Dan’s Blog (2.0)

The Register reportedon the launch of Conversations from Nokia “Beta labs” division. So don’t get me wrong. I applaud Nokia’s efforts on releasing this and in particular in releasing it for existing handsets. However, this release brings some questions to mind.

First of all, why wasn’t this feature part of the original functionality of the device. Integrating the SMS inbox with the address book surely should be one of those features that you should expect to be on every device. The fact that this is being released in 2007 as a high-tech, cutting edge, “beta” function is a little sad I think and belies a dysfunction in the mobile industry with regard to integrated user experience.

But leaving that to the side for a second, who now gets to benefit from this innovation? Certainly not the majority of Nokia S-60 owners since they will likely never install the app themselves. It’s only the early adopter users and industry insiders who know how to install apps on their phones that are able to benefit. That’s not a critique of the app as much as it’s a critique of the whole mechanism by which software updates roll out onto handsets. There should be a mechanism for automatic over-the-air updates analogous to the software update functions prevalent in the desktop world.

Having said all that, the app itself is definitely a step forward for SMS discussions and I can see myself using it a lot. However, applications like Jaiku already go so much further in allowing one to many messaging, integrated with a Web user experience. SMS discussions is a great tweak on top of a “Mobile 1.0″ service but it doesn’t really seem like the kind of envelope-pushing application that I’d expect out of a “lab.”

Filed by Daniel Appelquist at 19:39 under Mobility
Tags: Nokia, nokiabetalabs

4 Comments

From this picture, the turn-out for my talk might look pretty small. And it was. But I was actually impressed that this many people managed to find the room which was tucked up away from the main conference. In general, this feels like an event that should be a lot bigger than it is. I can’t help but feel that this is due to the extremely high ticket price. On the positive side, there are some real developers here and real exciting stuff being presented, such as the Laszlo presentation on the use of their toolkit to build mobile Web apps. The participants that are here are here to learn and are asking good questions as well. One delegate commented that many of the presentations were little more than sales pitches. After sitting through some of them (especially from Adobe and Microsoft) I have to agree.

So I was in the “iPhone” track of this conference. However, my message was “it’s not all about the iPhone – develop for one Web.” This message was well received. I was expecting the room to be filled with iPhone devotees. On the contrary. People seemed very receptive to this message.

Filed by Daniel Appelquist at 0:34 under Mobile Web, Web 2.0
Tags: ajaxworld, mobileajax, MobileWeb

1 Comment

Update on the Barclaycard OnePulse. Apparently, getting an application out to me in the mail is too difficult for these guys because I haven’t received it yet. I also don’t quite understand why I have to re-apply for this card. Instead, shouldn’t I, as a valued Barclaycard customer living in London, have been offered the opportunity to upgrade/whatever to the OnePulse card? Big campaign behind this OnePulse thing all over the Tube (see inset: “Welcome to the Future.”) I don’t feel very welcome in your future, Barclaycard. In fact, I’m on the verge of canceling my existing card and writing the whole thing off.

Filed by Daniel Appelquist at 21:56 under London, Technology
Tags: barclaycard, onepulse, oystercard, thetube

6 Comments

This weekend, I was sending out a Jaiku message (or updating my presence, depending on how you think of it) during a brief lull at the playground with my kids. There I was, in the middle of Highgate Wood in north London, and I realized something: Jaiku knew where I was. In fact, it had k known where I was all day as I went from East Finchley to Muswell Hill, then back to East Finchley and then to Highgate Wood. As I had briefly updated my presence in each location, it had attached my location information. Big deal, you might say, so what? Yes, but it’s the kind of location that Jaiku was tracking that started to intrigue me. Locaiton to Jaiku is not a GPS coordinate but is tracked entirely by Cell ID. If I travel somewhere new and set my location (as I did in “Vodafone HQ” today, for example) it remembers this, not by X, Y coordinate but simply by the text that I’ve entered. This way of thinking about location actually maps much more accurately on to the way that real people think about location. When you tell your friend where to meet you for a drink after work, you don’t say “meet me at lat xxx, long xxx plus/minus 30 meters.” You say “meet me at such-and-such pub.” In fact, this kind of casual location is most suited towards social applications like Jaiku. Different social groups might call the same location by different names. This is bcause location is a social construct. Sure, you can measure location against strict x,y coordinates and for some applications this is fine, not for applications like Jaiku. Even GPS direction finding applications need to map x,y coordinates into a human-consumable form of street names and landmarks (“turn left at the next intersection.”) So for apps like Jaiku and Plazes (and social media sharing such as Zonetag), cell-id based location is actually ideal. It doesn’t require additional battery, it maps very closely onto the granularity that people care about in this sort of social app, and it’s free.

