Calorific Lite tries to improve users’ diets without calorie counting, taking pictures of or weighing food, typing in portions, or really doing anything that requires a lot of effort. Rather, each time a user eats, they log food into red, yellow and green categories, based on its approximate healthiness. That may seem a little odd, but WorkSmart thinks the point is to make logging as simple as possible so people stick with it.

WorkSmart also makes some nifty activity logging apps, but to date they have been Android-only. In total, the company has more than seven million users.

WorkSmart recently announced it had raised seed funding from Kleiner Perkins’ iFund, and now it is further disclosing that the total amount of the round was $1.5 million; it also included Qualcomm Ventures, Harbor Pacific Capital and several angels.

Part of the rationale behind Facebook building an HTML5-driven experience for other people’s apps was supposedly “to use Apple’s own devices against them to break the stranglehold they have on mobile app distribution.”

That can’t be right, because the point of HTML5 is that it works on any compatible browser, and not just Safari.

And while HTML5 is coming along, it still doesn’t rival the power of native apps, especially on Apple’s integrated hardware and software platform.

In fact, the more that I thought about it, and the more I spoke with mobile app developers, I realized there is a nugget of powerful compatibility between Facebook and Twitter and mobile apps that’s being glossed over, and it’s not about HTML5.

Instead, it’s where Apple — and to an even greater extent Google’s Android — has largely failed: Helping users find new apps and keep using them.

Indeed, two of the biggest problems mobile app developers have are discovery and retention, which is exactly what Facebook and Twitter can help them with.

(In a related arena, Facebook Credits can presumably even help out with the third big problem: Monetization.)

It all became more clear to me at an event last week where Kleiner Perkins invited speakers such as Scott Forstall of Apple to a summit of portfolio companies in the venture firm’s app-focused iFund.

At the close of the gathering, reporters were invited to mingle with iFund CEOs and Kleiner partner Matt Murphy (pictured right), who made a few comments worth considering.

For instance:

“Probably one of the biggest surprises so far is that apps haven’t really been that social or that viral. So if you look at how things have exploded on Facebook, it’s because of all the notifications and a messaging system that worked. And Facebook Connect for mobile hasn’t allowed that — I can’t invite you to join me through an app, for example, and I think Facebook’s working on that. And I think Twitter [integration] now allows me to broadcast to everybody that ‘Hey, you should check out that app.’”

Murphy also admitted his iFund portfolio companies were feeling the burn of Apple’s revised stance on pay-per-install promotions a la Tapjoy, which were pervasively used to bump apps up the iOS charts.

Said Murphy: “A lot of [the iFund start-ups] were using them. But I understand Apple’s position that it was too much around chart manipulation.”

He added that his hope is that the tools coming from Twitter and Facebook are more powerful than gaming the system.

For now, Murphy’s intuition is that Apple does not want to offer social app discovery itself.

“I don’t think they want to create a quasi-social network. But there is uniform demand [among iFund companies] to somehow let people know what apps their friends have and what apps their friends really care about,” he said. “What would be great is if I knew what were your top five apps, which do you use the most, and what’s still missing.”

Murphy tried not to say it explicitly, but he returned to the premise that Facebook will help with this exact problem.

“Facebook will be offering … rumored, possibly … messaging and true invites,” he said.

Messaging and true invites? That sounds like retention and discovery, right there.

I asked Scott Lahman, who is CEO of iFund company Gogii, which makes the textPlus app, to conceptualize how Facebook could help him with discovery and retention.

Here’s what Lahman (pictured left) said:

“Discovery and retention are what I spend most of my time on. In fact, I generally broaden it to three categories — discovery, virality and retention. Discovery doesn’t have to be viral — Genius, Netflix collaborative filtering, seeing your friend’s apps in Game Center, seeing your friend’s queue on Netflix, store merchandising. Facebook could offer discovery tools simply by adding “My Apps” to profiles or even including apps as objects in Open Graph one day.

“Virality, of course, could be a home run on Facebook. It’s funny that the Facebook mobile platform doesn’t support invites yet, so it’s a huge untapped opportunity. The only mechanism that mechanically works today on Facebook is using wall posts — but that’s a violation and Facebook turns people off all the time for doing that. Bottom line, a quality platform that nails discovery and virality could be competitive with anyone.”

To be sure, Facebook has a long and troubled history with the viral tools it has offered developers on its Web site and through its plug-ins. The social network has made countless tweaks to its developer policies, and said it reduced platform spam by 95 percent last year. But it also continues to offend developers by making changes that seem capricious.

But virality and spam are really two sides of the same coin. In order to give mobile apps distribution, Facebook probably has to keep the reins looser.

Meanwhile, Apple already chose a social distribution partner, and it is Twitter. Details of their upcoming integration are already public. When I spoke with Twitter’s Director of Platform Ryan Sarver, he made a point of emphasizing that Twitter could help app developers get more users.

Said Sarver:

“We really hope to drive tons and tons of app downloads. We think that’s really important. Apps may help in building Twitter, but we want to drive their user acquisition as well. We think there’s a really huge opportunity to be the second biggest driver of downloads next to the App Store, just because that social layer adds a whole new discovery channel. We think it’s going to increase this virtuous cycle between sharing great content, seeing where it was created, and then having users go download that app.”

