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Tag: interview

  • Mobile Business Advertising Made Easy with Peperoni Mobile

    Doing business on the web is vital, the next major step is doing business on the go, and that requires mobility.

    Mobile content is catapulting companies into an entirely new market of individuals consuming content as they move from place to place. Companies making their content mobile are seeing huge results compared to those that have not taken that step.

    Peperoni Mobile & Internet Software is a company that is offering a complete mobile solution for businesses. Their site states that “Peperoni develops and operates solutions for mobile communities, online shops and individual software solutions.”

    Smartphone.Biz-News.com recently had the pleasure of interviewing Marcus Ladwig, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Peperoni and discussing the use of mobility services, how businesses are expanding, and what the future has in store for businesses and Peperoni alike.

    Smartphone.Biz-News.com: Share with us a little about Peperoni Mobile & Internet Software and what mobile platforms you support.

    Marcus Ladwig: Peperoni is a Wireless Application Service Provider focused on Mobile Web 2.0 applications. Our mobile social networking and site building platform peperonity.com works browser-based and is supported by a number of small clients. This means that anyone with a mobile internet-enabled handset can use our services via the built-in WAP or WWW browser. It does not matter what make and model the handset is – our platform automatically selects the optimum display available for that device to make best use of its capabilities. peperonity.com is available both in WAP and Web and supports 11 languages right now. It’s really a worldwide service.

    Marcus Ladwig

    What type of business can be done via your platform and when a company would consider using your services?

    peperonity.com offers advertisement slots all over the platform. Companies can reach their target audience easily by advertising to our mobile social services and tap into formerly unaddressed target audiences. We offer attractive CPM and CPC advertisement models and we are open for sponsorships, whether for particular devices or in certain sections of the platform.

    Share with us your thoughts on the explosion of the mobile market.

    With more and more web services offering mobile extensions and more web-centric people becoming aware of the mobile world, the market is growing at a rapid pace. What’s also important is that all participants in the mobile market make clear what their USP is in mobile and what kind of audience they are addressing. But it’s good to be finally taken serious as an industry sector.

    Do you see the future of business being handled more on mobile devices, as opposed to computers and laptops, or do you see mobile devices only remaining as a supplementary tool to existing platforms?

    I don’t think it’s a question of either this or that – mobile and PC are two different worlds and like with TV and PC business, there are and will be brands that are successful on TV, others are on PC’s and there are those that make use of both media. But there will always be a particular medium firstly associated with it. For example, CNN is a TV station but also has a sophisticated website. EBAY is a website but has a mobile extension. peperonity is a mobile platform with a web interface and so on. Mobile is the 4th screen besides Print, TV and Online and therefore, cross-media brands will need to include mobile into their portfolio in order to be taken seriously …

    How do you compare business done via mobile devices between Europe, Asia, and the United States?

    To me it seems as if European customers are the most willing to pay for extra services, while Asian customers make up for the most usage. US customers seem quite over-fed with advertising bringing click rates and ad prices down. Plus, European and US markets face the problem of lower conversion rates as customers still associate mobile with being ripped-off by some strange subscription-based ring tone services.

    You’ll be speaking on Dec. 7th at the Mobile Monday event in Switzerland, share with us the topic you’ll be speaking about, and will you be showcasing anything at that event?

    The topic of my presentation will be "Keys to successful community growth with mobile" and I will be talking about success factors in mobile social networks, how platforms converge and what challenges and opportunities social services are facing in a changing environment with spoiled customers. One of the highlights I will be showing will be our new and completely refurbished web interface which we hope to be launching in the beginning of 2010.

  • A New Vision of Mobile Social Networking: Interview with Olivier Chouraki, Mobiluck

    Mobiluck is another company that has rapidly realized the need for mobile information and mobile geo-locating people and places.

    Many companies are moving to the mobile space for a variety of reasons, but businesses that make the jump sooner tend to see the benefits much earlier and the relationships between users and companies tends to be stronger.

    Companies providing mobile web content, mobile media, mobile conversation tools, and mobile entertainment are finding themselves ahead of the curve and supplying their audiences with exactly what they need.

    Specifically, Mobiluck is a mobile service that allows users to find friends, places, and even people nearby with their smartphone. If you’ve got an account on Skype, AIM, or MSN for example, those friends can be included on the Mobiluck system, and their locations relative to yours will be shared and if they are nearby, what a great way to notify them.

    When asked if importing of contacts is remainst strictly to chat clients, Oliver Chouraki, CEO of Mobiluck says, “Yes at the moment you can import your MSN and other chat client contacts and we are working on Facebook and Twitter.”

    The service offered by Mobiluck is a location based service that is a more real life social network, allowing users to connect no matter where they are. Many will relate it to the online site, FriendFinder, but Mobiluck specializes in using the contacts you have on your programs and sharing just how far they are away from you.

    Oliver Chouraki

    Currently the service has 1.2 million people worldwide. “Our first place country is India, followed by the United States with rising numbers in Europe and the Middle East,” states Olivier on the rising popularity of the service.

    The Importance of Location Technology

    The concept of location technology is nothing new, we’ve been using these types of services on our GPS systems and on our cell phones with apps like FourSquare. Mobiluck is a social system that goes beyond connecting people with businesses, they look to connect people with people.

