tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-242203622024-03-18T21:23:29.779-07:00TV is SOCIAL, againFabrizio Capobiancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11168702805171666484noreply@blogger.comBlogger533125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24220362.post-43361023340167390122014-08-31T10:31:00.000-07:002014-09-01T11:21:28.883-07:00It is a world record! 10,000 Social Selfies in one dayThere you are on your couch, watching your team on TV and talking to your friends with our apps. Your favorite player scores that goal you were hoping for and it is an explosion of emotion, a great moment that you lived with your friends, a unique one.<br />
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But... <strong>how can you make that emotion last forever and recall it whenever you want?</strong><br />
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When we created the Social Selfie <strong>we wanted to frame emotions</strong>, we wanted to hear sports’ fans telling their friends: “Hey, did you remember when we won the League? Here is the Social Selfie we took on Juventus Live…look how excited we were!”<br />
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<strong>Social Selfies make your passion live forever.</strong><br />
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We launched it with our first app, TOK Baseball. Then we included in the first version of <strong><a data-mce-href="http://www.tok.tv/lp/juventuslive2/" href="http://www.tok.tv/lp/juventuslive2/" target="_blank" title="Juventus Live 2.0 Landing Page">Juventus Live</a>, the official app of Juventus FC.</strong> Users really liked it, and we started to see a bunch of selfies on Facebook. Then we added the ability to share on Twitter and the numbers started going up.<br />
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<img alt="TOK-Social-Photo-435x244" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1331" data-mce-src="http://www.tok.tv/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/TOK-Social-Photo-435x244.jpg" src="http://www.tok.tv/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/TOK-Social-Photo-435x244.jpg" height="244" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="435" /><br />
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However, we felt we could do better. A match is made by different moments and, if you really want to make them unforgettable, you need to have a dynamic background. We had a static background, the same for all selfies.<br />
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Therefore, we created <a data-mce-href="http://www.tok.tv/juvex3-show-your-juventus-love-with-a-special-selfie/" href="http://www.tok.tv/juvex3-show-your-juventus-love-with-a-special-selfie/" target="_blank" title="#Juvex3: show your Juventus love with a special selfie">a special edition</a> when the Juventus won its third consecutive title as Italian champion.
Our users loved it. <strong>By the end of the season, they shared more then 80.000 Social Selfies</strong>, many of which were represented by the special #JuveX3 Social Selfie.<br />
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<img alt="2014-05-04 17.37.46" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1213" data-mce-src="http://www.tok.tv/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/2014-05-04-17.37.46-435x244.jpg" src="http://www.tok.tv/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/2014-05-04-17.37.46-435x244.jpg" height="244" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="435" />
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<strong>The Social Selfie was not a feature anymore. It was at the heart of our apps.</strong><br />
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That is why we decided to test<strong> dynamic backgrounds during the World Cup</strong>, with <a data-mce-href="http://www.tok.tv/how-to-follow-the-worldcup-with-your-friends-on-the-second-screen/" href="http://www.tok.tv/how-to-follow-the-worldcup-with-your-friends-on-the-second-screen/" target="_blank" title="How to follow the #WorldCup with your friends on the second screen">our 12 vertical apps</a>. The idea was to capture the moment, the goal that will accompany the memory forever.
People from all over the world showed its support to national teams and filed their social streams with our Social Selfies. Their emotions. And ours too, since we made it possible.<br />
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<img alt="foto 1" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1332" data-mce-src="http://www.tok.tv/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/foto-1-435x244.jpg" src="http://www.tok.tv/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/foto-1-435x244.jpg" height="244" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="435" />
<br />
<img alt="colombia" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1333" data-mce-src="http://www.tok.tv/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/colombia-435x244.jpg" src="http://www.tok.tv/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/colombia-435x244.jpg" height="244" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="435" /><br />
With Juventus Live 2.0, the dynamic Social Selfie made its official debut and it set a record.<br />
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<strong>Our users yesterday took more than 10.000 Social Selfies</strong>, which means more than 10.000 hearts showing their passion for Juventus from all over the world. Some alone, some socially. For us, it is an all-time record ;-)<br />
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<img alt="SocialSelfiesChievoJuve" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1326" data-mce-src="http://www.tok.tv/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/SocialSelfiesChievoJuve1.jpg" src="http://www.tok.tv/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/SocialSelfiesChievoJuve1.jpg" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="435" /><br />
Game after game, we will keep giving our users dynamic backgrounds, making emotion-framing our objective.<br />
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<img alt="02" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1313" data-mce-src="http://www.tok.tv/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/02.jpg" src="http://www.tok.tv/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/02.jpg" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="435" /><br />
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<img alt="05" class="aligncenter wp-image-1315 size-full" data-mce-src="http://www.tok.tv/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/05.jpg" src="http://www.tok.tv/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/05.jpg" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="435" /><br />
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But <strong>there is more to come</strong>. Stay tuned. Stay Social (Selfie) and keep sharing your passion with friends!
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<br />Fabrizio Capobiancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11168702805171666484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24220362.post-71853414200859657972014-07-15T06:00:00.000-07:002014-07-15T06:00:07.142-07:00Forget Chile, it is time for Startup ItaliaFirst of all, let me say I love Chile. I was in Santiago last year and I put the city on the top of my list, when it comes to places I would live in. However, I am biased. Italy is the country I grew up in, and by all means, it rocks. There is no other place in the world that gets close.<br />
<br />
Silicon Valley is full of great talent, but it is the hardest place in the world to start a company (I mean <b>start</b>
as in the first six/twelve months, when you just have an idea and nothing else). In the Valley, you can't find talent willing to join you so early, unless they are co-founders. To build a first prototype, you will need a few engineers. Unless you are one, good luck hiring great talent in San Francisco before you actually have something to show (traction or money). They are all busy working at startups with a lot of money to play with. There is a good chance you will be forced to hire someone living far away, and that sucks because the first phase of development is the one where the team needs to be in the same place.<br />
<br />
As you might know, years ago I suggested a path to Italian software companies. Get some traction in Italy, the best place in the world to develop software (<a href="http://prezi.com/vekgxh6drtbb/why-italy/">presentation here</a>, if you are curious), then send the CEO here. Silicon Valley is the best place to grow a software company. If you want to make it big, this is the place to be. Period.<br />
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I have done it twice. First with <a href="http://www.funambol.com/">Funambol</a> (we raised a $5M Series A round in 2005, with me in Silicon Valley and the team in Italy) and now with <a href="http://tok.tv/">TOK.tv</a>. It works so well, I would do it again over and over.<br />
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Years after years, I have seen Italian entrepreneurs try to move here with limited success. Very few made it. The barrier to entry is just too high. It starts with the language, knowing the intricacies of fundraising, the problems with the visa and much more. Maybe, I made it just because I worked here for a few years, before starting a company (or I was just lucky, which is the most likely answer).<br />
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So I thought: perhaps we should do the opposite. Send people from Silicon Valley to Italy to start companies. They will come back when ready to grow, with a team of Italian engineers at home. The best of both worlds.<br />
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Not with much of my doing, but Italy has just become the best place in the world to start a company. In particular, if you are an entrepreneur coming from abroad. They took the best of Startup Chile and made it even better. Check this slideshare from my friend and congressman Stefano Quintarelli.<br />
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<center>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="356" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="//www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/32718496" style="border-width: 1px 1px 0; border: 1px solid #CCC; margin-bottom: 5px; max-width: 100%;" width="427"> </iframe> </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 5px;">
<strong> <a href="https://www.slideshare.net/quinta/italys-startup-policy" target="_blank" title="Italy's startup policy">Italy's startup policy</a> </strong> from <strong><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/quinta" target="_blank">Stefano Quintarelli</a></strong> </div>
</center>
<br />
You can easily get a visa, some money and the support of the new government to start your company. You will be living in the best place on earth (sorry, Chile), and have access to the best engineers there are (trust me, I have been living in Silicon Valley for 15 years).<br />
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Take your bags, leave the Valley for a while, start a company in Italy, then come back and make it big.<br />
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It is time for Startup Italia.<br />
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<a href="http://italiastartupvisa.mise.gov.it/"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYxvJQ01zdyFC7FLkQIAiaSf5aJvo9ncxZpgLZUeUngm0eJlaKFUZELY3p5vOdCiFNPRP4kwgLlqD4KuoqG6nVYUoSDFyn_7JjjnDZAviomxzqeIEYYzh_e9AWu-awk0NdhC-I/s1600/tumblr_inline_n8440wl3491rugke7.png" /></a></div>
<br />Fabrizio Capobiancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11168702805171666484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24220362.post-31612248980499364332013-10-24T16:10:00.001-07:002013-10-24T16:10:57.711-07:00The future of TV advertising is hereWhen we launched TOK.tv a year ago, my only focus was on understanding what users would do with our app. A year later, I believe we know a ton about that - although there is a lot more to discover - and we also have traction (thanks Juve ;-)<br />
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The next step, of course, is monetization.<br />
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At this stage, I am more interested in understanding how people will react to a commercial on a second screen, rather than actually making money. I have yet to see a study on how a TV ad can be made "clickable" on a second screen. Personally, I believe this is the future of TV advertising (which still represents 85% of all advertising, BTW).<br />
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TV advertisers spend one million dollars for a SuperBowl ad, and they do not know who is watching it, what they like and they have no way to get a feedback from viewers. TV ads are not clickable today.<br />
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If I am watching a game on TV and I have TOK Baseball open, when the commercial break starts, the game stats are not that interesting. What is interesting is the actual commercial (at least, some of them). What if I could click on them, when I see something that I like? What if I could get to a web page and interact with that brand?<br />
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This, for me, is the future of TV advertising. A multi-billion dollars opportunity (the ad market is $200B a year ;-)<br />
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Guess what? The future of TV advertising is here.<br />
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If you download TOK Baseball and use it during a game of the World Series tonight, you will see it. During commercials, a thumbnail of the ad you are listening to will pop up in the bottom right. In the example below, the TV is showing a Dodge ad (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkC8iXR5SmU">one of my favorite ones</a>).<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM90rdqOGyu4tpDYh0bs6nAStFU4jZ6iy23XwmUcNr6f7d-wuv-wI7Svnz_vwaAaOHTiKc9zKAjmEvL9icnyNTophYxJB363df_z1j5akC4z7-yjpOm8_u_zTzSJtw9BSSRmUz/s1600/image.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="420" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM90rdqOGyu4tpDYh0bs6nAStFU4jZ6iy23XwmUcNr6f7d-wuv-wI7Svnz_vwaAaOHTiKc9zKAjmEvL9icnyNTophYxJB363df_z1j5akC4z7-yjpOm8_u_zTzSJtw9BSSRmUz/s400/image.png" width="560" /></a></div>
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When you click on that thumbnail, a webview will open, bringing you to interact with the ad on the Dodge web site.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF_jjeYHhu06dJroGVOmtrTvAuebpzLf7-aB3BQ65vtoCusAfUf4qwT5PtGVnY295aou9C_q8y9uRe3rZwVjzKRolQ6LystNiUZgiQuiqjecXgevHR30is6Papn_ShPTTtdA50/s1600/image-5.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="420" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF_jjeYHhu06dJroGVOmtrTvAuebpzLf7-aB3BQ65vtoCusAfUf4qwT5PtGVnY295aou9C_q8y9uRe3rZwVjzKRolQ6LystNiUZgiQuiqjecXgevHR30is6Papn_ShPTTtdA50/s400/image-5.png" width="560" /></a></div>
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The nice thing is that you do not have to exit the app, or stop talking to your friends. Actually, you can talk with your friends about the ad itself - which is pretty cool.<br />
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Ad most watched last night? <a href="http://www.ispot.tv/ad/71oV/verizon-star-wars-halloween">Verizon Stars Wall Halloween</a>.<br />
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Ad most clicked last night?
