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Tuesday, January 27, 2015
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Amazon is testing a new service that could help it and its publishing partners drive more traffic (and, importantly, purchases) from customers on mobile devices. The pilot software is called ‘Mobile Popover’, and it is a mobile-only rival to top affiliate services Skimlinks and VigLink.
The service detects text links on a webpage to automatically surface an image-centric link — which includes details of price, description, ratings and shipping information — and tempt readers into purchasing the item. Clicking the banner takes a user to the mobile web version of Amazon’s store, from there they can open the page in the Amazon app if they have it installed on their device.
In the event that an item is purchased, the publisher is rewarded with a cut of the purchase. We don’t yet have details of the commission percentage for Mobile Popover, although it is likely to be in line with Amazon’s existing affiliate program, which pays out between one and 10 percent of each purchase depending on the type of item bought.
The integration itself is a simple Javascript additional that works for all pages. Amazon is trialling Mobile Popover with a limited group of initial partners at this point, but it looks like other partners can get involved via this link.
Mobile is a huge opportunity for online retailers, particularly when you look at Alibaba and businesses in China which did over 60 percent of their business from mobile devices on China’s largest e-commerce day.
For its part, Amazon recently revealed that “approaching” 60 percent of its Christmas 2014 holiday transactions came from mobile, but it is yet to fully transition its hugely successful business to small screens.
Indeed, last week it pulled its consumer-facing wallet app after less than a year in the market. A spokesperson told us that Amazon had “learned a great deal” from the project, but it’s fair to say it hadn’t gone as well as the company will have hoped.
Skimlinks and Viglink had a run-in with Amazon in Europe last August, when the U.S. giant stopped paying out affiliate money made from auto-tagging from webpages. Amazon’s own affiliate program includes text links, mobile banners, responsive banners and widgets — there’s also an option to integrate with third-party blogging platforms.
London-based Skimlinks was founded in 2006 and has raised over $9 million in funding to date. A newer entry to the market, four-year-old VigLink is based in San Francesco. It has raised over $27 million, including an $18 million Series C led by RRE Ventures that closed last summer.
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Monday, January 26, 2015
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Tech education startup Galvanize is bolstering its efforts to get people into tech with the launch of the Galvanize Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization that will fund scholarships to code schools and other programs that promote diversity in the tech industry.
While Galvanize proper offers boot camps and a Master’s program in San Francisco and locations in Colorado, Galvanize co-founder Lawrence Mandes says the new nonprofit arm will not just be about getting more people into its for-profit classes.
“This is about funding the pipelines that can get people into tech after or instead of traditional education programs,” Mandes told me on the phone today. He sees the foundation and the things that it plans to support as near-term compliments to programs that get computer science education into K-12 schools. “We’ll see the effects of those efforts in seven to eight years, but you can measure our effectiveness in months.”
That’s because it’ll be funding months-long programs that claim to have job-placement rates above 95 percent, as well as programs from organizations like Girls Who Code, which bring women and other under-represented minorities to coding events in order to bring some much-needed diversity to the field.
In the past, Galvanize has offered scholarships in the range of $5,000 to those interested in going through its programs, with a few rare cases where amounts went as high as $25,000 thanks to support from other organizations. With the Galvanize Foundation, Mandes says that early commitments from companies and startup founders in the tech community in the six-figure range should allow more scholarships in the $20,000 to 25,000 range.
At that amount, the foundation can start looking beyond covering (or partially covering) tuition and start addressing the cost of living for those who would like to participate in code schools. That’s key to opening up such programs to those with lower incomes: their current addressable market only allows for people who can not only afford the classes, but also take several months off from work. Helping to cover things like food and rent with scholarships opens the door for thousands of more people to be able to even consider picking up coding via one of the many code boot camps now available.
Microsoft had a heck of week last week, didn’t it? It actually felt like it got its groove back with HoloLens, its holographic virtual reality glasses, which I have to say looked way cool. It also got our attention with the Windows 10 mobile strategy, and it showed off the desktop version of Cortana, something Siri can’t do.
In spite of its good, dare I say, great week, I have to wonder if Microsoft can make any headway in mobile. As of now, its tablet and phone marketshare numbers are simply abysmal. Microsoft is so far back in the marketshare pack, it’s going to take a huge leap to move the needle enough to matter.
