Last week came the big unveiling of the newest Android device to hit the market, the Droid from Verizon Wireless. The first ‘iPhone Killer’ that may actually be on par to do so, however, it was born to many mixed reviews and even more mixed media hype.

From a ‘product review’ standpoint, when you compare hardware to hardware, the reviews have Droid as the hands down winner (minus the slide out keyboard). When you compare software to software, you get a slight advantage with Apple on the speed/elegance factor, but you get a slight advantage with the Droid’s Android OS on the ‘open development’ factor as well as the new upgrades in 2.0, most notably, the Google Maps Turn by Turn GPS Navigation system that comes pre-baked into the software. And yes, the # of apps in the two stores is drastically different, and we all know the stories of how Apple developers have made tons of money on app sales, but does that really come into play when you’re talking about a device for a consumer? Not in my book. From a network standpoint… well, do we even need to go there? AT&T has proven to be the biggest stumbling block to the iPhone since day 1. No need to re-state what’s already a known fact. (Verizon has a much better network)

There was also a large ‘hype’ criticism around the device as well, primarily because there weren’t lines of people at 6am waiting to snap up the new device, thus claiming the launch of the device a bust. Lines, there were not, but a bust, it was not either. The audience is different, the Android/Droid brand hasn’t been around much more than a year, there aren’t legions of ‘fanboys for life’ out there quite yet. But, to be fair, from everything I’ve read, it was pretty dead the morning of the unveiling. That isn’t to say most store didn’t sell out of their stock within the first day, as many did.

So what’s this all about? Well, here’s what I think. I think the Droid truly is the first device to give the iPhone a run for its money. The hardware is superior, the operating system is essentially the same, just different, the network is superior in almost any way. So why so much “I’m not switching talk?” I think its a number of things.
1. The Apple brand is strong. They may not always be the leader, but their sense of design and unbreakable loyalists will always keep their numbers high.
2. Android is new and its not tied to any specific device or brand. I love Android, and I love HTC as a device maker, but currently the HTC devices running Android leave a little to be desired. I’ve had a Motorola before and I hated it, thus leaving me with a relatively negative brand impression, regardless that Android is running on it.
3. Switching is hard. If you’re on any platform but Android, moving your contacts, emails, etc is relatively painful and involves a fair amount of manual labor. On the Android, you’re synced to a Google account, so switching is seamless and takes only a few minutes.
4. iPhone was the first big release, being a part of the first big thing is a powerful motivator.. also, many folks are probably still tied to their 2 year contract renewal from their first or second iPhone (because the new device conveniently comes out every year, meaning you need to re-sign a 2 year every 1 year if you want in on the new device)

So even as devices come out that do honestly trump the iPhone in pretty much every category, you won’t see the mass conversion rate we once saw. They’re better, but they’re not breaking new ground in any major way. So until that Android device that allows you to teleport, it’ll be hard to judge their success based on craze/hype, thus always creating a big set of mixed reviews.

A couple good articles, both from different stand points:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/07/think-the-droid-launch-was-a-let-down-not-so-fast

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/11/no-droid-for-me

Sevnthsin wants you… if you’re a backend developer, that is. We’re looking to expand our team and want to meet enthusiastic, experienced backend developers looking to work with our fun, flexible team here at Sevnthsin.

More over at: http://jobs.sevnthsin.com

TechCrunch has a great article today, citing new numbers from the team over at Opera. regarding the usage of their mobile browser and how that number consistently skyrockets over the previous months number. They’re currently reporting over 35.6 million people used Opera Mini last month, serving approximately 500 million page views PER DAY. That’s a pretty staggering number. But what we find additionally a little staggering is how stunned people are by these reports.

