Archive for December, 2011

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…

Those words seem to encapsulate Apple’s 2011 perfectly. The year saw the company both became the most valuable company in the world and lose its founder, savior, visionary, and leader.

Earlier, Erick published his roundup of the bigger stories and themes in tech this year. Topping that list is the passing of Steve Jobs, a story so big that it far transcended typical tech news. But even without that sad news, 2011 was all about Apple. There was certainly enough news to constitute its own roundup. So here we go.

January

Though January has historically been a huge month for Apple where key products were unveiled at Macworld, 2011 marked the second year of Apple marching to its own beat.

January marked the first time the company surpassed a $300 billion market cap. The only public company ahead of them in that regard was Exxon. And that wouldn’t last…

On January 6, the Mac App Store officially opened for business, phase three of Apple’s plan to kill of the optical disc. The Mac App Store also offered an early taste of OS X Lion, which would come later in the year.

On January 7, Verizon sent out mysterious invites to an invent in New York City. The fact that I was invited said something. Sure enough, Verizon took the stage with then-Apple COO Tim Cook to unveil the Verizon iPhone. Finally.

And of course, January saw the beginning of the iPad 2 rumors…

On January 17, Apple announced that Steve Jobs would be taking another medical leave of absence, and released Jobs’ letter to the company. As with his past medical leaves, Tim Cook would step in to the lead the company day-to-day, but Jobs would retain his CEO title (and remain involved). Sadly, this time, the situation was not temporary.

Apple’s Q1 earnings were the best ever for the company, with $26.7 Billion in revenue, $6 Billion in profit on 7.33 Million iPads and 16.24 Million iPhones sold.

At the end of the month, the App Store hit 10 billion downloads.

February

The month kicked off with controversy after Sony’s eReader app was rejected by Apple. The issue wasn’t that Apple changed their App Store rules, it’s that they started enforcing them (around in-app purchases) which jumpstarted a shitstorm.

Part of the App Store tweaking was due to the fact that Apple was about to launch full-on subscriptions starting with News Corp’s The Daily, which launched on February 2 — incidentally, the same day Google unveiled Android Honeycomb, the first version of their OS built for tablets.

The iPad 2 rumors continued. And rumors of the iPad 3 started! And so did new rumors about an “iPhone nano”. And, of course, the iPhone 5.

Meanwhile, Apple’s stock continued to soar — they became the most valuable tech company by over $100 billion dollars.

When Apple formally launched in-app subscriptions in the middle of the month, the shitstorm hit new highs. It sure looked like all kinds of apps ranging from Dropbox to Pandora were in danger of having to drastically alter their business models to work with Apple.

Work on OS X Lion was wrapping up — and a developer preview hit. Work on a new Final Cut Pro version was also believed to be nearing completion.

Whispers of new MacBook Pros started, potentially with something called “Thunderbolt“. A few days later, they hit.

March

It started out with a bang as Apple hold an event with a special guest — Steve Jobs. He wasn’t about to let his medical leave let him miss the iPad 2 unveiling.

One of the cooler new elements of the iPad 2: the Smart Cover.

On March 11, the iPad 2 went on sale in the U.S. and a handful of other countries. A few weeks later, it went on sale in 25 more countries.

On March 23, Apple announced that Bertrand Serlet, the SVP of Mac Software Engineering, was leaving the company. He had worked with Steve Jobs for 22 years. Craig Federighi, the driving force behind OS X Lion, took his place.

Word started to get out that iOS 5 would be pushed to the fall, instead of a summer release. But the good news was that it sounded like Apple’s new cloud service would be launched at WWDC.

Apple set the WWDC dates for early June. But it seemed clear this year would be different, with the fall playing a key role for iOS products instead of the summer.

April

News hit that an official Steve Jobs biography was being written and would be released in 2012. Of course, that plan changed later in the year.

Apple announced the new Final Cut Pro X at NAB with a very attractive new price (thanks in part to the new Mac App Store distribution): $299.

Meanwhile, left for dead, rumors of the white iPhone began to resurface. I even saw one at dinner one night in San Francisco. It became official on April 28.

