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Zynga Marketing Master Padma Rao Joins Foundation Capital As An Entrepreneur In Residence

2012-02-11T06:47:00Z

Padma Rao’s analytical marketing skills have made a big impact at more than one company in the Bay Area, and now she’s bringing a decade of experiences to her new role as an entrepreneur in residence at Foundation Capital.

Her most recent efforts helped turn a gaming startup into a booming public company.

Few people realized it at the time, but in late 2008 and early 2009 social game developer Zynga had figured out how to get a great return on investment from Facebook advertising. The social network had developed its ad system over the previous few years to the point that it was able to deliver ads closely targeted to users’ interests — but most people hadn’t realized that yet, so prices were cheap.

Rao joined Zynga at the beginning of 2009 to help lead the development of its marketing platform. An engineer by training, she took a look at the few third-party ad bidding tools available for Facebook and decided the company needed to build its own. She did the same for its user email system. The market timing turned out to be perfect. Zynga had also just figured out how to monetize casual-style simulation games, and in quick succession over the course of the year, it launched hits like FarmVille, Café World, PetVille and FishVille. As I detailed in this December article, the inexpensive growth it got via ads and social communication features during this period brought it up to traffic levels that it has worked hard to pass even today.

“I like having the technical chops to understand what needs to happen and why — and to understand why something might take a long time,” she tells me. “It makes a big difference, especially in online marketing, which is actually a very technical business. Having that background has saved me more than once… my approach is, if a tool doesn’t exist, we’ll build it.”

Zynga wasn’t the first place she’s done this. During a three year stint at Gap earlier last decade, she discovered that getting results from direct marketing were taking up to two and a half weeks. So she created a tool that would deliver results in 30 minutes. “This didn’t just mean faster results, it meant iterating faster, it changed the business” she explains. “It’s all about getting the right tools for people.”

She’s becoming an EIR for the same reason a lot of other product people do, including her new Foundation EIR colleague and former Twitter product head Anamitra Banerji. “I’ve had my head down working at companies,” she says, “and I’ve never taken the opportunity to see everything that’s out there.”

So what is she working on at Foundation? She’s actually already been doing some consulting work with social browser Rockmelt and other startups already. But she’s far from deciding whether to join or found. “I want to stay on the consumer side of things, and obviously mobile is fascinating — there’s lots of functionality that’s not probably not leveraged like it could be…. My dream is to start something, but I don’t want to do it just for the sake of doing it. If I find something great that someone else has started, I’m not going to ignore that because ‘I want to be a founder.’”

Busta Rhymes Waxes Enthusiastic On Google Music

2012-02-11T06:47:00Z

When Google Music launched a couple months ago, there was some criticism regarding how the service was promoted. What many saw as just another music locker and streaming service (albeit a perfectly good and free one) others saw as a great new vector for music sales and distribution. But the music locker portion seemed to hog the spotlight, and the cool Band Camp-esque new artist hubs lurked in the gloom.

Busta Rhymes seems to be a fan of the latter, and not just because he’s in an official partnership. In an interview on MTV, he was positively effusive about Google’s new platform. Check out the short clip, from MTV’s Sucka Free:

I think he’s being truthful when he says that “with that power that they have, that it was almost blasphemous for them to not have their hands in music as well.” Google, via YouTube, is the world’s foremost player in video distribution on the web (though as far as purchased content goes, Netflix is king). One almost wonders why music didn’t come first.

In case you were wondering that, the reason is that the user-focused structure of YouTube makes it a platform for viral videos and self-expression, not studio-produced content. They’ve been trying to change that, but it hasn’t been very effective (people don’t think of YouTube that way, for good reaosn). Google Music lets them start fresh and try to build something that works both from the top down and the bottom up. So whether they “sign” guys like Busta or a dude recording on an 8-track in his living room, they can provide an end-to-end buying, listening, and sharing solution.

“Google ain’t really trying to just sell music” is about as capsule-sized a summary as you can get, and it’s true. Google hates selling things, in fact. And in the music world, it might be that in a few years, selling things like music tracks just won’t be something you do, and Google will have positioned itself well to be a non-purchase solution.

Whale Hunting: Facebook Hooks 1st-Time Buyers With $5 Of Game Credits For $1

2012-02-11T06:47:01Z

Only about 5% Facebook gamers pay to play freemium games. If Facebook could up this percentage, it and its third-party app developers could make a lot more money. That’s the idea behind a new promotion Facebook announced today where those who’ve never bought Facebook Credits virtual currency before will be offered $4 in free Credits when they buy $1. This gets users to set up their credit card and experience the rush of paying for an enhanced gaming experience.

Years ago when Facebook first launched its Credits virtual currency, it offered free Credits to some users. While this might have got them hooked on spending virtual currency, it didn’t addict them to paying for it.

Facebook needs credit card numbers badly. Apple has amassed an enormous collection after 10 years of iTunes Mp3 sales, which is now helping it easily sell apps and in-app purchases. If Facebook wants to grow its revenue to satisfy outside investors and be a competitive mobile gaming platform, it needs to get users ready to pay.

But like the street corner pusher says, “this ain’t no charity”. Facebook is only surfacing the promotion in sidebar ads, and TrialPay in-game promotions and offer walls to those who haven’t already bought Credits. User than have to set up a credit card or connect a PayPal account and pay $1 to get the extra $4, or 40 Credits. And next time, they’ll have to pay full price. Facebook wisely does not provide any way to reach the promotion directly in order to deter users from trying to cheat their way to free currency.

If you want to claim your own free Credits, your best bet is to play games by clients of Facebook’s official offers partner TrialPay, such as those by Playfish, Playdom, Kabam, Crowdstar, and iWin. These include The Sims Social, Gardens of Time, It Girl, and Kingdoms of Camelot. Then visit the offer wall or click through Deal Spot signs within games.

With any luck, Facebook will be able to up the percentage of users who monetize, and thereby discover new whales — gamers who spend orders of magnitude more than the average payer and drive the bottom lines of both indie developers and giants like Zynga. Call him Ishmael…Zuckerberg.

[Image Credit: Screenrant]

Facebook is giving some users up to $4 in extra Credits for every $1 purchased

2012-02-11T06:59:16Z

If you’re one of the people who meet a certain set of criteria, you could get up to $4 in extra Facebook Credits for every $1 that you spend, according to a blog post from the company. The deals happen with special promotions, but they aren’t available to everyone.

There are two methods for getting the extra Credits that are running right now. In one method, you’ll need to be lucky enough to catch an ad that will extend the offer to you. In the other, you can redeem your $1 purchase for up to $5 (total, including Facebook’s “free” credits) for in-app currency, as pictured below:

Facebook’s disclaimer at the end of its post states that you’ll need to make the purchase via a credit card or PayPal account, and those to whom the offer is extended “may not have previously purchased on Facebook”. It would stand to reason then that your chances of seeing the extra Credit options would be higher if you’ve not purchased credits through the site before.

