Dan’s Blog (2.0)

Open Business Model Panel at Mobile 2.0 Europe moderated by Mike Butcher

It’s the final panel at Mobile 2.0 Europe, featuring panelists from Blyk (Leif Fågelstedt), Admob (Laurence Aderemi), GetJar (Ilja Laurs), Bango (Ray Anderson) and Fjord (Chris Liu) and moderated by an ebullient Mike Butcher. The theme of openness has been a central one here in Barcelona. Everyone seems to agree that openness is good, but nobody can agree quite what openness means or what should be open and what can remain closed. The iPhone, for example, has been held up as a beacon of innovation, but the iPhone is also closed in a number of respects, especially around native application development.

Interesting comment from Chris of Fjord - do we need a “Microsoft” for Mobile (i.e. a single vendor who can dominate the operating system space)? Ray Anderson’s response (which I agree with) is that that common platform could be the Web (and I would add, mobile Widgets which run on top of a runtime environment). Coming back to the iPhone, the thousand+ mobile Web applications in Apple’s directory should be a indication of this trend. The only problem with Web apps is - no access to device capabilities (camera, location, PIM etc…). But this is coming. Both Ilja and Laurence have spoken up on the power of mobile advertising to help bootstrap mobile innovation. We haven’t heard too much from Leif about open business models — they are pretty focused on their basic “voice and text” proposition. My question was: will mobile (Web) advertising morph from simple banners into “branded experiences” such as mobile widgets where the widget itself is the advertisement? No clear answer from the panel but I’m convinced this is the way forward.

Phew! What a day! Lots of contraversy, lots of industry expertise, lots of startups. In short - a fantastic debut for Mobile 2.0 Europe! I need a drink!

Filed by Daniel Appelquist at 16:55 under London, mobile 2.0
Tags: m20eu, mikebutcher, mobile2.0

3 Comments

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

Some get it. Some don’t. It’s not always who you expect.

Today I marched down to the FedEx store to send my ailing Powerbook 12″ laptop off to be fixed / upgraded (that’s another story — hopefully to be documented here upon successful completion). Anyway I get down there (114 Strand), stand in front of a desk that says “shipping” and am ignored by some people sitting at a desk and talking right behind the desk. Were they employees? Not sure. There were a lot of people in there but it wasn’t obvious who the customers were and who the employees were. Anyway, finally someone looks up from what they’re doing and runs over in a harried kind of way to ask how they can help me. Pulling out my bag, I say “I’d like to send something to the States.” “Oh. You’ll have to come back tomorrow because the last pickup has already left.”

Let’s go over this in detail.

1. The last pickup has left? This is a FedEx store for crissake! And it was like 4 pm.
2.  I have to come back tomorrow? What’s that about?

Why couldn’t the guy simply say “well- out last delivery has left but I can take it from you down and make sure it gets out first thing tomorrow.” That actually would have been acceptable (though I still think the last pickup from a FedEx store should be late evening) but the guy didn’t even give me that option. I stormed out of the store after telling the guy “this is crap.” Not necessarily his fault, I know, but honestly I was just incensed.

Well. I still had to send the package out, so I walked down the road to my local Post Office.  Ok - I had to wait in line for about 15 minutes in front of someone who quite likely suffered from Tourette syndrome, but at least it was quite evident who the customers were and who the employees were. While was waiting in line, I actually overheard one of the counter staff telling another about how, since waiting in this long line could be quite a frustrating experience, they needed to provide good customer service. When I got to the counter, I was given a number of options for delivery and insurance and walked through the process by someone who was knowledgeable and reasonably friendly and generally dealt with in an efficient manner. I chose a 48 hour delivery option. As indicated on my receipt, I had not missed the last pickup for the day.

Total Post Office cost: £64.35.

What I would have paid at FedEx (according to their Web site): £95.23.

I am not normally one to sing the praises of the Royal Mail. God knows, they’ve mis-delivered plenty of my mail and I actually had a new checkbook swiped while en route to me last year, but in this case the good old Post Office wins hands-down over FedEx.

Of course, the real proof of the pudding will be in the eating: receiving my upgraded laptop back safe and sound. Stay tuned.

