Posts tagged Tools
[Infographic] Mapping the Tools in the Mobile Development Ecosystem
Feb 10th
The mobile development ecosystem is a large, complicated space. There are innovative startups making tools for native and mobile Web apps along with large enterprise-grade companies that offer solutions from cloud support to frameworks and developer environments. For a mobile developer, it can be confusing to know where to turn and what to use to make the best app possible.
Mobile “backend-as-a-service” startup Kinvey created a map for ReadWriteMobile to help developers understand the ecosystem. Kinvey brackets the mobile ecosystem between two primary pillars: the service providers and the original equipment manufacturers. In between lies the meat of the environment from the “as-a-service” providers (platform, infrastructure and backend) to mobile software developer kit and application programming interface sources. Who has acquired what? What partnerships dominate the ecosystem? Use the map below as a resource when developing your next mobile app.
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Mapping the Complicated Ecosystem
The original players in the mobility space were the OEMs and carriers. In 1998, there would have been next to nothing in between those two pillars on the map below. With the rise of the application ecosystem, the service structure for developers has grown rapidly as enterprises and entrepreneurs rush to meet the needs of developers.
“In the mobile world, the service providers and the handset OEMs were the original two players. With the transition to apps and services, all the other new layers have inserted themselves in between the original two players of the ecosystem,” said Kinvey CEO and co-founder Sravish Sridhar.
Kinvey places itself in the middle of the ecosystem. To its right are the PaaS and IaaS companies such as IBM and Rackspace, which are closer to the carriers than the OEMs. To its right are the mobile SDK and API providers, which have more in common with the OEMs.
“Slowly, major players have come into the space, and are now tunneling their way across the ecosystem through acquisitions or by launching new services themselves. For example, Google has been most proficient with an acquisition-led strategy,” Sridhar said. “Companies that are not acquiring are launching new services on their own. For example, Amazon Web Services started with IaaS and now have PaaS, and are growing out other mobile-specific services. Apart from developing Windows Phone, Microsoft is now improving Azure IaaS, and will soon have a robust PaaS platform.”
The goal of the BaaS providers is to bridge these worlds by bringing cloud infrastructure to developers and make it easy to integrate SDKs and APIs. It is not an easy task as it requires a knowledge of robust technical networks as well as the needs of front-end developers.
“As a leading Backend as a Service provider, we tie in IaaS, PaaS and Mobile APIs, and connect them right down to the Mobile SDK, so that millions of dynamic and rich apps can be easily built on any platform, bringing value to billions of users all over the world,” Sridhar said.
There is a lot of movement n the ecosystem, as the map shows. Appcelerator’s acquisition of Cocoafish is the latest example of one pillar moving to another. Kinvey has partnered with Urban Airship and talks with a variety of companies in other pillars, including appMobi. The company’s platform ties into a variety of cloud providers including Amazon Web Services, Rackspace and Microsoft Azure.
Click here for a larger map, hosted by Kinvey.
Kinvey, Competition and Consolidation
Boston-based Kinvey (a recent TechStars alum) is a unique startup in the mobile development world. Sridhar is very supportive of the ecosystem at large, including his primary competitors like Parse and StackMob. The idea is to see every company grow to the fullest of potential.
Sridhar often writes about startup and entrepreneur relationships. Kinvey does not attack its competitors or make edgy comments about how Kinvey may or may not be better than its rivals.
The first startup that Sridhar worked at was Austin-based United Devices, a company that focused on grid computing to manage high performance computing (HPC) infrastructures. From 2000 to 2005, grid computing was a hot vertical in the technology community with a variety of large and small companies entering the space. Sridhar noticed the ill affects of how sniping and holding negative opinions of the competition had on the ecosystem at large.
“A lot of this perspective came from my last startup. I was part of the founding team at United Devices and we were building grid computing software and a very similar thing happened at that company that is happening right now at Kinvey is that we thought we were doing something cool and unique and lo and behold, within about six to eight months, there were about 20 competitors,” Sridhar said.