    If you look at the homepage on Mobiluck you will see simple text boxes where you can enter a keyword and you have ready buttons to search for places, friends, or people.

    “It’s not just tied to people you know, you can also search for people you don’t know so that you can meet new people who are at the same conference or in the same restaurant or at the same show and so on,” details Olivier.

    “We think that mobile social networks are extremely popular but today it is difficult to monetize and to create a profitable social network. On the other hand, the business model for yellow pages services, business directories, restaurant directories is very clear and can be very profitable. So what we are trying to do is combine the volumes of power of social networking with the profitability of yellow pages,” he continues sharing the business model for the company.

    It’s an interesting model considering that many social networks out there are still struggling with ways to monetize their efforts. Twitter for example has struggled with how to turn the millions and millions of users into a profitable community. Mobiluck offers up a business model that future social networks may emulate.

    Relationships with Businesses

    The vision of many mobile companies is that the mobile will be used for finding and being found. Many companies have an online presence, whether they own their website or just listed in directories, but due to the lack of understanding, very few of these sites are accessible on personal mobile devices. It’s not an uncommon thing since development for the mobile web is significantly different then general web site design.

    More often than not a company may not even be aware of their online presence, and if they do now they don’t know the difference between a standard website and a mobile site.

    As more and more people turn to mobile devices for information and interaction, companies that fail to realize the difference will be on the losing end of this turn in culture trends.

    “With Mobiluck companies can create their webpage in one minute for free. If you have a shop or a restaurant for example, you add a new place by filling out a form, and in a minute you have your own mobile page with a static web address that will be indexed by mobile search engines that not only Mobiluck users will be able to find your page, but anyone searching Google mobile or yellowpages mobile can still find your page and it will show what a lot of mobile users want to know: a shop description, name, the address of your place with a map, your phone number with a click to call, a price range and operation hours,” Olivier states.

    This type of return on information is what users are looking for when they are looking for informaiton on their mobile. Data consistently shows that users become frustrated and move on if there are barriers to getting this information. But aside from just receiving the information, users want to engage with that information and interact with others.

    Next Generation Search

    The next generation of search is more than just finding information, but what do people do with it? Mobiluck has seen the light, and many others in the mobile market are seeing the light too.

    Users feel more comfortable when they can interact with the information they are given by being able to rate something, comment on something, and share other people’s ratin gand coments. Favoriting and bookmarking are hot items right now and this type of information sharing is what has made the Web 2.0 era so dynamic.

    Businesses will not have a direct way to communicate with users, and users will have a new way to connect with their friends. With Mobiluck specifically, companies will be able to manage an internal mobile newsletter that keeps visitors and searchers informed on specials, events, and other important information related to the business. This information can be shared and responded to creating a two way street for information.

    Mobiluck will be speaking at Mobile Monday in Zurich, Switzerland on December 7, 2009. Be sure to pay special attention to the companies in the mobile space as they will collectively define the future of how we interact with data, businesses, and with one another.

  • It’s Our Year, Says Solar Power Mobile Phone Giants Intivation

    Intivation has declared 2009 a breakthrough year and the solar power mobile phone technology giant is not about to rest on its laurels.

    Paul Naastepad, chief executive officer of Intivation, says GSM Association award the Netherlands based company won early this year is clear testimony that they are moving in the right direction in technology advancement.

    “Intivation today is the biggest supplier of solar power conversion chip technology used in mobile phones in the world.

    “What we believe is more important though – that since we won the GSM Association’s Major Innovation Award in early 2009, the whole industry seems to be more and more interested in the idea of using solar powered phones to enable people living in electricity grid deprived areas make telephone calls now!

    “The year 2009 is definitely the breakthrough for our SunBoost technology, as it is currently deployed in solar phones made by ZTE and Commtiva,” said Naastepad.

    He believes the world has wasted no time in embracing their products, born out of proprietary technology which enables the development of highly efficient and reliable solar powered handsets, chargers and battery packs.

    Paul Naastepad

    “In less than six months after we launched, solar phones ‘with Intivation inside’ are now sold in eight countries by 10 operators already, both in Africa and Latin America.

    “The Commtiva phone is aimed largely at the more data intensive users as it operates in GPRS, while the ZTE phone caters for the buyers seeking the lowest price,” he said.

    Naastepad was clear about the advantages of the solar powered phones in a world with millions of people without access to electricity, especially in rural areas.

    “Intivation’s SunBoost technology ensures that phone batteries are charged much faster than with any other solar technology.

    “Phones with our technology also charge the battery in fully cloudy conditions, in which case others would not charge at all.

    “In the future, many more devices will be brought to the market in Africa and beyond, some of which are high performance universal chargers that can be used with any existing phone,” he said.

    Intivations’ target market, says Naastepad, is easy to identify.

    “First of all it’s people living in areas without electricity, unreliable electricity or who cannot afford the electricity charges.

    “And when you know that there are 1.6 billion people in the world who do not have electricity, 640 million of whom do have GSM coverage, that is quite a lot.

    “Secondly, environmentally conscious people who want to take their responsibility for CO2 emission reduction.

    “And thirdly, all those people who simply enjoy the comfort of a phone that never runs out of power,” he said.

    Naastepad said the solar phones had made a huge impact on people.

    “It brings communication to them, enabling both better trade and social welfare,” he noted.

    Environmentalists, says Naastepad, have warmly received the new technology.

