MobBlog

2011 Wrap-up: Review of Last Year's Mob4Hire Predictions

2012-01-02T15:39:00.000-07:00

First off… a SUPER BIG THANKS once again to our customers,mobsters, partners and investors for another year of keeping us on the leadingedge of mobile quality assurance. We'llunveil our mobile trends 2012 predictions in the next week.

Now, it’s time to reflect on 2011’s predictions… In 2010 wegave ourselves a B+ with a few notable highlights, even if we do say soourselves. This year, we’re closer to aB:

B+
The Platform Race is Far From Over. We said – ‘Apple and Android would not be the “winners”because the marathon will continue to play out over the next 5 to 10 years’(wow – talk about hedging your bets, when you think about it - neither of thesetwo platforms were here 5 years ago!). Vision Mobile’s Developer Economics 2011told us Java ME and Symbian have the highest developer attrition rate, butMobile web as a platform has moved in to third position. We just may have towait out the next 5 to 10 years to see if we’re right…

B
The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth. We said – ‘There will not be enough talent for everyone...and people who CREATE software experiences decide what platforms to support’. Problem is we didn’t really have a metric forthis one. We’re basing our score on the‘vibes’. See also prediction #1.

D-
App Stores Will Continue to Explode. We said – ‘There will be over 200 app stores at this timenext year.’ Based on the wipconnector.com count it’s closer to 125 – We thoughtthe carriers and online retailers would be jumping on board, but we’ve learnedthat the sheer volume of apps combined with the lack of capacity to screen andmarket apps is slowing things down.

C
The Cost of Developing Mobile Experiences Will IncreaseSignificantly.

B-
The Number of Ad Networks Will Explode. ‘We'll expect to see many carrier-specific ad networkspop-up this year.’ Seems like MobileNetwork Operators are missing the boat on some great opportunities as we saw very little increase here. Attractive, with ad revenues expected to hit$3.3B (up from $1.6B in 2010 -- Gartner via mobiThinking) and the Networks own the local customers.

B
Microsoft Regains Share. IDC (March 2011 via mobiThinking.com) reported WindowsPhone/Mobile had a 5.5% market share and more telling an expected 67.1% CAGRfrom 2011 to 2015.

B
Brands Will Embrace Mobile for Advertising and Engagement. While Brands saw a decline in engagement due to therecession, comscore’s “Do you buy the brand you want most?” index fell from 54%in 2008 to 43% in 2011 and have responded more on-line advertising (23%increase, according to comscore Oct 2011.The distribution has been all media and Mobile is starting to attractattention… see also mobile Ad Network prediction.

B-
RIM and NOKIA Dance the Dance of Disruption. We said – ‘RIM and NOKIA are arguably the biggest of handsetand O/S manufacturers that are threatened by the new wave of mobile… and haveben successful because the know the value of a good Telecom relationship’. Sadly their dance was not as good as wethought.

B
Enterprise Embraces Mobile as a Productivity Tool, not justfor Communications. According to iPass 2011 Mobile Enterprise Report provisioning of smartphones and tablets in the next year continues to increase significantly.

A
HP and DELL Try, but Stumble in the Mobile and TabletSpace. The HP TouchPad launched in July, 2011 – pulled in August,2011 and the Dell Streak was pulled in December 2011– RIP…

So, what will happen in 2012? Stay tuned ... we'll post ourthoughts soon.

Cheers from the team!

We need people in New Orleans on Iphones

2011-12-04T13:06:00.009-07:00

This is a Mob4Hire project - We have more than 50,000 registered testers who are paid to help us test everything mobile.

We need 150 people who live in New Orleans to participate in this test. ( only a few spots left - Hurry! )

Information you provide to us is considered private and confidential (we don't share our contact information).

You can get a $50 gift certificate* if you qualify and complete this test.

Stil interested? To qualify for testing you must:

1. Live in New Orleans

2. Own an iPhone and be activated with a carrier

3. Be able to open the app that will supplied to you for a week

4. Fill out an online survey (15 -20 minutes) Please register, below, if you qualify.

Go here to register REGISTER HERE!!!

And you can also refer your friends for one of two $100 in gift certificates*

Given to the two people who refer the most friends who complete the test. To qualify for referral bonus: Send your friends' email address to ps4@mob4hire.com (please, let them know we'll be contacting them) *

To see the list of store you can use your gift certificates go to: gift certificate list
* Required

Featured Mobster - Ben Moore

2011-10-19T09:15:00.005-06:00

{EAV:d48519dd9dc8a0ba}

Meet Ben Moore; Featured Mobster.
Q: When did you join Mob4Hire?
December 2009

Q: What kind of handset(s) do you have?
My current "daily driver" is an HTC G2 on T-Mobile, I also have a Blackberry Bold 9780 on hand for business/personal use and for training. Gotta keep up on as many mobile platforms as possible these days. There is also a Blackberry Tour 9630, and Curve that can frequently be found hiding on my desk. I'm a big believer in the Android platform and Blackberry still commands enough business users that it's also a must have. Picking up an iPhone and a Windows Phone 7 is on my list of to do's.

Q: What's your favorite app?
Tough question! I probably have 80 apps installed on my G2, but the one that I would be the most distraught without would have to be Launcher Pro. Aside from being a fantastic third party launcher, the inclusion of additional widgets (most notably the calendar widget) come together to give HTC's SENSE a run for it's money. This is a well thought out, well executed, and extremely functional system tool for Android users, and it's only $2.99.

Q: Why did you join Mob4Hire?
I've been beta testing applications (mostly games and occasionally business productivity software) for twelve or thirteen years now. Never in a professional, paid capacity, but as an avid fan and tinkerer who likes to see things first and try to contribute to their commercial release being as positive and bug free as possible. Mob4Hire allowed me to expand into mobile platform testing and offered compensation for my time! A real win win, especially if you ask my wife. It's much much easier to justify playing with a phone for hours and having a small mountain of handsets on your desk if you're generating at least some income!

Q: How many individual handset / carrier tests have you done?
By my count, I have completed 12 tests

Q: How many projects have you completed? What's your favorite one?
I have participated in six or seven specific projects. My favorite, to date, has probably been the LMI project. It was a mountain of work to be sure, but the aspects that I enjoyed the most was working with both the Mob4Hire team and the developer to really flush out some of the details of the testing and preparing the results in a meaningful package. Most tests are very straight forward, use this application, fill out this questionnaire and then you're done. The LMI test felt like there was a higher level of input and interaction with the testers which was very welcome.

Mob4hire and Crowdsortium

2011-09-23T08:02:00.006-06:00

Mob4hire has been the leader in the crowd sourcing mobile space for a while and it is time we gave something back to the industry. Mob4hire just hit 55,000 Mobsters and we are now in 154 countries (not many left) on 354 different carrier/network operators.

We are very thankful to our Mobsters and to the developers and brands that have given us a chance.

So we would humbly like to thank.....

Crowdsortium is a great organization that helps out crowd sourcing companies by organizing people together and solving some very interesting problems.
Such as
• What crowd sourcing model should we use?
• How do we handle intellectual property rights?
• How do we logistically manage international participants?
• How do we fairly reward participants for their work?
• What are the benefits of monetary versus non-monetary rewards?
• Should the crowd be anonymous or individually identified with their real names?

Crowdsourcing businesses tend to share the same problems. The Crowdsortium is designed to use the very mechanism the industry is built upon – crowd sourcing – to solve these problems. Applying the collective wisdom of our experiences benefits all members. Currently there are more than 75 members of the Crowdsortium. Members contribute new thoughts, ideas and solutions that benefit every part of the ecosystem, helping it to continuously evolve and grow.

We salute them! We honour them! Being a member now , we salute ourselves.

Go Crowdsortium!!!

Help us spread the word and we could win a great opportunity to participate in CrowdConf 2011! Please retweet this with the tag @crowdsortium

Mob4Hire’s Crowd Flies Continental’s Android App and it’s a winner!

2011-08-09T07:56:00.001-06:00

CALGARY, July 27, 2011 Mob4Hire’s usability product, MobExperience has given Continental Airline’s android application a thorough review and it’s a winner! That is no surprise for the best-rated airline app in North America. Attributing the success of the mobile app to their straight-forward mobile strategy approach, Jeff Ulrich, Sr. Manager, Emerging Technology at United Airlines, states “Before developing the mobile app, we spent time really understanding the customers’ needs and looking at what the app needed to do to be successful. Commenting on the development process, Ulrich shares the team’s secrets for its app success – develop on your strengths and seek assistance for the rest: “We developed what we know best, the airline business, and we sought expertise for areas like mapping, that were not our core.”

Asked what MobExperience brings to the already successful development practice, Ulrich replies, “We think we set the bar for airline applications but we were curious about a couple things, and there’s always room for improvement. We thought there were a few areas that would benefit from having real user feedback from MobExperience, pointing us to areas for focus. This will definitely help our team.”

Many brands have focused their testing efforts on functionality, but it is equally important to ensure good usability and customer experience, which is what MobExperience brings to the table. Its advisors, like Bob Hayes, PhD, ensure Mob4Hire provides excellence in mobile application quality assurance. “We developed methodology to diagnose the mobile user experience to improve user loyalty to the app and brand. We adopted the RAPID loyalty approach so brand managers can assess the mobile app’s impact on different types of user loyalty.”

Meanwhile, Mob4Hire knows that the process of field-testing any app can be difficult, and for Continental’s android app there was no room for error: “We used live data, creating mock flights to give testers a chance to use live features like check-in and seat selection” Sarah Paprocki, Senior Staff Rep, Emerging Technology Applications.

To ensure that the testing went smoothly, Mob4Hire uses its professional services team to ensure high quality results. “With a crowd of over 53,000 Mobsters around the world, we can recruit for our customers specific needs.” Bruce Chrumka, Vice President, Professional Services.

United and Continental merged and the team continues to lead: “We just launched the integrated United application on iPhone and plan to do the same for android.” Ulrich

Mob4Hire CTO John Carpenter hosts Mobile User Experience panel at Nokia Developer Day in Barcelona

2011-02-15T08:41:00.001-07:00

During the largest global mobile event of the year at MWC Barcelona, the buzz regarding the Microsoft / Nokia agreement is palpable, bringing yet another significant shift to the mobile industry.

Mob4Hire CTO, John Carpenter, hosted a lively panel discussion at Nokia Developer Day on Day 1 of the conference: "Why is my app getting rated 2 stars" with panelists Marek Pawlowski, founder of MEX (www.mobileuserexperience.com) in London, Carin Campanario (Freelance Flash Developer), Vassili Philippov (SPB Software), Vladimir Savchenkop (SoundMotion) and Peter Lindgren, CEO of Visiarc.

Special thanks to Thibaut Rouffineau, VP Developer Relationships, WIPJam who helped put the Nokia Developer Day together, and made the panel a great success!

Whatever the platform (and Mob4Hire can help you with user experience research on ALL of them!), the fundamentals of mobile development remain. Designing a great mobile user experience is at a feverish pitch in the industry as companies vie for users attention. As Mikael Hed, CEO of Rovia (makes of the uber-popular "Angry Birds" game) said during his breakout session at MWC, "Apps need to be optimized for the end user. That is very, very important. That is our drive, always thinking about the end user and what gives value for them. We make a "buck off them" because that is a natural side-effect of doing our job well."

Stephen King, Laura Sullivan and John are at MWC Barcelona all week. Join them at the Canadian Pavilion, Booth 2A97, Hall 2.

Innovators Poynt, Mob4Hire and Momentem Discuss Closing the Gap on the Mobile App Ecosystem at MWC

2011-02-14T12:10:00.001-07:00

For Immediate Release: Calgary, Canada and Barcelona, Spain — February 14, 2011

The App marketplace has become a competitive stage for developers, content producers and App store market place operators. Closing the gap on the App ecosystem are three Canadian companies who are leading the way in building sustainable business models in pursuit of creating a “Best in Breed” App experiences for a growing customer base. Poynt, Mob4hire and Momentem all based in Calgary, Canada are a driving force in Canada’s Emerging Technology landscape.

For the full press release, see: http://tinyurl.com/4dz9j8h

Motorola Features John Carpenter (Mob4Hire CTO) on Motodev Developer Network

2011-01-26T08:17:00.001-07:00

Mob4Hire CTO, John Carpenter, sat down with the Motodev team and shared his thoughts on development, best practices, quality apps, location development and Android tools

Mob4Hire is a Motorola Motodev partner ... when we presented at a Developer Network summit in fall of 2009, they were announcing their first Android handsets and showing off the first look at their development tools. This marked a turning point for Motorola in the mobile space, who had seen their fortunes sliding since their success with the last of the great feature phones, the Razr.

What a difference a year and half makes! Motorola has embraced Android across many great handsets, has seen success with Verizon with the first Droid ever released (plus many subsequent models), have created a great ecosystem for developers to be successful with Android development as well as global app distribution, and now are poised to release their new Xoom tablet which debuted at CES; the first with Android 3.0 (Honeycomb).

Motorola Mobile = Great partner, great devices, great tools, great developer ecosystem and support.

Mob4Hire Top Ten 2011 Mobile Predictions

2011-01-04T16:16:00.004-07:00

Last week, we posted our “2010 report card” on how well we did with last year's predictions.

Now, let’s turn our attention to 2011. Our customers (mobile developers, product and brand managers, ad agencies, telecoms, handset manufacturers) are taking advantage of Mob4Hire’s mobile usability testing and market research services to make sure they lead the world in the mobile revolution. So, with that in mind, we put our rose-colored glasses on, and identified these top 10 opportunities / challenges that will effect our customers the most in 2011.

PREDICTION NUMBER 1
The Platform Race is Far From Over.

We don’t know if it’s wishful thinking or what, but there are lots of people out there saying, “The race is over, and the two winners are Apple iOS and Google Android.” No way! We’re in km 2 of a 42 km marathon which will unfold over the next 5 to 10 years, and there’s still lots to happen in the other platform camps such as RIM, Nokia, and Microsoft.

Android will continue to fragment, but this fact alone won't cause the platform success to slow down ... as long as Android phones are aggressively sold to hosts of mobile users as they were in 2010, developers will still flock to the platform.

According to Vision Mobile (see chart below), there are 13 mobile platforms of note (but of course, this doesn't include tablets, TVs or other devices, nor does it include Carrier specific platforms/API's or middleware like Flash which causes further platform confusion):

PREDICTION NUMBER 2
The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth.

I've been a software developer for 25 years, both as a coder and a brander. One thing is absolutely certain in 2011 … the need to develop excellent mobile experiences in the face of rapid change and fragmentation is more important than ever!

If you check out CNN's top tech trends of 2010, seven out of ten require those who CREATE a mobile experience.

So, the importance of people who CREATE apps, mobile websites, mobile ad campaigns is enormous. There is a GREAT deal of $$$ invested and at stake. The tsunami of change that mobile has brought will make many companies no longer viable, so developer attention is crucial to growth. A quick visit to the Computer Museum in Mountainview will show you a graveyard of computers from the PC Wars of the '80s and '90s: Atari, Kaypro, Commodore (Vic20, 64, Pet, Amiga), Amstrad, Tandy (TRS-80), Sinclair, Coleco Adam. All went the way of the Dodo bird because people who CREATE software experiences did not support the platforms.

