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Hack Culture Article from Contagious Magazine
Nice article on the growing UK Hack Culture from Contagious Magazine Issue 30, with a cool spotlight on our efforts with BlueVia.
Making Telecoms the Essential Spice of Every Business Ecosystem: The Slow, Painful Rise of APIs in Telecoms
Another good Telco API presentation from Alan Quayle. Worth a quick read.
App Circus London Write Up #appcircus #apps #mobile #yam cc @appcircus @techhub
Last night I had the pleasure of sitting on the judging panel for App Circus London, hosted in TechHub.
Here is a quick run down of the results and a few of the notes I made about each pitch.
WINNER: EchoEcho
This is a social location app which solves a practical problem of guiding you to the location of a friend near by. You can send your location to a friend so they can come directly to you, or pick a venue close by for you to rendezvous at. It was a clear and concise pitch, articulately demonstrating how the app removes the need for a multiple text message exchange to zero in on someones location. There was also a nice build in member get member feature as sending your location to a friend encourages the download of the app. They already have users in 165 countries even though they only launched in September, and also expose an API.
RUNNER UP: Siine Writer
A 3rd party keyboard for Android devices I have seen before, but what struck me about Siine Writer was the use of icon buttons to enter long strings of text into the device. This I've not seen before, and can be fully customised by the user by adding their own buttons, and even uploading their own images to label those buttons. I think there is a huge accessibility opportunity for technology like this, and also really interested mobile health application.
HONOURABLE MENTION: Runtastic
Yes the a 10 a penny health and fitness tracking apps in the various app stores, but this was an accomplished pitch, with a beautifully designed UI. They have already generated over 4 million downloads of their apps, and they are extending the utility and accuracy of the app by supporting external sensors. When I challenged on what set them apart from the competition, they have a nice feature where friends can track a race live and give you on the spot encouragement to squeeze every last second out of your performance.
Social location network for iPhone. Its a photo driven event app where you create events or "eeves" and share live photo streams with friends. You can also go back and browse historical eeves to reminisce about all those awesome parties you go to. The app is currently only available for iPhone, so it we be good in future pitches if they could clarify how friends on other platforms can participate in the fun (e.g. mobile web site) or if they are excluded.
I liked this one. Tracking app for the food you eat. Turns the confusing concept of calories into "bits" which is their virtual measurement. Some nice gamification to encourage repeat use by unlocking badges and challenges. The UI looked intuitive and engaging, and localisation of the food database was a nice touch. Some pretty stiff competition is out there so it will be interesting to see if they can carve a niche for Foodszy.
A personal shopping app, the pitch was saving you the time and hassle of comparative shopping on the web and asking friends for their opinion via social media. Via the app you have access to "experts" who can make you personalised recommendations. The part that left the panel unconvinced was these experts are supplied by retailers. This immediately brought into question the impartiality of these "experts". They did say there was a rating and recommendation system build in to govern the experts, but I think future pitches need to focus on reassuring that recommendations are really legit independent.
An App generator focused on the publishing industry, allowing a publisher to deliver HTML that is then turned into beautiful and functional tablet based apps using a hybrid mix of native and web capabilities. Think The Times iPad edition without all the production hassle. It looked great and the demo I saw in the networking was impressive. Because it wasn't a consumer facing app it was a little specialised to stand out to the panel, and a 3 minute pitch wasn't really enough time to do something a little different to the average app justice. If it is as powerful as claimed, I'm sure they will tie up some interesting deals.
A home brew Interactive ebook aimed at young children, focusing on learning through touch, sight, sound. You have options to let the child explore the story themselves or let the app read the story to them.
A story telling app with photos, kind of like a photo blog. Allows you to add text to photos to tell your story. They had a concept of matching brands with users as a business plan, but I think the panel needed more detail on how this could work, and how they would cope with competition from all the existing photo services out there today.
Congratulations to all, it was a fun and positive evening with a high standard for the apps on show.
