Sunday, June 17, 2012

Social apps with wow-growth

Here is my latest comparison of social apps, and how many monthly active users they have on Facebook. I have been a bit too busy lately - so the latest comparison was three months ago. So what is "wow" this time...?


Gogobot is seeing good growth - now at 500.000 monthly users. Instagram has more than tripled in three months. OMG! Swedish Wrapp has also almost doubled since last time we checked. Good work!

Previous comparisons in jan 2012 and mar 2012.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

My favourite hacks from 24HBC

Two days ago, 90 tired web developers got back from 24 Hour Business Camp - the hackathon I founded in 2009. This was the fourth version of Sweden's largest hackathon - and perhaps the best camp yet! The nice weather didn't hurt. You can check out all the project pitches here. One minute each!


Here are my favorite projects:
  • Enklaavtalet.se - Create and sign simple contracts on the fly. The official 24HBC "winner", and for a good reason. Great use case, and the service worked great 24 hours later!
  • Hittebo.se - Find and sublet apartments through your social contacts. Great idea. Not really finished within 24 hours, but still nice. 
  • Glyffo.se - Create infographics on the fly. Fun idea, and the prototype worked well after 24 hours.
  • Wever.se - Write a story together with your twitter friends. Yes - it's a prototype, but it works, and it's a fun idea.
  • Hotellinspiration.se - YES, its MY OWN project. "Pinterest for swedish hotels". A simple and very visual hotel site, in Swedish. Lots of images. Log in with Facebook to see hotels your friends' want to visit. Try it. :)
  • Swop.ly - Create collector cards of yourself, and trade them with your friends. Lovely, creative idea. It's not a complete project yet, but it's a working prototype.
  • Sammanfatta.se - "Spotify for news articles". It looked really nice, but after some controversy they took it down in less than 24 hours. That's a pitty! I would have loved for you all to check it out.
  • Textplaylists.com - Share the really good articles you find on the web. Simple, yet feels strangely powerful. Love the simplicity. It's a prototype and I want more. So really hope they spend another 24 hours on it!
  • Wubicle.com - Rent or let desks (in an office) by the week. I love the idea, and look forward to using it. It's a really meaningful service, with a real revenue potential. The prototype isn't live on the web yet, though. Get it up there, Arvid
  • Instaword.se - Instagram for words. Created by 15 year old David Gabor, one of this year's youngest participants!
  • LOL Security - Hide encrypted secret messages in images of cats! Inspired by the Arab spring. Cool technology and awesome quirky messaging. Check out their philosophy page. 
And... some of the most promising projects were apps. Here are my favourites in a separate list. Hopefully they will all be in the App Store soon:
  • Heyflight.com (app) Find flight tickets at great prices. Looks amazing, and I love the simplicity in the value proposition. Awesome! Disclaimer: Created by my colleagues at Tripbirds. 
  • Hitchi (app) A hitchhiking app. Turning hitchhiking into a trusted and working way to travel is actually a really big "problem" in need of a solution. And it looks great. 
  • Syllable (app). A word game that lets you compete with yourself by spelling words on time. Created by the Hyperisland student team. Great design.
  • Spikto.me (app). An app to give live feedback from an audience to a speaker. Created by the KTH student team. Show some screenshots - the app looked great.
I probably forgot a bunch of great projects... This was a subjective list, put together very quickly. You can check out the complete list of projects here. What do you think, some awesome projects I forgot?

I did a similar list of my favourite projects last year