Recently, I was invited by Google to participate in “Mobilizing Mobile” in Mobile, Alabama. As part of Google’s Go Mobile initiative, the event demonstrated what happens when a city’s infrastructure and community goes mobile.

Below you’ll find four key take-aways from teaming up with Google. I believe they can be applied by any startup, in any industry.

Lesson 1: Set the agenda

Consumer adoption of the mobile web is outpacing the rate at which mobile web experiences are being built. In less than three years, more people will access the web via a mobile device than by any other way. Google recognized this trend, and now its showing others where the world is headed.

By painting the bigger picture for everyone else, Google is also framing what the future will look like. Setting the agenda may sound like a lofty goal for a startup, but that’s what you should be focused on.

Startup companies are all about painting the big picture before anyone else can see it. Without a big picture idea, who will join you as a co-founder on your high-risk, potentially hallucinogenic quest? Who will fund you? Who will buy your product, rent you office space, listen to your pitch, or support your ideas? It’s this kind of foresight that creates new opportunities in the marketplace.

Lesson 2: Make your innovation tangible

Now that you’ve created your framework, you need to show it to your audience.

Google goes to great lengths to make its products approachable for users and developers. And they work hard to get users to test out new products as soon as possible.

For the GoMobile initiative, they built the GoMo Meter — a mobile preview tool that “shows you how your current site looks on a smartphone, and provides a report on what’s working and what you can do better.”

The GoMo Meter embodies several aspects of Google’s philosophy when it comes to new products. It has a low barrier to start, requires no commitment to use it, and offers easy access with a simple and obvious interface, all tied to a topic that interests each of us endlessly — ourselves (or, in this case, our websites).

How do you make your startup’s innovation tangible?

Start by figuring out what makes your innovation meaningful to your customers. What do they see and feel in their initial product encounter? When they ask themselves, “What is this?” and “Is it for me?” guide them to the right answer.

Look too for the human behaviors that your product is working on. It’s humans who will make decisions and judgments about your products, and you can tap into some enduring human traits in well-known ways. For example, after successfully raising a VC round, Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman mentioned that well-known VC Roelof Botha only invests in consumer companies that let consumers indulge in one of the seven deadly sins.

Lastly, give users something obvious and easy to do. This could be watching a video or slideshow, clicking a button to initiate an action, entering a few data points, showing some before and after screenshots — anything that leads to a tangible and specific interaction.

As a startup, if you get people interacting with your product, you start to influence their behaviors. Their behaviors then influence their beliefs, which again influence their behaviors in a virtuous cycle.

You could try to influence beliefs. Untold millions are spent everyday attempting to influence beliefs – that’s much of the advertising you see. But it’s very hard both to influence beliefs and to measure changes in beliefs to learn if you’re effective. So focus on behaviors and let them lead to beliefs.

A simple way to prove that you want to influence behaviors over beliefs is to consider fast food. People eat it (a behavior) but they don’t believe it’s good for them. And how many of the seven deadly sins does it appeal to? Sloth, to start, and greed and gluttony for good measure.

Ask the hard question: what are the behaviors you want to have happen because of interaction with you product? Are those behaviors plausible and part of human nature?

Lesson 3: Focus, focus and focus

Focus on the parts of your business that are fundamental to how customers use your core product.

Since a growing number of customers are accessing Google’s core search products through mobile devices, the company has purposefully allocated time, people, and money to development in this sector. It may sound simple for a multi-armed beast like Google to redistribute some of its wealth, but having a lot of resources means the company can easily get derailed and scattered. It’s just as hard for a large company to focus as it is for a startup.

While a startup tends to have a scarcity of resources, it also has the freedom to focus wherever it chooses and to change that focus whenever it wants. The popular term here is “pivoting.” Startups, like all businesses, find success in momentum, and momentum is all about velocity. A startup that changes direction all the time ends up going in circles.

Lesson 4: Track the micro, decide on the macro

Google has built a superb business by understanding the value of data and gathering that information so that others can make meaning from it.

Google tracked the traffic it generated from the Go Mobile event to see if the initiative had been persuasive. Let’s call those micro-metrics.

Micro-metrics — visits, conversions, leads — were used for tracking and tuning, and the macro-metrics — years of mobile adoption, traffic, revenues — drove the strategy and focus.

Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup, has a great blog post with much more detail on startup metrics (and tracking the micro while making decisions on the macro) called “Learning is Better than Optimization.

The hard part is balancing the micro and the macro. Every day in a startup involves a ton of detailed work in the micro details of execution, while each decision in the micro details of execution influences the macro strategy.

