English National Opera logo

English National Opera (ENO) have asked us to deliver an interactive iPhone app version of their popular, seasonal opera guide. The app will be released for the winter season and will focus on six key performances. The application is a first within the performing arts world (to our knowledge anyway), delivering rich video and audio content along with performance information, photos and ticket purchasing. One of the unique features to the application will be the updates sent out after performance nights – adding new content based on the user preferences.

ooh, he looks all serious... it must be good.

We’re really happy to be working with ENO as they are very forward thinking – particularly for their industry sector. The iPhone app is one of many new projects we are looking to deliver for ENO that enhance the way they reach both new and existing fans of opera and ballet.

Do you have an iPhone app you want developed?

Check out these pages on our site:

http://www.neoco.com/apps/

http://www.neoco.com/apptest/

Touchnote.com

We like the guys and girls at Touchnote. Having been working with them for months before launch, it’s really nice to see things coming together. Touchnote is a service that lets you turn your digital photos into greetings cards. The latest addition to the (already numerous) digital ways to make this happen is a Nokia app.

Apps are a great way to extend brand reach, engage new and existing audiences and drive revenue. iPhone apps are big business right now – with over 1 billion downloaded!

But apps are not for everyone… Check out our supplementary pages that explain more about what an App is and take our App Test to see if one will work for your brand.

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We’ve got 10+ iPhone/iPod applications in development right now – yee-haw! There’s some really exciting stuff going through our office right now. But we want more!

Not only are we offering a free brainstorm for all iPhone apps but we are looking for clients (new and old) to work with in developing apps for the emerging platforms of Android (Google’s phone), Nokia and Microsoft. We’re even offering 25% off development fees.

If you are interested in being part of something exciting then just get in touch with us – best to speak to Benn Achilleas.

On Wednesday I attended my second Digital Lounge event at the Adam Street Private member’s club. This month’s speaker was Andrew Grill (of London-Calling blog fame) who presented on Mobile Advertising. Andrew certainly raised some interesting points that allowed discussion to flow as freely as the drinks! Central to his presentation was the theme that mobile is fundamentally different from any other media and requires a rethink (see his presentation on his blog here). Despite the title of the evening’s topic it became clear that, in order to be successful, marketing on mobile cannot be seen as “advertising” but must instead be led by the personal and functional attributes of a mobile device.

Andrew argued that the age of mobile has already begun and it is now the industry’s responsibility to cash in on the saturation of devices and make the use of mobile marketing easy. For my part I think it is legitimate to consider 2009 the year of mobile for two reasons. Firstly, I believe that technology and lifestyle have only just got to the point at which mobile devices can legitimately be seen as media platforms (as well as devices) – here I mean for the average mobile user, who is not a technology follower but who relies on mobile communication. The second development, ushered in by the iPhone, is the fact that technologically advanced mobile devices are no longer the reserve of business users. On an individual level mobile marketing is about specific, targeted, personal, marketing content, however, it is not until now that enough consumers in enough target groups have enough potential in their mobile devices for most brands to get on board.

What makes a good mobile campaign, however, is still up for debate. Today a simple example reminded me of where the general state of play currently is. I take great interest in advertising on the tube and how different media are being used, so I make a point of noting down anything that stands out (this is rare unfortunately). Today I took note of an Action Aid poster within the carriage urging commuters to look up from their books, down their crosswords, and do something meaningful with their time on the train. The message was ‘act now’ – make a difference on impulse – do something worthwhile with this lost time on your commute. It was the use of text message short code that made this message possible. Potentially a great use of mobiles to get people engaged as soon as they see the advertising. Unfortunately this poster appeared on the a Victoria line tube train which wikipedia confirms “is the only line on the Underground, except for the two-stop Waterloo & City line, where the entire line is operated underground.” So good luck responding to that call to arms!

