This post on 38 Minutes by Ray McSweeney gave me the following diagram (nabbed without permission but with attribution). He writes: “As a base – I’ve taken the Hayes and Wheelwright model of operational effectiveness, and tried to put a digital media spin on it. Anyone who has any ideas or contributions to make, would … Continue reading “Measuring the contribution of social media”
This post on 38 Minutes by Ray McSweeney gave me the following diagram (nabbed without permission but with attribution).
He writes: “As a base – I’ve taken the Hayes and Wheelwright model of operational effectiveness, and tried to put a digital media spin on it. Anyone who has any ideas or contributions to make, would be most welcome.”
Stage 1:
In this organisation, there is no strategy for collaboration technologies (invisibility) or the current implementation is reactive and limits the strategic options of the business. Stage 2:
Basic web presence – involving “broadcast” webpages, and maybe some e-commerce. There is no active involvement in Web 2.0 technologies. Stage 3:
The organisation has started building communities around its products and services, potentially enabling these communities through blogs/twitter etc. Stage 4:
The organisation uses its interaction with its userbase to shape and drive forward its strategy.
Now, realising this is very “strategic”, I think it’s valuable to examine where you are. Likely you, as a small business, will be great in some areas and poor in others. The challenge is to bring everything up to the same level and then progress from there.
Make some attempt to measure your interactions and contributions and the results therein. I was speculating on something similar to this yesterday on Twitter – the Ireland tech/creative industry is great at meetups but I have no way of measuring the effectiveness of these meetups. How many of them result in actual deal flow and how many of them are just cliques of people who know and like other people? I have to say my experience has been heavily slanted towards the latter despite being in the company of one of the best networkers I’ve ever met. I just don’t see the deal flow. Understanding that a lot of this would be commercial in confidence anyway – it would just be nice to have some way of visualising the successes and the misses.
Head on over to 38Minutes and comment directly on Ray’s post.
Neil Young, founder of ngmoco, has nothing but good to say about the iPhone and iPod touch – he keynoted the opening of the Game Developers Conference . “This was rapidly becoming the most important device I had ever owned, it was an all-encompassing, complete device. And I knew that that device was going to … Continue reading “ngmoco praises iPhone at GDC”
Neil Young, founder of ngmoco, has nothing but good to say about the iPhone and iPod touch – he keynoted the opening of the Game Developers Conference .
“This was rapidly becoming the most important device I had ever owned, it was an all-encompassing, complete device. And I knew that that device was going to enable incredible things for gaming.”
“Don’t let the haters tell you it sucks compared to the DS or the PSP,” he said. “It doesn’t. It’s good. It’s clear that the quality of iPhone games is eclipsing its [portable] console counterparts, and that’s even more acute when you compare it against the prior generation.”
The company has raised $15 million over the last 8 months in two rounds of funding.
Young says the winning points for the device is that it’s always on, always with you and there are no first party games to compete against.
“I know that there is a general malaise over the game industry today, but I can say it’s never been a better time to be an independent game developer,” Young said. “We’re at the center of the new everything, the iPhone has revolutionized everything.”
I don’t think enough people realise this. This is big money with big players. Look at Rolando – devices by a bedroom developer, Handcircus, and licensed by ngmoco. Dreams are being made, folks.
Graham weighs in on Windows Mobile 6.5 Throughout the talk, the words innovation, interaction and user experience are repeated, however just saying the words does not make it true. I found no presence of innovation in Windows Mobile 6.5, it definitely seems like they’ve tried to bolt on touch capability to their existing OS. I … Continue reading “MoMoBelfast and the Apps Show and Tell”
Throughout the talk, the words innovation, interaction and user experience are repeated, however just saying the words does not make it true. I found no presence of innovation in Windows Mobile 6.5, it definitely seems like they’ve tried to bolt on touch capability to their existing OS. I found more innovation in Apple’s iPhone cut and paste feature than in the whole of this Windows Mobile demo.
I hate to say this but Apple has the industry in catch-up mode again. It’s easy to get labelled as a fanboy but every second headlines seems to be about how the iPhone is brilliant or how some new phone/platform will kill it. Either way it has huge amounts of mindshare.
This evening we had a bit of a treat and were able to attend Mobile Monday Belfast’s Show and Tell for mobile apps. The auditorium had a good number of folk in there and the demos presented all had something unique to offer. I had to speak for five minutes at the start about the, until recently top secret, iPhone initiative and then we got into the demos proper.
