The Scandinavian Interactive Media Event (SIME) for 2008 took place in Stockholm, Nov. 12-13 at the movie theater, Rigoletto. Cool place, when you have a giant sized movie screen and movie theater surround sound system, your presentations get a bigger bang for your bucks. Here are three of the presenters posted on movie theater posters.
Meet Andie Nordgren, pro blogger from http://www.sime.nu , Pelle Tornberg ex-CEO Metro International magazine and Norbert Teufelberger, co-CEO from the successful bWinbetting company.
The awards countdown started with a presentation of websites that inspired people during 2008, amog them, PolyCola (aka. GahooYoogle) the mashup of Google and Yahoo, Twitter, Ebay (still after all these years) and others before going to the list. Here's the result of the 2008 list;
The Swedish startup Locilocihas started with an interesting twist, do mobile social networking with location services without the need for using GPS. Their philosophy is that a lot people have or may have concerns about having GPS set to enabled in their phones all the time. So, they have started offering location based networking where you can leave GPS set to off. Since keeping track of where your friends are when you need to know precisely where works well in particular in cities where the cell sites are small, I think the quality of this social networking site is OK.
The company behind Lociloci, is XYZ Technology AB has offices in Stockholm and Boston and works as a technology and services provider to any company that wants to use and get a neworking and location services platform.
I also met with a good friend of mine, Mary Larson who works for this company now.
”New rules for media rights” by Helene Miksche, Senior Legal Counsel, Bird&Bird http://www.twobirds.com/
Helene gave an overview of different activities going with the EU countries to harmonize the media rights' rules across the borders. As an example STIM the old community which collectively distributes based on rights can no longer work exclusively in Sweden, againt EU rules.
International Confederation of Authors and Composers Societies, CISAC, http://www.cisac.org/has recently come up with a new agreement from July 2008 which you have to follow. Not very entusiastic readings unless you are a lawyer. Bird & Bird has good information on the company website, so help yourself to a better understanding of media rights.
“4G enables media providers to become mobile operators” by Reidar Mouhleb, ZTE
Reidar emphasized ZTE's deep involvement in all infrastructure technology areas and their end-to-end solutions for an all-IP network with Software Defined Radios (SDR) for LTE.
He also believes the rollout and deployment for LTE will be easier than people think, reflecting back to mid 90s with GSM/GPRS data access where the big differences in network existed between circuit switched telephony equipment and packet data IP products made everything a lot more difficult. GPRS once deployed became obsolete and upgraded to EDGE and then in parallel 3G was deployed. HSDPA as add-on, then quickly HSUPA, the now being deployed HSPA infrastructure. So conclusion was LTE will come faster than people think. LTE chipsets in 2009 and later next year the first mobile devices with new LTE chipsets.
It is interesting to see both ZTE and Huawei have such a big presence in the "Silicon Valley of Sweden", Kista more or less across the street from Ericsson.
“The LTE-revolution” by Mr. X (oops, forgot to write down his name)
Ericsson presented their views on LTE (Long Term Evolution standard):
Wider pipe
Flat architecture
Focus on self optimization and self configuration services in network
Overall goal: Lower the TCO and better radio spectrum flexibility
Converge the LTE/HSPA and LTE/CDMA paths to provide infrastructure that works anywhere in the world. This is a requirement in the present standardization work for release of 3GPP R8
Ericsson did not say one word about WiMax, they are clearly pushing for LTE as soon as possible. They are also targeting mobile 150 Mbit/s as a technical goal. I cannot wait until I can get my hands on such a mobile phone.
“Mobilen, det personliga navet i mediavärlden” by SonyEricsson.
I missed this presentation also, heard they presented your mobile phone (or as some people say here in Sweden "nallen" Swedish for your presented the mobile as the driver andlittle "teddy bear") as the king for your personal media. I know after some discussions that SonyEricsson likes a lot the Adobe Open Screen Project and they are also working a lot on Android, so I would not be surprised to see next year some drastically new mobile phones coming out, if SonyEricsson just can improve their financial results. I have also got the impression that SonyEricsson is kind of losing its interest in Symbian as a platform. My bet is we will see more Windows Mobile and new Android phones and support for Adobe services.