The answer to balance out the two? Habits and self-reflection.

For Google’s GoMo we connected monthly on a few measurements we’d established to track our success – traffic numbers, leads and conversions.

Internally at my company Mobify, we have a weekly process where each team lead announces their key numbers. Then on a regular basis we review the key numbers. In that review we talk about both the key numbers – their sources, influences and meaning – as well as whether these key numbers are the right numbers to be tracking.

A great framework for figuring out your key performance indicators (KPIs) is to think about your segment ABCs: Acquisitions, Behaviors, Conversions. This ABCs framework is from Avinash Kaushik, Google’s Digital Marketing Evangelist and author of two great books on web analytics. His blog post Web Analytics Segmentation is a terrific guide to getting started and improving your abilities to balance the micro and the macro.

Combine the ABCs framework with good habits and self-reflection and you will find meaning in measurement.

Bringing it together

While it’s hard to imagine that your startup has much in common with a giant like Google, these four strategies should resonate with any sized-business. Think big and paint the picture before anyone else can see it. Have the resolve to focus where attention is needed. And most importantly, never lose sight of what makes you meaningful to your customers. Your company may never reach the size and scale of Google, but your startup can still make a sizable difference.

Igor Faletski is the CEO of Mobify, a web platform that optimizes ecommerce and publishing sites for mobile and powers more than 20,000 sites.

Image courtesy of Flickr user thinkpublic

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• NewNet 2012: companies and technologies set to disrupt
• CES 2012: a recap and analysis
• 12 tech leaders’ resolutions for 2012

alt=''
border='0'
/>

GigaOM

Stephan Pastis

Like many of society’s pop culture fixtures, the comic strip is a product of the last century’s dominant medium for information and entertainment, the daily newspaper. But as with most everything associated with the newspaper business, the comic strip finds itself struggling against the harsh reality of ever smaller page real estate, papers shutting down, and generational shifts towards other forms of entertainment.

And while there’s no doubt that comics continue today as a vibrant medium on the web where new voices such as those behind Penny Arcade and The Oatmeal thrive with millions of readers, a glance at the comic strip page in any major metropolitan newspaper gives the impression that papers themselves have given up on new voices that could attract new generation of readers, often times running strips in which the creator no longer is the driving force behind the strip or, in some cases, may have died years ago.

So what does all this mean for the newspaper comic strip artist?  To find out, I thought I’d ask Stephen Pastis, creator of perhaps the last big comic syndicate success story, Pearls Before Swine. Pastis launched his comic strip 10 years ago after a career as a lawyer, and today Pearls Before Swine runs in 650 newspapers worldwide, an impressive number given how fast and far newspaper circulation has been falling.  Pastis recently also became somewhat of a pioneer in the comic strip syndicate world, as he became the first syndicate-based comic strip artist to release a dedicated iPad app with interactive elements wrapped around the strip itself, an app called Only the Pearls.

Below I have some of the highlights from our conversation, but you can also listen to my entire conversation with Stephan in the Soundcloud player below by clicking the big orange button, or download it here to take with you and listen to on your mobile device.

Stephan Pastis & Michael Wolf – GigaOM Podcast Jan 2012 by GigaOM

The decline of newspapers and the future of the comic strip

For someone who makes his living in the daily paper, Pastis admits that the decline of the paper is something he and others in his business think about every day as they look to the future. He said that everyone in the newspaper business is looking for the magic formula, how to stay relevant. What gives him hope, however, is that he thinks people always need news.

“Regardless of what platform they find themselves on, someone has to provide them with their local news, and in theory comics would be a part of that.”

The iPad app

Stephan Pastis Character on Pearls

According to Pastis, an iPad app wasn’t a nice to have, but a necessity. Since approximately 1 in 5 books purchased today are electronic, Pastis knew he was missing an opportunity. He had amassed 18 collections of his comic strip in print, but he didn’t have an e-book.

He also knew that going into this, he wanted to take advantage of the medium, and that’s why he decided to make an enhanced e-book app complete with audio and video interviews, animated strips, as well as interactive components.  He said with print, he had models set for him by artists he had admired, such as Scott Adams (Dilbert) and Gary Larsen (The Far Side), where they would add commentary about the strips below the strips themselves. With apps, his heroes hadn’t gone there before him, so he used the principle that guides him in his strip.

