One of Yahoo’s senior international execs and longtime entrepreneur Ahmed Nassef is leaving the company to create a new startup called Telfez, which will be a social television effort aimed at emerging markets.

Nassef, who was until now the head of Yahoo’s efforts in the Middle East and Africa, is co-founding the new company with Tamer Rashad, a top Merrill Lynch in the same region. Telfez will be based in Palo Alto, Calif.

“Today the Middle East and Africa region represents an inflection point for television viewership, skyrocketing growth in the penetration of smartphones and connected devices, and heavy social engagement,” said Nassef in a press release. “Increasingly, the millions of TV viewers in places from Capetown and Casablanca to Dubai and Istanbul are watching TV while holding a mobile phone or tablet and connecting with friends on their favorite social platforms.

Nassef has been at the Silicon Valley Internet giant for four years, in which he has doubled its audience and improved revenue growth. He came to Yahoo after the company acquired Maktoob.com, an Arabic language site, in 2009.

Shutterstock / Innershadows Photography

Apple is adding an “activation lock” option in iOS 7 that would prevent thieves from reactivating a stolen phone, while Samsung has partnered with Absolute Software to add a “kill switch” in the Galaxy S4.

But more needs to be done, say San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who convened a meeting with those companies, along with Google and Microsoft.

“The smartphone industry has a responsibility to take action to end the rising and increasingly dangerous epidemic of smartphone theft,” the two officials said in a statement. “Apple and Samsung have taken steps in the right direction, but it is clear to us that the industry as a whole has more work to do to protect consumers from violent street crimes.”

Schneiderman and Gascon want all the manufacturers to have “kill switch” options or other means to combat theft over the next 12 months.

“At today’s meeting we asked the companies to commit to develop effective solutions to this national crime wave and install them on all new products within one year,” they said.

Apple says hundreds of millions of people already use its Find My iPhone feature and noted it is taking things further by preventing unauthorized reactivation for customers that opt to do so.

“Apple has led the industry in helping customers protect their lost or stolen devices since the launch of Find My iPhone in 2009 by allowing customers to remotely set a passcode or erase all their personal data,” Apple said in a statement to AllThingsD. “With Activation Lock, Find My iPhone gives customers even more control over their devices and serves as a theft deterrent by requiring an Apple ID and password to turn off Find My iPhone, erase data or re-activate a device.”

Samsung and Motorola representatives declined to comment on the meeting. A Microsoft representative was not immediately available for comment.

Absolute, whose technology is embedded into a device’s firmware and prevents unauthorized use, praised the move by the prosecutors.

“The outcome of today’s summit made it clear that a persistent theft deterrent is needed, and that solution already exists with our technology,” Absolute CEO John Livingston said in a statement to AllThingsD. “Absolute is actively speaking with the AG and DA’s offices, working with its law enforcement partners, and smartphone manufacturers like our partner Samsung to mitigate the risk associated with mobile device theft and the associated crimes.”

Mobile security software specialist Lookout, which also took part in Thursday’s meeting, said that better protections will not only secure protected devices but also deter overall theft of mobile devices.

“To protect consumers from phone theft, we need to make it harder for the bad guys to profit from stealing phones,” Lookout founder and CTO Kevin Mahaffey said in a statement. “As soon as you take the market incentive away, you’ll see a drop off in device theft.”

Image: Shutterstock / Innershadows Photography

Before a short but lively interview with FierceWireless, longtime mobile exec Jon Rubinstein — who has worked at Apple, Palm and then at Hewlett-Packard when it bought the innovative smartphone maker — took a big swig of truthy juice, it seems.

Starting off talking in broad statements of the very obvious and leaving no trend unmentioned, Rubinstein — who just joined the board of Qualcomm and has been a director at Amazon — noted: “I’m a big believer in mobile and integration of the home, and wearable computing and all that stuff, and having it all tied up in the cloud.”

But he quickly segued into what we in the business call a corker of a chat, with the following quotes on a variety of subjects and with a refreshing level of tell-it-like-it-is by Rubinstein, who has taken some time off since Palm and has also been advising small companies.

On how Palm’s webOS was there first, you copycats!: “We did a lot of things that were very, very innovative. Obviously, multitasking, notifications, Synergy, how we handled the multiple cards. There’s a long list of stuff we did that has been adopted by Microsoft, Apple and [Google] Android.”

On the I-do-not-like-thee HP deal: “Well, I’m not sure I would have sold the company to HP [Hewlett-Packard]. That’s for sure. Talk about a waste … If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company?”

On mishegas with the carriers: “I think the deal we had with Verizon really hurt us, but who knew that at the time? These things are all hindsight.”

On how said carriers were dopes anyway: “We always argued with the carriers. They wanted to have their specific goofy services and stuff, and they would pressure us to try and support their stuff when we didn’t want to. All of that stuff has gone away. No one uses that stuff anymore.”

There’s a whole lot more, so click here to read the whole thing.

Shutterstock / Innershadows Photography

The San Francisco District Attorney and New York Attorney General are holding a “smartphone summit” next week to meet with four of the largest players in an effort to address the trend of “Apple picking” (and presumably Samsung swiping and Motorola mugging).

“With 1.6 million Americans falling victim to smartphone theft in 2012, this has become a national epidemic,” San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón said in a statement. “Unlike other types of crimes, smartphone theft can be eradicated with a simple technological solution.”

Phone makers and carriers have already committed to creating a database to help track stolen phones.

However, at the June 13 meeting to be held in New York, the elected officials will press Google, Microsoft, Apple and Samsung to create a simple way for stolen phones to be rendered permanently inoperable, reducing the incentive to steal the devices.

“The theft of handheld devices is the fastest-growing street crime, and increasingly, incidents are turning violent,” said New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. “It’s time for manufacturers to be as innovative in solving this problem as they have been in designing devices that have reshaped how we live.”

Image: Shutterstock / Innershadows Photography

Flickr/Ei Katsumata

Okay, that’s a little dramatic, but a new report from Pew Research today confirms what we sort of suspected anyway: That more than half of adults in the U.S. are now smartphone owners — 56 percent, to be exact.

And the majority of 18-to-24-year-olds have smartphones — even if they’re broke.

You might vaguely recall a similar report from about a year ago stating that more than half (53 percent) of Americans were smartphone owners. I asked Pew about this, and as I understand it, here’s how these reports differ:

Last year’s Pew report found that smartphone owners represented 53 percent of cellphone owners. This year’s data shows that smartphone owners have crossed the 50 percent barrier for the total population, for the first time.

