Archive for March, 2008
by Imran Ali
March 29, 2008 at 1:57 pm · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0, SMS, Ethnography, Events, Conferences, Visualisation
Earlier this month I dropped into the Emerging Arts Fest at O’Reilly’s seminal ETech 2008 conference; the arts fest brought together a number of projects at the ‘intersection between art, design and technology. One of the most striking pieces on show was MIT’s New York Talk Exchange, part of the school’s Sensable City lab.
The NYTE project is mining real-time communications data from AT&T and visualising IP traffic and telephony flows between New York and the rest of the world, handily expressing the relationships between New Yorkers and the globe, even down to various ethnically biased neighbourhoods mapping directly onto countries of origin and the temporal dynamics of calls across multiple time zones.
NYTE is nothing short of a breathtaking technical and aesthetic achievement, though it’d be interested to utilise these visualisations to explore a finer level of granularity, notably where mobility and messaging intersect with more general IP and telephony traffic.
Complex data visualisations are almost always pretty, but their real profundity is as ‘revelatory media’; what can we learn, what questions can be answered that previously could not; what is serendipitously revealed?
What would NYTE look like around 9/11? We’d expect to see blackspots around Lower Manhattan, but would we see a sudden switch from voice to SMS are networks were overwhelmed? Would we see a sudden uptick of calls between Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Boston prior to the attacks?
Though not the first MIT project to explore these themes, NYTE is certainly the most polished - what can such visualisation tell us about the motivation and ethnography of communication and messaging?
by Hylton Jolliffe
March 28, 2008 at 11:29 am · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0, CTIA Wireless
A quick note again about our activities next week at CTIA Wireless 2008. Several of the contributors to this blog - Paul Ruppert, Debi Jones, Darla Mack, and Oliver Starr - will be participating in a series of events on Tuesday afternoon at the Renaissance Hotel we’ll be recording and publishing through the site.
Airwide, our sponsor, is hosting a small roundtable discussion from 2:00-4:00 pm, and after that we’re inviting bloggers and friends to join us for a “Blogger Hot Seat”, in which contributors to the blog will discuss industry trends and recent developments, and all can partake in some yummy eats and drinks at the Envy Lounge in the Renaissance Hotel.
See Debi’s post for more information and RSVP-ing details. And be sure to join us!
by Imran Ali
March 26, 2008 at 1:43 pm · Filed under User Interface, Usage + Usability, touch screens, iPhone, Development, Books, Gestural
With an interminable three months before the June 2008 release of the iPhone SDK, jailbroken, hacked iPhones are still the preferred means of innovating for the iconic device. With this in mind, my O’Reilly-ian friends have just published iPhone: Open Application Development, a guide to writing ‘native Objective-C applications for the iPhone’.
The appears to be tailor made for the iPhone hacking community - from jailbreaking the AT&T/O2 lockdown to understanding the operating system, application structure, interface APIs (notably multitouch and accelerometer!) and multimedia operations.
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Incidentally, the subject of gestural interfaces is gaining some documented best practices thanks to the proliferation of iPhone and Nintendo’s Wii. I recently saw Dan Saffer speak about the design of gestural interfaces at O’Reilly’s ETech 2008 conference…the first chapter of his upcoming book on the subject is freely downloadable from the book’s official site. The sample offers some useful insights into the ergonomics and conventions of gestural UIs and an historical view of touchscreen technology.
by Imran Ali
March 26, 2008 at 1:16 pm · Filed under CTIA, Events
As Las Vegas gears up for CTIA next week, MM2.0 bloggers will be in town to cover the show itself, but there are a bunch of interesting ancillary events and parties shaping up too.
mTrends’ Ruby De Waele just tipped me off about the Mobile Jam Session taking place in Las Vegas on 31st March, the day before CTIA opens.
The format sounds like a lotta fun and productive too. The day begins with an hour of concept and idea pitches from developers, followed by a panel session with participants drawn from Orange, Symbian, Sony Ericsson and Motorola’s developer and partner programmes.