<a href="http://www.ispot.tv/ad/71TK/chrysler-road-to-greatness-featuring-miguel-cabrera">Chrysler 'Road to Greatness' Featuring Miguel Cabrera</a>.<br />
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This is just the start of the revolution. Stay tuned.</div>
Fabrizio Capobiancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11168702805171666484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24220362.post-68012415667975013922013-10-21T09:11:00.000-07:002013-10-21T11:14:31.193-07:00Why it is time for Android FirstDuring the weekend, I read <a href="http://stevecheney.com/why-android-first-is-a-myth/">an interesting article</a> about the "Android First" strategy.<br />
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If you are not familiar with the "Something First" strategies, it all started with "Mobile First": a few years back, developers and business-people alike agreed that, when you are creating a new company, your first product should be on mobile, then on the web. It makes sense, because the growth of mobile is dwarfing desktops. Those who started Mobile First a few years back, are winning today (I was Mobile First with Funambol in 2002 :-))<br />
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Now the question is: should you go iOS First - as everybody has been doing for years - or is it time for Android First? Should you design and release your first product for Android, and then for iOS?<br />
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The article says no. Just go with iOS. All VCs in Silicon Valley have iPhones and iPads. If you want to raise money, that is the way to do it. Android comes later, when you proved you can grow.<br />
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This is where the reasoning breaks down, in my opinion.<br />
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Let me start with TOK.tv. We thought about a completely new interaction with the second screen, in front of the TV, using voice. A couple of years ago, there was no argument: the iPad was king, we built iOS First.<br />
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Then we added iPhone, because it was easy (and because we had a US-centric product in TOK Baseball).<br />
<br />
Then we launched Juventus Live. US users currently represent the 2% of our user base, for a team that has 7M+ fans on Facebook.<br />
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Last summer, I was shocked when I started looking at which device people were carrying in Italy. Blinded by my life in Silicon Valley, I assumed everyone had an iPhone. My Italian developers were Apple fan boys, my sister-in-law had an iPhone, my nephew an iPod Touch. When I looked closely, my sister-in-law had actually dumped her iPhone for a Samsung Galaxy. My brother had a Galaxy. My nephew had a Galaxy. Everyone I knew had a Galaxy... Those who had an iPhone 4 skipped the upgrade to the iPhone 5 and moved to Android.<br />
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Therefore, I started looking for numbers - which are hard to find - to discover that Android has 80% of the market in Italy, while iOS is stuck at 10%. It is not just China. Look at Gartner numbers in Spain.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqhw4UJ6-Io5BJzrA_iw183a_AyR9_1mRGUNs6mpyyX1wEHH1YGVyHRVgz5FHH91bXlzoThjhCwKCoS7PswqszrQ-DGQnXxe74Awsnm7yvsrm3uWU6g8320CT_J8npKq4_uXfh/s1600/Spain+Smartphone+Market+Share+-+Kantar.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqhw4UJ6-Io5BJzrA_iw183a_AyR9_1mRGUNs6mpyyX1wEHH1YGVyHRVgz5FHH91bXlzoThjhCwKCoS7PswqszrQ-DGQnXxe74Awsnm7yvsrm3uWU6g8320CT_J8npKq4_uXfh/s640/Spain+Smartphone+Market+Share+-+Kantar.png" width="560" /></a></div>
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<span style="text-align: start;"><br /></span></div>
What is happening across Europe, is that people are buying Android phones, because they are cheaper. When the economy is not doing too well, it makes sense to save some bucks.<br />
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Look at the world stats:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGbUN35QEHqRrIBwCVYiUhXRocxhMequlVyNpAwS22cGZDiJ2cg7va3zh_ahcrhK3jUd5jNIFu3Ged9TFRNUIH6P2Y5oSOvq5kU6TUsasLy33Njv-o38LwadtR2HoXjh9-Ze8B/s1600/Gartner+-+Global+Smartphone+Sales.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGbUN35QEHqRrIBwCVYiUhXRocxhMequlVyNpAwS22cGZDiJ2cg7va3zh_ahcrhK3jUd5jNIFu3Ged9TFRNUIH6P2Y5oSOvq5kU6TUsasLy33Njv-o38LwadtR2HoXjh9-Ze8B/s1600/Gartner+-+Global+Smartphone+Sales.png" /></a></div>
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Now, you might still argue that in tablet, there is no race. iPad is winning, right? Think again, numbers do not lie:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqihkNRDdiuzd9so50aT380QAC49rtyV3DprxcCwJrNLbjr0l21rcIYsSAKO5NJ3K_fHyx6B95yD9YtI0mdWDlMhW0C56jcX78TS-rgZ6frEZOXOfbCJHi1FDesmxKwCHg-mUU/s1600/tablet-market-share-5.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="388" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqihkNRDdiuzd9so50aT380QAC49rtyV3DprxcCwJrNLbjr0l21rcIYsSAKO5NJ3K_fHyx6B95yD9YtI0mdWDlMhW0C56jcX78TS-rgZ6frEZOXOfbCJHi1FDesmxKwCHg-mUU/s640/tablet-market-share-5.png" width="520" /></a></div>
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Ok, you might argue that pure market share is not a good reason to go Android First. After all, the US is fifty-fifty and Silicon Valley is heavily iOS centric. Would you risk building an app first on Android, when VCs can't test it?<br />
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Well, there is an interesting trend in the Valley these days. To raise a Series A round, you need millions of users of your app. One million does not cut it anymore. You need more than that, probably much more.<br />
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If you stick to iOS-only, you might not get there fast enough. Those who start with Android will be there 8 times faster than you. Ok, I am exaggerating, I know Android users are different and do not use apps like iOS users do. Cut me some slack here... Shall we agree on 3x faster? That is the difference between running out of cash or not.<br />
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Should you start Android First? If you are building an app that is not just for Silicon Valley, or the US, I believe the answer is yes.<br />
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I am definitely doing it.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzv4Jallp6c2GCd4oOGSCXyGhMhsiAF4MlatBYldmLtpncB5ZBhup4DFDzdW4npEJoXW4c7f8XSHOBcRE_gUwy5VatP2KDivBE9v-bzwMB92ig2HfcA1TtNxJBBn3rd7HEcavT/s1600/juveliveandroid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="345" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzv4Jallp6c2GCd4oOGSCXyGhMhsiAF4MlatBYldmLtpncB5ZBhup4DFDzdW4npEJoXW4c7f8XSHOBcRE_gUwy5VatP2KDivBE9v-bzwMB92ig2HfcA1TtNxJBBn3rd7HEcavT/s400/juveliveandroid.jpg" width="520" /></a></div>
<br />Fabrizio Capobiancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11168702805171666484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24220362.post-25233281655246280592013-09-01T07:43:00.000-07:002013-09-01T07:43:17.514-07:00That use case you do not expectI have developed software for more than twenty years, and I am still amazed at the surprises you find along the way. You design a product, with all the use cases you can think of, then the users find one you never thought of.<br />
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Yesterday, that user was me.<br />
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I am still in the middle of a move. My living room is a mess, with 28 boxes to go (it is usually a good sign, when you feel you can start the countdown). Among other things, I am still missing the Internet and TV.<br />
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I could get Internet via my MiFi (somewhat reliable, but slow and with limited monthly bandwidth), but I have no chance to get TV. I am waiting for the DirecTV dude to come and install the dish. I could get Comcast fast, but they do not carry beIN Sport in HD. There is no chance I am going to watch Juve in SD. It would be a sacrilege, like drinking espresso from a paper cup.<br />
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So I found myself alone, following the game on <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/juventus-live/id675575049?mt=8">Juventus Live</a> (and keeping an eye on the servers, which delivered again, as my favorite team did). I looked at the commentary, and I got a sense that Juve was playing well. The score was not changing, though. I checked the heatmap and I found this:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguz7XrZy5Dsg7o9dcLmnQynboBbkJMOyJWoMTR0FGDHRD2QdtxfPPM2kpw4003lAyfMA2UmNrIwtjWxMuH2iPbCTlKToCX3dHK_th90arvtxOgiBazzIVWruZdrNEW-SZS379H/s1600/1185170_699816216701262_2042412581_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguz7XrZy5Dsg7o9dcLmnQynboBbkJMOyJWoMTR0FGDHRD2QdtxfPPM2kpw4003lAyfMA2UmNrIwtjWxMuH2iPbCTlKToCX3dHK_th90arvtxOgiBazzIVWruZdrNEW-SZS379H/s400/1185170_699816216701262_2042412581_n.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Clearly, Juve was on the attack. In fact, a few minutes later they scored.<br />
<br />
In the second half, I was so much into the game that I decided to sacrifice my MiFi (I do not have much bandwidth per month, and I am treasuring what I have until AT&T gives me the Internet I deserve). I called my brother on Juventus Live, who called me back, because he was talking to my dad (good sign, they are using my product ;-)<br />
<br />
My nephew was also there and he told me he really liked the app. Coming from a teenager, that meant a lot to me. Of course, he is a Juventus fan as well. It is a DNA thingy.<br />
<br />
All of a sudden, I was kinda-watching the game. Kinda. I could hear my family talk about the game, and the audio commentary coming from the TV (Beppe Bergomi was trying to jinx Juve, failing as usual).<br />
<br />
Then Tevez scored.<br />
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I felt I was there. I could hear the excitement coming from two houses, when the opportunity to score appeared, and then the huge yell at the actual goal. I yelled too ;-)<br />
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A million times better than listening on the radio. It is the radio plus your friends plus the stadium noises.<br />
<br />
I grew up listening to the games every Sunday, on the radio. It was a religious thing, every Sunday after lunch. When TV rights allowed us to watch the game live, our life changed. However, I still remember us all around the radio, cheering. Looking back, it was weird, but really fun.<br />
<br />
The use case I discovered is not completely new. One of my friends used to call me from his office during the World Series last year, to talk about the Giants. I was doing the commentary for him. It was fun for me, but I had never experienced being on the other side.<br />
<br />
It happened yesterday. A second screen app transformed in a radio app, with hormones. What a surprise. I will never listen to the radio during a game again.<br />
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Software is the best thing ever invented.Fabrizio Capobiancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11168702805171666484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24220362.post-68501956303203674362013-08-26T08:00:00.000-07:002013-08-26T08:00:07.415-07:00A dream came trueSaturday, I woke up tense. Quite early, because I am still jet-lagged, and definitely tense.<br />
<br />
Juve was going to play at 11:45 am and I had no clue what to expect. We had tested the servers for a peak of users, but the amount of downloads of Juventus Live since Thursday had been incredible. On top of it, I knew that baseball tends to spread the users during hours - and 15 games the same day - while the Juventus users would come in all together at the same time.<br />
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Before the game, I called my dad on Skype, as I always do every Saturday at 10 am. He tried to answer with Skype on his iPad, but it did not work. Therefore, he called me back from his computer. He told me he downloaded the app, so we tried a call on Juventus Live - assuming it would not work (since Skype wasn't). Instead, it worked perfectly. My dad told me: "TOK.tv is better than Skype". Dads are great.<br />
<br />
That already made my day, until a minute later I heard tok tok on my iPad: my younger brother came online (he lives in Mozambique, Africa). I added him to the call and we started talking about the game, making all kind of noises. We took a social photo to remember the event.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVnQ1PPGcS_YwDYY_XO-k-LtYDuuUxup3xs5psYwPrWq3dcPKwREQrBrIlWhLbs-cJtrbCx_lVKb4AX4mCyniug_-UDdTe_NpdYRZydMoxIfaH6Qd9sV3bGk5ofEcMz2qMPGu7/s1600/548339_696307587052125_1147260902_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVnQ1PPGcS_YwDYY_XO-k-LtYDuuUxup3xs5psYwPrWq3dcPKwREQrBrIlWhLbs-cJtrbCx_lVKb4AX4mCyniug_-UDdTe_NpdYRZydMoxIfaH6Qd9sV3bGk5ofEcMz2qMPGu7/s400/548339_696307587052125_1147260902_n.jpg" width="540" /></a></div>