This is, of course, why we're seeing such increased activity for developer networks and developer events. Everyone is trying to get the attention of developers, and there's just not enough good developers for everyone.

PREDICTION NUMBER 3
App Stores Will Continue to Explode

According to WIPConnector.com, there are currently over 100 app stores worldwide. We expect this number to be 200 next year at this time. Who will start these new app stores?

- There's over 800 Carriers in the world. Only about 30 have app stores so far. The GREAT thing that carriers have that handset manufacturers don't is the direct client relationship. Carriers who figure out how to leverage that relationship (with API's for example) will have very successful app stores.

- Online retailers ... any company who sells software on the web, and most that sell lotsa other stuff will need to be in the mobile app store game.

- Enterprises and those who serve enterprises as mobile becomes part of corporate IT integration strategies

PREDICTION NUMBER 4
The Cost Of Developing Mobile Experiences Will Increase Significantly

See prediction # 2. There's not enough developers for every platform to succeed. There's not enough GOOD developers to make every single app drop-dead fantastic. The complexity of creating apps across multiple-platforms is increasing. More is expected from apps. It will be much harder to have a hit with just 3 guys in a basement doing development. More integration (with carriers and enterprises) will be expected. Mobile programming consulting firms are in high-demand.

All of this points to a good thing for the mobile development community, who will finally start seeing industry salaries on par with their web and cloud development cousins.

If you are a mobile programming consultant, raise your prices!

PREDICTION NUMBER 5
The number of Ad Networks will explode

With the success of mobile marketing in 2010, and more importantly, with the multi-billion dollar advertising opportunity in front of us, we will see many, many companies getting into mobile marketing and ad networks.

Telecoms, with the billing relationship with all the customers, are in the best position to deliver targeted advertising since they already "KNOW THE CUSTOMER." Handset manufacturers and others are at a disadvantage, as collecting information may infringe on the privacy of the users, and thus may end up being restricted. We'll expect to see many carrier-specific ad networks pop-up this year.

Savvy app creators have started creating their own ad networks; Poynt, for example, uses a proprietary ad engine to serve ads to it's over 5M (and growing rapidly) users.

For ad agencies and brands, this is a good thing because it gives more reach and inventory.

For mobile developers, this means more opportunity to make money IF the app networks figure out how to share significant %'s of revenue with them. iAd gives developers 60% of the revenue from advertising ... in Mob4Hire's humble opinion, this revenue share should be in the 70% to 80% range, just as it is in revenue share for apps.

PREDICTION NUMBER 6
Microsoft Regains Share

Just like we said last year, never, ever count Microsoft out. Their release of Windows 7 last year was the come-back-kid story of 2010 technology. We think the same thing is happening in Windows Phone, although it's still too early to tell since they delivered later than we expected in 2010.

What we DO know for sure, is that:
- Both Windows 7 and Windows Phone have been received well.

- Microsoft has legions of developers already using their tools and developing for their platforms. See prediction #2.

- Microsoft has XBox to leverage in both the living room (as an XBox gaming controller / interface, as your house's remote control), and in the sales channel.

Despite this technological re-boot, success of Windows is dependent on their hardware partner relationship, who all seem to have lined up to support it (for now, anyway). So, things look ok for Microsoft, but they don't have a lot of margin for error ... they'll need to execute flawlessly.

PREDICTION NUMBER 7
Brands will embrace mobile for advertising and engagement

There have been dozens, if not hundreds, of brand success stories. Brands are now asking themselves, "what % of traffic to my site is from mobile" and are being shocked by the answer.

The good brands will reach to engage users, and drive an integrated strategy across mobile apps, SMS messages, QR Codes, mobile websites, mobile banner ads and traditional forms of advertising such as print, TV and web.

Retail "Bricks and Mortar" companies will CELEBRATE mobile as a way to bring people back into the stores with GPS locators, coupons, and geo-locate games and social networks.

PREDICTION NUMBER 8
RIM and NOKIA Dance the Dance of Disruption

RIM and NOKIA are arguably the biggest of handset and O/S manufacturers that are threatened by the new wave of mobile.

Just like Microsoft, don't count either of these guys out.

Despite “pundits” who argue that "Blackberry's aren’t even a smartphone," RIM continues to post good numbers quarter after quarter. They’ve made good progress on their touch-screen form factors while maintaining the BB keyboard and feel everyone loves. They’ve got a good tablet strategy (love tethering!), although getting to market sooner rather than later would be a good thing for RIM (we predict it will be later .. maybe even the fall) ... they'll need to figure out how to make the Playbook (editors note: shoulda been called the "Blackbook"!) more than BBMessenger and email, which means developer support. They’ve shown good direction on their platform and developer tools, but still make things pretty difficult to release apps ... that's why we only see about 10,000 apps available on Blackberry App World. They'll need to figure that out.

And, while they are weakening a bit in their dominant enterprise space, their secure data back-end is a killer-app feature for large companies who just won’t look at anything else. Oh, and by the way, they have over 500 network operator partners around the world. However, because RIM makes it harder than others to deal with from an app developer point of view, and because it’s not open, RIM will never be #1 in this space. But, they'll continue to enjoy a great ride.

NOKIA? One of the guys at Mob4Hire suggests that Nokia will embrace Windows Phone as a primary operating system ... he even went so far as to suggest that the two companies will merge. Others of us think that Nokia will embrace Android; but then again, Meego is simply a Linux O/S, so that wouldn't make sense. Because Nokia will want end to end O/S and Hardware, the Meego strategy is the most apparent ... i.e. status quo. This means continued loss of market share UNLESS!!!!

Unless they are able to deliver a great Meego experience for an inexpensive hardware footprint. Europe is key to their strategy, and the quicker they get to having a smartphone experience on a featurephone (a.k.a. "dumbphone") price the better off they'll be in sustaining their position. This will spill over into their success in Africa and Asia. And, since Android is so cheap, it will be very interesting to see who gets this vital competitive edge. If they don't get this right, NOKIA is in for a lot more pain as marketshare will dwindle in the dumpphone space just as it has in the smartphone space for the last couple of years.

Finally, like RIM, NOKIA has been successful because they know the value of a good Telecom relationship, who again, in the end, has the billing relationship with the customer. This will create great leverage for them moving forward, but only if they can block the new kids in their strong markets.

PREDICTION NUMBER 9
Enterprise embraces mobile as a productivity tool, not just for communications

As Mob4Hire buddy, Tomi Ahonen, has said many times ... mobile phones are good for 5 minute tasks (vs. 50 minute tasks on the computer like doing spreadsheets). In the enterprise, thousands of five minute tasks are killing the productivity of corporation managers ... imagine being able to approve expenses, vacations and review metrics on the train on the way home. The Velocity platform from Kryos is a great example of the way enterprises can easily implement enterprise tools and metrics on mobile.

Many people have a "work" cell phone and a "life" cell phone (which is typically nicer!). Corporations will do a better job at figuring out how to leverage the "life" cell phone, reduce complexity and improve productivity.

For Telecoms, we see them getting involved in enterprise apps and solutions, and be able to deliver end-to-end solutions that not only include hardware and network connectivity, but also software productivity.

Look for RIM to provide BETTER tools to enterprises for this integration, or risk losing more ground in their coveted Fortune 500 space. Also, Microsoft should do well in this space, due to their big developer base already doing tons of corporate work.

PREDICTION NUMBER 10
HP & DELL try, but stumble in the mobile and tablet space

It has been argued that there is a commoditization of handsets and tablets coming. What separates one high-end smartphone from the other, especially if their both running the latest version of Android? Being able to order custom phones and tablets is something that Dell should be pursuing aggressively, but they seem to be happy to be just a channel for selling other manufacturer's phones.

Poor HP buys Palm last year, and finds out that they don't know what to do with Palm either. We predict HP will use Palm patents rather than Palm technology to extract value out of mobile ecosystem. Like Oracle with Sun patents, HP has to be reviewing the many, many Palm patents looking for both the opportunity and timing to join in. This has got to be the only strategy that the executive suite is pondering, since NOTHING has really been announced or produced out of the combination of products and technology. “Let’s BUY webOS and then IGNORE it for our devices in favor of Windows 7.” Ok … well, maybe we’ll see an HP Slate with webOS on it this year, but HP is certainly taking it’s time with it.

BONUS: PREDICTION NUMBER 11

Mobile Acquisitions Will Accelerate

Large companies and brands will look around and say "WOW, this mobile thing got very huge, very quickly, and we don't have a strategy!" ... acquisitions will accelerate as mobile development companies become attractive not only for their technology and traction, but also because great mobile teams are hard to put together and it's faster / easier to buy them.

========================

That's it for this year!

Good wealth, health and prosperity to all in 2011.

Cheers,

Stephen King, CEO
Mob4Hire Inc.

Mob4Hire Spiffy Award Nomination Rounds Out a Great 2010!

2010-12-30T11:45:00.000-07:00

We were pleasantly surprised last week to be named one of the finalists for a Spiffy award from the Telecom Council of Silicon Valley (Love the award name!): San Andreas Award for Most Disruptive Technology http://tinyurl.com/2emsm3c

This is icing on the cake after an incredible 2010. With our v4.0 platform release in April, our business turned a corner ... well, many corners to be exact. We ran hundreds of projects for mobile developers and brands around the world, and most recently in November, announced Mob4Hire v4.5 with the expansion of our mobile product line for brands entering the mobile space.

I ESPECIALLY love what we're doing in mobile usability, as it's recognized as world-class leadership in this leading edge space. For mobile app creators, it's become increasingly hard to get noticed, so GREAT mobile usability is a must ... and our tools not only help you get a GREAT mobile app, but we can also guarantee you'll receive four or five stars in the app stores once you release and iterate your product. Good stuff.

With great respect and sincerity, I give MANY THANKS and Holiday Wishes to the Mob4Hire team, our customers, our investors, our partners, and of course, our spouses and families who, along with us, live and breath the roller coaster ride of being a successful global startup.

Peace and Joy to all.

Stephen King
CEO, Mob4Hire.com

P.S. 2011? It's going to be an AMAZING year!

2010 Wrap-up: Review of last year's Mob4Hire predictions

2010-12-29T14:52:00.006-07:00

We hope everyone is enjoying their holiday season, and like many others, want to pause to reflect on the bigger trends in the industry that reveal the opportunities and challenges for all of us that are on the leading edge of the mobile revolution.

As we reflect on the barn-stormer of a year that 2010 was, we’d like to shout out a BIG BIG thanks to all our customers, mobsters, partners and investors for making this such as great year for Mob4Hire. Mob4Hire has morphed from a mobile testing company to a full-featured mobile usability and market research community, serving not only mobile developers, but product and brand managers as well as ad agencies. We’re very proud of our role in helping to bring excellent mobile experiences to users around the world.

We'll unveil our 2011 predictions in the next couple of days. For now, let’s see our report card for how we did on last year’s predictions (overall B+, we think!):

A-
Google launches their own phone. In January 2010, Google released the Nexus. Now, they have a Nexus S. We thought, however, that this would turn into a new significant product line and therefore would be seen as competitive to their current partners HTC, Samsung, Motorola, etc… It turns out the manufacturers don’t care, and embraced Android in a tremendous year of growth for the platform.

C+
Android will stall. Yah, well, we got this one wrong. We were right (like many others) that there would be wide spread adoption, but would see difficulties in the latter half of their year because of the anticipated fragmentation of the Android O/S making it difficult for developers to maintain code across different handsets and carriers. We also thought other handset manufacturer would NOT choose the platform because Google was introduced their own competitive handsets (see #1 above) … the opposite came true, and many handset mftrs and telecoms have adopted Android. Thus, fragmentation has become an even bigger issue for Android developers, but it has not slowed the enthusiasm for the platform. Finally, we also thought Windows Phone would be released earlier and have a bigger impact on 2010 ... the future is still bright for Microsoft, we think (as you'll see in our 2011 predictions), but Android was the platform story in 2010.

A
Get ready for lots more devices. PNDs, Netbooks, Tablets, TV's, M2M devices, u name it … they all appeared on the scene in 2010.

B+
By Christmas, 2010, it will be all about Microsoft in mobile. As we thought, they got Windows 7 right for mobile phones. They released late in the year, and while the numbers aren’t in for Q4, 2010 yet, they made a great debut with their advertising position and technology. However, Microsoft did not affect Android penetration as much as we thought, and will have a hard time gaining marketshare, so we’re giving ourselves a B+ on this one.

A-
Palm will be acquired. We thought Nokia or RIM would be the most obvious. HP was the acquirer.

A+
M&A in telecoms will accelerate. Global M&A in telecoms has been sliding every year since 2005, but 2010 saw a turning point. According to The New York Times, M&A in Telecoms will be up 50% in 2010 over 2009.

B+
The need for a better Mobile 2.0 web experience happens WAY quicker than anyone expects. Apps are playing an important part in the way brands and companies relate to their customers. And, with the explosion of app stores, this seems to be the primary channel to get discovered. Mobile 2.0 web is still important, but apps are leading the way. HTML5 created a buzz, and will drive the urgency to mobile web over the next few years.

A-
Mobile advertising will be somewhat disappointing in 2010. 2010 will be remembered as the year brands tried out many types of mobile advertising (QR codes, SMS campaigns, AdMob banner ad click-through campaigns, apps and mobile web). Brands have had varying success with all types, and much has been discovered about the potential of mobile ad / appvertising. And, while there were successes, the web and traditional media still play a more important part of advertising spends. The best is yet to come for mobile (and it's also inevitable).

D
RIMs service woes will continue. The late 2009 event of RIM’s Messenger brown-out was quickly forgotten and not repeated. We were dead wrong on this one.

A+
Apple will surprise us again. With tongue-in-cheek, we predicted an iFridge would invade our kitchens. They didn’t do that, but they did pretty well everything else and their stock price soared because of their vision. Next will be the iKitchenSink.

So, what will happen in 2011? Stay tuned ... we'll post our thoughts soon.

iPad Winner announced from Mob4Hire Mobile Developer Survey

2010-12-16T11:06:00.003-07:00

We just completed running a MobSurvey project that was looking to get opinions from Mobile Developers. Our client, a global marketing leader, was interested in the mobile applications development community's opinion on a wide range of topics related to Developer Networks and specifically, related to developers who have done work with U.S. Carriers.

It was very successful. We're super happy with the results and so is our customer. Makes us very proud to be part of the mobile industry ... 'cause it's not a bunch of faceless companies out there ... there's real people working real hard, so ... THANKS to everyone that completed it and took time out of their day to promote it (u know who you are).

The winner of the iPad is :

Rob Oshima from GameStop / Kongregate. http://www.kongregate.com/ (where there are currently 39,671 users online playing 35,836 free games!).

Congrats, Rob.

On a related note, it's interesting how many companies are (finally) look at asking Mobile Users questions about their software development ... doing some market and usability research. WHICH IS A GREAT IDEA!

