Breakdown of Facebook App Installs For My Social Graph

Motivated by a recent blog post on Mobile Inc, I decided to leverage some readily available data from Facebook to get a rough indication of which mobile operating systems were most popular in my social graph. What the chart above represents is a breakdown of the Facebook App installs completed by my Facebook friends, as a percentage, for the various mobile operating systems for which an app is available. The actual number of installs is a bit higher than the number of friends I have because many have multiple handsets... or have recently transitioned handsets (the old install still gets counted). Of course, what this doesn't capture are all those good folks who access the site through the mobile website or the full website (which I often do, frankly) from their phones... which presumably includes all my friends who are Nokia devotees. I'd love to hear some feedback to learn how many of you fall into this category and to learn what your social graph breakdown looks like.

Here are the raw numbers:

438 iPhone
336 BlackBerry
82 Android
11 WebOS
11 Samsung
10 Other

------------
888 Total

Shadow Cities Dislocates Angry Birds in Finland

Remember a few months ago, during E3, when I got all wound up about a location-based iPhone game called Insurrection that was on the verge of being released by a company called Paranoid Games... all based on a tweet from Mark Cuban? Well that thing obviously didn't happen, and judging from the dire nature of the company's website & Twitter feed, it probably won't. Look at me being all irrationally exuberant like Mark Cuban... can I get rich doing that?

Well now comes word, from a much more reliable source, that Finnish games company Grey Area has actually released a location-based MMORPG for iPhone called Shadow Cities (see trailer below) in that country's App Store. Not only is this game real, but in its first day of release the freemium title (monetized via virtual goods) actually unseated powerhouse Angry Birds, from cross-town rival Rovio, as the Top Grossing game & also grabbed the Top Free App crown. Apparently rapid viral adoption, far exceeding the publisher's expectations, was driven by a slick integration of Facebook Connect... with impressive results!

Ten years after the Swedish games company It's Alive! first tried this (way too early!) with BotFighters, I think these guys have a real chance to create a meaningful consumer event with this game across multiple territories. As services like Foursquare & Gowalla have seeped into the popular consciousness, and with Facebook now encouraging check-ins with benefits, I think the masses might just be comfortable enough with location aware services to embrace this type of gameplay. As Grey Area CEO Ville Vesterinen explains it, their game actually benefits from evolving consumer behavior even beyond the current location based models, enabling them to use real neighborhoods as the context and, almost, as characters within Shadow Cities. "While much of the recent wave of location based games and services has relied on a check-in model we at Grey Area strongly believe that to achieve a lasting engaging experience neighborhoods and their inherent social setting offer much more potential than single venues. By only focusing on venues it is hard, if not impossible, to let the true character of a city shine through. Playing Shadow Cities has showed us a new side of Helsinki and opened a window to see how others navigate the locations beyond single venues," says Vesterinen.

As most of you know I'm a big fan of this stuff, because to my mind this type of product represents a critical evolution in mobile gameplay, as it fundamentally relies on the unique capabilities of a connected, context aware mobile device... much more so than the myriad casual games that really could be enjoyed on any device with a touchscreen & a processor. Therefore, I'm rooting that these guys can maintain their current success, and that it can be replicated in other markets... which we should see in mid-December when they launch in the US & UK App Stores, if all goes as planned. I'll keep a close eye on this one and keep you posted.

80% of Mobile Visits To Cabana Mobile From iOS

The Beginning of Think Different

Thanks to Pekka Parnanen for pointing me to this great video from the beginning of Steve Jobs' reinvention of Apple, soon after regaining control in 1997. I'm not an Apple fanboy (and don't use an iPhone), but I have no end of respect for this company, its products and its market savvy... and I think most of it is attributable to the singular vision of Mr. Jobs. I would go on to propose that Apple has emerged as the most important force in terms "consumerizing" the mobile entertainment products many of us worked on, in relative obscurity, for years (I expect some arguments) and that the mobile revolution they've spawned is a corollary of Think Different. BTW - the ad Jobs introduces in this video still gives me goosebumps.

Updated: Apple Still The Big Story In Gameloft's Earnings... But Not As Big As It Initially Appears

Gameloft issued a release last Wednesday outlining their top-line Q2 2010 performance. Revenue was up 14.7% over Q2 2009 to €33.60mil ($44.44mil), and for the first half of the year it was up 11%. That puts their revenues for the last 4 quarters at $169.95mil, at current exchange rates. North America held steady at 34% of revenue or $15mil, while Europe lost some ground to developing markets. Overall this looks like a solid result pending the release of comprehensive financials at the end of August.

The most amazing claim in the release is actually one made in error. The release states that "Gameloft has positioned itself as a leading game publisher on Apple's iPhone and iPad and has seen its sales on the AppStore grow by 113% during the second quarter of 2010." That initially led me (and others) to believe that their iOS revenue had spiked from €6.93mil in Q1 to €14.76mil in Q2... which would represent a whopping 44% of revenue. However, after contacting investor relations it turns out what they meant to say is that their iOS revenue has grown 113% since Q2 2009 and that the figure associated with iPhone, iPad, iPod touch is actually €7mil, or 21% of revenue... which is the same percentage they reported for Q1 2010.

Now that that's straightened out I'd be interested to hear what their revenue looks like on other smartphone platforms. Despite all the hype about Android, publishers keep telling me that paid app sales in that channel are still insignificant (attributable to Google Checkout, poor management of Android Market & OS fragmentation), and that the other smartphone platforms are barely worth mentioning. Meanwhile the carriers, at least in North America & Europe, are becoming less important with each passing quarter. For games publishers, this has got to be troubling... it's never a good thing when one distribution channel dominates the agenda of an industry. Unfortunately, for Gameloft et al, it appears that they're gonna have to be comfortable with a dependency on Apple, and the dangers inherent in that type of relationship, for the foreseeable future.

I Switched: Why One San Francisco Exec Ditched His iPhone For An EVO

Guest post by Daniel Stein

------------------------------
I have been an iPod advocate since the very beginning. Since the device launched in 2002, I have lost count at how many iPods I have purchased. I have a shoe box at home that is filled with my old hardware – the original 5GB (engraved, even), an iPod Shuffle; 2 iPod Minis (that I used with my Nike+ system); 2 Nanos, an iPod Touch (can’t remember why I bought that); a 60GB and 80GB iPod; and a few more that I am sure I forgot to mention.

When the iPhone launched in 2007, I was one of the first to own it. Since then, I have replaced or upgraded my iPhone 4 times. When the app store launched in July 2008, I was blown away. It made me realize how powerful mobile and location-based computing could be. It was probably the single most game changing device that I had ever experienced. It tied together entertainment, communications, social media, music and productivity in a simple, easy-to-use and very cool-looking package.

All that said, in early July of this year, I threw away my iPhone, paid my extortion money to AT&T to cancel my account and switched to Sprint and the HTC EVO. Regardless of how cool the iPhone was and how powerful the applications are, I made the decision that the reliability of the phone was more important than the power of the applications.

At the time I switched, I was dropping about 15-20 calls per day. Generally speaking, about every call over 3 minutes would be dropped at some point in the conversation. There was no rhyme or reason to when a call would be dropped. There was no pattern, no dead patch, no spotty reception. One minute you were there, the next minute you were gone. It was driving me insane and I eventually got to the point where I couldn’t take it anymore.

What I found when I switched was that I really did not give up as much as I thought I would. Although the Android market didn’t have near as many applications as the iPhone, it had many of the same applications and everything that I consistently use. Some of the native apps (like Google Maps) were actually much better than the apps on the iPhone. Best of all, the phone worked, everywhere and all the time. This may sound absurd to say in 2010, but having a phone that you can rely to simply work as promised changed my life.

Don’t get me wrong, the EVO isn’t perfect. There are a lot of shortcomings that I would love to see fixed in the future, but overall I am very happy with my decision to switch. Here is a quick list of pros and cons I have expected with the device.

