I was excited to hear about the launch of the new Amazon Kindle Fire last week… Who wouldn’t love a $199 tablet, except for the executives at Apple, Samsung, and Barnes & Noble?!  In launching the Kindle Fire, Amazon proves their validation that content is king… By offering this device at lower price point than any of its competitors (and likely not much more than cost of goods sold), Amazon is betting on  selling a TON of content to make up for its low hardware price.  It’s a smart strategy.

Here’s how Amazon’s Kindle Fire stacks up to its competitors from a hardware perspective: (more…)

In 2010, the most over-used buzz words in my more mobile-focused circles were “monetization” and “virality”. This year’s buzz word bingo winners are  “gamification” and “gaming mechanics,” which encompass both “monetization” and creating “virality.”  The mobile world is quickly catching on to what the gamers and social web folks have known for a long time – one of the best ways to get people to use your app is to improve engagement through gamification. While these two words are often over-used, it’s with good reason. Introducing gaming mechanics into your app can help drive usage in the short, medium, and long term. (more…)

I’m at the second day of GigaOm’s Mobilize 2011, listening to the “Will Enterprise be the Game Changer for HTML5 and Tablet Apps” Panel with moderator Nathan Clevinger, Chief Software Architect, ITR Mobility. The panelists are:

• Santiago Becerra – Co-Founder and CEO, MeLLmo
• Adam Blum – CEO, Rhomobile
• Chris Kemmerer – Director, Mobility SOlutions, Verizon
• Sean Whiteley – SVP, Salesforce.com

Here are my live notes… The conversation kicked off with a discussion on the consumerization of IT… (more…)

I’m at Mobilize 2011 in San Francisco, and the “Mobile Payments 2012: Will This Be The Year?” is kicking off.  I share my notes below…

Karen Webster, CEO of Market Platform Dynamics is the moderator. Panelists are:

• Brad Greene – Senior Business Leader, Visa
• Chris Hylen – VP and GM, Payment Solutions Division, Intuit
• Dave Talich – VP, Global Product Management, Verifone
• Laura Chambers – Senior Director of PayPal Mobile, Paypal (more…)

As I mentioned in my post over the weekend, I’ve been doing business development consulting for a cool company based in Latin America called Movile, and today, they’re launching something pretty cool…Zeewe 2.0.  Here’s the press release:

Today Movile, the leading mobile services company, announces Zeewe 2.0 (go.zeewe.com), the new version of the pioneering HTML5 app store and directory for smartphones and tablets. Zeewe has more than 1.5 million users worldwide, and these users typically use at least 5 web apps that they discover on Zeewe.  Movile also announces the launch of several exciting new features for Zeewe including off-line mode which enables users to use the Zeewe store and select apps without an internet connection on iOS devices. Beside this, Zeewe also now offers developers a payment API that enables them to charge for Apps and transact in-app purchases. (more…)

Today GigaOM launched a report entitled, “The future of mobile: a segment analysis.”  Among many other things, the report summarizes 11 critical lessons learned by the mobile industry, many of which I discussed in my recent post: “Waging the Mobile Patent War and the Future of Mobile Innovation…”

1. “Avoid channel conflict” There have been several examples over the years of mobile companies struggling to make/maintain meaningful partnerships because they’re playing both sides of mobile – hardware and software. As GigaOM points out, Nokia had difficulty getting other OEMs to adopt Symbian because it had a head start on developing hardware for it. Google may have the same issue now that it’s acquired Motorola Mobility.  I talked about this one a lot in the above mentioned post. (more…)

For the past several months, I’ve been consulting for one of the biggest mobile companies you may never have heard of, if you live in North America, Movile.  If you live in Latin America, you will likely know Movile, as one of the largest mobile value added services companies in the region.  Movile is a diversified company with a portfolio of mobile products ranging from old-skool (wallpapers, alerts, ring tones, etc.) to incredibly progressive… Among Movile’s more progressive products are Mozca and Zeewe

Mozca is the leading mPayments platform and #1 processor of virtual goods payments on mobile in Latin America. (more…)

Its been a huge couple of weeks in mobile… It started with Google‘s acquisition of Motorola Mobility on August 15th (its largest to date).  That was followed by HP‘s announcement on August 18th that it is canceling its Palm line of WebOS-based hardware.  The big news continued into week with Steve Jobs’s resignation as CEO of Apple on the 24th.  Looking back on the 10+ years I’ve spent in mobile, I can’t think of a more noteworthy two weeks for the wireless industry.  With so much going on, I’m pulling my blog out of its brief hibernation to comment on the state of the mobile industry and what the latest events mean for the future.

The last two weeks have been made even more interesting in the context of the last couple of months. In particular, Nortel’s patent auction back in early July fueled an already competitive landscape for intellectual property.  Nortel auctioned 6,000 patents, and many of the big players in mobile entered the auction, hopint to obtain ownership of IP silver bullets.  The patents ultimately sold to a consortium of buyers: Apple (NSDQ: AAPL), EMC, Ericsson (NSDQ: ERIC), Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), Research In Motion and Sony (NYSE: SNE).  Notably missing was Google, which offered $900 million for the patents but was beaten by the consortium, which paid a whopping $4.5 Billion.  Why were so many companies willing to pay so much for Nortel’s patents?  Owning good patents makes it easier to defend yourself against lawsuits… (more…)

The organizers of the App Developers Conference also just announced a new aspect to the conference called Kidscreen iKids Summit on October 26.  Some of the biggest brands in children’s entertainment will be looking for app development partners.  A full list will be available in September, but I’m told the list is full of heavy hitters that will be talking openly about their app strategies for 2012 and discussing where they need partners to help.

App Developers Conference is partnering with Kidscreen, the leading international trade publication serving kids entertainment professionals, bring the iKids Summit to life.  This part of the event aims to be a great place for brand-owners, app developers and digital agencies to meet, discuss partnerships and explore possible licensing opportunities. See the show site for compete show details:  http://appdevconf.engagedigital.com/

Socialize Mobilize is now an official Media Sponsor for the App Developers Conference on Oct. 26-27, 2011 in Santa Clara, California.  If you’re a developer or brand, this is going to be a great show. Use the discount code “mobilizevip” to save 15% when you register.

With more than 80 confirmed speakers, this show is the place to gain the latest information on app development, marketing and revenue. Conference tracks include:  Platform Wars, Programming and Design, Marketing and Revenue and Kidscreen iKids Summit. Walmart and Pandora are keynoting. Speakers include: Bump, Netflix, Smule, Flurry, Pulse, Chomp, Yelp, OpenFeint, Churn Labs, Nissan, Barnes & Noble, Nielson, BMW, Microsoft Win Phone 7, Samsung, AT&T, Qualcomm, Intel Capital and dozens of others.  A hackathon takes place Oct. 27th and is free to developers.