Since the social network is free for us to use, Facebook only makes its money through advertising. The thing is that more and more people are accessing Facebook from mobile devices, so they need to better optimize the ads on the mobile platforms to make more money. Unfortunately, Facebook is failing in this department.

This is according to a recent analysis by EyeTrackShop. They use webcam imagery to track the eye movements of users, seeing where on the screen they are paying the most attention. This way, they can see if users are even looking at the ads at all. As it turns out, the iPad did the best in this regard, followed by the main Facebook website. Trailing behind is Facebook on the iPhone.

The study reveals that most people spend more attention looking toward the top of the page. That makes sense, since that’s where you find most of the navigation and the notifications. This is part of the reason why web ads can do reasonably well, since they are fixed to the top of the page. By contrast, ads below the Sponsored Story fold only had a 3-13% chance of being seen. The new Timeline layout has helped with ad performance too.

As far as mobile goes, fewer people saw ads on the iPhone and even when they did, they spent less time looking at them compared to Facebook on the iPad. Users also had poorer recall of ads seen on the iPhone. Given this, the iPhone became the least efficient platform for Facebook mobile advertising compared to the full website and the iPad version.

[Source]

Last October, Research in Motion, the creator of BlackBerry smartphones and long the mainstay of enterprise mobility, experienced a four-day outage that put countless users in crisis mode. It sparked many IT managers to search for BlackBerry alternatives for their workforce. The potential for failure of enterprise-owned mobile devices, coupled with more employees bringing their own devices to work, has driven the “consumerization of IT.” At its heart, the concept is as it sounds: consumer devices infiltrating the corporate IT environment. Yet the reasons for this and its implications for IT departments bear further exploration.

A big contributor to the consumerization phenomenon is certainly Apple and its iPhone and iPad: easy-to-use devices with intoxicating user experiences that have changed the way we interact with technology. As consumer adoption of these devices increases, they naturally enter the workplace, causing increasing demand on IT departments to support. Slowly but surely, companies are adapting their policies and environments to support these consumer devices to the point where, according to Apple, a mind-blowing 92 percent of Fortune 500 companies are now testing or deploying its tablets.

Needless to say, consumerization is here to stay. And for the companies who have embraced it as part of their mobility strategy, they must not only provide a positive and secure experience for their employees, but also for the business. Two solutions are fast emerging as important components in this strategy – Mobile Device Management (MDM) and Mobile Application Management (MAM). Enabling IT departments to secure employee-owned smartphones and tablets, these solutions also ensure adherence to corporate IT and security policies.

So now with even more influencers – consumerization, MDM and MAM – how do you effectively loop them into your already-established mobile strategy? As the old punchline goes, very carefully… the core components above, in addition to application development, are driven by different goals and possibly by different groups within IT, it is essential to consider them all in unison, focusing closely on how they can be integrated to generate the greatest value for the business.

Okay, great! You’ve made the decision to adjust your mobile strategy to incorporate these components… but that isn’t enough to take you down the path to success. You must also consider the sheer volume of operating systems. Never before have application developers needed to be so agile (no pun intended), especially in light of Gartner’s prediction that mobile application development projects targeting mobile devices will outnumber native PC projects four-to-one by 2015.

Can you imagine? All of your employees need to access a corporate app across a multitude of devices, each requiring the creation of separately coded applications!

Well, of course you can – because this is already a reality. Fortunately, with the rise of HTML5 and hybrid development platforms, apps for multiple platforms can be created simultaneously by coding much of the app in the universal HTML5, and using the native shell of each OS for product-specific features. Utilizing hybrid platforms can decrease development time and cost, and contribute to the overall management efforts by allowing more efficient updates and centralized security controls.

Well, it all seemed complicated just a few moments ago, but by now we have already solved the “how do I address consumerization” problem. Or have we? Remember when I mentioned MDM and MAM? Now it is their time to shine. We have all of these great devices and expertly developed apps (if I do say so myself), but it is all for naught on an enterprise level without MDM and MAM.

What if these fabulous apps fail to conform to your company’s security policies and they turn out to be limited in their functionality and rendered unusable as a result? All those hours and resources spent on designing and developing the applications go down the drain and development costs skyrocket as you’re forced back to the drawing board.