EyeSpyFX – Anthony Hutton was on stage demonstrating his webcam viewer app which is available for 15 varieties of mobile phone in addition to the iPhone. His demo, slowed only by the really poor reception in the building, was impressive. Anton’s most memorable statements were regarding the economics of developing apps for mobile phones and the iPhone in particular. He claimed that developing for the iPhone was a fussy affair – requiring a Mac, the developer license and an iPhone to test on – quite a significant outlay for a startup with no prior Mac experience. But he said that development was quick and easy, getting the app onto the store and support documentation were excellent. He also commented that his apps sell on standard JavaME platforms and the operators and aggregators normally charge €6 for the app and he would get maybe €1 of this and in the cases of some aggregators, maybe even just €0.30 per copy. On the iPhone, Apple takes 30% of the revenue but as his app costs £2.99, it means he pockets over £2.00 per copy. And, in his own words, despite there being fewer iPhones out there, buying apps for JavaME phones is a pain, and his iPhone sales numbers have been four times the sales of his JavaME apps.
Anthony Hutton, EyeSpyFX
The next demo was John Martin from Total Mobile – a Windows Mobile developer squarely ensconced in Windows land and with strong sales in case management (by all accounts they’re a Consilium spin-out?). Their user interface was very Windows Mobile and people used to that would feel very at home. Speaking afterwards, I found John to be very personable and enjoyed his opinions of his various mobile devices (which included a HTC Advantage and a Redfly ‘unit’.
Next up was Ryan Cushnahan with his GAAStats Windows Mobile app. While his user interface was very basic, the use-case for the software was very strong. He licenses the software for £400, which seems steep compared to AppStore pricing but it’s a niche product by someone who knows his game. I think Ryan might be a good candidate for the getting a UI makeover!
I then went on stage and did a quick demo of three iPhone apps from ‘local’ developers. The first was Pocket Universe from Craic Design – one of the best astronomy apps for the iPhone. John’s pedigree includes doing similar apps for Windows mobile. I also gave a minute to his other iPhone release, ShootEmUp and just tonight I found out about his free Animal Track kids game, devised by his 9 year old daughter.
Next, I demo’ed Locle mini from Dublin based social networking startup, Locle. Locle is a simple app currently utilising a web view for most of their user interface but a little birdie tells me that their sales have meant they’re able to get a more native version on iPhone.
The third was close to my heart, EyeCandy Comics from Blue Pilot Software. I also made passing reference to a new service called Infurious Republic when I was asked when the rank and file would be able to get their stuff online.
Lastly, and in the door by the skin of his teeth, came Rory from Ammeon. Again the poor reception and lack of WiFi killed some of the demo but there was enough to get the gist of it. Commune effectively allows an operator to create a custom TV station with their own content which is able to be viewed over a mobile link and has a small degree of social network in a comments system attached to each video.
In the conversations after, I was explaining that my interest in the iPhone Initiative was to find digital content companies which were interested in developing skills in mobile interface design – that skills which were developed for iPhone, darling of the media, would easily port to Windows Mobile, Palm or Blackberry when the time came. It was then someone commented about the Windows Mobile offerings, that the marke share for Windows Mobile far exceeds that of the iPhone. The commenter was a dyed-in-the-wool Windows guy (I first met him over a decade ago when he was working for a DELL reseller and was trying to tell me IIS was better than Apache or Netscape Suitespot Servers). I hear you – but so many of those devices are dumb terminals, they’re used as barcode scanners, handheld credit card scanners – it’s a different market and they’re not going to ever run interesting software. It was an odd statement – really rang as defensive – and seemed particularly odd considering Anthony Huttons comment that his sales of iPhone apps far exceeded his sales of apps for the other platforms he supports: JavaME, Blackberry and Windows Mobile. In essence, while there may be more out there, they ain’t buying apps.
All in all, the night was a resounding success for Norbert and Colin, both of whom put a lot of work into Mobile Monday in Belfast. Next month they’ve got someone from Mozilla Mobile coming in and a whole new raft of interesting stuff to learn about.
From the IBM DeveloperWorks Architectural Manifesto While screen size is perhaps the most tangible hardware consideration impacting user interface design for mobile applications, it isn’t the only one. Available memory, CPU, and bandwidth capacity impact the performance and functionality of your mobile application, which in turn impacts the design of its user interface. The article … Continue reading “An Architectural Manifesto”
While screen size is perhaps the most tangible hardware consideration impacting user interface design for mobile applications, it isn’t the only one. Available memory, CPU, and bandwidth capacity impact the performance and functionality of your mobile application, which in turn impacts the design of its user interface.
The article is a few years old but probably never more valid.
