Cloud computing is the ...

Cloud computing is the best option for people that are working from multiple locations and for the ones that do business travel connected to presentations and specific corporate operations. The service is limitless and it can be used on any computer or personal device that has internet connection. This trend is exceptionally important because increasing numbers of professionals are discovering the advantages of working from multiple locations and being flexible. Mobility is yet another reason for the popularity that cloud computing is likely to gain in the future. cloud operations | cloud computing efficiency

Nielsen: U.S. Consumers...

With smartphone penetration now at 50 percent in the U.S., the world of apps is seeing a knock-on effect in their popularity: according to a new report from Nielsen , mobile consumers are downloading more apps than ever before, with the average number of apps owned by a smartphone user now at 41 — a rise of 28 percent on the 32 apps owned on average last year. But at the same time, there are hints of people possibly approaching a limit to how much they might use them: despite the rise in app numbers, the amount of time that people are spending in apps has remained essentially flat: collectively, they are being used for 39 minutes per day today, compared to 37 minutes in 2011. Nielsen also notes that apps seem to be taking a bit of time away from mobile web usage (perhaps this is where the extra two minutes comes from…): it says that users are using apps 10 percent more than the mobile web, compared to last year. As for why users are spending no more time on apps than they were before: Nielsen doesn’t really explore that issue, but it does note that privacy has slightly increased as an issue for U.S. consumers: some 73 percent note personal data collection as a concern (compared to 70 percent a year ago), with 55 percent saying they are wary of sharing information. It could be that this privacy concern is actually keeping at least some people away from engaging in apps more. Going back to the increase in app downloads noted by Nielsen, this is something that has been pointed out by the app store owners in a different way: Google says it has now passed 15 billion downloads announced this month , and Apple noted 25 billion downloads in March 2012. This morning, Gartner released some figures that pointed to even more consolidation among the top handset makers and the top platforms — with Samsung and Apple accounting for 49.3 percent of all smartphones sold in Q1 2012 (compared to just under 30 percent a year ago). Nielsen’s app figures seem to point to a similar trend: Android and iOS owners accounted for 88 percent of all apps that were downloaded in the past 30 days, it says (up from 74 percent last year). That may partly be to do with their own market share size in the U.S., where Android and Apple’s iOS dominate the smartphone landscape with respectively 38 million and 84 million users — but it also seems to imply that those users are also actively engaging with their respective app stores. The other significant consolidation trend that Nielsen has picked up on is around what apps are actually getting the most traffic: even as app stores have grown, and our own collections of them have grown, we continue to fixate most on the exact same five apps this year as we did last year: they are Facebook, YouTube, Android Market, Google Search, and Gmail. Yes, that’s right: you can slam Google, Android and Android fragmentation all you want, but four of the five most popular apps today, as they were last year, are owned by the company, and that’s partly thanks to the popularity of three of them on iOS. Ironically, that concentration at the top is also being met with growth in long-tail consumption: Nielsen notes that the time spent on the top 50 apps is actually down compared to last year: the top 50 apps today get 58 percent of our app time, compared to 74 percent in 2011. As with our own personal app catalogues growing in size, this points to consumers getting more diverse in terms of what apps they are using overall, not a surprise really when you consider that there are around 1.1 billion apps currently between just Google Play and the Apple App Store.

Pew Study: 18% Of U.S. ...

According to a new study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project , the popularity of check-in apps continues to grow, though it still isn’t quite mainstream yet. Pew’s latest survey found that in February 2012, 18% of U.S. smartphone owners over 18 used geosocial check-in apps like FourSquare. That’s up from 12% in May 2011. Even among adults who said they own a feature phone, 11% said they use check-in apps. This means that 10% of U.S. adults (including those who don’t own a cell phone), have now used check-in services at some point in the past. Sadly, the Pew survey did not ask users about how frequently they use these services. Given the hype around these apps in the past, it would be interesting to see how sticky these apps really are. It’s worth noting that the Pew survey’s question specifically mentions Foursquare (and Gowalla in the March 2011 survey), but doesn’t mention Facebook or other services that allow users to share their location in some form or another. I can’t help but wonder if the number wouldn’t be a bit higher if the question had focused less on Foursquare. Besides looking at geosocial and check-in services, the Pew study also looked at how often U.S. smartphone owners use their phones to get directions or to get general location-based information like restaurant recommendations. There, the numbers are obviously much higher than those for check-in apps. Almost three-quarters of U.S smartphone owners, says the Pew report, now access location-based information from their phones. In a way, it’s actually more surprising that almost 25% of smartphone owners don’t use their phones to get location-based information. Another recent Pew survey , by the way, found that 65% of smartphone owners have used their phones to get turn-by-turn driving directions and 15% do so on a typical day.

Alau.me Wants To Fix iO...

