Amazon Cloud Player: Buy Once, Listen Everywhere

Amazon's marketing message for the Kindle is simple: buy once, read everywhere. It's a compelling selling-point and the reason why othr services with similar propositions (ala Evernote) are so popular. The promo unit shows seven devices ... all running the Kindle application.

Similarly, Evernote's promotion can be describe as "write once, read anywhere". The marketing graphic looks similar: the application across different devices:

So it's no surprise that the Amazon Cloud Player marketing unit looks almost exactly the same as the Kindle's: "Play your music anywhere."

It's also not surprising that "Access Anywhere" is the core value proposition of cloud-based services. And it's interesting to see how that proposition is similarly - and effectively - conveyed across different applications and brands.

Mashable Profiles Instagram, Touches on Dogpatch Community

As part of their Scaling Startups series, Mashable profiled Dogpatch-alum Instagram: "Scaling Instagram: How the Photo Sharing Startup Avoided Catastrophe in Its First Days". It is an interesting read considering Instagram's instant, tremendous success... and it is also a testament to Kevin and Mike, who are terrific. The article also touches upon the core of Dogpatch Labs: a community of entrepreneurs of different backgrounds and skills. As the Instagram team quickly (ie six hours after launch), co-founder Mike Krieger leverage the Dogpatch community's input / experience:

Instagram, already fast-approaching 40,000 users, would need something much sooner to meet the weekend demand. “We needed to be on a platform where we could adjust in minutes, not days,” says Krieger.

So, Krieger, a former UX designer at Meebo with admittedly no experience scaling a startup, walked around the Dogpatch Labs coworking space in San Francisco — the locale of Instagram’s first office — and queried other startup founders about what to do. Officemates suggested that Instagram move its service to Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2).

Instagram officially went from a local server-run operation to an EC2 hosted shop in the wee hours of Saturday morning October 9, 2010. Doing so was much like open heart surgery, according to Krieger.

Also fun: Mashable highlighted the Instagram picture of the Red Bull consumed during their all-nighter at Dogpatch

Doodle Jump Hits Amazon's Appstore

Earlier this week, Amazon launched the Amazon Appstore by giving away Angry Birds Rio for free (the #1 paid and top-grossing app on iOS). That promotion was in conjunction with an announcement that Amazon would giveaway one paid app for free each day. Today's free app should also be familiar: the 'insanely addictive' Doodle Jump (which, behind Angry Birds, may be the next biggest game on iOS).

Amazon is clearly moving into the application and Android space by distributing great, familiar titles in a way that fits with their brand / style: by winning on price.

Also worth noting: Angry Birds Rio is still available for free on the Appstore. When it first launched, it was marketed as expiring that day...

Amazon Appstore Launches with Free Angry Birds Rio

Today Amazon launched the Amazon Appstore for Android (more here and here). At this point, there are a slew of app stores (from your phone, computer, tablet, browser, television, alarm clock, etc. But this is Amazon... so it's worth paying attention because: 1. their scale and brand makes them a major player 2. they will do it in the Amazon way... technology, recommendations, price competition, etc

Did I mention price competition? Amazon launched behind Angry Birds Rio - giving the uber-popular game away... for free. It's the #1 selling and grossing application on the iPhone. On Amazon, it's free for today's launch. That's quite a promotion.

And it represents a larger pricing move: Amazon Appstore will give "a great premium app for free every day."

A Week with the iPad 2. My Review.

I got my hands on an iPad 2 while at South by Southwest (SXSW) thanks to Apple's genius marketing: Apple constructed a temporary Apple Store that held almost-unlimited iPad 2 inventory to take advantage of the 20,000 techies in Austin. Genius.

So I've been using my iPad 2 for a week now. Here's my quick review in order of importance:

1. It is lightning fast.

Other reviews mention that the speed is noticeable but not meaningful or impactful. I totally disagree: it is the single biggest improvement. It affects everything from animations to content accessibility to tactile feedback (important on a touch device!). The most noticeable (and surprising) improvement is in typing. They keyboard is remarkably responsive and fast.

2. Facetime is terrific and the camera opens new possibilities.

This was the main reason I upgraded (after all, I did not expect the speed improvement to be so significant). I use Facetime daily for two purposes: first, it's how my family sees and interacts with our baby Dillon; and second, Facetime has become my preferred way to do telephone pitches. At this point, the majority of entrepreneurs I meet with are running on a Mac - so they can Facetime out to my computer, iPhone and iPad. Place the iPad on a stand and its a high-quality, enjoyable experience (far better than a regular phone call).