<br />
Once we were done, I realized I was talking about Juventus from California, with my dad in Italy and my brother in Africa. Three continents, united by one passion. Amazing.<br />
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Then I went back to work. Found a problem, fixed it and started looking at the wave of users growing. I stopped accepting calls from friends, to make sure I was focused (although I had the game in background). Everything went smoothly, and I finally relaxed, once the first half was over.<br />
<br />
At that point, my older brother called. I used to watch every Juve game with him and my best friend Alberto. I do not think we missed one in the ten years I lived in Pavia. We called our little group the Juventus Club La Mamma, because it is the one thing you cannot criticize. Juve is always right. The penalty against us are simply a mistake by the referee. Our goals are never offside.<br />
<br />
We laughed about the game, and I felt like I was there on their couch. I was missing my sister-in-law's good-charm cake, though, but I am not convinced I can build a company for that (yet). We took another social photo, but this time they started it (therefore, it is in Italian, with the actual time in Italy. Clever app ;-)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhskoidGB9KjinoXY72TXT5WDWsMd2z9AaUYdwjxdrLsazjetUWvsaeRpO7lBYdqv1e5jm9E6JDj1Pj4P6jo0VeDgJ6L24_258Pb5vp4FoKB2xE4fWFTeyvvKyiBMGiEa9y2nkJ/s1600/1229980_696354460380771_76263226_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhskoidGB9KjinoXY72TXT5WDWsMd2z9AaUYdwjxdrLsazjetUWvsaeRpO7lBYdqv1e5jm9E6JDj1Pj4P6jo0VeDgJ6L24_258Pb5vp4FoKB2xE4fWFTeyvvKyiBMGiEa9y2nkJ/s400/1229980_696354460380771_76263226_n.jpg" width="540" /></a></div>
<br />
When Juve scored, the amount of concurrent users shot up. Sign that people called their friends to celebrate, and to take a photo together (I definitely was one of them). When the game was over, same thing. Actually, the highest peak came exactly at that moment. People kept the app around for the entire game, coming back to it at the end. That is really great, for us.<br />
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Last social photo, to celebrate the victory, with my dad and the Juventus Club La Mamma.<br />
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Once everything was over, I stopped for a second. I was tired as if I actually played the game, but I had a big smile on my face. We had a ton of users, the servers worked perfectly, Juve won and I enjoyed the game as I never had in almost fifteen years living in the US.<br />
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I built an app because I had a dream. The dream to watch Juve with my family and friends. Yesterday, that dream came true. I am such a lucky man.<br />
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<br />Fabrizio Capobiancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11168702805171666484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24220362.post-21369895589271072952013-08-22T06:00:00.000-07:002013-08-22T06:00:08.555-07:00Going for that millionThe day after the SuperBowl, I had mixed emotions. I was licking my wounds for the loss of the Niners, but I was really happy for the amount of users and the feedback TOK Football received.<br />
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Then, out of the blue, an email hit my Inbox. There was a logo in the signature. Big, visibile. The logo of my soccer team. Juventus. The best team in Italy, one of the top ten in the world.<br />
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There are few things in life that give a man emotions. One, it is the logo of the team he rooted for, since he was a child. For me, that is Juventus (the Giants, the Niners, even Ferrari are passions I acquired along the way). Juventus is the one love my dad passed to me. Something that is in my DNA, and will ever be.<br />
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The email said they tried the app and were really impressed by it, and they wanted to talk to me.<br />
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As any geek would do, the first thing I did was checking the raw source of the message. I have been the author of multiple pranks in my life, surrounding emails. This one looked like a potential good prank from a friend, but the SMTP server was mail.juventus.com, and the IP from Turin, home of Juventus. As legit as they come.<br />
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It was not a prank. Of all the teams in the world, it was my team. Out of nowhere. They wanted TOK.tv, for Juventus fans, like me. When my ultimate goal when I started TOK.tv was to talk to my dad and brother, during Juventus games... What are the odds?? Unbelievable.<br />
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Today, a bit more than six months later, we are launching <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id675575049?mt=8" target="_blank">Juventus Live</a>. The TOK.tv app that allows Juventus fans to talk to their friends, while they watch their team on TV.<br />
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It is a big deal for us. Juventus has 6.8M fans on Facebook. They are a huge brand worldwide. TOK Baseball is doing great: I am hopeful we can get to 100,000 users by the end of the season. But this is different: our little brand can do so much, but with Juventus on the cover, we are going to get to that million of users in a few months.<br />
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<br />
To celebrate the event, we even have a new logo, and <a href="http://www.tok.tv/" target="_blank">a new website</a>...<br />
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Go <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id675575049?mt=8" target="_blank">download Juventus Live</a> from the App Store. It works for your iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. It has news when there is no game, and live stats during the game (plus sounds that make you feel you are at the stadium). We have it in English and in Italian. If you are a TOK.tv user, your friends will be there waiting for you, same backend. If you are not a Juve fan, still check it out, maybe you can jinx us ;-)<br />
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And if you want to know if there is a burp sound... No, there is not. But I am going to fight to get it back in. Maybe, before we get to that million... As usual, stay tuned.Fabrizio Capobiancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11168702805171666484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24220362.post-35454218905985067362013-07-05T10:36:00.000-07:002013-07-05T10:36:21.059-07:00Doing good, by accidentI have never thought about starting a social enterprise. I always begin from a need I have, and I go about solving it. For Funambol, I desperately needed a way to keep my devices in sync, starting with my address book and calendar. For TOK.tv, I was tired of watching sport on TV alone with my dog.<br />
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I am a big fan of social entrepreneurs (like my friend Villy, the CEO of <a href="http://www.baycat.org/" target="_blank">Baycat</a>, pictured left bothering Giants fans before a postseason game at AT&T Park). One day, I wish I could be one.<br />
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However, some days you realize that - even if you do not aim for it - you might get lucky and do something good.<br />
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On a late afternoon of a great 4th of July, I was checking the stats of TOK Baseball. Do not ask me why, it is a compulsive thingy for startuppers. We live and die by our stats and logs.<br />
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I usually do not care about usage per country, since our app is used almost only in the US. However, for some reason I clicked on the "session duration per country" link. At the top of the list, I saw Afghanistan.<br />
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Wait, who could care about baseball in Afghanistan? It cannot be a popular sport there... Ohhh, right, our troops...<br />
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Bam, it hit me. The longest sessions we have are from Afghanistan. Our troops talking baseball with their families.<br />
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How cool is that? On the 4th of July? Unreal.<br />
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I left home thinking about that guy sitting somewhere in Afghanistan, with an iPad in his hands, yelling for a triple with his kid, at home during a 4th of July celebration. It made my day.<br />
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Hey, even if you are a selfish entrepreneur, sometimes you do good by accident. I am a lucky guy.Fabrizio Capobiancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11168702805171666484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24220362.post-80706523229972353932013-06-14T12:10:00.002-07:002013-06-14T12:16:03.522-07:00Is the iPhone a good Second Screen?When we started TOK.tv, we had a certainty: people will prefer to watch TV with friends, rather than alone. <br />
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We were convinced that they would also prefer talking to a friend, rather than being forced to type.<br />
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We ran a bunch of tests, with baseball, then football, then the Oscar night. The results proved it: talking is more fun than typing. Our users spend a long time talking with the app, compared to normal mobile app usage. We are talking 20 to 50 times more.<br />
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A second screen app on a tablet is not a mobile app, it is a couch app. That changes everything. It is closer to a desktop interaction, than a mobile one. However, it happens in a relaxed environment (on the couch, rather then sitting in front of a computer), which makes everything more fun.<br />
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TOK Baseball has been a great success. Over 30,000 downloads in two months, thousands of users coming back daily, with average talk time of 24 minutes. We reached the Top 6 Sports app in the App Store, in front of ESPN and big brands. We found out that the more our users talk, the more they come back, the longer they talk. Awesome.<br />
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I have to say we were hopeful it would happen, because we tested it for almost a year and we knew the user experience was great. Now, however, we are moving one step further. Into unchartered territory.<br />
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Today, we launched TOK Baseball for the iPhone. It is available on the <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tok-baseball/id520826599?mt=8">App Store</a>.<br />
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We have no clue how people are going to use our app on a smartphone. It is not a tablet, it is <i>really</i> a mobile device.<br />
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Are you going to use it on the couch as the tablet app? Or on the go? At the ballpark? On the train? Even when there is no TV?<br />
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Is a second screen app on a smartphone a mobile app or a couch app? I have no idea ;-)<br />
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It is going to be fun to find out. We have no test data, no experience... We have nothing. In a few months, we'll know a lot.<br />
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I promise I will report back as soon as I find out.<br />
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For now, please <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tok-baseball/id520826599?mt=8" target="_blank">try it out</a> and let me know.<br />
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<br />Fabrizio Capobiancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11168702805171666484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24220362.post-67261755385281352252013-04-01T10:25:00.001-07:002013-04-01T10:25:51.391-07:00TOK.tv: ready for take-offAs you might know, we have been working on TOK.tv for a while now.<br />
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Our goal is to let you TALK to your friends while watching TV, making sure you will never watch TV alone, while enhancing the overall experience.<br />
