On-demand Service Startups Start Targeting the Suburbs
Food delivery startup Farm Hill announced their intention to expand into San Francisco last week, which doesn’t sound like hot news until you look at the context — specifically, the expansion “into” rather than “out of” a city. Farm Hill is backed by high-profile VCs like SOMA Capital and associated with Standford’s accelerator StartX. Regardless, rather […]
Uber Rushes to Claim the “Uber for X” Startup Market
Uber just made UberRush available publicly to mobile app developers, allowing anyone to build on-demand services on top of Uber’s existing driver and delivery network. The result? A much shorter runway for small startups looking to become “Uber for X.” Rather than sourcing and maintaining their own fleet of drivers or delivery people, developers can pay […]
Freemium Pricing: Can it Work for My App?
In just a few years, freemium pricing for mobile apps has gone from an unusual fringe strategy to the dominant pricing scheme in the mobile app industry. How dominant? Well, in 2014 98% of all app revenue in Google Play came from freemium apps in the form of in-app purchases and monthly subscription fees. Apple […]
Google Launches Hardware Initiative to Teach Kids Code
Google just launched a new hardware initiative, Project Bloks, with the aim of expanding youth exposure to coding principles through “tangible coding.” Unlike the software-based coding systems mobile app developers who work with kids might be familiar with, tangible coding systems represent coding concepts — objects, binaries, if/then statements — as physical objects that can […]
Uber Trying to Win Back Their Most Valued Resource: Drivers
Uber, like any sharing-economy mobile app developer, has two main resources: workers and customers. This may sound simplistic, but it’s actually a tricky and unique balance in the on-demand startup industry, compared with worker and consumer relations in more traditional companies. When a mobile app becomes the interface between employer and employee, efficiency increases — […]
Facebook Promotes fbStart at Global Entrepreneurship Summit
President Obama and Mark Zuckerburg shared the stage at last week’s Global Entrepreneurship Summit to draw attention to tech and small business in the American economy. While the thrust of the talk was aimed at increasing support and diversity among startups and mobile app developers, Zuckerburg used the stage time to promote a little-known but […]
Dogtown Works for Edtech at First Youth Technology Town Hall
Dogtown Media joined Microsoft, Facebook, Pandora, and other leading tech companies in Chicago last week (June 17) for a historic first Youth Technology Town Hall. Congressman Danny K. Davis and community leaders organized the event to promote STEM and computer science education in the Chicago area, tapping the expertise of technologists and iPhone app developers […]
Research Shows Huge Growth in Millennial use of Mobile Apps
Research firm comScore recently released their annual report on mobile app use. The results? Millennials still love mobile apps, to the tune of a whopping 90 hours per month spent on smartphone apps alone. Don’t worry, they love tablets too. Just not as much. Of usage growth across all platforms, mobile represented 65 percent, followed […]
Siri Is Finally Bridging the Gap Between Mobile and Desktop
When Apple bought Siri back in 2010, few San Francisco iPhone app developers believed it would become quite so central to the mobile experience. That success on mobile has made Mac devotees eager to use the personal assistant on other apple devices and platforms — yet it’s been years without an apparent move to jump […]
Dogs in the Office Increase Productivity and Lower Stress
Companies looking to boost office productivity are paying attention to a trend that started in Silicon Valley startups: dog-friendly work environments. NYC iPhone app developers have been bringing their canine companions to work for years, and now traditional businesses like Blue Cross, among others, are following suit. The result? Lowered stress levels, increased sense of […]