The Truth About Developing For iPhone And Android (AAPL, GOOG)

We just had lunch with a bunch of entrepreneurs and VCs in Paris, including Foundry Group VC Brad Feld, and one of the topics that came up was mobile distribution, namely: should you develop for iPhone or Android first? 

Brad Feld's take: it doesn't matter. 

The reason it doesn't matter, Feld said, is that both platforms now have enough reach now.

Monetization is still better on the iPhone, Feld granted, so if you want to sell your apps, at least in the short term you should focus on iOS, but that's it. 

A lot of people have been saying for a very long time that the iPhone is a much better platform than Android, and it's pretty striking that things have come so far so fast.

Keep in mind that Feld is a co-founder of TechStars, so his opinion carries weight with dozens of startups, and a board member of Zynga, whose big next growth market is mobile. 

iOS may be technically a better platform than Android in terms of easiness to program and to transact, but Android is growing so fast that it basically doesn't matter anymore.

Android Is Destroying Everyone →

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See Also:

• THE GOOGLE INVESTOR: Sorry Google, Android Smartphone Users Prefer The iPad
• 20 Ventures That Convinced Lots Of Strangers To Give Them Hundreds Of Thousands Of Dollars
• French Startup Criteo Is On $200M Revenue Run Rate

The Truth About Developing For iPhone And Android (AAPL, GOOG)

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THE TRUTH ABOUT SMARTPHONES: Our Exclusive Survey On iPhone vs Android

Recent news that Android has blasted past the iPhone in smartphone market share triggered a huge brawl among fans in both camps about whether the numbers were accurate and which platform would reign supreme.

In light of this, we wanted to find out more about what makes people choose one platform over the other. So we wrote up a smartphone survey, which received more than 2,000 responses.

We've included the specific questions and responses in the slides that follow.

Here are the key points:

• Almost all of the survey participants already use smartphones

• The majority of participants use Android, with most of the rest using iPhones. (This is similar to the recent market-share figures from Comscore, although Android and iPhone appear to be over-represented and BlackBerry appears to be under-represented).

• Most survey participants are planning to upgrade to a new smartphone in the next year or two.

• Most participants say they will upgrade to the "latest, greatest" smartphone, not an older, cheaper one.

• Most survey participants are NOT planning to switch platforms when they upgrade

• Most participants say "features" and "platform" are the most important factors when choosing a smartphone. App selection is also important, but not as important as most people think.

• Most iPhone owners say they would buy an Android phone if there was an Android phone that was better in most key ways than an iPhone. This suggests the iPhone's feature lead still matters. It also suggests that the Apple platform does not have the "lock-in" that many Apple bulls believe. It also increases the pressure on the iPhone 5 to be a humdinger of an upgrade.

• Most Android users say they won't consider buying an iPhone because they "hate Apple."  (We'll explore why in a future survey).

• Most of the rest of Android users say they would consider buying an iPhone if iPhones worked better with non-Apple products.  This highlights the risk of Apple's closed system.

• Most iPhone owners already have the iPhone 4.

• Most iPhone owners are still planning to upgrade to the iPhone 5.

• Almost no participants are planning to buy a BlackBerry, a Windows Phone 7 phone, or Palm.

Almost all of our survey participants already own smartphones.

Most participants own Android phones. Most of the rest own iPhones. Relative to recent market-share figures, Android and iPhone seem a bit over-represented and BlackBerry under-represented

Most participants plan to upgrade to the latest, greatest smartphone in the next year or two.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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See Also:

• THE APPLE INVESTOR: Apple Rumored To Reinvent Television Before The Holidays
• OUR SMARTPHONE SURVEY: Please Take It!
• 15 Wacky And Useful Add-On Gadgets For The iPhone And iPad

THE TRUTH ABOUT SMARTPHONES: Our Exclusive Survey On iPhone vs Android

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The Truth About Twitter: It's The Evening News

Yahoo and Cornell University did a big research project on Twitter, trying to figure out "Who Says What to Whom on Twitter."

Here's what they figured out:

Twitter is a media platform, not a social network. "First, we find that although audience attention has indeed fragmented among a wider pool of content producers than classical models of mass media, attention remains highly concentrated, where roughly 0.05% of the population accounts for almost half of all attention."

Twitter is clique-y. "Within the population of elite users, moreover, attention is highly homophilous, with celebrities following celebrities, media following media, and bloggers following bloggers."

Twittter is the Evening News broadcast: full of stories reported elsewhere, brought to your attention by a personality you trust. "Second, we find considerable support for the two-step flow of information—almost half the information that originates from the media passes to the masses indirectly via a diffuse intermediate layer of opinion leaders, who although classified as ordinary users, are more connected and more exposed to the media than their followers."

News stories don't last long on Twitter. Laga Gaga sticks around forever. "We also find that different types of content exhibit very different lifespans. In particular, media-originated URLs are disproportionately represented among short-lived URLs while those originated by bloggers tend to be overrepresented among long-lived URLs. Finally, we find that the longest-lived URLs are dominated by content such as videos and music, which are continually being rediscovered by Twitter users and appear to persist indefinitely."

Get the whole study here (.PDF).

Don't miss:

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See Also:

• Co-Founder Biz Stone Went On Conan For Twitter's Fifth Anniversary
• Twitter In Negotiations To Bring Jack Dorsey Back As Chief Product Officer
• FLASHBACK: Three-Month-Old Twitter Was Psyched To Have 160 Users

The Truth About Twitter: It's The Evening News

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The Truth About Working At A Startup

Grasshopper Group posted a comic on its blog that in an effort to dispel some of the romantic ideas about working for a startup.

It's a funny look at what life is really like as you sweat out building a new company from scratch.

It features helpful quotes from the likes of Tim O'Reilly, Mark Cuban, and Pandora's Tim Westergren.

How does it compare to your own startup experience? Let us know in the comments!

Lots Of Misconceptions

Income vs. Expenses

Product Difficulties

View more at Business Insider

The Truth About Working At A Startup

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