An Ignoble Experiment

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Almost a decade after Qualcomm's MediaFlo, Crown Castle's Modeo and Aloha Partners' Hiwire first tested the mobile TV game with less-than-stellar results, a new crop of startups are rolling out essentially the exact same technology with hopes for a very different outcome.

As outlined by USA Today, Dyle and MyDTV are now competing against each other to line up customers for their respective mobile TV services. Just like MediaFlo and the mobile TV offerings of year's past, Dyle and MyDTV are working to build out networks that are dedicated to broadcasting video content to mobile devices, including laptops, smartphones and tablets. The only difference is that Dyle and MyDTV are aimed at local TV broadcasters instead of wireless carriers, with the premise that mobile TV will help stem the revenue declines afflicting local TV broadcasters.

Dyle recently announced that, by the end of the year, it will reach 116 stations in 39 markets. Meantime, Dyle's rival, MyDTV, is in second place with trial systems in Seattle and Minneapolis and plans to expand to Raleigh, N.C.

I recently spoke with Salil Dalvi, co-general manager of Dyle and SVP of digital distribution at NBC Universal, about the company's business. Dalvi said Dyle is well aware of the fate suffered by MediaFlo, Modeo and Hiwire. In fact, he was surprisingly realistic about Dyle's position and progress.

"We're under no illusions that that's a hard thing to do," he said, "And that's something we're working on."

In the six months since Dyle launched, Dalvi said the company has been successful in generating support among local broadcasters for its system, largely thanks to its backers Fox, NBC, Telemundo, Pearl Mobile DTV and ION. "Clearly there is some momentum on the station side," he said.

In order to view Dyle's broadcasts, users must purchase specialized equipment, and so far there are only three devices that can even receive Dyle signals: two iPhone and iPad tuners and the Samsung Galaxy S Lightray for MetroPCS (NYSE:PCS).

"There aren't enough devices out there. And that's something that no question has to be addressed for this to be a viable ecosystem," Dalvi acknowledged. "At this point (in terms of devices) we're nowhere near where we need to be."

Dalvi declined to provide Dyle viewership figure,s and MetroPCS declined to comment on sales of the Galaxy S Lightray. MetroPCS also declined to say whether it would sell additional Dyle-capable phones.

Obviously Dyle and other mobile TV services will need to seed the market with compatible devices. But that alone won't help the situation: After all, both AT&T Mobility (NYSE:T) and Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ) (the nation's two largest wireless carriers) sold MediaFlo-capable handsets for years, and Qualcomm itself invested in designing a MediaFlo tuner for iPhones. Qualcomm quietly announced plans to shut down MediaFlo in 2010.

Dalvi argued that the current market is very different from the one Qualcomm played in, and that's true. Indeed, Dalvi strongly hinted that Dyle's new business strategy will be to go after... continued

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Read more about: MediaFLO, TV Everywhere
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Today's Top News

1. App Annie: Apple App Store revenues still 2.6x higher than Google Play

By Jason Ankeny

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eBook | Avoiding the Pitfalls of Android Fragmentation

Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) App Store generated revenues 2.6x greater than the rival Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) Play storefront during the first quarter of 2013, down from a multiple of 4x during the fourth quarter of 2012, analytics provider App Annie reports. Google Play delivered close to 90 percent of the App Store's download during the first quarter, the firm adds.

The U.S. continues to lead all international markets on iOS app downloads, unchanged from the previous quarter

The United States continues to lead all international markets on iOS app downloads, unchanged from the previous quarter, App Annie said. China held steady in second place, while the United Kingdom increased from fourth to third, swapping places with Japan. France rounds out the top five. "China has started to gain momentum in the iOS App Store and was the leading contributor to the increase in iOS downloads from Q4 2012 to Q1 2013," App Annie states. "While Games were the top category for downloads growth in China, gains were seen in many other categories as well. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom and Japan have been alternating between the third and fourth ranks over the past year. All together, these four key countries have been driving roughly half of total iOS downloads."

The U.S. also leads on App Store revenues, followed by Japan, the U.K., China (up two spots quarter-over-quarter) and Australia (down one spot). The U.S. and Japan together are responsible for close to half of all App Store revenues, App Annie said.

The U.S. tops all markets on Google Play downloads as well. South Korea is next, trailed by India, Russia (up one spot) and Japan (down one spot). The top four countries represented roughly 40 percent of Android installs during the first quarter, compared to about 50 percent for iOS.

