The Mobile & Online Scavenger

CodaMation – an Argentine-based mobile money enabler dedicated to the development and commercialization of operating mobile wallets to financial institutions, MNOs, OEMs, retailers, service providers and technology companies in Latin America and the Caribbean – announces it has crafted a full-fledged online-mobile transactional solution for Monedero which has recently been launched to the market, although with limited features.

With more than three million users, Monedero is Argentina’s leading contactless card for urban transportation and micro-payments in merchants and retailers (drugstores, coffee stores, gyms, cinemas, toll booths, restaurants, etc.).

CodaMation designed Monedero Online’s platform in order to allow the company to achieve the following business objectives: client acquisition; increase in nominated users; boost transaction volume and average value; exploit the remote transactions’ segment; expand product and service offering and enhance user value proposition; simple integration with merchants, retailers and third parties for efficient joint product development and launch; enlarge agent and merchant network while minimizing CAPEX requirements.

The solution is based on a prepaid, unbanked, online account which can be loaded physically, in cash, in Monedero’s agent network, by means of a money transfer from a bank account or by credit card. These funds can be used, among other services, to make P2P transfers, mobile top-ups, bill payments, in-store and remote purchases, and online transactions. From their mobile app, users can also transfer money to their Monedero’s contactless card and locate agents and merchants belonging to the company’s network.

Following a sequential and incremental product launch strategy for smoothing users’ learning curve, Monedero has only launched the wallet’s QR shopping feature by which users can purchase and pay for products and services advertised in billboards, newspapers, magazines and other printed and online media by scanning the related QR codes. This feature allows merchants and retailers to open new sales channels (“virtual aisles”), multiplying them exponentially and with minimum associated costs.

The solution is available for smartphones (iPhone, Android and Blackberry) and feature phones with camera and compatible with Java applications. CodaMation also provided Monedero with a robust back-office platform, integrated to its mobile wallets, for the administration of the store value accounts and the different transactional services linked to them.

About CodaMation

Founded in 2005 in Argentina, CodaMation is a mobile payments industry pioneer dedicated to the development and commercialization of operating mobile wallets to financial institutions, MNOs, OEMs, retailers, service providers and technology companies in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Codamation collaborates with its clients in the development, launching and operation of massive-reach mobile wallets and in the conformation and boosting of their microfinancial ecosystems, providing state-of-the-art mobile technology and tools for efficient third-party integration. It also provides robust back-office solutions, integrated to its mobile wallets, by partnering with top-notch technological companies.

Its wallets can be accessed, in a fully secure fashion, from the different available mobile channels (apps, USSD, mobile web, SMS, etc.), as well as online, and possess a wide variety of transactional features, including in-store payments, P2P transfers, international remittances, bill payments, mobile coupons, loyalty programs, airtime top-ups, online purchases, etc. The wallets are associated to a store value account which can be linked to credit cards and bank accounts or loaded by cash-ins in agent networks (in case of unbanked users).

Although CodaMation covers every mobile channel, it is deeply specialized in cross-platform, downloadable applications. After years of heavy R&D investment, it has developed a WORA (Write Once Run Anywhere) mobile transactional framework which enables its wallets to run smoothly in every handset, smartphone or feature phone, despite of OS, brand, screen size, etc., assuring maximum security levels. This framework gives CodaMation the opportunity to provide non-smartphone users – typical of developing countries – with compelling UXs.

The company initially received a $6.5 million first-round investment from Argentine conglomerate Grupo Roggio which was dedicated to the development of commercial and financial mobile transactions’ technologies. In 2011, CodaMation will reach $1.2 million in revenues from its mobile wallets business. Currently, it is in the process of raising a second-round investment to finance an aggressive commercial expansion in the region.

If you are a mobile developer, the findings of a report from framework provider Appcelerator and research firm IDC are fascinating. The Kindle Fire is, well, on fire. So, apparently, is the Barnes & Noble Nook Android tablet. Nokia and Microsoft are making headway with Windows Phone, BlackBerry continues its free fall and HTML5 has superseded everything but iOS and Android in developer interest.

Freemium is becoming the standard mobile business model and with that developers are looking for tools to scale, create loyalty and enhance engagement to increase monetization. You can access the full report here. Check out our commentary and analysis below. Developers: what are your priorities and monetization strategies?