    “Even in places where we did not expect the ‘green’ feature of solar phones to matter that much, we are surprised by how much attention the environmentalists are giving this issue.

    “Of course, with a solar phone you never produce any CO2 anymore since you are using the sun to charge your phone. And the sun is even free of charge,” he said.

    The Intivation CEO said they were looking forward to 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, which he said would be a perfect platform to market their products where around 500 000 visitors from all over the world are expected to converge.

    “We will continue to develop our technology to enable solar phones charge yet faster, become smaller and cheaper so that more people can benefit from our invention,” promised Naastepad.

    Intivation was founded in 2003 as True Solar Autonomy, after inventor Anne Osinga found a new way to boost output voltages.

  • bnetTV.com to Continue Covering Emerging Technologies Conferences

    INTERVIEW. Leading online broadcasting company bnetTV.com (Business Network Television) will continue taking the most of the events such as conferences to reach out to its focus market of emerging technologies.

    bnetTV.com will also keep to its mission to deliver compelling and insightful content, says Michelle Sklar, vice-president of Programming and Content Management.

    She said this they would achieve through “working with industry associations and event organizers to extend reach and add value to events; expanding our coverage line up; and launching a cool new Mobile site and app in Q1 2010”.

    bnetTV.com took part in a three-day Mobile 2.0 Conference in Berlin, Germany, which ended on November 25.

    “We conducted interviews with numerous speakers giving them the opportunity to share their experiences, successes and challenges. The interviews are posted at www.bnettv.com under Mobile 2.0 Content and Services,” said Sklar.

    Michelle Sklar

    Emerging Technologies

    “We are an online broadcast company with a niche market focus on emerging technologies.

    “We cover events in the wireless industry such as CTIA, Mobile World Congress, Mobile Marketing Association events, Informa events, Under the Radar Mobile, etc.

    ‘Over the last five years we have met with over 6 000 companies and told their stories – from start-ups to the power brokers of the industry,” she said.

    Sklar said they would not allow technology to overtake them as they seek to remain on top in online broadcasting.

    “We keep our thumb on the pulse by being event driven in our strategy to provide insightful and compelling coverage.

    ‘We aggregate to over 150 websites and social media sites and optimize the searchability of our content by using the latest in SEO and Social Media communication techniques,” said Sklar, whose company has reached over 3,5 million viewers a month.

    She said they were playing their part in helping other players in the industry grow.

    “We not only provide media coverage at industry events but we work with industry associations such as the MMA and leading event producers such as Informa to help extend their audience reach through Live broadcast programmes as well as extend to value of events to participants through premium content and DVD programmes,” said Sklar.

    Cyber Crime

    Cyber crime is increasingly becoming an issue worldwide. bnetTV.com is however, not losing sleep over this as it has systems in place to safeguard its products and programmes.

    ‘We control all aspects of our content production and delivery, that is we host all of our content and pay close attention to our analytics reporting,” said Sklar.

    As at June 2008, Australia had the highest incidence of cyber crime in the world, according to a global survey of nine countries by software security vendor, AVG.

    The study, which canvassed 1 000 users each in Australia, the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Brazil, and the Czech Republic, found that more than 39 percent of Australians had been the victim of cyber crime, compared to 32 percent in Italy, 28 percent of Americans, and just 14 percent in Sweden and Spain.

    Challenges

    The online broadcasting industry is not without its challenges. Sklar says these are the need to continue to find new ways of delivering and monetizing content and creating tools that will help the industry better serve itself.

    ‘Our (bnetTV.com) target audiences are industry professionals. They use our site as a means to keep up to date on the various companies and issues facing emerging technology businesses today,’ she said.

    Sklar still gave the industry thumbs up when asked if the world was ready to embrace online broadcasting. “Oh yes… the world already has! Online content is easy to access; video on demand and broadcast enable the timely delivery of important and relevant content.

    ‘Globally people are online or on mobile for their daily news, weather and sports,” she said.

    bnetTV.com produces both in-house and client-commissioned videos. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Winmax Trading Group, Inc. with offices in New York, San Jose, California, Orlando, Florida and Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

  • Nitty-Gritty of Cloud Storage: Interview with Robert Peglar, Xiotech

    Xiotech has been leading the way in redefining the value of storage since 1995 and stands as the world’s largest privately held storage company.

    The storage industry has been a hot bed for innovation and debate with discussion on local storage versus cloud storage, and the pros and cons of each.

    Xiotech offers a wide array of services that tend to cater to the small and mid-tier businesses where they have made a name for themselves. Just recently they have expanded their services to larger enterprises, and have recorded the same successes they’ve seen with their smaller partners.

    VP of Technology for Xiotech, Robert Peglar states that "Xiotech has been a pioneer of virtualization and have done innovative work in the space." Robert Peglar serves a dual role, working externally with customers and industry professional.

    The other role is the internal role, working to get product out the door, and plan a road map of the future with the technology trends that they should be taking advantage of.

    Robert shares that many things separate them from their competition to include: ease of use (through virtualization), intuitive user interfaces and web services.

    Robert Peglar

    "There’s not a real need to know all the nitty gritty of the storage equipment, web services give you what you need and you’re done," Peglar comments.

    Many companies find it hard to understand storage and for some the learning curve is too high. Xiotech provides simplicity in accessing and integrating into their own company’s growth.