According to Aaron Smith, senior researcher for Pew, “Both overall cellphone ownership and the proportion of those cell owners who have a smartphone increased in tandem, which accounts for the big overall jump.”

The year-over-year percentage point increase (again at the general population level) is 21 points from Spring 2011, and 10 points from Spring 2012.

Some other interesting nuggets from the report:

• The overwhelming majority of smartphone owners have graduated from college or have attended some college; 78 percent of them have annual income of $75,000 or more.
• The 18-to-24-year-old age group is smartphone-obsessed. Some 79 percent said they have a smartphone, when they looked up from texting long enough to respond to the survey. But Grandma’s getting pretty hip, too: 18 percent of the over-65 crowd said they have a smartphone.
• 28 percent of cellphone owners (as a whole, not just the smartphoners) claim to have an Android phone, while 25 percent say they have an iPhone.
• BlackBerry is the loser here, with just four percent of cellphone owners copping to owning a Blackberry. This is down 10 percent from two years ago.

After it announced layoffs of 520 employees and lowered its guidance to Wall Street, Zynga’s stock dropped precipitously yesterday, down 12 percent, to dip below $3 a share.

The decline put the market value of the company at just $2.34 billion, well below the once much-hyped hopes for the San Francisco-based online gaming company that has seen nothing but troubled times since its IPO. In fact, since its late 2011 public offering, Zynga shares are down close to 70 percent.

But perhaps more interesting is that, with $1.6 billion in cash and marketable securities, investors now consider the company to be worth just below $750 million.

In other words, about $350 million less than Yahoo just paid for the blogging platform Tumblr, which has substantively less revenue than Zynga.

That small valuation puts the company in an interesting position, as it seeks to move its business more quickly into the mobile space, as its Web-based business has fallen off more dramatically than expected. Simply put, mobile monetizes less robustly than Zynga’s Web offerings.

The slowness in moving its casual social games to fast-growing new devices, such as tablets and smartphones, has been at the heart of Zynga’s current troubles, forcing management to cut its staff by 18 percent in order to rationalize costs.

ZNGA data by YCharts

That has meant the slashing of its staff of more than 3,000 — which grew quickly via a series of acquisitions made in recent years — and closing offices in New York and Los Angeles to save money.

What happens next will be the subject of much speculation, given its declining worth, including whether Zynga might consider going private or if some other company might contemplate acquiring it.

Most sources close to the company think it is unlikely that its big owners, including venture firm Kleiner Perkins, will want to conduct any kind of dramatic transaction, given Zynga’s currently prone state. Said one person close to the situation, its eventual state will depend on how well the company manages to turn itself around.

But the company has been able to sell around 5 million HTC One smartphones since the flagship phone’s launch last month, and according to Jason Mackenzie, president of global sales, the company wants to finish the year strong and go into “the next version of the HTC One.”

As for when the current HTC One is headed to Verizon? Mackenzie didn’t say but reiterated the company wants its flagship phone available as many places as possible. (And trust us, it is coming.)

Also, Mackenzie insists, the news about the “mass exodus has been way overblown. We’ve lost some key people; some were planned, some were not. But it’s not masses of people.”

You can watch the full interview between AllThingsD’s Ina Fried and Mackenzie here:

 

Full D11 Conference Coverage

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130529/whos-at-d-htc-president-jason-mackenzie-on-the-facebook-phone-expansion-plans-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20130516/alcatel-one-touch-idol-smartphone-nothing-to-be-idolized/ http://allthingsd.com/20130516/alcatel-one-touch-idol-smartphone-nothing-to-be-idolized/#comments Thu, 16 May 2013 13:31:21 +0000 Bonnie Cha http://allthingsd.com/?p=321731 How do you introduce the world to a new smartphone from a company that most people have never heard of? With a cameo in “Iron Man 3,” of course.

Alcatel One Touch is a cellphone brand from Chinese consumer electronics company TCL Communications. Its first U.S. smartphone, the mid-range Idol, will make its debut at the end of the month. To get the name in front of more eyes, the Android-based handset is featured in the latest installment of Marvel Comics’s “Iron Man” film series. But in real life it faces the heroic task of going up against smartphone stalwarts like Samsung, HTC and LG.

Unfortunately, this smartphone isn’t going to reach superhero status. I’ve been testing the Idol over the past week, and I found it to be unremarkable. The phone lacks 4G LTE support and is somewhat sluggish, which makes it frustrating to use. Plus, it’s currently priced at $299 without carrier backing. For that money, you’ll get a lot more from the Nexus 4 by LG.

There’s really nothing that sets the Idol apart from the competition. The design resembles a lot of other all-touchscreen smartphones, and without any type of branding on the front of the device, you’d be hard-pressed to pick it out of a lineup of Android devices — not that I want a huge company logo splattered across the front. Alcatel One Touch does offer the Idol in a number of colors, including red, green and blue, but, alas, I received the boring silver one.

The smartphone measures 5.24 inches tall by 2.66 inches wide by 0.31 inch thick, and weighs 3.84 ounces. It’s smaller than the Samsung Galaxy S4, but bigger than the iPhone 5. The construction of the phone is largely plastic, but I didn’t think it felt particularly cheap or fragile. It was comfortable to hold, and I had no problems navigating through the menus with one hand.

The Idol has a 4.7-inch touchscreen with a resolution of 960 by 540 pixels. That’s on par with other midrange smartphones, and the display was bright and clear for reading text and viewing videos. But for the same price, you can get the Nexus 4 with a 4.7-inch, 1,280 by 768-pixel touchscreen, which offers sharper image quality.

Another advantage to the Nexus 4 is that it’s running the latest version of Google’s Android Jelly Bean operating system (4.2.2). The Idol runs on Android Jelly Bean 4.1.1, so it’s not too far behind, but the rate at which it will receive software updates may not be as quick as the Nexus, since the latter is offered directly by Google.

The good news is that the Idol’s user interface is clean and easy to use. The company hasn’t added too many of its own customizations, and it’s not bogged down with useless software. A couple of apps that I found particularly useful were MobiSystem’s OfficeSuite for viewing and editing Office documents, and Movie Studio for editing videos right on the phone.

The quality of the Idol’s main eight-megapixel camera is mediocre. As with many camera phones, I got the best results when taking pictures outdoors in natural light. But even then, I didn’t find the colors to be that vibrant. Photos taken indoors or in low-light conditions were a bit grainy, and using the built-in flash only washed out colors. There were other issues, as well.