What it comes down to is, Facebook’s imagined or real designs to compete with Apple aren’t realistically about HTML5.

Instead, Facebook should do what it does best: Connect people.

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.

What seems particularly striking about the investment is that WorkSmart makes Android fitness apps. As far as I can see, WorkSmart doesn’t have a single iPhone app out; it lists five Android products on its Web site, including two paid apps: Noom Weight Loss, CardioTrainer, Calorific, CardioTrainer Pro and Race Against Yourself.

While iFund investments aren’t restricted to Apple’s iOS platform, that’s quite literally the inspiration for Kleiner Perkins’ dedicated fund — “ideas and products that build upon the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.”

Update: At an iFund event this evening, Matt Murphy of Kleiner Perkins noted that WorkSmart had submitted its first iOS app to Apple last Friday, so it will not be Android-only for long. He said Kleiner had been looking for a mobile health investment and was impressed by WorkSmart’s approach and their ex-Googler chops, no matter what platform they were focused on.

New York City-based WorkSmart counts six million downloads to date, up from four million this January. The company, which was founded in 2007, said it was previously supported by angel funding from “numerous Googlers” and unnamed Korean investors.

WorkSmart apps are well-loved; the New York Times app reviewer Bob Tedeschi said CardioTrainer is one of the rare examples of an Android app beating out the iPhone competition.

WorkSmart ties into the social fitness trend that I’ve written about a few times — where friends help friends work out by giving virtual encouragement and accountability. WorkSmart co-founder and CTO Artem Petakov said this week at a conference that more than 150,000 of his apps’ users post their workout data to Facebook, and those posts usually get at least two comments.

Petakov also said, if I’m reading the report right, that 90 percent of WorkSmart usage is through mobile devices.

That creates an interesting opportunity that the Boston-based startup Apperian has been working on. Companies often have their own custom-made applications that they need to distribute to hundreds or thousands of employees, but they’d rather not do so via the iTunes App Store, where Apple has control and the power to approve all applications. No, instead companies need their own internal App store.

That’s exactly what Apperian has built. It’s called EASE–for Enterprise App Service Environment–and it gives enterprises the ability to create apps that can be distributed and managed and updated throughout a company.

After two years of operation, Apperian will announce today that it has landed a $9.5 million series A led by North Bridge Partners and joined by Bessemer Venture Partners and the Kleiner Perkins iFund, the $200 million fund focused on investments in the iPhone-iPad universe. Apperian is, I’m told, its first enterprise investment. Before this round, the company was funded by about $1.9 million in seed funding from CommonAngels and LaunchCapital. Michael Skok, a partner at North Bridge, and Bob Goodman, a founder partner at Bessemer, will be joining Apperian’s board.

One of its founders and its current Chief Strategy Officer is Chuck Goldman, who spent eight years as the Director of Field Engineering and Professional Services for Apple. His job was helping companies integrate Apple gear–first Macs but then later the iPhone–into their corporate infrastructure. (A 2008 BusinessWeek cover story I worked on focused on Apple’s somewhat reluctant embracing of its newfound popularity within corporations, which has only accelerated since then.)

I talked with Apperian CEO David Patrick yesterday. Initially, the plan was to build apps for corporate customers. “About halfway through we realized there was a huge interest among our customers in building apps internally for specific internal use, especially on the iPad.” That led to EASE, which is essentially a cloud-based platform that allows companies to build, deploy and manage iPad and iPhone applications. Customers can create their own branded app store-like environments.

And there are many customers: Procter and Gamble, Cisco Systems, NetApp, and Estée Lauder among them. All of them, Patrick told me, have built their own internal app stores that authenticate employees and serve up apps that are used for company-specific work without any need to host them in Apple’s public-facing app store. “You can literally push out an application to 5,000 users in a matter of seconds,” Patrick said.

Cisco builds its own internal sales force automation apps, Patrick told me. Cosmetics giant Estée Lauder uses the iPad at its retail counters to help suggest Clinique skin care products to customers. (Apperian also built this app.)

It’s a big turn of events from when the company first started, Patrick said. “We started working on EASE about 15 months ago, and we showed it to companies who asked why they’d ever want it,” he said. “They were providing email and calendar access and that was the extent of their commitment to the iPhone and the iPad. By summer, after the iPad first launched, our phone was ringing off the hook.” CIOs at big companies quickly got iPad religion when all their senior executives and board members walked in the door with iPads. “They could read all the documents on the screen, and it wasn’t long before they wanted their corporate apps, their business intelligence and SAP reports on the iPad too.”

But not for lack of offers.

In an interview with iFund manager Matt Murphy, he said several of the fund’s 18 companies have received verbal offers during a recent six-week stretch.

And, even more impressive, all of the companies have turned them down.

“I feel like everyone is realizing how massive mobile is, and some Internet companies are thinking that they should snap these up while they can still be leaders,” Murphy said.

The interest in mobile companies is fairly predictable.

Big public companies, like Google, Microsoft and Amazon, have deep pockets capable of buying companies to fill out a particular niche. Likewise, private companies with public-like valuations, like Facebook, Zynga and Groupon, also have plenty of cash and incentive to grow.

But what’s more unusual is the preference by the entrepreneurs to go big and stay independent.