That’s not to say that the company doesn’t have a mobile strategy. Satya Nadella has gotten well-deserved credit for refocusing the company, and creating a much more positive image. A united screen across mobile and desktop with Windows 10 could be attractive to consumers and developers alike, both of which have yet to warm to Windows mobile. But will it be enough to lift Microsoft from its current marketshare doldrums?
Microsoft bought Nokia last year in an effort to take control of the Windows mobile platform, and is finally creating a single-platform view across mobile and desktop. That’s great, as far as it goes, but people still aren’t buying Windows phones or even enough Surface tablets –and unless that turns around, it is going to have a very difficult go of it.
Let’s Look At The Mobile Phone Numbers
The company is betting that Windows 10 is going to be its mobile salvation and finally drive people to buy these devices, but we’ve heard that before and it hasn’t happened.
In fact, the company’s global marketshare for mobile devices is falling.
Consider looking at Kantar WordPanel mobile marketshare statistics. It’s a great resource, but it won’t make Microsoft or Windows fans happy. As of November, Windows’ phone marketshare in the US was sitting at a measly 3 percent. That’s after years of pushing the platform, and getting great product placement in movies movies and TV shows. What’s more, the number is actually down from 5 percent at the beginning of 2014.
I can hear fans of the platform sputtering: “But what about Europe?” What about it? Consider these November Kantar numbers:
England was sitting at just 7 percent, down from a high of 12 percent in August, 2013.
France? It had 9.8 percent, down from a high of 12.5 percent in October, 2013.
Even Italy, a Microsoft stronghold, was 12.7 percent, down from a high of 17.1 percent in December, 2013.
The trend is down all around and it doesn’t bode well for the company’s mobile initiatives. I know Microsoft will argue that once Windows 10 hits the streets and people see how well it integrates across mobile and desktop, this is all going to change, but it’s hard to see these numbers turning around enough to make a significant difference. You could in fact, argue that at this point, the market has hardened and Microsoft is going to have a tough time pushing through iOS/Android supremacy.
In case you’re wondering in today’s quarterly earnings report, Microsoft reported selling 10.5M Lumias. That’s up from 9.3M last quarter, and while up is better than down, it’s an incremental increase at best.
Surface Pro 3 To The Rescue?
Surface Pro 3 with blue keyboardPutting Windows Phone aside, we’re left with the Surface Pro 3, a tablet-laptop hybrid that Microsoft loves to point to as a big win, and it’s done well, no doubt. By most reports, it can and should feel good about it. Yet in spite of impressive 67 percent growth in 2014, the company marketshare remains miniscule.
The Surface generated a healthy $1.1B in revenue in today’s report, up from $908M the previous quarter, but it still has miles to go before it catches iPad in second place, never mind Android in first.
That’s why Microsoft’s Windows 10 show was so important to the company. It gave them another opportunity to get sustained attention and it didn’t waste it. In fact, Microsoft actually wowed us a little bit, but don’t be fooled by a few minutes of HoloLens. As cool as it was, it’s never going to generate the kind of lift iPhone gives Apple or Android has given Google and by extension Samsung.
Don’t get me wrong, I was dazzled by HoloLens too. I get it, but I also understand that to truly compete in the next decade it’s going to take more than a holographic face computer.
The Harsh Mobile Reality
Microsoft HoloLens user interacting with a holographic globe.Microsoft appears to have done what it needed to do, perhaps something it should have done long ago. It created a single view from phone to tablet to desktop. Unifying the operating system was an important step, but it’s going to take some monstrous gains in mobile marketshare, especially for phones, for it to matter.
The reality is if it can’t attain significant marketshare, it can’t attract developers. It’s really not going to matter how easy it is to develop across desktop and mobile if the developer class isn’t paying attention. It’s also important to remember that the Windows 10 story is going to appeal to companies more than consumers, and the phone choice today for the most part is in the hands of consumers. Most companies aren’t buying employees phones anymore, and most consumers aren’t paying attention to Windows phones.
That means it would take a consumer sea change to make significant gains, and that doesn’t seem likely in its current market state, no matter how well integrated Windows 10 is across devices.
