Ian On The Red Dot

The i.Jam co-spaces event was yesterday. I only arrived in time to hear the pitches from startups looking for funding so I can’t comment on what was said about the co-spaces initiative. I’ll just used what was put on SgEntrepreneurs:

As technology advances towards digitization, we see an increasing coexistence of physical places with dynamic virtual environments. IDM’s new initiative centers on Co-Spaces, the nexus of the physical and virtual worlds, where physical spaces are virtually enhanced with information, and virtual spaces which allow users to process and manipulate real-time, real-world information.

After hearing the last pitch titled ‘Mobile World’, based on what I could understand from it, I was wondering why anyone would want to replicate the real world in the virtual with 3D-technology and allow it to be accessible via a mobile phone. The idea reminded me of the type of websites that were built when the Internet first hit mainstream - people were trying to present the world online the same way they see it in the physical. Take for example a website about books - the website would use an image of a bookshelf with images of books stacked on it. As we became more familiar with the Internet, we learned how to describe a set of books with just the images of their covers and their titles arranged in a list - we didn’t need to use the bookshelf metaphor.

Trying to build a virtual world that looks like the real world and map it directly to physical locations sounds a lot like what happened in the beginning with the World Wide Web. If you are already physically at a location, I’m sure there are other ways to map and visualize data tied to the location.

“And then came the grandest idea of all! We actually made a map of the country, on the scale of a mile to the mile!”
“Have you used it much?” I enquired.
“It has never been spread out, yet,” said Mein Herr: “the farmers objected: they said it would cover the whole country, and shut out the sunlight! So we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well”

The quote above is from the site REAL TIME ROME and sort of explains why I question the idea behind ‘Mobile World’. The project REAL TIME ROME used data from cellphones and other sources to understand the urban dynamics of Rome in real time. On a side note, I think it would be beneficial to Singapore if we embarked on a similar project before we start the overhaul of our transport system.

The project was done by MIT’s SENSEable City lab. Similar to the projects that SENSEable City lab is doing is this project MIT Media Lab did where cellphone usage provided data to understand the complex interactions between individuals in social networks. Technology Review has an interview with Alex (Sandy) Pentland about the project.

The scary thing is the models created with the data from the cellphones could understand the social networks better than the individuals in them because the data provided was raw unfiltered information while individuals provided information that were susceptible to distortions.

The above labs are involved in projects in the field of ‘reality mining’.

It’s about making the “dumb” information-technology infrastructure know something about your social life. All this sort-of Web 2.0 stuff is nice, but you have to type stuff in. Things are never up to date, and unless you consciously know about something, you can’t put it in. Reality mining is all about paying attention to patterns in life and using that information to help you do things like set privacy policies, share things with people, notify people when you’re near them, and just to help you live your life.

The company IMMI working in this field has developed technology that can help measure outdoor ad effectiveness without the consumer needing to ‘type stuff in’.

The field of reality mining is made possible by the availability of improved sensors to collect data, improved ability to track physical objects and ubiquitous connectivity to the Internet. The social and commercial implications based on our understanding of data derived from reality mining is enormous.

An example of the social implication from the above mentioned interview with Professor Pentland:

With reality mining, you can actually see social integration, as it happens or doesn’t happen. Once everyone can see it, then you can start to have transparent political discussions.

I think if any of our startups from Singapore would like to move into this space as part of the co-spaces initiative, there are 3 areas they could work on:

1. Improving tools and processes for the collection and aggregation for certain sets of real world data.

2. Improving the tools to understand and visualize the data.

And the last one, which is the one that I’m most concerned with since reading ‘1984′, implementing a technological and regulatory framework where the collection, aggregation and use of such data respects an individual’s privacy (which of course is arguably a myth in our current society).

Link: Nicholas Carr’s post on ‘Reality Mining’. He does a much better job at explaining stuff.

Andrew Keen who is the author of ‘the cult of the amateur‘ will probably throw a fit after reading this New York Times article on cellphone novels in Japan.  Best quote by a popular cellphone novelist on her generation:

They don’t read works by professional writers because their sentences are too difficult to understand, their expressions are intentionally wordy, and the stories are not familiar to them…

Tried looking for some English cellphone novels but to no avail.  Instead I found this article at USA Today about a novel where the entire story is told in the format of mobile phone text messages.  Same difference?  Cellphone novels as a genre is presumably influenced by the tool (i.e. mobile phone) that is used to produce the stories.  The Finnish novel mentioned in the USA Today’s article is constrained by the use of a format of communication that is increasingly becoming commonplace to individuals living in developed and developing nations.   One is influenced by the tool.  One uses the output of the tool.

