Handheld Conference 2012

This is a new conference, organised by Craig Lockwood around lots of intersecting areas of mobile design and development.

This year it was held in the beautiful St David’s Hotel, overlooking Cardiff Bay. The conference centre was a bit cramped, but the hotel itself was lovely.

There was a single track of sessions, but they covered a wide range of areas from getting a business started to futurology via several variations of design. As with many mobile events there was a fair mention of the web vs native debate, but there was a reasonable balance between the two here — with the only loser being the whole app hybrids like PhoneGap (which took a large amount of flak).

As with most of my posts, here’s my quick notes, typed during the sessions so that you can get a rough overview of what happened. Craig has published videos of several of the sessions on Besquare (I'll link to them next to my notes).

Handheld 2012: Book stories — How to turn a sideline into a business

Keir Whitaker, Viewport Industries

http://keirwhitaker.com

• co-owner of Viewport Industries with Elliot Jay Stocks
• using the web to do side-projects / passion projects
• published Insites book — interviews with web developers & founders
  • also available as ebook (via http://woop.ie)
• wanted to create something that makes money while they slept
• there’s still a passion for physical media (especially amongst designers…)
• had 65 people involved in making book
  • 21 interviewees, but a lot of others
  • copy editors, etc
• picking a new collaborator is hard
• did a precursor project (insites tour) to find out if they could work together
• discuss the money up front
  • horrible conversation to have
  • but really important to sort out before starting
• raising money
  • bootstrapping (your own money)
  • kickstarter (watch out for scaling issues)
  • funding
  • sponsorship / partnership
  • chose partnership (published in association with Mailchimp)
• need banking for a business account
  • they need address, phone number, etc
  • chose HSBC for Xero integration
• company needs a physical address
  • don’t use your home address
  • can use an accountant’s address
• need a telephone number
  • again, don’t use a personal number (especially mobile)
  • used a company called dial9 to have a virtual Bath number
• need terms & conditions
  • banks pay people to read them when you apply for stuff
  • most people borrow other people’s terms…
  • ask first!
• get an accountant
  • will save you money
  • HSBC business account feeds directly into Xero online accounting system
  • accountant can then work directly from Xero
  • costs about £19/month
• need a storefront for the website
  • shopify costs £19/month
• payment gateway
  • middle man between storefront and merchant account
  • need it if you don’t go for paypal
  • alternatives:
    • braintree
    • paymill
    • stripe (US only)
    • gocardless (going Europe-wide, direct debit only)
• merchant accounts
  • money comes through into real business account after about 2 weeks
• ensure that the gateway supports issuing refunds
• digital goods
  • use fetch app
  • works by web hooks
  • benefit with fetch app is that you can resend orders (sometimes they don’t go through)
• need to do support…
  • try to take dissatisfied customers off twitter and into email
  • think about what you can offer unhappy customers (e.g. digital goods in lieu)
  • helpscout.net can suck in email
  • can outsource support
• costs:
  • accountant: £70
  • xero: £19
  • telephone: £10
  • shopify: £19
  • payment gateway: £19
  • merchant account: £25
  • fetch app: £6
  • support: £100
  • based on 4 hours of accounting & support / month
• projects will always take longer than you think
  • impacts the finances

Start small, think big

Lee Armstrong, @lesmond, lee@pinkfroot.com

Video available on besquare.me

• shipfinder - first app
• planefinder - most successful
• inspired by Google, facebook, twitter
  • started thinking big from the start
• planefinder started with coverage of the south of the UK
  • sold app across world and started getting a few emails back saying “don’t you know Poland exists?”
  • started planning for bigger
• now cover most of world apart from China & Africa
  • have 400-500 radio receivers across the world and splice that data with other databases
  • all receivers are land-based: ships have range of about 50 miles
• when initial small hosting plan started creaking had to decide to self-host or cloud?
  • ran a comparison recently, found that it would cost $2000/mth more using AWS than using at the moment
  • but have internal skills to do server management
• currently have 32 servers but are flexible
• need to be able to scale up (and down)
  • pinkfroot turn machines off when scaling down
  • doesn’t save capex of rack space, but saves power
• user reviews…
  • bonkers reviews — ignore them
  • but pay attention to common themes
  • take time to spend time on customer support
  • takes around 30 minutes to turn around an angry customer
• built in social sharing into app
  • pick a flight and share it - shares web link + image
• built up community of app users
  • really valuable when lost photos of individual planes
  • managed to get users build up their own photos in the app (credited to users)
• product releases - little and often really helps
  • big release with loads of new features will miss out most features in reviews
  • what’s new notes in store are the one chance to communicate with users
  • make it chatty, make it friendly
• building up a good brand
  • working with Eddie Stobart to make an Eddie spotter app
• have apps for iOS, Android, Windows Phone
  • spend a lot of time writing native apps
  • make savings on back-end — they all talk JSON
  • Android is 10% of iOS sales
  • Windows Mobile is 1% of iOS sales
  • doing it for brand exercise
  • going through improving other platform apps

So you have an app idea?

Dave Addey, Agant, @daveaddey

Video available on besquare.me

• 2008 Dave was an web developer in a spare bedroom office
• now runs a company with 7 employees
• a good idea for an app
  • is it a good idea?
  • is it a good idea for an app?
  • how do you go about making it?
• example: late night bars in London
  • cost low four figures to make
  • 3 months of preparation time for database
  • sold 2000 copies @ £3.99 (or £2.40 after Apple & VAT) — didn’t even break even…

is it a good idea?