Apple will allow the Chinese government to perform security inspections on its products to quell concerns that they are used for surveillance of Chinese citizens, according to reports.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has allegedly conceded to requests from China's State Internet Information Office to perform tests on iPhones, iPads and Mac computers so that they can continue being sold in the country, The Telegraph reported.
Cook reportedly had a meeting with Lu Wei, the department's director, according to the Beijing News. Roughly translated, Cook is said to have told Wei that, although there were rumors to the contrary, Apple has never had any security backdoors or provided customer data to third parties.
Wei reportedly responded that Apple's products would have to pass security audits performed by Chinese officers in order to ensure they were OK for customer use.
China is one of the biggest markets for Apple products, but its government has a history of distrust for the Cupertino-based company. In fact, China has thrown out allegations at more than just Apple, such as IBM and Cisco.
In September of last year, shortly after the new iPhones were announced, Apple reassured the Chinese government that the devices do not have security backdoors that could be used by U.S. organizations to collect Chinese data.
A state-run television program in China accused Apple last summer of tracking people's locations in China through the "frequent locations" feature on the phone. The report said that "those with access to that data could gain knowledge of China's economic situation or 'even state secrets.'"
Apple, of course, quickly rebuffed the allegations, saying that Frequent Locations are encrypted and not backed up on any sort of virtual cloud. Plus, the feature can be turned off.
"Apple has never worked with any government agency from any country to create a backdoor in any of our products or services," reads a July statement. "We have also never allowed access to our servers. And we never will. It’s something we feel very strongly about."
China has had its share of finger-pointing, too. In May of last year, the U.S. Justice Department indicted five members of the Chinese military for allegedly hacking American businesses. It was the first time that the department had charged a foreign government for cybercrimes.
The new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus went on sale in China in mid-October. Apple did not reply to Mashable's request for comment.
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Microsoft has confirmed that both tablets running Windows RT (the long-failing Windows version specifically designed for tablets) will not be getting a full Windows 10 update.
Surface RT and Surface 2 users won't be able to upgrade the devices to the latest version of Microsoft's software, a company spokesperson told Mashable.
In addition to software woes, Windows RT tablets have suffered from poor branding and a shortage of apps. Plus, there are obvious alternatives for people looking for a Microsoft tablet that doesn't run RT.
But Windows RT will live on in the Surface RT — which lost Microsoft at least $900 million — and Surface 2 tablets, with only some of Windows 10's features, a spokesperson said.
"Surface Pro 3 (and the entire Surface Pro lineup) will update to Windows 10. We are working on an update for Surface [Windows RT], which will have some of the functionality of Windows 10. More information to come."
That's a maddeningly vague description, but it does confirm that people with the RT tablets are being left out of Windows 10. Much of Microsoft's event on Wednesday highlighted the cross-platform functionality of Windows 10, which is supposed to have a unity between desktop and mobile.
There's a precedent for this sort of move: Back in 2012, when Microsoft unveiled Windows Phone 8, it revealed that Windows Phone 7 and 7.5 devices would not get to upgrade. Instead, they would get a different, Windows 7-specific update.
This is probably a sign that Microsoft wants people to move away from Windows RT and fully embrace the arrival of Windows 10. It's becoming increasingly clear that there may be no future for Windows RT beyond the Surface 2. The Surface 2 tablet, for example, is out of stock on Microsoft's online store.
Microsoft declined to comment about the out-of-stock Surface 2 tables and the future of Windows RT.
BONUS: Hands on with the Windows 10 consumer preview
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WhatsApp is going after unauthorized third-party apps that are designed to work with the popular messaging system.
Users sometimes access third-party clients that offer add-ons for more customization inside of WhatsApp. Now the Facebook-owned service has issued at least one cease-and-desist order to an Android app called WhatsApp+.
On Google+, a WhatsApp+ spokesman announced that the third-party app was shutting down after warnings from WhatsApp.
"Due to the circumstances that arose, and the fact that WhatsApp Inc issued a cease and desist letter to WhatsApp+, the official WhatsApp+ community is shutting down for good and will be removed by the end of the day," reads the statement, which was posted on Wednesday.
So why is WhatsApp so miffed by this service? Well, for one, it claims that these third-party services can't be trusted with user information.
