The folks at Android sent me an invite to a small gathering of thought leaders from the Valley. The scene was that of a Boy Scout overnight camp out, with fires (simulated) and even a mess tent, provisioned with food an goodies. The discussion was lead by Android Advocates (which has a little too much of a Mormon Elder feeling to it, Evangineer is much better), it was actually a great group of people, largely developers with questions on roadmap and details of support of their applications. The discussion covered from concerns of operators limiting access to the APIs to security (my question). I definitely feel that these discussions are good for the project and hope that someone from Android was taking notes, because the issues discussed are real issues that developers encounter today and they hope Android is watching out for them.
WhereWednesday is Born!!!!
24 01 2008www.wherewednesday.com
I’ve been kicking around the idea to start a Location Based Services community in Silicon Valley since the Summer of 2007 and finally I’ve found the time and effort to do it. This group got its inspiration from MobileMonday (www.mobilemonday.net) an open community for mobile. I’ve organized and founded the Seattle and Los Angeles Chapters of MobileMonday and have been gathering people to evangelize mobile since 1999.
Location Based Services is again gaining a buzz and I wanted to form a group that didn’t only focus on Location for Mobile but for Web apps as well. There are many interesting applications for both mobile and web that it merits a group for those with interests and passions for the sector.
Mapping data and location data are finding their ways into some of the most interesting applications and this group is a forum to share, debate, inspire and network in the community.
We are planning our first gathering soon so keep posted.
MISSION
WhereWednesday is a open group for those in the Location Based Services realm. Our slogan is, “If your App has a Map, you are welcome to join.”
The group is focused on users of Mapping Data, Application Developers and Location players in both web and mobile.
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MVNO Experiments
20 01 2008So 2007 saw the demise of a couple MVNO experiments. Disney Mobile and Amp’d both shut their doors to world in the midst of a growing mobile sector. It’s rare to hear in the news about companies failing due to bad management, the finger is always pointed to a bad business sector or inferred culpability on the model. MVNOs are not bad models, we have many successful ones in the industry today, Virgin, Boost, Net10, Movida, and the list goes on, just visit Walmart to see. I was in LA working for one of these MVNOs and was very close to the others when they were just emerging into the market. There are a few key elements necessary for success; understanding your demographic, affordable price plans, device pricing , and prepay. While Disney focused on the Tween and Suburban Mom they failed to see that Moms are the CFO of the house and that although having a family friendly service, pricing was the driver for demographic. Disney as a reseller couldn’t compete with the family plan offerings of AT&T and Verizon. Amp’d catered to the active and hip youth, but failed to realize that that demographic doesn’t have the income to pay their bills and are still fairly irresponsible financially. The successful models all have low cost devices and prepay in common. The prepay guys are doing well, and there is little risk in providing a service where users don’t get a subsidized device and pay upfront their usage. Go ahead and buy the device and credits, you loose the phone or talk too long , the MVNO still gets paid. Also, a major demographic that is ripe for the prepay MVNOs is the unbanked, whether you are a young teen, sub-prime credit user, or immigrant without papers, you can still get a service, and those demographics are huge.
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Tags: amp'd, disney, mvno, prepay, unbanked, virgin
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Videos on Mobile, YouTube Google Video
28 08 2006Don’t we all wish smart phones could contribute more to our daily lives? What if you could use it as an electric razor, a blow dryer, a tire pump, and even as a George Foreman grill…well wait no more.
I wanted to test out imbedding a YouTube video and found something funny and cool to use as a demo.
To the right of the video playing you are given a couple options to post the video, you can post the URL or embed the flash player for the video.
Enjoy the short.
Google Video has a similiar service. This video is from Bluestreak, I looked into them on a project at TMO USA last year. They have a great UI for streamed TV on the mobile…MobilTV watch out! Bluestreak has been working with low power chipsets and low memory for years, their history in making set top boxes for cable gives them a huge advantage over new comers in mobile client streaming and management. Their latest customer from the Frenchies at Orange have put together an intertaining commercial. Check this one out..
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