Mippin Blog

App of the Week: NoWayGirl.com

2012-02-09T13:20:00.000+01:00

Winter is rough. It's bleak, it's cold, and summer is nowhere in sight. (This is particularly true if you happen to be living in London at the moment; it is absolutely ARCTIC out there.)

Which is why this week's featured app is a special one, specifically selected to bring you out of that winter funk and deliver a little laughter to your life. And when we say "a little laughter", we actually mean a lot of it. You might even slap your knee, snort, or fall over out of laughter.

...We might have.

So here it is, folks: the NoWayGirl.com app! It's all the funny photos you could ever want, right at your fingertips - brought to you by the lovely people over at NoWayGirl.com.

We're all big fans of this one. In fact, we're a bit addicted. But, hey - when you spend all day working hard, it's nice to take a break every once in awhile to see hot dogs being cooked on a radiator, or a man wearing his dog like a backpack, am I right?

Download the NoWayGirl.com app now!

App of the Week: Chic Reporter

2012-02-02T13:07:00.000+01:00

Here's one for the ladies out there! This week's app is über fashionable. I present to you, dear readers, the Chic Reporter app:

Darling, isn't it? We thought so. It's light on the text but heavy on the images (and big, glossy images, at that) -- with some videos thrown in for good measure. If you're at all interested in the latest fashion ad campaigns or the newest beauty products, this is most definitely an app for you.

Also, head on over to the original website for a great example of how to promote your app. You'll note the call to action (Download the Chic Reporter App!) as a banner at the top of the page -- a great way to give your app some traction.For more ideas on how to promote your post, check out this post we wrote last year.

If you're interested in fashion (or you just like to look at pretty things!), you should probably go ahead and download our App of the Week...

Download the Chic Reporter app now!

App of the Week: GotchaMovies

2012-01-23T12:58:00.000+01:00

This week's App of the Week is one for everyone. (Unless of course you don't watch films, don't like films or have never seen a film... in which case, this is probably a good place to start!)

GotchaMovies is a stellar new app that was just created using the App Factory. And this one is a doozy! It's got everything we like to see in an app: big images, great branding, and heaps of original content. Featuring news, reviews, top lists, trailers, and pretty much everything you could ever want from a film app, this is a must-have.

Seriously, how sleek does that look? Our users always know how to get the best out of the App Factory...

Download the GotchaMovies app now!

Do you think your own blog or website would make for a great app? Why not try it out for free? You know you're curious...

Try creating your own app using the App Factory!

Mippin Launches OK! for iPad

2011-12-20T18:27:00.000+01:00

We've gone a bit iPad crazy around the Mippin office as of late. Regardless of our platform of choice, we love us some iPads. Roughly 83% of us have one, which is awfully telling...

So it's no surprise that we've been working more on our iPad template, what with all these iPads floating around everywhere. Just last week our lovely OK! Magazine iPhone app was updated with a brand spankin' new version for the iPad. (You remember OK! for iPhone, don't you?)

This one's a sleek and simple app with the same function as the iPhone version -- to give OK! readers easy access to the latest news and the hottest gossip. Of course we did some reformatting so it would really shine on the iPad, so you'll see the story index on the left and stories on the right.

If you've got an iPad why not give it a go?

Check out the OK! iPad app now.

And if you're interested in transforming your awesome web content into an equally awesome iPad app then drop us a line at info@mippin.com. We're friendly geeks.

App of the Week: TEKCORE UK

2011-12-08T16:57:00.001+01:00

It should be no surprise that we here at Mippin love a good tech blog. We work in the tech industry, we take pride in transforming good blogs into great apps and we're all pretty geeky - how could we not?

So we were quite pleased to see the guys over at TEKCORE UK using our App Factory to create a mobile app for their awesome new tech blog. It seems the site is run by a couple of Bath University students finishing up their degrees and, as expected, it is stocked full of tech news and reviews. There's a wide breadth of coverage to boot, from smartphones to software to gaming systems to - you guessed it! - Steve Jobs commemorative stamps from Hungaria. We're hooked.

We think it's about time you installed this bad boy, don't you? Just head to mippin.com/app/tekcoreuk and you'll be in the know in no time.

And if you happen to have a snazzy new tech blog and you're looking for an app of your very own, why not try us out, too? We'll app you up. We'll make it appen. We'll keep you appy. You get the picture...

Create your app with App Factory

Mippin Recognised for HTML5 Work

2011-11-16T16:30:00.000+01:00

Last week we wrote a post proclaiming our love for HTML5. Although we focus on both web and native app development (because we recognize the benefits of each), tons of the work we do is HTML5-based.

So when we won the BlackBerry Developer Challenge a couple months back, not only were we excited because it was such a prestigious award, but also because it highlighted all of the hard work we've been doing with HTML5.

Although we won the award under the category of 'Most Innovative BlackBerry WebWorks App,' our winning app - Daily Express - was actually built using HTML5 and then packaged with BlackBerry WebWorks. In fact all of our BlackBerry apps are built that way. So the award was a double whammy for us as it highlighted our strengths in both HTML5 and WebWorks.

Our BlackBerry apps aren't the only product of ours showing off these HTML5 skills - of course there's our iPhone web apps as well. And as is always the case here at Mippin, we're constantly striving to stay ahead of the technology curve so you never know what we might have in store for you next!

App of the Week: Allure Of Sound

2011-11-15T13:51:00.004+01:00

We've got a doozy for you this week. Music lovers, listen up!

This week I bring you the awesome Allure Of Sound app. It's full of news, reviews and interviews within the realm of pop, dance and electronic music from around the world. And - as is always the case with our featured apps - this one meets all three of our important criteria:

(1) high-quality original material
(2) big brilliant images
(3) frequently-updating full content

We're impressed!

Not only that but since its creation a few days ago, we've found the app's QR code everywhere: Facebook, Twitter, and in not one but three spots on the original blog. Now that is how you promote an app!

Download the app now at mippin.com/app/allureofsound to see what all the fuss is about.

OK! App Featured on Nokia Lumia Devices

2011-11-08T16:04:00.001+01:00

The announcement of the Nokia Lumia range a few weeks back was pretty epic in terms of its importance within the mobile sphere. As the first set of Nokia devices to be powered by Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) OS, it's not hard to guess why. A merger between two of the biggest power players in the industry?! It's a big deal.

Both of the new Lumia devices - the 710 & 800 respectfully - ship with a Nokia-exclusive pre-installed 'App Highlights' tile, showcasing the best WP7 apps for both new and established users. It's smarter than just shining a spotlight on the most downloaded apps, and in fact it features content that has been hand-picked by Nokia on a per-country basis.

So, with that in mind, we were pretty pleased to discover our very own OK! app listed in the featured section!

We're really proud of the work we've accomplished on Windows Phone and it's great to see the platform expanding in such a big way, and even greater to be a part of that expansion.

Get the OK! app for your Windows Phone device!

HTML5 Is The New Black

2011-11-07T15:36:00.000+01:00

A few months ago, the Financial Times shook things up a bit by becoming the first major news publisher to launch their own HTML5 web app. We here at Mippin are big fans of HTML5 and have been developing with it for ages, so it was exciting for us to see it being utilised by a big publishing player. HTML5 certainly brings a lot to the mobile experience party, so it makes sense that everyone is really starting to embrace it.

Our team had a play with the app and straight away came to the conclusion that it was not only a totally awesome app, but a totally game-changing one as well - especially given the publicity it's seen over the past few months. With HTML5, not only does it mean that readers get automatic updates and access to exclusive content, it also means a faster app, similar to a traditional one but within the browser. According to Steve Pinches, Group Product Manager of Mobile & Emerging Platforms at the FT: "Web apps will become the way of the future."

We couldn't agree more, Steve. Having over a year and a half's experience developing HTML5 apps we see it as a big part of our future, too. Both our BlackBerry and iPhone web apps are built with HTML5 - and all of our App Packs come with an iPhone web app. (Oh, and an Android app, and a java launcher, and a mobile website...)

So, fancy getting an HTML5-based iPhone web app of your very own? Click here. What about a native BlackBerry app? Just drop us an email at info@mippin.com.

Go on, you know you want to...

Mippin Wins Most Effective Mobile Publishing Solution

2011-11-04T13:44:00.008+01:00

Remember a few weeks ago when we mentioned that we had been shortlisted for the 2011 Effective Mobile Marketing Awards?

Well, the awards ceremony was last night and... (you know where I'm going with this, don't you?)

...We won! We were selected by Mobile Marketing Magazine as the winner of the 'Most Effective Mobile Publishing Solution' and we are thrilled to bits about it!

We were up against some pretty major players in the mobile arena, which makes this win even more incredible for us. And we'd like to send a big congratulations to the finalists in our category, and to all the night's winners overall (including the likes of Pepsi, Debenhams and Sky) - we're genuinely honoured to be a part of such a talented group.

For the full list of winners, head here.

...Now, where's that champagne?

Featured App: Best For Film

2011-09-30T17:32:00.012+02:00

We have a lot of great content coming through the App Factory every day, there's no doubt about that. But every once in awhile someone creates an app that we just have to share with you all. This is one of those times.

A few days ago, the good folks over at Best for Film created a mobile app to accompany their website... and it's totally awesome. This is definitely one for the cinephiles out there! It's got pretty much everything any good film fan would ever want -- news, reviews, features, top 10 lists, you name it. But that's not the only reason why we love the app so much. Reason #1? It's really, really funny. Trust us.

All that and the app is designed to fit your phone perfectly (no matter what type of phone you have). What more could you want?

Seriously, if you love fims, or if you like films a little bit, or if you've ever seen a film... you're totally gonna dig this app.

Lights, camera, INSTALL!

App Factory Shortlisted for Effective Mobile Marketing Awards

2011-09-28T18:32:00.014+02:00

A few weeks ago we entered the App Factory into the 2011 Effective Mobile Marketing Awards (held by Mobile Marketing Magazine) under the category of 'Most Effective Mobile Publishing Solution'.

How lovely it was when we checked our email last week to find that we made the shortlist for the award! There are now five of us vying for the top spot and the competition is definitely solid. Check out the full list of shortlisted entries and all the other details here. Winners will be announced at the awards ceremony next month -- wish us luck!

Daily Express App Wins the BlackBerry Developer Challenge

2011-09-23T16:13:00.007+02:00

We have exciting news...

Recently we entered one of our awesome new BlackBerry apps -- Daily Express UK -- into the 2011 BlackBerry Developer Challenge, under the category of Most Innovative BlackBerry WebWorks App. And, well given the lead-up you can probably already guess, but if not...

We won the grand prize!

This win is an especially big deal for us as the app was actually created using HTML5 and then packaged with BlackBerry WebWorks, making it a testament to our skills in both of those areas.

There are 3 grand prize winners in total -- one for North America, one for Asia Pacific and another for Europe, Middle East & Africa (that's us!). The competition was pretty fierce and we're really honored to receive this award. Big congrats to all the other winners as well! You can check out the full list on the BlackBerry Developor's Blog.

Now we're just waiting for our shipment of new BlackBerry toys to play with!

And, hey, if you've got a BlackBerry why not check out our awesome app? It is award-winning, after all...

App Factory Now Offering Multi-Channel Apps

2011-09-13T15:11:00.008+02:00

That's right, we have just added some great new functionality to the App Factory -- now you can add up to four content sources to your app (instead of just one).

We understand that your blog or website often doesn't stand alone; it's part of a brand. And sometimes that brand deserves multiple channels! Got a Flickr feed? Why not use our amazing new gallery template to show off all your photos? And what about that YouTube channel of yours? Why not throw that in there as well? The options are (nearly) endless!

If you've already created an app, there is no need to worry. You can log in to your account at any time and update your app to incorporate multiple channels. But only if you fancy it, of course! Sometimes one channel is all you need, and sometimes it's not -- it all depends on what you think works best for your app.

And if you haven't created an app yet, why not have a go? It's free to try. And awesome. We promise.

Thanks to @Whatleydude for letting us make an example out of him!

Win Your Very Own WP7 App

2011-08-04T13:48:00.007+02:00

We're feeling very generous today here at the Mippin offices. So generous, in fact, that we're giving away a free Windows Phone 7 app. We've just finished up our new Mango template for WP7 and we'd like to celebrate! And, of course, show it off...

In case you were wondering, the new (and awesome) features of our Mango template for WP7 are:

- live tiles with article updates
- ability to pin articles to home screen for direct access
- background agent to update channels

Hooked? Good. So here's how you do it:

Step #1: You decide that this is an awesome opportunity for your content to reach a new and ever-expanding app market. Easy.

Step #2: Create a test app (for free, of course) using the App Factory. This app will act as your competition entry so make it pretty! (This step should take you about five minutes... roughly the length of a commercial break. Just sayin'.)

Step #3: Let us know you want your app to be considered for the competition. Just send us a tweet like this: "Dear @Mippin, please consider my app NAME for the awesome 'win my own WP7 app' competition!" Or just drop us an email at teri@mippin.com if you fancy it.

And BAM. You're done. All that's left is for us to judge the apps and select a favourite. (Tip: we'll be looking for interesting content and nice images above all...)

All entries must be submitted by noon (London time) on Monday the 8th, and the winner will be announced in future. The winner will then receive a brand spankin' new WP7 app, which can either be uploaded to their Windows Marketplace account (if they have one) or ours (if they don't). Let the app creation commence!

The Mobile Solution

2011-07-14T16:53:00.006+02:00

A few days ago, Mobile Marketing Magazine published a great article entitled 'The Mobile Conundrum', written by guest columnist Laura Hampton, Head of Content Engagement at user experience agency, Zabisco.

The article stresses the importance for businesses to have a mobile presence, and goes on to discuss the different routes businesses can take in order to establish that mobile presence. Of course, what it all boils down to are mobile sites and mobile apps, and which one is right for which company. (For a lot of companies I reckon "both" is also a pretty popular answer.)

"Generally speaking, a mobile website is cheaper to produce and maintain than a mobile app. This is because, unlike an app, mobile websites will work on any platform, anywhere in the world that has internet access."

This is a great point -- apps, generally speaking, are platform-specific, which is both a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing because apps hold much more power when it comes to utilising all of the functionality offered by the platform which it runs on. When developing with a single platform in mind, the process is so much more straightforward. However, with the good comes the bad, which in this case is that a single-platform app does not amount to a complete mobile presence. It amounts to an Android presence, or an iPhone presence, etc. etc. Of course you can create apps for every platform, but that takes both time and money.

Unless of course you're using the App Factory, in which case you actually don't have to worry about any of that -- because we already have. We know that people want apps, but we also know that it's not just about iPhone apps anymore. It's also about Android and Blackberry and Windows Phone 7 and Ovi and so on and so on... Which is why we offer the App Pack -- it's not just a single app, it's all of them.

Purchasing a single App Pack means you get an iPhone web app, an Android app, a java launcher and a mobile web page, and with this you've got all your bases covered. How it works is this: once you've purchased an App Pack, we'll give you a single install URL (and QR Code). The install URL is smart -- it recognizes what device the user is coming from and therefore it gives that user the best experience their device can offer. So any user on any platform will have no problem getting your app on their phone.

And there you have it: a mobile app that works across all platforms. It's that simple. Why not try it?

App of the Week: NewsLab

2011-07-12T10:04:00.002+02:00

This week's spotlighted app is for all the journalists out there.

With so much information at our fingertips, available in epic quantities at all hours and via virtually every medium imaginable, it's no surprise that we can easily become overwhelmed. For journalists, who are tasked with filtering the newsworthy from the not-so-newsworthy and then sharing it with the world, overwhelming probably doesn't even come close to describing it.