It's called that for a reason

At Neoco we’re excited to be getting involved with mobile marketing that works with both the immediacy of engaging on a personal portable device as well as the new way this can incorporate the brand message into consumers’ lives. The key is understanding exactly how mobile fits into people’s lives (it cannot be seen as a broadcast medium?!) and viewing it as a space that will only tolerate being filled by useful content. At Neoco we’re lucky enough to be developing iPhone applications at the moment and there’s nothing more exciting than making ‘marketing’ that you can’t wait to actually use yourself. The way I understand it a mobile device is like someone’s home page and it requires trust and permission to become a part of that.

I’ve just stumbled across a really interesting article on the BBC News Technology site, which looks at how mobile technology is touching almost every aspect of the non-profit world in developing countries. Mobile phones and mobile services are facilitating human health care, nature and wildlife conservation, research and education.

The article really shows how developments in mobile technology are making a real difference to a lot of people’s lives in developing countries. And it’s really impressive to discover that the mobile phones which are being used to facilitate all of these new improvements are in fact around 7 years old – with text messaging being the only real way that people can communicate with each other – there are no data services of any kind.

Although many of us would have not considered it before, people in developing countries (even those living off just a couple of dollars or so a day) now have access to a mobile phone. Today, in Sub-Saharan Africa for example, 30% of the population own a mobile, equating to in excess of 300 million people and many more have access via the phones of their family and friends, shared phones or village phones.

This huge growth has mainly been a result of the successful recycling market and the development of cheap ‘$20′ phones. It is also part due to the efforts of forward-thinking mobile manufacturers, who have spent an increasing amount of time to understand what people living in these areas might want from a phone. The example given in the article to have emerged from this user-centric design focus are mobiles with flashlights, which assist people whose electricity supplies may not be very reliable.

Local entrepreneurs who have learnt how to fix mobile phones have set up their own services doing so, and have created a mini industry devoted to prolonging the lives of mobile phones.

All of these factors together have resulted in more phones being owned by more and more people, and working for longer. Which has meant that certain mobile services have been able to be put into place, making people’s lives easier and transforming development work.

Mobile phones are today providing a direct line of communication to farmers, doctors, patients, nurses, teachers and youth, and anyone else the non-profit community might seek to engage. Patients are being sent reminders to take their medicine, market prices are being sent to farmers, citizens are helped to help monitor elections, and activists are enabled to report human rights abuses.

A lesson to be learned for all of us lot then – when you inevitably upgrade your phone for the new iPhone GPS (or another latest smart phone) – don’t throw your old one away, recycle it. For the full article, visit http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7502474.stm

It’s only been available for one weekend but already 1 million new iPhone’s have been sold. And, although the queues were not as long as those of the original release, figures show that despite this, the sales of iPhones were much quicker this time round (it took 74 days to sell the first 1 million original iPhones).

So, what a great start for the iPhone 3G. Especially considering that the new iPhone owners have already downloaded 10 million iPhone applications – which is even more impressive when you consider that there were only around 500 applications available at launch. These figures once again reinforce the belief that users don’t see the iPhone as just another phone – it is another whole platform.

What do you think of the iPhone 3G and the available apps? Let us know…

New research by the IPA has shown that almost a third of people between the age of 15 to 25 have watched TV via the internet. And around 18% of people aged between 25 and 64 (a very broad ‘old people’ category or what?!) had too.

The IPA Touchpoints report surveyed over 5,000 people and also looked at mobile behaviour. It was found that 30% of 15 to 24 year olds watch video clips on their phones, with 13% of all mobile users doing so.

Jim Marshall, chairman of the IPA Media Futures Group, said, ” the young are still driving the take-up and use of digital media and new technology, however, the older age groups are also moving steadily towards greater adoption.” Personally, I would have thought that more than a third of 15 to 25 year olds would have watched TV online, but I suppose if this statistic was expressed as a number than a percentage it would seem greater.

Just as an extra update – overall broadband penetration now stands at 73% of all UK adults, with internet usage at an average of 45 minutes on weekdays and just over an hour at weekends.

Bored with Twitter? Fed up with Twinkle? Step it up a level and stream video direct from your mobile phone to the web using Qik!

The core idea is that you download a small application onto your phone, sign up to qik.com and then simply stream whatever you fancy direct to the Internet. Videos can be watched live or at a later date via qik.com.