Why? With over 400,000 mobile apps out there, more than 100 app stores, and more than 100 developer networks available to join, it's very important to understand your customers BEFORE you spend a bunch of money developing apps, websites, corporate programs or whatever. That's where Mob4Hire comes in.

The danger of not understanding your customers it that you'll end up creating something, but it may be a something that your targeted users don't care about!

THAT'S WHY we've created user feedback tools for every step of the development cycle: "From Concept to Commericialization":

1) Use MOBSURVEY to figure out what to make. How do users view your brand? How can you best take advantage of mobile?

2) Use MOBEXPERIENCE to test your alpha builds. We can help you focus on making killer features that users actually care about.

3) Use MOBTEST to test your beta builds. Does it work on all handsets and in all carriers/countries you are targeting?

4) Use MOBACCELERATOR to gather post release feedback. What resonates with users? Is your marketing working? How is discovery of your app?

Get the full "Ten Steps of the Mobile Development Cycle" here in .PDF format.

Hope everything is going good for you!

Cheers,

Stephen King
CEO

With release 4.5, Mob4Hire expands line of mobile usability products

2010-11-17T19:01:00.005-07:00

Great big things are afoot with the MobTeam!

As of this morning, version 4.5 of the Mob4Hire went live across the network. The release of this version marks another big step in the Mob4Hire story. We've made a number of exciting changes to the site that will make the process of mobile crowdsource testing and market research a whole lot easier.

First, we made a number of big changes to Mob4Hire infrastructure. A faster site means a better experience for everyone. We have finished the migration over the the Amazon AWS servers and started to use the Scalr.net cluster for managing our growth. What this means is that more servers will automatically become available according to our demand. This means more capacity for running tests but more importantly it gives us a much better fault-tolerant and scalable system.

Second, we are launching 6 new products with this release. MOBTESTSUITE, MOBSTAR Certified, MOBSIMTEST, MOBSMSTEST, MOBA/BTEST and MOBTASKS join our four other services to round out the Mob4Hire catalog. You can get the details for these services here along with the rest of the Mob4Hire products. These additional services give developers a greater scope of testing they can perform and give our Mobsters a bigger chance to get more involved. Look forward to more information about each of these services in the very near term. The new services are a great extension of the power of the mobile crowd and can really help out in reducing the cost and effort of doing it yourself.

Finally, and probably the most exciting part is all Mob4Hire projects will now include dedicated Project Manager to guide you along with your testing. The Project Manager is an expert in both executing projects and managing the crowd, so developers will be able to leverage that experience to get their projects done faster and often at a lower cost. This means developers can focus on being experts in their field and we can help by being experts in ours!

We look forward to all of your feedback on the new site and the new products.

Trust the Mob

John Carpenter, CTO.

Mob4Hire Launches MOBSTAR CERTIFIED Program to Guarantee Mobile App and Website Quality

2010-10-19T12:50:00.000-06:00

Wow ... talk about coming out with a timely message. During CTIA Wireless in San Francisco, we announced our new service, the MOBSTAR CERTIFIED program to great acclaim. See full press release here.
I was talking to one of our customers yesterday ... they told us that after putting their app through a MobExperience research study (and making recommended changes), they got accepted by the Apple iPhone App Store ON THEIR FIRST TRY. The best praise we get is when we help you succeed. Contact us to ask for a quote.

Having the MOBSTAR CERTIFIED logo on a mobile product or service means that it is a high-quality premium product with exceptional growth potential. A MOBSTAR rating reflects the users’ overall loyalty toward the how a business’s app or web mobile experience. Specifically, the MOBSTAR rating indicates how much people will recommend it, what they will say about it … all of which leads to more downloads from repeat business / word-of-mouth through viral and social media.

A MobStar rating is no different than the 5-star rating system found in most app stores (accompanied with twitter-length comment fields that sometimes say "This sucks!") ... except that it's not public, and more importantly, in our survey, it's correlated with other customer satisfaction/loyalty questions as well as 7 software dimensions such as Stability, Install / Launch, User Interface, Language etc...

The MobStar rating comes as part of both our MobExperience and MobAccelerator products.

MobExperience: Pre-release usability and user experience study that helps mobile firms and media publishers make great mobile apps and websites

When doing a mobile usability study, there is only one goal. How do you make an app that will get four or five stars in an app store? If you don't, no one will download it.

But, within that one goal, there are two important dimensions:

1) What do we need to improve in the software that REALLY matters to users?
2) Of ALL the stuff in the software, what's most important for our marketing messages?

Thanks for being part of the Mob,

Stephen King, CEO
Mob4Hire.com

Mob4Hire Appoints Laura Sullivan as VP, Operations

2010-10-19T12:38:00.004-06:00

We are very pleased to welcome Laura Sullivan to the "MobSquad" team as VP, Operations.

“It’s vital that we grow our management capabilities to help drive Mob4Hire’s accelerating international growth,” states Stephen King, CEO of Mob4Hire. “Laura is a world-class management consultant; we’re very lucky to have her deep experience, knowledge of the local tech economy / government relations, and startup expertise. She’s a great compliment to the rest of the management team.”

Since 2008, as a Program Manager at Calgary Technologies Inc., Laura has provided coaching and mentoring services to almost 100 early stage technology companies, helping them access $ Ms in funding and development.

Laura brings broad experience in operations, finance, project and risk management, in a number of industries including Manufacturing, ICT, Retail and Health. As a Management Consultant, Laura’s clients included TransCanada Pipelines Ltd., Calgary Health Region, Bethany Care Foundation, C-mach Technologies, FoundPages and ITSportsNet. Laura’s experience in governance and advisory includes being a Director, and Chair of the Audit Committee of a $1B retail organization, Calgary Co-operative Association Ltd., as well as sitting on a number of advisory boards including the Operations Management Advisory Council for BC Institute of Technology, and International Business Advisory Council for University of Calgary. Laura currently provides governance training as part of the Alberta Board Development Program.

“Mob4Hire is an exciting global company with limitless potential,” says Sullivan. “As a micro-multinational, establishing cloud-based operations is essential to scaling as we serve customers from 84 different countries. I’m looking forward to turning my focus solely to Mob4Hire’s success.”

Here's the press release: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/10/prweb4652204.htm

John Carpenter presentation of "The Power of the Crowd" at Starwest in San Diego

2010-10-07T23:53:00.002-06:00

Check out this SlideShare Presentation that our CTO, John Carpenter did at the recent Starwest Conference in San Diego: "The Power of the Crowd: Mobile Testing for Scale and Global Coverage"

The Power of the Crowd: Mobile Testing for Scale and Global Coverage

View more presentations from Stephen King.

CTIA Wireless Telecom Council of Silicon Valley Showcase: Mob4Hire

2010-10-07T23:46:00.001-06:00

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

CTIA Wireless Telecom Council of Silicon Valley Showcase: Mob4Hire

View more presentations from Stephen King.

Mob4Hire recognized by TechRev as a top 10 Innovator

2010-09-17T12:12:00.010-06:00

We were pleasantly surprised last night when our name was announced at the annual TechRev awards here in Calgary. The top 10 awards were presented to the following companies:

Computer Modelling Group Ltd.
Ice Edge Business Solutions'
Multiplied Media Inc. (Poynt Mobile app)
Psyko Audio Labs
Sustainable Energy Technologies Inc.
Mob4Hire
Benevity Social Ventures
Wedge Networks
Userful Corporation
Genesis Technical Systems

More details can be found here on the TechRev site. And, our "Success Story" can be found here.

TechRev is an initiative founded by Alberta Advanced Education and Technology, Calgary Economic Development, and Calgary Technologies Inc. with a mandate to increase awareness of and investment activity in the technology sector in the Calgary region.

The second year of the awards, there were 304 companies competing, and we were shortlisted for the 25 that were looking for one of the top 10 awards. That was honour enough, actually ... the list of 25 companies is extremely impressive, and certainly shows the breadth and depth of the local tech community. Which, as I always say, is swimming in a sea of oil and gas here in Calgary, and often doesn't get the exposure it should.

TechRev aims to help change that, and these awards have become coveted for that reason. So, for us to be awarded one is a great honour, certainly comparable to all our global awards like our Meffys Award in London, our Red Herring 100 award out of San Diego, Under the Radar in Mountainview and various others from Barcelona and Toronto and such. Despite global success, it's good to be recognized in your home town.

I know many of the smart and hard working people in the winning companies ... Congratulations everyone!

Stephen King
CEO, Mob4hire

Mob4Hire announces 50,000 tester milestone and new Version 4.2

2010-09-16T06:32:00.009-06:00

We're pretty excited around the halls of Mob4Hire these days. Not only has our community exceeded the milestone of 50,000 people (from 152 countries!), but we've just released Mob4Hire version 4.2, which has a bunch of new features that makes it easier than ever to get crowd-sourced mobile functional and usability testing done.

Here's the official press release: http://tinyurl.com/2afs6s5

First of all, SUPER BIG HAPPY THANKS to all of the testers (a.k.a. "Mobsters") who complete tests. We've seen a great increase in the number of projects in the system and it's you who are doing the tests and helping developers get better software to market. We've paid out thousands of dollars to Mobsters over the last few months, with people making between $20 and $50 depending on the the type of test, location etc... Stay tuned, because there's lots more to come!

And, secondly, thanks to all of our customers. There's more than 1,600 registered mobile developers and market researchers in the Mob4Hire community, and we appreciate that you've put your trust in us to help make your software better.

Finally, thanks to our partners: NAVTEQ, Motorola Motodev, Nokia.Forum, Samsung, Blackberry amongst others ... your support of Mob4Hire and dedication to making developers lives easier is appreciated!

I should note that the following features are part of our V4.2 launch. Enjoy!

1) Mandatory Handset Identification. The Mob4Hire platform automatically streamlines matching the project requirements of attributes such as handset types, network operator and countries.

2) CrowdFlow Project Management Tool. Mob4Hire has simplified the process of managing a large group of testers and survey respondents; from recruiting testers when starting a project all the way to paying Mobsters for their work when the successful results are returned to the developer.

3) Project Walls. Much of the crowd-source mobile testing process is collaborative and requires conversation between the collaborators. The new Project Walls allow for both private discussions and public discussions between app developers and Mobsters.

4) Facebook Connect. This feature has been enhanced to allow for more automatic connectivity that is allowed from the Facebook API

5) Internal admin. Architecturally, the new Mob4Hire platforms offers much better double-entry accounting and audit tools for its eCommerce micro-payment technology, MAAP (Mob4Hire as a Platform).

6) Automated tools. Mob4Hire has responded to customer feedback by including admin and automated tools like project reminders and social networking project sharing to help speed up the testing process, as well as to ensure higher quality results.

Trust in the Mob!

Stephen King, CEO
Mob4Hire.com

Mob4Hire Awards $1000 to Winner of Over-The-Air Hackathon in London ... Good job everyone!

2010-09-13T11:31:00.016-06:00

(By Richard Cooke, Mob4Hire VP Technology ... pictured far right)

I had the honour of representing Mob4Hire at the Over The Air 2010. The event was fantastic, with the highlight for many an appearance by the legendary Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

For me though, the highlight was the Hackathon competition for which over 20 teams stayed up all night creating mobile applications. The quality of the entries was simply stunning.

Mob4Hire presented a prize of $1000 worth of free mobile app usability testing to the app deemed ‘best-in-show’ and I therefore had the difficult task of helping judge the entries alongside representatives from many of the major carriers and device manufacturers. We deliberated long and hard, but eventually we had to come up with a decision as the cleaners were waiting to move in.

Best in Show was awarded unanimously to a team dubbed ‘The Ben Collins Appreciation Society’ for their application ‘First Gear’.

This was a team headed up by Ewan Spence, ably assisted by his team: Simon Maddox; Sam Machin; Rachel Clarke, Robert Lee-Cann; Karl Turner.

The demonstration was a complete tour de force, overrunning enormously although nobody minded. The team had hacked together an iPhone and Android interface using accelerometers to remotely control a couple of RC cars and, most notably, a quadricopter known as ‘The Parrot’. They had also implemented Paypal APIs so that they could charge people for playing with the toys and, reputedly, make extra charges any time somebody crashed the car. Here it is in action:

A full list of winners can be found here at the OTA site: http://overtheair.org/blog/category/competitions/

Some of my notable favorites were:

Audience choice: Lobster – Light Blue
A little London-centric this one (as was the audience). With this app on your iPhone you can ride on London buses for free since it emulates the ubiquitous Oyster card.

Best Android App: FindMyMates – Paul Johnston
An ambitious app combining location data from FourSquare with the camera API to pinpoint friends in a crowded room. This was my personal favourite and, although not quite finished when demonstrated I would like to see more of it.

The Most Useful: BlueBabelTextFish – Sam Machin
Using the Google Translation API and #Blue this application was able to translate incoming SMS messages from any supported language into English.

Best Hardware Hack: The Eyes Have It – Adam Cohen-Rose
Adam demonstrated an unholy marriage of a Lego Mindstorms Robot and an iPhone which implemented face recognition. The robot fixated on a face and then followed it, rather in the manner of a newly born duckling. Truly awesome.

Best use of Open APIs and Open Data : UK Traffic- Dale Lane
A mashup of google maps with some publicly available but currently less than useful traffic data to show traffic information on top of mobile GMaps.

I look forward to seeing the source from some of these projects. I think we could all learn a lot. Well done to everyone that took part.

- Richard

Mob4Hire wins Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF) Meffys Award

2010-08-30T14:50:00.008-06:00

The summer has been so busy that we forgot to blog about this significant award we won in London ... a Meffys Award!

We were in the Innovative Business Model category, and we're happy the judges from 45 countries saw the value in what we do. For content publishers and developers, we save from 65% to 90% off functional and usability testing costs while at the same time helping to produce apps and content that will be more successful and viral when released. For our Mobsters in the community, they make between $20 and $50 an hour for their work. And, for us, we are a broker, earning a transaction fee on helping put the community together with state-of-the-art collaborative tools.

The Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF) unveiled the winners of this year’s coveted Meffys awards at a sold-out gala dinner in London. The Meffys, supported by Dolby, Buongiorno, Symbian, 7digital, MTS, Quickplay Media and Vodafone seek to honour the most influential players in the mobile entertainment industry from across the world.

Rimma Perelmuter, MEF's Executive Director, said

"Congratulations to Mob4Hire for its Crowd-Sourced Mobile Testing which demonstrates the importance of understanding mobile user experience and behaviours before launching new applications.

MEF is proud to celebrate a diverse $36 billion mobile media industry which continues to innovate and thrive. This year’s Meffys winners highlight the industry’s true coming of age with an array of content-focused applications, cross-platform media and mobile commerce offerings. The Meffys have become the global standard for measuring success and serve as a window to the industry’s future."

The winning entries of the seventh annual awards once again provided an insight into the wide range of innovative products, services, applications and projects which are shaping and defining the evolution of the mobile media industry.

