OurielOhayon

No more teasing. Introducing AppsFire, a new way to share your favorite iPhone apps with anyone

How do you find interesting iPhone apps to install, among 40k and growing?

Once you bought an iPhone and got familiar with the amazing iPhone software, it is highly likely that one of the first questions you ll ask yourself will be around which apps you want/should download from Apple AppStore. A natural way to solve this issue is by checking out the AppStore itseft and browse the most downloaded sections.

But since Apple's iTunes merchandising is a black box, in addition to be a painful browsing environnement this is not enough.

A second natural way to solve that issue is by asking your friends. This happens every single day. I have never met 2 guys that have an iPhone and that do not start discussing their apps. The web is also full of post and articles about most recommended apps, best apps,..Twitter is also a good way to figure out people need a better way to discover Apps.

Apple has not solved the problem of Apps Discovery and distribution. And we believe the key is in adding a social layer to iTunes AppStore

Enter AppsFire.com

[btw this is the project i was teasing about under codename AF]

this is why we created AppsFire.com a new service that will allow you to share easily your apps with your Friends and streamline what you already do in real life. We believe the way to solve discovery is by adding a social layer to your iPhone. There are about 40k iPhone apps. And the number is going to rise soon. No one has the time to browse them all.

Appsfire is a shortcut to this problem. There might be other solutions. but we believe this one makes sense.



A few months ago, i came out with this idea out of personnal frustration and because i was kept being asked about recommended apps. When i met Yann Lechelle, who is a first class iPhone application creator in France, i suggested we create the service.

Today we are opening AppsFire in private beta for a few hundreds user. And if we bet right we should see an interesting viral phenomenon take place in the next days.

AppsFire is a very simple application [only for mac now, PC coming soon, as well as native iPhone app] that is for now only available for mac and that will list your applications in a private web page. You then can decide which app you want to share, and then you decide how you want to share them (email, social network of widget). You contact then receive a list of Apps to be downloaded directly from the Appstore.

For example here are my favorite web apps.

What you see today is only a little part of what the service is aimed to become. But we had to start somewhere.

If you want to track our activity here is our Twitter account. For further releases you can register here.

If you have any suggestions, comments, please leave them on our Appsfire suggestion page. Or simply comment here

Check also our coverage on TechCrunch

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Technorati Tags: iphone apps appsfire itunes apple

Free idea of the day: a service for Friendly Terms and Privacy

Terms of services and Privacy Policies as legal documents are a pain for everyone.

When you create a web service you must offer those declarations (like in the screenshot below) and have your users agree with you before going any further. This protects you as a company and them against any misuse or abuse of your service and is an opportunity to lay transparently your practices in terms of data collection, data privacy, conflict resolution etc...



The only problem? no one really cares to read them. And even worse, it is a real pain for the startup executives to write them. Usually those are outsourced to a law firm, that will charge you too mych for it, and if no budget is allocated, to the in-house marketing/copyrighter that has to gather the relevant points and translate them into 2 documents that will be posted online.

The pain grows over time since any change on the site that has to do with data collection (meaning nearly anything) has to be reflected and therefore updated.  And still no one cares to read. Not that this is not important. But it is just a painful and boring thing to do. Not mentioning it is hardly visible.

Many times, young services just try to solve the issue by spotting related or competing services and copy/paste the Terms and Privacy Policy on their site (which can be funny since sometimes they even leave the original name of the company)

To summarize: those docs suck, no one wants to write them, update them and worse read them. However those are very important specially in the case of conflict, just like a contract.