Locating the cash: Now Google charge for their Maps API #google #maps #api #developers #yam
Despite refusing to charge end users for their services, it seems Google are getting increasingly comfortable charging developers to use their APIs. Previously you only had to pay to use the Google Maps API if your site or app was charging users. Following Wednesdays announcement there is now a second trigger for charging, as Google has introduced throttling on the API. This follows on from Google introducing charging for their translation API back in August.
The charging structure will work like this. Up to 25,000 standard API calls, and up to 2,500 calls of the Styled Map feature per day will be free of charge. You can then purchase additional calls or license the Premier version of the API.
Pricing is around $4 for every additional 1,000 map loads, and a Premier license "starts at" $10,000 per year. This compares to the Bing Maps model of 125,000 sessions or 500,000 transactions per year for free, then upgrade to their Enterprise license, the pricing of which is not published. Its a "give us a call so we can talk" type of deal.
This move seems to confirm a significant strategic shift for Google.
It will be interesting to see how other location providers respond. Do they also attempt to cash in on location (like the Mobile Operators have long been criticised for doing) or do they attempt to steal market share from Google by changing their fees? It will be interesting to see how or if this spikes interest in the range of free alternatives like the BlueVia Location API, OpenStreetMap, and MapNik. I'm not sure if Fireeagle is still alive?
My other concern is I hope this move does not shift mobile app developers to purely relying on the phones GPS location, rather than using server side location look ups. Ewan over at Mobile Industry Review wrote an entertaining piece on the benefits of server side look up's here, which is worth a read.
What will you use?
My "Smash Hits" style interview with Camerjam #yam
MOBILE10 interview: James Parton, BlueVia, @jamesparton
by James Cameron, 25 Oct 2011
Name, current job and company
James Parton, Head of Marketing BlueVia, Telefonica
What’s your app of the moment?
No question, hands down winner is iHi. The BlueVia team has had hours of hilarity with it, and the beauty of it is it is super simple and just keeps giving!
What is your primary phone?
iPhone 4, skipping the 4s and waiting for the 5. Please explain to me why people feel the need to tweet everything they ask Siri?
Which mobile startups have you got your eye on?
There is so much happening at the moment in London it would be unfair to pick one UK company, so I’ll go for a New York one to avoid upsetting anyone. The startup that literally changed how I interacted with an industry overnight is Turntable.FM. So annoying they were forced to block international traffic due to licensing problems. Ever noticed how its antiquated publishing rights frameworks that hold back our industry, not technology? Especially when its so easy to bypass the restrictions anyway via IP spoofing, so why bother in the first place. Lame.
What are you currently working on?
Convincing people that not all Telco’s suck
What will be the biggest opportunity in 2012?
APIs. More and more companies are opening up their digital assets and allowing developers to mash together stuff to create awesome new services.
Who are your 3 rockstars in mobile?
My three are not all “pure mobile” but then not much is these days: Sam Ramji of Apigee (@sramji), Elizabeth Varley of TechHub (@evarley) and Yosi Taguri, developer of the mobile game Pah! (@yosit)
Who were you working for 10 years ago?
Ha, 10 years ago I was launching instalment number 5 of a perpetually running series titled “The next big thing in mobile” across Europe for O2. Instalment number 5 was MMS (picture messaging). It kinda worked, but never worked consistently enough. The experience gave me a life long bitterness towards industry standardisation, but the therapy has done wonders. Reflecting back, a startup would be over the moon about the money MMS makes, but it still feels like something I shouldn’t shout from the rooftops about being involved with. Chris Book (@bookmeister) on the other hand tells everyone he meets that he invented the whole thing, and MMS is the solution to all of civilisations problems. Chris was on “the other side” launching MMS for Orange. If you meet him, smile politely and walk the other way.
Who was/is your best boss?
My best boss is the one most likely to be reading this, so Jose Valles. But seriously we have managed to create an amazingly dedicated and passionate team inside Telefonica to build and deliver BlueVia. Jose has to take a huge credit for that. He is also an amazing “shit umbrella” allowing me to get on with the things I need to focus on. Unfortunately he seems to think that marketing is just going to parties, so some education is still required.
Who should we interview next?
