Mobile

Facebook Acquires WhatsApp for $19 Billion: Facts

$19 Billion for a messaging service? That’s lot expensive, isn’t it? Lets look what Facebook got out of the deal.

WhatsApp Facts
Jan Koum and Brian Acton are the co-founders of the company.
Jan and Brian were previously working at Yahoo.
Brian was Jan’s mentor at Yahoo.
Jan Koum, CEO of Whatsapp is now one of Facebook’s board member and partner with Mark to shape Facebook’s future as well as WhatsApp’s.
Whatsapp has 450 million active users. At least a million install and join Whatsapp each day.
Whatsapp has at least 72% of daily active users – which is a lot when compared to industry standards, which is 10% to 20%.
Whatsapp has only 32 engineers.
Whatsapp was free to download, install and use for 1 year. After that you had to pay $1 for a year.

$19 = $4 + $12 + $3
Whatsapp was acquired for $19 Billion – $4 billion in cash and approximately $12 billion worth of Facebook shares. And additional $3 billion in restricted stock units to be granted to WhatsApp’s founders and employees that will vest over four years subsequent to closing.

Do you think $19 Billion is Justifiable ?
I don’t think Whatsapp can be evaluated to $19 Billion in any ways. But Whatsapp sure helps in Facebook’s mission to make the web open and to connect as many people as possible. Whatsapp has the potential to connect Billions of people. In few years whatsapp can have 3 to 4 Billion active users – according to it’s growth rate. Throwing ads on 3 – 4 Billion people would be foolish, so they might come up with some innovative monetization strategies too. I only wish they don’t sell user data 😛 – Till now Whatsapp had no idea about users age, gender etc, except the mobile number. But now if you use same mobile number even on Facebook, imagine what all they can know about you 😉 I wish whatsapp, Facebook and all their users(including me) all the best for the future!

Facebook has said to continue to maintain Whatsapps principles: No Ads! No Games! No Gimmicks!

Funny thing is, Brian was looking for a job 4 years back:

Recruiters

networking with recruiters, venture capitalists, playing ultimate frisbee

— Brian Acton (@brianacton) May 20, 2009

Twitter

Got denied by Twitter HQ. That's ok. Would have been a long commute.

— Brian Acton (@brianacton) May 23, 2009

Facebook!

Facebook turned me down. It was a great opportunity to connect with some fantastic people. Looking forward to life's next adventure.

— Brian Acton (@brianacton) August 3, 2009

Now he must be thanking all the people who said NO to him. Without them, this glorious day might not have come 😛

“It’s a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the BEST, you very often get it.” – William Somerset Maugham

Mobile Web Design – Avoiding Universal Errors

This is a guest post by Spinx Web Design. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guest post guidelines.

Errors or Mistakes usually happen because of deviation from the standard. When it is about mobile web design, the perception of the designer is usually considered to be the main cause for the mistakes. The mistakes can be minor, small or even big depending upon the effort and money required to resolve it as well as the extent to which the losses occur because of that mistake. Some of the most common errors made by the designers when designing mobile websites are as follows.

1. Necessary Content: The mobile web design should have only the content that is necessary and can be displayed on the mobile screen. It should not be a copy of the content of the website that is designed for the desktop computers.

2. Load: If the mobile website is heavily loaded it may take a longer time to download and this could prove to be an irritant for the visitor.

3. Ignoring HTML5 and CSS3: Coding the mobile website with HTML5 and CSS3 can optimize the speed of downloading. The need of images can be reduced when the coding is done with the help of HTML5. CSS3 coding can offer rounded corners and gradients.

4. Width of the mobile device: When the mobile web designer does not take into consideration the width of the device it is possible that the elements may turn out to be not legible. This may happen because the elements have not been formatted to adjust to the width of the mobile device. This issue can be resolved with a simple HTML coding.

5. Downloading String: If the downloading string is not displayed on the screen of the mobile device the visitor may not know whether the action is being executed or not. The dilemma may compel or tempt the visitor to move to another mobile website.

6. Responsive web design: The mobile web designer should design a responsive website that is not only user friendly but also gets adjusted to the screen size and technicalities of the mobile device.

7. Home Screen: The home screen should be set in such a way that the screen does not look cluttered and illegible.

8. Excess of imports: When the designer uses AJAX framework like MooTools and jQuery, the import of data from the server becomes necessary and this can increase the duration of downloading time.

