New Mob4Hire Trailer Video on Youtube

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

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.

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"

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:

1. 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.
   
2. 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

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

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

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

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!

1. 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
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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
6. 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.
7. 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.
   
8. 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.
9. 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).
10. 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

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

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

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

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"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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"

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

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!

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

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

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

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!