Tony Fish @tonyfish
Posted by James Cameron on Tuesday, 25 October 2011
Had some fun doing this, you should check out the other #mobile10 interviews - some great people in there...
Lastest BlueVia Case Study - Facetones #yam
Learn how the guys at Facetones have taken advantage of the marketing support on offer in the BlueVia Marketing Toolkit.
The new @bluevia T-Shirt makes its debut at Over The Air 2011 #ota11 #yam
Bonus point if you tell me where you have seen that guy before!
Weekly Wrap inc. #f8 #twitter #google #uncrunched #yam
This post is a wrap of this weeks stories in tech, social and mobile that caught my eye...
Facebook F8
The biggest event was of course the annual F8 Facebook conference.
New timeline profile view, and deeper interaction via new verb buttons were the highlight announcements. You can read about it here, here and the Spotify bit here.
F8 also inspired me to write my first ever tweet that anyone seems to have cared enough about to retweet it a whole bunch of times! If you know the developer hack, you can see my new Facebook timeline style profile page here.
Michael Arrington launches UNCRUNCHED
The fall out at TechCrunch continues with Michael Arrington launching his own site, UNCRUNCHED. You would have though he could have found a higher res photo ;-)
How to throw a REAL party
Call Scott Parker! Check out his recent Forbes cover story.
Google+ API
Lets hope finally exposing an API gives Google+ a shot in the arm, becuase frankly I think its the biggest pile of over hyped doo-doo since, er, Wave? Already a few services I use [Empire Avenue and Klout] have adopted the API, although judging from the results I'm not sure how useful the first version is.
CANT miss event in London
I hear a rumour that Jason Calacanis is the latest to sign up for this.
and to end...
Not one, but TWO shameless BlueVia plugs...
Firstly the rather exciting, some even called it seminal, news that Twitter has integrated into BlueVia's MMS API to allow O2 UK customers to upload photos into their Twitter timeline. Secondly if you are a developer in the UK, make sure you get involved with London Mobile Week. Over The Air 2011 kicks us off, and we are giving away £10,000 worth of free advertising spend as first prize. Yes we ARE that awesome!
@Twitter Integrates with @BlueVia APIs - my brief thoughts #yam
So yesterday felt like a coming of age moment.
As some of you will know, my day job is running marketing for BlueVia, the developer program from Telefonica. Its a job filled with immense highs and some lows. Convincing developers that a Telco is a credible partner is not an easy job, but then who wants an easy job!
BlueVia launched some 9 months ago, and came out of closed beta in April. In that short timeframe we have released two drops of software, signed up a good chunk of developers, and are now starting to see some really interesting products coming through using the BlueVia API's. #himum being one of my personal favourites.
The coming of age moment yesterday was the announcement that Twitter has integrated into BlueVia's MMS API to allow O2 customers in the UK to send picture messages to their Twitter timeline. Its was the culmination of a great team effort from the folks at Twitter, Telefonica, BlueVia and O2 UK. I hope this announcement signals a tipping point for the platform, and send a positive message to developers that if BlueVia is good enough for Twitter, then maybe we are worth checking out.
Now of course Twitter simultaneously announced the same service with other carriers around the world, including Orange in the UK, so "what's the big deal?" you may ask. Well the reason we, and some others, are excited is the "how" they have done it.
Because BlueVia has exposed RESTful API's to a number of core Telefonica capabilities, the resources expended to integrate Twitter into our infrastructure were substantially less than a standard direct integration, with of course the associated speed to market benefits. In addition, BlueVia exposes a common MMS API interface for multiple Telefonica operating businesses, meaning replication of an integration is seamless, compared to the traditional approach of multiple local integration projects.
Below is a selection of articles on the announcement:
Footage from the recent @bluevia tour to the US @momosv @momoseattle
Recently the BlueVia team travelled over to San Francisco and Seattle for a week of evangelism, developer out reach, and business development meetings. Below is a montage of our talks at Mobile Monday Silicon Valley and Seattle.
Stay tuned to @bluevia for more news on some interesting developments coming off the back of the trip.