Thanks to everyone involved at MEF and the Meffys Awards for your recognition of our hard work! For more information, see the Meffys website: http://www.meffys.com/about/2010-highlights

Winners of some of the other categories include CBS Mobile, Motally, Taptu, Popcap, Shazam and Zed Group.

New Report "Impact of Mobile on Network Operators" illustrates cost-effective global mobile market research tools

2010-08-13T14:11:00.013-06:00

When doing market research with Mob4Hire, I can't think of ANYWHERE you can get this kind of high-quality global access to mobile users with respect to SPEED OF RESULTS and INEXPENSIVE COST OF PANEL SAMPLE.

Want to run your own survey? Contact info@mob4hire.com.

In collaboration with Dr. Hayes from BusinessOverBroadway.com, we recently released our new report "The Impact of Mobile Apps on Network Operator Customer Loyalty." 26 pages jammed pack with insights, figures and data about how users view their network operators performance as it relates to their mobile app ecosystem.

Highlights and other info from the report can be found here: http://www.mob4hire.com/services/global-mobile-research

We've received great feedback on the report, so thanks everyone! Binding mobile apps to network operator customer churn provides some great insights. Looking at some of the best practices of global mobile leaders like Vodafone and Zain (both companies identified in the report) should help network operators get ahead of the curve in terms of what they need to do to compete in this new mobile app world.

Of course, for Mob4Hire, the other important aspect of this report is how market researchers can use our crowd to create extremely cost-effective global panels of people living a mobile lifestyle!

In this study, we offered $2.50 for each qualified Mob4Hire Mobster to complete about a 20-minute survey. Our system sent the initial email blast on a Monday morning to about 18,000 qualified mobsters. 4,000 respondents completed within 48 hours. On day 5 we notified the qualified respondents again and got another 1,000 completes by the end of the weekend. Total sample size was 5000 respondents representing 111 countries, 204 network operators and 179 distinct mobile handsets.

So, in addition to getting global results within a week of the survey start, the cost was extremely reasonable. Total sample cost of the survey was only $16,125. Crazy!

Other companies reference in the report? Tigo, Mobitel, Sun Cellular, O2, Zain, Globe Telecom, Ufone, Vodafone, Warid Telcom, BSNL, Tele2, Telenor, Indosat, Mtel, Dialog, Smart Communications, Movistar, Airtel, Mobilink, 3, Claro, Telkomsel, T-Mobile, Reliance Mobile, Orange, AT&T Mobility, Rogers Wireless, Idea Cellular, MTN, XL, Telcel, Safaricom, Apple, RIM, HTC, Sony Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung, LG, Motorola

EAVB_ZUAHEZDRUE

Mob4Hire wins spot in Silicon Valley Telecom Council Innovation Showcase at CTIA Oct 2010

2010-08-12T16:20:00.008-06:00

We are super-pumped to be one of the 16 companies selected out of over 100 entries to participate in the Silicon Valley Telecom Council Innovation Showcase at CTIA Enterprise and Applications 2010 in San Francisco in early October. To be specific, you'll be able to find us at: "Telecom Council Innovation Showcase Booth 908C"

Thank's to the Telecom Council (and the broad range of judges) for recognizing Mob4Hire's innovative business and opportunity!

More information can be found on their site: http://telecomcouncil.cvent.com/EVENTS/Info/Summary.aspx?e=75f325c4-d299-4eab-807e-95020abe6008

Here's the LinkedIn event: http://events.linkedin.com/Telecom-Council-Innovation-Showcase-CTIA/pub/381844

And for you Facebookers: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=119157021465436

The Telecom Council is working with CTIA Enterprise & Applications to promote innovation, startups, and entrepreneurs in the wireless industry by highlighting them at this year’s Fall CTIA show on the show floor and with stage time. Over 100 wireless entrepreneurs from every segment of the ecosystem applied to be included in this showcase. Applications were judged by a prestigious Council member panel based on standard Telecom Council criteria – innovation, momentum, viability, and management. Together with our judges from AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Marvell, Huawei, Qualcomm, Motorola and others, the Council is proud to bring 16 forward-thinking companies to the CTIA Enterprise & Applications audience at booth 908.

See you at the show on Oct 6 to Oct 8, 2010!

Mob4Hire 3rd Annual "Customer Week" brings team together in Calgary

2010-08-09T10:16:00.005-06:00

When you're a micro-multinational doing business with a virtual team like Mob4Hire (see: http://tinyurl.com/2dasekt), you look for opportunities to bring the whole team together to discuss Big Important Things. And, of course, there's nothing bigger or more important than our customers! So, for the 3rd annual "Customer Week," we took a bit of summer down-time to do some strategic planning a few weeks ago in Calgary.

Pictured here is 90% of the Mob4Hire team huddled in some boardroom space at Calgary Technologies Inc.; from left to right around the table: Bruce, Allen, Dean, Dac, Randy, Richard, John and Paul (taking the picture is Stephen).

The five day sessions included reflecting on a year of developing and releasing Mob4Hire version 4.0 in April (and all the subsequent enhancements since) as well as "what did we learn from our customers?" to continue to make Mob4Hire the largest mobile testing and market research community in the world.

As you probably know (and unlike all other testing communities we're aware of), Mob4Hire allows for both "do-it-yourself" projects as well as having us manage projects on the Mob4Hire platform on your behalf (which gives us the unique perspective of being customers of our own platform) and we continue to make great strides in our usability and value that the community can provide for you!

There have been more than 350 projects posted in Mob4Hire so far, so we're beginning to see some real activity heating up on the platform. As most startups that have been through this growth phase, we're PASSIONATE that Mob4Hire solves your problems quickly, inexpensively, and with a great deal of value and quality.

So, while we're super happy with version 4.0 community platform, the growth and size of the community (we're at 48,000 Mobsters and over 1,400 mobile development companies registered!), and the progress of our business, just wait to see what we've got in store for the next year!

We're listening ... send your comments to support@mob4hire.com. And, thanks for being our customer!

"There's a crAPP for that." Mob4Hire blogs about Big Brands on MRWEB.COM

2010-07-26T03:11:00.004-06:00

Hi There:

Just wanted to let you know about my article for MRWEB.COM that was posted a couple days ago. "How to make a Big Brand App Not Suck." Truthfully, I was torn between that as a title and "There's a crAPP for that," so I used the latter for this post. :)

This was my second article for MRWEB (I wrote "Fear the One Star" back in November), and this time, I extend the concept and explore how Big Brands can approach the mobile marketplace with engagement and stickiness. With 400,000 apps globally in 75 different app stores, it takes a lot to stand out from the crowd.

I use a bit of the research in the new market research survey that we've got coming out within a week or so to help describe the app marketplace. I also reach into our experience here at Mob4Hire helping Big Brands bring apps to market and become as successful as possible as soon as possible. The article also includes a comparison of the New York Times Crossword puzzle app and Burger King's Valentines "Catch a Heart" app.

Smartphone users are savvy, brutally honest and have the attention span of a two year old. If it looks like crAPP, and it smells like crAPP, it’s crAPP.

Would love to hear your feedback ... post comments here or on MRWEB.

Thanks. Hope your summer is going great!

Stephen King, CEO
Mob4Hire Inc.

Mob4Hire CTO, John Carpenter, to present "The Power of the Crowd" at Starwest in San Diego

2010-07-07T12:42:00.009-06:00

This year's STARWEST "Software Testing, Analysis and Review" conference is taking place in San Diego on Sept 26 to Oct 1, 2010 at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront. The greatest software testing conference on Earth, STARWEST is a gathering place for software testers, developers, and managers to interact and learn how to improve software-testing practices.

Mob4Hire CTO, John Carpenter, has been selected to speak on the topic of crowd-source testing. With an engineering degree in Geomatics and spatial programming, John has incorporated mapping and LBS technologies into mobile applications and games since 1999. John has many years of first-hand experience on the difficulties and expense of mobile application and cloud testing. He is a noted mobile technology evangelist and speaker.

John's topic is: "The Power of the Crowd: Mobile Testing for Scale and Global Coverage"

John's MUST-SEE presentation is on Thursday, September 30th at 9:45 in the "Embedded & Mobile Testing" track T5.

Register for STARWEST before July 30th, and get $400 super early bird discount off the price of the conference! Click here for Conference Brochure. Click here for the website: http://www.sqe.com/STARWEST/

Here's the topic description ... hope to see you there!

The Power of the Crowd: Mobile Testing for Scale and Global Coverage

Crowdsourced testing of mobile applications, a middle ground between in-house and outsourced testing, has many advantages: scale, speed, coverage, lower capital costs, reduced staffing costs, and no long-term commitments. However, crowdsourced testing of any application—mobile or not—should augment your professional testing resources, not replace them. Most importantly, crowdsourced testing has to be done well or it’s a waste of time and money. John Carpenter reviews the applications and ways he’s outsourced testing to the crowd. Focusing on adopting crowdsourcing for both functional and usability testing in mobile applications, John describes scenarios in which you can leverage the crowd to lower costs and increase product quality, including scaling the application to large populations of global users. John also reviews scenarios in which crowdsourcing can add unnecessary time and cost to a project and ways to avoid those pitfalls. Learn about the power of the crowd and when to use it to propel your testing project forward.

Mob4Hire and Forum Nokia jointly offer MobExperience User Feedback Usability Testing

2010-06-30T09:16:00.015-06:00

We are very pleased to announce that Mob4Hire is working with Forum Nokia to help mobile developers with User Experience testing.

"Forum Nokia is proud to announce that it is augmenting its design expertise available through its User Experience (UX) Evaluation service with the valuable crowd-sourced user feedback that comes from Mob4Hire."

Forum Nokia's approach to helping developers is refreshingly simple, with tools and resources around three pillars of success: Design, Develop and Distribute. Mob4Hire's approach to crowd-sourced user feedback products is similarly simple. See our "User Feedback in the 10 Steps of Mobile Development Cycle" chart.

Because of their broad range of languages, platform, device and global operator support, Mob4Hire is a natural fit. If developers are targeting testing for Java, Flash, S60, Series 40, Symbian, Symbian C++, whatever ... Mob4Hire's crowd of 45,000 in 150 countries (and 25,000 different devices) can help them with both functional and usability testing for mobile apps and mobile websites.

Making sure mobile apps run across multiple devices in multiple countries was the original concept behind Mob4Hire, and our MobTest product continues that tradition for Nokia developers.

Our MobExperience product takes it to a whole new level. Get many people to download and try our your app and then complete out our MobExperience survey providing unequalled user feedback experience. Your results come back within days, and is very cost-effective ... structured and organized feedback from 30 mobile users ANYWHERE in the world running ANY device starts at under $1,000 USD.

It's EXTREMELY important in a development cycle ... you can't make great software without user feedback!

Mob4Hire CEO shares Mobile Developer Best Practices on NAVTEQ NN4D Youtube Channel

2010-06-28T12:05:00.006-06:00

"Join NN4D's partner Mob4Hire, as Stephen King, CEO describes in a 4 segment series what developers should take into consideration if they want to succeed in today's market place -- customer needs, carrier logistics, platforms-of-choice, real stats, testing and more."

The videos can be found on NAVTEQ's Youtube channel.

Big Brands looking to have an impact with mobile apps need to consider several things; does it have utility, can it be recommended, can it be updated frequently with relevant data, is it useful on an ongoing basis AND IS IT PERSONALIZED with user experience or Geolocation?

For example, the New York Times just published an app that incorporates Geolocation: http://www.geoapplab.com/2010/06/the-new-york-times-gets-in-on-geolocation/

Location aware apps are some of the most "stickiest" apps in use; apps that are used frequently by mobile users, they stay on their smartphones for longer periods of time, and they are more likely to be recommended on an ongoing basis.

Unfortunately, for mobile developers, it's even MORE difficult to test LBS apps in market ... which is why the Mob4Hire and NAVTEQ NN4D relationship is helping developers get to market with more confidence around topics such as:

1) Battery life consumption
2) Device and carrier fragmentation
3) Time to first locate and accuracy
4) Handling large of amounts of location data
5) Handling of dead zones and loss of signal

You know you're getting big when ... Caution: Mob4Hire email phish

2010-06-27T14:38:00.000-06:00

It came to our surprise this morning that someone has been phishing for email addresses of Mob4Hire.com community members. This is a bad thing.

Phishing according to Wikipedia is:
"In the field of computer security, phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication."

The email shown to the right is a spam that has been received by many people; including people who are part of Mob4Hire. THIS EMAIL IS NOT FROM MOB4HIRE. This particular Phish email is looking to obtain your email address.

Emails from Mob4Hire ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS have your first name addressed on them, as well as your "Mob4Hire Citizen since ..." date. They are also ALWAYS addressed by me (Stephen King, CEO, Mob4Hire.com).

As in all email attacks, if you don't recognize that data, don't open the email. Don't click on the links. Don't open or run any attached files. If in doubt about an email from Mob4Hire, manually type Mob4Hire.com into your browser. This can ensure that you are reaching the Mob4Hire site.

Want to know more about "Malware?" Here's the Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malware

Sorry this happened ... but maybe it was inevitable as we get bigger ... I guess we're all a victim of our own success!

Mob4Hire voted finalist in 2010 Meffys Awards by journalists from over 45 countries

2010-05-26T22:15:00.008-06:00

We're super pumped to have been named a finalist in the 2010 Meffys Awards, with the likes of GetJar, Hungama Mobile, mBlox and Shorthand, and Openwave. Thanks and fingers crossed!

25 May 2010, London – Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF) today announced the finalists for the 2010 Meffys Awards. These were selected after four days of judging by representatives from over 45 companies, publications and analyst houses. Now in their seventh year, the 2010 Meffys submissions highlight innovative apps, services and mobile connected devices from across the globe.

Rimma Perelmuter, Executive Director of MEF, said: “The 2010 Meffys shortlist reflects the profound changes and opportunities occurring in the current mobile media and entertainment industries. Mobile is no longer a standalone platform but is increasingly an integrated and integral gateway to engaging, entertaining and satisfying consumers. Amongst the entries were some excellent examples of mobile being deeply integrated with content and services on other platforms to provide consumers with a holistic, compelling and immersive experience across their media consumption touch points.

MEF is also pleased to announce that Dolby Laboratories has signed on as Gold sponsor for this year’s Meffys Awards. Winners of the Quality of Experience award in 2009, Dolby will be showcasing how their world-leading audio technologies are bringing the cinematic surround sound experience to entertainment on the go, adding a touch of Hollywood to the handset at this year’s event. 2010 Meffys sponsors also include 7Digital, Buongiorno and Vodafone.

This year’s winners will be unveiled on 21 June at a special gala awards dinner to an audience of 400 key industry players, taking place on the eve of MEF’s official annual conference, Mobile Entertainment Market.

http://tinyurl.com/279kdvm

Mob4Hire's Stephen King appears at Motorola Motodev Summit Android Panel in LATAM

2010-04-28T11:16:00.004-06:00

"Muy bien el evento de Motorola"

Mob4Hire CEO Stephen King repeats his Android panel involvement at the Motodev Summits in Mexico, Brazil and Argentina ... sort of ... appearing by video.