Filed by Daniel Appelquist at 16:31 under London
Tags: customerservice, fedex, royalmail

5 Comments

Just came across this news item this morning. Very interesting news, I think. I saw these guys present at Future of Web Apps and I have to say it’s a great application of “user generated content” — in this case, user generated metadata - and “leveraging collective intelligence.” It’s also a good news for the UK startup scene.

Filed by Daniel Appelquist at 8:53 under London, Web 2.0
Tags: last.fm

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Well - it’s more like a Victorian Walkman, but I still though it was cool. This pocket-sized device (manufactured in 1926) unfolds into a miniature phonograph. Amaze you friends, confound your enemies! It was on display on the upper deck of Tower Bridge as part of an exhibit of Victorian musical automata including some other early phonographs and phonograph recordings. The collection is presented with great gusto by a “Mr. Bagpipe” (a gentleman sporting a rather unlikely beard). Your last chance to see it is tomorrow, the 25th. Definitely worth the visit, especially (but not exclusively) for those with small children.

Filed by Daniel Appelquist at 21:58 under London, Technology

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Here’s an interesting trend: I am seeing more and more laptop usage in the Tube these days. To the New-Yorker in me, it would be unthinkable to get out my laptop and start typing away on any kind of public transport — the rest of the passengers in the car would start fighting over who got to keep your hard drive. But hey — this is London and people are little more polite I guess. Anyway it got me thinking about how to bring WIFI connectivity underground. I figure you could do it with a kind of wireless mesh network set up in the tunnels. The Tube drivers know when to stop and go because of signal lights that are placed set distances from each other along the track. You could put a network node on each signal light and voilá — ubiquitous connectivity underground. I wonder if this could be done with “off-the-shelf” equipment?

Filed by Daniel Appelquist at 9:14 under London, Mobility

1 Comment

The London Science Museum is featuring an exhibit called “Dead Ringers?” which highlights the problem that discarded phones pose to the environment. By their count, 1712 mobiles a day are upgraded, and if not properly recycled they can leak poisonous materials. It’s a great little exhibit but unfortunately it didn’t do enough to highlight how people can recycle their phones now. For example, at Vodafone (in the U.K. anyway) there is actually a program in place to accept phones for recycling at any Vodafone store where any money made goes to the Autistic Society.

One of the coolest things in the exhibit though was a showcase of some technology under development to make phones bio-degradable and/or easier to recycle. Of particular interest to me was an exhibit of a prototype Pasta-based circuit board. Personally, I find this very exciting because it combines two keen interests of mine: mobile technology and Italian food. Lots of other cool stuff on display as well - I highly recommend checking out their site and visiting the exhibit.

Filed by Daniel Appelquist at 23:36 under London, Mobility

1 Comment

Wow! I think I tapped some kind of latent market demand, because Mobile Monday London looks like it’s really set to take off. So far 61 people have expressed interest in the event and joined the Yahoo group we are using to get organized. We had a good organization call today to get things moving and it looks like we’re going to have a very interesting kick-off meeting on the 7th of November. If you’re interested in attending, please join the Yahoo Group to get all the details.

Filed by Daniel Appelquist at 19:09 under London, Mobile Monday

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Great. Now the Northern Line is broken. That’s me and about half a million other commuters in London out of luck. The thing with the Tube is that when it works, it’s great. But if anything goes wrong, any little thing at all, the whole system collapses in on itself — huge delays, crowds of angry commuters on the trains and on the platforms. That’s because The Tube is a system at capacity and being run at its limit of efficiency. Thankfully, I have the option of working from home today so I don’t have to get caught up in it, but a lot of people don’t have that luxury. By the way, when the Tube drivers say the trains are unsafe and the management (London Underground) says they are, I’m fairly likely to believe the drivers &mdash the people that actually work the trains and are responsible for the safety of the passengers. LU needs to get its act together.

Filed by Daniel Appelquist at 8:32 under London

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So I’m tired of reading about all the fun these folks are having over on the left coast, so I’ve decided to try to start a “Mobile Monday” networking event for London. First event possibly to be held November 7. Watch this space for more.

Filed by Daniel Appelquist at 15:00 under London, Mobile Monday

3 Comments