The key to avoiding that outcome is good, old-fashioned communication. The development team must stay in close contact with the client to ensure that the most current business goals are top of mind. They also need to have regular touch points with the team responsible for MDM and MAM. By incorporating these solutions into the actual development process – instead of afterward – developers can adjust on the fly to abide by changing requirements and goals.

As you can see, you can’t truly have an effective mobile strategy if all of these disparate groups and influencers work in silos. All of the new influencers we’ve discussed today – and those new ones just about to knock on the door – must be considered concurrently and constantly. By ensuring that the MDM, MAM and application development strategies and teams are all on the same page, businesses will be able to effectively harness the consumerization trend and adapt to the myriad of consumer devices for business use to realize the true value of a harmonious, open, mobile strategy.

[Infographic via xcube labs]

It’s almost worse to use self-checkout at the grocery store than to wait in line for 15 minutes.  Things don’t scan properly, sometimes they double scan, or you have to lookup a number by flipping through pages and pages of fruits and veggies in the most unintuitive UI ever designed.  Of course, there’s the infamous “Please remove the last item from your bag” which then renders your express self-checkout experience one of frustration, delay and at the mercy of Marcy who is preoccupied with filing her nails and doesn’t even seem to care that your screen is frozen and there’s 15 people behind you.  QThru’s smartphone app will change that.  The QThru app, once installed on your smartphone, allows you to scan each individual product while you are shopping, right off the shelf as you toss it in your basket.  The information about what you are scanning is then sent to the QThru cloud via the app, which in turn communicates with a retailers POS system.  I spoke with Aaron Roberts, founder and CEO of QThru who explains, “this is a complex and innovative technology that they have been working on for years.”

Once you are finished shopping, you come upon a QThru screen with a QR Code, you simply scan that QR Code which then communicates with the cloud telling it that you, the customer, is standing right here right now.  It spits out your receipt, you walk over to someone who then verifies your purchase and receipt, and you’ve now successfully purchased retail products through the cloud.  But how do you scan a bunch of bananas or apples which are sold by weight?  ”We have an optional scale, a PC based scale which will allow you to print out a QR code that you can scan and pull into your shopping cart. If a store doesn’t want to invest in that, they can then manually punch in the weight of the item after weighing it and it can be verified when the customer checks out,”  Roberts told MDM in an interview.

As for future technologies like NFC, Roberts is ok with that:  “We’re ok with NFC, in the end you have to have a mobile shopping cart somewhere, we’re just doing things a few years in advance.  When NFC is available on all products, like a pack of gum, you just take your phone and wave it on the pack of gum, it’s already in your cart.  We see all technologies like QR Codes, barcodes and NFC working with QThru, we’re just enablers for the shopping experience to allow customers to do shopping in a mobile way.”

QThru is free for retailers to integrate with, but a kiosk can run $900, and the digital scale, the most expensive part, is about $4000.  Of course, this is a fraction of the cost of typical self-checkout stands, and hopefully will have less things to go wrong.

“We’ve been testing QThru for six months at the IGA Ridge Supermarket in Snoqualmie, Washington,” said Tyler Myers, president of the Myers Group in a press release. “We wanted to see how our customers embraced this alternative technology and it was enormously popular. We plan to install QThru in our other retail locations including a hardware store. QThru also allows us to offer added value to our customers through exclusive announcements, events and coupons and we plan to install it now at all of our grocery and hardware stores.”

Twitter only launched its mobile ad platform back in April, but it has already surpassed the revenue and traffic being generated from the actual Twitter.com website. This really shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, considering that so many people use Twitter while on the go.

It is estimated that a full 60% of the 140 million Twitter users are accessing their feeds through mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. Given that, the ads take up more screen real estate on the smaller displays of mobile devices too, so the increased visibility is likely translating to increased profitability too.

P.F. Chang’s ran a promotion a short while ago where it spent $25,000 on a time-sensitive campaign. That promotion got P.F. Chang’s one million interactions, responses or ad clicks, 70% of which came from mobile devices. That’s pretty impressive, especially since their effective cost is only 2.5 cents per interaction.

While Twitter isn’t forthcoming with its exact revenue numbers, projections have Twitter earning $259.9 million this year, nearly doubling the $139.5 million earned in 2011.

