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Prometeus, futurology in media convergence

Discovered via the world famous blog Techcrunch, here is a very interesting video about media evolution.

I’m not buying everything but superbly well done.

69 comments June 17th, 2007

The techno roller coaster

Sent by my dear friend Michelange Baudoux (founder of the company ObjectiveGui).
This is a global view on almost all the current and upcoming technologies and their evolution from the hype to the hypotetical productivity stage.

One thing is sure, some are quick to evolve (RFID), others are blocked in the curve since ages (i.e: tablet PC’s)

24 comments May 26th, 2007

Mobile internet, finally a light at the end of the tunnel?

The story is an old and a well known one.

The number of announcements about the arrival of the mobile internet and all its derivatives (marketing, services …) have occurred a numerous of time already.

The networks (Wap, GPRS, 3G, Wifi, WiMax) have been considered as a leverage and … nothing happened because no real adapted contents nor services were delivered beside (And oftently an excessive pricing, being a huge barrier for users).

Each device type generation have also been considered as a potential factor to start the mobile internet wave: gsm, gsm with colour screens, with wifi, pda connectable to any network… and again nothing sufficient to see a start.

So what?

As told, contents and services (and usability)are certainly the key. But what contents and what services? Due to the number of devices and then screen resolutions available on the market, it is very difficult for a content or service provider to test applications and mobile content areas properly.

This could be history soon with the new CS3 release from Adobe; wich is including Adobe Device Central a development framework with integrated emulators of mobile device with integrated knowledge base about the huge amount of different devices available.

Another software giant announcing a move on the mobile internet’s field is Microsoft with its project Deepfish: a mobile device browser.

These announcements are clearly not a revolution, but strong signals from the industry at two capital levels: User experience and application design tools for improved RMA (Rich Mobile Application).

Beside that, pure mobile based applications will certainly shortly explose, services as described by Forbes, some of them are already there in some places like mobile paiments, other are still studied in labs.

So Mobile internet is closer than never, we all know it will arrive soon, the only question is when?

80 comments April 10th, 2007

Animated datas

Gapminder is an organisation that has the goal of simplify data presentation and to make statistics easily understandable. They developped an application named Trendalyzer that has recently been acquired by Google.

The goal of the foundation

is to promote a fact-based worldview by bringing statistical story-telling to new levels. In collaboration with producers of accurate statistics that are eager to give the public free access to databases.

Regarding the huge amount of datas and informations owned by Google it is highly probable that soon, the range of available datas will be widely expanded.

2 comments April 3rd, 2007

Voo: a counter exemple in Brand name decision

Last Year the belgian historical cable operator Brutele changed its name to Voo.

While merging with other cable operators, Brutele choosed the brand name Voo, wich in French means You (”Vous”).

If the intention seems to be good: Including the customer in the brand. My opinion is that totally missed their target.

One detail they certainly forget to think about is that the brand name will be prononced by customers and not the company. What happens then is a exclusion of the brand by the customers.

So Voo is actually opposing the brand and the customers face to face. Then creating a gap between the brand and its customer base.

As a old customer, I can notice that the budget has first been put on marketing and not on service improvement. This generating more issues and then the brand name choice is more and more powerfull as the customer’s satisfaction get down.

What is sold as a triple play offer is actually meaning that Voo’s side you’ll have to speak with 3 different services, you’ll receive 3 different invoices, with one same brand name Voo.

Moreover: for a frenchspeaking person, misprononciating the name would lead to something like Vo (like the Cow’s baby: Veau in french).
Not a nice image to associate with fast and performant communication services.

The Noo name would have been probably better but with also some major weaknesses.

In summary, we can say that: “what’s inside is visible outside.”

109 comments February 22nd, 2007