As promised last month, LearnVest, a startup which recently expanded its focus from teaching women to become more financially savvy to teaching entire households to so, is now available on mobile. Today, the company is officially debuting its iOS application in the App Store, which will allow users to sign up, budget, set goals, track their cash flow and more.
It’s good to see that LearnVest’s mobile app has been designed with the idea that this may be some people’s first encounter with the service. There are other apps in the financial space that treat their mobile counterparts as complements to their existing service, offering merely a reflection of data already entered in on the web. But with LearnVest, you can sign up from the app itself, and then use the included search feature to find your bank or banks, and add your accounts. For safety’s sake, users are also prompted to set a PIN code to lock down the app – and the PIN code lock screen even has an easy-access button allowing you to quickly add a cash transaction.
The app’s user interface is straightforward, clean, and very mobile-friendly. Two large buttons appear when you first log in – one which takes you to LearnVest’s “Money Center,” and the other which takes you to LearnVest’s articles, which is its advice and how-to’s resource.
After adding accounts, you can then set up your “Smart Budget.” The service automatically tracks and categorizes your spending, so you have a realistic picture of where your money is going. If you’re really watching the nickels and dimes, that’s where the “add a cash transaction” option comes in. Instead of waiting for bank accounts to sync, you can manually enter an item to keep your cash flow balance on track.
While LearnVest categorizes most transactions for you, the 5%-10% which are left uncategorized can be moved into the appropriate section with a tap. These uncategorized transactions are also cached, so you can organize them when you’re offline, too.
Goal-setting is another app feature which again demonstrates the mobile app’s potential to be used as its own standalone interface for accessing and using this service. Here, the app shows your current progress in dynamic graphs and you can even adjust your goals on the fly.
LearnVest, originally a TechCrunch50 startup, has come a long way since its 2009 debut. Last month, the company reported having “helped” over a million users, but this includes account holders, financial newsletter subscribers, and those attending its online, educational “bootcamp” programs. Following its $19 million Series C from Accel and others last July, the company has now raised $24.5 million in funding.
The service just underwent a major overhaul – its largest ever, bringing a new online dashboard, new paid plans, access to investment advice, and more. To some extent, the company is a competitor with personal financial services like Mint, but LearnVest doesn’t monetize using its customers’ data to recommend products. “It’s all about being unbiased, trusted, just about your money and your best goals and plans of action,” LearnVest CEO Alexa Von Tobel told us in September. But more than that, LearnVest actually pairs its users to work with a financial planner, who are there to help customers reach their goals.
We’re seeing a lot of evolution and growth in the world of mobile ads — Facebook’s recent introduction of ads into its mobile platform being one key development — but some stats are proving harder to budge. The internet browser company Opera today released its latest State of Mobile Advertising report, which indicates that, despite the growth of Android and other platforms, iOS continues to dominate when it comes to monetizing mobile ads. And despite all the effort that has been put into mobile web sites, the majority, nearly 73%, of all mobile ad revenues are coming from mobile apps.
The report is based on traffic across Opera’s own mobile advertising network, which sends ads to some 10,000 mobile sites and apps and sees over 40 billion impressions across the network. It notes that collectively, publishers on its network are on track to generate some $400 million in revenue this year.
Opera notes that iOS on average continues to drive the highest eCPMs (effective cost per thousand impressions) on its network. Although the iPhone generates the most revenue, that is by dint of its ubiquity on the network: it accounts for just over 30% of all traffic, and 34% of all revenues, but its eCPMs are $1.48. By contrast, the eCPMs on the iPad are significantly higher, at $4.42, but it accounts for just 5% of all traffic on the network, working out to 18% of revenue.
That still puts the two into the top two positions in terms of what devices drive the best ad revenues. Android devices (tablets are not broken out) continue to see low eCPMs on Opera’s network, at $0.88. It’s not clear, however, whether this is because in fact Google would dominate advertising on that platform.
And perhaps most importantly, it appears that eCPMs are falling, with the average eCPM across all iOS devices at $2.49 in Q2, compared to $1.64 today.
Opera also delves into the relative performance of ads on native apps versus those developed for the mobile web. Although we have seen some analyst houses point out that the two have reached some kind of parity in terms of usage — although apps seem to be outpacing growth of mobile web for traffic — when it comes to making money, apps still seem to command more engagement, and therefore more revenues.
Opera says that on its network, apps account for over 80% of all traffic, and 72.7% of all mobile advertising revenue worldwide. My guess is that in certain markets like the U.S. that proportion would weigh even more in favor of apps over the mobile web, considering that North America, according to Opera, accounts for 7 out of every 10 ad requests.
Considering that China 3G network trials only started in anger in 2009, and that the figure stood at 100 million users just last year, a new report from Sina Tech that the number now stands at 202.6 million is fairly mind boggling. The launch was delayed to begin with, as operators used an alphabet soup of different wireless technology and early results were mixed at best. But the popularity of certain devices along with the advent of microblogging sites like Weibo helped the service quickly gain traction after that, and now more people there use cellphones to surf the web than computers. We’ll have to wait and see if 4G goes as well — after some early waffling, the government seems to have some newfound enthusiasm for it.
[Image credit: Wikimedia Commons]
Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Mobile
China goes from zero to 200 million 3G users in only three years originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Oct 2012 08:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The folks that brought you COLOURlovers have cooked up something new and exciting: Creative Market, a beautiful and simple way to buy and sell digital creative goods online.
Join us as we jump in to see what Creative Market is all about and how they’re uniquely positioning themselves in this market.
What is Creative Market?
The basic idea behind Creative Market is familiar. As a designer, you can sign up to purchase goods, sell goods or both. The site cleverly refers to itself as “a platform for handcrafted, mousemade design content.” There are currently five different categories of items available for purchase.
