A new start-up called Mobilewalla, which rates and tracks hot apps, is trying to bring order to the booming and confusing world of apps.
Dale Lang, the media maverick who sold off Working Woman and Working Mother magazines in the mid-1990s, is one of Mobilewalla’s early backers.
Lang has been involved in cable, radio and outdoor advertising in a colorful media career that stretches back to his days as a 3M executive who once tried to buy TV Guide.
Mobilewalla was founded by tech entrepreneur Anindya Datta, who sold a start-up, Chutney Technologies, to Cisco in 2005. He said he’s been working on the search app that formally launched two weeks ago for nearly three years.
Of course, companies from Apple’s own iTunes store to start-ups like GetJar, which recently landed $25 million in venture funding from Facebook backer Accel, are also trying to offer app search and rating capabilities to consumers.
“There is room for a company that can help you organize the programs and apps available on your phone,” said Megan McCarthy, who edits tech newsletter MediaGazer.
Datta said he has raised between $1 million and $2 million from the government of Singapore, which owns about 40 percent of the company, and from private investors, who have about 60 percent.
He is completely in real time so the hot app can change day by day or minute by minute. His search engine, for instance, detected Sports Illustrated Front Row was one of the 10 fastest-growing apps in the country on Wednesday, fueled by surging interest in college basketball’s March Madness. By Thursday, SI had stabilized to a top 30 slot, so it was no longer on the fastest app list — replaced by a surprise entrant, the Library of Congress virtual tour.
“There are probably 700,000 apps out there now,” said Datta. “By the end of the year, there will be one million. It’s good for the consumer, because there is a lot of variety, but there is too much fragmentation.”
Lang is currently looking for a small, second round of funding, perhaps $5 million to fund a marketing blitz.
Dylan deal
How many times must the cannonball fly, before it is forever banned?
Jon Friedman, media columnist at MarketWatch (which, like The Post, is owned by News Corp.), has just landed a contract, believed to be in the low six figures from Penguin to write a book on the enduring cult status behind folk legend Bob Dylan.
The action was handled by agent Lynn Johnston in a pre-emptive deal, but neither she nor Friedman disclosed details on price. Johnston said Friedman has access to a wide number of Dylan confidantes — many of whom have never spoken on the record before.
Friedman is an admitted lifelong Dylan fanatic. Dylan’s ban from a tour in China — which has since been lifted — shows he is still considered a controversial rebel even as he approaches his 70th birthday in May, points out Friedman.
He insisted he is not trying to do a standard biography, perhaps in part because he doesn’t want to alienate the semi-reclusive icon, whom he still hopes to interview for his book, expected to hit sometime in 2012.
Dylan himself penned a best-selling and critically acclaimed autobiography, “Chronicles, Vol. 1,” released in hardcover in 2004 and was a finalist for a National Book Award. Simon & Schuster still has no scheduled date for “Chronicles Vol. 2,” in what was originally billed as an autobiographical trilogy.
Food fight
Have you been turning to The Daily Meal, the foodie Web site from Spanfeller Media Group edited by former Saveur Editor-in-Chief Colman Andrews for all the latest news on the death of Liz Taylor, the war in Libya and the Japanese tsunami?
No?
Well, that is probably because The New York Times has successfully thwarted The Daily Meal from confusing you with a pretty tricky slogan: “All the Food that’s Fit to Eat.”
At least that was the slogan The Daily Meal had been using until re cently.
When trademark lawyers for Arthur “Pinch” Sulzberger, Jr., saw it, they were quick to pounce with a “cease and desist” order to Andrews.
“I think it is ridiculous that they think people were mixing us up,” said Jim Spanfeller. He said he believes that the chaos in the world is distracting people from checking out food sites.
A Times spokeswoman said, “As I am sure you know, the commercial use of a play on another company’s trademark is a trademark infringement. And, The Times, in addition to covering Libya, Tsunamis and the President, has an outstanding Dining section.”
Still, he said he reluctantly changed the slogan this week. The new one: “All Things Food & Drink.”