Japan nevertheless leads all markets on Google Play app revenues, followed by South Korea (up one spot), the U.S. (down one spot), the U.K. and Germany. "[The top] three countries dominate Google Play, covering approximately 70 percent of its worldwide revenue," App Annie noted. "And their revenues are more driven by games than any other countries' app economies on Google Play. South Korea has now surpassed the 95 percent mark, while Japan has exceeded 90 percent."

Games continue to drive the overwhelming majority of worldwide revenues in both the App Store and Google Play, App Annie added. As of the first quarter, the category accounts for 70 percent of iOS revenues and close to 80 percent of Android revenues.

For more:
- read this App Annie blog post

Read more about: Google, App Annie
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2. Facebook brings Chat heads from Home for Android to iOS

By Phil Goldstein

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3. WhatsApp CEO: We're handling 20B messages per day

NEW YORK--Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) introduced the Chat heads messaging multitasking feature of its Home launcher for Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android to the Facebook app for Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) iOS.

Chat heads for iOS

"Now you can keep chatting even when you're doing other stuff on Facebook, like checking your News Feed. Tap chat heads to reply, drag them around, or flick them down to close, wrote Facebook's Kumar Iyer and Michael Sharon in a blog post.

Mike Schroepfer, Facebook's CTO and vice president of engineering, teased the announcement here at AllThingsD's D: Dive Into Mobile conference. He said that Facebook would push that update to its iOS Facebook app and that the Chat heads feature will be in the Facebook app itself. Schroepfer said the app should be updated April 16.

"Chat heads and stickers on the Facebook app for iPhone will roll out fully over the next few weeks," explained Iyer and Sharon.

Facebook Home, which rolled out late last week, is an alternative homescreen promising users more immediate and efficient access to Android applications and social media updates, deeply integrating the social networking platform into the mobile user experience. Chat heads, a key feature, enables users to message with friends while accessing other mobile applications. When a text message or Facebook message arrives, a circular "chat head" bearing that contact's profile photo appears onscreen regardless of whether the device owner is checking email, browsing the web or listening to music; tapping the chat head lets the user respond directly from the other app.

Schroepfer's announcement was presaged by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, who, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, said the company will not be directly porting Facebook Home to iOS, but some of its features will be coming to Apple devices in the near future.

"We're working closely with Apple, with Microsoft to get as good a Facebook experience as you can get," Schroepfer said.

Schroepfer and Cory Ondrejka, Facebook's director of mobile engineering, also made another announcements about Home. Schroepfer said the first update to Home for Android will be coming in the first week of May. He did not provide details on what the update will include but hinted that the phone's dialer or camera features are areas where Facebook could experiment.

Ondrejka also said that Facebook is opening up Home to Android devices outside of the United States. A company spokesperson later confirmed to CNet that Facebook Home is available globally. He also said that Facebook is considering Home for tablets. "We think that we might have to make some tweaks on it to make it really good on tablets, which is why didn't open it up on tablets," he said, adding, "We wanted to make sure we had the time to make it great."

Ondrejka said that Facebook views the mobile Web as "the clear third platform." However, said Facebook watches what he called "emerging platforms" like Windows Phone and BlackBerry (NASDAQ:BBRY) 10 to see how they are gaining traction and adding features to decide where to devote mobile engineering resources.

Schroepfer said that he is not worried about Google exerting control over Android and blocking Facebook Home. Earlier at the conference Google Executive Chairman Schmidt also praised Home, and he said it was a marker of Android's openness. He said Google would not try to block Home if it became popular. "It would be counter to our public statements, our policies, our religion," Schroepfer said.

"I think that fundamentally the product developers at Google are trying to do the same things we are, which is build products that people love," Schroepfer said.

For more:
- see this AllThingsD article
- see this SlashGear article
- see this Facebook blog
- see this CNet story

Read more about: iPhone, Cory Ondrejka, Facebook, Facebook Home
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By Phil Goldstein

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4. ACLU lobbies FTC to probe carriers over Android security

NEW YORK--WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum said users of its messaging app across all mobile platforms now transmit roughly 20 billion messages daily (including 8 billion inbound and 12 billion outbound).

That figure is up from the 17 billion messages per day (7 billion inbound and 10 billion outbound) WhatsApp had previously disclosed. Koum said the company is "bigger than Twitter" and has more than 200 million active users each month. The WhatsApp Messenger application enables users to share text messages, voice notes and photos with contacts across the globe, without international messaging fees.

