• Read more about Mobomo DomainStorm Domain Name Brainstorming iPhone App

Thinking of building a website and still looking for that special domain but you're not near your computer? Don't let that domain name get away from you. The DomainStorm iPhone app, created by Mobomo for Network Solutions, gives you the tools to search or brainstorm for domain names, check their availability and then register them -- all from the convenience of your iPhone, from wherever you have a WiFi or 3G connection.

Search

Search for a domain name and automatically see availability for various popular TLDs (Top Level Domains) including .com, .net, .org and more. (Search results appear after every character typed, provided you stop typing.) If a domain is free, Network Solutions' registration price is listed beside it. Otherwise, it'll be marked as "Taken."

Whois

If a domain you're searching for is already registered, use the built-in "whois" feature to get information on the registrant, in case you want to dig further on the listed registry and make the owner an offer.

Brainstorm

Is your first choice of domain name taken? Why not get creative and use the Brainstorm feature?  Enter a keyword or two, spin the wheel or shake your phone, and you'll get a random combination of related domain names. Want more flexibility? Specify advanced options including hyphenation, geography, digits, misspellings and more. From the results list, you can also retrieve a list of expired domains, premium domains, and more.

Shopping Cart

Found the domain you want? Pop it in the shopping cart and keep looking. When you're ready, make your domain purchases directly from your iPhone. The sliding scale lets you specify registration durations of 1, 2, 3 and 5 years. Pay by credit card by logging in to your Network Solutions account, or create an account. Not comfortable with paying from the app? Use the "call" feature to call Network Solutions on your phone and make your purchase that way.

Other Features

Want to check on a previous domain search? Use the Search History feature. Need some help? Use the help screen or email, send feedback or call Network Solutions directly from your iPhone.

Get Network Solutions' DomainStorm app free from iTunes or the Apple App Store now.

Need advice on a mobile app for your business? Just want to know how you can leverage the mobile platform in general? Feel free to contact us to discuss your app idea or mobile campaign needs.

• Read more about Line Snob iPhone App: Check Event Lines Before You Wait

Don't want to waste your time standing in line more than you need to -- especially for launches of hot gadgets such as Apple's iPhone 4, or for concerts or other popular events? There's an app for that: Line Snob!

If you hadn't heard, Apple, Inc's official iPhone 4 launch day was today, Thur Jun 24th, and there were lineups everywhere in many of the 9 countries that were part of the first round release. From all accounts, it was a madhouse, and there'll likely be lineups for the next few days -- maybe even weeks in some areas.

Save yourself some time by finding out how line conditions are with the Line Snob app running on your existing iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch. Or let everyone else know by posting line conditions wherever you are (within the 25 cities that are covered by the app).

Of course, Line Snob isn't just for reporting/ viewing iPhone 4 sales lines, but in fact any live events or venues in your city. It's the social way to wait in line.

Line Snob, which was built for Line Snob, LLC, by Mobomo, nearly melted our servers, thanks to the huge surge from today's iPhone 4 line updates after being headlined in Gizmodo and covered by CNN. As a result, it made it to the Apple App Store's Top 25 Apps list for the Social Networking category.

Line Snob is free!

• Read more about Mobomo's Barg Upender Speaking at 2010 Digital Media Conference

Washington, D.C., is the location of the 2010 Digital Media Conference East and Mobomo founder/ CEO Barg Upender will be one of the panelists for the Mobile track. The conference, which is now in its 7th year, is split into five tracks: Mobile, the other, Social Media, Television/ Video, Marketing and Law & Tech.

The one-day conference takes place Jun 25th at the McLean Hilton in McLean, Virginia. More details at the DMC East site. If you are following tweets on Twitter about this conference, look for the #dmc10 hashtag. The Mobile panel, entitled Mobile Apps: The Next Stage, takes place from 11:20 am - 12:05 pm (EST), which includes 10 minutes for audience questions.

• Read more about Why Apple's New FaceTime Video Chat is Game-Changing

Apple, Inc., loves to be a game-changer, and the new Apple iPhone 4, announced yesterday, will be one both for some of the hardware aspects as well as for the video chatting feature, FaceTime. In fact, FaceTime might have even more of a social impact than people realize, given that it's intended to be an an open standard. This is a brilliant move by Apple. Why? Well first let's look at the current situation.

Current Usage Situation

When the 4th-generation iPhone becomes available in the first round of countries on Jun 24th (preorders online in those countries starting Jun 15th), FaceTime will work only over WiFi, between two 4th-gen iPhones, only. There are consumers who will get the iPhone 4 for that reason alone. That's a very limited usage scenario and not necessarily enough to win over sales of iPhone 4.