Apple earnings were a blow-out again with $24.67 billion in revenue on 18.65 million iPhones, 4.69 million iPads, and 3.76 million Macs sold in Q2. Apple’s quarter was so good that they actually surpassed Microsoft in terms of profitability, something which hadn’t happened in a couple decades.

There was a flare up over location tracking information found in iOS (and Android phones). But it was largely overblown.

May

Apple kicked off the month by refreshing the iMac product line with better chips, graphics, and cameras.

We started our reports on Apple and Nuance, which would turn out to be important later in the year when Siri was unveiled.

Apple and Google were forced to defend themselves about location privacy in front of the Senate.

A lot of talk started circulating that Apple was finalizing a deal with the record labels for a cloud music service.

The name “iCloud” started gaining a lot of steam — and for good reason. On May 31, Apple actually pre-announced it ahead of WWDC. Weird.

Meanwhile, we started hearing an interesting rumor: there would be Twitter integration in iOS 5.

Talk also started picking up about an upcoming bid for Nortel patents…

June

On June 6, Apple held their WWDC keynote. OS X Lion, iOS 5, and iCloud were the main areas of focus. Among the more notable things: iMessage, Newsstand, and the aforementioned Twitter iOS 5 integration. Oh, and iTunes Match. There was nothing about a Nuance partnership however, that would come later.

On June 7, Steve Jobs (still on medical leave) went to Cupertino City Hall to pitch Apple’s plan for a massive new headquarters in the city — one that looked like a spaceship.

Amid pressure from multiple sides, Apple quietly backpedaled from their new (and not yet fully implemented) App Store in-app purchase and subscription rules. It was the right move.

Apple’s stock continued its run. By June 13, Apple was worth more than Microsoft, HP, and Dell — combined.

Nokia and Apple settled a patent dispute — after Apple agreed to pay up. Meanwhile, Apple’s patent war with Samsung continued.

On June 21, Apple released new Time Capsules and released Final Cut Pro X into the Mac App Store. Massive backlash started immediately about the latter.

Rumors of an actual Apple Television started popping up again. And with the WWDC no-show, new rumors about the next iPhone(s) started.

July

On July 1, it was revealed that not only had Google lost the Nortel patent bidding, but a familiar foe won them: Apple (along with others like Microsoft).

The App Store hit 15 billion downloads.

Apple destroyed earnings estimates once again in Q3 with record revenues, profits, iPhone (over 20 million), and iPad sales. As a result, Apple shot past $400 a share on the stock market.

On July 20, Apple updated the Mac Mini, the MacBook Air, and their displays (now with Thunderbolt power).

Also released: OS X Lion.

By late July, Apple had more cash (and cash equivalents) on its books than the U.S. government.

August

Apple quietly launched the ability stream television shows from their cloud.

Google got really mad about Apple and Microsoft’s patent strategy.

On August 9, Apple pushed past Exxon to become the most valuable (in terms of market cap) public company in the world. For the rest of the year, they would go back and forth.

The launch of Steve Jobs’ biography was pushed up to November of 2011 (up from 2012).

Referencing the success of the iPad, HP shocks the world by saying they’re not only giving up on tablets, but looking to get out of the PC game as well (they would later backtrack on this after a CEO change).

Talk suggests the next iPhone will be a GSM/CDMA dual-mode one. Meanwhile, talk starts to circulate that Sprint will be getting the next iPhone as well (though the stuff about an iPhone 5 exclusive turns out to be nonsense).

On August 24, a shockwave is sent around the Apple universe when Steve Jobs formally steps down as CEO. While he had been on medical leave since January, this was a clear sign that he didn’t think he would ever feel well enough to return fulltime. Jobs asks the Apple Board to appoint Tim Cook as CEO (which they do) and asks to stay on the Board as well (which he does).

September

“iPhone 5″ rumors hit a fever-pitch but not much actually happens in the month leading up to October…

October

Apple holds an event on October 4 to unveil the iPhone 4S.

But the star of the show is Siri, the new iOS 5 feature exclusive to the iPhone 4S. Also new to iOS 5 is Find My Friends.

