MomoLondon: Mobile, Maps & Geolocation — so much more than “Where am I?”

This Monday’s session was a little less lively than the previous session on mobile marketing. I expected the panel to violently disagree with each other on licensing, data costs and providing data to the public… but they were all far too polite!

The panel discussion covered a wide variety of subjects, fulfilling the session’s premise: geocoding, open data, data quality, visualisation, alternative methods of navigation, indoor location… It was a huge area to cover in a couple of hours.

For me, the main change in the last year or two has been the opening up of data sets. Open Street Map has gone from strength to strength and can now be linked up with live transport information and other citywide data sets.

As Jeni Tennison remarked, the most exciting area at the moment is putting all this data together in innovative ways. More than the Google Maps mashups of earlier years, we can now experience 3D immersive visualisations of cities, with real-time data pulsing through the streets and under the ground — like ViziCities, for example.

Panel

• Gary Gale @vicchi
  • Director of Global Community Programs for Nokia’s HERE
• Christopher Osborne @osbornec
  • Currently at AlertMe, and founder and organiser of GeoMob
• Jeni Tennison @JeniT
  • Technical Director at the Open Data Institute and member of the W3C TAG
• Ian Holt @IanHolt
  • Head of Developer Outreach at Ordnance Survey
  • just launched their new OS OpenSpace SDK for iOS
  • offline maps really useful
• Harry Wood @harry_wood
  • Currently at http://placr.co.uk and OpenStreetMap volunteer

How easy is it for devs to turn lat/longs into human-readable info?

• HW: hard work to go to postcode or nearest POIs
  • getting hold of open data is important
  • is displaying the map the best thing?
  • FourSquare did really well with a location-based app that didn’t show a map
• GG: location powered by FourSquare has become a heavily used API
  • it’s free to access but large amounts of usage lead to business negotiations
  • similar for other geocoding APIs
• JT: Open Street Map allows us to choose what we want to mark on the map
  • Ordnance Survey was mainly restricted to Churches and Pubs…
  • Open Street Map has shops (and pubs!)
• IH: how do you ensure that all the data is there?
• HW: it’s a problem that goes away with time
  • always find your nearest pub? getting there in the UK, but some patches in the north with less coverage
  • but the map gets built out on an interest-first basis, so better coverage in more interesting/populated areas

How much do we trust what we see on our mobiles?

• GG: in US a woman sued Google ‘cos the walking maps told her to walk across all 16 lanes of a superhighway…
• HW: we trust it too much in some cases
  • OS really shines with quality of data
• IH: Google & Apple’s branding has gone a long way to encourage trust in map data
• CO: Apple chose not to visualise lots of data on the map, but they got panned for it
• HW: there’s an active market in insuring map makers against maritime mapping mistakes
  • it’s an expensive mistake when a supertanker runs aground…
• GG: people have been hauled before the coastguards for using consumer mapping systems to navigate ships
• GG: people tend to accept what they have on their phones

Should map data producers make end-user systems? Or leave it up to smaller companies?

• IH: paper-based maps couldn’t change, so had to make one-off presentation decisions
  • now the data can change for the user context
• CO: routing is hard - still dominated by big companies with background with navigation
  • but lots of space for smaller companies in other areas
• IH: huge explosion of neo-geographers a few years ago
  • lots of mash ups and visualisations using geo data

What’s next in display? Will wearables move away from the concept of maps?

• IH: we’ve always been shifting display methods…
• Jo Rabin: years ago, a taxi driver in Chicago had a book of turn by turn directions but no map
• HW: a large proportion of people get rather upset when they see a map (including Harry’s girlfriend…!)
• Audience: worth thinking about how blind people navigate
• IH: navigating a city by sound — turn away from the areas that sound threatening
  • Ed.: this is not new — there was an MIT project in this vein in 1999!!
• HW: Google Street View seems a useful addition at the moment, but not a replacement for basic navigation
• CO: 3D mapping is a bit gimmicky at the moment, but the data gathering behind it is massively useful
• GG: for every mapping service, you only ever see less than 5% of the underlying data
• CO: one of the best designed apps for mapping was an app for blind people on old Nokia phones — vibrate once for left, twice for right

What’s new and exciting in the next 3 years?