I am also excited about the crop of new applications and tools that will arrive on the iPad thanks to the cameras and increased screen real estate. Will be fun to watch.

3. The body is great.

Certainly not reason enough to upgrade, but it's a great device: thin, solid, light and generally sexy. Hard to describe why this is so delightful, but it feels great to hold and play with.

4. I love the case.

And an even worse reason to upgrade... but the case is awesome. First of all, the original iPad case was horrible: it was poorly produced, a little bulky, and was impossible to clean (this is important because it collected dirt so easily). In comparison, the new case is good-looking, clever, colorful and light-weight.

Mashable's SXSW Potential Breakout Apps: 3/13 are Dogpatch Labs Companies

As South by Southwest approaches, start-ups are polishing their applications and planning their launch parties. And today Mashable listed the "13 Potential Breakout Apps to Watch at SXSW 2011". Of the thirteen companies to watch, three are Dogpatchers: Also - a reminder that we will have Dogpatch Labs SXSW Sunday and Monday. If interested, click here to learn more or email me directly for more information. Several of us will be present!

- Yobongo (Dogpatch SF)

- Fast Society (Dogpatch NYC)

Fast Society Version 2 Launch from Fast Society on Vimeo.

- Instagram (Dogpatch SF)

Eightbit.me Requires iPhone "Add to Homescreen". Aggressive & Clever.

In July, I raved about YouTube's innovative mobile "Add to Homescreen" promotion. Eightbit.me has gone a step further and actually requires users to "add eightbit to [iPhone] homescreen". In fact, each time you visit Eightbit.me, you have to add the icon to your phone's homescreen. In other words, if you visit http://eightbit.me on your iPhone, you see the following screen. You cannot advance through the site without adding it to your homescreen.

It's aggressive.

It's also clever.

And, while dangerous as part of the core site experience, it has interesting applications. For instance, it is well served as part of unique flows. Perhaps a promotional campaign or special reward / unlock is only accessed after adding to homescreen. If measured properly, marketers have the opportunity to incent behaviors measured through downstream efforts (ie Facebook Likes : viral sharing; Tweets : retweets & visits; add to homescreen : repeat engagement).

Of course, the experience itself has to be rewarding enough that users will choose to click on the icon and reengage. Thanks to notifications and increased functionality, applications have easier times driving reengagement... as HTML5 improves and mobile developers innovate, perhaps that changes.

This is a step (albeit not perfect) in that direction.

What mobile apps have been successful without a web component?

Continuing to post select Quora answers on my blog – you can view them here.

A few obvious themes and a couple apps associated with them:

- Gaming. Games make up the majority of the most successful paid applications. Examples: Angry Birds, Cut The Rope, Electronic Arts, etc. - Photos. There are numerous successful apps around photos - either as a network (Path (company), Instagram, etc) or around functionality (Hipstamatic, etc). They are improving a core utility around the device itself. Neither Path nor Instagram launched with web components. And Hipstamatic and others are entirely on the phone.

- Local & Device-Related Companies. Applications where location and/or the device are required components. Examples like FlightTrack, Uber (formerly UberCab), Shazam, etc.

- Messaging & Communication. Kik, Beluga, GroupMe, Tango, etc

Old Navy Commercial + Shazam = Hidden Content

Old Navy is currently running a TV ad that features the song Super C-U-T-E by Audio Threadz (a song and band seemingly created for the campaign). You'll notice the "Shazam Now" icon that appears in the corner and prompts viewers to use the mobile app to discover who the unknown band is:

Considering how often the commercial is on TV (the YouTube video alone has ~2m views), it is great co-branding for Shazam. It is also an interesting integration for Old Navy - who can use the promotion to unlock 'rewards': 1. a custom Shazam landing page / experience (fun) 2. the commercial's song (free) 3. "shop the look" - interestingly the commercial does not tout specific products... this reveals the merchandise

But imagine delivering discounts / benefits to users for actions like a Facebook 'like', an email confirmation, some other social sharing mechanism, etc. While most advertisements will not include a custom song and Shazam experience - it represents the power of delivering immediate content and value via the mobile device. We have seen it with check-ins, bar-codes and QR codes, coupons, etc... now it's coming to TV ads in more interesting / powerful way than "follow us at facebook.com/oldnavy".