9. Images: The mobile website should have only the images that are required. Unnecessary images can add weight to the website and this could adversely affect the downloading time.

10. Size of the Finger: The touch screen is now becoming a regular feature of the mobile phones and this means that the mobile web design should be such that it can be navigated through with the help of the finger tips. The icon size should not be very small.

11. Form filling: The mobile web design should have short forms to be filled. If the visitor has to form long forms then it can irritate him/her. On the other hand the forms have to be designed keeping into consideration the facilities offered through the keyboard.

Author Bio: Spinx Web Design is a USA based web design and web development company and organization likes to write content on WordPress and designing,Web2.0, Mobile tips and
tricks, Social Media, Web Design, Web Development etc.

Gifted Myself: Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc!

From years, I have used a lot of brand phones -> From Samsung X200 to N-gage to Nokia 6630 to HTC p3452, and now a brand new Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc.

Actually I took this phone for my birth day June 01 2011, but delayed this review because I need to use it for some time to know it better! isn’t it ?

I’ll publish the review article this week; you could have a look at the specs, images and some videos of the Phone first:

Product Name:	Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc
3G:	Yes
Touch Screen:	ofcourse!
Screen Size:	4.2 inches
Operating System:	Androidv2.3(gingerbread): Upgradable
Camera Resolution:	8.1 MP
Wifi:	Yes
Memory Card:	Yes
Expandable Memory:	32 GB
Touch Screen type:	Capacitve
Back Camera:	Yes
Front Camera:	No!
Flash:	Yes
Radio:	Yes

Sizes
– 125.0 x 63.0 x 8.7 mm
– 4.9 x 2.5 x 0.3 inches
Weight
– 117.0 gr
– 4.1 oz

HD phone with 8.1 megapixel camera
Xpera Arc has a Sony Exmor R™ for mobile CMOS sensor that lets you capture high-quality movies and stills in low light. So go ahead and shoot. Then show, in stunning HD direct on your TV via the HDMI connector.

We will be publishing the pros and cons of “Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc” and some of the useful android apps soon…so stay tuned. Subscribe to the free blog updates below.

Earn From Your Mobile Phone!

Update: Scroll down to check about YouMint – better way to earn from your mobile phone!

mGinger is the first of its kind opt-in permission-based mobile marketing platform in India, where you can get cool discounts/offers as well as incentives for helping your family and friends get these discounts/offers(by referring them to mGinger). And not to forget, mGinger also allows you to send free SMS. what else we can ask for ? Money, free sms, great deals.

The idea is simple: You have to signup your mobile number and email ID, and specify your interests and the time when you want to get information about these items.

To keep you interested and informed, mGinger also gives incentives for every ad you receive and for each ad received by people in your network upto two levels of referrals(explained below).

So, the more people you refer to mGinger(via the link you get inside your mGinger a/c once you signup), the more you could earn.

Incentives per ad received:
You: 20ps;
Referral level 1: 10ps;
Referral level 2: 5ps;

Example:
If you refer 100 people and in turn those 100 people together refer 300 people, you will have 400 people in your network.

You get 10 ads: so you earn (10 x 0.20) Rs = 2Rs
Referral level 1: 100 people, receive 5 ads each, so (100x5x0.10)Rs = 50Rs.
Referral level 2: 300 people, receive 5 ads each, so (300x5x0.05)Rs = 75Rs.

So you earn a total of Rs. 127
(What if you refer 1000 people and they inturn refer 3000 people in total? Calculate.)
Everyone and their neighbor has cell phones these days. Well, have you seen some one without one!

Once you accumulate Rs. 300 in your account, you are entitled to receive cheque from mGinger.

Your earnings depends on the number of people you refer, your profile information and the number of relevant campaigns running.

So keep referring more and more people(without spamming them ofcourse) and get more money and I’m sure your family and friends will thank you for introducing to something so cool.

Email:
You also earn when you and your referral receive promotional emails from mGinger.

Will mGinger make me rich ?
So, do you think mGinger will make you rich over night ? No.
It could provide you with some pocket money which you could use for your evening coffee with friends.

The real advantage is the money it can save you by providing you with real big discounts/offers on quality branded items.

Deals:
mGinger has also started new deals, where they provide quality branded items for huge discounts. No bidding or lucky draws involved. You pay and you get it, with huge discounts.

