Another big week in the books and another exciting week in the FiddleFly offices. While LeBron was busy infuriating half the country, and the other half was busy donating money to a verbally abused bus monitor, we here at FiddleFly had our wheels spinning fast. We introduced a host of new features, published a few great articles around the web, and even had time to collect some of our favorite stories from around the world of mobile to share with you. Check them out:
• When the Windows phone hit the market, there seemed to be a major split in the public’s opinion of the it. Some loved it, some dismissed it as a last ditch effort to cling to relevance, Whatever your thoughts on the subject, it seems the folks developing software will be buying in as a new report from the market research and strategy firm VisionMobile shows that 57% of developers say they plan on developing for the Windows phone.
• We seem to be obligated to mention Facebook at least once every Friday, and lately that always entails us telling you how the company is struggling with monetizing mobile. While the numbers may be a bit skewed and it is certainly too early to tell, it looks like Facebook’s mobile ads are actually performing quite a bit better than we may have thought. Statistics show that Facebook’s mobile ads are actually out-performing its desktop ads and in case you haven’t noticed, the once-sub $25 dollar stock has quickly climbed back into the $32 range. Coincidence? Probably not.
• Microsoft this week revealed its newest venture into the tablet game in the form of Microsoft Surface.The introduction sparked some pretty spirited debate as the Surface models promise to give the iPad a run for its money. Unfortunately for Microsoft, the demonstration didn’t quite go off without a hitch, but with the official release not scheduled until the third quarter of this year, the company has some time to get the kinks out.
• Mobile marketing has become essential for any business that is serious about sticking around. While most marketers understand the need for capitalizing on mobile, it can be difficult to gather the resources to do so, so this week we thought it was a nice little touch from the folks over at Hubspot to release a collection of 23 essential mobile marketing statistics.
• We know that mobile spend is on the rise, but every now and then a report comes out that puts the massive rise in perspective. Such was the case early this week when study came out of Antenna Software that showed the average business will spend more on mobile projects over the next 12-18 months than it has in its entire existence. While mobile has only been around a short time, projections like these are always pretty sobering.
• BONUS: We love Apple products, and we respect the hell out of the company, but that doesn’t mean every once in a while we don’t like to see some tasteful destruction of its hardware. Enjoy the masterpiece that is the Shotgun Grandma:
Okay everyone, that’s it for us this week. We’ll be back on the blogs Monday morning, but this weekend make sure to keep an eye out for new developments in the world of mobile by following us on your social network of choice below, and also to our licensees, in case you missed it, we’ve introduced some new features we know you’ll want to check out. Have a great weekend everyone.
