How mobile phones, personal data, and the cloud are creating a new way to interact with computing devices. — The idea of having an intelligent digital assistant isn’t new. Hollywood has already introduced us to what a digital assistant could look like in the future — see Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey, Jarvis from Iron Man, and Samantha from Her. …

A deep-dive into the art of leveraging contact information to drive quality invitations for your app. — Most messaging apps utilize the phone’s local address book to jump start a user’s network. Typically, these apps connect you with other people who are already on the network by comparing phone numbers. …

How consumer mobile startups build “word of mouth” into their product. — There are only a handful of channels that mobile/web products can use to grow their user base. Andrew Chen recently categorized the main ones as being: paid acquisition, virality, SEO, sales, and partnerships. …

The 7 Steps to Follow When Iterating Your Product for Growth — Image via Growth Giant In a recent talk at Airbnb, Ivan Kirigin observed that while he worked at Facebook, almost all growth initiatives followed a similar pattern. The idea that growth can be broken down into a framework is absolutely on point. Below, I have listed a 7 step framework…

To be successful in emerging markets you need to adapt to local customs, habits, and beliefs. — pranav | Flickr There are many challenges in building businesses in emerging markets. One technique corporations use to succeed is to localize their products. But localizing means more than just supporting regional languages. It’s about adapting business practices and products to the nuances associated with a particular region. …

How emerging business models are changing the way that phones are marketed and sold. — Ashwin John | Flickr It’s incredible how things are evolving in India in terms of the mobile phone device business. Samsung is the leader but Indian brands are making great progress. New upstarts like Xiaomi are entering the market as well. In this article, I examine the different approaches that…

Why no single app will ever be king. — Kārlis Dambrāns / Flickr The messaging space is turning out to be quite different from social networking. Instead of one dominant service taking over, people are using several apps for their communication needs. But why is this? Messaging apps are easy to get started with and use simultaneously. People are always looking for better ways to communicate. App stores provide an…

On-the-go observations based on travels in mid 2014. — Liji Jinaraj | Flickr In June, I traveled to India for about 2 weeks. My time was split between Delhi and Bangalore. These are some observations I made while on the trip in terms of mobile phone usage. 1.) Smartphones are hot. But features phones still prevail. There is no doubt that smartphone adoption is growing in India in…

How smartphones changed photography and where photo services are headed next. — What happens when everyone has a camera in their pocket all the time? Photography changes forever. The smartphone (or the “smartcamera”) has disrupted photography and expanded the addressable market for photos. So how is the smartphone different from a digital camera? It’s with you all the time. You can take photos…