Richard Ferraro's Blog

Mobile World Congress 2015 Agenda -MWC 2015 Expectations

2015-02-13T08:46:00.001-08:00

BARCELONA -It's been a cold winter in Barcelona but as the temperatures rise, it signals the arrival of...Mobile World Congress 2015, set to kick off on Monday 2nd March.

Last year's congress had a record-beating attendance of over 70,000 visitors and this year could go beyond that milestone. The sheer scale and length of the show (4 days) means that good planning and stamina are required to get the most of the event.

As a rule, I'm not very interested in the telecom operator's rhetoric and prefer to listen to content providers, innovators and outsiders at the show that can bring a fresh perspective on where the "connected world" is heading.

This year the conference track of the show has a tantalizing line up with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales keynoting on Day 2 together with ARM CEO Simon Segars. They will discuss how to get developing economies to benefit from inclusion in the connected world. On the same day, the Wearables session will provide insights from Pebble and Fitbit and address the question of whether Apple's iWatch will take wearables into the mainstream.

On the same day (Day 2 is clearly a key day at the show) the day will wrap up with a Keynote on Mobile Retail with VISA and Paypal. Paypal have always had smart insights into mobile payments so I'm eager to hear what Paypal has to say about Apple's move into their turf.

Day 3 considers the "explosion of imaging" with wunderkid Bernardo Hernandez from Flikr considering how image content will drive hardware needs in future.

Sadly this year's MWC will not have the traditional WIPJam developer event, so developers will be left to flock to branded development conferences and will thus need to keep their anarchic instincts at bay during the show.

In a continuation of recent year's trends, mobile devices are unlikely to be the stars of the show, with previously peripheral areas like connected devices and homes (and suppliers thereof) gaining prominence and providing a greater transformational impetus than the commoditised mobile market.

Google I/O 2014 Packs a punch with contextual awareness

2014-07-24T02:12:00.000-07:00

Mountainview, Calif. Google tends to pack a punch at its annual I/O and this year was no exception. Last month, it announced a raft of innovations for Android, with contextual awareness big on the agenda (you may remember this theme from my blog about the AWE Keynote by Robert Scoble below).

What else is set to come?

In case you missed it, here are some of the bite-size highlights announced for Android 5.0 that are especially relevant for mobile app developers:

MATERIAL DESIGN:

A new UI Concept, giving more focus to meaningful transitions

ANDROID WEAR:

Expansion of "Android Wear" to include integration with Google Now and enhanced voice note taking. Also, support extended for round and square screens.

NOTIFICATIONS:

Enhanced Notifications including the option to respond from the device home screen

GOOGLE FIT:

Set of new APIs to develop apps and track stats using the health sensors

ANDROID AUTO:

Better support for communication, navigation and music through a new Android Auto SDK

GOOGLE ANALYTICS:

Enhancements to analytics, testing and distribution

You can find out more and see the keynote videos by clicking through to the official site here.

Layar-ing Blippar - Post-acquisition thoughts on major shake-up in AR browser market

2014-07-12T13:02:00.001-07:00

BARCELONA - If you’re into AR and have played around with the many AR-enabled mobile apps published in iTunes and Google Play, you have probably heard by now about Blippar acquiring Layar. This means different things for everyone involved in the AR industry, for consumers, for professionals and for the future of the AR industry as a whole.

I first came into contact with Layar at a startup event in Barcelona in 2009 and was impressed with Layar's vision and ability to market AR's potential for immersive experiences on mobile to both techies and marketeers alike. I also described Layar's use of geo-location in my book on Location Aware Applications.

If you’re not entirely certain what those companies do, the rundown is that they both provide an app which enables consumers to scan printed media or packaged products that have an interactive campaign or digital content attached to them. Typically users know about that content because there is a call to action. Those apps compete with others like Junaio or Wikitude, alternative ‘AR browsers’.

The most prominent advantage of AR browsers is that users need only one app for multiple content. Once installed, it pulls new content on demand from the cloud.The disadvantage when comparing branded apps and browsers is for content creators. Brands and publishers have limited control of the whole experience (as well as the branding) and they share the same space with competitors.

Blippar has been doing a very good job of providing high quality experiences on their browser. Operating like an agency, they take care of the end to end solution but publish on Blippar’s app. Layar is probably the king in terms of volume of experiences inside their platform. But with volume and scale, comes some limitations on the versatility of the experiences as you cannot go one-by-one. It remains to be seen if a new Layar-Blippar browser app will lean more towards volume or towards curated content.

So what lies in store in the future? Beautifully crafted, branded AR-capable apps are more likely to win hearts-and-minds of mobile users.A foreseeable option is that, just as happened with location, AR and image recognition capabilities will increasingly be embedded within a multitude of apps in a seamless fashion. (Credit to D.Marimon for parts of this post).

AWE 2014 -Augmented World Expo Summary (how wearables came one step closer to a commodity product...)

2014-06-30T09:35:00.002-07:00

SANTA CLARA, CALIF. - Now my second AWE in a row, there is plenty to be amazed at this one-of-a-kind augmented reality (AR) conference set in the midst of Silicon Valley.

As the AR industry evolves away from a niche to being a concept more and more consumers are exposed to and understand, so does AWE evolve from an enthusiast's playground to a showcase for multimillion dollar businesses and opportunities.

You know things are a-changing when companies like Bosch join the expo floor and when more than one exhibitor brings along a connected car to showroom cool tech with. To boot, AWE has almost doubled in size from last year and this maturity was also clear from the visitors to the event (and the questions they ask). While last year I got a fair amount of "How do I use your tech" type questions, this year is more along the lines of "QR codes are not right for my business, what do I need to do to use your image recognition and augmented reality software instead".