“I used the guide that I use when I do the comic strip, [which] is what would I like to see? What I would like to see is video, audio, animation… a few surprises. I want to be fully immersed in it, don’t just want to turn pages or see just strips I’ve seen before.”

The Oatmeal as a model for the future

The Oatmeal

I asked Pastis about some of the newer artists who are seeing success on the web, like Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal fame, and if these new artists gave him hope. He said that when he’s asked about getting into the business, he points to The Oatmeal and others like Cyanide and Happiness.  He wasn’t sure how you could monetize the audience, but felt good content on the social web would bring the audience. He also said, as a syndicate strip artist who beat the odds, he can see both sides.

“For people that have made it in syndication, sometimes they look at the internet as something that has diluted their fame. They’ve done something very few people can do… The flip side is you can be in your bedroom and have a an audience of a million people with no gatekeeper, and that’s very appealing.”

The power (and danger) of the social web for an artist

He also had some interesting thoughts on connecting with his audience through the social web. He said that nowadays, audiences can sense an intermediary, the voice of “PR”, and things like Twitter and blogs have created the expectation that the artist is going to be the voice they hear.  If you are a wallflower, according to Pastis, this world does not benefit you.

He also said that social media presents a danger to the artist. Artists have, traditionally, created best “in a vacuum,” hearing only their own instinct, and hearing instant feedback through social media could threaten that.

“At the end of the day you are expected to lead. You cannot be whipsawed back and forth by how your audience feels. Ironically, if you follow what they tell you, they won’t like you soon enough. “

I also talked to Stephan about the future of the comic strip three panel convention, about his penchant for making fun of others strips and much more, so I’d encourage you to take a listen above or download the podcast conversation here.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Forecast: the future of the digital music industry
• Q4 Wrap-up: SOPA and the future of digital content
• NewNet Q4: Platform mania and social commerce shakeout

alt=''
border='0'
/>

GigaOM

Home video surveillance is rarely fun or easy to deal with. High-end systems typically require heavy integration, and even consumer do-it-yourself camera setups can be frustrating to get going. But the latest HD video camera from Dropcam and its associated cloud-based DVR service and mobile apps are easy to set up and a joy to use.

Dropcam has been in operation since 2009, but the latest version or its home surveillance cameras are a big step forward in both form and functionality. Let’s start with the Dropcam HD Wi-Fi Video Monitoring Camera itself, which records 720p video and provides two-way audio functionality. Oh, and it looks good, too. Just as important, set up is a breeze. Users need only plug the camera into their computer, select their local Wi-Fi network, and personalize the name of the video feed.

The new Dropcam product has a pretty powerful night-vision camera, which automatically switches on whenever a room becomes dark. It also has two-way audio, enabling users to hear what’s happening in a room and actually respond if they want to. There’s a digital zoom function that can be used to pinpoint certain parts of a room to focus on. And Users don’t need to hook the camera into a computer or network-attached to record: All the video is uploaded via Wi-Fi into the cloud. The cloud-based DVR records up to 30 days worth of video, which users can log in and watch at any time.

In fact, the real beauty of Dropcam is its cloud-based DVR and mobile applications, which give its users constant access to video footage of their homes from nearly any mobile device on the go. In addition to browser-based web viewing, Dropcam has released mobile apps for iPhone and iPad, as well as Android mobile phones and tablets. Through those apps, Dropcam users can watch live or recorded video, or receive push notifications when motion or audio is detected by the camera.

If there’s one downside to Dropcam, it’s that the camera might be too sensitive to motion — frequently I received notifications from my empty apartment only to watch those events and find a whole lot of nothing going on. The whole thing, especially when combined with a pretty powerful night vision camera, led to a Paranormal Activity-type feeling that my tiny little studio was haunted.

The Dropcam HD Wi-Fi Video Monitoring Camera costs 9 and is now available for pre-order from www.dropcam.com, with shipment beginning later this month. For users that wish to record video, plans with moment-by-moment HD video capture start at .95 per month.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Connected world: the consumer technology revolution
• Connected Consumer Q2: Digital music meets the cloud; e-book growth explodes
• Defining work in the digital age: an analysis by GigaOM Pro

alt=''
border='0'
/>

GigaOM

With all the innovation in technology and business as well as new consumer behaviors, it’s sometimes difficult to separate what will shape the future of payments from what is just hype. By closely examining “innovation clusters” — that intersection of new technology and consumer simplicity that signals that a payment innovation is ready for prime time, the picture can become a bit more clear.

We see hundreds of great ideas, but only a few have the right combination to get traction and scale right now. With that in mind, here are a few predictions for the payments industry in 2012.