PROS

• Phone: Phone works great. I have had the EVO for over three weeks and have not dropped one call. There are a few “dead” spots that I have noticed in San Francisco and Oakland, but I assume that is expected with any service.
• Apps: The Android Market has far more apps than I expected. There isn’t anything that I am “missing” from the iphone.
• Mapping: The mapping software and turn-by-turn navigation was seamless, fast and accurate.
• Social Integration: Integration with my Google, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr account, etc. worked right out of the box integrates with your address book, mail and SMS features.
• Camera: The 8 mega-pixel camera and flash takes incredible pictures.
• Sprint HotSpot (i.e. Tethering): By a simple click of a button (and an extra $29.95 per month), you can turn your mobile phone into a sprint mobile hotspot and share internet service to your Mac, PC or other device.

CONS

• Battery Life: The battery life of the EVO is horrible. The first time I traveled with the device, it fully discharged in about 3 hours. Since then, I purchased a portable charger and reconfigured it to use less power.
• Usability: After using as iPhone for so many years, I found the interface clunky and unintuitive. It took me a few weeks to feel “at home” with the device.
• Size: The EVO is big. A co-worker of mine calls it the Hummer of smart phones. It doesn’t bother me, but it may be too big for some of you.
• Typing: Typing without a physical keyboard is still frustrating. I find myself making many mistakes on the the any virtual keyboard, but the autocorrect on the iPhone worked pretty well. The autocorrect on the EVO doesn’t work near as well.
• 4G: I am not really sure what this means, as I have never been able to access 4G. I am starting to think it’s like turning your stereo to 11. It doesn’t really exist, but it sounds very powerful.

Daniel Stein is Founder & CEO of the digital advertising & branding agency Evolution Bureau

Select Game Publisher iPhone Stats

Sorry about the eye-chart, simply click on the image above to see a bigger version.

I compiled this little spreadsheet for kicks (and 'cause I haven't looked at the AppStore in awhile) based on iTunes data for all the major games publishers I could remember on a random Wednesday morning (let me know who I'm missing). These stats are for iPhone and iPod touch games only, not iPad and are for the US version of the store. BTW, I've heard a lot of folks whine that Apple will occasionally, indiscriminately erase Customer Ratings during version upgrades... making these numbers a poor indicator of App performance. OK, I'm not sure if that's true (and shame on Apple if it is), but if you believe it you can take those numbers with an appropriate grain of salt. That said, here are my initial observations based on this data:

• British publisher Chillingo (including its Clickgamer subsidiary) is a friggin' powerhouse!... with a plethora of titles and more than a couple superstars, they might well be generating more topline revenue than any other games publisher on this platform, right?
• Digital Chocolate has a large number of titles, but almost 50% are free and it doesn't look like their top paid title is a superstar
• The recently combined entity of ngmoco/Freeverse is a major player
• I bet Lima Sky is the most profitable iPhone games publisher... Tapulous & Ludia would be contenders but their 3rd party licensing costs have gotta be substantial
• At first blush, Disney's recent Tapulous buy looks pretty genius (Tap Tap is a juggernaut), but their success isn't exactly a fresh story and they do have some of the traits of a one (or two) hit wonder... we'll have to see
• The distinction between paid and free apps will become less meaningful as freemium products, featuring in-app purchases, become more the norm on the platform... but for now most free apps are simply barkers for their paid compadres
• Happy to see that I-play (which has been dead quiet in the press lately) is making a pretty decent go of it relative to some of its mid-tier, old-timer peers and that my favorite film-based license (Fast & Furious) is still their trophy title
• Firemint is awesome, but it's definitely time for their next big thing

Let me know what you all think.

Consumer Reports Can't Recommend iPhone 4... Without Duct Tape

Mobile Content Developers' Platform Proclivities

See entire SAI article.

Drones & Clones Gotta Jones For Them iPhones

Is Insurrection The Future of Mobile Gaming?

Mark Cuban just sent an enthusiastic tweet about Paranoid Games' location based iPhone title Insurrection, that's releasing on the App Store July 4th (check out the backstory video). I have to agree this looks pretty interesting, particularly in light of rapid smartphone consumer adoption of services like Foursquare and Gowalla... which are inherently much less fun.