Yes, businesses are now more comfortable with technology that enhances their physical products and links these to digital content. In fact, many brands understand today that unless their brand is connected somehow to their Facebook page, mobile apps, m-commerce store etc, some other brand will and so steal their market share. Consumers are overwhelmingly digital today and image recognition is a great way to connect the real world to the digital one (in fact, add an image to an ad and let users interact with it and you can expect 40x greater engagement than without it -that's ROI for you!).

AWE also marked a shift away from the Google Glass "geek-factor" to a point where Glass is cooler (though privacy still remains a concern). So much cooler, that Glass is no longer alone, and Epson want to give Google a run-for-their money with the BT-200 Moverio. These are clearly not commodity products yet, but we're a lot closer to this happening.

At last year's AWE, the audience loved actual case studies of consumer brands using AR -this year, it was more about wearables and how different industries can use AR to become more efficient.

It was great to see Robert Scoble on stage and his message of contextual awareness (as endorsed by Google at Le Web in 2010) is still relevant today and in fact, as AWE proved, we are one step closer to seeing that vision come true.

Mobile World Congress 2014 -Summary & Conclusions

2014-03-19T04:02:00.000-07:00

BARCELONA- Yes, it has been almost a month now since the end of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona so this post rationalizes a great deal on my thoughts about the event. As an exhibitor at the show this year, it takes that long to digest all the information and business leads!

As this is a short post, I will provide bit-sized thoughts only:

BEST DEVICE: No doubt, the device that impressed me the most was the LG Flex mobile phone with an ergonomic curved screen that maintains a great resolution and is an indication of things to come. We will eventually all want our tech to blend in unobtrusively with our environment and life, and being able to curve displays so as to fit our "round" world makes a great deal of sense to me. I hope we see more of this type of device and screen tech soon...

KEY TREND: This is not so much news, but more of a confirmation. It is here. "Connected everywhere" is no longer just a marketing slogan, but the presence of a whole range of companies that are not actually "mobile" is proof that connectivity is coming to a "thing" near you very soon (and this thing may include your iRoomba vacuum cleaner). This year, car manufacturers and connected cars on display have mushroomed at the show. This makes sense- the more expensive the "thing", the more justified is the investment in connectivity. Hacker attacks on Smart Fridges aside, this trend will continue and the MWC is likely to horizontally integrate more with a wide range of industries and products that will have nothing to do with the traditional mobile phone.

PRODUCT LAUNCHES: I was disappointed by Samsung's launch of the Galaxy S5 for two key reasons. One -we are at a Mobile show so please do not restrict access to your new device exclusively for the press. 74,000 other visitors wanted to get their grubby mitts on the device and couldn't. Annoying at best. Second- I'm not against natural evolutions of devices and agree that it is not necessary to re-invent the wheel at every product launch. However, do not make such a big song-and-dance over a product launch when in reality there are only gradual enhancements in the new product. This is just a way to raise expectations and then disappoint. And copying Apple is not an excuse to repeat this error.

Mobile World Congress 2014-WIPJam set to be leading developer conference again!

2014-01-25T09:01:00.000-08:00

BARCELONA -as the big event approaches (and a frantic scram for free tickets reaches its peak), WIP has announced that the annual WIPJam developer conference will now be a 4-day long event taking place in the old Fira site of Plaza Espanya.

In fact, developers attending WIP get a whole building this year with, in the words of WIP, "More developers. More tshirts. More code. More swag! ".

Tuesday morning will feature Genevieve Bell from Intel, billed as one of the most creative persons in tech as well as "Intel's secret weapon".

Tuesday afternoon will continue with the heavy guns blazing, as Tommy Palm from King takes the stage. Tommy is known for his successful game dynamics creation and ability to draw millions of users to game productions (and not just Candy Crush).

Wednesday afternoon is Mark Murphy's turn, with a raft of wisdom around Android development.

But, be sure that there will be plenty more at WipJam. In fact, review the program and pick wisely to make sure you attend the sessions you car most about and make sure to network! If you are at MWC, you find it far easier to hob nob with the decision makers from mobile at WipJam than anywhere else in the show. You can register for WipJam here.

Mobile World Congress 2014 Agenda: MWC14 Expectations and Preview

2013-12-13T07:54:00.002-08:00

BARCELONA- A record-breaking 72,000 visitors are expected at the Mobile World Congress 2014 in Barcelona according to the GSMA. So many visitors, in fact, that the show will be spread out over both the original Fira expo area AND the new Fira site (also known as Fira2) in the Hospitalet neighbourhood.

This won’t be the only change for this year under the theme of “Creating What’s Next”-in fact, the GSMA has announced a series of new events, themes and activities. One of them is mPowered Industries programme designed to gauge the interest in mobile of different industries.

Several key figures (including John Matonis and Rich Riley) will be attending the show and giving talks on current trending topics, from bitcoins, to mobile media, mHealth and mobile advertising.

Even though the usual raft of product announcements will still dominate the news and are set to capture the attention of the public, the 2014 promises to broaden the appeal of the show way beyond hardware. The play by the GSMA is to bring into play key industries and key content owners that are expected to drive demand for mobility services in the next decade.

More coverage on the MWC14 in subsequent blog posts and on my Twitter stream (handle:ricferr_mobile).

AdTech London -Summary & thoughts for traditional media

2013-10-31T10:15:00.000-07:00

LONDON- Time waits for no man, and AdTech London has come and gone though I realise I never got a chance to summarise my experience there.

One of my objectives was to see how deeply augmented reality capabilities are being integrated into advertising experiences, especially those that cross over different media i.e. print to web.

It was clear to me that the effectiveness of augmented reality has been proven -a large newspaper group quoted some interesting stats on the effectiveness of recent ad campaigns that linked to digital content, with a clear route to monetization of those ads.

This made me think however that many publishers are still to fully grasp the opportunity to monetise with AR. Layar published a great article recently with some useful pointers:

1. Use AR to upsell print ads -that's right, AR can be used to turn those now standard ads into premium ads. Im fact, in Canada Glacier Media (a local publisher) plans to make an exra $7.5m thanks to their up-selling efforts for Layar-enhanced ads.

2. Sponsored Editorial Content. Special editorial features can be linked to video interviews and sponsored for anything from $1,000 to upwards of $10,000

3. Print to e-commerce. Mobile commerce is booming, with some web portals taking over 25% of sales via their mobile channel. What better way to find the stuff you want than by scanning your favourite magazines? Adding items in this way to a wishlist or shopping cart will soon be the most convenient way to discover and shop.

There is still a lot of way to go before traditional media grasps the augmented reality bull by the horns but the paradigm of visual search is already here.

Not Sci-Fi anymore...why Augmented Reality is more real than you think

2013-10-14T06:23:00.000-07:00

MUNICH- Guest post from David Marimon, Catchoom CEO

There are two things I want you remember after you read this blog:

· AR is here and it has practical, everyday uses with sound technology

· The market is accepting using it faster than you think

I want to show you why these things are true through an example, Audi.

Not long ago, we were hearing many skeptical voices talking about Augmented Reality (AR). Let me share a couple of anecdotes.

I remember in particular an attendee telling a panel formed by Layar, Metaio, Qualcomm executives and myself how nerdy we would look like with AR glasses. This was at Mobile World Congress in 2011.

Last month, I was speaking with the Head of Future Technologies at Pearson, a global publishing firm. She told me that AR is ready for the market and not something for the future, but they just need to figure out the best business model for everyone to make real money.

I could not agree more.

So what is she and others referring to when they say AR is ready? Let’s take a couple of recent examples.

The Audi eKurzinfo app (demoed by Metaio for the first time at insideAR 2012) lets drivers have intuitive access to pages of the driver’s manual simply by pointing at the space in the car they’re interested in.

Is this new? Not exactly, one of the first implementations of AR was actually in car maintenance with mechanics – using big goggles connected to a laptop to make access to information so they could perform maintenance on the luxury cars. Does that surprise you to know that some of AR’s first uses weren’t even for games, to view an ad or other entertainment based things we have come to associate it with – it was utilitarian, functional and gave people access to information to do their jobs.

The changes are more subtle and at the same time more bold. Mobile has made a huge difference, but uses have too. Audi has been bold enough to deliver this application not only to their certified garages for skilled maintenance teams, but now into the hands of their prized end-users. And, this is the real change - AR is not for techies anymore but for any user armed with a smart phone which is about 1 billion peoplearound the world today.

And, what about wearables?

Museums in Barcelona like the MACBA or MNAC have been using AR recently in their expos to showcase art or special exhibitions. Users equipped with an iPad and the Layar app can access alternative views or get detailed explanations about art pieces in the collection. Visitors of these museums aren’t necessarily art experts, so a little help from AR, makes the whole experience much more interactive and memorable.

In the last AR Meetup in Barcelona on October 3, I had the opportunity to talk to the different agencies who prepared those AR experiences. When asked what people thought about holding their arms with an iPad, the response was the same for all of them: we need glasses. Wow!

Just looking at the amount of wearables at AWE last June, this comes as no surprise, companies in this area have been around for a while but Google Glass has opened the door for a discussion around end consumers using them for AR, and not being a nerdy thing, which today is quite cool.

AdTech London: Expectations for Augmented Reality apps

2013-09-05T09:37:00.001-07:00

LONDON -I am psyched about attending AdTech next week in London –not only is the AdTech event franchise now a fixture around the globe when it comes to digital marketing, but it promises to offer a great blend of brands, publishers and agencies.

What do I expect from AdTech?

I expect to see some great examples of mobile marketing apps from big names and learn about success stories but hopefully also app flops, as these can reveal even more about what to do and not to do.

I also expect to hear about the challenges that ad agencies, app developers and brands have in providing innovative features like AR to end-users. Do they feel that users “get AR”? Is it the case that brands see AR as embedded in their mobile app experience or as a side feature of mobile?

Finally, I’m keen to find out what new channels publishers are looking to distribute their digital content through and what success they are having with AR in doing so.

At the forefront of the AR e-volution I've had a lot to do with the latest trends in AR and how this is expected to look in the future (it is not just about the wearables…)

I am hoping to help agencies at AdTech de-mystify AR –even though I am often surprised to hear people ask what the acronym “AR” stands for, most people are not familiar with the term. This is changing quickly, but separating the wheat from the chaff is still necessary to be able to reach out to a mass audience of mobile users.

AR can be easy for brands to implement. I’ll be sharing success stories from Ikea AR app (the no.1 most downloaded branded app in 2012) as well as other case studies . Each different but with common needs when it comes to image recognition and AR.

Any new technology needs to entice users by painting a picture of how they can be used. AR is no exception and I see many great use cases on a regular basis that I will be sharing: from Museum Apps, Wine Apps, AR Maps through to Mobile Commerce apps (shoot and add to wish list or shopping cart).

Last but not least, I’ll be demoing the speed and simplicity of image recognition and explaining why I believe it is the key gateway technology to a great AR experience within mobile apps.

Creating great AR Mobile App Campaigns -Part 2 (the Ikea 2014 AR app)

2013-08-22T03:38:00.000-07:00

I briefly discuss the IKEA 2013 catalogue app in my last post -well, guess what? The 2014 IKEA app is out.