With the 4S, the iPhone 4 price goes to $99 (with a contract). And the iPhone 3GS goes free (with a contract).

Apple announces that 6 million copies of OS X Lion have been sold, outpacing Snow Leopard. They also announce that iTunes now has over 20 million songs which have been downloaded 16 billion times. Apple also announces that 300 million iPods have been sold in 10 years. Tim Cook also says that 250 million iOS devices have now been sold.

On October 5, just one day after Apple’s iPhone 4S event, Apple announces that Steve Jobs passed away earlier that day. Worldwide, tributes to Jobs begin to appear and this lasts for weeks.

After days of mourning, Apple starts iPhone 4S pre-orders, which top 1 million in just 24 hours.

On October 12, iOS 5 is released.

Two days later, the 4S goes on sale and in the first weekend alone, over 4 million units are sold — double the pace of the iPhone 4.

Apple’s Q4 numbers were a bit of a surprise for many, because for the first time in several years, they actually missed on Wall Street’s expectations.

Apple’s stock plunged as a result of the miss, and Tim Cook did something odd: he went on the record predicting record iPhone and iPad sales in the upcoming quarter (Apple’s holiday quarter).

Following Jobs’ passing, the release date of his biography was moved up again, to October 23.

Leading up to the day, several excerpts from the book were leaked. The most intriguing one revolved around Jobs’ comment about Apple finally “cracking” the television market.

On October 24, Apple quietly updated the MacBook Pro line again (though very subtly). They also tweaked the Smart Cover colors.

By the end of the month, many iPhone 4S users are experiencing battery issues (Apple begins work on a software update to fix them).

November

On November 8, Adobe announced they’ll be winding down support for Flash on mobile devices. This was long a sore point between Apple and Adobe, to say the least.

Five years after it was released, Apple recalled the first generation iPod nano.

On November 14, iTunes Match officially finally launched — it had been promised by October.

Rumors of a 15-inch MacBook Air (or thin Pro) begin. More rumors of a “Retina” iPad 3 also surface. And the talk of a larger-screen iPhone 5 starts up again.

December

Talk starts to pick up again that Tim Cook is open to the idea of Apple issuing a dividend to shareholders as their cash supply approaches $100 billion.

The patent nonsense continues. Depending on which country you select, Apple or one of their rivals may be banned from importing their devices. But not really since there will be endless appeals.

Apple announced their “iTunes Rewind” apps of the year awards. Instagram wins for the iPhone, Snapseed for the iPad.

Apple announced 100 million downloads from the Mac App Store in less than a year.

In mid-December, it’s reported that Apple bought flash memory company Anobit, for several hundred million.

The iPad 3 unveiling is rumored to be weeks away…

Business as usual despite a crazy year. 2012 should be the most fascinating one yet.

• APPLE

Started by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, Apple has expanded from computers to consumer electronics over the last 30 years, officially changing their name from Apple Computer, Inc. to Apple, Inc. in January 2007.

Among the key offerings from Apple’s product line are: Pro line laptops (MacBook Pro) and desktops (Mac Pro), consumer line laptops (MacBook) and desktops (iMac), servers (Xserve), Apple TV, the Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server operating systems, the iPod (offered with…

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Upstart digital cinema company RED, which has been the bane of many established camera companies for several years now, has filed suit against Arri, a leading camera manufacturer. They allege that Arri employed one Michael Bravin, a former employee of camera kit maker Band Pro, who hacked the email account of his former employee and stole confidential information relating to RED — and astroturfed for Arri on the official forums to boot. They also take exception to some claims Arri made in advertising disparaging RED’s cameras.

You can read the specifics below in the court filing, but the gist is that Bravin continually accessed the email of Amnon Band, founder of Band Pro, and was aware of acquisition talks in 2009 and 2010. He was hired by Arri in 2010 and allegedly provided them details of business and RD at RED. He also posted on RedUser about how great Arri’s new camera, the Alexa, is. And there’s no question that it’s a great camera — but he posted under a fake name, and there were other circumstances. It’s questionably legal (and questionably illegal), but they are taking him to task for it anyway.