Starting yesterday in Mexico City and running over the next two weeks, the Motodev Summits in LATAM are must-attends for mobile developers hoping to strike it rich making Android apps, especially with the launch of the new LATAM Android store that Motodev is launching.

Stephen was on the "Maximize Your Android Opportunity" panel in both MWC Barcelona and CTIA Las Vegas, and was invited again to the LATAM part of the tour.

Unable to attend, they made videos of his answers which will be played live and translated during the panel sessions. Hopefully, we'll get a chance to post some of them here or at least direct you to an online resource. Look at the our new Mob4Hire Trailer Video and watch from about 2:02 to 2:25 ... that's a sample from one of the videos.

We appreciate Motodev as a partner ... they are doing great things for the Android Platform, their integrated debugging and coding tools are second-to-none and the team is sincere in their efforts to help developers! The LATAM Summits will be very successful.

New Mob4Hire Trailer Video on Youtube

2010-04-28T00:19:00.004-06:00

Mob4Hire named on Branham 300 annual list of top technology companies in Canada

2010-04-13T22:47:00.010-06:00

We were honoured to be named one of the Top 25 ICT Up and Comers on Branham's annual list of 300 top technology firms in Canada.

Have a look at Backbone Magazine's coverage of the Top 25 list. We were equally honoured to be one of only two Albertan companies on the list, sharing the podium with our friends over at Tynt (as a sidenote ... we use their technology on our new Version 4.0 of our Mob4Hire platform, launched last week).

According to Branham's, the top 25 ICT Up and Comers "... are selected based on creativity and innovation whether in a new technology area or optimizing existing technology in an innovative manner." and, further, "because of the progress they made in a period of time when the margin for error was extremely small."

Branham Group is a leading industry analyst and strategic consulting firm servicing the global information technology marketplace. Entering its 17th year, the Branham300 highlights the top Canadian and Multinational ICT companies operating in Canada and is widely considered to be a leading source of intelligence on Canada's ICT industry.

Thanks, thanks, thanks ... we appreciate the recognition for the work that we're doing for our customers!

Mob4Hire launches Version 4.0 of award-winning community platform after a year in development.

2010-04-07T23:00:00.015-06:00

Hi Everyone:

*whew* We're tired and excited today.

About a year ago, we had a company-wide meeting "customer week" where we all met in Calgary to refine our vision of what a next generation community crowd-sourcing marketplace platform should and can be. Today, we proudly launched Mob4Hire V4.0 that is the culmination of a LOT of hard work and thinking. Check it out live at www.mob4hire.com. Here's the press release.

Before I talk about what's in the release, though, I want to talk about the people that made it happen. Great things can be created by great smart teams. The last 20% of a release cycle is always the toughest, but it's where the magic happens ... we really put our nose to the development grindstone after the Blackberry Developer Conference last November. Since then, it's become quite a software "death-march" for us, interspersed with great success at both MWC Barcelona (February) and CTIA Las Vegas (March).

So hats off to the team that's made it happen with perseverance, intelligence, wit and crazy-startuppy-ness: Richard, Randy, John, Paul, Allen, Ervin, Bob, Bruce, Bob, Shaun, Dac, Mark, and Steve. Kudos and congrats, my friends.

In fact, it takes a village to raise a child; in addition to the direct Mob4Hire team, we sincerely thank all our Advisors ... your input and support have been fantastic. The complete team represents a broad range of expertise in many disciplines stretching across four different countries. Check out the whole MobSquad at http://www.mob4hire.com/company/the-team. Not to mention all of our friends in industry around the world ... u know who you are, and we gratefully thank you for your help ... keep those retweets coming!

Last but not least, we thank the over 40,000 mobile users from 150 countries that provide great crowd-source services, and the almost 1,000 developers and market researchers who have registered in Mob4Hire. We hope you like what we've done ... and we're continuously learning how to better help you, so let us know how we're doing either way at http://www.getsatisfaction.com/mob4hire.

The thing that excites us most about Mob4Hire V4.0 is that we've built an amazing crowd-sourced architecture that will serve as the foundation for even more crazy-startuppy-ness things in the future. Hmmm ... actually, that's not entirely true. The thing that REALLY excites us most is that we're helping developers just like ourselves make better software, create better user experiences and generate more revenue through viral recommendations and 4 & 5 star ratings in apps stores.

Our mobile community of ‘real people on real handsets with real opinions’ is in virtually every country on the planet. We offer valuable, cost-effective and unique services in the value chain across the mobile ecosystem to include mobile users in the development cycle of mobile apps, mobile websites, mobile ad campaigns, or whatever ... you can't make great software without users in the development cycle! This can be the difference between success and failure for our customers.

The press release goes into details about what's in the new platform, a bit of extra stuff, and introduces our new Managed Services team.

Thanks for being part of the Mob ... together, we make mobile better.

Stephen King, CEO
Paul Poutanen, President and Founder

Mob4Hire releases first look at "Global Wireless Satisfaction Survey"

2010-03-16T00:37:00.020-06:00

I'm excited to announce the first look of the results of our Mob4Hire "Global Wireless Satisfaction Survey." Conducted in collaboration with Dr. Bob E. Hayes, PhD of Business Over Broadway in Feb 2010, the unprecedented 111-country survey analyzes the impact of mobile apps on operator’s churn (# of new customers acquired minus # of existing customers lost), as well as many dimensions of the app ecosystem as it relates to mobile user behavior and satisfaction.

You can have a look at the press release here: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/03/prweb3727914.htm

We're pleased to provide the research free of charge: The 8-page report is available at Slideshare by clicking here or see below.

This research from this survey is significant from two standpoints:

It demonstrates that the mobile apps and ecosystem that network operators provide users is extremely important to their customer loyalty around the globe: 75% of mobile app enthusiasts say mobile apps are important when choosing their new operator. And, almost 40% cite "bad mobile apps" as a reason they left their operator. The dimensions of wireless coverage and service are still MORE important than mobile app choice, but it certainly raises the bar for operators, and gives them one more thing they have to think about.
It demonstrates a great use of our distributed community of more than 40,000 people in 146 countries on 364 network operators.

There's plenty of other great stuff coming from Mob4Hire in the next little while, including some more survey reports with some other great data, some partner announcements and ... ? Stay tuned.

Thanks to everyone that took the time to participate. Also, thanks to Dr. Hayes for his partnership and friendship.

And, as always, Trust in the Mob!

Stephen King, CEO
www.mob4hire.com

Mob4Hire releases Mobile Apps report from "Global Wireless Satisfaction Survey" Feb 2010

View more documents from Stephen King.

Stephen King CEO of Mob4hire speaks with bnetTV.com at GSMA Barcelona Feb 2010

2010-03-14T16:34:00.002-06:00

The good folks at bnetTV.com continue to do their fine work giving exposure to hundreds of innovative technology companies. In this latest segment on Mob4Hire, bnetTV's Michelle Sklar interviews Stephen King, who gives an update on Mob4Hire and the need for user functional and usability testing, as well as deeper market research in the new mobile app gold rush. See you at CTIA Las Vegas, bnetTV!

Mob4Hire WOWs at MWC Barcelona 2010

2010-02-22T12:22:00.016-07:00

We had a great time last week at Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona! I documented the industry perspective in my blog posts for www.techvibes.com; which you can read here. Thanks to Rob Lewis for posting ...

Summary from MWC 2010:

It’s all about the apps.

I don’t want to re-iterate what I said in those posts ‘cause you can read them yourselves, but I wanted to augment that story with our personal success. Starting on Day 1 when we joined Motodev at their Developer Conference, it was a week of unprecedented attention.

I was happy to sit on the "Maximize your Android Market Opportunity" panel ... fun stuff. Ultimately, any business needs to make money, and mobile developers are well known for their current starving artist period (i.e. lots are not making money!). Using some stats I gathered from places like Androlib.com, a developer can start piecing together a real business strategy vs. making the 9,000th iteration of Tetris.

Throughout the week, it's clear that our message of “Don’t Crash. Don’t Suck. Get Sticky.” is becoming the mantra for an industry that suffers from worsening handset, O/S and operator fragmentation. The citizens of the Mob4Hire community share the same belief: having real people involved in the development of mobile software is vital to having a great user experience when the app, mobile website or mobile ad campaign is released.

You can’t make great software without users.

And, if you don't have great software, you will not get good user ratings on an app store. Our current research shows that 83% of mobile users won't download software without seeing 4 or 5 star user ratings in app store reviews. We call it "The Curse of the One Star"

Marek Pawlowski from the London based MEX forum (global leaders in user experience) joined us in the booth for awhile; he blogged about the "growing interest in remote mobile user experience testing" on the MEX site. As Marek states:

With so many variations of handset and networks, it is impossible to predict where the chain of user experience will break down in a controlled environment - the Mob4Hire approach gets you direct to the street-level conditions which will make or break the UX of your application.

We also got a great mention from Russell Buckley at Mobhappy.com.

But how do you know if users will rank your App high or low? That’s where Mob4Hire come in – by pre-testing your App before it’s launched. Not only will you learn what your ranking will probably be with that version, but you’ll find out why. This allows you to improve and tweak your App, re-test and launch when you’re confident that you’ve cracked it.

It was also heartening to have some great meetings with many partners, carriers and handset manufacturers who are looking at crowdsourcing as the answer to not only create great user experiences, but also to give scale to testing and market research processes. Not to mention, helping to guarantee that apps, websites and ad campaigns will resonate with users “Ummm ... do you know why users will love that app? Because users helped create it.”

Specifically, our “Mob4Hire as a Platform” architecture is drawing great attention since our specially designed API’s give them a great head start in the adoption of crowdsourced solutions. By leaving the hard part of crowd management and cloud infrastructure to us, enterprises such as carriers, operating systems and handset manufacturers can quickly introduce the power of crowd sourcing to their app stores, developer networks. Click here to make an appointment to talk to us at CTIA Vegas next month!

Last but not least, thanks to Heli and Laura and everyone at the Canadian Pavilion for the great opportunity and for working so hard to make it come together. We’re excited to be included in very impressive group of world class and leading edge companies.

We’ve got some big announcements coming up in the next few months. Stay tuned!

Thanks to everyone that's helped out along the way ... as always: Trust in the Mob!

Stephen King, CEO

Mob4Hire at Mobile World Congress Barcelona

2010-02-01T09:28:00.005-07:00

The last few weeks before THE major worldwide wireless trade show are always crazy. First, there's making sure every ounce of our time is well spent meeting with our friends, customers, partners and media. It's a good chance to get out from behind Skype and have quality face to face time.

Second, after coming off a great autumn season, we got deep down into product development over the last few months and, in addition to several great announcements to make, we'll be showing off the first looks at our new Version 3 Mob4Hire platform!

We are proud to be in the Canadian Pavilion this year ... thanks to all the great people at the Federal and Provincial (Alberta) governments for putting this together! Specifically, we are in the Canadian Pavilion in booth area 2A105 in Hall 2 near the exit to Hall 1. See map to the right.

Come by and see us! If you'd like to pre-arrange a meeting, please contact Allen Poutanen, VP Business Development: allen@mob4hire.com.

See you in Catalonia!

Mob4Hire's 2010 Mobile Predictions

2009-12-27T22:38:00.015-07:00

At the end of 2009, as we celebrate a year of mobile innovation and growth, we thought we'd throw our hat into the ring with some brave predictions for the industry in 2010. Next year at this time, we'll have a look back and see how we did. Thanks to all our customers, testers, and partners for making this such as great year for Mob4Hire and for crowd-sourced testing ... we're doing great things together! This list was put together by myself, Stephen King (Mob4Hire CEO), Paul Poutanen (President and Founder), and John Carpenter (CTO). On behalf of everyone at Mob4Hire, Happy Holidays and a Preposterous New Year! We'll see you in 2010!

Google launches their own phone. Ok, that one is a given considering the blogosphere is buzzing with pictures of the device given out to the staff, but still, it hasn’t been officially launched in 2009. We think they'll be four Google branded handsets in market by next Christmas. Look for Google to explore it's own data network, too ... using Google Voice to provide a full phone without the need for a carrier connection
Android will stall. Android will have a great start in Christmas 2009 (the Verizon Droid will do well) but will fizzle in the latter half of 2010. Two things are happening in the Android space. One: their new phone(s) will challenge their existing handset partner relationships, and certainly make any new partnerships more difficult. Two: due to it’s open architecture, splinters of Android O/S are already beginning to show up and developers will face yet another fragmented O/S (that nobody is documenting, I might add). This will make developers think twice about writing software for an increasingly expensive-to-develop-for platform that doesn't have that much worldwide penetration comparatively speaking.
Get ready for lots more devices. Apple, Nokia/Microsoft and Google (via Android) and dozens of others will all make pushes into consumer connected devices like PNDs and netbooks. They will make great christmas gifts next year. Likewise Acer, Dell, Lenovo will make a push towards connected laptops and smartphones. The line between smartphones and netbooks will be increasingly smaller. More handsets creates more fragmentation as does more os’s, more device integration, more widgets, and more carrier proprietary API's all of which makes it harder for developers to create apps. By the end of 2010, we believe there will be more than 1,000,000 mobile apps that will not only target mobile handsets but mobile enabled notebooks as well. Look for very specific content opportuities; i.e. apps targetting stamp collectors or GPS assisted astronomy. We are in the long tail and the tail is getting longer.
Next Christmas, it will be all about Microsoft in mobile. They will get Windows 7 right for mobile phones and offer unparalleled connection of mobile apps to desktop and Saas software/data following their success of Windows 7 for Desktop. This will be of great interest to enterprise developers who are waiting for a more tightly integrated platform into back-end office data. If they do it right, Microsoft can leverage their existing army of developers already programming in Microsoft tools. They are the only major mobile O/S that OEM's can deal with that doesn’t also compete with it’s own mobile hardware (see #1 and #2). Microsoft's renewed success will be at the expense of Sybmian, who stands to regain some share in 2011 as the low end smartphone market (Asia and Africa) heats up in 2011 and 2012, as long as they deliver on their open strategy.
Palm will be acquired. Nokia (or RIM) is the likely suspect. Nokia is slumping in it’s smartphone business. Palm has got great hardware and software but won’t deliver on sales expectations due to intense competition. However, combined with Nokia’s distribution, marketing and manufacturing engine, it could easily beat iPhone and Blackberry sales worldwide. Symbian will persist as the O/S of choice for low-end phones. What of Maeomo? Kill it. I’d suggest taking the best netbook features out of Maeomo and add it to the Palm O/S to augment it’s functionality for that segment, then make Palm your flagship O/S. RIM is an outside shot at purchasing PALM, looking to bolster it's consumer product lines to further differentiate it's experience
M&A in telecoms will accelerate. Smaller carriers will get consumed by mid-range and large players as they fail to meet the demand for smartphone and data infrastructure. Other networks will get so busy Application developer companies will be bought up as well as well as mobile analytic firms and infrastructure/middleware/porting plays. Watch for big players to make a move into the 4G WiMax/LTE networks.
The need for a better Mobile 2.0 web experience happens WAY quicker than anyone expects. Many corporations, who are all very pleased with themselves for finally figuring out their web eCommerce strategy, are faced with a new challenge that has caught them completely unprepared: mobile websites. Many firms don’t even know what % of people are surfing to their site from mobile browsers; but I expect it is at least 10% to 20% ... and they are having a terrible user experience. This is creating a large opportunity for mobile web development consulting companies.
Mobile advertising will be somewhat disappointing in 2010. There's more to be made here, but ultimately, mobile advertising is not about banner ads or adsense type click through ads. The story next year is that mobile advertising is about Apps for Advertising ... apps created by media agencies and companies to get consumers integrated in their brand experience… the ones that will be most sticky will have co-ordinated mobile app, web and traditional media marketing campaigns. This is another significant growth opportunity for developers.
RIMs service woes will continue. This will impact their bottom line. Likely you will see a continued growth with the deployment of their 5.0 OS but not as much as people would hope for. Look for Nokia and Windows to make a big push into to the enterprise messaging market. Focusing on big commercial and government clients first. Even though this gives RIM two battle fronts to fight (enterprise and consumer), they’ll be up to the fight … look for some strong moves from RIM earlier in the year to get ready for it (see # 7).
Apple will surprise us again. This year their iFridge will invade our kitchens.

