Neil Ashe, who left his job running CBS Interactive in late 2010, has taken a job helming Wal-Mart Stores’ global online commerce unit.

The retail behemoth said that Ashe will become president and CEO of its Global eCommerce division, replacing the retiring Eduardo Castro-Wright. He will operate out of Wal-Mart’s Silicon Valley office in San Bruno, Calif., but will likely make a lot of trips to the company’s HQ in Bentonville, Ark. (Ashe does not have the U.S.-based e-commerce business; Walmart.com is run by Joel Anderson, who reports up through the Wal-Mart U.S. stores business.)

In an interview earlier today, Ashe said that he was “impressed by the company’s realization that the consumer is changing … and the commitment to global e-commerce.”

Noting that Wal-Mart stores see 200 million customers a week, he said the goal was to make the online experience as compelling as the offline one.

“There has to be almost an indifference between physical stores and e-commerce,” said Ashe. “The whole company committed to winning on the Internet.”

Since he left CBS, Ashe has been advising a variety of Web start-ups, including LivingSocial. Ashe joined the board of the Washington, D.C.-based social buying company last spring.

The job at Wal-Mart is a big one, especially given its up-and-down history in the online space. That includes the recent decision to stop selling MP3s from its Web site.

It has also stepped up its efforts, including a number of small acquisitions, such as mobile advertising start-up OneRiot and mobile app company Small Society.

But it did pay big bucks — reportedly $300 million — for social media platform Kosmix.

Ashe noted that Wal-Mart is indeed still dwarfed online by online dominator Amazon. “They are very innovative and strategically adept,” he said.

With 59 million monthly visitors to its U.S. Web site and an aim to go global, how Ashe navigates Wal-Mart’s path in the next years will be interesting to watch.

Here’s the official press release:

Walmart Selects Neil Ashe to Lead Global eCommerce

San Bruno, Calif., Jan. 16, 2012 – Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) today announced that Neil Ashe, 44, is the new president and CEO of the company’s Global eCommerce business, beginning today. Ashe was most recently president of CBS Interactive, where he led all online properties and also drove development of new ways to distribute programming produced by the media giant and its subsidiaries. Websites included CBS.com, CNET.com, CBSNews.com, and CBSSports.com, among others.

Ashe is replacing Eduardo Castro-Wright who announced his pending retirement in September and will assist in the transition.

“E-commerce is a great opportunity for us and we have a long-term vision to win,” said Mike Duke, Walmart’s president and CEO. “We are on track to create the next generation of E-commerce, combining the latest in online innovations with physical stores to give our customers a unique and seamless shopping experience.”

“We have an understanding of what these customers want, a trusted brand, 200 million weekly shoppers, more than 10,000 stores around the world, and the ability to make significant investments in talent and technology. We also have successful online businesses, including in the U.S., the U.K., Canada and Brazil. With all of this, it is clear that Walmart is the best- positioned retailer to deliver this multi-channel experience to consumers, many of whom are already connected to the world through smart phones and social media.”

Duke continued, “With his strong personal leadership skills, financial background and experience in successfully working within a major corporation to lead its Internet division, Neil is the ideal leader to help us build this business. He has led companies through all stages of growth and maturity. He also has a deep understanding of the interactive space and how to attract and convert online customers. Perhaps most importantly, much of Neil’s professional success has come through close collaboration and shared goals with his peers — a key attribute as we continue to integrate our online businesses across the company and with our physical stores.”

“Walmart is a special company,” said Ashe. “Growing up in East Tennessee, I have seen first-hand the difference it can make in the lives of its customers. E-commerce gives us a huge opportunity to expand and bring savings to many more people around the world. We have great things ahead of us and I am eager to get started and join the talented team already in place.”

As president of CBS Interactive, based in San Francisco, Ashe led the interactive content business with operations in the U.S., Europe and China. After leading the successful integration of CNET Networks with CBS, he and his team leveraged existing company assets to ramp up CBS entertainment content distribution online, including making CBS.com the largest television network site in the industry.

Prior to this, Ashe was CEO of CNET Networks, initially best known for providing technology-related information, product reviews and price comparisons through CNET.com. He also oversaw dramatic development in the company’s China division, taking it from a small magazine and events operator to a highly profitable, fast-growing online business. During his tenure, the company’s value increased from $100 million to $1.8 billion. Ultimately, Ashe led the sale of the company to CBS and became president of CBS Interactive at that time.

Earlier, Ashe founded a company focused on using the Internet to improve K-12 education in the U.S. Prior to this, he was a partner and managing director at private investment firm Crest Communications Holdings and, before that, was an associate at Smith Barney, the investment bank now part of Citigroup.

Ashe has an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School and a B.S. in Business Administration, with a major in Finance, from Georgetown University. He serves on the boards of LivingSocial, AMC Networks and the Georgetown University Board of Regents.

Over the past year, Walmart has made investments in capabilities and talent as it continues to build Global eCommerce. It has also further strengthened its position through the acquisition of small Internet specialty companies and continues to expand in new markets such as China and Brazil, including a minority stake in Chinese Internet retailer Yihaodian.

Aside from that, customers who visit the shop will likely feel as though they’ve just walked into … an Apple Store.

The store features multiple areas, with sleek-looking tables set up for product viewing, testing and express purchasing. And, of course, there’s a Genius Bar, set up in the southwest corner of the space.

The Grand Central Terminal store is Apple’s fifth in New York City, adding to the company’s footprint of more than 300 stores worldwide. Bob Bridger, Apple’s vice president of retail and real estate development, said Apple has seen more than 12 million visitors in its New York stores this year, and more than 300 million visitors worldwide.

The Cupertino-based maker of the iPhone and iPad is in the midst of a notable retail expansion, though the company recently scaled back its schedule of large store openings in China, where demand for the popular iPhone 4 was said to outpace supply.

Grand Central is currently home to other retailers, including Banana Republic, Kenneth Cole, MAC Cosmetics, Papyrus and Rite Aid; plus a slew of coffee shops and newsstands, restaurants like Michael Jordan’s Steak House and the famed Campbell Apartment bar.

Apple’s lease arrangement with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which owns the space, has come into some question following a New York Post story about the terms of the lease, as the company has ramped up for the opening of this store.

The NYP and Associated Press report that Apple signed a 10-year lease with the MTA for the space once occupied by Metrazur restaurant, which got $5 million from Apple to clear out early; and that unlike other tenants in the building, Apple will not be sharing revenue with the transit authority. At $180 per square foot, Apple is also paying slightly less than other tenants in the space, but the MTA has said that cost reflects the $5 million payment to the restaurant, plus Apple’s $2.5 million capital investment in the space and a $1.1 million annual rate.

While the daily foot traffic through New York City’s Grand Central Terminal is somewhere around 750,000 people, according to the MTA, the Apple Store may do more for the other retailers in the commuter and subway train station than the station does for Apple.

One element of this Apple Store that’s different from others: The Grand Central Terminal Apple Store will offer 15-minute express classes on Apple products for commuters looking to kill some time.

It offers a personal pickup service that allows commuters using the Apple Store app to make a purchase using their iPhone and pick it up immediately upon arrival. The store also lets customers make purchases entirely on their own using a barcode scanner.

The store opens Friday, Dec. 9, at 10 am ET.

P.S.: A little history lesson for the kids: It is actually called Grand Central “Terminal” and not Grand Central “Station,” as it is commonly referred to. I’m talking to you, Beyonce!

In a blog post by one of its execs, titled “Flash to Focus on PC Browsing and Mobile Apps; Adobe to More Aggressively Contribute to HTML5,” Adobe said what had already been reported: That it would no longer be developing its well-known Flash for mobile devices.

Here’s the key graph:

“Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer continue to develop Flash Player in the browser to work with new mobile device configurations (chipset, browser, OS version, etc.) following the upcoming release of Flash Player 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry PlayBook. We will of course continue to provide critical bug fixes and security updates for existing device configurations. We will also allow our source code licensees to continue working on and release their own implementations.”

Last night, reports surfaced that the high-profile software company — whose Flash technology has been a flagship product — was halting development on the mobile version of its browser plug-in.

Now, Adobe will focus its PC Web browser business on tools that allow Flash developers to create mobile apps by packaging their code to run on Adobe’s AIR platform.

The move has big implications for Adobe going forward and also for mobile device makers, such as Google and Research In Motion. But not Apple.

As Ina Fried wrote:

“The move, if true, would be a major blow to Android device makers, who have long touted Flash compatibility as a key competitive advantage over Apple’s iPhone and iPad.

It would also mark a posthumous vindication for former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who took a controversial stand by not supporting Flash on Apple’s mobile products.”

Turns out Jobs was prescient, as usual.