“We got really paranoid about them and started talking about each other in the press in a negative fashion and started talking negatively about each other with customers and what happened is that I found that was doing more harm than good and the space took a while to develop. One of the reasons that grid computing, which was all the buzz between about 2001 and 2005, didn’t take off is that the whole ecosystem didn’t push it forward. We were waiting for the bigger companies to adopt it. My theory about creating this ecosystem called backend-as-a-service is that we should all work to collectively define it and make it successful.”
We wrote about the consolidation in the mobile services last summer when Urban Airship bought SimpleGeo, much to the surprise of the mobile developer community. When it comes to the BaaS players, some of the first startups are starting to get acquired, like Cocoafish by Appcelerator. When it comes to Kinvey, StackMob and Parse, each has a tie to a major company that may be interested in acquiring it within the next few years. Of those three, each has created a niche for itself to the point where it could grow to be fairly large and stave off acquisition as well. It behooves the companies in the space to help each other grow at this point.
That is in stark contrast to another emerging segment of the developer ecosystem that has emerged with the app economy. Mobile analytics is a high-growth area with companies large and small growing rapidly and looking for developer and media attention. Whereas there is very little bad blood between Kinvey, Parse and StackMob, mobile analytics startups like Kontagent, Apasalar, Flurry, Localytics and others hate to see one company mentioned and not their own (this plays out in my inbox on a daily basis).
Developers: What services are you using to create a backend infrastructure for your app? What do you think about the startup competition in the space vis-a-vis larger cloud providers or in juxtaposition with the mobile analytics space? Let us know in the comments.
Top Image Courtesy Shutterstock
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Wolfram|Alpha Goes Pro With Powerful Data Analysis & Presentation Tools
Feb 7th
Wolfram|Alpha (W|A) is launching a new fee-based service named Wolfram|Alpha Pro. In today’s highly competitive environment, you may wonder why a W|A would ask people to pay for what many think should be free. Read on: you may decide to willingly open your wallet when you…
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9 Free Tools For Link Discovery & Content Creation
Feb 7th
Every day it seems that there’s a new tool out there to monitor, measure, track, and suggest what we should be doing. Many of these are free or offer free trials, which I love, but finding the time to test out a new tool in order to see if it suits you isn’t always easy. [...]
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Twitter Analytical Tools Threaten Third-Party Developers
Feb 2nd
Twitter may become the heavyweight in analytics of its own content, boxing out rivals HootSuite, bit.ly and Klout.
As first reported by ReadWriteWeb, Twitter plans to launch sophisticated analytical tools, according to Erica Anderson, Twitter’s manager for news and journalism.
Anderson, who made the comments last weekend at a social media conference at Columbia University in New York, said the analytical tools will better help publishers track the reach of tweets sent through the microblogging service. Twitter already offers similar services to its advertisers.
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The British public relations agency Punch said that the obvious advantage Twitter has in analytics of its own API stream will probably be too much for marketers looking to understand their social media campaigns to pass up.
“Whilst there are numerous analytics tools available which can look into Twitter in depth, having an analytics platform embedded within the network itself is likely to improve the quality of future campaigns as a whole,” Pete Goold, managing director of Punch said in a statement. “This development may also be part of Twitter’s strategy to try and persuade more brands to invest in the platform from a marketing perspective, since the pool of information and insights which could be available through Twitter is astronomical.”
Twitter’s open API has been widely praised and has allowed companies like HootSuite to develop platforms that not only help users manage Twitter campaigns, but analyze the impact and reach of individual tweets. Recently, however, Twitter has made moves to compete with the third party providers.
In addition to the anticipated analytical tools, Twitter acquired and then redesigned TweetDeck, a popular HootSuite competitor. The redesign mimicked many of HootSuite’s more popular features, including a browser based platform.
Of course, seeing is believing: Twitter has been promising analytics tools for at least two years, with an executive once saying they would be available by the end of 2010.
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A Roundup Of New U.S. Government Search Tools
Jan 30th
The U.S. government generates a wealth of useful and interesting information. Despite excellent government-oriented search engines like USA.gov and Data.gov, government information isn’t always easy to find. That’s why if you use government information it’s important to put…
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Twitter Upgrades Will Include Analytical Tools
Jan 29th
Twitter will unveil a series of new tools in the next few months, including sophisticated analytical tools, according to Erica Anderson, Twitter’s manager for news and journalism.
