MomoLondon: MWC2014 Stand Competition Live Final

10 companies competing to win a place on the UKTI stand at Mobile World Congress 2014 and press & media activity to go with it. ICT KTN, Mobile Monday London, UKTI and Cambridge Wireless all work together to whittle down the competitors to a shortlist of 10, all competing for five places on the stand.

All the companies this year were remarkably different — in their approach, their development stage and their presentation styles.

In the audience vote, I went for Changify, but the five who were selected were PeachInc, 5 Tiles, 23 Snaps, Capito and Viewranger.

There’s also an official blog post with pictures on the Mobile Monday London blog.

Red Glasses

Adam Martin, Founder

http://MyEarthApp.com @RedGlassesApps

• embedding rich content into 3D objects
• have built a native 3D engine for iPad that deals with data
• also built two sample apps:
  1. visualization of magnified Earth heights
  2. showing videos on a 3D globe
• aim to partner with media & content organisations
• have built bespoke apps for clients for last 15 years
• want to expand to a white-label product
• other demos:
  • showing travel time from a point across the globe
  • luxury retail, where purchasing from

Changify: Design for Social Change

Priya Prakash, Founder

http://www.changify.org @Changify

• basic idea:
  1. spot & share ideas for problems
  2. get support from friends & neighbours
  3. ideas get backed by brands & biz
  4. earn credits for making the change
• partnering with Clear Channel to make a digital bus stop
  • crowdsourcing local opinion by voting on screen
  • touch & NFC
• council get realtime data of reports
• running a 3 month trial with Guardian Data at Elephand & Castle
• working with councils & local businesses
• http://changify.org has been available for 6 months
• also accessible via SMS

Coveritas

Sean Redmond, CEO

http://www.coveritas.com @Coveritas

• based in Bletchley Park
• founding team did functional verification of hardware verification
• have applied same system to software functional testing
• specialise in machine to machine interoperability
• uses randomisation & rules (constraints) to generate end to end use case tests
  • 3GP took 9,000 hours of test engineering
• looking to partner with domain experts in M2M standards testing
• customers are those companies with massive test labs for M2M interoperability
• have an annual time-based license model

SpatialBuzz

Leon Hardwick, Director Global Sales & Marketing; Andrew Blake, CTO

http://www.spatialbuzz.com @SpatialBuzz

• cloud-based customer experience management for mobile operators
• delivering info on status and capability of network
• give the operator an idea of how customers are reacting
• can also provide an early warning to operator of issues
• mix together operator outage & planned works with crowd-sourced input
• can cater for any service delivered geographically
• deployed with Telefonica UK & Germany, also Tesco Mobile
• benefits seen:
  • reduction in calls
  • reduction in response times
  • improving customer satisfaction

PeachInc

Dr Daniel Morris

http://www.peachinc.com @PeachInc

• mobile ticketing using the “MorrisCode” — 2D barcode
  • patented format
• optimised to be read from electronic displays
• at the moment PeachInc are the only people who can read them
• displays well on small screens
• stores a 16 digit number
• have built a suite of apps
  • can receive tickets via SMS (even on iPhone)
• also make hardware
• will be integrated into a
• biggest customer so far Saudi Professional football league
• versus QR codes:
  • reads faster and more successfully
  • reads at 20 frames a second with most mobile cameras
  • 5,000 people at an event with 100% success rate
  • 60,000 football matches in Saudi Arabia with no problems

5-Tiles

Michal Kubacki, Inventor & CEO; Piotr Pieczynski, CFO

http://www.5-tiles.com @fivetiles

• keyboard for Android
• business model based on app sales & licensing deals
• works well for smartwatches (with a touch screen)
  • takes a small amount of screen space
  • have a demo on i’m watch Android smartwatch
• looking to port to Windows & iOS
• also getting keyboard tested by RNIB
• currently have 100s of users on Android
  • and 4,000 downloads of the training app
• takes about 30-45 minutes to learn the combinations
• working to make the learning curve lower all the time

23snaps

Meaghan Fitzgerald, CMO; Ivailo Jordanoc, Co-Founder

http://www.23snaps.com @23Snaps

• mobile-first private social network for families
• spans across different generations
• also organise photos by date & location
• 500K registered users
• posting one photo every second
• make money by selling photo print products
• have users in 179 countries
• going to be launching in Brazilian Portuguese
• content owned by creators
• also provide a one-click export of all content
• wanting to meet consumer electronics, mobile networks, etc
• don’t want advertising next to family photos
• may go for other monetization such as premium features

Available for iPhone, Android, Windows 8, email, web and printed books!

