It displays your current location on Google Maps. It works with a GPS-enabled mobile phones - so no real surprises there.
What I like is that it works (using the same interface) on non-GPS phones using cell triangulation. You press '0' on your keypad to do the location look-up. Here's a YouTube explaining it.
Now, we all know that mobile operators charge for location look-ups using cell triangulation (eg about 7p in the UK (about 15 US cents)- I know because I experimented launching an LBS service in 2003).
Google's service is in beta - what happens on launch? Presumably, it will be funded by Google's giant advertising machine. I also assume that there will be a geo-location version of their advertising service to follow.
You swipe your loyalty card, so it knows your regular shopping list
Coupons and offers are presented, ALONG with the map of the store (nice!)
Eventual winner.
I envisage lots of implementation issues here, but Motorola's brand name will most probably mean this will become a familiar feature of shopping in the future.
Wi-fi VoIP - similar to a former client of mine, Barablu. The Presenter was Tom Carter, co-founder of BridgePort Networks (MobileVoIP + FMC) who presented last year at GadgetFest.
There's much more to this than meet the eye. I'd like to know more please!
Handheld device that gives the attendee at sports stadiums, arenas and concert halls more angles, more views, replay, stats to enhance the viewing experience.
Doc Searles, someone whose views I admire a lot, writes a great post on this blog about how it's time for US to write our own privacy rules.
Doc's passionate about VRM, Vendor Relationship Management. Here is the definition:
Create an ecosystem of tools, protocols, and services that help users manage vendor relationships.
Hmm, I agree, but see my previous post on privacy - people expect high standards and assume that this is the case. They don't read the privacy statements in depth (neither do I). So a much simpler rating system is needed.
Mighty rumbles across Facebook universe as it has implemented a new advertising technology, called Beacon, to make the online shopping experience that much more social ... and has now reversed out the most intrusive elements of the new functionality.
What's the fuss about?
When Facebook users shopped online, Beacon told friends what they looked at or bought. More than 40 websites, including Fandango.com, Overstock.com and Blockbuster, signed up to use Beacon software on their webpages and report what Facebook users did when they visited. Could be useful, yes?
YES, but naively Facebook launched Beacon as an "default opt out" system (ie everyone knew what you had bought, unless you specifically said 'Absolutely no way').
International Herald Tribune reports that there was a pop-up box alert to FB users that indicated that information was about to be shared with Facebook unless they click on "No Thanks." The pop-up disappears after about 20 seconds, after which consent is assumed. Admittedly, this pop-up appears on every partner site that has adopted Beacon.
Here's one the more harmless examples of where it went wrong, also from IHT:
"People should be given much more of a notice, much more of an alert," said Matthew Helfgott, 20, a college student who discovered his girlfriend just bought him black leather gloves from Overstock for Hanukkah. "She said she had no idea (information would be shared). She said it invaded her privacy."
At the other end of the scale:
"What if you bought a book on Amazon called 'Coping with AIDS' and that got published to every single one of your friends?"
Yukky, basically.
For users of social software, best practices in privacy are assumed - and those practices don't vary. Messing with these principles messes with the brand.
So guess what? Disgruntled Facebook users formed an online protest (more than 50,000 of them) and forced the mothership to rescind - Beacon is now 'default opt-in'.
The changes to Beacon may not be the last that Facebook has to make to the technology.
Two rights groups, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Center for Digital Democracy, are believed to be compiling a complaint to the US Federal Trade Commission about it.
UK Government's Customs and Revenue mailed 2 CDs for 7 million citizens who receive child benefits from one end of the country to the other. Unfortunately, the CDs become lost in the post. The Prime Minister, Gordon Brown had to stand up in Parliament and apologize profusely for the department in question 'not following the proper procedures'.
Side note: For the opposition party, it was a wonderful opportunity to pour scorn on the Labour Party. It was a situation, delightfully described in the Guardian:
This wasn't just shooting fish in a barrel - it was harpooning a porpoise that's got into your bath.
Anyway, the real issue is that it raised further concerns about the controversial National ID card scheme. As Nick Robinson from the BBC writes in his blog:
What is clear to me is that the public would like to see the information they provide guarded like a dangerous virus in a lab. In reality, there is clearly a culture of casualness toward it which allows one man, apparently, to copy 25 million names and details onto two discs and chuck them in the post.
Clearly, the vulnerability in the system is most likely to be human or systematic. This ID card initiative has many, many tortuous turns to make before it becomes reality.
Much harder (ideologically) to implement in Europe than in the US and even harder in the UK, given its suspicion of centralization.
Cute quotes from John Forsyth, vice president of strategy at Symbian:
"mobile OS is a very specialised form of rocket science. It's not search rocket science. "
"Search and a mobile phone platform are completely different things."
"About every three months this year there has been a mobile Linux initiative of some sort launched. "It's a bit like the common cold. It keeps coming round..."