The latter half of the day will consist of six ‘improv’ sessions - Mobile OS & Platforms, Mobile 2.0, Testing & Certification, Getting to Market, Development, Open Source Handsets - where a moderator facilitates a group ‘jam’ or discussion.
This should be an interesting mechanism for mixing people up from various disciplines, whether business, cellco and product guys or developers, hackers and entrepreneurs…as Rudy describes it, ‘new tunes often come from unlikely associations, so…Jam On!‘
If you’re in Las Vegas for CTIA and interested in jamming with this crowd, head over to the official blog + site to request an invitation (it’s free!).
by Ewan Spence
March 26, 2008 at 11:23 am · Filed under Usage + Usability, iPhone, Nokia, 2008
Is the iPhone a massive success because it opens up the regular American user to the power of the internet on the move; or is the iPhone a success because a significant number of the purchasers are the tech elite that continually push their equipment to the limit?
(I’m dispensing with the more straightforward question of “is the iPhone a success or not” because the straightforward answer differs depending on the territory you are in. The results in the US I think are on or ahead of any sensible prediction, but the European take up has been slow and low. A discussion for another time, perhaps).
With every survey that comes out promoting the iPhone as the best thing to hit the mobile internet, I always come back to the central questions of why people are measuring ‘the phone’ rather than measuring ‘the user?’ After all, the difference between my Dad getting any internet capable phone, and myself, is going to be huge. My Dad is likely to use it to check the weather online before he goes out for a round of gold – I’m more likely to be uploading 10mb long videos, streaming live conversations, a Twitter client polling every 180 seconds, and a thousand and one other data services. I might even call someone if I have to get an immediate answer!
There’s no escaping the fact that the iPhone has created a greater buzz in the American marketplace – and having now experienced the consumer side of the US market it’s no wonder that the tech savvy users are swithching to the iPhone, but I don’t think that’s a basis for declaring it as a complete game-changer in the space. When using a cellular data connection, it has a cute web browser, a passable email client, and some look-up functionality for weather and stocks.
But I’d be doing that on any phone… in Europe. If I was to move over to the States, my options are much more limited in terms of handsets that would have these capabilities. The iPhone is very much the only mainstream option available, beyond grey imports or manufacturers web shops. So is it any wonder when you have one phone in a territory that the lions share of geeks are using it? And of course does that answer the European [lack of] uptake issue as well?
Oh and before you leave some statistical ‘evidence’ in the comments… that spike of visitors to Google from mobile devices such as the iPhone and Nokia’s N95 has everything to do with people using the mobile internet more, and nothing to do with Google being the default home page for the browsers and search clients in these devices… No sirreee.
by Imran Ali
March 26, 2008 at 10:34 am · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0, Ethnography, Mobile Payments, Micropayment, Asia
I’ve been following the ethnographic studies of Nokia’s Jan Chipchase for some time, notably his insights and primary research into the usage of messaging and mobility in the developing world.
One of Chipchase’s observations in Uganda was the notion of ’sente’, using prepay airtime as a form of cheap, secure and convenient banking as well a pooling prepay credit between customers when sufficiently small denominations are available.
Springwise recently reported on similar usage trends in the Philippines, this time as operator-supported services, using SMS as a medium for transferring credit between subscribers. Incidentally, the Philippines was the first market where SMS revenue overtook voice minutes.
Globe Telecom’s user experience is simple - texting a PIN, transaction amount and recipient number to the service number is all that’s necessary. This incurs a charge of a couple pennies, which coupled with the volume of texting in the country, indicates that there’s a lucrative post-voice revenue stream for telcos, displacing their time+distance voice billing with large volumes of incremental transactional revenue.
by Imran Ali
March 25, 2008 at 8:09 pm · Filed under UK, Design, Events, London, Olympics
I was recently invited to an intriguing workshop…unfortunately I can’t attend, but here’s another sign of London’s role as a global hothouse for mobile innovation.
