The App Economy brought us back to the ancient times before the advent of the Web when you had to develop different versions for several platforms. What has been PC, Mac or Linux in the old days is now iPhone, iPad, Android or Blackberry. Web-based services are forced to enter the world of application development, just to avoid getting lost in the transition from the residential to the mobile Web.
Qype launched its web platform in 2006. While the first iPhone app, dubbed Qype Radar, appeared as early as 2008, Blackberry users still have to wait for their app. But not for long, as we’ve learned from Qype founder Stephan Uhrenbacher. The Blackberry app is about to launch in the next few days, Stephan told us.
We had the chance to take a look at the current private beta version. The home screen (above) looks pretty straightforward, showing categories like restaurants, cafés or fast food. One click later the user is provided with a list of nearby venues in the selected category.
If you select a venue, the app shows basic data like the address, opening hours and aggregated user reviews.
The real killer app would be the capability to post reviews of venues as you go. According to Stephan, this feature will be added soon after the launch. The current iPhone app already allows you to create new Qype locations directly from your phone, add reviews and upload photos. This seems pretty obvious, but the current user base of Qype might still need some time to adapt to the mobile space. Let’s hope that in the meantime other players like Foursquare don’t eat Qype’s lunch.
For the future, I expect most of the data silos in the location space to open up, sharing their data over the platform boundaries, similar to what’s already happening in the social network’s realm. But that’s another story.
Juni 2010
Tinypay.me is an Online Shop in a Nutshell
Tired of Ebay? Looking for a simple and do-it-yourself, social-media-enabled e-commerce solution? Then you should check out Tinypay.me. With Tinypay.me, you can create quick listings for your product or service, put it online and just sell. Nothing more then name, price and description is needed, you can even do without a picture (of course you shouldn’t).
Other options include donating the resulting money to charity, and name a location for your product or service in case that’s relevant. Share your listing on Facebook, Twitter and Google Product Search or integrate a simple shop on your blog or website. That’s all. Payment service is provided by Paypal, without other options.
Tinypay.me is amazing because of its simplicity. The whole setup is so easy and straightforward that it can be done in just one minute or even less. The downside is of course that the service lacks many features you might want to use, for example ratings for products and sellers. But their roadmap look promising, with features like an API on the way.
As Tinypay.me launched last February, the service itself isn’t yet a marketplace like Ebay, Etsy or Amazon with a huge audience of potential buyers. But if you already have your own audience on Facebook, Twitter, your website or blog, Tinypay.me maybe just the tool you need to sell something to the people that follow you.
But, and that’s a huge „but“, as Tinypay.me takes a five per cent commission (and Paypal deducts another chunk of your money), you need to stomach that. In many cases Ebay or Amazon might still be the better choice, taking less money and bringing in huge amounts of potential buyers, even though the selling process is not as easy as with Tinypay.me.
Hat tips to Denkzelle and Mashable.
mirapodo hilft bei der Suche nach dem passenden Schuh
Für Stephanie Caspar, Gründungsgeschäftsführerin von mirapodo, sind zufriedene Stammkunden wichtiger als eine exorbitante Neukundenquote. Joel Kaczmarek, Chefredakteur von Gründerszene, flirtet fragt sie im Interview nach der Strategie, den Alleinstellungsmerkmalen und dem Hintergrund von mirapodo, das via Baur zur Otto-Gruppe gehört.
Neben exzellentem Kundenservice und bestmöglicher Kundenorientierung hilft mirapodo auch dabei, das Problem No. 1 beim Onlineschuhkauf zu entschärfen: die richtige Größe zu finden.
Wir haben sehr viele Informationen zu den Schuhen, zu den Maßen, wie unterschiedliche Marken die Passform gestalten und können aufgrund deiner Kaufhistorie dann auch sagen, welche Größe du nehmen solltest.
Wir bei SinnerSchrader haben bei der Entwicklung des Shops und der Website für mirapodo jede Menge Intelligenz in dieses Thema investiert. Denn wie für jeden Versandhändler ist auch für mirapodo eine niedrige Retourenquote erfolgsentscheidend. Schuhe, die nicht passen, werden zurückgeschickt – entfällt dieser Grund, sinkt die Zahl der Rücksendungen.
In den USA hat Zappos, das 2009 von Amazon übernommen wurde, das Thema Onlineschuhkauf erfolgreich gemacht. In Deutschland tritt mirapodo, das im März offiziell gestartet war, gegen Zalando an, eine Gründung der Samwer-Brüder. Zalando musste sich schon vor dem offiziellen Start von mirapodo einen Plagiatsvorwurf gefallen lassen.