RED also says Arri made some claims in advertising regarding how their camera, sensor, and format were superior to others. Again, generally what advertising is for — but there is a little bit of untruth mixed in there, apparently. I like this little zinger:

In advertising specifically targeting RED customers, ARRI identifies films that have been shot on the Alexa. Among others, it lists the movie “I Hate You, Dad.” In actuality, this movie was shot on RED.

Burn! Who doesn’t like a little camera drama?

RED is seeking unspecified damages, but if the allegations turn out to be true, shelling out some cash would be the least of Arri’s worries. Photographers and cinematographers are very brand-loyal in general, but if they don’t feel they can trust that brand, they’ll leave like rats from a sinking ship. No indication of when the trial will be.

According to The BBC, Jonathan Ive, Apple’s senior vice president of design, has just been awarded a knighthood in the New Year Honors list. Sir Jony Ive, the famed designer behind the iPod and the iPhone, said the honor was “absolutely thrilling,” and considers himself “both humbled and sincerely grateful.”

From The BBC:

Raised in Chingford, Mr Ive began working for Apple in 1992 and since then has been the brains behind many of its products.

Mr Ive added: “I am keenly aware that I benefit from a wonderful tradition in the UK of designing and making.

If you aren’t sure of how Ive’s influence has impacted Apple, check out this exhibit that explores Jony’s legacy and work with Apple.

From Apple:

London-born designer Jonathan Ive is the senior vice president of Industrial Design at Apple, reporting directly to the CEO. Since 1996, he has been responsible for leading a design team widely regarded as one of the world’s best.

In case you haven’t noticed ;), it’s an especially slooooooooooooooooooooow time for the tech industry. So slow that some Aol employees — the only one I recognize is Sol Lipman — made a video about the recent Aol talent exodus, using ZOMBIES as a metaphor for all the people who’ve decided to leave Aol.

If I understand the video correctly, the zombie attack was apparently sparked by some design changes made to the Huffington Post (rimshot), which turn recent departures Brad Garlinghouse and Kiersten Hollars into zombies, who in turn zombify the rest of Aol’s Palo Alto HQ.”We should have quit when Maser left!” is a reference to Aol VP Mike Maser, who was formerly at Digg.

While the video honestly isn’t that funny, it is sort of endearing, as the employees come to realize that the only way to fend off the zombie attacks (/talent exodus) is with “quality” Aol products like Editions — which literally kill zombies in the movie.* Using the acronym MAMA (Mail Aim Mobile About.me) to fight of the undead, the Aol* survivors proclaim 2012 as the year the company turns around, “Our friends may have been eaten by Zombies, but we’re still going to have a lot of fun.”

Awwwwwwwwww.

* Which is weird, because they’re inadvertently comparing Aol products to a bullet to the head, but I digress.

*Yes, I know it’s officially AOL (not Aol), but I just write it this way to piss off Robin — who for some reason is really stubborn about us spelling it in all UPPERCASE.

• AOL

AOL is a global advertising-supported Web company, with display advertising network in the U.S., a substantial worldwide audience, and a suite of popular Web brands and products.

The company’s strategy focuses on increasing the scale and sophistication of its advertising platform and growing the size and engagement of its global online audience through leading products and programming.

On March 13, 2008, AOL Internet division announced their plans to buy social network Bebo for $850 million in cash.

History of Aol:

AOL was…

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Considering Apple and Samsung’s recent battles, this is rather amusing.

Two ads, both featuring the same little girl with seemingly equal passions for both the iPhone 4S and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab. Each to their own I suppose…

OR

Did Samsung intentionally plot this to mock Apple? Samsung’s ad is unashamedly similar to your typical Apple ad.

Watch for yourself, coincidence? (Thanks Cheryl Lindo Jones)

Apple:

Samsung:

Editor’s note: This story is part of a series we call Redux, where we’re re-publishing some of our best posts of 2011. As we look back at the year – and ahead to what next year holds – we think these are the stories that deserve a second glance. It’s not just a best-of list, it’s also a collection of posts that examine the fundamental issues that continue to shape the Web. We hope you enjoy reading them again and we look forward to bringing you more Web products and trends analysis in 2012. Happy holidays from Team ReadWriteWeb!

