said Raj Pai, chief executive of Claritics.

“We’re bringing an enterprise-level, ‘big data’ analytics mentality to app developers on social and mobile platforms,” Pai said.

Rivals include Kontagent, Apsalar and Flurry. Previously, Claritics said its platform has been in private beta testing with more than 100 potential customers. The company was founded in 2010 and has around 10 to 15 employees. Investors include Cervin Ventures and Tie Angels.

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Tags: Analytics, big data, mobile apps, mobile games, social games, social intelligence

Companies: Claritics

People: Raj Pai

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NPD: Android maintains US lead, Google buy could revive Motorola

Surprise surprise, Android is still the leading US smartphone platform, with a 52 percent second quarter share, according to the research firm NPD Group.

That’s to be expected, since not much has happened to displace Android’s lead in the last quarter. NPD also notes that Motorola’s market share has fallen in the quarter — down to 9 percent from 12 percent last year — but Google’s recent Motorola purchase could bring some new life to the phone manufacturer.

Motorola’s overall Android sales halved since last year — from 44 percent to 22 percent this quarter — in the face of Android competition from Samsung and LG. “Much as it did in the feature phone market in the RAZR era, Motorola is experiencing increased competition from Samsung and LG in the smartphone market,” NPD executive director of industry analysis Ross Rubin said in a statement today. “Closer ties to the heart of Android can help inspire new paths to differentiation.”

Motorola could also reclaim some ground in the prepaid smartphone field, according to NPD. Just 8 percent of prepaid phones were smartphones last year, but this year that figure jumped to 22 percent, buoyed by popular prepaid Android phones from the likes of Boost and Virgin Mobile. Rubin notes that prepaid phones were once a big segment for Motorola, and the company could become a significant player there again thanks to its close ties to Google.

As for the rest of the mobile market, Apple’s iOS also rose slightly in the quarter to 29 percent, while BlackBerry fell to 11 percent. WebOS, Windows Phone 7 , and Windows Mobile each held less than 5 percent of the market.

Image via Next Media Animation

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Tags: Android, Blackberry, iOS, iPhone, smartphones, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone

Companies: Apple, Google, Motorola, NPD

People: Ross Rubin

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Lab126 trademark filings hint at Amazon’s upcoming Android tablet

Amazon.com has applied for name and logo trademarks for its hardware group, Lab126, in what’s become another clue that the company is about to release a color-screen, Android-based tablet.

The trademark applications were?filed Aug. 16 for “design and development of computer hardware and software” and were discovered?by GeekWire over the weekend.?The company’s logo, included in the trademark filing, is a bit of a Rorshach inkblot test, but it looks an awful lot like the universal power button (image below to the right).

Lab126 has been around since 2006, so it is interesting that trademarks for that name and logo are just now being conducted.?The trademark filings don’t specifically indicate that the Lab126 logo will be a part of the Amazon tablet, but they do show Lab126 is about to get serious.?There’s been a slow trickle of evidence since earlier this year that an Amazon tablet is in the works. The Wall Street Journal reported back in July that an Amazon tablet could come by the end of October, just in time for the holidays.

Another bold clue for a new device is the?Lab126 website,?which shows the evolution of Kindle design, ending with a blank rectangle titled ?“the next revolution.” This could just signal a new touchscreen Kindle, but the company is behind all of Amazon’s hardware, so that blank rectangle could be a number of?other Amazon devices in the works?—?including a tablet or even music players.

Interestingly, Lab126 is hiring several Android-based positions. The group is located in Cupertino, strategically close to Apple (Amazon HQ is in Seattle).

The Amazon tablet will compete with Apple’s iPad, however Amazon will be working hard to make it’s tablet unique. WSJ interviewed people who had seen the Amazon device (back in July), and they noted it didn’t have a camera. This could have changed, since the tablet will certainly have gone through several?iterations?since the article was published, but the lack of a camera indicates Amazon is less concerned with video chat than Apple. Amazon will probably focus more on its e-commerce platform, cloud computing infrastructure and media market place of digital books, movies and television shows. But no camera also means lower price (Amazon’s tablet could go for as low as $250), which could encourage holiday shoppers to opt for Amazon over Apple.

Barnes & Noble and Kobo are gearing up for their holiday marketing campaigns and it will be interesting to see how they position their products before and after Amazon’s touchscreen Kindle and tablet are released.?Amazon will have one less big-name tablet to compete during the holidays, since?HP is no longer making the TouchPad.

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Tags: tablet

Companies: Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, kobo

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Android could hit HP’s TouchPad thanks to Touchdroid project

If you were one of the many gadget hounds to snag a $99 HP TouchPad this weekend, you may soon be able to run Android on the tablet thanks to a group of intrepid hackers.

The group’s Touchdroid project is only a few days old, but it’s notable since it’s the first concerted effort to bring Android to the TouchPad. And if it succeeds, Touchdroid would breathe new life into the tablet, which at the moment likely won’t see many future updates to its native webOS software since HP has given up on the hardware.

The group says that it’s first working on developing a port of Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Once that’s reached a stable beta, it will begin working towards an Android 3.0 Honeycomb port. The latter was built with tablets in mind, so I’d recommend you wait until that port is available.

It’s unclear if the Touchdroid project will completely replace the Touchpad’s webOS software — which admittedly is quite nice on a tablet interface. Alternatively, the developers could make it possible to dual boot the tablet into either webOS or Android.

HP on Friday slashed the 16 gigabyte TouchPad’s price to $99 in Canada, where it quickly sold out at Best Buy stores. Best Buy initially said it wouldn’t offer the discount at US stores, but some lucky customers were still able to get their hands on the tablets. Over the weekend it was also possible to snag a cheap TouchPad via HP’s own site, as well as a multitude of other retailers.

Via Business Insider

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Tags: Android, hacks, tablets, Touchdroid, TouchPad

Companies: HP

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Guess which cities produce the most Android apps

The mobile application business is projected to reach $38 billion by 2015, but will the boom be global or will it be confined to a handful of innovation hotspots? A recent study of Android app creators that my company, AppsGeyser, conducted indicates that it will be both.

We drew the data from a sample of 10,000 apps that were created using appsgeyser.com between June and August, 2011. From that information, we collected the App makers’ IP addresses and used then to create this map.
Click for a larger version of the map.

In addition to the usual suspects — New York, San Francisco, London — there were a few surprise cities in the rankings. Here’s a closer look at some of the notable cities on the list.

New York City:? New York brings the advertising, business and technology industries together in one location. It’s the number two spot for venture funding after Silicon Valley, so it’s no surprise that most of the world’s apps are created there.

Los Angeles:? LA has the second largest number of app creators per square mile in the U.S. One reason is that most of LA’s apps include video, and Hollywood is the world leader in creating video content.

San Francisco: The city by the bay actually scores low on the App Ideas map (see below for potential study weaknesses). App makers in the region have access to a large pool of development resources and venture capital, so their app ideas go through Idea -> Feedback -> Develop -> Invest cycles rather than the Idea -> Go-to-Market cycle.

Kansas City: One of the highest ranking cities in the U.S. for app creators per square mile is Kansas City. This could be a result of the efforts and investments made by the Kauffman foundation to generate entrepreneurial support systems in Kansas, and it could give hope to other cities and regions that have invested heavily into efforts to replicate the “silicon valley effect.”

London: Europe’s largest megalopolis definitely contributes a lot to the mobile sector. London has the highest number of apps created of any city outside of the U.S.

Amsterdam:? Dutch cities in general rank high on the global list of app creators per square mile. This is in part because the mobile market is very well developed in the Netherlands.

Bangalore: The second largest source for app ideas is in India. Although Bangalore is well established as the Indian?IT capital, it has historically been an outsourcing hub. One reason for its ranking could be that the city is filled with highly skilled technology workers who have tools that get apps to market faster.

Riyadh: And Riyadh, Saudi Arabia comes in at number five on the list of world cities. This region generated just four times fewer apps than the New York metropolitan area, which means that the chasm between developed and developing markets is decreasing for mobile development.