Here is an idea i suggest

A simple service (codename TERMS4ALL)  that offers tailored templates of terms of services and privacy policy. This is how it works

• Your company answers a series of list of questions on your activity and company details.
• Your can also relate to an existing business to find Terms already published that are close to you
• Then you get a pre-templated document you can edit
• The output is composed of 2 parts: a true legal document and a hyper friendly summary that is readable, short and understandable to the users
• The service offers a tracker for company exects to monitor their competition but also for users to know what's new (someone has done it but only for BIG cos and more for legal purpose)
  

The model is highly simple: companies have to pay to get that. Something like 500 USD for each doc per year. Why per year? Because you need to update your docs as your service grows and adds new features and expands to new geo areas

SOMEONE PLEASE BUILD THIS COMPANY. i am your first customer


Technorati Tags: legal documents terms conditions

iPhone - codename AF launching soon

I am about to launch codename AF, a new iPhone service that should change a little the game if all things go well.

i won't say much here, but those who have seen it, understood immediately the relevance and necessity of the service.

If you want to be notified on the launch you can register the alpha list here http://bit.ly/codenameAF

sorry for the suspense, but we prefer to keep it for the last minute :)

Technorati Tags: iphone

Michael jackson is over capacity

No comment

The browser as we know it is done. Welcome the browsers

Yesterday Gemini had an interesting round table on the trends of the web. One of the elements that stimulated a strong conversation was the question of the future of the browser. I took time to say a few words, but i am not i could really make my point. So there you go...

Except the fact that no one really knows what a browser really is, any internet user know that to access the web you need this piece of software. The rise of the mobile web and specially web applications makes us more aware the requirement of a browser to access the web might soon disappear. Surfing the web will become less browser dependent.

One thing is clear in my mind. Web services will have to provide multiple access of to their users to satisfy different consumption mode. Screen Size, ergonomy and internet speed (both depending on hardware capability and bandwith access) are key in making you decide what interface makes more sense. For example on my Mac i can access gmail both through my browser or in IMAP via a mail client. I chose the browser because of speed. On the iPhone i can access it via safari or the mail client. I use the mail client because it is faster and the experience is better.

If you take news, it is even more complex. You can decide to read a content site via your browser on your computer, but also via RSS (if made possible) or even via Twitter when there is a feed, or simply via a news agregator like Google news or Wikio, or simply via shared news on your social network. But you can also decide to download an iPhone specific app to access your content (eg the NY times has one) or even an Adobe AIR application for your computer to access it out of the browser.

At the end of the day. It is not to the service to decide what makes sense to the user. The best way is to anticipate the potential consumption channels and give them as an option to your users. They will decide what makes sense.

At the end of the day all those access points replace the role of a browser to give you access to the internet. The context makes you decide what is best for you. A clear trend is that internet services are not only consumed on their own property. The dissemination is key to success but consumption patterns evolve on depending on the platform and the situation.

YouTube recently created YouTubeXL so you can view youTube conveniently on a TV screen. i have no doubt Gmail will offer a native iPhone app and that most web services will create gateways with Boxee for tomorrow's TV and with main video games console which are also become browsers in their own right.

Someone asked yesterday the question of whether on mobile Apps are the new browsers? They definitely solve the conveniency issue. Over time MAYBE web apps via browser will be as good as native apps. But i don't think so. Why? just look at your computer. You still need offline access, conveniency of usage, compartimentation of your life. And they are data you don t want online.

My Friend Tariq Krim has created Jolicloud which solves party the problem by creating an OS which is a browser for web apps. You open your laptop and you are on. Every single app in itself is a little browser.

The uniqueness of the browser as an internet access point is done. The browsers are taking up.


Technorati Tags: browser

You needed 1 good reason to use twitter? here is 1

Thursday it is 3 years French-Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit has been kidnapped by Hamas. Our unskillful government beyond talks has never been able to give the beginning of a hope.

So the objective is to raise awareness on Twitter, used by millions. If you don t have an account, just create 1 here. Once done just copy paste and publish

"We re trying to get #Gilad to #1 trending topic on Thursday - 3 yrs since he was kidnapped! Please RT " [please RT = please republish]

You can also click here which will just do that.

[teasing mode on ] very 1st preview of our new iPhone service codename AF

not more for now :)

codename AF is a new iPhone service we are currently beta testing super privately (we = Yann Lechelle from @SensDigital and your host).