Create Your Circles

Imagine the ability to break down Facebook into its various constituent parts and keep them separate from each other as opposed to one giant feed. That is what Google has done with Plus. There is one main stream where all your friends’ updates show up, then you have the option to see updates from only certain groups like “Work,” “Friends” or “Family.” This is the essence of Circles.

From the initial interface, you will see four buttons – Home, Photos, Profile and Circles.

The first thing you are going to want to do is set up your circles. Click on the tab and it will bring you to a interface where all of your contacts in Gmail (not just Gmail addresses, but all of your contacts) are listed in a panel on top of the screen. Below is a panel that has your various circles. To add a contact to a circle, drag from the top of the list to the appropriate group. Contacts can be added to multiple circles.

One of the initial problems I had from the circles interface was that I added a couple of “Friends” into my “Work” circle and could not figure out how to get them out. You can do this from the user streams by hovering over the person’s name and hovering over “Add to circles” and clicking the appropriate boxes. Yet, from the circles interface, that was not readily apparent. To take people out of a circle, hover above the circle, grab their icon and drag it back into the people plane.

One of the great differentiators between Twitter and Facebook is the “unbalanced” or “balanced” follow. Facebook was initially a two-way follow paradigm – I friend you, you friend me and we see each other’s updates. This has been changed with the ability to “like” groups, brands and pages without them following you back. Twitter has always been a one-way follow – I follow you and you do not necessarily have to follow me back.

This line has been blurred in circles. If a person is in your contacts, they can be added to a circle and will get a notification that has happend (but not what circle they have actually been added to). There is also a “follow” circle. Just like Twitter, you can follow people and see their updates without them having to follow you back. As your circles evolve this could allow to track different interests, like Twitter lists.

The Stream and “Bumping”

Once you have set up your circles, go back to the Home screen to see the results. Below the profile picture you will see the choices of stream. You can view your entire stream at once (à la Facebook) or by particular circle.

There are two other options below your circles – Incoming and Notifications. Clicking incoming will bring you to messages that have been sent by people outside of your circles. Notifications will show you when people in your circles have commented on something you have posted, or something you have commented on.

Below the circles and notifications there is a tab dubbed “Sparks.” More on that below.

One of the killer features of Gmail, or any Google product, is Chat. It has made its way into Plus and sits in the familiar left-hand, bottom-right portion of the screen that it is found in Gmail. Users with a lot of Circle and Chat contacts will like the ability to enable chat for particular groups. Want to surface friends and family but not acquaintances? Plus will let you do that.

If you are using Plus in a Chrome browser, desktop notifications do not pop up when someone sends you a message like it would in Gmail.

Posting a status update in Plus is not like sending a Tweet or updating Facebook. The core functions of an update are present – photos, links, video and location – but when you hit “share” it doesn’t automatically post your message to everybody in your circles. You have the option to decide which circles your update is posted to, from individual groups to all circles, to extended circles, or just a single person.

An interesting feature in the user stream is that conversations will surface back to the top of the feed when subsequent comments are made on a thread. This, according to Google developer Jean-Baptiste Queru, is called “bumping.” Google Buzz has this same capability and it was also a feature of FriendFeed.

Photos

Photos in Plus are relatively self-explanatory. Users can update photos from their computers or from their phones, see photos that people in their circles have uploaded. With the Android app, there is a way to upload any photo that you take with your phone straight to Plus, an interesting if slightly disconcerting feature.

When you add a photo, it will prompt you to create an album. Once that album is created it will ask which of your circles you would like to share it with. This is a prime differentiator from Facebook where all of your photos are visible to all of your friends by default (you can change who can view certain photos in Facebook preferences). You can also pick an individual to share photos with instead of an entire circle.

Photo uploading is easy within Plus. Just like adding a picture or an attachment to a Gmail document, you can drag-and-drop from your desktop or click the on the upload button and browse your computer for pictures.

Users can also add photos by posting them in status updates or by uploading them through the Profile tab.