Whether the service has truly taken off yet or not isn’t well known. Even the company’s S-1, pre-IPO filing, didn’t have much to say about it. So while they might not have changed the world just yet, giving away free money is a quick way to attract new customers.

Spotify’s iOS app gets an update that doubles the stream quality to 320 kbps

2012-02-11T06:59:16Z

Spotify has been a monster success since launching in the US, and one of the best parts about paying for a subscription to the service is being able to listen to music on your mobile devices.

The Spotify app is available on “the big three” mobile platforms; iOS, Android, and Windows Phone. Up until today, you’ve had the option for two streaming qualities on the iOS version. Those were low and high. The high being 160 kbps and the low being 96 kbps. If you’re using earbuds, the higher setting probably sounds pretty good, but if you have a better set of headphones, it’s not so great.

The desktop version of Spotify has always streamed at 320 kbps, which is extremely high quality. Today, the iOS version makes the jump to that same quality.

Instead of just low and high as quality settings for streaming, you’re now presented with a third option called “Extreme”, which brings you the 320 kbps quality:

Along with being able to stream the higher quality version of songs, you’re also able to sync them as well. Once you flip the switch over to extreme you’ll be impressed by how great the music sounds, even through your iPhone’s speaker. Be careful when you’re in an area with not great cell signal, as the new highest quality stream probably won’t even start for you.

Along with this mega change, the app now supports one tap login via Facebook, which doesn’t seem to affect me as the app always logs me in automatically. For new users, this is a welcomed feature I’m sure.

➤ Spotify for iOS

Instagram updates with a much simplified UI, ‘Lux’ fill-light adjustment and new filter

2012-02-11T06:59:17Z

Uber-popular photo sharing app Instagram has been updated with several nice new features and a greatly simplified UI. The new interface in version 2.1 is a good sight cleaner and more modern than the last version of the app.

There is a nice new featured called Lux, which is a one-touch image enhancement that uses sharpening and fill light tweaks to improve images, especially backlit or low contrast photos. It looks like an overall saturation bump is included as well. Here’s a quick ‘before and after Lux’ shot for you:

A new filter called Sierra, a muted ’70′s-style’ snapshot look, has also been added. More options are always welcome.

The real treat here, though, is a tweak of the UI to give it a much needed facelift. The tweaks are decidedly minimal in their look, and many things have been trimmed down to keep the picture taking and viewing experience in the forefront.

Notifications have also gotten a tweak, and when you tap on a notification sent in iOS, you’re brought directly to the comment, user or photo that is being referenced.

We’ve been playing around with the update for a few minutes and it seems like the interface overall feels quicker, but there appears to be a bit of extra lag when completing an image capture, before the filter application segment of the process. We’ll try a restart of our device to see if the problem persists.

Some observations on the UI include the fact that Instagram has done away with the labels on the tab bar, apparently assuming that people are familiar enough with the workings of the app by now to let that go. They’ve also trimmed down the camera button to stay within the confines of the bar, a personal peeve of mine from the old version of the app. The name bar above the image still moves downward when you scroll upwards, which I wish would go away, but that’s just a personal tast thing I suppose.

The new design is partly the work of Tim Van Damme, who we mentioned was joining the Instagram team back in December. It looks like a pretty great update and should be a welcome upgrade for any Instagram user.

➤Instagram

Former Facebook exec Gideon Yu named president and co-owner of the 49ers

2012-02-11T06:59:17Z

Gideon Yu has had quite an illustrious career in technology, having been the former CFO at Facebook and before that, YouTube. Yu led the negotiations for the $1.65B sale of the latter company to Google. Last year, he decided to take the leap to sports and joined the San Franisco 49ers as the Chief Strategy Officer.

In less than a year, Yu has gotten a promotion and it’s a big one. Today, the 49ers announced that Gideon Yu is now the President and Co-Owner of the team.

Here’s what Niners CEO Jed York had to say about Yu’s promotion:

Gideon brings us a truly unique set of experiences and talents, and he will be a guiding force in our drive to continue the winning tradition of this franchise. He’s both a visionary and the ‘go-to’ guy who can lead us through the enormous opportunities ahead such as, the stadium construction, expansion of our brand and its businesses, and positioning the franchise for the future. We have more to do now than ever before, and Gideon is the right person to get the job done.

The San Francisco 49ers became the toast of Silicon Valley again after a stellar year that saw its head coach Jim Harbaugh win NFL’s “Coach of the Year” award in his first season at the helm.

Unfortunately for those of us in downtown San Francisco, Yu is working hard on a Santa Clara stadium project, taking the 49ers further away from its core fanbase.

Watch Starry Night come to life in this mind-blowing interactive animation

2012-02-11T06:59:17Z

In what I can only describe as perhaps the most impressive application of openFrameworks I have ever seen, Petros Vrellis‘s interactive animation of Starry Night will surely blow your mind. Just when I thought that everything has been done, something like this pops up and knocks me off my pessimistic high-horse.

As you can see in the video below, the painting is beautifully brought to life in a subtle animation, but the real magic happens when you interact with the piece, as if you were painting the work of art yourself.

This is just one example of the magic locked inside code and projects like openFrameworks. WordPress is right. Code is poetry, and art is what happens when brilliant minds learn how to bend it to their will.

The details:

About 80.000 particles move around with a fluid-like algorithm and are drawn as small opengl minimaps.
The velocity field was not computed automatically, I had to set it manually myself. It was quite difficult to get it right…
I get about 30fps at 1920×1080, with an intel i5-2500K, and a geforce GTX560.
Multitouch tracking is made with ofxKinect and ofxOpenCV.
The music is the result of much experimentation and luck.

Creative Application’s Joshua Noble articulates exactly why this experimental app is so impressive:

A fluid simulation gently creates a flowing fabric from Van Goghs impressionist portrait of the Milky Way and night sky over Saint-Rémy in France using the thick paint daubs as the particles within the fluid.

A touch interface allows a viewer to deform the image, altering both the flow of the particles and the synthesized sound, and then watch it slowly return to its original state. The sound itself is created using a MIDI interface to create a soft ambient tone out of the movement of the fluid that underscores the soft movement. Beauty through simplicity at its finest and most playful.

Check out all of TNW’s favorite experimental projects and apps here.

[STUDY] Your Facebook Friends Influence How You Feel

2012-02-11T06:49:05Z

"A cute baby dolphin for your weekend-viewing pleasure" a Facebook friend of mine writes. Under the text, I see a link to an imgur-hosted image of that amazingly adorable marine mammal. Suddenly, my day is feeling a lot better. Did I just catch a mood... on Facebook?