The Mobile Developer Interest Graph

Why does Apple do so well? iOS devices are simple, elegant and powerful and through the past couple of years developers have found them easier to make money from and create beautiful apps. Nothing has changed in Q4 2011. The iPhone (91%) and iPad (88%) lead all mobile platforms in developers that are "very interested" in creating apps. Next comes the Android phone (83%) and tablet (68%) on the interest graph. We have been saying for sometime that HTML5 has eclipsed all the other native platforms and the survey reaffirms that, with the HTML5 mobile Web coming in at a third (66%) of developers.

Windows Phone has made a significant jump in these rankings. In various meetings with Research In Motion officials and product managers from Windows Phone, this comes as no surprise. Windows Phone is benefitting from its Nokia partnership and a lot of that has to do with the capabilities that Nokia brings to bear, such as robust location services and terrific hardware. Nearly 28% of developers said they were interested in developing for the Nokia Lumia. That is almost double the interest that Nokia had in the same timeframe in this survey last year with its MeeGo and Symbian platforms. European developers are particularly interested in Windows Phone, with 42% saying that the Nokia/Microsoft partnership is the reason. The No. 1 reason for interest for the platform in North America was the focus on Windows 8 and tablet potential.

BlackBerry OS and QNX both had a steep drop off with 21% for smartphones and 13% for the PlayBook OS. There is a direct correlation here between hardware and developer interest. Outside of the PlayBook, which has proved to be a bit of a dud in terms of consumer interest, RIM has not released a hyped smartphone since perhaps the BlackBerry Bold 9000. Contrast that with the Nokia Lumia and you see why Windows Phone is on the rise at the expense of BlackBerry. We will see if RIM can make its own splash in Q1 2012 when we get the first glimpses of BBX devices.

Making Money

Appcelerator and IDC identified four objectives in what they call the "mobile relationship lifecycle:" engagement, loyalty, monetization and reach. This is an area of particular interest to ReadWriteMobile as we cover companies and startups in this realm. There are gamification startups, social engagement companies, marketing platforms, focus on push notifications, in-app purchases, advertisements (and the various elements advertising makes up), scale (through platforms-as-a-service), payments, cross-platform development. Appcelerator and IDC found 23 areas of developer interest in those four categories that could essentially serve as the ReadWriteMobile editorial roadmap for the next several years. Take a look at the chart below.

The survey identified the top priorities for each of the four categories of developer focus. For monetization, advertising and easy in-app payments and purchases are the top priorities. This is a departure from the paid app model as developers are learning to open the doors wider and then capture users in a honey pot of advertising and offers.

The top priorities for loyalty are increasing relevance and return visits through notifications, understanding what features in the app are used the most, figuring out the user flow through mobile analytics and the ability to iterate the app quickly. The top priorities in engagement are increasing the ease of use and performance of the native user interface and increasing engagement through media (device APIs like camera etc.).

With the proliferation of mobile platforms and options that are looking like they are worth developers' time, reach is perhaps the most important of the four categories that developers focus on. It is no longer an "iOS and everything else" type of world. Developers can make money through BlackBerry and Windows Phone and there is the potential of ubiquity developing for HTML5 and Android. Developers priorities for reach are getting their apps to multiple platforms, reducing time-to-market, leveraging existing development skills, scaling through PaaS and improving the integration of PaaS systems.

Planning on hiring a hotshot kid straight out of college? Here’s a checklist for you: Make sure she can tweet or update Facebook while on the clock. Let her get work email on whatever device she wants. Allow her to work from home on her own schedule, even though she’s unlikely to really think it makes her more productive. And by the way, an increasing number of your employees don’t think they need to be in the office either.

These are all the results of a Cisco survey of 2,800 college students and young professionals worldwide. The survey had a number of questions that make good cocktail party trivia (one-third of students think the Internet is as important as food, air and water) and are rather less impressive the more you consider them (the vast majority, after all, don’t believe that for a moment).

Where the study really gets interesting is when it comes to students’ workplace expectations — or rather, the expectation that they won’t be in the workplace. More than 60% say they have a right — not just a desire, but aright — to work from home on a flexible schedule. Some 70% say coming into the office regularly is unnecessary. That’s despite the fact that only a quarter of students are willing to say working from home makes them more productive.

They have some backup, at least — 69% of all workers say the office is unnecessary, a figure that has grown from 60% last year.