The flagship model X1has already been sold out in Sweden.
SonyEricsson has also an interesting concept with the Xperia panels open developers, you can customize Xperia phone models by designing your own panels. Will be interesting to see how well this concept will be picked up.
“Simplifying the mobile internet media” by James Pearce, Vice President, CTO DotMobi, http://mtld.mobi/
I missed this presentation, got stuck discussing with several vendors in the exhibition area. I know all the important companies are sponsoring dotMobi, primarily to simplify the creation of mobile friendly sites and the awareness for everybody with a website what it meas to deliver the best possible user experience on a mobile phone. The best information about dotMobi is the following TypePad blog;
”Flash in your mobile - channel for a rich multi-media massmarket” by Michael Berman Telenor/Mobilstartand Patrik Nilsson, Adobe
They presented launch of new Rich Internet Applications (RIA) applications and quick snapshot of the history, how we got here;
PS -> PDF -> Flash -> Air (flash/XML/HTML)
Adobe has created an Open Screen Project to promote Adobe Air among other tools (the Creative Suite, CS4 Master Collection is the "Gold" standard to go for). The open Screen Project includes most chip vendors, Verizon Wireless and SonyEricsson among other companies.
Mobilstart is heavily using Adobe applications and together Michael and Patrik showed a really good live demo of verious news (http://www.svd.sehttp://www.dn.se), weather and sports sites displayed on a mobile phone. Adobe is pushing hard to get away from todays environment where you have to develop mobile phone applications (very time consuming and expensive in the mobile phone developer environment today, with too many phones and too many OS environments). You should also not having to think like a computer user navigating between applications all the time.
Mobilstart by Telenor is offering gateway services for content providers that work with all mobile operators in Sweden, free to sign up and test drive.
”iPhone and the changed rules of the game for mobile internet” by Ulrika Steg, Product Manager Consumer markets, TeliaSonera
Ulrika presented the impact from the Launch of the iPhone.
28% more data traffic in their 3G network after 1 week, since 160% more data traffic
Most iPhone users browse outside their portal (the way it should have been everywhere from day 1 when internet access was possible on a mobile phone!) vs. non-iPhone users
User cost control important
iPhone users feel they have internet in a pocket
80% of buyers men under age 35 and half live in big cities (I think this also depends on the fact that in big cities you do have 3G coverage, I know a friend of mine living out in the country in northern Sweden and as he put it, "you have to climb up in a f%%%ing tree to get phone access")
The good thing about the iPhone launch, it forced the mobile operators to start thinking about how to offer value priced "flat-fee like" data plans. Telia has come up with pretty good plans so far, at the expense of higher price for the phone. The Metro daily paper actually made up a plan, buy cheap Ryan Air tickets, fly to Rome Italy in the morning, buy the iPhone, fly back home and you save a lot of money. But this is just the beginning of smart touch phones with turbo 3G access, more phones have just been introduced and more competition from Tele2, Telenor and 3 will mean better and better data plans. It will be interesting to see what happens here in Sweden when the new Nokia 5800 XpressMusic phone starts selling at the 279 Euro price for an unlocked phone.
“The future of mobile applications” by Eric Hugo Ovi by Nokia
Eric gave a brief introduction of Ovi by Nokia, the software approach to the Nokia. He showed a professional video presentation that did not actually say very much about Ovi, more giving a quick history lesson (I do remember when Nokia used to sell winter tires for cars that all taxi liked during the winter season) and emotional connection to the future. It was very much like Obama - "Nokia, Yes We Can"
Eric used himself, a south african living in Sweden with family relatives in Italy and South Africa as an example of how international a mobile world has become. A funny little thing, while Eric let the video present itself, I clicked on the Nokia Ovi website and got error on home page, don't know if you so far only can access service in UK where it is being introduced.
Oviby Nokia is the brand Context is the differentiator for Ovi
I think this the correct approach but as they say "the devil is in the details". I think Nokia's positioning of Ovi and attempts to "open source" the Symbian environment will determine if this is going to be a success. Now when more and more mobile phone companies seem to give up on using Symbian, I have some doubts about Nokia's attempt to become the number one against Microsoft, Appleand Google. I think Nokia feels the "heat" though from the Apple iPhone success and recent Google G1 phones with Open Handset Alliance and Android not to ever forget Microsoft with big muscles. Nokia does really understand the consumer mobile phone and lifestyle market, so from that point of view, the odds look good.
