Ad spending on the mobile web doubled in the first half of 2015 (compared to the same period last year), according to a new report from Smaato. Specifically, Smaato saw its total ad spend split between 62 percent on apps and 38 percent on the mobile web. So the mobile web is still pretty far behind, but it’s doing better than it was in 2014, when the breakdown was 72 percent… Read More
Remember the Tamagotchi? Those little monsters were great. A new iOS app called Tep created a Tamagotchi-like app for your phone to help you stay motivated when it comes to working out. Move around if you want to feed your giraffe. Read More
Many, many startups let you send postcards and print photo albums from your phone, but this startup is different. Recently is a subscription service to receive a monthly magazine with your best photos from your camera roll. It will cost you $9 a month with each magazine showcasing 100 photo. Read More
Hopper, a travel application launched earlier this year with the goal of helping you pay less for airfare by telling you the best time to buy tickets, is out today with a new version that will actually help you book tickets yourself without leaving the app. Because it was initially sending traffic to third-party websites outside its own service, the company says it was unable to track whether… Read More
In the ever-escalating social media arms race, GIFs are the best way to get attention. Static photos are so 2013. But a new app called Giffiti (like graffiti with GIFs) lets you enhance your pics by overlaying animations. Announced by Nalin Mittal this month with a simple post on Reddit, Giffiti rocketed to the front page and hit #14 amongst U.S. Entertainment apps on… Read More
As music fans go mobile, music festivals are following suit. The kids in America are rocking out to T-Swift with a Natty Lite in one hand and a mobile phone open to native festival apps in the other. Schedules, venue maps, artists and vendors are all in the palm of partygoers hands. And festivals are even designing other features specifically to engage the throngs of eager event-goers,… Read More
Andre and Sandro De Moraes must really like to see people compete. The brothers previously created GoldMic, a now-defunct social network for hip hop battles. Now they’ve launched a new iOS app called SocialBattles, where users compete to post the most popular photos. Read More
Uber has hired the duo behind a spectacular hack earlier this year that involved taking remote control of a Jeep Cherokee. Wired writer Andy Greenberg experienced this firsthand — he wrote that he was driving on a St. Louis highway when Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek used a laptop 10 miles away to make the radio, air conditioning and windshield wipers go haywire. Then they cut the… Read More
We’ve heard from sources that Mobcrush, which streams mobile games much in the same way Twitch is known for streaming popular eSports desktop games, has raised around $10 million in new financing, though the number could have gone beyond that. Mobcrush’s bet is that mobile game streaming will be as big — if not bigger — than some of the competitive game streaming… Read More
ReBoard is a just launched iOS keyboard app from an indie dev team in India that’s targeting productivity-focused folk, by adding the ability to reach out to other apps right from the keyboard. So instead of having to double tap out of whatever messaging app you’re using to go hunt for that YouTube link, for instance, you can do a look up right from the keyboard. Read More
European mobile payments player, iZettle, is expanding into what amounts to small business loans — announcing a capital advance product, called iZettle Advance, which will be available to select iZettle customers who need funds to grow their own businesses. So it’s basically moving onto even more of the territory where traditional banks fear to tread. Read More
PicsArt is announcing that it has hired Eric Edge as its vice president of marketing. Edge spent the past last four-plus years at Facebook (where he led the company’s marketing efforts in Europe, the Middle East and Africa), then at Facebook-owned Instagram (where he worked on brand strategy). He told me he hadn’t been planning to leave, but when he learned about PicsArt, he… Read More
Some founders keep returning to the same ideas over and over in new form. Jason Citron, a lifelong gamer, was the creator of OpenFeint, an early mobile social gaming network that he sold to Japan’s GREE for $104 million. After leaving GREE, he went back to game development and tried to create a next generation MOBA or multiplayer online battle arena game for the iPad called Fates Forever. Read More