Here is the full version of the Adobe blog:

Flash to Focus on PC Browsing and Mobile Apps; Adobe to More Aggressively Contribute to HTML5

POSTED BY DANNY WINOKUR, VICE PRESIDENT & GENERAL MANAGER, INTERACTIVE DEVELOPMENT AT ADOBE ON NOVEMBER 9, 2011 5:59 AM IN BUSINESS PROFESSIONALS, CREATIVE PROFESSIONALS, DEVELOPERS, VIDEO

Adobe is all about enabling designers and developers to create the most expressive content possible, regardless of platform or technology. For more than a decade, Flash has enabled the richest content to be created and deployed on the web by reaching beyond what browsers could do. It has repeatedly served as a blueprint for standardizing new technologies in HTML. Over the past two years, we’ve delivered Flash Player for mobile browsers and brought the full expressiveness of the web to many mobile devices.

However, HTML5 is now universally supported on major mobile devices, in some cases exclusively. This makes HTML5 the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms. We are excited about this, and will continue our work with key players in the HTML community, including Google, Apple, Microsoft and RIM, to drive HTML5 innovation they can use to advance their mobile browsers.

Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer continue to develop Flash Player in the browser to work with new mobile device configurations (chipset, browser, OS version, etc.) following the upcoming release of Flash Player 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry PlayBook. We will of course continue to provide critical bug fixes and security updates for existing device configurations. We will also allow our source code licensees to continue working on and release their own implementations.

These changes will allow us to increase investment in HTML5 and innovate with Flash where it can have most impact for the industry, including advanced gaming and premium video. Flash Player 11 for PC browsers just introduced dozens of new features, including hardware accelerated 3D graphics for console-quality gaming and premium HD video with content protection. Flash developers can take advantage of these features, and all that our Flash tooling has to offer, to reach more than a billion PCs through their browsers and to package native apps with AIR that run on hundreds of millions of mobile devices through all the popular app stores, including the iTunes App Store, Android Market, Amazon Appstore for Android and BlackBerry App World.

We are already working on Flash Player 12 and a new round of exciting features which we expect to again advance what is possible for delivering high definition entertainment experiences. We will continue to leverage our experience with Flash to accelerate our work with the W3C and WebKit to bring similar capabilities to HTML5 as quickly as possible, just as we have done with CSS Shaders. And, we will design new features in Flash for a smooth transition to HTML5 as the standards evolve so developers can confidently invest knowing their skills will continue to be leveraged.

We are super excited about the next generations of HTML5 and Flash. Together they offer developers and content publishers great options for delivering compelling web and application experiences across PCs and devices. There is already amazing work being done that is pushing the newest boundaries, and we can’t wait to see what is still yet to come!

I am here at Yahoo HQ in Sunnyvale, Calif., to check out “Product Runway,” which is the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s attempt to show that it can still innovate.

First and foremost is the launch of Livestand, a personalized news reader that is similar to Flipboard and a variety of other rivals, including — soon — Google.

It’s Yahoo’s attempt to present a business-as-usual feel — amidst a long and agonizing and very public strategic overview that might also include the sale of the company (or not!), in the wake of the recent firing of its last CEO, Carol Bartz.

It has caused a lot of trauma inside Yahoo, which can’t help with innovation.

But we press on!

In other words, despite the three-ring circus going on outside, Yahoo wants you to know it is still hard at work.

We begin:

10:35 am: As the strains of U2 die out, Yahoo Chief Product Officer Blake Irving takes the stage, which is actually set up in the company’s cafeteria. I can smell lunch being made nearby and I am hungry.

Apt — Yahoo certainly needs to show off a lot of cool stuff or its fate will be cooked.

No pressure, Blake!

“Personally, I am more bullish on Yahoo today,” he said. “What is Yahoo? Simple. It’s the premier digital media company. Period. Stop.”

Oh, if it were only that easy.

10:46 am: Irving pulls out his favorite slide, which looks like a chemistry test. It lists the various elements of the product strategy, with things like personalization, mobile, premium.

Now to Livestand, which is available on the Apple iTunes app store right now.

Don’t all rush at once!

Irving notes that Livestand is more than just an app — it is a platform.

In other words, Yahoo wants to help publishers publish online. Kind of a Facebook of content.

If Yahoo can pull it off, that is. (And, of course, unless Facebook decides to do the same.)

10:50 am: Livestand is an HTML5 “personalized living magazine.”

“This is the way Web pages are going to look,” declares Irving. Which is to say, heavy on photos, swoopy navigation, a television screen-like interface.

Irving uses the example of Surfer magazine, which is a good idea since waves always look pretty. Especially in a video-in-frame with Kelly Slater in Hawaii.

But, in essence, for anyone who has used Flipboard for years now, none of this is entirely different.

10:54 am: The look of what would be the Yahoo News page is actually much more interesting, since it is clearly a whole lot better than the Web page.

Irving also shows off a “living ad” — in this case, an unusually snuggly couple on a couch. It is cool, but creepy.

When launched, the ad has tap points. Irving — naughtily declaring about what is an ad, “I’ll tap that” — taps the lady’s butt, which would also have been my move. We learn about the jeans, of course.

10:58 am: Irving then shows off the ability to add feeds.

Next, something called “Cocktails.” First up, a developer tool called Yahoo Mojito and Yahoo Manhattan, which is a hosting service. The company will open-source both the technologies in 2012.

Irving brings up Mike Kerns, VP of Personalization & Social, who came to Yahoo when it bought the innovative sports fan site called Citizen Sports.

“We like to ship sh#t,” he notes. I like Mike Kerns immediately.

Kerns intros C.O.R.E. No, it is not a secret government organization that takes out fussy bloggers, who might be more critical than Yahoo execs would like.

In fact, it stands for “content optimization relevance engine.” Of course it does.

Simply put, C.O.R.E. is trying to link the right content or whatever to the right consumers and who likes what. Ladies like this, dudes like this. Apparently, “men of multiple ages” enjoy stories about golden chicken.

11:11 am: Kerns is moving on to social, especially its integration with Facebook. While much touted, sources tell me it has gone slower than expected in terms of use, but that it is improving.

Kerns talks about the idea of matching content to conversations to interests and, well, you know — the now exhausting world of modern media consumption.

The world in which you can no longer simply read an article and enjoy it — you must comment, share, discuss, parse, tweet.

Does anyone remember when you read something cool and just kept it to yourself?

Forget it, pal! It is a full-information society now and you better get on board and start poking your friends about every little thing.

(Personally, I plan on becoming a hermit in 3 … 2 … 1.)

11:18 am: Now Tim Parsey, who is Yahoo’s design head. He is hands down the most delightful exec the company has had in a while, mostly because he loves to smirk adorkably.

He shows off Yahoo’s first original design, which was a dull list. And then another really bad logo. But Parsey loves it! It’s kitschy!

Smirk attack!

Parsey moves into what has to happen now, which is to deliver a much more emotional experience and a much better designed one. He uses words like “humanism.”

Say what? He is right — Yahoo has for too long completely ignored design as an important part of the experience.

That’s why Flipboard was so quickly touted — it was pretty and fun. And it is why everyone is simply forced to love Apple products.

11:22 am: Parsey even has a code for it, called REM — for rational, emotional and meaningful.

He shows off a weather app. People take photos and they can be used in the app. Then Yahoo Mail for the iPad, whic is also handsome with photos and video. Livestand, also pretty.

“Great way to differentiate,” says Parsey. He calls it “one Yahoo!” Indeed.

11:35 am: I’ll admit it. After Parsey-fest, I zoned out for a sec when IntoNow dude, Adam Cahan, comes up.

Donut emergency!

Back to IntoNow, it’s the television indexing service that Yahoo bought in April.

Essentially, more ways to watch the media — in this case, video — and do 53 other things at the very same time. Memo to humanity: We will all be paying continuous partial attention for the rest of eternity.

Like I said: Hermitage!

11:41 am: Product dude Irving is back, making a point that, despite all the public mishegas, Yahoo has been busy at innovating.

A redo of email, better search, social “Facebar” with Facebook, Flickr for Google Android.

Irving is correct — Yahoo’s engineers have been hard at work and deserve kudos for doing so, even with attrition issues, stock declines and questions about the company’s very future being debated daily.

The problem is that too many of these improvements are mostly incremental and essentially table stakes for tech companies, most of whom have introed many more significant innovations in the same time frame as Yahoo has.

Google did Android, Google+ (as well as some notable failures). Microsoft did Kinect, Windows Phone, Windows 8. Amazon did Kindle Fire. Facebook did a range of major updates, as it has grown like a weed.

And there’s Apple. You might have heard of the iPhone and the iPad.

You get my point. Yahoo’s Product Runway today is well done, but what it really needs to be is just the beginning of a take-off.

11:48 am: Now Q&A time.

The first question is what took so long to get Livestand out, the second is why should people use Livestand since Flipboard and others have already been around for a dog’s age.

I ask about design — mostly because I want Parsey to use the word “delicious” a lot — and also about all the turmoil around the company and its impact on product creation. (I decide not to mention that Yahoo blew its acquisition of the bookmarking site, Delicious, and then sold it.)

