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Source: Nielsen
They’ve done it. Google’s Android OS has finally taken the lead in the Smartphone market share. While Apple and Blackberry RIM are tied at a solid 27%, Android OS has the lead at 29% of the market share (Nielsen).
It’s always good to know how the mobile market is divided so that we may efficiently market our brands to the largest, most relevant audience. This is especially true in terms of development as well. It would be silly to develop applications for let’s say, Windows Mobile OS right now since it has only 10% of the market share. We’re not saying its completely insignificant—because it’s not—but it would just make more sense to market or develop for a platform with a larger user base then port to one with less users.
One interesting difference is the fact that Android (Google) doesn’t develop and sell their own hardware like Apple and Blackberry. According to TechCrunch this puts the latter two in a better position but could Android’s presence on multiple smartphones be a contributing factor to its rapid rise? Will we see the same happen for the Windows Mobile OS? We are interested to see what changes a year from now.
Squeaky recently launched our first in-house product: Crowdbeacon. Crowdbeacon is a location-based service that answers questions about restaurants, shopping, services and activities in your immediate vicinity. The answers come from other users, local experts, business owners as well as tips pulled in from Foursquare and reviews from Yelp. It’s been almost three weeks since we launched (seems like three days!) so we wanted to give everyone an update.
So far we can honestly say we’ve been THRILLED with the response. We started Crowdbeacon with the thesis that location-based applications have a huge potential to deliver value to users where and when they need it—and after initial user feedback we feel this has been validated. People ask all kinds of questions like, “I just stained my shirt! Where can I find a blouse in midtown ASAP?” or “Anyone know a good, honest handyman for home repair?” and even, “Where can I find a dog park to pet a Husky?” To all of these questions and more, Crowdbeacon has been able to deliver. Our location-based and real-time results have a lot of users excited about Crowdbeacon. Tweets like this tend to get us excited as well:
“Posted a question on the Crowdbeacon app and got a damn fine suggestion in less than a minute. Sweet. #crowdbeacon” -@thebrownsquare
We’ve also had great input from ‘power-users’ who have been making suggestions to improve Crowdbeacon. We’ve since put those suggestions into action, allowing users who don’t have an iPhone to ask questions directly to the site, as well as making the app itself more user-friendly with an improved posting process and easier sign up.
Finally, our marketing and PR team has been doing a great job getting the word out. Articles about Crowdbeacon have been featured on TechCrunch, LifeHacker, GigaOm, Bloomberg, Thrillist, Killer Startups, and The Next Web. To top it off, we got a small bump in our numbers (wink, wink) after becoming a featured app on the Apple App store last Thursday!
As you can imagine, our team has been working ’round the clock (literally) since we realize there’s a long way to go. For everyone out there who’s been helping us spread the word and checking out the product—THANK YOU. We certainly couldnt have done it without your support.
Onward!