What are the first two things that come to mind when you think of big changes over the last 10, say even 15 years. I know the first things I think of are 1. the unveiling of the world wide web (yes, yes, yes… I know someone out there is going to go off about how the whole internet thing was invented by Al Gore… I mean, originally conceived way way back when our parents were young, but I’m talking about the days of Yahoo!, Webcrawler, Mosaic, Prodigy, 50 Free AOL hours on CD and even the birth of Netscape) and 2. the real commercialization of the mobile/handheld device (hether that’s the cell phone or the PDA is somewhat irrelevant, as they were both heading to the same place anyway). So it was only a matter of time before those two things crossed paths and really got it right. We’re there right now. Today, almost every device to hit the market is utilizing some sort of real time web browser with actual modern day capabilities, and with the unprecedented growth of devices like the iPhone and the Android operating system, does it really come as a surprise to anyone that people prefer to get online from the comfort of their own palm? Its pretty straight forward. Who wouldn’t want to take something out of the den or the home office and just have it with them as they roam the mall? The entire world has come to our fingertips and that’s a pretty universal phenomenon. People of all generations are on board (yes, even my parents are popping open their little touch screen phones and pulling up Google Maps to find a restaurant on the other side of an unfamiliar town, or uploading photos to Facebook of their kids’ activities… no matter how old their kids are these days).

So why all the surprise and ’shocking reports of increased mobile usage?’ I think it has to do with how FAST it all happened. We all know how fast things move these days, but lets really look at how its changed. 2004 we had roughly the equivalent of text based browsing on tiny screens. By 2005ish we were using IE on Windows mobile to view some slightly enhanced pages. The beginning of 2007 the entire game changed and the real web (not just tiny mobile optimized text versions) were browsable via the iPhone. By the first quarter of 2009 we now had hundreds of different devices from iPhone to Nokia to HTC to Palm to Blackberry, etc etc, running modern browsers and accessing the web over 3G networks on virtually every carrier worldwide. We went from cell phone with text GPRS browsing to highspeed computer in your pocket in around 3 years. That’s some pretty impressing movement.

So yes, look at the numbers, mobile web usage is skyrocketing month after month. But does that really surprise anyone? Not here anyway.

More: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/27/mobile-web-usage-keeps-on-growing-and-growing-and-growing

So we all still hear souch about the iPhone these days. The hype of the first big Android releases came and went as three phones (G1, myTouch & Hero) hit the US market over the last 12 months. So where does that leave the device everyone seems quick to call both a ‘flop’ and ‘just another iPhone wannabe’? Well, while everyone has been caught up in the bad PR the iPhone has been getting lately, primarily because of the exclusive carrier they’re locked into, the Android platform has been secretly multiplying like a Gremlin you accidentally dropped in the fointain at the mall. T-Mobile was the first of the new announcements, adding a third device to their line, the Motorola Cliq, expected in time for the holidays. Verizon was right on their heels with their new device they’re trying to play secretive with their DroidDoes.com commercials, making them the third US carrier to the playing field. Up next is every other major carrier and device maker, as AndroPhones.com breaks down the next 10 devices expected by January 2010 and the anticipated 40+ to hit the global market by next holiday season.

That’s some pretty impressive stuff, and we all know Google’s no slouch. They may not be the ‘Hare’ in this tale, but we all know how that turned out. With their open development platform, reskinnable GUI and the ability for any device maker to utilize their OS, it’s going to make for one interesting mobile future, something we here are excited to see play itself out. Afterall, unique competition will only create genious innovation.

So go Google, go! It’s about to get interesting.

Link: AndroPhones.com

Pabst Art, our first project with new client PBR went live today. The annual fan submitted artwork competition brings submissions from all over the country, ultimately awarding four winners with the prize of a lifetime. This year, we helped PBR create an experience that allowed them to accept, vote, rank and award prizes all online. Additionally, we created a gallery structure that allowed site visitors to view all the work submitted over the past few years as well as the new work being submitted this year or even submit ‘found art’ photos they’ve taken or found online. And, if you’re REALLY into it, you can use their online “Art Hacker” tool to create a glorious PBR piece of your own to share with friends or print out and hang on your cubicle wall.