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I am convinced that the Second Screen market is the next big thing (Mashable put it as <a href="http://mashable.com/2012/12/06/tech-trends-2013/" target="_blank">the #1 trend for 2013</a>, so I am not alone).<br />
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I have never seen a market that is nascent, where the desire by end users is incredible (80% of people use a mobile device while watching TV today), <b>and</b> the business model is obvious.<br />
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The convergence of TV brand advertising with Internet transactional advertising is the Holy Grail of advertising. 85% of ad spending is still on TV ($200B/year...). Companies spend a million dollars for a SuperBowl ad, having no clue who watches it and what kind of people like it. Moreover, they have no way to give you an action to follow-up on the ad (i.e. "click"). If Google built a zillion dollars company with the remaining 15% of the ad market, I am sure there is a big company to be built here, one that allows you to "click" on a TV ad because an icon pops up on your iPad, while you watch a commercial.<br />
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We think TOK.tv is going to be that company. Simply because we nailed the user experience. We tested voice as the medium to share emotions while watching TV, and we discovered it changes everything.<br />
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Last October, we ran a test during the baseball postseason. TOK Baseball allowed users to watch a game on TV, with the scoreboard in their hands, talking to their friends. Because watching TV is a passive experience, voice is just perfect. People used our app for 57 minutes during each game (on average). Talking to their friends, while leaving the iPad on the side of the couch and kicking back. It makes sense, but we proved it.<br />
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If you force your users to type, they will pick up their device, type for two minutes, then stop and go back to watch the game. Not when you can talk. Actually, you will pick up your iPad during commercials (Ka-Ching! ;-) and you will be able to browse an ad while talking (see, voice is passive... You can even talk to your friends about the ad itself...)<br />
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In January, we ran a second test, during the football postseason. We saw 50% of baseball users move to TOK Football and we added a Facebook integration, which made the friendship numbers balloon (from one to eight on average). Yes, the additional content is important, but the key is the social interaction.<br />
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Then in February, we ran our last test, during Oscar night. Despite no advertising whatsoever, we had four times the users we had during the SuperBowl. And 68% of them were ladies. It proved to us that the model works beyond sports (and that it is true that ladies like to talk ;-) It was also the first test of the TOK.tv platform, the way we will scale, allowing others to provide the content.<br />
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Finally, we are done with tests. We are now ready for take-off.<br />
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Today, we launched TOK Baseball 2.0. It is not a beta anymore, it is the real deal. We added content so that the app is useful before and after the game, not just during the game. And a lot of cool stats.<br />
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You can check it out <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tok-baseball/id520826599" target="_blank">on the App Store</a>.<br />
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What else? We announced that we have completed our Angel round. $400K from a phenomenal group of individuals, covering the mobile, TV and advertising space. I am honored to have them on board and I look forward to make them very happy (since they are already rich ;-)<br />
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We have a pipeline full of incredibly cool features (and an iPhone version), plus a series of spectacular apps (yes, we'll do soccer and basketball, I promise).<br />
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Stay tuned, the sky is the limit.Fabrizio Capobiancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11168702805171666484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24220362.post-85776911664589688422013-02-20T14:59:00.000-08:002013-02-22T18:43:39.744-08:00Google has killed Android (the brand)There are days where a trend you noticed becomes absolutely visible. Today is one of those days.<br />
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I have seen the Android brand disappear over time. First, it was the Nexus, then Samsung came with the Galaxy brand, who made Android less relevant. Now, Android is just invisible.<br />
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I thought Google was losing a war against its partners, but I finally concluded that it cannot be just a coincidence. It is not just a trend. It is a deliberate effort. By Google.<br />
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At Mobile World Congress last year, Android was everywhere. The Android space was the biggest of all. It was all about Android and a bit about the hardware manufacturers.<br />
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This year (BTW, if you are going to Barcelona and you want to meet, just let me know), Android will be <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/18/no-cute-android-pins-no-schmidt-no-slide-google-tones-down-its-presence-at-mwc-this-year/">absent</a> at MWC 2013. No space, no booth. Gone.<br />
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If you read about the new HTC One, you'll have a hard time finding Android anywhere. HTC is trying to promote its brand, <a href="http://techpinions.com/htc-one-android-zero/14548">Android is way in the background</a>. Gone.<br />
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Of course, Android is dominant. So much that saying you sell an "Android phone" makes you a cheap commodity play. Nobody wants that, they all want to be cool and different. Leave Android to the Chinese knock-offs.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLLMbVGEdMSKSMWaLcRt2e0hm3KUvUOEDFf3Ts3pOBAbWKMkSD9S75rBibSQyXVLDHwhVjCUNbCi3jHJWPxXH1eur0GRllPbBUxu9AR7riIQF-vyZF0de9isUko809nL8LGDUN/s1600/global-mobile-operating-system-share.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLLMbVGEdMSKSMWaLcRt2e0hm3KUvUOEDFf3Ts3pOBAbWKMkSD9S75rBibSQyXVLDHwhVjCUNbCi3jHJWPxXH1eur0GRllPbBUxu9AR7riIQF-vyZF0de9isUko809nL8LGDUN/s400/global-mobile-operating-system-share.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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However, it is not just the device manufacturers. It is Google killing the brand. They moved away from it when Android Market became Google Play, and they are distancing themselves even more now.<br />
<br />
They want Google to be the brand, not Android.<br />
<br />
Risky business? I am not sure. Who cares about Android? Developers. Only developers.<br />
<br />
Even if you water down the brand, developers will know it ;-) It does not make a difference. You are not going to lose developers because you are de-emphasizing the brand.<br />
<br />
However, having two brands confuses consumers. Google is planning to <a href="http://www.eweek.com/mobile/google-planning-to-open-retail-stores-report/">open flagship stores</a>. They bought a hardware manufacturer. They are changing, and they want Google front and central.<br />
<br />
Who knows the word iOS? Nobody (oh, you do, but you are a geek).<br />
<br />
People out there know Apple. They know iPhone and iPad. iOS is for geeks. It is hidden inside. For those who can tell the difference between a V12 and a V6 engine (see, maybe you are not a geek after all).<br />
<br />
Android is now so dominant, it can be killed. Because it is just what's inside. What matters, it is the outside.<br />
<br />
Gone is Android. Killed by its own father.<br />
<br />
Believe me, you want to buy a Google.<br />
<br />Fabrizio Capobiancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11168702805171666484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24220362.post-21968768042615286212013-02-04T12:15:00.002-08:002013-02-04T12:18:11.269-08:00About drinking (and defense) during the Super BowlDuring the Super Bowl yesterday, we had an explosion of downloads and users for TOK Football.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The systems responded very well, and I was pleased with the way we set up the app infrastructure. The app worked flawlessly, with peaks during the lights-out moment, and the only thing that actually suffered was the web site, which is funny (and a lesson learned for the future)...<br />
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<br /></div>
<div>
I do not really remember the result of the game (ehm), so I decided to do a check of some stats to figure it out.</div>
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<br /></div>
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What I found is the chart below.</div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyOZiG-9QPqzWeNTAXMp9_Z6Hzn41synR8D3_V2PgYLqZdkH6YBPwlJ1hnJEP9gj1HYLnmAWcNPnqzOy1fBb8y53YDvcbAj2BlCpMKsMaG5cFnZUHAZ643ddLy1MOdzqzcY40G/s1600/noises.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyOZiG-9QPqzWeNTAXMp9_Z6Hzn41synR8D3_V2PgYLqZdkH6YBPwlJ1hnJEP9gj1HYLnmAWcNPnqzOy1fBb8y53YDvcbAj2BlCpMKsMaG5cFnZUHAZ643ddLy1MOdzqzcY40G/s400/noises.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
What the chart shows is how many times the users clicked on a particular noise in the app. </div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The focus is on two noises: burp (you might imagine what the sound is) and defense (which is the D# chant).</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I plotted them over time, from the Wild Card to the Super Bowl.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
What I found out is that DEFENSE was less and less a concern. Apparently, during the Wild Card, offense does not count much, while in the Super Bowl it is all that matters (and the MVP is usually a quarterback).</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
What is interesting is that BURP grew over time. That tells me people do not drink much during the Wild Card, but they go nuts as games progress. I am not sure if it is due to celebrations or to forget the result of the game.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
For me, it was definitely the latter...</div>
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<br /></div>
Fabrizio Capobiancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11168702805171666484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24220362.post-63704585209026980292013-01-14T08:35:00.000-08:002013-01-14T08:37:02.788-08:00TOK.tv on NBCThe day before the big 49ers game, NBC news had a segment on second screen.<br />
<br />
We were a bit surprised they decided to dedicate it entirely to TOK.tv (but we did not complain).<br />
<br />
What I found very encouraging is that they described the app better than I would (I am taking notes for my next presentation ;-) even using the TOK/talk joke effectively.
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/_bh_Oe5avwY" width="560"></iframe>
<br />
Something must be working in our marketing story. Good sign. Let's keep plowing ahead.<br />
<br />
If we made the Giants win the World Series with TOK Baseball, we can definitely make the Niners win the SuperBowl with TOK Football. And I have some more ideas for apps on sports I care about ;-)Fabrizio Capobiancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11168702805171666484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24220362.post-29438303664286835792013-01-04T13:13:00.001-08:002013-01-04T13:17:59.709-08:0057 minutes and why the second screen is a big dealToday is a great day for TOK.tv. <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tok-football/id583273895?ls=1&mt=8">TOK Football can be downloaded from the App Store</a>, worldwide. It is our second second screen app, after TOK Baseball. It allows you to talk to your friends while you watch the NFL postseason. We are very excited about it.<br />
<br />
Why?<br />
<br />
Because one number hit us about our experience with TOK Baseball: people have used the app, on average, for 57 minutes per game.<br />
<br />
57 minutes, with our app open, in front of a TV. On average (a lot of folks had it open for three hours...).<br />
<br />
It is a huge number. Consider that the average time spent on a mobile app is 71 seconds...<br />
<br />
If you stop and think about it, it makes sense. A second screen app is technically a mobile app, but it is used in a static environment. On your couch. In front of your TV.
