Google held a session today at I/O 2013 about how to make money on Android, and in the initial few minutes it shared some updated stats around Google Play revenues and how those are progressing. Not surprisingly, the big growth is coming with in-app purchases, though Google’s recently launched subscription model is also making headway. Google said that its in-app revenues through Play are up 700 percent since the same time last year, which is reflected in the top apps as listed by highest grossing titles in the Play rankings. Subscriptions, which just launched around 12 months ago, is also making headway, doubling inbound revenue each quarter according to Google. Some apps which use subscription as their exclusive revenue model are now cracking the top grossing list, like Pandora. The momentum is still clearly behind in-app purchase, and as a result Google suggested that there’s good reason to consider that as a revenue model when building apps Read more »
How A Car Crash Changed Vishal Sikka And The Direction Of SAP
It’s a rare fall rainy day in Palo Alto and SAP Executive Board Member Dr. Vishal Sikka is as sick as a dog. It’s less than a week until SAP Sapphire in Madrid and the community around him are like a worrying family. I had told them that it is okay. I could make the trip another time. But they were insistent I make the trip. Fast forward to May. Read more »
Good.co Helps You Find Employers That Match Your Personality
The Launchpad is a series that introduces Mashable readers to compelling startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here . Name : Good.co One-Liner Pitch : Good.co lets you see how well your personality matches up with specific companies and employees, so you end up at a place that's really the right fit for you. Why It's Taking Off : It offers job hunters a way to find companies that are a better fit and companies a way to find employees who are a better fit, so neither waste more time and money than necessary. Job listings can give you a sense of whether you're qualified for a particular role, but not necessarily whether you're a good fit for the company and its culture. One new website hopes to change that Read more »
Klout Gets Into The Q&A Business By Launching Klout Experts (With Help From Bing)
So what does a high Klout score actually get you? The influence-measuring startup already offers prizes through its Klout Perks program, and there are bragging rights (unless your friends think you’re a loser for caring about your Klout score). Now Klout is asking users who are influential on a given topic to answer short, factual questions through the new Klout Experts program. It sounds like the program won’t be rolled out to every user today, but when it is, you might Klout and be prompted to answer a question like “What is the best way to care for tulips?” or “What is the best place to take your date in the city?” You’ll have 300 characters with which to offer your answer. (Why 300? Co-founder and CEO Joe Fernandez said 140 characters isn’t always enough, but he wanted to keep the answers direct and to the point.) Fernandez told me that Klout is working closely with Bing on this feature, so if there are relevant answers on Klout, they’ll be featured prominently when people search for a given question on Bing. Fernandez said the search engine team is also suggesting future questions that Klout could ask its users. Read more »
Cisco Meraki Launches “Presence”, With Facebook Account Log-In To Wireless Networks
Cisco Meraki has launched a new service called Presence that provides data about mobile behavior across location and automatic log-in to wireless hotspots using a person’s Facebook account. Presence additionally provides an API that allows integration with real-time location data into CRM and other business systems. Presence also allows for third-party data integration that can be analyzed with location-based information. Merak was acquired by Cisco last November for $1.2 billion . According to Josh Constine’s post, Meraki began as a research project at MIT in 2006. It provides mid to large-size companies, schools, and organizations with on-premise mesh Wi-Fi networking and security devices plus the software to manage them. Its technology is now integrated into Cisco access points. Read more »
5 Reasons Informational Interviews Are Important
There is a strategic tool to help you find a job faster, and it's rarely taken advantage of: the informational interview. And an informational interview is just what it sounds like. It’s not a job interview, where you’re vying with oodles of other candidates for one coveted position. It is simply a request to gain further information about a career you might be interested in, or a company you would like to work for You might be surprised to learn that many professionals will grant an informational interview — either in person, on the phone or via Skype or email. Here's why an informational interview is crucial to your job search. Read more... More about Business , Careers , Interviews , Job Search Series , and Jobs Read more »
Can Handwriting Identify Better Employees?
Can a person’s handwriting reveal their personality and aptitude for a job? That’s what many handwriting experts, called graphologists, claim — and millions of people may be denied jobs because of this controversial practice. Graphology is not the same thing as forensic handwriting analysis, which can be used in investigations to authenticate historical documents, for example, or determine whether a signature has been forged. SEE ALSO: Air-Write Your Future Texts and Emails Instead, graphologists claim that they can determine many aspects of a person’s personality and mental status from their handwriting. Words showing a forward slant reveals an outgoing personality, for example, while a backward slant indicates a shy, reserved person. Some even claim to diagnose medical conditions: people who write their descending letters (such as j, g, or y) with a break in them are said to have back problems. Read more »
Disrupt NY Hackathon Gets Hacked: Man Takes Stage And Uses His 60 Seconds To Disrupt Capitalism
When you’re a hacker waiting to take the Disrupt Hackathon stage, you’re probably just making sure that your project actually works. One gentleman decided to scrap his project completely and use his 60 seconds to discuss his political views, attacking large corporations for using your data to make money. The crowd was a bit surprised as he read a prepared statement from his iPad, but listened to what he had to say nonetheless. “Do we really need a new way to share our shit?” he began his talk with. And it got people’s attention: He urged the attendees to stand up against sharing all of their data, opting to sell their content for a price they set. After the Hackathon resumed its regular tech show-and-tell programming, I met Todd Bonnewell backstage to discuss what had just transpired and find out about the actual hack he scrapped to share his message. There you have it Read more »
AOL Is Shutting Down AOL Music And Firing Staff Who Are Live-Tweeting The Bloodbath
While there’s still few details and no official announcement, AOL is shutting down its AOL Music news properties and is firing their employees, according to tweets from the official AOL Music site Spinner’s account and some staff. Poor performance due to competition from independent bloggers may be to blame. However, reports indicate Winamp, SHOUTcast, and flagship music blog Spinner may survive. AOL Music operates a variety of music news websites for different genres, the SHOUTcast Internet radio site, and the historic Winamp player it acquired in 2009 along with Spinner in a $400 million acquisition of Nullsoft. Here’s how the pink slips flew this morning. First, Spinner tweeted: ” @Spinner : All of AOL Music is shutting down Read more »
Take An Early Look At Routehappy, The Travel Site That Highlights The Flights You’ll Actually Enjoy
Routehappy is about to launch a new way for travelers to search for flights — and TechCrunch readers can actually take a look now. The idea, as explained to me by co-founder and CEO Robert Albert, is to move beyond the focus on price and schedule that you find on every other flight search site. Sure, those things are important, but as I noted when Routehappy raised seed funding last year , when you suddenly find yourself stuck in a cramped seat without Wi-Fi, you realize that other factors matter, too. So Routehappy has built a big database of information drawn from “hundreds of sources” — including commercial data providers (mostly for on-time data), reviews, and the airlines themselves. It then looks at the various factors that a traveler might consider and combines them into a “happiness score” between 1 and 10. Read more »