People are always complaining about the difficulty of getting found in the Apple App Store, so a new startup called Alau.me (pronounced “allow me”) is trying to tackle the problem through a Bit.ly-like link service with referral tracking. Co-founder Brian Sabino says the team has built iOS apps itself, and it found that the current app advertising and promotional system is broken for most developers, with the cost of a download often exceeding the revenue or value that it might bring to the company. He argues that it’s time for developers to start exploring other promotional channels, with help from Alau.me. After downloading the Alau.me SDK, Sabino says it’s easy for developers to create links to their app store download pages. Supposedly, those links don’t just track every time someone clicks, but also how often those clicks lead to downloads and usage. Sabino says Alau.me technology can help with three main types of promotion: You can improve your word-of-mouth efforts by giving your users special links to share with friends, then reward users with things like virtual goods or gift cards when their sharing actually leads to downloads. You can also offer rewards to limited groups of users, like your Twitter followers or Facebook fans. And despite Sabino’s misgivings about advertising, you can also track the effectiveness of different campaigns, whether they’re through traditional Web ads, social campaigns, or print. (Alau.me offers QR codes to track that last category.) The product is priced based on the popularity of your app, with up to 10,000 registered devices available for free. You can read more about the technology here . even though Alau.me might solve the promotion problem for many developers, Sabino cautions that it won’t work for everyone: “Your app still has to be good.”

Rovio’s Big Year: Angry...

We all know what a wild success the Angry Birds franchise has been for Rovio , with the best-selling mobile games spawning cookbooks, toys and much more besides. Today the company revealed just what kind of an impact that has had on its bottom line for its really Big Year . The company today issued a statement that noted that the company made $106.3 million (€75.4m) in revenue in 2011, with earnings before tax at $67.6 million (€48m) — with 30 percent of that coming from its merchandising and licensing activities. Monthly active users of the app are now at 200 million, with 648 million games downloaded in total. I’m not totally sure — I’m still hunting — but it looks like this might be the first time ever that Rovio has put out annual results like this. It might be because it is looking for some more transparency in the lead up to an IPO. It’s something that has been informally discussed in the press before, with the Mighty Eagle, Peter Vesterbacka, in December telling Reuters that an IPO could come in 2013 on the Hong Kong exchange. Today, Vesterbacka formally told me that there are “no further comments” on IPO plans. The $106.2 million revenue figure/200M MAUs are nothing short of an enormous leap for Rovio. In 2010, it reported  revenues of $7 million from the period from July to December. GiordanoContestabile from PopCap estimates that Rovio made $10 million in total in 2010. The company announced in March 2011 a Series A investment of $42 million from Accel and Atomico, and at that time it had “only” 40 million monthly active users. Angry Birds first went live on iOS in December 2009. Of $106.3 million in revenue, $32 million is coming from what Rovio calls Consumer Products, which includes both merchandising and licensing. Rovio says that it now has 200 licensing partners developing new products and services. The company looks like it will be putting the gas on doing more of that in the future, even as it launches new games, perhaps beyond the Angry Birds brand: “The strong growth in revenue clearly demonstrates the popularity of the Angry Birds brand.” Mikael Hed, Rovio CEO said in a statement. “The heavy investments made in 2011 to all business areas will be seen in future products. To ensure continuous success we need to be creative and stay focused on entertaining our millions of fans by continuously developing new and innovative products and services.” The company also ramped up its headcount about tenfold: it now has 224 employees compared to just 28 at the start of 2011. Release below ROVIO ENTERTAINMENT REPORTS 2011 FINANCIAL RESULTS 07.05.2012 Helsinki, Finland  –  Rovio Entertainment Ltd , the world’s leading provider of mobile entertainment and creator of the Angry Birds franchise, today had the pleasure of announcing the financial results for the full calendar year of 2011. Total revenue amounted to €75.4 million ($106,3 million) driven by strong growth in game download activity and consumer product sales. Earnings before tax were €48,0 million ($67.6 million) or 64% of total revenue in 2011. “The strong growth in revenue clearly demonstrates the popularity of the Angry Birds brand.” Mikael Hed, Rovio CEO said. “The heavy investments made in 2011 to all business areas will be seen in future products. To ensure continuous success we need to be creative and stay focused on entertaining our millions of fans by continuously developing new and innovative products and services.” The Angry Birds franchise fuels Rovio’s performance The financial outcome of 2011 is very positive for Rovio.  Rovio’s different business areas, Games, Advertising, and Consumer Products, are fully rolled out and generated both revenue and profit. The Consumer Products business area, which includes both Merchandising and Licensing income, generated revenues that represent a about 30% of total revenue in 2011. The company was working together with more than 200 licensing partners on developing new products and services within the Angry Birds franchise. Rovio’s game offerings in 2011 consisted of three games, all based on the Angry Birds characters: Angry Birds, Angry Birds Seasons, and Angry Birds Rio. The games are available as both free and paid versions on all popular mobile and connected devices. The total number of game downloads reached 648 million by the end of year 2011 and the total number of active monthly users, across all platforms, reached 200 million. The number of employees grew from 28 to 224 during the year 2011. Market and business development expectations Future sales will to a large extent depend on the launch schedules and success of new games and initiatives in 2012. As sales of new devices remain the main driver for mobile game downloads, Rovio expects business to continue to grow accordingly. “We are very optimistic about 2012 due to significant investments in product development, cutting-edge branding, brand protection and corporate infrastructure,“ Mikael Hed said. Notes: - Currency exchange rates EUR/USD is based on 2011 median of 1,41. - Rovio Entertainment Oy´s financial figures have been prepared in accordance with Finnish Accounting Standards (FAS).