Microsoft will announce the private beta launch of Popfly this morning, a new Silverlight application that allows users to create mashups, widgets and other applications using a very cool and easy to use web-based graphical interface. We previously covered the launch of Yahoo Pipes and compared five different applications that let you mix data and build applications online. At the time we mentioned how this space was really heating up - and how Pipes from Yahoo simplified the creation of mashups and mini-applications by providing a drag+drop interface. Microsoft are the latest entrants in this market, and they have completely leapfrogged every other application we have seen so far.
Popfly is a big leap forward from the competitors above because it lets you do so much more, and it is one of the nicest web application interfaces I have ever seen. With Popfly, you can create applications, mashups, web pages and widgets (gadgets) and it is all tied together in a social network (as part of the Live Spaces platform) where you can connect with other users and publishers of applications. Mashups are created by dragging in and connecting ‘blocks’ which produce an output. Blocks are modules that connect to various web services API’s, and even today there are dozens of different blocks that work with a whole variety of different web services.
Seeing applications like Popfly coming out of Microsoft is something that I couldn’t have imagined all too long ago - and together with the recent Silverlight announcements (which we were also very excited about) the new Microsoft is really starting to come out through their product releases. Popfly so far seems to be another potential big hit from the new Microsoft under Ray Ozzie (Ozziesoft).
Invites: While the private beta is very limited (even within Microsoft), we do have TEN invitations to send out. Leave a comment about how you would use Popfly and the best (or funniest) ten will be sent an invitation to the application.
Cell phones sporting bigger screens, music, video and Web-surfing capabilities may try to steal some of the spotlight when Apple Inc.'s (Nasdaq:AAPL - news) iPhone debuts next month.
Although few have seen or used the gadget, it could draw consumer attention to other pricier, high-end handsets, executives at the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit said this week.
"One of the great advantages of iPhone for us is that it will heat up the music (phone) market," said Denny Strigl, chief operating officer at Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ - news)
"We're already seeing an interest in music on cell phones we didn't see just a quarter ago, and the gearing up the industry is doing in preparation for it," he said.
AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T - news) will be the only U.S. carrier to sell the device for at least two years. It will compete with phones made by
Nokia (NOK1V.HE), Sony Ericsson (6758.T)(ERICb.ST), Motorola (NYSE:MOT - news), LG Electronics (066570.KS), Samsung (000830.KS), Palm (Nasdaq:PALM - news), and carriers Sprint (NYSE:S - news) and Verizon.
While so-called smartphones, which marry music and other media features with data and talk features, have been around for years, their sales remain a fraction of the overall market. Typically they are larger and cost more than average phones.
"We were one of the first to get into the music business, one-and-a-half years ago, and it has been very difficult to get traction," Strigl said, adding that Verizon will launch new multimedia phones to take on the iPhone.
At $500 to $600, the iPhone's price tag has been called spectacularly high, possibly opening the door for handset makers with similar models. Still Apple, whose iPod music device and iTunes service dominate the market, expects to sell 10 million of the phones in 2008.
"They (Apple) will bring some things to the table that we have to be responsive to, but we have been investing in this area for some time," Nokia (NYSE:NOK - news) Chief Financial Officer Rick Simonson said. "We are leading in multimedia convergence."
Consumers juggling multiple devices -- such as a phone, digital music player and personal information assistant -- may warm to combined devices, overlooking their steep price tag.
"People are not uncomfortable plopping down a couple of hundred bucks for a music player or an iPod (and) $100 for a voice phone or a PDA," said AT&T's group president for operations support, John Stankey. "If you think about what a customer invests to solve a problem...I might suggest that the price isn't as substantial as it might look."
Still, Sling Media Chief Executive Blake Krikorian said the touch-screen iPhone, which has only one button, may not convert users for whom text-based wireless communication is key. They may stick with keyboard-based devices like Research In Motion's (Toronto:RIM.TO - news)(Nasdaq:RIMM - news) Blackberry, or Palm's Treo.
"I need a keyboard -- I still think e-mail is the "killer app" and (iPhone) ain't that. For that demographic I don't see it happening," said Krikorian.
Regardless of the iPhone's success, convergent devices are poised to grow in popularity, Sony Ericsson President Miles Flint said.
"The phone is capable of doing many other things," he said. "People want to have any content, any time, any where on their device and that is leading to the phone being a mobile Internet gateway entry point. the trend is clear."
The chilling sounds of gunfire on the Virginia Tech campus; the hateful taunts fromSaddam Hussein's execution; the racist tirade of comedian Michael Richards. Those videos, all shot with cell phone cameras and seen by millions, are just a few recent examples of the power now at the fingertips of the masses. Even the man widely credited with inventing the camera phone in 1997 is awed by the cultural revolution he helped launch.
"It's had a massive impact because it's just so convenient," said Philippe Kahn, a tech industry maverick whose other pioneering efforts include the founding of software maker Borland, an early Microsoft Corp. antagonist.
"There's always a way to capture memories and share it," he said. "You go to a restaurant, and there's a birthday and suddenly everyone is getting their camera phones out. It's amazing."
If Kahn feels a bit like a proud father when he sees people holding up their cell phones to snap pictures, there's good reason: He jury-rigged the first camera phone while his wife was in labor with their daughter.
"We were going to have a baby and I wanted to share the pictures with family and friends," Kahn said, "and there was no easy way to do it."
So as he sat in a maternity ward, he wrote a crude program on his laptop and sent an assistant to a RadioShack store to get a soldering iron, capacitors and other supplies to wire his digital camera to his cell phone. When Sophie was born, he sent her photo over a cellular connection to acquaintances around the globe.
A decade later, 41 percent of American households own a camera phone "and you can hardly find a phone without a camera anymore," said Michael Cai, an industry analyst at Parks Associates.
Market researcher Gartner Inc. predicts that about 589 million cell phones will be sold with cameras in 2007, increasing to more than 1 billion worldwide by 2010.
Microsoft will announce the private beta launch of Popfly this morning, a new Silverlight application that allows users to create mashups, widgets and other applications using a very cool and easy to use web-based graphical interface. We previously covered the launch of Yahoo Pipes and compared five different applications that let you mix data and build applications online. At the time we mentioned how this space was really heating up - and how Pipes from Yahoo simplified the creation of mashups and mini-applications by providing a drag+drop interface. Microsoft are the latest entrants in this market, and they have completely leapfrogged every other application we have seen so far. 