Capito Systems

Tony Ballardie, CEO

http://www.capitosystems.com @CapitoSystems

• speech assistant technology specifically for mobile commerce
• about to sign first customer
• language variations, background noise?
  • have focussed on language understanding rather than speech recognition
• aiming to license to mobile commerce companies
• have built support tools to enable customers to build up a speech corpus of domain language

Viewranger

Ben Howard, Marketing & Sales Exec; Craig Wareham, CEO & Co-Founder

http://www.viewranger.com @viewranger

• digital mobile platform for outdoor activities
• interest-based social network
• publishing platform
• trail guide marketplace
• over 2 million app downloads
• used by over 100 search & rescue teams in UK, Ireland, USA, Canada, Germany, Ukraine
• work with 22 mapping agencies & trail guides from 400 brands
  • including CAMRA :-)
• wanting to engage with handset OEMs & wearable manufacturers
• earn revenue through:
  • premium in-app data & services (maps & guides)
  • premium services & analytics for brands
  • syndication of content
  • could go for advertising in the future (have steered away so far to keep UX well)
• main competitors are still dedicated devices
• there are sport-based apps that seem to be fragmenting the need

Available for iPhone & iPad, Android and Nokia

UBIAPPS (Nquiring Minds)

Nick Allot, CEO

http://www.ubiapps.com @nallott

• secure end to end framework for managing apps both online & offline
• server management + enterprise-grade security is proprietary
• protocol is open-source (JSON-RPC over HTTP)
• all nodes are two-way — can manage apps and IoT devices using the same system
• easy & quick to integrate on any device
• looking to work with system integrators
• seen most interest so far from asset tracking systems

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Announcements

• Vision Mobile Developer Economics Survey
  • http://visionmobile.com/DE1Q14MoMoLon
• IDEALondon offering desks, mentoring & support for start-ups and SMEs working on new products & services
  • apply at http://idea-london.com

Droidcon 2013: Authentication for Droids

Tim Messerschmidt, PayPal @SeraAndroid

Presentation available on slideshare

OAuth2 client libs

• scribe https://github.com/fernandezpablo85/scribe-java

• postmanlib: another layer on top of scribe

  • http://github.com/fedepaol/PostmanLib—Rings-Twice—Android

• OAuth 2 & the road to hell…

  • the lead author and editor left the working group and withdrew from the specification as he felt could no longer be associated with the standard
• OAuth 2 attack surface everywhere
  • need to have proper security on server side

Identity

OpenID

• developed 2005
• 2012: discovered you can hijack it
• considered dead :-(

BrowserID & Persona

• from Mozilla
• great idea, but nobody really uses it apart from them…

OpenID Connect

• layer on top of OAuth2
• http://openid.net/connect
• still a draft but looks really good
• has a whole section on session management (i.e. stop allowing that app)

Providers

• 80-90% via Google, Facebook & Twitter
• all have their own SDKs that handle the OAuth for you
• PayPal added a new identity provider
  • provides verified information
• needs to be best practice to show which information will be shared at each time
• Blue Inc 2011: Consumer Perceptions of Online Registration and Social Sign-In
  • 45% admit to leaving a website instead of resetting their password or answering security questions
  • 66% think that social sign-in is desirable alternative

Q&A

• on mobile, app can fake a web view and capture identity
  • this is why facebook goes via app
• think about different social providers for different countries
  • e.g. baidu for China, yandex for Russia
• see also Google Authenticator libraries for two factor auth

MomoLondon: Demo Night 2013

Another fun demo night from Mobile Monday London. Some new ideas and some old — you never know which ones are going to stick!

My bets are on Vyclone and Critical Arc…

Blue Badge Style

Fiona Jarvis & Kishan Gupta @bluebadgestyle

• a guide for the discerning less able
• app available for iOS: Blue Badge Style
• graduated from the Mobile Monday & UCL Mobile Academy
  • (it’s really great! sign up now! :-))
• social media advisor suggested:
  • video of app to attract people to download
  • RSS feed in app
• added TTS (but not voiceover?)
• got 1000 downloads in Nov (PR & press) + 300/month afterwards

Boss Level - Scavengers

Nick Brown @boss_level

http://playscavengers.com

• game based solely in HTML5
• aimed at PC, mobiles, tablets & smart TVs
• want same control system across everything
  • up down left right & select - lowest common denominator
  • fixed 720x720 resolution at the moment (will need to change for different devices)
• closed alpha at the moment
• aiming for Kickstarter to raise profile
• cross between xcom & worms
• freemium business model with in-game purchases
• also thinking about a store for game assets
  • there’s a game editor that allows you to completely customise levels and characters
• would rather not have in-game adverts, but depends on the eyeballs
• currently two developers

Connecthings

http://www.connecthings.com/

• NFC tags for street furniture
• 1500 tags displayed in Strasbourg
• real-time transport info
• integrated with cycle info too
• also has event & POI database
• POI tags show POI info first, transport tags show transport info first
• tags have QR codes too
• license the platform to municipalities
  • though not sure how well it would go down with councils that already have their own portals….