Mobile payments continue to skyrocket

We got a taste of mobile payments growth in 2011, and this growth will continue. The mobile industry is shifting into “third gear,” with smartphone penetration reaching global scale and well on the way to becoming the dominant connected device for 2 billion+ people over the next few years. Add mobile innovations like the iPad, which has already become the fastest adopted electronic device in history, and mobile is really hitting its stride.  The future of computing is happening now, and quickly reaching a level of scale to enable global innovation.

Although scale is impressive, the true power of the connected mobile device lies in how dramatically it is changing consumer behavior and disrupting existing franchises. Use an app like Uber to get a town car, and you never do it the old way again. The new Nordstrom iPad App replaces a salesperson with a whole new in-store experience. Living Social can fill a restaurant in hours with a mobile offer, allowing local restaurants to skip the process of building a website. Payment helps accelerate these models through convenience and accessibility and, in turn, is forced to innovate itself to keep up.

Don’t think that mobile devices will be your future identity? Try spending an hour walking around without your phone, wallet, or keys. I barely made it to the end of the block before the panic set in. That was not the case just two years ago.

 A fuller integration of the online and offline commerce worlds

When we talk about the blend of online/offline in terms of commerce, we tend to focus on the ability to find local inventory or scanning a product in store. In truth there is much more happening here than that. In 2012 we will see a rise in virtual currencies and the ability to use them to pay for “real” goods. Imagine paying for groceries at Safeway with Facebook Credits or using extra frequent flyer miles for that cup of coffee at Starbucks. If you are 15 years old with no credit card or bank account, this future needs to be here yesterday, and retailers looking to attract the young digerati, who already switch seamlessly between their online and offline lives, will welcome virtual currencies with open arms.

Social commerce has seen some exciting developments recently that show more ways that the online and offline worlds are becoming more closely integrated. We just watched Louis C.K. disrupt the media industry by profitably producing and selling a comedy special directly to his audience through his website, clearing more than million in 12 days. Zynga just went public at a multi-billion dollar valuation, thanks to its ability to sell digital tractors and barns to its ever-expanding user base. It’s not hard to imagine more social commerce innovation, such as person-to-person payments of non-cash currencies (“Help me fly to visit my mom by lending me your miles”) or creating massive fundraising movements (“Take a photo of my charity road race number so you can donate directly to my cause”). The possibilities seem endless — and are incredibly powerful if you think about it.

As our online and offline worlds continue to merge, the war of commerce will land right on the doorstep of small merchants. In early December, Amazon offered to give consumers a store credit of up to if they used the Amazon Price Check app to scan in the price of a product in a physical store. And that’s only the beginning. Small merchants will need to adapt, while at the same time making sure the online world doesn’t drown them in fraud. Louis C.K. isn’t crazy to go direct to his fans — those who don’t know their customers and communicate with them regularly will take a beating from competing on margins in this connected economy.

Birth of alternate commerce devices

I’m a big believer that a key driver of payment innovation is going to be the enabling of alternate commerce devices. We’re seeing requests for payment capabilities on everything from gas pumps to Laundromats. As all devices become “smart and connected,” it provides more consumer choice and enables the digital wallet in the cloud to show its true value.  I know we all can’t wait for the day that we don’t have to clip coupons and remember loyalty card numbers, and our wallet intelligently figures out how you should pay for things. 2012 will see this come to life in many forms, and the “a-ha” moment around digital wallets will make sense to many. As payments move to the cloud, essentially anything with an “on” switch and an IP address can become a payment device. Think about Samsung’s Wi-Fi enabled refrigerator or cars from manufacturers like Cadillac and Audi. It’s a small jump to turn them from Internet enabled to Internet-payment enabled.  And, this experience is already making its way into our living rooms with t-commerce (commerce from your television).

I think 2012 is also going to be the year where t-commerce will happen. Yes, it’s been talked about a lot, but the pieces and players are beginning to fall into place more so than ever before. eBay’s recently updated mobile app for the iPad includes the ability to “Watch with eBay,” so I can watch my favorite sports team on TV and buy the latest jersey, all from my couch. (Note that PayPal, my company, is part of eBay.) By this time next year, you should be able to buy from your TV as easily as changing the channel. Scary to imagine, but you would do it, wouldn’t you? If a signed Jimi Hendrix guitar popped up for auction while I was watching his biography, I’m not sure if I could control myself.