Google make a huge foray into the mobile arena, by providing a phone operating system for free 'Android'. It has launched Open Handset Alliance as the vehicle to facilitate its penetration into the mobile market.
See Sergry Brin introduce it:
Four handset manufacturers are on board: Samsung, HTC, Motorola and LG. Operators?? Sprint, Nextel, T-Mobile, China Mobile, Telefonica and Telecom Italia will sport the Google-powered phones - the first of them will be available late 2008.
This announcement is more than a poke in the eye with significant mobile OS providers such as Microsoft, Research in Motion, Palm and Symbian.
Clearly, everyone is feeling everyone else out with this new offering - 'of course, I'll participate, but I'm not going to jettison any of my existing partnerships that I have nurtured for years'.
I think this strategy is too early for Google - mobile internet isn't what 99% of users require out of a phone at the moment. Another desktop player, MS, took years to gain traction in the mobile sector. Admittedly, this strategy isn't home grown, it came from the acquisition of Android in 2005 - so it will have a better chance than MS, but still...
Google's behemoth is advertising - the mobile industry is a lot more sophisticated and VERY different to the internet. 'Free' isn't word that is trips off the tongue of mobile executives.
I reserve judgment. As I've said before, when people with lots of ammunition are wandering around the battlefield, be careful, they don't have to know too much about what they are doing to be very dangerous.
UPDATE: Here's a biting critique of Google's announcement from a report from Analysys:
As a strategy to bring fundamental change to the mobile industry, Android is way off target. In reality, a free OS will not be sufficient incentive for major players to write off investments in established software platforms and adopt a platform that offers nothing new from a development perspective. Manufacturers have a financial liability for their devices, and cannot contemplate the prospect of an open-source OS that could release a virus or trojan into the market. The required investment in OS security and stability would be high, as it has been for Android’s predecessors. They (members of the Open Handset Alliance) can exploit the publicity if the initiative is successful, and minimise their exposure (as one of several players participating in numerous initiatives) if it fails. In cash terms, partners will invest little in R&D to support this programme. Ultimately, Google’s primary strategic and revenue objective is to encourage the use of its search engine. If, by backing an OS alliance, Google can expand the scope of its search box placement by cementing relationships with established partners and developing deals with new partners, arguably Android will have done its job.
At the start of this month, Google released standard set of application programming interfaces (APIs) for building social applications that will work across social networking and other Web sites. So as a developer, write once, integrate with many.
Here are some of the companies that have signed up: Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING. (Most of these are consumer sites, but some are business sites.)
This could be seen as a face-off between Facebook's platform (representing 50 million active users) vs OpenSocial (which leverages users of existing silioed services which together represent 100 million users). However Google is stressing this is an developer platform (rather than commercial one).
Hello? Identity management standard in another guise??
Nice point from this Gartner analyst in this article:
What's missing, said Valdes, is any common user experience, which he believes is one of the reasons that Facebook has prospered.
Also Facebook represents a trusted brand - with privacy standards & trust, as well as a similar consumer experience. A set of APIs alone doesn't represent that.
Pipex, using the brand Freedom4, announces launch of its WiMax service in the UK, targeted for the end of the year.
Let's be clear here: at this point, you get a receiver the size of a side plate with a toilet roll on top. It allows you to receive a wireless signal (4Mb/s) 500m to 2km (indoors) from the base station; 10km away if you're outdoors. Once you have the signal, you have to pipe it into your PC or Mac or whatever (eg cables or wireless). This Silicon article reports that a USB plug into the back of your PC is coming too - such things do exist. (I'd love the ability to set up my own base station, please?)
Two areas served to date: Warwick, Milton Keynes and Warwick; parts of Manchester coming soon - here's the coverage map.
Clearly, this is complementary to Wi-fi, rather than competitive. Their marketing is aimed at remote access for SMEs:
those out-of-towners
too far from the exchange to get broadband
don't want a phone line.
"Pricing competitive with equivalent fixed line access services." If you've ever had to priced satellite internet access, then this looks like a good deal. But is the market big enough to support this size of initiative??
From Silicon.com: While Google is leading a charge to create a global privacy standard for how companies protect consumer data.
USA Today story adds some historical colour to the story, by highlighting the fact that Google is struggling with privacy concerns that threatens its purchase Internet ad service DoubleClick for $3.1 billion:
Facing pressure from European regulators, Google got the privacy ball rolling in a new direction earlier this year when it announced plans to regularly remove key pieces of personal information about the search requests stored in its computers.
It then narrowed its time frame for depersonalizing search requests from as long as two years to 18 months — a standard that Microsoft, which runs the third-most-popular search engine, also has adopted.
Yahoo, which operates the second-most-popular search engine, has gone further by promising to scrub personal information within 13 months — a standard Time Warner's AOL also follows.