Critical Arc

http://www.criticalarc.com/

• previous company led security & surveillance for Olympics
• security & safety in large open spaces
  • e.g. universities
• define SafeZones where there is a response team available
• security team have an app to see a situational view of the campus
• free app to call for help & get notified
• have created a platform for sharing location and situational information
• universities are first market
• no tracking in the background for general public
• security officers are tracked in the background
• Wi-Fi positioning covers off GPS issues
• can report on security staff location — heatmaps etc, can be used to actively plan response

Decibel Analytics

http://www.decibeltechnology.com/analytics/ @decibelanalytic

• actionable analytics
• object maps, which integrate with elements on page, to show which are actually being clicked
• attention maps — shows which areas of page are actually viewed
  • i.e. where is the fold for all your customers…?
• which content is contributing most to goals & revenue generation
• can filter by device and by incoming source
• adding A/B testing soon

Men’s Fitness UK iPad app

Paul Cooper, Design Director, Dennis Publishing @dmfcoops

iPad app: Men’s Fitness UK

• COPE — create once, publish everywhere
  • started by NPR in the US
• Drupal CMS with responsive design & native elements
• started with The Week (iPhone & iPad)
  • takes one person one day to lay out
  • less than 100Mb an issue
• now done a monthly magazine — more content
• Drupal 7 & responsive is a complex thing
• Adobe DPS takes over a week to lay out an issue of EVO
• content producers (photogs etc) struggled a little with responsive design, but get training
• can preview the issue before generating the app
• looking at licensing the system to other parties
• developing a system like InDesign that outputs responsive HTML

GO!Enterprise

Globo plc - Enterprise Mobility in a BYOD world

http://goenterpriseserver.com

• deploy access to back office systems in a secure manner
• no need for mobile device managment
• client app available from standard app stores
  • GO!Enterprise for iOS
  • GO!Enterprise for Android
• three products:
  • office — point and go
  • mobilizer — development for custom enterprise apps (cross-platform)
  • reach — make apps for customers

Trademob - mobile click fraud protection

Adrienne Gauldie @adriennegauldie (ag@trademob.com)

http://www.trademob.com/

• did a study in june (6m clicks)
  • 22% accidental (< 0.1%)
  • 10% botnet & hijacked clients
  • 8% server-side fraud
• can see it from data…
  • e.g. in-app clicks from non-mobile user agents
• don’t get fraudulent clicks from publishers with real customers
• building a blacklist of dodgy publishers
• 100 people in company

Vyclone

http://vyclone.com/ @vyclone

Download the app for iPhone

• wouldn’t it be amazing if we could make a single video from all the angles at a rock concert…?
• combine multiple vids in one
  • had 200 people filming a Jason Mraz concert
  • 150 people at Ed Sheeran in Hammersmith Apollo
• business model:
  • lots of interest from music industry
  • want to get footage and release it to fans for behind the scenes
• copyright: music industry recognise that this is already happening
  • now they get access to video, so a win-win
  • customers can choose to keep video private, or share with everyone
• app is winning lots of awards!

AudioSnaps

Marc Sallent, We Choose Fun

http://audiosnaps.com

• record 5 secs of ambient sound while taking a picture
• JPEG + MP3 = JPEG! (plus extensions)
  • all devices can still show it
  • web site can play audio with just one line of javascript
• why not just take a short video?
  • want to capture a moment, not tell a story

Chirp

Geraint, Animal Systems

http://chirp.io

Download the app for iPhone

• send small amounts of data using sound
• want to release an API for third parties
• have an arduino that can chirp
• teach the machines to sing!

Catch-up with last year’s demos

Two of last year’s Demo Night presenters returned to give us an update. See my notes from last year.

Ko-Su

http://ko-su.com @kosumobile

mobile learning for everyone

• demoed last year, one month pre-release
• been accepted into BBC Worldwide Labs
• material created in lots of countries around the world
• now “officially out of pre-revenue” (?)

Six-Three

https://six3.tv/

Simon Frost, CTO @spli

• started out as a private closed network — a messaging thing
• sports stars started using it to keep in touch with their public, but also to communicate with their private street marketing teams
• made it onto WAYRA Telefonica business incubator

MomoLondon: Demo Night 2012

Demo Night is one of the most popular events in the Mobile Monday London calendar. Lots of new ideas all at once!

LangAR

Peter O’Shaunessy (@poshaunessy)) & Rene Bastijans (@renebastijans)

• Work for Pearson Future Technologies team
• developed with BBC Active & DK + wikitude
• AR tourist guide with audio phrases
• available on Google Play and the App Store
• uses wikitude’s beta AR engine
  • chose it because you get to write the app using web technologies (so two apps for free)
• would envisage the real app having embedded data

LocalSocial

Sean O’Sullivan @sos100

http://mylocalsocial.com

• “offers, points and more that only unlock in-store”
• proximity nerds (bluetooth, zigbee, NFC, etc)
• actions: near, tap, scan
• reactions
• shopkick pioneered the format
• collect points just for going in the venue
• provide retailers with a beacon
• “we like NFC for all the things that aren’t payment”