They have a "INQ OS" kind of platform which is Qualcomm Brew based with a simple but efficient UI for the new INQ phones. Speed and simplicity of pre-integrated apps into the new device makes the use almost instant. They have followed the concept, press a button or one click and the service in question should work right away without delay.
The INQ phone is based on the previously developed SkypePhone S2. The phone has one click access to Facebook, MySpace, Skype and 3's portal. "Internet communicators that anyone can use" is their slogan. I like this concept with a model for a "cheap" phone, easy one touch access to the most commonly used services. INQ mobile's approach is not to compete with smartphones which they consider too expensive for a big mass market but still provide "cheap" easy access to internet services.
"Media goes mobile” presented by Declan Lonergan, Yankee Group, Vice President, Head of research YankeeGroup (YG)
Declan used statistics and experiences from Vodafone in UK.
Voda UK most searched;
Facebook
Bebo
eBay
Windows Live
Voda UK most visited;
Facebook
Google
BBC
MSN
Bebo
SonyEricsson
Yahoo
MySpace
Windows Live
Mobile universe vs. Advertising universe? - complementary values and crossover activities, mobile greatest attribute is combo of personalization and ubiquity.
”Experiences and conclusions from mobile TV trials” presented by Stefan Vlachos - Viasat head of mobile TV http://www.viasat.se/Mobil-tv (side note: the company home page does not work properly in my IE7 browser) MTG - ViaSatToGo service is available to Tele2 customers, http://www.tele2.se/ About 30 channels right now. What people say they are going to use and what they do use is the complete opposite;
Here's what they do use:
Entertainment 80%
Sports
Music
Kids stuff
News
Of the 30 channels, most people use the scheduled areas/channels not on demand views
What is the value of mobile-TV? -mobisodes - no -made for mobile - no -where and when -why
Conclusion: value of mobile TV - it's your personal TV
”The Daily Newspaper goes mobile" - presented by Jan Helin, Aftonbladet, chief editor and publisher, http://www.aftonbladet.se Jan started by presenting his views on use of mobile phones in Japan. Another interesting comment about the philosophy at Aftonbladet internet, use your gut feeling and decide to do something even if you are not quite sure it will be a big hit. This was the case for introducing scannable tags in the printed newspaper, the "beetagg" project.
Reflections from Japan;
Simple media business model in Japan
Too complex and expensive business model for content providers here in Sweden
UI simplicity, press a button and the service works
Low flat fee broadband
The "Beetagg project";
Introduce the use of tags for printed media used to get a direct connection with your readers. Importance of taking a strategic decision to go even if you don't know where you will end up
Results;
Worlds first paper with a moving image - use tag click on phone ad in paper and get a video on phone
Makes an paper article longer - see pictures from an event
Have a dialog with the readers - vote on a question
Service personalized to your needs - get the updated news for an item
Customer clubs and ad solutions - just started this part of the project
What is a "Beetagg"?
Beetaggfrom Connvisionis used for coding, QR and Datamatrix not good enough quality (to use on daily newspaper paper quality), the reader can also as an open solution reader, read these other two open standards. Support is there for secure solutions also where you can verify that use user e.g. only can click once and participate in a survey or buy something.
Some user statistics after the introduction day:
45k clients downloaded of which 8k iPhone
100 - 1k clicks per tag
Sony, ICA, PhoneHouse leading commercial partners. All Swedes and Swedish companies on the directory website http://www.hitta.se have a tag
Connvision Sweden has a site for design of your own tags for web/blog, see http://www.beetagg.se/
UPDATE: Aftonbladet awarded "the Gold Mobile 2008 (Guldmobilen)" for this project.
20k iPhones represents about 50% of all internet traffic vs 5M other phones
UI friendly is the key to success, even the new Nokia's are too hard to use still
Google's strategy with Android+Chrome+AdWords = key indication of a driving direction for the future
Use all advantages of knowing about the user to build useful services, quality on ads needed. The next big wave is ads on the mobile internet and by 2011 $12.8B market according to Gartner group.
