Thrillist reveals that 45% of its revenue comes from JackThreads iPhone app

This week at the developer and startup-centric F.ounders conference, Thrillist CEO Ben Lerer has announced that his company’s JackThreads iPhone app is responsible for 45% of their overall revenue. This statistic was part of the CEO’s talk about how a modern mobile-centric strategy for a company such as Thrillist can be – and is – the best way to go. Lerer also mentioned that the company only very recently switched over to a “mobile-first” strategy in the past few months.

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The shift Lerer mentions for the company he works with is, as he says, occurring in “real time.” This company stared with a small email newsletter – being email-centric at the start, obviously, and has now quite recently announced that it generates over $40 million USD in revenue a year. Editorial content is now offered by the company through two brands: JackThreads and Thrillist Rewards.

According to Lerer, the JackThreads iPhone app is now king – a surprise hit, as it were. Before very recently, the company leaned more toward “web-first” or “email-first” strategies, but seeing the power of mobile in the JackThreads iPhone app, the company made a push for “mobile-first”, and it’s payed off in a big way.

“Our mobile-first strategy is a reaction to success we were seeing — we didn’t lean into a hot buzzword. We were web-first or email-first or not-mobile-first for a very long time, and over the past several months — and it has been this recent — we’ve seen such a shift in audience behaviors that instead of playing catchup, we decided we should be first movers in mobile.” – Thrillist CEO Ben Lerer

Lerer also mentioned that the Android app version of JackThreads was not quite doing the same business as the iOS iteration, noting that though the Android experience is “not as robust” as the experience they’ve got on iPhone, they’ve never seen the same sort of conversions. The two were not (and still aren’t) comparable to one another, noted Lerer. He did mention, on the other hand, that they’d be delivering an iPad-specific version of JackThreads soon.

So though it’s not universal, working with iOS primarily in this case, the way Thrillist does business has been pushed directly toward the mobile environment primarily – and they’re seeing things take off in a big way.

Let us know if you’ve seen any companies doing heavy business in the mobile environment where they’d previously had good – but not monumental – success elsewhere before. We’ll be watching!

[via VentureBeat]


Thrillist reveals that 45% of its revenue comes from JackThreads iPhone app is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

SlashGear 101: The Samsung Exynos 5 Octa Processor

When you’re getting to know the 8 CPU cores of the Samsung Exynos 5 Octa SoC, you’ll first want to understand that they absolutely do not work the same way as multi-core mobile processors have in the past. While the Exynos 5 Octa does have 8 CPU cores, they’re never being used all at once. Instead you’ve got 2 distinct pairs of 4 CPU cores, four of them “big”, the other four “LITTLE”. The Exynos 5 Octa SoC works with what’s called big.LITTLE architecture, this term coming from the British processor company ARM.

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Inside the Samsung Exynos 5 Octa processor you’ll find two sets of CPU cores, both of them made with ARM technology. There are four Cortex-A15 CPU cores as well as four Cortex-A7 processor. The Cortex-A15 processors take care of processing-intense (read: “big”) tasks while the Cortex-A7 cores take care of lighter (LITTLE) workloads. That’s two sets of four cores that are never all being used on the same task at once.

What you’re about to see is a chart showing in a very basic way how big.LITTLE technology works with the Cortex-A15 and Cortex-A7 CPU units working together.

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According to Samsung, the Exynos 5 Octa will be enhancing the 3D graphics processing capabilities by a factor of two – or more – over that of the Exynos 4 Quad processor. That processor was found in devices such as the Samsung Galaxy Note II, the Galaxy S III (international edition), and the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1.

The company has also noted that the Exynos 5 Octa is able to drive devices with displays as large as WQXGA (2560×1600) pixels sharp. Devices with this dense a display have not yet hit the market at the time of this article’s publication – but we may see beasts like this inside the next year. Perhaps on the Samsung Galaxy S 5. The Exynos 5 Octa works with e-MMC (embedded multimedia card) 5.0 as well, and works with a USB 3.0 interface for the “first time in the industry” according to Samsung.