[Source]

It can be quite challenging to get people to invest in your company, and that’s a big reason why crowdfunding has quickly gained in popularity. We have sites like Kickstarter and Appsplit that support that model, but AppStori feels that it is doing it better. If you’re a mobile app developer in need of some development funds, you might want to give AppStori a try.

I had the opportunity to interview AppStori co-founders Arie Abecassis and Michael Semegran about their online community. Here’s what they had to say.

1. What is AppStori and why did you create it?

AppStori is dedicated to improving the way consumer mobile apps come to market, both for developers and consumers. It helps solve a few of the biggest challenges that app developers face: beta testing, discovery, and funding. We solve these problems by creating a platform and a community where consumers and developers can collaborate much earlier during the creative process.

2. Why the crowdsourcing model?

Crowdsourcing as a business model is the best fit for AppStori because it enables the app developer to build and maintain relationship with their user base through a variety of touchpoints. While crowdfunding is an important part of the solution that AppStori provides, it is only one aspect of the platform. There are other ways that AppStori community members can participate. For example: users can contribute ideas and feedback that guide an app’s development process, provide social support for projects via social media promotion, become beta testers to test out early versions of apps, as well as discover the next generation of mobile apps. We felt that all of these functions are best served through a crowdsourced model that allows mobile consumers and enthusiasts to connect directly with mobile developers and entrepreneurs.

3. What makes AppStori better than its competitors?

AppStori is uniquely focused on mobile apps, and by specializing in this one segment, consumers know what type of projects they will find on AppStori. At the same time, project listers and app developers know that they have a qualified audience to generate market-based feedback and support.

On a platform level, because the audience is a bit more homogeneous than a horizontal crowd-funding platform, there’s a greater ability to introduce differentiated services that are specific to the app community. So, AppStori provides more than just a place to seek funding; with our rich community features there are many ways to participate in a project’s development without donating money, and this separates us from other pure crowdfunding sites.

Lastly, we set AppStori apart with the quality of the projects we host. We have a high quality bar for projects that we host on AppStori, ensuring quality for our community. Many of the projects on AppStori are attempting to solve real world problems like natural disaster recovery, sickness tracking and epidemic warning systems, voter information and empowerment, along with some apps that are just fun!

Michael Semegran

4. What do I need to do to get my project listed?

All you need to do is register at AppStori, click the button “Post an AppStori” on our front page and then submit your project idea. Keep in mind that we are looking for projects with great ideas, clear goals, and a definite idea of what you want to gain from AppStori and what you will do with any funds you raise. We are selective with the projects that get accepted to the site to ensure a high level of quality for our members.

5. What happens if a project doesn’t reach its funding goal?

On major crowdfunding sites the average rate of failing to reach a funding goal is about 41% so this is a very real and possible outcome that has to be considered. If a project fails to reach its funding goal, no money changes hands and contributors are not charged.

However on AppStori, a funding goal is not the only measure of success or failure for a project. During the course of the project our listers can benefit from invaluable feedback, ideas, testing, and support from future customers and fans they discover through the platform.

It’s also worth noting that at the end of a funding period, the project stays active. So developers can continue to use the beta testing functionality, the Want Ads, and the blogs and comments.

6. What platforms are supported by AppStori?

AppStori will support all mobile platforms.

Arie Abecassis

7. What are the costs associated with using AppStori to seek crowdfunding?

There are no upfront costs associated with using AppStori. We ask project listers to invest some of their time in creating and maintaining their project page, and to take an active role in the project. When a project reaches its funding goal AppStori takes 7% of the funding total and Amazon Payments takes about 2-3%.

8. How do developers receive the funding? PayPal? Wire transfer? When do I get the money?

Developers will receive their funding via Amazon Payments about 2 weeks after completion.

9. Aside from funding, how else does AppStori support app developers?

As described above, AppStori supports app developers by connecting them to enthusiasts and supporters who can contribute a lot more than just funding, for example, app feature ideas, feedback on art and layouts, social media support, beta testing, and more. We know that app discovery is one of the single biggest problems facing developers and AppStori aims to change the way apps come to market by helping consumers discover great new apps before they launch.

