Facebook Messenger Launches In-App Games to Take on Apple
It sometimes seems like Facebook gets a cut of virtually every market these days, from media to communication. One market they’ve had trouble breaking into, however, is the mobile gaming industry — particularly ironic, for anybody that’s tired of getting Farmville requests from vague acquaintances. With the launch of “Instant Games” within the Messenger app, the […]
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 […]
App Developer Challenges: Writing Helpful Bot Dialogue
The chatbot trend has been burning for a while now, and one of the biggest challenges facing app developers who jump into the fray isn’t entirely a question or programming. Instead, it’s a question of writing. Dialogue isn’t simple, and the trope of the anti-social hoodie-and-flip-flops San Francisco app developer doesn’t exactly lend itself to […]
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 […]
What Would Happen If Capital Hill Ran the US Like a Startup?
Government is often slow and difficult to understand. Tech moves quickly and is relatively simple to comprehend. Most importantly, consumers tend to get the feeling that tech products put the user first, while government “products” could care less. Because of this difference, mobile app developers are often fond of the idea that the US should […]
The NYPD Just Got Smartphones: Not the Brand You’d Expect
The Windows Phone accounts for less than 1% of the US smartphone market. That might seem like a death sentence for app developers on the platform, but it has a ring of opportunity for an unexpected group: namely, the New York Police Department. The department has been working directly with app developers in NYC to […]
How to Make Mobile Payments Work: Imitate Credit Cards
A new study from Points might point to the biggest barrier holding back mainstream use of mobile payment options like Android Pay and Apple Pay: and that barrier is rewards. Credit cards often wind up costing the average consumer money, but they still flock to them in droves: and it’s not just because they let […]
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 […]
What’s better for developer productivity: music or silence?
The question of what music is best for triggering app developer productivity — if any at all — is a debate that has raged on since, if not the dawn of time, at least the introduction of the iPhone. Every developer is likely to have their own answer, but there are a few trends that […]
Facebook Launches “Lite” Messenger Version For Old Devices
Designing for a cross-platform world can be difficult for startup app developers, especially when you consider the severe limitations of “legacy” devices compared to the incredible computing power, memory and storage capacity of the smartphones now considered standard by the US public. Facebook recently launched a standalone app for messenger users on older devices, showing […]