• GG: indoor navigation
  • multiple companies working on it
  • but all currently incompatible
  • holy grail: directions from your house, through the tube to the exact exhibit in the V&A Museum
• JT: putting open data together, e.g. being able to know when you’re in an area with a high risk of flooding after rain
  • 3D sim city-style simulation of London, with data such as crime rates superimposed
  • how can we bring in time-based information to our space-based navigation?
• IH: early years education
  • inherent part of the general data structure
  • Ed.: Scratch, a programming environment for children, is working on integrating Google Maps
• IW: Ed Parsons (Maps @ Google) — “geospatial will no longer be geo-special”
  • not just a map screen in the app, but mixed throughout the app
  • promise of access to raw data
• GG: NOAA have produced a low-power app which warns you about tornados, just using cell tower data
  • another innovative location-based service which doesn’t require a map…
• CO: massive growth in transactional apps, e.g. Hailo & YPlan
  • also Google etc building an ecosystem e.g. their purchase of Waze
• GG: wearables: I wouldn’t buy Google Glass, but I would buy a smart watch
• GG: hospitals making savings by tracking their equipment locations (and stopping it sprouting legs)

Licensing

• GG: businesses scared of using OSM data due to fear that they will have to share their private data
• HW: share-a-like license aims to ensure that data is not taken and locked away
• JT: OpenCorporates make company data available for free on a share-a-like license, but also offer a paid license with less viral terms
• HW: OSM can’t do that — would have to agree with all contributors…

What about mobile operators? Indoor location?

• GG: cell tower location works well in urban areas
  • less so in countryside…
  • and mobile operators in Germany are restricted to telling you only two of the nearby cell towers (not enough to get a fix)
  • mobile operators had their chance 8-10 years ago when they tried to sell their data to marketing companies
• CO: starting to see traction in government
  • e.g. who’s moved on what roads at what speed
  • useful for real-time traffic management
  • high value areas: marketing & business intelligence

Coping with geospam…?

• HW: Google are already dipping their toes in the water there (Ed: e.g. the map tiles have advertising built-in)
• IH: walking past a shop and being offered a service
• GG: been proved to be pretty worthless — you’ve already past when the message comes through
  • data of where you are not so valuable
  • where you’ve been is more valuable
  • where you will be is where the money will be made

Apple iBeacons — Bluetooth LE with an ID

• CO: one inspiration for that comes from certain countries with restrictive regimes
  • walk into a bar and turn bluetooth on — get offered services that are normally not available
  • need a strong well-designed way to broker your data

Where are you failed by current map services?

• HW: developing world — none of existing providers have coverage
  • Google Map Makers pushing hard
  • Open Street Map
• Dan Appelquist: cycle maps for London
  • Google maps keeps on directing me through routes on Hampstead Heath that are not passable by bike
  • http://cyclestreets.net routing for bikes based on OpenStreetMap data
• CO: pedestrian mapping
  • most of the data has come from driving cars around
  • huge value as people much more likely to make a purchase when they are walking
• GG: but getting data is hard as many areas are private
  • no public right of way
  • hard for commercial companies to map
  • OSM has an advantage here — can’t really sue OpenStreetMap for trespass

How long rather than how far away?

• IH: common GIS function, but doesn’t crop up in consumer stuff
• JT: mapumental by mysociety — where should I live so that I can commute to work?

Royal Mail PAF file restrictions

big database of postcodes & business locations for the UK — really valuable and the Royal Mail are holding tight…

• JT: campaigning to open it, but it seems extremely unlikely
  • would have to create an open street gazetteer
  • if someone would like to sponsor it — please see Jeni!

Linking to map model data

• HW: most OSM data has a URL
• GG: for roads — Nokia has Routing Segments, OSM has Ways, OS has ITN (Integrated Transport Network)

Summary

• JT: collaboration is the most interesting area
• IH: everybody should edit something on OpenStreetMap.org
• GG: expected a question on location & privacy, Facebook & Google…
  • “I now trust big internet companies more than I do the government”

Next session

• July 15th: Mobile Operating Systems — with Ubuntu from Canonical

MomoLondon: Mobile Marketing — Truth, Misconception and Wishful Thinking

This was a lively session — the audience really got involved and probably contributed at least as much, if not more to the evening than the panel.

Mobile marketing seems to be stuck in a bit of a rut — it’s growing but doesn’t seem to be innovating much beyond banner adverts and SMS messages.

The panel (all agency-based) didn’t really offer much new, but indicated that they wanted brands to engage the customer in a longer, more conversational process than the traditional advertising campaign.

This was proving a hard sell, as it’s more expensive to set up and doesn’t fit into the mindset of brand marketing departments.

Thanks to Infobip who sponsored the event, and kindly took us up to the top of Centrepoint for some refreshments afterwards, just in time to see the sun set over London…

Panel

• Alex Meisl @meislonmobile
  • Co-Founder, Sponge
• Rube Hulijev @more_mati
  • Global Executive, Infobip
• Ben Scott Robinson @bcsr
  • Creative Director, Sapient Nitro
• Ilicco Elia @ilicco
  • Head of Mobile, LBi
• Douglas McDonald @DMcDonald01
  • Independent Mobile Marketing Consultant

Where is mobile marketing now?