Next Thursday, Living Labs Europe is holding a half-day creative workshop on the development of mobile urban services for the 2012 Olympics, to be hosted in London. The Flaneurs: The network is the city event will bring together around 50 participants during the afternoon of Thursday 27th March.
The group’s objective is to explore interaction, experience and service design with a view to develop applications or services that may be showcased in the period leading up to and including the 2012 Olympics; the ideas and concepts which emerge from the workshop will be circulated amongst the industry to inspire others to conceive of new opportunities.
There’ll be a bunch of speakers interspersed throughout the workshop, most notably Orange’s Neil Churcher. Though I left Orange just as Neil began his role there, we collaborated during his previous role as the Academic Director of Interaction Design Institute Ivrea. The work that the IDII students prepared for us was nothing short of inspiring and astonishing, on a par with NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Programme or the MIT Media Lab.
For this reason alone, I can’t wait to see what Flaneurs comes up with - organiser Nico MacDonald has promised me some follow up insights following the workshop. The group looks incredible - I’m loving that fact that there are tech people, broadcasters, public transport officials, architects and designers in the same place - ace!
by Imran Ali
March 25, 2008 at 4:36 pm · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0, SMS, Usage + Usability, iPhone, Twitter, mobile social networking, Openmoko, Communication, Android
Late last year I wrote about the Mobility of Messages and how the tools for archiving our ‘emotional bits’ are crudely shortsighted, lacking the means for durable longevity and personal curation.
So I was recently very pleased to discover Treasuremytext, a startup - based in Liverpool and Amsterdam - that’s been helping users archive and preserve precious text messages for the best part of five years!
Treasuremytext’s founders - Katie Lips and Paul Stringer - were motivated by issues similar to those described in my earlier post; the very personal desire to treasure those evocative, poignant, sexy, cheeky and deeply personal messages at a time when handset inboxes were often limited to just 10-15 messages.
Katie and Paul very much saw their mission as one of liberating valuable messages from mobile handsets - presaging the currently in-vogue openness of Android, Openmoko and LiPS (no pun intended!) - and placing them in a web-based archive.
The web elements of the service came about due to the company’s frustrations at trying to work with mobile operators and technologies (SyncML, SIM readers etc.) - the web was simply the best medium for personalising and manipulating treasured messages. Treasuremytext’s strategy has enabled them to maneuver around cellcos, whilst still providing value to end users; a strategy that when multiplied across many service providers rightly deepeds the commoditisation of mobile operators.
Curiously, Treasuremytext has been a bigger hit with people in their 20s, 30s and 40s and messages largely focusing on relationships - indicating that SMS is a more disposable medium for younger users and romantic messages are likely to be the most treasured. Indeed, the service is almost inadvertently aggregating unique analytics and ethnographic data of the usage of SMS over time.
The service works well - with users simply needing to forward their messages to a specific number, via SMS; though it seems some meta information can be lost (original time, date stamp, sender name). This may simply be the vagaries of SMS infrastructure and handset software, but some simple tools to manually adjust metadata for each message (sender, time, date, tag) would be useful, particularly tags - with some users saving thousands of messages, folders will no longer be flexible enough tools for storage.
The more social features of the service are actually quite reminiscent of Twitter - but that’s no bad thing, Treasuremytext has a different emphasis and, as such, will be well positioned to evolve alongside other messaging services; indeed, they’re already experimenting with iPhone clients.
As my friend Ross notes, some operators are beginning to offer similar features as part of their suite of bundled services - notably O2’s Bluebook. However, operator services are notoriously, um, *crap* and generally closed like a nun’s knickers. By adopting open data principles, Treasuremytext could again maneuver around cellcos and deepen their claim on their philosophy of openness. New platforms such as Android and Openmoko could also help to provide wider distribution and I believe there’s a strong analytics and ethnographics opportunity for them too…
In the meantime, it’s worth spending a few minutes with co-founder Katie’s BarCamp session on 12 mistakes not to make when launching your startup!
by Imran Ali
March 25, 2008 at 12:47 pm · Filed under Google, Nokia, Chumby, Yahoo, UK, Android, Events, London
London continues to be a hotbed of mobile hacking and innovation, with next month’s Over The Air, taking place on April 4th + 5th at Imperial College.
