Instagram Combines Snapchat and Periscope for Live Video
The best artists steal. The best iPhone app developers adopt the most popular features around them. Instagram is proving this to be a profitable tactic, as the company has managed to “steal” features like stories and disappearing video from Snapchat without even the whiff of bad feelings from users or other tech companies. Now they’re […]
Mobile Forecast: the Next 4 years in Medical App Development
Mobile tech revolutionized transportation, finances, and communication. In the short span of five years, mobile apps have gone from a novelty to a primary life tool for the majority of Americans. So why haven’t medical app developers been able to revolutionize the medical industry — and when can we expect it to happen? While studies […]
What “Anti-Smartphone” Products Have To Teach Developers
App fatigue is an epidemic, and smartphone users feel more overwhelmed by technology than every before. The proof is in the market — and KickStarter has demonstrated widespread public interest in a series of unique “anti-smartphone” products that strip down the phone until it’s basically a flip phone in a smartphone shape. Case in point: the […]
How a French Startup Is Re-making Privacy-first Ai Tech
When techies think of artificial intelligence, they usually think of big venture capital projects in the US and app developers in London. But there’s another player on the AI field, and it’s actually bigger than you might think. There are about 180 AI startups in France, mostly in Paris, and a thriving scene that’s unfortunately […]
What Happens to Workers in an AI Economy?
If you were in Pittsburgh in the past couple months, you might have spotted one of Uber’s self-driving cars — or even had one stop to give you a ride. The opt-in program, conducted under the careful watch of trained real-person driving assistants, was for many NYC app developers a glimpse of the future. Futurologists […]
Instagram Introduces In-App Shopping for Brands
If Twitter is the poster child of angry users and poor monetization attempts, Instagram is the opposite — a massive mobile app startup that’s somehow perfectly balanced monetization and user experience. That balance in on display currently as the company just launched “shoppable tags,” which allow select brands to display purchase information embedded within tags […]
Want to Get into Y Combinator? Check out This Data.
Jared Friedman of Y Combinator has shared a fascinating talk that looks at formerly closed data from Y Combinator companies and applications throughout the program’s history, uncovering some fascinating trends in tech funding and cultural interests. For Los Angeles app developers, the presentation is a gold mine of inspiration and “food for thought” about how […]
How and Why to Create User Personas for your App
User personas are one of the most mysterious parts of the app user experience (UX) design process for non-designers. They’re also one of the most important parts of app development, and apps that reference user personas throughout all stages from idea to launch are much more likely to succeed. Stereotypes are never a good thing. […]
How Peter Thiel’s Political Stance Affects Startups
Ellen Pao of Project Include took to Medium this week to explain why they were breaking off ties with prominent startup accelerator Y Combinator. The reason, in short: Peter Thiel’s increasingly unpredictable endorsements and behavior. While Thiel has drawn criticism from the tech community before thanks to his support of floating cities, morality-bending age extension […]
Dogtown Media Tackles Tech Education with Jikei University
In a continuation of Dogtown Media’s commitment to tech education, CEO Marc Fischer accepted an invitation last week to speak with visiting students from Tokyo’s Jikei University. During the talk, Fischer touched on the startup industry, the many ways that tech is re-shaping the international world, and how it has enabled students of this generation […]