The messaging space is a hot one these days, and early player Kik is no exception. The Waterloo-based company announced today that its cross-platform messaging app now has over 50 million registered users, and is adding new ones at a rate of over 200,000 per day. Kik recently introduced Kik Cards, an experience which lets users interact with HTML5-based mini-apps within the Kik messaging experience itself, and to date over 25 million Kik cards have been installed by users.

Kik’s growth has doubled over the past few months, so it seems like Kik Cards are striking the right chord with users. But this is also a time when the company has to prepare for a fight: Facebook’s launch of Facebook Home for Android devices is a clear-cut attempt to get users to embrace not only its social network, but also its own Messenger product. Chat Heads in particular looks to make using Messenger little more than an afterthought, rather than an active choice users have to make.

Kik founder and CEO Ted Livingston admitted that the similarities between what Kik is trying with Cards and what Facebook is doing with Facebook Home is interesting. I suggested that where Kik wants to put an app experience within its messaging platform, Facebook wants to extend its messaging platform across the app experience of other – two opposite approaches to accomplishing a similar thing, namely increased engagement.

“Messaging is at the center, and so fundamentally you’re trying to build a platform around it,” Livingston said in response. “Do you do that by trying put messaging on top of everything, or by putting everything inside of the messenger? It’s a similar problem, but a very different solution.”

What Kik is doing to solve that problem seems to be working. A recent survey showed that Facebook and other social networking sites are losing their popularity among teens, according to Piper Jaffray. Teens instead are turning to alternate social tools, including Vine, Snapchat, Wanelo, 4chan, and Kik, all of which were left off the original list issued by Piper Jaffray but received top mention as write-ins by teens about apps not listed.

Kik’s 50 million users is not isolated in terms of its success. LINE has over 130 million users, and even MessageMe, a relative newcomer, has already topped the 1 million mark. There seems to be a rush on in terms of messenger tool adoption, and big companies like Facebook and Google have clearly recognized that, the former with Facebook Home and Messenger, and the latter with its upcoming Babel unified chat service.

Kik is also updating its iOS and Android apps today to version 6.3 to help it continue to gain new traction in this brewing confrontation. The new version introduces in-app push notifications, which means that while you’re browsing Kik, you’ll get an indicator that a new Kik Card has been sent to you by one of your contacts. It should help spur even greater adoption of the new service, which remains an internal tool, but will soon be made available to outside developers via an official SDK.

As lines are drawn in this battle for the next generation of social networking, Kik’s Cards are an important strategy in long-term plans for monetization for the company. So far, it looks like the foundation laid is a solid one, based on these engagement and adoption numbers.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

The WSJ reports this morning that Apple is testing out Apple TV set (as opposed to set-top box) designs, though that testing remains “early stage.” Apple is specifically working on high-res TVs according to the reports, trialling a few different designs, working with a variety of suppliers including Hon Hai (Foxconn) and Sharp on the new TV designs. TV testing isn’t new for Apple, according to the report, and we’ve heard plenty about it before, plus Apple CEO Tim Cook is being far less coy about Apple’s television plans in recent interviews.

Here’s the bottom line: Apple is working on a TV. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster has been going on about that for years, and every year they don’t make one he looks a little less credible. But he’s not wrong. The WSJ report only serves to reinforce the idea that Apple has been tinkering with televisions, beyond the first, second and third-generation Apple TV set-top boxes they’ve shipped, for a long while now. Steve Jobs discussed Apple tackling the space in his Walter Isaacson biography, and other sources, including the New York Times, have as much as called an Apple television a lock for a future product launch.

So has anything changed? Or is this still just an R&D project that’s no closer to seeing the light of day? Well, there are some indicators that Apple could be farther along in the process, according to this new report. First, even working with outside suppliers indicates a certain level of maturity, since often Apple works internally long before talking to manufacturing or component partners ever enter the mix. Second, Foxconn has made steps to expand into HDTV production, on the back of a strategic investment by Chairman Terry Gou in a formerly Sharp-owned LCD factory. Current Apple TV sales are also on the rise.