Which brings us to our featured app, NewsLab, an app made with journalists in mind to help ease this process -- it is a resource for journalists looking to build up their skills and broaden their thinking. According to NewLab's website:

"In today’s multimedia world, journalists need more than the basics. They need new ways of finding and telling stories that will engage and inform the communities they serve, while staying true to the fundamental principles of accurate, fair and independent journalism."

We think this sounds like an excellent cause, and it only makes sense for NewsLab to create an app to help journalists on the move! Download the app now at mippin.com/app/newslab or scan the QR code below! And you can follow @TVNewsLab on Twitter here.

Nokia Shorts 2011 Winning Video

2011-06-30T17:30:00.004+02:00

In the mobile industry, so often we can feel bombarded. Bombarded with facts, charts, graphs, tables, stats, infographics, pageviews, you name it. And that's all very well and good -- but sometimes it's nice to take a step back from all of the data and just remember how awesome mobile technology is and what amazing things it is capable of doing.

Over the past few months, Nokia has been judging entries for its Nokia Shorts 2011 competition -- and they have finally chosen their winner. The winning video (entitled 'Splitscreen: A Love Story') is absolutely beautiful, but the fact that it was shot entirely on an N8 makes it amazing.

Enjoy.

You've Created an App! ...Now What?

2011-06-28T14:00:00.012+02:00

So you've just created an app using the App Factory. That's awesome. High fives all around!

But wait! You're not finished yet! You wouldn't write a book, get it published and then just keep it to yourself, would you? Creating the app is only the first step in establishing a mobile presence for your content.

So the next step in the process -- a very crucial step -- is to tell people about your amazing new app! And I'm here to give you some tips on the best ways to do just that.

1) Share, share, share. Put the link on your Facebook wall and encourage your friends to check it out. Your friends read your blog! And they probably have phones! Double whammy.

Remember: the install link we provide (http://mippin.com/app/xxxxxx) is what we call a 'smart link' so it recognizes what device the user is coming from. Make sure to always share this link so your users get the best experience possible for their device.

And if you've got a Twitter account, why not tweet about it? According to a recent study (read all about it here), approximately 43% of Twitter users access Twitter from a mobile device -- that's a higher percentage of mobile users than any other social network. This makes tweeting about your app one of the best options available, as so many of your users will already be reading your tweet from their phone. How easy is that?

Keep in mind that it might be useful to share your app more than once -- Twitter is great, but one drawback is that your tweets can often get lost in the shuffle. Take note, however, I am by no means promoting that you spam your readers! But a helpful little nudge every few weeks or so couldn't hurt...

2)Advertise it. One great way to spread the news about your app that is often overlooked is to place a banner ad on your site -- a visual link leading straight to your app. This is a useful tactic because it offers more long-term promotion than you'd get from sharing via social media.

Here is a great example of a banner ad, courtesy of our friends over at Flush the Fashion. If you head to their site and scroll down a bit, you'll notice a big, lovely banner advertising their (very awesome) app.

3) Blog about it. Announce to your readers that they can now get your content in app form, quickly and easily. These are the people that already read and love your content so they're exactly the group you want to be reaching out to.

Why not, right?

Of course there are a lot more ways to tell the world about your app than what I've just listed, but hopefully this should get you started. It's time to get creative!

App of the Week: LuxuryAutoDirect.com

2011-06-24T10:18:00.002+02:00

This week's featured app is for all the automotive lovers out there. You know who you are -- you're the one who rushes to the window when you hear that certain vroom? Prompting everyone else to rush to the window and then ooh and ahh and speculate at who the owner may be? (...Or is that just how it goes in the Mippin offices?)

Well, either way, this one's for you! The LuxuryAutoDirect.com app is dedicated to the affluent automotive lifestyle, and it's got everything covered -- Ferraris, Porsches, Lamborghinis and whatever else your luxury car-loving heart desires. Whether you already own, are looking to buy, or simply want to drool over the photos, this app is a must-have. Of course there aren't just images in the app. There's also tons of frequently-updated news stories and features.

Drive away with it today by clicking on this install link or by using the QR code above. (I couldn't resist that cheesy automotive pun there, sorry!)

Mippin Is Hiring!

2011-05-31T11:18:00.003+02:00

Mippin is looking for new talent to join us – be a part of the mobile revolution!

Want to join one of the hottest mobile dev and design companies in the UK?
Keen to be on the forefront of technology and work on the latest gadgets and gizmos to hit the mobile arena?

We built over 40,000 apps last year, and we’re planning on doing even more this year, so we're looking for Web Designers/Developers and Mobile Developers to help us!

Key Skills:
HTML
CSS
JavaScript
Cross-browser and multi-language experience
Photoshop experience
Understand the DOM
Have no fear of XML

Nice to Have:
HTML 5
CSS 3
AJAX
jQuery, Sencha Touch, etc.
SQL for MySQL
Java for J2EE and JSP
Mobile web app experience
Mobile app development experience (iOS, Android, Blackberry, Symbian, J2ME, Qt, etc.)

If you have experience with these technologies, we want to invite you for an interview in our office at the uber cool Matrix Studio Complex in Parsons Green. Just send your CV over to jobs@mippin.com to get started.

Win Big with the Nokia Ovi App Wizard Competition

2011-05-23T11:26:00.003+02:00

So this is a pretty cool competition from Nokia South Africa... (And a sweet video to boot!)

If you're a blogger in South Africa, this is pretty much the coolest opportunity ever. All you have to do is create an app using the Ovi App Wizard (which is totally easy, by the way) and once it's live in the Nokia Ovi Store, you enter it into the competition here. Start promoting your blog from 1 July, and the blogger with the most downloads between 1-29 July wins big. (Unless you don't count two free tickets to SXSW in Austin, Texas AND thousands of dollars worth of advertising for your blog as big...)

More details here.

App of the Week: Color Party

2011-05-17T15:29:00.003+02:00

Warning: our 'App of the Week' is going to make your mouth water.

And thus I bring you: the Color Party app, made by The Food Channel. The app was created in conjunction with an event being held today, the Noble Color Party at the National Restaurant Association's trade show in Chicago. And this year's color is -- drumroll please! -- lavender.

So how does brulée cheesecake with lavender honey sound? Or maybe coconut meringues sandwiched with white chocolate lavender ganache? Well, with this app you can get these recipes as well as the recipes for the rest of the lavender-themed food they're dishing up at the party today. (Unfortunately, the app won't actually make the food for you... but we're working on that.)

We think this is a pretty cool use for one of our apps. If you're hosting an event, it's a really cheap, easy and inventive way to share info with everyone attending. Just hand out a QR code and bam! Interactivity.

So install the Color Party app if you'll be at today's event, or if you feel like doing a bit of experimental cooking at the weekend, or even if you just really like the color lavender. You can use the QR code above or this install link. Enjoy!

The APPrentice

2011-05-12T12:08:00.001+02:00

So who caught The Apprentice last night?

We sure did. Nothing helps get us over the mid-week hump more than a bit of Sir Allen! And last night's episode was a jackpot for any mobile geek. Yes, that's right...each team of contestants were asked to create and market their own mobile app. It was brilliant.

The challenge took place over two days -- the first day was basically spent coming up with the idea for the app, and then collaborating with developers to make it happen. The apps were built in under 24 hours, and the next day the teams were sent to a gaming conference at Earl's Court to market the apps and drive downloads. The teams also met with TechCrunch, Pocket-Lint and Wired Magazine to vie for features on their websites.

This was a great idea for a challenge, especially now as companies everywhere are really starting to realise the value of having a mobile presence. Creating a good app is essential, but creating a good app quickly and easily? That's inavaluable.

Well, if you thought 24 hours was a quick turnaround to create an app, how about if we told you that you could do it in five minutes? Because with the App Factory you totally can. And not only is the process quick, but it's super easy, too. We'll walk you through it from start to finish.

So what are you waiting for? Check out the App Factory here and maybe you'll have as much luck as the winning team. (Spoilers averted for those planning to catch it on iPlayer. We're nice like that.)

Mippin Apps Soar in the App Stores

2011-05-06T16:28:00.006+02:00

We just wanted to take the time on this lovely Friday afternoon to share with you a little something that made our week.

There's this thing called the Apple App Store, you may have heard of it? Well one of our apps - the very awesome OK! Magazine app -reached position #4 in the free news apps category this week. Considering there are over 350,000 apps available in the store by now, you can guess we're pretty pleased about this. And OK! isn't the only app that's doing awesome; our Daily Star app isn't too far behind at #15 in the same category.

So we followed this up with a little browse around the Samsung App Store, only to find that our Daily Star and Daily Express apps are rockin' out in the second and third spot of free news apps. Brilliant!

Needless to say, it's been a good week. And be sure to check out the apps yourself if you want to see what all the fuss is about...

App of the Week: YouFest

2011-04-12T16:50:00.005+02:00

Here we are again, bringing you the second in our new 'App of the Week' series.

With the amazing sunny weather we've been having in London, we think it's only fitting that we celebrate it. Therefore, our featured app this week is here to help us bring on the summer with all the latest UK festival news.

And thus we bring you: the YouFest app.

What's the lineup for Latitude Festival this year? How much of your paycheck will be going to Glastonbury, and will you still have enough leftover to buy yourself a new pair of wellies? Find all that good stuff (and more) on the YouFest app.

Click here to install, and here to see what they're tweeting about.

App of the Week: Flush The Fashion

2011-04-04T15:34:00.001+02:00

We're swimming in a sea of good content here at Mippin, but we're not sure if we're doing enough to tell you all just how awesome it is. So we're going to start doing just that.

And thus, today marks the start of a new, weekly series on the Mippin blog - our App of the Week. All of the apps featured will be products of our awesome Mippin App Factory, and of course they will all be chock full of interesting content on just about any and every topic you can think of.

With that, let me welcome our first App of the Week -- cue drumroll! -- Flush The Fashion.

This app features the latest and greatest stories on what's happening in music ('Flush The Fashion' is also the name of a 1980 Alice Cooper Album, so what else did you expect?) but also culture, tech and all sorts of other good stuff.

So why not go ahead and install it? Also, you can check out the brains of the operation here.

Mippin is Hiring!

2011-03-16T12:57:00.003+01:00

Mippin is looking for new talent to join us – come be part of the mobile revolution!

Want to join one of the hottest mobile dev and design companies in the UK?
Keen to be on the forefront of technology and work on the latest gadgets and gizmos to hit the mobile arena?

We're looking for a Web Developer with the following skills:

Essential skills - must haves!

- Experience with Java and competent writing JSPs
- HTML4
- CSS
- Ajax
- JavaScript
- J2EE
- JQuery or similar library
- SQL
- Cross-browser and multi-language UI experience

You'll need to be able to code a pixel perfect page based on our designs. Your code must use proper document markup, separating structure from presentation and behavior. Using web standards correctly.

Desirable skills - nice to haves:

- HTML5
- Mobile website experience
- Experience working with RSS

If you have experience with these technologies, we want to invite you for an interview in our office at the uber cool Matrix Studio Complex in Parsons Green.

Email jobs@mippin.com to get in on the action!

Mippin is attending CTIA 2011 in Orlando

2011-03-02T16:47:00.001+01:00

Only few weeks to go until CTIAW11 kicks off. The @mippin team will of course be there.
Please don't hesitate to get in touch and we will arrange a meeting with you.

Orlando here we come!

OK! Magazine app now available via iTunes

2011-02-22T11:46:00.002+01:00

Get OK! Magazine on your iPhone with this new app, bringing the very latest celebrity gossip straight to your fingertips.

Download this free app now and stay up-to-date with the latest gossip 24/7!

This new OK! app is updated constantly and is completely jam-packed with celebrity stories and photos -- the ultimate guilty pleasure.

This brand new app also allows you to read and store up to 200 articles offline, so you can keep up-to-date from absolutely anywhere (even on a plane!). You can even save your favorite articles. This new app also supports retina display so you’ll be able to see all the photos in the highest definition possible.

Mippin Launches Native Apps for WP7

2011-02-11T17:14:00.002+01:00

Mippin is happy to announce the release of our new native apps for Windows Phone 7 Devices. We're not usually the type to honk our own horns but... beep beep -- these apps look awesome.

So far we've got three brilliant apps on offer in Microsoft's Marketplace (all for free, naturally) -- Daily Star, STAR! Magazine, and OK! Magazine, with many more to follow. These apps are all updated 24/7 and feature the latest and greatest in celebrity news and gossip, not to mention they've got photos coming out the wazoo. Daily Star also offers separate channels for news, babes and football.

And on a related topic... if you really fancy getting a shiny new Windows Phone 7 app based on your content, you are in luck. Mippin's soon-to-be-launched App Factory will offer Windows Phone 7 capabilities (as well as iPhone, Android and Symbian, of course). So everyone with a blog website (or Twitter page, or Flickr stream, or YouTube channel, etc.) will be able to create gorgeous, native apps for WP7 in just about five minutes. After all, we are here to make your (mobile) dreams come true. And don't forget to subscribe to our blog for updates!

Mippin is going to be at MWC 2011 in Barcelona

2011-01-28T15:30:00.000+01:00

Mobile World Congress is just around the corner. And of course the @mippin team is heading to Barcelona to showcase our innovative products and solutions to a worldwide audience.

If you want to learn more about our offerings don't hesitate to get in touch and we will arrange a meeting with you.

We are looking forward to hear from you. In the meantime please check out our white label solutions for carriers and handset manufactures on our website.

Meet the Mipps: Newbie Edition #2

2011-01-25T09:30:00.001+01:00

We know exactly what you're thinking. We've started blogging again and you want more! Well have no fear, another post is here.

I bring you a new interview with another Mippin novice, Vasileios Xouris. (Yeah, I'm still not sure we're pronouncing it right either.)

What is your official title and what do you do for us?
Developer -- currently working on Windows Phone 7

What were you up to before you came to Mippin?
Finishing up a master's degree in Edinburgh

What sort of things of the non-mobile variety are you into?
(1) Football
(2) Pints
(3) Cinema
(-- He would like to clarify that yes, this is in the correct order.)

Do you have any favourite blogs or websites?
engadget.com, ted.com, failblog.org and several Greek websites

If you were an animal, what would you be and why?
Something flying and fast. (We had him pegged for either an ostrich or a turtle -- colour us embarrassed!)

Favourite Parsons Green lunch spot?
Mmm... Strada and Don Bois Thai... but he is convinced there must be something better around here.

What’s better: Athens or London?
If you have been to Greece you know the answer.

On a scale of 1 - 10, how awesome are you at table football?
5 or 6 and going up... One day he hopes to beat Luca! (Who, if you'll remember from our last post, oh diligent readers, is a self-proclaimed TEN.)

What kind of advancements would you like to see in the mobile world in 2011?
3D UI and more payments through mobile phones

What kind of phone do you use currently and why?
Nokia 6125. Why? Because his Ericsson m600 broke... Dont worry though, a Nexus S in on the way. (Hallelujah!)

Meet the Mipps: Newbie Edition

2011-01-17T15:59:00.006+01:00

Hello again, Mippin blog readers! At the risk of sounding trite, we apologise for the lack of posts... but, it was the holidays and all. It's hard to blog when you're stuffed full of minced pies and mulled wine and spreading Christmas cheer. (Okay, it was predominantly the minced pies and the mulled wine -- you know how it goes.)