10. Can you describe 2 or 3 success stories from AppStori?

AppStori is just barely over a month old at this point and we consider the quality and potential impact of our listed projects to be our biggest success. While it’s too early for any of our project terms to have reached completion, we are already seeing a high level of interest in the site and the projects we’re hosting. One of our success stories shows just how powerful great ideas are. Recovers, an app designed to help small towns cope with disaster recovery through simple tech solutions, used AppStori and the support that we provided to help solidify their pitch and get the word out to their friends and family. Through this, they were able to draw in additional funds that far exceeded their goal. In fact, Recovers just received a $10,000 grant from MIT to help them continue their development.

11. Anything else you’d like to add?

At AppStori we are focused on enabling great mobile apps. This is fostered by a fundamental belief that the app market, on both the consumer and developer/entrepreneur side, has unique challenges that can be overcome by an open and collaborative approach to the entire development process, from ideation to launch and beyond. Whether you’re an app developer who needs help, support and feedback, or a mobile app lover who wants to play a pivotal role in the next generation of mobile apps, we encourage you to come check out the site, sign up, and start participating.

The mobile market continues to grow, so it’s not surprising that mobile advertising is growing too. Even though estimates have it at about $3 billion for this year, one analyst says the opportunity in mobile advertising is closer to $20 billion. This comes by way of Mary Meeker, an analyst formerly of Morgan Stanley and currently with Kleiner Perkins. These figures are for the US market alone, but the concept can apply internationally.

Looking at the image above, we see the percentage of time spent by consumers in a certain media and the percentage of advertising spending in that media. For example, people are spending less time with print (7%), but advertising budgets are still 25% in print. The market will work to correct itself as spending on print ads decreases. The exact opposite is true with mobile. People are spending 10% of their media-engaged time with mobile, but the ad spend is only at 1%. There’s huge opportunity for growth.

A similar, but smaller gap, is observed with online ads where people are spending 26% of their time, while ad revenue is only at 22% of the total spend. This assumption of the marketing leveling itself out makes sense, since advertisers will presumably want to spend more money where they are able to get the most people and the most attention.

In India, the effect is even more pronounced. People are accessing the Internet more on mobile devices than they are on desktop devices. The assumption is that the same trend will happen in other markets, like Europe and the United States, within the next few years.

My thinking is that more ”desktop” Internet users are likely to engage (click, view, etc.) with advertising on their computers than their counterparts in the mobile sphere. In this way, I don’t think the $20 billion “opportunity” is completely on point, but it does raise a very interesting discrepency in ad spending.

[Source]

A new project called RadicalFlow (RF), is a web based tool that allows anyone to develop an iPhone or iPad app, and yes, even without knowing how to code. The brains behind RadicalFlow are clear as to what they offer through their tool.

“It is not a template where you make cookie cutter apps,” they state. So what exactly is RadicalFlow?

It’s a Cloud-based product, more like a Photoshop or Powerpoint with a blank canvas ready for your design or idea. And once you are through with your development, RadicalFlow will help you publish the finished product in iTunes even if you don’t have an Apple developers account.

It has the same application templates of Apple’s XCode. So all standards like the Split View Apps and Tab Applications are possible through it. Besides that, one can also build custom applications using RF’s Canvas (HTML5) tool, which is like an artist’s canvas basically where you can design, develop and deploy custom applications from.  Sounds like a great tool for newbie companies and upstart developers. What RadicalFlow offers is a single system for the company or the developer to develop many unique apps: design them, save them before redesigning, re-using and deploying. Yes, all under one system.

For those uninitiated into the realms of coding, RadicalFlow has built-in features that allows them to use their own custom code and even combine them with other sets of web based collaborative environments.  It even provides the web based infrastructure required to support the app, for marketing, updating etc. using interactions through tools like Twitter and Facebook. And it’s all right out of the box.

One good thing about RF is that its creators built it for their own app developing needs and now they are planning to let the world enjoy the spoils of their efforts. The second good thing is that in the future they plan to port to Android devices and also build a community where users will be able to share tools, tips and tricks of the trade.

But like all projects, RadicalFlow needs support and backing and is banking on user and developer pledges from across the globe to continue its developments.  The money pledged while registering with RF through Kickstarter.com will be used to maintain the design and development team who are working on developing the tool which would eventually see it expand to other platforms. The pledged money will also be used to meet the server costs, legal costs and other marketing expenditures.

