Written on 23rd April 2009
4 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
Celebs and tech are currently all the rage, and Heroes’ Matt Parkman is taking things to another level with a genuinely superb iPhone app called Yowza!
I hesitated before posting this because unfortunately it’s still not available outside the US, however being so impressed by the idea and implementation (what I’ve seen of it anyway) that I had to share it with you.
I’ll let CH host Cali Lewis and Grunberg explain the ins and outs of the app in the video below, but to sum up what Yowza actually does…Yowza partners with stores to bring vouchers directly to you via your iPhone, so whatever shop you might be in, you check Yowza to see if there are any available discounts available before you make your purchase. Clever eh? Well I thought so.
Update: There is a soon to launch UK iPhone app called VouChaCha which has yet to be launched officially. Will get a review up about it once we’ve got our hands on it.
Remember those videos of gifted fellas drawing the Mona Lisa in Paint? I was amazed by it back then. Now there’s a new example, representing a new generation of tools and apps. It’s called Brushes, a natural media painting application for the iPhone and iPod touch.
The €2,39 app offers several realistic brush styles, an advanced color picker, a gallery view, and virtually unlimited undo and redo. To see what you can do with Brushes, have a look at this video I found on the blog of Erwin Blom.
There’s a small digital subculture emerging around this app, with heroes like David Gribouille (who made the video).
Design magazine Core77 highlights the work of Disney artist Stef Kardos – who makes quick sketches (5-10 minutes each) and then adds some flavor to it with Brushes (see picture).
Here’s a slideshow from the dedicated Flickr pool:
Written on 5th December 2008
6 COMMENTS Patrick de Laive, Internet entrepreneur and co-founder of The Next Web Conference. Twitter: @patrick
Hyves (winner of last years The Next Web Award for Best European Company) has 7+ million members and is by far the biggest social network in the Netherlands. Today they released the Hyves iPhone app. It is immediately the number 1 most downloaded app in the Dutch iPhone store.
In many ways it looks a lot like the facebook app, which might be a disappointment for the true web savvies and mobile addicts (who were hoping to see new revolutionary stuff), but hey, let’s not complain, it is great that a Hyves App is available for the ’shiny object’ and they have included some nice features.
The app:
In short it has the basic features of the website; you see the so called buzz of your friends, there is a WWW (WhoWhatWhere) section with twitter-like updates on what you’re friends are doing. You can check out pictures and albums of your friends and you have your friends and their contact info at your disposal. What is pretty cool and can come in very handy is that you can directly call your friends (without the need to know their phone number) from the friendslist (note and call for action to all my friends: your phone number needs to be known to Hyves).
All together it is a nice to have and useful app, although it could be a little snappier.
Here are some screenshots:
The future:
My guess is that this first app will be rapidly followed up by new versions with new functionality and available on a lot more phones. They’re using this app to test how people are using it and what features should be available on all phones. One thing that has been left out (on purpose probably) of this version is the friend finder.
It makes a lot of sense to be able to see where your friends are and it makes even more sense that this will be provided by your social network, where you’ve invested hours and hours of building your network, uploading photos and using as a communication service to stay in contact with your friends. My guess is that this killer-app will be introduced in the next version of the mobile app, once there is an app that supports the majority of all phones. The rationale behind this is pretty straightforward; You want to see where your friends are and not where your friends are who have a certain phone (iPhone in this case).
Conclusion: If you’re a Hyves user you need this app.
P.S. What is remarkable is that this is an English language app aimed at the Dutch market!! Could this mean Hyves is planning to expand internationally? I leave the speculation up to you… UPDATE: The app is (of course) bilingual and depends on the settings of your iPhone thanks, Martijn, Yme and Kjeld.
Being a stats-addict sucks. You experience highs and lows the whole day, which causes unpredictable mood swings. Though when you’re running a project that actually does well, it doesn’t hurt to check it every once in a while. For me, checking The Next Web stats sort of works like a happy-pill, I guess. So I was glad to hear that my favorite statistics service Clicky (review here) will officially launch an iPhone version of its stats dashboard on Monday. And guess what? It’s already available on m.getclicky.com!
When opening the page in your iPhone, you’ll see an overview of all your web sites. Click on one, and you can choose whether you want to check the stats of “Today”, “Yesterday”, “Last Week”, and some other date options. Then a screen with a summary appears and the options to see the “Visitor tally”, the “Action tally”, and the “Recent visitors” (There are actually a ton more options, just scroll down). To give you an idea of the eye-candy, you can see our recent visitors at the right.
Although Google Analytics is the standard, I use Clicky for my sites. I believe smaller companies are more likely to innovate and the launch of the iPhone app proves that (No Google Analytics app so far).
Disclosure: we’re involved in a affiliate program with Clicky. Which we wouldn’t be if the service wasn’t that great. Oh an by the way, there are no affiliate links in this post.
Just a quick update to show you how mature the mobile games market is becoming. And not just because of Super Monkey Ball. In the next five years, the UK mobile games market will grow with €28 million over the next five years to a total value of €103 million in 2012, concludes a study by media analyst Screen Digest. This impressive sum of money is divided in two parts:
Pay-per-play market was worth €1.9 million in 2007
Pay-per-download market makes up for €69 million, and is expected to increase to €100 million by 2012
Of all the mobile games downloads in 2007, only 0.5 million out of 13.2 million were ad-supported.
The global mobile games market is booming as well, it’s expected to increase to a €2.6 billion market by 2012.
Researchers of Screen Digest see two reasons for the upcoming growth of mobile games revenue. The rise of smartphones, which obviously create a better gaming experience, and the launch of the Apple Apps store - where more than 10 million applications were downloaded in three days. So it seems we can’t rule out the influence of Super Monkey Ball completely.
While European techies were sleeping last night, the American ones discovered a rather absurd iPhone app. It’s called I Am Rich and has two remarkable characteristics. One: it only lets a red diamond glow on your screen – sometimes a secret mantra appears. Two: the price $999.99. Will developer Armin Heinrich make his fortune with this shiny app?
The upside for Apple: $300, or 30%, of all purchases. The downside: Good luck enforcing that “all sales final” policy on this scam.
Although I understand where these frustrations are coming from, I’d like to call on these bloggers to take it all a bit more light-heartedly. After all we’re talking about a company here of which the CEO once said experimenting with LSD was “one of the two or three most important things [he had] done in [his] life.” Experiments like I Am Rich keep Apple interesting. It’s a form of art, you can interpreter it however you want to.
See it as a protest against the lifestyle IT girls like Paris Hilton. A way to tone down the iPhone fuzz. Or.., it’s a genius parody on all these folks who have been using their iPhone in a somewhat too showy way – waiting for the utter satisfying experience of someone asking… “wow, is that an iPhone…?”
Written on 23rd April 2009
4 COMMENTS 
Celebs and tech are currently all the rage, and Heroes’ Matt Parkman is taking things to another level with a genuinely superb iPhone app called Yowza!
Written on 7th January 2009
There’s a small digital subculture emerging around this app, with heroes like
Written on 5th December 2008
Being a stats-addict sucks. You experience highs and lows the whole day, which causes unpredictable mood swings. Though when you’re running a project that actually does well, it doesn’t hurt to check it every once in a while. For me, checking The Next Web stats sort of works like a happy-pill, I guess. So I was glad to hear that my favorite statistics service 
Whether he does or not, he DID get some tech bloggers angry. They think the I Am Rich app is provoking serious developers who don’t manage to get their app in the Apple app store. 
The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show off, the future of the Web. (More info 