Anyways, we're going to try and fix that this year. Starting...NOW. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you ten questions with one of our newest team members:

Name: Luca Chiarelli

What is your official title and what do you do for us?
Developer (specialising in iPhone) -- though he is an informatics engineer to hopes to expand on this in the future

What were you up to before you came to Mippin?
"Looking for my place... looking for something special" (Side note: that is totally us)

What sort of things of the non-mobile variety are you into?
Guitar & music, film, having a pint with friends, hopefully and taking up tennis again (a feat we here at Mippin HQ will certainly have a hand in come summer)

Do you have any favourite blogs or websites?
Mostly news sites like the BBC and The Sun (well, news-ish...), but also the AppGuide from MacWorld

If you were an animal, what would you be and why?
A solitary animal like the wolf

Favourite Parsons Green lunch spot?
Strada (...did we mention he was Italian?)

What’s better: Rome or London?
London -- "Culturally, it's better" (aww, shucks)

On a scale of 1 - 10, how awesome are you at table football?
TEN

What kind of advancements would you like to see in the mobile world in 2011?
(1) More implementation of 4G networks globally
(2) Mobile phone & projector combinations en masse

What kind of phone do you use currently and why?
White 16GB iPhone 3GS because "it was the first and keeps being the best...and it can always surprise you"

Mippin Launches Daily Star and OK! Android Apps

2010-11-16T18:32:00.004+01:00

Today Mippin launches two amazing (and free!) apps into the Android Marketplace -- Daily Star Lite and OK! Magazine Lite.

Both apps bring you the latest news and showbiz gossip updated 24/7.

These apps were created using our own Mippin App Factory, which will be available to the public in early 2011. The App Factory enables content owners to build great-looking apps in minutes with an easy online tool that transforms a website or blog into a fully-fledged native app for Android.

Mippin Included in Tech Media Invest 100 (Again!)

2010-09-13T17:48:00.003+02:00

Three cheers for us as once again we have been listed in the Tech Media Invest 100, a list compiled by Europe Unlimited (in association with The Guardian, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Kemp Little). It is "a list of today’s hottest and most innovative emerging companies in the ever converging tech and media industries". Why thank you, we're blushing!

We are also honoured to share a spot on this list with other companies we admire, like Shazam Entertainment, Spotify and Flirtomatic. Check out the full list here or just grab yourself a copy of The Guardian today. (I know, print -- how old school!)

Fingers crossed for 2011! Third time's the charm.

Talking Cross-Platform Apps in Mobile Marketing Magazine

2010-07-15T17:04:00.005+02:00

Here is our very own Head of Creative, David Mannl, featured in the latest print edition of Mobile Marketing Magazine and talking cross-platform mobile app creation. Check it out for an interesting read! And, according to David, it'll teach you how to "[laugh] all the way to the top of the app store ratings!"

(And because it's in print we've gone ahead and attached a high-res image of the article here, but you can check out mobilemarketingmagazine.co.uk if you want to have a gander at the website.)

Mippin Wants YOU!

2010-07-05T17:45:00.004+02:00

Mippin is looking for new talent to join us – come be part of the mobile revolution!

Want to join one of the hottest mobile dev and design companies in the UK?
Keen to be on the forefront of technology and work on the latest gadgets and gizmos to hit the mobile arena?

If words like Bondi and Jil don’t only remind you of beaches and nursery rhymes then you should get in touch with us. Mobile development based on web technologies is the next big thing and we want you to be part of it!

If you are a master of JavaScript, CSS, HTML5 with a little Java on the side and have experience with these technologies on mobile devices we want to invite you for an interview in our brand new office in the uber cool Matrix Studio Complex in Parsons Green.

Email jobs@mippin.com to get in on the action!

Mippin's Got the X Factor

2010-06-30T17:10:00.003+02:00

We're sorry it's been so long, but (as always) we've been very hard at work here at Mippin. Our very exciting news is that we are blogging from our shiny new offices in Parsons Green! (Okay, it's mostly exciting for us as we'll be the ones spending 40+ hours a week here, but please play along.)

Of course we love our old Fulham digs, but we needed a change! Variety is the spice of start-ups, as they say. So here we are in sunny Parsons Green!

And, in addition to our new offices being totally awesome (and big and bright and modern and -- need I continue with the adjectives here?), word on the street is that this complex is also the home of the X Factor offices! ...Pardon the geek out moment but HOW EXCITING IS THAT?! Cue the celeb spotting!

(Simon Cowell, if you're reading, come say hi! We've got Diet Coke and table football, what more could you ask for?)

We'll be sure to blog again soon! For now, there's still unpacking to be done...

Buzz Deck Reviewed in The Sunday Times

2010-05-10T17:48:00.006+02:00

We know, it's been awhile. But obviously all our hard work spreading the news about our general magnificence is paying off, as yesterday we got a lovely little review in the 'Planet of the Apps' section of The Sunday Times.

It might be a tad hard to read so we'll copy the text for you:

"This news and gossip app brings together RSS feeds -- news reduced to a headline and one-sentence summary, on which you can click for the full story -- as a series of visually appealing "cards", themed by subject, such as technology or celebrities. You can add to, remove or reorder dozens of cards to create a sort of flick-through newspaper, updated as often as every five minutes. Buzz Deck grew from a competition held for Android app developers and is at its best on Android rather than Apple handsets, thanks to the option of being able to create new cards that act like miniature browser windows within the Buzz Deck software. Powerful stuff indeed."

(We love it all, but that last sentence is our favorite! And so true!)

Fantastic New Website

2010-03-24T16:09:00.005+01:00

(...if we do say so ourselves.)

On returning to Mippin after a two and a half year hiatus, the very first task I was handed was to build a new website. Over the last few years Mippin has grown to include far more than just the mobile portal. We now have a whole suite of successful apps and widgets for iPhone, Android and Symbian phones, not to mention we still mobilize the web beautifully across all devices. The problem was we weren't shouting about it enough or letting people know all they can do with Mippin -- anything from mobilizing their own blog to building thousands of apps to feed into an app store (that's right, please check out the awesome App Factory).So we wanted a great new website to do the shouting for us!

The most important goal for the new website is to give visitors a clear overview of what we do while allowing them to explore each service in detail. Each of our services now has its own look and feel while the overarching site design ties everything together.

For those of you who regularly use our Mippin Mobilizer it's now listed under Services in its own branded area. It is still the same mobilizer you know and love beneath the skin. And if you haven't tried the Mippin Mobilizer yet then you should really give mobilizing your blog or website a go!

On a more personal note, I have really enjoyed stretching my legs and putting all my design and development skills to good use. (I have also learnt not to underestimate the amount of time it takes to fix the catalogue of Internet Explorer problems. Rest assured, if you are reading this through Microsoft’s browser then you are seeing the same as those with more desirable browsers.) Most of all though, it's just good to be back as part of the team here at Mippin.

Please take a look around the new website and send us your comments. We are always interested in what you think and continue to look for ways to make your Mippin experience better!

Nick's First Blog - Better Late Than Never!

2010-03-16T12:06:00.006+01:00

So… my first blog, at last!

The team have been hassling me for a while now, and let’s face it -- I’ve been here for over 4 months, so it’s truly overdue!

So, what’s blog-worthy at the moment…? Here at Mippin Towers there’s always plenty to talk about, and there's a constant stream of news! What else would you expect from one of London’s most pre-eminent, award-winning and dynamic mobile start-ups?!

So, what have we been up to since I joined? Well, we won the media category in Google’s Android Developer Challenge (ADC2) for our awesome Buzz Deck app, and have since launched it on iPhone as well – go download it… now! We also won Forum Nokia’s ‘Calling All Innovators’ award with our Tech Buzz Widget – available on Ovi and Android (download that, too)! Of course, none of these had anything to do with me as they were well and truly in the works before I joined, but it’s good to know I’ve joined an award-winning company!

More recently, a few of us attended the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, where we found many ears keen to learn more about the Mippin App Factory. The app factory is a platform that enables handset manufacturers and/or mobile operators to generate mass volume apps to populate their app stores, and is currently being used by one of the world’s largest handset manufacturers and a leading global mobile operator. The app factory removes the requirement for developers to be involved in the building of native and java-launcher style apps. All the hard work is automated on the server side -- content owners/publishers just need to follow a simple 5-minute online process to build the app, and presto! A mobile app is created for distribution on leading app stores to millions of handsets, as simple as 1, 2, 3!

If you’ve got an app store, and you’re not talking to us, you should be!

That’s it for now – keeping it short, and hopefully regular! We’ll see on that…

Mippin Launches Movie Buzz

2010-03-15T17:26:00.004+01:00

On Friday Mippin launched the Movie Buzz Widget, the latest and greatest in our series of Android widgets and the best way to get all the movie news you could ask for straight on your homescreen.

With four content stream options, we're sure to have you covered. There's plain old movie news, perfect for reading about who's starring in what and what star got snubbed, etc. And then we offer TV news for all those TV fanatics out there - don't worry if you missed Lost last night, we guarantee you'll find an episode synopsis (or seven) in the morning. You'll be sure to impress your friends by watching all of the latest movie trailers before they do. Iron Man 2? Got it. Eclipse? Got it. Tron? Got it. And, of course, no movie buzz would be complete without all of the latest celebrity gossip. (We know you love it. Just admit it.)

So head on over to the Android Market and check out Movie Buzz for free (as always)! Unless you're one of those technophobes... but then, you probably wouldn't be reading this blog, now would you?

Buzz Deck for iPhone Launches Today

2010-02-09T15:40:00.006+01:00

We're all smiles here at Mippin HQ today thanks to the launch of our super amazing Buzz Deck app for iPhone. If you remember, back in November Buzz Deck won 1st place in the media category in Google's Android Developer Challenge -- and now we're bringing that innovation to the iPhone, so that even more users can experience the awesomeness.

Buzz Deck is the fastest and easiest way to access all of your favorite web content in one place. With streams available by topic, from celebrity gossip to gaming news, you'll always be informed on the stuff that interests you. The app also allows access to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter and even other services like Flickr and Ebay. (A multitasking app on a non-multitasking phone -- could it be?!)

You can check out all the gory details here. Or just head on over to iTunes and purchase it for the hefty price of nothing! (Oh yeah, did I mention it's free?) And if you like it as much as we do, then maybe shout it from the mountaintops. Or tweet it to your gabillions of followers (the modern-day equivalent to mountaintop shouting). Yes, it really is that awesome.

In Case You Missed It...

2010-02-08T15:54:00.002+01:00

Check out this article from VentureBeat about Buzz Deck for the iPhone. And don't forget to keep an eye out for Buzz Deck's release in the coming weeks!

...and in 2nd place - Nokia Ovi App Store or Google Android Market?

2010-01-29T19:06:00.004+01:00

Once again it’s been a little too long since our last update, though we promise we’ve been very busy with some exciting projects! In fact you should prepare yourself for a slew of upcoming posts in the next few weeks & months, because there should be lots to talk about. For instance, we’ll definitely be blogging about the team trip to Barcelona in mid-February for Mobile World Congress. Plus we’re also looking forward to announcing some big development & partnership news, so stay tuned over the next few weeks if you want to know more!

For today, though, we wanted to draw your attention to an article we saw published on TechCrunch yesterday regarding Nokia Ovi Store’s download figures. From the looks of it, Nokia Ovi Store is beginning to pick up a little speed - and we’d agree! In fact, our own numbers show that in 2009 it was a service equivalent to that of the Android Market, at least according to download numbers of Mippin Buzz Widgets.

As some of you may remember, Mippin launched its range of Buzz Widgets (News Buzz, Tech Buzz, Gossip Buzz & Gaming Buzz) back in June / July of last year on both Android and Nokia phones. With 2009 over, we thought we could share our experience so below we’ve got two graphs tracking Buzz Widget downloads between July to December 2009. The first graph shows the number of downloads of each Buzz Widget on both Ovi & Android stores, while the second graph shows the combined number of downloads across all four Buzz Widgets, in each store.

Though Nokia Ovi was often criticized for offering a sub-standard service last year, you can see that with our experience we reached just as many users via the Ovi Store as we did with Android Market, suggesting many Nokia users were out there giving Ovi a try and succeeding in downloading our widgets. Of course it could be argued that the install base for Nokia is 100 times more than that of Android users, and so Nokia should be outperforming Androidm, however our widgets are only available for a few Nokia S60 phones.

Is it something to think about? Well, there are plenty of reasons to expect the Android Market to pull ahead in download terms in the coming year and we agree with most analysts that 2010 is expected to be the year of Android operating systems(just as much as the year of the tablet.) However it’s worth bearing in mind our experience is also that Nokia’s App Store offering is actually working for developers too and at least in Mippin terms, Nokia don’t seem much further behind iTunes than Google Android, which can be no bad thing.

The Greatest Mipp-Moments of 2009

2010-01-05T15:13:00.005+01:00

To say 2009 was a big year for Mippin would be a bit of an understatement. Products were launched, competitions were won, and much fun was had.

We know you might be a little top 10 list-ed out by now, but bear with us. We're about to throw another your way. And with that, we bring you...

10 Reasons Why Mippin Rocked The Casbah in 2009

1. Mippin signed a deal with a major telecoms company. (Shh, don't tell anyone!)

2. In May, Mippin launched the Tech Buzz Homescreen Widget for Android -- the first of many. It's now eight months later and we've gone on to launch five more widgets and they're available on the Android platform as well on most Nokia devices.

3. The Mippin iPhone app was launched in July, after only 11 months of submission time. (Just, you know, 10 months and 25 days longer than any other app store...thanks Apple!)

4. Mippin was shortlisted for the UK iAwards in November. We got to go to a fancy black tie affair and everything.

5. In September, we launched the amazing Buzz Deck application for Android as the sleekest and easiest way to get the content you want on your mobile. (Proof that this is true = see #10.)

6. Our Tech Buzz Homescreen Widget won 1st place in Nokia's 'Calling All Innovators' competition in Stuttgart, Germany - and a hefty $30k to go with it, which brings us to...

7. The office table football table! We used a teeny bit of that prize money on some office entertainment. But we hardly ever play it, we swear. (Do you believe us?)

8. Mippin was selected as one of the Tech Media Invest Top 100 companies in the UK and featured in The Guardian.

9. We got a new CEO, Nick Barnett, who we fully expect to bring us some even more amazing Mipp-moments like these.

10. And the pièce de résistance...our Buzz Deck app nabbed 1st place in the media category for Google's second annual Android Developer Challenge, $100K, and bragging rights that should last well into 2010...

Thanks for such an amazing year, mobile geeks!

Mystic Mippin Predicts An Exciting Start To The Decade.

2009-12-23T16:35:00.008+01:00

As the year comes to a close, we want to wish everyone who works with Mippin, uses our sites/apps or simply follows what we do a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. 2009 has been a difficult year for many but luckily enough its actually been a great one for the team here and also we believe the mobile industry in general. Certainly ‘the killer app finally arrived, in the form of…Apps!’ (Rich - CTO), and with the release of Android and upgraded Nokia smart phones, it seems like the mobile consumer is now using the web and other services from their mobile’s more than ever before. In terms of our contribution to mobile, the Mippin team enjoyed some fantastic success this year too, winning some exciting contracts, industry awards and even a new CEO. Still we’re looking forward to 2010 like everyone else and in the spirit of the traditional media industry forecast, we’ve asked for a few mobile predictions from the team for next year. Here’s a mix of our suggestions:

Rise of the Machines - part 1: Android goes from niche to massive
Though it suffers a few setbacks, Android grows both in popularity and in reach throughout 2010, beginning with the Google Nexus One launch through to a Motorola low end device.

Rise of the Machines - part 2: Will the Motorola's Droid lead put them back in the game?
Motorola's Android strategy comes good, they claw back global market share and introduce a mass market low end Android touch screen device.