Profile

If you use any Google products and have a Google account, you have a Google Profile. Profiles are unknown to most of the Internet because, until now, it was relatively useless to anyone but Google.

Your Google Profile is now the hub of you Plus experience, the backbone that everything else is built upon. There are six tabs in your profile page – posts, about, photos, videos, +1s and Buzz.

A significant change to your profile page is that there is now a location where your +1s live. Until now, when you clicked +1 on content on the Web, nothing happened. The information was sent to Google and integrated into some type of esoteric search algorithm. Users can now see what people have +1ed through their Google Profile. Unlike the Facebook share/like/recommend buttons, it does not go straight into your stream but rather to the profile page.

Sparks and Hangouts

Hangouts is a new feature rolled out with Plus. Essentially it is an area where your circles or a select group of friends can video chat all on one screen. To start a Hangout, go to the “Welcome” button in the home tab. It will prompt you to start a hangout and invite individuals or entire circles. Up to 10 people can be in a hangout at once and it will be seen in that circle or users’ stream.

Sparks is the part of Plus where you can find content on the Web that you are interested in. In the “Field Trial” version of Plus, it looks like Sparks is a randomized version of content and news generated through Google News. Sparks can be a dashboard for things you are interested in on the Web. When you do a search in Sparks, it will predict what you are searching for with a drop down menu (like old Google search, not quite like Google Instant). You can pin particular topics you search for to the Sparks dashboard for quick access.

You can share articles found in Sparks with a share button on the bottom of every article that surfaces in a search. Like everything else in Plus, it can be shared with a specific person, circle, group of circles or the general public.

For more information, check the videos that Google made explaining Plus and all of its aspects — Circles, Hangouts and Sparks.

It is remarkable to think that we’re in the early days of the app era, when there are already close to 600,000 iOS applications and nearly 400,000 on Android (source: Distimo). The growth of these app ecosystems has been rapid, exponential and shows no signs of slowing down. As well it shouldn’t: the untapped, addressable market for mobile apps involves hundreds of millions of users.

And yet, app discovery remains a challenge. Whether in an app store, on the device itself, or via a third-party service. Whoever cracks the nut of app discovery will have the potential to be the next Google: the search engine of the modern age. The search engine for a web of apps.

App discovery is a key focus for a number of startups. Off the top of my head: Chomp, Quixey, Xyologic, Appolocious, AppsFire, Kinetik, and Crosswa.lk are approaching the challenge of app discovery in new ways. (And yes, you too, millions of companies I neglected to mention).

While that’s a rich topic for examination, it’s not one that can be summed up in a single post. So for today, one aspect of building a web of apps: connectivity.

Why do I keep referring to a web of apps? Apps are not like the web – they are not hyperlinked creations that allow you to move seamlessly from one operation to another…or are they?

Perhaps not yet. But they could be, if more developers chose to implement this functionality. Using something called “app URL schemes,” apps can communicate with each other. For example, on the iPhone, iOS developers can call up the built-in apps, like the Messaging app, Email app and the Phone app. Apple’s URL schemes are published in developer documentation, but all apps have URL schemes available.(On Android, something similar can be accomplished via “intent filters.”)

Apps can launch other apps. Apps can connect to other apps.

It’s still somewhat rare to see this in action, but it’s starting to happen. Facebook is probably the most high-profile example of this. In the iOS app, on the left-hand side an “apps” section will link to Facebook apps which also exist as iOS applications. Tap the app in the list and Facebook launches the app on your phone. If you don’t have the iOS version installed, it launches the App Store instead.

Clever.

Facebook as a portal to the mobile “app web.”

But there are lesser known use cases, too. For example, PhotoAppLink, an open source initiative that aims to simplify photo editing by tying multiple photo-editing apps together. Currently, in order to edit a photo in multiple apps, you have to save the edited photo to the camera roll each time as you move in between applications. But with PhotoAppLink-enabled apps, you simply select another app to use from within your current app.

Another example (actually, a potential example): the educational startup KinderTown offers an iOS app that’s a actually a curated version of the iTunes App Store. Designed to help parents discover kid-friendly, educational apps, KinderTown directs you to the iPhone’s App Store for downloads when you tap the app in question. Imagine if it could also help you find, filter and launch the apps you already have installed on your phone instead of just those you’ve newly discovered.

