Despite the skepticism of some in the investment community, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is still a big believer that a single application for handheld phones – be it a game, a utility, a social network or a productivity app – can be grown into a venture-scale business. In fact, the venture firm known for being the most bullish on the prospects for independent developers may one day lift the $100 million cap on its year-old fund devoted to backing them, the iFund. “We will exceed that cap,” said Matt Murphy, the Kleiner partner who oversees the iFund, to a room full of eager – if still unknown – app developers at the business school of Stanford University on Tuesday.
At Google (NSDQ: GOOG)’s developer conference last month, VP of engineering Vic Gundotra declared that “the Web has won” and suggested that emerging open Web standards such as HTML 5 have become the preferred platform to create Web applications, even graphically rich ones. Adobe (NSDQ: ADBE) begs to differ. Its Flash platform remains the de facto standard for rich Internet applications, and the company would be happy for that situation to continue. To make sure that happens, some from Adobe are expressing doubts about HTML 5.
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You’ve created an account and started following some users. You may have even sent a few tweets out into the world, expressing how you feel about the economy or the weather or the season finale of your favorite TV show. But you still don’t get it, and you’re ready to dismiss Twitter for good. You’re not alone: Recent research from Nielsen found that about 60% of people who sign up for Twitter abandon the service after a month. That measure includes those who tap the Twitter community through about 30 Web sites and applications, including TweetDeck, TwitPic, Twitstat, Hootsuite, EasyTweets, Tumblr and others.
(tags: Twitter)
The Apple nerdosphere had a meltdown Wednesday, when Apple released Version 3.0 of its iPhone firmware. Breathless, sweaty fanboys and girls filled Twitter with messages describing in excruciating detail how they were downloading and installing the software. I know all this because I was one of the nerdiest, most breathless, sweatiest, and overenthusiastic fanboys of all. The iPhone 3.0 software is a treat, making a good smartphone even better. It delivers some new capabilities, like long-overdue copy/cut/paste support, Spotlight search, and push notifications, as well as small user interface refinements that make the device more pleasant and efficient to use. And the Find Your iPhone and Remote Wipe security services are surprisingly interesting. The upgrade is free to iPhone users, $10 for iPod Touch users.
Android Smartphones For Early Adopters