Author: Gagan Biyani

Why pay for text messaging anymore when you can send texts for free? That’s the message GOGII is trying to send to users via its textPlus application, which has been wildly successful on the iPhone with over 3.2 million downloads.

As with many other successful iPhone applications, textPlus is moving to Android and bringing free texting along with it.

UPDATE: As noted by some commenters, this is a US-only application.

I’ve used textPlus for the iPhone and it’s a solid experience. You can easily send a message via the ad-supported application. The receiver of the text message gets a message from “60611″ indicating it is from gaganbiyani (my username on GOGII). Instructions are included in that text on how to reply to me directly. A major advantage of textPlus is in group conversations: you can create a text group (say, your friends in NYC or your poker buddies) and send one message that goes out to all your friends. Since it saves the group for future use and allows users to “reply all,” its a lot more effective than the standard texting platforms.

For Android, the process is smoother since it is a more customizable operating system. This is one of the many apps that benefits from using background processes (which the iPhone doesn’t support), because you can be notified as soon as you get a text message via textPlus. Furthermore, Android will probably see a great year in 2010, and it is a logical choice for GOGII to leverage Android as it grows as a company.

TextPlus for iPhone has proven to be extremely sticky, especially for teens and pre-teens, according to Co-Founder Austin Murray. They see a huge spike in usage on the weekends and a lot of their users are iPod Touch owners who presumably don’t have smart phones or unlimited texting plans. Murray told me that they are sending over 2 million texts per day and the average unique user spends over 250 minutes per month with textPlus.

GOGII was originally funded by Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers’ iFund for $5.2M and recently raised a $8.2M Series B round led by Matrix Partners. The founders – Austin Murray, Scott Lahman, and Zachary Norman – previously founded Jamdat mobile, which had an IPO and eventually sold to EA for $680 million.

Crunch Network: TechCrunch obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies

Flurry Analytics has been real busy this holiday season. They recently merged with Pinch Media to create the biggest (in terms of user base) mobile analytics platform on the market. Today, Flurry is announcing a partnership with comScore, Inc. to provide mobile analytics for comScore clientele. This will provide Flurry with a fresh new revenue stream and comScore with the ability to stay relevant with their analytics offerings to existing clientele.

Essentially, comScore, inc. has a large sales force and existing relationships with big brands that pay comScore to provide them with analytics. These analytics come primarily through panel data, in which comScore uses a sampling of users as a way to determine web traffic and usage data. By selling Flurry’s SDK to clients, comScore can remain relevant by providing mobile analytics on top of their existing web analytics package.

Flurry wins because comScore’s sales force will sell Flurry’s data analytics software, generating an initial revenue stream for Flurry. According to VP of Marketing Peter Farago, clients will pay comScore to have Flurry’s SDK installed on their applications, and Flurry will make a revenue-share for each client. ComScore is adding reporting and charting software on top of Flurry’s analytics. Flurry is traditionally free for developers, but comScore is going to charge clients to use Flurry because of the additional reporting and charting they add.

In general, this is part of a larger push by Flurry to take revenue generation seriously. Sources within the company have told me that this is one of two revenue initiatives they are working on (the other being AppCircle, which is in private beta). Though they downplayed the revenue value of the deal, it is clear that it is a major draw for Flurry. Another major draw is access to comScore’s high profile customer list and sales force. In this way, Flurry doesn’t have to create a large sales force to sell its product to big brands and companies, but still gets a cut of the revenue generated from the opportunity.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Every once in a while, a startup comes around with a product that we not only cover, but actually want to use ourselves. PointAbout, a Washington, DC-based self-funded startup, has done just that. AppMakr is absolutely ridonkculous. Basically, AppMakr allows you to create your own iPhone app – for $199. You can include feeds from any RSS-enabled website, and the apps are completely native. Your app is published by PointAbout, AppMakr’s parent company, straight to Apple. If you want it published under your own name or Apple’s publishers license, spend $499. It is an extremely simple product and doesn’t help anyone create complex non-RSS-enabled apps, but it seems that PointAbout has democratized app development in a way that hasn’t been done before.

For any MobileCrunch reader (and readers of our sister and parent blogs), AppMakr is offering 1,000 coupons. Use the code “TECHCRUNCH” to get $150 off the cost of making an app (bringing the price to $49). Visit www.AppMakr.com and use the coupon at checkout.

I was skeptical when I first tried AppMakr: it’s common for products like this to be clunky, and to provide the user with too many options. Surprisingly, AppMakr was extremely well done and easy to use. The downside, of course, is that you don’t have that many options for what goes into your application, and it really does serve a limited purpose. For a blogger like me, it’s great, but you can’t use it to create even the simplest of games or anything like that.

To build your own app, you go on AppMakr.com and register for an account. Then you title your app (we titled it “MobileCrunch”). It automatically populates a list of suggested RSS feeds for you. It correctly found MobileCrunch’s RSS feed, Twitter feed, YouTube channel and Vimeo channel. You can select whichever ones you want to be in your app. Then, you can custom-make icons, splash-screens and headers. AppMakr searches Google image search to find suggested images for you – or you can upload your own. Finally, you have options for generating revenue (such as advertising via AdMob) through your app.

It took me just 10 minutes to create my own app, which is impressive. The app is native, too, and doesn’t use Webkit, which is great for user experience because the app stores content on your iPhone for offline reading.

While you are crafting an application via AppMakr, you can also test it on the fly. Every time you make a change, AppMakr.com’s engine shows the change on a mock iPhone on the righthand side of your browser. This lets you test your app and check whether it actually does what you want it to. Furthermore, you can download the app to your iPhone and test it there as well.

All of the apps are packaged the same way and there is no WYSIWYG interface to move buttons around or change the user experience. This also means all AppMakr-made apps will look the same, which is a bit of a problem if a large number of people start using it.

AppMakr has been in beta for quite some time, and during their beta, they’ve managed to attract some tech heavyweights as users. Guy Kawasaki has 12 apps on the store via AppMakr [iTunes link], and Seth Godin has made his own app as well [iTunes link].

AppMakr’s parent company, PointAbout, has been creating custom iPhone apps for companies for 1.5 years, says co-Founder Daniel Odio. They’ve got 15+ employees and are profitable, but felt like there was a huge opportunity to enable anyone to create their own app. As such, they’ve worked hard on developing AppMakr, and even use it for their own custom internal projects. Daniel says that a custom iPhone app can cost anywhere from $50,000-100,000, so they feel that $199 for an iPhone app is a major upgrade.

PointAbout is based in Washington, DC, and has just opened a new office. They are providing office space for free for entrepreneurs in the DC metro area, so feel free to visit their website to find out more.

One significant problem with AppMakr is that it only exacerbates the iTunes App overload, and encourages people (notice I no longer have to say “developers”) to flood the App Store. It seems like someone could easily create hundreds of garbage apps and generate a cash cow business on the App Store. Of course, that is again up to the users – the same thing could be said of Blogger enabling anyone to create a garbage website or YouTube letting anyone put up crappy videos.

The bottom line is: it no longer costs $50,000+ to create an iPhone app, and you don’t need to be a developer to create one. For $199, AppMakr can do it for you. Oh, and if you’re a TechCrunch fan, don’t forget: use the code “TECHCRUNCH” at checkout and the first 1,000 users will spend just $49 creating their own iPhone app.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Everybody has a damn iPhone app nowadays, and why should NCAA programs be any different? Row27 Studios, a design firm that has 58 NCAA clients including the Cal Bears, UNC Tar Heels and Florida Gators, has begun to fill that void. They’ve created an iPhone app that is perfect for University sports programs, and provides them with a way of reaching their fans through the mobile device we all know and love (or not). They launched their first app for the University of Kansas Jayhawks, and it boasts great features such as live scoring, RSS feeds of team news and a couple cool minigames to occupy you during half-time.

The Kansas Jayhawks app is just the first iteration of this platform, which can be re-purposed for any other NCAA sports program. According to Creative Director Jonathan Dusing, due to Row27’s close relationships with other NCAA sports teams, their iPhone app will probably soon be appear under many other college sports names.

Perhaps even more interesting than the launch of the app is the fact that Row27 didn’t spend a dime of its own money on development. The app was built as a custom project for Kansas University and Row27 managed to keep the rights to re-purpose the same application for other college sports teams. Besides being a great way to run a business, it also means that no other sports team has to take the risk KU did when requesting development of the app. Granted, KU bit the bullet – but they also got the special attention of getting to decide all the features and the specifics of the app themselves. It’s a win-win.

The app itself is pretty cool. Besides features that are available elsewhere such as live scoring and in-depth game-by-game statistics for all major sports, the app also has tons of additional features perfect for a University-specific sports application. For example, you can chat with other KU fans within the app – a great way to ask questions such as “What’s the best happy hour after the game” or “How do we make sure Cal doesn’t upset us during our game tomorrow?” Furthermore, it’s connected to KU’s news feeds so fans can get all of the sports news their hearts desire.

But one of the real benefits is for fringe sports – if you’re interested in Volleyball, Soccer, Softball and Baseball, it can be hard to get real-time sports statistics at the collegiate level on mobile. Because this is a University-sanctioned application, Row27’s app can provide data that no other application can. They are integrated to the standard NCAA statistics management system (Stat Crew) so they can stream statistics for any game that have live statistics.