My friend Justin shares his thoughts on the Open Handset Alliance and how a payment system is needed. I’m not sure if Google has announced anything regarding a payment system in connection with their mobile initiatives, but they probably have plans to do stuff along the lines of what Justin was discussing. Evidence? This patent application.

Related links:

Analysis @ Banking Unwired

Report @ Techcrunch

A few weeks ago, when I was in town, I received 3 smses on my phone. They were promotions sent by M1. They were unsolicited. I had been included into a trial of the new location based ad system without being asked for my permission or notified. If you had read the business section of yesterday’s and today’s newspaper, you would have been able to see the announcements by Singtel and M1 on their location based ad system.

Basically, using your phone, these two telcos can track your location and serve you ads for shops at that location. For example, I was at Paragon and received a promotion for Coffee Bean.

There are 3 things that concerns me about this ad system.

1. As A Consumer.

Firstly, they didn’t ask my permission to be included in this trial. Secondly, they didn’t notify me. Thirdly, it takes 10 days before my opt out is in effect. 10 days! Does it really take so long to administer a change after I opt out or do they want to be able to keep sending me smses for at least 10 more days.

I wonder whether their ‘Terms Of Service’ has anything to say about this. I guess they might have covered themselves over there.

2. As An Individual.

They started tracking my movement and location without my permission. Who knows when they started tracking. Who knows what they are tracking. This raises issues about privacy or in this case the lack of privacy.

Is anyone else concerned about this? Or maybe this is all in the TOS which no one really reads. Is it possible to tell telcos that I do not want to be tracked at all under any circumstances.

3. As Someone Interested in Information Technology.

Phones now have the ability to determine location. There is no need to get an additional gadget to use GPS. Some phone manufacturers expose that ability to developers through an API. However even with some phone manufacturers providing the API, promoting adoption of location based services where the user had to install a software on the mobile phone was not easy. It seems that people are less inclined to install software on their phone.

So developers became creative. Services like Dodgeball got users to sms in their location. There was no need to get users to install software. The heavy lifting was done at server side.

M1 and Singtel has shown that there is another way to do it. This way works because of their status as the service provider for mobile communications. While it is encouraging that the telcos are trying out new technology and services, the question that I have is that doesn’t them doing this possibly kill all form of competition and might eventually stifle innovation in this space.

Sure there is going to be competition between the telcos but is it now possible for other developers to compete with the telcos?

Of course, the telcos could create an API to their infrastructure which is tracking the mobile users and allow other developers to use it. For example, once a user has signed up for a service developed by another company, Singtel could request authentication from the user by sending a sms. The user replies with a confirmation and now the tracking information is passed on to the service. The telcos effectively becomes a broker for our location information and not just an ad provider.

I already have an idea for what such a system might look like and how it can be implemented.

The question then is would the telcos be like Facebook desiring everyone to build applications within their walled garden or would they be something like Twitter where everyone can use their API in the bigger environment.

Of course, even the jury is out on which scenario will be best for innovation if there is a difference at all.

On the last page of the Money section in today’s Straits Times is a report titled ‘ New ZapCode billboard a hit with shoppers’. Many thoughts came to mind when I read this report. The first was that this sounded a lot like an advertisement.

ZapCode is a 2D barcode technology that is being promoted by SPH NewMedia for advertising purposes. So when the newspaper printed by SPH says that ZapCodes are a hit with shoppers, I would take the claim with a lot more than a pinch of salt.

Some of the details in the report make me wonder if ZapCode is really such a hit. A billboard with a ZapCode has resulted in more than 1200 responses. Let’s be generous and say there were 1300 responses. These responses were received from 168 different mobile phones. This means, on average, each phone sent 8 messages ( I rounded the number upwards ). It has been about 3 weeks since the end of last month, so to be generous, each phone zapped the code 3 times in a week.

I’m not sure if each code was for a different piece of information. Apparently, there is a weekly lucky draw which people who zap the code are entered. Does zapping the same code increase your chance of winning? The report does not mention it and I haven’t had a chance to see the code yet. Does anyone know if within a week the code changes or the information changes? Does anyone know if zapping the code more increases your chances of winning in the lucky draw. I think this is important in ascertaining if ZapCode is indeed a hit. It is important because not all interaction with consumers are equal. Consumers may just be interacting with the code to win prizes without any care for the brand advertising.

And the number. 168 different mobile phones. I would believe that the Midpoint Orchard mall is a heavily trafficked area. To get 168 mobile phones zapping the codes seems to me like a small number.

So here is the thing. Is ZapCode really a hit with shoppers? Or is Straits Times disguising advertising as reporting to build hype about their own product?

Please share your views.