To make it happen you’ll need a pretty modern phone though. Windows Mobile and iPhone support has just been added to Symbian OS, covering many modern handsets, but still leaving many needing an upgrade (like myself).  Qik also advise that you get yourself an unlimited data plan.  I imagine this is a wise step.  Qik is probably the sort of app that would ruin someone on pay-as-you-go fairly swiftly.

Right now it all seems pretty fresh.  The website looks sparkly and web 2.0 enough, but the videos seem to show people dipping their toes into the service.  There are lots of short clips of people videoing their computers / desks / the ceiling etc..!

The functionality is all there, however, and well layered. There isn’t that feeling of being overwhelmed that you sometimes get when confronted with just too much functionality. Most of this is through the clever use of tabs and a well laid out, crisp design.

It has all the syndication features you’d expect from a descent app. You can access user’s video feeds via RSS.  You can even make Qik update your Twitter feed every time you post a video!

Fresh from securing $3 million in funding, Qik seems to be securing it’s status as the market leader in live video streaming direct from mobile phones.  It will be interesting to see how the service grows and blossoms as it moves beyond the early-adopter phase.

PS: Benn can I have an iPhone please so I can play with Qik?

Nokia has bought Plazes for an undisclosed amount. Plazes is a German location-aware social network site,  which basically lets users know where their friends are.

As discussed at mashup*’s Being Digital last week, location is a really hot topic right now, with everyone in the industry having a go at creating a location/mobile/social network mashup (although most do seem to be getting it all wrong!) and this will no doubt increase even further with the iPhone 3G. Predictions can easily be made that whoever is able to master this and create a useful service with an easy to use interface – and most importantly, of course, monetises this – is going to reap in the rewards. Nokia’s acquisition shows that they too are on the path to creating a location-aware service.

While many users are looking forward to use location based services, it appears that many aren’t keen to expose their location and trade in their privacy, and this will inevitably raise concerns for the success of these services. Apparently, Plazes’ CEO Felix Petersen was caught somewhere else than he was supposed to be – and I’m sure many of us wouldn’t like to be put in the situation where our partner/friends/family/colleagues can see where we are all the time. Think about that sneaky ’sick’ day at work when you have tickets to an event that you can’t just can’t miss! Or when you want a quiet, relaxing night in at home, so you tell your friend that you can’t babysit because you are going out. Or when you tell your partner you have to work late, but you go out with your friends instead. (By the way, I don’t do any of these things…they are just examples…)

Whatever users think about location-aware services, they are definitely something that we are going to be hearing a lot more about over the rest of 08.

On Tuesday I spent the day at the Being Digital Mashup conference. It was a really interesting and insightful day – although there were way too many pitches crammed into the programme.

For those of you that didn’t attend, I’ve put together a summary of the key predictions from the event, outlining what is going to happen within digital marketing over the next 5 years:

• Media fragmentation and the decline of mass audiences will continue as there will be constant shifts in the way consumers live their lives, but this should be seen as a positive instead of a negative. After all, ad spend can be reduced through advertising to smaller fragmented audiences, as there is less money wasted on irrelevant audiences. Advertisers will need to create innovative and targeted ‘marketing pieces’ for their consumers, reaching them via their niche channels.
• Although it is often thought that young people watch less TV than they used to, research shows that there has been a 10% increase in the time that 16-24 year olds spend watching TV each day (since 1997 their daily viewing has increased from 1.61 hours to 1.77) and this is likely to remain constant.
• The penetration of mobile internet is currently at 30%, but with continued promotion from the iPhone and other key players in the mobile industry, this is going to see huge growth.
• Most sites will have an element of social networking or online community in the near future, as consumers continue to want this functionality.
• Online shopping is not going to take over or replace offline retail. Research has proven that consumers like being able to use a combination of online, store and call centre when shopping, and when given this option to shop across multiple channels, consumers exhibit a higher degree of loyalty – their average relationship ‘lifetime’ with the brand is 2 ½ times greater which is very valuable. As a result, the future will see online and retail work hand-in-hand.