Benjamin Joffe, CEO +8* and founder Mobile Monday Beijing presented “The invisible media revolution: learning from Asia's mobile futures”
Benjamin Joffe founded http://www.plus8star.com +8* is a cross marketing company focusing on China-Korea-Japan markets.
Benjamin presented mainly views on China, Korea and Japan mobile markets and users.
The World-wide mobile market is 3.3B users, of that
Asia 40%
ROW 12%
North America 8%
Latin and South America 11%
Europe 29%
The 3G market is >70% in Korea and Japan. In Japan more than $1B market for mobile music.
The mobile TV market is >30% in Korea and Japan. 70% of all phones are TV enabled.
D2 Communications, a mobile marketing firm says the mobile ads market is $700M, ads are using QR coded ads. Blyk an ad sponsored UK MVNO operator is e.g. targetting 15-25 year old people, free phone service plus about 200 SMS per month. http://www.blyk.co.uk/
Good examples of money making mobile services in Asia:
Mobile books example 2M books sold (of one book) for about 8 Euro apiece. Benjamin also stated, one major reason for good penetration of mobile commerce in Japan is that they introduced a flat fee data plans already back in 2004.
The last example concerns Mobile SNS (social networking). In a sharp contrast to almost everywhere else in the world, in Japan, Korea and China, social networking services are profitable including the mobile version.
Good examples;
The mobile social networking site mbga in Japan has 10M users with communities of games. http://www.mbga.jp/.pc/
The mobile social networking site mixi in Japanhttp://mixi.jp/ has 10M users The mobile social networking QQ in Chinahttp://qq.com/ has 50M mobile users and 520M USD in revenue with 87% coming from users.
Finally, Asia is getting a mobile lifestyle infrastructure, use of 3G plus flat-fee data means media drives mobile services, devices and indirectly need for infrastructure.
Morris presented a story about the first 5k days of the web and it is all about the economy stupid quoting Bill Clinton". Morris also used an example; They ran an ad for Spotify the music streaming service offering 4k free invites in the daily paper Expressen, http://www.expressen.se , the give away invites offer disappeared right away.
User generated content is also a key driver, an example, the Bambuser company allows everybody with a 3G camera/video phone to become a reporter and get the news streamed via
http://bambuser.com Bambuser is used for - online streaming TV from this event
Mobile broadband, blogs, twitter and streaming are changing how elections are done. Just see what happened in USA for the 2008 election.
Mobile media is driven by the users
Bluetooth used for peer communications between users (kids who don’t have internet service on their phones) for videoclips
Email has become a service for old people
Multimedia and live streaming for new generation of users
Consumers are the new media creators
Another little story, you have to remind people nowadays to call 112 (in US 911) to report an accident before, you send in a video clip to the newspaper.
Introduction to the MobileFocus2008 event by Linus Brohult, chief editor Mobil magazine. http://www.mobilbusiness.se
Linus talked briefly about the big rise, finally in mobile data by quoting info from TeliaSonera who has reported a 430% growth. This gives though a skewed impression, most of that growth has come from the USB dongles for "Turbo 3G" laptop modems but later we could see that statistics from TeliaSonera's introduction of iPhone.
Mobil Business is also publishing a very good mobile phone and services magazine. Interesting to see that they just like most PC Magazines started performance benchmark testing to get score values for both performance as well as real live test on battery lifetime. Battery lifetime varies wildly on 3G phone from just under 3h to over 8hrs. Good to know if you are hunting for a useful phone for continuous internet use. Recent issue includes good tests of all new (except BlackBerry Storm) 3G touch phones.
Following the US election from abroad was very interesting. With all the broadband streaming news, blogs and twitterposts, you can check CNN, Fox, NBC, CBS, ABC, BBC and Swedish news at the same time. For those of you who would like to see the majot Stockholm newspapers frontcover of the result, see the presentation below:
Hey, this is a special blogpost for all of my friends in USA. Go Out and Vote!, tomorrow is the final chance you have to make a difference. To get you inspired, here's a song for you all, enjoy!
