Author Archives: kirstystyles1

Oxfam and Coldplay Ask Scoopshot Users to Help End Land Grabs

Oxfam and Coldplay are asking mobile photographers to help create a crowdsourced music video using Scoopshot to call for an end to land grabs by governments, banks and other investors.

Scoopshot has a network of photographers in 170 countries who have been asked to show displacement in their lives by moving a personal object or task done in their home to somewhere unfamiliar. Coldplay’s music video director, Mat Whitecross, will curate and stitch together the film and photography submitted via Scoopshot’s apps and Oxfam’s website to play alongside Coldplay’s ‘In My Place’.

The film will be launched in April as the World Bank convenes its annual Spring meetings. Campaigners say that the World Bank is in a unique position to change the situation as an investor in land and an adviser to companies on buying and selling land. This is the first time that Scoopshot’s crowdsourcing service has been used for this kind of campaign.

Oxfam’s Campaigns Director, Ben Philips said: “Campaigning is all about putting yourself in someone else’s place we know that when we unite and stand up against global injustice we can make a real difference”

Written for Mobile Marketing Magazine and published here: http://www.mobilemarketingmagazine.com/content/oxfam-and-coldplay-ask-scoopshot-users-help-end-land-grabs

Siemens and UK Government Launch Learning Hub to Plug Digital Skills Gap

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Siemens has launched an education and careers platform to help inspire more young people in the UK to become engineers.

The digital hub has been ‘explicitly designed to encourage young people to engage with engineering and manufacturing related subjects’, with many software, electronic and mechanical engineers now going on to work in the mobile industry.

The company is working with the Cabinet Office, Department for Education and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to open the education portal for teachers, students and parents to access relevant information. It will be rolled out to 5,000 schools by 2014, aiming to reach more than 1.95m pupils in the first year and 4.5m by 2016.

Siemans launched its first mobile phone in 1985 and released more than 100 handsets before it sold this arm of its business in 2005.

Written for Mobile Marketing Magazine and published here: http://www.mobilemarketingmagazine.com/content/siemens-and-uk-government-launch-learning-hub-plug-digital-skills-gap

Spotlight: Mobile Activism with Qwanz App

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It’s not often that the word ‘revolutionary’ is heard in mobile without someone thinking, ‘yeah, that’s what they all say’, but Qwanz has been created with the potential to help people change the world.

The poll booth for the mobile age enables Qwanz app users on iOS and Android to vote in polls on their favourite topics, share the question with friends on social networks and even create a poll to add weight to their own cause. The polling app enables its users to quickly download for free and sign in with Facebook. I created a poll in minutes.

Become an opinion leader

Its competitors, which include Survey Monkey and Polldaddy, don’t offer the same range of functionality, including the ability to forward the results to the right decision-makers and an unlimited number of responses per poll. Users can earn badges for their participation and even become a Qwanz world opinion leader.

Like a good dating app, developers of something like this almost certainly need a critical and diverse mass in order to ensure the polling has impact. Qwanz says it is an independent platform without ties to any political, religious or ideological organisations. Its founder, Pierre Sernet, started the fine arts database Artnet.com, and doesn’t appear to have any sinister motives.

Qwanz also says it has a network of more than 20,000 journalists watching the results – although it is not clear how this has been achieved – but it certainly appears to be a good tool for hacks in a hurry. Is this more armchair activism or can it really make a difference?

Written for Mobile Marketing Magazine and published here: http://www.mobilemarketingmagazine.com/content/spotlight-mobile-activism-qwanz-app

Gates: Microsoft’s Mobile Strategy “Clearly a Mistake”

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In an interview with CBS, Bill Gates admitted that Microsoft’s mobile strategy was “clearly a mistake” and it didn’t allow them to “get the leadership” against companies like Google and Apple.

Asked about current CEO Steve Ballmer’s leadership, while Gates said he believed that lots of “amazing things” had been done in the last year, including Windows 8 and Surface, he admitted: “no, he and I are not satisfied”.