To focus, you can tap on the screen, but I found it slow at times (the phone also makes a weird clicking noise). There were also delays when I tried to launch the camera from the lock screen, and a couple of times the camera app unexpectedly closed as soon as I launched it from the main menu. It didn’t give me much confidence for using the Idol’s camera to capture spontaneous moments.

A photo taken with the Alcatel One Touch Idol’s 8-megapixel camera.

Unfortunately, performance issues weren’t uncommon during my time with the Idol. It’s powered by a slower processor than other phones in its price range, and I ran into delays when launching apps or loading social networks like Facebook. There was once instance where it struggled to even get to the main menu of apps, which I have never seen before. The problems weren’t constant, but it was enough to make it frustrating. The speed of the Nexus 4 offers a more fluid experience.

Also, the Idol doesn’t support 4G LTE for faster data speeds. Instead, it works on another 4G standard called HSPA+, which can be just as fast or faster than LTE in some places, but in my testing I didn’t find this to be the case. Using the iPhone 5 on AT&T’s LTE network in San Francisco, I averaged download speeds of 22.04 megabits per second and upload speeds of 18.17 Mbps. Meanwhile, the Idol averaged 3.77 Mbps down and 1.03 Mbps up. To be fair, the Nexus 4 also lacks 4G LTE.

Calls sounded clear, and I didn’t experience any dropped calls. Voices sounded natural, without any disruptive background noise. But the volume can get piercingly loud, even at mid-levels. My friends had no major complaints on their end.

For my battery drain tests, I simulated a voice call with Wi-Fi on, allowing the screen to time out after 30 seconds, and the Idol offered six hours and 18 minutes of continuous talk time. In real-world usage, where I used the phone to check email and social networks, read articles on the Web and watch a couple of YouTube clips, I needed to recharge the phone by early evening.

Sadly, Iron Man can’t save the Alcatel One Touch Idol. At its current price, the smartphone doesn’t hold a candle to the more powerful and robust Nexus 4. Even if the smartphone was eventually offered by a carrier at a cheap price or even for free, the performance issues aren’t worth it.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130516/alcatel-one-touch-idol-smartphone-nothing-to-be-idolized/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20130509/nokia-upgrades-asha-line-with-99-phone-in-effort-to-combat-low-end-android/ http://allthingsd.com/20130509/nokia-upgrades-asha-line-with-99-phone-in-effort-to-combat-low-end-android/#comments Thu, 09 May 2013 12:07:28 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=319828 Although its Windows Phone bid gets most of the attention in the U.S., Nokia has another effort to combat Android.

The company’s Asha line has grown up from a feature phone to something of an entry-level smartphone. On Thursday, Nokia added its most powerful model yet, the $99 Asha 501.

While it lacks as sophisticated an app marketplace as Android’s or even Windows Phone’s, it features other things popular in cost-sensitive markets, including low prices, long battery life, and the ability to access the Internet using a browser that minimizes data use.

The new model features a redesigned software interface that offers a traditional icon-based view and something Nokia is calling “Fastlane,” which organizes things by featuring recently used contacts, apps and social networks. The new-look Asha stems from Nokia’s purchase last year of Smarterphone.

Many key apps are already available for the new Asha, with others coming on board later this year. Among the apps not yet ready but on the way is Here, Nokia’s own mapping service. Also not yet there is popular messaging service WhatsApp.

“WhatsApp and other key partners continue to explore new Asha,” Nokia said in a statement.

Nokia is also partnering with operators in key regions to offer free and low-cost data plans for accessing Facebook and other apps.

CEO Stephen Elop introduced the phone at an event in India – -a key market for the new phone and for Nokia as a whole, which has been losing market share globally amid the rise of Android.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130509/nokia-upgrades-asha-line-with-99-phone-in-effort-to-combat-low-end-android/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20130506/exclusive-jon-rubinstein-joins-board-of-qualcomm-as-mobile-chipmaker-ups-its-silicon-valley-cred/ http://allthingsd.com/20130506/exclusive-jon-rubinstein-joins-board-of-qualcomm-as-mobile-chipmaker-ups-its-silicon-valley-cred/#comments Mon, 06 May 2013 20:05:12 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=318763

According to sources close to the situation, well-known tech exec Jon Rubinstein will be joining the board of Qualcomm, the San Diego-based chipmaker that has gotten a big boost of late for its role in the explosion of mobile devices.

Rubinstein is an interesting and logical choice for Qualcomm, having been a high-profile player for a long time in the mobile space, beginning with his work on the iPod while at Apple. After he left his last job at Hewlett-Packard last year, though, he has been very low-key.

(Update: Qualcomm confirmed the appointment in a press release.)

For Qualcomm, the selection of Rubinstein to join the board is something to watch, as he is the second exec from Silicon Valley to be tapped by the company recently. In March, Qualcomm hired tech investor Laurie Yoler as SVP of business development, making her “responsible for augmenting existing business relationships in Silicon Valley, as well as developing new strategic business opportunities for Qualcomm in the region.”

Rubinstein has even more experience here and is also familiar with a range of mobile efforts over the years, some of which were successful and others not so much, from his work at Apple, Palm and then HP. He is also a board member of Amazon.

Aside from CEO and Chairman Paul Jacobs, Rubinstein — who has degrees in electrical engineering and computer science — will be the most technically experienced director on the 11-person board.

Qualcomm declined to comment.

Here’s a nice primer on Rubinstein by Arik Hesseldahl, in a report on his leaving HP early last year:

Best known for his work on Apple’s iconic iPod music player, Rubinstein left Apple in 2006 and joined Roger McNamee as a partner in the private equity firm Elevation Partners, following its 2007 investments in Palm.

In 2009 he replaced longtime Palm executive Ed Colligan as its CEO, and oversaw a dramatic restructuring of the company’s products, including a significant rebuild of its smartphone operating system. Gone was the legacy PalmOS that had been used in so many popular devices like the Treo that for a time competed seriously against Research In Motion’s BlackBerry.

PalmOS was replaced by WebOS, which first appeared on the Pre smartphone, then later on the Pixi and Veer devices. After HP acquired Palm, WebOS was also used on the abandoned TouchPad tablet, and is now an open-source operating system overseen by HP.

Rubinstein’s departure is no big surprise. Sources said he hadn’t been seen at HP’s offices following the decision by former CEO Léo Apotheker to get out of the business of making WebOS-based hardware. His future plans have been the subject of speculation for some time.

