Ring Nokia has a link to Steve Garfield’s Video Blog where he has demonstrated using a Nokia N93i & it’s WiFi connection to do a mobcast live from the mobile’s built in camera. He used the ComVu PocketCaster software on the device.
It won’t be long before we see live action being streamed onto the Internet from people’s mobiles. Imagine a sporting event where you can switch from different people’s mobile view points watching on a web page. Or a major news event where people on the location become private broadcasters supplementing or replacing big media broadcasts. Brings a whole new meaning to the term citizen journalism.
Posted by Shane Williamson.
Attending the BRW Digital Media Leaders Forum in Sydney
March 15, 2007
I’ll be attending the BRW Digital Media Leaders Forum next week at the Marriot Hotel in Sydney on Friday 23rd March 2007.
This event has a great line up this year for speakers and they include senior executives from Google, Yahoo7, Fairfax Digital, Optus, Ninemsn and other firms in the digital media industry.
Topics include measuring the return on investment, commercialising digital content, the convergence of TV, broadband and mobile, engaging customers, pricing strategies and emerging legal issues.
To register for the event & further information including the agenda head over to www.iir.com.au/digitalmedia
I hope to see you there!
Posted by Shane Williamson.
Technorati Tags – 
digital media events – digital media leaders forum
digital media events – digital media leaders forumGeo-tagging photos direct from mobile not just for fun.
March 13, 2007
The guys over at AtlasCT have won the NAVTEQ® Global LBS Challenge™ as Social Networking Application category winner for the European region. The product is called ReLive!
AtlasCT’s winning application is named reLive!. It is a unique and handy leisure application, which allows you to take photos and write notes along your trip route, and seamlessly link them to their locations on the map. Later on, you and your family/friends can replay your trip on the website, view the trip route, photos and notes on a map in their authentic locations.
The application demo website is: http://relive.atlasct.com.
This is a great example of converging aspects of the mobile to create a social networking application. Whilst you view the demo you can see the introduction presentation that hints at the business aspects of this technology. Specifically I’d like to see this for mobile field & sales force personnel. Linking this service to business applications will be greatly improve productivity and customer service. Not to mention the ever present regulation requirements of a lot of industries today.
Posted by Shane Williamson.
Selling a piece of Microsoft History on Ebay
March 13, 2007
I was cleaning out the ol’ study cupboard the other day when I stumbled on a still shrink wrapped copy of Microsoft Bob! So, I’ve decided to sell it on EBay 🙂
Microsoft Bob was one of those products Microsoft would love to see forgotten. When it was released I remember people at Microsoft Australia were in complete disbelief. Good thing it was specific to the US market only. 🙂
Posted by Shane Williamson.
Mobile phones that can see
February 27, 2007
One of the current major limitations of mobile devices are the lack of easy to use interfaces. So seeing companies like Mobot think outside the box by using the mobile device’s camera as a search device is a small step in the right direction to the path of converged information retrieval via mobiles.
Mobot claims to have Mobile Visual Search, which is a ….
…powerful, scalable, and flexible patent-pending solution which relies on image recovery, pattern recognition, and image matching capability ‘in the cloud.’
Basically, a consumer can see a picture in a magazine or on a poster take a photo of it with their mobile and the service will then recognise what they are taking a picture of and return a list of services associated with that picture. One example they give is seeing a picture of a new music album in the magazine and the service redirects you to listen to some parts of the music tracks, buy a ring-tone or even purchase the album directly. Mobot’s demonstration on their site shows even more examples.
Whilst this service sounds good on paper, the real challenge is setting a usability around these types of services that users easily understand how to use them.
Combining this technology with location based services would be more gratifying for both the users and the marketing company in the long run.
Posted by Shane Williamson.
The Bloglines Image Wall – for those that like to watch the web instead of reading it…
February 23, 2007
http://www.bloglines.com/about/wallofimages
Bloglines has added an interesting way to watch RSS feeds instead of reading them…. The Bloglines Image Wall
Posted by Shane Williamson.
User generated content changing carrier’s perspectives
February 23, 2007
User generated content (UGC) has been a mythical creature of awe and wonder for many companies. Whilst these organisations can see great examples on the web of UGC in action, such as jewels in the crown Youtube.com & Flickr.com, they are still confused as to how to differentiate this success into their own businesses.
Telco 2.0 has a good overview of this issue from some telco speakers at 3GSM. Whilst there is some mythology around why UGC is so important, this article shows how carriers are deploying UGC successfully and more importantly with good planning. The Telco 2.0 article case studies some recent UK mobile products and lessons learnt from their deployment.
Major UGC sites on the web are foundations for the web 2.0 craze of the New World order of online interactivity, many are still wondering what all the Web 2.0 fuss is about, but in the end it’s about users and how they want a dynamic and interactive online environment that they can be apart of versus something they watch from afar.
Posted by Shane Williamson.
Popurls mobile web site
February 13, 2007
One of the better RSS aggregator portals on the web is Popurls. Popurls is a view to the popular discussions happening on various parts of the Web. It links to Blog aggregators, photo sites, podcasts and videos. It is a (if not the) greatest time waster for a slow day 🙂
Popurls has a mobile version of its site that is available as well.
http://popurls.mobi
(This is a QR-CODE. Use your mobile’s QR-CODE reader
and point your mobile’s camera at this code.
If you do not have a QR-CODE reader
I recommend Kaywa’s free one here )
Posted by Shane Williamson.
Your mobile phone will be printing soon too…..
February 13, 2007
SciFi tech blog has this interesting Bluetooth printer for mobile devices from a company called Zink. Zink has invented a new way of printing without using ink cartridges or ribbons. One of the main benefits being form factor is greatly reduced.
Eventually this will converge into the mobile device, so it won’t be long before you are snapping & printing your mobile pics instantly to your hearts content.
The possibilities are endless here as this technology will inevitably extend into the wider markets of the sales & field force. Whilst this technology exists today in niche devices, this low cost technology from Zink will bring it to the mass market, reducing the need for multiple devices. The ability to print out receipts, invoices & reports instantly, will be a huge benefit to workers away from their office.
Posted by Shane Williamson.
A disturbing change in behaviour with TV viewers
February 1, 2007
Would you want to be in the TV broadcasting business with what is currently happening with media today? Multi access to media is a fact of life today and people have access to information and entertainment virtually anywhere. You can watch or listen to media on whatever device you choose, be it TV, PC or a mobile device.
The TV broadcaster’s old world is dieing. Controlling what people watch and when they watch it is going the way of the Dodos to self extinction. Which is none too soon as far as I’m concerned. I’m a Foxtel IQ user on the Optus network here in Australia and the childish games the free to air broadcast TV networks play is annoying at best, particularly the Seven & Ten networks who still do not allow Foxtel to have their content information displayed on the IQ system Electronic Programme Guide (EPG). Therefore not allowing users to easily record programmes or to see when a particular programme they want to watch is on. Then there’s the fun game of lets change the time and date of a scheduled programme so the users have to try and work out which time-slot their favorite show has disappeared into.
Emarketer’s article on "A ‘New Breed’ of TV Viewers" is tauting that passive TV viewers are already changing their viewing habits, and those monolithic TV broadcasters that don’t adapt will succumb to the ensuing media deluge and be lost in the depths. The exciting part of this is that within the next few years we will see some amazing changes.
Whilst the enjoyment of sitting back with a cool drink watching the big screen TV will never disappear, what will change is how, when and where we will watch our media. The fact that pretty much anything can easily plug into your TV now means you have the freedom to choose, instead of others who know nothing about you doing it for you.
Posted by Shane Williamson.
Universal Convergence 