Go my Life

Michael Mulquin, IS Communications

Try it out on http://www.gomylife.eu

• online social networking platform tailor made for the over-60s
• older people more concerned about privacy
  • cautious about posting as they’re not sure who will see it
• like things to be step by step
• “facebook without the confusion”
  • but can post to facebook
• come out of a European project: http://gomylife-project.eu
  • have a group of people in UK and Poland trying it out

six3 video messenger

Simon Frost @spli, @six3

http://angel.co/six3 http://six3.tv

• asynchronous video messaging
• either need the app or use it on the web
• can send a message to someone’s email address
• at the moment, it streams video but they plan to cache locally in the future
• all messages are private

ko-su

http://ko-su.com

• lesson/activity creator
• creates mobile-friendly content from a clean HTML interface
  • quizzes, videos
• can share content to people via an iOS app, mobile web, or mobile emulator on the website
• subscription model with a transaction fee

movellas

http://movellas.com

• free self-publishing platform for readers and writers
• mainly for younger people
• social story-telling
• had 280,000 comments since launch
  • very engaged audience
• featured as New & Noteworthy in the app store
• app can send comments
• website can create content
• “we aren’t monetising at the moment”…

android enigma simulator

Franklin Heath Ltd @heathcr

• very pretty enigma simulator
• looks especially good on an Android Tablet
• also collecting donations for Bletchley Park
• spent a lot of time getting to work on all Android devices & versions
• can send messages to friends via Android sharing intent

one man MVNO

impossible telecom @danlane

• early adopters wanted: http://alpha.impossible-tele.com
• a new kind of MVNO focussing on:
  • innovation
  • customer service
  • transparency
• sharing bundles of texts, minutes, data between devices
• 3rd party APIs for core of network
• divorcing devices and numbers
  • one number on multiple devices
  • multiple numbers on single device
• static IP addresses for M2M SIMs

Dtouch mobile

Shakir Ali, IntelliDzine

Horizon Institute, University of Nottingham

• Dtouch marker: http://d-touch.org
  • black borders with white children and so on
• https://github.com/horizon-institute.com/tableware
• like QR codes but visually recognisable

Tone push

• “your ringtone on someone else’s phone”
• web and app based
• currently Android-only, but would work on iOS too
• if the other person has the app, then this app/website will set the other person’s custom ringtone for you

sooqini

http://sooqini.com

Raj Singh, raj@sooqini.com

• “Your trusted mobile marketplace”
• reverse market place: buyer does the posting, not the seller
• initially focussed on students and housewives — 2,500 sellers in system already
  • created a “Campus CEO” system to drive adoption
• iOS first: “people who have iPhones think they’re cool and want other people to do things for them”
  • going for Android later
• have PayPal payment at the moment; planning to add bank account connection later

qrpedia

• demo’ed at last year’s Mobile Monday London
• more and more museums and galleries signing up

iOSDev UK: Standing Out from the Crowd

Craig Lockwood, HuwDavid, @craiginwales

• put a QR code on the presentation screen for a voting web page
  • works surprisingly well (given good network connection…)
  • voting page was well presented too http://wbxapp.com/join-in
• pre-render your icon so you have control of the gloss
• localisation
  • french, dutch, german, italian translations pay dividends
• app microsite
  • drive traffic with google adwords & track with analytics
  • good example: http://thecocktailapp.com
• using social media
  • shout loudly yourself
  • and get your users to shout louder
  • “if you’re not ethical, at least be targeted”
• make your app meta data relevant
• watch out for the app size
  • you can’t download an app > 20Mb over 3G
  • you have one opportunity to sell — don’t waste it
• niche press works well for niche products
  • e.g. rare pig breeds app (Guide to Pig Keeping), got featured in Farmers Weekly and got 6,000 downloads in a short period
• getting designers:
  • there are plenty of media students who are looking for portfolio work…

Q&A

• how to deal with app store feedback complaints?
  • point to the app website & twitter account within the app
  • people look at the reviews more as the cost goes up (even if it’s only to £2.99)
  • get your friends and family to review when you release — get in first with 5 star reviews
  • good screenshots can filter out people who don’t understand the app
  • price tier 2 gets less scathing reviews than tier 1 & free

BarCampLondon7: Social Manipulation on the web and in person

Tim Nash

Social Engineering is still just as valid as ever…

• If asked for photo ID, people will give it up willingly
• given a photo ID with details, you can call up somewhere and say you’ve forgotten your ID
• often the front desk will give you a new ID…
• people are more likely to buy when there’s an official badge…
  • doesn’t really matter what the badge is
  • virtually no-one who clicks on the badge actually purchases
  • but buy rate will increase anyway
• paypal did an experiment about a year ago
  • to see if it made a difference to not use the word PayPal on their “paypal verified” badges
  • made no difference to sales conversions
  • click-through rate to paypal went down
• certain colours affect buying moods
  • brain doesn’t like bright colours
  • big red “buy now” button does not attract people — your eyes will avoid it
  • instead have a big grey “buy now” button with two red arrows on either side
  • eye tracking study shows people look for price and “buy now” button
  • sales rates go up when the price is just above the buy now button
• best place for comments on a blog:
  • new comment box just under post
  • other comments can be down the side
• use the word “reply” rather than “submit” comment
• scienceforseo blog
  • highlight a part of the text and the comment will appear alongside

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…

Future of Mobile 08: Advertising, Advocacy, Attitude & Aptitude (What!?)