After HP decided to exit the WebOS hardware business, Rubinstein was assigned to a vaguely described “product innovation role” within HP’s Personal Systems Group during a management shakeup last July. It was an unusual move and one made with little explanation at the time. But sources say it was a preface to Rubinstein’s departure, one intended to lessen its PR impact when he finally left. “That ‘innovation’ gig he was given in July was his first step toward the exit,” said one source, a former Palm exec with close ties to Rubinstein.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130506/exclusive-jon-rubinstein-joins-board-of-qualcomm-as-mobile-chipmaker-ups-its-silicon-valley-cred/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20130502/htc-were-recovering/ http://allthingsd.com/20130502/htc-were-recovering/#comments Thu, 02 May 2013 12:22:12 +0000 Eva Dou http://allthingsd.com/?p=317693 We’re recovering: That’s the message a battered HTC Corp. gave investors on Thursday.

After plummeting to its lowest quarterly profit on public record, the Taiwanese smartphone maker says it is on the mend as production picks up for its new flagship smartphone, the HTC One.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130502/htc-were-recovering/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20130429/the-new-motorola-is-still-looking-to-accessorize/ http://allthingsd.com/20130429/the-new-motorola-is-still-looking-to-accessorize/#comments Mon, 29 Apr 2013 13:40:24 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=316226 Under Google, Motorola has exited markets, cut thousands of jobs, and sold its cable set-top box unit.

But the company has apparently decided to stick with its business of making accessories that complement its phones. Motorola is putting the finishing touches on a new lineup of Bluetooth headsets and other add-ons.

Twitter user @evleaks, known for accurately predicting past moves, posted a photo on Friday of several new audio accessories under the “Sonic” brand name. Products include the Sonic Boom and Sonic Sliver II earpieces, as well as a Sonic Hub and Sonic Buds Bluetooth headphones.

Motorola is also working on a new external battery unit, tentatively being slated to carry the Atomic brand name, according to sources. That unit is designed to play on the need for better battery life, a focus at Motorola that predates the Google acquisition.

However, both the Atomic and Sonic names are still subject to change before launch, a source cautioned.

While the arrival of a new lineup of headsets and a battery charger isn’t exactly earth-shattering, it suggests that the new Motorola is interested in continuing in the business.

Company watchers have been studying each move to get a sense for what the new Google-run Motorola will look like.

A Motorola spokesman declined to comment.

Without giving details, Google executives, including CEO Larry Page, have been talking up the company’s coming products.

Asked at the recent D: Dive Into Mobile whether Motorola would be focused solely on phones, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt said: “Think of it as phones-plus.”

Expect to hear more about Motorola’s future at our D11 conference at the end of May, where Motorola Mobility CEO Dennis Woodside and SVP Regina Dugan will be interviewed onstage.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130429/the-new-motorola-is-still-looking-to-accessorize/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20130429/which-messaging-app-is-right-for-you/ http://allthingsd.com/20130429/which-messaging-app-is-right-for-you/#comments Mon, 29 Apr 2013 13:00:11 +0000 Lauren Goode http://allthingsd.com/?p=316253 Smartphone messaging apps are all the rage these days.

But for some people they’re a mystery. Why would you use a messaging app when your phone’s SMS text messaging function is fine enough for photos and text, or if you use iMessage on the iPhone?

The point of these new smartphone messaging apps is to go beyond that, by letting you send different kinds of media, connect easily and cheaply with international friends, and even send pictures of yourself that will self-combust a few seconds after they’ve been opened. They also create new, mini social networks that companies hope make users stick around.

These apps, for the most part, use data to send the messages, so they won’t add to your tally if you have a monthly limit on SMS through your wireless carrier.

This week, I channeled my inner teenager and dove into a handful of different messaging apps, including WhatsApp, Snapchat and a new one called Burn Note. I see some of the benefit to using these apps. Some features are useful, like being able to loop in friends who own various phones on the same messaging thread. Others are just fun, like the app that let me doodle on a Google search pic before sending it off to a friend.

But their usefulness depends a lot on whether your friends and family are using the same apps. Otherwise, the conversations in the apps stall, which happened to me. And it can be a little distracting, to say the least, to have messages flying through a second or third app on the phone.

Here’s a guide to help you evaluate how they work before you commit to using one.

Adding Multimedia to Messages

One of the most popular message apps available is WhatsApp, which has been around since 2009, and runs on iOS, Android, BlackBerry and Windows phones. It costs 99 cents to download, and WhatsApp has said that it plans to introduce a small annual fee to users in some countries.

WhatsApp is super simple in design, and yet it goes beyond regular old text messages with options to send — in addition to photos and videos — audio notes, contact cards and an active map image that pinpoints your location. It pulls in local business data, so I was able to get specific and message a friend my location at a Subway sandwich shop.

WhatsApp has a big international user base; two of my most active WhatsApp friends included a regular international traveler, who was in Vietnam at the time, and a friend from Canada.

WhatsApp worked fine for me, and I’ve continued to use it with at least one friend who regularly pings me through the app. My only gripe about the app was that the photos I took and sent through the app weren’t saved to my iPhone’s camera roll.

Another new app for multimedia is called MessageMe. MessageMe launched last month, and is available on iPhone and Android phones. Unlike WhatsApp, MessageMe is free to download. And MessageMe lets you doodle on the images you send. I sent an ailing co-worker a picture of chicken soup I found through Google search, and scribbled on it: “Feel better!”

MessageMe also allows you to send song excerpts directly through the app. From there, the recipient can buy the song from iTunes or Google Play.

Of the two, I used WhatsApp more, mostly because I had more friends using the service. But I prefer MessageMe’s design and features.

Making Your Messages Disappear

A growing trend in messaging is sending images and text that will vanish after the recipient has had the chance to view them — something that addresses some privacy concerns and raises other issues, like illicit-photo sharing among teen users.

A well-known app with this core feature is Snapchat. Free to download, it’s available on iOS and Android devices.

With Snapchat, you snap a picture or video from the app, and then determine the length of time the viewer can see it, from one to 10 seconds. You send it off, and shortly after the recipient opens the message, it disappears. If you want to get creative, you can also doodle or scribble text on the photo message. One friend sent me a Snapchat of his poker hand with the text “Not Winning.”

I just don’t understand why I’d use this on a regular basis, although I see the appeal for people leaving digital footprints they are worried about others seeing. Usually if I share a smartphone photo with friends, it’s because something made me think of them, or it’s a particularly cool image. And I’m okay with those people having that picture.

And, let’s say I did want to share a self-combusting pic: Snapchat users still have the ability to capture a “screen shot” of the image sent to them, if they’re quick enough.

A newer app that offers disappearing messages is Burn Note, which was spawned from an email service of the same name. These are text-only messages with a view time of up to 120 seconds. The messages first appear as black boxes. Pressing on your phone’s touchscreen will unveil the text within the boxes.

Burn Note lets you create a password for conversations as an additional layer to ensure privacy. There’s also a checkbox at the bottom of the app that’s meant to prevent messages from being copied, but I was still able to capture a screen shot of these messages.

The bottom line is, even if a messaging app promises to erase your messages for you, there are still ways in which they can be saved.

Payments and Group Messages

Remember GroupMe, the app that made group messaging easy and then was acquired by Skype (which was acquired by Microsoft) in 2011? This app is still around, and despite the fact that others have crowded into the same space, it has some new features that are worth checking out.

The main feature of GroupMe, which is free to use, is that friends with different devices can all be on the same thread. So, even if you have an iPhone, one friend has an Android device and another is using a feature phone, you’ll all get the messages. Whether GroupMe uses data service or SMS, however, depends partly on the kind of device you’re using.

Prior to doing research for this column, I hadn’t actively used GroupMe for about a year, and I was surprised to find that I liked it better than before. This time, I started a group with three friends to organize upcoming weekend plans. It worked well for us, except for one friend who said that the deluge of messages used up all of the memory allowed for texts on her flip phone.

GroupMe now lets you create a tab among friends — let’s say you’re out to dinner, and someone comes up short — and charge everyone’s credit cards from the app, provided that they’ve attached their payment information to the app.

This isn’t a new concept. An app called Venmo, to name just one, allows shared bill payments via text message. But it’s new to GroupMe. I created a bill on the app and sent it to my friends, but I’d have to wait for two or more people to “split in” before I could collect from them.

GroupMe also has a new feature for photos, provided you’re using the GroupMe app and you’re not on a feature phone. If you and your friends share a series of photos during your group conversation, you can conveniently swipe to the left to see all of the pictures arranged in a gallery on the side, instead of swiping up through the conversation to find that one shared photo you liked.

A lot of these messaging apps are stepping on one another with feature sets: WhatsApp offers group messaging as well, and the creator of MessageMe says the company plans to introduce bill-splitting to the app.

So, is it worth it to use another messaging app aside from your phone’s built-in capabilities? It ultimately depends on how valuable the extra features are to you — and whether the people in your work or social life are using them, too.

Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that both MessageMe and WhatsApp have indicated they will introduce bill-splitting to their apps. While MessageMe plans to do so, WhatsApp’s co-founder has said the company believes mobile payments to be a possible area for monetization in the future.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130429/which-messaging-app-is-right-for-you/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20130427/two-views-from-samsung-about-its-octa-chip/ http://allthingsd.com/20130427/two-views-from-samsung-about-its-octa-chip/#comments Sat, 27 Apr 2013 21:00:00 +0000 Don Clark http://allthingsd.com/?p=316139 At the Consumer Electronics Show in January, Samsung described an unusual eight-brained processor as a major step above competing chips. Now that U.S. buyers will be late to get it, the company is playing down the differences.

So-called “teardown” analyses of the new Samsung Galaxy S 4 smartphone by TechInsights and Chipworks this week confirmed that the chip known as “Octa” has arrived in handsets aimed at Europe and Latin America. But in a model for the high-profile U.S. market, iFixit found a popular chip from Qualcomm in the new flagship phone.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130427/two-views-from-samsung-about-its-octa-chip/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20130425/linkedin-launches-contacts-product-for-ios-and-the-web/ http://allthingsd.com/20130425/linkedin-launches-contacts-product-for-ios-and-the-web/#comments Thu, 25 Apr 2013 13:00:03 +0000 Mike Isaac http://allthingsd.com/?p=315212 LinkedIn on Thursday launched a new Contacts feature for its website along with a standalone mobile iOS application, a product stemming from the October 2011 acquisition of startup Connected. Contacts pulls together a LinkedIn user’s network of, well, contacts, across multiple accounts, including their personal LinkedIn network, Gmail and exchange networks (though not their Facebook and Twitter accounts). As with a calendar app, users can also set reminders and take notes on specific people inside the Contacts product.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130425/linkedin-launches-contacts-product-for-ios-and-the-web/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20130423/galaxy-s-4-is-a-good-but-not-a-great-step-up/ http://allthingsd.com/20130423/galaxy-s-4-is-a-good-but-not-a-great-step-up/#comments Wed, 24 Apr 2013 04:03:48 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://allthingsd.com/?p=314906

Samsung has been on a roll. The success of its many models of smartphones, aided by massive marketing campaigns, has made it by far the leading maker of devices running on Google’s Android operating system and the chief rival to Apple in smartphones. In fact, Samsung is almost as synonymous with Android as Google.

The Samsung Galaxy S 4

Now, the Korean electronics giant is about to launch its latest flagship phone in the U.S., a market where it hasn’t been able to dislodge Apple’s iPhone as the leader. The new model, called the Galaxy S 4, will roll out over the next week at AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint, and likely sometime in May at Verizon Wireless.

I’ve been testing the Galaxy S 4 intensively for four days and while I admire some of its features, overall, it isn’t a game-changer. It’s an evolution of the prior model and despite some improvements, it still is especially weak in the software Samsung adds to basic Android. I found Samsung’s software often gimmicky, duplicative of standard Android apps, or, in some cases, only intermittently functional.

I urge readers looking for a new Android smartphone to carefully consider the more polished-looking, and quite capable, HTC One, rather than defaulting to the latest Samsung.

The new Galaxy boasts a giant 5-inch screen, a bit bigger than the 4.8-inch display on its predecessor, but its mostly plastic body is thinner and lighter. It may stretch some small pockets and purses, and look funny when held to your ear, but it doesn’t feel like a brick.

Apple iPhone 5

Still, compared with the iPhone 5, with its 4-inch screen, the S 4 is 30 percent larger and 17 percent heavier. The new Galaxy has a 13-megapixel camera, compared with 8 megapixels for the iPhone 5.

Nearly all Android phones already come with two email apps — one reserved for Google’s Gmail. But on the Galaxy S 4, there are also two online video and music stores, two music and video players, two calendars and two browsers.