However, this is hardly an original idea. 10 years ago a Swedish company called It's Alive! created and deployed a location based game called BotFighters in several European countries, that used WAP & SMS. As has been typical in this space, the It's Alive! guys were way, way ahead of their time and their company, which eventually (ironically?) merged into another called Daydream, was soon gone but not entirely forgotten.

I think Paranoid Games has the timing right, so now it comes down to execution and marketing. I wish them luck.

The Good The Bad & The Ugly In The Mobile Content Ecosystem May 2010

This segment, which covers my current perception of the state of select companies and business sectors in mobile entertainment, will be a recurring feature on Cabana Mobile. You'll notice dynamism in terms of the companies covered and where they fall within these categories, over time, as my inputs change. Let me know if you agree or disagree with my opinion... and tell me what other companies/categories you'd like to see on this list.

THE GOOD

• DeNA - Japanese powerhouse, fueled by the uber-successful Mobage-town social mobile games portal, has over $500mil in annual revenue, $125mil in profits and over $350mil in cash. These guys could roll-up several major western games publishers in a heartbeat if they were so inclined.
• Gameloft - the French publisher, always a high quality player, has been on its iPhone game from the start and now derives a full 21% of their revenues come from the AppStore... which is (for better or worse) the only game in town in terms of paid mobile content. Gameloft is proof that you can turn a super-tanker in rough seas.
• GAMEVIL - South Korean game publisher has 2 things going for it... great capabilities with micropayment model games in its home market and a focus on high-quality builds that are conducive to smartphones. These guys regularly deliver solid profits and have a market cap that must make many of their bigger competitors very envious.
• Millennial Media - It's no secret that I've always had a healthy level of skepticism about the value of the mobile ad networks. That said, there ain't no denying that the biggest, and one of the best managed, of the independents is in a super-sweet spot in light of Google's $750mil acquisition of AdMob and Apple's $275mil acquisition of much smaller Quattro. Rumors have been swirling for months that Microsoft is in the hunt.
• Firemint - smart, lean Australian games developer, turned iPhone publisher, is one of my favorite content success stories of the smartphone revolution. Flight Control and Real Racing have been true phenomena on both the iPhone & iPad. The big question is, of course... what's next?

THE BAD

• Glu Mobile - this quality mobile games publisher, that I once called the "barometer of the health of the mobile entertainment space", has been struggling to evolve from a carrier-focused, licensed IP based company, into a smartphone savvy developer of original game franchises. They're currently going through a painful right-sizing process and experiencing declining quarter over quarter revenues. Cash is a severe pain point and their market cap (under $40mil) is currently 11% of rival Gameloft's.
• Carrier Decks - remember way back when (2years ago) when Get It Now! and MEdia Mall (and their ilk) used to be like WalMart and Target for mobile content? Well unfortunately the smartphone revolution and Apple's retail smarts have shifted that paradigm... big time. Publishers now routinely report alarming declines in their carrier-based revenue. I doubt the tide will turn back, unless operators focus their efforts on curating and facilitating billing for paid Android apps... 'cause that's a growing mess they're in a position to fix.
• Motricity - back in January this veteran, Bellvue, WA based, carrier content platform management company made its intentions known to the SEC that it wanted to go public. Lots of folks in the industry were shocked by the timing, considering the the general state of the IPO market, current conditions in the carrier deck business, the very substantial losses Motricity has racked up over the last few years and the fact that 74% of its revenues come from 2 companies.

THE UGLY

• GetFugu - when your stock price is under a penny, you have to take a bridge loan for $170k & after 6 months your one app has only 333 mostly poor ratings in the AppStore, that's kinda ugly. Even the micro-cap day trader crowd is way over it. It's hard to believe that this company will survive the summer.
• NeuMedia (f/k/a Mandalay Media) - the owner of Twistbox & AMV has always had an identity crisis; is it an adult entertainment or a games company? Recent exec & board defections and a cash-balance triggered notice of default indicate to me that they may not have to struggle with this issue too much longer.
• Off-Deck Mobile Portals - before the smartphone revolution this was a red hot space, with power-players like Thumbplay, Flycell & Jamba/Jamster vending recurring ringtone & graphics subscriptions, to under-supervised kids. After paying $120 bucks over a year for those 3 Young Jeezy tones and a blingy pot leaf screensaver, most suckers (or their parents) got a clue.

