Archive for the 'Mobile' Category

Ribbit ribbit…

Published by nickt March 3rd, 2008 in Social Media, Mobile and Convergence. 0 Comments

Phone technology and innovation has long been dictated by the large telcos - but what happens when you approach traditional phone technology in a Web 2.0 manner? You end up with Ribbit

Its the next generation phone platform that brings together the mobile phone and the wide variety of other communication devices that have become integral to our daily lives - Facebook, MSN, Twitter, Skype, in fact pretty much anything as in true web 2.0 fashion the site is built on a open source platform allowing developers full access to its functionality and the opportunity to innovate further.

Imagine your mobile phone ringing, but you’ve left it in the car, so you answer it from your facebook profile instead. As you pick up the the call, you select caller id, which rather than just letting you know who is calling, feeds you their current facebook status, twitter messages, myspace blogs in fact every detail you have about that person!

Web goes Mobile … no, honestly.

Published by admin January 8th, 2008 in Mobile, Locative Media and Convergence. 1 Comment

After you have been to a few “latest-buzzword-on-the-mobile” events, it is likely you become a bit jaded. Hype after hype wave breaks onto our shores but we are still missing a sizable audience changing its behaviour. Where is the move from voice and SMS towards mobile data usage (MMS, email, IM, WAP, web, widgets)? Last night, Mobile Monday’s panel handed out some refreshingly honest opinions without the inflated projections.

Instead the talk was more about:

  • what will constitute a truly mobile digital experience (immediate, identifiable/personal, always-on, context, location, social graph)
  • that Mobile 2.0 will therefore be different from but build upon Web 2.0 (like TV built on theatre and radio, web on print and TV)
  • the (slow) arrival of pricing models that are less about “bill shock” and more about “worry free use” aka data flat rates
  • carriers hopefully becoming “smart pipes” and sharing traffic and customer data, thereby helping to combine and improve mobile experiences
  • developing widgets which don’t require a browser in an open-standards-platform
  • social networking as one key experience defining 3G (like voice did for 1G and SMS did for 2G)

    • MoMo panel
    Mobile Monday’s panel, picture taken with iPhone by Halans

    Speakers included Gary Chan from Forum Nokia, Oliver Palmer from TigerSpike, Oliver Weidlich from Ideal Interfaces and Jennifer Wilson from NineMSN. Mobile Monday’s own wrap up can be found here.

    Big bold predictions for 2008

    Published by admin December 21st, 2007 in Mobile, NetX, Advertising and Strategy. 0 Comments

    NetX has opinions on the coming digital developments. Some are about strategy, some about technology, some are about our mothers. If you want to read up on how the next year pans out, look no further than this post. To mimic the style of Twitter, one of the most talked-about micro-blogging tools of 2007, we limited the predictions to 140 characters each.

    Twitter network visualization
    Twitter network visualization by Nimages DR

    Georgina
    Context aware mobile communication in ad-hoc environments filter into our lives. Coupled with SNT’s = a powerful form of real time marketing.
    Pascal:
    2008 will be the beginning of the end of the predominance of email. It will be replaced by social network messaging on mobile devices.
    Thomas:
    Facebook will be released in hardback. Yahoo! will calm down. There will be a worldwide pixel shortage.
    Tracey:
    The world will end in one giant POKE!
    Justin:
    Al qaeda takes over facebook followed by myspace, forcing the internet to cease all social networking sites.
    Kelvin:
    The US will have its first female president. Web 3.0 will become a cliché. I will give too much of my money to Apple, IKEA & Threadless.
    Janine:
    I predict there will be no more mobile phones. Just iphones.
    Allen:
    Expect the social networking bubble to burst. Data rates continue to cripple true mobile internet in OZ. My mum will finally “get” email.
    George:
    Facebook gains its own consciousness and systematically hacks into the American stock exchange thus forcing a global panic devaluing stock.
    Trina:
    We adopt the Japanese advertising model of bombarding users with five second ads and epileptic flashing lights
    James:
    My skin consists of LCD pixels and each morning I download a new outfit from the internet.
    Sam:
    iPhone chip implant inside your ear: Tap temple twice to pick up, once to hang up, scroll your cheek for more options.