What's Coming

However, there are some other parameters to the usage equation that are not yet taken into account.

1. Cellular networks: Availability over 3G or higher cellular networks. FaceTime over 3G has already been promised by Apple. I honestly don't care about this given AT&T's change in data plan pricing. So unless Apple gives AT&T a stern talking to about the data plans, or gives other U.S. carriers the iPhone, I don't see this as a big deal.
2. Other phones: Usage over any other handset makers' smartphones that are capable of replicating a similar experience.
3. Other mobile devices: Usage over any other mobile device with a front-facing camera, such as an iPad of the future, say in early 2011.

Apple is great a creating market demand where it didn't even exist. Look at the iPod. Did we need iPods, given there were other mobile audio players? Of course we didn't. But they created what became a classic consumer electronics device, and the technology behind the iPod seems to have helped fuel the development on the iPhone/ iPod Touch and iPad mobile devices.

History of Video Calling

FaceTime is not hardware, of course, but video calling has been something that at least North Americans have been promised for decades, and which seems to have stayed in the realm of science fiction, at least for the masses. Until now. We really do need one calling protocol to make it work, with the least technical difficulties, and by being first, Apple has the advantage.

Okay, Apple's not first with video calling. A number of VoIP desktop applications -- e.g., Skype -- have had it for several years now. Also, video calling has been available for conferencing systems -- but such systems are costly and definitely not for the mass market. Apple's not even first with video on calling on smartphones, since a couple of devices were announced within the past few weeks. However, Apple will be perceived as first because of the open standard offering.

Mass Market Video Calling

I have no doubt that Apple can get most or all of the big players such as Microsoft and Google on board to support the FaceTime standard, and in doing so, they stand to further the company's brand. Even if they don't immediately convert non-Apple device FaceTime users to hardware purchasers. How could they get them to convert? By offering additional FaceTime features available only on the iPhone. By offering enterprise integration for FaceTime on the iPad (a future model, with a front-facing camera). By constantly reminding non-Apple app developers and users that 3rd-party apps get access to FaceTime features only with the Apple iPhone SDK.

However, Apple creates the market demand for FaceTime, I'm very certain they'll do it, and video calling will likely be integrated into iPhone OS apps very quickly. Imagine gaming, social network, healthcare, distance education, tech support, service calls and many other niches having next-generation mobile apps with video calling integrated. Even social interaction will be forever changed. (For example, imagine families spread across the globe who will now be able to see each other during those long periods when they cannot meet in person.)

If Apple can convince the right players to join in, FaceTime is going to have a huge impact on mobile application usage and on the way humans interact.

Want to discuss a mobile app with video calling features for your business or projects? Feel free to contact us to discuss your app or mobile campaign needs.

• Read more about An App to Monitor Your Teen or Employee Driver

Mobile apps have infiltrated themselves into the auto industry and one of the newest, Safe Driver Program for the iPhone by Dangerous Decisions, is going to make most parents of driving teens pretty happy. Amongst other things, this app lets you know the moment your teen goes over a certain speed or acceleration that you've set (by utilizing the iPhone's GPS and accelerometer). It also records a number of other bits of driving data, including braking and cornering. This trip report can be password protected.

The app gets installed on the driver's 3G or 3GS iPhone. Parents can use this to monitor teens, or companies can monitor employees who drive regularly as part of their job. Visual and audio indicators can warn a driver if they're getting close to some set limit such as speed. If the driver violates some limit, the trip log plots the location on a Google map. Text message and email notifications, if configured, are received in real-time by the person doing the monitoring. The

Cost: free for the basic app and US$24.99 for the pro version. [Via Mobile Weblog]

What's not clear is how you get someone to run the Safe Driver app, since it's on their phone, but it sounds like a great concept. (I suppose you could make running the app on every trip mandatory.)

Want to discuss a mobile Web or native mobile app for your business or projects? Feel free to contact us to discuss your app or mobile campaign needs.

• Read more about Google's Sergey Brin: Web and Native Mobile Apps Will Converge

Google is one of those few companies who can play the field when it comes to positioning themselves with apps for both Web and mobile platforms, but still believes that the two will converge and that essentially the Web will win. Hence, the company is putting efforts into not only their Android Marketplace but their new Chrome Web Store.

