Check out what our coworkers Papaya Mobile are up to in this post from VentureBeat/GamesBeat by Dean Takahashi

China-based maker of a mobile social networking platform for Android phones, now has more than 25 million users, up 940 percent since January 2010, the company said today.

More than 11 million paid transactions have been made using Papaya’s virtual currency, the Beijing-based company reported.

Those numbers suggest mobile app and game developers are starting to get traction on the Android platform. Papaya makes a mobile social network for game developers to use to help their games spread faster and become more social. It helps them make money by letting users buy virtual currency to spend on virtual items in games. Virtual goods have fueled huge companies on two fronts to date — in Asian social networks and on Facebook. Now the question is, can they fuel big mobile social game companies?

The Papaya network generates an average revenue per paying user (ARPPU) of $22.60 per month. On average, one in five users purchases Papaya’s virtual currency in social games that use the Papaya Game Engine, which is used to develop social mobile games. Those are pretty good figures, given that mobile users have historically paid less money for games than social gamers. Papaya said the ARPPU is more than $10 per month for social games that were built using the Papaya Game Engine. And popular titles earn more than $20,000 in revenue per month.

“We think, when it comes to monetization of mobile games, we have superior metrics,” said Paul Chen, head of developer relations at PapayaMobile. “We think that mobile games are gaining in momentum as an industry.”

And, get this, the top amount spent by a single user on the Papaya network is $4,440. Yes, somebody spent that much money for virtual goods in a game. That’s what you call engagement.

By region, China has shown the fastest growth in Papaya network user numbers, up 500 percent from January 2011. Europe is up 224 percent and the U.S. is up 222 percent. Users have sent 93 million messages across the Papaya network and have played more than 874 million game sessions. Chen said Papaya’s numbers are much better than estimated numbers rival Ngmoco has seen on the Android Market in the four weeks since it launched its Mobage mobile social network.

PapayaMobile was founded in 2008 and has 50 employees. Rivals include Gree/OpenFeint, DeNA/Ngmoco, and RIM/Scoreloop. PapayaMobile offers its own Game Engine software development kit as well as tools to make games more social with chat and leaderboard functions. It also has a monetization engine that helps games make money via offers and other means.

The company has raised $22 million to date from DCM and Keytone Ventures. Developers have integrated the Papaya Engine into 350 games.

Continuing on my coworking journey through Europe in August, (this proved to be a challenging month to find Europeans working in August), I had the pleasure of visiting COWORKLISBOA.

COWORKLISBOA was the very first coworking space in Portugal and opened its doors to the public in February 2010. Founder Fernando Mendes explains:

“I was working at home since 2002 and I was sick of it. Getting lazy and fat. Then, in 2008-2009 I started hearing about this new way of working [coworking], how it was quickly growing around the world, etc. I said to my wife “this is really what I’d love to do”. Working out of the house again and have people around me! For more than 10 years I was the head of design in several companies of the same group… At first we tried to find spaces around us or maybe downtown but we were getting nowhere with high rents or unsexy spaces. At this point, a friend working at LX Factory, told me about how it’d be great to have a coworking space at this old industrial venue. I sent a single email to the responsible and was surprised to get an appointment set for the same day. The rest is (now) history. We oponed COWORKLISBOA in one month”

The building where COWORKLISBOA is located in is truly unique. The LX factory was an industrial factory at the turn of the 20th century that was abandoned for years. Now it is a haven for creative minds, companies and individuals.

COWORKLISBOA’s community is a unique one. Their coworkers range from: TV producers to a nurse to website developers to a coworker who runs experiments on flies! And unlike the community here at pariSoma – the majority of coworkers have dedicated desks and a shared open space is rarely used. Another difference is that COWORKLISBOA is co-run. There is no dedicated team that solely works on the space, everyone has a separate project.

The space has an amazing feel and oozes with creativity. The walls are covered in murals, chalk board spaces, and interesting pieces of art. They share the floor with the likes of O’Neill and WeSC. Check out these photos that I snapped!

The welcome chalk board and lockers for coworkers.

Some of the art in the space.

The “Living Room” space for coworkers to relax.

Some of the dedicated desks – not too busy in August!

Loved the innovative seating! These fun colored seats were used throughout Lisbon – there’s a place for you to sit and a place for a tree to grow out of!

This was one of my favorite parts of the space – communal headphones. WeSC provided a head phone tree free for coworkers to use, as long as they returned them to the tree at the end of the day.

My sweet work space for the day. Thanks COWORKLISBOA I had a great time and we at pariSoma would love to have you visit us in San Francisco!

Cross-posted from faberNovel’s blog:

From Jason Cohen and others:

1. I built this software for myself, and then it turned out a million people wanted it exactly how I originally envisioned it.
2. I wish we had spent less time talking to prospective customers before designing interfaces and writing code.
3. Thanks to a software patent we filed, we never had a serious competitor.
4. Our most effective marketing campaigns where the ones filled with buzzwords and non-specific claims.
5. I wish I had spent more time reading and weighing the pros and cons of various philosophies instead of just jumping in and doing what I thought was morally and financially sensible.
6. Those arguments about the name, logo, and design color were critical to our eventual success with Enterprise customers! (CliffElam)
7. I learned everything I needed to know about starting and running a successful business by reading blogs. (anactofgod)
8. I new exactly what I was doing when I started so I didn’t have to learn anything along the way. (Alisa)
9. I am glad we interviewed customers and did not move forward with our product until we got 40+ people to tell us they will buy our product when launched! (Ricardo D. Sanchez)
10. Everyone I spoke to about starting the business agreed that it was a good idea. (Max)

Sources: Jason Cohen, 10 things I’ve never heard a successful startup founder say

At pariSoma, we continue expanding our education series. This week we’d like to highlight our classes that will take place on a Tuesday during August and September. Sign up for these classes before they get filled out!