Parsey delivers on the delicious scale, noting that Yahoo must have one design experience and yet has a lot of different interfaces. In other words, it cannot be Apple, but it can feel a lot more cohesive.

Irving talks a little bit around the obvious elephant in the room — the future of Yahoo — noting that the product staff was trying to focus and forget the storm going on outside.

“We have dreams about what this company can be,” says Irving.

You and me both, brother.

12:04 pm: More questions that are too detailed for my tastes, since they have delivered lunch and I can see it and I am ravenous.

As Parsey might say: It looks deliiiiiccccious.

Now, let’s hope Yahoo can do even more tasty stuff.

Today, we start posting the full videos from the recent AsiaD conference, which took place in Hong Kong earlier in October.

Over the next two weeks, we’re going to follow the schedule of the actual event, starting with the opening-night speaker, Google Android head Andy Rubin.

In this wide-ranging onstage interview with Walt Mossberg, Rubin talks about an array of mobile topics, including: Ice Cream Sandwich, which is Android 4.0; Google’s launch of the new Galaxy Nexus, the next-generation lead device, with its partner Samsung; Google’s upcoming music store; the integration to its pending acquisition of Motorola; and the impact of Apple’s Steve Jobs on technology.

And there’s a lot more from Rubin, so click away:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111031/google-android-head-andy-rubin-on-steve-jobs-google-music-and-moto-the-full-asiad-interview-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111028/news-reader-traffic-jam-yahoos-livestand-and-googles-propeller-set-to-launch-aiming-at-flipboard/ http://allthingsd.com/20111028/news-reader-traffic-jam-yahoos-livestand-and-googles-propeller-set-to-launch-aiming-at-flipboard/#comments Fri, 28 Oct 2011 12:35:03 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=137646

Memo to Flipboard, as well as Pulse, CNN’s Zite and AOL’s Editions: You might want to make some room in the already-crowded news and social reader space, because you’re about to get some bigfoot company.

Next Wednesday, according to sources close to the situation, Yahoo will finally officially unveil its offering, called Livestand.

And perhaps as early as next week or in the weeks soon after, Google will also weigh in with its version of the genre — code-named Propeller — which also might be the product’s name. Another moniker under strong consideration: Currents.

As I have previously reported, Google Propeller is an HTML5 reader for the Apple iPad and Android — essentially a souped-up version of similar apps such as Flipboard, AOL’s Editions, Zite (which was just bought by Time Warner’s CNN) and Pulse.

All these apps are part of the drastically changing habits of media consumers, helping users better navigate numerous social and media feeds — such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as news sites and more — using handsome interfaces and touch technologies on tablet devices.

Flipboard, the most prominent and elegant of these offerings, is now available only on the Apple iPad.

Flipboard’s traction among elite users, along with its high-level design ethos and strong reviews, is why Google tried to buy the well-funded company last year, sources said.

But Flipboard — which is backed by some of tech’s biggest venture players, who have invested more than $60 million at a $200 million valuation — declined the kind offer.

At the time, sources said, Google told Flipboard execs that if it did not buy the start-up, it planned to do a version of its own.

Hence, after I heard about the product earlier this year, I dubbed it the Flipinator.

According to sources, Propeller will launch with a plethora of media partners, as well as integration into the Google+ social network. The aim of the search giant is to offer media companies easy tools for publishing content on these devices, as well as a better path to monetization.

That is essentially the same plan at Yahoo, which has been working on Livestand with hopes of it being a product that will woo publishers into tight collaboration with the Silicon Valley Internet giant.

Livestand was announced by Yahoo’s now-fired CEO Carol Bartz in February, at a speech at the World Mobile Congress in Spain.

At the time, Bartz demoed a magazinelike platform that would allow publishers to put up content easily and give users the ability to personalize their selections based on search history and interests.

Bartz called it “content in context.” (You can see the demo video below.)

But while Bartz promised the product within three months, development has been slowed by its complex technologies, bugs and the need to sign on publishers.

Yahoo’s Chief Product Officer Blake Irving is pushing the product hard as a way for the company to reinvigorate its media products.

It’s not clear how many publishers Yahoo will have at launch, and neither are the distribution plans, beyond flacking it from the Web site and being present in app stores.

Google, on the other hand, has its Android platform to push out Propeller, although it all must work as well on Apple’s iPad, which is the dominant tablet on the market.

But just because both Yahoo and Google are big companies is by no means a guarantee of success — think Yahoo 360 or Google Wave or Buzz — and their lateness might be a hindrance.

And, in fact, other news reader apps are much further along. The leader, Flipboard, has already had four million downloads and 50 partnerships with leading publishers.

It also has started to introduce rich advertising products and, perhaps most importantly, has tight social integration with Twitter and Facebook.

There will be social elements on both Yahoo’s Livestand and Google’s Propeller. But news reading will be stressed more, making them more like Pulse, a tiny but highly innovative start-up.

Each of the existing apps will presumably compete by adding on more features. Pulse recently added cross-platform, cross-device syncing, while Flipboard is close to unveiling an iPhone version it has said it was working on.

Yahoo and Google PR declined comment.

Here is the Livestand demo video from February:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111028/news-reader-traffic-jam-yahoos-livestand-and-googles-propeller-set-to-launch-aiming-at-flipboard/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111004/final-asiad-speakers-apples-phil-schiller-and-former-vp-al-gore/ http://allthingsd.com/20111004/final-asiad-speakers-apples-phil-schiller-and-former-vp-al-gore/#comments Wed, 05 Oct 2011 00:15:32 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=128535

And then there was Schiller and Gore.

That would be Apple’s SVP of worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller and former Vice President Al Gore, who round out the stellar list of speakers at our upcoming AsiaD conference.

Taking place from Oct. 19 to 21 in Hong Kong, the lineup is already impressive, with a mix of speakers from China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan, as well as Silicon Valley and elsewhere.

The previously announced speakers include: Alibaba Group’s Jack Ma; Google Android head Andy Rubin; Twitter inventor and product guru, as well as Square co-founder and CEO, Jack Dorsey; Nvidia founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang; Asus Chairman Jonney Shih; Sony president and second-in-command Kazuo “Kaz” Hirai; Google+ guru Bradley Horowitz; Hollywood big shot Peter Chernin; Huawei’s North American R&D head John Roese; Microsoft’s Windows Phone head Andy Lees; and a panel of Silicon Valley start-up stars — Joyus’ Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, SurveyMonkey’s Dave Goldberg and Airbnb’s Brian Chesky; Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang and Asia head Rose Tsou; LivingSocial’s Tim O’Shaughnessy, along with founders of two of its Asian units, Daniel Shin and Paul Srivorakul; Samsung mobile head Dr. Won-Pyo Hong; HTC CEO Peter Chou, who replaces Chairwoman Cher Wang.

Schiller, who reports to Apple’s CEO Tim Cook (and before that, Steve Jobs) is a member of the executive team of the tech icon, where he has worked for 17 years. He is responsible for a swath of Apple’s outward-facing businesses, including product marketing, developer relations and business marketing.

Today, in fact, he was onstage at Apple’s iPhone event, outlining some of its new product offerings. In addition, Apple just opened its first retail store in Hong Kong.

Gore, who had a memorable interview at the fourth D: All Things Digital conference in 2006, needs little introduction. The former VP and Nobel Peace Prize winner is now chairman of Current TV and also continues as a prominent environmental activist.

Gore is on the board of Apple, while also being a senior adviser to Google, which is a neat trick. At the same time, he is a partner in the famed Silicon Valley venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins, and co-founder and chairman of Generation Investment Management, a partnership that is focused on sustainable investing.

And, as most people know, he knows a thing or two about the Internet.

Walt Mossberg and I could not think of two better people to add to the lineup we have for AsiaD, which has very few seats left.

See you in China in two weeks!

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111004/final-asiad-speakers-apples-phil-schiller-and-former-vp-al-gore/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110809/liveblogging-the-demand-media-q2-call/ http://allthingsd.com/20110809/liveblogging-the-demand-media-q2-call/#comments Tue, 09 Aug 2011 21:20:00 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=107797

Today, Demand Media beat Wall Street expectations in its second-quarter earning, growing revenue and lessening losses.

The Santa Monica, Calif., online content maker also announced that it had re-upped and expanded its advertising partnership with Google and also bought two start-ups in social media and advertising.

Now, it’s time for the inevitable conference call to explain it all to Wall Street analysts and the media.

2:02 pm PT: The call starts off with an unusually jaunty CEO Richard Rosenblatt, who quickly got to the real deal: Exactly how badly did Google’s changes to its search algorithm, under a program code-named Panda, hurt Demand’s content business?

Not much, says Rosenblatt, who reels off a list of things the company has done to improve its offerings, which have been dinged by many as, well, spam.

Rosenblatt was not having any of that, talking about removing 300,000 pieces of crappy content and also “quality improvements” with partners such as cheerily demented cooking goddess Rachael Ray. She might cook with spam — here is a delightful Spam Hawaiian recipe — but she ain’t spam!

