App development a growing trend in online startups

Growing an online business in 2011 has become much easier than in previous decades, because many companies can concentrate their efforts on smartphone and tablet-based apps, according to The Worcester Telegram.

"They’re free to focus 100 percent of the time on what actually matters," Solomon Hykes, co-founder of San Francisco-based DotCloud, told the news source. "They want to focus on building an application."

The Korea JoogAng Daily adds that app development companies have created the biggest growth in startups since the dot-com boom of the late 1990s.

The news source reports that Korean mobile service provider SK Telecom has responded by launching the T-Academy, a 10-week course that trains students to create smartphone apps.

The Telegram notes that because of the success of Twitter and Facebook, investors poured $1.19 billion into U.S. web start-ups last quarter, with $254 million for first-round financing, the most since 2008.

Another advantage for today's online businesses is the advent of cloud computing, the news source points out. The technology has freed them from having to buy and maintain their own servers, while allowing them to spend less time focusing on technical challenges.