As they say, “Life is art. Art is passion. Passion tastes like PBR.”
So go check it out over at:
PBRART.COM

Adobe made a big announcement Monday. One we’ve all been waiting for… kind of. Flash is now available for the iPhone… HOWEVER, not as we’d all first expected it. Adobe has now made it possible to develop iPhone apps from within Flash. Pretty interesting concept, indeed. The whole world of App development will now open about a million times wider, which could be both a good and bad thing. Ultimately, I think it will bring a whole new world of app capabilities that may make for some interesting new progression in the technology.

Either way, the new functionality will be available in the beta version of Flash CS5 due out sometime before the end of the year. Still hoping for an actual Flash Player for the iPhone, but this sounds like they’re starting to make progress on the device now. Maybe player will come in ‘10.

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashcs5/appsfor_iphone/#demo

We would like to proudly announce the launch of the new Rhymesayers website. We’ve been crafting this baby for a long time now, and are ‘oh so excited’ to see it finally stand on its own legs. Lots of great new stuff, and not to mention, some sweet jams on the radio.

Rhymesayers.com

We got a nice little plug on Smashing Magazine this weekend in their “Optimized for iPhone” feature. Nice to see us up there with so many other great sites.

Smashing Magazine : Optimized for the iPhone

For easily the last three years, everyone’s been saying ‘Yeah, its great, but good luck making any money,’ thus leading to the ultimate demise of the Social Network while something new comes along and investors move their money along (e.g., Friendster, MySpace, etc, etc). But today, Facebook has proven them all wrong by announcing not only that they’ve reached a staggering 300 million plus users (take note: the US Census puts the US population at around 307 million), but that they’ve posted their first profitable quarter since inception, meaning they will haul in 500 million some odd dollars before year’s end. Pretty phenomenal for a 5 year old company, started in a Harvard dorm room by a couple buddies.

So, there’s a bit of sweet justice here. Everyone who’s been denying the power of social media as a legitimate tool for marketing based on the concept that their model is unsustainable and will not turn a profit, has been proven wrong. I’m not going to say I didn’t have my doubts either, but there seems to be a much stronger crew behind the scenes here, and considering everyone and their mom (literally) has a Facebook profile now, it seemed like the only thing keeping them from their goal was attention span. Would the people get bored and move on? Well, apparently not. Facebook has remained the dominant social network for easily 3 years now and will most like continue into the following year. We’ll see if history repeats itself and something comes along to replace, but for now, I think we’re Facebookin’ it for at least a while longer.

More over at Wired: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/09/facebook-makes-money-tops-300-million-users/

Sevnthsin proudly announces, in partnership with our wonderful partner &Yustin, our newest iPhone Application for retailer JCPenney. This new iPhone app takes JCPenney in a new/forward thinking direction and begins the process of moving towards a paperless means of content delivery for the company.

Each week the app dynamically updates with new weekly offers, in line with their newspaper circular, bringing the newest deals to iphone users no matter where they are. The app also includes functionality to create your own ‘Favorites’ shopping list and a GPS enabled Store Locator, making the distance between you and your nearest JCP just a click away.

Check out the app over at the iTunes App Store or by clicking: JCP.COM/IPHONE

A month before the much anticipated release of “Us,” the new effort by Brother Ali off Rhymesayers Records, Sevnthsin busted out this new experience, giving the fans a true form of conversation. The new BrotherAli.com focuses simply on the purest inspiration behind much of Ali’s new album, the conversations he’s had with fans.

So what better way to connect the two than with a site strictly focused on promoting those conversations, sharing those stories, just talking with one another. Sign in via Facebook or Twitter and comment on Ali’s posts or share a story of your own. The door is open, now go chat it up.