A new study by Facebook data scientists shows that Facebook users can spread emotions to their friends through messages, posts and status updates. It suggests that emotional contagion happens quite frequently on the world's biggest social network. Facebook's Chief Data Scientist Adam Kramer presented these findings at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology on January 27, 2012.

"It's time to rethink how emotional contagion works, since vocal cues and mimicry aren't needed," said Kramer.

Sponsor

To test this out, Kramer used a program that identified words implying positive and negative emotions in Facebook status updates. Kramer looked at status update from one-million English-speaking users over a three-day period in 2010. Each Facebook user he studied had on average 150 friends, which means that this study included approximately 150 million people. The status updates that Kramer looked at were undirected, meaning they were not directed at a specific person.

He discovered that if a user's status update had more positive than negative words, updates from the user's friends averaged 7 percent more positive words and 1 percent fewer negative words. The inverse results were similar for negative words posted in a status update. The results were the same regardless of when during the week they were posted.

Did friends view a users' updates from three days before? Or did they just randomly see stuff in the news feed? Kramer said that there was no way to know. But one thing is for sure.

"Facebook users' emotions leaks into the emotional worlds of their friends," Kramer said.

Here's that cute baby dolphin for your weekend viewing pleasure.

Image courtesy Shutterstock.

Discuss

Kickstarter’s Big Day: $1.6M Pledged In 24 Hours

2012-02-11T06:47:03Z

They say when it rains, it pours. That’s not usually a good thing, but when it’s raining money, things are a little different. That was the case at Kickstarter yesterday, where they had their biggest day of funding ever, beating the record set… the day before yesterday.

It was also the day that marked the first Kickstarter project to break $1,000,000 in funding. And the day that marked the second project to hit that number. And New York’s city council endorsed the site as a way to highlight community projects that need funding. Oh, and they’re on Portlandia.

Definitely the biggest day in the site’s history, then. They’ve commemorated it with a great blog post that might just make your Friday a little better. It also brings up a few new and interesting questions regarding how the site should or will be used. But first, watch the Portlandia clip:

Double Fine, whose adventure game drove much of the funding sum (and is up to nearly $1.5M alone as of this writing), is different from many projects we’ve seen. Often Kickstarter is thought of as a venue for people with very limited means but a good idea to execute that idea. The Elevate Dock is a good example of this.

But Double Fine is an established game studio with office space, employees, and many products under its belt? Why should it go to Kickstarter? Well, Tim Schafer explains that in the video, at least for this project: no publisher would go near a point and click adventure game, but they knew at least some people wanted it. Reasonable enough.

The question, really, is why we even question it. If people want to make something, and people want to fund it, why shouldn’t it be on Kickstarter? The easy stuff — cool accessories or small devices that need a little capital to get started — are just the first wave. Why not pothole repair on a neighborhood street? Why not a new coffee shop? Why not a feature film? Some of these have been tried, no doubt, and perhaps failed — but the principle is sound. If you want to make it, and others want you to make it, this is a way for you to connect.

Congratulations to the Kickstarter, Elevation Dock, and Double Fine teams. Great way to end the week.

Look Out AT&T Customers, Your Upgrade Fee Doubles On Sunday

2012-02-11T06:47:03Z

If you’re an AT&T customer coming off of a contract and looking to snap up a new phone, you should probably get on that right now. According to an AT&T memo obtained by BGR, AT&T will be raising their device upgrade fee from $18 to $36 as of February 12, which means you’ve got until Sunday to swap phones before your first post-upgrade bill gets even bigger.

The memo states that the fee hike is needed because “the overall costs associated with upgrading to a new device have increased.”

In AT&T’s defense, it’s a fee that’s most people will only have to deal with once every two years or so, but the additional cost is unlikely to please customers. They’re also not the only big carrier that has had to hike up their fees — Sprint made the transition to a $36 upgrade fee this past September. But still, AT&T doubling their upgrade fee is a puzzling move when their biggest rival (Verizon) still doesn’t charge one at all.

Strangely, the part of the memo that BGR has released doesn’t mention anything about a cap like the one Sprint offers, so it’s possible that families and groups looking to upgrade en masse could really get stung here.

And here’s a question worth thinking about: what will the consumers have to say? Verizon Wireless got a very public earful when it was discovered that they planned to charge customers a $2 “convenience fee” whenever they used a credit card to make an online or over-the-phone bill payment. After one day, public pressure and scrutiny from the FCC forced Verizon to kill the plan in its tracks. Given enough exposure, AT&T customer may be inclined to lash out in a similar way.

Hopefully this move doesn’t inspire Verizon to try something similar. We’ve seen it happen before: Verizon killed their unlimited data plans one year after AT&T did, and AT&T began requiring data packages for messaging phones not long after Verizon implemented the idea.

Skala Preview lets you see your iOS designs instantly on your iPhone or iPad

2012-02-10T23:08:23Z

When creating for the iPhone and iPad, the best thing most designers have at their fingertips is a realistic mockup in Photoshop. Developers have the ability to quickly update their app and test it right on the device, but what about us designers?

Skala Preview, created by the awesome team at Bjango, is exactly what iOS designers have always needed. It works separately with a Mac app and an iOS app, syncing the two together. All you need to do is drag an image into the app, and it will instantly show up in full resolution (pixel perfect, colour perfect and uncompressed) on your iPhone or iPad. No more emailing images. No more relying on mockups alone.

Once the image is on your iOS device, you can use multiple gestures to view it at every scale. Two taps with one finger sets the image to 100%, two taps with two fingers sets it to 200%, and so on all the way up to ten.

Now, the only problem left is having to constantly export your images and drag them over manually. But if you’re working in Photoshop CS5, Skala Preview has made it so you never even have to leave the app. Just set up a remote connection, and then every single change you make to your design will update instantly. It’s iOS design as it was always meant to be.

From the creators:

Skala View is the companion app to Skala Preview for Mac — the fastest way to send pixel perfect, colour perfect design previews from your Mac to your iPhone or iPad.

Previewing your design in situ lets you test tap sizes, text sizes, colour, contrast and ergonomics, all at a time where changes can be easily made — during the design process. It closes the loop, meaning you can iterate faster to a better final design.

As you can tell, TNW is impressed. The app is simple and a complete joy to use. The few interface elements that are there are quite elegant, and I’ve had no connectivity issues so far. All you need to do is download the two apps via the links below and you’re on your way. If you have any questions, visit the getting started page.

➤ Skala Preview for iOS (free) and the Mac ($4.99)

Logic3′s Ferrari headphones are a sexy bit of speed for your ears

2012-02-10T23:08:23Z

I’ve never been a big fan of “branded” devices. More often than not, they’re overpriced and you’re paying a lot for a name without he quality to back up the price. But there are exceptions. Soul headphones, by Ludacris, were notable ones and the Ferrari branding has been another that seems to insist on quality before its brand gets involved. The Logic3 Scuderia Ferrari R200 noise-cancelling headphones are a prime example.