InterActiveCorp's Ask.com is going even further by offering its users a tool that will prevent search terms and the Internet addresses of computers from being retained.
Previously, all the search engines had been vague about how long they hold on to the personal information logged from search requests.
The TerraNet technology works using handsets adapted to work as peers that can route data or calls for other phones in the network.
The handsets also serve as nodes between other handsets, extending the reach of the entire system. Each handset has an effective range of about one kilometre.
This collaborative routing of calls means there is no cost to talk between handsets.
When a TerraNet phone is switched on, it begins to look for other phones within range. If it finds them, it starts to connect and extend the radio network.
Note that Ericsson has NOT invested in the company, as the BBC reports, but is funded by private investors - see clarification from TerraNet. However backing from a handset manufacturer would make sense, as it would allow them to bypass mobile operators and increase the value in the handset, not in the network
Gotta say LinkedIn and Zoominfo are the two that I use.
Here's another profile aggregator, ProfileLinker (here's a TechCrunch review). Upscoop aims to identify which social networks your buddies are a member of.
The two strongest social network software providers for business users, Plaxo & LinkedIn, have produced a cross-network sync, so that Plaxo contacts can be synced with LinkedIn contacts.
Clearly, if you have extrapolate the utility of this feature, then you'll want to tie many address books together.... ie around a single identity (well, a reduced number at any rate). I'm surprised it has taken this long to put this together - especially as their offices are about 3 miles apart.
Those ingenious chaps at Fon (free wi-fi) have been messing around with an ad-supported service - and I don't mean the dull Google Ads variety. When you connect to a 'Fonera' (ie a Fon hotspot), you'll have to watch an ad to continue surfing - one every 30 minutes, according to Martin Varsavsky's blog.
Any reason why the same business model can't be applied to ordinary ISP, IM or (mobile) telephone service? Not really - apart from market appetite.
After years of being in the mobile business, then finally Orange UK looks to have discovered a common sense pricing model for consumers to use the mobile internet.
Bear in mind that 96% mobile revenues comes from plain ol' voice and text, so growing the 'proper' data component is pretty important. To date, pricing has been on a per MB or an 'all you can eat' basis.
I have blogged previously on why 3's gargantuan X-series package was indicative of amateur marketing. Looks like Orange have found a customer-centric solution.... wow, what a concept!
So here's why Orange's announcement will make total sense to users and I would anticipate the other operators will follow suit:
Pay-as-you-go: Internet snacks – 40p for 15 mins with daily cap of £2 (or a daily £1 bundle).
Contract: Internet “snacks” – 30p for 15mins with daily cap of £1.50 (or a “bundle” priced at £1 per day or £5 monthly for evening/ weekends or £8 monthly “anytime”)
Just started a new position at Webmetrics, as Product Marketing Manager - hence why there hasn't been too many posts recently!
It's a fascinating company just north of San Diego. In essence, what Webmetrics provides is simple and useful: they verify that your website is available and functional. But, given that the web is fragmenting, the page that you see is the result of multiple partners working together for the end-user experience, then knowing that your partners are up and running and functional, is vitally important.
For a small company, they have a great customer base: Yahoo!, Barnes and Noble, DHL, salesforce.com. Heaps of exciting potential!
As a side-note, I remain one of the Entrepreneurs-in-Residence at UCSD (University of California, San Diego) on the CONNECT program.
A lovely story from the BBC about cached WiFi intelligence: how, in rural India and parts of Rwanda, Cambodia and Paraguay, the local store has a community computer which gets updated with content whenever a bus (equipped with wi-fi) drives past. The bus connects both people and information requests to larger (connected) communities.
The founder of the United Villages initiative Amir Hassan said:
"0.003% percent of the web that rural India cares about. They want to know the cricket scores, they want to see the new Aishwarya Rai photos, and they want to hear a sample of the latest Bollywood tunes."
It also provides everyone in the rural community with email access too. Users can request specific pages that isn't normally cached. Clearly not designed for personalized services.
OK, so what's the relevance of this heart warming story to the first and second world?
In essence, that most of the internet is asynchronous, so much so that it is (largely) independent of time. So content consumers will use low (or zero) cost communications mechanisms for this type of information and expensive mobile when speed is important or when they lack of access and can justify the expense.
Vintage stuff: the mighty Gizmo project is revisiting some dusty, long forgotten functionality: the ability to send text messages to mobile phones from a web page for free.
Remember when telco operators used to let any third party do this back 5+ years ago? They permitted this so that the recipient would hit reply thus generating usage. Sadly, only mobile operators themselves permit this through their own sites - and cap usage to a fairly meager daily limit.
It will be interesting to see if this takes off again - perhaps it will shove SMS into the mainstream in the US market.
In the meantime, you can send a SMS to my mobile / cell phone, by clicking on the Gizmo Logo above.