Where Is Everyone?!: The Remote Project Manager’s Arsenal: Aug 9: (Education @pariSoma) Specifically designed with the remote project manager in mind, this class will cover tips that go beyond watercooler politics and planning agendas. Methods will be applicable to MiF-carrying PM’s and jetsetting entrepreneurs, to office bees who occasionally work from home… or anyone who has to work with other humans.

Get the most out of your Business with Google Apps!: Sept 6: (Education @pariSoma) For all those startups or small companies under a budget who have not yet made their jump to Google, now is the time! If your enterprise has less than ten employees, you can make use of Google Apps' FREE version for your messaging, scheduling and document management business needs. In this course, you will learn how to understand and bring about Google Apps' potential.

How to Create YouTube Videos that Sell!: Sept 20: (Education @pariSoma) With YouTube being the #2 search engine on Google, videos are a golden opportunity to get exposure for your brand or product.  Unfortunately, many people are going about it in the wrong way, which leaves them with a lot of videos that no one wants to watch. In this workshop you will learn the essential ingredients for making videos and get the chance to practice visual storytelling so that viewers want to share, engage and retell your message.

Interested in teaching a course at pariSoma? We’d love to have you – just let us know.

Juniper Research has released a report suggesting that annual smartphone shipments will triple by the year 2016. They estimate that smartphones will overtake feature phones and reach one billion shipments every year. Competition in the smartphone market is intense and Juniper expects a price war leading to $150 budget smartphones. The report suggests that the price drop will be largely due to ease of development on open-source OS’ especially android and falling costs of key components.

• Smartphone market to increase 230% in 5 years.
• New competitors likely to develop economy smart phones.
• Demand for higher-end phones to remain robust due to new features.

Source: Juniper Research Press Release

Consumer Reports announced that consumers are not as excited about near-field communications payments as the tech industry paints them to be, and apparently, nor should they be. The report highlights a number of challenges presented by using cell phones and digital wallets in lieu of traditional cards. Of consumers polled, only 5% have used their phones to pay for something in the last month, perhaps understandably low considering the age of the technology, however of those who have used it one in four faced significant transaction errors. While a usability gap remains between digital wallets and traditional cards, analysts at Juniper research still believe that the mobile payments market will triple to $670B.

• Problems remain with transaction errors, security and fees.
• Consumers reluctant to switch from established payment methods.
• Optimism about growth as technology spreads.

Source: GigaOM – Consumers need to be sold on the benefits of mobile payments

In the face of an uncertain economy, media executives are optimistically betting that now is the time to invest, particularly in digital revenues. 94% of media executives polled by KPMG said that they believed digital revenues would increase over the next year, most of them agreed that traditional revenues would also rise. Leaner companies and ever increasing adoption rates of interactive technologies are setting the energetic tone for media and communications companies, who are seeking to expanded further into the digital market.

• Mobile commerce expected to have the biggest impact.
• 70% of executives believe their company will be involved with a merger or acquisition in the next year.
• However less optimism about increasing company head counts over the next year.

Source: VentureBeat – Media executives see digital revenues on the rise

This week I had the pleasure of visiting the first coworking space in Lille, France: CoworkingLille.

CoworkingLille was started in February of 2011 (they’re brand new to the scene!) by two people looking to create and work in a more collaborative and flexible environment. They started a group of about 10 people who met regularly and then decided to start an actual space.

Today the space is co-run by the original 10 coworkers and hosts around 40 coworkers throughout the month! During lunch time the space hosts mini-barcamps and have 3-4 larger events planned for September. I had the pleasure of meeting 4 of the 10 co-runners and each one emphasized one thing: we are a very close knit community that is still under construction. The group hopes to continue to build a larger community in an area that really doesn’t have many options for shared work space.

Xavier Coiffard tells me, “Lille used to be a very industrial city – but that’s changing now. We have more and more freelancers and people working in tech. We want to offer these people a place to work and share their ideas just like you do in San Francisco”.

CoworkingLille definitely has potential to grow. The sun-filled space (when it’s sunny in Lille) is an ideal work space. There are plenty of open desks, a loft complete with bean bags, desks, coffee tables and sky lights. So thanks CoworkingLille I had a great time visiting your space and trying out some Belgian Beer!

The open space.

The view from the loft.

The sun-filled loft space

And just steps away from CoworkingLille – pariSoma visits La Grande Place.

Thanks CoworkingLille – I had a great time!

Next up on the list – Rome and Florence. Any coworking spaces interested in a visit from pariSoma? Email me: Stephanie@parisoma.com

Are you a remote worker like I am? Don’t miss out on Education @pariSoma, the next class is just for you!

Where is Everyone?! The Remote Project Manager’s Arsenal

Taught by: Patti Chan

Date & Time: Tuesday Aug 9 @6:00pm