Category Archive

TXTual Healing (Interactive SMS based Street Performance) have a launched a new  project called Drip TXT (Working with Adam Chapman and the hand of Graffiti Artist Jesus Saves)

 Interesting post from Alec Saunders.. Is this a new trend?

A twit no more. Disconnected from the hive:

Yesterday, drowning in a sea of updates, I disconnected from the Twitter hive.  Its constant stream of free-form presence updates has undeniable appeal, but the sheer volume of information, coupled with the lack of mediation tools, has made it unmanageable for me.   

I briefly flirted with Jaiku.  In addition to the updates, it also aggregates feeds for a user, letting you collect RSS feeds, presence information, and status updates all in one place.  So few people I know use Jaiku, however, that that flirtation was short lived.

So I’ve turned to facebook.  Facebook has the appeal of Jaiku’s feed aggregation, coupled with Twitter’s short form status updates.  It also provides deeper tools than Twitter or Jaiku for managing which updates end up being delivered to your mobile, and which not, which solves the “sea of updates” problem for me.  Facebook gives you very fine control over which updates and from which users are delivered as text messages, versus accessible only online. 

Best of all? Apparently my whole network already knew about facebook.  When I loaded my contact database into it to see who I knew on facebook, I had an instant friends network of nearly 200 people. 

Whatever the category represented by Twitter and Jaiku, facebook seems to have already conquered it.

Thanks to the fabulous Fresh Creation

Currently I am in the process of organising a new open network event in Amsterdam The Netherlands. I am planning to host it once a month. Very informal style. With one or two speakers per event. The ambition of these drinks is to integrate the mobile industry especially with the more traditional industries(internet, IT, advertising, Retail, etc). I see that the mobile industry is still pretty isolated and it is time to change that.Want to help me organise these drinks, wish to speak on one of these evenings or ofcourse want to participate please let me know.

(via PSFK)

The New York Times recently reported on a company called ShopText that is enabling users to purchase products instantly through their mobile phone and charge it to their credit card. 

The NYT writes:

To use the system, a consumer must first place a phone call to ShopText to set up an account, specifying a shipping address and card account. After that, all purchases can be made by thumb.

When ShopText receives text messages about donations or products, it charges the credit card it has on file for the buyer, then, if appropriate, sends the product from one of its warehouses around the country.

“E-commerce only represents a fraction of total retail — the thing that holds it back is it’s tethered to an Internet connection,” said Mark Kaplan, founder and chief marketing officer of ShopText. “The cellphones link products to media. When people get the impulse to buy, they have their cellphones.”

Print advertisers in particular are excited about how the new technology will increase readers interaction with magazines and loosen the death grip internet has held over non-retail impulse shopping.

We imagine this must resolve a few dilemmas for folks on holiday who just can’t decide whether to spend the day at the beach go out shopping - why not both!   Watch out for more and more print ads displaying text-message codes. 

Just read this post on Mashable about “dead” Dodgeball. Interesting to see how services develop and why some succeed and others fail..

Dodgeball, the text-message based social networking service, seems to have been left for dead.

Dennis Crowley, the founder of Dodgeball, and Alex Rainert have both left the sinking Dodgeball ship. Acquired by Google in 2005, Crowley insists that Google is not providing the resources necessary to innovate their service, let alone keep up with recently popular Twitter and newcomer Jaiku. Crowley and Rainert have decided to quit Google, leaving Dodgeball to fend for itself. An announcement from Crowley says that the whole experience at Google was frustrating, “especially as we couldn’t convince them that Dodgeball was worth engineering resources, leaving us to watch as other startups got to innovate in the mobile + social space.”

In the end, that leaves Twitter the reigning chief. Not that their dominance was in question as of late, but Dodgeball is sure to meet its end very soon. It’s a shame that Google never built up Dodgeball, considering the current and future mobile market, but then again, Google has $3.1 billion deals to tend to.

UPDATE:

Thanks to BlueAce here some more info from the guys themselves:

So…. Alex and I quit Google on Friday.

It’s no real secret that Google wasn’t supporting dodgeball the way we expected. The whole experience was incredibly frustrating for us - especially as we couldn’t convince them that dodgeball was worth engineering resources, leaving us to watch as other startups got to innovate in the mobile + social space. And while it was a tough decision (and really disappointing) to walk away from dodgeball, I’m actually looking forward to getting to work on other projects again.

So, what’s next? Starting today (Monday!) I’m joining the kids at area/code who are knee-deep in building all sorts of Big Games (remember PacManhattan? ConQwest?). Alex is moving on to IconNicholson where he took a gig as a Creative Strategist focusing on mobile and emerging technologies. (And sorry, but I don’t know what Google has planned for dodgeball going forward.)

ps: Clear your calendar for this Saturday (April 21). A whole crew of us are dj’ing to celebrate our escape. (details + invite coming soon!)

Great PDF on Mobile Gaming…

Just installed Fring. Works like a charm. Really nice interface and a great site. I added my GTalk and MSN account. It works with Skype and SIP services aswell.

So now able to keep my twitter posts coming via GTalk account..better than SMS notifications

And I am able to doe VoIP calls.. Wow!(Well just tried to call…doesn’t work. Only the test call works..)