BROTHERALI.COM

Well, Google’s in court again, although this time its not because of something they technically did. The veil of ‘the internet’ is starting to crumble and online ‘bullying’ is something that’s being taken more seriously, especially in cases of defamation of character… as is the case this time. Now, Google’s not in trouble, nor should they be, however, here’s where things get a little tricky and even groundbreaking in this particular case. Google owns the popular blogging service Blogger. Blogger’s been around about 10 years now, and was purchased by Google back in 2003. Since then, its popularity has skyrocketed, allowing everyone and their grandma to start blogging, making it easier than using Word. Each bloggers content is their own and for the most part, they’re entitled to do/say whatever they want, Google’s not monitoring and they won’t be monitoring. However, in this instance, a lovely little blog called “Skanks of NYC” has managed to raise quite a stink. Numerous posts over time take a harsh swipe at model Liskula Cohen, calling her some pretty nasty things, ultimately causing Liskula to take the matter to court. The Blogger has been hiding under a pseudonym, which is quite common online as no one would ever say such fowl things if it could ever be traced back to them, something that is both the beauty and the bane of the internet, but this case changes that. A Manhattan judge ordered Google to release the name of the Blogger in an effort to have charges brought against the appropriate individual. This seems pretty straight forward as a “Duh, of course that’d be the ruling” but its fairly groundbreaking as it begins to set a new standard in the concept of accountability online.

We all have the right to free speech, and the internet has been a prime outlet for that, BongMan420* can say whatever he wants, and up until this week, has been able to hide behind his amazing username. But we’re entering a new day and age, the same rules are being applied online as they would in any other media form, and rightfully so. It’ll be interesting to see where this heads going forward, but I think the most intriguing thing is the fact that we’re seeing that online veil come down. Looks like I’m going to have to stop posting under false names on everyone else’s blogs. Argh…

More from Mashable: http://mashable.com/2009/08/19/google-identity-blogger/

* I’m sure there’s someone named BongMan420 out there, I’m in no way insinuating they were the naughty blogger. I made that up on the fly, because that’s how I roll. BongMan420, if you’re reading this and I offended your delicate sensibilities, I deeply apologize.

Get Sleep Ready, a project we helped craft for the team over at Select Comfort got some wonderfully positive press the other day on the Twin Cities Business Magazine Blog. Nice to see our clients getting the recognition their hard work and forward thinking-ness deserves.

http://tcbmag.blogs.com/btw/2009/08/diggable-futures.html

So the epic Facebook/Twitter battle continues. This week it comes in the form of
1. Facebook acquiring Friend Feed,
2. Announcing a new version of Facebook called Facebook Lite and then
3. This report released about Facebook growing twice as fast as Twitter over the course of July, 2009.

So much has happened in such a short amount of time, its hard to say what may have caused this, but the best guess (as cited over on TechCrunch) is that Facebook is ripping off Twitter yet again by adding the “EVERYONE” button. Now, just like Twitter, you can publicly broadcast what you had for lunch to all the people who honestly don’t care, but you desperately wish would! The addition of Facebook Lite also makes Facebook the new Twitter, as its essentially just a feed based service. Now, I understand their desire to be the master of the social universe, but there’s no reason each can’t exist in its own right, especially since Facebook is on ‘in only’ platform, with no real way to feed content OUT of Facebook, making the concept of open social integration into sites almost non-existent without using their own proprietary “Facebook Connect” login… which again, kinda only points content back into Facebook.

So, while Facebook continues to try and emulate its competition in order to weed them out, they continue to lose their authenticity and original value in the social realm. Again, I call on your Facebook, to focus on what you’re best at and stop trying to buy up all your competitors in an effort to be the only solution out there. Play nice. Integrate with the other networks. Make it all one big happy party where each person brings something they’re really good at and we get a network of amazing skill sets to play within.

That sounds like an awesome party to me!

Source: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/12/facebook-grew-twice-as-fast-as-twitter-in-july/

Sevnthsin would like to announce the launch of Get Sleep Ready, a microsite for Select Comfort. Follow Russ and Sally as they discover the things that effect their sleep and how they can make a few simple changes to go from ‘Disastrous’ to ‘Top-Notch.’

A big shout out to the crew over at Select Comfort for being such an amazing partner to work with as well as to the team here at Sevnthsin for diving in head first and bringing this to life. We got our hands dirty on every component of this site, from the concept and strategy to the illustration, animation and voice over work.

We’ll have to have some cake to celebrate!