Consumers can place the catalogue on the floor of a room in their home, point at the catalogue with their smartphone or tablet and see how a selected sofa, area rug or other item would look in that particular spot in the room if purchased. A great try-before-you-buy solution which makes every user part smart shopper, part interior decorator.

Integrating AR into an app can be fun and engaging, with features like 3D model creation and animation. At its core, AR is about visualizing the environment through a combination of real environment and digital content anchored to reality.

This is exactly the experience offered by IKEA’s AR app. However, aside from being cool to use (and being a preventative tool for any buyer’s remorse), what is it about the app that makes it so special? Well, it’s not just the AR aspect of the app, it’s what IKEA has done around it.

AR is not magic. It can only do so much. It alone cannot get the word out about an app, cannot make an app come flying on its own into your home, cannot make users download an app, cannot make an app successful. Although IKEA is not the first furniture company to use AR in an app, it is the first one to have successfully done so. IKEA took existing, familiar technology to develop a new experience for consumers that didn’t need to be explained, dissected or examined—just promoted—and therein lies the difference. IKEA threw some consumer marketing muscle behind the app through videos and outreach to major online consumer media outlets, thereby generating that coveted buzzword: buzz.

Companies need to think of the bigger picture when developing an app, incorporating not only the tech aspects but the promotional side of things too. Many brands spend large chunks of time and money on developing the app itself, only to fail to plan how it will be launched and marketed to consumers. If a company’s app only has 100 downloads, that’s not a stellar return on investment but rather a hefty sum thrown out the window, and it’s probably a safe bet that the next app-building budget will be slashed as a result.

Neither existing brand awareness nor a brand’s coolness factor will guarantee app downloads without the use of marketing punch, and AR apps are no exception.

So this is the beauty of the IKEA app—and the lesson to take away here. For a successful app, create a useful app—one with a purpose—but also create a promotional and marketing budget in parallel that will support it, draw in users and encourage app downloads. Also, ask how such an app will help users and if AR is really the best way to go about doing it. AR is cool, but it cannot do the heavy lifting alone.

How can agencies produce great Augmented Reality campaigns?

2013-07-31T06:38:00.000-07:00

If you are an agency (creative, advertising, mobile or digital) and you are new to augmented reality (AR) it is not easy to decide how to convert a creative idea into a fully fledged AR app.

Where do you start? What AR components do you need? What are the ingredients for a great AR app, be it a game, a marketing app or a functional app? What would it cost and how long will it take? How do you measure the Return on Investment (ROI) for the app?

Here is are 4 pointers that you may find helpful:

1. AR DOES NOT NEED TO BE COMPLICATED

Yes, it's true. Mention AR and instinctively people conjure images of 3D objects flying out of a mobile screen with complex graphic animation. True, you could do this but...it is not always essential. Linking physical objects like a packet of cereals to a TV advert can be done easily and economically simply by using image recognition or tracking (tracking will allow you to view the video on top of the box instead of opening a new screen on your device).

2. WHAT DO YOU NEED TO CREATE A GREAT AR APP?

Here is the tricky part -there are several components you could require for an AR app depending on the complexity of what you're looking to do. Take the IKEA AR shop catalogue for 2013 for example. This catalogue has 43 individual images dotted throughout the printed edition that link to digital content. Some link to videos (if you don't have these, you will need to produce them), some link to web pages (virtual stores where you can purchase items) and others still link to 3D animated computer graphics.

The production of the AR app required:

-a Tracking SDK
-an Image Recognition SDK
-creative computer graphics content
-mobile app development
-an AR creator platform to link "virtual buttons" to actual actions within the mobile app

3. WHAT SHOULD THE APP DO?

This links to the first point..."keep it simple" is my advice. It is clear some use cases work better than others and that this varies according to who you are targeting. AR for retail and print works great. Augmenting a magazine, newspaper or catalogue offers clear, tangible benefits to the reader -you see new content that is helpful or entertaining. AR for retail apps makes sense since indoors, GPS doesn't work, so using physical objects or shop signs as pointers for the app to perform an action is a clever workaround. Scan the poster displayed in the shop window and see special offers, for example.

4. WHAT SHOULD AN AR APP COST AND TAKE TO ROLLOUT?

It depends but....simple AR apps can be developed for around $20-25,000 as a very general rule of thumb. Complex ones can easily cost $100,000+ (hence the keep it simple rule!). A marketing app will offer an intangible return in terms of brand awareness and brand loyalty. Other AR apps generate revenue and more than pay for themselves in terms of ROI: a museum app that acts as a guide (audio and video) and lets you scan the popular exhibits to get AR content when you want it, is often offered at a premium in app stores and can have a short payback period.

Augmented Reality 2.0 - From AR 1.0 (Hype) to AR 2.0 (Mainstream)

2013-07-10T07:18:00.002-07:00

BARCELONA -I recently presented an overview of Augmented Reality to an interested customer describing some examples of note-worthy AR campaigns and how cloud-based image recognition helps solve many requirements of AR campaigns.

In fact, I believe we are now in AR 2.0, whereby AR is coming into the mainstream (thanks also to Google Glass) underpinned by powerful smartphones and 4G networks. Brands are coming on board, since consumers increasingly demand (and expect!) the physical products of their favourite brands to have a digital life.

This AR experience can vary from a simple video or photo overlay to more complicated (3D) animations, though the latter have more of a gimmicky effect. Making AR work for brands means keeping it simple and focusing on the quality of the experience. This is where image recognition becomes key, being the gateway technology for AR and opening the path to enhance the user´s view of the world.

It is also time to throw away notions of QR codes on print and objects being scanned by a user (nothing wrong however with users with QR codes on their phone being scanned themselves, e.g. for a airplane boarding pass). Applying QR codes for marketing use cases never made much sense and was used for lack of a better option. Consumers everywhere (except Asia perhaps) have given a resounding no to this technology.

You can see below a selection of slides from my presentation:

Augmented World Expo 2013 : AWE Summary and Video

2013-07-08T07:04:00.000-07:00

SANTA CLARA, Calif. - Augmented World Expo has come and gone, and if there ever was a doubt about the resurgence of interest in AR in general, then the doubling in size of the key global showcase expo for AR is good evidence of this trend.

Big brands are sitting up to take notice of the AR scene -the combination of powerful devices and 4G connections mean that technological former limitations are gone. Augmented Reality works great on mobile, and it loads fast.

Consumers are also getting excited- Google Glass is all about taking AR into the mainstream..no wonder CNET is saying that "AR is the next big thing in tech" and that estimates are that AR will surpass1 billion users by 2020 (Tomi Ahonen, AWE13).

We are now firmly in AR 2.0...welcome.

AR works better with the power of the cloud -there are several reasons for this that I introduced at AWE together with Catchoom CTO Tomasz Adamek.

Check out the video of the talk here:

Augmented World Expo (AWE) 2013 Santa Clara -Agenda overview and discounted tickets

2013-05-14T02:24:00.000-07:00

Computing is changing inside out. The world is now the platform. ARE is now AWE. Welcome to the Augmented World!

Augmented World Expo (AWE), is the world’s largest gathering of designers, engineers and business leaders dedicated to solving real world problems in the Augmented World.

The way we experience the world will never be the same. We no longer interact with computers. We interact with the world. A set of emerging interrelated technologies such as augmented reality, gesture interaction, eyewear, wearables, smart things, cloud computing, big data, and 3D printing are completely changing the way we interact with people, places and things. These technologies create a digital layer that empowers humans to experience the world in a more advanced, engaging, and productive way.

Augmented World Expo will showcase the best in augmented experiences covering all aspects of life: health, education, emergency response, art, media and entertainment, retail, manufacturing, brand engagement, travel, automotive, and urban design. It will be the largest ever exposition to bring together technologies that will change our lives and the world.

In 2012, the third annual ARE event, over 600 buyers and builders of AR in entertainment, media, education, healthcare, government, tourism, automotive, sports and other vertical markets, united in the 2 day must-attend event in Silicon Valley.

Augmented Reality.ORG, the producer of AWE is proud to announce the maturing of an edgy conference about augmented reality into the world’s first expo about the augmented world. If you loved ARE you are going to find Augmented World Expo the most important event of 2013.

AWE 2013 invites today’s technology leaders to learn, network, and share their expertise in technologies that change the way we interact with the world. Presentations should cover a range of emerging technologies such as augmented reality, gesture interaction, eyewear, wearables, smart things, cloud computing, big data, and 3D printing. Presenters can choose from a set of topics and industries that address the latest trends, strategies and business growth opportunities of the augmented world.

AWE 2013 will be held at the Santa Clara Convention Center, California, on June 4-5, 2013 and is expected to draw 1,000 attendees. In addition to the presentation tracks, AWE 2013 will include mind-blowing keynotes by industry leaders on the main stage including my own talk (together with Catchoom CTO Tomasz Adamek) on the Mobile-Cloud Continuum a.k.a. how to get the most out of the cloud from your mobile device.

With the proven track record and the tremendous momentum in the Augmented Reality industry and interrelated technologies, AWE 2013 will set a new record and expected to draw 1000 attendees that seek to leverage augmented reality into a productive, sustainable and entertaining new medium. AWE 2013 will spotlight inspiring keynotes by industry luminaries, and feature more than a 100 speakers from leading Augmented World companies in more than 30 hours. Organized into business, technology and production tracks, the conference program is designed to address topics such as:

current augmented world market scope and what’s expected in the next 5 years
latest augmented world innovations, engines and tools
showcases and postmortems of landmark augmented world projects
how to leverage AW to advance your brand, attract and keep your customers
how to build successful campaigns and products that will delight users.

The exhibition floor will unite all the leading providers of Augmented World services and products, and offer a fantastic opportunity to witness demonstrations, speak with the architects of these experiences and network all participants in this exciting industry. Last year’s successful activities such as the ARt Gala, AR Start up launch pad, and The Auggies (best AR demo awards) will return to delight attendees. The new Augmented Future plenary session will feature ground breaking ideas that will change the augmented world.

You can get a discounted ticket here by using the following discount code AWE3CATCHOOM for a saving of $200 USD before May 17!

Lessons from GDC San Francisco -Game Developers Conference 2013 Wrap Up

2013-04-09T08:00:00.000-07:00

SAN FRANCISCO - I had the privilege of joining a throng of 20,000 attendees at the GDC in San Francisco this March for one full week and it gave me an opportunity for a first "deep dive" into gaming. Despite having skirted around gaming in mobile before (on a conceptual level or looking at gamification of commercial apps), this was the first opportunity to see at first hand what was making the gaming world quiver with excitement.

Overall, I was surprised that it was not quite as wacky an event as some had led me to believe. Mobile gaming is big business today, a $6bn business to be precise, and there was more of a corporate flavour to GDC than I expected. The most interesting talks however (with the exception of the very cool Mars Rover simulator talk by the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab) were by the non-corporate game studios.