With the introduction of “deals” mGinger has started sending more discount/offer sms’s, hence allowing us to make some more money from the ads we receive.

Is it a new type of scam in the city?
No. It’s not a scam. They actually pay. I have got my payments too. You can actually visit their home page and look at the number and the amount they have actually paid to their users.

Does the company really Pay?
Yes. Below is a proof. It’s my first cheque I got from mGinger, with a nice thank you note.

(Click on above images to enlarge..)

Competition:
There are many other companies that might be running with the same concept, but I have tried many and non are actually good or anywhere near to the quality of mGinger. So I would recommend you to join mGinger and refer your family and friends to it.
Remember, money saved is money earned(and mGinger also pays you for saving your money!).

———————————————————————————————————-

R.I.P mGinger
To our disappointment, mGinger has discontinued it’s operation without intimating its users.
we have found a better alternative to mGinger. Introducing YouMint, which existed even at the time of mGinger, but we thought mGinger as more trust worth(we were proved wrong).

Signup to YouMint ..

Join YouMint.

Sold HTC SmartPhone For Rs. 5000

Yes I sold my HTC p3452 for Rs. 5k Initially I decided to buy HTC because iPhone is too costly in India.

I loved the phone. As always, there were some flaws and I wanted change!

Things I dint like about my HTC phone:
1. Worst battery backup. It dint last even for 12hrs 🙁 With mp3 or WiFi, I could use the phone for 4 to 5 hours max.
2. It was locked to Vodafone! Well, I knew there will be ways to unlock it for other operators. After installing some software, it did work with all operators. But sometimes it needed restart, which again took considerable amount of battery power.
3. Touch screen sensitivity wasn’t satisfactorily built. Messaging was freakingly annoying. The small screen(2.8 inches) of the device made it even more difficult to navigate and to operate the phone.
4. Overall performance of the device was very poor. Slow processing.
5. Couldn’t play mp4 videos (and still this phone is called smart phone!)
6. It had “Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.0 Professional”, but I wanted android.
7. 2 MP, 1600×1200 pixels: Camera quality Sucks! No HD video recording.
8. (Don’t) Touch Screen: Doesn’t work when operated with fingers. We have to use the stylus ……… and it works when operated with nails!
9. Data cable provided with the device never worked. I had to use my camcorders data cable.
10. You have to use the phone with the original company settings and software. If you make more changes, i.e., try to over customize and start installing more 3rd party software, then the device acts as if it’s dead. It slows down the entire device, hangs, takes time even to restart 🙁

For all these reasons, I wanted a new phone. And it’s smart phone era and there are many smart phones with competitive price tag, especially after the advent of android.

But the device had a sexy look, good pouch, not that bad to use for making and receiving calls: if used with original company settings.

Keeping all these in mind, I offered the phone to one of my friend’s friend for Rs. 5000 and he immediately agreed and bought it. Before purchasing he asked a question: Why are you selling it?
Instead of telling, “I want to buy a new phone”. I told all these above demerits, straight forward. But he was already sold to the sexy design of HTC p3452. He is a average user and his main requirements are calls and style! He can use this phone to make and receive calls, and the phone looks great.

Use Mobile Phone as a Webcam

This is a guest post by Keith Palmer. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

If you want to use your camera phone as a web camera, I assume that you are advanced enough to follow below instructions.

Webcams themselves can be expensive, at least for a high quality one, and wireless webcams can be even more expensive (not to mention rare). Most of us already own several cameras and don’t really want to invest more for a webcam. If you have a cameraphone running WindowsMobile 6.x, Symbian, or Java (I’ve used a new Nokia c6), as well as a Bluetooth enabled computer or laptop, and you can use some nifty software to turn your phone into a wireless webcam.

You can download the PC software at sourceforge, and the phone software here. Install both pieces of software on their respective hardware, and then pair your phone with your computer over the Bluetooth connection. You will need to make sure that both are set to be publically visible, and that you know the password for both Bluetooth connections (if applicable).

Running the actual software and connecting it to your phone is pretty easy. Run the SmartCam software on both your computer and your phone. On the computer side, go to the Settings dialogue under the File menu, and then choose Bluetooth as the method of connection. On the cell phone, simply choose the computer from the list of visible devices (do make sure that your computer is visible as a Bluetooth device).