2:13 pm: Now it is on to the acquisition of IndieClick. Essentially: It’s for the young people.

Then, international. Latin America Demand editorial via eHow en español! (Actually, the acquisition of Emergincast.com, an Argentine start-up. Coming soon to a blog site near you: ¿Cómo se hierve el agua?

Last, social media. Demand will be doing a lot more of it, like everyone else in the world, including more recommendations. I would really like it if some Internet company said it was going anti-social.

2:18 pm: The finance guy comes on, covering everything already in the press releases. Which is why I am cutting out here and getting a gluten-free doughnut at the Whole Foods store where I am writing this post.

It is as delicious as you might imagine a gluten-free doughnut can be. Which is to say: Not very!

2:32 pm: Q&A time from the Wall Street dudes — and, let it be said, they are all dudes.

The first question is about the “cleansing” of its cruddy content and if it is all flushed out.

It might be baked-on sludge, but Rosenblatt assures that Demand has it all figured out.

Then, a query about international and how the company decides what to pick. Algo, of course! And local content writers.

Back to the spam content: Does the need to have better content mean less of it? Kind of, since there is a lot more video. But still a lot of content churning out of Demand!

A question about Facebook and how to program Demand content into it. Good lord, it’s hyper-poking!

“It’s not clear the best way of how you expand into all these properties,” said Rosenblatt, specifically referring to its acquisition today of both IndieClick and RSS Graffiti.

The next question is how successful Demand is in the display and brand business, and how IndieClick, a premium ad company aimed at niche blogs, will be integrated in.

More on social media advertising’s future. Aaaghh, this is as obvious as a store-bought-crust apple pie baked by Rachael Ray.

Rosenblatt notes that its flagship site, eHow, is but one means of distribution, but Demand content is going all over the place and winging by people when they least expect it.

“Social is more effective … to try to find stuff you didn’t know that you needed,” says Rosenblatt, who also would not dis search as a means of discovery.

That’s important, since Google is a major traffic driver and advertising partner, when it is not terrorizing Demand and others with its search algo version of Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor Snape.

And presto, here comes a question about Demand’s Google ad relationship, which Rosenblatt touts nicely.

Of course he does. It’s tastier than spam, after all.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110809/liveblogging-the-demand-media-q2-call/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110712/jawbone-nabs-70-million-in-a-jammed-box-of-funding/ http://allthingsd.com/20110712/jawbone-nabs-70-million-in-a-jammed-box-of-funding/#comments Tue, 12 Jul 2011 19:30:07 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=97072

Jawbone, the maker of elegant mobile and wireless devices, has added $70 million in funding to its coffers, with a new investment from J.P. Morgan Asset Management.

The San Francisco-based company has now raised a total of $170 million, which includes a recent $49 million venture round from high-profile Silicon Valley VC firm Andreessen Horowitz in March.

Jawbone also has raised money from Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures and a number of prominent angel investors.

All are making a big bet on consumer electronics, an always dicey arena, and on Jawbone’s innovative products, such as its initial Bluetooth headsets.

The start-up has more recently expanded its offerings to the Jambox Smart Speaker, which has become a fast-selling wireless speaker.

Both have been particularly popular with Apple users, and Jawbone has been prominently featured in its retail stores.

Jawbone CEO Hosain Rahman certainly sounds like Apple CEO Steve Jobs when he talks about an all-encompassing digital solution.

“We’re going to get into some new categories of products,” said Rahman, about what he plans to do with the new funding, especially around making smaller, embedded and wearable devices. “We want to be an end-to-end experience.”

While he would not be specific, Rahman said that this area of computing is changing to encompass the entire mobile lives of its consumers.

“We want to leverage the power of the tool in your pocket,” he said. “This is just the beginning.”

Here’s the official press release from Jawbone:

JAWBONE SECURES $70M IN GROWTH FUNDING FROM J.P. MORGAN ASSET MANAGEMENT

Jawbone to Expand its Products and Services for the Mobile Lifestyle

SAN FRANCISCO –- July 12, 2011 –- Jawbone, a leading innovator of products and services for the mobile lifestyle, today announced it has secured $70 million in funding from investors advised by J.P. Morgan Asset Management.

Jawbone is one of the largest privately-held, venture capital-backed consumer electronics companies in the world, and this round brings total investment in Jawbone close to $170 million to date. The funding will allow Jawbone to continue its rapid growth and expand into new markets and categories, building on its successful portfolio of premium mobile products and services.

“We seek to invest in the best high-growth companies,” said Larry Unrein, managing director of J.P. Morgan Asset Management. :Given the widespread adoption of smartphones globally, we are seeing a massive shift in user expectations around having a complete, high-quality and seamless experience wherever they are. Jawbone, with its long-standing expertise in mobile user experience, has been delighting customers by enabling them to get the most out of their smartphones through a combination of cutting-edge technology and great design. We believe Jawbone is poised to be the next great mobile computing company coming out of Silicon Valley.”

“Funding from J.P. Morgan Asset Management is fantastic for us as we continue to rapidly expand our business,” said Hosain Rahman, CEO of Jawbone. “As people’s digital lives become increasingly centered around mobile devices, we see no shortage of opportunities for our technology and products to unlock the potential of a full mobile experience. The support of J.P. Morgan Asset Management will help us be even more aggressive in our pursuit of these opportunities.”

Jawbone’s innovation has resulted in unprecedented demand for its products and services on a global scale. The company is known for leading and disrupting categories with its breakthrough software, strong commitment to design, and award-winning products.

“Jawbone is one of the most important mobile companies with which Sequoia Capital has partnered,” said Roelof Botha, partner at Sequoia Capital and Jawbone board member. “Jawbone’s relentless building of great products that consumers love gives the company a unique ability to redefine established markets. We are delighted to have J.P. Morgan Asset Management on board.”

Jawbone first made its mark in the industry by creating an entirely new class of intelligent Bluetooth® headsets, and has successfully expanded its portfolio of products for the past decade. The JAMBOX Smart Speaker™ is one of the best-selling speakers globally, and the recently-launched Jawbone ERA™ headset is the first to include HD audio and motion sensors.

For more information, images and product demos, please visit www.Jawbone.com/Press, or follow @Jawbone on Twitter.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110712/jawbone-nabs-70-million-in-a-jammed-box-of-funding/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110708/viral-video-apple-fan-girl-who-rule-the-world-beyonce/ http://allthingsd.com/20110708/viral-video-apple-fan-girl-who-rule-the-world-beyonce/#comments Fri, 08 Jul 2011 13:56:40 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=95736 This is a spoof from Electric Spoofaloo of Beyoncé’s “Run the World (Girls)” mashed up with Apple’s retail stores.

Okay, it’s Friday.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110708/viral-video-apple-fan-girl-who-rule-the-world-beyonce/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110228/att-adds-amazons-kindle-to-shelves-in-move-that-hints-at-retail-expansion/ http://allthingsd.com/20110228/att-adds-amazons-kindle-to-shelves-in-move-that-hints-at-retail-expansion/#comments Mon, 28 Feb 2011 14:30:26 +0000 Ina Fried http://mobilized.allthingsd.com/?p=4400 AT&T is announcing today its plans to start selling Amazon’s Kindle via its nationwide network of more than 2,000 stores.

While somewhat interesting on its own, the deal highlights the potential for Ma Bell and other cell phone carriers to add a broader array of electronics to their shelves as more and more gadgets start including cell phone technology.

Because of the highly competitive nature of the cell phone market, carriers have built up huge nationwide retail footprints with thousands of stories–some just blocks away from one another in the nation’s busiest downtown areas. Until recently, these stores have served as little more than places to buy or service a phone and its accessories.

In recent years, the stores have expanded their reach somewhat. AT&T for example, also pitches bundles with other services, such as its U-Verse television service. These days, one can also find netbooks with cellular capabilities as well as the kinds of cards and portable hotspots that allow standard laptops to get Internet access on the go.

Unlike those products, however, the Kindle isn’t sold with a cellular contract. Rather, the cost of service is built into Amazon’s business model, where the user pays an upfront cost for the device and a price per book that is enough to cover Amazon’s cost for sending the book, in many cases over AT&T’s network. While the Kindle is the best known of these devices, there are hundreds of products that tap an embedded cellular connection–devices ranging from navigation units to photo frames to pill bottles that remind people to take their medication.

Already there are some 11 million “emerging devices” on the company’s network, with 2 million of those products sold in last year’s fourth quarter alone. Over time, AT&T sees an opportunity to sell more of these products from within its own stores.

Glenn Lurie, who heads the AT&T unit that focuses on this new class of devices, said that the company is planning a dedicated section for such products.