It is not really a mobile app, even if it is enjoyed on a mobile device.<br />
<br />
That changes everything.<br />
<br />
When you are on your couch, you are relaxed, in a passive state. An advertiser can hit you with a commercial for 30 seconds, and you are going to watch it. Yes, I know, people want to change channel during commercials, but they rarely do. In particular, during a sport event (what if I come back late and I miss the touchdown?).<br />
<br />
With a second screen on your lap, when someone or something gets your attention, you transform from passive to active. You jump on your device and act. Anybody with an iPad knows what I am talking about. During a game, a news event, a movie, anything. They say something you are interested to know more about, and you are on your iPad searching.<br />
<br />
The same is going to happen with advertising. You see something interesting on TV, the app in front of you will pulse so you can act on it.<br />
<br />
Act means also transact.
Synchronized ads between TV and the second screen represent the future of advertising. It is a multi-billion dollar market.<br />
<br />
If you think about the ad model of the Internet, it is all based on transactions. Done with a mouse, in a working state of mind. When you are relaxed and on the couch, you are in a better mood to spend. Advertiser will catch you off guard. It is even better than traditional online advertising. Then, you add a TV on top.<br />
<br />
The second screen merges the ad model of TV (brand advertising) with the ad model of the Internet (transactional advertising). It is such a powerful tool, that it is scary...<br />
<br />
You have it bundled in the perfect state of mind (on your couch) with the most intuitive device on the planet (a tablet, with a touch screen).<br />
<br />
A second screen app is a mobile app with hormones.<br />
<br />
Ok, not every second screen app will lock you in for 57 minutes (we have our special sauce, linked to the social nature of our voice-enabled platform), but for those who achieve what we have, it is going to be huge. We offer a full meal, not just a bite. It is fun, and social, and you have no reason to leave.<br />
<br />
Second screen is already a top trend for 2013 (#1 for <a href="http://mashable.com/2012/12/06/tech-trends-2013/">Mashable</a>, and <a href="http://www.ypulse.com/post/view/a-look-into-the-crystal-ball-top-trends-for-2013">many</a> <a href="http://activ8social.com/2013/01/04/2013-social-media-predictions-second-screen-is-here-to-stay/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+activ8social+(Activ8Social)">others</a>) and it is growing faster than anything I have seen in my career. If history tells me something, it is that new trends grow faster than the ones which came before. I expect an unprecedented growth.<br />
<br />
For now, enjoy a talk with your friends during the NFL postseason. You know, you watch the SuperBowl for the commercials. Now you can talk with your friends about it, without waiting for the day after. One day, you'll be able to act on it ;-)<br />
<br />
57 minutes. Second screen is a new paradigm, with the most powerful business model attached to it. That is why it is a big deal.Fabrizio Capobiancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11168702805171666484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24220362.post-68780468201276800562012-12-05T17:08:00.001-08:002012-12-05T17:16:03.367-08:00It is confirmed: Microsoft sucks lessI spent the last two days in Redmond, invited by Microsoft (hey, they seems to be interested in Social TV, that is a good sign...).<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiD6NNEm-XKqwFlNddZnul-U4sNBVAVz0MMEMCDrjPYbFiNlnYU7YNQXqxYtVtS2hu_i0AOpuePtA7sZYr8c7OyGLidR2J1G4ghw-rR30soeAH93KNFzsSWiKY4_9L9g90EBIu/s1600/20121204_122927.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiD6NNEm-XKqwFlNddZnul-U4sNBVAVz0MMEMCDrjPYbFiNlnYU7YNQXqxYtVtS2hu_i0AOpuePtA7sZYr8c7OyGLidR2J1G4ghw-rR30soeAH93KNFzsSWiKY4_9L9g90EBIu/s400/20121204_122927.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
As you probably know, I have never been a fan of Microsoft. In the early days of Funambol, they were the enemy. It was us and them. Open Source against the Evil Monopoly...<br />
<br />
It was easy.<br />
<br />
I even remember a Microsoft conference I was invited to attend in San Francisco, just the day after they announced that Linux was infringing on 325 of their patents. I showed up with a box full of t-shirts with a huge "325 more reasons to love open source". It was a big success :-) and I am told a lot of the Microsoft open source guys still have one of my t-shirts...<br />
<br />
Microsoft was evil, the monopoly, invincible. They were about to do on mobile what they did on every other market. We needed to stop them.<br />
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I am not sure if I actually did anything, but they did not make it in mobile. Open Source won. They now look like the underdog. Which is amazing...<br />
<br />
Now, I always love the underdog. With Apple looking more evil than ever, Facebook being a close second and Google a question mark, Microsoft has started to look a lot better.<br />
<br />
Before leaving for Redmond, I bumped into the following video.<br />
<br />
<iframe width="550" height="309" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/lD9FAOPBiDk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><br />
I know, it is hard to believe it is a Microsoft video. But it is. They really say "IE sucks less". That's their marketing slogan.<br />
<br />
I believe it is brilliant. I am now considering installing IE 10 on my desktop PC. I swear.<br />
<br />
Then I came here and they showed me a bunch of new stuff. They talked about Windows 8, <a href="http://www.typescriptlang.org/">Typescript</a> (which is a very cool open source project), their plans around device management (wow) and a lot more. I played with the Surface with its weird keyboards, which surprisingly work pretty well.<br />
<br />
All of a sudden, I realized that Microsoft is a company which is innovating. For real.<br />
<br />
Think about Kinect. I am not sure there has been anything comparable lately, when it comes to innovations touching the consumers (Google and the cars that drive themselves are probably better, but the technology is just a prototype, and I am always scared when I pass one of them on the highway...).<br />
<br />
Think about Windows 8. You really need balls to merge the desktop and tablet paradigm. I am not convinced it is going to work, but they are not afraid to try. For a giant, it is a huge gamble. It is amazing just to see them making this move.<br />
<br />
Of course, they have plenty of issues, all over the place. For example, Windows Phone is completely separate from Windows 8, although they look similar. If you are a developer in the second screen space, you think mobile+tablet, as in the Apple world. At Microsoft, they live in two different domains, and this spells trouble for developers (and end users). The two platforms will not be in sync, with updates which will come at different times... They did the ballsy move to merge desktop and tablet, but they should bring phone in as well, pushing politics aside.<br />
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There are more examples like this. However, they are minor.<br />
<br />
If I look at the big picture, one thing is clear to me after two days in Redmond: it is actually true that Microsoft sucks less. And this is news, or as they say: Progress. Unexpected and amazing at the same time.Fabrizio Capobiancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11168702805171666484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24220362.post-12905933072329131262012-11-15T15:52:00.005-08:002012-11-15T15:55:30.232-08:00Why Steve Jobs was wrong on the iPad MiniI have always been a big admirer of Steve Jobs and his work. For an open source guy, the love I have for Apple is hard to justify (they are the most closed company in the world). I just like their stuff and I have felt Steve Jobs was rarely wrong (in particular, when he said that the cloud was the future of device synchronization ;-)<br />
<br />
On the iPad Mini, however, I believe Steve Jobs got it wrong.<br />
<br />
Of the smaller tablets, he famously said "This size isn't sufficient to create great tablet apps" and "The seven-inch tablets are tweeners, too big to compete with a smartphone and too small to compete with an iPad."<br />
<br />
I have used an iPad Mini for 24 hours now.<br />
<br />
The apps look exactly the same as they are on my large iPad. There is very minimal tradeoff here. The size of the Mini is perfectly sufficient to create great tablet apps. WRONG #1<br />
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I agree it is way too big to compete with my smartphone or camera (people who go around taking pictures with iPads are nuts), but it is definitely a huge competitor to the iPad3. Huge.<br />
<br />
Look, the tradeoff is minimal. Mostly, it is the keyboard. However, if you keep it vertical, you can type with your thumbs, BlackBerry-style (formerly Gangnam-style, but now just depressing). I have not found a better way to type than with my thumbs. Even when I use all my fingers on the iPad3, I make mistakes. With my thumbs, I might be slower (might) but I am definitely more accurate. I will always be slower than typing on my laptop, but that is a given. I will never write long emails with a tablet. Period.<br />
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If the tradeoff is the keyboard and the Mini makes it even better in vertical, then what else is left?<br />
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Size and weight are a huge advantage of the Mini, for people who carry both a laptop and an iPad (again, those who go around with just a tablet are also nuts, the tradeoff between laptop and tablet is still gigantic).<br />
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Yeah yeah, I hear you: "it does not have a retina display! My eyes will pop out!!". No, they won't. Sorry, you have spent too much time in Silicon Valley. The retina display is something that only the 0.1% of the population (designers, artists) can really appreciate. The rest of us, we just pretend because it makes us look cool. You can live without a retina display, believe me. And if you wait nine months, you'll have your iPad Mini with the retina display, I guarantee it.<br />
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There you have it. I can't find a good reason to say that the Mini can't compete with the iPad3. The Mini is no tweener. It kicks his bigger brother. WRONG #2.<br />
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I believe the Mini will quickly outsell the iPad, as the iPod Mini did with the large iPod (remember?).<br />
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And where will your Mini live? Let me bet: in your living room, on your couch. The iPad Mini is THE device for Social TV. It is the perfect companion to your TV. It already looks like a big remote control, but 1,000 times smarter. It is the perfect trigger for the amazing growth of second screen apps, an unstoppable wave in 2013.<br />
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Now, if only Apple had the guts to price it below $300 ;-) They did not, and I clearly understand why: they know it will cannibalize the iPad3 and they did not want to do the same with the iPod Touch (which is still selling like crazy). Had they gone below $300, who would have bought an iPod Touch for its kids this Christmas? Nobody. However, now you are going to pony up $329 and buy them the Mini instead. Not bad. With time, the price will go down, because the premium Apple can demand will no longer be more than 50% like it is today (the Nexus 7 is $199). There will be a $249 iPad Mini one day, and more than one per household (hey, I wrote it <a href="http://www.fabcapo.com/2010/05/ipad-personal-or-family-device.html">a long time ago</a>... There is a reason why the iPad has never been multi-user: they want one per person, not one per family).<br />
<br />
Well, you can't be always right... I remember Steve Jobs saying that he would never open the iPhone to developers, because they would ruin the device. And than say the App Store is the best thing that they ever invented ;-) I am sure today he would say that the iPad Mini is more than 7". It is 7.9".<br />
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That 0.9 makes all the difference between a tweener and the best device ever conceived. Right?Fabrizio Capobiancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11168702805171666484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24220362.post-23336743417611483932012-10-24T09:22:00.001-07:002012-10-25T10:53:07.504-07:00My next big thingI have been fortunate to spot the Internet at its infancy, when I started Internet Graffiti in 1994. I launched a web document management product in 1996, when the word Intranet was still unknown. I started Funambol ten years ago, when I felt mobile was going to be the next big thing. We built iCloud way before Steve Jobs said it was a good idea. I am a lucky man.<br />