• measuring good app market:
  • universal - niche
  • international - local
  • lasting - ephemeral
• UK Train Times launched in 2009 when the app store was smaller
  • local - UK not worldwide
  • lasting
  • fairly universal
• Malcolm Tucker app
  • when you open the app there’s one new voicemail waiting for you
  • when you listen to the voicemail it starts a 4 day process with incoming emails & voicemails as Malcolm Tucker tries to find his phone
  • timely
  • fairly niche
  • fairly local
  • so covered costs but not much more
  • but led to a lot of other interesting projects
• does the app have a long tail?
  • lasting appeal
• does it scratch your own itch?
• should have some kind of hook
  • something that’s not been done before
  • something to show off to user’s friends

… for an app?

• when potential clients say “I want an app”, it’s not always true — Dave talks 50% of clients out of
• dead time (5-10 mins)
  • e.g. supermarket line
  • used for QI app
  • book-style interface had larger books with longer content
• we know where you live
  • trip advisor offline city guides
  • nosey parker
  • rightmove app
  • e.g. next train home in UK Train Times
    • one button to home station from around here
• the app that’s always there
  • guitar toolkit
  • imdb: “what was she in?”
  • british red cross first aid app — everyone should download this now!
• ongoing (everyday) use
  • opposite of throwaway app
  • people rely on them
  • UK Train Times
    • get more sales through word of mouth than any other means
    • can still charge £4.99
    • has sold 300,000 copies throughout the UK
    • but losing National Rail icon caused a massive drop in sales
  • twitter clients
  • TuneIn Radio
  • clipboard management apps

how to go about making it?

• lots of platforms to cover
• one approach is PhoneGap, hybrid app builder
• but problem: e.g. featured app Wikipedia
  • doesn’t work in the same way as native apps
  • form controls are different
  • search is not the same for either platform
• @daveaddey’s maxim: “develop once for every device: you get a rubbish app for every device”
• have seen big brands develop PhoneGap apps and then pull them after a month
• if you spend ages fine-tuning your HTML to behave like a native app, then you might as well spend that time writing native
• … but the rule is different for games
  • you can build using cross-platform games engines, e.g. Unity, Marmalade
  • the interface is not specific to the device but specific to the game
• it’s all about the implementation
  • sharing profits based on an initial idea doesn’t make sense…
  • it’s all the little ideas throughout development
• Derek Sivers - cdbaby
  • ideas are worth nothing unless executed
  • they are multipliers
  • http://j.mp/ideaMultiplier
• Sergey Brin: “coming up with an idea is the least important part of creating something great… the execution and the delivery are what’s key” (via The Guardian)
• PhoneGap can be useful for a quick prototype to guage response
• apps can and should make use of HTML5 where appropriate
  • e.g. Malcolm Tucker emails, credits pages
  • QI app content — but displayed using CoreText not a web view
• hybrid approach
  • suggest creating a native app for one platform
  • a mobile web app for the rest
  • choice of one native platform is up to target market
  • use experience of first native to decide next native platform
• don’t muck with user expectations
  • native apps are expected to have native performance & behaviour
  • web sites have different expectations
  • but don’t try and make your mobile web site appear like a native app!
• pricing:
  • getting high value apps going
  • e.g. launching £10 app at £5.99
  • 69p for a UK only app is not going to break even
  • Agant don’t do 69p apps…
• bandwidth, speed, etc
  • saw more of a change between capped & unlimited than for improvements in speed
• biggest failing in App Store is lack of paid upgrades
  • adding new functionality is about finding additional users by re-promotion
  • Agant avoiding freemium because eeurgh :-)
  • but freemium seems to be a side effect of the lack of a paid upgrade option

10 top tips

1. project the risk of everything you do: best and worse case predictions
   • app should have a business plan
2. keep project budget realistic
   • don’t be tempted to spend a fortune
3. it’s important that all partners have a vested financial involvement
   • don’t take on apps for a content provider where they have no risk
4. talk about your idea - it will lead to better ideas
5. value Apple promotions
   • Malcolm Tucker was not promoted due to sweary language
   • QI app did get promoted - massive difference
6. best way to get Apple promotion is to make Apple devices look good
7. create a video that tells people what your app does
   • gives an equivalent to your app that people can share
8. keep updating your app - and give Apple reasons to promote it in each case
   • if you add big content, Apple will treat it as a new app
9. keep it simple and focussed
10. sweat the details
    • “the best way to market your app, is just to build a great app”

Content & tone

Robert Mills, Studio Manager at Bluegg, @RobertMills

Video available on besquare.me

• creating, managing & using content
• need an individual responsible for content
• content first otherwise design won’t fit…
  • see @rellyab, @halvorson
• used slickplan to plan site
  • signed off site map first
  • then got client to provide all content
  • client had to really think about what she was saying
  • she had to think about the whole site up front
• having all content ready means that organising translations is easier
• using content
  • what are you saying and who to?
• managing content
  • can use Google Docs, Dropbox, etc
  • or GatherContent
• doesn’t end after launch
  • need to review & refine
  • audit & strategy
  • ensure consistent & authentic
• auditing content for mobile
  • prioritise content over navigation
  • can prioritise content using traffic lights
  • need to check end use: ask why content is important

