People and Places mobile services and applications

This is a short list of the emerging start-ups that are focusing in the areas of contextual services for social networks.

Pocketlife
Bliin
Gypsii
Rummble
Tooio

NSN Industry seminar in Cairo January 2009

I had the pleasure of being invited by Ulla Koivuskosku to speak at the seminar this week in Cairo. The experience was great. The Egyptian telecommunications industry was well represented. And we had the chance to meet and talk to different people. Unlike the rest of the world the Egyptian economy like most of the middle east is still ok and growing. Tomi Ahonen did a great presentation on how with the current climate only the ones that adapt will succeed. He gave a list of examples of successful services in different categories.
My presentation revolved around the relevance of design in modern organizations and how companies need to embrace design management and design organizations into their own. I also gve a few examples of how service dsign can be the key to increase customer loyalty and presented a few examples of how different operators in different parts of the world plan to deal with the crisis this year. I finished with a list of thoughts collected after CES and from Fjord Research.
The audience was very interested about what is service design, and the methodology we apply, and user experience in general.

The best of CES 2009

This year I visited CES and Las Vegas for the first time. Everyone said that CES was this year more quiet than ever. The truth is that I did not see anything disruptive but rather evolutions of existing trends. The key things I saw could be summarize in the following points:
-User Experience becoming a "buzz expression": You could hear people talking in multiple contexts about UX. It is clear that there is a new benchmark for new products and services and UX is a key parameter.
-OLED will make flat really thin. Samsung as the front runner. We can expect the next 3 years a race to showcase the thinnest screens, eventually ending in flexible screens in 5 to 7 years.
-3D TVs and projectors will be the next TV upgrade over the next 3 years. Content creators need to undersntand the need to move into this format really fast. At the moment is the main challenge. The user experience is superb.
-QWERTY moves from business to other consumer segments in mobile phones. Motorola, Balckberry and others showcased clam-shells, etc using QWERTY
-Convergence in the living room is finally shaping up. the main challenge is that there is not a consistent good UI for experiencing Internet-like content in the TV screen. Yahoo showcased widgets for TV, quite convincing. I also liked some prototypes from Toshiba to interact with gestures with content on Tv.
-Netbooks are mainstream: not much to say here. Every manufacturer has nowadays their version. My view is that only those that understand the posibility of making netbooks the next communicator will find customers among operators. This will require probably chosing Linux and building a dedicated UI and set of communication applications.
-Digital photo frames, are the next Christmas gadget. I bought the Kodak W820, with RSS capability. It is great what you can do. But the UX is broken and takes 2 days for a connoiseur to set it up.
-GPS is the next must have feature. From phones to cameras, Android and Sony where good examples. Worth reading the Wired issue of this month on this topic.

I missed the new Palm at the show. I saw it the they after I left. However I have a good selection of pictures that can be found at Flickr.