We’ll call these cans the R200 for short, because Logic3 Scuderia Ferrari R200 is approaching the ridiculous. But picking the name apart will show you the method behind the madness. Logic3 is an accessories company that makes some of the best stuff in the business. Lately, the company’s focus on high-end audio products has led it to a partnership with Ferrari. The R200 is one of a few products within the Scuderia branding; a line that crosses in-ear headphones and into hardcore desktop audio docks.

We didn’t get much time to play with the R200 while on the floor at CES, but we did get to give them a listen. They’re an active noise canceling pair of headphones, including a supremely-comfortable set of ear cups and a wide, cushioned headband. Honestly, they’re some of the most comfortable on-ear headphones I’ve ever worn, but that’s bearing in mind that I wasn’t able to test them for extended periods.

The only fault that I immediately found with the R200s is that they can’t operate in passive mode. That means that if you’re on a flight and you run out of battery life, you run out of headphones too. TNW’s Matthew Panzarino got the impression that this was the fault of the headphones being prototypes, but neither of us remember specifically if they said that they’d be able to once they’re in production. If not, it’s a high price to pay, but not uncommon among active noise canceling headsets on the market today.

The R200s are available now for pre-order, if you’re the gutsy sort. With a price tag of $249 they’re not the cheapest on the market, but they’re also far from the most expensive. We’ll do a complete review when we can land a pair into our hands for a few days, but for now just know that they’re sexy, they sound great and we’re looking forward to hearing more from the company.

➤ Scuderia Ferrari R200

Dubai’s Mirage of Innovation

2012-02-10T23:08:23Z

From a distance, Dubai seems to have all the ingredients needed to become the region’s innovation hub.

It has more than enough capital, except during the economic crisis of 2008, when dramatic consequences were avoided due in large part to the country’s most austere neighbor, Abu Dhabi. It has a desire to free itself from the power of petroleum, which nowadays represents less than 5% of the country’s revenue. And a sizable amount of global talent has moved to Dubai, attracted by its comfortable conditions, good salaries and the lack of taxes.

One of the United Arab Emirates’ seven member states, Dubai is, according to The Economist, “fundamentally a tax-free zone with access to the Indian subcontinent’s low-cost labor.” Only 17% of the population is from there originally, and nearly three-fourths of immigrants are of Asian origin. Half are from India.

The desire to transform itself into a magnet city is seen notably in the creation of Internet City, a space benefiting from favorable economic and infrastructural conditions that make it attractive for large companies. In the same vein, you find, among others, a Media City, a Knowledge Village, a City of Healthcare and the International Financial Center.

Internet City in Dubai

“The goal has been met,” said IBM employee Joël Demay. “Dubai is where the major players prefer to build their regional headquarters: Dell, Oracle, IBM, HP, SAP, Nokia…everyone.”

This is confirmed by Alfonso De Gaetano, Google regional director, who says that the area “plays a key role as the seat of major global companies, as well as for local businesses who hope to become global.”

Without a doubt, the most powerful is Emirates Airline, which plays an essential role in creating infrastructure. It has allowed Dubai to position itself as a hub for east-west travel. The third largest in the world, the airport grows 20% per year, and aviation represents 28% of the country’s GDP, according to The Economist.

Yet all this effort is not necessarily favorable to innovation. Take for example online commerce. According to several interviewees, consumers are ahead of merchants, who still largely prefer driving customer traffic to malls. As important places for family entertainment, these are sometimes linked with local tradition by being given the name of ‘souks.’ Every community has its own. DragonMart, for example, built in the shape of a dragon and containing 4,000 stores, is one of the largest Chinese shopping centers in the world.

DragonMart

The absence of e-commerce is a huge opportunity that is starting to attract the attention of astute entrepreneurs, as illustrated by Julie Leblan and Maurine Lombart, two French women who recently created the first multi-store gift-list company. But launching a company is much more difficult than you’d imagine in a place with a reputation for being favorable to businesses. Leblan and Lombart note that “the tiniest administrative detail is complicated.” That’s not even mentioning the headache of dealing with banks…

Indian businessman and investor Prashant “PK” Gulati confirms that Dubai “is too expensive for startups. Without counting the fact that starting a business is a big risk, and 100% of the risk belong to the entrepreneur.” There is a sort of strange paradox at work here: a country that has no taxes is certainly attractive to large companies, but is a barrier to the emergence of new companies, as the State generates revenue by making administrative transactions very expensive… and this includes business creation.

Dubai’s government has done a lot to attract entrepreneurs, and Jordanians, Egyptians and Libyans are gladly answering the call. But the only two local companies that are really well-known in the Arab world are Dubbizle.com, a sort of eBay, and Bayt.com, a job-search site.

There’s obviously something missing. For PK Gulati, innovation comes from small businesses, and it’s not a question of money. “It’s not that it’s expensive; it’s a question of state-of-mind. Certain countries have understood that you need to reduce barriers to creating small business: India, Kenya, South Africa, for example, are places where people can really create a business in one day, or at least try.”

This is where he’s disappointed. “All the funds on Sand Hill Road have money from Gulf. But there’s no money available here for experimentation. We can’t, in conditions like this, position ourselves as the ‘cradle of innovation.’”

So if you think you’ve seen a green plant in the desert, it’s a mirage. But the conditions are there – it’s just a matter of time, add both Demay and Gulati.

Read all of Francis Pisani’s posts here on The Next Web.

Loskutnikov via shutterstock

Book publisher Penguin takes to Twitter for unique book club experience

2012-02-10T23:08:23Z

Since Twitter launched in 2006, there have been tons of unique uses of the platform, including fundraising, live tweeting the State of the Union, and now thanks to Penguin, a book club.

I’ve seen some corners of Twitter take to using hashtags to create a conversation on the platform. While it can be difficult to follow a conversation on the service, especially in real-time, Penguin thinks that the time-shifted hobby of reading books is a perfect way to bring people together.

The publisher will be picking a book each month, and suggests that its followers tweet their thoughts about it using the hashtag #readpenguin. At the end of the month, Penguin will hold a Twitter chat with the book’s author as its guest. The publisher has asked that its followers not to tweet spoilers for the book, which is ongoing Twitter issue I personally deal with, especially when it comes to TV.

The book club has kicked off for February with its first title, “The Weird Sisters”. At the end of the month, Eleanor Brown, its author, will talk to fans of the book about what they thought and answer any questions that they have. It’s like a virtual book-signing, without the signing part.