But there’s still a long way to go, as Apple has no content deals in place for a television set, at least not with major cable and media providers. So in the end, while it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Apple is actively tinkering with TV sets, no one should be holding their breath about such a device’s arrival, at least not yet.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Facebook shares closed today at $28, up more than 16 percent this week and hitting a new high not seen since July.

Shares have been on the rise now that major lockup periods have passed and a number of analysts have improved their ratings for the stock. Facebook’s Q3 earnings showed significant growth in mobile monetization and new partnerships for Facebook Gifts — including one with Apple announced this week — are driving increased optimism.

Until this week, Facebook hadn’t traded over $25 since July 26 when the company released its second quarter earnings. That kicked off a steep decline before a period of lockup expirations drove the stock price down even further. Shares hit a low of $17.73 in early September, climbed after CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s public interview with Mike Arrington, and fell back to the $19-$20 range around the time that lockups expired.

The last major lockup ended on Nov. 14. Many analysts had advised investors that Facebook stock would be volatile until after that date. Shares have done well since then, and some analysts are upping their target prices. Bernstein upgraded Facebook from “market perform” to “outperform” with a price target of $33. Piper Jaffray set a 12-month price target of $38, which was the company’s IPO price in May. BTIG Research upgraded shares from a sell rating to a neutral rating, also with a $38 price target.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

Apple is aggressively ramping up its iPhone 5 supply chain in order to make sure that customers looking for the smartphone can get their hands on it easily and quickly come the holidays, according to stock checks and supply analysis conducted by Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster (via Fortune). The analyst and his team conducted nightly checks of supplies at 100 Apple Stores in the U.S., and found that stock levels have improved significantly during the past 10 days, with availability of AT&T and Verizon climbing fast, and Sprint also remaining consistent after having risen previously.

Apple also recently improved the availability of its iPhone 5 models via its online store to two weeks, a slight but significant improvement from the 2-3 weeks it has been promising since earlier in November. Based on current availability trends, Piper Jaffray estimates that Apple will have same-day stock of iPhone 5s in most stores within two weeks, Munster concludes in the note he issued to investors Wednesday.

The last few years have been tremendously successful for Apple in terms of holiday iPhone sales, culminating in banner years in 2010 and 2011 thanks to the new fall release schedule for iPhones, which used to go on sale beginning in June. For Apple to continue to capitalize on holiday shopper appetite for its latest smartphone, the company needed to address supply bottlenecks and reported issues with manufacturing partners in order to make sure that customers shopping for the iPhone 5 could find it in stores and online. Supply chain optimization is one of CEO Tim Cook’s specialties, and it seems like the efforts he and his company have taken so far will indeed help make sure everyone who wants to give an iPhone 5 as a gift this year should be able to.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

The iPad mini officially went on sale today, and the response at physical retail stores has been mixed. Some areas are seeing decent-sized lines, according to Reuters this morning, including Tokyo and Seoul Apple Stores with crowds of 100 or more, but overall, the news organization notes that crowds are smaller than they have been in the past for other launches. The Apple Store in Sydney, for instance, had 50 people in line when it opened compared to a line covering several blocks for the iPhone 5.

Some locations had more sizeable lines than others, like the Amsterdam Apple Store, as well as Apple’s Munich location. And while lines in New York City lines seemed to be suffering as New Yorkers dealt with more important issues, as of this morning it looks like lines at some locations at least were building considerably. At a store in La Cañada, Spain, a decent-sized group of customers also queued.

The Covent Garden Apple Store in the U.K. saw maybe one of the smallest crowds according to reports on Twitter, and at the Regent Street location you can apparently walk in and buy an iPad mini right now. And reports from various U.S. locations including Maryland, Ohio, Florida and Buffalo show only small lines in those locations only an hour or so ahead of stores opening on the east coast. Regional locations always have smaller lines than the bigger flagship stores, but for the iPhone 5 launch lines were considerably larger in small town locations even at partner resellers like AT&T.

Compared to previous device launches this year, the crowds are fairly underwhelming. About 450 people lined up in Tokyo ahead of the iPad 3 going on sale, for instance, and lines stretched into the hundreds at locations around the world. The iPad mini is a new category of device for Apple, and users might not have had time to make up their minds about this novel product yet. Yet with other new device launches, like that of the original iPad, lines were huge in a variety of places.

