Starbucks iPhone Apps: Mobile Payments, Shared Drinks & More

Hats off to Starbucks once more. Starbucks released two iPhone Apps yesterday that are again best-in-class, innovative and compelling from a customer standpoint. The 'Starbucks' app allows users to find stores, create custom concoctions, access nutritional information and - most importantly - share the experience with friends (your favorite drinks, location, Starbucks meeting times, etc). The UI is terrific and consistent with the Starbucks brand and environment. The second app, Mobile Card, allows users to manage their Starbucks Card (balances, settings, etc). Most importantly, the application allows users to pay with their mobile device - currently being tested in sixteen locations across Seattle and Silicon Valley. That's interesting and powerful... and unique.

And combined with Starbucks' massive presence on Facebook and other networks, it is essentially now possible to find a nearby Starbucks, schedule a coffee via mobile, share it with friends through Facebook mobile, and pay with your iPhone... and you can bet that Starbucks is thinking about the next move: layering contextual, location-aware push notifications for coupons and events.

LBS: Find the nearest Starbucks (and share your location)

Create and share your favorite Starbucks drink (like an iced coffee with 8 shots of espresso). Then read about the nutritional contents.

Access and manage your card balance.

Make in-store payments with the 'swipe' of your iPhone

Access store information and make it a social outing

A video of the Mobile Payments trial:

At GigaOm Mobilize Conference

Currently at GigaOm's Mobilize conference in mission bay (a location I am increasingly impressed by and excited about). It is a packed agenda covering devices, monetization, usage trends and so forth. More to come shortly Update, 9:25am: Best quote so far: "Location is the anchor of context on mobile"

Yelp's Augmented Reality Easter Egg: An iPhone App First

While you might disagree with Yelp's method of getting their new iPhone Application upgrade through Apple's review process - the fact remains that Yelp has innovated and pushed the boundaries from a consumer, development and process perspective.

To access the Yelp's Augmented Reality mode, download the new application version and shake your iPhone three times. The "Monocle" mode will activate as an easter egg:

Once Monocle mode is enabled, the application combines the iPhone's camera, compass, GPS and Yelp's content. So depending on the direction of where the camera is pointed and where you are located, Yelp overlays the camera with nearby restaurants, bars, stores, etc. It is an interesting experience that is as much a novelty as it is useful... but there are applications of this experience that certainly do make sense: social, commercial and informational. The challenge will be threefold:

1. Simplicity: the user experience can be overwhelming. Presenting it in a clear, user-friendly (aimed at more than early-adopters) is critical for adoption and sustained usage.

2. Content: presenting the right content in the right format is challenging considering the screen size, the actively changing background and the need for geographically relevant content.

3. Technology: The battery, screen and device-size all pose various issues.

"Still Think Social Media is a Fad?"

Erik Qualman of Socialnomics has put together a great video called "Social Media Revolution". Worth watching and then checking his datapoints and footnotes (a couple of which I included below): A couple interesting footnotes from Socialnomics:

#1. By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers….96% of them have joined a social network #10. % of companies using LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees….80% #13. 80% of Twitter usage is on mobile devices…people update anywhere, anytime…imagine what that means for bad customer experiences? #31. 25% of Americans in the past month said they watched a short video…on their phone #32. According to Jeff Bezos 35% of book sales on Amazon are for the Kindle when available

iPhone is Flickr's #1 Camera; Soon to be Facebook's #1 Video

Mashable is reporting tonight that the iPhone is set to replace the Canon Rebel XTi as the #1 source of photographs on Flickr:

That smartphone, with its weak 2 MP camera and its lack of zoom, is now set to overtake Canon Rebel XTi as the #1 camera on Flickr. This is according to Flickr’s Camera Finder graphs. Actually, as the LA Times has already caught, the iPhone has already passed the Rebel XTi on a few occasions as the two duke it out for the top spot.

This shouldn't come as a surprise (price differential, convenience and ease of mobile uploading) - but it is noteworthy. As an owner of both the iPhone 3GS and the Canon Rebel - I can say that I too have found myself opting for convenience and mobility over artistic and picture quality.