The Killer App - here at last!
It turns out after all the killer app is...apps! They’re coming to more and more handsets, operators and 3rd parties in 2010 and this cornucopia of choice runs parallel with even more app stores to put the apps in. However discovery of relevant apps in app stores is likely to become an issue which will need improving through 2010.

The Internet, Mobile - Mobile Web comes of age... at last
While apps are taking eyeballs away from the (mobile) internet on high end devices, there will be a growing need for mobile version of websites for the mass market throughout 2010. There will be more and more realizations from content owners that a mobile website alternative provides the best user experience on mobile devices.

Data, Data everywhere, but not a drop to drink
Operators open the floodgates on mobile data tariffs, encouraging users to adopt new apps and internet on mobile. But, with infrastructures quaking at the seams, there's simply not enough bandwidth to go round. Later in the year, unlimited mobile data plans (fair use 5GB per month) will become harder and harder to find, as mobile networks may begin to suffer data connection and speed quality due to always connected devices like iPhone, Android and BlackBerrys.

An advert a day keeps the Google away - Apple go big in advertising
Apple launch or buy a mobile ad network to work with the apps in their app store. Advertising revenues will become more important for Apple going forward, as Google begins to move in to Apple’s territory and consequently Apple are forced to copy Google’s business models in some areas.

Is it a phone? Is it a netbook? Nope, its a.. ermm.. tablet/netphone/phonebook?
Yes, they're back. Where others have failed, will Apple really pull a successful tablet (or something similar) out of the bag? Quite probably... And with it is likely to come a whole new world of application form-factors and creative ad formats. Bring it on!

1 site, 2 sites, 3 sites, more...
Content owners face real challenges of building multiple versions of their mobile sites across an increasing plethora for platform choices- Apple appstore, android, Ovi, 360, etc etc. Players that can solve this problem look like good partners to find!

Hope you liked our forecast – let us know yours too! And have a great Christmas and Happy New Year from all at the Mippin Team!

Meet the Mipps: Special CEO Edition

2009-12-17T13:15:00.009+01:00

Name: Nick Barnett

Official Title: CEO

Phone of Choice: 32 Gig Black iPhone 3GS

Non-geek Interests: sailing, cycling, and family (not necessarily in that order)

Known around the office for: ever-increasing table football skills (he got a late start but recently he's been picking up speed...)

Favourite Fulham lunch spot: Bodean's

How many Twitter followers does Nick have at this very second?
None! Nick's not really a Twitter guy. He says he has an account but doesn't actually tweet-- no tweets, no followers. Fair enough.

Three blogs he can't go a day (err, hour?) without checking?
Nick is more of a forum-reader than a blog-reader. He doesn't like to distinguish between the two. After some reluctance to name blogs over forums, we agreed to play a game of table football over it. He won (note the aforementioned table football skills) so I guess that's it for this answer!

When did he cross over from average citizen to geek extraordinaire and what cinched it for him?
It could've been when he had to learn C++ back in 1994. Or it could've been when he started using Mosaic while he was doing research for his PhD. (I definitely had to Wiki that one -- pre Netscape Navigator!) Or it could've been that summer job he had working on an IT help desk. (Sounds like he's always been a geek to me!)

What sort of advancements does he expect in mobile tech in the next few years?
The answer is fourfold:
1.) Mobile payments will happen soon -- people will be using their mobile device as a chip & pin, and RFID capabilities will become more prevalent.
2.) Increasingly, we will see other gadgets being pushed out of the market by mobile phones. Already the mapping industry has found itself in trouble as so many mobile phones come with GPS capabilities and are therefore eliminating the need for other gadgets.
3.) There will be an increasing crossover between netbooks and phones. Netbooks will continue to decrease in size while phones will continue to increase in size (and capability), until eventually the two devices could merge totally.
4.) Local WILL finally happen, and it will be totally driven by maps.

Why does he think Mippin is absolutely AWESOME?
"Because it is!"(I then asked for elaboration.) He says it's because Mippin's got an incredible back-office content aggregation platform and a cool, award-winning UI that supports all devices. "We can deliver an app-like experience to anyone, regardless of device." Well said, Nick!

How Mippin Can Help Google Help Newspapers

2009-12-04T12:43:00.005+01:00

It's been an interesting week here at Mippin, beginning with the Google Android Developer Challenge 2 win, our press release, the launch of our Eco Buzz Widget, and now.....Google again.

Our operations man Conor just spotted the following article in the Wall Street Journal and it seems Mippin might be in a position to aid Mr Eric Scmidt, not in 2015 but in 2009! How? The article, titled "How Google Can Help Newspapers," goes on to describe a world in 2015 where phones will know their owner, the kind of content they like, make content recommendations, download content instantly and present articles individually as units of consumption. Sound familiar?

Obviously we appreciate Mr Schmidt is talking about the mass-market but thought we should mention we've been providing many mobile users with most of these services for over 2 years already, working with newspapers and publishers to feature their content in our mobile portal Mippin.com, our Buzz Widgets products and most recently our Buzz Deck application, all of which utilise the described personalisation technologies to deliver users a futuristic mobile experience. In fact we're really hopeful our most recent application Buzz Deck, the most sophisticated app we've ever produced, is next in line to drive serious revenues back to content publishers. With the addition of targeted advertising solutions to Buzz Deck, coming soon, we're just a few months away from 2015! Drop us a line Mr Schmidt if you're wondering what we're working on for newspapers in 2020 :)

Mippin Goes Green

2009-12-02T17:21:00.014+01:00

Today Mippin launches the Eco Buzz Widget, the latest in our series of awesome homescreen widgets for your Android device, including the highly anticipated Motorola Milestone (aka Droid). The widget delivers all the latest eco-friendly news right to your homescreen -- who knew living green could be so easy?

Whether it's the latest news on climate change, where to buy the coolest organic threads on the market, which car has the least impact on the environment, or even how to recycle your old patio furniture -- you'll find it all here. We've got content from the best green blogs out there like Ecorazzi, Inhabitat, and Autoblog Green, for a start. Just like all of our other widgets, you'll be able to customise the settings and set the refresh rate to anywhere from every 5 minutes to 24 hours.

So download the Eco Buzz Widget today and all of your friends will surely be green with envy.

Click here for more info.

Mippin Welcomes Nick Barnett as New CEO

2009-12-01T15:05:00.003+01:00

We're just full of exciting news today!

Today we are pleased to announce that Nick Barnett has joined the Mippin team as its new CEO! (You could try Googling him now, but before you do: no, we did not steal Nick away from the Green Bay Packers. He is in fact a different, though equally impressive, Nick Barnett.)

Nick was formerly the Managing Director at Phorm UK, which provides targeted online content and advertising solutions. Previously, Nick was Vice President of Corporate Strategy & Development at O2/Telefonica for 5 years, and prior to that he was at McKinsey & Company.

"Given my background -- a combination of telecoms, technology, online media and advertising -- Mippin is the perfect fit and I'm really looking forward to driving the company forward. Obviously, I am absolutely delighted that the team's accomplishments have been recognised in winning both the Google and Nokia developer competitions -- it's a really great time to come on board," said Nick.

We're really excited to welcome Nick and couldn't agree more about him being the perfect fit for Mippin! Well, once he picks up on his table football skills, that is.

For the full press release, click here.

Buzz Deck Wins 1st Place in ADC2 Media Category

2009-12-01T12:52:00.007+01:00

Yesterday, Google announced the winners for its second annual Android Developer Challange and Mippin's very own Buzz Deck took the 1st place spot in the Media category! And not only did we nab the top spot, but we will also be VERY happy to nab the $100,000 prize that goes along with it! (We are a start-up, after all...)

If you're not familiar, Buzz Deck (www.mippin.com/buzzdeck) provides a simple, elegant and fast way to get all your favourite web content in one place, perfectly optimised for mobile use. You can flick between topics, from Gossip to Gadgets to Green, and we even learn what you like and recommend stuff we think you'll enjoy. Oh, and you can check up on your Facebook or Twitter updates (among many others) at the same time. Brilliant, we know.

The Android Developer Challenge recognises developers writing the best applications for the Android development platform, and the level of competition this year was unbelievable. We're chuffed to be honoured with all of the other great apps and their developers. We want to wish a special congratulations to the other two winners in our category, SPB TV and FxCamera, and also to all of the other winners across the board. Well done!

After a heavy night of ADC2-related texting, emailing, tweeting, Facebook-updating and so forth, we thought we deserved a little break this morning. So we had ourselves a little celebration, complete with champagne and Krispy Kremes! We really know how to party here at Mippin. But now it's back to work...these apps don't just make themselves!

For the full press release, click here.

And the iAward goes to...

2009-11-19T15:17:00.005+01:00

Apologies, we're a bit late writing this post about our trip to the UK iAwards ceremony on Monday night, though it would be fair to assume we’d have been a bit quicker on the update if we’d won an award. Okay we admit, we didn’t win outright but we think being short listed at all was still a big achievement. As expected there were plenty of tech companies in attendance, along with sponsors and some government ministers. What we weren’t expecting was the showbiz aspect though - a lot of time & effort had been spent on the Science Museum venue itself, while there seemed to be lots of journalists buzzing around, plus even a few celebrities. It might not have been the BAFTAs but it wasn’t the GEEKAS either.

In fact everyone looked very dapper in black tie and the night proved really interesting, bringing together lots of different industries under one roof, with tech & innovation as the common thread. There was plenty of discussion and excitement around new ideas, introductions to new companies, plus some knowledge gap filing, i.e. event sponsorship wasn’t from the Orwellian sounding ‘Ministry of Science’ but the Department of Business, Innovation and Science. Of course it was a little disappointing not to win because we’re very proud of our mobile Buzz Widgets and think they’ve got a myriad of applications, but on the night Solargorilla won in our category – Digital Communications - with their solar-powered charger, so a big congratulations to them too. Perhaps we’ll be back to win next year instead, when the iAwards team will be using our widgets to download the event programme to everyone’s phones!

Bringing the Best of the Web to the Phone: Interview with David Mannl, Mippin

2009-11-16T13:58:00.005+01:00

Full transcript of an interview with Smartphone Biz-news
Friday 13th November 2009 - 16:39

As society becomes more mobile, publishers are looking for ways to make their content accessible to as many people as possible.

While there are still some that have barely recognized the web as a viable marketplace for their audience, those that have adopted the mobile trends are quickly seeing changes in how their customer base interacts with the products/services offered and shared both on the standard web, and thru mobile technologies.

Mippin is one such company that specializes in helping users attain access to mobile content, and helping publishers mobilize their content for easy access for their audience.

Mippin, backed by Refresh Mobile, came to life in 2007. David Mannl, Head of Creative and co-founder of Mippin, states that he and his partner said, "let's ditch the whole client business for the time being' and focus only on mobile apps and that's when Mippin got started and launched as a product."

He also notes that when they started back in 2007 there were hardly any mobile internet sites around, and left a huge need for publishers and users to have mobile versions of all the web content they could.

How large is Mippin? "We have 76,000 sites in our system, all of them categorized into various levels of interest," answers co-founder of Mippin David Mannl.

David Mannl
Currently there are two ways to mobilize your content via Mippin. The first one is on your mobile phone; just enter the URL into the search box and on the fly Mippin will go out to that website, looks for a RSS content feed, and then creates a mobile version of it which works perfectly across 3,000 devices.

As for the second option, if you do the same on your computer over at mippin.com, under publisher or blogger tab you go into a flow where the user can do the same thing. Mippin will basically find the RSS feed and then the user can upload their logo, define a color scheme and enter their ad mobile ID. It's a fairly simple and streamlined process and Mippin has seen much success with.

TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN

Mippin for publishers

For a publisher the approach is a simple solution. The publisher comes to the site to mobilize their web content, does not have to have any program skills whatsoever because its a one size fits all solution. You typically will find two types of publishers the first one is where we are the primary mobile solution.

This means Mippin will work with a lot of blog networks that want to have a wide variety of blogs over 30 to 40 sites and for them its a complete and total package. Each site takes about five minutes to set up and that’s mainly uploading the colors, defining the branding and then they have this huge array of mobile sites. We also have publishers that use Mippin like an additional distribution channel.

David Mannl shares an example, "we have an agreement with the New York Times and we are allowed to republish their content as well, but of course they already have their own mobile site. For them they have their own platform, they use us as an additional distribution mechanism and then some publishers use us as their only mobile solution."

Mippin for advertisers

There are two tiers for advertisers. If you host your ad on Mippin, you keep 100% of the ad revenue and that solution is offered with Ad More because it’s the easiest to implement. An advertiser goes in, there's a little monetize tab in that mobilization's log, you put in your own AdMore information and from that moment on Ad More send you money every month as soon as you are over a certain threshold.

Alternatively, we have what is called Mippin Premium Publishers. For these more premium advertising, Mippin will actually take a little cut from the ad revenue because they have to interact with the ad providers and make sure they always get the best campaigns.

They also make sure there is more targeted advertising so they will give a lot of information about the site to the advertising network so they can insert more relevant ads into the system or into the partners' site as well.

Demographic of users

The majority of users on the Mippin network are in America, followed by the UK. Demographic wise Mippin does not collect any data with regards to gender or age or income. What we do see are the devices the user is using and the location where they are coming from. Mippin tracks how long users are staying on the system, but they do not collect any more data from the user because its just a mobile internet site and they don’t think its really necessary to register this service.

"They just want to quickly access every time they have spare time," David Mannl responds with regard to what the end user is looking for.

What’s interesting about what Mippin can see is what sites are more popular in each country. Mippin has a full time editorial staff that picks the best sites and puts them into categories based on popularity in the country you live in. So if you go to a category on Mippin in America, you will see different sites and different ordering then if you would do the same in the UK.

Mippin uses a crowd source approach for editorial ordering of content. David notes that one of our biggest successes in America is wrestling, which they were completely surprised about. While in the UK, it's a lot of tabloids and gossip and of course football (soccer).

Mippin replacing traditional computing?

David notes that especially in developing markets where they don’t have access to a laptop, growth has exploded. In Saudi Arabia the average time a user is on Mippin is as high as 20 minutes and that's just the average. So it's easy to see, for them, it's the only way to access the internet. Compared to the UK, where a user will spend 8 minutes on average, and America, 7 to 9 minutes.

It may be also because Mippin has one of the biggest selection of mobilized content out there. They've also built in recommendations into the system which will regularly recommend new content. You can connect with other users on the service, they can recommend you new content, so there are many ways to discover content on Mippin.

In cultures where desktops and laptops are scarce, services like Mippin seem prime for growth. In cities where many of the populace are constantly on the go, David sees explosive growth continuing, hoping that their service reach more and more people every year. It should be noted that competition in the mobile space is not as it was back in 2007.

Today competition or attention is fierce and the market is quickly growing. Mippin is now just one of many services that offer mobilized content, but so far David sees the growth of his network remaining strong.

You can follow David on Twitter @flashy1980. More specifically if you are a user of Mippin, David prides himself on the face that users can always submit feedback to the company for future improvements.

"Every page on Mippin has a feedback box and we actually read that feedback everyday because that’s part of our company DNA. We listen to our users because we want to keep them entertained and they are what help to make this service better and if we make the service better, we can entertain them better. So there's a lot of really great dialogue we're seeing. We are also getting a lot of feedback through the ad store. Its really good to now have the tools to stay in contact with your users and not just be a faceless company," David says proudly.

Government, dragons, traffic lights & Mippin?