However, the two areas that I think are going to have the greatest significance over the next five years are branded content and location. Predictions for these topics are:

• Branded content is going to be huge over the next five years and brands are likely to benefit hugely from being associated with entertaining or relevant content, as indicated by Nigel Conway from Nestle. Their annual advertising budget currently stands at around £5bn, of which £3.5bn is spent on TV advertising. However, Nigel believes that in 7 years time, this £3.5bn will be spent on branded content. Research has shown that branded content is the most popular of all advertising formats, with 67% of all consumers finding it acceptable or valuable.
• Location is going to play a major part over the next few years, as GPS and mobile internet become more widespread. We all know how to find things on a map if we have the postcode, and with GPS we will all know where people are located – but the key question is how do marketers use this data to add real value to consumers? Many companies are trying to create 3D search interfaces and immersive environments for consumers but at the moment they are too expensive and very difficult to develop, and despite all efforts the interfaces are really hard to use.

My prediction is that whoever can create a user friendly, and ultimately useful and valuable location mashup for consumers will be much much richer in the next five years.

A new press release from Gartner has advised retailers not to ignore the increased consumer traffic that social networks are generating.

“Until recently, retailers considered social networks relevant only for the youth market, meaning that many have largely ignored them,” said Hung LeHong, research vice president at Gartner. “However, as social networks expand to embrace ever-wider demographic groups, retailers need to ensure that they have a position on them.”

Gartner has created a list of the top 10 things retailers should know about social networks and what action to take. Key points that I think are particularly important for retailers are:

• Social networks can be a huge source of consumer data – as with store loyalty cards, consumers are often willing to give up a little privacy in exchange for a valued service or discount.
• Retailers should focus their social network activity on content produced by members – if a social network provides corporations too many capabilities in interacting with members, there is a risk that members will leave the network. The aim should be to create a forum or application that will create value for other members while promoting the organisation’s brand.
• Social networks are coming to mobile – the ability to access social networks from mobile phones is being promoted by the wireless carriers. This could be used in really innovative ways, and the article gives the example of  offering a limited time, in-store-only promotion that could be broadcast to friends to drive more traffic to the physical store.

The article, ‘Gartner Says Social Networks Are Attracting Too Much Traffic for Retailers to Ignore: Analysts Highlight 10 Things Retailers Should Know About Social Networks, and What to Do’ can be viewed at http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=660409

A great article over at Venture Beat talking about Adobe’s plans to develop an Open Standards Flash Player for use across all digital media channels. This is a great development as by dropping certain license fees it ensures greater take up, which makes it easier to deliver brand experiences coherently across media channels. Shame there is still no news of a decent Flash player on the iPhone but I guess we can live in hope.

“Just in case you think Adobe’s Flash Player (which powers YouTube and an enormous number of other sites) isn’t ubiquitous enough, Adobe is pushing for even greater adoption from developers and designers. Through an initiative the company is calling the Open Screen Project, Adobe will lift a number of restrictions on Flash in the hopes creating even greater usage, especially on web-enabled devices.”

Read the full article here.

News for all you iPhone users out there:  Google News is now available for iPhone and iPod Touch, and it looks really nice (as you can see in the image)

To reach it from your device, you can either:

- Go to www.google.com, click on the “more” tab and follow the link to Google News
- Go to www.google.com and do a search, then click on the News link at the top of the screen
- Go directly to Google News at news.google.com in your browser

A lighter version of Reddit has been created by a young coder called Peteris Krumins.  Reddit River is “3 times as light (in size)” which makes it great for mobiles. It is also able to automatically discover mobile versions of stories posted on Reddit, which will effectively save you some precious MBs.

It is likely that Reddit will create their own mobile version within the next few weeks, but Peteris has been applauded for his efforts! Reddit River has been tried and tested, and it works as advertised – it’s really fast and surprisingly good at discovering mobile versions of stories.

Since Motorola announced that they were seriously reconsidering the future of their mobile division, it was obvious that they were either going to sell it, or split it from the rest of the company.