Working with Muppets

Ollie Wells, Sequence, @olliewells

• Sequence focus mainly on mobile web sites
• research — use analytics
• stakeholders (esp HIPPOs) can cause problems
  • Blackberry v5 is a pain in the butt
  • can use analytics to persuade them that their use case is not common
• useful functional spec wording (plain English, without version numbers):
  • The website will be built to perform at its best in the most common of modern browsers
  • Bugs that stop the side being usable will be fixed in the latest versions of the above browsers, as well as in 1 older version
  • Any bugs that we find in browsers more than 1 older version of the most common browsers will be looked at on an individual basis. This includes bugs that affect functionality as well as design.
• don’t oversimplify the mobile web site
  • ensure the functionality is still there
  • don’t remove functionality just cos your on mobile
• doing information architecture using sketches on paper
  • good example {picture}
• do prototypes on device
  • click from screen to screen
• frameworks
  • jquery mobile useful for quick prototypes
  • for prototypes, use sass, haml, coffescript and middleman
  • for production, use Mixture, gridset, twitter bootstrap
• Muppets web site for movie
  • all about characters
  • desktop is animation based
  • mobile is much simplified - same content, but static images
  • tablet is same layout as desktop but no animation
• device testing…
  • bluegg looking to open a device lab
  • choose your devices carefully - you can’t support everything
• do double res images for iconography, but not for photography
  • most users wouldn’t see the difference for photos
  • also CSS3 web fonts are useful for iconography

Taking content abroad

Rob Lo Bue, applingua, @roblobue

Video available on besquare.me

• imagine that you’re a french speaking user and you download an app, but it’s in english
  • bad initial impression…
• get your English right
  • get someone else to read it and answer questions
  • check it’s easy to comprehend
• avoid idioms - they don’t translate
• make your units use worldwide standards
  • e.g. include dollars as well as sterling, km as well as miles
  • always include timezone for event times!
• use a clear font for writing
• icons save translation costs!
• support international sharing
  • e.g. qzone (QQ), badoo
• if you have the budget and time, then look at translations
  • get users to translate!
  • but get another user to check
  • can use Google Translate for checking translation (don’t use Google Translate for actual translation!)
• choose languages carefully
  • e.g. most iPhone users in India are English speakers and use their iPhone in English… less ROI on a Hindi translation
• international compatibility

What’s holding the mobile web back, and what are Facebook doing about it?

Simon Cross, @sicross, si@fb.com

Video available on besquare.me

• worked at facebook for about 2.5 years now - makes him one of the old-timers
• digging in to Zuck’s quote from techcrunch disrupt in Sept 2012
  • faceweb v4 built from 2010: webview with extensions
  • at that time, facebook was a web company
  • update at will, one m-web codebase
• reach a point where people hated it because:
  • it was slow — slow*er* than their other apps
  • it pretended to be a native app
• took 6 months to fix it
  • because had to retool the whole company
  • had to slow down the release cycle, which felt wrong
  • had to get used to submitting binaries to Apple & Google
• v5 app (more native UI) went from 1.5 stars to 4 stars in 3 weeks
• …and Zuck’s quote continues to say that there are more people using facebook on mobile web than there are on Android and iOS combined
  • 7000 device types accessing every day
  • mobile users growing twice as fast as desktop
  • 126m mobile-only users
• so how to help developers grow mobile web apps?

distribution

• asked developers at PhoneGapDayEU why they were using PhoneGap: response — to be in the App Store (80%)
• in the app store to get distribution, but also because boss said so…
• mobile usage is different from desktop
  • general browsing is less used
  • instead people solve a problem, or fill some time
• facebook integration is no longer click to share
  • now it’s about publishing structured data
  • where, when, who
• e.g. soundcloud defined 5 actions
  • if you do any of these actions on any of their apps, it publishes that to facebook (if opted in)
  • then comes back as news feed either in app or in facebook app
  • news feed in facebook launches app directly — or else takes you directly to the app store to install it
• e.g. SongPop grew 9.7m users mainly through facebook sharing
• last 30 days, facebook sent users to native app stores 180m times
• also facebook has App Center for mobile web app
  • 170m monthly users
  • social recommendations
• last 30 days facebook sent users to mobile websites ~7m times

performance

• no visual difference from v4 to v5 except speed
  • but got 2x engagement
• Moore’s law still applies to mobile
  • at least to newly released devices
  • due to upgrades & contracts, the actual speed of increase is slightly slower…
• facebook is a founding partner of the W3C coremob community group
  • one of the first priorities is fixing appcache
• also developed ringmark: http://rng.io
  • Ring 0: what we have now
  • Ring 1: what we need to run 8 of the top 10 native Android & iOS apps
  • Ring 2: what we need to build all of the native apps on the mobile web
• 4 months ago, Dolphin Browser Beta for Android succeeded on Ring 1
• browserscope is now tracking ringmark over time

monetisation

• display ads?
  • on mobile? really?
  • they suck - both for size and for intrusion
  • BBC have long narrow columns because they need the right column for ads in the US
• credit cards?
  • too hard
  • cannot compete with native
• carrier billing?
  • can integrate via middlemen (bango, boku, zong)
  • facebook mobile payments layer on top of that
  • Ed: but doesn’t work on Wi-Fi

It started with a browser

Matt Gaunt, Developer Advocate, Google TV, @gauntface

• @AliDriver (Future Platforms designer, now freelance) able to do amazing things with HTML5
• latest devices could do it, but performance always an issue
• now looking at Google TV Spotlight
  • app store for TV optimized web apps
  • apps look really great
  • but developer spent two weeks adding a specific animation…
• just think about screens of different sizes
  • see Jason Grigsby’s article {link here}
• users don’t care if it’s a responsive design or separate mobile & desktop sites
• though probably want to have a catch-all site that will be ok for all situations
  • then add native apps or customized web sites as needed

Is your thinking L-shaped?