Since AppsGeyser allows for the quick prototyping of apps, our data shows where app ideas come from.? The markets with high creativity might not necessarily have the systems and infrastructure in place to turn those ideas into viable businesses. It is a good indicator of what cities could turn into startup hotbeds if investors, governments and the academic sector provide support for budding mobile entrepreneurs.

Estuardo Robles is the vice president of AppsGeyser. He’s a frequent speaker and adviser on entrepreneurship and economic development. He lives in Austin.

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View the original article here

Guess which cities produce the most Android apps

The mobile application business is projected to reach $38 billion by 2015, but will the boom be global or will it be confined to a handful of innovation hotspots? A recent study of Android app creators that my company, AppsGeyser, conducted indicates that it will be both.

We drew the data from a sample of 10,000 apps that were created using appsgeyser.com between June and August, 2011. From that information, we collected the App makers’ IP addresses and used then to create this map.
Click for a larger version of the map.

In addition to the usual suspects — New York, San Francisco, London — there were a few surprise cities in the rankings. Here’s a closer look at some of the notable cities on the list.

New York City:? New York brings the advertising, business and technology industries together in one location. It’s the number two spot for venture funding after Silicon Valley, so it’s no surprise that most of the world’s apps are created there.

Los Angeles:? LA has the second largest number of app creators per square mile in the U.S. One reason is that most of LA’s apps include video, and Hollywood is the world leader in creating video content.

San Francisco: The city by the bay actually scores low on the App Ideas map (see below for potential study weaknesses). App makers in the region have access to a large pool of development resources and venture capital, so their app ideas go through Idea -> Feedback -> Develop -> Invest cycles rather than the Idea -> Go-to-Market cycle.

Kansas City: One of the highest ranking cities in the U.S. for app creators per square mile is Kansas City. This could be a result of the efforts and investments made by the Kauffman foundation to generate entrepreneurial support systems in Kansas, and it could give hope to other cities and regions that have invested heavily into efforts to replicate the “silicon valley effect.”

London: Europe’s largest megalopolis definitely contributes a lot to the mobile sector. London has the highest number of apps created of any city outside of the U.S.

Amsterdam:? Dutch cities in general rank high on the global list of app creators per square mile. This is in part because the mobile market is very well developed in the Netherlands.

Bangalore: The second largest source for app ideas is in India. Although Bangalore is well established as the Indian?IT capital, it has historically been an outsourcing hub. One reason for its ranking could be that the city is filled with highly skilled technology workers who have tools that get apps to market faster.

Riyadh: And Riyadh, Saudi Arabia comes in at number five on the list of world cities. This region generated just four times fewer apps than the New York metropolitan area, which means that the chasm between developed and developing markets is decreasing for mobile development.

Since AppsGeyser allows for the quick prototyping of apps, our data shows where app ideas come from.? The markets with high creativity might not necessarily have the systems and infrastructure in place to turn those ideas into viable businesses. It is a good indicator of what cities could turn into startup hotbeds if investors, governments and the academic sector provide support for budding mobile entrepreneurs.

Estuardo Robles is the vice president of AppsGeyser. He’s a frequent speaker and adviser on entrepreneurship and economic development. He lives in Austin.

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View the original article here

iOS and Android: a State by State breakdown

The iPhone is well represented in the Northeast and the Midwest, according to statistics published by Jumptap, a network mobile ad. The iPhone is also strong in Montana and Louisiana.

Android is very strong in the West, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey rust belt. BlackBerry remains strong around Washington, DC, with RIM being the supplier of choice for the bureaucrats in the Government - at least for now. Corporate-centric New York is also a bastion for BlackBerry.

It seems to be no obvious correlation between the iPhone or Android and statistics as the density of population and per capita income. TechCrunch has the full study. The table above is not particularly informative - it gives allocations specific market not involved - but it is an interesting look at which States are more representative a trade mark or another.

Splatf hat tip.

View the original article here