They have in fact decided to split it in two, and the two new companies will be:

• Motorola Mobile Devices – which will handle manufacturing, design and sales of mobile handsets

• Broadband & Mobility Solutions – which will take care of wireless broadband, IP video, as well as voice and data communication solutions.

Greg Brown, Motorola’s CEO says: “Creating two industry-leading companies will provide improved flexibility, more tailored capital structures, and increased management focus–as well as more targeted investment opportunities for our shareholders.” Which basically means that their shareholders have pressured them into splitting because Motorola’s mobile division hasn’t really been doing well in the last couple of years.

 Following a consultation exercise that began last October, UK regulator Ofcom has given approval to the use of mobile phones on planes flying in the European airspace, and they have issued plans that will allow airlines to offer mobile services on UK-registered aircraft.

Individual airlines can now decide whether to offer the services. But, there will be other regulatory issues that they must overcome before the technology can be fully approved. For example, the European Aviation Safety Agency will need to approve any hardware that would be installed in aircrafts to ensure that it does not interfere with other flight systems.

However, if all goes to plan, passengers will be able to use their mobiles once their plane has reached an altitude of 3,000m or more.  Small mobile phone base stations, called pico cells, will be installed in aircraft, and will be switched on after take-off. These base stations will generate a bubble of coverage in and around the aircraft, and calls made via the pico cell will be routed to terrestrial networks via a satellite link. Across Europe, radio spectrum has already been set aside for the technology, but the services will stop working once aircraft leave European airspace.

To start with, only second generation networks will be offered but a growing interest would mean that third generation services would follow later.  The cost of making a mobile phone call from a plane will be higher than normal, but Ofcom said it will investigate and address any evidence of “excessive charges and abuses of competition” if prices were set unfairly by airlines and mobile networks.

According to WSJ, Adobe are going to develop Flash for the iPhone. And they’re not just going to use the existing Flash Lite – they’re going to develop a new version (or tweak the existing one) especially for the iPhone.

Adobe’s CEO, Shantanu Narayen had said: “We believe Flash is synonymous with the Internet experience, and we are committed to bringing Flash to the iPhone…We have evaluated (the software developer tools) and we think we can develop an iPhone Flash player ourselves.”

It seems Adobe’s on a roll. First, they signed a deal with Microsoft, who licensed Flash for Windows Mobile-sporting phones. Then, they posted fantastic financial results for the year. And now, they’re probably going to conquer this last, crucially significant, corner of the smartphone market.

Since last week, Benn has been raving on about the BBC iPlayer on his iPhone, but what is it?…

BBC’s iPlayer is their online on-demand TV service, which allows users to download or stream any BBC content which has been broadcast during the last 7 days, and watch it on their computers – or in Benn’s case his iPhone. As it’s the BBC, the iPlayer is free to use. It uses peer-to-peer technology for the download service, so that content can be downloaded from the nearest point in the network and not always directly from BBC servers.

The iPlayer first came out in summer 2007 but it didn’t have its proper launch until Christmas Day 2007. Within the first 7 weeks of the launch, 17 million programmes were streamed or downloaded and recently over 500,000 programmes were streamed or downloaded in one day! In January, around 2.2 million people used the iPlayer.

The iPlayer website has recently had a facelift to add extra functionality – the 10 most popular programmes, ‘Last Chance’ for programmes about to expire, and ‘Recently Added’, which is updated every 10 minutes! We think that the iPlayer really shows how hard the BBC is working to build up its online and digital presence. Over the past year the BBC has signed deals with IBM, YouTube and Apple’s iTunes and it has recently announced that it will be collaborating with ITV and Channel 4 on a shared on-demand TV service called Kangaroo.

However, since its release there have been a couple of issues with the iPlayer. When the download version of iPlayer initially came out, it only worked on Microsoft Windows XP and many people were unhappy about it excluding a significant number of people not using XP. In response, the BBC has consistently said it wants to offer a multiplatform iPlayer and has already made the download version compatible with Vista, with a Mac version promised by the end of 2008. The BBC also has plans to broaden access even further, making it available on the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch.