While some people feel that Google is competing with itself by promoting both the Chrome and Android app stores, the company said at Google I/O this week that it believes it's keeping an open mind about the future. Google Co-founder Sergey Brin admits that right now the market wants native mobile apps, though with the progress of the HTML5 standard in terms of display graphics, and with Web apps capable of going offline, he feels that Web and native mobile apps will converge in the not too distant future.

Ultimately, at least for Google, Android will morph into Chrome OS. But before this can happen, it'll take more powerful smartphones with larger resolution screens and the fleshing out the HTML5 standard.

Want to discuss a mobile Web or native mobile app for your business or projects? Feel free to contact us to discuss your app or mobile campaign needs.

• Read more about iPhone As Car Remote on a Nissan Leaf

The Nissan Leaf is an electric car that'll be getting an iPhone app with two initial features: letting you know when it's all charged up, and allowing you to control the in-car climate. It'll be interesting to see what comes next for the app, but there are a whole host of possibilities, including using paying for parking, finding the car easily in large parking lots, and much more.

Now if Apple goes ahead and adds NFC (Near-Field Communication, a close cousin to RFID) chips to the next generations of iPhones -- which some recent patents hint at -- there are additional possibilities, including being able to lock and unlock your car with your iPhone, and maybe even remote starting, for those colder days.

In short, the iPhone becomes a car remote control unit. Unfortunately, all the computerized features in cars today mean hacker attacks on your car might increase in the future, and smartphone integration aids the proces.

Nissan is not the only car maker with iPhone integration in the works, though Ford was recently told it'll have to wait a year to get the necessary communications chip from Apple, for it's Sync system.

[Via: MobileCrunch]

• Read more about Get Ready For A Mobile App Usage Explosion

The NCHS (National Center for Health Statistics), a CDC sub agency that uses telephone surveys for data gathering, has determined that nearly 25% of American homes have no landline, only wireless phones. As well, 15% of American homes have landline phones but don't usually use them. These and other related mobile statistics are available in a CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) report [PDF, 17 pgs; via Reuters].

Now as early as 2006, there have been reports about how many N. Americans were tending towards wireless phones over landlines. What this essentially means is that smartphone ownership will continue to increase as "dumb" mobile phone usage decreases. Thus, too, the number of people using mobile applications will increase -- which is in line with predictions that the mobile platform in general will become the predominant distribution channel for software applications. With tons of new smartphones offering great new features, like the rumored next-gen iPhone, that's even more likely to be true.

So if you own a business, you should at least be aware of what mobile marketing or even a custom mobile application can do for your bottom line. Feel free to contact us to discuss your mobile apps or mobile campaign needs.

Image: Flickr.

• Read more about Mobomo's Pocket Biz iPhone App Featured at Disruptathon

Mobomo CEO Barg Upender demonstrated the mobile app developer's Pocket Biz iPhone software, "a dead simple CRM" tool for SMBs, at a "Disruptathon" (disrupt-a-thon) in Mclean, VA, on Thursday. The Disruptathon serves to showcase disruptive new technology.

The Pocket Biz app gives SMB (Small-to-Medium Business) sales people in the field the mobile tools to manage their sales pipleline while on the go, and includes tasklists with items that can be assigned to contacts, deal lists to track progress, contacts assigned list, and notes. SMB owners can use Pocket Biz to organize their deal flow, and it's easy to pick up and learn:

• Buy it under 10 seconds from the iPhone App Store.
• Buy for under 10 dollars, compared to hundreds or thousands of initial investment for other CRM solutions.
• Learn it under 10 sec. It's deceptively simple to use.
• Add contacts under 10 sec.
• Add deals under 10 sec.

The Disruptathon was moderated by Dave Wolf of Cynergy Systems, who thinks that mobile Windows 7 is going to be a compelling platform for business. The target market of the companies that presented is mobile business and pro-sumers. Presentations at the Disruptathon gave a peek at what's coming up for the mobile platform in this target market. Besides Barg Upender of Mobomo (whose presentation deck is shown below), presenters included:

• Sam Aparicio, founder/ CEO of Ringio.
• Matt Howard, co-founder/ COO of ZoomSafer.
• Manoj Ramani, founder/ CEO of DubMeNow.
• Alan Snyder, CEO of Boxtone.
• Hassan Wahla, VP of TeleNav.
• Sze Wong, founder/ CEO of Zerion Software.

The key takeaways from the Disruptathon is that consumer/ game apps tend to dominate the mobile market and the business apps market still needs to grow. The presenters showed that there are interesting business apps in development, and give more proof that the mobile platform will become the dominant new channel for distributing apps.

If you're interested in a mobile app for your business, please contact us.