Tingz has more or less been on hold for the better part of 2009. After announcing at TechCrunch50 in September 2008, we garnered some serious publicity and interest in our product vision and approach. We spent the fourth quarter of 2008 attempting to raise our next round of investment capital, but the global economic collapse complicated matters. While we had some offers, the terms were not acceptable. So we took a wait-and-see-approach instead.
This has proven to be advantageous. The landscape for device-based applications has changed dramatically. The iTunes App Store has exploded in popularity, and Android is gaining momentum. New TV models with Internet apps are on the market, and more TVs and other devices are on the way. Rumors about an Apple tablet are so strong that an announcement appears to be coming in January. Those who have followed us from our earliest days know that Tingz was originally named Modern Sprocket, a company that set out to build an Internet tablet with a dead-simple user interface and modular apps, or widgets. Our original plan was developed about 9 months before the iPhone was announced.
The decision to sit on the sidelines has been difficult, but has proven correct. We have recently developed a new strategy for compelling applications that require far less capital to launch. The first of these will be ready in the first quarter of 2010. While we are putting the finishing touches on it and our broader strategy, we’ll be repositioning Tingz as an app company. We expect great things in 2010.
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