2009-11-10T13:39:00.009+01:00

Mippin is keeping some impressive company this week. Yesterday we were shortlisted by Google for their second Android Developers Challenge. Today we learn we're shortlisted by UK Government no less, for a new technology awards initiative called iAwards.

Okay, so the judging panel might not all be quite government, but iAwards is backed by Science and Innovation Minister Lord Drayson, plus Dragon's Den star James Caan. There's a real mix of award categories, including Energy and Environment (featuring environmentally friendly traffic lights), Cross-Application of Technology and Next Big Thing; Mippin has made it through to the last three in the Digital Communications category with our Buzz Widgets, so we'll be attending the ceremony next week and hopefully bumping in to some of the great and good from across the UK tech industry. With Mr Caan in tow, we might even see Mippin's "mobile content publishing" pitch on Dragons Den one day! What's really amazing though is how successfully tech is infiltrating all areas of our lives, and it will be great for Mippin and the work we do on mobile to be recognised alongside a wider range of tech development across so many other industries.

ADC2 Round 1 Results Are In

2009-11-09T10:28:00.004+01:00

Everyone needs a little good news on Monday morning...

And here it is! A few months back, we entered 3 of our applications into Google's second Android Development Challenge, and we have just been informed that 2 of those have made it to the second (and final) round of judging. Mippin's Fun Buzz Widget (in the entertainment category) and Buzz Deck (in the media category) will be judged in the coming weeks both by the Android community and a team of Google-selected judges -- we've got our fingers crossed, but it's already an honor to make it this far.

Entrants were able to enter apps into 1 of 10 categories, and prizes are awarded to the top 3 in each category as well as the top 3 overall. (The grand prize is a whopping $250,000 -- wonder how many table football tables that could get us?)

Congratulations to the 198 other applications that have made it this far! The competition is certainly fierce. To check out the list of the final 200 apps, just click here.

Mippin's Daily News Pick: Mippin's Daily News Pick

2009-11-05T15:00:00.005+01:00

Mippin loves news. It's sort of a given since we work with it every day, and yet its not often that we share our own take on the world with our Mippin fans or users. So starting this week, we'll be endeavoring to share one news item each day which catches our fancy. It won't be particularly serious in nature, but we hope it will be interesting, funny, or a little bit unusual.... definitely plenty of those stories out there and they usually get found by at least one of us here in the office. Now we'll also be letting you know about it too via our Twitter account.

Unless you find the story first? If you do, you can let us know and we'll be sure to share. Either way, hope you enjoy our new Mippin's Daily News Pick over on twitter.com/mippin.

Designing Your App With The Consumer in Mind

2009-10-20T16:18:00.008+02:00

Our very own Head of Creative, David Mannl aka Flashy got invited to give a presentation at the Mobile Web Event today (20th October 2009).

The topic (Designing Your App With The Consumer in Mind) couldn't have been better as it is part of our company DNA to always focus on the consumer whilst designing and developing our mobile apps and services.

Your honest feedback helps us to create the apps you love. As it says on the 2nd slide: "Nobody gets it 100% right the 1st time" but with your help we eventually will get it right.

See the presentation embedded below:

Buzz Deck Review on Revision3

2009-10-12T18:07:00.007+02:00

We are loving this review of Buzz Deck for Android from Jim Louderback at Revision3. (Of course we love all reviews here at Mippin, but especially the good ones!) The show notes posted on the revision3.com say this:

"Want a neat way to keep up to date with news, sports & weather on your Android? Buzz Deck delivers that, plus links to social networks and more!"

Couldn't have said it better ourselves!

It is worth noting that a few of the 'cons' listed have been changed since the initial launch of Buzz Deck. You can now create your own custom card based on any website! and we're tweaking the content to be more specific to the country. We've also added the card name (like 'Tech' or 'Gadgets') to the stories just to sort out any confusion there.

Christmas in October for Mippin HQ

2009-10-06T16:43:00.006+02:00

Not to brag (again...) but here at Mippin we have just fallen into some serious £££. And by "fallen", I mean we brought our A game to the Forum Nokia Calling All Innovators competition a few months back and nabbed a very lovely trophy (and, of course, cash prize).

So, we're spoiling ourselves a bit. We're buying one-eighth of a Porsche and splitting it between all of the employees!

...Kidding. We're just in the market for some office entertainment -- one big toy (and maybe some little ones). There's a Google doc circulating which everyone's adding suggestions to, but I'm pretty sure my suggestion of 'hamster' is a no-go (probable death over the weekend was a good enough reason to nix it). But we do have a more plausible 'ant farm' on the list of potentials so I suppose that would be enough to fulfill my goal in getting a live toy.

But on to the good stuff. The two main contenders right now are table tennis and table football (aka foosball). Very reputable options. Also on the list are a 'Nerf Havok Fire Automatic Blaster,' which does look as cool as it sounds, and a 'Basketball Super Shoot Out'. There's a flatscreen TV on the list as well, but I think that might cross the line from fun toy to serious timewaster, so that's out. And then there's a sofa, but that's like riding the bore-train into Snoozetown, no?

So what should it be? Table tennis? Table football? Nerf Blaster? 7000 of those little cocktail umbrellas? A giant inflatable mobile phone? One very large cake for every day for the rest of the year? Suggestions are welcome.

Introducing Buzz Deck!

2009-09-17T17:48:00.009+02:00

Mippin's Android Competition entry (ADC2) makes it's first appearance.

At your fingertips
Flick through your favourite topics and stories with ease.

May we recommend?
Buzz Deck learns quickly and adds recommended content to your experience.

Stay social
Get Twitter and Facebook updates alongside your daily hit of news content.

No fluff
Simple, elegant and fast. No Waiting. Buzz Deck just works.

More info at http://mippin.com/buzzdeck

CelebriTweets: Your Newest Guilty Pleasure

2009-09-16T16:39:00.008+02:00

Do you want to know what MC Hammer ate for breakfast this morning?

Do you want to see first-hand who Lily Allen is antagonizing today?

Do you want to read about Jessica Simpson's dog being eaten by a coyote?

Well, I sure do. (And I bet you do, too -- even if you won't admit it.)

With Mippin's newest channel, CelebriTweets, you can keep up to date with all of your favorite celebrity Twitter accounts. We've got everyone from Snoop Dogg and Kim Kardashian to Paris Hilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger, so all of the bases are covered when it comes to your guilty pleasures. You can catch up with the whole group (there's over 100 and counting) just by checking out the latest stories stream, or subscribe to your favorite celebs individually and get their Twitter feeds right on your homepage.

Both TwitPics and TweetPhotos show up in the story itself (without having to click on any additonal links) and all of the @usernames are clickable as well. (Which is always helpful when trying to find out how Sam Ronson replied to Lindsay Lohan's desperate tweets -- or, how she didn't reply, as has been the case recently. Oh the drama!)

So go on, check out what the celebs are celebritweeting... (You know you want to.)

Running rings around donut - Android 1.6 SDK Screen Sizes

2009-09-16T12:38:00.008+02:00

Over the past couple of weeks Motorola, SonyEricsson, INQ, LG, GeekPhone ONE, Samsung, Archos and HTC have all make Android related announcements. For an Android fan like myself that is big. Now to top it all off the announcement of the Android 1.6 SDK makes it a pretty good week.

After a few hours hands on, here is what it means to us.

There are new screen sizes supported. In addtion to the regular 320x480px HVGA screen resolution there are now QVGA (240x320), WVGA800 (800x480) and WVGA854 (854x480). But what does that mean for applications? will developers have to update their apps to support the new sizes? Well I've tested all of our Android applications out and the news is good, here are the results:

News Buzz Widget WVGA_856px on left, QVGA on right:

Somehow Google/Android have managed to get the scaling algorithms to work like magic, they maintain aspect ratios where necessary and scale to fill as much of the screen as they can whenever possible. This knocks a big worry on the head for me, I was concerned about the fragmentation problems of different screen sizes. Of course there are still issues, but they are minimal and most importantly the apps are still perfectly useable and 100% functional.

Good job, well done.

Extra! Extra!

2009-09-07T15:22:00.004+02:00

Mippin has been selected as one of the Tech Media Invest Top 100 companies in the UK, which was published in today's Guardian (sponsored by Pricewaterhouse Coopers and Kemp Little). According to the website, the 100 companies were "picked for their innovation and creativity over the past year in areas as diverse as mobile applications, racing games and music recognition." We're blushing!

It's such an honor to be on the list with other companies whose products we use/enjoy/admire (Getjar, Spotify, AudioBoo, etc). And, of course, it's always nice to be rewarded for hard work!

So pick up a copy of today's Guardian while you still can and check it out for yourself! (Personally, I might laminate a copy and send it to my parents. Just an idea.)

May We Recommend...

2009-09-03T13:39:00.004+02:00

Mippin's not just about accessing the content you already know you like -- it's also about discovering the content you didn't even know you'd like. For example, without Mippin I'd never have found gems like Lifehacker (and Hollywood Backwash, I admit). If only she had the time, Mippin's own Teri would be happy to recommend excellent new sites to each and every Mippin user personally. But fortunately the machinery at Mippin comes through with tips of its own: on your My Sites page, notice that "Sites you might also like" section?

Using the same bag of tricks that Amazon uses to recommend books or DVDs based on past purchases, known in the biz as "collaborative filtering", Mippin can likewise guess at sites you will like to read, based on past visits. Sometimes they're like the sites you already read -- sometimes it gets daring and recommends a couple sites you might not normally consider reading. Try it. The more you read, the more Mippin can help, and the more quality articles will live in your Mippin homepage.

How's it done? Mippin uses software from Apache's open-source "Mahout" machine learning project (http://lucene.apache.org/mahout) to figure out what you might be interested in. I am in the fortunate position of being a part of both Mahout and Mippin, and have guided some big updates to the recommender system. Expect better and more frequent suggestions from Mippin shortly as we roll this out.

Machine learning techniques, once the territory of rocket scientists and PhDs, have become quite accessible these days through projects like Mahout. These techniques are essential to building competitive, intelligent services. Watch for recommendations to figure prominently in some next-generation projects in the works over here at Mippin.

Sean

And on to the main event - Nokia World '09

2009-09-02T16:03:00.006+02:00

As the dust settles this afternoon (after Mippin's big win in Stuttgart), we thought it might be nice to mention a few of the blogs / sites who are now reporting from Nokia World and / or have been supporting Mippin in the last few days.

First up is Forum Nokia's own blog, newly launched at http://blogs.nokia.com/mydailyapp. It's going to be providing some great reviews of upcoming Ovi Store apps from now on and is definitely worth checking out for its first article alone (about Mippin Buzz Widget actually - we'll stop milking the win tomorrow!) You can also find the Forum Nokia My Daily App blog on Mippin too, click here

Second up we have Mobile Entertainment, also available on Mippin. For their PC site review click here or head over to their mobilized version on Mippin by clicking here. They're in and around Nokia World with all the latest goings on so definitely worth a look.

Lastly we'd like to point you to Symbian Guru, who with a love of all things Symbian will be providing their insight on Nokia World, as well as the obligatory write up of the Awards. You can catch their mobile site on Mippin too, here.

Tech Buzz Homescreen Widget FTW

2009-09-02T11:04:00.008+02:00

Drumroll please...

...And the winner of the Forum Nokia Calling All Innovators Award is...

MIPPIN!

Last night at the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, Germany, Nokia announced Mippin as the first place winner in the internet innovation category. The competition was fierce, and we have to give kudos to both Dianping and Pixelpipe (the second and third place winners, respectively) for making us sweat over the past few weeks. The anticipation was agony!

We are all beeming with pride at the Mippin offices today, and we are sure the same goes for Richard, Flashy and Robin -- who accepted the award -- over in Germany. We haven't gotten all the juicy details yet but we hope there was a teary acceptance speech and a raging after party.

It feels awesome to be honored for something we all worked so hard on and were all so proud of. Our blood, sweat and tears went into the Tech Buzz Homescreen widget (fortunately for you we don't mean literally!) so it is great to be recognized for it. And we have to give an extra shoutout to our innovations team who came up with the inspired idea -- brilliance, guys. We (obviously) wouldn't have gotten here witout you!

Our thanks to the Mippin team, Nokia, Dianping, Pixelpipe, and everyone who voted for us!

And the Forum Nokia Calling All Innovators Award goes to...

2009-09-01T17:38:00.002+02:00

The excitement is palpable in the office today! Richard (CTO), Flashy (Head of Creative) and Robin (Co-Founder) are in Stuttgart as I write, waiting to attend the ‘star-studded’ Forum Nokia Calling All Innovators Award. It’s sort of a mobile equivalent to the Baftas - not quite the Oscars of mobile like CTIA, Techcrunch, GSMA or Webby Awards for instance but hopefully a big pointer to who’ll be winning what in the next few months.

The awards are taking place at the Porsche Museum which is a symbolic choice because Mippin is striving to achieve something similar to Porsche - our logo synonymous with high quality mobile apps, services and usability in years to come. If we’re still around in 20 years perhaps we can even open our own Mippin Museum to show off all the old mobile phones we’ve got lying around in the office…

But back to tonight, whether we win first, second or third place, its good to see the development & innovations team enjoying some Bafta style recognition. In the mobile world, it doesn't get more glamorous (or emotional) than this. Good luck guys, try not to cry too much if you make an acceptance speech :)

Mobile - it's in the blood!!!

2009-08-28T18:06:00.008+02:00

Another action-packed month over at Mippin Towers, building and distributing numerous publisher apps across Nokia Ovi Store, working on some monetization solutions for Mippin portal, plus enjoying the moment we reached the first 10 apps in Top Free section of iPhone App Store’s News category.

And that’s just me! The rest of the team launched a revised version of Mippin’s collaborative algorithm (powering Mippin content portal recommendations,) developed some new Buzz Widgets (coming soon), and were picked as finalists in the Nokia Calling All Innovators Competition, winning a minimum $10,000 prize and a trip to Stuttgart next week (don’t blow it guys – I mean the cheque..) They're also finalising some new contracts and oh, by the way, developed a completely brand new type of mobile content application which may single handedly redefine the way web content is accessed and consumed on mobile phones forever.

The new app, which has been submitted to the Android Developer Challenge before it goes live in the Android Market in a few weeks, features a super slick UI, intuitive navigation and great content. All hallmarks of the Mippin development team of course. Except this new app brings something new to the party, though exactly what can’t be revealed until the app goes live for Android mobile users in September. Needless to say it’s the mobile evolutionary equivalent of the Model-T Ford – everyone will be able to get around a lot faster!

So it seems like a busy month over here at Mippin HQ, developing, innovating etc. Except that in all honesty, with a team that are genetically programmed to programme, September is going to be the evolution, when the Buzzy new product goes live in Android Market. Who’s to say what the team’s capable of then!

Meet the Mipps: Part 8

2009-08-28T13:00:00.001+02:00

Name: Conor Owens

Official title: Head of Operations

Phone of Choice:
Black G1 (a popular one 'round these parts)

Non-geek interests:
Sailing -- or, as Conor puts it, "messing about with boats"

Known around the office for:
Working from home in Ireland.

Favorite Fulham lunch spot (when he's in town):
The park in the summer! (We're big fans of Walham Green, which is just around the corner.)

How many Twitter followers @glasshalffull has at this very second?
"No idea." (It's actually 8, but with absolutely no tweets!)

Three blogs he can't go a day (err, hour?) without checking?
XKCD, bigoceans.com, Messing About In Sailboats

When did he cross over from average citizen to geek extraordinaire and what cinched it for him?
It started when he began working at T-Mobile in 2003 -- a true mobile geek at heart.

