What’s in a bubble?
If you’re into technology you are aware that there is a frenzy underway in the world of mobile applications. Apple has opened the floodgates with their AppStore allowing mobile developers to finally build the kinds of applications they want and reach users at low cost. Google is fueling the fire with their Android Market and Blackberry is trying to help as well. If you didn’t know better you’d think this was finally the starting gun for the mobile software market.
Unfortunately, we’ve been here before you and I. Just over a year ago the same thing happened when Facebook opened their application platform. At the time it was heralded as the next generation of software – applications built right into social networks. The frenzy was intense as the barrier to write social network applications was low and distribution was free. Companies were funded to charge head first into the market and become the next billion dollar business.
While the story of social applications has not ended we now can see reality through the hype. It is hard to make money in social networks, especially if you’re just an add-on service. Heck, Facebook has enough trouble trying to make money themselves. There is money to be made but it’s far from an endless gold mine.
Exactly the same process is playing out in mobile applications today. Money is flowing into the market at a rate that is disproportionate to the size of the opportunity. In fact, the companies in the space look an awful lot like the darlings of the social application boom. If you were keeping score, these are your players:
| Social Apps | Mobile Apps | |
|---|---|---|
| Top Developer | RockYou / Slide | ? |
| Market Trend | Adonomics | AppShopper |
| Ad Network | RockYou | Admob |
| Analytics | Sometrics | Flurry |
That isn’t to say that neither of these markets are real or that there will be big companies in this market. In fact, I tend to think that the mobile market will be a huge business as customers are still willing to pay for applications and hence revenue is easier to come by. However, I think it’s clear to any level headed observer that both are bubbles.
Just at different points in their lifecycles.
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To Err Is Human
Forbes has a profile of a stealth software company called Pramana which is looking to replace the ubiquitous CAPTCHA with something better. Pramana analyzes your behavior when you browse a website to decide if you are human or not and then uses that to allow/prevent access to human-only actions. While there aren’t too many details they might be using mouse movements, click times and other indicators of human reaction time.
CAPTCHAs are notoriously inadequate for preventing spam as OCR technology continues to improve. Tesseract is one popular tool that is supposedly used by spammers. Forbes also points out that most of the companies that suffer from CAPTCHA breakage fund the projects and research that lead to the OCR tools to break their CAPTCHAs.
I’ve always thought a fun solution to this problem is to include a fake ad in your advertisement space that asks “If you’re a human, click here”. Most spam bots won’t be sophisticated enough to find a randomly placed animated image and click on it. Then again, humans don’t click on ads very much either. Even I would be afraid of admitting I was human, fearing being sold some kind of “humanity enhancement” pill.
It makes you taller, you know.
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Who are we?
Here at Fogstack, we believe that the next wave of technology will do more than just provide tools for people – it will do things for you. Imagine that your finance website does more than just let you trade stocks, it adjusts your portofolio for you based on market events. Imagine that instead of just a check engine light your car tells you when it’s developing problems that need to be fixed. Imagine a world where technology takes off some of the burden of everyday life so you have more time to do the things you love.
That’s the world we see and what we’re working to help make happen. Visit us at http://fogstack.com
This blog, however, is just our random thoughts on technology.
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