“We believe we should have all of our devices available in our 2200 retail stores for our more than 95 million customers that shop there,” he said in a statement to Mobilized. For more from Lurie, check out his on-stage appearance at last year’s D: Dive Into Mobile conference.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110228/att-adds-amazons-kindle-to-shelves-in-move-that-hints-at-retail-expansion/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110210/verizon-iphone-lines-inversely-proportional-to-verizon-iphone-rumors/ http://allthingsd.com/20110210/verizon-iphone-lines-inversely-proportional-to-verizon-iphone-rumors/#comments Thu, 10 Feb 2011 17:25:09 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=57551 After the nearly interminable buildup to the iPhone’s launch on Verizon–the years of anticipation, rumors and speculation–you’d think the device’s official debut would be given a fervid reception by the folks clamoring for it. You’d think eager buyers would be camping out in front of their local Apple Store. You’d think Verizon Stores would literally be overrun with frustrated AT&T iPhone users looking for relief.

But evidently that’s not the case.

Pre-orders were huge, of course, cutting down the need for people to go out to a store, so early reports from around the country revealed a far more sedate response to a long-awaited event that ironically seems pretty uneventful. Fifteen minutes before the the Verizon iPhone went on sale, there were just eight people in line at Apple’s flagship store in New York, according to CNNMoney. At a lower-Manhattan Verizon store, 21 people queued up to buy the iPhone.

The scene was largely the same around the country, according to other reports: 20 folks at a Gainesville Verizon Store, 10 at another in Plainview, a dozen in Milwaukee, a “few dozen” in Lincoln, Neb.,. And before you the blame cold temperatures for the modest turnout, consider this: The line in front of Apple’s Stockton Street flagship store in San Francisco this morning was just two people long. Said News.com’s Marguerite Reardon, “Upon arriving here about five minutes (before the 7 a.m. opening of the store), there were literally more Apple Store employees, police officers and reporters–each–than people in line to buy iPhones.”

So, a pretty staid turnout for a device that’s generated such monomaniacal interest for so long. That said, it’s important to remember that Verizon isn’t launching the iPhone into a market with a vast untapped demand for it. In reality, most folks who absolutely had to have an iPhone bought one from AT&T. And those who refused to leave Verizon to do so likely pre-ordered one last week. In the end, the lines (or lack thereof) we’re seeing today have very little to do with how big a seller the iPhone will be for Verizon (and for proof of that, one need only look to foreign markets with multiple iPhone carriers). Sales estimates vary pretty widely, but many suggest Apple will sell between 9 million and 13 million iPhones through Verizon this year–a big boost no matter how you look at it. The big lines will return with the debut of iPhone 5.

PREVIOUSLY: Verizon’s iPhone Sales So Amazing They Can’t Even Put a Number On It

[Image Credit: Christine Bartolucci ]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110210/verizon-iphone-lines-inversely-proportional-to-verizon-iphone-rumors/feed/ 23 http://allthingsd.com/20110201/salesforce-buys-manymoon/ http://allthingsd.com/20110201/salesforce-buys-manymoon/#comments Tue, 01 Feb 2011 21:44:04 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=40098

Salesforce.com has bought Manymoon, the social productivity start-up.

The price of the acquisition was not disclosed, but one source put the sale at between $25 million and $35 million.

Manymoon makes one of the more popular tools on Google’s apps platform.

The San Francisco company, funded with only a small seed funding round by Harrison Metal, offers an online collaboration app that businesses and consumers can use to organize group projects, conversations, tasks or documents that are often done via email or other software.

Manymoon is rather typical of the innovative app makers the search giant has been courting to populate its marketplace.

Salesforce.com has been moving aggressively into social networking in the enterprise arena with its Chatter offering and more.

Earlier today, in fact, it was also part of a $4 million funding of Seesmic, the social dashboard app maker.

Here is the Manymoon blog post–which just went up–on the sale, as well as a video interview BoomTown did with its co-founders Amit Kulkarni and Manav Monga, just as Manymoon joined the Google Apps Marketplace store rollout in March:

Manymoon Acquired by Salesforce.com

February 1, 2011

Today we are excited to announce that Manymoon has been acquired by salesforce.com!

Manymoon has experienced tremendous growth since our launch, with more than 50,000 businesses adopting our social productivity app. We’ve launched on three major web platforms: Google Apps, LinkedIn, and the Google Chrome Web Store. We think we’re on to something special, building an easy-to-use application that integrates with the tools you already use to help you get work done. Over 1,000 new businesses choose Manymoon each week to track any type of work activity with anyone from anywhere.

We’re looking forward to even more growth in 2011, and are thrilled to now be part of salesforce.com, the leader in enterprise cloud computing, to continue to deliver an amazing social productivity application for everyone to use.

What Does This Mean for Manymoon Customers?

We’ll still be the Manymoon that helps you get work done. The Manymoon team will remain intact and will operate as a separate business within salesforce.com so we can continue our focus on building a great social app that makes our customers more productive and successful every day.

The Manymoon you know and love will remain the same:

* Manymoon Standard, our free product, will continue to be available for existing and new customers. In fact, we’ll continue to add features to our free product. And, if you want to upgrade, you are welcome to do that through the Manymoon website whenever you like.

* Existing premium features, subscriptions and price points will remain unchanged.

* Manymoon will continue to work with Google Apps, LinkedIn and the Chrome Web Store. And, we will continue to develop new features to enhance support of these platforms.

*We’ll continue to support our customers in the Manymoon Support Universe.

Salesforce.com and Manymoon Together

Our approach to the market remains unchanged: work with the tools that people already use online (Google Apps, LinkedIn, Chrome), build an app that requires no training or setup, focus on serving the daily productivity needs of professionals and be on the cutting edge of the latest technologies like HTML5. As we’ve grown, we’ve learned that serving customers is more than just building an app with nifty features. It includes providing scalability, security, performance and support–all areas in which salesforce.com has a proven track record.

Like most startups, we admire salesforce.com as the original cloud computing company that made this industry possible. Over the last 12 years salesforce.com has been an evangelist and driver for bringing applications, platforms and collaboration to the cloud. We’re excited to be part of their vision for cloud, social and mobile, utilize their knowledge and experience to build a world-class social productivity app, and move even faster in delivering new capabilities to you!

What’s Next?

We are going to invest more in what you’ve told us you like about Manymoon: Google Apps, LinkedIn and Chrome Web Store support. You can expect to see many of the key social productivity features you’ve requested released in the near future. We’re also going to be working on some exciting, new developments in the coming months…so stay tuned!

Thanks,

The Manymoon Team

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110201/salesforce-buys-manymoon/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20110124/apples-app-downloads-are-booming-apples-app-revenues-are/ http://allthingsd.com/20110124/apples-app-downloads-are-booming-apples-app-revenues-are/#comments Mon, 24 Jan 2011 15:08:23 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=28474 A year ago, Apple’s customers had downloaded three billion apps. Now that number has jumped to 10 billion.

That’s an astonishing jump, and it speaks volumes about the growth, and usage, of Apple’s iTunes/iPhone/iPad/iPod ecosystem.

It’s harder to figure out what it means for Apple’s financials, but we can guess: Not nearly as much.

App downloads increased 233 percent in the last year. But revenue growth at the iTunes store, which distributes them, is much more modest.

In Apple’s last fiscal year, which ran up to Sept. 25, 2010, iTunes revenue grew roughly 23 percent. During Apple’s most recent quarter, iTunes revenue grew at the same rate.

Apple also sells music and videos, and now books via iTunes as well, but doesn’t provide any breakdown by category, so anything beyond those stats is guesswork. (And even getting to iTunes revenue numbers requires a small leap of faith*.)

But for what it’s worth, I’m assuming that revenue from apps is increasing at a faster clip than the numbers above suggest. Because digital music sales, which used to power iTunes sales, are slowing.

In any case, it shouldn’t be a huge shock to see that big app-download numbers don’t translate into big dollars for Apple, since the majority of app downloads are free.

Still, it’s a good reminder that Apple has always maintained it’s not trying to make money with the iTunes store–it’s a “bit over break-even,” CFO Peter Oppenheimer said last year.

iTunes’ real job is to give people more reasons to buy Apple’s hardware. And that’s working out very well indeed.

*iTunes revenue requires a bit of guesswork, because Apple doesn’t usually break out the store’s numbers, but lumps them into a “music related products and services” category, which includes accessories, etc. But the vast majority of that total comes from iTunes. And in the last quarter, Apple gave us something much closer to a real iTunes number: “revenue exceeding $1.1 billion.” FYI: That works out to about 77 percent of Apple’s “music-related products” number for that quarter.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110124/apples-app-downloads-are-booming-apples-app-revenues-are/feed/ 14 http://allthingsd.com/20110104/how-to-open-a-beer-bottle-with-a-magazine-is-that-a-web-ad-worth-saving/ http://allthingsd.com/20110104/how-to-open-a-beer-bottle-with-a-magazine-is-that-a-web-ad-worth-saving/#comments Tue, 04 Jan 2011 22:01:27 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=27612 It’s not just me! News that AdKeeper, the start-up that wants Web surfers to save ads they like, has raised $35 million has lots of people scratching their heads. You can see a pretty enlightened debate about the company’s chances over at Quora (first time I’ve ever typed those words in a post, so that’s interesting, too).

