OnSports Mobile App Bat...

Most popular mobile sports apps are trying to feed you scores and news, or show you fantasy numbers. OnSports , by HitPost, is in a smaller class of apps that’s focused on users running the discussion themselves. And now, ahead of the Super Bowl this Sunday, viral growth and featured spots on the Android Market and the iTunes App Store are helping it step up against larger competitors. The app, which lets users make their own reports and polls with professional photos, is now #2 on the Android Market free sports app section, and climbed to #13 in the iTunes version of the category since yesterday. This has translated to around 50,000 daily active users, chief executive Aaron Krane tells me, with 60% of new users returning within 24 hours. He says the app, which makes it easy to share activity to Facebook and Twitter , is generating 30,000 posts to Facebook each day, and 300 tweets per hour on Twitter. OnSports is also sending about 3000 SMS messages per day. Some of these metrics are of the vanity variety — and they’re certainly not of the scale of social mobile games — but they all indicate an engaged group of core users, in an immature category of mobile usage. Most significant sports apps, including ones from ESPN and major sports leagues, are focused on broadcasting scores and professional news to users; while they may have social features for commenting and sharing, the focus is not as heavily about user interaction. However, Bleacher Report and SB Nation — two web sites that rely on user-generated content — also have mobile apps. The influx of user web content into devices makes them more immediate competitors. OnSports is notably sticking to the thesis of being mobile first… that users will want to do to more and more of their social activity on the devices they carry around with them rather than their computers. The company has been trying to figure out exactly how to make this idea materialize over the last year or so. With the new visibility to users ahead of the biggest sporting event of the year, it could be on its way to winning in the big leagues of consumer mindshare.

You Can Also Spy On Som...

Yesterday, Gizmodo ran a story about a supposed bug in iOS, specifically related to iMessage. The title:  The Apple Bug That Let Us Spy on a Total Stranger’s iPhone . Essentially, Gizmodo got ahold of an iPhone that was receiving iMessages not intended for that phone. The fact that some of these messages were quasi-sexual in nature and that the phone belonged to a teenage boy made the story more salacious. But here’s the thing, fear mongering aside, this “bug” is something that is so convoluted that it’s almost not worth even addressing. Almost. Here’s what happened: a kid was having trouble with his iPhone. His mother took that iPhone to an Apple Store. When there, an Apple Store employee screwed up. Rather than following protocol and using a test SIM to debug the phone (Apple has test SIMs in their stores for this exact purpose), he oddly used his own SIM. This essentially turned the kid’s phone into the retail employee’s phone. The employee probably thought this was fine since it would only be temporary while he fixed the phone. The problem — which one has to assume he didn’t realize — is that even after you take the SIM out of the phone, the pairing leaves behind an imprint of that SIM. In this case, the iMessage account. iMessage has made a lot of headlines in the past few months as it’s Apple’s brilliant way  of helping to destroy the rip-off that is SMS. One key element of iMessage is the ability to pin an Apple account to the service alongside your phone number. This needs to happen in order for users to take full advantage of iMessage. Because of this connection, Apple can automatically figure out whether to use standard SMS or iMessage within the iMessages app. And iMessages has a bonus: the ability to work with many devices at once, ensuring your messages stay in sync. These upsides — trying to make something that’s somewhat complicated as user-friendly as possible — lead to a downside like this. If you happen to be swapping SIM cards, you might transfer your iMessage credentials over to this other phone. But let’s be honest, how many people are going to do that? In the U.S., most people have no idea what a SIM card even is. And if they do, it doesn’t matter since most iPhones are locked. In other countries, SIMs are obviously popular, but this issue would involve you swapping SIMs with someone with an unlocked phone (and not wanting to set up your own iMessages account when you swap back). But none of that is even what happened here. In this case, an Apple retail employee simply made a mistake. Reached for comment, an Apple spokesperson acknowledged this: “This was an extremely rare situation that occurred when a retail employee did not follow the correct service procedure and used their personal SIM to help a customer who did not have a working SIM. This resulted in a temporary situation that has since been resolved by the employee.” The bigger issue here is if your phone is stolen. Ars Technica actually addressed this about a month ago. This is still an edge case (as the vast majority of phones aren’t stolen), but Apple should come up with a way to remotely disable iMessages on a per-device basis. The way to do it right now seems to be to disable your Apple account, which is unfortunate ( see: update ). Of course, having your phone stolen in the first place is unfortunate. And unless it’s remote-wiped immediately (which rarely happens), any crook can get access to things likely much worse than your iMessages. This is a downside of life and scumbags. Speaking of scumbags, it sure was nice of Gizmodo to run several of this Apple retail employee’s private messages and images along with the name that everyone knows him by. Part two of this story will probably involve kidnapping him, locking him in a basement, and liveblogging his emails — which were not secured because Apple doesn’t have a security feature to auto-lock and wipe phones when someone is hit over the head by a two-by-four. Update : Apple has pointed out the following things that can be done if your device is stolen to ensure the problems above don’t occur: Remote Wipe and then call your carrier/de-active your SIM (de-register must be within 24 hours after Remote Wipe) or Activate a replacement phone with a replacement SIM using your same phone number or Change your Apple ID password (only works if you use an Apple ID with iMessage) [photo: flickr/ anonymous9000 ]