What sort of advancements he expects in mobile tech in the next few years?
Three expectations:
1.) a real convergence between the capabilities of PC's and phones
2.) high-speed network access everywhere
3.) data accessed easily (by phone or PC) from anywhere, no hard drive necessary

Why he thinks Mippin is absolutely AWESOME?
It's a great range of information that is speedily accessible, and "it serves both informative purposes and entertainment purposes".

And that concludes our 'Meet the Mipps' blog series! It's not all of us, but hopefully we gave you a little peak into the inner-workings of the coolest start-up on the planet. Because without all of our devoted employees (and of course our devoted users!), where would we be?

Meet the Mipps: Part 7

2009-08-21T14:04:00.000+02:00

Name: Ben

Official title: Back End Architect

Phone of choice: Black G1

Non-geek interests:
all things music (including playing the guitar), walking through mountains, skiing

Known around the office for:
Not actually being in the office! Ben works from home in Poland, but flies over once a month to feed us all Polish snacks.

Favorite Fulham lunch spot:
The Slug@Fulham

How many twitter followers @kornmaniak has at this very second?
"7 or 8" (He was just being modest -- it's 11!)

Three blogs he can't go a day (err, hour?) without checking?
All he needs are Mippin's Buzz Widgets, particularly Mobile News and Tech. (And it's worth mentioning again that our Tech Buzz Widget is so unbelievably awesome that it's been shortlisted as one of three finalists in Nokia's 'Calling All Innovators' contest. If you love it too, why not do us a solid and send a vote our way?)

When did he first cross over from average citizen to geek extraordinaire and what cinched it for him?
Ben's had a bit of a tumultuous relationship with geekdom. When he was five he got his first computer and switched over to the dark side. Then, he opted out of tech when doing his studies in an attempt to deny his geek status... But have no fear -- he eventually succumbed and is now a full-fledged member of The Geek Society (just like the rest of us).

What sort of advancements does he want in mobile tech over the next few years?
Basically he wants everything even more simplified than it is now -- he hooks up his phone to his computer and the computer becomes just a larger version of the phone. Then, when he leaves the house he can disconnect them and take the phone, which becomes just a smaller version of the computer. Essentially, it's a single entity -- just running on multiple devices.

Why he thinks Mippin is absolutely AWESOME?
When he's bored, it keeps him entertained. Plain and simple.

Nokia Calling All Innovators Award Selects Mippin

2009-08-19T17:20:00.000+02:00

Mippin is excited to announce this morning its inclusion in the shortlist for Nokia’s prestigious “Calling All Innovators” Award. As reported here last month, Mippin launched a number of new Buzz Widgets designed for the Nokia platform and available from the new application store at Nokia Ovi Store. Once downloaded, the widgets power quick and easy content discovery on the phone’s home screen, with users able to access a comprehensive range of content channels without having to navigate through the phone’s menu or web browser.

The five Buzz Widgets Mippin launched in July cover the latest tech, gossip, gaming, national and international news, with publisher branded versions also on the horizon. Nokia’s shortlisting of the Mippin technology version, called Tech Buzz Widget, means the company’s earlier decision to look at the phone's home screen for potential development and mobile innovation was a sensible one. It’s great to announce that the Tech Buzz Widget has come out as a finalist for the award alongside two other companies, with the winner to be announced at Nokia World in September. The team is obviously keen to win - there’s a large cash prize on offer which is always needed at a start up - plus there’s the benefit of Tech Buzz Widget promotion on the Ovi Store. More important, however, is the recognition this award brings the team itself, confirming that our time and thought in developing these applications was worth it; after all, it’s always great to be recognized for what you do and for Nokia to shortlist Tech Buzz Widget in a hotly contested competition is a major achievement. Having won the Nokia Developer of the Year Award in 2007, Mippin really appreciates just how important this sort of milestone can be and, of course, what it can lead to!

Robin Jewsbury -- who led the work on the Nokia Buzz Widgets -- said, “If you’re in to mobile and heading over to Stuttgart in September, let us know and we will use some of our prize money to buy you a drink! We’ll definitely be celebrating and will be more than happy to demo Tech Buzz Widget, so say hello.” Good luck Robin, Richard and Flashy!

For the full press release from Nokia, click here.

Meet the Mipps: Part 5

2009-08-14T16:24:00.000+02:00

Name: Teri

Official Title: Head of Content

Phone of choice:
White iPhone 3GS (32 gig) -- "with an ugly yellow case"

Non-geek interests:
Fashion, Tennis, Food, TV junky

Known around the office for:
Being called Pocahontas or Smurf. As well as being seriously addicted to Diet Coke

Favourite Fulham lunch spot:
The Slug (as long as it doesn't smell like vomit as it sometimes does on a Friday. Thursday night's is party night at the slug)

How many twitter followers she has at this very second?
Just 97 but growing quickly @teritechno

Three blogs she can’t go a day (err, hour?) without checking?
Savage Love Blog, Go Fug Yourself, Pretty Much Amazing

When did she cross over from average citizen to geekette extraordinaire and what cinched it for her?
As soon as we told her what an Atom and RSS feed was

What sort of advancements she expects in mobile tech in the next few years?
Teri thinks that phones will be able to detect our moods. So if she is sad the phone will try to cheer her up with funny personalized content

Why she thinks Mippin is absolutely AWESOME?
Fast and simple way to find stuff you are interested in - and things you never knew you are interested in.

Swimming in a Sea of Blogs

2009-08-13T10:29:00.000+02:00

As content editor here at Mippin, I look at a lot of blogs.

A lot of blogs.

We have a lot of good times, me and blogs. It’s sort of a love/hate relationship. Sometimes they stop speaking or change their address without telling me, but ultimately my love knows no bounds. After all, blogs are my rocket fuel – and the rocket fuel of Mippin. Without content, where would we be?

Sometimes my task is to find new blogs, because we here at Mippin like to keep up with the Jones’ – we need cricket blogs for The Ashes, festival blogs around Glastonbury time, costume blogs for Halloween, etc. And it’s not always an easy endeavor.

So how do you do it, Teri?

Great question, hypothetical inquisitors. Here are my top 5 content-sourcing options:

Blogs.com – I cannot even tell you the love that bubbles up inside at the mere mention of the name. Basically, the gist of the site is to recount some of the top stories circulating the web, but from various bloggers’ perspective. It links you all over the place to different blogs, mainly with one thing in common – the one story they all decided to write a post on. For example (beware, this is only a dramatization): ‘Twitter decided to rename itself Fwitter today. Blogger #1 says, “it’s preposterous!” and “a serious threat to the growing trend of all things with the ‘tw’ prefix.” Meanwhile, Blogger #2 says, “I hope Fwitter stays. I want my grandchildren to grow up in a world of Fweets.”’ (Also worth noting -- their top ten lists on anything and everything, which are updated almost daily, are a godsend for finding good niche blogs.)

Blogrolls – I suppose this one is a bit obvious to many, but I find blogrolls to be a constant source of good material, all essentially centered around one blog. So, I’m looking at the blogroll of a nifty fashion blog – not only will I get that blogger’s favorite fashion blogs, but often her favorite foodie or pop culture blogs as well. Good content leads to more good content.

Technorati – ...is amazing. The site pays a lot of attention to blogs by authority, which leads to legitimate, popular (or on-the-rise) content. The front page simply tells you ‘what’s percolating in blogs now’, or you could siphon by category to figure out what’s percolating in boating blogs right now (no joke) or whatever else you might fancy. And extra kudos for using the word ‘percolating’, Technorati.

Blog Networks – Many blogs are part of a larger blog network – therefore one good blog can often lead to a veritable cornucopia of good content. A great example is the popular Cheezburger network – both I Can Has Cheezburger and Failblog have caught on so much that their language is now incorporated into a geek’s everyday vocabulary. (And, not surprisingly, the rest of the content put out by the network is similarly up to par.) Blog network WIN! Srsly.

Mippin – Obviously! Even though I control most of the content, I find myself constantly surprised by what Mippin -- and our users -- come up with. Browsing the categories shows me the most popular content, ordered by my country. I can also check out the 20 most popular sites in my country at any time using the ‘Entertain me now’ feature, which I need to check often so I can stay in the loop. Also, just looking at the latest stories streams in a category (Celebrities and Food Blogs are favorites of mine) can lead you to interesting stories from sites you’ve maybe never heard of. It’s content discovery as it should be – simple, relevant and enlightening.

Meet the Mipps: Part 5

2009-08-07T17:29:00.000+02:00

Name: Justin Baker

Official Title: Senior Marketing & Account Manager

Phone of choice: iPhone 3G (16 gig) -- "all roads lead to the iPhone..."

Non-geek interests: music and sports that he's not very good at (marathon running, mountain climbing, surfing, swimming, etc.)

Known around the office for: office DJ (a shared task with Robin), having good but often very convoluted ideas, coming in late, drawing matchstick men

Favourite Fulham lunch spot: One Stop Fresh

How many twitter followers he has at this very second? Well, that answer depends. Answer a: 836 (but that's for the @mippin account he manages, which is a bit of a deceiving answer.) Answer b: none.

Three blogs he can’t go a day (err, hour?) without checking? Mobile Marketing Magazine, FAIL blog, and thenextweb.com

When did he cross over from average citizen to geek extraordinaire and what cinched it for him? "I never crossed over...until I came here...help..."

What sort of advancements he expects in mobile tech in the next few years? Justin expects (and presumably wants as well) more interactive advertising, from the idle screen to advertiser-funded mobile programming.(...don't we all?)

Why he thinks Mippin is absolutely AWESOME? Threefold. 1.) It's the "fastest way to get content onto your mobile. Lightning fast." 2.) Design -- Justin goes on to claim it is the "best-designed mobile site in the world" (kudos to Flashy for that) 3. Choice

Meet the Mipps: Part 4

2009-07-31T15:51:00.000+02:00

Name: David Mannl AKA Flashy

Official Title: Head of Creative

Phone of choice: Nokia N95 8GB (...and he doesn't like to admit it, but he also fancies the office iPhone quite a bit...)

Non-geek interests: lederhosen, schnitzel, and basketball

Known around the office for: being German (if the image of him wearing lederhosen while devouring schnitzel didn't already give it away), mocking the iPhone while simultaneously never letting it leave his side, saying things are "pants man", obsessing over The Sound of Music and making the office suffer because of it, thinking Leonard Cohen is ten out of ten, etc.

Favourite Fulham lunch spot: all-you-can-eat curry at Kishmish

How many twitter followers @Flashy1980 has at this very second? "421...not that I know" (He did know.)

Three blogs he can’t go a day (err, hour?) without checking? mocoNews, IntoMobile, and mobile zeitgeist (it's all about diversity!)

When did he cross over from average citizen to geek extraordinaire and what cinched it for him? Flashy converted to the dark side during his second year at Uni, while working on mobile handset design concepts at Siemens. He never even saw it coming...

What sort of advancements he expects in mobile tech in the next few years? He notices a huge trend of people using their mobiles not just while on the go, but also while at home on the couch (in lieue of a computer), so he expects more progress in designing services that not only deliver content quickly but also have enough depth to provide entertainment for hours.

Why he thinks Mippin is absolutely AWESOME? "I can use it as a tool to keep up-to-date, which is important in the mobile industry. And if I'm bored, it keeps me entertained." Sounds great to us!

AUF WIEDERSEHEN.

The Battle of the App Stores - who is the fastest to publish your content?

2009-07-22T12:38:00.000+02:00

App Stores are the talk of the industry these days. We here @mippin love App Stores as a means of free distribution of our services, Also, it helps our publishers generate more traffic to their mobile sites and get a branded icon onto the users handset (which actually makes a huge difference compared to a browser bookmark).

So we wanted to share some of our learnings with the community.

How long does it actually take from the time you hit the 'submit' button until your app is actually available for download at the specific App Store?

As I said the times experienced may very from app to app. But see below the time it took the Mippin App to go through these App Stores approval processes.

Here are the contenders - let the battle begin:

- iPhone App Store

- Android Market

- Nokia Ovi Store

- BlackBerry App World

- GetJar

The results:

And the winner is:

Hope you guys enjoyed our little episode of the battle of the App Stores. Tune in a couple of weeks when we can tell you which App Store drives the most repeat usage (not downloads, that's not a relevant figure if you don't charge for your app like us)

Best regards

David Mannl aka Flashy

Meet the Mipps: Part 3

2009-07-17T14:08:00.000+02:00

Name: Richard Hyndman

Official title: Chief Technology Officer

Phone of choice: T-Mobile G1 in black (or anything Android)

Non-geek interests: cars, a plethora of TV series (The Wire, House, and frakin' Battlestar Galactica), children (specifically, his children)

Known around the office for: excessive monitors on his desk and being the guy who says "shall we get some lunch then?" every day (ergo, we all forget to eat when he's on holiday)

Favourite Fulham lunch spot: The Slug @ Fulham (2 for £6.95 meals and, if we're lucky, extreme sports accidents playing on the telly)

How many twitter followers @geekyouup has at this very second? 1686.

Three blogs he can’t go a day (err, hour?) without checking? "It's all about content, not the blog." (His discovery tools are mainly Twitter links, podcasts like TWiT, and of course the Mippin Tech & News Buzz Widgets.)

When did he cross over from average citizen to geek extraordinaire and what cinched it for him? Rich was born a geek. He literally came out of the womb wearing glasses, asking if his crib had wi-fi.

What sort of advancements he wants in mobile tech in the next few years? "A super amazing awesome battery" and -- not surprisingly -- "more Android!"

Why he thinks Mippin is absolutely AWESOME? "The innovative driving force of the team...and the sociable lunches." ("Sociable" -- i.e. all of us sitting at a table looking at our own phones, talking about what we're looking at on our own phones, occasionally making comments about what other people are looking at on their own phones, and sometimes eating.)

Meet the Mipps: Part 2 (Intern Edition)

2009-07-10T15:14:00.000+02:00

Name: Sean

Originally from: Austin, Texas

Official title: Intern

Phone of choice: HTC G1 in white

Non-geek interests: playing bass, most notably in the MIF Blues Band -- MIF for Masters in Finance, if you can believe it

Known around the office for: blazer-wearing, Starbucks-drinking, and easily eating extremely spicy things in large portions (he is Texan, after all)

Favorite Fulham lunch spot: Hell Pizza

How many Twitter followers he has at this very second: None! But he doesn't classify himself as a Twitter-hater, more like a Twitter-agnostic.

Three blogs he can't go a day -- err, hour? --without checking: Time Suck, The War Nerd, and Slashdot (But there was talk of a 4th addition -- awkwardfamilyphotos.com. An absolute classic.)

When did he cross over from average citizen to geek extraordinaire and what cinched it for him: At the ripe age of 5, his parents bought him a TI-99/4A and that was that. (I definitely had to Wiki this -- "before my time," as Sean put it. It's quite a trip.)

What sort of advancements he wants/expects to see in mobile tech within the next few years: He both wants and expects to see progress in the realm of augmented reality. He envisions folks everywhere will just walking around, phones in hand, further merging virtual reality and real reality with their fingertips -- very cool.

Why he thinks Mippin is absolutely awesome: Because it is a simple and fast rss reader that works with all phones -- simple concept, simple answer. Also, there was a shout out to Mippin's Tech Buzz android widget, which is, of course, totally awesome as well.

Meet the Mipps: Part 1

2009-07-03T15:31:00.000+02:00

This is my first post on the blog, which is way overdue as I've been managing content on Mippin for almost a year now! But that's going to change now because today I'm introducing a new series to the blog. I'll be doing a little write-up of a different member of the team each week -- a little insight to some of the greatest minds in the world! The world of mobile tech, at least. First up...