But I’ll take one more crack at it here, anyway.

Almost everyone ignores almost every Web ad they see, which makes AdKeeper’s mission pretty tough: Who’s going to save an ad they’re not going to pay attention to?

But AdKeeper says that advertisers will learn to create more engaging and relevant ads. Okay. Let’s say that happens. Why do you need a Web locker to store them?

Here, for instance, is a cool, novel ad that’s worth looking at. Not just the video below, but the entire Web page where the ad resides, which includes a beer-opening schematic that you can print out if you’d like.

But even so–do you really need to save this one? Or are you happy to watch it once and perhaps pass it along to a friend?

Carlsberg could make it more save-worthy, I suppose, by attaching a coupon or some other kind of offer to the ad. But even then, I’m not sure how many people would be interested in collecting the ad–and more important, remembering to check back and look at it again.

But again, we’ll see. AdKeeper CEO Scott Kurnit says he’ll launch this thing by mid-February, and sometime after that, we can come back and see who’s saving what and assess this again.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110104/how-to-open-a-beer-bottle-with-a-magazine-is-that-a-web-ad-worth-saving/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110104/deutsche-bank-joins-the-running-of-the-apple-bulls/ http://allthingsd.com/20110104/deutsche-bank-joins-the-running-of-the-apple-bulls/#comments Tue, 04 Jan 2011 18:32:16 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=55043 Expect another record-breaking quarter when Apple reports earnings later this month.

With strong global demand for its products and few retail stock-outs over the holidays, Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Whitmore believes the company racked up sales above already lofty expectations. And he raised his estimate on Apple today, following channel checks that revealed better-than-anticipated iPad and Mac demand and unwavering demand for the iPhone–even ahead of an expected Verizon announcement.

Over the holidays, Whitmore’s team checked up on 50-plus Apple Stores and retail partners, and found long lines, heavy store traffic and limited stock-outs at the majority of them.

“Apple continues to benefit from the strongest product offering in its history and the strong double-barreled product cycle is driving massive global demand for iPads and iPhones,” Whitmore said. “Both categories are benefiting from additional carriers, international expansion and limited competition. In addition, while we expect an onslaught of new tablet announcements at CES this year, we do not expect material competition to arrive until the second half of 2011. We have not seen anything that matches Apple’s iOS product suite in terms of form factor, usability, integrated hardware/software and the breadth and depth of the App store.”

Whitmore now expects Apple to sell 60 million iPhones in calendar 2011, up from 55 million. And that’s without a Verizon iPhone. With it, he says, iPhone sales should rise by another five million to seven million units. “We expect a CDMA based iPhone to be a significant positive for AAPL with limited cannibalization at AT&T,” he said. “Our DB colleague Brett Feldman, who covers Telecom Services, estimates that Verizon will add roughly 15M iPhones in 2011 with 6M cannibalized from AT&T.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110104/deutsche-bank-joins-the-running-of-the-apple-bulls/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101231/runkeeper-hopes-to-be-your-app-for-that-new-years-resolution/ http://allthingsd.com/20101231/runkeeper-hopes-to-be-your-app-for-that-new-years-resolution/#comments Fri, 31 Dec 2010 20:59:13 +0000 Liz Gannes http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/?p=1866 FitnessKeeper, the mobile fitness app maker for the iPhone and Android, has found a variety of ways to get its users to pay to track their runs, bike rides and other activities using GPS. It offers a RunKeeper Pro app for $9.99, with premium features such as audio cues and interval training; an Elite subscription service for $19.99 per year that allows users to live-broadcast their activities and get reports on their progress; and specific training programs (usually $9.99 each for non-members).

Confused by all those options? There’s also a basic RunKeeper app that has enough tracking and reporting features for many users and has always been free. I wrote recently about its social features.

Apple recently said RunKeeper Pro was one of its top-grossing apps of 2010. FitnessKeeper, a small Boston-based start-up that just raised $1.1 million in funding, wouldn’t disclose revenue or download numbers, but said it has been cash-flow positive every month since it was founded two-and-a-half years ago.

The company announced this week it would take down one part of its pay barrier from now through the end of January, giving away RunKeeper Pro for free during New Year’s resolution season.

Launched yesterday on iPhone, that promotion has already been highly successful, with 171,000 RunKeeper Pro downloads yesterday on the iPhone, more than 10 times as many as it gets in a normal day. The app is currently quickly climbing the Apple App Store charts, now at No. 5 in the free app category (it was No. 12 this morning). The promotion is also launching on Android this afternoon.

And as of this writing, it’s only New Year’s resolution time in about half the world.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101231/runkeeper-hopes-to-be-your-app-for-that-new-years-resolution/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101229/whats-in-store-for-technology-in-2011/ http://allthingsd.com/20101229/whats-in-store-for-technology-in-2011/#comments Thu, 30 Dec 2010 02:03:49 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://ptech.allthingsd.com/?p=1707 It has been a big year in personal technology, from the debut and early success of Apple’s iPad, to the rise and continuous improvement of Google’s Android smart phone platform, to the continued surge in social services led by Facebook and Twitter.

So I thought I’d take a look at the challenges and opportunities facing some major players in consumer tech in 2011. As with all my columns, this one is focused only on products and services provided directly to consumers, rather than to businesses. Also, as usual, this column isn’t meant to offer investment advice or to evaluate the management skills or financial condition of companies. It is a look at the products and competitive positions of the key contenders as they enter the new year.

Apple: Coming off a highly successful 2010, in which it introduced a new category of portable computer—the multitouch tablet—and sold millions of the product, Apple will have to withstand an onslaught of competitors by wowing consumers again with the second version of the iPad. At the same time, it will have to make a widely expected transition for the iPhone from a single carrier in the U.S., AT&T, to a second, likely Verizon. This could present a new opportunity to reach lots of new customers, but the sleek phone will have to work well on different network technology. At the same time, Apple will be hoping its planned new Macintosh operating system, Lion, can preserve the surprising momentum of the high-priced Mac, which the company is trying to enhance with certain iPad-like features, such as an app store and longer battery life.

Apple’s iPad will face an onslaught of competition in the coming year.

In 2011, Apple also is likely to try to address two areas where it has been weak: cloud computing and social networking. Both its MobileMe cloud service and its Ping social network had rough starts, and MobileMe charges $100 a year for services others give away. Apple is so popular, it has a huge opportunity to link users of its family of devices and of iTunes via the cloud and social networks, but it will have to aim higher and execute better. The second area where it likely hopes to improve is in the living room. The new, cheaper Apple TV is selling better than its predecessor but still lacks much Internet content. To break through, Apple will have to strike landmark deals with media companies.

Google: The search giant, also riding high, is now in so many product areas it competes with nearly everyone. In its core search business, it must focus on fending off a surprisingly strong challenge from Microsoft’s Bing by giving consumers more attractive, actionable results. Its Android operating system is a big hit, but still isn’t as polished or easy to use as the iPhone’s software, and even a Google official admitted it is still “an enthusiast product for early adopters.” One big test will be the forthcoming Honeycomb version of Android, meant for tablets that challenge the iPad.

A separate group at Google will try in 2011 to revolutionize the PC operating-system business and muscle in on incumbents Microsoft and Apple. Its new Chrome OS will power notebooks that essentially act as Web browsers, and run programs stored in the cloud, not on a hard disk. They also store all your files in the cloud. We’ll learn in 2011 how many consumers are comfortable with that approach.

Google also may take another whack at social networking, where it hasn’t made much of a dent after its Buzz service failed to take off. And it will have to rework its overly complex Google TV effort to bring Internet video to the living room.

Microsoft: The software giant still generates strong consumer loyalty with its older products, like Windows and Office and Xbox, all of which have had updates in the past year or two. But it faces big challenges in two hot areas: smart phones and tablets. Its new Windows Phone 7 platform has some nice design features, but also some missing capabilities that need to be addressed. Initial sales seem respectable, but will have to accelerate to get Microsoft back in a game it once led. The company also is a long way from the 300,000 apps available for the iPhone or the 100,000 for Android.

In tablets, Microsoft is hinting that a new version of Windows is being designed with a tablet focus to complement its PC focus. That product can’t be too late, given the rapid rise of the iPad and the many planned Android and other tablets for 2011. One golden opportunity Microsoft has is to expand the reach of its brilliant Kinect technology for games to other forms of computing. This system can recognize individual users and interpret gestures without the use of a controller device.

Meanwhile, Microsoft hopes to seize on a surge in concern about privacy to help keep its diminishing lead in browsers by building new privacy features, unavailable so far in other browsers, into the 2011 version of Internet Explorer.

