Macgasm

Guest post by Ouriel Ohayon, co founder of Appsfire.com

Finding your way in the App store as a user and as a developer is not a easy task.

A few months ago we created Appsfire, a service to find apps via your peers (eg our VIP here), because we felt that something else was necessary to help users discover relevant apps and developers get their apps discovered in an efficient way. We all can agree that the App store is a wonderful ecosystem but that it is painful to browse and search. It is a great repository for the top 100 apps of the moment but that means that tens of thousands are not enjoying really the Apple juice.

A contest to spice up your launch

Lots of great apps need to be discovered. And what many app developers miss is the importance of marketing rightly their app before they reach the app store. This is why we created the App Star Awards, the first contest for apps that have not yet been included in iTunes.

The idea is to spotlight great apps that have not been released but that are close to. The idea is simple, submit a simple 30 sec video demo of your app (here a few tips on how to make one) and we ll pick with the help of a super prestigious jury the 3 best that we ll be showcased on stage at LeWeb conference (the largest web conference in Europe) and who will win a symbolic prize of $1500 cash + a free ad campaign (including on MacGasm a partner of this contest). Thanks to SFR/Applistore for their support in that respect

The importance of app marketing

The importance of marketing (more precisely pre-app store marketing) is under estimated. If as much effort was invested in marketing as in the development of the app, a lot more developers would be happy. The problem is that this is a not a easy thing to do. Even for top companies discovering that the marketing rules of an App store are not the same that they know on the web, because the marketing channels are so fragmented (not mentioning the fact that the App store has no marketing channel).

The App star awards is one of the vehicle Appsfire is launching to help developers getting noticed, before they even start. We have more vehicles like our iPhone widget (eg here), or iTunes link shortener getap.ps with a unique sales conversion tracking ability (used already by top apps like getap.ps/metroparis) Soon, Appsfire will release more vehicles. But we had to start somewhere. So far 160 developers have pre-registered to the awards and if you are interested in joining do so now.

Don’t be afraid to reveal your baby before the launch. This recipe works for some of the best apps and is working daily on the web. So why not for you?

Finding great apps with friends

Personally i love the iPhone and i love to see this energy growing around it. Most of the iPhone apps that i love have been suggested to me via people that i know or trust (i will save you the typical evernote/facebook/tweetie/google/….)

For example i am a big jazz fan (play the piano) and i found a version of the RealBook (the jazz bible for musician) which is perfect, iRealBook (iTunes link on getap.ps/fW). I also like a lot Mouthoff (getap.ps/MouthOff) that i discovered on YouTube. I also like AudioBoo a new service to publish voice recording easily and when i first started i really liked TheThumb to train myself on the iPhone keyboard

Now if you want to see all my apps go to myAp.ps/Ouriel

We believe one of the key element to find apps has to do with your digital/real life social graph. This is not the only one, But this is definitely an important one. Having the ability to generate buzz before and during your app launch is as important as the app itself. And there is no buzz without music: so here is our Rap Star.

See you at the App Star Awards.

This is a guest post from Ouriel Ohayon (@ourielohayon), co founder of Appsfire.com

One of my favorite features of the iTunes Store is the iMix. iTunes users can make their own playlists of music on the store, and then make them available for purchase. If you want to hear what other iTunes users listen to during the holiday season, you can browse the Christmas iMix search page.

Music isn’t the only medium that brings forth holiday cheer, though. Many people grew up watching Christmas movies on television and VHS. That is great, but this is the 21st  century. Today we can buy and rent our Christmas movies online! You can view a selection of Christmas flicks right here on iTunes.

Are you cooking meals for the holiday season? Well, you can use the iTunes store for recipes, tips, and inspiration. You can check out some of the the available iPhone and iPod Touch applications, podcasts, and audiobooks about cooking.

For more holiday tips involving your Mac, iPod, or iPhone, check out Part I, Part II, and Part III of this series of articles here at Macgasm.

Photo Credit: wolfsavard

According to Google, a wave…

…is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.

A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.

Really…what is Google Wave?

To me, Google Wave is many things.  For instance, it can be used for meetings. You can use it for team meetings or a brainstorming session or use it to throw around ideas.  Sometimes these types of sessions are relegated to email.  You know those “brainstorming” email threads, where someone brings up an idea and others chime in, before you know it, you end up with dozens of emails scattered throughout your inbox.  Who wants to go back and read them?  Not many people would.  So, in the end, you most likely end up losing some great ideas.  In addition, you end up losing the passion of the thread.  Well, imagine that same thread on Google Wave.

Someone brings up an excellent idea, and instead of emailing back and forth, your team hops on Google Wave, creates a new Wave around this excellent idea. In real-time, everyone contributes their 2 cents, and in real-time everyone else can see it. That’s right, you can see posts unfold in the Wave in real time. By the way, you can copy images into a Wave to visually get your point across.  How about a video clip or a spreadsheet?  Yes, Wave can handle that as well.

At the end of the Wave, team members can return to the Wave and replay it from any point. This would be perfect for team members that were not present.  They could catch up!

So what’s the advantage of having the aforementioned meet-up on Google Wave instead of email?  Well, it’s all there.  All your input, that is.  It is available to be shared and replayed.  It’s not scattered throughout your inbox.  You could search different points of a Wave to find any piece of information.

Is that it?  No way!  Google Wave gives you so much more.  You can video chat.  So let’s say the team leader decides he wants to have a face to face meeting.  Instead of running to a conference room, you could start a video conference right in the Wave.