GETSLEEPREADY.COM

In what may be one of the least surprising pieces of recent iPhone App Store news, Apple has officially rejected the Google Voice application for the iPhone. Now I’m sure everyone saw this one coming, but it is a huge testament to the concept of Net Neutrality and its non-existence on the mobile platform. This is not Apple’s first case this year, or even this month of taking steps to deny the release of apps that may take away from or potentially put too much demand on any portion of the services offered by their precious business partner, AT&T. In a great little write up over on Wired, they very simply point out “this creates the impression that the “Think Different” company is mired in the old think of protecting a lucrative business relationship, rather than letting the innovation chips fall where they may.”

My prediction, in the next year, Apple will be forced to open its app store up and the concept of “App Stores” will be drastically altered. There’s something to be said about guaranteeing a quality product, but the inconsistent approval process is causing Apple to lose ground against its competitors (Palm Pre, Google Android… I’d say Blackberry, but they’re still way off the mark, but that’s another post for another day) and making the company look more and more like a regulator and less of an innovator. Its a fine line to walk, but in the end, innovation will always prevail, and Apple, for one, should know that. Its up to them to make the decision as to how they proceed, but the idea of an open app store and open network providers doesn’t seem like an all to distant future.

Wired: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/07/apple-rejects-google-voice/

That’s right everyone. Another year has gone by, that means its time to battle for a new champion. Get your agency/firm’s team signed up before September 1st and prepare to battle. Read the rules, practice your game and don’t bring anything but your A team, as it’s gonna be epic.

See you here on the 11tt/12th of September. Brackets will be posted prior to the event.

http://mplsdesignpingpongchampionships.com

Is the world of the App store ending? Google seems to think so. Its no surprise that the whole concept ‘Mobile Apps’ was capitalized by Apple, but is Google just bitter, or are they on to something?

Last week, Vic Gundotra (Google’s VP of Engineering) claimed that the way of native apps are fading fast, and web based apps are the future. This could be simply because Google’s new Chrome OS for their Netbook is all Web based, but he could also be on to something.

Now, there are the arguments that the reasoning behind native apps lies in their ability to utilize the device’s processing power, which is a great argument, but it also limits the apps ability to dynamically evolved. Checking for updates can be annoying at times, and from a development standpoint, anytime you need to make a change to your application, you need to resubmit your fix (and in Apple’s case, you wait weeks for it to then go live). Web based apps, as great as they all sound, also have inherent issues. What if I’m mid flight? What if I’m in the middle of the lake, fishing? What if I’m in my old stucco/plaster walled apartment in St. Paul where even making a PHONE CALL was a challenge? The ability to dynamically update/change content is a huge key for Mobile Apps going forward, but where is the middle ground between processing power and content flexibility. Hybrid apps are becoming more and more frequent, and for all the right reasons. Building a shell for the native system that can store content and render local operations more efficiently, while pulling content from the web, makes for a perfect marriage between both worlds. The native shell means less of an application to manage/memory hog/bug fix, while the web based content means more frequent content updates and significant flexibility as the app goes forward, and if the app includes functionality to cache web based content and only refresh when new content is found, there’s no reason one couldn’t pull up whatever they were last using wherever they are, data signal or not.

It’ll be interesting to watch where this all heads, as the operating system wars wage on. We now have approximately 4 app stores and all seems to be following one another. Will Google be right and take the lead going forward? Or is Apple already secretly all over it and will launch their web-based platform with the next round of iPhones (or Apple Tablets… c’mon, you all know they’re coming soon)? I guess we’ll find out soon.

Great little article on the Google side of things over at Wired: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/07/google-app-store

Sevnthsin would like to officially welcome Pabst Blue Ribbon into the mix here. We’re looking forward to working with you and are excited about what’s to come! This is definitely the beginning of something lovely.

Somebody PBR me ASAP!

What a week, after a HUGE iMated push, we also just got a nice little feature on the Twin City Scene website. Our good buddy Andy Santamaria (ConnectingMeToYou.com) recent got added to their mix of contributors and his interview with us went live yesterday.

Give it a read! Andy’s a great guy doing some great things in Minneapolis here, really doing a lot for the design community.

http://www.twincityscene.com/business/356