Supercell was a great example, with a brilliantly delivered and informative session on winning formulas developed for "Hay Day" and "Clash of Clans" games. A key lesson from this session was "don't release your game early". Other points from other sessions were to disguise the freemium nature of the game with lots of easy purchases, something King.com has taken to heart with their very successful CandyCrush saga. Tommy Palm from King gave an impressive talk and it was clear that Candy Crush has earned plenty of kudos amongst the gaming community.

One lesson I learnt for the future is how the (now separate) Game Connection event can be a much better forum to meet and do business with many of the companies at GDC. The problem with GDC is that, like many MMEs (Massive Multi-attendee Events), it is very dispersive and the seminars, while interesting, did not foster networking.

The gaming industry knows how to throw a good networking event, so a special shout out goes to GMIC and Kabam for organising some great post-GDC conference day events!

Mobile World Congress 2013 -Agenda of Side Events

2013-02-12T07:30:00.000-08:00

BARCELONA -There is a staggering number of side events at the Mobile World Congress this year, and you can expect as much life outside the congress walls as within.

Some events I have signed up for to date are:

1. Innovation on the Fringe (part of the Mobile Fringe Festival) where startups will be demo-ing their wares in a fast pitch environment

2. Mobile Sunday Barcelona taking place at the Moritz Brewhouse, now in its 3rd edition and promising to be a great pre-event hangout for a very mixed crowd of delegates

3. TechCrunch Mobile Meetup on Wednesday 27th at the Telefonica Auditorium should feature a select group of local and international mobile startups

4. WipJam Party also on Wednesday at La Fianna Bar (expect this one to be heaving and definitely the place to be to connect with savvy developers)

5. MLove Party on Thursday 28th at Ocaña in Plaza Real (great venue, so promises to be a great party)

I'll keep this blog post up-to-date with news and links up until the MWC dates.

Mobile World Congress 2013 Agenda -MWC Plan & Expectations

2013-02-06T09:16:00.000-08:00

BARCELONA- With the MWC only a few weeks away, the questions that are on the minds of those following the congress are:

-Who will be at the MWC?

-Who will not be there?

-What will be the buzz of the show this year?

This year I will be attending the congress for the fifth (or is it sixth?) time and the biggest insight I get of what is happening in mobile is to see the variations at the MWC year on year.

Last year, I summarised the show and stated how innovation was not top of the agenda. This year, I can see that expectations are pretty high about new device releases. These miss the point. MWC is NOT a gadget show. Until 3 years ago, it really was all about operators and infrastructure (and the penning of mega-size deals at the show).

Then content became king, and what used to be a minnow within the mobile ecosystem came to have a voice. This year, developers and content owners really will rule the show -just one developer conference, WipJam, had over 3000 attendees registering.

So, who will be at the MWC?

-Most big names you'd expect -Samsung is expected to have a giant stand again this year, Microsoft will be touting its wares prominently as well and ZTE and Huawei are expected to be present en masse as well.

Who will not be there?

-Blackberry is rumoured to not have a stand this year, Apple will be absent again and Google´s Eric Schmidt will not be there either (though presumably Android will still have a large exhibition space like last year).

What will be the buzz be?

-Overall tablets should draw more attention than smartphones (but this is not a gadget show!), Mozilla will launch its own Firefox OS and Windows 8 will get the corporate market excited if some good devices are on show (consumers may not drool over Windows 8 just yet due to the lack of appealing apps in Marketplace).

Apart from all this, I am really hoping that cool apps and services will get lots of attention at the show by showcasing inspirational innovation -I'd like to see more about contextual search (visual search and voice search) and hybrid solutions (for example, car apps that connect, M2M style, to the car´s onboard computer).

RIP QR Codes –why code-based scanning will give way to image recognition for mobile apps

2013-01-25T02:11:00.001-08:00

Two quicks facts to kick things off: QR Codes (Quick Response Codes) were not designed for mobile advertising. They were created by the automotive industry to track vehicles as they flowed through the logistics chain.

While a significant advance at the time (1994) because they improved the scanning effectiveness (compared to barcodes) and could hold 100 times more data, today QR codes draw mixed reactions from consumers and developers alike.

According to Comscore’s survey of December 2011, only 20% of Americans use QR codes (this drops to 12% in Spain). The bottom line is that QR codes are not practical for average consumers to use and they are not the best way for advertisers to connect with their customers.

Ever tried scanning a QR Code? You will need both a steady hand and some trial and error in finding the best angle for scanning. You will also need to find a Code Scanner app and download it to your phone, as well as to know how to use it! The barriers are significant. Not to mention the fact that QR codes can be hacked for malicious purposes, as happened in Russia.

The new way of recognizing images within adverts (in posters, magazine ads or on packaged goods) is by Image Recognition. Catchoom (based in Spain) is leading the way in this, using a Cloud-based recognition system to achieve image matching in under 0.5 seconds. The user simply points their smartphone’s camera at the image (for example, a logo), Catchoom processes the information with its patented image recognition algorithms, and hey presto! In less than a second, you get a weblink, an image or a video appearing on the phone screen. Compared to QR Codes, the technology really kicks ass, because what are known as “false positives” are vastly reduced. This means, around 99% of users pointing at an image to be recognized will get a perfect match and see the information the publisher has created.

The future has arrived...RIP QR codes.

Augmented Reality –5 Reasons why AR will triumph in 2013 and beyond

2013-01-08T08:36:00.001-08:00

According to the Chinese calendar, 2013 is the Year of the Snake, a year where “all things are possible”.

It should come as no surprise that 2013 is also tipped to be a big year for Augmented Reality (AR), where the range of possibilities for this technology should truly come to life. AR is already going beyond the traditional gimmicky gaming use cases and has started to transform how we consume printed media, interact with museum exhibits and advertise via smartphones and tablets.