Having set out with the mission to have a “computer on every desk and in every home”, and succeeded, the company is still clearly banking on mobile to make sure it is now also in everyone’s pocket. But is it too late?

Written for Mobile Marketing Magazine and published here: http://www.mobilemarketingmagazine.com/content/microsoft%E2%80%99s-mobile-strategy-%E2%80%9Cclearly-mistake%E2%80%9D-says-gates

Wayra Chosen to Launch Social Enterprise Incubator

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Telefonica’s tech accelerator Wayra has become one of the first to be awarded money from the government’s £10m Social Incubator Fund. In a partnership with UnLtd, the Warya UnLtd Academy will provide investment and technical expertise to social entrepreneurs who use digital technologies to solve real-world problems. The organisation will look after 30 businesses over two years.
Bethnal Green Ventures, an accelerator for tech-based social enterprises, will also launch their Social Innovation Camp to support businesses tackling environmental and social problems. They will help 72 start-ups over four years.

“We are massively proud to celebrate this new partnership to find, support and grow digital social enterprises in the UK,” said Simon Devonshire, director of Wayra Europe. “We are also thrilled the government is giving this special partnership its full support and backing. Together we aim to address significant social issues through the use of digital technology combined with entrepreneurial talent.”

Written for Mobile Marketing Magazine and published here: http://www.mobilemarketingmagazine.com/content/wayra-chosen-launch-social-enterprise-incubator

Hailo Puts $30m on the Meter

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The taxi-hailing app founded by three London cabbies has raised $30m (£19m) from the VC firm that backed Twitter, Foursquare and Tumblr. With Tom Barr, former Starbucks exec, joining as the company’s US president and COO, the company’s next stop this quarter is New York.

The funding was led by Union Square Investors, others backers now include Richard Branson and the Japanese telco, KDDI, which has an exclusive partnership to support launches in Asia, starting with Tokyo’s 40,000 taxi drivers in a market estimated at $25bn.

“In just over a year, we have operations in ten cities across six countries and sales in excess of $100m. We now have the senior team, resources, and the investment and corporate partners to deliver our vision of bringing Hailo to NYC, Tokyo, and every street corner in every major city in the world,” said Jay Bregman, Hailo CEO and co-founder.

Nailed Dublin, Madrid next

Hailo secured $17m from Accel Partners in March to launch in Dublin – where it became the number one taxi service in the city in just three months – and has gone live in Boston, Toronto and Chicago since the service was unveiled in November 2011. Twitter’s US sales director, Bruce Daisley, speaking at today’s Mobile Marketing Association Brand and Agency Briefing, reveleaved how Hailo uses hastag targeting to drum up new business, tweeting out statements like ‘heading for the #websummit in Dublin today?’.

Hailo, now considered the best-funded taxi app in the world, with $50.6m raised to date, is on its way to Spain, beginning with Madrid and Barcelona. Hailo says it has 10,000 London taxi drivers, from whom is takes a 10 per cent cut from the fare, which makes it the dominant e-hail application in London. Earlier this month, Hailo launched an outdoor, print and digital campaign in the capital.

The $30.6m Series B round also included Moscow-based Phenomen Ventures, Felicis Ventures, Red Swan Ventures, as well as existing investors Accel Partners, Wellington Partners, which provided initial seed money, and Skype founder Niklas Zennström’s Atomico Ventures.

Written for Mobile Marketing Magazine and published here: http://www.mobilemarketingmagazine.com/content/hailo-puts-30m-meter

Fab’s Mobile Users Spend 20 Per Cent More

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Fab, the online design product marketplace, has found that its mobile users purchase 20 per cent more items per order than PC customers, with 30 per cent of total sales now coming from its mobile apps.

This figure, the company says, sometimes reaches above 50 per cent. People who use Fab’s mobile apps convert to purchasers more than twice as often as web-only users and they purchase twice as often, the retailer added.

“Success on mobile is now a barometer of a company’s success,’” said CEO Jason Goldberg. “It is not an understatement to say that Fab is a breakout mobile retailer.”

Fab has introduced updates to its iOS and Android apps, including improved search, browsing and filtering to enable mobile searchers to find items by product type, colour, price, popularity and availability.

The company, which prides itself on the sociability of its user-base, has also introduced Fab profiles so fans can bookmark and display all of the items favourited and purchased. Social has been a key part of the network’s growing success, with 50 per cent of its members coming from social.

The retailer, which launched in 2011, currently has 10m users who can browse up to 15,000 products from designers at any one time.

Written for Mobile Marketing Magazine and published here: http://www.mobilemarketingmagazine.com/content/mobile-users-spend-20-cent-more-finds-fab-design-marketplace

Telefónica Commits to EU Tech Job Pledge

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Technology companies, including ARM, Cisco and Telefónica, have joined a ‘Grand Coalition’ announced by the EU commissioner for technology at Davos in order to boost digital skills, innovation and entrepreneurship in the region.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum, Neelie Kroes said that Europe would have 1m new tech jobs by 2016 and 2m by 2020, with up to a fifth of these in the UK. The initiative should equip Europeans with technological skills and knowledge to fill these roles.

Telefónica’s COO, José María Álvarez-Pallete, pledged to give support to 1,000 start-ups globally by 2015 through its Wayra Academy programmes, along with commissioning an attitudes survey of Millennial adults in the 27 member states and launching a new tech event in London, Campus Party Europe, to take place in September. Telefónica also aims to have built an online community of 300,000 young entrepreneurial Europeans, to teach digital literacy to 50,000 students in its Think Big School and get 5,000 young people and graduates into tech roles via its Talentum programme.

Skills shortages

“The transition to a knowledge-based and innovation-driven economy is accelerating, but skills shortages and gaps are negatively impacting growth, competitiveness, innovation and employment in Europe,” said Álvarez-Pallete, speaking at the World Economic Forum. “We believe that commissioner Neelie Kroes’ Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs is a very helpful catalyst to help European recovery. The private sector has a critical role to play and we will be working actively to build a real momentum across Europe”.

Telefónica has already been working to address existing skills gaps and encourage entrepreneurship, launching five Wayra start-up academies in Europe in the last 12 months. The company, which owns the UK’s O2 network and serves 100m customers in the EU, says it has invested in a new start-up every three days and created nearly three new jobs every day since Warya opened its doors. It has also trained 4,180 young people to start their own social projects and taught 1,000 young people about digital skills.

Written for Mobile Marketing Magazine and published here: http://www.mobilemarketingmagazine.com/content/telefonica-joins-eus-tech-job-pledge-1000-start-ups-goal

Mobile a Big Success in Record Year for BBC iPlayer

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Mobile now makes up a quarter of all iPlayer traffic after a 177 per cent increase in smartphone and tablet usage during 2012. For the first time in its history, PC traffic made up less than half of all visits, 47 per cent, in December. Along with mobile, connected devices, including games consoles and smart TVs, make up the remainder.

The iPlayer app has now been downloaded 14m times, including 300,000 on Christmas Day alone. Mobile downloads of BBC programmes have proved a massive hit, with 10.8m downloaded to iOS devices since the service launched in September. They have quickly taken a 6 per cent share of viewing on mobiles and tablets. The majority of viewers download programmes at 10pm and watch them on the way to and from work at 7.30am and 5.30pm, the BBC has found.

Record usage

2.32bn TV and radio programme requests and 36.5bn minutes were consumed across all platforms during 2012. This is 34 per cent more time spent watching iPlayer than ever before. December continued to be the most popular month, with a record 217m requests for TV and radio programmes, a 23 per cent increase on 2011.

2013 has had a strong start, with 6,732m requests for TV programmes on January 1 alone, the most ever seen in 24 hours. The Olympic Opening Ceremony topped iPlayer viewing, followed by Top Gear and Sherlock.

Written for Mobile Marketing Magazine and published here: http://www.mobilemarketingmagazine.com/content/mobile-big-success-record-year-bbc-iplayer