Seattle Firms iLike, PopCap, Evri, and Zumobi Partner with Apple—an iPhone Update

It’s hard to keep up with the flood of new iPhone applications these days, but a few Seattle-based companies warrant a mention here for their recent news. Especially coming on the heels of the high-profile acquisitions of Seattle’s Urbanspoon (makers of the popular restaurant guide app) by IAC, and Lexcycle (makers of the e-book app Stanza) by Amazon—both of which offer compelling stories of startup strategy.

—iLike, the online social music service, announced today it is releasing a self-service iPhone App creator that allows musicians to select content and create and distribute their own iPhone apps. The startup, which was founded in 2002 and provides a dashboard interface used by about 300,000 musicians, is also releasing new tools to help musicians post updates on Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, and other social media sites.

—PopCap Games, the casual game developer and publisher, released its hit video game “Peggle” for the iPhone and iPod Touch yesterday. It’s part of the company’s ongoing effort to capture market share on mobile devices in addition to Web, desktop computers, and gaming consoles. PopCap was founded in 2000 and says its games have been downloaded more than 1 billion times worldwide.

—Evri, the online-discovery software startup that’s looking to reinvent how you browse the Web, rolled out an iPhone app called EvriVerse on Monday. The app lets you discover information about topics you care about, and then browse it in novel ways. Evri was founded in 2007 and has recently inked deals with The Washington Post and The Times of London.

—A few weeks ago, Zumobi, the mobile-media software startup, released a free iPhone app in partnership with the Today Show to deliver news and video straight from the morning TV program to your mobile device. The application is part of Zumobi’s recent strategy of developing mobile software for things like social networking, communication, and weather reports. The company was formed in 2006 out of Microsoft Research, originally to build a widget-based mobile platform.

Author: Gregory T. Huang

Greg is a veteran journalist who has covered a wide range of science, technology, and business. As former editor in chief, he overaw daily news, features, and events across Xconomy's national network. Before joining Xconomy, he was a features editor at New Scientist magazine, where he edited and wrote articles on physics, technology, and neuroscience. Previously he was senior writer at Technology Review, where he reported on emerging technologies, R&D, and advances in computing, robotics, and applied physics. His writing has also appeared in Wired, Nature, and The Atlantic Monthly’s website. He was named a New York Times professional fellow in 2003. Greg is the co-author of Guanxi (Simon & Schuster, 2006), about Microsoft in China and the global competition for talent and technology. Before becoming a journalist, he did research at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Lab. He has published 20 papers in scientific journals and conferences and spoken on innovation at Adobe, Amazon, eBay, Google, HP, Microsoft, Yahoo, and other organizations. He has a Master’s and Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT, and a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.