It can be very time-consuming to develop a mobile app for the iPhone, only to have to code it again from scratch for Android. With Mobile Foundation from IBM, that problem could become a thing of the past.

Based on the technology IBM acquired from Worklight in January, Mobile Foundation is a set of mobile development and integration tools. The key advantage here is that you don’t have to code separate apps for the different smartphone and tablet platforms out there; instead, you simply build a single application and it can then be run on Apple iOS, Google Android, RIM’s BlackBerry, and so on.

This was announced at the IBM Impact show, which is currently going on in Las Vegas. Mobile Foundation is a clear indication that IBM wants to support the growth of mobile, both among regular consumers and business users. This includes support of standards like HTML5, which allows developers and managers to simply “extend” what they’re doing into mobile, rather than starting from scratch.

“The industry is progressing at different rates for mobile. Banks and insurance companies are already looking at doing their second mobile application. The first was beautiful, but too expensive,” said IBM Mobile Platform VP Bob Sutor. “They can either buy into one mobile product, or they can use a platform that allows them to build five or 10 or 15 mobile apps. Companies want it to be repeatable.”

Windows Phone SDK 7.1.1 has been released by Microsoft this week. This is the final version of the Community Technology Preview (CTP) Microsoft released last month, which will allow developers to build for new 256MB devices that were announced last month at MWC.

Although without many new features, the SDK adds a “few new tricks” to the release, said Cliff Simpkins, Senior Product Manager for the Windows Phone developer experience in a blog post.

Here’s what is new:

• The Visual Studio IDE is patched to enable selection from a list of emulators, and launching it (note that the WPSDK can only support connecting to one at a time, though)
• The Windows Phone [512 MB device] emulator image is updated to use build 8773
• A second, new emulator device image is included, allowing you to emulate running your app on a 256 MB device
• The Microsoft Advertising SDK is updated to the latest version (previously only available as a separate install), which fixes some issues devs were encountering at runtime
• IntelliSense now supports specifying the 512 MB device requirement in your manifest file, should you choose to opt your app out from running on the new 256 MB devices
• Language support is again consistent both in the IDE (the 7.1.1 Update supports all 10 of the WPSDK 7.1 languages) and in the emulator OS (Malay and Indonesian have been added)

When Nokia and Microsoft took the “Windows Mobile” way, they sure knew they had to take on the popular appeal of Android and the marketing might of iOS.

Windows Mobile is slowly but surely carving out a niche in the smartphone segment, but both know they can’t take things as they come. They have to be pioneers, dredging through rough terrain to get any edge to become competition.

The best way to get headway in the smartphone race is to develop unique and popular apps for the platform and the two companies are set to invest big time in training and support for app developers through academics.

Microsoft and Nokia are launching the AppCampus program at Aalto University in Finland – the home of Nokia – to bring under one roof a comprehensive curriculum which would help train and mold developers and facilitate the creation of innovative mobile applications for the Windows Phone, as well as other Nokia platforms such as the Symbian and Series 40.

The two companies will invest 9 million euros each into the mobile application development program over the next three years with the sole aim of pushing the boundaries of innovation and business opportunities, not just in Finland, but globally.

The program begins in the month of May this year and will be managed by Aalto University, which has a reputation for promoting start-up companies.

It is expected to attract many application proposals from students and budding entrepreneurs alike from across the globe. The university will provide the campus with the right creative atmosphere, besides coaching services and access to both academic and business developers to help the app developers.

The program, which will be mentored by mobile industry experts, will provide prospective entrepreneurs and student support and training in mobile technology and more importantly, funding to create innovative new mobile apps and services. While Windows Phone Marketplace and Nokia Store will provide them with local and global business opportunities via their huge networks. Another significant point is that the intellectual property rights of the innovations by the applicants will be protected.

Things sound very interesting especially for developers with innovative ideas and are yet to find light because of lack of funding.

Android, with its “free developer” base and iOS, with its industrial resources, are sure to take note of this. Their competitor has just gotten ready to play hard ball, but is it enough to sway the momentum?

Photo: Business Insider