Name: Simon

Originally from: Sydney, Australia

Official title: Test Analyst

Phone of choice: T-Mobile G1 Android Phone in white

Non-geek interests: Sports of all varieties (including touch rugby, indoor football, and lunchtime basketball) and, of course, the occasional cinema outing

Known around the office for: creating origami animals (without even looking!), eating lots and lots of fruit (thankfully he always shares), and picking up the mail even when it's not his turn

Favorite Fulham lunch spot: Hell Pizza, where you can get an unlimited topping pizza plus a drink for only £4 -- who knew Hell was helping to fight the credit crunch?

How many Twitter followers @simondavinci has at this very second: "100 or so" (actual count: 81)

Three blogs he can't go a day -- err, hour? --without checking: OK! Magazine, Tennis Planet, and the Android category on the Tech Buzz widget

When did he cross over from average citizen to geek extraordinaire and what cinched it for him: It all started with the Palm 5 back in 1998, was kicked up a notch when he joined T-Mobile in 2001, and geekdom was fully embraced (my words, not his) after the launch of the first camera phone from Nokia in the same year

What sort of advancements he wants to see in mobile tech within the next few years: Better battery life and "a better phone than the iPhone" -- he thinks the HTC Hero is on its way

Why he thinks Mippin is absolutely awesome: The people! (Aww, thanks Simon!)

Nokia Homescreen widgets for N97 now Live!

2009-07-02T11:31:00.001+02:00

An exciting further development for Mippin Widgets to report today!

If you'd read our last post about Mippin Widgets Going Crazy you'd know we've been working on bringing content on to the idle / home screens of mobile devices running the Android operating system from Google. The first Widget we developed was called the Tech Buzz Widget and it’s gone on to become a popular download among the Android Market community. Its success prompted us to pay more attention to the emerging area of home screen content and services on phones, with a deeper look at how the Android operating system can improve user experience, product design and choice for mobile internet users. In addition we were also keen to identify which other operating systems might be similarly capable of powering a Buzz Widget.

So today we’re pleased to make two new announcements: firstly that a new range of Buzz Widgets is now available for Android handsets, which means potentially up to 19 new handsets by the end of the year, all capable of running four or more Buzz Widgets simultaneously. Secondly, we are also pleased to announce the launch of Buzz Widgets for the Nokia platform.

Launching on Nokia as well as Android is a significant step. It is partly a testament to Nokia that their latest operating systems are sophisticated enough to run a Mippin Buzz Widget, but also because Mippin is once again fulfilling its goal to connect mobile internet users with the content they’re interested in. With mobile consumers increasingly keen on a simpler mobile user experience, there’s more and more interest by developers like us in the phone’s home & idle screen real estate. As users access more of their content and services via this area of the phone’s UI, the development of a selection of home screen capable widgets gives our Android and Nokia users a huge range of content choice, while importantly the cross platform availability of Buzz Widgets reflects the trends in mobile consumer behaviour. As consumers choose different ways to interact with their favourite web content on their mobile, Mippin is in a great place to distribute publisher’s content in a format optimized for the content, the user’s phone and now the user’s needs.

Features

Four Buzz Widgets will be live from today on all Android phones and also on the Nokia N97. These are:

News Buzz Widget - the very latest up-to-date news

Gossip Buzz Widget - the latest celebrity news

Gaming Buzz Widget - the latest gaming news

Tech Buzz Widget - the latest technology news

Each Buzz Widget gives you a choice of different categories

The News Buzz Widget enables users can select different categories of news, from All News, UK, USA or World News.

The Gossip Buzz Widget brings you the top stories from the world of Entertainment, Fashion & Beauty, Gossip, TV & Film, Music & Bollywood.

The Gaming Buzz Widget gives you Nintendo, Playstation, XBox, Gadgets, Tech News or a mix of all categories.

With the Tech Buzz Widget, you’ll get Tech News, Mobile News, Gadgets, Gaming, Tech Video plus Android or Symbian depending on your handset.

All widgets allows users to select their choice of refresh rate, so if you can't live without knowing what's going on in your favourite category, you can get the latest stories automatically on your phone every 5 minutes, 24/7!

The picture below shows all four widgets on a Nokia N97.

Customisation

Once downloaded, the widget enables easy customisation with the settings button, to choose your preferred type of content and refresh rate. Then as the stories are downloaded and updated to both Android and Nokia devices, the home screen displays each story headline as it happens - if you then click on the headline it opens the full story, including pictures and video capability. Once a story has been opened, you can either read the whole story by scrolling your finger up or down the story window, or you can browse other stories using the navigation buttons located at the bottom of the story.

Hopefully you'll find it a doddle to use. Other things we should also mention are battery consumption and content downloading. We've been very wary about battery consumption because these widgets are highly addictive. To prevent high battery consumption by default the widget only goes online every 30 mins to get the latest content and it keeps this content in memory and then saves the stories' text to disk. Because the text is saved to disk, you can use the app even when you don't have a network connection, which means it's the perfect solution when you can't get online or if you're on a fast moving train, or even faster moving plane (even if the phone has been switched to flight mode!)

Where to get them

To download all the widgets, head over to the Android Market if you’ve got an Android / Google phone, or if you’re the lucky owner of a N97 (or also a Nokia 5800 / 5530 if you’re prepared to forego the home screen support – home screen functionality not supported on that device) then go to Nokia Ovi Store for the News Buzz Widget. The News Buzz Widget is currently the only Buzz Widget that’s live on Nokia Ovi Store but you can download all of them from these links until they’re all officially live.

That's it for now. As you can tell we're buzzing too :) so time instead for you to try them out! Please let us know what you think in comments on this blog or via info@mippin.com

Downloads for Nokia N97, 5800 / 5530

Download News Buzz widget

Download Gossip Buzz widget

Download Gaming Buzz widget

Download Tech Buzz widget

What might have been - King of Online

2009-06-29T18:44:00.000+02:00

It’s been quite some time since we wrote a post on here, so hoping we haven’t lost our entire readership in the last two months! We’re still here though, we’ve just been busy, so there’s plenty to follow in the coming weeks.

Really sad news last weekend that Michael Jackson died. Like the rest of the world, we’re all big fans here at Mippin, paying our respects in our own inimitable way by attempting a moonwalk around the office. There are obviously lots of theories about what might have contributed to his death, though this in itself isn’t unusual when it comes to Michael Jackson. Still, it’s interesting to think how Michael would have faired now that the music industry has changed so much, requiring most artists to make money from live shows and other businesses instead of from the sale of their music. Michael himself was actually extremely adept at managing copyright, successfully owning much of the Beatles catalogue, so he knew he could potentially earn a fortune from a long residency with the right partner. Sadly it appears as though his personal circumstances required he do this in spite of his health. However if things had been different he couldn’t have chosen a better venue than The O2, a venue synonymous with mobile sponsorship and music merchandising, to help recover his fortune.

With Michael planning on creating new work in an era of social networks and mobile internet, the opportunities a purpose built music venue like The O2 could have offered would have been hugely lucrative, all in addition to the main business of ticket and merchandising sales. As with previous big name shows, Michael Jackson’s would probably have been carefully curated to take full advantage of digital, as well as real world merchandising. In terms of digital there might have been mobile handset & contract launches, content licensing deals for web 2.0 and mobile music services, endless assortments of interactive co-promotional opportunities with major social networks, as well as more traditional digital content sales: video, ringtones, wallpapers etc. With such a long residency, the marketing teams could really have perfected the opportunities, giving Michael the potential to go on earning from the shows long after they’d run their course. Unfortunately, perhaps the downside was that with so many more businesses dependent on the shows success - and profits at stake - it may have added additional pressure to an artist already stressed about a 50 night performance schedule.

The next few weeks will see lots of revelations about Michaels private life made public. Through it all, it shouldn’t be forgotten that to sell 750,000 tickets for his come back tour was an incredible feat. But even more, a host of massive licensing and distribution deals would have been a phenomenal turnaround too and may have shown what he was really capable of. Entering the digital world with a new body of work would have been a foot-tappingly brilllant experience to watch as a consumer of digital music and web services. Sadly, though it’s hard to imagine Michael signing up to more shows than he could perform, perhaps it's possible that planning for these additional revenue opportunities did have an additional, detrimental impact – I cannot say. One thing does seem certain however: had his digital plans been as big as the glory of a sold out stadium residency, then he would have been King of Online too.

Mippin goes Widget Crazy

2009-05-07T14:53:00.000+02:00

The word 'Widget' is seriously overused, it can and does mean just about anything. So a little context for you, in this case I'm specifically referring to going crazy about 'Android Home Screen Widgets.'

With the rollout of the 'Cupcake' firmware to the T-Mobile G1's of the World and the launch of the HTC Magic on Vodafone, Android has gained Widget functionality. It's elegantly implemented enabling developers to quickly create a varied selection of desktop treats for Android users. The usual selection of Weather, Clock and Battery widgets has already started to appear (See a video review of some over at DroidDeveloper.com.) To spice up the mix a little we thought we'd add our own little widget to the pot.

The Mippin 'Tech Buzz Widget' is the first of a small family of widgets bringing upto date content from 1000's of top sources direct to the Android home screen. It not only lets you read the full stories in the widget, but also is fully integrated with the YouTube application and Sharing functionality of Android.

Enjoy!

Our Datacentre is moving on Saturday

2009-04-16T16:48:00.000+02:00

Mippin continues to grow and as part of our committment to making Mippin an ever expanding service we are moving data centre on Saturday morning.

As a result Mippin will be down for 6 hours from midnight and Saturday night until 6:00am in the morning all UK time (BST).

So for 6 hours you will see the above apology, but when we come back we will be bigger, faster and better.

Automatically distinguishing between a phone and a PC on a website

2009-03-31T09:55:00.001+02:00

Despite browsers on phones getting better and better there is still a need for Mobile formatted sites, if not just for lower end phones, but for those on high end phones that hate the waiting or the difficult navigation of the full web on a phone.

Once you acccept this the next stage after creating your mobile site (which is easy with products such as Mippin) is how does your site detect between a phone and a PC. We get asked this question several times a month by publishers big and small. How to automatically distinguish between phones and pcs and send them to the right version of their websites.

Unfortunately there is no simple answer to this question because these publishers have substantial PC users and want to do the detection without degradation to their PC website performance - so they need to do the detection on their own hardware.

At the same time there is not enough standardisation on the server-side to make it a simple answer. However, we have fully documented several approaches and we detail them here.

There are 3 approaches:

1) Don't make it automatic. Just create a domain name m.yoursite.com or yoursite.mobi and send them to the right site. However, this is not very user friendly.

2) The next approach is if the publisher is using Apache servers there is a script that can be put in place. This script is here.

3) Finally for those using Wordpress we have a specific solution for wordpress owners. There can install a plugin which does it for you. Details of this plugin are here.

Note that these script are all geared with pointing the user at Mippin as the mobile rendering of the site, but this code is open and its easy to change the code to point at any mobile rendering so you are not forced to use us.

Decline of US Newspapers

2009-03-30T09:36:00.000+02:00

There is an interesting article in Techcrunch this morning on the decline of the US Newspapers.

Obviously we have heard this story for some years now but two things struck me. Firstly the declines are increasingly rapid and more importantly the decline are in online too. I think that the decline in online is an indication that the newspapers are failing to monetise their content in the online world. I think we all know that online consumption of news is increasing and this is at the expense of print. Furthermore the opening up of mobile content consumption through products like Mippin are also reducing the need to for users to take their news via print. It just needs the content owners to work out how their content can be monetised. Obviously we feel quite good about this as we have quite a successful route for monetisation for publishers through ad impressions with Mippin.

Furthermore a billion people will be coming online via mobile in the next 4 years so its only worldwide growth or the content industry.

The Future of Blogging: Barclays Bank, Piccadilly Circus?

2009-03-25T17:41:00.000+01:00

Most people will probably agree that outside of work, not everyone we come in to contact with will have knowledge of the markets, technology, attitudes or ideas we take for granted each day amongst our colleagues. For us at Mippin this is definitely the case, as a fair amount of the media and entertainment content we work with are blogs, and neither blogging or the ability to read blogs on mobile phones are witnessing massive market demand just yet. We’re all fans at Mippin but to be honest our Friends and Family Beta launches tended to see registrations from just friends, and those were the ones working in the same industry…

However we appreciate that blogging has been around for a long time, and see its role in reflecting the values of society as undisputed. Though the format of blogging is changing to encompass personal news streams, more traditional blogs still play a huge role in provoking discussion, building awareness and forming opinion about most things, just as they are equally important in evolving to provide a wide range of channels of communication and self expression for bloggers themselves. However it’s also fair to say that blogs still aren't consumed by the mass market, which means the Mippin team still need to happily explain what we do and why to some outside the blog or mobile world's.

That is unless we’re in Piccadilly Circus using the services at Barclays Bank.

At Barclays new branch in the centre of Piccadilly Circus they’ve installed a state-of-the-art new interactive video installation that shows live on a big screen the amount of blogs being published across London at any one time, what the blogs are about and the different content categories they sit within. The content categories appear to be searchable and the latest posts are surfaced surreptitiously, introducing customers and no doubt tourists to localised long and short tail blog content, not dissimilar to the thinking behind Mippin. In fact the biggest difference between the new Barclays installation and Mippin is probably the screen size – it would be difficult to get theirs in a jacket pocket…

In reality though it’s great news that Barclays have installed this blog installation, not just because it brings Piccadilly Circus’s neon advertising boards in to the web enabled 21st Century, but because it continues to confirm what millions already know – that blogs and personalised streams will be a major part of everyone’s future. The next question then is how to connect users with the blogged and published content they're interested in when they’re not in Barclays Bank, or at a PC, and it’s that which Mippin does very well. So from now on if we want to explain what we do, Barclays Piccadilly branch is where we’ll be heading. Ignore the world famous icons of Eros and Trocadero next time you’re there too - a British bank might have done something cool with their cash for a change, helping to build awareness and ultimately mass market demand for blogs, and making our jobs here a little bit easier...

Mippin at the Gadgetshow Flashmob

2009-03-20T16:26:00.000+01:00

The Gadgetshow presenters have been testing their abilities to get flashmob's together using different tools. Jason was only allowed to use Twitter and Susie (subs'ed very ably by Gail Porter as Susie was ill, get well soon Susie) used Facebook.

On the day the twitter crowd won out by a large margin, I'm guessing around 150 in the twitter crowd compared to about 15 in the Facebook crowd.

A dance off ensued, all good fun, catch the show on Channel 5 on Monday 27th April at 8:00pm.

Apple Fail Mippin App because of YouTube content which can be found in its own YouTube application

2009-03-13T16:39:00.000+01:00

We've been submitting a Mippin Application to iTunes for 6 weeks now and every week they've failed us for inceasingly trivial reasons. Now we've been failed for a ridiculous reason.

Quite early on in the process they failed us because of rude words in some of the Internet articles we were publishing. Early this week Tweetie was rejected for the same reason- they kicked up such a stink on Twitter that Apple backed down within hours and accepted it. When this happened to us though, 3 weeks ago, we bowed to their greater wisdom and implemented 2 levels of checking for our iPhone application to prevent "objectionable" content getting through. We rate all our 50,000 feeds in Mippin and prevent most if it even getting to the user, then just to be sure we check every word in the article real-time for a list of rude words and if one appears we block the display of the content from the server. We thought this was enough, but this week we got rejected because of a YouTube video - we were amazed at this. In the very amusing video "sxephil" does use one rude word, but in our minds YouTube have allowed this through - its certainly acceptable to them. What's even worse we found the same video through Apple's own YouTube application on the iPhone - is this "double standards". Above we show on the left the YouTube screenshot of the video which has had nearly 1/2 million views next to the screenshot on the right of the video inside the Mippin application which can be viewed here.