As brands look for new ways to engage its customers, it’s nice to see Penguin marry the old-school notion of a book club with the new-school tradition of tweeting your thoughts as they come to you.

➤ Penguin Book Club on Twitter

This App Tells You All About Your Facebook Friends, But Will It Make You Smarter?

2012-02-10T22:57:42Z

In the two weeks I have been using Wisdom, an iPad and iPhone app that gives you detailed demographic data about your Facebook friends, the number of users has gone from just over 4 million to just under 6 million. Part of that rapid growth is most likely attributable to an extensive advertising campaign on the iPad version of the New York Times (which is where I first heard about it).

Wisdom's marketing slogan promises "Get Wisdom and Get Wiser," and gives us the option of not only analyzing our own social network, but the entire Wisdom network (yes, to Get Wisdom you also need to give Wisdom your information, but they have a clear-cut, succinctly-explained and explicitly-presented privacy policy. I wishe every online company and social network would use that bit of wisdom from the makers of Wisdom). "Best of all, the more people who get Wisdom, the smarter the application gets - and the smarter you become!" the apps Web site promises.

Well, maybe. Depending on your definition of "smarter."

For example, does it make me smarter to know that New Engald Patriots fans on the Wisdom network like Narragansett Beer and New York Giants fans prefer Hennessy? Or that fans of both teams prefer Dunkin Donuts? And why is Wisdom still teasing its analysis of Super Bowl fans nearly a full-week after the game?

The U.S. Election breakdown is slightly more telling. Based on "likes" of candidates on Facebook in the last 12 months, it shows a handsome U.S. map showing which states favor which candidates, then shows the demographic makeup of each candidates followers (in other words, the same information found in almost any decent political poll).

You can also drill down and look at your friends -- you can see who has posted on Facebook the most in the past 30 days, the average number of words they used in each post and other trivia.I now know that in the past 30 days Maya Angelou and David Sedaris were the most popular authors among my friends, and U2 and Johnny Cash were the most popular musicians. Nine of my friends have made a combined 27 trips to Fenway Park, and one of my friends has been to the same hospital six times (whoever it is, I hope everything is okay).

I can also look at who I interact with most. There's loads of other data, but not as much as you'd think: I can generally check every chart and figure on Wisdom within five or 10 minutes. And even as the network increases in size, not much changes on a day-to-day or week-to-week basis.

Among other things, Wisdom lets you check where your Facebook friends have been checking in to find places you may want to go to.

Wisdom gives you a chance to do some very limited number crunching of your own, but not much. The design is beautiful, and it seems somewhat addictive the first time you play around with it, but then you realize there's not much you can do with the data aside from look at it.

And that's the problem: Every time I finish scanning through Wisdom, I'm left with that "Now what?" feeling we get when we don't really know what else to do with an app. The data is interesting, but there's not much I can do with it: I can't download it, I can't even access it from my desktop, making it harder to crunch.

Wisdom has some recommendations of how to use the app, including finding places to go when traveling and find out what's popular. I have loads of other apps that do all of the things Wisdom claims to be able to do, and, since their focused (finding the best place to eat, keeping me up-to-date on news and trends), the information in those apps comes off as being far more manageable than the artfully-presented glut I get in Wisdom.

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New Hybrid Solar Cells Harness More Of The Sun’s Light Spectrum

2012-02-10T22:55:15Z

Scientists at the University of Cambridge in the UK have found a way to improve the efficiency of photovoltaic cells by as much as 25% through harnessing more of the sun’s spectrum than most traditional silicon-based solar cells can.

The new design, developed at the university’s Cavendish Laboratory in the Department of Physics, can absorb both red and blue light, and generates electrons from photons at a two-to-one ratio on the blue light spectrum. Most current solar cells lose blue photon energy as heat, leaving them unable to turn more than about 34% of the sunlight they absorb into power.

The team, led by professors Neil Greenham and Sir Richard Friend, recently published results in a paper. The hybrid cells have an added organic semiconductor called pentacene, which helps harness blue light energy to strengthen the electrical current coming from the cell, making the product up to 44% efficient.

The university’s team also innovated on how the cells are made, by producing the cells in bulk using a roll-to-roll printing technique. While cheaper, more efficient photovoltaics sound promising, there remain hurdles to be overcome. The greatest costs in building a solar power plant are installation hardware, labor and land, so a cheaper solar cell is only a piece of the puzzle.

Daniel Jacobson of Netflix on the API with an Audience

2012-02-10T22:57:43Z

Alexia Tsotsis, who writes for TechCrunch, had this advice on Twitter earlier today: "Good tech blogger rule of thumb: Avoid using 'API' in headlines when/if you can." Usually, I'm all thumbs myself, but I can't find this particular rule on them anywhere. I suppose I'm not a blogger after all.

Or perhaps I just know my audience. The first rule of communication, as I have taught and been taught (both quite repeatedly, and often) is, "Know your audience." The API has become the principal communications tool of any company that does business digitally. Therefore, professes Netflix Director of Engineering Daniel Jacobson, when designing your API, you should identify, evaluate, and serve its audience just like with any other communications tool.

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So naturally, like anyone who's heard the "Audience" axiom for the very first time, I asked the principal builder of Netflix' new, corporate-wide API, the veteran developer of NPR's API used in Infinite Radio, and the co-author of APIs: A Strategy Guide, what in the world he possibly means by that. In the third and final part of our continuing interview, part 2 of which was published in RWW last week, Jacobson defines two audiences: the public who uses a company's servers, and the company itself. And in contrast to many developers on the public stage today, he believes the evolution of your API begins internally.

"The most important decision you can make about an API program is, who is or are your key audience that you need to focus on?" states Jacobson. "Because once you've focused on the problem there, you get all kinds of other decisions that fall into place."

One-third of the traffic isn't half the picture

The more common API project nowadays is based around a Web app or Web site, for what he calls the public use case. Oftentimes this is built as a shell around the business' existing services, effectively codifying the interactions that already take place every day by way of ordinary Web forms and the Submit button. A much more powerful case for API development - the foundation of Jacobson's entire philosophy - is the internal use case. This is where the business codifies the transactions that constitute everyday business.

Here is where Jacobson makes one of the most shocking revelations of all: Even though his service has been estimated to comprise as much as one-third of all downstream traffic in North America, the volume of API calls to Netflix servers whose source is the general public - someone out there with an Xbox 360 or a Windows Media Server or a Web browser connected to Netflix streaming video - is only about 10%.

"Most companies are exposed to these concepts of open APIs, and that's what gets them excited," he says. "It's about use cases, Twitter, Facebook, and whatever else changes business focus around the public case. So a lot of companies will take that concept of a public API, create a program around that, start thinking about office APIs, and then realize the opportunity that the private APIs gives them - multiple platforms, local apps... And once that happens, there's a transition point where a lot of these companies will say, 'Wow, I can really see a lot more power out of the internal use case.' And just like at Netflix, it will change your thinking about how you want to strategize your office."