Here are five reasons why AR will grow even more in 2013:

1. Smartphones’ processing power has increased dramatically, with quad core 1.5GHz+ processors becoming more commonplace and tipped to represent 15%-20% of the market in 2013

2. Growth of the market share of tablets (and the high degree of user engagement with them). There are an estimated 240m tablets in use (according to NPD DisplaySearch). AR works beautifully on tablets thanks to the large display area and will help to "cross-sell" AR to smartphones as well.

3.The majority of readers consume news and media content in digital format today but still enjoy interacting with printed news and magazines via their smartphone. The easiest way to do so today is through AR. Esquire magazine already tried this in 2009. Ikea Germany's 2013 catalogue allows readers to view 3D animations of furniture items and so bring flat-pack to life.

4.We have just only begun to scratch the surface of the possibilities for augmented reality-type innovations. From advertising to property management and the healthcare sector, the use cases for AR are infinite. In healthcare, for example, being able to recognize skin diseases by simply pointing the smartphone’s camera at the affected skin area would by itself save millions in public healthcare costs (not to mention, save lives).

5. Mobile gaming is huge. So huge in fact, that the traditional console-based gaming sector will soon be overtaken by mobile-based gaming. We are no longer talking gimmicks. We are talking of a USD 20bn$ industry. Augmented reality gaming is carving out a good chunk of this revenue –even Angry Birds has its own AR-based mobile game. More will follow.

NFC Payments Trial in London -some experiences

2012-12-09T05:20:00.001-08:00

NFC is yet to become a mainstream technology option for payments, though interest remains high and, slowly but surely, an increasing number of points of sale are becoming NFC-compliant.

NFC chipmaker Gemalto recently conducted an NFC challenge, where they let loose two bloggers with a set of NFC challenges in London.

Here are their main conclusions/experiences:

Contactless is taking off! Both bloggers were able to survive for whole days at a time using only NFC, which would have been impossible even a year ago.

NFC has a strong urban bias: Contactless coffees and Coca-Colas are easy to come by in Central London, but the further from the city you get, the more difficult it is to use the technology. However, this is to be expected of any technology in its infancy.

Some vendors need educating on contactless as much as their customers. Occasionally, staff in stores that accepted NFC weren’t even aware of it.

There’s a real lack of signage around NFC. This means consumers may be missing out on the option to pay by contactless simply because they’re unaware their local sandwich shop accepts it, and a lot of people confuse the NFC logo with the symbol for WiFi.

There’s a lot of enthusiasm for NFC out there – the bloggers saw thousands of tweets and plenty of challenges and advice from the Twittersphere.

If you’re interested in reading more about the project you can do so over at the Gemalto Blog or check out the video over on Mobile Industry Review. And who knows – next year the Contactless Challenge could be coming to a city near you!

Mobile Offers for Retail & Restaurants -Infographic

2012-11-21T06:34:00.000-08:00

Mobile is omnipresent. It also fits in very nicely with retailers and restaurants as a driver of footfall. Who hasn't booked a restaurant from their smartphone? Combine the practicality of making reservations "on-the-go" with benefiting from special promotions and discounts, and it is no wonder that apps like OpenTable, BookaTable and La Fourchette are taking the world by storm.

The Infographic below (courtesy of those good chaps at Milennial Media) gives some more facts around this. One key statistic is that over 60% of retails and restaurants brands are now using mobile location-based targeting for their campaigns. Food for thought...

Barcelona Mobile World Capital -the New silicon Valley of Europe?

2012-11-09T07:32:00.000-08:00

BARCELONA -I recently gave an interview to Michael Tangeman from Media Mindshare and creator of the Barcelona Tech Talk blog about the up-and-coming tech scene in Barcelona, recently named Mobile World Capital by the GSMA (creators of the Mobile World Congress).

Here below is the full interview:

Barcelona has changed dramatically in recent years. What do you see as the key elements in that transformation?

There’s been a lot of improvement in Barcelona to facilitate the startup environment, a lot of support from public institutions and there’s now a fairly decent network of incubators on university campuses.

It’s also a good place to attract talent for a startup. When I interview people from outside, they already want to live and work in Barcelona. They’re attracted to the lifestyle here. It’s a more desirable location than other European cities. On that basis, I’d say if you were to choose where to set up a startup, Barcelona is the place.

Barcelona is now a major tech events hub. What kind of impact has that had on the tech scene here?

When I talk to people from elsewhere, they associate Barcelona most with Mobile World Congress. They know it’s based in Barcelona and is having a positive impact especially for the startup culture. More entrepreneurs are looking at Barcelona and increasingly startups are setting up here, especially mobile startups.

As head of Biz Dev for a global content publisher, you deal with developers of apps and content a lot … is there a strong and sizeable native developer talent pool here?

There’s a local talent shortage, but you’ll find good talent here if you look hard. One of the challenges is to get developers who speak good English. There’d be a big improvement if the school curriculum made English compulsory. At the university level, there are some good business schools and engineering programs, but there’s a long way to go to getting the overall educational infrastructure in place.

Barcelona is competing with other European cities as a tech and innovation hub … how does it stack up?

In terms of location, Barcelona is a great hub for European transport. We have the port and airport connections are great, but internationally we need to get better air connections to the U.S., that’s more challenging.

London, for example, has great energy and scale which Barcelona still doesn’t have. One of the things that could help change that would be more VC investors. Once we get local VC funds focused on mobile pure plays we’ll begin to see a rapid transformation.

Among VCs here, there’s still a perception that mobile is very risky. VC funds will invest in PC-based startups relatively easily — they’re more familiar, more comfortable with desktop-based technologies. But in London, as recently as 2008 they were also still wary of investing in mobile pure plays. That changed in London and it will change in Spain.