It’ll be interesting to see if such turn-key branded applications do well on the App Store. With football season gone, it may be a while until the Kansas Jayhawks app will do a couple thousand sales, but I have no doubt that you’ll soon see branded apps across most NCAA programs. It’s just a matter of time.

UPDATED: I previously wrote that the app was named “Kansas University app.” Now changed to “Kansas Jayhawks app.” Furthermore, per a commenter, it is “University of Kansas” not “Kansas University.”

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

As predicted here on MobileCrunch earlier this month, Apple rocked it this holiday season, and the early numbers are showing it. According to Flurry, the biggest mobile app analytics company, iPod Touch download volume saw a nearly 1,000% jump in downloads on Christmas Day. Overall, the App Store saw a 51% increase in downloads from November to December (downloads only increased by 15% from October to November). Christmas also marked the first day that iPod Touch app downloads surpassed iPhone app downloads, which makes sense (the iPod Touch is a more common gift than an iPhone; more on that later). Furthermore, the Android Market saw a nice 20% bump in app sales as well, sparked primarily by an uptick in downloads from the Motorola Droid.

The data uncovers some interesting phenomena. First, it seems like parents bought iPod touches in droves. Flurry cited previous data that teens and pre-teens tend to download far more apps than older iPod and iPhone owners. VP of Marketing Peter Farago also noted that the iPod touch has clearly become a major player for Apple in terms of app sales. Second, Christmas is a huge day for app sales and app developers should take note. Just as the major retailers gear up for the holiday season, perhaps mobile app developers should be considering similar pre-Christmas preparations. If you’re developing an app at the end of the year, make sure to get it out before Christmas. Finally, I would expect an extremely strong Q1 from Apple. The data indicates that iPod touch sales skyrocketed leading up to Christmas, and that Apple’s App Store sales also saw a similar bump. Also expect the relatively smaller increase in month-to-month growth for Android to improve the value of Apple’s stock. It seems like, for now, they are defending themselves well against the Android OS. We’ll see whether that holds true after the Google Phone hits the market.

Santa delivered some good news for Motorola, too. The highest number of Android App Sales came from the Droid – in fact, 49% of all Android Apps sold on Christmas day came from that one handset. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to guess that the Droid is the best-selling Android-powered phone. That’s great news for Google, too, because it means that they are continuing to grow as a platform and that solid hardware (on the right network) can fuel that growth.

That said, the App Store is still destroying Android. Despite a lot of momentum and buzz behind Google’s vaunted, developer-friendly mobile OS, it really isn’t holding a candle to the iPhone OS. App Store downloads are 13 times greater than the Android Market. Additionally, the fact that the already-mature App Store saw a 50% monthly growth rate versus the Android Market’s 20% is impressive. One would think that the App Store growth would plateau at some point, but it doesn’t show any signs of leveling off just yet.

It’s important to remember that the data you’re seeing isn’t sales data, so of course many of the extrapolations are conjecture. It is plausible that the gap between the App Store and Android Market does not in any way relate to handset sales. Nonetheless, it is likely that the sale of the device would trend alongside app sales.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Alex Albrecht is on Wikipedia. Therefore, he is important. Not only that, but he also made a cool iPhone app that hit the store for just $1. Cheap. Like all the other iPhone apps. Unlike most other $1 iPhone apps, this one is pretty fun.

The concept is simple: Duel enables you to host a duel on your iPhones. (Don’t fret, parental-types; though this iPhone duel will pay homage to the duels of the Wild Wild West, it will differ in one major way: nobody’s gonna get shot.) Instead, should you lose, you will simply find your fellow dueler’s ugly mug laughing hysterically in your face. Here’s how you duel: All you need is two people with two iPhones. Both need to have the app (so you could argue this app really costs $2, which is still cheap). You connect your iPhones via Bluetooth, and then you raise your phones vertically. The timer on the phones counts down from 3. Once it hits zero, you turn your phones horizontally to shoot. First one to shoot wins.

This is a freakin’ simple concept, but it is also brilliantly fun. I challenged my buddy to a game and felt like a real bad-ass when I beat him 4-2 in a best of 7 (yes, I am using MobileCrunch as a way to brag about my conquests). I think we would’ve kept playing if it weren’t for the fact that it was Christmas Eve and we were supposed to be hanging out with our families. Oops.

Outside of this foray into iPhone app creation, Alexander Albrecht is an American television personality, actor and podcaster. He’s best known for co-hosting the former TechTV television program The Screen Savers, an hour-long computer and technology variety show, as well as the weekly Diggnation, and The Totally Rad Show. [Yes, this was lifted entirely from his Crunchbase entry. Sue me; it’s the holidays.]

You can buy Duel on the App Store here for $0.99.

P.S. If you didn’t get the headline, you need to listen to more Tupac.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.