As the APIs book states in Chapter 4, "The value chain starts with business assets, something that a business wants to allow others to use. Business assets can range from a product catalog to geospatial maps to Twitter posts to airline status information to services that allow products in the physical world to be controlled by virtual services such as payment systems. If there is nothing of value in the business assets, the API won't succeed."

The API's job, the book goes on to explain, is to expose these business assets in a secure and manageable fashion. Once that's feasible, developers are enabled to build applications around the API that makes these assets available. In the end, the app is developed around the assets, not the API. And if the API doesn't efficiently represent these assets, the app will likely fall apart, and the business' API strategy will fail.

Can an API be made 'turnkey?'

But let's face it, isn't there some type of cloud-based service or outsourcing operation or a set of templates you can just plug in and build an API in three easy steps? You know, an "API wizard?" After all, aren't most RESTful architectures basically two-thirds the same?

You could almost hear Dan Jacobson's grimace through the telephone wire. "A lot of people think about APIs as open APIs," he responded. "And we [the authors of the APIs book] really wanted to put an emphasis on thinking about this as a business opportunity, and the internal, private use cases of interacting with your partners or your internal development teams. When you think about it in that context, outsourcing it to a company and just flipping a switch and turning something on isn't going to have all that business sensitivity baked into it.

"I've said it before, you need to bake your business DNA into your APIs," he emphasized. "If you don't do that, then you have this service that's not really filled with what your company is going for."

Netflix, he admits, is actually among the companies that have had to shift their API strategy. It's redeveloping the current Netflix Public API for a greater emphasis on the use cases that the general public will never see. "In Netflix' case, the business opportunity is independent from our ability to reach tens of millions of users, and get them into streaming on their devices and consuming our content," the lead engineer tells RWW. "That's the opportunity we are trying to pursue, and the API helps facilitate that, makes it faster, easier. And to the extent we can improve our strategy on building and improving these APIs, we can better improve our ability to satisfy our business goals."

The book projects a metaphor of APIs in the form of an iceberg. "A small part of what you see - which represents the public API - is above water, highly visible, but is also such a small percentage of the total mass. This huge mass underneath the water that you can't see, the private API, is the biggest part of the whole opportunity. I think it's a great visual around the way things are evolving in this space."

Discuss

StartX Demo Day: A Direct Link Between Silicon Valley And Top Stanford Student Entrepreneurs

2012-02-10T22:55:15Z

On the surface, the StartX Demo Day last night could have looked like any other accelerator pushing its latest class of startups. Nine groups got on stage and fired off presentations about how they were working on something cool, and why they deserved funding.

But it wasn’t the rash of lightweight consumer applications you often see at other demo days. These were Stanford students, particularly technical graduate students, who have been nerding out on solving real problems for years in their labs and dorm rooms, and who are now in the middle of commercializing their hard work. Big-name investors from around Silicon Valley unsurprisingly showed up to check them out.

Before I get into the companies, which ran the gamut from health care to batteries to professional networking, it’s important to understand what StartX is. It’s the non-profit accelerator arm of Stanford Student Enterprises, which is a student-run, independent organization that handles a variety of stores, directories, financial services and other businesses for students. SSE is the business branch of the student government, and it’s independent enough from the university that StartX companies get maximum freedom. They own their own intellectual property, and neither StartX/SSE nor any other entity takes any equity.

The only requirements are that at least one cofounder of each applying company needs to have enrolled at Stanford within the last three academic quarters before the application period, and that person needs to own significant equity.

The program is young — it started in 2010 and this is its fifth class. but it’s on the right track. The energy in the room was what you feel at that rare tech event where everyone present knows they’re getting in early on something big.

We’ll no doubt be covering many of the presenting companies in more detail over the coming months, but here’s a quick look at each, in the order they presented:

MindSumo: Employers want to find smart students with skills and interests that they can develop. The problem is that student resumes are normally skimpy on this information because, well, students have mostly been in school and not the workforce. MindSumo’s answer: partner with employers to create “challenges,” or sets of questions for students to answer. For example, Recology, a large recycling and trash disposal company, is currently asking “What can you do or make with glass (A LOT of it)? Propose three alternate uses for recycled glass so that we can use our resources in an innovative way and keep them from landfill!” Currently in private beta, MindSumo has already been running challenges for seven companies (some of whom are paying), with 500 or so Stanford students participating.

AgeTak: Health care data is currently separated across insurers and health care providers, which makes it hard for doctors to do comprehensive analysis of diseases and other conditions. AgeTak uses distributed databases to combine, anonymize and get user consent for data sharing. Founder Pratik Verma, who recently got his PhD in computation chemistry from Stanford, is on a personal mission here. His father passed away in 2010 from nerve cell disease ALS, which has no known causes or cures. His father’s only option was to participate in extensive clinical trials over the years, in the hopes that doctors would make breakthroughs by discovering trends among those afflicted. But, as Pratik discovered, data from patients was not being shared by researchers because it was siloed at institutions, and held back by privacy concerns.

Through AgeTak, the anonymized and aggregated data can be used by analysts, researchers, physicians and pharmaceutical companies. Insurance giant United Health is already using it for a drug claims database, and OptumHealth is using it to offer graphs that show consumers how their health care costs stack up against the average. AgeTak has already made $3.7 million in revenue; it’s headquartered in Minnesota with offices in Menlo Park and India. Check out this recent writeup by Barb Darrow at GigaOm for more details.

Zoku: If you’re trying to build a network — let’s say, to help with your new startup — you want to know who out there is doing something relevant to your needs. But it can be hard sorting through all the noise on Facebook, LinkedIn and other sites to spot the key people and activities. Zoku lets you combine your email and social networking contacts, then pick out people and actions that you want to keep track of. It uses algorithms to filter for what you care about, then shows you the signals – people who are visiting town, changing jobs, or doing anything else relevant to what you might need to get done — in a dashboard on its site.

Vi Energy: In what looks like the most ambitious technical idea out of all the presentations, Vi Energy is developing a new kind of rechargeable battery that promises to be three times cheaper and last 50% longer than anything on the market today. Over the past twenty years, lithium ion batteries have dominated, but they can be unsafe, have relatively weak capacity, and are expensive. As a mature technology, there’s only marginal improvements to be had from them. Sister-cofounders Meghali and Sonali Chopra have, with the support of top scientific researchers, already created a pilot battery that uses significantly cheaper raw materials, can be easily synthesized, and has a unique spherical morphology with conductive codings for better performance. Their lab tests already show that the new battery lasts longer than the lithium ion ones on the market today.