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Sadly, you can't spot the next big thing by trying hard. It just hits you.<br />
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A year ago, I was hit. Again.<br />
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I was not looking for it. It just happened.<br />
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I am a huge sports fan. During the weekend, my schedule is CEO-style: soccer, baseball, football, Formula One, MotoGP. I like them all. I spend hours in front of the TV, always watching it alone (actually, my dog Roberto is a silent company, but he gets scared when I yell).<br />
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My dad is just like me, although his focus is squarely on soccer. My mom did not like it, but she surely loved my dad, and she would see every game with him. Just for the company.<br />
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A few years ago, I gave her an iPad. She loved it. When she passed away, my dad took it.<br />
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Thinking about the solitude of watching all those games alone, my brother told him: "Dad, when you watch soccer, turn the iPad on and open Skype. I'll call you, so we can watch the game together".<br />
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My brother is a genius. I found myself at home on my dad's couch, with my brother sitting next to me. Virtually. Screaming from the iPad at the referee. It was like having him there. It meant not being alone. That hit me.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_cwpMwLR59K7I9ZBbs7M3dIEeC4oPL61L9_0bgsOFplqwTpPNGbQwFHEiYpgO_fry-PtgDWOGbB2wgWsrEmBDAnQlSzKV8qy0p1eUZSRSWNZfWVWWkpgBy1tzeWAoVUaikY2Y/s1600/NadiaAndreini_120925_053_logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_cwpMwLR59K7I9ZBbs7M3dIEeC4oPL61L9_0bgsOFplqwTpPNGbQwFHEiYpgO_fry-PtgDWOGbB2wgWsrEmBDAnQlSzKV8qy0p1eUZSRSWNZfWVWWkpgBy1tzeWAoVUaikY2Y/s400/NadiaAndreini_120925_053_logo.jpg" width="266" /></a>Watching TV by yourself is pathetic, I admit it. TV was meant to be social. That's why we invite people over for a big game. Sharing is half of the fun (and even more).<br />
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I can't have people over every night (or I would be single, fast), but what if I could share the fun of the game with them, even if they are not physically where I am? I know they are watching the game. We talk about it the day after, always. I know their iPad is next to them.<br />
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The iPad mini is the perfect companion to your TV. It is the remote control of the future. At $329, Apple is going to sell a boatloads of them this Christmas.<br />
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<a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57409836-93/more-people-using-tv-and-tablets-at-same-time/">88% of iPad owners use it in front of the TV</a>. People in the US spend almost five hours a day watching TV (ouch ;-) It is still our favorite pastime, by far. All of a sudden, it is possible to talk with your friends, who are watching TV at the same time. It is called Social TV.<br />
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The TV advertising industry is huge, but they have no idea if you are actually watching their commercial, and they definitely cannot have you act on it (e.g. buy). Brand advertising is emotional advertising. It works with a 55" TV. But it does not work on the Internet. There, transactional advertising works. You can act on an ad. Buy.<br />
<br />
Imagine how big the TV+Internet ad industry can be. Where you can show an emotional ad on TV and have the viewer act on it on the iPad. It is the Holy Grail of advertising.<br />
<br />
There you have it. My next big thing is giving people back the fun of watching their favorite shows on TV together, even if they live far away. It works for sports, and for everything else you want to share (the Presidential debate, the Emmy awards, American Idol, you name it).<br />
<br />
Hey, what about Funambol? Like I said two years ago, the company has being placed in good hands. It is growing so well: in the last six months, we have signed almost all the top carriers in the developed markets. In 2013, we'll have half a billion people with access to the Funambol technology (without a carrier in China or India, for now). I will stay involved with my baby indefinitely as Chairman of the Board and watch it thrive.<br />
<br />
My next big thing is called <a href="http://www.tok.tv/">TOK.tv</a>.<br />
<br />
There is a new app for your iPad on the App Store. It is called TOK Baseball. It is the first voice enabled second screen TV companion app. It will allow you to watch the World Series with your friends, wherever they are (and GO GIANTS!!!).<br />
<br />
You can TALK to them, not type (who wants to type after a home run? Not me, I am too busy screaming). If you are in the US, I would love for you to <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tok-baseball/id520826599?l=it&ls=1&mt=8">download it from the App Store</a> and share your feedback with me. Actually, we can talk during the games, which would be even better.<br />
<br />
For now, we have raised an angel round. If you think you can provide more than just cash, <a href="https://angel.co/tok-tv">let me know</a>, there is still a bit of room.<br />
<br />
The app is just the first step. I would have called it a beta, but Apple does not allow me ;-) We built an MVP for baseball (Posey or Scutaro?), and we have a million features in mind. We are already working on TOK Football and we know the sky is the limit.<br />
<br />
This is just the start of the TV revolution. It is called <a href="http://www.tok.tv/">TOK.tv</a>. It is going to be big. Stay tuned.<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/DCVVdEgvBD0?rel=0" width="560"></iframe>Fabrizio Capobiancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11168702805171666484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24220362.post-71417135977014013762012-05-22T10:42:00.000-07:002012-05-22T10:47:19.644-07:00The last postYesterday, I was invited to give a talk at OSBC 2012, called "The Future of Mobile Open Source". The Open Source Business Conference has been <i>the</i> gathering for those involved in open source, and trying to make a living out of it. I have been there many times. Initially, it was a lot of fun, with all the startups innovating on the business model. Lately, well, things have matured a bit ;-)<br />
<br />
Being forced to talk about the future of Mobile Open Source, I had to look back at what happened over the years I have been in this market. I realized it has been a phenomenal ride. From 2001, when Stefano started working on Sync4j (exactly when Luca Passani started working on WURFL, strange Italian connection...), to 2003 when we formed Funambol, to 2007 when the iPhone came out and Android went open source, to today.<br />
<br />
Going back in time and assessing where we have come, made me realize one thing. The future of Mobile Open Source is actually today.<br />
<br />
Look at this chart:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggyhEY7G4QWEIVnyjZtXPU4fWWkL1QpM6thBhhTwogkR3UpRyL2cEhRqKNm-_TYIngUw_PvhIwq-msgLDKiQs4yUvCqd9C0lzlcMhE6N45li8rC5luc0g7cEIBNmNKYlmRdLJi/s1600/smartphonemarket.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggyhEY7G4QWEIVnyjZtXPU4fWWkL1QpM6thBhhTwogkR3UpRyL2cEhRqKNm-_TYIngUw_PvhIwq-msgLDKiQs4yUvCqd9C0lzlcMhE6N45li8rC5luc0g7cEIBNmNKYlmRdLJi/s400/smartphonemarket.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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I do not know what else to say... It is a Pacman. Open source dominates in mobile, and I am ready to bet that it is just going to get better. The PC world will have an equivalent in the mobile world. Only reversed, where open source has more than 80% of market share.<br />
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Can you believe it? Open source dominates in mobile. Wow.<br />
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Look at this other one:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMmcj8tS-KSTZ_wz49DL-tW1ueTdhZkYNJxC7p-xkMC1VoSwAV5l2fuROQyWmlGpbaFimJp9Ei5q1k_US6hyphenhyphenSnJW75OVQqUcDtcjwJ3YN7U0dQCdU3l_gGOOF0OZ-LYntIcwIc/s1600/browser-usage-worldwide.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMmcj8tS-KSTZ_wz49DL-tW1ueTdhZkYNJxC7p-xkMC1VoSwAV5l2fuROQyWmlGpbaFimJp9Ei5q1k_US6hyphenhyphenSnJW75OVQqUcDtcjwJ3YN7U0dQCdU3l_gGOOF0OZ-LYntIcwIc/s400/browser-usage-worldwide.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Chrome uses Webkit. Safari uses Webkit. Firefox is open source. If you consider that the growth is going to come from iOS (Webkit) and Android (Webkit), it is quick to conclude we are going to see another Pacman. Once again, with open source winning. Wow.<br />
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What is the only critique you hear about the mobile open source model today? I bet it is (drum roll...): FRAGMENTATION!!<br />
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I know, there are almost 4,000 Android devices out there, listed below.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvntgsDxrnj2kujI8USxEFpErLavoASn-m1tWLJb2Mxd72WobbgV_TDi7ofcEIoke-OIYsdoX15lVEXxfgYHh5sfiUPjgInH95hWZ28Nn6m7V1oFlvkOUTLKb5PVyVQX6vGk4K/s1600/AndroidFragmentation_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvntgsDxrnj2kujI8USxEFpErLavoASn-m1tWLJb2Mxd72WobbgV_TDi7ofcEIoke-OIYsdoX15lVEXxfgYHh5sfiUPjgInH95hWZ28Nn6m7V1oFlvkOUTLKb5PVyVQX6vGk4K/s400/AndroidFragmentation_1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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That translates in a multitude of companies working on it. Fragmentation? Well, you can call it as you want. I call it open source being adopted by a bazillion of companies...<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi66Nr27my4slqE52k_tGk71BWYp6AKCxGJEZoUQCR-VyK4vkHBC_uwf4TK3O7TxzAoDAGYS8CL_7iNqnaP4YU_4W3yXDiWyjSAKJVbpbsjaZTOTO6jPf3DJyt1MFKfFwQzW5mu/s1600/AndroidFragmentation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi66Nr27my4slqE52k_tGk71BWYp6AKCxGJEZoUQCR-VyK4vkHBC_uwf4TK3O7TxzAoDAGYS8CL_7iNqnaP4YU_4W3yXDiWyjSAKJVbpbsjaZTOTO6jPf3DJyt1MFKfFwQzW5mu/s400/AndroidFragmentation.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Now, how bad is this fragmentation, which can kill open source in mobile? Not too bad, actually. If you look at the current status of Android in the market, you see that over 90% of Android out there have Android 2.x... Fragmented? A bit. Devastating, I do not think so. You might not have checked the variations of JavaME or Symbian ;-) This is easy.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXkOfMVYqDlwlx846mcMJemis1tM5ANJ0VUb-_74O_YCV7LAc2I0NEN0LUvdXHsKlosVjZtXiYMULMaK-DmcLKc3qHEBPnMNZQqhoXNtXRaTMGw4gQI8eyS4ndbAgXNHbBK7pl/s1600/chart.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXkOfMVYqDlwlx846mcMJemis1tM5ANJ0VUb-_74O_YCV7LAc2I0NEN0LUvdXHsKlosVjZtXiYMULMaK-DmcLKc3qHEBPnMNZQqhoXNtXRaTMGw4gQI8eyS4ndbAgXNHbBK7pl/s400/chart.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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Lastly, let me quote Sean Moss-Pultz of OpenMoko fame: FRAGMENTATION IS INNOVATION.<br />
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Dont' you believe me? Consider for a second the Kindle Fire. It is a total fork of Android, made possible only because of open source. It took over 50% of market share in the Android tablet market, in a matter of months. Amazon is innovating on Android, faster than Google. The result will be some code from Amazon to come back to Android, making it even better and even faster in the market.<br />
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You call it fragmentation, I call it a better way to innovate.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTUuLLYQgwCLtpLaQFoWdufOG3rR2B3G4OgVkcvyw1LsQaDEebIvWbeDLnRY_cTmN3TUL3VkqTEtnh1z_64c9Lnx5LDAxJmw9UndGK3zvVu7SJpji5Xc9Ej69Wb6PmusQFkNKy/s1600/Screen-Shot-2012-04-26-at-3.41.52-PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTUuLLYQgwCLtpLaQFoWdufOG3rR2B3G4OgVkcvyw1LsQaDEebIvWbeDLnRY_cTmN3TUL3VkqTEtnh1z_64c9Lnx5LDAxJmw9UndGK3zvVu7SJpji5Xc9Ej69Wb6PmusQFkNKy/s400/Screen-Shot-2012-04-26-at-3.41.52-PM.png" width="296" /></a></div>
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After reviewing the state of Mobile Open Source, I concluded that the future is going to be just more of the present. More domination. We won, nobody is going to take it away from us.<br />
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What do you do when you are on top, you won and you realize the future is going to be like the present?<br />
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You quit :-)<br />
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Always better to leave where you are on top of your game.<br />