As we all await Facebook's new iPhone App (which is setting in Apple's approval queue and enables mobile video uploads), we should expect the iPhone to quickly become the #1 source of video on Facebook - which is currently the tenth largest video provider on the web. It will be interesting to see just how much activity the iPhone / video integration produces and whether it is enough to advance Facebook beyond #10 (#9 AOL is 50% larger and #8 Hulu is over 2x).

Google Labels Gmail "The Iterative Web App"

I love this email from Google (full screenshot below and their blog post is here): On April 7th, we announced a new version of Gmail for mobile for iPhone and Android-powered devices. Among the improvements was a complete redesign of the web application's underlying code which allows us to more rapidly develop and release new features that users have been asking for, as explained in our first post. We'd like to introduce The Iterative Webapp, a series where we will continue to release features for Gmail for mobile. Today: Outbox.

First, I love the term "iterative web app". It's not entirely new - but it is a powerful way to express ongoing advancements and innovation. It also allows Google to then message users on an ongoing basis... and it gets users excited about the forthcoming changes and communications.

It is a more digestable, interesting way to engage with users from a product and communications experience. And it positions Google nicely as an innovator committed to improving their products and interacting with their users along the way.

Social Reputation on Twitter (Foursquare Screenshot)

A great screenshot from Twitter (via Tweetdeck's iPhone app) that shows the virality of Foursquare. I've spoken a lot about the power of conversation in the real-time web - but this is notable because it taps into the power and influence of social 'gaming', reputation and location-based activity. Within a couple minutes, two prominent Twitter users separately announced the transfer of Foursquare mayorship at a New York coffee shop... one was proud and one was defeated.

By the way: if you do not already, I recommend following Jon Steinberg (@jonsteinberg) and Fred Wilson (@fredwilson) on Twitter.

iPhone App Store: Top 25 Game Developers Evenly Distributed

Great blog post from Flurry about the ecosystem of iPhone Application developers and how it differs from other mobile storefronts: "Rise of the New Middle Class - Indie iPhone App Developers, Part I". If you are interested in the iPhone App store and/or mobile game development, it's a great read. The high level takeaways:

- The ecosystem of game developers is much different between app stores - The iPhone App store is very balanced: 24 of the 25 top paid game developers each represent 3%-4% of the publisher share - In contrast, AT&T's Media Mall is very unbalanced: EA represents 36%, Namco 12% and Gameloft 12% - Similarly, the balance of developers is different between platforms... what Flurry is calling the new "middle class" on iPhone Apps - Finally pricing and inventory (...and developer communities) differentiate the platforms and top game developers:

EA Mobile is notably absent from the App Store Top 25 snapshot. However, this can be somewhat attributed to the fact that several of their titles are priced at signficantly higher price points, between $4.99 and $9.99

Gaming is the dominant category within the iPhone App store - representing 19% of applications. It would be interesting to see if these trends hold up in other major categories like Books (14%), Entertainment (10%) and Utilities (7%). I assume that is coming in Part II of Flurry's post.

iPhone and iPod Touch Account for +42% of Mobile Advertising Calls in US

Each month, I look forward to reading AdMob's detailed 'Mobile Metrics' report. It is a comprehensive report of mobile usage by geography, device, OS, and so forth - and based on the size of AdMob's network, the report is as interesting as it is powerful. The June report focuses on global iPhone and iPod Touch usage. The most striking data (and something I have written about before) is how important the iPod Touch has become from a device and advertising perspective:

* We estimate that 13 million iPhones have been used in the US. More than 1 million iPhones have been used in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. * We estimate that 12 million iPod touches have been used in the US. More than 1million iPod touches have been used in the United Kingdom and Canada.

In the below graphic, notice how the split between iPhone and iPod Touch users in North America is roughly 63% / 37%.

But, despite that ration - iPhone and iPod Touch devices represent a more even percent of ad requests: 22.6% vs. 19.8% respectively.... suggesting that iPod Touch users are more actively browsing the web and using applications.

Also notable, the #3-#20 US devices account for 31% of ad requests... Apple's two devices alone account for over 42%: