The Chameleon Net blog

Be Smart, Think Mobile

rossm@chameleonnet.co.uk (Ross Miles) — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 11:23:33 GMT

Over the past few weeks we have seen the launch of the iPhone4, heralded by Apple as yet another re-invention and revolution of the mobile phone market. While I wouldn’t quite go as far as Steve Jobs has put it, the handset did sell 1.7m units globally in just THREE days and the number could have easily been higher but for stock issues. Factor in the 50m iPhones that have been sold worldwide since its incarnation as well as the 160,000 Android phone activations Google processes daily and you begin to see how being prepared to engage your audience via mobile web is going to be very important in the next 12 months.

The growth of the smartphone market has been reported by comScore as expanding at a rate of 70% year on year in the UK, so there are now approximately 11 million smartphones in use, meaning that one in five Brits now own one. In December 2009 alone, these people viewed 6.7 billion web pages and spent an incredible 4.8bn minutes online via their mobile, of which 2.2bn minutes were spent on Facebook alone.

So it would seem that phones are no longer just a device for calling and texting your friends. In fact iPhone users only spend 45% of their time actually making voice-calls on their handset and the average Android & iPhone user spends 80 minutes per day using their apps, whilst downloading an average of 9 apps per month.

It must also be considered that smartphone ownership is actually double in teens and students compared to the rest of the population, making this generation the most receptive to mobile marketing. This younger generation is choosing their handset based on its ability to help them connect their online and offline lives into one harmonious existence. It’s no longer about the amount of megapixels the camera has or the size of the phones’ built-in memory, instead it’s the number of apps to download, the speed it browses the web, multi-tasking functionality and the ability to access their social media personas. Watch the first two minutes of the below video clip and you can hear some US students discussing why they bought the phones they did.

> > >

So why have we really seen the smartphone become such a booming market? The massive improvements in mobile web browsing speeds to 3G from WAP and the expanding 3G coverage across the UK (now at 54%) can be seen as a similar turning point to the ‘broadband revolution’, which saw faster internet speeds reach the whole country. In addition, the increasing reductions in mobile browsing tariffs to much more affordable levels for ‘unlimited download’ packages have made these phones more accessible to a mass consumer market.

There is a steady move towards the saturation of the mobile market by smartphones (currently at 20% in the UK and rising) and network operators are constantly making mobile browsing more affordable, so considering mobile web as a potential marketing channel and engagement tool is essential. Mobile browsing is only going to get faster, with 4G on the way and open Wi-Fi networks becoming more prevalent. If your organisation isn’t already thinking about how to approach mobile web, now’s the time to start. Don’t be left behind by more forward thinking competitors!

Chameleon Net is currently offering UK universities the opportunity to build their own Fresher’s Friend Mobile App at a discounted rate of £5,900 throughout the month of July. Please contact Ross on 020 7332 6373 or e-mail rossm@chameleonnet.co.uk for more information about this geo-location, campus navigation mobile tool with social media integration >.

Our Thoughts on iPhone 4

richardk@chameleonnet.co.uk (Rich Kirk) — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 10:29:18 GMT
Busy times at Chameleon Net – so apologies for the lack of blog activity! The next instalment of our Google Grants blog series is in production – if I weren’t working on so many Google Grant accounts I could sit down and write it!

One piece of news has provoked me to take a break and blog this week though: Apple’s latest smartphone has officially been unveiled (you probably saw it about 6 weeks ago courtesy of gizmodo).

iPhone 4 is being released towards the end of the month, provoking the usual round of adoring plaudits in the tech press. That said, even if you strip away all the “this changes everything” hype, iPhone 4 remains an exciting prospect.

The design raised a bit of debate here; on one hand the current design is a modern classic, and changing it may dilute the iPhone brand, but on the other hand, the new handset looks nothing short of stunning. Many Chameleons are also pleased to note that it’s made out of even tougher materials: Ed might finally be able to own a phone without a cracked screen!

Whilst Apple announced a new ‘reader’ mode for browsing on the iPhone (AKA adblocking mode) it has also been shouting loudly about iAd – it’s new mobile advertising platform for advertisers and developers wanting to display adverts within apps on any Apple product. You can bet the ‘reader’ mode won’t block iAds.

This is one feature of the new iPhone 4 operating system that interests me. Will iAds be annoying? Potentially, but this new feature will bring mobile-specific advertising into sharp focus for brands. If you don’t engage in mobile specific advertising / communications, this could be the time to experiment, whilst user fatigue is low. If you’re developing an app, signs are that you can generate a lot of extra revenue through in-app advertising, and if you want to advertise on apple products, you’ll be in good company; $60m of ads have already been booked through iAds by the likes of Citi, Nissan, Walt Disney and Unilever.

I recently went to a keynote by Hugo Barra of Google’s mobile web team. His presentation made it clear that Google is focussing hard on delivering relevant ads to mobile web users, as well as making it as easy as possible for advertisers to manage this mobile advertising through their account dashboards. If Google are investing heavily in a revenue generating area, it’s usually a sign that this channel is going to become much more important in the near future.

One thing’s for certain; the iPad and iPhone 4 is not everyone’s cup of tea, and other providers have great rival products on the market. Many of us have reservations about the closed environment Apple forces developers and users to operate in, and the reporting of apple product launches is infantile at best. However, the fact is Apple products account for the vast majority of all mobile browsing on websites we monitor, and therefore these developments are significant to your brand. Apple products have driven /are driving the uptake of mobile browsing in the UK. Mobile browsing isn’t a user behaviour that’s going to disappear. If you don’t have a mobile strategy in place yet... start thinking!

To help you get into mobile Chameleon Net is offering some free assistance:

Dan Martin (our head of digital strategy) is speaking on building a business case for mobile and where the mobile web is going in the next few months / years at our seminar in Hoxton on July 14th.

I’ve put together some resources on how you can learn more about your current mobile users using Google Analytics.

One mobile site we’ve already put together is for Sitters, the UKs largest babysitting agency. Visit sitters.co.uk on your iPhone to have a look.

Top Tips For Understanding Mobile Users

richardk@chameleonnet.co.uk (Rich Kirk) — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 09:24:18 GMT

This topic was covered at yesterday's "Money Talks" seminar. I said I would post some info on how you can segment your mobile users within Google Analytics; well here it is! What appears below is cut from an article I wrote for Marketing Pilgrim in the States. You can check out the full article here.

Understanding Mobile Users: Entry Level

Even if you feel the implementation of a mobile strategy is a long way off for your company, and you have no technical skills whatsoever, there is no excuse for not starting to try and get a handle on who your mobile users are, and how they interact with your site. This is a customer segment that will grow in the future.

Demographics You can easily build up a picture of mobile web users through the plethora of surveys currently being released. Here are a few recent stats:

74% of iPhone users are over the age of 25, (31% are 35-49) and more than 70% of iPhone users are male. [see here]

64% of key decision makers in marketing departments are using mobiles to view emails [see here]

Leading mobile browsing systems worldwide (May 09) = iPhone/iPod Touch 37.2%, Opera 24.6%, Nokia 17.9%. [see here]

In 2008 61% of all smartphone owners had a household income of greater than $70000, compared to just 49% of normal mobile owners. [see here]

40% of “smartphoners” in ‘08 would access the internet at least once a week on their device, (78% for iPhone owners specifically). [see here]

Behaviour as well as looking at the demographics of people browsing the mobile web, it’s also vital to understand their goals are likely to be different to those of folks browsing on a computer. Conversion points for mobile users are often basic things such as finding a shop location, contact information, or viewing product details. Generally speaking goals are more immediate and information based. More traditional goals such as purchasing or accessing documents will only be undertaken as a last resort where a computer is unavailable.

Mobile users break down into three rough categories:

“Time to burn”: browsing between events / meetings etc: your goal is to offer bite sized chunks of interesting content in order to attract repeat visits later via traditional browsing methods.

“Monitors”: Users who browse your site for specific data that changes over time: stocks and shares, sports scores etc. Identify the information on your site which gets repeat visits and make it as easily accessible as possible.

“Need it Now”: Live information e.g. running information, store locations, opening hours etc should all be easily accessible from your mobile homepage for those people who are relying on your brand rather than just browsing.

Understanding the key differences between your mobile and traditional users should directly inform the architecture of the mobile version of your site. For instance: An airline may focus on selling tickets online, but its mobile site should focus more on check in information, live flight times, and airport locations for people who are about to fly. Similarly, a financial services company might view their website as a place for prospective customers to research their products, but their mobile site could add value by offering simple services to existing customers e.g. balance checks.

With a bit more budget you can start to build up data specific to your organisation. Marketers should be equipped with smartphones, as using a mobile browser is the best way to understand and discover the difficulties and opportunities surrounding your brand and the mobile web.

Understanding Mobile Users: Intermediate / Advanced Level

Google Analytics provides a segment for iPhone users, but a broader mobile segment for analysing this traffic would be preferential. The most obvious way to construct this segment is by grouping together the different types of mobile browsers currently on offer, but this list is ever-changing and many of these browsers are poor at executing JavaScript: mobile data will be missed altogether and the segment will be less accurate. [ more info here]

A better option is to construct a GA segment based around screen resolution, as there is a greater accuracy of data collection:

Open a new custom segment within your GA dashboard

Select “screen resolution” as the segment’s dimension. You can find this by drilling down on “Systems”.

Select the match type “Matches Regular Expression”

Paste the following regex into the next field: (^[1-2]?[0-9]?[0-9]|^3[0-1][0-9]|^320)x([1-3]?[0-9]?[0-9]$|4[0-7][0-9] $|480$ )

For the more advanced technicians amongst you the installation of mobile-specific tracking software is a further option, however this can be costly and difficult to integrate with GA. Bango Analytics, Mobilytics and Amethon are key players in this sector.

UPDATE APRIL 2010: GA now offers mobile website tracking for FREE.

Once mobile users behaviour on your site is isolated marketers are able to analyse top content, entry and exit points, site search, etc. It is crucial to try and understand mobile user’s goals this data. These goals will define the architecture of your mobile site.

I hope that's useful: Try applying this segment to your website and looking at monthly visitor numbers over the past 18 months: usually a pretty telling statistic.

If you're struggling to get buy-in for a mobile site, why not sit your boss down, give them an iphone and get them to complete a key user action on your site?! - better still set them a time limit of the average time it takes a desk-bound user to complete that goal.

The Publishers, the Internet and the new Decade

rossm@chameleonnet.co.uk (Ross Miles) — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 16:42:02 GMT

In 2010 publishers everywhere are facing challenges to their business models as the power of the internet spreads. In its simplest form it is purely a case of old meets new. Traditional print media is struggling to adapt to the digital revolution.

One such battleground is the controversy about Digital Rights Management (DRM). DRM is intended to protect the intellectual property from unlawful distribution, but it also restricts what devices can use the content to only those that have been authorised. One outspoken critic of DRM is ZDNet’s David Berlind who prefers the acronym C.R.A.P (Content, Restriction, Annulment, and Protection) as it limits cross platform/device sharing, which has the knock on effect of preventing its spread via word-of-mouth and viral marketing.

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corp and Sky News, stands on the other end of the spectrum and is currently waging war against search engines, but most vocally he is railing against Google, about the free distribution of ‘paid-for’ content online. He sees the distribution of News Corps content, for free by Google News and similar services as “stealing” and has set June 2010 as the date for the removal of all content from Google.

While the pros and cons of DRM continue, other publishers are looking on how to embrace and enrich their content for a more tech savvy audience. The development of eBooks and eReaders is one such area being led by Amazon’s Kindle but other devices are being announced, such as the Newspaper & Magazine friendly Skiff Reader and the Cool-er eReaders with 3G and WiFi connectivity in the wake of Random House announcing $23m in eBook sales off the back of selling 100,000 copies of Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol. There is however one hurdle to overcome with eBooks and that is the ability to turn smartphones such as iPhones and Android devices (and their increasing screensizes and fast internet connectivity) into eReaders through a simple download.

Smartphones are helping some magazine publishers engage their consumers on a whole new level. Before I go on, does :CueCat ring any bells? 10 years ago, as the last decade started, magazine publishers such as Forbes and Wired were sending :CueCat devices to all their readers so they could interact with the specially printed barcodes in their magazines. As it happens the technology didn’t take off due to the fact the :CueCat barcode readers needed a user to be sitting next to their internet-ready computers whilst they read the magazine, which limited its usefulness so much so that Gizmodo voted the :CueCat the Worst Gadget of the Decade. Fast forward 10 years to the present day where smartphones exist and free to download barcode scanners are some of the most oft-used items and the field of play has changed...

In their March issue Esquire magazine will be using barcodes as part of a feature entitled “30 items a man would need to get through life” in order to give further ‘styling advice’ to consumers interested in the products shown on the page. Other magazines such as Everyday Food, Entertainment Weekly and Star Magazine have used SpyderLynk’s SnapTag technology to engage with readers with more basic phones. The concept is that the reader uses the phone’s camera to take a picture of the SnapTag and then txt or e-mail it to a specified address to receive more information. This method is a little more convoluted possibly but does not require a consumer to download anything or be connected to the internet.

Also in March 2010 InStyle Magazine will use actual photos of clothing items themselves, held up to webcams, as triggers for 3D videos to load and help readers to put outfits together. Although the presentation of the enhanced information will still be atheistically pleasing (no black outlines or barcodes necessary) the magazine reader WILL need to be next to a computer with a webcam, which was part of the problem with the aforementioned :CueCat. (*Google Goggles is a ground-breaking, but very new, image search functionality that may eventually eliminate any need for unique identifiers*). The December 2009 issue of Esquire saw the publisher use the increasingly popular ‘WOW-factor’ of Augmented Reality (AR) to enhance reader experiences on the front cover, in the fashion pages and others as the publishing industry has begun to wake up to the digital challenges of the 21st century.

The use of barcode scanners on smartphones is a technology already well embedded in Japan where QR codes (another form of barcode) are prevalent in everyday life; on taxis, in magazines, on billboards and even on t-shirts so when you see someone wearing one you like, you can quickly order your own! It is also becoming more common in the Western Hemisphere too as its functionality is included in Mobile Apps for eBay (scan a regular barcode and then see if the item is listed on eBay), Amazon (scan a barcode and search for similar items on Amazon) and Calorie Counter (scan barcode and get all nutritional information for the food/drink) to name a few.

So with the numbers of smartphone users skyrocketing and technology such as AR, portable internet devices and barcode scanning apps becoming more ingrained into society, why is print media still just that, printed media? I’m one of those people that does like to hold a tangible item such as a book or magazine when reading, rather than gleaning my information from a computerized version or website, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to experience a greater level of interactivity or immersive content! Publishers need to be less scared of protecting their content and more concerned with engaging their consumers!

Liveblogging

richardk@chameleonnet.co.uk (Rich Kirk) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 10:48:43 GMT
I have been on leave recently, spending some time on the Isle of Skye in the Hebrides. I went up there to try and finally knock off the traverse of the Cuillin Ridge, which I would heartily recommend to anyone who likes the outdoors, vertical drops of dizzying proportions, and/or bad weather.

The traverse is something my Dad had wanted to do for years, and with him being 50 this year, I had arranged for a guide to help us. This was my 5th attempt and my Dad’s 7th or 8th; around 90% of attempts fail due to awful weather, navigational difficulties and/or lack of fitness, so I was anxious to give ourselves the best possible chance.

Hiring the guide was not cheap and so I’d done it as my Dad’s 50th birthday present. I’d also got contributions from a lot of his mates to help with the cost. Herein lay a problem; how to give something back to everyone who had donated cash so that they felt involved in the trip? I decided to live-blog the 2 day traverse, so people could chart our progress from their desks or mobiles whilst we were away.

Using the Wordpress app and my iPhone, I was easily able to update my Dad’s birthday blog from the mountains with notes and photos of our progress, even though I only had fairly weak GPRS signal at best (the O symbol next to the normal phone signal symbol on your iPhone). If I can get signal in the Cuillins, which are about as remote as it gets in the UK, then liveblogging must be possible across almost all of the UK!

Happily the whole thing proved to be a real success. I thought only 10-20 people would be interested in the blog, but over 200 absolute unique users were recorded on the site in a period of 3 days.

Being new to live-blogging, I found the main benefits were:

It has left a record of events that is more genuine and ‘raw’ than a circular email sent after the event could be.

People are interested in something they can see developing; most people would have found out through word of mouth we had completed our challenge and then not been as interested in a subsequent email account of the trip.

Liveblogging seems to be bleeding edge enough to genuinely capture the interest of family / friends

Liveblogging and allowing opportunities for realtime feedback ensures the audience feels involved; sending a report after the event implies they missed out.

For digital marketers looking to generate interesting content and create buzz around a website liveblogging seems to be a great solution, why sit at your desk and force yourself to write a blogpost when you could be more interesting in less words by sharing your thoughts or experiences live from an event you / your company is involved in?

Top tips for your live blog:

Alert potentially interested audiences about the broadcast in advance, and also send a reminder email / tweet at the start of the broadcast, or just after your first live entry has been posted.

If you are using Wordpress make sure you use twitter and facebook blog widgets to auto-update your wider social networks with an “I’ve just posted xxxx” link whenever the blog is updated.

Keep checking your comments / feedback, if your audience is debating the content of the liveblog, reflecting that in future posts will make them feel even more involved in the event.

Try to keep in mind the wider purpose of your liveblog and website and whilst you have an elevated level of attention from them, ensure you suggest things like donating / signing up / purchasing from you.

In case you missed the link earlier you can still check out the live blog of our trip here.

Enhancing Student Experience via Twitter

surajs@chameleonnet.co.uk (Suraj Shah) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 15:27:42 GMT

In the city of San Francisco, "citizens can send direct messages 24 hours a day to the sf311 Twitter account to report standard non-emergency city-related sightings (like pot holes), request street cleanings, and any other service already supported by the phone or website." This was reported by the Mashable article San Francisco First City to Instate City-Wide 311 Twitter Program.

It goes on to say: "Of course the real beauty of enabling 311 support through Twitter is that residents can now have the convenience of sending in their requests on their terms, include photos, relevant links, and do so while on the go."

If a whole city can offer this service to enhance the experience for citizens, what are the possibilities for enhancing the student experience on a university campus?

Potential notifications include:

lifts not working

computer room out of operation

security gates rusty and need oiling

high-demand library books not available

paths and rooms requiring cleaning

lecturers inaccessible

issues regarding transport into university - e.g. extending what University of Bath did on Twitter when the snow in Feb 2009 had a big impact on transport in Bath.

>
Could you think of other non-emergency issues that students could report? Add your thoughts in the comments below.

Using notifications received from students and academic staff, the university's student relations and administration teams could raise the issue with the relevant parties to get it resolved, and report back to the person who sent through the notification. Where appropriate, messages could be tweeted and blog posts published to inform many more people about developments.

A service like this set up at the university could have a major impact, not only on how it serves current students and academic staff, but also on prospective students who take the university's online reputation into account when considering their university choices.

Afterall, the lines between student relations and public relations is blurring, and a disgruntled student being transformed into a content or happy student has a direct impact on way the institution is perceived on the web and therefore on student intake.

The Chameleon Net strategy-oriented technology trends seminar covers some of the latest mobile and web technologies including geo-tagging & geo-location. Other topics covered include augmented reality, social software, content moderation, web analytics & conversion.

Our Online Technology Update seminar is taking place on Thursday 18th June in London and you can read more about it and register at www.chameleonnet.co.uk/seminar

Focus on... Technology trends

louiser@chameleonnet.com (Louise Ryan) — Tue, 05 May 2009 14:14:37 GMT
I wanted to write this blog post as a follow up to my technology trends presentation i gave at Chameleon's client seminar held on the 29th April 2009. I'm going to touch on the issues I talked about, but mostly I want to give you some further reading and funky examples on some of the subjects I discussed.

Mobile
Firstly I talked about how until very recently it was pretty tricky to develop web sites for mobile devices. The huge variety of devices and hence different capabilities, screen sizes meant that to target mobile web users would mean rather a large investment. Over the last year or so that has changed with the release of much improved mobile devices which include great browsers e.g. Safari on the iPhone and Opera on the BlackBerry. Mobile web use is increasing massively and is going to influence almost every decision you make about your organisation’s web presence in the future. Jon von Tetzchner (CEO of Opera) thinks that mobiles are in fact going to become the 'primary device for web usage in most of the world'.

With all this improved web browsing technology, do we need to bother creating a mobile targeted web site? Usability guru Jacob Nielsen thinks so - read up on his feelings in his Feb. 2009 Mobile Usability Test Findings report.