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Therefore, I have decided to close this blog. I opened it six years ago, because of a bet with Matt on Juve vs. Arsenal (he won). I am sure I would win that bet today, and it is just appropriate that I close this blog because Matt asked me to talk about the future. If you are interested, the <a href="http://prezi.com/dkg-sgj8mhqs/the-future-of-mobile-open-source/">slides of the talk are on Prezi</a> and the presentation + audio is below.<br />
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<center><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/CEB6sQAMh9Q" width="480"></iframe></center>
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That said, I am not disappearing. I am convinced I know what the next major disruption in our world will be, and I plan to share it with you as soon as I am ready. Stay tuned and thanks for watching!<br />
<br />Fabrizio Capobiancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11168702805171666484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24220362.post-29313565984797985652012-04-24T11:34:00.003-07:002012-04-24T11:38:20.733-07:00The war on the personal cloud has startedI have been talking about (and doing) personal cloud for years now. Ten years ago I wrote the first line of code of what became Funambol (thankfully, now not including any line of code I wrote :-)<br />
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I have to admit it: I thought it would happen sooner. I was a tiny bit early ;-) Still, it is still a satisfaction to see it is actually happening.<br />
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Yesterday, Microsoft announced a bunch of new features of its personal cloud service, called SkyDrive (including a Mac and iOS app, which is cool). Strangely missing an Android app...<br />
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Today, Google announced Google Drive, strangely missing the iOS app...<br />
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Both look like great products, although way too vertical (Google is going to be mainly Android, and Microsoft will try as hard as they can to make it Windows Phone perfect) but still better than iCloud, which is the closest thing on planet earth.<br />
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However you look at it, today marks the start of the personal cloud war.<br />
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I am expecting Amazon to jump on it fully, because their Amazon Cloud Drive right now is just a mockup of what a good product it could be. Actually, I am surprised they will end up late to the party, when they started so early. I believe it is going to be a four horses race, eventually.<br />
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Honestly, it does not look good for Dropbox. They just do not have the weapons to fight in a war of this size. The price of storage is going down, and they have no business model or major feature advantage that can sustain their growth. Even worst for SugarSync.<br />
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Right now, I am so glad that we positioned Funambol not in the B2C space... I believe the opportunity for mobile operators and the other device manufacturers to fight this battle is still there. They have the size and the reach to consumers (and most importantly, the billing relationship) to make it. In particular, in countries where there are no credit cards and the OTT players are not that strong.<br />
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Especially when you look at cross-device synchronization, because I do not see Google or Microsoft or Apple to really do a good job there. And cross-device in a family means everything, in particular if you start adding a lot of other devices, like TVs, DVRs, game consoles, stereos, scales and so on.<br />
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The carriers, and those in particular providing a multi-screen service (Phone+Internet+TV) have a great advantage when you look at the family cloud. That is the next battle.<br />
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Long live to the personal cloud. We are living exciting times.<br />
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<br />Fabrizio Capobiancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11168702805171666484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24220362.post-91373880703803170342012-04-23T18:11:00.000-07:002012-04-23T18:13:27.931-07:00Why onboarding should be priority #1If you do not live in mobile, you probably have never heard about the word "onboarding". Too bad, because it is the most important word in this space today.<br />
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When the mobile revolution started, phones did not store any meaningful user data. Yes, there was the address book, and it was a pain to move it around (for example, to your new phone), but the suffering was minimal.<br />
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Nowadays, your phone contains your entire life. Not just your friends, the pictures of your kids, the video of your graduation and much more. Losing a phone is a horrible pain, so many people do backups, or use a personal cloud solution (such as iCloud, or SkyDrive, or really soon Google Drive) to store their stuff somewhere secure.<br />
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That does not solve one little problem, actually it makes it worst: it locks you onto one platform. If you are an iPhone user and you start using iCloud, you are stuck for life. You cannot change device. The same for Google with Android, and soon for Microsoft with Windows Phone and SkyDrive.<br />
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Onboarding is the process of moving your data into a new device, just after you buy it.<br />
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It is simple if you buy an iPhone after an iPhone. However, if you have an iPhone and you want to move to Android, good luck. What about having a BlackBerry and moving to something else? Or a Symbian phone? Exactly.<br />
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If you are a device manufacturer, and you want to expand your market today, you need to steal a user from someone else. It is not a green field anymore. You need to take a user from a dumbphone, or another smartphone. You need to make it super duper easy to move its data. Or you are dead.<br />
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It is not just address book, video and pictures. It is everything. It is apps, for example. If I have 75 apps on my Android, how do I know if I will find them in the other device? Am I going to lose all of them? If you leave a user with a doubt, you are not going to convince her to move. Period. We have too much data in our phones now. The pain of switching is too big.<br />
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Funny enough, onboarding is a very tough problem to solve for a device manufacturer. Think about it: you need to build apps for different operating systems, own by your competition. Put them on their App Stores... It is a task nobody is assigned to, in a device manufacturer. Nobody owns this. And it is the most important thing you should be looking at, to get market share. Forget the color of your device and the megapixels of your camera, nobody will buy your phone if you cannot move their data.<br />
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Of course, I should add a disclaimer: I have been working on onboarding for a long time. The company I founded (Funambol) is the only one I know that allows data to move from a Blackberry to an iPhone, to an Android, to a Symbian, to a Windows Mobile, ... and back ;-)<br />
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That said, despite my clear bias, I still believe onboarding should be the most important task on a device manufacturer list. One that is always overlooked, left at the end of the process, just in time for that "oohhh crap, nobody is buying our phone because we are not giving them a way to move their data".<br />
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Interesting how fast this market moves. In the span of a few years, this item moved from priority #100 to #1. Trust me. This is where it belongs. There is no market for a phone that does not allow you to move your data. None.Fabrizio Capobiancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11168702805171666484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24220362.post-25368543765175999302012-03-19T19:11:00.002-07:002012-03-19T19:12:29.729-07:00Europe lost the mobile race. For good<br />
When I moved to Silicon Valley in 1999, one thing really hit me: my grandma in Italy had a cellphone then, and in my soon-to-IPO tech startup only few people had one. I mean, in the heart of Silicon Valley, at Tibco, going IPO that year... I was puzzled, my grandma (she is over 90 years old now) was ahead of the geeks here.<br />
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At that time, the gap between Europe and US on mobile was huge. Europe had the fastest networks, the best phones (remember Nokia), the software developers (crying over JavaME differences), the ecosystem... Everything.<br />
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Here, we had nothing.<br />
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A few years later, I started pitching a concept of a mobile synchronization play to investors in the Valley. It was 2002 (Funambol is about to pass the 10th year mark, wow ;-) and there was no mobile signal whatsoever at 3000 Sand Hill, the heart of the VC world. For years, the mobile signal over there sucked.<br />
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For years, there were no mobile companies here. And the networks were so bad that I could drive from San Francisco to San Jose and have the connection drop five times (and I knew the spots where it was going to happen, so I could tell the european guy at the other end of the phone that I was about to drive into a tunnel...).<br />
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First, the mobile companies started showing up. I was one of the early people to say Silicon Valley will jump on the mobile bandwagon, that this valley would not miss the biggest change in our lives. Many in Europe thought I was dumb to try to do a mobile company here. They told me to move to Finland instead (too bad I like the weather here better ;-)<br />
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Then the mobile OS war started. Palm first. Then Apple with iOS. Then Google with Android. Then Microsoft moved their mobile team here. In a few years, the mobile world moved here. On mobile operating systems, iOS and Android alone command over 90% of the market. Easy. Bye bye Europe, with Symbian and all the other stuff.<br />
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Still, Europe had the better networks. UMTS, HDSPA, the 3.5G: just ahead of the US by a mile.<br />
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It all changed when I went to MWC in February. Before leaving, my friend Hal (our VP Marketing at Funambol) showed me his new Android phone. It had LTE. I did a SpeedTest and my jaw dropped. This thing is faster than my DSL at home. By a lot. It seems like something coming from the future.<br />
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Then at MWC, I heard the CEO of Telecom Italia say: "we have started an LTE trial in Turin".<br />
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Hey, what do you mean "An LTE trial"? Trial? But it is live in pretty much the entire US! And it works, I saw it with my eyes, from a guy who is not even a geek!<br />
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When a week ago Apple announced the new iPad, with LTE, I just had a flashback. Hal is like my grandma (sorry buddy ;-) and my geek friends now live in Pavia, Italy. They have no idea what LTE is and how fast it is. If Apple has LTE on its flagship device, it is mainstream, not a trial.<br />
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Mainstream is the US now. Europe just lost the mobile race. For good.<br />Fabrizio Capobiancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11168702805171666484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24220362.post-31095938990244565462012-02-20T10:42:00.000-08:002012-02-20T10:45:38.659-08:00The return of the stylusAmong the somewhat interesting things I saw at CES, the Samsung Note topped the list.<br />
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Mostly, because Samsung made a big deal out of it: they hired graphic artists to sketch your face on the device and that created a long line of people (there is nothing people like more then themselves: smart move, Samsung...).<br />
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What is the Samsung Note? A huge phone or a small tablet, depending on how you look at it. It is 5.8 by 3.3 inches (if you are not American, don't worry, it means it is huge). It fits in your pocket, if you are ok with going around with a brick in your pants. You can also use it to make calls, unless you are worried that people will look at you holding an iron board.