There has also been concern expressed from broadband networks, about the sheer volume of traffic that iPlayer will ultimately generate. Tiscali suggested that content producers like the BBC should be made to pay to fund broadband network upgrades to prevent it from crippling them and Ofcom has said there is the possibility that the ISP-content provider business model may need to change in the future to fund the huge growth in digital content.

This is where Google Gears starts making real sense. It has been handy to be able to launch your web application when you don’t have internet connectivity, but how often does this really happen? Your mobile however is probably offline most of the time, so now that Google Gears work on mobile devices, you can start up your favourite web app even when you’re offline (Windows Mobile 5 or 6 devices only – not Android).

The partners for the launch are Zoho and Buxfer. Zoho Writer, which now works with Windows Mobile 6.0 devices, offers offline viewing of documents, while editing will come at a later stage. Buxfer, whose mobile version is available at m.buxfer.com, now enables you to access your bank account balances, transactions, and analysis charts in read only mode without internet access.

To hear Andrei Popescu and Dave Burke talk about working on the Google Gears mobile project, click the link below:

Or to read about the technical details, DOM, and limitations of Windows Mobile 5 and 6 go to the official Google Gears mobile page.

We all know that there are a lot of tools that allow you to easily create podcasts on the go with your mobile phone. Utterz, BlogTalkRadio, TalkShoe, and even several random free conference calling utilities are examples. However, few of them actually allow you to accomplish that task without at least a modicum of account setup first. But BlogTalkRadio have just released CinchCast which does just that.

Testing has showed that the files show up in your feed almost immediately after being left with the system, and they seem to be decent enough quality for a phone conversation. The address for the feed reflects the standard domain for the Cinch system, with the trailing directory being an alias based off the caller ID from the phone the podcast was made from.So, how is it useful? Maybe you’re at a conference and want to record a quick interview with someone, or perhaps you want to cover a live event you may be witness to, and you don’t happen to have your mobile podcasting rig with you? Perhaps you have an account set up with TalkShoe or another phone podcasting system but no access to a computer so as to schedule the episode. Or perhaps you’d like to record something, but don’t want it to immediately go live to your entire Utterz friend list.

Those are just a few use instances that have been suggested, which clearly show that it’s a valuable tool to have in a podcaster’s arsenal.

Great Future of Mobile event today at iMAX (nr Waterloo). Nice event. Lots of somebodies and a few nobodies (no-one from Apple to discuss iPhone). Topics covered: iPhone (Dur!) Monetising Mobile Mobile 2.0 (I really f*cking hate that 2.0 terminology!) Mobile 3.0 (OK, this is taking the p*ss now) and much more. Laura has a full write up of some key sessions – ideal for a lowdown on what’s happening or next in mobile.

The Office of Fair Trading are sending out fake scam SMS messages to help raise awareness of text scams. The messages aer being sent to young people aged between 18 and 24, as it is estimated that six per cent of all victims of mass-marketed scams each year are aged between 15 and 24.

First of all, a text was sent reading “Urgent! U may have won £1k cash with ‘2 Good 2 B True’.” Another text then followed, explaining that the first message was a fake and that the OFT sent it to warn about mobile phone text scams. Mike Haley, director of consumer protection at the OFT, said the organisation hopes the fake scam texts will remind young people to be on their guard if they encounter dubious offers similar to this.

Our thought is: who do you contact to stop receiving these spam messages?

LinkedIn have just announced the upgrade of their FireFox toolbar. And this weekend, they also announced the deployment of their Mobile version of the site. This will allow all mobile device users access to the LinkedIn, including Blackberry and iPhone users – Benn can confirm it looks great on his iPhone

To ensure your compatibility with your device, simply log in to m.linkedin.com.

The new Mobile LinkedIn also includes improved support for non-English languages, including French, German, Spanish, Japanese and Chinese. A LinkedIn engineer, Jerry Luk gives a demo of the new mobile service with this YouTube video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xy1cTWXlF0c