    What’s on my iphone

    Published by davidk December 6th, 2007 in Mobile. 2 Comments

    Over the last couple of days a couple of people have asked me what I’ve added to my iPhone. There are already thousands of iPhones hooked up to Australian carriers (anyone from Telstra, Voda, Optus wanna tell me how many?) and every one of these is open to the efforts of worldwide application developers. Here’s a bunch of shots of some of my favourite functions. They’re a combination of pre-installed apps, apps that i’ve added and made-for-iPhone Safari-based sites. Let me know if I’m missing out on anything interesting!

    Browse screenshots: St Edmonds Lab Flickr “What’s on my iPhone” set 

    Heavy TXTed - SMS projection at AWARD 2007

    Published by admin December 4th, 2007 in Mobile, Australia, NetX, Advertising and Experiential. 7 Comments

    Apparently some CDs didn’t see the funny side of being sledged by text (SMS) at the AWARD party at Sydney’s great arts venue Carriageworks on Friday. Guests could text comments with their mobiles that appeared in speech bubbles over pictures of the award winners.

    Bob Mackintosh from HOST being sledged

    Most of the comments were funny or in good spirits but as the night wore on and the alcohol kicked in the barbs became more poisonous.

    Glynden being sledged at AWARD 2007

    We knew this was an experiment and therefore going to be a bit risky (see a similar use at re:publica conference). And some people will always go too far. However we wanted to show that at events, technology and interactivity can come together in a very intuitive way. It was an opportunity for people to experience first hand how easy-to-understand and engaging an interactive idea can be.

    Video of the projection at the AWARD 2007 party:

    We set it up using a standard SMS gateway, drawing the incoming live data (text messages) into a flash file which constituted the projection of photos made a few moments earlier. This might have been the first time such technology has been used at an Australian event.

    Technical set up of SMS gateway and projection

    If you know of similar applications or would like to comment (sledge?), please drop us a line.

    Update:
    The SMS celebrated its 15th birthday two days after we invited to text to the AWARD screen. Of course, we hereby salute the engineers at Airwide for their brilliant addition to the world of communication.

    Standards of Mobile Advertising - AIMIA Mobile Industry Group releases results

    Published by admin August 28th, 2007 in Mobile and Advertising. 0 Comments

    When AIMIA’s Mobile Industry Group invited to a presentation of the new mobile advertising standards, we were naturally keen to go. Are interesting models and formats in place, binding definitions crafted to allow the market to evolve beyond experimental and low-reach or alternatively keep-it-as-simple-as-you-can measures?
    Mobile advertising definitely needs speed...

    Well, there are now AIMIA definitions of what constitutes mobile advertising, what banner sizes are recommended and many more technical guidelines that hopefully help agencies and clients to build satisfying mobile sites and experiences. Vodafone’s David Green declared that Vodafone will use the AIMIA definitions and that all traffic to ad-microsites linked to by banners on Vodafone Live! will not be measured against customer’s data plans. Those definitions and more of those customer-friendly carrier and publisher decisions will definitely help in making mobile sites and content more popular through advertising funding.

    But the examples of current mobile ads were fairly uninspiring as are the areas in which they advertise. 90-seconds free-to-air TV content with a DRM licence valid for three days, all for the price of $4.95: Compelling indeed. Hubert Kjellberg, Head of Content at Ericsson echoed that thought in his summary by saying that carriers will have to define their role. Are they re-sellers of ringtones and pre-packaged content or traffic enablers to the truly interesting circus of social networking and consumer-generated content? (the last addition not being from Hubert).