Meanwhile, at AnscaMobile, a recent tutorial for developers took the concept of app URL schemes a step further. Being able to launch an app using a URL scheme is great, wrote Jonathan Beebe on the company blog, but what’s even better is being able to tell your app to do something in response to being opened via a URL scheme.

“Think for a moment just how powerful this can be,” he says. “You could tell your app to do different things, or start in a different state depending on the URL string that was used to launch your app.”

Indeed, powerful stuff. And sadly under-utilized.

The possibilities for inter-connected apps using app URL schemes are endless, but actually connecting them together is still a challenge. The problem stems from the fact that there isn’t a simple way to discover the custom URLs for the apps you would want to link to.

This summer, a company called Zwapp attempted to address this situation by launching OneMillionAppSchemes.com, an initiative which aims to open source the unpublished custom URL schemes for iOS applications. Using a downloadable tool, Zwapp scans your iTunes library to locate the custom schemes for your apps then uploads those to the website. The goal, as you may have guessed by the name, is to collect one million of these app schemes. It’s not quite there – only 15,066 have been submitted to date.

Despite the Zwapp’s outreach and call-to-action in the app developer community, what it has implemented is really more of a hack – a way to workaround for the fact that there aren’t better tools available.

Whether the usage of URL schemes will ever really take off is unknown. While it’s one thing to launch your own app in creative ways, developers seem to balk at the concept of linking out to other apps. (Send my app’s users, which I fought so hard to acquire, to another app? No thank you!)

But just like hyperlinks allowed users to begin surfing through what’s now a seemingly infinite number of pages on the web, linking apps could prove to be a way to  overcome today’s app discovery challenges, too.

Top image: Daniel Y. Go

One of the most interesting trends in comScore’s 2011 social networking report is the new growth of social sites that cater to users’ interests, rather than their real-life social graphs. In particular, according to comScore data, microblogging platforms Twitter and Tumblr have had break-out years, and they’ve been joined by new online pinboard site Pinterest.

But all this growth doesn’t seem to be coming at the expense of Facebook. That site’s traffic growth has only appeared to slow (but not fall) in places where it is running out of new users to add. The site that has been taking a beating is MySpace. It may be that users who previously used that site to express themselves and follow the celebrities they care about are now doing the same thing across these other sites.

Twitter has the most fascinating story here. The short-form messaging service hit the mainstream in early 2009, and received an amazing amount of media hype — but third-party measurement firms like comScore mostly showed flat traffic in the US since then, with monthly visitor numbers ranging between 20 million and 25 million, according to comScore.

And even this year started out slow. In April, the company had 24.5 million unique visitors. But, from May through November the company grew to 35.5 million. Twitter’s worldwide numbers have looked just as strong. In the past 12 months, it has grown from 103.0 million uniques to 167.9 million overall. Yes, this growth was likely in part due to its integration with iOS 5, which the company recently said has led to a 25% increase in sign-ups. However, the integration only went live in October, which doesn’t explain all the new usage over the summer.

What’s even more interesting is that the company itself has consistently said that third-party services undercount its traffic. In September, for example, it announced that it had grown to 400 million unique visitors worldwide based on its Google Analytics stats, up from 250 million at the start of the year. Many of its visitors don’t actually tweet, or aren’t even signed up. At that point it said it had 100 million active users (and it reiterated the same number in December).

So, the comScore visitor numbers don’t exactly match up with the internal ones, but the trend is the same: more people are reading tweets than ever before. The five year old company appears to have finally made it past the ups and downs of the hype cycle, and become a solid and growing part of how mainstream people use the web.

Tumblr, which will turn five early next year, has also been coming of age. From November of 2010 to last month, it has grown from 6.9 million unique visitors to 15.9 million in the US. Worldwide, its new traffic is just as pronounced, going from 18.6 million to 44 million in the same period.

A new interest-oriented site has also gotten into the mix: Pinterest. Although the company has been around since 2008, it only began sending out invites in early 2010. It has taken off this year, going from less than a million in May, according to comScore, to more than 6 million uniques worldwide in November.