• RH: growing 100% year on year last few years
• BSR: mobile marketing on its own is pretty much dead — need to cover all media
• IE: no ads are actually getting people’s attention on mobile
• DMD: you just do marketing. some of it is mobile
  • not being recognised as mobile
  • being eclipsed by social media & iPads in terms of recognition

How broad is mobile marketing?

• AM: still need to agree on what is mobile…
• IE: what does your customer want and experience?
  • actually have to get into the mindset of the user and understand the context
• BSR: explore content on your mobile phone, moving towards purchase
• RH: it’s not a mass marketing personal
• IE: and yet the biggest complaint I hear is that mobile is not measurable enough
• RH: cross-channel measurement not easy but can be done
• AM: for a retail client, 3 times as many people on the mobile site use the “where’s my nearest store?” feature
  • but this doesn’t show up under P&L for mobile — it all goes to the physical store

personalisation

• DMD: no effort put into doing anything with the data collected
  • the best they do is add your name to the top
  • planning looks at percentage of budget for personalisation and then says “that’s too expensive, we’ll just spam everybody…”
• AM: very few bricks & mortar retailers have detailed information on their customers
• RH: personalised service might be only thing that will save the high street shop
• BSR: working for a retailer: people would come into the store and use their mobiles to purchase products using the desktop site
  • it was faster than buying in store…
• AM: 34% of sales in US lost to showrooming

ROI for all players, including agency

• mobile operators have a responsibility to help agencies with their mobile skills
• AM: http://weve.com/ trying to provide united message & service proposition from EE, O2 & Vodafone
  • originally about marketing help and mobile wallet, but the wallet stuff seems to have been deprioritised…
• IE: optimising web sites for mobile makes ROI go up

negatives

• BSR: marketeers still looking at mobile in a simplistic way: banners, print etc
  • need to consider whether a campaign should exist…
  • what happens to the conversation when the campaign ends?
  • what about all the data you collected?

positives

• AM: 20% of UK sales last year were via mobile
  • John Lewis opened up a store in Chester 18 months ago
  • they are channel agnostic and encourage people to use whatever way they want to purchase products
  • as a result, online sales in Chester grew by 30%
• the physical shop raised the profile of the business and acted as a showroom and delivery point for the goods
• DMD: mobile ad spend forecast to rise from 1-2% to 15% in next 18 months

changing away from dead print media

• agencies need to move to cost-per-acquisition rather than cost-per-impression
• starting to happen
• IE: can be hard — need to get all parties aligned
• who takes the risk?
  • if customers are seeing the marketing and purchasing elsewhere, then it can be hard to credit the acquisition to the marketing campaign
  • a gain for the brand but a big risk for the agency
• DMD: second screen great for getting take-up
  • TV adverts driving google search / URL
  • still believe print is big for driving on-ramp of mobile
  • Ed: doesn’t feel like much innovation going on here…
• IE: advertising is just about getting attention
  • can’t split channels up

relevancy & consent

• BSR: Blyk - mobile operator that gave away free minutes & texts in response to permission advertising
  • got 25-30% response rates
  • but value of texts & minutes went down to almost zero
    • customers took their SIMs out as they felt pestered by the very adverts they’d signed up for…
  • brands look at numbers being reached rather than response rates
  • 25% of 100 people sounds worse than 0.25% of 10,000…

other questions

The audience was really coming up with good things to say but we were running out of time, so the organisers attempted to have three questions asked at once. Unfortunately, this meant that only one in three questions got answered…

I’ve noted some of the better audience questions and statements (and their answers if they got them) below:

• how will personal assistant software, e.g. SIRI, affect marketing?
• mobile marketing basics get results
  • click to call
  • mobile SEO
• mobile is different:
  • video can be very successful
  • location-based services
• not just what is my mobile strategy, but what is my strategy and how does mobile fit in to it
• DMD: no point in re-inventing payment systems — use third parties
• AM: consumer technology moving faster than big brand systems
  • what systems do they target for future work?
• BSR: e.g. 125 legacy systems, 3-5 years to implement, what devices should they target when it is complete…

mobile advertising vs marketing

• BSR: mobile advertising usually defined as a banner on a mobile site
  • unsurprisingly it doesn’t work very well
  • mobile marketing more of a toolbox

taking the personalisation further

• need to fix basics first: e.g. checkout, sign-in
  • but when personalising for previous, how do you encourage creativity: surprise me with new ideas
  • AM: moving towards a one-to-one dialog
  • IE: but don’t do what a wedding pictures site did and send email to all guests inviting them to set up their own wedding…