    Update: A lengthy piece appeared with Hubert in SMH in which we ad people supposedly drool just thinking about mobile advertising. Well, the precision targeting of users is something we will relish but let’s not forget that a mobile phone client might by comparison seem like a blank canvas compared to a facebook user.

    Perspectives on Twitter

    Published by admin July 26th, 2007 in Social Media, Mobile, NetX and Advertising. 0 Comments

    Twitterholics

    I took the opportunity to conduct a series of interviews at the first Sydney Twitter Undergound Brigade meetup last night. What makes users Twitter (or ‘tweet’ in proper vernacular), how does it intertwine with the Twitterati’s other modes of communication, and is it inherently a new (ambient) quality of getting to know someone? Or, as Carrie Bradshaw might ponder: “Are we just a tweet away from falling in love?”

    Not surprisingly, all interviewees were passionate about sending their 140-character-sized messages and painted a bright future for private as well as commercial uses of Twitter: Marketers and brands simply have to learn how to tap into their consumers’ constant streams of state.

    Dave King of our own St Edmonds Lab hypothesizes in our cab ride to Darling Harbour that Twitter circles have a strong propensity to overlap with existing social circles, those that have mostly grown out of vicinity and physical locality (oh - and listen for the near car crash at 1:07!).
    Download MP3 (2.3M)

    Nick Hack of Shifted Pixels imagines casual group gatherings that are instigated and organized through Twitter bursts.
    Download MP3 (1.8M)

    Cathy Edwards of the Telstra Chief Technology Office points to the corporate dimension of Twitter: Maintaining and deepening business relationships via en-passant exchanges of messages.
    Download MP3 (2.5M)

    Ian Grant of Sound Alliance sees worldwide fan circles spontaneously forming around live gigs, bands and music minutiae.
    Download MP3 (1.9M)

    David Whittle of Mark finally wraps it up by evaluating the true data amassed through Twitter. He envisions that the constant messages about state will allow marketing to become more of a service to people.
    Download MP3 (3.7M)

    Thank you to all participants for voicing their opinions freely and eloquently and apologies to Nick Hodge of Microsoft whose most interesting contribution at the end of the evening failed to record due to my iPod running out of juice.

    Tim Buesing of NetX/St Edmonds Lab

    (sidenote: Fred Wilson’s Union Square Ventures has just announced it’s investing in Twitter. Interesting quote from his post: “As we stated when we made our investment in Delicious, The question everyone asks is “What is the business model?” To be completely and totally honest, we don’t yet know.“)

    Megaphone

    Published by davidk July 26th, 2007 in Mobile, Gaming, Advertising, Experiential and Consumer Generated. 1 Comment

    Allowing consumers to mess with your ad using their mobile phone is a playful way to get them involved. Megaphone brings people into the action without requiring them to dowload an app to their device (always a difficult hurdle to overcome). Megaphone not only allows interaction using the keypad but, as the name suggests, the volume into the phone’s microphone can also influence the shared game state. An ad controller (no, not skipper) in every passerby’s pocket - nice one.

    Read more at http://playmegaphone.com/.

    iPhone: A Mobile Widget Powerplay (updated)

    Published by davidk June 4th, 2007 in Mobile. 2 Comments

    iphone.jpg

    Last night in the US, new Apple iPhone ads aired on TV showing off its slick interface, ease of use and, more importantly, the official release date: June 29. Understandably the aesthetics of the device have been getting much of the attention from prospective punters, given all we have so far is video and imagery online. But one of the more intriguing aspects of the iPhone is its ‘widget’ environment. Of course the images on the phone could just be application icons, and no more widgets than any of the software found in Nokia, Blackberry or Motorola operating systems. Or even if they are widgets like we find in OS X and Vista, when the iPhone was announced Steve Jobs told the New York Times that there would be absolutely no chance of third party applications being allowed. This would mean every software addition to the device would need to come directly from Apple, not loaded on by the people who’d paid $US700 to take one home.