Kevin Mears, http://mearso.com, @mearso

• big CRTs meant you needed L-shaped desks - so could fit CRTs into the corner
• but don’t need them anymore for flatscreen monitors
• requirements change, don’t forget to change your tools…
• “Moses said”: my boss says…
  • difficult to argue with someone who isn’t in the room
• politics means that designers & developers can’t just be artists
  • have to sell the work
  • “Design is a Job”
• mobile use case — apply “app thinking” to a web site (Sarah Parmenter, FOWA)
  • what is the single reason for someone using my app?
  • and who are they?
• universities do have lots of different use cases
  • e.g. glamorgan
  • 100 users concurrent active users
  • 100 sub-sites
  • 100+ editors
• teaching people that need to delete stuff that is no longer relevant
  • Ed: but then it’s important to archive stuff on the web too
• basing templates off twitter bootstrap
  • frameworks tend to make you fit the content to the framework

UI for developers

Amber Weinberg, @amberweinberg

Video available on besquare.me

• specialises in mobile web apps
• did audible mobile web site
• pretty much 99% of design briefs Amber is given only include full-size desktop web site
• forget about mockups
  • just make it responsive
• breakpoints are when your site breaks
  • fix all the breakpoints at different sizes
• don’t fake it - you’re not a native app, so don’t pretend to be one
• put content where people can reach it
  • Apple have guidelines showing how people hold iOS devices
• show what’s important
  • e.g. boston globe
  • navigation gets simpler
• use columns
  • can move to less columns before switching to single column
  • compare scroll time with content size
• give extra spacing
  • make sure the text doesn’t hit the edge of the screen
• menus are crucial
  • if there are buttons in the header you may want to keep the menu drop-down and a separate action
  • can also have menus at bottom of page and a jump to bottom link at the top
• choose words or icons, but not both
• reduce images
  • responsive images not yet possible
  • try to use less images and more CSS
• retina-smetina
  • most of the time, users won’t even notice…
  • is it worth the bandwidth?
• buttons
  • read apple’s button guidelines
  • make important buttons bigger, 100% width
  • encourages people to press them!
• hover effects
  • make it clear that hoverable items are interactive
• don’t assume you know what your users are doing
  • but make it easy
• make font sizes appropriate
  • not too big
• don’t disable zooming
  • it’s an accessibility thing
• use sliders - with gestures
  • http://www.woothemes.com/flexslider/
• don’t forget your bookmarklet icon

We, Human

Andrew Spooner, Creative Technologist, Microsoft, @andspo

• works in developer platform evangelism team
• get tech about a year or two before it hits the public
• why do we connect things?
• vannevar bush & the memex…
• internet fridge…
• toaster telling me that the robo-vacuum has picked up the dog being sick behind the sofa
• NEST gives feedback on temperature changes: it will be 21°C in 15 minutes
• in 2008, the number of things connected to the internet exceeded the population of Earth
• latest John Deere cotton picker RFID tags each cotton bale
• microsoft project emporia
  • personalised news editor based on articles that you say you like or don’t like
• kinect
  • daughter thinks kinectimals is a film that she stars in
  • shadow puppet control
  • making people invisible (at least on TV)
  • putting a kinect on a quadrocopter
  • trolley that follows someone on a wheelchair
  • face detection and recognition…
• use with caution
  • what are the standard gestures?
  • cancel?
  • don’t turn up the volume control by whirling your arm round and round
• human capacity is not accelerating like our tools…
• minimise complexity, increase consistency
• design style: http://design.windows.com
  • pride in craftmanship — sweat the pixels
  • fast & fluid — motion & animation
    • custom controls need a lot of extra work
    • we have movement in nature, we expect things to move in the same way on digital screens
    • animation with a purpose
  • authentically digital
    • use sensors
    • iconography can represent digital realm
  • do more with less — get rid of UI chrome
    • make the content the interaction
  • win as one
    • small pieces loosely joined
• summary:
  • contextual & social UX is an expectation
  • understand the human - keep it that way

Design Systems

Laura Kalbag, @laurakalbag

Video available on besquare.me

• moving to responsive design
• but still designing at fixed widths
• shouldn’t be thinking in static
• thinking about devices, not content; deliverables, not process
  • thinking about what they give to the client
• design systems
  • typography
  • layout
  • shape & form
  • colours
• what are you going to keep the same across different viewports, and what will change?
• content is always the same
• for design, might want to start with typography
• then move on to base unit
  • based on width/height of ad unit?
  • used for grids, line height
  • makes site feel consistent across changes
• grid can’t stay the same, but try to keep consistency
  • 6 -> 3 -> 1
  • or 4 -> 2
• shape and form includes textures & illustration style
• colour can be kept the same most easily
• design in the browser
  • brilliant idea
  • can’t do it though…
• tools:
  • share design ideas through style tiles
  • styleguides
  • http://pea.rs
• clients want to know what it looks like on different devices
  • they’re snapshots, not mockups
  • if they like the style tiles, then start prototyping in the browser
• don’t base breakpoints on device widths — should be based on content
  • e.g. videos, images, headings
• “if you’re not ashamed of what you did 3-6 months ago, you’re probably not keeping up”
• another app to try is typecast

