There’s little doubt that Apple’s App Store for its iPhone has been a success. The store opened in July, when it sold 10 million applications, and in October had reached 200 million applications sold. No wonder the mobile application and media company Zumobi chose the iPhone store to launch its latest application focused on social communities.
Zumobi’s application, actually more of a service platform, is called Ziibii, which co-founder John SanGiovanni says means “river” in a native American language. That reference describes the appearance of Ziibii on the iPhone, which looks like a flowing river filled with images of rafts or boats floating by. The rafts are icons that link to updated content from Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube as well as user-defined Web feeds.
The rafts also can be viewed in a list on the iPhone’s screen, but the moving icons have a nice visual effect and a “wow” factor for those who like to show off what their iPhone can do. Tapping on the raft with a finger opens up the link to read a headline or see a photo.
Ziibii, which is free, launched recently on the App Store. SanGiovanni said Zumobi also is considering the service for other smartphone operating systems like Windows Mobile and BlackBerry. The company’s Zumobi Network of applications already runs on those two platforms, with widget-like applications for content from National Public Radio, Major League Baseball, Facebook, Twitter and the NFL. Support for Android phones also are planned.
SanGiovanni said Zumobi felt there was a “glaring omission” in the iPhone’s App Store because all the social networking sites were in separate silos. People with multiple accounts had to close one site before logging into the other. Ziibii allows access to all the sites continuously.
Zumobi plans on monetizing Ziibii and other elements of its network through mobile advertising and marketing.
Filed Under: Infrastructure