    But last week Jobs mentioned that Apple ‘might’ open up the iPhone to third-party applications. This is an interesting step forward in Apple’s approach (if he means it), and may significantly affect the usefulness of the device. Most people realise that technically, apart from the touch interface, the iPhone is not a major leap forward in capability. But if the thousands of widgets already available for OS X are suddenly made available for their phone, Apple could successfully introduce the mobile internet to a wider, more mainstream, audience. There a masses of people who will not try new technology until it is truly plug-n-play.

    If it’s as easy to add apps to your iPhone as it easy to add songs to your iPod, this crazy mobile internet thing could finally take off.

    UPDATE: Apple may be announcing iPhone Developer Kits next week at WWDC.

    UPDATE 2: Nope - no developer kit. Overnight Australian time, Steve Jobs delivered the WWDC keynote and talked about developer applications on the iPhone. From Macrumors.com:  “Also announced was that Apple was making it possible for developers to write small, Widget-like programs for the iPhone. A demonstration was given showing a corporate LDAP directory lookup application. All such applications will run within Safari to maintain the security of the iPhone.”

    This is a bit of a let down. It doesn’t achieve the type of simplicity of experience discussed in the post above. True integration of mobile widgets into the device’s OS would have allowed people drag-and-drop applications onto their device. But accessing them in Safari is not quite there the same thing.

    An aside: Have you ever seen a press release with so many  mentions of 2.0?

    Mobile TV interview with Adnews

    Published by admin April 26th, 2007 in Mobile and Video. 1 Comment

    I was shooting some answers back to Adnews about Mobile TV and thought I would also share them here on the St Edmonds Lab blog.

    Enjoy, Tim.

    Do you think mobile TV will be popular in Australia?
    Australians like anyone else experience idle time, waiting periods or plain uninspired boredom. Their mobile phone has become a life tool, a companion that is always on and always near. So why sholdn’t they want to use it for passive enjoyment such as watching mobile TV?

    Do you think people want to watch TV on such a small screen?
    I have seen teenagers listening to cheap handsets blaring badly compressed MP3s. It is amzing what lack of media quality people do put up with, as long as it fits their current mood and situation. Obviously whole cricket matches are unlikely to become hits on the phone screen. High-end handsets Koreans and Japanese enjoy today will add to the fidelity of the experience but haven’t arrived here yet.

    What do you think networks will have to offer to make the technology popular? What do you think is the potential for advertising on such platforms?

    First, TelCos shouldn’t act like content producers but rather open their gates for others to deliver the most popular format. TV production companies or sport executives will say that their established TV brands (familiar from the big screen) will reel in the viewers. This can be true for reality programming, catch up summaries or content that is complemetary. But why shouldn’t a talk-back show or a 24/7 format of “Hot or Not” video-self portraits prove to be the Aussie hit? On top of delivering sizzling bits that people are ready to watch anytime, networks should intertwine the content with relevant ads and a stable m-commerce application. This would allow consumers to act on Mobile TV content via their 3G connection, be that by uploading, voting or buying. These applications will build a critical commercial audience that the networks/TelCos can profit from.

    Is price a key factor?
    Absolutely yes. Look at how people don’t make video calls because of cost. Voice calls will become ever cheaper and therefore decrease in profitability for the networks. But that doesn’t mean flocks of consumers will be happy to compensate by paying more for mobile TV, an offer they might suspect to be nothing more than a shrunk telly. The investment for a compatible handset has to be made first and ideally this would include a free TV package.

    How long do you think it will take for such technologies to be in Australia?
    That depends on the politics of many parties. Handset producers, carriers, regulators, content providers and advertisers have to work together to turn mobile TV into part of an attractive mobile experience.

    What would it take for it to become mainstream?
    One easy-to-understand satisfying mobile experience, the SMS of mobile video so to say.

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