Mob4Hire wins 2 out of 5 Investor Choice Awards at Vancouver Angel Forum

2009-11-28T11:22:00.005-07:00

Last week, we were honored to receive not one, but two, out of the five investor choice awards at the 26th Angel Forum in Vancouver: "Best Company with Revenue" and "Best Presentation." This is great recognition of the journey we've been on, the progress we've made and the opportunity that we have in front of us.

We are, of course, in the middle of raising a private round of financing. If you're interested, please contact investor@mob4hire.com for more details.

During the day, we were treated to several presentations, one of which focused on Investment Trends from V.C.s' and Angels in Canada. The thoughts were encapsulated nicely by Boris Wertz on the Techvibes blog. In fact, in addition to the "re-thinking" of section 118 which makes it more complex for U.S. investors to put money into Canadian, I would also add the challenge of getting B.C. investors to put money into Alberta companies: B.C. investors enjoy a 30% tax credit ... for every $1,000 they put into a B.C. high tech company, they get $300 back on their tax return. I guess that's why us Alberta companies try harder!?

The most human moment of the evening goes to Mike Volker, who won the award for BC Angel Investor of the Year ... speaking about recently departed Don Ricks. Don apparently was a shoe-in for the award ("investing $50K in over 30 startups"), but his biggest legacy was Mike's testament: "When Don was with us, he was a great Angel investor. Now, he's a great Angel."

Thanks to Bob Chaworth-Musters for organizing great day!

The Curse of the One Star

2009-11-12T06:06:00.006-07:00

Mob4Hire CEO, Stephen King, spoke at the BlackBerry Developer Conference this week in San Francisco. His topic "User Feedback and It's Role in Making Great Mobile Software" was well received by the audience. CNET Blogger Jessica Dolcourt was in attendance and reflected in her post: "A single-star rating for an application on a review site or storefront can severely limit its chances of getting downloaded, and therefore of making money."

"This is the curse of the one-star," said session speaker Stephen King (not that Stephen King)

In a related article, Stephen's post on market research community site MRWEB.com reiterates "Fear the One Star," correlating customer loyalty to mobile app revenue.

Our preliminary research shows that users are most comfortable with seeing at least 4 star ratings in mobile app stores before downloading

At the end of the day, while user feedback is important, developers shouldn't rely on paying customers to design their application architecture, especially if mistakes are prone to frustrate the user.

Testing software for crashing as well as usability BEFORE the app is released isn't just a "nice to have" ... it's vital in an increasingly crowded app marketplace where discoverability is becoming a big issue.

Mob4Hire and Flurry team up for one-two punch testing and market research

2009-11-10T12:57:00.004-07:00

We're excited to announce our new partnership with Flurry Analytics out of San Francisco:

Mob4Hire, the leading crowd-sourced mobile application testing solution, today announced an agreement that combines Flurry mobile application analytics with the Mob4hire global community of testers, making both qualitative and quantitative user behavior data easy to access in order to make mobile software better.

In other words, analytics such as the ones Flurry provides tells mobile app developers and advertisers "what" the user does in your apps. The Mob4Hire community tells them "why" they did what they did (and what else you need in your app / what can you do better?).

Sean Galligan, Flurry vice president of business development has this to say: “We are excited to partner with Mob4Hire to deliver a powerful, joint offering that helps developers improve their applications and grow their mobile business.”

Mob4Hire CTO presents at Symbian SEE 2009

2009-11-04T00:24:00.008-07:00

Application Development John Carpenter Mob4Hire

Mob4Hire CTO John Carpenter was in London last week at Symbian Exchange and Exposition 2009 presenting our favorite topic: User Feedback Techniques to Make Great Mobile Software.

In other words: "Don't Crash. Don't Suck. Get Sticky." :)

John says that the room was packed and the talk was well received ... a sure sign that everyone's mobile software is going to starting getting better!

Mob4Hire at CTIA San Diego: "Don't Crash, Don't Suck, Get Sticky"

2009-10-13T15:00:00.010-06:00

We're back from the CTIA Wireless show in San Diego last week. We had a GREAT time ... lots of buzz: we're the first of three innovative products from the show on an American Express blog.

Our booth was packed from beginning to end. It was great to see so much interest and "light bulbs going on over heads" as attendees realized that Mob4Hire gives the mobile community access to users for feedback during the product development cycle; "I've been waiting for a service like this for years" was an oft-heard comment!

We got a great write up in the Day 2 Show Daily of Wireless Week ... Check out page 12.

Our latest marketing gizmos ... buttons with "Don't Crash. Don't Suck. Get Sticky." were a hit ... they were almost all gone by end of day 1. Not surprisingly, the "Don't Suck" button ran out first. :)

At the conference, we were pleased to "soft-launch" our new crowd-sourced products:

-MobTest
-MobSurvey
-MobExperience
-MobAccelerator

All of which are still in private alpha testing (so you won't see them on our main website ... yet). You'll hear more about as we ramp up to our soon-to-be-released Version 3.0 of Mob4Hire later this fall. We received a tremendous amount of good feedback from attendees at the conference ... it was great to meet everyone! Stay tuned.

P.S. For those that asked, here's our "10 Steps of the Mobile Development Cycle" process chart that we had displayed at the booth. Click on the image to get a higher resolution chart (or, right-click and "Save as").

P.P.S. Here's the CTIA San Diego 2009 post show highlights on the CTIA Wrap up website: http://daily.ctia.org/wireless2009/ And, the rest of Wireless Week Daily Show Daily's: http://www.wirelessweek.com/News/2009/10/CTIA-Official-Show-Daily/

Mobile Developer's Guide to the Galaxy

2009-10-08T14:38:00.005-06:00

I came across this little publication called "Mobile Developer's Guide to the Galaxy" at CTIA San Diego last week. It's a quick and knowledgeable read for anyone trying to understand the difference between programming for different mobile platforms. Mob4Hire got a nice mention on page 24 (thx!). Kudos to the authors Robert Virkus (Enough Software), Roland Gulle (Sevenval), Thibaut Roufiineau (WIP), Michel Shuqair (24Access Solutions) and Alexander Repty (Enough Software).

I was lucky enough to pick up a hard copy (fitting nicely in the front pocket of my dress shirt), but you can get your own .PDF version at Enough Software's website.

As Douglas Adams would say ... "So long and thanks for all the fish"

Motorola Summit rocks Android

2009-10-06T12:25:00.006-06:00

Mob4Hire was at the Motorola Summit in San Diego last week, just before the CTIA Conference. Motorola impressed me for three reasons: the new Android CLIQ is killer kewl, their strategic focus as a company on wide Android deployment is obviously making a difference and they've embraced the developers in their developer network community (MotoDev): better tools, better processes and, if the Summit was any indiciation, a sincere comittment to working together.

We were there as a fast track partner and also felt very much a part of the community. We were in the middle of the action all day, too ... sporting our new "Mob4Hire" attire and getting feedback on the upcoming launch of our new platform, Mob4Hire V3.0.

LOVED the little touches, like chocolates, an unending assortment of drinks and treats, lotsa free CLIQs and last but not least, clay Android robots, proving once and for all that developers have unusually high creativity! And, to finish things off, we hit the top of the Hard Rock Hotel in San Diego for a pool party. We met a lot of great people all throughout the day. Nice! Congrats to Motorola.

Mob4Hire: Putting Apps to the Test

2009-10-05T11:04:00.002-06:00

Andrew Berg wrote a great article about "Putting Apps to the Test" as the cover story of the Sept/Oct issue of Wireless Week; in which he looks at the difficult task of making great mobile software in a fragmented mobile ecosystem. (As u and I know, bad software = bad reviews = no word of mouth = no revenue!). Great comparison of the similarities and differences of Mob4Hire, DeviceAnywhere, and AT&T Apps Beta progam.

http://wirelessweek.com/Articles/2009/10/Putting-Apps-to-Test/

Another article of note in our home country of Canada: http://ottawa.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20091007/OTT_mob4hire_091008/20091008/?hub=OttawaHome

Mob4Hire turns 20,000

2009-09-23T12:33:00.004-06:00

20,000 testers, that is. In 105 countries on 330 carriers! We had a news conference yesterday to announce it ... old school traditional media like TV and papers along with blogosphere (e.g. "Mob4Hire doubles testing community in four months" Techvibes) and Tweeting. Thanks to Calgary Technologies Inc in Calgary for hosting the event in their space ... they are doing great things for the bursting high-tech scene.

Click here for press release.

Got a nice writeup in the Calgary Herald, the local paper where we live: "mob4hire Ceo stephen King, left, and paul poutanen, president and founder, use crowd sourcing to recruit people to test applications for mobile devices such as the iphone and blackberry. Photograph by: Dean Bicknell, Calgary Herald, Calgary Herald"

Thank you to all the testers in our community who make Mob4Hire what it is; your excellent work providing testing and usability services to Mobile Developers around the world is helping make mobile software better. As you can see from our prior blogposts, we're spreading the word in the mobile developer community ... so be ready for lots more projects!

Trust in the Mob!

Stephen King,
CEO, Mob4Hire

Mob4Hire at Banff Venture Forum, CTIA San Diego and Motorola MotoDev Summit

2009-09-19T15:08:00.008-06:00

Preparations are underway for an exciting beginning of October for Mob4Hire ... come and say hi if you're coming to any of these events!

On the 1st and 2nd, we're one of the 35 select companies who are presenting at the Banff Venture Forum.

Then, we're winging our way to CTIA Wireless I.T. and Entertainment 2009 in San Diego on Oct 7 through 9th.

Our booth # is 106, just across from the WIP booth in the Developer Pavilion. We're excited to be presenting the next generation platform of Mob4Hire!

But, before we get on the floor at CTIA, we're spending October 6th at the Motorola MotoDev Summit at the Hard Rock Hotel in San Diego. Motorola has been a good partner, and we're super excited to be involved as they launch their new handsets, including the Android Based Cliq.

We'll see you there (and there and there)!

Stephen King to speak at Blackberry Developer Conference

2009-09-18T20:40:00.003-06:00

Mob4Hire CEO, Stephen King, is pleased to be selected to speak at the Blackberry Developer Conference in San Francisco on November 9-12, 2009. His session COM15 is titled "User Feedback Techniques to Make Great Mobile Software."

"69% of mobile users discover apps based on top store rankings, user reviews and recommendations from friends. Great software is your best marketing strategy. In order to make great software, you need to include user feedback in the development process, during the alpha cycle to optimize the user experience, during beta testing and post release to assess the application in real-world situations. This session will look at two software product feedback techniques: Townhalls and Customer Loyalty 2.0. Users will come away with ideas for gaining the best sources of end user impressions of their applications."

We're happy to going down to the conference with another Calgary success story, Kryos.com, who is the Gold Sponsor of the Blackberry Developer Conference (they've got a fantastic product, "Velocity" that allows for rapid development on the Blackberry platform).

John Carpenter from Mob4Hire to speak at "Wavefront presents NAVTEQ"

2009-09-04T17:21:00.007-06:00

Mob4Hire's intrepid CTO, John Carpenter will be sharing the stage when Mob4Hire partners Wavefront and NAVTEQ come to Calgary to present "How to Drive Development and Visibility of Your Innovative Location Based Apps" (a.k.a. LBS apps are cool). John will be explaining how testing and deploying LBS apps differs versus standard mobile apps and requires a whole new approach.

Sept. 16, from 8:00 am to 10:30 am at the Sheraton Cavalier Calgary Hotel, Sheraton East Room, 2620 32 Ave NE, Calgary, AB. Click here to register.

Full details are here: http://www.wavefrontac.com/news-events/waveguide-training/NAVTEQ_Sep16_2009/seminar-2009-09-16

Stephen King to speak at Symbian Exchange and Exposition 2009

2009-08-31T12:59:00.004-06:00

Mob4Hire CEO, Stephen King, has been selected to speak at the Symbian Exchange and Exposition 2009 in London on Oct 27 and 28th.

Stephen draws on his 25 years of software development experience to apply traditional software user feedback techniques to mobile development. His topic "From Concept to Commercialization," is all about making great software. Great software leads to “stickiness”; increased customer loyalty to your brand (also known as "going viral"). In a world where developers have limited marketing budgets, they must rely on a great user experience so that people will tell their friends and post great reviews.

In short, you can't make great software without users!

Celebrating Wavefront's Grand Opening!

2009-08-25T19:19:00.003-06:00

We've been a partner with Wavefront (http://www.wavefrontac.com) for awhile, and we couldn't be happier than to congratulate them on the grand opening of their new facility in Vancouver. It's a great focal point for the thriving mobile scene in Vancouver, and should be a good thing to check out in 2010 at Mobile Monday's global conference in May.

A couple great blogs popped up on the announcement regarding the Wavefront announcement (and Mob4Hire partnership):

http://www2.canada.com/theprovince/news/money/story.html?id=734cd099-6c50-41ba-b2a4-4e8b62cba889

http://www.mediacastermagazine.com/issues/ISArticle.asp?aid=1000338220

"Wavefront is developing partnerships to address the spectrum of testing scenarios which differ for each developer based on their stage in the mobile development process," said James Maynard, President of Wavefront. "Our partnership with Mob4Hire is giving developers a way to test their mobile applications, leveraging location and language specific data."

"As part of the Wavefront community, mobile developers in B.C. can work with Mob4Hire to assess how their application performs on live operator networks during peak usage times. Although developers can access many solutions that simulate these network conditions, testing on a live network and gaining real user feedback is invaluable in determining the technical capabilities of an application," said Stephen King, CEO at Mob4Hire.

Congrats to James Maynard and his whole team on the new 7,000 sq ft. digs!