What do we need to consider when building a mobile web site? The primary concern is your users goals and motivations. They're likely to be different if they're browsing from a mobile device than if they are browsing your site via a desktop. Here's a selection of other top tips:

Short URLs

Get rid of big logo/brand statements at top of page

Avoid plugins

Minimise data size

No popup windows

Forms – minimise user input – use defaults (radio buttons rather than text-input fields)

Geotagging
This is the process of adding geographical coordinates to various media or data items. For example, in the seminar I talked about how MSF are geotagging their letters from the field. Here's the focus on Chad example I used in my seminar.

Want to get some geotags for your data? MyGeoPosition is a great website to help you look up the coordinates you need.

Microformats
Please do take a look at the Wikipedia entry describing microformats. This will give you a good idea of what they are and how you might be able to use them in your website. If you want to see them in action and use the Firefox browser then do download the fab Operator extension.

Multi-touch
Move-stuff-around-with-yours-hands-coolness. Hopefully meaning death to the wrist killing mouse and much slicker user interfaces in the future. Check out the Wikipedia entry on Multi-touch and then take a look at this video on YouTube to see what the fuss is about.

Web as service platform
All the big players out there are really opening up their systems so they can be accessed and used from all over the place. Let’s take Facebook as a classic example. Since its success it has been criticized for being a ‘walled garden’. Developers could only work within its confines. It's now embracing the open web and has launched an API called Open Stream. This means that developers can create apps that interact with Facebook on other websites, via desktops widgets etc. Facebook has probably recognised that it needed to take this step to survive! Expect to start seeing these widgets soon.
Steve Rubel summarises the situation nicely in this article.

Augmented Reality
Augmented reality (AR) is a field of computer research which deals with the combination of real-world and computer-generated data (virtual reality), where computer graphics objects are blended into real footage in real time - from Wikipedia. Far easier to demonstrate than describe - check out the example videos below

Lego box models come to life: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UxWkZtUKaI
AR on your mobile: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4FAKjfppp0
Just for fun: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW6_X9qBeds

We can build this type of stuff in Flash and have already put a prototype together in the office!

That's it! This article has turned out much larger than anticipated (and I didn't even mention twitter!) but with all the exciting new concepts and technologies out there I didn't want to skip anything!

Paris Marathon

louiser@chameleonnet.com (Louise Ryan) — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:24:30 GMT
In November last year I took the mad decision to enter the 2009 Paris marathon - to be held this year on the 5th April. I can't say that I'm particularly looking forward to it but I have enjoyed elements of my training. Two things have kept me going.

My running gadgets

Of course being a software developer I am naturally a bit of a geek (only a very little bit though of course). Therefore when I do my running training I must have either my iPod or iPhone with me. Obviously they keep me sane by enabling me to listen to music, podcasts and audiobooks during my training but they also record my progress. Here's a quick overview of how they work:

Nike+ for my iPod
This consists of a wee little accelerometer that you can attach to or pop in your running shoes and a Nike+ receiver which you attach to your iPod. It records how far and how fast you are running or walking. You can then sync this data with your Nike+ account via iTunes and get a marvelous little summary of how your training is progressing and a breakdown of each run. Here's a pic from the Nike+ website for you to take a look at. I'm a bit of a fan of RIA (Rich Internet Applications) and really like how the site utilises Flash in a useful and very pretty fashion. The main disadvantage of the Nike+ system is that it’s not totally accurate but I can live with that as it still gives me a good idea of how I'm doing.

RunKeeper for my iPhone
I love my iPhone. Probably too much. This free app is the thing I show to my friends when I want to impress them with how cool the iPhone is. RunKeeper uses the iPhones GPS (Global Positioning System) capabilities to track your run, or in fact your walk, cycle, sky, whatever. Then when you have finished your run you can view a highly accurate breakdown of not only your time and pace but also your route via clever use of the Google maps API. You can also view this same data on the web using the RunKeeper dashboard site. Here's a pic to give you an idea. You can share runs with friends and also have RunKeeper auto-tweet your twitter account with your run data! This kind of really useful mashup application gets me all excited about web development! However, GPS tracking apps also have all manner of privacy implications - for example, in this article I have linked to a picture of my run rather than sharing the run itself (which you can do via the RunKeeper dashboard) because I don't really want the world to know where I started and finished.

It does get you thinking about the world of possibilities that GPS tracking opens up though. At the moment you can only provide geo targeted content via websites by inspecting the users incoming IP address or by asking the user to tell you where they are. However, with more and more mobile devices supporting GPS being available more possibilities open up for useful applications of this marvelous technology.