a happy grain of sand

Aral Balkan, @aral

Video available on besquare.me

• think about how the whole system works together
• an experience is only as strong as its weakest link
• as a designer, try to remain naive
• washing machine:
  • designers think they’re building a machine that washes clothes
  • users actually want a machine that cleans clothes
  • don’t want or need to know the internals of how or why clothes are washed in different ways
• superman effect:
  • makes the technology disappear
  • and the interaction appear like magic
  • Ed: shouldn’t this be the A. C. Clarke effect…?
• interaction design is about dealing with the loss of a human from an interaction
  • replacing the human with a machine is hard
  • but it’s really important
• focus
  • great design is a symptom of a design-led organisation or organisational structure
  • antoine de st. exupéry: “Perfection is attained, not when no more can be added, but when no more can be removed.”
  • design is not democratic
  • you have to make sacrifices
  • in this day & age, great design is the business plan
• design > test > develop > test > design …
  • keep iterating
  • and don’t forget the vision
  • the user testing needs to be filtered through the vision
  • Ed: e.g. Apple does less user testing as they know that asking people doesn’t always give the right answer
• user empathy:
  • indeterminate spinner isn’t enough — need to show empathy when waiting
• web vs native: http://thelink.is/webvsnative

Londroid: Payment and monetization

The first of two Android blog posts — this one’s from the Londroid Meetup on April 21st themed on Payments.

There were three presentations from three competing payment platforms, and they presented in roughly the order I’d prefer to use them (in their current state): Paypal is very much sorted for Android — they make it easy and it looks impressive and secure; Google’s in-app billing is still new and feels unfinished; and Paythru is simply a browser-based system that’s designed for mobile, but no way near as slick as the other two.

However, talking to the Paythru rep later, they have some interesting tricks up their sleeve — like being able to take payment but not actually charge it to the card for several days (useful for synchronising multiple payments, or buying Olympics tickets). Google will also be beefing up their billing system over the next few months, so Paypal won’t have an easy ride.

Integrating Paypal In-App and Mobile Browser Payments on Android

Anthony Hicks anthony@x.com — Paypal

• paypal in EU biggest in UK, then DE, then FR
  • small numbers in scandinavia, spain & italy
• now have a bank license in Europe
• iPhone, iPad, Android mobile payment library
  • all in-app (no browser)
• adaptive payments
  • split payments between multiple parties
  • make chains of payments
  • make a billing agreement and charge them later
  • pre-approval — can request payments without taking people to paypal
  • customer agrees to pay up to £X per month
  • take commissions on payments
• mobile express checkout also available (browser based)
  • optimised for webkit
  • can login with mobile number and pin (as well as with email/password)

Development

• payment button & pages have to be consistent
  • paypal won’t let you change them
• language only affects the login page
  • paypal then switch to user’s language
• process to approve:
  • get sandbox ID
  • submit test app to paypal
  • get live app ID
  • rebuild app (and don’t change it too much!)

Android In-App Billing

Richard Hyndman @geekyouup — Android Developer Advocate, Google

• available on 1.6 and above (since handled by Android Market app)
  • have to have opened the Market app
• two kinds of purchase:
  • Managed: once per account
  • can query market to find out if the purchase has been made
  • Unmanaged: unlimited per account
• get the Google Market Billing package from the ADK
• usage:
  • bind to service
  • check billing supported (requires network) — can then ask for upgrade
  • send billing request and put up billing page activity
  • set up billing receiver
  • purchase notify tells you something has changed, but you have to ask what…
  • quite a few back and forths…
• security
  • recommend that you put validation on server (urban airship?)
• use android.test.purchased as your SKU then it won’t get billed!
• use test accounts for testing…
• apparently the dungeons example has two or three classes you don’t actually need

Q&A

• subscriptions not in API yet…
• shared preferences can now be synced to the cloud
• to prevent copying to another phone, would have to check market when app launches
• currency tied to the google account, not to the IP location
• can only buy digital content/services

Paythru - Money on the Move

http://www.paythru.com/

• paythruMONEY — allows people to manage a card from their mobile
• can move money with a single-use QR code
• provides digital cash (user is logged in but retailer sees no identification)
• a few lines of code:
  • launch a browser to a specific URL
  • get the app to launch with a return URL when the paythru mobile web checkout has completed

MomoLondon: Living in a Multi-Platform World

Another Mobile Monday on fragmentation of platforms, but this time hosted by a big company just about to launch yet another platform… The Microsoft reps seemed to come on a little strong tonight. So much so that I started to tune out when it was their turn to talk.

Nick Lansley from Tesco.com was a new face at Mobile Monday — and had some good things to say. He seems to have his head screwed on right about where to take Tesco.com in the face of multiple platforms and a wide spread of consumers (it’s the API, stoopid).

Tom Hume of Future Platforms also gave some interesting insights — I like his idea of using an AdWords campaign to figure out the target platforms for a new product. It’s always better to measure than to guess — and the internet lets you measure everything.

