Blog

Don’t Write Off Windows Phones Just Yet…

We started developing YomoMedia back in 2007 for Windows Mobile. This was right before the iPhone came out. I actually remember having a Yomo meeting in Palo Alto as the line was forming outside the Apple store the night before the initial iPhone release. We walked down there to take it all in. Robert Scoble and his son were the first or second in a line that stretched at least a 1/2 mile around the block and back down Lytton St. I had no idea how big the iPhone would be but I also ended up buying one and yes, it was a game changer. It was obviously way different than anything out there. That was almost 5 years ago.

Fast forward…when Microsoft announced that they would be completely revamping their mobile platform, we had a decision to make. We could stay with them and completely re-think and re-write the app for Windows Phone, or we could jump ship and create one for the iPhone or Android. You might be wondering why we didn’t create an app for all three. We’re a small company and this is a side project albeit one that has taken up incredible amounts of time over the years. As our app was popular on Windows Mobile, we were invited by Microsoft to be one of the Showcase Partners which allowed us access to some of their engineers, seminars and hardware. At first glance, we liked what we saw and definitely saw potential.

When the first WP7 phones came out, I immediately rushed out and got a Samsung Focus which I still have. I can honestly say it is the best phone I have ever had. It makes an iPhone feel old and stodgy. It’s fluid, responsive and the Metro interface is a homerun visually. A common complaint is that there aren’t enough apps in the Marketplace to which I say, check again. There are plenty of apps and more and more being added every day. The Mango release has taken it one step further and the phone is tightly integrated with all my social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.)

For Christmas, I bought my wife a new Samsung Focus S and as I was showing her how to do a few things on it, my 12 year old son (who has an iPhone 3G) looked over and said, “Dad, why didn’t you get me one of those?” I was a little surprised but he obviously saw a cool factor in it.

Now, if you look at a lot of the reports over the past year about mobile marketshare, it’s all about iOS and Android. I think that’s going to change. Microsoft, Nokia and AT&T are rumored to be launching a $100-200 million campaign to promote the new “Ace” phone (depending on who you talk to). And then there’s this from AllThingsD.com,

_{“Morgan Stanley expects shipments of Nokia’s new Windows Phones to hit 37 million units in 2012, and 64 million units in 2013. Add to this Morgan Stanley’s estimates for HTC’s Windows Phone handsets, and you get shipments of 43 million this year and 74 million the next. And that’s just those two OEMs alone. There are a few others for which the research house doesn’t provide estimates. Samsung, for example.”}

The bottom line is, I wouldn’t write off Windows Phone just yet. 2012 will be an interesting year.

Great New Updates to YomoMedia

We just released a major new update for Yomomedia for Windows Phone. The latest version has minor bug fixes as well as some really exciting new features. And we’re busy working on another release with even more (more on that later).

We’ve made Yomo a lot more visual and we really like the look. Now you can view the contents of feeds in a “tile” view. Of course, you can always change it back to the previous list view if you prefer. Another big enhancement is the addition of our WebBrowser page which allows you to read a mobile friendly version of the whole article instead of using IE.

We’ve also made Yomo available in French, German, Italian and Spanish.

The latest version (1.6) has the following:

• minor bug fixes
• added tile article display view
• added unread functionality
• added WebBrowser page (view “Read More” links within Yomo)
• added 3 auto update modes (Off, Favorites, Favorites & Library)
• added language options (French, Italian, Spanish and German)
• added support for Google Reader unread state sync
• added ‘Unread’ category in Library which shows all unread feeds
• added support for loading long Google Reader feeds
• fixed duplicated feeds in GR ‘Personal’ folder

So…we’re working on some new features for the next version including integration with Instapaper which we’ve wanted to do for a long time now. Any other suggestions?

YomoMedia 6.5 Reader Going Offline March 31st

We announced last month that as of March 31st, 2011, we will no longer be supporting the web-based reader for YomoMedia and would be taking it offline.

**Note to Users of YomoMedia for Windows Mobile 6.x.**

The phone application will still work, however you won’t be able to manage your feeds from our web-based reader.

This does not affect Windows Phone 7 users.

How To – Removing a Feed

I thought it might be useful to periodically post some helpful “How To’s. Today, I wanted to quickly cover how to remove a feed from either your Favorites or Library. We pre-populate YomoMedia with close to two hundred popular feeds that you can subscribe to with just one tap. But how do you get rid of the default set of feeds when you first start Yomo.  It’s simple…there are basically three different ways to do it.

• Longtap a feed name
• Tap the three dots (more options)
• Use the Catalog

1) When you viewing your Favorites or Library, simply tap and hold (longtap) on the name of a feed. That will produce a popup window with options.

2) When you’re in a feed and viewing the article list, tap the three dots at the bottom right of the screen in the app bar. That will bring up a window with options.

3) When you’re in the catalog, simply tap in the blank circle next to a feed to add it. Tap once and you’ll see a folder icon. That means it’s in your Library. Tap again and you’ll see a star. That means it’s in your Library and your Favorites list. Tap a third time and the circle is blank again which means you are not subscribed to that feed.

YomoMedia Catalog

Both versions of YomoMedia (paid and free) come with a pre-populated catalog of feeds for you to access. We’ve curated over 200 top feeds across a wide variety of topics. Of course, these are here just to help you get started. You literally have millions of content sources you can add from around the web.