What’s lacking? What’s missing in the value chain or the tech culture here?

There are a lot of challenges. One is the bureaucracy, it’s very out-dated and there are still obstacles to creating an LLC, the process still tends to be very long. That’s why there’s this whole system of “gestores” in place, to deal with the bureaucracy.

The entire attitude to risk needs to change, as well. It’s a risk-averse culture and if you fail at something you can be branded as a failure. Entrepreneurs thrive on risk-taking and intelligent gambles and they need to know that when they fail they won’t be singled out as ‘black sheep’ for the rest of their lives.

In terms of talent, there’s a relatively low level of mobility of people, gaining experience by moving from one job to another or one city to another. People tend to stay put here. One way to change that might be for people to get experience in large companies outside of Spain and bring that knowledge and experience back here. But, getting them to return once they have that experience is another story …

How do you see Barcelona’s tech scene going forward, what kinds of changes do you see as necessary?

To help stimulate innovation and growth here, there’s a lot that could be done in terms of e-Government initiatives, digitalization of government services, an area in which local government seems to be hanging back. I’d like to see government take a leap straight to mobile — most people have smartphones and there’s a relatively high smartphone penetration here. So, it would make sense to focus on that area.

There’s also room for startups linked to industry verticals and e-government initiatives and incubator programs could help to stimulate that. There are extensive medical centers and infrastructure and large conferences associated with health care and medicine take place here. There’s a lot of health knowledge and there really is room for a health care incubator.

Another sector could be textiles and clothing, even room for a tourism and travel-related incubator – mobile is perfect for travel and tourism, the hospitality sector. Getting these industry sectors to understand how they can mobilize their services through mobile apps is the challenge. An e-government push to mobilize e-government services could lead the way and show how that can be done.

Mobile Payments -the mobile payments jackpot

2012-10-15T09:46:00.000-07:00

Mobile Payments Today (web here) produced a great Infographic that summarizes nicely the current mobile payments ecosystem. From PayPal to Square, to iZettle, most of the current players are represented here.

As I have covered in previous posts, this area of mobile is heating up and the stakes are very high. As Mobile Payments Today states "...the expectation is that a large percentage of the $6.2 trillion in credit card transactions is going to migrate to mobile".

Expect a new start-up to join the fray every week...

Responsive Design for Mobile-Tools, Techniques, Future Trends

2012-10-11T09:22:00.000-07:00

(Guest post from Magnus Jern, CEO of Golden Gekko).

Next to the Mobile First philosophy (see previous article) Responsive Design (according to Wikipedia) also referred to as Liquid Design is probably the most talked about trend in mobile and web user experience design. The term was coined by Ethan Marcotte in 2010 and the principle is simply that you design one web site that adapts to any device using modern web development methods including CSS3 and image scaling.

Examples of Responsive Design

Although there are thousands of examples of web sites based on responsive design today there is only a limited number of big companies that have adopted it and usually more as an experience or only partially. The most mentioned being the Boston Globe which displays beautifully on devices ranging from a big screen TV to a Blackberry Curve. Other examples include Starbucks and Google News (partial). Ethan also has a list of other great sites here. To get a basic understanding of how it works simply open up one of these sites in a browser and reduce and increase the browser window and see how the page changes and try accessing it from your mobile. Then compare it to a traditional site such as NYTimes.com (the owner of Boston Globe).

So is responsive design a hype or solution?

Opinions vary. At the moment the main proponents of responsive design are web front-end developers as it puts them in a powerful position and potentially removes the need for separate sites and teams and they can claim to support all channels. On the other hand only a few major websites have fully embraced the methodology and some like Linkedin simply believe that it delivers a bad user experience for their users according to an article in Venture Beat. So what are the pros and cons?

Pros

Easier and quicker to manage one project and web site than multiple
Reduces cost of development and maintenance by only maintaining one infrastructure and one team
Typically will work automatically on new devices, e.g. tablet without customisation
Simple technical solution to a common issue
Could improve SEO as all traffic will be directed to one URL rather than multipe, e.g. www.website.com, m.website.com and touch.website.com
No need for device recognition
Read more pros in this article in Society of Digital Agencies

Cons

Complex to plan and design which may actually lead to a higher cost and longer time to market than separate channel
Data size of pages become very big for a mobile device both in terms of download time and memory used (see article about Mobile First)
Rescaling for mobile devices typically generates very long pages requiring lots of scrolling which is a bad mobile user experience
Difficult to generate revenue from ads Images are typically optimised for the device with the highest resolution
Use cases for mobile and a PC web can be very different
Most common denominator between browsers means you typically end up doing trade-offs to support all channels
User interaction between different devices is very different on a touch screen device from a screen controlled by a mouse or remote control (TV)
Requires the same amount of testing but needs to be done across a lot more devices every when you make an update.

So what’s lies ahead in the future?
The reason that most major companies have not embraced responsive design is that although it’s technically straight forward, it really complicates the layout of pages and information architecture a lot. Designers have to plan for most common denominator between different devices which will usually lead to a compromise. At the same time any website should be as responsive as possible without compromising the user experience for bigger screens. Both Amazon and Facebook are examples of partially responsive design that scales certain elements but not all. One of the reasons to separate mobile and web is also that the use cases are very different. If you are standing in a clothing store accessing their website then you are most likely to want to find out about something related to the customer touch points in the store such as price comparison, offers, where your size of a product is available, etc. If you are sitting at home browsing then you’re primary use case is more likely to be browsing through the products. I believe that the Mobile First methodology is a more important principle than Responsive Design as it forces you to focus on the core use cases and enhance over time.

(Image courtesy of white-fire.co.uk)