The iPad mini goes on sale in 34 markets today, and was available for pre-orders beginning Friday, October 26. Pre-orders sold out over the course of the first weekend, but it remains unclear how many were available in that initial crop. Analyst estimates for initial iPad mini sales vary, but Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster says to expect around 1.5 million, compared to the iPad 3′s 3 million over the launch weekend. These lines suggest conservative estimates are likely on the right track, but it’s also worth noting that only the Wi-Fi version of the iPad mini goes on sale today, so customers could be waiting for its LTE-enabled sibling, which doesn’t ship until later in November.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Analysts have begun making their predictions about the iPhone 5′s odds of success for launch weekend sales, and in fact there’s quite a range when it comes to how the experts see things shaking out. After Apple unveiled iPhone 5 pre-order totals of 2 million over 24 hours, double the 1 million the iPhone 4S managed, it would seem like multiplying out the 4S launch weekend total of 4 million total sales is a safe bet. But that’s not necessarily the tack all industry analysts are taking.

Shaw Wu of Sterne Agee, for instance, shared that his firm is estimating around between 3 and 3.5 million sales of the iPhone 5 during the launch weekend, but that’s just an extrapolated number Wu tells me, coming out of its quarterly projections for the device, and meant only to loosely represent the first few days as it relates to the rest of the three-month period. Overall, Wu said in an investor note today that estimates for the September quarter are up to 27 million, raised from 26 million projected before Apple revealed the strength of its pre-order success. The initial response also hasn’t significantly affected longer-term outlooks, with Agee adding only 500,000 (to make 46.5 million total) to its earlier prediction, owing to continued reports of supply constraints on the iPhone 5′s newly redesigned touchscreens.

Peter Misek of Jeffries thinks that Apple will indeed double its past performance, hitting around 8 million total units sold by the end of launch weekend, with pre-orders included. Misek thinks that a prevailing view on Wall Street that suggests supply constraints will keep the number at or below 6 million are overblown. Long-term, he told CNBC that he believes key drivers for Apple could be securing deals with Japan’s NTT DoCoMo, the last remaining major carrier in that country that doesn’t offer the iPhone, but lately there’s been talk that the iPhone 5 could in fact be a major pain point for DoCoMo, since no announcement has yet been forthcoming about bringing it to that carrier’s considerable LTE network.

Gene Munster, longtime champion of the standalone Apple TV and Piper Jaffray analyst, suggested Monday that Apple will deliver between 6 and 10 million iPhone 5 sales during launch weekend, likely hitting the 8 million sweet spot. That’s due in part to the 100 percent year-over-year increase in pre-order sales, but also based on the knowledge that pre-orders formed 25 percent of last year’s opening weekend sales, hence arriving at 8 million from 2 million pre-orders.

There are new variables at play this time, like an expanded pool of launch countries that includes Hong Kong, always a popular destination for grey market resellers. Even factoring in new countries, Asymco’s Horace Dediu predicted last week that we’d see around 6 million in initial sales, based on an increase in units sold per day in line with previous launches.

Unlike the 4S, this is also a complete visual redesign, and new aesthetics are bound to make a splash with the general buying public, aside from any consideration of features or specs, so that’s a variable that it’s hard to put exact numbers behind. Whatever happens, the bottom line is that iPhone 5 launch weekend sales likely won’t disappoint.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Kayak’s perpetually-delayed IPO finally moved forward today, as the company has officially announced it has priced its shares between $22 and $25, and will begin trading on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol “KYAK.”

In the most recent SEC filing, the company said it’s going to offer 3.5 million shares, in a deal led by Morgan Stanley – Stanley’s first since the Facebook IPO. Other banks participating include Deutsche Bank, Piper Jaffray, Stifel Nicolaus and Pacific Crest.

The IPO will be for Class A shares, and all shares issued prior to the IPO will be converted to Class B. In the March quarter, Kayak had revenue of $73.3 million, up 39% from $52.7 million in the same quarter last year. Net income was $4.1 million, or 11 cents per share.

The Kayak IPO has been a long time coming. IPO docs were first filed in November 2010. But as reported in September 2011, the company shelved its plans for the IPO until market conditions improved. Depending on whom you ask, that may have meant either waiting until the IPO market stabilized or until the company’s erratic earnings did. (Or likely, both). In March, the company reported 2011 revenue was up 32% to $225 million and net income was up 21%, again fueling chatter about when the IPO would materialize.