Assuming that everything above has been done properly, you should now see your phone as a webcam and be able to use it with video chat applications, as well as record and save video streams from it. This is really great because having the wireless feature makes it a lot more versatile than traditional webcams, and having the camera in a small, lightweight phone makes it easy to move around, and set up in different locations. Nowadays, more and more phones have video chat features built-in, but not all of them do, and so this is a great way to get around that limitation. Even though phone camera quality isn’t that great, webcams generally aren’t high quality, and don’t need to be, because of the limitations of most people’s bandwidth. The one thing about this kind of setup that might limit the quality is the Bluetooth connection, as it is not made for streaming large amounts of data. However this is a great way to add an extra feature to your phone, and it does work pretty well.

Keith Palmer is a student at technology science class. He writes tutorials and reviews for warious magazines and websites. At this point he writes tutorials for mobicity

Smartphone Antivirus Protection: Choosing Best Software for You

This is a guest post by Alexis Bonari. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

Experts have been deliberating over the conundrum of when mobile antivirus software will become necessary, but with the recent Trojan attack on Android-based devices, it looks like the future has arrived. An unknown malicious website has been prompting users to install a “media player application” on their phones. And while the app is no bigger than 13 KB, giving even savvy users the illusion of simplicity and innocence, the Trojan is hidden inside. Once installed, SMS messages, which can cost several dollars, are consistently sent from the devices without their users’ knowledge. Fortunately, the issue seems to be contained in Russia, but it’s obvious that the opportunity for other malware apps has increased. The following are some of the most popular examples of mobile antivirus software designed to protect your phone and put your mind at ease.

avast! PDA Edition
Although it was initially designed for use with PDAs, this antivirus software also works for Windows CE Smartphones. Because of its small size and memory requirements, a typical scan of your phone would only take a few seconds, so it’s practical to run these scans frequently. Report files can be created and viewed, which show a detailed description of the scanning process and anything that may have been found. Updates can be downloaded and installed using the software’s special updater designed to work with pocket devices. Subscriptions can be bought in one, two, or three-year increments and the number of licenses can also be changed to reflect the number of devices to be protected. A 60-day free trial of the software can be found here.

Avira AntiVir Mobile
This software has automatic updates via LAN or other Internet connections, but optimally updates via PC. Its clear menu navigation enables users to easily understand scan results and enjoy simple usability, and an automatic or interactive procedure is run whenever a virus is found. Infected files can be deleted, and the software includes support for the Windows Mobile 6.5 interface. A 30-day test key is available here and can be used to experience the software on a trial basis.

Norton Smartphone Security
The Norton software comes in two versions, supporting both Symbian and Windows Mobile users. It enables users to protect their privacy by preventing the theft of personal information, eliminating text and multimedia spam, and keeping cybercriminals and mobile threats away from your Smartphone. It checks phones with weekly updates and claims that it won’t slow down web activity or affect Smartphone performance. Free trials for both Symbian and Windows Mobile users can be found here.

Bio: Alexis Bonari is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She often can be found blogging about general education issues as well as information on college scholarships. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop.

Twitter Mobile Web Adds Reply, Retweet, Favorite..

Twitter Mobile Web was friendly only for status update. There was no reply button, no retweet button and no favorite button.

It was kind of frustrating to remember the Twitter ID of the person, and then type it in the update box(without spelling mistakes!) and send the reply.

Recently Twitter has added bunch of new features to it, to make it more useful. Now I don’t use any Apps, I just use the simple mobile web interface.

Some of the things added to Twitter Mobile Web are – reply, retweet, favorite, turn off the images, Popular topics, popular topics of today week etc, real time search capabilities, hhmm, but the copy rights has not yet been updated, its still showing © 2009. If you find some thing more, please share it with us in the comment section.

Missing..
Yes, I still miss the display of updates in AJAX style(That we can see on Standard Twitter Web). We need to refresh each time to see the new updates. And there is a big Refresh button provided at the top for this purpose.

Here are some of the screen shots from my Nokia 6630.

Problem!
Although there was one issue(at the time of writing this post). Once you goto twitter mobile web and input your user id and password and hit signin, it just refuses to signin and stays on the same page. There is a big Refresh button at the top of the page, which is of no use!

To get into Twitter, all you need is, to switch to Standard Twitter Webpage – signin and then switch back to Twitter Mobile Web, and it works!