Alex Reeve - Director of Mobile Business Group, MSFT UK

• it’s fair to say that MS have had their challenges in the mobile industry
• they’re fully aware of that and they’re aware that “a new dawn is coming”
• mobile is enormously important to MS
• Windows 7 coming this side of Xmas
  • integrating contact details & social connections
  • options to show thing separately or together
  • keeping pictures together (including Facebook, etc)
  • “people want Internet Explorer on their phone”
  • do they really? don’t they just want Facebook/Yahoo/BBC, etc
  • fully-editable Word documents
  • email works the same as Outlook
  • I hope not… that would be horrible
  • “Zune is mainly a product in the US only”

Panel session

Panel (and their phones):

• Chair: Marek Pawlowski
  • this is no longer just about mobile — platforms to support now extend to TVs, games consoles, etc…
  • nearly all devices can do voice
  • most can do SMS, and a lot have browsers and Java
  • Q1 this year about 18% of mobile sales were smartphones
  • 11% of market by end of this year will be smartphones
  • 3/4 of developers use an Android or an iPhone as their primary device…
• Oded Ran - Windows Phone in the UK
  • Windows Phone - HDT HD2
• Tom Hume - MD of Future Platforms
  • Nexus One
• Nick Lansley - Head of R&D at Tesco.com
  • iPhone, Nexus One (which crashes 3 times a day)
• Jerry Ennis: CEO at Flirtomatic
  • #1 mobile social network in UK, if not in Europe, according to Comscore
  • though I guess it’s dwarfed by Facebook & twitter, which are social networks that people access on mobile…
  • iPhone
• Ilio Uvarov - lead UX practice at RG/A London
  • clients such as Nike, Nokia
  • iPhone

Which mobile platform would you develop for first and why?

• NL: probably give a different answer every couple of months
  • would like to choose most common in Tesco customer base, but that would mean a phone that’s incapable
  • started with iPhone “because I had one”
  • iPhone is a “hero device” — you get much more marketing for your buck
  • but need to balance with what devices customers are using
• JE: started believing they could use downloadable Java apps
  • but wasn’t really possible
  • target market are not using Java apps, even if their phone is capable
  • have instead gone to mobile web
  • also seeing some startling usage growth from iPhone (Flirtomatic have an iPhone app that wraps a browser)
• TH: would probably cheat and spend £50 on an Adwords marketing campaign to see who was interested…
• IU: depends on target
  • business people in NYC — Blackberry
  • teenagers in middle east — Blackberry
  • hipsters in London — iPhone

What can platform providers provide to developers to attract them?

• OR: don’t want to write once, debug across multiple hardware
  • want to make money
  • choose to piggyback on a platform launching (someone else’s marketing muscle)
• NL: iPhone and Android offer push update notifications
  • really important — bug fixes are v. important to customer experience
  • Ovi falling down massively here
  • Apple also making things difficult by making updates take up to two weeks
• JE: Flirtomatic app is just a wrapper around mobile web app
  • can’t take advantage of native aspects
  • but changes can be deployed very quickly without going through Apple

Who in the audience had a bad experience of starting out on a mobile platform?

• TouchNote: went for Nokia 3rd edition (Symbian) & Ovi store
  • just not a lucid, easy experience for customers, even in comparison to Blackberry, let alone iPhone & Android

Who’s had a good experience?

• No one put up their hands!!

Do customers really take updates?

• TH: 60-70% take updates for android
  • would imagine iPhones are about the same
  • Java apps are almost impossible to get customers to update
• NL: always offer new features with bug fixes
  • every time Tesco update the Tesco Finder app, they see 99.9% of new version by the end of that day!
• IU: have about 100 pending updates on his iPhone
  • end up not using 90% of apps that you’ve downloaded
• MP: 70% of mobile web users went to 10 major brands

MS have developer lock-in for tools, will they lock-in legally like Apple?

• Silverlight & XNA plus mobile web are main ways to market on Windows Phone 7
• Haven’t finished Ts&Cs yet

Is it sustainable to support so many platforms, or will we see consolidation?

• TH: we are seeing consolidation around the web
  • don’t feel intimidated by number of platforms, as only have to deal with those that provide an audience
  • feel locked in to Apple not by legal language, but by the audience that they provide

What can platform providers do to make a new platform attractive?

• don’t make us write the app in Silverlight — let us write it in C#
• reveal the number of apps in the store — no hype
• charge less than Android & Apple (30%)
• make it easy for customers to buy cheap things with enough money going to developers

Which platform gives the best ROI? How does mobile web compare?

• JE: make money with virtual currency (80% revenues), rest from advertising
  • how do we bill people to buy virtual currency?
  • operator billing (reverse SMS), credit card, paypal
  • still 60/40, 70/30 — not so good
  • credit card still cheapest for business
  • Apple don’t let you use in-app purchases for virtual currency…
• TH: not sure that there’s a link
  • look to introduce customers with operator billing and then convert repeat customers to credit card later
• JE: operator billing is a terrible UX — sometimes a 12-step process
  • not as bad in UK, but US can be really bad

What about emerging markets? What are platforms doing?

• OR: active in two sides, services (Hotmail, etc) & devices
  • phone becomes 1st screen
  • exploring new ways of getting hold of the phone, since Windows Phone is not targeted at emerging markets
• NL: when Tesco arrives in a market, it could be said to have “emerged” already…
  • “Tesco in a box” — all systems for a new country shipped out
• MP: discussing India with major internet brand, responsible for UX
  • because device is becoming primary, there are increasing number of smartphones
  • also multiple SIM cards for each user (up to 12!!)
  • Italians have 1.77 SIM cards per subscriber, cf. 1.4 UK & 1.3 in US

Multiple platforms outside of mobile

• IU: depends on the use-case
  • things that work nicely across channels: e.g. instapaper
  • boxee: combining web, mobile & TV (can use mobile as remote)
• NL: did ethnographic research in people’s homes as to how they shop
  • calling on phones, SMS, writing messages on paper
  • wanting to allow people to add things little and often throughout the week
  • have cheated by building an API to get other people to create apps
  • e.g. Yahoo widgets on TV: watch cooking show, and add ingredients while you watch
• TH: big fan of opening up API, but how does that work as a provider? are you worried about the customer contact being mediated via a third party?
• NL: grocery shopping is not really exciting to customers
  • would rather get great ideas in front of customers
  • customers still have to login and checkout on Tesco site

What about voice as a platform?