Organised by BBC Backstage’s Ian Forrester and Vodafone’s Daniel Appelquist and backed by Nokia and Google, amongst others, Over The Air will be playing host to around 450 attendees across 48 hours of hands-on hacking and code-campery!
iPhone, Openmoko, Android sound like they’ll be strong themes, but expect to see a bunch of sessions on user experience design as well as some masterclasses from handset and software companies, including Nokia, Microsoft, Adobe and Yahoo! on day one.
Head on over to the Over The Air blog for more information on the schedule and how to register…
by Debi Jones
March 22, 2008 at 7:15 pm · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0
Oliver Starr, Paul Ruppert, Darla Mack and I, Debi Jones, are attending CTIA Wireless 2008 in Las Vegas. At the conference we will participate in a Roundtable hosted by our sponsor, Airwide Solutions on Tuesday afternoon, April 1st. The Roundtable discussion topic: “Web 2.0 comes to Handsets — New Issues and Upside for Monetizing the Mobile Web” will be parsed for it’s critical factors, and addressed by three or four breakout groups.
Some 30 + members of the mobile ecosystem representing industry organizations, technology providers, content producers, and analysts will come together for the purpose of generating ideas, recommendations and next steps. The Rountable will be MC’ed by Steve Bratt, CEO, W3C. Bratt will provide opening remarks for the Roundtable and set us on the course for lively and productive breakout conversations. Below is a sample of the participants.
- Kaj Hagros, VP of Market Development, Airwide Solutions
- John Styers, CEO of Mobilco, former MD for Sprint Media Networks
- Roger Cheng, Dow Jones Reporter
- Mickey Alum Khan, Mobile Marketing Magazine
- Andy Miller, CEO, Quattro Wireless
- DeWayne A. Nelon, CEO, Avot Media
- Rob Adler, CEO, Go2Media
- Pared Reitzen, CEO Mobile Storm
- Ameen Ahmad, VP, SnapTell
- Colin Gibbs, RCR Wireless
- Linda Barrabee, Yankee Group
- Jack Philbin, Vibes Media President and Co-founder
- Jonathan Steuer, VP & GM of Media/Entertainment and Technology of Inococulture
- Alice Cuneo, Ad Age
- Virgin Mobile (TBD)
- John Puterbaugh, Nellymoser
In addition, Paul, Oliver and I will take the “Blogger Hot Seat” following the Roundtable in a Q&A session [Update: this will be taking place at the Envy Lounge - see below]. Mobile Messaging 2.0, as a thought leadership publication has pondered many of the topics raised by recent developments in the mobile industry. For example, the impact of the iPhone for business models, cloud computing or even smartphone connectivity. And further, the results of various pressures to bring openness to mobile and the realities of those efforts are material for a Q&A that spans the mobile ecosystem rather than represents a single position.
Those within the ecosystem add value to the discussion by representing the opportunities, challenges and innovations from their specific position in the ecosystem. At MM2, we search, observe and discuss across those positions which means that we hope to inform the broader perspective on developments.
The Roundtable discussion will be recorded and made available here on MM2. So stayed tuned here for more information and the recordings from we anticipate will be a highly valuable conversation.
Finally, a mixer is planned from 4:30 to 7PM at the Envy lounge inside the Renaissance Hotel following the Roundtable on April 1st. The only qualification for entry is that you are a blogger or Roundtable participant. We are thrilled to participate in a gathering where being a blogger is a requirement, rather than an obstacle to be overcome. So, all our readers who are blogging, please send an email to debi AT corante dot_com to RSVP. We look forward to meeting and socializing with our colleagues from other blogs. You will be treated to an open bar, and welcomed by Roundtable participants along with those of us from MM2.
Also, check out the CTIA Party List for other events happening in Vegas during the week.
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