Finally this brings me to the second thing that is keeping me going through training - I'm raising cash for MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières). I realised what amazing work this charity does when I worked on their website last year. In emergencies and their aftermath, MSF rehabilitates and runs hospitals and clinics, performs surgery, battles epidemics, carries out vaccination campaigns, operates feeding centres for malnourished children and offers mental health care. When needed, MSF also constructs wells, dispenses clean drinking water, and provides shelter materials like blankets and plastic sheeting.

If you've enjoyed reading about my pain or would like to help MSF please sponsor me or donate directly to MSF via their website.

Useful resources:

Nike+iPod: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nike%2BiPod
RunKeeper: http://www.runkeeper.com/
Sponsor me via Justgiving: http://www.justgiving.com/louiseryan2009
Médecins Sans Frontières UK: http://www.msf.org.uk/

Learning from the mobile app pioneers

danm@chameleonnet.com (Dan Martin) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 12:50:40 GMT

Did I mention I have a new phone? Well I do. A delightful Nokia E71 and it's got me thinking about what's next for web sites and apps in general.

I've had web access on my mobile for a good few years now, since my motorola V975 (which i see i could now trade in for a princely £2 via mazuma) in 2004. It was the first 3G phone I had, on 3 which I have always rated as a network and still subscribe to, but still most everything was suuuuper slow. But then again my expectations were suuuper low. All was well with the world.

My first mobile, btw, was a Motorola too - an 8700. Cooool.

Recently folk started turning up in the office with iPhones parading their smooth corners and touch screens, shaking their apps to find where to have lunch. I thought 'Right! Something has to change' so off I went to the 3 store and a few days later here I am writing this, all full of enthusiasm for the future of the mobile web.

One of the things I have been thinking these past few days is that folk creating websites and apps for computer users can learn a lot from the pioneers of the mobile web. Last week I had a bit of a run-in with Firefox on my PC. It probably wasn't Firefox's fault actually, but it took the brunt of the frustration and is still in the doghouse in favour of Opera v9. Anyway, I had about 5 tabs open displaying some fairly ordinary websites, yet the browser was taking up about 100MB of my PC's memory. My laptop has 1GB of RAM, not super-fast but not shabby, and there it was using 10% of its memory. On some websites?! Come on..!

The truth of the problem no doubt lies in a combination of issues: the efficiency of the browser, the features, content and construction of those websites, my PC's processing abilities and so on. But as a user these things should not even rise to the surface to interfere with my experience. Open a couple of PC-based apps as well, say something workaday like Outlook and Word, and next thing you know the whole thing will slow to a crawl. And of course my expectations for that sort of browsing are now suuuuper high.

Get a faster machine you say? I'd argue upgrading perfectly acceptable hardware in order to solve a poor web and computing experience is not the answer. If you look at the things going on in the world of mobile web, there is some smart work to inspire all creators in the web world. Some sites offer a very good, if not excellent, mobile alternative. BBC, Twitter, and Facebook are obvious examples.

And where these adapted sites aren't available, there are some canny approaches happening on the client-side. Browsers like Opera Mini, Skyfire and Safari are attempting to workaround the problems with websites by providing, for instance, pan-and-zoom functions and embedded apps like FlashLite so things like YouTube work OK.

This sort of innovation has a distinct whiff of the beginnings of the web proper, when site creators were forced to grapple with 56k modems and IBM 486's running Windows 3.11 to come up with a usable experience... in spite of the technology in many cases, not because of it. When you think my new phone, only on the market for about 6 months, has 126MB of RAM and a 369Mhz CPU, it's easy to see why this innovation needs to happen now too.

We have reached a stage recently where we have forgotten about some of those major hurdles which were the mothers of invention. We are spoiled with our ubiquitous 8 meg broadband, quad core processors and 22" flat screen LCD monitors to view it all on. These are all great - I'm a big fan of progress, and an even bigger fan of rapid progress.

But even with this level of progress we can run in into problems that perhaps could be avoided if we could learn a thing or two from the absolute focus on fitness for purpose the mobile web pioneers must have in order to deliver what they want, to devices that remind us about where this all started... patchy connectivity, (comparitively) low-spec hardware, beta browsers and small screens... and conjure up results that are bumpy, exhilerating new experiences that will probably change our lives.