Jonathan MacDonald — Ogilvy One

Jonathan gave an impassioned speech arguing that all advertising should be personalised; that companies should work with their customers to offer them opportunities to buy more things they like; and involve them in encouraging their friends to buy the same things too.

It kind of sounds like a friendly way to do things, but it’s still all about persuading people to buy more stuff. Using social media for advertising can work well up to a point, but to make the things that Tomi and Jonathan talk about work, you need access to a fluidity of data that isn’t there for most of the world — yet. And I’ve a nasty feeling that aggressive, Blade Runner-style advertising will keep on winning enough new customers to keep the corporates interested.

• Would you accept advertising on your mobile?
  • Of course not — it’s too personal!
• New advertising model: brand as facilitator
  • see David Armano for graphics
  • Creating armies of fanatics
  • What happens after brand awareness?
  • e.g. pizza company will pay you £100 if you complain — it’s cheaper than losing £500 due to lost sales
• We are not consumers
  • We tolerate segmentization and useless marketing
  • We filter out stuff that doesn’t mean anything to us — sometimes even before we find out if it’s actually useful
  • JMac would like to abolish toleration of non-personalised marketing
  • It still works for my 5 year-old son — though I wish it wouldn’t… :-)
  • “If it fails once, it’s an outright fail”
  • How not to do it: Jose Avila was sued for making loads of FedEx furniture & blogging about it
  • • Fedex said that he “violated their terms of use” — a great way to put off lots of customers!
    • Wikipedia: “The dispute attracted widespread press attention, and Avila was frequently interviewed to tell his side of the story”
• More buzzwords: Vendor Relationship Management & Vaporframes
  • "Apple would make more money if they know I wanted them to contact me by MMS & phone, rather than email"
• Advertising with people not to them

Full presentation available online

Jonathan is on twitter and has a blog.

Future of Mobile 08: 6x6 UK Bloggers Perspectives

6 UK mobile-related bloggers stood up to give their perspective on the industry at the moment. The general consensus seemed to be “it’s sh*t”! This session is when the conference really started to come alive.

Andrew Grill (london calling)

• Permission, Privacy, Preference
• Gigafone: permission and preference-based ads when incoming calls received
• I’m not convinced how many people will fill in preference profile unless they’re offered long-term monetary rewards like Blyk…

Vero Pepperrell (thatcanadiangirl)

Why Community Matters

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: futureofmobile fom)

• Make community into your evangelists
• Respect
  • Let your staff be a part of your brand
  • Take your time
  • Let your users talk
• Responsibility
  • Be willing to educate, not dictate your users’ choices
  • Honesty & transparency
• Reputation
  • Virtuous circle
• Your users will be talking about you somewhere — listen to them
• Ensure your support email doesn’t fall on deaf ears
• Feedback is sometimes great but sometimes hurts — you have to be able to listen

Helen Keegan (technokitten)

• Why there is no future to mobile…
• Must change the way that we’re going
  • Stop talking about technology
    • It doesn’t matter — needs to reliable, fast, affordable, relevant
    • Rowntree foundation: Mobile phone is essential to modern living
  • Stop silly data tariffs
    • Where is the 1p a minute tariff (up to max of £12.99 a month)
    • Having no contract is a big deal
  • Stop making apps for geeks & promobs
    • My sister has just about changed her ringtone on Nokia 3310
    • My brother has a RAZR — it’s a huge embarrassment to me
    • My dad has sent me an SMS once and it was empty
    • My nieces love their mobiles but they don’t have a contract
  • Stop the culture gap
    • web / mobile
    • operators / mobile developers
    • Mobile internet is here today — not worth less ‘cos it’s not full fat
  • Stop being obsessed with Western world
    • Most users will not be in US, UK or even in Europe
  • Don’t forget that the phone is primarily a communication device
    • Personal, precious
    • Our access to the outside world, friends, families, colleagues
    • Don’t abuse it
    • Make it simple

James Whatley (whatleydude)

• Hired by mippin as Product Manager / Customer Champion for a year
• Learnt that there wasn’t enough customer testing
• Must consider hiring people straight out of university
  • They know how to do stuff on their mobiles without even thinking
• 29 on Friday and he’s the youngest person at SpinVox
• “Give something back and they will give a hell of lot back to you”

Jemima Kiss (Guardian)

• Impatient for mobile
• Sort out bill shock — it’s really boring

Ewen MacLeod (mobile industry review)

• Changed SMS Text News to Mobile Industry Review
• Got a new Nokia N95 8Gb from T-Mobile as an upgrade
  • Does not connect to data!! What’s the point!
• Wanted to show off Google Maps on Blackberry when arriving at Gare du Nord
  • Fail! Did not connect
  • (Don’t mind about paying roaming charges)

Future of Mobile 08: Reaching the whole world

Doug Richard — Trutap

Doug gave a very good talk on how we should change our thinking about the upcoming mobile markets in developing countries. “It’s not just farmers sharing crop prices.”

Tom Hume has written a good summary of Doug’s talk, with extra perspectives coming from his company’s involvement in the development of Trutap.