I think now when we are getting closer to 2009, it is time to look ahead and get creative instead of just getting down and out and thinking about global financial crisis. Companies who are smart will outdo the competition in times like now. To kick off your budget thoughts for next year, I am here presenting what you can do if you think about outsourcing.
Outsourcing is not about saving costs only. That is what most people think when they hear the word "outsourcing". Instead you should think strategically, what can you do to outsmart the competition, do more with less and gain a competitive advantage the way you are working. As a little teaser for your thoughts, help yourself to the presentation below;
Scour is the new shape of the old aftervote search engine company launched in 2007. Scour lets you search by aggregating your serach engines (Google, Yahoo, Live) and adds community and social networking power to their service. I guess the driver to attract new users is the reward system collecting points per search plus 25% from your friends. The service works nicely, noticed though that you have to live within any of these countries; Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, U.S., and U.K. If you the reward system is pretty useless.
If you want to play with you are welcome to use the following invite link:
If you have ever got irritated about the black (usually) lines on a writing pad stand out too much and distract your design, here's the perfect solution from you. Buy Whitelines paper products available in all sizes and shapes. Whitelines is a Swedish, Stockholm based startup company where Roland Elander (the founder) and his team have come up with a great product. The company has recently got 6M SEK in VC funding and is looking for introduction opportunities in other countries such as USA.
Whitelines paper products are environmentally friendly produced and include carbon footprint information. The paper products have white lines on a light grey background which makes the lines "go away" when you scan, copy or fax the documents. See the flash intro on the homepage.
Congratulations to Roland and his team for the success so far.
The "Starta eget" conference is taking place at the Stockholm fair ("Stockholms Massan") Oct. 21-23. I am going to attend and would be happy to meet at this event.
In addition to previous post about the new update to Nokia S60 released in the new Nokia 5800 Xpressmusic, here comes select videos for Samsung Omnia,LG KC910 (Renoir), BlackBerry Storm,SonyEricsson Xperia X1 and Google G1 demoing the UIs of these devices. When it comes to evaluating the user interfaces you have to consider different aspects such as; formfactor, input and output methods, touch and feel, visual impression and convenience.
Formfactor: All the models have pretty much the same typical "candy bar" shape, some are wider and two (G1 and X1) are sliders with "real" keyboards. If a device is too wide, not good for one-handed operation and the BlackBerry Storm may be in that category as are the G1 and X1 when you use the keyboard. I prefer the soft keyboards (even if they take away screenspace), you get a lighter phone, more flexibility (vertical and horizontal keyboards).
I/O: Easy to use with one hand I think is again to prefer vs. two-handed friendly slider models. Some interesting differences, "roller" mouse on G1, "optical" mouse on Omnia vs. touch and touch and hold only. Easy to find connectors, micro SD style memory slots and rich Bluetooth profile support including audio/video controls also important.
Touch and Feel: Touch with a tactile feedback function is usually better than "sound" feedback, I prefer features you can operate without somebody noticing, silent operating mode. Interesting to see, screen "vibrate" key clicks on Nokia 5800 vs. screen "mechanical" key click feedback on BlackBerry Storm. On the overall feel feedback is also the need to easily find and operate the controls on the device.
Visual impression: Since you deal with small devices, screen resolution, color richness and possibility to see things in daylight are all important. Higher resolution and more colors preferred.
For global travelers, BlackBerry Storm stands out as the only phone that will work in USA on a CDMA (Verizon Wireless) whereas all the others will work on AT&T with the exception of Google G1 which will also work on T-Mobile in USA (T-Mobile is using 1700 Mhz which only G1 supports so far).
