Archive for August, 2009

Free Food, Free WiFi

Monday, August 17th, 2009

After years of providing free WiFi to the masses, we love going to the Texas Restaurant Association (TRA) Soutwest Food Expo because we get free food.  The expo is a perfect trade show for us because it helps us meet partners and prospects in our target market.

Toss the ingredients of Smart WiFi into the Crazy Chef's mouth

Toss the ingredients of Smart WiFi into the Crazy Chef's mouth

This year’s booth was designed by our newest team member, John Toole.  The concept was to pitch the ingredients of Smart WiFi to prospects as they pitched bean bags into the Crazy Chef’s mouth.  It’s amazing how popular this corny carnie concept was and how successful it was in producing leads.  This year, we met Joe Aguilar of Bullrito’s and were delighted to discover that Smart WiFi  is a great fit for their WiFi and social marketing needs.  We were also delighted to see the booth of our channel partner, Time Warner Business Class.  Their’s wasn’t as fun as ours!

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SF Mobile: La donna e mobile

Saturday, August 8th, 2009

Last month, I attended my first SF Mobile event, Women in Technology, which turned out to be a different kind of SF Mobile event. Typically focused on the latest mobile start ups, SF Mobile teamed up with Orange Labs to pay homage to a group of extraordinary Silicon Valley women. All were entrepreneurial in the truest sense of the word, and were an impressive bunch in the eyes of yours truly. Special thanks to Vator.tv for the wonderful and useful recap!

Women in Tech

Photo courtesy of DanielKokin.smugmug.com

It’s a tough choice deciding who was most interesting. Each of these women brought a unique perspective, experience and personality to the event. Sandy Jen (Meebo), was the classic Silicon Valley start up founder, laid back, unassuming and humble. Beatrice Tarka (Mobissimo) was as charming as any of her counterparts; and her company is producing revenue-bonus! Rashmi Sinha (Slideshare) had a compelling, and at times humorous story to tell, while Heather Harde (TechCrunch) provided insightful discussion on new media and the future of TechCrunch. Leila Chirayath Janah (Samasource) impressed the audience with the  intelligent and creative philanthropy of her business model; and Silvia Console Battiana (Auctionomics) was entertaining in ways that I didn’t realize a Economics PhD with a radical idea could be.

I have to give big-ups to Orange Labs and Pascale Diaine for working with SF Mobile to produce such a fun event. Following the speakers, the cocktail/social hour was fun, relaxed and conducive to networking. Nice job! Diaine and VatorNews left us with a couple of great videos from the event. Diaine’s ‘Her Code’ can be seen on YouTube; and Vater.tv posted a great recap and video interview with Diaine (check it out below).

The event wasn’t what I expected from the SF Mobile, but it was truly inspiring. Membership in the SF Mobile Meetup and attendance at this event is doing more though. It’s leading Less Networks toward a new friendship with SF Mobile’s Lars Kamp, as we find our company immersed in mobile users, LBS technology and mobile advertising solutions; and tying it neatly into the social mobile world around Less Networks and humans at large.

~roberto

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LBS Apps for 2010 & Beyond

Sunday, August 2nd, 2009

WCA LogoThis month I attended my second WCA event, “On Deck–LBS Apps for 2010 & Beyond,” presented by the LBS SIG (Location Based Services Special Interest Group). For a biz dev guy, this event rated way higher than the first one I attended, Mobile SIG’s “Mobile Display Technology,” which was apparently a sweet event for the über techies of the mobile handset world.

LBS Apps for 2010 showcased some very cool apps for LBS enabled devices. Among the presenters were TourSpot, UrbanMapping, MotionMaps, DialPlus, Gokivo Navigator, zhiing, Aha, B4UGo, myGeoDiary, MADMaps, Google Latitude and geomob. NAVTEQ‘s Laura Diaz moderated the event from the famed PARC auditorium, which is apparently one big concrete bunker. I got bupkis for a signal on my Blackberry, while inside the auditorium. Nifty way to keep the phones quite during a presentation.

Interesting side note concerning PARC–I learned that in 2002, PARC was established as an independent company. After decades of giving away the coolest of technologies, PARC now seeks strategic partners to commercially monetize its innovations.

But PARC was by far the minor attraction. The presenters wowed the audience with impressive LBS smartphone gadgetry. Aha and B4UGO actually showed their products for the first time ever to the public. I found UrbanMapping, arguably one of the least sexy apps, to be among the most fascinating. What did I find so fascinating? The app can show parking data, including useful parking info for 3500 US and Canadian parking facilities–data collection at it’s finest. MotionMaps was much more the technical marvel, showing 3D maps that you can pan across and zoom in on with a mere twist of your wrist, using your device camera as a motion sensor. I should also give props to DialPlus, which brings contextually relevant caller data to your handset.

An interesting thing I’m reminded of, as I peruse the presenter websites, is that not everyone has ignored the Blackberry. In fact, I’ve seen far fewer than expected iPhones in the hands of developers at these WCA events. Perhaps the iPhone is as much (or more) an accessory as it is a truly good phone, from an LBS developer’s perspective.

This event enlightened me to the latest in LBS apps, while my last WCA event educated me to the struggles of maintaining acceptable battery life with ever increasing demands on mobile handset displays. As for WCA sponsored events, I’m looking forward to continued exploration and attendance. Obviously, LBS is highly relevant to Less Networks since we’re all about mashing up WiFi hotspots with social and LBS apps.

~roberto

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