05Feb

Facebook Could Jumpstart HTML5 Platform With App Bookmarks On News Feed

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Facebook Mobile App Bookmarks Tall

Facebook’s late-comer HTML5 mobile app platform lags way behind the Apple App Store and Android Marketplace. Yesterday I spotted Facebook’s latest effort to catch up — a test showing bookmarks for third-party applications at the top of the mobile news feed. Currently, Facebook buries HTML5 app bookmarks at the bottom of its mobile site’s pull-out navigation menu, and only shows them in the iOS or Android Facebook app’s search bar.

Placing them much more prominently atop the mobile home page could increase engagement — the first step in attracting developers to the platform and earning money on in-app purchases.

The Facebook mobile app platform launched in October to help the social network start monetizing mobile through in-app payments on which it collects a 30% tax. Apps run through an internal web browser within its iOS and Android apps, allowing it to circumvent Apple and Google’s tax.

However, the platform hasn’t gained serious traction with developers or users, and that’s a serious risk the company noted in its S-1 filing to go pulbic. Some developers don’t want to re-fork production to support HTML5 in addition to iOS and the various Android versions, at least not until Facebook’s platform is a proven money maker. HTML5 also needs time to mature before it can handle the most advanced native apps.

With limited choice, and no ads to promote third-party apps within Facebook’s own mobile apps and HTML5 site, users aren’t installing them in the first place. Since bookmarks for the HTML5 apps are only found at the bottom of the Facebook mobile site’s nav menu, and have to be located through the search bar in the Facebook iOS and and Android apps, users aren’t reengaging with HTML5 apps either.

But Facebook has been pulling its punches. It has hundreds of millions of daily active mobile users who first see the news feed where these bookmarks are being tested. Facebook says similarly styled bookmarks on the web interface’s games canvas page have been proven to drive traffic.

The small percentage of m.facebook.com and Facebook for iPhone users in the test could click bookmark and after some confusing lag an internal browser would launch Words With Friends, The Washington Post Social Reader, CityVille Express, Warimals, or another game or app. The test may have run on the Facebook for Android app as well.

Facebook is likely testing to see if users click these bookmarks, and if their presence decreases news feed engagement or session length. If Facebook can get more eyeballs on third-party app bookmarks without degrading the user experience, it may have found a way to leverage its natural assets to begin the steep uphill battle against Apple and Google’s mobile platforms.



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23Jan

News Corp.’s new network

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13Jan

Jailbreak News: iH8sn0w releases iREB 5

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ireb5

It’s been roughly ten months since the last iREB update, but now it’s back in action again, this time by the name of “iREB 5″. For those who are unfamiliar with iREB, it’s a tool used to fix many of the device errors you may encounter while restoring to a custom firmware, and sometimes when restoring to a factory firmware. It’s a very helpful little…

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10Jan

Pressly Launches Electionism, A Tablet-Only HTML5 News Publication

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Electionism_H2

Following its November launch, OnSwipe competitor (and TechCrunch Disrupt finalist) Pressly is bringing another major media outlet’s content to the tablet interface. The company is today announcing the launch of a new publication called Electionism. The app was built for the Media Lab, an internal product innovation team inside The Economist Group, which includes The Economist, CQ Roll Call and other businesses.

The new app offers coverage of the 2012 election in the U.S., including insight, analysis and other content from The Economist and CQ Roll Call. A section called the “Latest from Twitter” aggregates tweets from candidates, political pundits, publishers and other organizations, while a “Noted Elsewhere” section allows Economist journalists to share links to what they are reading.

Like some other media outlets, including the iPad-only The Daily or the Financial Times’ own app, the Electionism app was built for tablet computers – it doesn’t exist as a newspaper or in any sort of printed format. In addition, if you try to visit the site from a desktop web browser, you’re alerted to the fact that the app is for tablets only, and pointed over to The Economist instead.

The difference between something like The Daily and Electionism, however, is that the latter is an HTML5 web app – not an iOS app or Android app built using native code and sold in an app store. Pressly CTO Peter Kieltyka previously referred to his company’s product as “Sencha for tablets,” meaning that Pressly is meant to serve as a framework for building HTML5 web applications for the increasingly mobile-optimized web.

The current version of the app supports the iPad (iOS 4.3+), the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the Kindle Fire, the company says.

Earlier this month, The Financial Times Group, which owns a 50% share of The Economist Group, acquired the development firm that built its own HTML5 web app, a move indicative of publishers’ growing interest in HTML5 . Pressly’s other big customers are also publishers, including The Toronto Star and Ziff Davis, which recently brought its tablet shopping experience Logicbuy to the iPad.

If you’re using a supported tablet, you can view Electionism in action here.



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23Dec

Jailbreak News: Pod2G now focused primarily on iPhone 4S and iPad 2 jailbreak

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iOS 5 Jailbreak

In a late night blog post, iOS hacker, Pod2G, has stated that he is no longer working on the jailbreak for iDevices earlier than the iPad 2. He says that he has turned over all of the jailbreak details regarding the iPhone 4, 3GS, and iPod Touch 2G, 3G, and 4G to the Chronic Dev Team in hopes of bringing the jailbreak to us much sooner than originally…

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