RIM: The BlackBerry maker had a good 2010 in some ways, though sales were propped up by two-for-one giveaways, and consumer surveys show enthusiasm fading for the iconic smart phone. It needs a radically new user interface to keep up with iPhone and Android, and a lot more third-party apps. But it can’t afford to alienate its fan base. The company has an answer: a new software platform called QNX, but is vague on when that will show up on the BlackBerry. For 2011, RIM’s big move will be a new QNX-based tablet, the PlayBook, which looks speedy and highly attractive in the limited demos RIM has provided. What isn’t clear is how much the PlayBook will be aimed at consumers, as company officials have consistently stressed its appeal to businesses.

HP: The technology behemoth’s laptops and printers have proved popular with consumers. But it hasn’t had any real presence in smart-phones, tablets or consumer cloud services. To solve the problems, in 2010 HP bought innovative but struggling Palm, whose smart-phone operating system, webOS, and phones, the Pre and Pixi, got good reviews but sold poorly and didn’t attract many third-party apps. In 2011, HP hopes to use its ample money and talent to revive webOS with new phones and tablets to challenge Apple and Android. A successful Palm re-launch, with the new initiatives from RIM and Microsoft, would be good for consumers by providing more choice and competition. HP also hopes to boost home printing with a new line of printers that can print anything emailed across the Internet and wirelessly print from Apple’s hand-held devices.

Facebook and Twitter: The twin leaders in social networking were red-hot in 2010, attracting vast numbers of users. They have huge opportunities for further success, but face challenges. Smaller services, like social-coupon company Groupon, continue to emerge with new social and community ideas consumers like. Apple and Google could be big headaches if they get social right in 2011. Facebook must continue its recent initiative to let members share personal details with more limited groups of friends, and to find ways to make money while offering more privacy, which has been a thorn in its side. Twitter is on a mission to get more than an active minority to post, while convincing people it is a valuable way to keep up with news and opinion even if you never post.

Despite the poor economy, the consumer-tech companies continue to show vibrancy, innovation and success. But every year brings challenges and surprises, and 2011 promises to be another fascinating ride.

For all of Walt’s columns and videos, go to the All Things Digital site, walt.allthingsd.com.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at walt.mossberg@wsj.com

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101229/whats-in-store-for-technology-in-2011/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101229/mobile-security-firm-warns-of-new-android-trojan/ http://allthingsd.com/20101229/mobile-security-firm-warns-of-new-android-trojan/#comments Wed, 29 Dec 2010 21:40:34 +0000 Ina Fried http://mobilized.allthingsd.com/?p=1490 Lookout Mobile Security, which just raised fresh capital to boost its fight against mobile malware, said it has identified the peskiest cellphone threat to date.

The Android Trojan, dubbed Geinimi, has cropped up in China and is capable of taking a significant amount of personal data and sending it to remote servers.

Lookout said Geinimi displays botnet-like qualities and is the most sophisticated wireless malware it has seen. Thus far, infected programs have only been seen on various Chinese app stores.

“Geinimi is effectively being ‘grafted’ onto repackaged versions of legitimate applications, primarily games, and distributed in third-party Chinese Android app markets,” Lookout said in a blog post on Wednesday. “The affected applications request extensive permissions over and above the set that is requested by their legitimate original versions.”

The security firm said it has already updated both the paid and free versions of its software to protect against Geinimi.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101229/mobile-security-firm-warns-of-new-android-trojan/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101221/ebays-giftsnearby-taps-into-last-minute-offline-shopping/ http://allthingsd.com/20101221/ebays-giftsnearby-taps-into-last-minute-offline-shopping/#comments Wed, 22 Dec 2010 03:17:24 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://emoney.allthingsd.com/?p=924 EBay has launched an offshoot of its main site called GiftsNearby, which helps holiday shoppers pick up last-minute presents based on local inventory. In particular, a special relationship was formed with Best Buy that lets users pay for products online and then pick them up at the store. For eBay, it extends the shopping season beyond limitations of the post office. The service leverages information from Milo.com, a company eBay acquired earlier this month.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101221/ebays-giftsnearby-taps-into-last-minute-offline-shopping/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101221/trying-out-a-revamped-myspace/ http://allthingsd.com/20101221/trying-out-a-revamped-myspace/#comments Tue, 21 Dec 2010 23:02:26 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://solution.allthingsd.com/?p=1581 Thanks to the popularity of Facebook, it’s easy to assume that all social networks are designed primarily to connect friends with one another. But many of these networks—think Twitter, Yelp and LinkedIn—aren’t focused on that. Instead, they provide information from strangers, business contacts and group postings on a variety of topics. Myspace is now also shifting in this direction after Facebook decisively overtook it as the most popular social network.

Last month, the company rolled out a revamped version of Myspace, which is owned by News Corp., publisher of the Wall Street Journal. I’ve been testing it to see what has changed and if it’s worth using. Its interface is cleaner than the old version of Myspace and I found it easy to navigate. It’s also inviting for non-members or people who’ve long-since given up on Myspace. But I can’t definitely say I like it enough to add it to my large list of social networks.

Step one of this site’s rehab was a new focus. Myspace (myspace.com) was redesigned to serve as a source of information about entertainment. People who use it can follow five categories—TV, music, movies, celebrities and comedy—that include more than 100,000 topics. News about these topics comes from sites all over the Web and is arranged on users’ home pages to show loads of information at a glance. A Discovery tab at the top of the page shows content related to trends on Myspace makes suggestions based on a user’s preferences and taste. A spokesman said the Myspace topics can be expanded, but for now, if you’re fonder of, say, books, theater or hard news, Myspace won’t be a good fit.

Step two for Myspace included making nice with its old competitor. It now works with Facebook Connect to pull in people’s Facebook “likes” and interests, which automatically generate customized Myspace pages for new users.

The final step of the Myspace redesign was its emphasis on music. The site still contains one of the largest Web music catalogs that plays full versions of songs for anyone who visits Myspace. New versions of band profile pages look more organized. And all artists with band profiles will have ReverbNation’s FanReach email product integrated into their profile to help them create targeted email campaigns for fans.

Was Myspace’s rehabilitation worth the effort? I’ve been using it for a week and it has taught me a lot more than I knew about things I care about. I had no idea that one of my favorite TV shows, TNT’s “The Closer,” recently said that 2011 would be its last season. Nor did I know that Anthony Bourdain blogs about his role as a judge on “Top Chef Masters.” These items and others appeared on my Home page after I performed the process that the Myspace site refers to as a Facebook Mashup.

The Facebook Mashup does a few things automatically for you, in addition to generating a Myspace page filled with topic-related news. A playlist is created in the Music section of your page that contains artists whom you “like” on Facebook (or whom you indicated while setting up an account). And the Videos section of the Myspace page will reflect your tastes in a list of Followed Channels related to your Facebook preferences.

The Home page can be seen in one of three views—List, Grid or Play—and icons at the top of the screen let users toggle among these views. My favorite was Grid View in the Full Grid View format, visible by clicking a small box at the top of the page.

Some of the content displayed on my Home page was mixed up. For example, a tile representing the story about Mr. Bourdain’s blog (originally posted on Celebrifi.com) displayed with it a photo of actor Tom Cruise, who wasn’t mentioned in that post. Another Tom, Tom Colicchio, chef and a “Top Chef Masters” judge, was mentioned in the post, but that doesn’t explain the mix-up.

Anything that falls into the 100,000 plus topics of Myspace’s realm can be found via a search box in the top right corner of the page, but this box is confusingly labeled, “Search People.” Though Myspace still allows users to search for and friend one another, the label on this search box is puzzling, given the greater reach of the site.

You can watch video content from Hulu.com (of which News Corp. is part owner) without jumping to a new page. And videos also come from other sources like TMZ and the NFL.

Users can earn recognition badges—icons that show up on their page—for their involvement on Myspace, and can become curators of topics, awarded on the basis of users’ involvement and how much other people respond to their activity.

This week, a Myspace mobile app was launched in Apple’s App Store, and an Android app is due out next year.

Myspace successfully reinvented itself in a way that could very well get people using it again, but Facebook’s more personalized social network may be more valuable than a rich library of entertainment content.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101221/trying-out-a-revamped-myspace/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101217/iphone-app-iteleport-wants-you-to-get-excited-about-vnc/ http://allthingsd.com/20101217/iphone-app-iteleport-wants-you-to-get-excited-about-vnc/#comments Sat, 18 Dec 2010 00:12:03 +0000 Voices http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=34023

In app store terms, iTeleport is as old as it gets. In fact, it actually predates the app store, according to founder J Sherwani.

Today, iTeleport’s update will offer the product free for 30 days, and then switch to $3 a month thereafter or $25 for unlimited use.

So, why would a small, profitable company–Sherwani said there have been a total of about 700,000 devices on iTeleport in its two-plus years in existence–decide to give away its only product for free?

According to iTeleport, it’s the thing to do if you want to change how people think of VNC, or virtual network computing.

Essentially, that means you can use one computer to log in to and operate another.

And this two-man shop might not be alone in thinking there’s a future in bringing VNC-style computing to the masses.