Filed by Daniel Appelquist at 22:40 under mobile 2.0
Tags: jaiku, mobile2.0

5 Comments

So Barclaycard (the credit card arm of Barclay’s, a major UK-based bank) is rolling out a new product, Onepulse, which more or less combines a few payment instruments into one card. Firstly, it’s a regular “chip and PIN” credit card, now ubiquitous across the UK. Secondly, it’s an Oyster card. Oyster is the brand name for the smart card system now in use across London’s transport network. It’s a “touchless” RFID card that you can either load with money that decrements with each journey or with virtual tickets that allow unlimited travel over a period of time. Oyster has been around since 2003. The third instrument on this Onepulse card, however, is something new, at least for the UK. It’s called “Visa Onetouch” and appears similar to something MasterCard has rolled out in the U.S. called Paypass.

So why is this at all interesting?

Well. I’m always interested in new smart card technology and how it changes our behavior and impacts our society. I participated in a digital cash trial in Manhattan in 1997 (that famously floundered). I’m an early adopter of this kind of stuff, and I also am drawn to the promise of greater convenience. Convenience was a notably missing element from the Mondex trial in Manhattan (where you had to bring your card to a special equipped ATM and load money on it in order to bring it to a specially equipped vendor so they could schlep out a huge multi-part card reader – for which you would have to use a separate pin in order to buy a 60¢ orange – the glares I got from these people, let me tell you!). The Paypass system, however, isn’t a separate stored value — it’s just an easier way to make regular credit card transactions for low (under £10) amounts. But will combining this contactless payment approach with the Oyster really yield greater convenience?

Like many other Londoners, I keep my Oyster card in a separate little wallet I can take out and wave at the Oyster terminal when I need it, instead of taking out my whole wallet and waving it around in a crowded Tube station. With a combined Oyster-Visa-Paypass card, it seems likely I’d take the same approach, but what if I want to use the card as a regular Visa card? It’s not clear to me how this will all work in practice.

Check out David Birch’s take for more info on the Onepulse rollout, by the way.

So today I decided I’d try it out. I have to say, I’m not impressed so far with the application process. First of all, I am already a Barclaycard holder, so I can’t use the online form (according to very small text at the top of the form that I happened to read). Thanks. Ok I called customer service. After being transferred around for a while, I was told that I would have to “apply” for the card and that they couldn’t do it over the phone so they would have to send me forms in the mail. Is this really the future of digital money? I’ll keep a log here of the process of signing up for and using the Onepulse card.

The real holy grail, of course, is putting all of the above onto a… you guessed it… mobile phone. I know Transport for London is already doing trials on using NFC-enabled phones as Oyster cards (as reported by Card Technology and discussed by Janko Mrsic-Flogel, TfL’s mobile technology guru, at Mobile Monday London last month). Fantasy, you say? The Japanese don’t think so…

One more footnote on this topic. I was out at dinner with a friend in the States earlier this year and I noticed that his credit card had a hole in it, approximately hole-punch size. I wanted to know — was this some new card feature? Turns out that, when he received his new Mastercard in the mail and found that it had a Paypass RFID chip on it, he took a hole punch to it and punched it out. Why? Because, as widely reported and summarized here, there are very legitimate privacy concerns associated with RFID technologies (which is why privacy advocates have generally been up in arms about RFID’s use in machine-readable passports). I figure I’ve already destroyed any chance of digital privacy by becoming part of the Iris program, but I do wonder: will these technologies coming down at us, which are intended at least in part to reduce the threat of identity theft, instead encourage new and smarter methods of identity theft?

Filed by Daniel Appelquist at 14:05 under Mobility, Technology
Tags: barclaycard, digitalmoney, mastercard, nfc, oystercard, rfid, visa

7 Comments

We’re baaack. On October 15th, in San Francisco, Mobile Mondays Barcelona, London, and Silicon Valley together with the Open Group and SomeBazaar will present the 2nd Mobile 2.0 conference. This will be a one-day event, held at the Grand Hyatt in Union Square, covering the latest in mobile innovation and disruption and bringing together real mobile industry thought leaders from around the world. All this, plus a smattering of great Mobile 2.0 startups presented in the Mobile Launch Pad. We’ll feed you breakfast and lunch. We’ll buy you drinks. We’ll give you a super-concentrated tonic of mobile information that will leave your head spinning. If you aren’t there, you will have to answer to future generations. Your doe-eyed offspring will look up at you one day and ask “Why? Why didn’t you attend Mobile 2.0?” Do you want that to happen? I didn’t think so. If you only attend one conference on the mobile web and disruptive mobile innovation this year, make it Mobile 2.0. Registration will open shortly is up and running at www.mobile2event.com.

Filed by Daniel Appelquist at 8:55 under mobile 2.0
Tags: mobile2.0

2 Comments