Anderson said the analytical tools will better help publishers track the reach of tweets sent through the microblogging service. She made her comments Saturday at Columbia University’s social media weekend in New York.
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Anderson mentioned the new tools in passing when asked by an audience member about what was next. As described, the tools sound similar to analytical services provided by third-party firms like HootSuite and SocialFlow.
We’ve contacted Twitter’s public relations department for more information, including an expected launch date. We’ll update when we hear back.
Going forward, Anderson expects to see more people using Twitter to predict behaviors by analyzing wide swaths of tweets. She did not make it clear if the new analytical tools will include some features aimed at spotting trends.
“The predictive nature of Twitter is still largely untapped,” she said.
Anderson also said Twitter was working on a new, company-run account and blog that would “highlight great pieces of twitter in real time.” The blog would be aimed at showing different ways people are using the service.
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SEO monitoring tools and tips – SEOmoz (blog)
Jan 23rd
 SEOmoz (blog) |
SEO monitoring tools and tips
SEOmoz (blog) It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to realise that SEO is dependent on your website. And not only on how you optimise your site, but also on it being available. While for larger clients, it shouldn't be your job to alert someone if their website goes … |
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Google Webmaster Tools Adds Useful Download Options
Jan 20th
Google webmaster tools data is helpful stuff, but has been somewhat tough to download and use. Last month, Google made things a bit easier by providing a Python script for downloading search query data (as this report isn’t available as of yet through the API). Now, they’ve added new…
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Tools to Monitor Online Reputation Across Different Languages
Jan 20th
The Internet has provided unprecedented opportunities and opened new markets for businesses, but misinformation and rumors can spread quickly, making reputation management extremely tricky – especially when you throw in a multilingual aspect.
View full post on Search Engine Watch – Latest
Aviary Mobile Upgrade Gives Users Powerful Photo Editing Tools
Jan 17th
The golden age of mobile photography is upon us. Smartphones are now more capable at producing high-quality photos than digital cameras were just five years ago. Editing photos has been an evolving process but a lot of great services have been released to mobile users in the last year such as filters from Instagram or full-featured suites from Aviary and Skitch. Today, Aviary is making a dramatic update to its platform to gives users a set of powerful tools to edit photos on the go.
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Aviary, which has its roots as a popular photo editing browser extension, released the first version of its mobile toolset four months ago. Aviary’s software developer kit (SDK) can be implemented by mobile developers to add photo-editing functionality to any app. Users are now editing over 10 million photos on mobile a month and is growing 50% a month.
Version 2 of Aviary mobile releases a bunch of new feature and performance updates. Here is a breakdown of what is new:
One-touch auto-enhance: The ability to easily touch up a photo without going through a complicated editing process. Use one of Aviary’s pre-set optimization settings and enhance a photo with a tap.
Improved effects: 10 more effects with new border designs.
Unique dials: This is really a user interface function. A dial instead of a slider for brightness and color palettes.
Stickers: Bowties, cigars, funny glasses.
New design: What would an update be to a mobile app if it did not completely throw out its old design and start anew. Sometimes this works for the better, many times it does not.
Minimal branding: This is perhaps the best rollout for this version of Aviary and hopefully it is not limited to just the mobile versions of the apps. Anyone that has used an Aviary extension before knows that the little blue lower-case A company logo pops up on just about everything you want to edit or take a screen shot of. This is now hidden and can be accessed by swiping to the last page of the app for details.
Aviary is up to date with all the mobile platforms. It can instituted by developers writing apps for Android 2.2 (API level 
or higher or iOS 4+. It will also work on all browsers and tablets that support HTML5, JavaScript or Flash.
Aviary also wants to help developers make money through the mobile SDK. Users of apps that have Aviary embedded can purchase premium effects as well as original and branded stickers. Aviary will split the revenue with the app maker.
Does Aviary outshine Skitch or other photo editors on iOS and Android? The SDK is a clever bit of implementation for developers to add photo editing capabilities to apps. Let us know what you think of the newest version in the comments.
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