One of the beautiful things about having your own blog is the ability to talk about whatever you want. During the run-up to the IBA’09, I was nominated in the ‘tech’ category which automatically put me up against some of the biggest heavyweights in the Irish tech community. And my argument was, and still is, … Continue reading “Look at de sign.”
One of the beautiful things about having your own blog is the ability to talk about whatever you want. During the run-up to the IBA’09, I was nominated in the ‘tech’ category which automatically put me up against some of the biggest heavyweights in the Irish tech community. And my argument was, and still is, I’m not really a tech blogger. I write about what interests me – what makes me tick and sometimes what makes me tock.
My current interest is user interface design, especially focussed on small devices. That means I’ll be talking and ranting a bit about that.
Now – I’m not a designer other than I know what I like, I have reasons for it, I’ve read a good bit about user interfaces and I studied HCI in University (the standard single module squeezed in between Knowledge Based Systems and Information Systems Analysis and Design. I’m not an artist (though I have drawn ‘life’ incredibly accurately – in my dissection classes – which means I can effectively draw anything that I’ve killed or dismembered. So, I’m not an artist.
But Design is something you can learn. There’s a quality of art about it but most of it is science. I’m constantly reminded that in every object that is manufactured, in every piece of software that is build, the size, shape, the curve of things, the straight lines, the position of inputs and outputs, every pixel of a user interface – all of it was designed. It may have been designed well or it may have been designed badly, but it was designed.
So, I’m going to be ranting a bit about user interface design. Not web design. Not web standards. User interface design – focussing on small screens.
Last night I was lucky enough to be out at the Science Park with a group of smart folk from several companies and education institutions – examining a process to engage Northern Ireland’s growing technological and design assets to attract mobile operators from Europe to consider our region as a centre of competence. Frankly, the … Continue reading “Sensors”
Last night I was lucky enough to be out at the Science Park with a group of smart folk from several companies and education institutions – examining a process to engage Northern Ireland’s growing technological and design assets to attract mobile operators from Europe to consider our region as a centre of competence. Frankly, the amount of information shared was amazing and as Eoin Lambkin put it “In no other region in Europe, and perhaps the world, could you get such a cross sectoral group together in so little time.”
This morning, this conversation was continued with Eoin’s presentation on the European Connected Health Campus, based in Northern Ireland and dedicated to a platform-agnostic resolution on best practises in Connected Health (also called Telemedicine, Telecare).
“Imagine – AppleStores with shelves of niche, stylish sensor products for sale in a year’s time – pollution sensors, particulates analysis, spectroscopy, soil analysis, cholesterol? All for the price of a Nike+ or so?”
This comes on the back of a demo of a Diabetes sensor talking to an iPhone and reporting information to the owner, as well as possibly sending reports to clinicians and care workers. This was on-stage at the recent preview of iPhone OS 3.0 – Connected Health is obviously a major talking point for Apple.
That blog post also points to Tellarts open source NADAmobile project which allows you to easily prototype physical/digital/sensor apps on the iPhone through a cable that cleverly connects to the audio jack.
People don’t realise that they may already have two medical sensors – the Nike+ and the WiiFit – already in their house – never mind others. These devices have snuck in the back door and there’s a realisation that health technology is probably going to be even more profitable selling to the healthy than it ever was selling to the sick.
I’m excited to see the possibilities coming out of this – where will the technology lead us – I want ‘sensor shoes’ for my iPhone and remote sensors to pick up information. Why? Because I can? What sort of geek wouldn’t want this info?
TechCrunch reports that Ycombinator, the really-early-seed-capital guys, have received some additional funding ($2 million) from Sequoia. Ycombinator only invests small amounts ($5,000 + $5,000/founder) in exchange for around 6% of equity and has invested in around 118 startups since their foundation in 2005. Some of their startups have been acquired (Reddit, Omnisio, Zenter, ClickPass, Auctomatic) … Continue reading “YCombinator receives additional funding”
Ycombinator only invests small amounts ($5,000 + $5,000/founder) in exchange for around 6% of equity and has invested in around 118 startups since their foundation in 2005. Some of their startups have been acquired (Reddit, Omnisio, Zenter, ClickPass, Auctomatic) and others are doing well (Scribd, Loopt, Dropbox).
It’s obviously not just about the money which probably provides a conservative 2-3 months of free development time – they get mentoring and polish from the Ycombinator principals who had previously invested all their own money – and are honed to pitch at later stage VCs and angel investors.