"WhatsApp Plus is an application that was not developed by WhatsApp, nor is it authorized by WhatsApp," reads a FAQ section on WhatsApp. "The developers of WhatsApp Plus have no relationship to WhatsApp, and we do not support WhatsApp Plus. Please be aware that WhatsApp Plus contains source code which WhatsApp cannot guarantee as safe and that your private information is potentially being passed to third parties without your knowledge or authorization."
It's a problem other services — like Snapchat — have run into before. Reports surfaced in mid-October that thousands of Snapchat photos were leaked via third-party Snapchat apps. So concerns about security risks aren't unwarranted at all.
As well as the action it's taking against third-party apps, WhatsApp is also temporarily banning people who use them. The bans usually last 24 hours, and once the countdown ends, users can use the application again. Some, of course, expressed frustration about the situation on social media.
WhatsApp confirmed to TechCrunch and others that it was indeed planning to take "aggressive action" against these kinds of unauthorized apps.
Third parties that have built unauthorized functionality on top of WhatsApp create issues for people including lost messages. This goes against the experience we work hard to give people and we won’t let it continue. Starting today, we are taking aggressive action against unauthorized apps and alerting the people who use them.
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Is Windows 10 lovable? With the venerable operating system still in previews, it's too early to say, though we now know that's Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's goal: "We want to make people love Windows on a daily basis."
In my brief hands-on experience with what's being commonly referred to as the "Consumer Build," Windows 10 is inching in that direction. Let's say that if it's not quite lovable, Windows 10 is more than ever like the helpful and smart friend you’re usually glad to see.
Most people will tell you that Windows 10 was upstaged at its own event by the HoloLens augmented reality headset. That's not entirely true. HoloLens is, after all, a Windows 10 device HoloLens is, after all, a Windows 10 device. In fact, for all the changes Microsoft unveiled today the biggest one may have been the sharpening focus on Windows 10 everywhere, in every device, without always feeling just like Windows.
So while I'll focus here primarily on PC-based changes, we will take a couple of detours into other hardware platforms that will soon gain the benefit of a Windows 10 bloodline.
Cortana
As expected, Cortana, Microsoft's voice assistant and Apple Siri competitor is now a part of the OS. It's actually what Microsoft is calling a Universal or Converged App, looking and working almost exactly the same across desktops, laptops, tablets and phones.
I tried it out on a handful of Windows 10 laptops. First of all, Cortana is resident in the taskbar next to the Start button (more on that in a bit). It's a type field with a microphone icon in it. For now, there's no way to turn off this field over even stop Cortana from listening. It's not listening to everything, but if you say "Hey Cortana," it wakes up and is ready respond.
Even in the challenging environment of a demo room with at least a dozen other journalists also speaking to Windows 10 laptops, Cortana heard me when I said, "Hey Cortana, show me that spreadsheet."
As soon as I said "Hey Cortana," the Cortana window expanded up into a tall white box (the opposite of her black-background look on Windows Phone) and I could see it interpreting my spoken query in real time. Within a second or two Cortana showed me a folder full of spreadsheet files. I then asked Cortana about the weather. Again, Cortana understood and returned a visual forecast.
There were a couple of times where Cortana did not get the whole or even part of the question. Microsoft told me that laptop microphones are not usually as good as those found in smartphones. However, the cloud-based Cortana system is always learning and all the information Cortana will soon get from both the mobile and desktop platforms should help it perform even better, even when Cortana doesn't get the whole query — in other words, Cortana will have enough information to perhaps intuit the rest of your question.
And if Cortana doesn't hear you at your desk, that shouldn't be a big problem. Microsoft believes that, on the desktop, most people will probably still type in their Cortana queries.
I noticed a couple of other things about Cortana. When I scrolled through the information Cortana presented, it began to resemble Google Now, with news, weather, and all the bits of info that might be relevant to you right now. Also, thanks to that cloud back-end, your Cortana queries on your mobile device are stored in a synced, cloud-based "Notebook." Your Cortana searches on Windows Phone 10 are also available through Cortana on your Windows 10 desktop.