Slowly we see services getting mature in the area of speech recognition and TTS(Text To Speech). Will these “translators” become the bridge between the virtual world of the web and our physical world. Will the “translator” create an AI. Will the “translator” know you?.. Know your preferences, location, profile, history and social context?

Well Microsoft Vista is not ready yet..

The boundaries between humans and machines start to fade(long introduction)

Thanks to the great eye of Stefan Constantinescu from Ring Nokia who found the clip on YouTube.

THE FUTURE!!!!!

Just played with the new Peerbox application version 0.95. I must say very impressed with the work they did. Very rich application with many options. A very complete library of music. The videos are still brand videos. Easy upload function. Ringtones download. Only strange thing is they say it will cost me 2,20 euro to download a song(ringtones aswell). Have no idea how they organised the billing. I downloaded The Scientist from Coldplay(yeahh) and expected a premium sms..NOTHING. Thumbs up for the effort of creating a user friendly and fast app. Now let’s wait until we have a nice business case..

Have a look at the screenshots..

I am not happy.. My loyalty to Nokia is threatened for the first time since the N7650(milestone)..

This is a new MILESTONE! I have never in the 8 years I worked in the mobileindustry been so blown away.. I have alot of respect for the Apple team. They have faced tremendous challenges to create this device..

I just can’t believe it… I wonder what my ex colleagues are discussing now. I mail them tomorrow they probably haven’t seen it yet..(just kiddin)

Concluding: Symbian..TIME TO GET OUT OF THE MIDDLEAGES!!!!!

Just watched this clip from MobileYouth06 and it is shocking to see the complete lack of interest in Mobile internet… Why is that? More and more I start to think that we will skip the mobile browser and try to find innovative ways to integrate internet services(excl. entertainment) in the traditional communication services as sms, mms, email, voice and IM. A webbrowser window might work fine on a PC but I believe more and more it will not work in the same way on the mobile phone. Even ODPs(On Device Portals) will not do the trick. Makes me think what the best distribution system is for internet services for a mobile phone.  Don’t forget the role of the increasing amount of context information(like location) as a contributor to easy intuitive delivery of services..

Let’s see…

Well must say it works pretty good. Too bad my text which was in my MMS is gone..

Dit bericht ontvangt u van een KPN gebruiker. U kunt meer informatie vinden op www.kpn.com trefwoord “mms”

Posted straight from my phone with Nakama. Click to see more.

Today, Nokia (NYSE: NOK), a world leader in mobile communications, and Trimble (NASDAQ: TRMB), a leading innovator of Global Positioning System (GPS) technology, announced a cooperative licensing deal on Trimble’s Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) patents related to designated wireless products and services involving location technologies, such as GPS, assisted GPS or Galileo. The licensing agreement is exclusive to Nokia for the wireless consumer product and service domain and includes sublicensing rights. In return, Trimble receives a non-exclusive license to Nokias location-based patents for use in Trimble’s commercial products and services. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed; however it will not be material to either company’s revenue or income. “Location-based devices and services are receiving mass market acceptance, offering a range of benefits to both consumer and commercial users,” said Steven W. Berglund, president and CEO of Trimble. “We are very pleased to be working with Nokia to incorporate our intellectual property into the most common consumer electronic device—the mobile phone. This agreement validates Trimble’s GNSS patent portfolio and offers us further opportunities to extend our presence in the mobile communications markets we currently serve.” “We strongly believe that location-based capabilities and services will be an important element of future mobile communications devices,” said Kai Oistamo, executive vice president and general manager of Mobile Phones, Nokia. “By licensing the worlds largest GNSS patent portfolio involving innovative location solutions, Nokia will be able to offer our—customers consumers and operators alike—an even more compelling mobile experience. Also, by licensing our solutions and these patents to other players, we believe this deal with Trimble will benefit the entire wireless industry by accelerating the adoption of location technologies. From Nokia’s perspective, the sublicensing rights under Trimble’s industry leading location patent portfolio will nicely augment our industry leading WCDMA/UMTS and GSM patent portfolios.” Today, the location-based services industry is experiencing significant growth in the area of navigation; for example car, pedestrian and maritime. Other services such as “local search” — finding relevant information based on ones location — are also becoming increasingly popular. As more and more location-based services continue to be added to mobile devices, the mobile phone is expected to play a central role in the mass adoption of location-based services by consumers

Epic 2014 is the original flash online movie made by Robin Sloan for the Museum of Media History

Set in 2014 Epic 2014 charts the history of the Internet, the evolving mediascape and the way news and newspapers were affected by the growth in online news.

It coined the word “Googlezon” from a future merger of Google and Amazon to form the Google grid, and speaks of news wars with the Times becoming a print only paper for the elite culminating in EPIC Evolving Personalised Information Construct

As a flash animation, this film is extraordinary, not just for it’s use of technology but for it’s fantastic perception looking forward.

Epic 2015 is a new updated vision of the future built on Epic 2014set but now set in 2015.

Hi, I just started this Blog..  In a acouple of days I should have some interesting stuff here..

Greetz,

Raimo