Indeed, the darker moments of the recession appear to be behind us.

IFund companies include Booyah, Pelago and Flipboard. Cooliris, which lets you view photo and video, announced it has raised $9.6 million in funding today. Shazam is another iFund investment, and it could be headed for an IPO in the next year or so.

One of the more public deals was Kleiner Perkins-backed Path, which turned down a $100 million offer from Google and decided to raise nearly $10 million in venture capital to remain an independent mobile social network.

We also hear that Los Angeles-based GOGII, an iFund company, turned down an offer from Zynga, which is averaging about an acquisition every month. Instead, it plans to raise more money and evolve its group-texting platform.

GOGII’s Scott Lahman declined to discuss any negotiations, or whether the offer happened at all, but said he thinks people are waking up to the fact that everything is mobile, and “new platforms introduce new winners.”

The one iFund company that did sell was Ngmoco, which was bought late last year by DeNA for $400 million.

Heck, maybe even think that was a mistake now (although its CEO Neil Young would disagree).

Murphy said the offers the companies are receiving are not low, and are not just from companies seeking mobile talent–the valuations are too high for that, and the teams they are after are too big.

So why is everyone saying no?

“For entrepreneurs, the decision is, ‘what do I want to do for the next few years?’ For passionate entrepreneurs, it’s too early to give up on the dream. If it’s wildly successful, the achievement of going through it all is never replaceable.”

Murphy also says the business is encouraging right now because of the growth rates companies are seeing.

It took Ngmoco more than a year to hit its first $1 million month in revenues. But now Murphy can name multiple game companies that have hit $1 million a month in less than half that time. “If you are the founder, and you are growing revenues 100 to 150 percent year-over-year, why sell today?”

The growth is expedited by the fact that more people are buying smartphones, and the mechanisms are in place to make money.

Almost a year after the iFund was started, Apple enabled in-app commerce, allowing people to buy virtual goods and other items within a game or application. Once it did, it took only a couple of months for companies’ revenues to increase five-fold, he said.

Now the iPhone has come to Verizon Wireless, which expands the market, and Google is coming out with in-app purchasing for Android soon.

Does Murphy mind that these company’s aren’t selling?

No, he said. If they choose to sell, “we may be disappointed.” What gets him excited is when an entrepreneur says, “Hell no.”

He’s building a network that he thinks can be as meaningful to today’s generation as MTV was to the rock ‘n’ roll era.

The opportunity doesn’t come around very often, he admits, but he believes we are at a tipping point, where games, mobile devices and high-speed networks will lead to a new entertainment channel, saying such moments “are infrequent, but when they do come along, a lot of value will be generated.”

Young’s plans were only accelerated three months ago after the game developer sold for $400 million to a company that is far from a household name in the U.S.–Japanese-based DeNA (pronounced D-N-A).

We caught up with Young at the company’s headquarters in San Francisco to understand how Ngmoco’s mission has changed, and to learn about what the two have in store for the U.S. market.

DeNA is a publicly traded mobile social network that has a market cap of $4.5 billion and annual revenues of $1.25 billion.

The company has been on an acquisition spree over the past few months, buying U.S. mobile game-makers, like Icebreaker and Gameview Studios, along with making a handful of other U.S. investments.

In Japan, DeNA is known for its mobile-only social network called Mobage-town (pronounced Mo-bah-gay), which runs on lower-end feature phones and makes all of its money selling virtual goods within its network of games.

Now DeNA is looking to expand into the U.S., and to transition from feature phones to smartphones in Japan.

Ngmoco will become the backbone for both.

Ngmoco was spawned from the iPhone application boom, having received investments from Kleiner Perkins’ iFund and, more recently, Google Ventures. It created iPhone games like We Rule, and We Doodle and Rolando.

Then, last summer, it played down the development of games in favor of creating a gaming platform, called the Plus Network. The network allowed players to log in to the same account across multiple games and to participate in leaderboards and awards. In other words, it was a social network of sorts.

Not very coincidentally, Young’s idea for the Plus Network was modeled after DeNA’s Mobage-town in Japan. He even presented it to investors that way in slides when raising money. The Plus Network will now become the basis for Mobage in the U.S. and Japan.

The network will be open to third-party game developers who are looking for a single log-in experience, a community of users playing within a social network and a monetization platform. It will run on Android because the platform is more open than Apple’s iPhone.

Already, Ngmoco has some traction.

It has signed a deal with Samsung to become its default Game Hub on all the Android phones and tablets, and it has 40 developers participating in a beta. Within the next two months, Ngmoco expects to launch “We Rule” on Android and to launch the fully integrated Mobage service in the second quarter.

One way to think about Mobage is a Facebook-like platform on top of mobile phones that companies like FarmVille’s Zynga could leverage. Young prefers to compare it to MySpace, except that MySpace failed to catapult itself from its leadership position on music to become a entertainment destination.

One stark difference between social networks on PCs and Mobage is that users won’t necessarily be playing with friends, but rather a network of game players you may or may not know. Young argues that’s a benefit: “It’s difficult to escape if everyone is watching you.”

If it sounds ambitious, it is.

But it’s something Young is comfortable with.

When Ngmoco originally launched, its first logo read ng:moco :) with a few Japanese characters written underneath. Roughly translated, the Japanese characters said “future entertainment company.”