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With the Exynos 5 Octa you’ve got incorporation of a full HD 60fps (frame per second) video hardware codec engine made powerful enough for 1080p video recording and playback. Also included is a 13 mega-pixel 30fps image signal processor interface as well as a 12.8GB/s memory bandwidth interface that enables use of a Full HD Wifi display.

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Samsung has today let the world know that the Exynos 5 Octa application processor will be going into mass-production in Q2 of 2013. They’ve made it clear that this processor architecture will be made specifically for high-end mobile devices and – at the time of the publication of this article – the first release of the Exynos 5 Octa will be inside the Samsung GALAXY S 4.

Have a peek at our hands-on with the Samsung GALAXY S 4 now and stick around the Samsung GALAXY S 4 tag portal for more information leading up to (and through) the final market release of this smartphone.


SlashGear 101: The Samsung Exynos 5 Octa Processor is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The Samsung Galaxy S4 Is Completely Amazing and Utterly Boring

The Samsung Galaxy S4 Is Completely Amazing and Utterly Boring

Did you see Samsung’s theater of the absurd yesterday? No? Good for you. It unleashed a pale imitation of a Broadway show to roll out its amazing new flagship, the Galaxy S4. There’s a reason Samsung felt the need to …

Qualcomm confirms Snapdragon 600 for Samsung GALAXY S 4

Though the details were a bit less than solid in the official Samsung releases over the past 24 hours, today Qualcomm has confirmed that the GALAXY S 4 will indeed be carrying the all-powerful Snapdragon 600 quad-core processor onboard. This processor is the same motor that runs the HTC One and the LG Optimus G Pro, devices you may have seen SlashGear work with before. This detail adds to the ever-growing list of specifications that the GALAXY S 4 has the same as one of its biggest competitors in the HTC One, and should prove to create an interesting set of benchmarks for comparisons between the two.

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The Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 is one of two monstrously powerful quad-core processors the company has revealed this year alone. The other is the Snapdragon 800, a System-on-Chip that’s only thus far been revealed to be carried by the ZTE Grand Memo, a device whose USA release schedule is still not quite solidified. You’ll find more information on the Snapdragon 800′s implementation on the ZTE Grand Memo in our Mobile World Congress 2013 report.

The Snapdragon 600 and 800 were revealed back in the first week of 2013 in a full report detailing how they’ll be appearing on smartphones (and perhaps tablets) throughout the year. As in previous iterations of the Snapdragon SoC, image processing continues to be a high point – have a peek at our LG Optimsu G Pro Photo Tour from Barcelona during Mobile World Congress 2013 as well for a view of how well the device does with the big Q under the hood.

As for the Samsung GALAXY S 4, the Snapdragon 600 will be appearing with a fantastically large performance increase over its predecessors. Compared to the Snapdragon S4 Pro, Qualcomm says the Snapdragon 600 offers a whopping 40% performance increase – the previous Galaxy smartphone had the Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor, a step below the S4 Pro, so you can imagine this GALAXY S 4 will be delivering quite the beastly bump compared to last year.

“ The Snapdragon 600 processor helps consumers do more on their mobile devices, providing seamless app switching, high-speed Web browsing, email connectivity, GPS, multimedia, fast gaming, social networking and 4G/LTE connectivity.” – Qualcomm

As it was with the Samsung Galaxy S III, this GALAXY S 4 model will be coming out with different processors in different regions. Inside the USA you’ll be seeing the Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 quad-core processor while in most (if not all) regions outside the states you’ll find the Samsung Exynos “Octa” processor with 8 CPU cores (4 active, 4 backup). We’ll be interested to see how these two builds compare to one another once they’re both out on the market without a doubt!

Have a peek at the timeline below to see additional insight on the release of the Samsung GALAXY S 4 as well as a set of hands-on experiences and comparisons to other recent smartphone hero models. Stay tuned for more on Qualcomm as well in our fabulous Qualcomm tag portal, too!


Qualcomm confirms Snapdragon 600 for Samsung GALAXY S 4 is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Samsung GALAXY S 4 unveiling video out now: watch Broadway madness in full!