These are exciting times for consumers, and it’s bringing a ferocious level of change to a payment industry that quite frankly could use it. 2012 will provide enough innovation clusters to give this industry a good shake. It’s exciting to have a front row seat!

Scott Dunlap serves as the VP of Emerging Opportunities at PayPal, exploring new technology and user experiences for payment, mobile commerce, virtual goods, virtual currencies, deals and couponing, multi-channel commerce, point of sale integration, analytics and risk management. 

Image courtesy of Flickr user vintagedept.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Mobile Q2: Smartphone growth surges; iPad’s rule continues
• Meet the new era of TV interfaces
• The future of mobile: a segment analysis by GigaOM Pro

alt=''
border='0'
/>

GigaOM

In the last day, I’ve gotten two notes from start-ups that began on the web but have seen their businesses transformed by mobile, as users increasingly shift their consumption to mobile apps and browsers. This might seem obvious in a world in which services like Twitter and Pandora now get most of their traffic from mobile. But it bears highlighting because the trend is happening across all sorts of apps and websites and that has implications for developers, publishers and businesses, who must now consider what a mobile-first world looks like.

The latest examples came to me from online design store Fab.com, which just launched in June and then pushed out its first mobile apps for iOS and Android in October. In just three months, it said that 30 percent of its traffic is now on mobile. MyYearbook, a social networking site that was bought by Quepasa last year, said, thanks to a big holiday push, it now has 54 percent of its traffic coming in on mobile.

Now, these are just two examples, but it shows that though they both got their start on the web, they’re increasingly running mobile services. Twitter’s mobile traffic is up to 55 percent while Pandora is up to 60 percent according to Mary Meeker, of Kleiner Perkins. That’s happening quickly with Facebook as well, which has 350 million of its 800 million users actively accessing the social network through mobile channels.

Meeker highlighted this at the Web 2.0 summit in October, showing how mobile search, payments and shopping has taken off in the last two years. Online shopping destinations like eBay are seeing more and more sales via mobile devices. IBM said that 18.3 percent of all online sessions on retailers’ sites on Christmas were initiated from a mobile device, compared to 8.4 percent in 2010.

Meanwhile, Google is increasingly capitalizing on the growth of mobile searches by encouraging businesses to think mobile first. It has said that 44 percent of last minute holiday shopping searches was expected to be by mobile and 79 percent of smartphone users currently utilize their phones to help with price comparison, product searches and locating a retailer.

The fact is, thanks to smartphones and tablets, the way people are going to services and destinations is changing. People are accessing stuff all the time on the go and that requires developers and publishers to think mobile first.

Om Malik touched on this last month when he talked about the redesign of his personal website Om.co. Here’s what he wrote:

When mulling over these changes, I began to wonder how a blog designed primarily for a mobile-first experience might fare. Of course, there would be a web-based version, too, but it would be not the primary focus. Mobile first meant — a great reading experience that allows readers to focus on things that matter — words, photos and videos — not the design flourishes and other elements such as social sharing icons.

Mobile first meant that the layouts would adapt themselves to the display. The iPad version would adapt to that device’s screen size while the iPhone/smartphone version would be even more barebones. The beauty of thinking about “mobile first” is that you get to use the latest in browsers, forget about backward compatibility and at the sometime are able to deploy newest technologies and hacks.

This is increasingly how publishers and developers need to prepare their services. There is still an obvious need for a traditional website but the shifting habits of consumption mean you can’t make mobile an afterthought. People notice if you’re not optimizing for mobile and ignoring mobile users and their experiences can cost publishers. Google quoted a study last year that found that 61 percent of mobile users won’t return to a site if they have trouble accessing it from their phone.

It also means you can’t just water down a site or gin up a simple app. It still needs to have robust functionality because people want to do a lot of things on mobile. And they look to developers to also leverage the unique capabilities of devices, which are location aware and have cameras and other sensors. Some developers may want to think twice about how they implement some web-only features if it can’t be enjoyed by mobile users.

We’re already seeing more mobile apps and start-ups that are beginning on mobile and then looking toward online. But there’s still a ways to go for traditional websites, businesses and services to embrace mobile. With smartphone penetration expected to cross over 50 percent soon in the U.S. and adoption unlikely to slow down, it’s going to mean people going online through the small screen. Those who prepare for a mobile first world are going have the jump when it comes to attracting those consumers.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Connected world: the consumer technology revolution
• Themes for a connected world: GigaOM RoadMap review
• NewNet Q3: Facebook remakes headlines in social media

alt=''
border='0'
/>

GigaOM

Apps are, at the end of the day, very personal pieces of software. And your favorite mobile app isn’t mine. So we decided to poll the staff here at GigaOM to see what apps changed our lives in 2011. It could be apps that just launched this year, or it could be programs that really came of age or matured greatly through updates. Or it could just be an app we missed before.