    "The staff and training required is greatly different from competitors and much less rigorous. Anyone can access their storage systems. Storage should just work with automatic processes such as self healing and self checking processes without the need of constant hands on," Robert says regarding how easy it is for people to access their systems.

    Patented ISE Technology

    Xiotech is known for having patented the Intelligent Storage Element (ISE) back in 2007, offering improved performance, advanced capabilities, and improved system telemetry.

    "In typical RAID arrays the more drives you add the more the performance begins to degrade, but with the ISE in place, you see consistent and reliable performance no matter how many drives you install. This allows us to put a 5 year guarantee on their ISE products because we know it’s going to work, we put our confidence in it," Robert explains.

    The ISE offers scalability to grow with the company from 1TB to 1 PB, without seeing a single drop is performance.

    Allowing users to make adjustments to the ISE is one of their key selling points as well because Xiotech has truly focused on making their products customer centric with ease of use.

    "Standardized web services have streamlined the process which is easier for the end user to log in access, conduct business, and leave," comments Peglar.

    Cloud Storage

    Xiotech offers both virtualization and cloud storage. Some use the terms synonymously, but there is a distinct difference when looked at more closely. Virtualization would be a first step to cloud storage, but it still requires on-site equipment and man power to maintain, but simply localizes all software, applications and user information in one spot while allowing other computers to route through in order to gain access.

    Cloud storage is completely off-site, requires no equipment or manpower and simply offers you a place to store data, access software applications, share information and communications. Physical storage is slowly becoming a thing of the past, cloud computing is the way of the future.

    Currently the real drive for cloud interest is economic. The sheer cost of maintaining on-site equipment is becoming outrageously expensive considering the maintenance and manpower required to do it.

    A downside to cloud storage is the perceived security risks, perceived latency issues, and reliability issues. Robert states that "industry professionals across the globe are working on to boost the waning confidence in cloud computing due to these perceptions." There is no doubt that progress is being made everyday and that soon more and more companies will move towards the cloud as a way to manage their storage and data.

    Robert made sure to note that the same issues exist with local storage, but some put more emphasis on the cloud due to perceived lack of control. It’s easier for people to manage downtime and other issues when they feel like they have control on internal equipment, but putting that same faith on equipment that you can’t see or touch is another thing.

    When asked about how companies are balancing what needs to be physically at the location and in the cloud, Robert says, "I believe most company will end up using a combination of both, physical on premise and cloud."

    Cash for Disk Clunkers

    One of the more eco-friendly marketing efforts to assist companies around the globe was the start of the Cash for Disk Clunkers. Xiotech is once again taking the lead in encouraging companies to turn in their old arrays that are now too inefficient and less powerful to be of any use.

    "Some of the older systems require reinforced floors just to store. It’s an interesting marketing ploy, playing off the federal initiative for the cash for clunkers program. There’s been a huge user response for this to the point where they go to the offices to inquire on the process. It’s an effort to promote efficiency, getting rid of the old one which is costing a lot to maintain, to include some of their own older models," states Peglar.

    It’s definitely an interesting economic incentive for those interested in participating and a bonus with regards to their efforts to protect the environment from improper disposal of old equipment.

    Most recently Xiotech made an appearance at the SC09 Conference (Computing for a Changing World) and Interop New York where they focused on helping provide knowledge and insight to help IT and corporate decision-makers achieve business success.

  • Bringing the Best of the Web to the Phone: Interview with David Mannl, Mippin

    As society becomes more mobile, publishers are looking for ways to make their content accessible to as many people as possible.

    While there are still some that have barely recognized the web as a viable marketplace for their audience, those that have adopted the mobile trends are quickly seeing changes in how their customer base interacts with the products/services offered and shared both on the standard web, and thru mobile technologies.

    Mippin is one such company that specializes in helping users attain access to mobile content, and helping publishers mobilize their content for easy access for their audience.

    Mippin, backed by Refresh Mobile, came to life in 2007. David Mannl, Head of Creative and co-founder of Mippin, states that he and his partner said, "let’s ditch the whole client business for the time being’ and focus only on mobile apps and that’s when Mippin got started and launched as a product."

    He also notes that when they started back in 2007 there were hardly any mobile internet sites around, and left a huge need for publishers and users to have mobile versions of all the web content they could.

    How large is Mippin? "We have 76,000 sites in our system, all of them categorized into various levels of interest," answers co-founder of Mippin David Mannl.

    David Mannl

    Currently there are two ways to mobilize your content via Mippin. The first one is on your mobile phone; just enter the URL into the search box and on the fly Mippin will go out to that website, looks for a RSS content feed, and then creates a mobile version of it which works perfectly across 3,000 devices.

    As for the second option, if you do the same on your computer over at mippin.com, under publisher or blogger tab you go into a flow where the user can do the same thing. Mippin will basically find the RSS feed and then the user can upload their logo, define a color scheme and enter their ad mobile ID. It’s a fairly simple and streamlined process and Mippin has seen much success with.

    TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN

    Mippin for publishers

    For a publisher the approach is a simple solution. The publisher comes to the site to mobilize their web content, does not have to have any program skills whatsoever because its a one size fits all solution. You typically will find two types of publishers the first one is where we are the primary mobile solution.

    This means Mippin will work with a lot of blog networks that want to have a wide variety of blogs over 30 to 40 sites and for them its a complete and total package. Each site takes about five minutes to set up and that’s mainly uploading the colors, defining the branding and then they have this huge array of mobile sites. We also have publishers that use Mippin like an additional distribution channel.

    David Mannl shares an example, "we have an agreement with the New York Times and we are allowed to republish their content as well, but of course they already have their own mobile site. For them they have their own platform, they use us as an additional distribution mechanism and then some publishers use us as their only mobile solution."

    Mippin for advertisers

    There are two tiers for advertisers. If you host your ad on Mippin, you keep 100% of the ad revenue and that solution is offered with Ad More because it’s the easiest to implement. An advertiser goes in, there’s a little monetize tab in that mobilization’s log, you put in your own AdMore information and from that moment on Ad More send you money every month as soon as you are over a certain threshold.

    Alternatively, we have what is called Mippin Premium Publishers. For these more premium advertising, Mippin will actually take a little cut from the ad revenue because they have to interact with the ad providers and make sure they always get the best campaigns.

    They also make sure there is more targeted advertising so they will give a lot of information about the site to the advertising network so they can insert more relevant ads into the system or into the partners’ site as well.

    Demographic of users

    The majority of users on the Mippin network are in America, followed by the UK. Demographic wise Mippin does not collect any data with regards to gender or age or income. What we do see are the devices the user is using and the location where they are coming from. Mippin tracks how long users are staying on the system, but they do not collect any more data from the user because its just a mobile internet site and they don’t think its really necessary to register this service.

    "They just want to quickly access every time they have spare time," David Mannl responds with regard to what the end user is looking for.

    What’s interesting about what Mippin can see is what sites are more popular in each country. Mippin has a full time editorial staff that picks the best sites and puts them into categories based on popularity in the country you live in. So if you go to a category on Mippin in America, you will see different sites and different ordering then if you would do the same in the UK.

    Mippin uses a crowd source approach for editorial ordering of content. David notes that one of our biggest successes in America is wrestling, which they were completely surprised about. While in the UK, it’s a lot of tabloids and gossip and of course football (soccer).

    Mippin replacing traditional computing?

    David notes that especially in developing markets where they don’t have access to a laptop, growth has exploded. In Saudi Arabia the average time a user is on Mippin is as high as 20 minutes and that’s just the average. So it’s easy to see, for them, it’s the only way to access the internet. Compared to the UK, where a user will spend 8 minutes on average, and America, 7 to 9 minutes.

    It may be also because Mippin has one of the biggest selection of mobilized content out there. They’ve also built in recommendations into the system which will regularly recommend new content. You can connect with other users on the service, they can recommend you new content, so there are many ways to discover content on Mippin.

    In cultures where desktops and laptops are scarce, services like Mippin seem prime for growth. In cities where many of the populace are constantly on the go, David sees explosive growth continuing, hoping that their service reach more and more people every year. It should be noted that competition in the mobile space is not as it was back in 2007.

    Today competition or attention is fierce and the market is quickly growing. Mippin is now just one of many services that offer mobilized content, but so far David sees the growth of his network remaining strong.

    You can follow David on Twitter @flashy1980. More specifically if you are a user of Mippin, David prides himself on the face that users can always submit feedback to the company for future improvements.

    "Every page on Mippin has a feedback box and we actually read that feedback everyday because that’s part of our company DNA. We listen to our users because we want to keep them entertained and they are what help to make this service better and if we make the service better, we can entertain them better. So there’s a lot of really great dialogue we’re seeing. We are also getting a lot of feedback through the ad store. Its really good to now have the tools to stay in contact with your users and not just be a faceless company," David says proudly.

  • Bringing Content to Cross-Media Platforms: Interview with Thomsen Ghebresellassie, Yukoono

    The digital age has changed everything we’ve known in traditional media, how it’s distributed, but most importantly, how it’s consumed.

    The world is still surging in a sort of Technology Renaissance where innovation is taking off, long standing habits are changing, and media is becoming as consumable as our snacking habits, bit by bit, on the go as much as we are.

    One such company that is ahead of the curve is Yukoono, a digital content portal that is as adaptable as the user is.

    Sales Director of Yukoono, Thomsen Ghebresellassie states that “The idea of Yukoono came up last year in April when the CEO thought about why a user should only have access to certain types of content and certain type of media? If you are browsing on the website, you have to visit several websites in order to get news, videos on YouTube, or a different application in order to get access to content. So we came up with the idea of having one platform which you can think of a big shopping mall.”

    Thomsen Ghebresellassie

    A shopping mall of sorts is what Yukoono became. The application stands as a global portal with access to all content due to partnerships based on shared distribution. Each of these “stores in the mall” are called channels and partners offer up their content to be accessible via these channels increasing exposure, visibility, and consumption of what they are creating.

    As sales director for Yukoono, the task of global responsibility for product placement and sales teams is a daunting task, but Thomsen relies on his years of experience in the music industry to help him build Yukoono’s reputation as a recognizable brand familiar to all.

    The Platform Explained

    The very beneficial thing about this platform is that Yukoono guarantees the user a convergence of mobile app and TV. If you’re watching a movie on your handset while you’re traveling, come back home, you turn on your TV or your laptop, you log in and you can watch the movie where you just stopped, it’s bookmarked.

    This is a simple explanation about the benefits of the platform. The concept was to create an information entertainment platform which you can access from different platforms – mobile, web and TV (3 screens).

    Due to the fact that we are now living in an area where mobile content is extremely necessary and more popular, people are using their iPhones, for example, to access even more applications online.

    “Facebook for example, the social community, everyone is updating their status via mobile phone. It’s just a matter of time where there’s also access to different video on demand platforms where they can watch movies. As you can see, in the Asian market so far the user is far far away from where we are right now, we’re just in the [infant] stage, Thomsen says of those consuming digital content.

    Interestingly, it’s been shown that the user right now in the Asian market is spending two and a half hours a day watching movies and its content on his mobile. Thomsen is very correct when we look at how certain cultures, such as our Asian counterparts, expect to consume their media.

    The mobile industry, the mobile internet is getting more and more important for delivering, accessing news and information for the user.

    Yukoono Has Focus

    “I believe that everyone is focusing on the iPhone right now. It is one of the most popular handsets on the market right now but if you see the coverage from a global base, iPhone is just one out of two and a half thousand handsets worldwide. So the focus on our platform is not the iPhone, its nice to have, but we are attempting to provide service to more regular handsets on the market,” asserts Thomsen.

    It’s a known fact that the iPhone has dominated much of the Western world in terms of usage and infiltration into our culture, but worldwide, there are many more phones to take advantage of. Developing a mobile platform is very expensive and not something that every mobile platform company is willing to spend the time and resources to build out.

    This is where Yukoono steps in as the aggregation and accessibility across all three screens. It’s a process that is simplified for all the labels, especially for the publishers.

    Quality Encourages People to Move

    Recently at IFA Berlin, this past September, big TV manufacturers were displaying their new screens, unique platforms all connecting to services such as YouTube, Twitter, and other social network platforms. Thomsen shares that a big question at the event was “Why don’t you link?” He admits it’s a fair question, but the answer is equally simple.

    “It’s a simple fact that if you link to different websites that means you don’t have any influence about the quality of the content. As you know on YouTube where a user generated content has to be uploaded, quality cannot be guaranteed. You don’t have any influence on that and we want to guarantee 100% HD quality for our users. The second is thinking on TV platform, not only are the younger users using it to watch TV, but also the older generation. So if you link to different websites that means that the user has to adjust himself all the time to the navigation structure of these different platforms and this is going to be quite difficult.”

    That’s why Yukoono worked hard to have one surface in all different platforms so no matter where the user logs in, it all is set up you can browse through all the different platforms and it’s guaranteed to all be the same.

    “I cannot believe that five years ago that you had to be sitting on the laptop or even writing and sending letters by hand. The communication is getting shorter and shorter and it has to be more quicker and faster and as you can see there are a lot of online platforms, storage especially where you don’t have to keep things on your laptop anymore or on your mobile device. You just put it online and you have access to it all different ways,” Thomsen shares.

    This digital revolution is truly driving us to change our habits and ensuring quality encourages the prospective audience to trust the platforms and make that change. There’s no telling where we will be within the next five or ten years, but there’s no doubt that most of our life interactions will be taking place online.

    The line between online and the privatization of our own lives, work and stuff, is melting together. There is no difference between what we say to our friends or what we say to the world on the internet.

  • Taking Technology to Higher Level: Interview with Manoj Bhoola, Country Manager at HP

    Does your organisation need technology products, solutions and services that drive innovation and rapidly scale up or down to meet changing times?

    Well, look no further than HP, the world’s largest technology company, says Manoj Bhoola, Country Manager, HP Enterprise Severs, Storage and Networking, HP Enterprise business.

    HP has unleashed new products onto the market, among them HP Neoview Advantage, an enterprise data warehouse platform which supports real-time insight and decision making, allowing customers to respond to business events faster.

    This release offers dramatic improvements in perfomance, capacity, footprint and manageability, says Bhoola.

    HP Neoview Advantage is also designed to reduce the cost of ownership with industry-standard components and prebuilt, pretested configuration optimised for warehousing.

    Manoj Bhoola

    "The HP Neoview Advantage solution is flexible to be used for a very large data warehouse solution, as well as a data warehouse that is much smaller, but requires high through-put.

    "This is an enterprise solution based on our robust Non-Stop architecture within a bladed solution," says Bhoola.

    HP has also launched the HP Converged Infrastructure Architecture, a solution which delivers a technology environment that rapidly adjusts to meet organisation’s changing needs.

    HP Converged Infrastructure addresses IT sprawl, the main cause of technology spend being focused on maintenance instead of innovation.

    "Technology is a fundamental contributor to business innovation," says Bhoola.

    "With HP’s portfolio of products, services and solutions, organisations can build technology environments that deliver the outcomes that matter today and tomorrow," he adds.

    For customers who do not want to build infrastrature themselves, HP Enterprise Services provides a full range of IT outsourcing services to deliver an HP Converged Infrastructure.

    Organisations can outsource all or part of their infrastructure based on their business needs.

    HP also offers flexible financing solutions for customers deploying an HP Converged Infrastructure through HP Financial Services, the company’s leasing and life cycle asset management services subsidiary.

    HP Financial Services makes it easy for customers to deploy technology that meet their rapidly changing business needs.