Start and action
Microsoft continues to refine the Start Menu in this latest Windows 10 build. The most noticeable change for me is the new expand button that resides in the upper right corner of the menu system, next to a now more easily accessible power button. A tap on it expands the menu to the entire screen, which makes it almost just like the Windows Design desktop of old.
Right now on my Windows 8.1 Surface Pro 3, a swipe from the edge of the right side of my screen brings in the vertical Charms list bar. In Windows 10, you get the robust Action Center. It was easy enough to make it appear with a swipe — a tap anywhere else on the screen made it disappear.
Action Center is full of system, email and social notifications (essentially notifications for any app you have installed on your PC). The bottom of the Action Center is reserved for quick actions like airplane mode, Wi-Fi and system settings.
It looked like there was a lot of information in the Action Center, but without really knowing what was on this particular demo PC, it was hard to know how useful I'd find all that information.
In a later demo, I did get to see some of the calling and messaging integration between Windows 10 and Windows 10 phone. A Microsoft rep showed me how he could start a Skype text conversation between a Windows Phone and a Windows 10 PC (Skype is built into Windows 10). These Skype notifications can appear right in the Action Center. However, if the person at the PC has to go mobile, he can switch to sending texts through SMS text, while not breaking the thread of communication.
Continuum
With the latest Windows 10 build, Microsoft has finally introduced an easy way to switch between tablet and desktop mode. I found a Lenovo Yoga system, which converts from a laptop to a tablet (you fold keyboard all the way to the back of the screen) to try it out. I was a little disappointed that the change is not automatic, but it easy enough to enable.
The control sits in the Action Center. It's a little square icon at the bottom that says Tablet Mode. You tap it and the screen subtly changes. The most noticeable difference, at least to my eye, was that the Cortana box disappeared and was replaced by a small circular Cortana logo. The screen did not, as I thought it would, switch to the Windows Design interface.
The one odd thing I noticed about this function is that, when you tap the Tablet button, it doesn't switch from saying "Tablet Mode" to "Desktop Mode" and vice versa. It just always says "Tablet Mode" and only the color change indicates if it's on or off
In either mode, it was easy enough to manage multiple windows and task-switch between apps. Windows 10 can show you them in a collection of floating live windows, making it much easier to know what you want to maximize and use. I do wish the tablet change were a bit more dramatic, but I get the sense that Continuum, like so much else here, is still a work in progress.
Spartan
Microsoft replacing Internet Explorer with something code-named Spartan is very big news, and the look we got during the keynote was exciting. However, sadly, that's all we got. Spartan was not running on any of the demo systems we saw. What we know is that it has a new engine and Cortana integration. We got no comparisons to existing browsers, not Google Chrome, not Firefox and not even Internet Explorer.
Gaming and Photos
Windows has always been a powerful gaming platform, but it's never had rich deep integration with the Xbox ecosystem. With Windows 10 all that changes. Windows 10 more or less puts the Xbox experience inside every Windows 10 device. Letting you stream games to mobile devices and allowing mobile Windows 10 users to join Xbox gameplay. The new Xbox app for Windows 10 puts a dizzying array of Xbox Live in formation on any Windows 10 system.
It is, to be honest, an incredibly busy interface with four densely-packed columns for main navigation, Recently Played, Activity Feed and Friends. For a devoted Xbox gamer, this is likely nirvana. From this one app you can see your friends’ activities and accomplishments and when they log on and off, jump right to a live Twitch stream and view your own and others recorded game play. Microsoft said Xbox Live is actually built into Windows 10.
Microsoft is also updating the Photos app across all Windows 10 platforms with a collection of features that seemed to have been borrowed equally from Apple and Google. There's now better photo management with "Collections," which was not yet ready to demo, and auto enhance, which will fix things like redeye and lighting from photos residing locally on the Windows 10 device and, eventually in the OneDrive cloud. Microsoft said that, statistically, they should be able to improve about 50% of your photos. All changes can be rolled back.
Final thoughts
I didn’t get to spend a lot of time with Windows 10 and until I can download the latest build sometime next week, I can’t quite get a coherent picture of the scope of this update. That said, Microsoft's vision for a unified, yet flexible system architecture that spans a variety of devices and activities is coming into focus.
Windows 10 has the potential to be one of Microsoft's best OS updates, if not most beloved.
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