This is a test post for My Review plugin.
My Review test post
Monday, March 29th, 2010Welcome Chris!
Friday, January 8th, 2010We’re pleased to announce the newest addition to the Zeebu team: Chris Saunders will be joining the development staff, working on apps for Android (yes, we’ve heard all your requests) and lots of other cool stuff. Stay tuned!
Give my BlackBerry to my kid?
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009When I tell people what Zeebu does – we make BlackBerry apps for little kids – the response is sometimes skeptical. I can understand that – BlackBerry devices weren’t exactly designed for kids, but they actually end up making pretty good devices for kids to play with:
- You always have your BlackBerry with you (at least out of the house) – so it’s at hand for when you’ve forgotten to bring any other toys – or your child has decided that they’re bored with everything else
- A BlackBerry smartphone is actually pretty durable – you can drop it from a couple of feet off the ground (the height of the average 2 year old) and it won’t really hurt anything. Would you feel comfortable doing that with your laptop?
- Unlike a laptop, or a TV, your child can walk around while they’re playing with a BlackBerry so they don’t have to sit in one place for a long time – difficult for smaller kids, and maybe unhealthy for bigger ones
- It’s a small device, with small keys, which fits well in small hands
- BlackBerry is already mommy/daddy’s toy, so kids seem to naturally want to play with it anyway – our apps at least give you some peace of mind that they’re not going to email your CEO or make a phone call halfway around the world, and that they’re seeing content designed with them in mind
- We’ve heard that having an interactive app on your device makes it a lot less likely that your little one will try to put it in her mouth. If it does fun stuff when you press the keys, then you’ll keep pressing those keys and not want to snack on it.
Now to be fair, most people seem to get it right away, but for those who are a bit unsure, hopefully some of these points were helpful!
The ultimate compliment
Monday, November 16th, 2009So, for more than 8 months, the Zeebu Mobile team has been working hard to solidify vision, product, relationships. All the necessary activities required of a small technology startup. It’s been almost 3 months since we launched our first product BabyGO! and are about to launch Super BabyGO! in the next few days. I’ve poured over download statistics from Google and AppWorld, read and re-read the hundreds of emails we receive from users thanking us or requesting new functionality. In all, very satisfying as a co-founder to see our efforts appreciated.
For all the data that says we have provided value to thousands of BabyGO! users, it took one moment this past weekend to confirm Zeebu Mobile has an important place to play in this new mobile market. I was on a flight back to Ottawa from San Francisco. The flight was packed as usual and just over from my row, not more than 5 seats away (it was a Boeing 777), a little boy, not more than 2 1/2 was being strapped into his seat and he wasn’t happy. As you can imagine, what came next is an all too familiar occurence on today’s commercial airlines. He cried, everyone else tried to ignore him. I can’t tell but it felt like he was crying for about an hour (it was probably no more than 10 minutes). I had resolved myself that if he didn’t stop crying soon, I would throw my BlackBerry over to his parents with BabyGO! running. I didn’t have to.
The man behind this family leaned forward with his BlackBerry, demonstrated BabyGO! to the unknowing parents, and within 30 seconds, the little boy was happily playing BabyGO!. The look on the parents face was gold, joy and relief. BabyGO! was enough of a distraction that the little boy calmed down and eventually fell asleep. Once we landed, I made sure to position myself behind the parents as we de-planed in hopes that I would hear something positive about BabyGO!. No sooner than we entered the terminal, the father turns on his BlackBerry and immediately downloaded BabyGO!. I heard his wife make a comment “this game needs to be on every BlackBerry sold to parents”. The ultimate compliment, I’m done. To celebrate, I headed to the lounge for a celebratory beer.
