Urbien

Urbien conects apps as Facebook people

Urbien is building a new network, network of apps. The Facebook Graph is the medium through which apps could share all their data. Too bad Facebook only supports a dozen of types (people, friends, status, image, tag, etc.). KPCB’s Mary Meeker believes creating a front end to most data will be the biggest innovation of a decade (http://www.slideshare.net/kleinerperkins/2012-kpcb-internet-trends-yearend-update/55). 1. Mutual Data Innovation. Urbien provides a shared graph of unlimited custom types to connect apps. Apps can follow their peers to gain access to data, can act on peer's data changes, and even form stronger bonds, allowing to post to peer's data. Apps become much simpler, more specialized and work in lock-step with their network of peers. Most mobile apps today are isolated and if they share, they do it via limited APIs. Urbien apps share most of their data, without a need for APIs. The shift is similar to going from feudal to urban infrastructure. Thus the name, Urbien. Urbien app examples range from civic apps, to lifestyle & productivity apps, to enterprise apps. 2. Tools Innovation. Urbien helps mobile web apps create front ends to their data by providing an app builder that works in browser on smartphones or tablets. Making cool apps becomes so simple that even non-developers can do it, which opens the market to 100 times more developers. On Urbien you just start with forking an existing app and customizing it. For professional developers, Urbien provides an open source mobile client, Urbini, which acts as a Linux Distro for a burgeoning HTML5 appdev market. Urbini bridges the gap between native apps and web mobile.