My notes are a little shorter as I was helping Simon Maddox with some regular expressions…

• 500m - 1 billion people in aspiring middle classes around the world
  • and see Opera’s report on the usage of Opera Mini esp. in South East Asia — it’s not just cheap phones making voice calls
• Comparing LA to Mumbai:
  • Mumbai user wants to do all the social networking stuff that LA user does on his PC
    • Wants to have friends, know friends & meet girls :-)
  • If he visits an Internet cafe, he has to pay 10-100 times as much for data as on his phone, and he will have someone looking over his shoulder
  • Mumbai user’s primary device is the phone
  • Phone is not extension of your web life, it is your only internet access device
• Social networks on a PC are a temporary phenomenon
  • They should have started on the phone
• Launching new Trutap today
  • support all of the world’s IM transports (about 16)
  • live feed
  • support full profiles
    • In Japan, dating sites never split from social networking
    • Trutap v2 adds detailed profiles and profile search to put the dating back in

BarCamp London: The Transmission of Tradition - Jeremy Keith

Slides available

Jeremy gave us a great rendition with his zouk. This blog post or the slides don’t really capture it — you need musical intermissions every few minutes :-)

John Philip Sousa hated both gramaphones & radio:

• problem was with his business model — he sold sheet music and did live performances

Irish traditional music — no tradition of making money from writing it

• some exceptions: people writing music to celebrate a sponsor
• most jigs, reels, etc: nobody knows who wrote them

The music was learnt aurally — still the best way to learn (all the little phrasings, etc)

Consequently, there was an enormous amount of musical variation in Ireland

Francis O’Neill, chief of police in Chicago, started collecting tunes

• Cliche — Irish policemen in Chicago If you could play an instrument you were guaranteed a job
• O’Neill’s 1001: “The Book” — saved music for future generations since population of Ireland was being decimated by famine and people leaving

Sharing music moved onto the internet with mailing lists

• no music or images, so ABC format
• software could take this format and output sheet music
• regional variations starting to die out, since most popular lives longer

Jeremy’s contribution: thesession.org

• now 3000-4000 tunes
• mostly public domain — some conflicts where 20th century ideas of licensing & intellectual property
• some people will compose a tune and not take credit — hope that it gets accepted

What’s going to happen with music in the future?

• like irish tradition? music getting out there, variations, mutations, etc
• or like Disney? extending copyright length each time Mickey Mouse comes up for expiry

Jeremy thinks the 20th Century might be a blip

• had the idea of the commons for a long time
• only been 100-120 years of having false economy of scarcity

BarCamp London: Messaging Scales – Matt Biddulph

Asynchronous messaging coming in to web (been around for a long time, esp. in banking & finance)

Concurrent languages: erlang, scala, haskell, e

If everything is done with message passing, there is no need for shared state

messaging systems:

• dopplr uses ActiveMQ (using JSON as message bodies)
• spread is another
• google gears — provides local message bus for thread worker pool

long-running processes:

• e.g. kayak.com travel search, gradually fills in your results

dopplr coincidence calculations:

• local information done immediately
• rest of social network done by passing a message to queue
• workers just collect and get on with it
• if queue is too long can start up some Amazon ECS resources to process the queue for an hour or so

extreme late-binding

• Alan Kay said that he may have overstated the objects in object orientation :-)
• important thing is messages — work can happen anywhere if messages contain context

can have shared state using sequenced messages

• update your own state by sending messages to the bus
• everyone can share the same state
• when go offline can store messages to pass, ready for when reconnect
  • can speculatively update state to present to the user
  • when reconnect can discard speculative state and catch up properly

network quake

• short (200ms) periods of uncertainty, code guesses what will happen in that time before messages come from other players
• guarantee that players will sync about once a second

founder of erlang: “humans are long-running processes, can pass messages, others can ignore”

OTP — built on erlang by Ericsson (who invented the language)

• includes code changes as changes of state
• talks about fault tolerance
• “crash only programming”
  • don’t need shut down — just pull the plug; when start up look for any state to recover
• like XP — a set of practices that work together

Another recommendation: Enterprise Integration Patterns by Gregor Holt

Problems with message passing:

• only do it if the request really is async, otherwise wasting time
• introduces dependencies on messaging system

What’s next? Matt is currently interested in Arduino

• similar to messaging services

BarCamp London: Don't Scrape, Glean (GRDDL) - Tom Morris

APIs break the principle of DRY — equivalent to “accessible version” of web sites…

W3C have defined GRDDL: defines well-structured process of converting XHTML (or HTML4 using Tidy) into RDF * works like a stylesheet on top of your HTML

can define with GRDDL how to get at data in APIs (incl. RSS & ATOM)

aim to make data layer separate from HTML but bound to it, just like CSS

XSLT templates provided to convert HTML into RDF using classes

using xsltproc > output.rdf to transform

• have a template HTML page that includes links to xslt
  • either your own or standard ones
• add a link to that page in the profile attribute of the head tag of the content page
  • can have space separated profiles
• then go to triplr.org to convert page into RDF triples or JSON data

most languages have a sparql library to handle RDF pretty much like SQL

examples:

• Combining lots of translations for a single blog
• Custom translation for new tag

extends microformats — enables you to write your own

BarCamp London: Voluntary Economics - Reinier Zwitserloot

Slides available

According to rational economics if you are handed $10 and asked to agree a share with another person, you should offer them 1 cent. People offer much more in practice.