Young said it was in Japanese for two reasons: It looked cool, and because it was too cocky to come out in say it.

Today, he doesn’t hesitate: “Now we have the chance to do it.”

Young has a set of three priorities: Launching and executing Mobage as a brand on Android; building a small number of games to show off the platform’s potential; and finally to move the Mobage platform from mobile to tablets, and then to the TV.

In a video interview, Young describes in more depth how Ngmoco could become the next MTV, and proves that he really did use the word “cocky”:

Photo Credit: mobilopen.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110124/ngmocos-ambitions-accelerate-from-game-maker-to-future-entertainment-company/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110112/955-dreams-the-ipad-gets-jazzed-up/ http://allthingsd.com/20110112/955-dreams-the-ipad-gets-jazzed-up/#comments Wed, 12 Jan 2011 14:00:22 +0000 Liz Gannes http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/?p=2295 The tablet interface can’t help but make your brain think of the future of books dancing across the screen. A little startup called 955 Dreams is bringing some of that imagination into reality today with the release of its History of Jazz iPad app.

History of Jazz has whimsical, tactile navigation, with animated chronological browsing rather than the standard pagination of an ebook. The app includes integrations such as iTunes music purchasing, playing videos and songs over household speakers through Apple AirPlay, and showing Wikipedia bios and YouTube videos. It also offers a “screensaver mode” that turns the iPad into a sort of History of Jazz coffee table book.

While the folks at 955 Dreams are clearly passionate about the subject matter of jazz, what they’ve really done is created a custom music-oriented interface for existing online content. The price for this design, curation and integrations is $9.99 at launch.

955 Dreams plans to release other music apps as well as early education titles. Members of the team–which only has three employees and seed funding from 500 Startups and Mitch Kapor– had in the past released apps such as “Mario Batali Cooks” for the iPhone with a previous company called High Five Labs.

But 955 Dreams will face competition from the likes of further along startups and existing publishers such as Inkling, which is overhauling existing textbooks for the iPad, and has deep partnerships with publishers, lots of funding, and close ties to Apple. 955 Dreams Co-founder and CEO Kiran Bellubbi said a more apt competitor might be Callaway Digital Arts, the iFund-backed startup that made the innovative iPad apps Martha Stewart Bakes Cookies and Miss Spider’s Tea Party.

The app currently doesn’t include social features, but Bellubbi said a later version will include ways for users to share their jazz collections and vote on the top 100 jazz records of all time.

Here’s a video from 955 Dreams demonstrating how the History of Jazz app works:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110112/955-dreams-the-ipad-gets-jazzed-up/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101116/shopkick-checks-in-with-target-ceo-cyriac-roeding-talks-about-social-shopping/ http://allthingsd.com/20101116/shopkick-checks-in-with-target-ceo-cyriac-roeding-talks-about-social-shopping/#comments Tue, 16 Nov 2010 18:28:13 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=37354

The idea of being rewarded for being a consumer is getting a lot of heat of late, as retailers seek to take advantage of the fast-moving social phenom among consumers, especially young ones.

Thus, a wide range of efforts to combine location-based mobile apps with purchasing, both online and offline.

Earlier this week, BoomTown posted on a funding for one such start-up, Topguest, which links check-ins with airline and hotel loyalty programs.

Today, another company in the space, shopkick, announced it had added another store–Minneapolis-based Target–to its list of retailers deploying its platform and mobile app.

As with customers of Macy’s, Best Buy and others, users of the shopkick app will receive points and other rewards, as well as instant mobile coupons, just for walking in the store.

The point being: Retailers need to reward foot traffic and not just purchases.

The Target partnership is limited now to 242 stores in the Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York City and the San Francisco area.

Target will also offer scannable mobile coupons to customers for redemption at checkout.

It will be interesting to see how effective apps such as shopkick are as they roll out, as consumers test them.

Unlike others that offer quick deals–from Foursquare to Facebook to, now, Yahoo–shopkick uses its “kickbucks” as an enticement simply for being present in a store or scanning certain barcodes.

It’s certainly easy enough–my son, Louie, did it with ease and definite enjoyment–although a user does need to remember to fire up the app when entering a participating store.

There is also a small device retailers need to install need to make the shopkick ecosystem work.

CEO Cyriac Roeding, a former EVP for CBS’ mobile unit, created the concept for the Menlo Park, Calif.-based start-up while an entrepreneur-in-residence at Kleiner Perkins.

The company has raised $20 million in venture funding from Kleiner’s iFund, longtime Silicon Valley investor Reid Hoffman, as well as Hoffman’s home at Greylock Partners.

Here is a video interview I did with Roeding about where shopkick is going next:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101116/shopkick-checks-in-with-target-ceo-cyriac-roeding-talks-about-social-shopping/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20100526/booyah-ceo-keith-lee-talks-about-social-gaming-moolah-and-more-with-accels-jim-breyer-as-sidekick/ http://allthingsd.com/20100526/booyah-ceo-keith-lee-talks-about-social-gaming-moolah-and-more-with-accels-jim-breyer-as-sidekick/#comments Wed, 26 May 2010 12:15:19 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=28843

Earlier this week, BoomTown motored on down to the HQ of Booyah in downtown Palo Alto, Calif., for a chat with its CEO and co-founder, Keith Lee.

