Mobile is more than just taking off. It is starting to pay off.
Witness Facebook’s $1 billion purchase of mobile photo sharing service Instagram. Already more than half of the social network’s 901 million monthly users access the site with a mobile device. Seems Facebook expects the total to grow.
So where does Google Ventures Partner Rich Miner, co-founder of the startup Android that Google acquired and turned into a mobile tour de force, want to focus his mobile investing? The answer is enterprise apps and products, games, and smart context-aware applications, Miner said at the National Venture Capital Association annual meeting Tuesday.
“I try not to pre-think this too much,” he said during an on-stage interview. But one challenge is being able to determine what is a feature and what is a product, he added.
Miner said that any startup seeking viral growth would be well advised to develop both for Apple’s iOS software inside the iPhone and iPad and for Android. Android tablets are getting better and the use of the operating has exploded, he said.
He offered these Android milestones: 300 million Android activations worldwide, products from 58 OEMs and 329 carriers, and 500,000 available applications.
Miner also had a tip for developers of mobile voice interfaces. Adding personality is a key to success, he said.
Photo of Rich Miner taken by Mark Boslet