Google Wave also has robots.  They are little apps with specific functions.  For instance, someone demoed the Wolfram Alpha robot.  It was amazing.  Imagine being in a meeting and you needed to know Apple’s market cap. You’d type the following:

[market cap Apple]

Boom!  The results are returned right in the Wave for everyone to see.  A valuable piece of information was just added to the meeting without the need for someone to excuse themselves while they checked a website or a mobile phone.  Everyone’s attention remains focused on the meeting.

Are you starting to see the potential of Google Wave yet?  The potential for professional users is tremendous.  But what about for personal use?  Google Wave just isn’t for meetings. You can have fun too.  Hop over to the public waves and check out what others are doing.  Join a game, share photos, video chat, interact!

There’s no doubt, for me, that Google Wave is the future.  It will become the ultimate way to communicate and collaborate.  Right now, FaceBook and Twitter are some of the top websites for social interaction.  However, I believe that Google Wave will surpass both of them.  The level of interaction is much more intimate and immediate.

Google Wave is currently in Preview mode right now.  To try it out, you’ll need to sign up for an invite.

This is a series of posts all about the features I would want in the web browser of my dreams. You can peep the overview of all of the features in Part I. Part II, Part III, and Part IV drilled down on the first six features that I want out of a web browser. In this installment, I’ll discuss sandboxed plug-ins and separate processes for each spawned tab.

Sandboxed Plug-Ins

In Safari 4 in Snow Leopard, Apple implemented plug-in sandboxing. If you’re running flash, it is its own process instead of being included under Safari’s process. If flash crashes, it won’t take down the browser. This feature is brilliant in its simplicity. I wouldn’t want to use a browser that didn’t implement this in one way or another.

Separate Processes for each Tab

This was first popularly implemented in Google’s Chrome browser, and then copied by the fledgling Stainless browser. This feature, similar to the sandboxed plug-ins, keeps one out of control tab from knocking out the rest of the browser. That is extremely useful, and I would be surprised if every browser didn’t move towards this in the near future.

I’ll wrap everything up in Part VI of this series. Hopefully then some developers will get going on the browser of my dreams!

Photo Credit: luc.viatour

We’re finding out today that Apple was originally in talks with the AdMob folks, and they were looking to purchase up the company. That’s big news in and of itself, but the implications that purchasing AdMob has on next generation Apple products is a little alarming.

I have a little theory about business practices, and I’ve been talking about it quite a bit with friends and colleagues quite a bit lately. It’s flawed, but offers up some explanations that I think might just pertain to this scenario.

We NEED more MONEY!

Businesses can only be so efficient. There’s a point that a company can no longer increase efficiency, and thereby increasing their profit margins. At some point, when maximum efficiency is reached something else has to be done to increase profits. Sometimes it’s extending a product line, or finding new markets for your products, other times it’s underhanded tactics that are aimed at screwing over customers. Pressure from shareholders, and board members has to be overwhelming at times, so there’s no wonder that some companies start trying to cut corners to maximize profits, or in the case of Apple add advertisements to an operating system we’re already paying for.

This is all speculation, and there’s no evidence to support the ideal, but we can conjure up images of AdMob ads in the menubar along side our menubar items, quite easily. It wouldn’t take much to implement it, and it would certainly be another revenue stream that could help maximize profits. For a company that prides itself on thinking different, it sure looks like Apple Inc is starting to think a little bit like Google Inc.. Consumers might be able to get on board with an advertisement based operating system, if it means that prices for operating systems, and software either disappears, or are reduced substantially. Google can offer up free software because of their ads, and it works for them, but would it would for Apple? More importantly, would Apple even adopt that model fully, or would they prefer to create a hybrid model that lets them maintain revenue streams from both ends, the consumer and the advertiser.

We’re not sure where this is heading, but we can be sure that we’re heading towards ad supported software models. Google survives on it, iPhone developers survive on it, so it’s only a matter of time until Apple Inc. tries to survive on it. If anyone can make no-obtrusive advertisements work with an operating system UI then it’s Apple Inc.

Increasing Revenue at the cost of consumers privacy

What worries me the most is the demographics that are being recorded by the operating system, should Apple decide to embed ads in their OS. Would it act like google’s advertisements currently do? Do we really want Apple scanning our hard drives for keywords that can later be used to market to the user? I’m not sure it’s the answer, and I’m certainly skeptical about what that means for my privacy. The reason is works for Google is that users have the ability to take a step away from their services if they feel that some information is too sensitive to be passed through google’s servers. If similar technology is implemented at the operating system level, we’re stuck. We’re locked in, and there’s not much we can do about it. I’m not sure that’s a future we want to be striving towards.

What would make this workable for you? Would you do it if it meant you got free operating systems from Apple, or would you avoid it altogether?

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In this episode, we talk about having A Very Macintosh Christmas

[02.2 MB] [00:06:30] [Hosted by: Josh Schnell & Grant Brunner] [Subscribe]

If you’re in the mood to check out some cheery photos, you can view Flickr’s Christmas Slideshow. This will cycle through every photo on Flickr.com that is tagged with “Christmas.”

If you want some Holiday cheer on the go, you can go to the iTunes Store, and look through the Christmas Apps. If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, these apps will brighten up your day for sure.

If you’re in the market for some Christmasy tunes, check out the Top Holiday Albums and Top Holiday Songs on the iTunes Store. iTunes also has holiday collections for 2006, 2007, and 2008.

If you want more Christmas Mac tips, check out Part I and Part II of this series of posts.

Photo Credit: eschipul

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In this episode, we talk about rumors.

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