Graphics
In this section, you’ll find icons, background textures, UI kits and other non-coded graphical resources. There’s a good bit of breadth in the selection here already, you’ll find items ranging from $5 all the way up to $60.
Templates
The templates section is where you’ll find layered PSD and vector files for brochures, business cards, flyers, invitations, presentations, and even websites. There are a lot of really attractive designs in here, most of which are going for less than $10.
Themes
At the moment, the themes section is primarily filled with WordPress themes, though a few simple Tumblr themes are included as well. The contributors here are big names that you’ll recognize: UpThemes, MediaLoot, ThemeFuse, etc. Prices here currently top out around $60.
Fonts
Really solid, yet affordable typefaces are not always easy to find. It seems that fonts either go free or jump up to hundreds of dollars. Creative Market is challenging this idea though with a pretty impressive collection of attractive fonts that range from $2 to $25.
Add-Ons
This is where you’ll find all the extra design goodies: brushes, actions, shapes, layer styles; all of which plug right into Photoshop or Illustrator so you can achieve awesome results with almost zero effort. There are a few higher priced items, but most of the stuff here is under $10.
What Makes Creative Market Unique?
“It seems that they set out to do pretty much the opposite of what we’re used to seeing from creative marketplaces.”
Typically, another place to buy design goods online is hardly newsworthy. There are a lot of strong contenders in this category already and any newbie is going to have some difficulty attracting customers who might already be loyal to other marketplaces.
However, the thing that made us take a closer look at Creative Market is their intentionally unique positioning. It seems that they set out to do pretty much the opposite of what we’re used to seeing from creative marketplaces.
There are four primary strategies here that are really impressive from a seller’s perspective.
70% Commission
There’s no complicated, tiered system here where you have to start at a low commission and work your way up to something decent. Every seller gets to keep a whopping 70% of their sales. In case you haven’t shopped around, this is a dang good rate and something that will really set this site apart.
Set Your Own Prices
Typically with these types of sites, you upload the thing that you put a lot of hard work and dedication into only to have someone else decide how much its worth. Your entire pricing strategy is at the mercy of a random reviewer. Not on Creative Market. This site gives you complete control over pricing your items. How cool is that?
No Exclusivity Promise
All the big players, such as iStock Photo, either outright require exclusivity or drastically reduce your commission rate if you’re not willing to sign their exclusivity agreement. By contrast, Creative Market simply doesn’t seem to care. Be exclusive, sell elsewhere, it’s up to you.
No Review Process
If you’ve ever sold stock artwork before, you know the drill. You work hard on something that you know can sell well only to be rejected by a reviewer who woke up on the wrong side of the bed. I know from experience that this is beyond frustrating. Creative Market is tossing this idea out completely. You sell whatever you want to sell. If your items are no good, your reputation and ratings will tank. If your items are great, potential buyers will see that and know they can trust you.
That Local, Homegrown Feel
In addition to the impressive unique selling propositions above, Creative Market is attempting to distance itself from the overly corporate feel of the larger stock sites by using the metaphor of a small town farmer’s market.
You don’t simply upload and sell items, you “open a shop.” Further, the site is heavily geared towards introducing you to the great people behind the products so you make that personal connection when you purchase an item (pretty brilliant from a marketing perspective).
My Thoughts on Creative Market
Now that we know what Creative Market is and how they plan on carving out a niche for themselves in this super competitive industry, let’s jump into my personal thoughts on the service.
Design
First of all, it must be said that Creative Market is one of the most attractive design marketplaces I’ve seen. Given that everyone just rips off whatever Envato does, these types of sites all start to look the same after a while. Creative Market, on the other hand, feels fresh and different. The color palette is so incredibly cozy, the textures are perfect and I love the hand drawn artwork that defines the brand.
Seller-Focused to the Max
If you’re planning on selling goods, Creative Market has to look good. The 70% commission rate, freedom to set prices, lack of a review process and freedom to sell elsewhere pretty much eliminate all of the gripes that designers typically have with online marketplaces.
For this reason, I think they’ll attract a ton of designers to the service, which means their content will hopefully grow pretty quickly. They are in an “invite only” mode at the moment though, which I assume is temporary.
The Downside of a Seller-Focused Model
“All of the other marketplaces swear that they have to abide by certain practices to survive, most of which really suck for sellers.”
If you’re focused on making sellers happy, some of that happiness is bound to come at the expense of the buyers. To a certain degree, you can see that taking place here.
For example, take the lack of an exclusivity agreement. This sounds awesome to a seller, but to a buyer this could, in the long run, equate to a site full of the same old content that you see everywhere else. If I wanted to purchase something from this site, I’d likely Google around to see if I could find the same file elsewhere for a better price.
Similarly, it’s awesome for a seller that there’s no review process, but from the buyer’s perspective, how long until the vultures swoop in and fill the site with subpar content? Hopefully, the current invite system will keep this from happening any time soon.
In the end though, I’m thrilled to see someone finally standing up and trying out this stance. All of the other marketplaces swear that they have to abide by certain practices to survive, most of which really suck for sellers. Creative Market is boldly challenging these ideas, and if they’re successful, they’ll shake up this market considerably.
What Do You Think?
Creative Market is definitely an exciting new platform and I really think that it’s going to do well. If you’re at all interested in selling stock products, I encourage you to jump on board and catch some of that early adopter seller action.
Stop by the site and let us know what you think. Are you excited about the unique approach being taken here? Do you think it’ll work? We want to know!
Manifest Destiny tells the story of the United States in 141 maps from the Declaration of Independence to the present.
Explore and interact with any of the maps below, or fast-forward to important events, such as the Louisiana Purchase, the Civil War, or to the present-day US.
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