    Asked if the global recession had anything to do with the timing of the launch of the new products, Bhoola said it was important for companies to be proactive to survive difficult times.

    "During an economic downturn organisations look towards all areas within their business to either reduce costs or find new innovative ways to increase profits.

    "HP has an ideal solution that will reduce costs by implementing a converged infrastructure, as well as make organisations data warehousing more effective by providing a solution that is built on their Non-Stop architecture with the flexibility of a bladed system," says Bhoola.

    New research conducted on behalf of HP shows that more than 90 percent of business decision makers believe business cycles will continue to be unpredictable in the next few years. As a result, 80 percent recognise a need to be far more flexible in their approaches to business and technology.

    And given this situation, how is HP responding to ensure that it is always on top of the situation?

    "Products are continually innovated and updates are provided to meet certain business requirements.

    "HP’s solution offerings has evolved with the current unpredictable market conditions in mind, and launched products that will assist organisations to become more flexible to adjust to their business requirements.

    "Businesses more than ever need to have the ability to see around the corner, and a strong Business Intelligence (BI) solution will assist with this.

    "The HP Neoview Advantage will provide a robust infrastructure that will support these requirements," says Bhoola, who has a background in computer science and marketing and has been in the IT industry for over 25 years.

    Bhoola attributes HP’S success to continuous investment in its people and innovation.

    "Many organisations have reduced product lines to reduce costs and cut back on innovations.

    "HP continues to improve solution offerings to better optimise customer infrastructure by leveraging off of industry standards and providing unified management software to enable improved elasticity of customers’ infrastructure investment.

    "HP is unique in that they have continued to invest in innovation and continually update their product offerings responding to the market requirements," says Bhoola.

    Although the African continent is a huge growth area for HP, Bhoola says South Africa remains the major driving force of technology.

    "Many organisations still set up offices in South Africa and then launch their Africa business from SA. Doing business in Africa is becoming much easier in that the infrastructure is being addressed and matches many first world countries," adds Bhoola.

  • In The Era Of Virtualization: Interview with Richard Gilder, CEO of Intercept

    The cloud has been a popular computing term for 2009 and going into 2010 will likely see the rise of that term as content become more accessible from multiple location as opposed to being locked down by local storage.

    Already users of cloud computing are experiencing more success as costs are lowered, work and necessary files are accessible from anywhere, reducing the need to be directly in front of a computer in the office or at home. More incredible is the access mobile devices have now in accessing necessary files, content, and sites as we move into an era where virtualization becomes more commonplace.

    Intercept is a virtualization company within the UK specializing in desktop virtualization, server virtualization, application virtualization and storage virtualization. A very large part of their business is based in the cloud. Majority of our clients seek virtual hosting for their enterprise computers. They  basically help develop a system allowing generic access, via the cloud, to any application that a company has.

    When asked about the innovation of Intercept, Richard Gilder, CEO of Intercept replies, "we are now in the process of putting together some new services which are now launched which is exchange share point and we’ve got another CRM coming on site soon."

    Fear of the Cloud

    Richard Gilder

    For many companies, much like it is with anything new, there is still that hesitation when adopting new ways of doing business. The cloud has been on the receiving end of both criticism and praise, and ultimately both sides have solid cases, it’s strong companies and good practices that can prevent catastrophic data loss and ensure a smooth changeover and maintenance of the idea.

    "I think the biggest fear is actually within the wording that your putting your data and storing it ‘in the cloud’. This is actually probably the most frightening thing about it. Its going via the cloud and will be completely replicated to multiple data centers for redundancy purposes," says Richard.

    The idea of giving up that control on your content and not having it locally stored is not an uncommon fear. Looking at things on a more personal level, using simplified tools like Google Documents has raised severe concern over ownership of content placed on equipment that is not technically "yours."

    If content is suddenly gone, what is the actual cost on the client. In terms of personal documents, it may be subjective, but when working with large corporations, the loss could be financially devastating. Releasing the grip on the the way things have always been done is most certainly an uphill battle, but thee are many factors that can make cloud computing appealing to the client.

    Money savings in terms of man power and equipment is a major selling point, reduction of carbon footprint is huge for the green enthusiasts, consistent and professionally reliable customer service personnel to answer questions for clients and address their needs, and finally, a long list of client success with the transition of locally stored data and applications to virtual cloud services.

    Advancements In the Field of Virtualization

    Significant advances have been made in the field of virtualization in just the last few years, but do the clients grow at the same pace, or does Intercept see that the technology completely outpaces the needs of the user?

    "Generally the clients infrastructure is growing at a rate in which the technology is actually growing faster," says Richard. "We’ve had a tough couple of years with a country wide perspective in people spending upward with technology has lapsed slightly."

    In the last two years alone Richard has seen people and companies become incredibly receptive to change and enthusiastic with the coming technologies. Intercept tends to focus the clients on the scalability, hardware savings, and most importantly in today’s green focused society, energy savings.

    It’s apparent that technology is not the only thing advancing at great rates, but also the reduction of the carbon footprint by many companies like Intercept that offer large scale businesses the ability to tap into a virtual network in order to get their job done.

    "Its an absolute colossal benefit and I think this should be pushed more and more from a green point of view. We run green government events, we run green events across the country and we should be pushing this side of things. We all are very very worried about climate change certainly not just in the UK where it rains a lot but within the global environment." Richard responds when asked what he and Intercept feel with regards to the green impact of virtualization.