This week the Samsung GALAXY S 4 was revealed in New York City at the legendary Radio City Music Hall with a barrage of Broadway stars playing roles to show the life-friendly features of the new device. If you’re all about the Broadway-way of presenting a story, this epic set of oddities will be right up your alley – Fosse style go! Of course, on the other hand, if you’ve been to or watched the majority of the press event keynotes from mobile market presenters over the past couple of years and love the Apple way of doing things (rather simple), you’ll find yourself baffled by the intensity.

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From start to finish, this presentation by Samsung is at once a now-classic “Unpacked” presentation of company wares and an utterly fanciful mishmash of dance moves and singing. WIth the Samsung GALAXY S 4 the company has presented a set of four everyday life enhancing pillars that we’ve also outlined for you in four distinct articles. Peruse those beasts in the timeline below while you hear the New York-style wildness here and now.

The Samsung GALAXY S 4 has taken the company to a place where they’ve decided to rely on a winning hardware design while moving forward with software features galore. If you’re familiar with the Samsung Galaxy S III, you know that the nature-inspired hardware has been appearing in Galaxy devices across the board ever since the smartphone launched last year. In the success of that device and subsequent Note devices, Samsung has stayed strong with brand-specific software connections such as Group Share and S-Beam, not to mention ChatON and note-taking apps galore.

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That little weird kid was there too – don’t forget him! After you’ve seen the video, have a peek at the timeline below for all the information and hands-on action you could possibly handle from the Samsung GALAXY S 4 – and get pumped up for the full review coming on sooner than later!


Samsung GALAXY S 4 unveiling video out now: watch Broadway madness in full! is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

7digital to drive the Galaxy S 4’s Music Hub, ship on 100 million phones in 2013

7digital to drive the Galaxy S 4's Music Hub, ship on 100 million phones this year

If you’ve shopped at Samsung’s Music Hub, there’s a good chance that you’ve used 7digital’s music services at some point: it’s been involved in supplying songs for the past two generations of Galaxy flagships. That influence is carrying on to the Galaxy S 4, where 7digital will handle the Music Hub’s storefront and purchased track streaming. While the deal doesn’t represent a radical break for either side, it does give Samsung some odd bedfellows this time around — 7digital is also operating music stores for BlackBerry 10 and Ubuntu One, and its apps have regularly surfaced on HTC devices and various Windows Phone models. Ultimately, 7digital expects its music shopping backbone to reside on more than 100 million smartphones before 2013 is over and done. That’s no mean feat when the limelight often falls on music service rivals that insist on putting their names front and center, such as Amazon, Apple or Spotify.

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Via: The Next Web

Source: 7digital

HTC declares war on Samsung: GALAXY S 4 is “more of the same”

This week the Samsung release of the GALAXY S 4 saw HTC summoning up their best set of retaliation words to go into direct battle with the hero phone, saying the HTC One should, by all means, eat its competition’s lunch. A comment has come through today from no less than HTC’s chief marketing officer Benjamin Ho regarding the GALAXY S 4, the HTC One, and consumer’s decision between the two. It should be clear at this point that HTC isn’t afraid to claim their 2013 hero is ready to beat down even the loftiest of releases – Broadway dances and singing and all.

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If you’ll have a peek at our hands-on with the Samsung GALAXY S 4 and our review of the HTC One, you’ll be able to see how the build quality may, at first, appear to be lacking in the Samsung presentation. HTC is going to have a relatively easy time claiming the idea that a whole heck of a lot more metal in their casing will prove a more premium experience for all. Per HTC’s Marketing officer, the following is true:

“With a continuation of a plastic body and a larger screen being the most obvious physical change, Samsung’s new Galaxy pales in comparison to the all-aluminium unibody HTC One. This is more of the same.

HTC remains the best option for those people looking for the best technology wrapped in premium design. Our customers want something different from the mainstream, who appear to be the target for the Galaxy. Our customers want original cutting-edge technology, mouth-watering design and a premium feel from their mobiles, which is why we created the HTC One.” – Benjamin Ho, HTC’s Chief Marketing Officer

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Feel free to take a peek at our article on the Samsung GALAXY S 4 vs the HTC One as well. Specifications on both devices are extremely similar, while the software experience is a whole different story from one to the next. We’ll also have a review of the Samsung GALAXY S 4 sooner than later too – just you wait!