5 Million Mobile Apps by 2014

2009-08-14T14:03:00.008-06:00

Apple iPhone app store has over 1.5 billion downloads. Android is on fire and gaining on new apps (2,300 as of March). All the big handset players, Motorola, Samsung, Sony-Ericsson, Nokia, Apple, RIM are trying to make it easier for developers to get apps to their handsets. Operating systems like Symbian and Microsoft Mobile are pushing ahead to make themselves better and easier. External data suppliers like NAVTEQ are doing very well and have their own developer communities.

A new report from Frost and Sullivan predicts the number of downloads of apps is 6.67 Billion downloads by 2014 ( I think this is conservative).

But even at this early stage of mobile apps, discoverability is a big problem. This means that it's not only the number of downloads that's interesting, but it's also the number of apps.

I saw online an interesting site recently that could make things even more interesting for mobile apps.

iLike will generate apps for bands. These iphone apps will allow bands to show their blog, band pictures and allow fans to download their music via iTunes.

Think about it… Your own personalized app available from the app store.

Hmmmmm

Apple has around 65,000 apps right now (I estimate 100,000 by the end of the year).

It is hard right now to think about not just about the number of downloads but the number of individual apps that will be available.

With services like iLike, I believe that their will be many millions of individualized apps available within the next few years.

I am going to stick my neck out here.

I believe there will be approximately 5 million individual mobile apps by 2014.

Apps will follow the rule of the Long Tail

The apps that will win will have big marketing budgets behind them and they will be excellent apps in regards to UI and usability. There will many small apps out there with niches. Those apps will rely on word-of-mouth, and the best way for that is to make an excellent mobile app.

How do you make an excellent mobile app? You need to ask people … lots of people what they think. You need to listen to people and get their feedback.

And you need to find this out before you launch the app. If you have a bad app, people will rank your app very poorly and all the work you put in will be lost. People will not download a badly ranked app. Best to find out at the alpha (pre porting stage) and Beta (post porting stage) before you launch.

I look forward to my own personal app. And I bet you do too.

Paul

P.S. BTW, we' at booth 106 at the CTIA San Diego show in October in the Developer's Pavillion ... come by and see us!

Meet Shaun ... our new Community Manager

2009-08-12T01:55:00.005-06:00

Hi everyone:

It happens in the evolution of all successful online communities ... a person who is solely dedicated to managing the community. Answering questions. Providing resources. Helping out with recruiting. Making sure everyone feels welcome. Now that we've reached 17,000 testers and over 600+ mobile developers in the community, it's time!

We're excited to welcome Shaun King to our team as Community Manager. Email info@mob4hire.com if you want to say hi! Shaun's got a background in both computer science as well as business and marketing.

In addition to all the above, he'll also be reviewing Test Plans posted by Developers to help them get the best results, and generally making the community run smoothly.

Welcome to the Mob, Shaun!

Exciting things happening for Mob4Hire this fall; we're hard at work this summer! Stay tuned ...

Stephen

Mob4Hire Collaborates with NAVTEQ to Help Mobile Developers Test LBS Applications

2009-07-23T23:23:00.010-06:00

Wow ... it's been a little while since our last blog post. Just indicative of us being super busy with a number of projects; there's lots of great news for you Mobsters coming, including new features, new partnerships and new ... stuff. Thanks for being part of the Mob ... we had a record June for test projects with a wide range of functionality testing (VOIP testing seems to be popular ...).

Anyway, I wanted to tell you about latest partnership agreement with NAVTEQ. They do a great job with LBS developers, and a relationship with Mob4Hire is a natural fit. Thanks to everyone at NAVTEQ ... awesome team to work with. You can read the whole announcement at: http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2009/07/prweb2668364.htm

Ok ... 'nuff said for now. I hope you're enjoying your summer and stay tuned for some exciting announcements.

Stephen

P.S. BTW, we' at booth 106 at the CTIA San Diego show in October in the Developer's Pavillion ... come by and see us!

Mob4Hire Selected to Present at Global Tech Showcase 2009

2009-05-19T23:47:00.002-06:00

We're priveledged to have been selected and confirmed to participate to the Global Tech Showcase (GTS 2009, www.GlobalTechShowcase.com) being held in conjunction with the World Investment Conference in La Baule, France, June 3th to June 5th 2009.

Mob4Hire is one of the 50 companies chosen to be showcased in this corporate matchmaking conference where we'll be meeting with Europe's top operators, partners, investors and clients.

Chantelle Hyde-Lewis, Mob4Hire's Director, Business Development, UK&EMEA will be demonstrating how integrating the customer into their mobile developer partners' development cycles is helping Telefonica division, O2, bring better mobile applications to market with their O2 Litmus community.

Mob4Hire joins Twitter as one of the Red Herring 100 top technology firms!

2009-05-15T16:17:00.008-06:00

Wow ... we won a Red Herring 100 award in San Diego on Wednesday! Knowing that Twitter is on the same list as us this year is a wonderful accomplishment, and is great recognition for the progress we've made at Mob4Hire. Thanks, Red Herring judges!

Read more: http://www.techvibes.com/blog/mob4hire-wins-red-herring-top-100-award

What do we think separated Mob4Hire from the other 1200 applicants?

"I think that we have an elegant solution to a large problem in a massive industry. There is really no one else doing what we do in the same way. There are 3 billion mobile phones in use today and a massive amount of software being written for those handsets. The problem of fragmentation in the mobile industry is huge - currently estimated at $3 billion. There is no effective way to test on a foreign network unless you are on that network. It is a location specific problem which plays perfectly to the strengths of our crowd-sourced methodology." says Paul Poutanen, President and Founder of Mob4Hire (pictured here with Alex Vieux, CEO, Red Herring).

Mob4Hire selected as Finalist for Red Herring top 100

2009-05-09T10:41:00.003-06:00

The industry recognition keeps on happening; we've just been named as a finalist for the Red Herring North America award ... "a prestigious list honoring the year’s most promising private technology ventures in North America." The Red Herring editorial team selected the most innovative companies from a pool of 1,200, so we're already very honoured to make that cut! Paul Poutanen (prez and founder of Mob4Hire) will be in San Diego next week presenting at the Red Herring event.

O2 Litmus Testing Community is live!

2009-04-30T10:15:00.003-06:00

We couldn't be more thrilled to be a partner with O2 Litmus (subsidiary of Telefonica) ... our Mob4Hire testing community is now incorporated into the main site http://www.o2litmus.co.uk (our part is in the "Application" area, where people can test and purchase beta applications):

O2 Litmus Video Tour from O2 Litmus on Vimeo.

Apart from having a great customer like O2, the thing I love about this project is that we were able to utilize web API's to completely maintain O2's branding while running on "Mob4Hire as a Platform."

“O2 Litmus ground breaking partnership with multi-award winning Mob4hire”  
O2 Litmus press release: http://www.ixplora.com/?p=3593  

“O2 Litmus is Better than Apple AppStore!” http://www.telco2.net/blog/2009/02/getting_developer_communities.html

Commercialization Challenges of Software Development in a Fragmented Mobile Ecosystem

2009-04-19T02:01:00.005-06:00

I had the privilege of speaking at the WiTec Connections 2009 conference in Banff Alberta last week. Great conference ... and while like most I've been to lately where the attendance is a bit down, there is still great conversations, optimism and business being done.

My topic was one that's near and dear to our hearts here at Mob4Hire: how hard it is to develop mobile software due to the fragmented ecosystem (and, of course, how Mob4Hire makes it easier and less expensive!). Many people asked for a copy, so I'm happy to upload and share it.

Commercialization Challenges Of Mobile Software Development In A Fragmented Mobile Ecosystem (Stephen King Mob4Hire @ WiTec)

View more presentations from Stephen King.

I was also on a panel with some very smart and animated people ... a shout out to: Perry Kinkaide, President Alberta Council of Technologies www.ABCTech.ca, Harold Horgen, President, The York Group www.theyorkgroup.com, Kevin Wong, LL.B. at www.Stonecracker.com; experts at SRED credits, and Steve Morley, former VP, Qualcomm. Thanks for the great discussion, guys!

Chantelle Hyde-Lewis joins Mob4Hire as Director, Business Development, UK and EMEA

2009-04-19T00:55:00.002-06:00

I'm really excited to welcome Chantelle Hyde-Lewis to our team, based in the U.K. She has a unique understanding of what Mob4Hire can do for developer networks and app stores; not only has she been in the industry for a long time, but while working for the operator O2, she helped spearhead the O2 Litmus developer community / app store.

As we mention in the press release, she helped negotiate our contract with O2, and liked us so much she joined the company.

Chantelle joins Allen Poutanen, our VP Business Development, in helping developer networks and app stores use "Mob4Hire as a Platform" to create their own branded testing communities, which in turn helps their developers bring better mobile software to market!

Welcome Chantelle!

Gamelion joins Mob4Hire as a "MobPro"

2009-03-30T18:58:00.010-06:00

One more announcement as we head down to CTIA Las Vegas!

One of the great things about the Mob4Hire testing community is that it includes both tech-savvy mobile phone users (who we affectionately call "Mobsters") as well as professional testing houses ("MobPro's"). Professional testing houses include companies who's primary focus is mobile testing as well as other mobile developers who have large inventories of mobile handsets that can be used to generate an additional revenue stream in their "off time." MobPro's typically have deeper functional testing expertise, since they've developed in-house processes and reporting.

Such is the case of our latest press release: Mob4Hire Signs Mobile Testing Marketing Deal with Gamelion.

Anton Gauffin, CEO of Gamelion told us that "Mob4Hire acts as a marketing arm for our mobile testing services while increasing our return on investment with this large, but depreciating capital asset, but the real winner will be the mobile developer who will be able to access quality testing services faster and less expensively."

In fact, the addition of Gamelion's handsets to the Mob4Hire database greatly expands European coverage of The Mob: there's now more than 8,000 handsets on over 250 carriers in over 90 countries to choose from!

Welcome to Anton and the team at Gamelion!

We'll be at CTIA Las Vegas all this week, starting at the AT&T Developer Summit: "Addressing Platform Diversity & Tackling Fragmentation" ... a topic that is near and dear to our hearts, since we help solve for this fragmentation with the Mob4Hire community!

Email us at info@mob4hire.com if you're attending CTIA and want to meet up. Viva Las Vegas!

Mob4Hire and Wavefront join forces to "accelerate commercialization"

2009-03-26T17:44:00.005-06:00

The world just got a little smaller for developers registered with Wavefront! We're really pleased to announce our partnership with Wavefront (www.wavefrontac.com) out of Vancouver, B.C. Their mantra is ""Accelerating commercialization of wireless products and services," and as James Maynard, CEO and I have discussed, he not only views Wavefront's mission as helping the 1,000 or so local mobile developers compete on a global scale, but Wavefront also serves as a great entry point for the rest of the world to access North America.

The Wavefront team is awesome to work with and certainly share our passion in helping mobile developers make sense of the fragmented mobile landscape. With over 8,000 handsets now in 90+ countries, we offer the developers registered with Wavefront immediate access to markets and user feedback that was previously inaccessible. That's exciting stuff!

We're headed to CTIA Las Vegas next week ... see you there!

Stephen

Mobile Apps Take Centre Stage at Dow Jones Wireless Innovation

2009-03-19T13:29:00.004-06:00

I spent the last two days at the Dow Jones Wireless Innovation event in Redwood City, CA. You can read my insights at Techvibes.com, where I also blog about the grassroots technology industry (and currently focusing on mobile, go figure).

For Mob4Hire, the impact that this industry transformation from new subscribers / handsets to applications / usability has on mobile developers is nothing short of "being in the right place at the right time."

Using Mob4Hire, mobile app developers not only get functional testing, especially in difficult areas like LBS applications, but also usability testing ... getting user feedback to help create much better software in the prototype, alpha and beta stages of mobile development. In fact, when you think about it, mobile developers have historically been held at arm's length from the customer. Selling through aggregators and carriers has created this barrier. Mob4Hire helps bring down the garden wall ... and, in the end, carriers win because with better applications, they create more customer advocacy / loyalty leading to increased word of mouth. U know what this does, right? Decreases carrier churn ... which is their primary concern.

BNetTV Mob4Hire update

2009-03-02T12:02:00.008-07:00

Two BNetTV.com videos for you to check out ... the first is my Mob4Hire update from Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

As many of you know, I also blog for Techvibes.com on the grassroots tech industry in Western Canada.

Since BNetTV has roots in Calgary, I turned the tables on Michelle Sklar and interviewed her about BNetTV's phenominal success. Click here for my Techvibes post and Michelle's interview: "BNetTV Reports from Mobile World Congress"

For BNetTV's complete coverage ~250 companies at Mobile World Congress, click here.

WiTec Networking Breakfast and WiTec Connections 2009

2009-02-25T13:14:00.005-07:00

Along with Roger Morrison and Henry Katurna, I've got the pleasure to speak at the WiTec Networking Breakfast at the Ranchmen's Club in Calgary from 7:30 am to 9:30 am on March 6. Only $25 (if you're a member, $35 if not, and well worth it for the local networking). My topic: "Five Rules of Business Development from a Serial Entrepreneur." Click here for full event details. Click here to go directly to registration.

Speaking of speaking, I'm also gearing up to present at the annual WiTec Connections 2009 conference at the luxurious Banff Springs Hotel on April 16th and 17th. This is a must attend event for the Western Canada wireless industry, and is shaping up to be two great days of jam packed agenda. Fresh with leading edge information from MWC Barcelona, my topic is near and dear to my heart: "Commercialization Challenges of Developing Applications in a Fragmented Mobile Ecosystem." Click here for the WiTec Connections website and registration.

If you're not from these parts or don't know, "WiTec Alberta is an industry association focused on supporting the Wireless & Telecom industry in the Province of Alberta." Here's the main WiTec site: www.witec.ca.

GSMA MWC Barcelona a Mob4Hire Success!

2009-02-23T17:09:00.023-07:00

Wow ... what a great week at GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona 2009. I think I'm finally coming out of jet lag!

I wanted to give you some highlights of the week for us:

- O2 Litmus announced their Appstore and our Mob4Hire partnership: "O2 Litmus users will have the opportunity to earn hard cash for every application they test, via a ground breaking partnership with multi award winning Mob4Hire." http://www.ixplora.com/?p=3593. It came in with rave reviews; e.g. "O2 Litmus is Better than Apple AppStore" We couldn't be more excited to be involved! We hung out with the O2 Litmus team, and also spent time with them at the Telefonica offices in Barcelona.

- We presented three times to about 1,500 people from a cross-section of the mobile industry: Paul spoke at the Mobile Monday Peer Awards (in which we won second place!). This resulted in blog buzz ... e.g.: http://www.gomonews.com/momo-peer-awards/. I spoke at the GSMA Top Innovator award competition and the TechCrunch Mobile 2.0 wrap-up seminar (http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/02/19 /live-from-barcelona-techcrunchtalk-mobile-20-where-next/).

- Had great meetings with potential partners and developer network customers! There is great emphasis on app stores and developer networks in the industry as applications become the new focus so we're pretty happy with the industries response to us!