Five Common Flaws in Mo...

In a guest post on Mashable recently, Scott Forshay — a brand marketing consultant and mobile strategist often featured in the Wall Street Journal, Luxury Daily and PSFK — offers up 5 common flaws seen in brands’ mobile marketing strategies. Many brands underestimate the power of the mobile channel in terms of contextual relevance, immediacy and many other attributes that make it one of the most effective marketing channels around.  This is part of the reason we here at mobileStorm make sure every client receives a dedicated account rep to guide them through their mobile strategy to ensure they’re getting the highest ROI possible. Read Mr. Forshay’s five commons flaws  here .

Lookout’s New App Visua...

Lookout, a company that offers security services for a number of smartphone platforms, is debuting a new Android app that lets you see mobile threats as they are detected around the world. Launched from Lookout Labs, the new app basically visualizes what’s happening in the mobile landscape and also shares details on top weekly threats & distribution of malware vs. spyware. For background, Lookout’s web-based, cloud-connected applications for Android, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry and most recently iOS devices help users from losing their phones and identifies and block threats on a consumer’s phone. Users simply download the software to a device, and it will act as a tracking application, data backup and a virus protector much like security software downloaded to a computer. Lookout collects data from its Mobile Threat Network, a cloud-based network which constantly analyzes global threat data to identify and quickly block new threats with over-the-air app updates. The network includes more than one million apps and 15 million user devices worldwide. With the Lookout Mobile Threat Tracker, you can now see the thousands of threats that Lookout identifies and catches every day via the network. Within the Mobile Threat Tracker you can quickly see the top three trending threats. For example, if you tap on the name in the app, you can learn more about each threat. For example, this week’s top threat, RuPaidMarket masquerades as a useful app, but actually sends premium SMS messages without allowing you to opt out, or letting you know that you will be charged. The data is updated hourly so you can see mobile threats appear and disappear overtime.The app shows the top three mobile threats for the past week are RuPaidMarket, Legacy and Depositmobi. And the current distribution of malware vs. spyware is 60 percent malware and 40 percent spyware. While the app may not be one for a daily check, the newest Lookout offering could be a useful way to routinely see what the possible threats are for your Android phone at any given time. Lookout predicts that malware, spyware and other mobile security risks will only increase in 2012, so users will have to be more vigilant about protecting their smartphones in the coming year.

Mobile Payments Company...

Mobile payments company  BilltoMobile , which now has relationships with all four major carriers in the U.S. (Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile), is today launching one-click processing for mobile web transactions. Previously, users had to enter in their mobile number manually, sometimes a zip code, then wait for a verification code that was sent to their phone through an SMS text. Now, the company says it’s able to identify a user’s mobile number automatically thanks to deeper integration with the carriers’ networks. The first time a user goes to purchase something via the mobile web using BilltoMobile’s checkout process, they’ll be asked to accept the Carrier’s Terms of Use by way of an opt-in checkbox. They then have to opt in a second time on the same screen to the amount being charged to the phone number BilltoMobile has identified as associated with that device. Merchants who want to transition their customers to this new checkout process don’t have to make any changes on their end – the same RESTful APIs they used before will now be used to enable this speedier transaction flow. As for security, BilltoMobile’s payment gateway is tied directly to those belonging to its carrier partners for billing, authentication and customer care purposes. Purchases made through the system then show up on the customer’s next wireless bill, without additional interest charges or subscriber fees. These  direct carrier relationships are important to BilltoMobile , as they allow the company to greatly reduce the typical transaction fees than historically ranged from 30%-40%. The first to use BilltoMobile’s new one-click mobile transaction processing is the social gaming community MocoSpace . Initially, the option will be available on just one, yet to be named carrier partner, but BilltoMobile VP of Sales Paris Leung says the company expects to roll out to the service to the other three top U.S. carriers soon.