Mobile component marketplace (and Disrupt finalist) Verious is announcing the launch of its App Services platform and Mobile Developer Network today, as well as a number of new partnerships. With the new platform, the company is introducing several pre-built software modules created with APIs from its new partners, which can be used by app developers in their mobile applications.
This platform includes components from partners like CityGrid Media, The Sports Network and Weather Decision Technologies, whose data has been included in the software components.
According to Verious CEO Anil Pereira, the moves represent Verious’ evolution into supporting enterprises and service providers targeting mobile as a growth area.
“After our launch out of beta, we received a ton of interest from larger companies–everyone is trying to crack the mobile opportunity,” Pereira explains. “So we started to focus on ‘supply’ from larger companies while still keeping the ‘demand’ and distribution side of the equation focused on the broader universe of mobile developers (the independent ‘app store’ developers as well as enterprise developers at larger companies). Add to this the millions of web developers that are going mobile and you have a pretty big demand side,” he says.
The first new components being introduced today include Local Search and Branded Store Locators, both built using CityGrid’s APIs, Sports News (from The Sports Network), and Weather Conditions and Forecasts (from Weather Decision Technologies).
Like mobile backend services, the idea in providing these modules is to help developers speed time to market by providing bits of commonly-used software code, so they don’t have to write their own.
For developers attempting to build cross-platform applications, time saved is maybe one of the biggest benefits in using pre-built code. Had they wanted to build similar modules themselves, Pereira explains, a lot more work would be involved:
“A developer would first need to understand the schema, figure out how to parse a feed, then write code to handle it, integrate it into an app, display it appropriately, etc. And for each mobile platform, they would need to create separate libraries (Objective-C for iOS, Java for Android, etc.),” he says. “Each Rich API component represents thousands of lines of code, months of development effort in some cases, plus putting together the business side of things.”
All of the modules are being made available to developers as free trials, which can later be licensed either on an annual or lifetime basis, if the developer chooses.
The announcement coincides with Verious’ other big news: the arrival of its Mobile Developer Network. Launched in partnership with iStockPhoto, iPhoneDevSDK.com, Conference Hound, Wireless Industry Partnership Connector and others in the mobile community space, the network allows app component sellers who list their software on Verious to target a larger audience through a syndicated network of websites, forums, as well as through relationships with direct e-marketers and conference organizers.
This network provides developers selling on Verious the opportunity to reach a larger audience than they would if only relying on website visitors to Verious’ marketplace. The agreement allows Verious to market its components, SDKs and other listings on the partners’ sites, and also includes co-marketing agreements where it can feature listings, promote sellers in e-newsletters, etc.
The company tells us that the combined reach of the network is over 1 million mobile developers at launch, including 500,000 combined in e-newsletters. These are outlets that focus on iOS, Android, and HTML5, Pereira says, and the company expects to reach 3 million developers by the end of Q2.
All the new features are rolling out starting today, including an updated homepage which now houses over 30,000 app components.