As a little startup we're feeling a little persecuted by Apple of this situation. Could it be that because we actually render mobile content better in Mippin than the iPhone itself can do they are finding any reason they can to stop us appearing on the iPhone. I would say that's an abuse of their power.

Google's Mobile strategy

2009-03-08T15:16:00.000+01:00

I watched Eric Schmidt on Charlie Rose last night - very interesting. Nearly all the talk was about the importance of Mobile in Google's strategy. Eric explained how Mobile was taking over from the PC in Internet access and as he said he saw another billion phones being sold in he next 3.5 years. In fact this statistic struck a chord with me as I have a site called phonecount.com which tracks the mobile phone growth and predicts 2.5 billion extra phones by mid 2012 (I wonder if he took account that the population of the earth will also increase by a billion in the same period). Now I am sure my approach to calculating this increase is flawed as I just do a linear projection on current increases and I assume lots of people will have more than 1 phone too, but I do think whereas my estimate is perhaps over optimistic Eric is under-estimating hugely.

Meanwhile I was also impressed by Eric's description of the need for content being implicitly personalised for users. By this he meant that the Internet server should know what content each user is interested in and exclude what they have already looked at and push that content to them. Again this struck a chord with me because this is precisely what we are trying to achieve in Mippin - so perhaps we have our own strategy right :-).

Another interesting fact he mentioned was because of Moore's law our phone's storage....

" in 15 years, it’s a thousand times cheaper and faster. So unless something changes in 15 years, I have a grandson, he’ll be 18 in 15 years. He will have all of the world’s information, every video, every movie and so forth on a single hard drive. If he started watching it, he cannot finish watching it in 85 years. He’ll always be frustrated."

This is a fascinating fact. Could this mean that in 15 years time our phones will have the world's information resident on the phone. Then all we need the Internet for it how that information is changing. This offline/online approach to using data requires a re-think to how we use the Internet and the software on the phones themselves. I can see a few new businesses being created based on these new concepts :-)

Five product lessons

2009-02-26T17:54:00.000+01:00

The mantra of start-up product development usually involves two core words: 'rapid' & 'innovation'. Implicit in this is that we consider ourselves better placed than many others to filter out the 'urgent but unimportant' and concentrate instead on issues that add most value for the end user.

The casual observer might be fooled into thinking this means that product decisions at start-ups are constraint-free. They would be wrong. Just like our counterparts in larger organisations, we're under pressure too, not from complex stakeholder relationships, poorly defined ideas or lengthy development procesess, but more often than not, from significant resource limitations.

In an ideal world, there would always be enough people, money and time to complete every great idea that will help to build product momentum and engagement. The reality, however, is that all product decisions are ultimately cost/benefit choices and, in the best companies, there are always more good ideas than people to develop them.

Here at Mippin we've made a number of significant decisions over the past few months. So, in our continued spirit of openness, we thought it timely to take a step back and give you an insight into why we've made some of those decisions and the lessons learned:

Lesson 1: Be inclusive
Six months ago much of Mippin's functionality was hidden behind registration. The resulting bounce rate was a minor source of frustration, particularly given the huge levels of engagement from those who did sign-up. For us it became clear that if users didn't see the necessity of registration they simply voted with their feet. Instead, we developed some great code that allowed us to recognise (with near-perfect precision) all returning uniques, their devices and settings. Once we'd achieved that, we were able to push back and open all elements of the service to all our users, whether registered returners or first time browsers.

Lesson 2: Don't add cellophane
Ever bought a newspaper wrapped in cellophane? Annoying isn't it? The digital equivalent of this is offering up content and then forcing your users to interact before reaching it. When it comes to media, access is everything. Surfacing engaging content is the key to providing an experience that will drive repeat usage. Take a look at the image at the top of this article to see how we evolved our homepage with this in mind.

Lesson 3: Search can't fail - EVER
If search fails once, it fails for good. Google have set the bar for everyone (though arguably not on mobile) here and we've worked hard to improve our search results to maximise relevancy as well as adding new vertical searches - for images, video and wikipedia. We've also decided to offer results for popular sites - whether they take users away from Mippin or not. For us a positive user experience that takes someone away from Mippin is way better than a negative user experience that attempts to get them to stay.

Lesson 4: Be a data geek
Keeping an eye on the relevant forces at play within your industry sounds obvious, but it's surprising how few companies are able to react to market changes quickly. One of the benefits of being a smaller team is the ability to alter your development effort as required and with minimal fuss. We noticed significant spikes coming from top end devices (particularly Android and iPhone) much earlier than others and launched dedicated versions of Mippin that were able to showcase a richer user experience by leveraging the functionality associated with new touchscreen devices. (Discover how happy we are with ourselves about this here.)

Lesson 5: Don't get sidetracked
Lastly, users want you you to solve a simple problem better than anyone else. At Mippin we're proud of being able to offer some very clever implicit personalisation that surfaces the most engaging content with minimal user effort. The key when devloping a product is never to veer too far away from your core purpose (unless you spot brilliant market potential elsewhere, clearly). When it comes to adding new functionality, ensure it stacks up behind the reason your company exists. Our social strategy is a good example of this (we've blogged lots about that here). Instead of simply allowing users to connect, our aim was to enhance the content discovery experience - that's central to our core product - by allowing users to act as individual editors, collating and sharing the most engaging content they find.

In the interests of brevity I'll stop there. We're really happy at the way that Mippin is taking shape. As ever, it's an evolving process so don't hesitate to contact us at info@mippin.com.with any comments or thoughts - we'd love to hear from you!

The Mippin team

MSearchGroove & Mippin: Guest Column & Mippin Blog Take-Over

2009-02-20T12:14:00.001+01:00

Mippin is the "Guest Columnist" today on MSearchGroove, courtesy of mobile consultant, analyst and publisher Peggy Anne Salz. We're there to talk about our ambitions for publishers wishing to go mobile, alongside a step-by-step guide to using Mippin Mobilizer to mobilize your website. Thanks Peggy! Click to access the article here: Mippin Guest Column

To return the favour and as imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, we thought we could do our own version of the "Guest Column" by launching the Mippin Blog "Take-Over". Theorectially our plan is to enable you to browse MSearchGroove as easily as you would on the actual MSearchGroove website, but by the look of what we've created below the concept still needs a bit of work ;) In any case MSearchGroove is worth much closer inspection - there's a tremendous amount of mobile news, information, interviews and opinion in there, plenty to help gain some insight in to the mobile market. You can get a quick flavour here.

Home
Briefing Room
Archive
Podcasts
About Us
Contact Us
Mippin Guest Column ;)

Bango
Enterprise Search
Local Search
Mobile Advertising
Mobile Research
Multimodal Search
Usability
Briefing Rooms
Events
Location Based Services
Mobile Content
Mobile Search
On-Device Portals
Recommendation
Web 2.0
Content Discovery
Featured
M:Metrics
Mobile Music
Mobile Social Networking
Personalisation
Under The Radar
White Papers

Haven't clicked yet? Get the real thing here: msearchgroove.com But let us know about any suggestions for a future Mippin Blog "Take-Over", website or mobile!

AdWords Mobile - Free Full Report

2009-02-13T18:15:00.001+01:00

Here is the full, free AdWords Mobile report covering the fundamental differences between AdWords PC & AdWords Mobile. Following on with our earlier chapters covering mobile AdWords advertising, this report combines all the previous chapters with a new final summary and updated information.

If you're looking for information covering the topics below, download the report here and kung-fu your way to the top of mobile search results.

Full AdWords Mobile report from Mippin: Click Here

Topics covered:

Mobile Ad Campaign Components
Quality Score on Mobile
Maximising Relevance in Mobile Ads
Mobile Traffic - Driving Volume
Mobile Ad Creative
Mobile Ad Campaign Objectives
Mobile Control Testing

If you've got some information you'd like to share with us about your own experiences, please post a commment here. We'd be really keen to hear about your own mobile ad campaigns.

AdWords Mobile - Getting the most from mobile AdWords marketing

2009-01-30T19:33:00.000+01:00

Today is almost the last day of our reports covering the differences between AdWords PC & AdWords Mobile.

We've looked at a number of areas so far, including mobile ad components, ad creative, price strategy and the sort of mobile user you're likely to find using Google Mobile. Today we turn the tables and look at what limits the mobile advertiser sets for their own campaigns and how much can achieved with a marketing budget when success is recognised.

Download: Day 4 - Mippin AdWords Mobile Ad Report

For the the first three reports, click here:

Download: Day 1 - Mippin AdWords Mobile Ad Report

Download: Day 2 - Mippin AdWords Mobile Ad Report

Download: Day 3 - Mippin AdWords Mobile Ad Report

Next week we will be publishing the final report which is a compilation of all of this weeks, plus a quick reference summary and chapter conclusions. Let us know what you think and if there's anything that perhaps could be included in the final summary next week?

AdWords Mobile - Back To The Future

2009-01-29T19:01:00.000+01:00

It's the fourth day of our series exploring the differences between AdWords PC and AdWords Mobile and there's still much to cover! However its come to our attention that in the enthusiasm to get the first three reports out, a few points were missed out which provide some greater context to our experiences. In additon, some of the reports needed a tidy up, especially the first day :) so without further ado, please find below links to the three reports we've published to date with the changes included.

Download: Day 1 - Mippin AdWords Mobile Ad Report

Download: Day 2 - Mippin AdWords Mobile Ad Report

Download: Day 3 - Mippin AdWords Mobile Ad Report

They're worth a re-read if like us you're using AdWords to target mobile users as we've discovered there's not yet much information on the web about. Plus check tomorrow for our next installment too! In the meantime, on the subject of Back to the Future, does anyone know when Nike will launch their power laces range??

AdWords Mobile - Start Swimming!

2009-01-28T19:10:00.000+01:00

As we move on to the third of our reports in our series examining the differences between AdWords PC and AdWords Mobile, we take a look at how to reach out to mobile search users using techniques that incorporate ad creative designed for the mobile experience. It shows how mobile advertisers can help users navigate Google's mobile search service, to ultimately discover a mobile optimised product or service.

Download here: Day 3 - Mippin AdWords Mobile Report

We’ve previously examined the impact of click through rate on Quality Score here: Day 1 - Mippin AdWords Mobile Report and how to get the most from a mobile marketing budget here: Day 2 - Mippin AdWords Mobile Report.

Today’s report is all about maximizing the opportunities discussed in both previous reports so that all the different elements of a mobile ad campaign can work as efficiently as possible, to lower cost and increase return on investment from mobile by helping users discover a product / service. The existing state of advertising through AdWords Mobile means now is a great time to advertise and reach new users. We hope that Mippin is helping you achieve your mobile marketing goals, especially in today’s stormy climate!

AdWords Mobile - A Balancing Act

2009-01-27T18:56:00.000+01:00

Time for the second of our reports focusing on the differences between AdWords PC and AdWords Mobile. Continuing the theme of yesterday and our focus on the impact of click through rate on mobile ad campaigns, today we explore its impact on mobile traffic and how to balance the AdWords Mobile campaign settings to get the most value, as is a normal objective with all AdWords PC campaigns too.

To get the second report click here: Day 2 - Mippin AdWords Mobile Report

If you’ve not read the first report click here: Day 1 - Mippin AdWords Mobile Report We’ve tidied it up very slightly since yesterday but if you’ve read it already check out the full compilation report to be published at the end of the week. This series of reports is part of Mippin’s commitment to unravel the complexities of mobile and to offer back some useful information to bloggers who helped us improve our own campaigns with their posts about AdWords. We hope you’re enjoying them but let us know what you think, especially if you have a different experience of AdWords Mobile.

Spot the Difference – AdWords PC & AdWords Mobile

2009-01-26T14:39:00.000+01:00

In October 2007 Mippin launched into a rapidly expanding market for web-based mobile consumer services. To grab a share of the market, Mippin began investing in customer acquisition across a number of different mobile advertising channels and networks. As a startup it was essential to keep costs as low as possible while striving for a strong return on investment.
Since launch Mippin has used a variety of advertising services targeting internet on mobile users, including Yahoo!, MSN, Vodafone, Get Jar, Three UK, AdMob, Nokia, Millennial Media, AdModa, Mkhoj, in addition to working directly with independent sites and smaller networks. Each one has offered great value, with a combination of some low CPM / CPC rates and access to sizeable numbers of internet on mobile users. However the one advertising network that Mippin has used more than any other is Google AdWords for Mobile.
With our own advertising campaigns now in the next phase of acquisition and with so much free information about AdWords on the internet contributing to the success of our own campaigns, we thought the time is right to publish our own observations about how to use AdWords to target internet on mobile users. What follows is a link to the first in a series of five reports highlighting the main differences between AdWords for PC and Google AdWords for Mobile.

With our own advertising campaigns now in the next phase of acquisition and with so much free information about AdWords on the internet contributing to the success of our own campaigns, we thought the time is right to publish our own observations about how to use AdWords to target internet on mobile users. What follows is a link to the first in a series of five reports highlighting the main differences between AdWords for PC and AdWords for Mobile.

Click for Mippin report.

One quick point / disclaimer here - we've assumed a certain level of familiarity with AdWords already, to enable us to focus just on the main differences. If you need to find out more about AdWords, you won't go far wrong by reading "AdWords for Dummies" by Howie Jacobson.

Happy reading and make sure to check back tomorrow for the second in the series.

Mippin harnesses the power of touch

2009-01-20T14:59:00.000+01:00

Readers of the Mippin blog will know that we've been concentrating our development on touchscreen devices for the past few weeks, and today marks another important product announcement:

Mippin is now perfectly optimised for iPhone and Android.

If you're thinking 'but Mippin been optimised for these devices for some time!' you'd be right. The difference now is that we're offering a markedly richer and cleaner interface and some key new functionality.

The question that prompted our development was one every mobile (or content company) should be asking themselves: "how best can we utilize the touchscreen interface to simplify our user experience?"

As a mobile start-up we're only too aware of the fallacy that surrounds much of the marketing for devices like the iPhone (that the full web works like a dream).

Sites like Flickr, Amazon, Facebook, Dabr and Ebay all understand this (offering, as they do, impressive sites optimised for touchscreen devices), though other good examples are still - incredibly - few and far between.

Today, our hope is that Mippin joins that illustrious list as an example of the improved user experience that can be offered via these new devices. So what exactly have we done?

The most obvious change is the use of a carousel to offer your personalised headlines direct via the Mippin start page.

Where previously there was a simple link, iPhone and Android users will now find the top 20 latest published stories from their favorite sites available - at a glance. We think this offers a brilliant new way to stay in touch with the news and content that matter most to you, more easily and quickly than ever before (and - it's worth noting - anywhere else on a mobile phone!).

Elsewhere, we're also surfacing much more of our considerable content via the new navigational techniques available via both phones (the iphone 'wheel' for example).

We've also included some updates for our entire audience, of course. You'll now find the most ardent users of our service appearing within our category pages. That means if you browse a lot of technology sites for example, you might find yourself appearing as the 'fan' of that category.

These users add huge value by allowing others to find new and interesting content (see here for more). By collecting and sharing the most pertinent sites and content together, it's now easier than ever to discover content you like via people similar to yourself by simply clicking on another user's profile picture.

We think our latest updates make our product more unique than ever. We hope you agree.

The Mippin team.