THE QUESTION MARKS

• Zed - the Spanish personalization giant has been like The Borg for the last couple of years, sucking up companies left & right, and diversifying into myriad content plays... including TV production. Though privately held, they used to brag about being the biggest mobile content company in the world, claiming revenues over $800mil!... but I haven't heard a lot of bragging recently.
• Buongiorno - this Italian mobile personalization & services goliath still has revenues in the $300mil range, but their revenue has been on a downward trajectory as the company's content offerings get a little long on the tooth and it tries to figure out how to be relevant in a smartphone world.
• Index - this longtime Japanese content powerhouse, whose mobile group is perennially in my Top 5 by revenue, seems to be faltering a bit. Their one time bid to be a global player, by virtue of a North American & European buying spree, flamed out and now they're fighting to stay relevant in a home market where the iPhone and Android are gaining traction.
• Android Paid Apps - as I alluded to earlier, this is a mess. Considering how quickly Android handsets (and soon to be tablets) are proliferating across carriers, this should be a huge opportunity. However, Google's disinterest in managing their store & consumer resistance to setting up Google Checkout accounts, have really stifled Android's paid app potential. I think it'll be up to the carriers to fix this problem.
• Ovi - Considering Nokia's 2.7% marketshare in the US this won't be a factor here for a long time. In the rest of the world there's more hope, especially considering some recently promising download numbers, and the appointment of industry vet Bryan Biniak (a guy who I know understands content) to run Ovi Publish. Frankly I'm more bullish on Ovi now than anytime in the last year.
• Augmented Reality - Boy, I was really excited about this space for awhile, particularly apps like Layar... but I'm definitely not feelin' it right now. AR still seems more like a novelty than a necessity.

Gameloft Q1 2010 Revenues | iPhone 21%

Gameloft announced Q1 2010 revenues earlier today, here are some highlights:

• €33mil ($43.59mil) in revenue
• 7% increase from Q1 2009
• 21% of revenue came from the iTunes AppStore... basically flat with the 22% in Q4 2009
• Revenue from North America is growing relative to Europe
• Company believes Smartphone releases & the iPad will facilitate continued growth in 2010

Poll Results: Sexiest Upcoming Handset

Mossberg Talks About The Rise of the Super-Smartphone

Nokia Rev & Net Chart | Key Challenges

€mils

Here are some key challenges that came out of Nokia's Q1 2010 earnings report today:

• Although Apple only sells 40% as many smartphones as Nokia, their sales grew much faster in Q1 (131%) compared with Nokia's (50%)
• CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo: "We continue to face tough competition with respect to the high end of our mobile device portfolio, as well as challenging market conditions on the infrastructure side."
• According to mocoNews Nokia's content service revenues declined 12% compared with Q1 2009
• NAVTEQ sales were up 41% compared with Q1 2009, but down 16% compared with Q4 2009
• US market share has dropped to a paltry 2.7%
• The first Symbian^3 device has been delayed until Q3 2010
• Nokia expects revenues in Q2 2010 to be between €6.7bil & €7.2bil, which is either a 28% or 22% decline from Q2 2009
• Nokia (NOK) stock was down more than 15% in early trading today

Apple & The Balkanization of Content

Andrew Seybold wrote a great piece on FierceMobileContent this morning bemoaning how Apple has taken us back to the future by creating their own version of the walled garden from the bad ol' days (not that long ago) when the only way to get content for mobile devices was through a carrier deck. The smartphone revolution was supposed to liberate us all from those proprietary, AOL-esque environments, and give us access to a universe of content available across devices... right? Well Apple apparently didn't get that memo and/or think that was a good idea, at all... and instead took the opportunity to Think Different.