ComScore has data out on the US phone market and Asymco breaks them down, including this great chart at right on the evolution of the US phone platform install base.

It highlights a few key points, some of which are already known, but some of which don't get talked about enough:

The Blue Ocean is still HUGE. For all that we (justifiably, more on which below) talk about who among Apple, Google, RIM, Microsoft et al. is winning in smartphones, the biggest opportunity remains the Blue Ocean of getting smartphones in the hands of non-smartphone users. (This is true of the US, but also very true of developing markets where the shift to mobile is enormous.)

In turn, this means the game is far from over. Given that most of the market is still a blue ocean, the opportunity for newcomers is great. Particularly for platforms with lots of resources and distribution, i.e. the Microsoft-Nokia duo. 

Holy cow, Android! With all these caveats out of the way—the other thing that jumps out is how big and how fast growing Android is. Google's open-source, broad distribution strategy is textbook disruptive innovation, and at least so far, seems to be working just like it should: i.e., it is eating the market. 

It’s no secret that Silicon Valley has a problem finding the talent it needs to fill all the high-tech jobs available in the region. The area expects jobs in information and communications technologies to grow 15 percent during the next two years, Menlo Park Patch reports.

The trick for many employers is how to attract — and keep — the best talent in the field. Beyond handsome salaries, many tech firms also lavish their workers with benefits, leading to some unique and even quirky offerings.

Such corporate perks can be as simple (and routine) as Facebook’s discounted gym memberships or the onsite gyms at search-engine giant Google and Gaia Online, an animation-themed social networking site.

Other benefits take a more spiritual form. Google, LinkedIn and Tagged, another social networking site, each offer yoga classes at their workplaces. Twitter, meanwhile, offers Pilates in addition to Yoga, and Eventbrite’s “zen room” features yoga, Tai Chi and meditation classes.

If intellectual stimulation is what you’re seeking, Facebook and LinkedIn each offer weekly lectures from well-known leaders from business and government — to help spur the entrepreneurial mindset that many companies in Silicon Valley like to foster.

Annual performance reviews: you either love ‘em or hate ‘em. Some companies get the formula right, developing a constructive review process that helps employees grow — to these employers, we say, “kudos.”

On the other side of the coin, though, there are many companies that simply miss the mark, creating repetitive review processes that seem to only serve as time-wasting disciplinary tools.

In the past decade, we’ve seen performance reviews move to the online space, making it easier for employees and employers to complete and share them.

While we’ve come a long way, performance reviews are still the bane of many employees — 78% of U.S. workers would like to change some aspect of the review process, according to one 2009 study.

The infographic below, compiled by the creators of social goal management tool WorkSimple, looks at the brief history of performance reviews and predicts a future where reviews go social.

Michael DeGusta has done an amazing job charting the fragmentation of Android by visualizing the history of operating system updates on Android smartphones for sale in the United States.

Compare this to iPhone updates (which DeGusta did), and it paints a telling picture.

Writes DeGusta:

I went back and found every Android phone shipped in the United States up through the middle of last year. I then tracked down every update that was released for each device – be it a major OS upgrade or a minor support patch – as well as prices and release & discontinuation dates. I compared these dates & versions to the currently shipping version of Android at the time. The resulting picture isn’t pretty – well, not for Android users.

Other than the original G1 and MyTouch, virtually all of the millions of phones represented by this chart are still under contract today.

If you thought that entitled you to some support, think again:

If you’re on the lookout for a new job, social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are a fantastic way to find employment – a recent study showed that 43% of Londoners are now using these platforms to hunt for work.

But it’s very much a two-way street, as employers are also increasingly using social media to screen prospective candidates during the hiring process.

Social media monitoring service Reppler conducted a study with Lab42 using a random sample of 300 individuals involved in the hiring process of a company, and the results are fascinating. A massive 91% of the employers polled use social networking sites to screen prospective employees. More worryingly for applicants, 69% say they have rejected a candidate because of something they saw on one of these social platforms.

 Other key takeaways:

47% of employers check social networking sites to screen prospective employees immediately after receiving their job application

Facebook is checked by 76% of employers, followed by Twitter (53%) and LinkedIn (48%)

I’ve been a corporate lawyer for more than 17 years, and there are certain fundamental legal mistakes that I’ve seen startups repeatedly make (many of which surface when investors are conducting their due-diligence investigation).

