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Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

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Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#181

Post by Pxtl »

laurentb wrote: post #177
Pxtl wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know, I just mean offering a French-language Reddit UI is better than many other platforms. That said, http://fr.reddit.com/ should be the top posts from the French-language subreddits, not just the main frontpage with a French UI.

I can only imagine the nightmare of manually selecting subreddits for each languages though!

Subreddits have a "language" setting, although the data is probably dirty since the value is unused AFAIK - for all we know /r/pics is currently set on "Klingon". The Reddit admins would probably have to do some manual dirty-work, but iirc the "default subs/front page" reddit listing is somewhat manually curated anyways.

Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#182

Post by gress »

higherpurpose wrote: post #62
coenhyde wrote: post #9

The key take away from this article is not to build your app in J2ME but to recognize how big the world is outside of America. American focused startups face lots of competition in a relatively small market.

And Android has like 80 percent market share outside of US. So maybe it's time for developers here and elsewhere to forget about the "Macs/iPhones 'everywhere', therefore let's build for them first" Silicon Valley culture, and start developing for Android first ? With J2ME phones rapidly declining as they are being replaced by smartphones (even $50 Android smartphones going into this year), and the vast majority of t…

This is terrible advice.

The choice of platform should be made based on the value proposition. In the case of whatsapp, the business is based on undercutting the price-gouging of SMS with a superior alternative for $1 per year. This makes it affordable and appealing to everyone, including (especially) J2ME and Android users in the developing word.

If your app fits this profile, definitely go Android first.

But.. if your app is more appealing to people with discretionary income, you are shooting yourself in the foot if you don't start with iOS because that's where the users with money are.

Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#183

Post by ltorresv »

acchow wrote: post #42
blazespin wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It absolutely makes sense to work on a J2ME app today if you have a product aimed at developing nations. They won't be swimming in smartphones any time soon.

Low end Android phones are approaching feature phones in price.

Everybody is missing the point in this discussion.

While devices might be affordable, the real problem is service.

In most countries you can get a cheap android indeed but having a data plan is really expensive or it's just not possible because of how plans are structured.

The iPhone was in part revolutionary because it came along with a $30 data plan as an obligatory add on. Before that you had to be in the most expensive cellphone plans to have access to data.

In the developing world you either don't have a data plan or you have a REALLY restricted plan and I mean like you get 300MB a month and if you go over you get hit with a huge bill.

Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#184

Post by philsnow »

OlivierLi wrote: post #157
sspiff wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The smorgasbord of languages and cultures makes it harder to target though. But German, French and Spanish markets are big in their own right, especially if you consider you can reach other territories with them as well. (Austria, Switzerland and to some extent eastern Europe with German; Canada and much of connected Africa with French; Phillipines and Latin America with Spanish.)

I have to congratulate you for including Canada in the "Francophonie". Usually people equate the French speaking world with France,Switzerland and Belgium. Which is surprising since Canada has almost 7 million French speakers.

you find that people often omit large swathes of Africa and parts of the Caribbean?

that's a bit depressing, given the importance of colonialism in those areas.

Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#185

Post by zyb09 »

antirez wrote: post #173

The j2me is just a piece of "it just works". 1) Covers a huge amount of devices. Yep, because j2me, but also because what could be the top-1 competitor, Apple iMessage, can't inter-operate between Apple and Android devices (very stupid tactic, it will get marginalized). 2) Does not require an account, so it is not bound to Facebook, Twitter, ... You may ask, what's the problem with having an account? That you capture…

I agree, this is the real reason WhatsApp took off so quickly. Especially that it automatically uses your phone number as account-id and then goes through your address book to automatically populate your WhatsApp contact list.

No other Instant Messenger did that. It was always: Create account, exchange account-ids, add to contact list. This adds huge amounts of friction for a new service, and WhatsApp sidestepped this completely.

Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#186

Post by dba7dba »

dsl wrote: post #6
mik3y wrote: post #2

Citation needed; I'd certainly love to know whether J2ME devices were a significant chunk of WhatsApp's actives, but there's zero data to back up the suggestion..

As of today: Smartphones outsold feature phones for this first time ever in India. http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/samsung-smartphones-outse... From my personal experiences, international countries that have smartphone adoption use Viber, and the feature phone countries use WhatsApp.

KakaoTalk is big in S Korea. LINE is big in Japan. LINE has 300 million users, with 50 million in Japan.

As far as I know, both are very profitable through sales of digital goods like stickers etc.

Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#187

Post by dba7dba »

zyb09 wrote: post #185
antirez wrote: post #173

The j2me is just a piece of "it just works". 1) Covers a huge amount of devices. Yep, because j2me, but also because what could be the top-1 competitor, Apple iMessage, can't inter-operate between Apple and Android devices (very stupid tactic, it will get marginalized). 2) Does not require an account, so it is not bound to Facebook, Twitter, ... You may ask, what's the problem with having an account? That you capture…

I agree, this is the real reason WhatsApp took off so quickly. Especially that it automatically uses your phone number as account-id and then goes through your address book to automatically populate your WhatsApp contact list. No other Instant Messenger did that. It was always: Create account, exchange account-ids, add to contact list. This adds huge amounts of friction for a new service, and WhatsApp sidestepped thi…

I use KakaoTalk occasionally and KakaoTalk also does the same thing, use phone # as acct, auto populate contact using address book and also suggests friends that you might want to add.

Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#188

Post by tim333 »

diydsp wrote: post #178
pjmlp wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My problem with Firefox OS is that they don't add any value over what is already possible in modern mobile OS. All of them have a web browser of some sort.

Thinking about what is technically possible has been very limiting for me. The value proposition of Firefox OS is that apps will run on all phones, unlike the current iOS vs. Java schism. Of course it is likely to have other issues, but don't limit yourself to saying what is possible... think about the cost to actually deploy that possibility.

I'm not sure I really see that. Firefox os apps are basically html5/javascript and you can run that on Android and iOS at the moment using phonegap and the like. The advantage of a Firefox phone over a cheap Android seems a bit marginal although it is proper open source which may matter to some people.

Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#189

Post by r00fus »

antirez wrote: post #173

The j2me is just a piece of "it just works". 1) Covers a huge amount of devices. Yep, because j2me, but also because what could be the top-1 competitor, Apple iMessage, can't inter-operate between Apple and Android devices (very stupid tactic, it will get marginalized). 2) Does not require an account, so it is not bound to Facebook, Twitter, ... You may ask, what's the problem with having an account? That you capture…

> Apple iMessage, can't inter-operate between Apple and Android devices (very stupid tactic, it will get marginalized).

Apple's iMessage works fine with Android in the western developed world where you can get unlimited/cheap SMS. Also android support won't help iMessage in markets like India where there are very very many feature (j2me) phones out there.

Apple and WhatsApp have different goals. FB is far more threatened by WhatsApp than Apple.

What's at question here is whether you think the emerging market telecom providers will ever see their doom and lower SMS pricing before WhatsApp, Viber and the like remove all their messaging income.

Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#190

Post by dba7dba »

yen223 wrote: post #52
ghshephard wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Singapore is a Smartphone country, but Whatsapp is pretty dominant there. (I didn't run into anyone who didn't use it as their primary messaging platform)

Same up here in Malaysia. In fact, it's starting to look like the only places that isn't dominated by WhatsApp are America and China.

You forgot china/Skorea/Japan, all big markets.

WeChat - china

S Korea - kakaotalk 90% market share

LINE - Japan 50 million users with 300 million worldwide

And all three have significant revenue in double digit US millions a year, unlike WhatsApp which has no real revenue...

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