Happy birthday Terem – shame the domain expired

We’re celebrating 2 years in business this month. With 8 out of 10 entrepreneurs who start businesses failing within the first 18 months, I’m pretty happy that not only are we still here, we’re growingly strongly.

We’ve managed to double revenues and profits over the same quarter last year. In the last month we’ve hired a senior software engineer and a sales and marketing assistant.

How was I reminded of our birthday? Our domain expired and we couldn’t receive emails. It bought back a memory from two years ago, my credit card was charged for some domains I’d bought for a previous business that had failed. I’d set the previous business domains to auto-renew. I didn’t have much money so even though it was only $30-$60, it really stung. So, when I bought the domain for terem.com.au I said “no way am I going to auto-renew in case I annoyingly get charged again.”

Luckily a quick call to our domain name registrar sorted everything out and we were back in operation within an hour or so.

I’m comforted by the fact that I’m not the only one this has happened to, Microsoft forgot to renew their hotmail.co.uk domain.

$25 million dollars for Robots

This is fantastic. Mail.ru CEO Dmitry Grishin has created a $25 million towards robots.

It was always my passion. I studied robotics at university. I was excited about what robots can bring to society. But one of the biggest problems 10 to 20 years ago was that it was very expensive. Now because of new technology – including smartphones – a lot of components have become very cheap. You can spend a few thousand dollars and build robots.

You can read more on the New Scientist website.

Android users will surpass iPhone users in 2010

Android appears to be getting the traction it has been looking for probably thanks to all of those new Android handsets being announced.

Android users will surpass iPhone users by the end of 2010, according to statistics collected by Google’s Admob ad network, said Admob Team Manager Brendon Kraham. This is despite the fact that the data usage and number of apps on iPhone (and iPod Touch) far exceed those on Android.

You can read more over at MobileBeat.

Most developers only make $700 from their iPhone Apps

I just read a great post explaining why most developers only make $700 from their iPhone Apps:

• Apple claims that cumulative app revenue has reached $1,4bn by June 2010. This is based on 5bn downloads (free and paid)
• Several reports have pinned the number of paid apps to be about 73-77% of the total. At the moment, there are 225.000 apps in total, which at 73% gives 164.250 paid apps.
• The average revenue is roughly then 1.4bn/164.000 less Apple’s 30% cut, which means developers earned on average $6.100/app over a 2 year period, or $3.050 per year/app.
• However, average is not a relevant measure, because it is skewed as the tail of apps is long. There are a few apps who make the majority of money, so the relevant number is the median, where 50% make more, and 50% make less
• The average price for an app, based on a number of reports, is roughtly about $1.95/app, which puts the number of paid apps downloads to about 733 million, or 15% of the total number of downloads.
• SuperCollider Blog reported that half of all paid apps have less than 1000 downloads, say 999. At $1.95, that means the median revenue over two years is $1363, or $682 for one year, i.e. app $ 700 (see SuperColliders post on the economics of branded apps for more).

It is taken from a comprehensive analysis of iPhone App economics.

You really need to decide on what your goals are. Free apps are generally downloaded more than paid apps and thus have a greater reach. Advertising on your free apps can be a better option than charging for your app in terms of revenue generated. That said, charging for an app has seen some great successes.

Checkout one of my old posts: Brand Marketers: Don’t Sell Your iPhone App! If you’ve found this of interest.

U.S. Bank Reveals Mobile Coupons, LBS and More

Even the banks look like they’re starting to understand the power of mobile coupons and mobile loyalty. The U.S. Bank has revealed mobile coupons as part of their mobile roadmap for 2010.

Although the details of the U.S. Bank coupon and reward system are vague they’ve certainly made it sound impressive. It appears as though they want to combine it with a mobile wallet. They’ve mentioned some LBS services capable of sending a coupon for toothpaste when the customer is in a grocery store. I’m weary of how well a feature like this will work with current handsets because it is currently quite difficult get the sort of pinpoint location they would need. Nevertheless, this is certainly a step forward for different forms of mobile advertising.

You can read more about it on the American Banker website.

CleanTech: Proposed Mandatory Energy Efficiency of Commercial Buildings

I’ve just put a new post up on my CleanTech Australia Blog:

Corporate owners of commercial office buildings with a Net Lettable Area over 2000m2 (or parts of those buildings that meet the 2000m2 threshold) will be required to disclose the energy efficiency of those buildings when they are sold or leased under proposed new Commonwealth legislation anticipated to take effect from mid 2010.

Read the rest of the article.

I Heart Turnbull

I’m no liberal fan, in fact I’m no any part fan. I do enjoy politics and I do like people who stand for what they believe in.

Turnbull, you would have had my vote in the party room. Your track record vouches for your ability to create something and find opportunities. Your ability to take a stand for something you believe in is what we should all aspire to do.

What pisses me off is all this “oh we must disagree with the government because that’s what oppositions do.” Who gives a shit about political strategy. What about common sense? The government’s reform may not be perfect, but nothing is perfect the first time around. You just need to get out there, start doing it and adjust rather than sitting on your hands waiting for the perfect solution. It seemed like Turnbull could see this.

It also seemed like Turnbull could also see that a lot of the population is for taking positive action towards greener legislation.

P.S. Mr. Abbott, you just got torn a new one by Kerry O’Brien on the 7.30 report. Contradiction after contradiction. Backflip after backflip. Oh, and how can you ask us not to judge you by your past actions?

The Perfect Gift for a Man

Every now and then something comes completely out of the blue that you have to be involved with. Just recently, I heard about The Perfect Gift for a Man through Gavin Heaton. I submitted my story on growing up and becoming a man (many, including myself and my missus when she wants to have a dig, might say I’m still far from it). My story has been included.

It was a great process having to think through the emotions and the events involved in my life.

Anyway, here is part of the press release:

A group of Australian men have banded together to create a book about some of the tough issues facing the average Aussie bloke.

The book, The Perfect Gift for a Man – 30 Stories about Reinventing Manhood aims to get men talking about their feelings in a bid to help prevent male suicide in Australia

Touched by the mental health, drug and alcohol problems facing young Australian men, local bloggers Gavin Heaton and Mark Pollard appealed to their readers, friends and family to honestly share the intense emotions and experiences of being a man. This collection of stories has been published into a high quality book for the first time, using online creative publishing website Blurb.com’s unique self-publishing capability.

The Perfect Gift for a Man is available for sale via the Blurb Bookstore with the profits going to the Inspire Foundation a national non-profit that delivers online programs that prevent youth suicide and improve young people’s mental health and wellbeing.

You can buy the book on Blurb.

Invoice #0000001

Last night I sent out the first infome invoice. It’s been almost a year or more in the making. Evolving from rough idea, tried concept in many different fields through to what infome is today, www.pickmylunch.com.au.

Part of me wishes I could have reached this point sooner. Another part of me realises that there is no way I could have arrived at this point without going through the process I went through.

I’ve come to realise that it is a lot harder work then I thought it would be, however it isn’t hard in the way I thought it would be. Instead, it is hard in that you are confronting yourself each day, questioning yourself and pushing yourself forward. It’s easy to slave away writing code, writing plans and writing documents. It’s hard, so hard, to work up the courage to walk up to someone you’ve never met and convince them to pay you for a service that has never been used before. The battles you face are with the conflicting voices in your head, rather than with those around.

I love it. Every bit of it.

Things are going great

I’ve been pretty snowed under getting pickmylunch.com.au well and truly running. We’ve got a few people on board and we’re pushing into new locations.

I’ll try and get some interesting content up soon!!!