Also there: Jim Breyer, the Accel Partners moneybags who recently joined the board of the mobile social gaming start-up, forking over $20 million in new funding for the privilege.

Best known for its MyTown iPhone app, now with upward of two million users, Booyah is made up of a team of gaming industry veterans, especially from Blizzard Entertainment, which is now part of Activision Blizzard (ATVI).

Started in 2008, the company had previously raised $9 million in venture funding, mostly from the Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers $100 million iFund, as well as from DAG Ventures.

MyTown, which is about to come out with a new version, is one of the most popular and innovative location-based social games on Apple (AAPL) mobile devices.

That compares with other social check-in services, such as Foursquare (just over one million users) and Gowalla (250,000).

MyTown is slightly different from these services, though, focusing on gaming in its check-ins and virtual goods versus emphasis on a discovery element.

Lee and Breyer talk about all this and more in the video of my interview, which includes a short tour of Booyah’s Silicon Valley HQ (it is soon moving to San Francisco):

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100526/booyah-ceo-keith-lee-talks-about-social-gaming-moolah-and-more-with-accels-jim-breyer-as-sidekick/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100517/booyah-moolah-social-gaming-company-behind-mytown-gets-20-million-in-funding/ http://allthingsd.com/20100517/booyah-moolah-social-gaming-company-behind-mytown-gets-20-million-in-funding/#comments Mon, 17 May 2010 07:01:30 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=28410

A mobile social game company called Booyah, best known for its MyTown iPhone app, announced that it has raised $20 million, mostly from Accel Partners.

The giant round is one of many doled out recently for social start-ups, such as Groupon, in which Accel also invested.

Accel’s Jim Breyer will also join Booyah’s board.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company has raised $9 million in venture funding until now, mostly from the Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers $100 million iFund, as well as from DAG Ventures.

Both are participating in the new round.

Made up of a team of gaming industry veterans, especially from Blizzard Entertainment, which is now part of Activision Blizzard (ATVI), Booyah has been on a roll, reaching two million users for MyTown.

MyTown, which is about to come out with a new version, is one of the most popular location-based social games on the Apple (AAPL) mobile devices.

That compares with other social check-in services, such as Foursquare (just over one million users) and Gowalla (250,000).

MyTown is slightly different from these services, though, focusing on gaming in its check-ins and virtual goods versus emphasis on a discovery element.

Here’s the official press release from Booyah:

ACCEL PARTNERS CHECKS INTO BOOYAH: LEADS $20 MILLION FUNDING ROUND

Popular Location-Based Media Company Adds Industry Luminary Jim Breyer to Board of Directors

Palo Alto, Calif.–May 17, 2010–Booyah, creator of the popular location-based mobile app MyTown, has closed a $20 million round of financing and added renowned investor, Jim Breyer to its Board of Directors. Led by Accel Partners, a premier global venture firm with investments in technology-driven social media, advertising and mobile services, the new financing will be utilized to ignite and accelerate the company’s real and digital world offerings. Existing investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and DAG Ventures also participated in the round.

Since launching in December, MyTown rocketed upwards of more than 2 million users growing at over 100,000 new users week over week. MyTown passed 60 million check-ins and 250 million virtual item impressions a month. An immersive and addicting experience, users of MyTown spend an average of 70 minutes per day, establishing Booyah as the leader in real-world interactive entertainment.

“Booyah is at the epicenter of the fastest growing markets today–mobile, social, and interactive gaming,” stated Jim Breyer, Partner, Accel Partners. “Not only are they a next-generation entertainment company, but they are bridging the gap between consumers and businesses. The Booyah management team has both the passion and talent to innovate and create a wholly unique experience.”

Breyer currently is the lead & presiding Director of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc, (WMT), a Director of Dell, Inc (DELL), and a long-time investor & board member of companies such as Brightcove, Facebook, Etsy, and Marvel Entertainment (MVL).

“We are thrilled to work with a world-class partner such as Accel Partners with their experience across social, mobile and entertainment,” said Keith Lee, CEO, Booyah. The combination of Jim’s expertise in real world retail and cutting edge digital media mirrors our dedication to creating the most compelling real-world experiences. MyTown is a bold step to achieving this goal and we have very exciting plans in the near future to move far beyond the check-in.”

Unique to Booyah is their ability to blur the lines between the real and digital worlds. With extensive experience in the traditional gaming industry and cutting-edge mobile technologies, Booyah is poised to create new forms of entertainment for the masses and revolutionize the consumer experience. In the massively popular app MyTown users can check in at real-world locations using GPS features to unlock rewards. Players can purchase, upgrade and collect rent on their properties, enjoying MyTown ownership of their favorite real-life places.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100517/booyah-moolah-social-gaming-company-behind-mytown-gets-20-million-in-funding/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100405/freed-by-amazon-john-doerr-cheers-ipad-will-google-care/ http://allthingsd.com/20100405/freed-by-amazon-john-doerr-cheers-ipad-will-google-care/#comments Mon, 05 Apr 2010 21:40:35 +0000 David Barry http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=23542 Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) last month disclosed that John Doerr would not stand for re-election as a board member at the company’s annual meeting.