I was saying recently that development time for ideas really depends on the amount of time the creators can dedicate to it and the initial idea that you might get 3 months sold work into something can work wonders. This is one of the funding gaps we have – we have very little in this really early stage where you can make a huge difference with minimal outlay.
This additional funding from Sequoia means that YCombinator will be able to leverage a better cash flow and increase the number of investments from 40 per year to 60 per year – which should see them secure for another couple of years. Spreading the investment like that is the safest way to invest – as it only takes one success to make up for a large number of duds. That’s not to say that startups who don’t make it big through YCombinator are duds – it’s just one more piece of the puzzle.
I spoke with a friend recently about what I’d do if I had £100K to invest – I’d pretty much do a YCombinator style investment plan. We have the entrepreneurs, techies and dreamers here in Northern Ireland. We just don’t have the funding.
From Wikipedia: Net Neutrality is a principle proposed for residential broadband networks and potentially for all networks. A neutral broadband network is one that is free of restrictions on content, sites, or platforms, on the kinds of equipment that may be attached, and on the modes of communication allowed, as well as one where communication … Continue reading “Net Neutrality”
Net Neutrality is a principle proposed for residential broadband networks and potentially for all networks. A neutral broadband network is one that is free of restrictions on content, sites, or platforms, on the kinds of equipment that may be attached, and on the modes of communication allowed, as well as one where communication is not unreasonably degraded by other communication streams.
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Neutrality proponents claim that telecom companies seek to impose a tiered service model more for the purpose of profiting from their control of the pipeline rather than for any demand for their content or services. Others have stated that they believe net neutrality to be primarily important as a preservation of current freedoms. Vinton Cerf, co-inventor of the Internet Protocol, Tim Berners Lee, father of the web, and many others have spoken out strongly in favour of network neutrality.
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Opponents of net neutrality include large hardware companies and members of the cable and telecommunications industries.
Need a concrete example?
A 3 minute track download from iTunes: 79 p
A 30 second ringtone downloaded from an operator: £3
One of these services treats the 1s and 0s as equal. One of them treats them as a ‘premium’ service.
Can you guess which one?
This is why the AppStore is so attractive. A local developer was selling his app for mobile phones via operators for €6 and receiving about €1.50 revenue from it. The rest of it going to the operators. His app on the AppStore sells for £2.99 and he gets more than £2.00 from every sale.
One of these services treats the 1s and 0s as equal. One of them treats them as a ‘premium’ service.
Infurious is the only Northern Ireland company attending SXSWi and we’re doing it out of our pocket and without any support from our local economic development agencies. Phil has been partying with the other revelers and marvelling at some of the technologies he’s seeing – real cutting edge stuff …you should see the great stuff … Continue reading “Infurious at SXSW”
Infurious is the only Northern Ireland company attending SXSWi and we’re doing it out of our pocket and without any support from our local economic development agencies. Phil has been partying with the other revelers and marvelling at some of the technologies he’s seeing – real cutting edge stuff
…you should see the great stuff being done in HTML 5.0 and CSS. The amount of people doing web apps are unreal, even Photoshop style applications in HTML and only HTML.
…
All so nice and fluid, and best about it, there all using Macs.
On top of that, he was interviewed by the BBC and has a feature on their web site
Infurious developed a Comic Reader application that uses the iPhone’s familiar touch interface to navigate between different panes of a comic.
The Comics Engine can also layer audio on to comic pages, embed movies and links to YouTube.
The reader also features multi-layered content pages so readers can find bonus artwork, footnotes and explainers.
As we speak, a dozen or more bands and musicians are heading out to SXSW for the week of music supported by Belfast City Council, the Creative Industries Innovation Fund and Invest Northern Ireland.
Recently when travelling, I wanted some way to record my location and found that most of the apps out there were designed for hikers or people on trail bikes. I just wanted something simple. So I figured – an app that grabs your location and with the click of a button, pastes it into an … Continue reading “LocoMail: looks like ass”
Recently when travelling, I wanted some way to record my location and found that most of the apps out there were designed for hikers or people on trail bikes. I just wanted something simple.
So I figured – an app that grabs your location and with the click of a button, pastes it into an email and allows you to send it to anyone. On launch the app will grab your location and populate the locations beside the two labels. It’ll also open a webview in the opper half to your location in Google Maps.
Yes, it looks like ass.
It’s evident I need to put away Interface Builder and start using pen and paper. Jamie Neely of FRONT explains a little about why you should dump the computer and use pen and paper at a University of Ulster Masterclass they presented earlier this week – he’s applying it to information architecture but it’s the same with design.
I’m going to evolve this app and ‘show my working’ and code on the blog in the ‘code’ category.