Vishal Kapur, the other iTeleporter, said that he thinks there is an untapped consumer group out there for VNC, especially those using Apple’s iPad and iPhone, and that most users aren’t there yet because there haven’t been consumer-focused products built on the technology.

“They [VNCs] have been around for 25 years, but they have always been an enterprise thing,” Kapur said.

But moves by larger companies, such as the recent demo of OnLive’s new cloud gaming and computing system at the D: Dive Into Mobile conference, indicate that the iTeleport team may not be the only ones thinking the future lies in this direction.

In fact, Mobilized’s Ina Fried reported on enterprise software maker Wyse doing pretty much the same thing–taking its basic VNC app and making it free.

While freer access to a desktop’s files on the go might be great, the bigger question here is: What are the hurdles ahead now that it looks like we might have a race?

Sherwani sees a world where you can share a screen, folder or an online shopping experience with a friend just as fast as you can share a link today.

He thinks the biggest barrier to overcome is the narrative about what VNCs are good for, but admits there are technical limitations too.

Thus, he wants iTeleport to rethink what the VNC is and repackage the whole experience to make using your desktop through your iPhone “as good as, if not better than,” sitting in front of it.

Big ideas are important, but there are also some bandwidth realities to overcome.

Today, VNCs don’t include sound, and depending on your connection speed at both ends–your desktop and mobile device–there is enough lag to make modern games and HD video look like a flip book.

Also, many people turn their computers off (or close the lid) when they leave the house, which renders the VNC connection useless.

Sherwani concedes these are big issues today, but said that the first step is to let more people see what VNC can do, and to let them share stories of consumer VNC experiences.

With little app makers like iTeleport in the mix with businesses in totally different weight classes, the future of VNC, or maybe we could call it “mobile terminal computing,” is interesting, if a bit murky.

Will users either gravitate toward OnLive’s model of taking a tiny piece of a very big cloud, or will there be a more scaled model, where the OnLives and the iTeleports of the world exist together and users simply choose seamlessly between how much computing power and interactivity they require to fill a given need?

Since we aren’t in the heyday of the teleport yet, please accept this video interview with the iTeleport team as a substitute:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101217/iphone-app-iteleport-wants-you-to-get-excited-about-vnc/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101217/amazon-cant-dent-itunes/ http://allthingsd.com/20101217/amazon-cant-dent-itunes/#comments Fri, 17 Dec 2010 23:31:00 +0000 Ethan Smith and Geoffrey A. Fowler http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=34098 On the day Apple Inc. rolled out the Beatles’ catalog on its iTunes Store, Amazon.com Inc. fired back with a digital exclusive of its own: The latest album from rap-rocker Kid Rock–whose music still isn’t available on iTunes–for just $3.99.

Such steep discounts are a cornerstone of Amazon’s strategy to gain traction in a market in which iTunes remains the dominant player. At the same time, a debate has arisen among music labels about whether such discounts risk undermining the value of their products.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101217/amazon-cant-dent-itunes/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101216/live-blog-rim-talks-to-the-street-but-plans-to-say-less/ http://allthingsd.com/20101216/live-blog-rim-talks-to-the-street-but-plans-to-say-less/#comments Thu, 16 Dec 2010 21:50:58 +0000 Ina Fried http://mobilized.allthingsd.com/?p=1057 Investors are eagerly awaiting Research In Motion’s conference call, though the BlackBerry maker has already said it will share less detail this quarter and even less in the quarters to come.

Earlier on Thursday, RIM reported earnings that topped estimates along with sales that were just about what many analysts were expecting. The company said it expects revenue for the current quarter to be around $5.5 billion to $5.7 billion with per-share earnings in the range of $1.74 to $1.80.

It said that it shipped 14.2 million BlackBerrys, up 40 percent from a year earlier, and added 5.1 million new subscribers net in the quarter. However the company is expected not to forecast those figures for the coming quarter, nor does it plan to continue reporting those numbers in future quarters.

Among the things investors are likely to be interested in is what the company forecasts as far as shipments to Verizon in a quarter during which many expect the carrier to start selling the iPhone. Motorola has already warned that it expects its shipments to Verizon to take a hit.

Mobilized will have live coverage of the conference call starting at 2 pm PT.

1:55 pm: RIM shares, which had been trading lower in after-hours trading are now up around 3 percent.

2:02 pm: Call just getting underway with the usual warnings, caveats, etc.

2:06 pm: BlackBerry Torch now in 75 markets, just rolling out in Latin America.

2:06 pm: BlackBerry Style is one-third of BlackBerry sales at Sprint.

2:08 pm: Our relationship with Verizon remains strong, RIM says. A number of new products coming for Verizon including adding the BlackBerry 6 OS to the curve and Bold lines early in the new year.

2:08 pm: Recap of recent developer announcements, including payment service, launch of WebWorks, etc.

2:10 pm: Now more than 16,000 applications in BlackBerry App World, RIM’s App Store.

2:11 pm: PlayBook tablet expected to ship in first quarter in U.S. and will be Wi-Fi only. Other markets and models with cellphone radios will follow.

2:14 pm: Review of Q3 results. Average selling price for BlackBerry was approximately $315, with half of shipments coming in last month of the quarter as resellers prepared for the holidays.

2:16 pm: Company says it is comfortable with inventory levels.

2:19 pm: On to outlook. No plans for PlayBook revenues, with first revenues not expected until following quarter. Sounds like the availability of PlayBook won’t be until at least March. (RIM’s current quarter goes through Feb. 26)

2:24 pm: On to Q&A.

BB6 will eventually work on QNX operating system, but the company says it hasn’t given any sense of timing.

As for what QNX can deliver, co-CEO Jim Balsillie says “You’ll see more at CES.”

2:25 pm: Sorry, some technical problems here at Mobilized. We got disconnected a couple of times, but have switched to the Webcast and are back on.

Seems like the talk is on average selling prices.

2:32 pm: North America is still performing very, very well but dynamics here are different.

Balsillie says he expects stronger year here next year based on product plans in place.

“I feel very, very good,” he says.

“I feel great about where we are sitting in North America for 2011,” Balsillie says, and the company has “knocked the cover off the ball” in a lot of other markets.

2:37 pm: Question on China market. “I think you should have very positive expectations in China,” Balsillie says.

“China does well,” he says. “You’d always want them to do better….All you can do is keep doing the right things and investing in these places. The market is just so big.” Sometimes markets come faster than you expect, sometimes they come slower, he says. But, he says, “I’ve never seen a market not take off.”

Demand strong, he says, for PlayBook in China and Japan.

2:41 pm: Question on payments. Balsillie says one wouldn’t be going out on a limb to predict Near Field Communications integration.

2:44 pm: A lot of talk on why PlayBook is a good bet for businesses with Balsillie talking about its enterprise strength. Not much new information there.

2:46 pm: Will there be a media strategy to promote the tablet’s media abilities to consumers?

“Oh yeah, yeah,” Balsillie says–again, without giving any new details. Lots of game and media partnerships.

2:50 pm: Everything is fine. Things are great. (That pretty much sums up Balsillie’s statements the last few minutes–Just insert a different question or topic).

2:56 pm: “I think the PlayBook redefines what a tablet should be,” Balsillie says, adding that the fact one can create apps without needing to learn a new language are strengths that RIM’s approach s bringing to the table. “We’re way ahead on that and CIO friendliness, we’re way ahead on that too.”

3:02 pm: Call’s done.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101216/live-blog-rim-talks-to-the-street-but-plans-to-say-less/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101209/apple-finally-starts-super-sizing-its-free-itunes-samples/ http://allthingsd.com/20101209/apple-finally-starts-super-sizing-its-free-itunes-samples/#comments Thu, 09 Dec 2010 12:00:08 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=26832 Still not convinced you want to plunk down $1.29 for that new Black Eyed Peas single? Take your time!

And then take some more time: Apple has started to increase the length of the free music samples it offers at its iTunes music store, from 30 seconds to 90 seconds.

Will that help Apple and the music industry move more product? It shouldn’t hurt, right? And anything they can do, they should do: Download sales are starting to droop.

This move has been in the works for months, but Apple had been unable to get clearances from music publishers. I’m still not sure if Apple will be doing this throughout the store: As of early Thursday morning, most of the songs I checked, in a decidedly unscientific survey, still had 30-second samples.

But my hunch is that Apple will adopt the 90-second standard as widely as it can, and that the inconsistency we’ve seen so far is just because it hasn’t gotten around to changing everything yet.

For instance, if you want to sample the Beatles’ version of “Twist and Shout”, you can hear 90 seconds of the song, but you can only hear 30 seconds of “Day Tripper.” Etc.

The only consistency I’ve found so far is that no Sony acts seem to offer the extended samples. But, again, my gut is that’s a temporary aberration.

Meanwhile Amazon, which runs a very distant second to iTunes in digital music sales, seems to still be offering the shorter samples.

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