Speaking here at AllThingsD's D: Dive Into Mobile conference, Koum noted that all of WhatsApp's growth has been organic and that it does not sell advertising. "We do have a kind of manifesto on our advertising philosophy," he said. "We're really proud of that, and we want to be different, and we don't want advertising."

Instead of advertising, WhatsApp bills Android, BlackBerry (NASDAQ:BBRY) and Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows Phone users 99 cents per year after a one-year free trial period. The firm has traditionally offered its Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone app for a one-time download fee of 99 cents, but CEO Jan Koum said last month that WhatsApp will shift its iOS business to the recurring subscription model later this year, adding the pricing change will apply solely to new iOS users.

Koum said that WhatsApp's monetization model is still in its early stages, but he said that avoiding advertising is important to the company. "We want to build a business," he said "We want to show the world you can build a business that's not built on advertising. When advertising is involved the user is a product. "WhatsApp is one of many over-the-top messaging services like Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) Messenger, WeChat and Viber that are changing carrier business models around the world. "Text messaging is great. It's very common," Koum said. "The problem with text messaging is that it's a very old technology. The way we have communicated has evolved over the last 10, 20 years."

Koum said "the carrier relationship has evolved for us," and that carriers are embracing WhatsApp because the app has helped carriers get customers to sign up for data plans. He also noted that WhatsApp has signed deals with carriers for WhatsApp-specific data plans with operators like Reliance in India and Mobily in Saudi Arabia. He also noted that with Hutchison Whampoa's 3 in Hong King, WhatsApp has a plan that lets customers use the service internationally without incurring roaming charges if they pay a flat fee of around $5.

WhatsApp recently refuted reports it is in talks to sell its over-the-top messaging platform to Google (NASDAQ:GOOG). Late last year, WhatsApp also denied reports it had entered talks to sell its platform to Facebook (NASDAQ:FB). AllThingsD maintains that both Google and Facebook have explored buying WhatsApp in the past.

"We actually don't think about it," Koum said of potential acquisitions or a price at which the company would sell itself. "We would rather spend our time thinking about how to make the product better, how to make something better in our servers, than thinking about these hypotheticals."

Read more about: Mobile Messaging, WhatsApp
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By Jason Ankeny

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5. Report: AppGratis charged developers to boost App Store rankings

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, urging the agency to investigate carrier efforts to offer secure consumer experiences across devices running Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) open-source Android mobile operating system.

The ACLU petition alleges that Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ), AT&T Mobility (NYSE:T), Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S) and T-Mobile USA have failed to properly safeguard subscribers against threats to the Android ecosystem, citing potential abuses like fraud, information theft, phishing campaigns and location-enabled stalking.

"The major wireless carriers have sold millions of Android smartphones to consumers," the petition states. "The vast majority of these devices rarely receive software security updates. A significant number of consumers are using smartphones running a version of the Android operating system with known, exploitable security vulnerabilities for which fixes have been published by Google, but have not been distributed to consumers' smartphones by the wireless carriers and their handset manufacturer partners. Android smartphones that do not receive regular, prompt security updates are defective and unreasonably dangerous."

Critics maintain Google has failed to sufficiently police its Google Play digital storefront, making it easy for attackers to distribute malware via Android applications. Google has made strides to reduce Android threats, however: In early 2012, it unveiled Bouncer, which scans Google Play for malicious apps, and its Android 4.2 OS update, a.k.a. Jelly Bean, bakes in application verification tools.

Carrier partners also have taken steps to improve Android security. Last fall, for example, Verizon rolled out Verizon Mobile Security, an Android antivirus app powered by digital security provider McAfee. Weeks later, T-Mobile USA partnered with Lookout on Automatic App Security, a preloaded Android app designed to protect smartphones and tablets against potential malware threats.

"Sprint follows industry-standard best practices designed to protect its customers," a carrier spokesperson told CNet. Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile have not yet responded to requests for comment.

The ACLU is a nationwide nonprofit dedicated to upholding principles of free speech, privacy and equality. The organization's petition follows days after an NQ Mobile report stating that malware attacks on Android devices more than doubled in 2012. Fifty-three percent of U.S. Android owners have installed a mobile security app on their device, NQ Mobile adds.

For more:
- read this CNet article
- read this Verge article

Read more about: Google, AT&T Mobility
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By Jason Ankeny

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