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parislemon:

The honeymoon is on. Microsoft finally announced a new CEO yesterday: Satya Nadella. And the blogosphere seemingly could not be more pleased.

And I have to admit, reading all the coverage, Nadella sounds like the right choice. He knows Microsoft. He was leading the one…

This is basically exactly how I feel (minus the fact that I still use a lot of MS services and devices):

“Look, I’m rooting for Microsoft. I know that given the devices I prefer and where I work, this will sound disingenuous. But I mean it. Microsoft was once the tech company I admired above all others. And if nothing else, I firmly believe that a strong Microsoft only helps push the entire ecosystem forward, faster. Competition is not only good, it’s vital. And no company will be more competitive than a strong Microsoft. Any way you slice it, that would be a huge win for us, the consumers.”

The Abbreviated Honeymoon Of The New Microsoft CEO

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…the whole funding round was done in 22 days without having to build a pitch deck. It’s a message — and product — that just resonated with investors.

“Confide Raises $1.9 Million In Seed Funding To Bring Disappearing Messages To Enterprise Users” via TechCrunch

It’s SnapChat for the enterprise. The UX is pretty slick (makes me think of the “redacted” text in spy movie documents) and I’m looking forward to trying it out when it hits Android.

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“The scam, simplified: They call you, but immediately hang up. You see a missed call. You call back. They charge you for the call, and for each minute they can keep you on the line.”

It’s ironic that I bumped into this article today as I believe I got one of these calls last week. Keep an eye out for this scam, and if you’re an Android user this is a great time to download our free CallerID app, Contactive (Google Play), to identify spammers before they call you. Shameless self-promotion, I know. 🙂

PSA: Missed Call From A Mystery Number? Be Careful.

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So what does a minnow like Mxit have that makes it so confident it can crack India? The answer is simple: a vision beyond smartphones. Unlike its bigger, richer, more established competitors, Mxit offers connectivity to old fashioned “feature phones,” of which there remain many users in India.

“An African messaging app could beat out WhatsApp, Line and WeChat in India” via Leo Mirani at Quartz.

As a mobile app company we know (and love and hate) the choices you have to make when supporting multiple devices and OS’s. It’s easy to get tunnel vision and think about amazing experiences that we can build on the latest, high-powered devices; Mxit’s potential success is another great reminder that for large portions of users in developing countries, feature phones remain the primary (and sometimes only) way they experience the mobile internet.

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You have to have innovative ad units … and we’re probably the most innovative in the marketplace.

“10X growth in 18 months: StartApp hits 1.5B downloads, 70K installs, and 200M daily impressions” via VentureBeat

Eighteen months after it reached the 150 million download plateau, mobile ad platform StartApp announced today that it has now hit over 1.5 billion downloads. And while the official release says the company’s ad software is now embedded in 60,000 apps, CEO Gil Dudkiewicz told me the number is actually higher.

Impressive growth and great platform; their ad quality and display flexibility is going make them a strong player on iOS.

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I have no idea how long this could take to happen, but if it was anytime soon (read = 5 years) I feel like there is no way our current bandwidth could handle the demand. I still can’t watch a Netflix movie on a snowy Friday night without it dipping out of HD every 10minutes and I have 100mb/s FiOS. Regardless, it’s cool to see the FCC encouraging telco’s to explore innovation at this scale.

US phone companies to explore replacing all phone numbers with IP addresses