banks & financial services

• BSR: automotive started with “I don’t see the point of a mobile site”
  • then one brand did a good job and everyone else piled in

dealing with data

• highstreetlabs: recommendation algorithms will get better
• struggling to analyse big data — how do you see it in the future
• BSR: analytics show what works and what doesn’t, but also need to know why
  • use a lean approach: involve customers and gain knowledge

summing up from the panel

• AM: need to target engagement
  • requires a different mindset & a different approach

some feelings from the audience afterwards

• agencies not really looking beyond what is out there now…
• still trying to talk to clients who are focussed on print & tv
  • constraining the agency thought processes
• what will the landscape be like in 5 years or 10?
  • need to get brands to think ahead and plan for future
  • what will adverts be like amongst software agents like Siri or Google Now?
  • anticipate user intents:
    • don’t just catch their attention with flashy graphics & moving pictures
    • figure out what they might do and offer them help that fits with the brand

coming soon…

• June 20th: Test on real devices: free London event from DeviceAnywhere #LondonMT
• June 24th: Mobile Monday: Mobile, Mapping & Context
  • with Ordnance Survey who are launching their new mobile APIs
• July 15th: Mobile Monday: Mobile Operating Systems
  • with Ubuntu who are launching their new mobile OS

MomoLondon: What have operators done for you lately?

Not quite as snappy and energetic as last month’s event, but still a good evening. I think tonight was missing some demos or video examples to get the crowd excited before the panel session. As it was, it took until the last few questions before we got to the nitty gritty.

O2 Litmus

James Parton, Head of O2 Litmus

James Parton gave a polished presentation about O2 Litmus with lots of pithy quotes. Some examples:

O2’s feedback from the developer community about what was wanted from an operator:

1. get out of the way
2. be transparent and honest
3. show me how to make some money

“Developers can get their app in front of customers in 18 minutes, not 18 months”

“The customer API is the real value”: refine ideas with feedback from real customers

The benefits of O2 Litmus: developers have access to customers; and customers get a voice, early access and rewards.

Operators and Operands, a Love Story

Terence Eden

Terence wanted to get across the network effect — the killer app of a mobile communication device being the people with whom you communicate.

He started by scaling up from the iPhone, selling 20 million worldwide so far. Quite a few people in the audience had one, unsurprisingly. But the largest selling phone across all operators in the UK is the Nokia 6300 — basic mobile web & Java apps only, but used mainly for talking and text. Scaling up still further, the Nokia 1100 sells more than any other phone worldwide, and its greatest feature is a built-in torch!

Operators exist to generate the network effect. The network effect is the real power. What operators really want is for people to say, “I enjoy using my phone, I want to use it more.”

To a certain point, I agree with him. Until you have a certain number of devices in the market, the most important thing is getting people to use more devices. However, we’re long past that in Europe. The latest stats from the UN say that Europe has 111% penetration of mobile devices. That’s more devices than people.

Once you have a network, it’s time to think about how to leverage it more than how to grow it. Treating connectivity as a given has led to most of the exciting and new services and business models of the recent years. Google Docs, Dropbox, Twitter — they don’t exist to encourage people to use the internet; they only exist because everyone is already on the internet.

That’s an area where the iPhone has stormed ahead in mobile. It assumes you’re connected and moves beyond that. Nokia is still stuck on helping you to connect.

Panel

• Chair: Anna Gudmundson, Ad.IQ
• James Parton, O2 Litmus
• Steve Wolkak, Betavine
• Jo Rabin, dotMobi
  • investors include Google, Symbian, Microsoft, etc
• David Wood, Symbian

How did Betavine begin?

• Engaging those outside of your workplace (now called crowdsourcing)
• Thinking of ways that we could encourage the developer community to move towards mobile
• Any application uploaded to Betavine.net visible on portal in Germany, Spain, UK and South Africa

Where’s it going next?

• Direct feedback from developer community
• Feedback from Vodafone
• Things that the team think are fun
  • at the moment, looking at emerging markets

What is the dotMobi business model?

• We derive revenue from domain sales, development software and services

Which apps get cherry-picked from O2 Litmus?

• We use “endorsements” — not just downloads, but feedback on forums etc
• Not just O2 staff that make the decision, but real customers
• Once app is endorsed, then

Why would you develop on Symbian?

• Since open sourced, trying to encourage a wider community
• Now want to make developers have a great experience so that the platform as widely used as possible

Why is there fragmentation across operators?