Kayak says it has now processed over 310 million user queries for travel info, growth of over 45% over the three months ending in March 31. Meanwhile, Kayak’s mobile apps have been downloaded over 15 million times since their debut in March 2009. During the past quarter, those apps were downloaded 3 million times, or 43% growth over the same time last year. Kayak now has 185 employees, and websites in the U.S. and 15 other countries.

Since the time of its original filing, Kayak has been focused on product advancements, and launched a redesigned iPad app, updated its website’s UI, creating a more universal consumer experience across web, mobile and apps, and it launched direct booking for flights. It also hit a few stumbles, such as when its first-ever CFO Willard (Bill) Smith, who joined in May of 2011 to help Kayak move towards an IPO, left the company for a competitor.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

After a period of unnerving quietness, the Apple rumor mill is back up and running at full capacity producing two somewhat credible rumors over the last 24 hours. The next iPhone will not be announced until October if the latest rumors are believed. A separate rumor is just so wild that it might be true: The iPhone 5, or whatever it’s to be called, will be made of LiquidMetal, which will allow for a unique unibody construction.

But again, these are just unfounded rumors. Please proceed with caution.

Gene Munster, analyst for Piper Jaffray, stated that chipmaker Qualcomm is gearing up to supply the LTE chipset. However, per Qualcomm’s CEO yesterday, unpredicted demand has caused supply issues. Munster believes this sets Apple up to launch the iPhone in October, conveniently a year after the iPhone 4S’ announcement.

Korea IT News recently reported that the iPhone 5 will be housed in a LiquidMetal casing. This material, an alloy of titanium, nickel, copper, zirconum and other metals, is said to have a feeling of glass despite having the physical strength of metal. The material is perfect for use in smartphones. It’s physically tough and naturally resistant to wear, scratches and dents.

However, unlike traditional metal fabrication, LiquidMetal objects can be formed with a sort of injection molding similar to plastic. This allows for a wider range of applications and physical forms — perhaps a stronger unibody casing.

Phone manufacturers have recently turned to different material to set their phones appart. Motorola used a bit of carbon fiber on the back of the RAZR phones and Samsung is said be employing ceramic for the upcoming Galaxy S III. But the benefits of LuquidMetal would set the iPhone 5 apart and Apple has the exclusive rights to the material for use in consumer electronics.

It’s safe to say that the next iPhone will be something different even if it doesn’t employ LiquidMetal. The current iPhone design has been used for nearly two years now and has had its share of problems. Even glass touted as tough as gorillas is a poor material for a phone. So sometime in the coming future, perhaps this summer or maybe in October, Apple will announce the sixth generation iPhone.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Envivio on Friday filed with the SEC for a $69 million IPO. The company, which was founded over a decade ago, has evolved from video encoding technology provider to a company that strives to make video content universally available on any device, any network, at the best possible quality.

In a statement, the San Francisco-based provider of on-demand IP video processing and delivery solutions notes that the number of shares to be offered, as well as the price range for the initial public offering of shares of its common stock, have not yet been determined.

Indeed, the proposed IPO price of $69 million is an estimate, which helps Envivio calculate the SEC registration fee. We’ll update as soon as we learn more.

Envivio says it currently works with 220 service and content providers for delivering an on-demand or live video service. For the 12 months ended January 31, 2011, the company booked just north of $30 million in sales, close to double the revenues logged the year before.

Net loss during fiscal year 2011 was $2.5 million, down from $9.2 million during fiscal year 2010.

Stifel Nicolaus Weisel and Piper Jaffray will be acting lead underwriters for Envivio’s IPO. The company plans to list on the NASDAQ under the symbol ENVI.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

It can be argued that Apple eventually dominates in every consumer electronic market it enters. I’m sure I don’t need to point out the history of iPod, iPhone, and iPad. They are market leaders. However, the one exception is with the Apple TV. It didn’t exactly flop, but the media streamer is far from the blockbuster hit of its iDevice brothers.

That may change once the rumored $99 iTV hits, but