Some examples:

• freakonomics - bagel guy: found that if dumped bagels, cream cheese & cash box at companies, found that at some places 95% of people paid
• linux kernel: copyright of patches goes to Linus
• wikipedia have got more than $1m from small donations
• Oink: download site — couldn’t pay for music but some bands got famous based on usage
• terra bite: pay as you wish restaurants
• tipping…? though in America this comes with threats
• “The Plant” — Stephen King book: published one chapter at a time, continued writing if more than 75% of downloads paid up for $1
• article on boingboing how bartering makes banking work in Africa

counter examples:

• web comics: have donate buttons but don’t really work

price discrimination & sales doesn’t work online

• price discrimination — people pay the max that they are willing to pay
• can search for coupon codes

“fame comes before fortune — if you have fame, fortune will follow”

• that’s why micropayments don’t work as trading

Ways to get voluntary economics to work:

• put a human face on it
• peer pressure (e.g. tipping, bagels — had to be in public place)
• communities — build a big one (e.g. when Starship Enterprise was canned, community raised $3m)
• rewards based on community
• emotion — you like it, pay money/contribute time to support

Has to be aimed at people — more emotional: corporations will just say thanks for free

Is voluntary economy a luxury good?

• Does it only work when economy is good?
• Maybe not — it’s a transaction since there are more things being transferred than money/time — blog is getting attention
  • —> redefine the rationality of the economic agent
• economically more efficient

Short story from Bruce Sterling on the same area

Plug: TipIt — tip any blog

XPDay 2007: Keynote: Cheek-to-Cheek: why Co-Located Collaboration Persists - Yvonne Rogers

Video conferencing vs collocated

• can’t talk privately to others
• what happens after the meeting is almost or more important that during

HP Labs — mututally immersive mobile videopresence…

• Live video of the front and sides of the user’s head
• Mounted on a mobile robotic trolley

Issues

• Situation awareness — aware of what’s going on around you
• Non-verbal communication v. important to control the flow
• Research shows that it’s easier to switch between physical & digital artifacts when face to face

Research over the last few years looking to facilitate face to face communication

eSpace — interactions between (travel) agents & customers

• customer appears to be understanding and nodding, but really isn’t getting anything
• a lot of translation going on from information for agent and information for customer _(hey, that’s kinda what Kizoom does :-)-
• changed the workspace to be a side-by-side interaction with three screens
  • reduced social awkwardness
  • both looked at the screen and occasionally had eye contact
  • both took part in creating the itineraries

Theoretical approaches for supporting collocated teams

Multiple entry points

• when each person has their own paper and pen, it becomes easy for people to share
• when there’s only one pad, people fight over the sole entry point
• also at whiteboards — single entry point is the marker
• used mitsubishi diamondtouch + diamondspin s/w: touch-sensitive display table to provide shared workspace with multiple entry points
  • saw lots of turn taking and “turn inviting”
  • also people who were normally shy could take part more with the physical tasks

Distributed cognition

• traditional approaches to cognition talk about what goes on within a single person’s head
• distributed approach takes the system at large — lots of people with input to the group and output from them
• distrib. cog. tries to chart:
  • where the overlaps in knowledge are
  • levels of access to information
• this is the approach used by Helen Sharp (Yvonne is now working with her at OU)
• Yvonne shows picture of Kizoom’s bug wall and talks about how central it was to our environment
  • (in fact this was probably a breakdown since it just filled up and didn’t get addressed…)
• large interactive surfaces:
  • OU waiting for MS Surface (due in November, but now arriving next summer)
  • reactable — physical interaction with music software

Dynamo — collocated people sharing & showing digital content

• shared screen with multiple mice & other devices
• can carve out sections of the screen and protect them against others
  • can then grant and revoke access to other individual users
• can seal parcels and leave for other users
• deployed into a 6th form classroom
  • interaction tended to be a few people using it and others watching as an audience
• not yet deployed into a software company, but if you want it, let Yvonne know

Conclusion & Q&A

Collocated teams will always work better than distributed teams

• but no quantifiable effects here

What’s the value of these technologies over index cards?

• Helen’s research shows that cards have great value that won’t go away
• if developing a product that requires you to interact with digital content, then this tech gives an advantage
  • especially if making connections
• people overlook emails and other digital content — posting it on a public space makes people take notice (honeypot effect — they all gather round)

What happens with larger groups?

• Yvonne’s research is mostly with groups of 2-3
• When groups get to 6-7 then group segments and division of labour sets in
  • “I’m working on this bit and you can work on that”

XPDay 2007: Mr Agile Goes to Washington: The Impact of Politics on Agile Projects - Panel Discussion

Panel

Sallyann Freudenberg — internal agile coach (permanently employed)

• previously did PhD in collaborative software development
• approach: gently let things bubble up and then deal with them

James Davison — head of PM at Razorfish (previously at ThoughtWorks)

• has come across a lot of politics
• don’t think you can stay out of it — perception is very important
• try get everyone into the same space by socialising

Stuart Blair — investment bank

Mike Feathers — object mentor in US

• travelling coach

Rachel Davies — independent coach

• often working with several companies at one time
• facilitating retrospectives: ensure voices are heard in a neutral way before jumping to solutions

Discussion

The focus of the group seemed to be of within large corporations rather than smaller companies working with other companies.