• JP: fairly happy if a developer joins O2, works with customers to develop an app, then leaves and sells the app on Orange or Voda
  • customers have had the experience, which is what counts
  • challenge to JP to make Litmus a place to stay, but of course it won’t be exclusive
  • Litmus is part of the marketing strategy — not led by the tech department
• DW: if you allow customers the freedom to move away, they’re more likely to come to you in the first place
• JP & SW: we meet up for coffee, it’s all good :-)

The iPhone question: How are you planning to get more user-centred design into your process?

• DW: Set up four councils, including one on UI. This one has been disappointing — no take up from members of Symbian Foundation.
  • but can you really design an interface by committee
• SW: put up betavine.mobi on redesignme.com for suggestions, but appreciate that iPhone was driven by one man’s vision
• JR: iPhone was executed well on all axes. Interestingly it was a vertically-oriented experience that didn’t have a parallel in the existing mobile landscape…

That sounds good, but what about reality? Isn’t there a £1000 fee to have a game listed on O2 Active?

• JP: Direct access to real customers from self-registration on Litmus
  • I sit here as an operator and know that we’ve screwed things up previously
• SW: Again, you can upload an app and see it on portal

What is customer experience?

• JP: Selecting customers who have all you can eat data service and latest phones
  • No point selecting customers just for numbers’ sake

What about app discovery?

• DW: Symbian won’t be running an App Store, will be running a warehouse that can be queried by lots of different app stores
• SW: From portal: Home > Mobile Apps > Free Apps
• JP: Don’t need to be a member to browse the catalogue, just to download

Do operators have a role in educating the market and if so, how? (Patrick from GetJar)

• Terence Eden: Putting apps front an centre on Vodafone Live. Homepage Beta is encouraging people to upload web widgets.
• JP: Not going to be placing TV ads — too broad. Instead targeting specific customer segments

How much money is actually going to developers?

• JP: we paid our first developer last week!
• Terence Eden: it’s all very well providing you with a connection to our customers, but what you really want is a connection to their wallet!
• JP: really want to create incentives for customers — Mob4Hire doing that

How many customers are you seeing?

• JP: email campaign to a selective audience: normal open rate is 10%, but 27% rate for Litmus email
  • typical market survey 5,000 customers, and already well in excess of that

How do you expect to protect your customers against viruses?

• JP: moderators check submissions for viruses
• SW: betavine the same

Clarify going from free to paid:

• JP: within Litmus, you can sell at different price points. While in Litmus, you can control that
  • if you want to go outside Litmus (to 260 million Telefonica customers) you still have to talk to O2 commercial team

Jo Rabin’s wishlist

• What I’d really like to see is a way of monetize mobile web services rather than apps

Announcements:

• April’s event: how to finance your business during a credit crunch…
  • Not on a Monday and in the middle of April
• May: mobile marketing/media

O2 Litmus launch

I went to the launch of O2 Litmus on Friday — in the form of a hack day at the O2. It was interesting to see an operator directly running a hack day. Usually they’re involved as the supporting acts in a semi-official way, like Vodafone Betavine supporting OverTheAir. The guys at O2 did a reasonable job — finding people via twitter and other events and providing solid wifi and lots of power supplies. They didn’t leave quite enough time for the hacking though, allowing too much time for O2 Litmus partners to advertise their wares in the morning.

O2 Litmus itself seems like a good proposition in business terms — the same 30/70 revenue split as the Apple App Store; a system to let developers test apps with early adopters before releasing them into the wild; and money coming through to developers just 5 weeks after purchases. O2 are also trying to support app development through their partners, providing testing and business development support.

There are a couple of pieces missing, however. One great advantage of the Apple App Store is the ease of download — one click and the app automatically downloads to your iPhone and appears in your home screen. This is much harder for general phones at large — not only do you have to make sure you’ve got the right build for your phone (a problem that Apple has avoided for now by just having one platform), but you then have to figure out your phone’s weird and wonderful download experience. Do I really want to install something that my phone tells me could be a security risk? Do I want to install it in Games or Applications? And now it’s downloaded, where did it go? (Nokia Series 60, I’m talking to you here…)

At the moment, O2 Litmus requires a separate application and description for each build, with no provision for combining builds with automatic detection, and no support for external hosting either. I suggested that they consider allowing URLs for downloads and they seemed interested — this also opens the door to web apps instead of downloadable apps. They might also consider partnering with one of the companies who make a point of providing effective provisioning systems — like Paxmodept, GetJar or even ourselves.