    Conferences and Expos

    Intercept is always providing briefings in the UK regarding the virtualization market. The IP Expo is their biggest event for the quarter thus far, but several Ustream events are being planned right after Christmas.

    They had 5 seminars which they ran focusing on some of their key clients, such as Windsor & Maidenhead, which show colossal cost savings up in excess of 350,000 pounds the first year, all the way through to Ed Lowry’s, which is a very large law firm in London who virtualized their infrastructure over the last couple of years.

    Plans are being made currently for the 2010 year where they hope to continue their success at demonstrating the bonuses of moving to the cloud and worrying not about the data and not about the company’s security, but rather where the company is going and how it can be more successful. Richard Gilder, CEO of Intercept says shifting that focus for them is what he likes to do.

  • Running Web 2.0 Campaign: Interview with Ben Self, Founding Partner of Blue State Digital

    Today’s connected society has relied on technology to help provide successful campagins in marketing, outreach, converting, establishing, ultimately looking for one thing…results.

    Most recently the United States was embroiled in a political race that was heated and highly contested. Many through their name in the hat, but in the end it was down to two major candidates from two of the major parties. What these candidates needed was a campaign that could provide results and that is where Ben Self and his company, Blue State Digital came into play.

    Blue State Digital is a full service creative and strategic firm dedicated to providing results for their clients. They also offer a tiered system that requires no downloads, installs, or plugins, but rather stays online for the client to log into as needed to check on their campaign, analyze results, and with accessibility on mobile devices, makes it easy for the client to stay connected.

    With their focus on design, strategy and implementation of their plan, they were able to become a part of the winning team that would eventually win the presidential campaign and make a major footprint for their company in the White House.

    What Their Software Does Best

    Ben Self

    Realizing how important it was to reach out to as many people as possible, Blue State Digital did what many thought was impossible. Blue State’s overall plan was to help put their client in front of as many people as possible, crossing boundaries of wealth, race, religion and age.

    Using new media tools and digital outlets they were able to tap into a market that has otherwise been apathetic to the voting process, and in doing so truly used their tools to change the way elections will be held in the future.

    Blue State Digital claims itself to be “the leader in online fundraising, advocacy, social networking, constituency development for nonprofit organizations, political candidates and causes, and corporations.” Though just starting in 2004 they’ve been able to acquire an impressive clientele list to include President Obama, Walmart, Alliance for Climate Protection and Communication Workers of America.

    When asked what separates their products and services from the rest, found partner Ben Self had this to say, “the thing that I think makes it really interesting and important is that it has been rigorously tested through our analytics department.”

    Ben went on to discuss how thorough the process of testing is using a contribution page as an example. He discusses how an extra form field can increase or decrease the donation amount, how something on a website might impact how long a person is on the page, and other such, what he calls “minor tweaks,” can impact the end user’s experience.

    On Social Media Tools

    Ben Self comments that social media has been given a place on a pedastool by too many people that do not understand the essentials of a true marketing campaign. He sees these networks as only tools for his company to use, while useful, should not be considered a sure thing.

    “And so we view some of the external social media sites, the Facebooks, the Twitterers, those things, as not necessarily the secret to the success, as they are a way of reaching out to people,” Ben responds to an inquiry on social media tools.

    His takeaway point from this conversation was definitly to never forget that putting something online for the sake of being online is not helpful to anyone. Interactive campaigns and outreach are not billboards, but rather a focused, and strategic measureable way of exchanging information and data.

    Blue State Digital recognizes that social networks are extremely useful in directing people to new websites, but Ben stresses that great content and a compelling message will hopefully keep them on your site and encourage them to follow through with the call to action of the campaign you set out to do.

    Metrics & Reporting

    Stated at the beginning of this article, results are what the clients are looking for. To get these, it’s vital that any campaign have a solid method of acquire metrics and an easy to comprehend reporting process so that the metics can be analyzed effectively. Ben recognizes the importance of sending a mass email, for example, but more importantly it’s how that person will interact with that email.

    “It’s things like open rates, click through rates where it emails, it action conversion rates where you go through that. It’s like everyone who signs a particular petition and how many follow through and send out and invite your friends to sign the petition as well. How many of those friends then come along and sign it. Its the qualitative side of measurement as well so what issue brought these individuals in originally, what should we be talking about with them ongoing,” says Ben Self in an example of how metrics can be measured from something as simple as an email campaign.

    In a bold statement Ben says that no action online goes without a way to measure it in some way. That is what Blue State Digital looks to capture and report. The key ingredient to their system is focusing in on what YOU are doing.

    Andicom 2009

    Blue State Digital was featured at Andicom 2009 in Colombia where Ben has been asked to discuss the case study of the Obama campaign.

    “It doesn’t matter if you are a politician, or a corporation or a nonprofit or a university or a film, we’ve worked with clients in all sorts of organizations, but that people are expecting the internet to not just be a broadcast medium anymore. They are expecting interactivity and giving a few examples of how you can build that interactivity honestly and transparently and then giving some best practices for engaging with people after you’ve built that website and once you’ve brought them there,” Ben says of his speaking topic.

    He adds that Blue State Digital wants to ensure that they share “the basics of online organizing along with a few best practices that hopefully people can take away from no matter what industry they come from.”