MySpace may not be losing users directly to these pseudo-rivals, but it’s definitely continuing to hurt. Worldwide, it has fallen from 81.5 million to 61.0 million from November to November. And in the US, the drop is even more pronounced, dropping from 54.4 million to 25.0 million.

Based on all these numbers, 2011 is looking like a banner year for the next era of public self-expression and sharing. The ugly, hacked-up MySpace user profiles of past years are less popular than ever, and users are busy sharing through their beautiful Tumblr themes, through Twitter’s simple 140-character messaging service, and through their online Pinterest pinboards.

What can we expect in 2012? Can Facebook’s new public sharing features like its Subscribe button tap into all the attention these other sites are getting? Early signs indicate  yes. And just where is all this usage going? It may be that 2011 is just the start of a new era, where the average internet user is comfortable sharing everything they think is interesting with the public, and following the people who are most interesting to them, not just friending those they meet in real life.

[Top graphic, which I should note is October to October not November to November, is via comScore's 2011 social network report, which you can download here.]

• TWITTER
• TUMBLR
• PINTEREST
• COMSCORE

Twitter, founded by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams in March 2006 (launched publicly in July 2006), is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to post their latest updates. An update is limited by 140 characters and can be posted through three methods: web form, text message, or instant message. The company has been busy adding features to the product like Gmail import and search. They recently launched a new site section called “Explore” for…

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Tumblr is a re-envisioning of tumblelogging, a subset of blogging that uses quick, mixed-media posts. The service hopes to do for the tumblelog what services like LiveJournal and Blogger did for the blog. The difference is that its extreme simplicity will make luring users a far easier task than acquiring users for traditional weblogging. Anytime a user sees something interesting online, they can click a quick “Share on Tumblr” bookmarklet that then tumbles the snippet directly. The result is…

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Pinterest is a social networking site with an “online pinboard” interface. Pinterest is a social catalog service. Think of it as a virtual pinboard — a place where you can post collections of things you love, and “follow” collections created by people with great taste.

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“comScore is a global Internet information provider to which leading companies turn for consumer behavior insight that drives successful marketing, sales and trading strategies.

comScore’s experienced analysts work closely with clients to identify their business objectives and determine how they can best apply and benefit from comScore’s vast databases of consumer behavior. comScore maintains massive proprietary databases that provide a continuous, real-time measurement of the myriad ways in which the Internet is used and the wide variety of activities that…

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We only just learned the structure and format of the forthcoming introduction of LTE Windows Phone handsets to the US market, but confirmation is already surfacing. According to an image found by PocketNow, the newly hot Nokia Ace is now all but a done deal.

However the image is raising eyebrows around the larger Windows Phone community, with some calling it the Lumia 900. And here we hit darker waters. There have been more than a grip of rumors and leaks concerning what may or may not be the Lumia 900, which were all overshadowed when the Ace was made known as the Nokia LTE handset for the United States.

Before we get any further, here is the image:

There had been other rumors in the past that Nokia was trying to land an LTE version of the Lumia 800 on ATT. The Ace is heading to ATT. It looks much like the Lumia 800, with just a few ticks that are different (including a front facing camera), so we wonder, and this is just a thought, that the Lumia 900 is the Ace, which is really just a modified Lumia 800.

This explains why people thought that Nokia was trying to land the Lumia 800 in the ‘States, but instead we got the Ace; it was the same phone all along with some very funny mixups. This isn’t gospel, but it is our best guess for the moment.

Now we just have to sit tight for the upcoming Nokia event at CES. Get the popcorn.

Computers keep getting closer and closer to making people obsolete. The latest step towards human obsolescence? Dropbox Automator, a Web-based tool for setting up actions that happen as soon as you put a file in a Dropbox folder. It’s not flawless just yet, but it might provide a useful service for many Dropbox users.

The service is powered by Wappwolf, an online “action store” that features a set of Web actions that can process files. For example, it has ready made actions to encrypt and decrypt files, extract text from PDFs, convert documents to PDF, generate QR codes and manipulate images.