Chilean teenager, Francisco Yarad, 16, is the kick ass programmer behind entertainment startup Nixter (Santiago, Chile) which recently raised $100,000 USD in funding and will be headed to San Francisco/Silicon Valley USA for 4 months to incubate their startup in Plug and Play Tech Center. For the ultimate lifehacker and GENIUS BOY CODER, jeje, it was just another day at the office when he decided to submit his Canal 13 app to the Apps store. To his surprise, in just 30 hours after the app was approved, it rose to #1 in Chile’s most downloaded free apps.
Chile might be located at the end of the world, but we are still very much a part of it! Did you know that Chile has more computer buyers per person than Spain, more mobiles per person than USA (estimated 106% penetration) and more users of social networks than the UK (check the Facebook adoption rate in Chile). So it should come as no surprise that the most downloaded app in Chile, in just 30 hours after it was approved in the Apple store is the Canal 13 App.
Canal 13 is one of Chile’s most popular TV television stations. The Canal 13 app includes all of the content that Canal 13 produces, including live tv, shows that you may have missed and daily news. It also features others specialty programming such as “MiaMia” a blog for women and “TodoCine” for people who love the cinema. And of course it could not be complete without “Deportes13”, for all the diehard Chileno futbol fans.
“This was my first app that I made in the past year, but I couldn’t upload it to the App Store because Apple has a lot of rules. After 3 attempts trying to upload the app, I stopped,” stated Francisco Yarad. “I recently needed to renew my iOS Developer’s License, so I just tried to submit it again. I didn’t have much expectation about it.”
At AndesBeat we were really excited to learn of the success of the app, which prior to featuring Chilean startup Smartbox TV last week, we would have otherwise thought was a pretty boring app. The success of the app further validates the vision of Smartbox TV which develops interactive apps for telecoms to further keep their viewers engaged. They schooled our team at AndesBeat on the massive potential for growth in media with the convergence of various platforms – Digital TV, smartphones and tablets as they brought forth the question – when you are watching TV, how many other ‘screens’ are you watching?
While it seems like a very odd question and perhaps 2 years ago or less it would be considered something that most people would say they would NEVER do, it seems that these days, almost everyone is connected to this ‘unknown’ world without even knowing how it happened or when it started.
To that point – never underestimate the power of the media. Or Chile.
