Innovation/Strategy/The Narrative

On Stephanie Rieger

Posted on by charlie

I met Stephanie first at Les Blogs. Very interesting stuff, but we never had a chance to talk. Then she showed up at the MoMo Global Summit (representing the Vancouver chapter) and we were able to have a long chat over dinner.

Stephanie and her husband are creating some really cool mobile education apps. A combination of cool design and relevant content packaged in a neat little app.

Here is a great article covering a few of her apps. It’s a great read. Oh, and go check out her stuff!

Link: mopocket.

I want to talk with you today about a little Canadian company doing big mobile things that I discovered during last months Mobile Monday Global Summit in Helsinki, Finland. Yiibu is a small team of creative types with one obsession—creating unique and engaging content for emerging mobile technologies and devices. But that explanation does not even merely come close to their creative skill and the powerful aspect of mobile medium that they have tapped. When Stephanie Rieger (cofounder and head of content strategy and design) first showed me some of the Flash Light Symbian Series 60 based content that Yiibu has designed I immediately fell in love with it.

Extras

Way way way off-topic: Brasil 1×0 Croatia

Posted on by charlie

A wee tid-bit: I’m half-Brasilian and grew up in Brasil. Natch, football* is a passion (my daughter and son play it). As fates would have it, I married an amazing footballer who shares my love of the game.

This month I pulled out the TV from storage to watch the Cup (as I do every 4 years).

What’s this got to do with the Mobile Lifestyle? Uh, nothing really. So, here’s a mobile plug:

I’ve been following the matches I can’t watch with Yahoo’s FIFA World Cup mobile portal.

Hmmm, maybe a review is in order.

*Football? Yes, I might be an American, but I grew up calling it football and now I live in Europe. Football is a game you play with your feet, not with tons of padding and a helmet and a ball nestled in your arms. 😛

Strategy

Check out Widsets’ smooth mobile-friendly service sigh-up

Posted on by charlie

One thing I want to point out about Widsets is the sign-up process. There are at least two ways I have used.

Push message:
– You sign up with your mobile number.
– The services sends you a push SMS.
– Click on the link in the message.
– Download the app.

Mobile site:
– Just go to get.widsets.com (easy to remember) with your mobile browser.
– Sign in with your Widsets username and password.
– Download the app.

Have either of these methods worked for you? What do you think of services that let you sign up this way? Are there services you wished were like this – integrating sign-up in this mobile-savvy way?

 

If I recall, ShoZu does a good job with sign-up, too. The common thread between the two services is that they come from companies with a deep understanding of the mobile lifestyle.

OK, so there are other mobile-friendly aspects that I wish Widsets had (a topic for another day). But because sign-up is so crucial for service take-up, I think these guys have done a good job.

Announcements/The Narrative

Where I’d like to be: Aula 2006 – Movement

Posted on by charlie

Looking to attend at least the first day and then some.

Lots of folks I know and would like to get an update from. Great topic, too.

Pity, I only found about it today. But, as luck would have it (sort of), my schedule is open.

Link: zengestrom.com: Aula 2006 – Movement.

Marko Ahtisaari and I are organizing the Aula 2006 – Movement event in Helsinki next week. This will be the largest Aula event yet, and we’ve moved it to a larger venue at Bio Rex to accommodate as many participants as we can.

The theme ‘movement’ points to mobility meeting web 2.0, technologies as social movements, and the overlapping between physical and virtual worlds. On a personal level movement is about not staying still but taking action to shape the future.

Strategy

First ad-supported Symbian software?

Posted on by charlie

One more cool product has now lost all value and become a free product.

And they expect 10 million s60 users in 18 months – about 1 in 10 of all s60 users. Eh, I don’t think so, but it must be the figure the product manager fooled his boss with. And what is the expected revenue per user? Is this a move that validates the difficulty (impossibility) of building a business on software sales? Or, do they expect to actually make more money this way?

Best of luck dudes.

Link [via Stephen, via Tommi]: WorldMate Free Edition – First Ad Supported Symbian Software.

This is the first piece of ad supported software (also known as adware) to be made available for the Symbian platform. Symbian developers are finding application distribution and marketting to be the most difficult issue to face in the application development cycle. MobiMate is clearly looking to innovate in this area and gain a wider market share for its best selling product. MobiMate will then be able to use this customer base both as a revenue source (mobile advertising), but also for marketing base. It is likely they will offer pay-for updates (with a greater level of functionality) as well as cross selling other applications.

Strategy

Still trying to get mobile browsing right?

Posted on by charlie

Widgets, browsers, portals, feed readers, widgets, and so on – folks are still trying to figure out the best way to get media to a mobile device. Via Gawker (I was checking out their mobile offerings, just following a trail) I (re-)discovered Mobileplay.*

Checking out their intro, it looks to me like a variation on what everyone is trying to do:

How to design the best mobile browsing experience?

Hmm. Something to think about. Nontheless, alternatives are good.

Link: Mobileplay.

Welcome to Mobileplay
Now Let’s Have Some Fun.

Add FREE News, Apps & Games to your PDA or smartphone. Easy.

Get Travel Itineraries, Hotels, Restaurants and Weather updates on the go. Fast.

Share Apps, Games, Articles, Messages with your friends. Fun.

*Mobileplay reminds me of Omnisky, which bundled data access with a content browsing system.

Announcements/The Narrative

More on Widsets

Posted on by charlie

Here’s the announcement on the Widsets blog, from my fellow colleagues (we are on the same floor) at Nokia.

I hope to write a first look type of review, if I ever get the chance and no one beats me to it. I have a whole long list of notes on it and some comments. But, you’ll have to wait or harass me into doing it. 🙂

Link: WidSets.

Hopefully without any magic of numerology we opened the site and made 06.06.06 a unique day. We have run the site internally and with selected test groups for a while, and also already made first upgrades according to the feedback. The whole team feels excited in such a day and at the same time we commit to stay creative and fast in future as well. Please feel encouraged to contribute, and don’t forget to tell your friends!