First Quarter Results for Nokia

It is a good start for Nokia this year in terms of their sales.  This was the main result of Nokia’s report covering the first quarter.

Known as one of the biggest manufacturers of mobile phones, Nokia may have seen a great increase in their sales. Unfortunately, the prediction was there will be a decline in the company’s profit in approximately 1.4 percent.   In terms of figures, it was found out that the company earned an estimated 344 million Euros worth of net income.  It is lower when compared to the income of the company last year which was 349 million Euros.

On the other hand, the company was said to have increased the rate of their sales. This year’s sales report was recorded to be 10.4 billion Euros.  It is higher by 9.2 percent compared to last year.

One of the contributors of the increase in their sales is though their smart phone which was up by 6 %.

Facebook Now Owns Snaptu

The social media world was surprised because of the latest Facebook purchase, Snaptu.  Initial reports provide that the social networking giant purchased Snaptu for $60-70 million. However, there are also subsequent reports that Facebook closed the deal for only $40 million.

The interest of Facebook in mobile application was first seen when they launched their own version of the application. The launch was aimed in providing users a way to access Facebook using their feature phones.  With 2,500 devices available for mobile phones, Facebook developers see that there is still room for improvement for their applications.

Snaptu then decided that it will be best to advance their interest by collaborating with the Facebook team. They can reach greater heights with the social media giant as millions and millions of users would want to get hands on the site just by using their mobile phones.  They intend to reach out with their audience using their great innovations and adding more features.

Prior to the acquisition, a similar deal was also consummated with LinkedIn.  LinkedIn joined other applications such as Twitter and Picasa as Snaptu applications.

Snaptu has come a long way since 2007.  The company was identified to be based in London where they operate in offices namely Tel Aviv and Silicon Valley.

PapayaMobile Gets into Farming

PapayaMobile, a mobile game developer, launches Papaya Farm.  This game makes use of platforms similar to OpenFeint.  The use of such platform makes it convenient for the developers to use plug and play technology. At the same time, it will also allow social gaming elements to be used with iOS and other Android games.

Papaya Farm takes its idea from a popular game in Facebook called Farmville.  However, this is released for iPhone and iPad.  The game was previously released for iPhones in 2009.  It was then taken out and made available in Android.

The concept of the game, as mentioned earlier, follows that of Farmville. The idea is to have a virtual farm that needs to be managed by the player. This means that there must be plowing, planting and harvesting of crops on a regular basis. Plants, trees, crops, animals and all other farm items will require attention from the player.

During the beginning of the game, a player is provided with an empty farm. Also, “Papayas” are used as the currency in the game.  The player is given a certain amount of Papayas to get things started.  The Papayas are not just used in Papaya Farm.  It can also be used with other social games developed by PapayaMobile such as PapayaFish.