Yet out of the box, there’s no camera icon on the lock screen so you can immediately take a picture. (You can add this feature, via the settings menu, in — you guessed it — two different ways.)

Some of Samsung’s new software features worked well. A feature called Air View lets you see expanded information about things like email previews and calendar items by hovering over them with your finger. A multi-window feature splits the screen so you can view two apps at once. But both features only work with certain apps.

I also liked an improved version of Easy Mode, which substitutes the sometimes confusing normal screens and settings panels for simpler ones with larger, cleaner icons and simplified settings.

Another good move: Samsung rewrote the standard Android email app so it’s better, with a unified inbox and other nice improvements.

HTC One

Speaking of settings, Samsung is proud of an expanded panel of one-touch settings icons you can get to by pulling down the Android notification window from the top edge of the screen. I liked the idea, but this panel is likely to confuse users with items labeled “Air Gesture,” “Smart stay,” “S Beam” and other special Samsung features.

There’s an array of new camera effects, such as one where you can superimpose for fun a small square image of your own face onto a picture you’re taking, and another where you can create a “Drama” shot in which a single moving person appears multiple times in sequence. These are easy to select, but I doubt they’ll be used frequently.

I had almost zero success with a suite of features that claim to take certain actions by detecting whether you’re watching the screen. For instance, Smart scroll will scroll the screen based on the angle of your head and Smart pause will stop playing a video when you look away. I only got these to work about 10 percent of the time. Samsung blamed lighting conditions, even though I used it in many settings.

On many key hardware specs, the Galaxy S 4 shines. Its screen and camera resolution beat the iPhone 5’s and I found its pictures to be slightly better than those from the Apple phone, which is nearly a year old. Its removable battery gave me a full day of use.

But the plastic body felt a bit insubstantial to me and the mono speaker on the rear was only fair. Oddly, I found the sound via headphones to be too soft in some cases, though voice calls were clear.

Prices will vary because T-Mobile has stopped subsidizing smartphones and Sprint has a temporary new-customer discount. But AT&T will sell the base 16-gigabyte model for $200 with a two-year contract. T-Mobile’s price, paid over two years, will be $630, $50 more than the iPhone 5. Verizon hasn’t provided details, according to Samsung.

My test model was running on the T-Mobile network and even indicated that it was using super-fast LTE, which T-Mobile is still building out, in some areas. But data download speeds in the D.C. suburbs averaged just 6.96 megabits per second, versus 20.81 mbps for an iPhone 5 running Verizon LTE. The Galaxy S 4 would likely be faster on Verizon in the same location.

While many will compare the Galaxy S 4 with the iPhone 5, I also compared it with the $200 HTC One, which came out April 19. The HTC has a handsome, sturdier, aluminum body, dual stereo speakers, an excellent camera, better screen resolution than the new Samsung and twice the base memory for the same price.

If you’re a nut for lists of new features, love Samsung or crave an even bigger display, the Galaxy S 4 may be for you. It’s a good phone, just not a great one.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130423/galaxy-s-4-is-a-good-but-not-a-great-step-up/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20130423/the-blackberry-of-blackberry-users-dreams/ http://allthingsd.com/20130423/the-blackberry-of-blackberry-users-dreams/#comments Wed, 24 Apr 2013 03:02:59 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://allthingsd.com/?p=314873

Spotting a BlackBerry among the sea of iPhones and Android phones out there is now a rare occurrence. Those who remain faithful to these once-iconic gadgets do so for good reason: A love of physical keyboards. But the BlackBerry’s lagging browser, antiquated operating system and lack of apps made users envy other devices.

Next month, people will finally get the BlackBerry they wish they had: A device that combines the features of a modern smartphone with a physical keyboard. I’ve been testing the BlackBerry Q10 for the past seven days, comparing it to its predecessor, the BlackBerry Bold 9900.

This device is expected to cost $249 with a two-year contract, which is more than many smartphones. It will be available from Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint by the end of May. It had a couple of app quirks, though updates before release are expected to fix these. BlackBerry still lags behind competitors with just over 100,000 apps available last month. I especially missed some of my favorites like Flipboard, Pinterest and the NPR app. And the Q10’s 3.1-inch screen is limiting compared with the 4.7-inch and 5-inch screens on the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4, respectively. But this new BlackBerry’s browser races along and its camera features will impress.

Physically, the Q10 bests the Bold with a slightly bigger touchscreen that measures 3.1 inches, diagonally. To make room for this screen, the Q10 sacrifices two features. First, its keyboard runs straight across rather than in the more comfortable, broad U-shaped curve like on the Bold. Second, the Q10 lacks a track pad, the below-the-screen square that functioned as a precise cursor. In about three days, though, I got used to working without these features.

The Q10 comes in white and black.

The Q10’s keyboard is smartly used for more than just typing emails. From the home screen, typing the first few letters for commands like “text message Katie” or “Facebook” pulls up related functions. This feature is called Instant Action. And some 200 keyboard shortcuts let users navigate around the Q10 more quickly. Onscreen menus subtly display what keys to press for shortcuts.

As you type, common misspellings will be auto-corrected. You can even turn on keyboard predictions, saving you a few keystrokes by showing words on the screen that you might be typing next. A tap on a word adds the word to your sentence. I found I could type faster without using onscreen keyboard predictions, though in some cases I could select predictions for nearly an entire sentence.

The Q10 runs on the latest iteration of the BlackBerry 10 operating system, which made its debut last month on the full touchscreen Z10. This latest version of the BlackBerry 10 OS is souped up with features even the Z10 doesn’t yet have, like new notification options for contacts and fine cursor control and navigation.

The BlackBerry 10 operating system is responsive and fun to use. A list called the Hub organizes all notifications related to emails, social networks and apps in one place. The Hub can be quickly checked with a left-to-right swipe from the home screen, or by swiping up and right from within an app. Contacts are integrated with social networks, adding images of your friends to the system.

Just type the first few letters of a command and Instant Action, above, pulls up the function, such as BlackBerry Messenger.

Apps can be minimized into smaller squares by swiping up from the bottom of the Q10 screen. I grew so comfortable with this gesture that I accidentally tried to use it on my Android smartphone.

In several instances, Facebook’s in-app notifications were delayed and only appeared when I opened the Facebook app. BlackBerry said an update to the Facebook app due out this week would enhance this app. I also had trouble with the Skype app: In two tests, I could see video from the caller but he couldn’t see me though my video was on.