HTC declares war on Samsung: GALAXY S 4 is “more of the same” is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

iPhone “budget” model tipped with plastic and 4-inch Retina display

If you’ve seen the Samsung GALAXY S 4 and have decided that you’re not all about it, feeling more like an iPhone 5 this upcoming summer, you may be in some budget-friendly luck. A next-generation slightly less expensive model of the iPhone 5 has been predicted by the historically surprisingly accurate analyst prediction skills of Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities, complete with 4-inch Retina display. This device has, according to Kuo, been on the books since 2011, before the iPhone 5 was even shown for the first time.

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This new model will appeal to the iPhone prospective buyers of all types with a cost that’s well below the regular top-tier for the iPhone 5 – or the model that’ll be released right alongside the new budget unit. The top-tier unit will likely be named iPhone 5S per the release trend followed by Apple over the past several years with the iPhone 4S and iPhone 3GS. This top-tier release will have many of the same specifications that the iPhone 5 had, with some boosts to place space between it and the iPhone 5 – and the budget iPhone 5 model too.

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Kuo also mentioned the possibility of a “super-thin plastic casing mixed with glass fiber” for a unique take on the plastic-backed universe out there today. With the new Samsung GALAXY S 4 release continuing to roll out with a plastic similar to the Samsung Galaxy S III, Apple may be keen to capitalize on buyers willingness to purchase smartphones with less-than-metal backs.

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While Kuo doesn’t predict the actual cost of the device that’ll be revealed later this year, he does suggest that this iPhone 5 follow-up will come in a variety of colors. Could it be time to create an iPod touch-like iPhone at last? Rainbow-colors for all!

[via Apple Insider]


iPhone “budget” model tipped with plastic and 4-inch Retina display is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

BLU Life Series phones include quad-core CPU, Android 4.2, start at $229 unlocked

Blu Life Series phones include quadcore CPU, Android 42, start at $229 unlocked

Coming this April, BLU Products will have three new smartphones vying for your hard-earned dollar. The trio of dual-SIM handsets, known as the Life View, Life One and Life Play, will be sold unlocked on Amazon and will range in price between $229 and $299. As a nice touch, Android 4.2 will be common among the bunch, as will backside-illuminated sensors on the cameras and the quad-core, 1.2GHz MediaTek MT6589 (Cortex A7) SoC. Likewise, each smartphone will also feature an HD IPS display.

The Life View ($299), the largest of the bunch, includes a massive 5.7-inch display, a 12-megapixel rear / 5-megapixel front camera, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of expandable storage and a 2,600mAh battery. Meanwhile, the more reasonably sized Life One ($299) includes a 5-inch display, a 13-megapixel rear / 5-megapixel front camera, similar storage specs and a 2,000mAh battery. Lastly, the sleekest of the three, the Life Play ($229), includes a 4.7-inch display and measures 7.9mm thick. Here, you can expect to find an 8-megapixel rear / 2-megapixel front camera, 1GB of RAM, 4GB of expandable storage and an 1,800mAh battery. You’ll find the band support for each of the three phones in the PR after the break, but needless to say, you’ll be safe on AT&T (and in many areas, T-Mobile).

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Foursquare for Android now greets newcomers, says what’s fresh for locals

Foursquare for Android now says which places are new or hot where you are

Foursquare gave more adventurous iOS users an updated Explore section at the start of the month that, among many other things, better highlighted either just-opened locations or the hottest places to be. It’s the Android crowd’s turn to check out new scenes: their updated Foursquare app will tell a traveler what sights and sounds are worth catching when visiting a new location, and better emphasizes what’s new for anyone on familiar turf. If you’re a tourist worried about fitting in like a local, or just want to check out a fresh location before it’s ruined by popularity, hit the Google Play link at the source.

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Via: Foursquare Blog

Source: Google Play