airG Inc.

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airG Incorporated
Type of businessCorporation
Available inMultilingual
Founded2000 (2000)
HeadquartersVancouver, British Columbia, Canada
No. of locations12
Founder(s)
PresidentMichael Kader
CEOFrederick Ghahramani
IndustryMobile social network, mobile gaming
Revenue$1 billion+ [2]
Employees167 [3]
URLhttps://corp.airg.com/
RegistrationOpen
Users100,000,000+[2]
Current statusLive
Written inC, C++, Objective-C, Perl, mod_perl, Python, JavaScript, Node.js, Pliant, Java, J2ME

airG Incorporated (airG)[4] is a Canadian software company.

History[edit]

AirG was founded and incorporated in April 2000 by Frederick Ghahramani, Vincent Yen, and Bryce Pasechnik.[5][1] as a mobile entertainment content supplier[6] and was headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia.[7] The company surpassed 20 million customers in 2007,[8] and in 2014 the company surpassed 100 million customers,[2] representing around 40 countries.[9] In 2010 a study determined airG's weekly media time as one of the top 10 most frequented services on mobile phones in the United States.[10]

Products[edit]

Mobile games[edit]

airG released AtomicDove, a 'persistent' and 'multiplayer' game, in November 2001.[11][12] In 2002, AtomicDove generated 100 million minutes of mobile data traffic.[13][14] The company also developed the multiplayer farming game Big Barn World.[15] Some games were marketed through private networks, while other were marketed internationally.[16]

Mobile chat[edit]

The company was one of the first mobile-only social media networks.[17] airG was the provider of the Sprint 'Games Lobby Lounge'.[18][19] airG ran Conexion Latina, which was for about one million Spanish speaking customers,[20][21] and created the Boost Hookt social network.[22]

Mobile advertising[edit]

airG sold just 2% of its 20+ billion mobile advertising impressions in 2006.[23] It then began to use interactive polls,[24][25] and engagement units specifically to customers based on their profile information. The company has also partnered with sports sponsorship companies like Red Bull.[26][27]

Recognition[edit]

In 2001, airG was awarded the BMO Bank of Montreal First Place Prize in their New Ventures B.C. competition.[28][29][30] In 2005 airG's founders won the Young Entrepreneur of the Year award from the Business Development Bank of Canada.[31][32]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d "Engineers Seek Top Prize" (XBRL). Simon Fraser News. September 6, 2001.
  2. ^ a b c "airG Inc. Visiting company at MWC 2015". Government of Canada Trade Commissioner Service. February 12, 2014. Archived from the original (XBRL) on March 4, 2016. Retrieved June 29, 2015.
  3. ^ "airG Inc. LinkedIn" (XBRL). LinkedIn. February 1, 2013.
  4. ^ Thomson, Clive (August 30, 2002). "Are cellphones meant to save time -- or waste it? These days, mobiles re the new Game Boys". The Globe & Mail. Retrieved 30 August 2002.
  5. ^ Indvik, Lauren (April 22, 2010). "More Than Half of Mobile Internet Time Is Spent on Social Networks". Mashable. Retrieved 6 July 2015.
  6. ^ Taniar, David (30 November 2008). Mobile Computing: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications. ISBN 9781605660554.
  7. ^ Lewis, Rob (February 8, 2011). "Vancouver's airG - the world's largest mobile social network". Tech Vibes. Retrieved 6 July 2015.
  8. ^ "airG Claims 20 Million Users of Mobile Social Networking Services". Cellular News. October 16, 2007. Retrieved 6 July 2015.
  9. ^ "Meet airG, The Mobile Social Network You've Never Heard Of That's Ten Times Bigger Than Foursquare" (XBRL). Business Insider. Feb 3, 2011.
  10. ^ Indvik, Lauren (April 22, 2010). "More Than Half of Mobile Internet Time Is Spent on Social Networks [STATS]". Mashable. Retrieved 22 April 2010.
  11. ^ "Storm8's "World War" RPG on iPhone/iPod Touch" (XBRL). 4th Kingdom. Jan 22, 2010.
  12. ^ Daniels, Tiffany (Nov 30, 2001). "Leading Edge Wireless Games". Scoop Sci-Tech Independent News.
  13. ^ Philip, Dmitri Echin (April 2, 2011). "airG Research, MKTG 4960 Ecommerce & High Tech Marketing". docstoc.com. York University Schulich School of Business. Retrieved April 2, 2011.
  14. ^ Banks, Jay (Jul 17, 2002). "At Last: Some Positive Telecom News!". The Free Library. Archived from the original on July 10, 2015. Retrieved July 10, 2015.
  15. ^ "Big Barn World" (XBRL). CNET.Com. Feb 27, 2013.
  16. ^ Dholakia, Nikhilesh; Rask, Morten; Dholakia, Ruby Roy (31 March 2006). M-Commerce: Global Experiences and Perspectives: Global Experiences and Perspectives. ISBN 9781591403173.
  17. ^ Dixit, Sudhir; Prasad, Ramjee (14 December 2007). Technologies for Home Networking. ISBN 9780470196526.
  18. ^ Lee, Nicole (May 11, 2006). "Sprint announces Game Lobby Lounge with fanfare". CNET.
  19. ^ Yuan, Li (April 4, 2006). "Social Networking Goes Mobile". Wall Street Journal.
  20. ^ Baloun, Karel M. (2007). Inside Facebook: Life, Work and Visions of Greatness. ISBN 9781425113001.
  21. ^ Marek, Sue (Feb 3, 2007). "airG Launches Spanish-Language Community". Wireless Week.
  22. ^ Mobile Commerce. 22 August 2013. ISBN 9788120348059.
  23. ^ Tuten, Tracy (2010), Enterprise 2.0: How Technology, eCommerce, and Web 2.0 Are Transforming Business Virtually, Santa Barbara California: Greenwood Publishing Group, p. 168, ISBN 9780313372407, retrieved July 1, 2010
  24. ^ Dostal, Erin (June 14, 2012). "airG launches ad targeting capabilities". Direct Marketing. Archived from the original on 7 July 2015. Retrieved 6 July 2015.
  25. ^ Fehrenbacher, Katie (August 18, 2006). "airG, A Mobile Network Of 10 Million Users". GigaOm.
  26. ^ Tode, Chantal (June 1, 2012). "Red Bull energizes event registrations with mobile, social campaign". Mobile Marketer.
  27. ^ Smith, Steve (June 4, 2012). "Red Bull Campaign Shows That Social Mobile Has To Get Beyond The Banner". Media Post.
  28. ^ Luckow, Diane (Oct 18, 2001). "Engineering students win $50,000". Simon Fraser University News. Retrieved 8 July 2015.
  29. ^ Aberle, Katherine (Sep 6, 2001). "SFU STUDENTS ADVANCE TO FINAL ROUND IN NEW VENTURES BC COMPETITION". Simon Fraser University News. Retrieved 8 July 2015.
  30. ^ "2001 Competition Winner" (XBRL). New Ventures BC. September 27, 2001.
  31. ^ "Frederick Ghahramani and Vincent Yen win BDC's Young Entrepreneur Award". BDC Bank of Canada. October 18, 2005. Archived from the original (XBRL) on July 10, 2015. Retrieved July 10, 2015.
  32. ^ "BDC to honour young Canadian entrepreneurs for outstanding accomplishments" (XBRL). The Globe & Mail Globeinvestor.com. October 18, 2005.

External links[edit]