Mob4Hire wins Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF) Meffys Award

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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

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

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

"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

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"