The other piece that is missing is direct access to the store from the phone. O2 say they will email their early adopters in a few weeks to get them involved in the web site, but even those who do will not have the ability to see what their friends are doing and download the same thing. Spreading applications virally requires immediate access to the app as and when you see someone else using it. Miss the moment and the viral effect dies. The iPhone provides the App Store on the device itself to help with this — it’s not the easiest solution but at least it’s possible. Since J2ME apps make sharing apps intentionally hard (security to stop people sharing paid-for games…), O2 need to provide some access to Litmus from their phones.

As I mentioned above, the hacking competition itself was a little rushed — we only had about 3 hours to get something ready. As a result most of the entries were screenshot prototypes and sometimes not even that. I started putting together a simple J2ME version of our iPhone MyRail Lite app but NetBeans wasn’t behaving itself. Instead I made a paper prototype integrating MyRail Lite with twitter so that you can meet friends on the train and as they arrive:

Share your train journeys on twitter with myRail Lite on iPhone. Click the Tweet button on your departure, select your destination and carriage and it will send a tweet for you. Also see which train your friends are on and track them as they go.

The idea caught the attention of the judges (I imagine it was the idea rather than my sketched interface!) and I won second prize — 30 hours on DeviceAnywhere.

Here’s my full notes from the day if you want a bit more detail:

Why Litmus?

• Came to the conclusion about a year ago that O2 is quite difficult to do business with…
  • Just like the other network operators! Except O2 hasn’t had a developer program recently.
• Enabling O2 customer base to test apps and feedback
• Developers can test apps and get feedback
  • Can control how many customers can download it and test it out
• Developers can also put apps on sale directly
  • O2 take 30% cut of sales — exactly the same as the Apple App Store
• Plans to incentive customers to get involved
  • Any customer that has tested your app will get the app for free when you go commercial
  • So controlling numbers of testers is crucial
• O2 Marketing will monitor forums & feedback and launch popular apps into main customer base
• Money comes through to developers after five weeks

Litmus Tools

• O2 APIs
  • Connection Status API
  • Location API
• Supporting services:
  • DeviceAnywhere — remote device testing
  • Rackspace — hosting
  • Segala — expert testing

Mobile Social Networks — Ewan Spence

Poking from your mobile

• Involved in running Wubud — still in stealth mode
  • 100% focus on mobile, but with web client too, linking to other social networks
• itsmy.com makes money from users buying widgets
• facebook 0.3% CPM…

Mobile Developers Dilemma — Paul Golding

Slides available online

• Still has his Source O2 badge from O2’s previous developer outreach programme
• Expert member of MIDP3 group
• Chief app architect for Motorola in 90s
• What should you build?
  • Open APIs
  • Involve a community to build weight & momentum
  • Provide service & support
• Mobile UX: should exploit context
• Use microformats — if there isn’t a suitable one then invent one!
• Jitterbug — successful phone for old people in US
• Social Business Model: share ideas with frenemies
  • Share the risk
  • Exploit mashups
  • Create or be part of an ecosystem, so that even if people click out of your app, they haven’t left the ecosystem and are therefore more likely to come back
• Paul’s 9 year-old son is an iPhone developer :-)
• Growth areas:
  • Enterprise social software
  • Services to support SOHO users

Inspiring New Ways of Design and Development — Anthony Ribot

Slides available online

As usual, Anthony gave a good presentation on mobile design. The Ribot guys were on a lucky streak on Friday, winning both a Sony Ericsson C905 in the raffle and coming first in the hacking competition with a proposed mashup of dopplr and your phone address book — find out who’s in town and then call them straight away. Well done guys!

• The user-centred developer is a new type of role that should exist
  • Should develop with the user in mind
  • Not a role for every developer
• Clients from web medium come with a long list of 15 features
  • We tell them we’ll only implement the top 3 items, or even just the top 1
• Data-snacking is the most common experience on mobile
  • 30-60 seconds experience — small snippets of info
• Important to re-use the learnt behaviours of the device
  • Makes the first experience of the app that much better
• Mobile not about making things smaller!
  • Must take in context of use and figure out what the user actually wants to do
  • Cameron Moll: Mobile Web Design book
• It’s all about the subtleties
  • e.g. working around the 3G icon on Nokia devices — Opera Mini indents the page title
• Try and make the experience support reward-based design
  • e.g. Opera Mini (again) — right arrow does clever things based on context
• Dealing with diversity
  • Use statistics (e.g. admob) to work out top 5 handsets for your target audience
• Use rapid prototyping
  • The sooner you can get something tangible in your users’ hands, the better
  • Paper prototyping is good, but having something real is so much better
  • Finding that there’s less application stuff and more motion
    • Harder to describe in paper prototypes and screenshots
  • Tools available:
    • Flash (lite v3)
    • XHTML + CSS
    • Nokia Web Runtime
    • Silverlight (coming to Windows Mobile early next year, Symbian & Apple targeted too)
    • Dashcode

Partner adverts

We then had presentations from Rackspace, NAVTEQ, DeviceAnywhere, Mob4Hire and Segala.com. These were interesting in parts, but generally not much more than we could have got from flyers — a bit of a waste of time when the audience was mainly developers. We know what hosting is, thank you.