The Swedish startup Bloggkoll.com who provides the easy to use with a nice clean interface blog reader with subscription and search based on among others things most subscribed blogs has launched the English version of their service called Bloglovin'. Check out this service and register at http://www.bloglovin.com/
Now when the new generation touch mobile phones are all out (not everywhere yet) but it is time to take a quick look. One Apple OS, one Symbian (Nokia), one Android (Google/HTC G1) and three Windows Mobile (LG, Samsung and SonyEricsson). Two with "slider style" qwerty keyboards (G1 and SonyEricsson X1) the rest with touch qwerty keyboard. The pros-cons of this is real qwerty ones are easier for traditional computer style functions such as browse and type but I personally favor the touch on a device that you use most of the time as multi-media mobile device different than a laptop plus you avoid the additional weight from the mechanical slider keyboard. The G1 and X1 are about 40 grams heavier than the rest, with an exception for Samsung who has a beefed up battery as standard. Some noteworthy differences between all of these devices;
LG 910 Renoir: 8MP camera, video, dolby, slim but with a relatively small battery, a little bit odd though that for a phone that emphasizes photo and video, screen resolution is not the best 240 x 400 pixels, 3.0 inches
Samsung Omnia: 5MP camera, video, beefier battery than others, really good UI layer on Windows Mobile. Same screen resolution comments as for LG, 240 x 400 pixels, 3.2 inches
SonyEricsson X1: 3.15 MP camera, video, different UI layer than the LG and Samsung with "panels" as different default layers on top on Windows Mobile. Don't know about that one until I have used one myself. Good screen resolution, 480 x 800 pixels, 3.0 inches.
HTC G1:3.15 MP camera. Android OS. Very cool "Apple like" UI with the exception of the keyboard. One of the most interesting aspects of this device is how much the developer community will pick up the mobile app store and the openess of this device vs. all the other ones. Screen resolution as Apple but with less colors, 320 x 480 pixels, 3.2 inches.
Nokia 5800 Xpressmusic: 3.15 MP camera, video, the lighest device of all of these models but still with a high capacity battery. Good screen resolution, 360 x 640 pixels, 3.2 inches.
Apple iPhone: 2 MP camera, still the reference standard for the new generation UI. Featurewise, it shows that the other phones are newer, they have richer camera and video services. Good screen, 320 x 480 pixels, 3.5 inches
An overall conclusion, I like the formfactor of the Apple, LG, Nokia and Samsung. Pricewise, Nokia is the clear winner (for an unlocked not tied to a contract), the others are about $200 more. I like the Samsung UI layer for Windows Mobile, they have done a good job hiding the traditional layers. My take is though, regarding feature content, size, shape, weight and price that Nokia is the winner. The catch maybe the dependence on Symbian and its ongoing support and Nokia will have to make sure of that they do not repeat initial troubles they had with N95 when that came out. But as I said in previous post, the driver will be war between the ongoing developments for each OS software package whether you believe more in anyone of the following; Apple, Microsoft, Google and OHA and Symbian. Also to fully be able to compare these devices with the different screens and UIs, you need to use them next to each other to see with your own eyes what will a certain function look like on a particular device, it is not enough to watch a company demo video.
I guess now when Nokia has finally taken the wraps of the rollout of their "iPhone killer", the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. My take on this new phone is that showdown is going to depend a lot on the openess and ease for application developers to get to the different devices and the business models offered. The second issue is the availability of cheap mobile broadband, and since there has not so far been enough competition among mobile operators, I think we can all cherish the fact that Nokia finally has a device that compete with Apple iPhone, Google G1, Samsung Omnia, LG, HTC Touch and SonyEricsson X1 touch phones. The competition now becomes more of Apple OS X like OS vs. Android, Windows Mobile and Symbian. From that point of view, I think Google has an advantage from their close connections and understanding of "cloud computing services" and cooperation with companies such as Amazon.
Nokia though has put together a pretty interesting device, I like personally the formfactor of the iPhone and the new Nokia. From a technology point of view, I cannot wait until all these new mobile phones will finally push mobile VoIP services to the front in an open style making true mobile multimedia IP services available in as many places and countries as possible from any device and any wireless carrier.
Time to get blogging again, I have had an ugly cold lately slowing down work needed to be done. But today's first blogpost is about anti-virus in a different way. When you hear virus image analysis in the IT business, you almost all the time think, anti-virus software for your computer, but in this case we talk about the real viruses that affect our bodies. Vironova is a hot Swedish startup combining digital image analysis software and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) to quickly analyze and identify key parts of a virus. Vironova also provides diagnostics services. The company has been funded so far by EU research grant and private investors. They are presently open for additional funding, see home page for details (available both in Swedish and English). If the cross-over between IT and medical research is of interest for your investments, I suggest check out this company right now!