Battery life on the Q10 was impressive. I used it repeatedly for entire days without running out of juice. This included a weekend in a remote area of North Carolina when my cell signal was roaming and several car rides when I used BlackBerry Maps for navigation.

I wasn’t able to formally test the speeds of the device I used, which ran on AT&T’s network, because AT&T is still testing the Q10 on its network. But voice calls that I made around Washington, D.C., and Kirkland, Wash., sounded clear, and Web browsing worked without a problem.

The Q10’s 8-megapixel rear-facing camera is loaded with high-end features, including Time Shift, which captures multiple shots of people and lets you piece together a photo where everyone looks good. Other features include burst mode, enhancements that edit photos and filters that can be added after capture.

BlackBerry World, the marketplace from which apps can be downloaded, looks slicker and runs faster than previous iterations. I downloaded and used a bunch of apps for the Q10, including Skype, The Wall Street Journal, YouTube, the Guardian, the New York Times, the Weather Channel, Kayak and Angry Birds Star Wars.

Along with the Facebook and Skype issues, I found that a health-tracking app and a Sudoku app didn’t work well. BlackBerry attributed this to pre-release app issues.

The browser on the Q10 was super fast, and I found myself selecting links in emails, tweets and Facebook updates that I would have avoided selecting on a Bold — and even on newer smartphones’ browsers — because of slow load times. The Q10 browser has features like an adjustable default font size and a Reader view. Websites that run Adobe Flash can be viewed by clicking a button that enables Flash.

For plenty of users who gave up on BlackBerry years ago, the Q10 probably won’t change their minds. But for those of us who love physical keyboards and want a keyboard paired with the full functionality of a serious smartphone, the Q10 delivers.

Write to Katie at katie.boehret@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130423/the-blackberry-of-blackberry-users-dreams/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20130419/nokias-turnaround-fouled-by-feature-phone-fail/ http://allthingsd.com/20130419/nokias-turnaround-fouled-by-feature-phone-fail/#comments Fri, 19 Apr 2013 11:30:33 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=313742 Two years after leaping from its burning platform, Nokia continues to swim against powerful currents. While the company’s smartphone business shows continued signs of improvement, uncertainties emerging around its feature phone business are raising questions about its ability to pull off a promised turnaround.

In its first quarter, Nokia shipped 5.6 million Lumia smartphones, 27 percent more than it shipped the quarter prior. The company expects to sell some seven million in its second quarter. That’s respectable sales acceleration in a market that’s 90 percent controlled by the Apple-Google duopoly. So, good news.

Sadly for Nokia, there’s some bad news to go along with it. The company suffered a decline in feature phone sales during the first quarter — a contraction so nasty that there was no way rising Lumia sales could offset it. Nokia sold 55.8 million feature phones in the quarter, down from 70.8 million a year earlier, putting them at their lowest level in at least a decade.

A brutal drop, and one that presents quite a conundrum for the struggling Nokia. The company’s turnaround hinges not just on the success of its high-end Lumia smartphone line, but on the continued success of an old cash cow — its feature phone business.

That business is essential to competing in the emerging markets that will be key to its future growth. As Nokia CEO Stephen Elop said during the company’s Thursday earnings call, “Our mobile phones business faces a difficult competitive environment, and we are taking tactical actions and bringing new innovation to market to address our challenges.”

Better sooner than later. If this erosion of feature phone sales continues, it will threaten the progress Nokia’s making with its smartphone business.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130419/nokias-turnaround-fouled-by-feature-phone-fail/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20130416/lg-invites-us-to-share-the-genius-at-may-1-event-in-new-york-city/ http://allthingsd.com/20130416/lg-invites-us-to-share-the-genius-at-may-1-event-in-new-york-city/#comments Tue, 16 Apr 2013 17:39:54 +0000 Bonnie Cha http://allthingsd.com/?p=312741 LG has just sent out save-the-dates for a May 1 event in New York City, but shed little light on what it might unveil. The invitation simply features an image of a microphone with the words “Share the Genius” and “Capture the Spotlight in True Brilliance.” If I had to guess, I’d say it’s for the U.S. launch of the company’s flagship smartphone, the Optimus G Pro, which was announced at Mobile World Congress.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130416/lg-invites-us-to-share-the-genius-at-may-1-event-in-new-york-city/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20130415/moviles-blois-says-wi-fi-and-cheaper-prices-are-key-for-smartphone-penetration-in-latin-america/ http://allthingsd.com/20130415/moviles-blois-says-wi-fi-and-cheaper-prices-are-key-for-smartphone-penetration-in-latin-america/#comments Mon, 15 Apr 2013 21:46:07 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=312172 Fabricio Bloisi Rocha, CEO and founder of Movile, Brazil’s largest mobile services company, said that the lower penetration of smartphones in the Latin America market will be turned around by more Wi-Fi connections, as well as cheaper prices.

“[In Latin America] the smartphone will be your whole connection to the Internet,” said Bloisi, in an onstage interview at the D: Dive Into Mobile conference in New York. “I think Wi-Fi is a big, big trend.”

The fast-growing Movile is trying to find better ways for consumers in its market to be able to connect to take advantage of rich media. “We believe the best of the mobile opportunity will be in the next four years,” said Bloisi, who noted that most users are on pre-paid phones in the important region.

More to the point, “We really need cheaper phones,” said Bloisi, especially since Latin American countries like Brazil are among the most expensive places to buy a device by a factor of 10 times or more.

Why is that so? “Taxes, taxes and the mystery of the Brazilian economy,” he joked, while pointing to efforts to produce phones in the region that would be less expensive.

Bloisi also thought that the focus away from HTML5 — a once-hot area of mobile development that has recently fallen out of favor — was wrong.

“It is not a religious discussion,” he said. “[But] on the long term, I am more HTML5.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130415/moviles-blois-says-wi-fi-and-cheaper-prices-are-key-for-smartphone-penetration-in-latin-america/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20130415/meet-xiaomi-the-biggest-smartphone-company-youve-never-heard-of/ http://allthingsd.com/20130415/meet-xiaomi-the-biggest-smartphone-company-youve-never-heard-of/#comments Mon, 15 Apr 2013 21:18:00 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=312020 Xiaomi may not be the biggest smartphone company in China, but it’s probably the fastest-growing. And if you haven’t yet heard of it, you will soon. Xiaomi sold 7.19 million handsets in 2012, and expects to sell double that number this year. Fifteen million. Not bad for a company that didn’t sell its first smartphone until summer of 2011 — particularly in a market as competitive as China’s.