While Doerr reportedly received scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission over his board roles at increasingly competing companies Amazon and Google Inc. (GOOG), his close relationship with a third tech giant may have been the final straw.

Last Wednesday, Doerr, a general partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, stood at a press conference to announce the doubling of the venture firm’s iFund to $200 million and to praise Apple’s (AAPL) forthcoming iPad–a device that clearly will have an impact on Amazon’s Kindle.

“We believe it’ll rule the world,” Doerr said. “I’ve touched it; I’ve held it and caressed it….It feel gorgeous. It isn’t a big iPhone, but it is a big deal.”

Read the rest of this post on the original site

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100405/freed-by-amazon-john-doerr-cheers-ipad-will-google-care/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100331/kpcgs-odes-to-the-iphone-and-ipad/ http://allthingsd.com/20100331/kpcgs-odes-to-the-iphone-and-ipad/#comments Wed, 31 Mar 2010 21:23:25 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=37856 At a Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers event this morning to announce the doubling of its $100 million iFund, KPCB team member Bing Gordon read two poems–the first, a 2008 paean to Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone, the second an ode to its forthcoming iPad. Below is the full text of both: “Welcome to the World, iPhone” and “Welcome to the World, iPad.”

Welcome to the World, iPhone
(Summer 2008)

Welcome to the world, my new friend and pocket master.
Your 3-G-ness makes my world so much better and lots faster.
Your App Store is the killer app of mobile D-to-C,
Although you are surprised that 90 percent of apps are Free.

100 Million is a frighteningly awesome number,
And threatens to eclipse Nintendo, put PSP in your penumbra.
Who’d have expected games like Rolando would have put you on the map,
Or that a virtual beer mug would become a killer app.

Your baby brother iPod Touch is rustling, restless in the wings,
With tens of millions multi-touchers browsing iTunes for new things.
With so much excitement already, your future’s hardly hazy;
Christmas Season in the Apple Stores this year will be, like, crazy.

Thanks, iPhone, for giving us a White to go with Black.
Thanks, iPhone, for making Leopard mobile, and connecting to my Mac.
iPhone, you’ve launched into the world, like a Cupertino rocket!
Steve envisioned computers on each desk; now it’s iPhone in every pocket!

Welcome to the World, iPad
(April 2010)

Welcome to the world, iPad, we’ve been awaiting you for months.
You give my hands an article of lust they both can touch at once.
3 Billion downloads in two years from 150,000 titles in App Store,
We’ve seen previews under NDA that will drive many billions more.

You’ve inspired new computer scientists on every college campus,
Who invented killer apps for toddlers, texting teens and check-in grampas.
Entrepreneurs without previous experience are creating jobs and wealth,
If they skip class to finish their new app, do they have to keep in stealth?

Thanks, iPad, for giving us a Cinerama screen.
Thanks, iPad, putting soul into your new machine.
iPad, you are the next chapter in the Apple Computer lore,
But we have to take our tent and leave now, the line is forming at the store.

Headed straight for The Norton Anthology Of Poetry, I imagine …

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100331/kpcgs-odes-to-the-iphone-and-ipad/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100331/kpcb-doubles-down-on-ifund-200-million-for-iphone-and-ipad-apps/ http://allthingsd.com/20100331/kpcb-doubles-down-on-ifund-200-million-for-iphone-and-ipad-apps/#comments Wed, 31 Mar 2010 17:42:03 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=37799 Add Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers to the list of companies funding iPad app development. At an event this morning, the storied venture capital firm said it is doubling the $100 million fund it established to provide seed capital for iPhone apps to fuel development of apps for Apple’s (AAPL) new device.

“This Saturday the iPad arrives and we believe it’s going to rule the world,” said KPCB partner John Doerr. “I’ve touched it, I’ve carressed it and I hope to sleep with it this Saturday night. It feels gorgeous. It isn’t a big iPhone, but it is a big deal. It’s the future….We’re heading into a brave new world. From our old interfaces to touch. From WYSIWYG–what you see is what you get–to WYTIWIS ‘what you touch is what is.’”

A number of apps built by iFund companies will be available when the iPad launches this Saturday, among them seven games from ngmoco, as well as Doodle Buddy and Star Smash from Pinger, textPlus from GOGII and Shazam from Shazam Entertainment. Not announced today but headed to market soon: iPad apps from Zynga, Shopkick and Cooliris.

KPCB’s Bing Gordon closed the presentation segment of today’s event by reading a poem. Sadly, I missed most of it because of connection issues, but it began with this salute to the iPhone: “Welcome to the world; My new friend and pocket master.”

Tech Trader Daily and TechCrunch, which attended the event in person, have more detailed notes here and here.

Below, a few screenshots from the WebEx presentation, and the official announcement:

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Doubles iFund to $200 Million

iFund Companies to Deliver More Than a Dozen New iPad Applications by May

MENLO PARK, Calif., March 31, 2010 – Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) today announced the doubling of its iFund to $200 million of venture capital for applications for Apple’s revolutionary iPhone OS family of products, including iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Established in 2008 as a $100 million investment pool, the original iFund is now fully committed across 14 companies. iFund companies have been supported by an additional $330 million from follow-on investors.