The crux of the matter, and content owners and creators need to understand this, is that (big headline) Apple is not in the content business... at least not the way most folks think they are. As I'm very fond of saying (eyes roll collectively) Apple is in the reverse razorblade business. Despite having a huge ecosystem of 185k Apps, thousands of movies & TV shows and millions of songs, they run iTunes, as Peter Kafka recently pointed out, as a pretty much a break even business. Content is a means to an end for Apple. Their interest is in creating a hyper-competitive market featuring proprietary, low-priced Apps and other entertainment content, that makes consumers excited about buying every form-factor of their high margin devices... and upgrading them regularly. You know all your friends who are crazy-passionate about Apple products? They've bought into this hook, line and sinker and now that they've spent a significant chunk of their disposable income on music, movies and Apps for their iPhones and iPads, (guess what?) they're never gonna switch to an Android device or a BlackBerry... but in the next year they'll probably spend what's left in their wallets on a new a sexy new razor to show off all those blades.

Content owners and creators who are hoping Apple will winnow the field of Apps or move prices higher in the market, so they may realize better margins, are deluding themselves. The model is all about you fighting for your very life, against hundreds of others, so Apple customers get the best content at the lowest price (why not free). They definitely don't want any one provider getting too much pricing power within their ecosystem. Oh yeah, and remember you're playing in Apple's sandbox... so that tech innovation leveraging their platform, that's giving you some competitive advantage... Apple might just decide one day to roll that out to tout le monde.

For some small companies this highly manipulated, low-price, high-volume market provides a real opportunity. Moreover, the sheer scale of it, the shopping experience and the elegant billing mechanism makes it an important place to play for all content providers. But iTunes is a very dangerous market in which to place all your bets. In terms of closed markets, content owners should ultimately be favoring those in which the owner's interests are more closely aligned with their own. More importantly, if we hope to see a healthier mobile content ecosystem, content owners and creators need to support, and advocate for, more open standards and markets.

Latest iPhone Games Analysis Courtesy of HandyGames

Wow, Digital Chocolate continues to be really active in the iTunes App Store... but I must say that they don't seem to be getting a particularly good ROI on their volume of titles. It would be interesting to hear some updated numbers from them... Trip and crew have been uncharacteristically quiet recently.

btw - You can see Parts 1 & 2 of this analysis, from September 2009, here.

10 Takeaways From Mobile Games Earnings Season

1. iPhone performance is the success driver at the moment
2. Android, Ovi, WinMo & BlackBerry are still super-tiny businesses
3. The carrier-based feature phone gaming business is declining much more rapidly than anyone had anticipated
4. Publishers are scrambling to add social networking features to their games
5. It's inadvisable to go through a protracted CEO search/transition during a paradigm shift in your industry
6. No one talks about their China strategy anymore
7. Zynga and Playfish envy is pervasive... everyone wants a piece of the Facebook game app action
8. Margins are still razor thin to non-existent
9. There's a lot of exuberance around new revenue streams from iPad games
10. Overall, the mobile games business is flat

Feel free to add your own in the comments...

Mophie Helps Japanese iPhones Get Their Shop On

Michigan based iPhone and iPod accessory maker Mophie is on the verge of solving one of the biggest complaints in the Japanese market about the iPhone, according to a story on Electonista. Over 60mil Japanese handsets support Sony's RFID-based, stored-value, mobile payment standard known as FeliCa, which allows consumers from Sapporo to Nagasaki to buy train tickets and iced-coffees with the waive of a handset over a ubiquitous smart terminal. The iPhone, which after some early disappointment is now the top-selling smartphone in the market, doesn't support this feature and it doesn't look like Apple has any plans to put the Sony chip under its hood anytime soon. But never fear, it looks like Mophie has solved the problem by embedding the chip in an "intelligent case" that works in conjunction with a downloadable App... cool workaround! According to the story the product will be in the market by Spring.

I have two takeaways from this story. 1) I continue to be jealous/frustrated that the US is lagging so far behind Japan (amongst others) in the practical implementation of mobile payments specifically and RFID/NFC based payment systems in general. Though I'll hand it to MasterCard for giving it a go with PayPass; and 2) it woke me up to some bitchin' things Mophie's doing with intelligent cases, including a FLO TV enabling product called the Juice Pack and a credit card reader called Marketplace.