Politics:

• covert action to get what you want from scarce resources
• decision making process not clear — individual roles not well defined

Good politics:

• Aligning projects with high-ups objectives
• Finding right person to present the case on your behalf
  • Externally, this would be called sales; but internally called politics…
• Try reframing their goals in a more positive way
  • At least lets you work with them
  • When you catch yourself saying bad things about another, it’s time to stop and step back
• Having a strong manager who can recognise political games and call people on it
• We often assume intentions
• Selling the success of the project within the organisation
  • We find it hard to celebrate success

Bringing politics into our practices:

• We don’t really have a lexicon for political behaviour…
  • Need a rudimentary politics for software developers
• Getting to Yes — by Roger Fisher (from Harvard Law School)
  • also others in series (Getting Past No, etc)
• Can we have a patterns book for politics…?
• De-politicising a situation:
  • Listening
  • System thinking — showing how things all fit together

In any group have a tension between wanting to belong to a group and wanting to be an individual

Dealing with customers who play games?

• Build a relationship with them
  • Delivering to 11 countries
  • Turned up in Austria — greeted on front door of building: you’re here to implement a system that means the office will be run from London; go away
  • Had to do a sales job; had to get sponsor on phone to convince him
• Very difficult to build a relationship with someone when hiding something
• Can bank integrity in relationship
• Ask questions of everybody in the company
  • Find different points of view
  • Understand perspective of lots of different people

How do we get recognition within hero-based culture?

• Always have to sell success (even if not being massively successful)
  • what we are delivering is useful, provides value, ready on time
• some clients have culture of celebration when a project is completed
• agile projects release often and regularly
  • need to celebrate that
  • tie in to business successes
• hold an end of year retrospective
  • show off all that has been achieved
  • lots of issues overcome, just not by panicking
• hero culture can cause problems — expose the problems and compare with smooth delivery
• make time to be seen to be doing a good job — and build that in to project planning
  • regular show and tell

What to do when gantt chart and burn down chart start to disagree?

• agile bubble in a non-agile company
• often pressure for report comes from middle management: just query with higher management
• use extra features and benefits of agile methods to sell
• if the agile project is the first to report that it’s running late…?
  • be honest — hard conversation early on (risk of getting fired)
  • speak their language (e.g. use gantt chart)
  • that’s the project manager’s job
  • it’s going to be late or you can have this instead
  • saying “no” in a way that can be accepted

XPDay 2007: The Social Nature of Agile Teams - Elizabeth Whitworth

Why are agile developers so excited?

• What aspects of agile dev are related to team cohesion?
• What makes a team really gel on a project?

Speed & ease of interaction:

• whole team involvement
• trust, openness, respect
• culture of action & change
  • immediate action that they could take in the near future
  • individuals could see themselves make a change
• agile participants had a more collective viewpoint

Social identity theory

• in-group out-group bias: just naming different groups biases the dynamic
• agile culture increases the strength of the project group identity rather than dev, biz, etc

Planning

Planning game makes the conflicts more visible and allows developers to take more ownership over development process

Planning responds to team needs — tasks are neither to hard (anxiety) or too easy (boredom) — increases feeling of flow

Short term planning increased willingness to compromise — team interactions more relaxed

• increased feelings of security & comfort

Long term planning hard to do as a team

• gives rise to feelings of insecure, apprehension, stress
• having to make decisions for things 6 months in advance

Regular Iterations

No definite end goal caused loss of “buzz” — group motivation & focus hard to maintain

Consistent delivery over multiple iterations gave rise to feelings of confidence & security

Whole team awareness

Constant feedback to individuals that all team members share awareness of team activity & share commitment to goals

Supported by daily group standup:

• Forum for non-task based issues
• Extra motivation (disapproval from team) and validation of requests
• Recognition of what’s possible and what’s not
• Communication is not need-based — allows other topics

Group standup supported by chunked activities

• Something to report if small enough chunks
• Loss of motivation if stuck on same task for whole week

Information Radiators: noticeable measures of progress

• completed stories “give endorphin rush”
• also supports awareness of individual contributions to team goal (others as well as self)

Performance

Increased sense of control & self-efficacy improves performance

Conclusion & Questions

http://www.ewhitworth.com/html/ma.html

Have a list of weaknesses at end of project, for example:

• agile focussed on developers — makes them feel good, but QA & documentation felt isolated
• high-level of interaction sometimes resulted in burn-out

Data collected from:

• 5 participants from one company
• 17 participants each from different companies

Agile is a method that helps people work as a team in the software development environment

Frank Maurer (Uni. Calgary): agile planner — distributed planning for agile teams