• TH: Google introduced voice search and changed his behaviour
• MP: need to be very careful about experience:
  • experience was significantly enhanced when interacting with an avatar
• JE: tried out a voice part of app a year or two ago
  • watched my teenage daughter who never talks to people, but uses text & facebook instead
• MP: is that an opportunity? getting people to use their unused minutes!

How do you handle that your app is living on a phone with others?

• NL: Nexus One had an app using up all his minutes when in US
  • data hogging apps rapidly become unpopular
• TH: it’s one of the important things that makes the difference between mobile and desktop
  • number one feature on the iPad is battery life

What about upcoming standards: JIL, BONDI?

• NL: if you don’t make your app the best it can possibly be for that device then don’t bother
• MP: customers have one device — they’re not bothered by fragmentation

Brief summary

• IU: kept going back to UX
  • do you want to be good enough or delightfully different
• JE: all about UX — the best possible UX is using the latest features of any platform, rather than going cross-platform
  • payment is crucial, runs across different platforms
  • needs to be improved, simplified and cheaper for business
• NL: has to be relentlessly good design for every make and model of handset
  • gives you brand consistency
• TH: root causes of fragmentation are a good thing
  • mass market (2/3rds of world’s population) and extremely fast rate of change
  • developers have to get used to it
• OR: successful developers are embracing the fact that fragmentation is here to stay
• MP: “can economise on plumbing but make sure your bathroom is pretty bling”

Announcements

• Microsoft BizSparkCamp: June 22nd 9.30-5.30
  • “they want to give you things…”
• July - MomoLondon: Marketing your mobile app
• August - MomoLondon break
• September 10th & 11th - OverTheAir 2010

MomoLondon: Where Mobile Meets Media

My first Mobile Monday for a while — I’ve been kind of busy with my second child, Oren, born on 7th April.

I arrived late for the presentation by Hugh Griffiths, though what I caught was a bit slow and plodding. However, Helen Keegan did a good job getting an interesting panel of content providers and advertising services together.

Nothing much new was discussed, but it was interesting to hear how the media producers are dealing with the massive skew in the market of the iPhone. Various people are quite rightly saying that targeting the iPhone leaves 90% of your audience feeling left out, but then the percentage of traffic from only those devices indicates that the rest of the market are just so much harder to reach. The iPhone (and hopefully Android too!) makes it easy to interact with digital media when you’re out and about. You didn’t necessarily know you wanted to beforehand, but once you start using it you get hooked.

Panel discussion

Here’s my notes on the panel discussion. I definitely missed various comments from some people, so if you want something corrected or added please leave a comment or @me on twitter.

• Chair: Russell Buckley @russellbuckley — Admob
• Jason Daponte @jasondaponte — managing editor of mobile for BBC
• David Gibb @dgibbs72 — mobile content @ Sky
• Neil Johnson — Teletext Mobile
  • digital publishing arm of Daily Mail group
  • apps been downloaded about 500k times
• Helen Keegan @technokitten — mobile media consultant
• Dave Gwozdz @gwozdz/@mojiva — mojiva
  • serve ads on mobile (motion mobile)

What’s the difference between print & digital?

• DGz: digital won’t perform the same — different
• HK: reading more news articles — friends tweet the links
  • concentration span gone down, but media consumption gone up
  • not so much context, just an interesting article
  • not as much brand loyalty

What’s specific about mobile digital?

• NJ: location
  • length & tone
  • iPhone has been sold with flat rate — key driver
• HK: using NexusOne primarily at home, when can’t be bothered to get laptop out
  • less adverts on mobile web — can focus on what I want!
• DGz: maybe you don’t notice the ads ‘cos they’re more relevant - part of the content
  • because it’s a small space, publishers think more carefully about what they place
• JD: give consumers as much choice as possible
  • BBC have adopted strategy of customisation — allow user to say what their context is
  • short form is a bit of a myth — average viewing time is about 23 mins
  • definitely see people using full fat stuff when the device is capable
  • don’t use location that much — only for people customising content by saying what their local setting is (e.g. roads, weather)
• DGi: have found that people want to get at the questions of the moment
• RB: over 50% of pages on iPhone are accessed over WiFi rather then 3G

What about content behind the paywall?

• HK: have to look at multiple niche revenue streams
  • need to be able to experiment
  • sponsored apps, micropayments, etc
  • lots of people don’t want big brands to experiment, and will crow when they fail
• DGi: subscription business already…
  • web service is free
  • looking to add value to subscription
  • advertising is one part of our business but not the only part
  • I believe that people will pay for content — as long as it’s integrated
• JD: not going to be putting up paywalls on the BBC anytime soon!
  • previous job was an editor at economist.com
  • had a subscription model that provided access to the whole brand: web, print, mobile
• NJ: euromoney has been behind a paywall for a long time, mail & metro free on the web
  • paywalls need content that is valuable enough to pay for — the user can’t get that information elsewhere
• DGz: question not whether people will pay for content, but how?

Why is the iPhone making such a noise when it has such a small market share?