Breakthrough: This online mental health treatment startup has been featured before — on stage at TechCrunch 50 (Disrupt) back in 2009. It uses secure video and chat features to help people connect with professionals to get the help they need privately and immediately. As Leena noted before, clients can search for providers (including psychiatrists, psychologists and nurses) on a variety of criteria, including price, speciality (i.e. depression, schizophrenia, post traumatic stress disorder), and gender. On a provider’s page you can see his or her education, experience, pricing for services, the insurance the professional accepts, and even a video introduction of the provider explaining his or her specialities. BreakThrough certifies all providers are credentialed professionals.

TipTopMed: How much will a trip to the doctor’s cost? How much, in particular, if you don’t have a good insurance plan? That’s a question more and more Americans are asking themselves — that TipTopMed is trying to answer. Its site will show local providers, and include information about them like the upfront price, and other details about provider specialties. Users can then book an appointment, and pay online. Providers — mostly small and medium-sized businesses — want this because they lose lots of money on patients who can’t or don’t pay. The site is launching at the end of this month, and will feature a proprietary database of Bay Area health care professionals.

Smit’s Crew: The only entertainment-oriented startup out of the mix, it offers a web site and mobile app that lets venue owners (bars, clubs, etc.) create a type of loyalty program for regular patrons. The app lets customers receive advance notifications of discounts and other deals, particularly on slow nights, then buy them immediately. They then go to the establishment and show the waiter or bartender the purchase; because payment has been received, the food and drinks can be delivered immediately, without the hassle of trying to pay with cash or credit card at, say, a packed bar. Even more importantly, the app lets owners keep track of which people are visiting the most regularly and buying the most — this allows them to figure out who they should focus on providing the best service to. The “crew” concept lets customers group themselves together around specific establishments, so the venue can provide group discounts if they show up.

There were also two more health care startups that presented, but they haven’t publicly launched yet so I won’t be including them here. All in all, as you can see, this is a serious bunch of companies, that are interested in solving hard real-world problems.

Venture firms and law offices in Silicon Valley have sensed the opportunity to get in early, and they’ve rallied behind the effort. VC supporters, who provide dollars and mentorship, include Benchmark Capital, General Catalyst, Khosla Ventures, Charles River Ventures and Greylock Partners. Legal backers are Cooley LLP, Fenwick & West LLP, Dorsey & Whitney LLP, Goodwin Proctor, and Orrick. Resource partners include Amazon Web Services, First Republic Bank, Fog Creek Software, Github, Rackspace and Usabilla.

And even that distant global media and advertising conglomerate that owns TechCrunch is involved, it turns out, because it provides office space and other material support. So time for a Full Disclosure: I didn’t even know AOL was involved until I got to the event this afternoon — but good job, whoever made that call at my parent company. I also attended Stanford as an undergraduate, and while I have a variety of feelings about my alma mater, I generally expect a lot out of its graduates — maybe this connection is one reason I think StartX is pretty great? On the other hand, I worked at a key campus competitor to SSE, The Stanford Daily student-run newspaper. So maybe I’m biased against SSE and so my biases all equal themselves out….

The Government Wants To Build An App Store For Real-Life Jack Bauers

2012-02-10T22:55:15Z

The US Department of Defense Explosive Ordinance Disposal unit is look for a few good coders to help build apps and an entire app store for bomb technicians and soldiers involved in ordnance handling. This is when sliding to unlock could mean the difference between life or death.

The request for proposals is as dull as dirt (you can read it here) but the requirements are clear: they’re looking for apps that will replace paper pocket guides and references used by the folks that blow up the big badda booms.

If you’re interested the funding can run as high as $750,000 and $1,250,000, according to an engineer familiar with the proceedings and all you have to do is ensure the product is encrypted and password protected and that it involves lots of cool, wire-frame graphics so it looks like all of those computer programs used by hackers in the movies.

Develop a Smartphone Software Applications (Apps) and distribution system and procedures (known commercially as an App Store) or individual Apps for Joint Service EOD and/or public safety bomb technicians that would provide immediate access to required technical and tactical information and preclude the need to carry paper pocket guides and reference material on site. The application distribution system or individual Apps shall be accessible to all EOD and/or Bomb Squad personnel to view and/or download information as needed and must be compatible with one or more major operating systems of commercially available smart devices (e.g., Android, Apple, Blackberry, etc.). This developed Joint Service EOD distribution system shall adhere to military regulations for distribution of unclassified but limited distribution information. The Apps shall be encrypted (e.g., AES-256) and password-protected or otherwise controlled for limited access to only bomb squad and EOD technicians. A requirements analysis shall be conducted to determine the most feasible and effective method for conversion of existing and future publications and system oversight, including information access, password issuance, and periodic updates of publications.

The deadline is March 9, 2012, so get cracking. Don’t keep the Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office waiting.

Lady Gaga’s strength in community starts to shine on ‘Little Monsters’

2012-02-10T23:08:23Z

We all know how popular musician Lady Gaga is, but regardless of the popularity of her music she’s done something that not many other artists can say. She has built a sustainable and massive community around herself. She even gave her fans a name, “Little Monsters”, which they’ve embraced rabidly.

At the moment, Lady Gaga has the most numbers of followers on Twitter with 19,049,716 and an astounding 47,725,846 likes on Facebook. The quick math says that’s over 66M separate accounts between the two services that want to interact with all things Gaga. Other than Justin Bieber, we’ve never seen that type of engagement surrounding anyone on any platform.

Is Gaga outgrowing existing social networks? While Twitter has a 140 character restraint on messages and Facebook pages only let you do so much, it appears that one company has decided to create a site that is all Gaga all the time.

The company is called Backplane and one of its co-founders happens to be Lady Gaga’s manager, Troy Carter. Rather than sitting back and finding ways to draw attention to Lady Gaga’s accounts on social networks, the company has released her own, aptly named “Little Monsters“, which is a cross between Facebook, Pinterest, and yes, even MySpace.

Exclusivity and star power

The site is in beta right now and is invite-only now. To say the least, it’s the hottest ticket on the web for Lady Gaga fans and if I considered myself a “Little Monster” I’d probably be super excited to be included. While I’m not a huge Lady Gaga fan, I can recognize the trend that Backplane may be starting with this site. Why generate traffic, interest, and interaction on other platforms if you have the star power to have your own?

While musicians have had official websites for some time now, they haven’t had a place to intimately interact with their biggest fans. By building on that intimate exchange, you can keep fans at bay while you’re working on a new album, and use your platform to break sales records just by controlling all of the outreach and interaction.

