Inside the App Economy

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Enter Yahoo

The company is out to become the go-to place for applications

Yahoo! (YHOO) has big plans for apps. While Apple may have started the app phenomenon by letting developers create programs for the iPhone, Yahoo wants to be the company that brings apps to the wider world.

In the company's most ambitious app effort to date, Yahoo is redesigning its home page to include applications from outside developers. As the changes roll out through November, the apps will be listed along the left-hand side of the Yahoo.com page, used by more than 300 million people each month. Visitors can customize their own home pages, selecting the apps they want. Then they can check the day's headlines from USA Today or bid for an item on eBay (EBAY) without leaving the Yahoo site.

Yahoo will make money from advertising embedded within the apps. It's also considering launching its own app store, similar to Apple's, in which case it could charge for applications and split revenues with developers.

This is only one of the app frontiers Yahoo is exploring. The company has developed software for televisions that lets people launch applications such as Twitter and Facebook on the TV screen while watching their favorite shows. Another new technology allows people to tap into apps directly as they use Yahoo! Mail. Wherever people are, Yahoo wants to "summon up a gallery of all the possible things you could do," says Prabhakar Raghavan, head of Yahoo's research division. "Here are 50 million things you could do—book a ticket, upload a picture. Everything's an app."

Yahoo's home page strategy is getting some traction. Dozens of software developers have signed up and landed their programs in the "App Gallery," a menu from which users can pick and choose their favorite free programs. Carrie Cronkey, the director of business development at personal finance site Mint.com, says people are more likely to join Mint if they're referred by Yahoo because it implies a level of security. "The fact that [your app] is on Yahoo makes you more credible," she says.

For Yahoo, the real payoff from sprinkling apps into TVs and its home page comes in the form of data. By tracking which apps people use and how they interact with them, the company is building on its ability to serve targeted ads. That may help the company compete for ad revenues against rivals such as Google (GOOG). "Apps can play a big role in understanding user behavior," says Raghavan.

Gold Rush?

Money is flowing into apps as smartphones reshape the tech world

When Bart Decrem went looking for office space in the spring of 2008 for his startup, Tapulous, Jeff Clavier opened his door. Clavier, the founder of venture capital firm SoftTech VC, saw enormous potential in the Tapulous software that would run on Apple's iPhone. So he let Decrem use some space in the firm's Palo Alto (Calif.) digs and made an investment in his company.

Eighteen months later, Clavier's support of Tapulous looks like it may be one of his best investments ever. The company's Tap Tap Revenge app, in which players tap on-screen balls in sync to the beats of a song, has become a breakout hit. The game and its multiple spin-offs have been downloaded more than 15 million times. Tapulous, which makes money from game sales, advertising in the game, and the sale of in-game avatars, has been profitable since this summer, a speedy accomplishment for a tech startup.

The investment has convinced Clavier there is loads of potential for venture capital investments in mobile applications. At last count, consumers had downloaded 2 billion programs from Apple's App Store, and that's just one place among several where people get apps. Clavier believes app startups could become billion-dollar outfits that rival traditional game and software companies. "The revenues of these companies will become substantial," he says. "There will be publishers that become large brand names."

"We See Huge Markets"
The torrid growth has attracted money from other high-profile investors. Last March, Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, one of the Valley's marquee venture capitalists, launched a $100 million investment fund specifically to back startups creating software applications for the iPhone. Last October, Research In Motion (RIMM) unveiled a $150 million venture fund, with investments from Thomson Reuters (TRI) and RBC Venture Partners, to develop apps and services for its BlackBerry and other phones. And this October, U.S. mobile operator Verizon Wireless (VZ) announced an initiative to invest up to $1.3 billion in wireless applications and related technologies. "We see huge markets and game-changing opportunities," says Kevin Talbot, co-managing partner of the BlackBerry Partners Fund.

Of course, investors don't need a dedicated fund to participate. Firms such as Union Square Ventures, O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, and XG Ventures are devoting an increasing amount of time and money to financing wireless apps. "Most of the deals we see are in the mobile arena," says Andrea Zurek, co-founder of XG Ventures, a new VC firm of former Google (GOOG) executives.

The money flowing into apps is inspired by the belief that smartphones and other portable devices are transforming the tech world. The growth of mobile computing is sparking a renaissance in software development. Gaming apps are the most popular programs right now, but mobile shopping, content, social media, communications, and productivity tools are attracting increasing amounts of capital. "We don't think this is slowing down anytime soon," says Matt Murphy, the partner at Kleiner Perkins running the fund dedicated to Apple-related investments. (View an interview with Murphy here).

Douglas MacMillan is a staff writer for Bloomberg BusinessWeek in New York. Burrows is a senior writer for Bloomberg BusinessWeek, based in San Francisco. Ante is an associate editor for BusinessWeek.

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