• JD: generates 80-85% of traffic
• DGi: easiest thing to show a manager is to show them an iPhone — but then it can be hard to convince them
  • it has changed our business — that’s where the audience is
• NJ: application platform
  • all you can eat data plans
  • frictionless payment system
  • all come together to make it many times more popular
  • would love another platform to get such an audience
• HK: how do we convert this whole other audience to data using in the same way as the iPhone users?
• DGz: seeing similar 80% of page views from iPhone — totally out of whack with market share
  • but Android is catching up very fast
• JD: when started, people thought his job was driving around in a truck… now they say “oh iPhones”!
• HK: still only small percentage of consumers — if advertise an iPhone app, then immediately alienate a large percentage of customers
• NJ: can you get ROI from anything other than an iPhone app?

Is RSS a new platform for mobile?

• NO
• twitter has replaced it completely

Are we going to see traditional media companies failing like bookshops?

• DGi: customers of tomorrow are on youtube and mobile
• NJ: seems to be more of a willingness (and ability) to pay
• HK: media owners have to innovate or die
• RB: a big time lag between advertising agencies and reality…

Will iPhone-only dev mean another IE6 legacy…?

• HK: already having legacy handsets — two year contracts and unwillingness to lose data
• NJ: relatively new platform — actually quite cheap to develop compared to a fully-featured mobile site
• JD: keep working with open standards on mobile web as well
  • BBC gets an incredible amount of traffic from Africa — pretty sure they’re not using iPhones
• NJ: apps will remain part of the mix
• JD: apps will be around for functional stuff — Shazam etc
  • content will move more to the web
• DGz: the ultimate winner will be eBay — people will sell their apps that aren’t getting any money
• HK: search & discovery is the issue
  • hard enough to find apps on Nexus One…
  • end up reverting to mobile web
• RB: seeing increasing use of app providers using advertising to increase search & discovery

How will bi-directionality of mobile media affect things?

• DGz: click to call
  • but when phones start ringing, they don’t know what to do
  • “that’s what you want to do, no? call, order”
• HK: sms, email, IM, voice
  • customers should be allowed to give their feedback
  • but can’t assume that all your customers want to have a relationship with you
  • most don’t have time to interact
  • though social media allows sharing and selling on your behalf
• JD: starting to include “share this” buttons on BBC mobile (facebook, etc)
• DGi: how do we take calls out of the call centre?
  • customer service apps
• NJ: a classified business fits perfectly — call to contact & buy
  • 35% of facebook visits came through mobile in March

Is the iPad niche, or a saviour?

• HK: niche. have played with one and thought “hmm, so what”
  • at this point the Tom Hume said: @technokitten in shock “hard to impress” on stage confession…
  • some things will look amazing, e.g. toytek’s Ultimate Alphabet
  • iPad will reach maybe the same number of customers as the iPhone, but no more
• DGi: “what do I need it for?”, but then what did you need an iPhone for before?
• JD: coffee table device — my mum is the perfect consumer
  • want something to show friends on the table
  • content looks better than it does on some people’s TVs
  • it’s nice to sit on the couch and read the newspaper
• NJ: when you start living with it…
• JD: when we launched BBC iPlayer on mobile, peak time viewing has been after BBC primetime
  • think that people are watching shows in bed

What does the panel think of Android fragmentation?

• JD: have a very big cupboard with lots of devices… it’s a risk
• DGi: have to focus on the ones that you think will do well
• HK: that’s where mobile web comes into its own
  • fragmentation won’t go away
  • not all customers will buy iPhones

How will people pay for content on mobile? @edent

• HK: paywalls using traditional methods at the moment (i.e. credit card)
  • payment mechanisms as fragmented as platforms
• DGi: require credit cards at the moment, but using other mechanisms (e.g. Apple)

Appetite — research at Yahoo by Laura Chaibi

• See teaser on slideshare
• 55% of people in UK don’t care if it’s an app or a website
• 44% of people now blame brand if the experience is bad — no longer the operator!
• “stop building vanity apps and having a one-night stand with your customers”
• M&S going for mobile web, but with microsites and micro-apps to support
  • e.g. app to create labels for your kid’s school clothes
• the touch revolution is coming — web site needs to be touch-enabled (and you might as well make it mobile friendly while you’re at it)

Why build an app when you can build it with a web app?

• NJ: discovery — it’s more difficult to find a mobile web site
• DGi: easiest way to market is an app store

This seems bizarre to me — surely it’s just as easy to search the web as it is to search the app store? I think it’s more awareness than discovery that’s the issue: iPhone users don’t search Google for a new icon on their device, even though lots of websites will make nice home screen bookmarks

What can happen to move us more towards 3 or 4 screen model (continuing access onto multiple devices)?

• JD: have to relate to customer on the terms that they understand you, but move them into the digital world
• NJ: some usage is substitutional to PC and some supplemental
  • e.g. “I saw this great house today — here, what do you think?”
• DGi: with iPhone, finally have a direct channel to the customer without the operator getting in the way
  • previously, this has been hard
• HK: phone usage survey
  • do you use the mobile web? No
  • but use facebook & email…

What’s the future of newspapers?

• DGz: it’ll be here forever
• HK: will decline, but not completely
  • if media owners can reduce their cost of producing
  • another 50 years
• NJ: if it does die, the last paper sold will be a copy of the Daily Mail…
• JD: will reduce to one or two titles
  • the ones to survive will be the ones that innovate and invest in journalism

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Announcements

• Open Mobile Summit: code MOMO gives reduction to £850
• Coming soon in MomoLondon:
  • June 14th: Mobile Fragmentation
  • July: Marketing Your Mobile App
  • Sept 10th/11th: OverTheAir
  • Sept 13th: Demo Night