For example, one user on the Little Monsters site decided to get a tattoo with the name of the site on her wrist. Of course, Lady Gaga herself “liked” the post, which caused the comment section to go berzerk:

What we’re seeing is a new breed of marketing supported by emerging technology. Can you imagine how successful a platform based around say, Michael Jackson or even Madonna would have been? With the artists themselves reaching out to its fanbase with videos, posts, and comments, they’re taking the idea of a “fan” to a whole new level. For those that adore Lady Gaga, being on Little Monsters is like getting an invitation to hang out at her house.

Do artists need Twitter and Facebook anymore?

While it’s unknown who Backplane will roll this type of site out for next, focusing on the technology behind the scenes and retrofitting the platform for the actual stars who are using it is a brilliant business model. You don’t have to worry about Twitter going down or Facebook rolling out a new feature that everyone doesn’t like, the artist is in control.

Twitter and Facebook are a great place to cultivate a fanbase, and without question the virality of shared content won’t have artists jumping ship just yet, but I imagine that in a few years, these artists will be hosting platforms of their own, like Little Monsters, and pushing content to these big social networks.

The company will be holding what it’s calling the “Managers Hack” at SXSW this year, which is inviting hackers to come out and build cool things to further music distribution. The company has the team, and the backing to turn the music industry on its ear, and it all goes back to building a fantastic community.

New photos of LG’s upcoming Windows Phone handset have leaked

2012-02-11T06:59:17Z

If you have only consumed our coverage of Windows Phone in the past few weeks, you might have come to the conclusion that we live in a strictly Nokia world. Not a bit of that, options abound, as it turns out.

One of those other choices comes from LG, a company that has been involved with the Windows Phone project since it began. The firm is working on a new handset, which is either called the Fantasy or the Miracle. We suspect that those code names will be washed, eventually.

Anyway, the skinny is that the phone keeps leaking pictures. Here are the most recent:

It’s a handsome enough phone, if not as head turning as Nokia’s Lumia line of phones. According to the good people at WPCentral, the phone likely contains the following: “a 4″ WVGA NOVA display, 1ghz second gen CPU, 8gb of internal storage, plus a 1.3mp front/5mp rear set of cameras.” When might we see this phone in action? Well, the Mobile World Congress is just around the corner, so we bet pretty soon.

If the phone is announced at the MWC, it will cap off a rather packed event. Microsoft is planning on using the date to show off Windows 8, and we suspect, Windows Phone 8. You can find all our Windows Phone coverage here.

Gillmor Gang Live 02.10.12 (TCTV)

2012-02-10T22:55:15Z

Gillmor Gang – Robert Scoble, Steve Gillmor, John Borthwick, and Kevin Marks. Recording has concluded.

Air Force Could Buy Thousands Of iPads And Android Tablets

2012-02-10T22:55:16Z

The Air Force’s Air Mobility Command will be putting in a request for the purchase of a number of tablets soon in an effort to lighten their pilots’loads. Many commercial airlines are already taking this step, and American Airlines has already gotten FAA approval. The Air Force is feeling the sting of jealousy, and in consequence may be requesting as many as 18,000 devices.

The number could also be as low as 63; the Command was not forthcoming on this point. The lower number would probably indicate a pilot program, so to speak, for a few devices, to determine which should get the big order.

Which tablet would actually be ordered is also not specified. Bloomberg cannily plays up the iPad angle in its report (U.S. Air Force May Buy 18,000 Apple IPad 2s), but the spokesperson they talked to, Captain Ferrero, said the request might also be for Playbooks, Galaxy Tabs, Xooms, or Nooks.

If these were to be general-purpose tablets, this little menagerie would be hard to winnow down. But the fact is they are going to be used as virtual flight bags, and the iPad is the only one that has the thousands of hours in the air that the Air Force will require. In a year, maybe, Android tablets will have a little more experience under their belts, but for now it’s probably safe to say that any tablets purchased by the government for the purpose of being electronic flight bags are going to be iPads.

Eventually, these platform issues will have to be settled, though: if part of the military is going with Android for security purposes, and others are going with iOS for EFB and, say, general communication, there’s going to be a reckoning sooner or later.

Apple sues Motorola Mobility in The U.S. over Qualcomm patent licensing agreement

2012-02-11T06:59:17Z

Apple has sued the Motorola Mobility in U.S. courts over a licensing agreement for wireless patents with Qualcomm, reports Reuters. The lawsuit was filed today, February 10th, in a southern California District Court. Motorola Mobility, a company that is soon to be acquired by Google, is said to be in breach of a licensing agreement with chip-maker Qualcomm.

The document references U.S. Patent No. 6,359,898, which is a wireless transmission patent held by Motorola. Late last month, Motorola sued Apple for infringement in Germany over European Patent No 1 010 336, which is the same patent as the US-filed ’898.

Apple says that because Motorola has a licensing agreement with Qualcomm for that patent, as does Apple, Motorola is in breach of its contract with Qualcomm:

Motorola’s German lawsuit is in direct breach of a Patent Licensing Agreement between Motorola and Qualcomm. As a Qualcomm customer, Apple is a third-party beneficiary of that contract.

This breach, Apple claims, means that Motorola’s rights to the patent, both in Europe and the U.S., are exhausted, and it wants the courts to make Motorola drop its claims against Apple for violation of patents in Germany.

The patent specifically relates to the Qualcomm MDM6610 baseband chip that Apple uses in the CDMA-compatible versions of its iPhone 4S. Apple is stating that it has a purchase agreement with the maker and that Qualcomm has already paid Motorola off for the licensing of patents to do with the chip.

This is a fairly standard arrangement with component makers who build a product for use in telecommunications. The terms of the original purchase agreement between Apple and Qualcomm likely specified that part of the deal was that all patented techniques used were ‘covered’ by a previous agreement.

An additional FRAND argument

There is an additional segment to the argument that points out, rather testily, that Motorola preached to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute that the ’898 patent is ‘essential’ to the organization’s GSM standards. Motorola also committed to license its patent on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.

This is also a common procedure when patents are deemed essential parts of infrastructure like cell networks. Since Motorola argued that you basically shouldn’t be able to do GSM properly without the use of this patent, it has a responsibility to offer competitors a fair licensing agreement.

This is done in order to prevent the stunting of technological progress due to companies witholding essential patents from their competitors.

Apple goes on to state its long-standing record of supporting FRAND licensing agreements and says that Motorola should be held to the same standards. It goes on to use Motorola’s own argument that the ’898 (or ’336 in Europe) patent is essential to standards to argue that it should be more open to licensing it fairly.

It also makes the point that Motorola did not name the iPhone 4S, the only device in which Apple currently uses the offending MDM6610 chip, in an earlier case it filed against the Cupertino-based company in Mannheim, Germany.

Motorola Mobility is in the process of being acquired by Google and, as such, has become the focal point of efforts by Google to combat Apple in the mobile space with patents. Apple recently appealed to the ETSI about abuse of the FRAND system and was open in its criticism of the current state of the telecom industry.