Rackspace — Matt ???

• 2600 employees (40-50 in London)
• growing about 50% year on year
• have “positive churn” (1.5%)
• 24/7 live “fanatical” support

NAVTEQ — Tony Hand & Mimmis Olsson

• 80 new devices launched with GPS in H1 2008
• 74m GPS phone devices sold in EMEA next year
  • 55m smart phones, others feature phones
• NAVTEQ Network for Developers
  • Online developer community
  • Includes sample map data
• NAVTEQ Connections Web Portal
  • matchmaking, promotion
• 6th year of NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge
  • 2009 prizes include cash, tool & data licenses and handsets
• O2 segments:
  • Ambitious Status Seekers
  • Frenetic Families
  • Fun Loving Socialisers

DeviceAnywhere — Leila Modarres

We use DeviceAnywhere for testing our JavaME apps (such as the National Express East Coast Timetable to Mobile) and find it very effective. I didn't take many notes on this session as I already know how it works. Go see their site if you want further details.

• Screens only turn on when the device is in use
• Will hand out 30 free hours today
  • I won them!

Mob4hire — Paul Poutanen

• Mobile developers can leverage the value of existing handsets to test for other developers
  • Earn money on mob4hire…
• Developers can use Litmus system to take advantage of 25,000 early adopter customer base on mob4hire
• Roadmap:
  • Certified testers
  • Remote emulation — competing with deviceanywhere (using LogMeIn)
  • Coder4Hire
  • Market research — localisation etc.

Segala.com — Paul Walsh

• Expert testing services

MomoLondon: Mobile Social Networking

Not the most thrilling of momolondon’s tonight. The panel format worked well and the chairs asked reasonably interesting questions, but I think it was the subject matter that just felt a bit samey to me. Even the twitter backchannel seemed a little subdued. Maybe it was just my cold…

The best bits for me were Steve Lawson talking about his experiences of trying to use his mobile for social media (where by media, he meant actual music and video production).

Priya Prakash of Flirtomatic also had some interesting things to say, but I felt that she didn’t really get into her stride. She said she was in the middle of a user experience analysis of her site and wanted to involve the audience in some research, but this never really happened. Perhaps an idea for a future Mobile Monday…?

Anyway, here’s my notes — as always, please add comments if there’s something that you want to know more about.

First Panel: Why are people going to be using mobile social media?

Panel

• Chair: Josie Fraser
• Steve Lawson - Musician/Consultant
• Luke Brynley-Jones - Trutap
• Paul May - Bluehoo
• Brian Fuchs - Internet Centre, Imperial College
• Graham Brown - MobileYouth

Steve

• broadcast model of connecting to audience is dying
• entry level of broadcasting has dropped
• how am I using it: with a great deal of frustration…
• currently using mobile to post data as things happen
• not using other people’s mobiles
• where is it going? for most people, it’s not the gadget that’s important
  • don’t want my audience to have to become mobile geeks in order to access
  • e.g. twitter
• I take the bus rather than the tube as I can be online during the journey

Luke

• had to focus on where users actually were
• a lot of users in asia — india, indonesia
• did 120 interviews with users and ex-users
• had been focussing on facebook, but 0% of users in Mumbai have facebook accounts
• further details:
  • typically 20-30 year olds
  • slight male bias, but not much
  • wanted to chat with their friends
  • wanted to flirt and meet others
  • location was important — e.g. there are transport problems in Mumbai
  • sitting there 2-3 hours a day chatting with their friends

Paul

• wrote a book in 2001 called Mobile Commerce — did very well in China…
• nowadays meetings never happen when they’re organised — instead people send you messages by every which way and you’re supposed to pick them all up and not be surprised
• in a proper mobile world, everybody here in the room would be communicating with each other, rather than just panel broadcasting out with no feedback
  • that was kind of happening with the twitter backchannel, but it wasn’t reaching the panel very well
  • Josie said she would have liked the twitter stream on the projector

Brian

• have to develop peer-to-peer architectures and decentralised payment solutions
• otherwise 3 billion devices will overwhelm the services

Graham

• “only two industries in the world that call their customers ‘users’… the mobile industry and crack dealers!”
• mobile social media is not relevant for youth - just want to look good and get laid :-)
• driven by:
  1. need to belong
  2. need to be significant
• go and see what red bull is doing with red bull music academy

Q&A

What about people over 35?