In the meantime…have a look and send us some suggestions:

Arts

• Earth Beat
• KCRW’s Le Show (with Harry Shearer)
• L.A. Theatre Works
• Network Europe
• NPR Topics: Story of the Day
• PRI: Selected Shorts Podcast
• Slate Magazine
• The Moth Podcast
• The New Yorker
• The State We’re In

Business

• Calculated Risk
• DailyFinance
• Entrepreneurial Thoughts
• Forbes
• HBR IdeaCast
• Inc.com
• The Financial Blogger
• The Motley Fool
• This Week in Startups
• This Week in Venture
• Yahoo!: Economy
• Zero Hedge

Education

• Cato Institute
• Commonwealth Club
• CSS – Tricks Screencast
• English as a Second language
• Learn Italian
• Learn Japanese
• LearnItalianPod.com
• Livescience.com
• Sex With Emily
• The Gates Notes
• Travel with Rick Steves

Entertainment

• Celebrity Gossip
• Cool Tools
• ETOnline
• Gawker
• KickingTires
• People
• PopSugar
• Quotes of the Day
• Real Time with Bill Maher
• Reuters: Entertainment
• The Adam Carolla Show
• The Onion
• The Superficial Because You’re Ugly
• Valeywag
• Yahoo!: Entertainment

Fashion

• Silicon Valley Vogue

Finance

• MarketWatch.com
• Motley Fool Money
• The Big Picture
• Wall Street Confidential

Music

• House Music Podcasts
• NPR: Live Concerts from
• Official Zune Insider B
• Sound Opinions
• The Concert

New York Times

• Business day
• Home Page
• Opinion
• Science
• Sports
• technology
• World

News

• Advertising Age
• Bloomberg News
• CNN.com
• Danger Room
• Google News
• Huffington Post
• MSNBC.com
• NPR Topics: News
• SFGate: Top Stories
• TIME
• USATODAY
• WSJ.com: What’s New
• Yahoo!: Most Recommended
• Yahoo!: Top Stories
• Yahoo!: U.S. News

News – World

• ABC World News
• BBC News – Home
• BBC News – World
• CFR.org
• CNN.com – World
• Financial Times
• NPR Topics: World
• The Economist

Podcasts

• 12 Byzantine Rulers
• ABC World News with Diane Sawyer
• Bloomberg News
• Briefly Awesome
• CFR.org Podcasts
• Commonwealth Club
• English as a Second language
• ESPN Radio Daily
• FORA.tv technology
• Freakanomics Radio
• IT Conversations
• Learn French
• Learn Italian
• Learn japanese
• Norman Centuries
• NPR Topics: Story of the Day
• NPR: All Songs Considered
• NPR: Car Talk
• Science magazine Podcasts
• Sound IOpinions
• TEDTalks (audio)
• The Concert
• The Moth Podcast
• The State We’re In
• TWiT.TV
• Wall Street Journal
• WNYC’s Radiolab
• World Affairs Council

Politics

• Politics Daily
• Talking Points Memo
• The Larry King Broadcast
• White House Blog
• Wonkette

Science – Nature

• 12 Byzantine Rulers
• Cosmic variance
• Discovery News
• HowStuffWorks
• National Geographic
• Norman Centuries
• Psychology Today
• Science and Technology
• Science magazine
• Scientific American
• Space Wire
• TED Blog

Sports

• BBC Sport
• Boston Red Sox
• College Football
• ESPN Radio Daily
• ESPN.com
• ESPN:PTI
• Golf News: CBSSports
• Golf.com: Tours and News
• Golf.com: Videos
• PGATour
• SI.com
• UEFA.com – News

Sports – ESPN

• College Basketball
• College Football
• ESPN.com
• ESPN: The Poker Edge
• Golf
• MLB
• NASCAR
• NBA
• NFL
• NHL
• Soccer

Tech – Investing

• Dow Jones
• PE Hub Blog
• Technology News
• Under The Radar
• VentureBeat
• WSJ.com: Venture Capital

Tech – Mobile

• AppHab
• Engadget Mobile
• Google Mobile Blog
• Mobile Industry Review
• MobileCrunch
• Mobility Digest
• TiPb – iPhone, iPad Blog
• Windows Phone 7 Apps
• Windows Phone 7 Thoughts
• WPCentral

Technology

• Ars Technica
• Blogging Windows
• Boing Boing
• Briefly Awesome
• CNET News
• Cool Tools
• digg.com
• Engadget
• GigaOM
• Gizmodo
• Infoworld News
• Lifehacker
• Mashable
• Mobile Industry Review
• O’Reilly Radar
• Original Signal
• ReadWriteWeb
• Scobleizer
• Slashdot
• Smashing Magazine
• TechCrunch
• Techmeme
• The Register
• The Ruby Show
• Wired Top Stories

Video

• Cato Institute
• CFR Meeting Highlights
• Fareed Zakaria GPS
• FORA.tv
• Mosaic Intelligence report
• Real Time with Bill Maher
• Slate Videocast
• TEDTalks (video)

YomoMedia Lite Now Available and it’s FREE!

We now have a free “lite” version of YomoMedia in Marketplace for those of you that don’t need to subscribe to a lot of feeds. If you don’t need quick access to more than 6 feeds, YomoMedia Lite is for you with all the functionality of the full version including:

• Download or stream podcasts and video
• Sync with Google Reader (optional)
• Add new feeds from our catalog or by keyword search on the web
• Save articles/podcasts for offline viewing
• Send via email
• Share on Facebook and Twitter
• Change background
• Change font size

If you only subscribe to a few feeds, YomoMedia Lite is for you.