Accordingly, I thought it would be helpful to provide a simple checklist for startups that includes links to indepth posts for a more detailed discussion.

Startup checklist:

1. Form a corporation, not an LLC (see post here) or a partnership (see post here).

2. Incorporate in Delaware and qualify the company to do business in the state in which its principal office is located (see #2 here).

3. Set-up vesting schedules for the founders (see post here) and file 83(b) elections with the IRS (see #3here).

4. Button-down IP ownership and assignment issues (see post here).

5. Split the equity based on prior contributions and expectations going forward, not necessarily equally (see post here).

6. If you hire any employees, make sure you don’t misclassify them as an independent contractor or fail to pay them at least the minimum wage (see post here).

7. Only raise funds from “accredited investors” (see post here) and don’t pay anyone a commission for raising funds for you unless they are a registered broker-dealer (see post here).

8. Put proper privacy policies in place and make sure you adhere to them (see post here).

9. Don’t issue stock options unless a proper option plan is in place and a valuation has been done in compliance with Section 409A of the Internal Revenue Code (see post here).

10. Regarding lawyers, don’t give them equity (see post here); don’t use your investors’ lawyers (see posthere); and there are ways of cutting legal fees in half (see post here).

What do smartphones, tablets, and self-service business information tools have in common? All three are on high-growth trajectories for enterprise adoption. In a new report issued last week by Forrester Research called called TechRadar For Enterprise Architecture Professionals: Technologies For Empowered Employees, Q4 2011, it shows how these and others have taken over the enterprise.

It is the classic IT problem. As Gene Leganza writes in the introduction, "Mobile, social, video, and cloud technologies give individuals tremendous access to information and resources. Employees can become the best source of innovation and the breakthrough ideas that CxOs are hungry for. But as employees become empowered, central IT begins losing control of the technology strategy."

The report discusses a variety of technologies and reasons for their adoption or lack thereof. The idea is that enterprise architects can use this information to analyze the technologies that best suit their organization's needs and culture and incorporate them into their future plans and road maps.

High-value financings for venture-backed private internet and digital media companies seem to be happening at a rapid pace. Dropbox, Tumblr, AirBnB, Foursquare, and Spotify have all raked in big fundings and attained record valuations in recent months. Meanwhile, public investors are decidedly less sanguine. The Nasdaq Composite index is flat for the year – and the average internet and digital media company is down 50% from 52-week highs.

So why such a disconnect? Will the recent class of high-priced venture rounds produce strong results for entrepreneurs, VCs and LPs? Or, will the public market continue to bump along and provide little opportunity for spectacular exits?

Pondering this conundrum, I stumbled onto a very interesting graphic put together by Jose Cobos and his colleagues over at investment banking firm Cowen & Company.

As you can see from the chart, only six of the 116 publicly-traded internet companies are projected by analysts to achieve over 30% top-line growth in 2011 and 2012 and to achieve 2012 EBITDA margins of at least 30%. That means only 5% of the current crop of public internet companies are in the top echelon in terms of profitability and growth.

Let’s take a further look at these six companies: Baidu, Tencent, Yandex, Mail.ru, Qihoo 360 Technology, and MercadoLibre. What do these companies all have in common?  Most obviously, they all operate outside the U.S. Second, they are being richly rewarded by public investors – all six are presently valued at at least 10x revenue – a very meaningful premium over the group of internet and digital media companies as a whole, where median revenue multiples fall in the 1-3x range, depending on subset.

Relaxing the 30% EBITDA margin constraint, 12 more companies are projected to have at least 30% growth in 2011 and 2012, so the total number of “high-performing” public internet companies is 18. Scanning this group, you’ll see that most of the companies are still highly valued – LinkedIn, Zillow, and Youku, for example, all enjoy very high revenue multiples as well. But, the overall average revenue multiple is lower than the top tier.

Dropping even further, to the 44 companies projected to have at least 30% growth for 2011 alone, the valuation picture is far murkier, with several companies being valued much closer to the 1-3x revenue group median.

For CEOs of high-growth internet companies thinking about IPOs, this chart provides a very clear case for how to ensure success as a public company. The market will reward high growth (30% or more for several years into the future) coupled with high rates of profitability. If you can’t see a way to achieve both growth and profitability, you may not achieve a premium public valuation and should plan accordingly.