• Steve: most of my audience are over 30
• Graham: youth are future customers
  • mobile social media is not the sales channel
  • it’s about building the relationship in order to increase the sales opportunities
  • so youth are the future market (like banks)
• Simon Rockman: only successful phone aimed at older people was Emporio(?) in Austria
• Steve: “proposed twitter to my Mum — terminology was the barrier”
  • “as soon as I explained that it was like texting me and my brother at the same time, she wanted me to sign her up straight away”
  • “now if I tweet and text at the same time, she returns the tweet first”

What about privacy?

• Paul: we seem to have all agreed to become performers
• Josie involved with schools looking at use of mobile
  • looking at addressing behavioural issues such as happy slapping
  • rights and responsibilities

Terence Eden: is it a danger that there’ll be too much focus on iPhone when everybody use RAZRs?

• Steve: ok to target 10% if they can distribute to others — make content “tearable”

2nd Panel: Industry Perspectives

Panel

• Chair: Dan Appelquist — Vodafone/Mobile Monday
• Andrew Scott — Founder of Rummble
• Sean Kane — Head of Mobile for Bebo
• Priya Prakash — Flirtomatic
• Jennifer Grenz — Shozu
• Christophe Hocquet — Moblr/BuddyMob
  • have seen average session times of 3 hours!

What impact is flat rate having?

• Priya: one user came along to user testing with 6 different SIM cards and was swapping in and out as needed and for best rate…
  • as long as they can access the service, they will do what it takes
• Jen: big change for Shozu is roaming to wifi
• Sean: lot of bebo users are under 24, but are spending a lot
  • 30% of traffic on a lot of operators is going to mobile social networking

How many of your users are roaming? Is that impacting?

• Andrew: mobile by definition is something you travel with
• Sean: see a lot of users switching to roam-able services like text messaging

On deck/off deck

• Sean: need to be both off and on deck
  • starting today, wouldn’t bother with on deck
  • “all the friction is on deck” — you have to work with lots of awkward operator people
• Priya: if you could get rid of all those noisy banners operators should be able to make a fantastic personalised experience…
• Jen: non-operator driven discoverability is on the rise, compared to operator-driven
• Sean: haven’t figured out how to make mobile experiences viral — how do you share?
• Dan: Obama iPhone app — download and it examines your address book and tells you to call people in swing states
• Priya: need to have a contextual “share with a friend” — share a social object. It’s a challenge to find something suitable to send
• Jen: “this service is more exciting to me if you join”
• Andrew: released iPhone app, not Java, since 99% sure that it will be a good experience
• Priya: how many people in audience have sent something to a friend via a mobile internet site? answer: about 30-40%
• Sean: SMSs are not a long term strategy, but are good as a one off to bring people in to the network

How do you inform users of potential costs?

• Dan: maybe there’s a place for a mobile social network as a support group for those suffering from bill shock :-)

Privacy settings for location-based services?

• Andrew: you need to provide it, but you’ll probably find that no one uses that feature
  • What’s the minimum age? We copied what facebook do: 13
  • But it depends on the context of the network
• Priya: have to provide a social fuzzy location — otherwise it seems too freaky
• Jen: in terms of photos, people want to upload exact location but keep it private
• facebook privacy settings are quite granular, but possibly too detailed for anyone to understand
  • Josie: facebook ran into problems with data protection as it wasn’t clear that young people could understand the various settings — still an ongoing case
• if you support fireeagle, you have to support specific levels of granularity of location — cannot release data that is too detailed

Metrics — what’s the most important thing that you’re measuring that shows the health of your business

• Andrew: engagement, rummbling a place, rating a POI
  • iPhone app is 3-4 times higher than online
• Sean: how many more people using this week?
  • figuring out ways to use virality
• Priya: number of flirtograms
  • all about getting people from first use through to first paid item
• Jen: churn, defined by active use and returning users, month on month, year on year
• Christophe: click through rate, love

Setting up a working group to share location amongst mobile social networks

• Andrew: not sure what the name is yet, but have been talking to 5 or 6 other network — about 20 million users in total

Combining social networks with serious applications

• Andrew: 37% on a social network in US; Korea has 87% — waiting for critical mass
• Priya: working with BBC mobile
• Sean: causes, e.g tsunami-related, etc.
  • not quite at the phase on mobile where you can start to open platform — still fighting over getting users
• Met Office have just launched a Mobile TV channel, ad-funded

Summing up

• Jen: choice
• Priya: friends are overrated :-)

Next event

• next event probably second Monday in January
• also opportunities to sponsor the podcast…