Soon more details. but we are pretty excited about it

[teasing mode off]

iPhone israel: 1000 USD pre rebate/discount..wow

According to Nir ben Yona based on solid sources, the iPhone is already here for testing and should be sold at about 1000 USD pre operator rebate (in the US 300/500 USD)if you take a subscription which would be a ridiculous price and was one of the questions

The operators (pelephone and orange) would have committed to apple to buy a minimum of 100k devices. oops...Apple made again a nice deal

I am also hearing the iPhone will be available in August this year.

At this point this is not confirmed. But that are the first rumours. And they do not surprise me

2 years later, the iPhone lands in Israel, officially

I have been tracking obsessively this news for about 2 years, because i thought this was really showing how bad Israel can be at importing new stuff here to consumers.

So we had to wait 3 OS versions to see the iPhone being finally distributed in Israel. Israel is one of the last developed country (maybe the last) to have a distributor for the masterpiece Phone of Apple -  which is nearly already available anywhere. Why did it take so much time? Why did we have to wait after Malta, Mali, Senegal, Egypt, Jordan?

This could be anticipated because Apple said that the new OS 3.0 would include Hebrew as native language, saving users the need to hack the iPhone to install it.

The answer is simple: our dear operators could not find an agreement with Apple. But now both Pelephone and Orange will do the job. I am ready to bet that Cellcom will also distribute it in less than a year. Why is this only happening now? i have clue. i guess negotiations on rev share and localization was tough.

I assume that all the operators and Apple are not blind. They could see that Israelis did not really care to wait for an official channel to buy an iPhone. All those who really wanted one bought one already abroad or even in Israel (at a ridiculous price). Personnally each time i go to a conference or public place, i see iPhones everywhere. Isn't it too late already?

Now i have 4 simple key questions

• How expensive will the Promised phone be in the Promised land compared to markets where it can be bought open for 300 USD (like Italy and Turkey)? And will you be able to buy an iPhone without a subscription?
  
• How will operators solve the problem of Google Maps not being available in Israel (It is avail on the computer but on the iPhone)? Meaning how the GPS will be useful if maps are not here? [FYI i use Freemap.co.il which has a map version but which is available only in hacked mode]
• Will the Appstore and in General iTunes accept finally Israel as a country and enable Israeli citizen to buy with their own local adress without having to create a fake address abroad? Israel is NOT listed in the Apple store country list
  
• In Israel we are used to read and scroll books from left to right. the Iphone is built on the latin logic (scroll right to left). Will they enable that specially for albums and photos?
  

For France24 (French CNN) i live in "Palestine Time"

I am publishing this post after having sent an official complaint to France24, the French equivalent of CNN available on cables in Israel and other countries.

I was surprised and shocked yesterday to discover that they are announcing their programs by a time zone i did not know until they created it. According to France24 Israeli citizens live in "Palestine Time".

Now let me be clear. I want a Palestine state near by Israel - i pray for it - really. But i have no bloody idea what "Palestine Time" means today. Where does it start? Where does it end? GMT+X ? Who is deciding what the X is? [i could not find any reference to is here]

I live in Israel, i pay for this channel in Israeli shekels, i don't want to hear about Palestine Time, as if it was an official standard everybody already know and agreed on. It is simple a pure one-sided convention by the owner of France24. Actually, you know what? I don t mind being referred to a time zone that is not "Israeli" but if they want to really give a Palestinian color to their announcement (why not after all?) Say "Gaza Time" or "West Bank Time" or better "Palestinian Territory local time". Palestine, unless someone points to another direction, is not yet a state and not even a clear geographic zone (they are also palestinians in Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt).

So, dear France24, just change it. Make your spectators a favour and show us you have a little idea of what you are talking about - since this is what you are supposed to do.

Palestine Time - is something we all wish - but it does not exist, yet. Period

ps: if you agree with me, please leave a comment here, since i pointed the Direction of France24 to this blog post. You can also send them a sweet note on Twitter on @France24 or by email [email protected]


Technorati Tags: france24 israel tv cnn palestine gmt