And remember, the most interesting common trait of the six companies in the top tier is that they’re non-US businesses based in China, Russia, and Latin America. Producing both growth and profitability is a time-tested winning strategy to attain high public market valuations. Lately, as several foreign economies have been on a rapid growth curve, a crop of non-U.S. startups has been particularly good at producing both. Perhaps U.S. entrepreneurs seeking high growth and high profits would do well to look outside the U.S. — expanding their businesses into high-growth markets.

It’s no secret enterprises have begun to adopt tablets with the same fervor of consumers. Since the debut of Apple’s iPad in Jan. 2010, the integration of tablet devices into our lives and work has progressed rapidly — so fast that it’s sometimes hard to put in perspective how quickly got here.

The exclusively obtained infographic below breaks down how far workforce adoption of tablet technology has come — and where it’s headed. (The graphic was sponsored by Lenovo and Qualcomm.)

In overall world market share for tablets, the iPad clobbers all others. The iPad accounted for nearly 80 percent of worldwide tablet sales during the past 12 months, but Android is slowly gaining ground, thanks to a wide variety of devices and prices. On the higher end, there are devices like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and 8.9, and on the lower end there’s the upcoming Amazon Kindle Fire and already well-established Nook Color.

Enterprise adoption is quite different from total adoption. A just-released survey from Good suggests the iPad and iPad 2 were responsible for 96 percent of tablet activations in the enterprise in the third quarter of 2011. With just 4 percent of activations being Android-based, Apple has a clear lead with the enterprise crowd.

Business users have different needs with their tablets, chief among them are strong and versatile applications that keep the mobile workforce connected. The iPad has a clear lead in this area with more than 136,000 iPad-optimized apps while Google won’t reveal how many apps are actually optimized for Honeycomb-based tablets. (Some estimates guess it is under 1,000 at present.) One of the most promising enterprise applications we’ve seen recently is Polycom’s video-conferencing app that works for both iPad and Android tablets.

One of the major trends we have seen in business in 2011 is how enterprises are coping with the movement of employees to bring their own mobile devices to work. There are a plethora of problems associated with the bring-your-own-device culture from security to application and device management and employee reimbursements. This is an ongoing topic that is not going to go away any time soon.

Research firm Forrester has come out with a roadmap of how to "build an operations stairway to a mobile future." The firm outlines seven key aspects that will help IT departments prioritize efforts in the mobile enterprise, from workforce segmentation to how to handle multi-platform development. Check out Forrester's results below.

The main thrust of the Forrester report is that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to building "an operations stairway to a mobile future," as Forrester calls it. The key is to be organized, understand the various needs of your employees, clients and partners and learn how to do all of those things across mobile platforms like BlackBerry, iPhone, Android and maybe soon Windows Phone. Not every employee needs every new function and some employees hardly need any. Here is a synopsis of the seven aspects of Forrester's "operations stairway."

Segment employees - Not every employee has the same needs. Some need more security, some less. The accounting department needs different apps than the marketing department. By organizing employees into groups, IT departments can better make a roadmap for how to deal with those particular segments.

Tier devices for management and security -- A BlackBerry tied to a BES may not be equal to an Android that only needs a VPN or an iPhone that uses Good Technology. Different devices have different needs. Figure out what they are and how they fit in the employee segmentation map.

Multi-technology approach for business apps - This means to buy or build the important stuff, use native functions within the platforms when it makes sense or the mobile Web for lower-end projects. Virtualization software can be added to cement the layers between.

Master multi-platform development - If you offer partners and customers functionality for iPhone, make sure how to get it on Android and HTML5. Forrester points to how General Electric operates and says, "you can never spend enough time on experience design."

Fund the infrastructure - If a company truly wants to be a diverse mobile workplace, it is going to need to spend to do so. That means asking for "off-cycle" funding, as Forrester puts it.

Adopt reasonable reimbursement policies - Who gets what kind and reimbursement for their mobile devices and data plans? Why?

Plan for an enterprise app store - This is a recent trend that is starting to be filled with third-party solutions, most recently from Verizon but also Cisco, Zenprise and MobileIron. An enterprise app store helps get the right software to the right devices in the right department at the right time. All the other reasons listed above are glued together through the hub of an enterprise app store.