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You know what I think about super-sized phones (a.k.a. <a href="http://www.fabcapo.com/2010/05/versatility-is-not-panacea.html">versatile bricks</a>), and I have the same feeling about the Note. It is just too big.<br />
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However, the new (?!?) thing about the Note is that it sports a stylus pen. Yes, exactly like the one we had in the old Palm Pilots. The one we hated. The one we lost so many times, we all bought five replacement pens. It stays inside the device, you push it and it comes out. You can write or sketch on the device (there is a Note app), while you use the finger for anything else.<br />
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I had lunch with a friend a few days ago and he had one of these monsters. I sketched a face (not mine) and the experience was quite good. Still, the thing is too big, sorry. It will be a device only for a niche.<br />
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However, it made me think about the stylus. It was gone when the BlackBerry introduced the mini-keyboard and even more when the iPhone introduced multi-touch.<br />
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Do I ever miss it?<br />
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Yes, I did. I clearly remember one day when I went looking online for a pen. For my iPad. I could not find one that would actually work and I gave up.<br />
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Why was I looking for a pen?<br />
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To sketch ;-) And take notes while in meeting. Typing on an iPad in a meeting is just too much and the social experience is still bad: better than taking notes on a laptop, with the screen creating a visual barrier, but still bad because you must look at your fingers while others are talking. We are so good at writing, that we do not need to look at it. We write and we look at the person in front of us, or we alternate. It is socially acceptable.<br />
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The same for taking notes in school. Try doing it with your fingers. It is too hard. Personally, I believe tablet will totally eliminate sketchpads eventually. Now, it is not possible. With a pen, it could.<br />
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Somehow, the idea of a stylus for a tablet makes sense to me. And not only me: I heard rumors that Samsung is about to launch a Note 10.1, a tablet with a pen. It is something that would make it different than any other tablet out there. On a phone, I say no. On a tablet, oh yes.<br />
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More, let me predict one thing about the new iPad 3: you will be able to write on it with a pen. A magic pen, sold as an accessory. Probably nicely fitting in your cover.<br />
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This is the return of the stylus.Fabrizio Capobiancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11168702805171666484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24220362.post-79059083770918477432012-01-11T20:06:00.000-08:002012-01-12T07:50:18.362-08:00Is 2012 the year of Nokia?I am on the plane back to the Bay Area from CES. Las Vegas is always a cool place, even if you have a lingering jet-lag. Actually, in that case you might be able to experience the beautiful dawn in the desert while sober, which is not common in Sin City. I definitely recommend it.<br />
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CES was packed with people, but lacked exciting stuff, in my opinion. I traveled the show extensively and I can't say many booths impressed me because of new gadgets. I actually felt sad in the empty BlackBerry booth, looking at a new tablet OS whose top feature is email (really? It sounds like a joke ;-) Even TVs looked like TVs, just oversize and slim.<br />
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The only place where I saw something exciting is the Nokia booth (yep, they had a booth this year, pretty big and quite crowded). The Lumia 900 was in big display. It is the Windows Phone device coming out with AT&T.<br />
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In particular, what caught my eye was the blue model.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsNzpFFXnkrnrXiL9ZExDlwgsYlKTc8PrukyTdEJa-udNZvzCnpQc3v3YpIv5TukF4ytjl6DHQMQqiYHzT94y9WgjdiiFS6m5MN_-U2w78Sexim1OCZWomEZxS-I6KLkVSjPPu/s1600/nokia-lumia-900.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsNzpFFXnkrnrXiL9ZExDlwgsYlKTc8PrukyTdEJa-udNZvzCnpQc3v3YpIv5TukF4ytjl6DHQMQqiYHzT94y9WgjdiiFS6m5MN_-U2w78Sexim1OCZWomEZxS-I6KLkVSjPPu/s1600/nokia-lumia-900.jpg" /></a></div>
There is a reason for it: it looks exactly the same as the Nokia N9 I received as a gift from a friend, who works at Nokia (I guess they did not know where to throw them :-) The N9 is the last model with MeeGo on it, a defunct OS (or maybe still alive, but barely breathing). As soon as I took the device out of the box, my wife asked to look at it. As soon as she had it in her hands, she asked me if she could keep it. I tried to say no, but I had no chance. She fell in love with it, at first sight, as rarely happens. She is now the official owner of a Nokia N9, with an OS she does not care about. It is blue, it is gorgeous, she loves it. It is all about the hardware. One last important bit: she trashed her iPhone to have it.<br />
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I know the sample of one is meaningless, but she is my wife so she must have good taste...<br />
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Jokes apart, the Lumia 900 is a big deal. The hardware looks different. The shape is cool, and it feels great in the hands. It is simply sexy. Even without turning it on.<br />
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Once it is on, Windows Phone shows up. It is a eye-catching OS. Nobody is taking it seriously, but with a sexy hardware and a massive marketing campaign (just wait, combine Microsoft and Nokia budgets, both at the last chance to make it in mobile...), I think it has a big chance.<br />
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Honestly, I believe there is a concrete possibility this device will finally spark adoption of Windows Phone.<br />
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That would be exciting. I do not like monopolies, and duopolies are not that much better (it is what Apple and Google are doing these days, with the variation that Amazon is creating a lot of trouble for Google). With Windows Phone in the middle, the competition will be even better.<br />
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I personally thought Nokia was done for good (same for RIM, but I have not changed my mind on that...). Instead, I am now convinced they have a winner in their hands, despite the crappy name (said the guy who came up with the name Funambol...). They have the big carrier behind them, which is not going to push the iPhone anymore (and has no reason to push Android much). That will help tremendously. If they execute the plan well, at the end of the year we could be looking at 2012 and realize it was the year of Nokia.<br />
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In any case, welcome back old friend.Fabrizio Capobiancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11168702805171666484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24220362.post-9920428569972211062011-12-09T11:15:00.001-08:002011-12-09T11:28:37.147-08:00HP dumps WebOS in the open source trash canHey, this should be a day to celebrate for me. I wrote a post 18 months ago titled "<a href="http://www.fabcapo.com/2010/05/why-hp-should-open-source-webos.html">Why HP should open source WebOS</a>" and it finally happened. They did it.<br />
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Yay, right?<br />
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Nope.<br />
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When I wrote that post, HP had just acquired Palm. Android was not as big as it is today (not even close). The time was perfect. It was a phenomenal opportunity for HP.<br />
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Let me pick a statement from that post:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
My suggestion on WebOS is easy: open source it. Fast. If there is one
thing I believe Palm did wrong, it was following the Apple model. Keep
it closed and you die, unless you are ahead of everyone and big.</blockquote>
I still agree with myself (which is good, I guess). The "keep it closed and you die" sentence, in particular ;-) HP did not open source WebOS. And, therefore, they killed it.<br />
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Throwing something which is dead in the open source trash can does not revive it. Try throwing a dead body in a trash can (after asking Siri where to find one) and let me know.<br />
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Open source is not the panacea. Or the emergency room. You can't expect the magic to happen, just because you threw some code out. It does not.<br />
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Open source is a lot more than that. It is a community. People who believe on a common mission, with common interests. It is changing the world together.<br />
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I know, I am too romantic. Tell my wife. But it is true, even for Android, even when there is a giant behind a project. You get people excited to participate, only if there is a reason, a mission, a common goal.<br />
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What is the common goal on WebOS being open source? I have no idea.<br />
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Opensourcing WebOS was the right thing to do 18 months ago. Now it is useless. It is an excuse not to say "we screwed up and we killed it".<br />
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It is simply too late. RIP WebOS.Fabrizio Capobiancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11168702805171666484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24220362.post-38867737365953957342011-11-15T08:58:00.001-08:002011-11-15T08:58:02.633-08:00The tipping point: Android wonI know we all love Apple. I know you do not see many Androids in the hands of pundits in Silicon Valley. I know you like to think different. Still, Android keeps taking market share away from everyone. And iOS market share is shrinking.<br />
<br />
Look at today's data from <a href="http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1848514">Gartner</a>:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHugwoFL_gPbRxlXCmvL9pX4DIHmjR5D7w16hkDDkfj4qzhthlHnZTB9y6ZO6JRQ1w_Bth7yBpv6t2CQGsUgQFZmRNAbN98E68ja9zf0icdq5Rv3G14Nb7yRQ3qiGDLofI10GL/s1600/gartner-q3-2011-smartphone-shares-o.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHugwoFL_gPbRxlXCmvL9pX4DIHmjR5D7w16hkDDkfj4qzhthlHnZTB9y6ZO6JRQ1w_Bth7yBpv6t2CQGsUgQFZmRNAbN98E68ja9zf0icdq5Rv3G14Nb7yRQ3qiGDLofI10GL/s400/gartner-q3-2011-smartphone-shares-o.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
You are reading it right: Android has now more than 50% of the market, while iOS has less market share than a year ago. Android keeps growing, quarter after quarter. Apple will grow this quarter for sure, because of the iPhone 4S, but Android is going to grow faster.<br />
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There is a moment where you realize a team has won, that it has taken an insurmountable lead. That moment is now. Android has passed 50%. There is no way back. It is the tipping point.<br />
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Let me brag a little: I told you so :-) Mobile Open Source wins.<br />
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All those that claim that Android is not really open source, please click <a href="http://source.android.com/source/downloading.html">here</a>. See, Google has just released the source code of Android 4.0 (ICS or Ice Cream Sandwich). I know, there is no steering committee blah blah. However, can you negate how powerful open source has been for Android (and Google)?<br />
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Look at the tablet world. Amazon has just launched the Kindle Fire. No help from Google whatsoever. It is open source at its best. You can even <a href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2396276,00.asp#fbid=_BN4ElaRTZW">take other APKs and install them on it</a>. If you ask me, I am ready to bet that the Kindle Fire (with its younger brothers) is going to be the most popular tablet ever, even passing the iPad eventually.<br />
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Fragmentation is innovation. Open source is pushing the limit of mobile, making it better and more interesting. More, it is an open world, where the OS moves around, and apps move around. Add an open cloud, where data will move freely, and we will have a perfect world (we are far from it, but there is room to fight). <br />
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To me, the game is over. Android is dominating. The next player is so far behind, and it will not catch up. Android won.Fabrizio Capobiancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11168702805171666484noreply@blogger.com