KPCB also announced iFund-supported companies have more than 20 applications in development for the soon-to-be-released iPad, with 11 available at first ship on April 3. KPCB noted the iPhone has created an inflection in mobile content consumption and the iPad will lead the next wave of innovation in mobile computing. The iFund is increasing its investment dollars to back entrepreneurs and build companies that focus on these areas. Particular areas of interest on iPad include entertainment, communication, social networking, commerce, health care, and education.

“Welcome to the brave new post-PC era where a swoosh of fluidity replaces the traditional mouse-bound GUI. A new, truly revolutionary platform is rare, and a prize for entrepreneurs,” said John Doerr, KPCB Partner. “We expect all ventures to have an iPad strategy. We will fund many more ventures for iPad, and the iFund will accelerate their success.”

“Kleiner Perkins has done a terrific job at finding, funding and supporting great iPhone app developers,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We are thrilled that they are doubling the size of their fund, along with expanding it to now include iPad developers too.”

Matt Murphy, Partner at KPCB and leader of the iFund, reported that KPCB’s iFund ventures have achieved significant success, including:

More than $100 million of 2010 mobile revenue
More than 100 million aggregate mobile downloads
An amazing 18 titles reached the Top 10 on the App Store

“We’re ecstatic to be doubling down on the iFund after two short years,” said Murphy. “The success of the App Store and its impact on consumers has been 10 times faster and bigger than we expected. Kleiner Perkins and iFund companies have enjoyed an incredibly helpful and unwavering partner in Apple.”

Recent milestones for iFund companies include:

GOGII’s 5.5 million users have sent 2 billion messages through textPlus
ngmoco’s titles are installed on over one-third of iPhone OS devices and played 20 million minutes each day
Pinger launched 10 apps into the App Store Top 100 in a single month
Shazam’s 50 million worldwide users are tagging over 2 million songs per day
Booyah’s MyTown has over 1.6 million users doing 4 million location check-ins per day

The 11 applications available this week from iFund companies include seven games from ngmoco including We Rule, GodFinger and WarpGate, as well as Doodle Buddy and Star Smash from Pinger, textPlus from GOGII, and Shazam from Shazam Entertainment.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100331/kpcb-doubles-down-on-ifund-200-million-for-iphone-and-ipad-apps/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100204/the-appfund-wants-to-make-ipad-developers-a-deal-should-they-take-it/ http://allthingsd.com/20100204/the-appfund-wants-to-make-ipad-developers-a-deal-should-they-take-it/#comments Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:26:32 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=15955 It’s a pretty standard chain of events: New platform opens up, investors try to attach themselves to developers who want to exploit it.

So here come the folks who want to invest in iPad apps. Last week, a U.K. group announced a very small fund to promote iPad apps in that country. Today, we hear from AppFund, which says it has a “multi-million” kitty that will allow it to invest any amount between $5,000 and $500,000 in new iPad apps.

The two obvious questions here are:

• How does this differ from any of the iPhone app funds we’ve already heard about, specifically Kleiner Perkins’s $100 million iFund? After all, one of Apple’s (AAPL) key selling points for the iPad is that all existing iPhone apps will work on it from Day 1.
• If you really only need $5,000 or so to help you build your app, does it really make sense to give up equity to get it?

Daniel Klaus, who is launching the AppFund with Kevin Wendle (bios here), says his venture differs from iFund in that it has a smaller scope–the iFund’s minimum investment starts at $100,000–and that his group is willing to buy pieces of individual apps instead of their parent companies.

As to the economics? Hard to tell, since the AppFund guys aren’t providing any transparency into their offer to developers (as opposed to groups like Y Combinator, which offer entrepreneurs a fairly boilerplate deal).

In any case, if you’re interested, here’s what the AppFund guys are looking for in an app:

• Target early adopters and urban dwellers
• Target users 16-39 with higher incomes
• Incorporate video, audio, interactivity, and other capabilities unique to the iPad
• Have a long shelf life
• Have the potential to become “hits”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100204/the-appfund-wants-to-make-ipad-developers-a-deal-should-they-take-it/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090917/palm-pay-developers/ http://allthingsd.com/20090917/palm-pay-developers/#comments Thu, 17 Sep 2009 16:46:10 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=24947 Lots of jawing yesterday over reports that Palm is paying developers to bring their mobile apps to the webOS platform. In an interview with TechCrunch earlier this week, the founders of CitySourced–a “real time mobile civic engagement tool”–suggested that Palm is paying them to develop for it (how much? “Under $500,000”).

An interesting claim. Certainly, Palm’s new platform would benefit from some new developers, and offering them a bit of cash to come on board isn’t unprecedented. Remember, KPCB manages a $100 million iFund that’s driving development for the iPhone OS from Apple (AAPL).

But according to the folks I’ve spoken with, Palm isn’t paying developers to write apps for webOS. One source inside Palm dismissed the idea that the company would do so as “rubbish.” Three others in a position to know said they’d never heard of such an incentive. And none of the mobile app developers I’ve contacted have been approached by Palm with such an offer or heard of anyone who has been approached.

Odd, isn’t it? Why would Palm (PALM) offer financial incentives to a developer who created an unreleased civic engagement tool and not to one who offers a popular game? Or a killer productivity app? Or an iTunes App Store top seller?