Onstage at our D: Dive Into Mobile conference in New York City Monday, Xiaomi co-founder and president Bin Lin discussed the company’s driving philosophy: Building a business on services by selling mid- to high-end smartphones at cost.

“We believe the future of the mobile Internet is really about services,” Lin said. “Cellphones are really just like PCs were 20 years ago. They generated big profit margins in the beginning. But those margins are in the single digits now. The same thing is beginning to happen to smartphones. So rather than focus on devices where margins will decline, we’re focusing on services.”

But to build a business on services, you need volume. How does a startup that’s essentially just three years old do that? By selling high-spec smartphones at low-spec smartphone prices.

“Our flagship phone (the Xiaomi MI-2) has a lot of the same specs you’d see in high-end Samsung and HTC phones,” Lin said. “It’s got the same processor that Samsung uses in the Galaxy S4. But it costs about half as much. … We essentially price our phones at bill-of-materials.”

That’s a compelling value proposition, and one that Xiaomi is getting a lot of mileage out of. Lin said the batches of 300,000 handsets that Xiaomi sells directly to consumers on its website routinely sell out within five minutes.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130415/meet-xiaomi-the-biggest-smartphone-company-youve-never-heard-of/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20130411/blackberry-tops-iphone-and-android-in-a-dont-want-poll/ http://allthingsd.com/20130411/blackberry-tops-iphone-and-android-in-a-dont-want-poll/#comments Thu, 11 Apr 2013 11:30:21 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=310962 Here’s a novel way of polling consumer sentiment in the smartphone market: Don’t ask people which handset they prefer to use; ask them which one they would never use.

That’s what research house Raymond James did in a recent survey of consumer smartphone purchasing intent. And the results are interesting — if only as a reflection of the platform partisanship that’s so rife within the smartphone space.

The details: As part of its survey,* Raymond James asked respondents what features would make them more likely to buy a new iPhone or an Android or BlackBerry device: Bigger screen? Lower price? Better functionality? But it also offered them the option of saying they would never use a particular device. And plenty of respondents availed themselves of it.

Of the consumers Raymond James surveyed, 20 percent said they would never buy an iPhone, 31 percent said they’d never buy an Android phone, and 71 percent said they’d never purchase a BlackBerry.

Not a particularly surprising breakdown, given the Google-Apple duopoly currently dominating the smartphone market. Android and iPhone captured more than 90 percent of the global smartphone market in the fourth quarter according to IDC. So the sentiments reflected in this survey shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone.

Still, it’s interesting to see purchasing sentiment gauged in terms of what smartphones consumers are adamantly opposed to using. If the smartphone market is truly so factionalized that some consumers say that nothing could convince them to switch away from their preferred device, then upstart platforms like Windows Phone and the like have a steep uphill climb, indeed.

* Survey was conducted between March 14 – March 26. It polled over 250 consumers, so big grain of salt.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130411/blackberry-tops-iphone-and-android-in-a-dont-want-poll/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20130409/circas-matt-galligan-on-building-a-different-kind-of-news-reader-video/ http://allthingsd.com/20130409/circas-matt-galligan-on-building-a-different-kind-of-news-reader-video/#comments Tue, 09 Apr 2013 19:01:00 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=310343

Earlier this week, I went for a visit to the San Francisco HQ of Circa, the startup that always seems to get lumped into the mobile news reader aggregation category with others such as Pulse, Zite and Flipboard. While it shares some obvious similarities — there is no original news gathering going on here with all of them — the approach that it has taken is different and a bit more nifty.

Built currently for the Apple iPhone, the mobile-designed app is aimed at rejiggering how readers consume breaking news. To do this, a team of writers crunches and munches small bits of information about a range of current news events from a variety of sources and forms them into separable flashcard lists to make up a story.

Circa is using the odd phrase — “atomic units” — to describe the end product, which users can swipe through quickly to get the key elements of a story, along with adds of art, photos, maps or graphs. While some disparagingly call it a Cliff Notes for breaking news, it is much more like a television report or a just-the-facts feed from wires services. If you want to get even more digital, it reminds me of a smart and collated version of Twitter.

While it could use more sourcing — I like to know from whence my atomic units are born — it’s a still a good way to consume news on the fly on a smartphone. Users can also follow favorites stories, which are updated and which increases engagement.

I talked about it all with CEO Matt Galligan, one of Circa’s several founders, as well where the next version of the product is going (expect an Google Android and perhaps an tablet version, for example)

How Circa is going to make money is a good question — it has only a few million in seed funding — since it does require people to create the stories, rather than some algorithm. But the market is hot in the acquisition arena for this category. Both Pulse and Zite have been bought (LinkedIn and CNN), as well as the decidedly less substantive Summly (Yahoo picked it up for the excessive price of $30 million), so one could see Circa also getting snapped up at some point.

Until then or whatever news breaks on it, here’s my video interview with Galligan:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130409/circas-matt-galligan-on-building-a-different-kind-of-news-reader-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20130328/sweet-biz-stone-is-poised-to-launch-new-mobile-startup-called-jelly/ http://allthingsd.com/20130328/sweet-biz-stone-is-poised-to-launch-new-mobile-startup-called-jelly/#comments Thu, 28 Mar 2013 22:49:32 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=307635

According to sources, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone is close to launching a new startup called Jelly, which one person called a “native mobile” effort.

While it’s not clear exactly what that means, sources said the well-known entrepreneur has already hired four or five employees to form a team on the mystery product that will likely be aimed at smartphones and tablets.

It’s an interesting move, since Stone is also running a small incubator called Obvious with one of his Twitter co-founders, Ev Williams. They left their daily roles at the high-profile microblogging service to create Obvious, which has startups such as Lift, Branch and Medium in its portfolio.

There has been low-level chatter in Silicon Valley about Stone’s startup, which some have taken to mean he is no longer working as much with Williams at Obvious. But sources said that is not the case and both are involved in helping their small group of startups.

That said, Williams has been focusing more on Medium, an effort to rejigger blogging and content platforms. Meanwhile, another Obvious principal, Jason Goldman, has been focused on Branch, an online conversation-focused site.

Presumably, Obvious will invest in Jelly, but that’s not clear.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130328/sweet-biz-stone-is-poised-to-launch-new-mobile-startup-called-jelly/feed/ 0