- Had great Tapas, mucho Cafe con leche's, toured La Ramblas and the Sagrada Familia, which was awe inspiring! Made me think about putting passion into whatever you create in life.

- I sang/played guitar at a "MobileJamaoke" at the WIP (http://www.wipjam.com) MobileJam pre-party in which people came up on stage to sing songs and play guitar ... that's me playing "free-falling" with the team from Symbian Foundation. At one point, the whole Mob4Hire team was up ... too much fun! There were also a wicked flamenco 3 piece band that I got to play with / listen to. Si!

- On the downside, our VP Business Development, Allen Poutanen, sprained his ankle, lost his cellphone and got his wallet stolen on the subway! Sorry, Allen!

As a last point, I want to tell you a handset comparison story. Paul has an iPhone and I have a Blackberry Bold. We used the mobiles equally over the week, not many voice calls, and lotsa data. The roaming charges for Paul's iPhone were 630% MORE than my Blackberry Bold ... due to Blackberry's data compression. ANOTHER reason I love my Blackberry handset! (Although admitedly, I did play a lot of "Zombie Attack" on Paul's iPhone).

Mob4Hire chosen to present at Dow Jones Wireless Innovation 2009

2009-02-09T17:40:00.006-07:00

We've been chosen to present at the Dow Jones Wireless Innovation 2009 conference on March 17th and 18th in Redwood City, CA. Check out their website: http://wirelessinnovations.dowjones.com/

To help both VCs and entrepreneurs get a view of the innovations and opportunities that will emerge in 2009 and beyond, Dow Jones VentureWire has put together an impressive group of speakers, including individuals from such carriers as Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile, CEOs from 70 of the most promising mobile start-ups and, of course, some of the leading investors in the sector.

Based on our involvement at the Mobile 2.0 conference and Under the Radar in late fall, 2008, it will be interesting to see if the group has a more global understanding of the environment. It's easy for people to see the world through their regional lens (including some I've spoken to in Silicon Valley) and assess opportunities based on their own experience, but this mobile industry is glaringly global ... innovation and opportunity is happening everywhere!

John Carpenter Appointed CTO of Mob4Hire

2009-02-06T11:32:00.003-07:00

Calgary, Alberta (PRWEB) February 6, 2009 -- Mob4Hire Inc., the leader in crowd sourced mobile application testing and virtual market research, today announced the appointment of John Carpenter as it's Chief Technology Officer.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/02/prweb1962194.htm

We're super excited to be expanding our technical expertise. With this announcement, Richard Cooke is taking over VP, Technology responsibilities and will continue to develop leading edge technology from our U.K. office, including all the work we've been doing to get ready for the O2 Litmus Developer Network launch ... which is happening in March! Kudo's to Richard for all the great work he's done over the last year or so getting Mob4Hire up and running ... and I'm excited to see what the combined technical leadership of John and Richard will mean for our customers going forward.

The best is yet to come!

Stephen

Mob4Hire competes for Mobile Monday Peer Award

2009-01-26T08:03:00.002-07:00

Barcelona, Spain—January 26, 2009—Mobile Monday Peer Awards announced that Mob4Hire is one of the twenty nominees to present and compete at the Peer Awards event in Barcelona. The MobileMonday Mobile Peer Awards Barcelona are among the most influential events in the mobile industry and, with over 1000 attendants, the point of reference in startup innovation during the Mobile World Congress. 163 startups participated and 42 nominees were selected by their respective chapters. Mob4Hire was selected as one of the 20 finalists to present by an international Jury.

Ok ... double WOW!!! Between this and the GSM Top Innovator award, we're gonna have a great (if not intense!) time in Barcelona.

Mob4Hire one of GSMA Mobile Innovation Global Award Top Innovators

2009-01-22T08:41:00.010-07:00

Barcelona, Spain—January 22, 2009—The GSMA Mobile Innovation Global Awards today announced that Mob4Hire is one of the top three "Most Innovative True Mobile Startup" companies. The Global Awards recognize excellence and showcases innovation by providing innovators the opportunity to be endorsed by the GSMA.

Wow ... we are one of the top 15 winners out of 450 global entrants! This is really a good thing for us ... in addition to amazing exposure, we also get some great benefits: a booth in the "Innovation Zone" (IZ4 to be exact). "SpeedDating" conference with execs from big firms and VCs. Lotsa fun!

Stay tuned ... see you in Spain.

"Someone to Watch"

2009-01-16T10:42:00.004-07:00

This is a bit self-serving, but it's always nice when one is recognized in their industry. Mob4Hire is an international company (did I mention our community includes testers in 85 countries as of this morning?) ... but I also feel it's important to contribute to the regional grassroots tech industry (with things like co-founding Mobile Monday Calgary, writing blogs, attending DemoCamp's and CTI events) ... which raises tech's profile. This is especially important since we are based in Calgary, Canada, which is also home to the Oil and Gas industry and tech sometimes is drowned in the sea of billion dollar oil deals (or today's price of a barrel of oil!).

Of course, the work I do also raises my profile, and stuff like this happens. Anyway, according to TechVibes, I'm a Digital Media person to watch in 2009:

http://www.techvibes.com/blog/digital-media-people-to-watch-in-alberta-in-2009

... which, frankly, is kinda cool since there are so many talented and smart people around here. A shout out to the Alberta tech industry! (and the global mobile industry, too, while I'm at it!)

Stephen

P.S. See you at www.pnwsummit.com in Vancouver on Monday, January 19th ... and excited for GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February! (stay tuned for news about Mob4Hire next week about an exciting award that we've won ...)

Mob4Hire one of top 10 Calgary startups

2009-01-05T15:33:00.004-07:00

We've had an amazing last few months at Mob4Hire with increased traffic to our site ... thanks to everyone that's visiting us! This traffic has placed us at #8 on the TechVibes Calgary Startup Index, up 3 spots from last month's index listing. We're super happy to be sharing the top 10 with Calgary superstars like among.us, Cambrian House, Shopster and ActiveConversion.

This has resulted in explosive growth in our global mobile tester and developer community. As of this morning, we have over 1,800 different handsets registered in 84 countries on over 211 carriers; for comparison, in October, there were 1,200 handsets in 42 countries on 107 carriers. Wow ... that's double the # of countries and carriers in just two months.

Thanks again, everyone! 2009 is the Year of the Mob!

Mob4Hire update on BNetTV.com

2008-12-16T17:34:00.009-07:00

Last spring, www.BNetTV.com interviewed Paul Poutanen at the CTIA conference in Las Vegas. This latest video at BNetTV studios updates the Mob4Hire story ... Stephen King speaks to Michelle Sklar at BNetTV: http://www.bnettv.com/player.php?id=1996

Mob4Hire starts Developer and Tester Community Survey

2008-11-24T16:42:00.008-07:00

Hey:

Over the next few weeks, we'll be sending surveys to both our Developer and Tester communities.

As a mobile developer, how you test and what you need from Mob4Hire is very important to both your future testing success, as well as how we guide the development of our Mob4Hire community. Click here to take the developer survey.

As a tester, we want to make sure you can easily understand and execute test plans, and provide good results to the developers. And, of course, make sure you are paid appropriately for your time!

And, while helping shape the community that is changing the way mobile application developers test (making it less expensive and faster!) should be reward enough, there’s nothing like a couple contest prizes to give you a bit more incentive.

Details coming (and thanks in advance for your support!).

Trust in the Mob,

Stephen

Mob4Hire Appoints Stephen King as CEO

2008-11-21T16:38:00.008-07:00

After a couple "sipping from the firehose" weeks in my new job as Mob4Hire CEO, we decided to start this blog, and what better way to start it than my official announcement as CEO of Mob4Hire.com. The press release hit the wire yesterday, and the auto-blogbots went to work and posted my announcement all around the place. This is my favorite:

http://www.physnews.com/comment.php?nid=5182

:)

Anyhoo, this blog is about Mob4Hire.com ... an online mobile application testing and market research community. Most of the team will be posting here over time about stuff that's going on. We took a bit of time to backdate some of the more important post's at the Mob, like our O2 contract. If you so desire, you can subscribe to the RSS feed on the right.

I'll exit this inaugural post with 5 words posted in my office to inspire my day:
Passion, Persistence, Performance, Purpose, Play.

Thanks for reading!

latah,

Stephen King
CEO, Mob4Hire.com

Mob4Hire highlighted in MotoDev's Fast Track

2008-11-19T01:21:00.000-07:00

MotoDev is Motorolla's Developer Network, and we couldn't be more happy to be a partner with them in their Fast Track program.

Read about it here: http://developer.motorola.com/fasttrack/mob4hire/

And ... this is a good article from MotoDev's online magazine in November that explains who we are:

http://developer.motorola.com/fromfasttrack/November_08/

Mob4Hire wins Award at Under The Radar out of 400 competing companies

2008-11-14T00:44:00.006-07:00

Calgary, Alberta, Canada—November 14, 2008—Mob4Hire Online Mobile Testing and Developer Community, today announced that it has won Under the Radar’s Audience Choice award for the "League of their Own" category at Dealmaker Media’s Under the Radar event held on November 12, 2008 in Mountain View, CA. Mob4Hire was named winner over other early stage companies based on its technology, market opportunity, and unique value proposition, by a panel of judges comprised of media; corporate development executives from leading mobile/wireless companies; VCs; and audience members.

Mob4Hire was handpicked by the Under the Radar editorial team and advisory board based on its review of over 400 companies in this space. A total of 33 companies presented at Under the Radar.

Participants hailed from Verizon, Motorola, QUALCOMM, Microsoft, CBS Interactive, T-Mobile, BlueRun Ventures, KPCB’s iFund, VentureBeat, AT&T and many other leading players in the industry.

“The standard of presentations was extremely high. These are the companies which are truly innovating and getting rapid traction in the enterprise space,” said Debbie Landa, CEO of Dealmaker Media “These emerging companies are the ones to watch and most likely to enjoy breakout success.”

Stephen King, CEO of Mob4Hire, says "Paul [Poutenan, President] and I both agree that the Under the Radar conference was run really well, and it was very valuable to us especially from a networking perspective. Getting the award was very cool ... we appreciate the recognition that our business is an innovative and unique way of solving a real big problem ... as corny as it sounds, we're gonna put it on our shelf."

Mob4Hire to Power O2 Litmus Crowd Sourced Application Testing and Market Research

2008-11-12T00:55:00.003-07:00

We got quite a bit of mileage from our press release regarding our contract with O2 Litmus in the U.K. ... we're the testing community backbone of their new Developer Network. Read the press release.

Interestingly, the press release in conjunction with our trip to present at the Mobile 2.0 conference in San Francisco gave us our highest traffic day yet on the website. :)

Alberta Venture Magazine: Mob4Hire helps businesses sidestep the pain of mobile deployment

2008-09-27T21:41:00.002-06:00

A great article explaining why Mob4Hire rocks! From Alberta Venture Magazine, October 2008 "The Next Wireless Wave."

"Here’s a quick look at what it takes to play in the world of mobile technology, via snapshots of four homegrown companies working to change the way the wandering world lives, works and spends.

Challenge one: make the mobile application work. It’s tougher than it sounds. Let’s say you code a nice little game of hangman and want to get it out to every hip on the planet. There’s not a carrier in the world that will let HangHip (patent pending) on their network unless the application has first been strenuously beta-tested – a mind-splitting process of testing and tweaking that every piece of commercial software must undergo before deployment.

Challenge two: there are more than 1,000 different mobile devices worldwide, two or three times that figure if you include regional model variations.

Think of Calgary-based Mob4hire as a beta-broker to the mobile world. Paul Poutanen, president and founder, explains Mob4hire’s technology as a “crowd-sourced mobile application-testing platform.” Basically, Mob4hire acts like an agency, collecting revenues to manage the delivery of beta-testing services provided by subcontractors. “You can’t really test code on one carrier’s network if you’re logged in on another, so you either have to send people there or find someone qualified who’s already in the right place to test,” says Poutanen. It’s a useful service offering to mobile applications developers because writing, compiling and deploying mobile code across a labyrinth of technology, regulations and grey-area market share ain’t easy, though Mob4hire is making it look that way. “We incorporated in September 2007,” says Poutanen. “Now, we have resources in 36 different countries and are working with eight major carriers.”

So, on the continuum of mobile applications commercialization, Mob4hire is building a home where it can help businesses sidestep the pain of mobile applications deployment."

Backbone Magazine Picks Mob4Hire to be one of Canada's top Web 2.0 companies

2008-09-04T10:58:00.003-06:00

We placed #14 on the BackBone Magazine top 20 Web 2.0 firms, and the only one on the list in the Wireless industry!

http://www.backbonemag.com/Web2/default.asp

"A crowdsourcing site that came out of Cambrian House, Mob4Hire is a bidding system for mobile application testing. Testers bid on various projects and developers choose the testers they require.

Trgovac said she can “totally see the business value, as there is huge competitive advantage here both for the parent company as well as any application developer that uses them.” Both Moffitt — “It’s a great model if they can find customers and build enough testers” — and Geist — “It’s a cool idea that could take off as the mobile market grows” — are positive but are looking for numbers."

Sony Ericsson Interviews Paul

2008-08-29T15:06:00.004-06:00

Sony Ericsson Developer World talked with Paul Poutanen, Mob4Hire's President and Founder: click here to read full article.

...and a little snippit from Paul ... "Where did the idea come from and what is the story behind Mob4Hire?"

"The idea for Mob4Hire began in 2005 when I was launching the first location-based game in North America. While the software development was going fine, I could not believe the hassle and the expense of testing the application on various networks and handsets. I had to fly to the US with a small team of developers and purchase handsets so they could test their application on a US network.

Initially we couldn't even buy the handsets and subscribe to the mobile service because we didn’t have a US address. Eventually the tests were completed successfully, but I realized testing was the most difficult and onerous component in the whole development process.

We were all exhausted, sitting in the airport waiting to board a flight home, when I saw a guy chatting on his cell phone. He was using a handset identical to one we had just purchased and tested on. It dawned on me that if I knew him I could have just sent him our application and have him quickly run the test for us. I'd be happy to pay him for his trouble and it would save me a load of time and money.

That was the light bulb moment. That's when Mob4hire was born.

I had experience with a crowd-sourcing company in Calgary that had a mandate to nurture business ideas using the power of the Internet "crowd". That's exactly what Mob4Hire does."

Cool ... we're on a German language site ... Mobile Zeitgeist

2008-05-13T01:40:00.002-06:00

I thought this was interesting ... here's Mob4Hire being mentioned on a german wireless industry website, Mobile Zeitgeist:

http://www.mobile-zeitgeist.com/2008/05/13/crowdsourcing-plattform-mob4hire-enduser-testen-mobile-applikationen/

Die Entwicklung mobiler Applikationen für unterschiedliche Endgeräte

Paul video interview with BNETTV

2008-04-01T01:33:00.000-06:00

In April whilst in Las Vegas for CTIA, Paul gave this video interview to BNETTV:

http://www.bnettv.com/player.php?actionLogin=fail&id=1406&title=Mob4Hire

A new and innovate look at this whole wireless industry