CitySourced has not responded to repeated requests for comment and clarification.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090917/palm-pay-developers/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20080306/ddv20080306/ http://allthingsd.com/20080306/ddv20080306/#comments Thu, 06 Mar 2008 20:00:53 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20080306/ddv20080306/

[ See post to watch video ]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20080306/ddv20080306/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20080306/iphone-map/ http://allthingsd.com/20080306/iphone-map/#comments Thu, 06 Mar 2008 18:18:35 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20080227/iphone-map/

We’re telling IT executives to not support it because Apple has no intentions of supporting (iPhone use in) the enterprise. This is basically a cellular iPod with some other capabilities and it’s important that it be recognized as such.”

–Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney, July 2, 2007

Today’s an important one for Apple (AAPL). The company is hosting a “town hall” meeting to discuss an iPhone software roadmap. Presumably, this event will see the release of more details about the eagerly anticipated iPhone SDK, but perhaps not the debut of the SDK itself. Certainly, that’s the impression given by the invitation to the event–”Please join us to learn about the iPhone software roadmap, including the iPhone SDK and some exciting new enterprise features.” Enterprise features? Ready to eat your words, Dulaney?

But whether the SDK is released to developers today or not, this event promises to be a watershed one. Because it heralds a vast new addressable software market for developers. After all, the iPhone and iPod touch run OS X, and presumably most future iPod models will as well. Which likely means that applications written for Mac in Xcode–Apple’s development toolset–will be deployable on any OS X device. They’ll be “write once, run anywhere”–anywhere there’s OS X, that is. And word on the street has it that we may see a few of them as early as today.

The event begins at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET). Updates to follow …

UPDATES:

• The event’s begun. You’ll find streaming video of the event here.
• The next iPhone software update will include support for Push Email, Push Calendar, Push Contacts, Global Address List, Cisco VPM, Certificates and WPA2/802.1x, Security Policies, Device Config, and Remote Wipe. Wow.
• Responding to customer demand for Microsoft Exchange on the iPhone, Apple has gone ahead and licensed ActiveSync for the device.
• Exchange will be native to the iPhone. Jobs must be muttering multiple “BOOMS” from backstage.
• Nike and Disney have been testing Exchange for iPhone and are pretty happy with it.
• Scott Forstall is now taking the stage to talk about the iPhone SDK. Apple giving developers the same tools and APIs it uses to develop iPhone apps.
• Apple took Cocoa and created Cocoa Touch, a new framework for building apps.
• The OS X kernel is the same for desktop and iPhone.
• Xcode has been expanded to support iPhone. It will code complete APIs for the iPhone SDK. (See? What’d I tell you: write once, run anywhere there’s OS X.)
• SDK includes Interface Builder and iPhone Simulator that allow developers to run their apps on their desktops. “It runs on a Mac and simulates the entire API stack on your computer,” Forstall says.
• Forstall builds a quick “Hello World” app, drops it on the iPhone and runs it. Quick and easy.
• “This is an app I just built in two minutes. But we wanted to see what we could build in two days. So we built Touch FX,” Forstall says. It’s an image editor that allows you to warp photos by pinching them.
• Forstall then demos Touch Fighter, a point-and-shoot game.
• Did I mention the SDK is available today? Good luck downloading it …
• Whoa. Travis Boatman from Electronic Arts takes the stage and demos an iPhone version of Spore. They’ve already ported 18 levels. (Hope SDK includes tool for building spare batteries.)
  

• Apple really pulling out all the stops on this one. Chuck Dietrich from Salesforce.com onstage now.
• Salesforce ported one of its automation tools to the iPhone, one that graphically displays how salespeople are performing against their goals.
• Next up: AOL. AIM for iPhone. Took five days to build.
• Larry Ellison takes the stage to announce Oracle Database 11g for iPhone.
• Kidding.
• Epocrates demo. Clinical reference app for doctors.
• Ethan Einhorn from Sega up next.
• Ha! Super MonkeyBall for iPhone. “This is not a cellphone game. This is a full console game. … We had to fly in a developer to upscale the art for the iPhone,” Einhorn says.
• Jobs back onstage. Announces the iTunes App Store. “You’re a developer who just spent two weeks or a bit longer writing an application. What’s your dream?” Jobs asks. “To get it in front of every iPhone user.”
• Apps can be downloaded wirelessly or sideloaded via iTunes. “This is the exclusive way to distribute iPhone applications,” Jobs says, adding: “We are controlling distribution.” (We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to… The iTunes App Store.)
• Developers price their own apps and they get 70% of the revenues they generate. Apple takes 30% for running the App Store. ” … To be clear, we don’t intend to make money off the App Store. We’re basically giving all the money to the developers, and the 30% that pays for running the store, that’ll be great.”
• Apple plans to release an iPhone 2.0 software update in June that will include enterprise capabilities, App Store, etc.
• One more thing …
• Oh, look: It’s KPCB’s John Doerr. Must be here to demo i’MRich for iPhone.
• Doerr announces the iFund for iPhone developers.
• $100 million to start. Boom.BOOM. BOOM! “That should be enough to start about a dozen Amazons, or even four Googles! … If you want to invent the future, the iFund wants to help you build it,” Doerr says.
• END

(Spore photo courtesy Gizmodo)

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