O2 Litmus Testing Community is live!

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

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

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"

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"

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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