Some are very familiar but others may be new to you, but all have played a big part in our lives this year. Take a look and then tell us your favorite app in the comments.

Colleen Taylor: Hipmunk for Android

Android typically takes a backseat to iOS when it comes to getting slick apps. That’s why it’s so refreshing that Hipmunk, the travel search engine, put real time and effort into making its Android app just as awesome as its web and iOS offerings. Shopping for plane tickets in general can be a real headache, and doing it on a mobile device is usually impossible. But I’ve priced out and purchased plane tickets with this app, and it’s a pleasure to use.

Darrell Etherington: Path for iPhone

Path is great because it’s a beautiful-looking tool for people who might not share a lot of content, but like to keep on top of what their friends are doing without feeling overwhelmed. It feels like Facebook did before apps, games and the need to monetize made it a noisy, privacy nightmare. Path’s relatively pristine environment probably can’t last, but for now, that’s what makes it great.

Erica Ogg: Hotel Tonight for iPhone

This is the best if you’re regularly passing through cities on short notice. It does what it says: finds you a hotel for tonight only. But they don’t bombard you with options. Hotel Tonight helpfully curates the lodging choices for you: there’s usually just a couple to pick from among the categories basic, hip and luxury. They have relationships with the hotels so using it is a snap. I used this to locate the best local hotel deals night-to-night when we were between apartments in our new city. And it’s especially helpful if you want to make a last-minute trip to pricey cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.

Kevin C. Tofel: WiFi File Transfer for Android

This free app is a must have for transferring files from an Android device to any other device on the same Wi-Fi network. Works as a small web server on your Android and shows up as a nicely formatted file directory on other devices: great for shooting files, photos, or videos off of Android device instead of e-mailing them. For .40, the Pro version allows you to add files to the phone or tablet.
Kevin C. Tofel: TED Air for Android

I didn’t find this app until late in the year, but I try to hit it daily now for a new TED talks. It’s great for mobile use because you can download the videos while on a home Wi-Fi connection and view it later on the phone and not use up any mobile broadband.

Mathew Ingram: Instagram for iPhone

I started using Instagram mostly because it gave me an easy way to upload photos from my iPhone to a bunch of different services at once, including Flickr — where I archive photos — and Twitter and Facebook, where I share them with others. Other apps from Flickr, Facebook and Twitter make it easy to share with that specific network, but don’t make it easy to distribute them to multiple places at once. I liked Instagram’s filters, but that isn’t what kept me using the service — what kept me coming back was the social aspects, the ability to see and comment on friends’ photos and have them see and comment on mine. This is something Flickr should have owned, but it failed to capitalize on it and Instagram swooped in and seized the market.

Kevin Fitchard: Paprika for iPad, iPhone and Mac

Though this iPad recipe management app has been around more than a year, Paprika made the service infinitely more useful with the launch of its Mac version this year. The iPad’s big screen but compact size is great for propping on the kitchen counter, but if you’re like me, you would rather research and annotate your recipes on a computer. The iPhone app completes the triumverate, allowing you to ship shopping lists directly to your phone. You have to pay for all of these apps separately of course, and there’s no Android support. Paprika also does have some limitations on the recipes it can import, but no more than any of the other recipe saving apps on the market, and of those its definitely the most streamlined.

Ryan Kim: Foursquare for iPhone

This is an app that’s been around for a while, but this year, it got a lot more useful for me. The specials have been greatly improved including new deals with American Express. And features like Explore have been a big help in finding recommendations for new places to try out. I’m also becoming heavily dependent on Foursquare Tips in the past year to know what to order in new restaurants. The updated list feature is turning Foursquare data into a lasting resource you can share with others. I never got into the race for Mayorships and even the point standings among my friends really don’t mean much to me. But all the new features and updates really make the app powerful for me in ways that wasn’t the case before.

Om Malik: Camera+ for iPhone

Camera+ is the only app I use to take photos just as iPhone is the only camera I use to take photos. It is an app that can turn rank amateurs into photo-artists. Add filters and effects and you have photo magic in the form of an app.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Connected world: the consumer technology revolution
• Carrier IQ and the continued erosion of operator trust
• Forecast: the evolution of the e-book market

alt=''
border='0'
/>

GigaOM