Fellow Nestorites,
I’m pleased to announce that we’ve launched a Nestoria Layar application today in partnership with Samsung UK. For those that don’t know Layar is an innovative new “Augmented Reality” technology that allows you to use your phone to “see” where things (in our case properties to buy or rent) are. It’s a totally new way to explore your environment, and for us it’s another attempt to make finding your next home as easy as possible. We’ll do a post later this week that goes into the nuances of the application (with video – this is a case where seeing is believing), but today we wanted to speak with the Nick Turner-Samuels, Head of Content for Samsung Mobile UK. Nick has been at Samsung for the last several years in a variety of roles. Prior to that he worked at BBC Online and he has experience in online classifieds in the jobs sector. All of which means he’s uniquely placed to discuss the innovation happening between the mobile and online space and what implications it might have for online classifieds. Nick, it is great to have you as our newest partner, especially on such a ground-breaking service. Thanks for making the time to speak with us. 1. 2009 seems to be the year mobile internet usage finally took off in a big way. As someone with years of experience in the mobile content business what’s your perspective? It’s interesting to see the massive changes in how people are using their mobiles. The old models of major portals providing walled gardens (sometimes with good intentions of providing a good experience on a mobile browser, sometimes just to make money) have changed hugely in a short space of time. On one side, an industry based on ringtones, java games and wallpapers has had to innovate very quickly or risk dying (as well as companies who aggregated such content). People are expecting apps for their mobiles to bring them new features and benefits, not just customisation, and native games for powerful alternatives to the portable gaming market. On the other side, browsers are now capable of quickly displaying almost any web page (Even showing Flash & Ajax content), making the internet finally accessible with ease. WAP (a major mobile industry platform in itself) is quickly being replaced on medium to high end phones by web. Another interesting aspect is the influx of major web players seeing mobile as the big growth market. Just look at the huge increase in users of Facebook on mobile over the last couple of years, or see how much attention is being paid to mobile by Google (Android Platform, buying AdMob, etc), to get the gist. The power game of who is ‘owning’ the customer is sliding between Operators and Manufacturers to web 2.0 players to OS providers, and it’s not clear just yet who will come out unscathed. 2. The big success story of the mobile internet has been Apple’s iPhone. Now Google’s Android is reaching maturity and several other operating systems seem to be innovating as well. Who will win the Android vs. iPhone battle? Or is that battle even the relevant one? The success of the iPhone has been without doubt, massive – and has led to a lot of shift within the industry. But it’s currently limited to a few expensive devices and the form factor is not to everyone’s taste (no keys, for example). While the general public may not yet heard of Android (it’s likely they don’t care what platform they are running anyway, just that it works well, and has good apps), those in mobile industry and tech followers know Android is going to be very very big in 2010. It will provide even more competition amongst device makers to produce the best devices, because to a certain extent, it levels the playing field. While the Operating System is very good and cheap to use, everyone knows it is Google’s, and they are making it for a reason. And ultimately, they can change things at any point without anyone else’s say so… Samsung is currently the world’s second largest phone maker, and sold 40m touch-screen phones in 2009 alone. In 2010, our strategy will be Smartphones for everyone, which means we have opened up our software to developers in much the same way as Apple. We’ll be offering a substantial marketplace for all developers to make money from and expect to bring our first phone to market in the first half of the year. Expect big things in the OS battle… 3. One of the most innovative new mobile applications is Augmented Reality (AR), with the Layar service (with whom Samsung work) being one of the leading innovators in this new field. What can users expect from this new technology? AR is going to be one of the biggest growth technologies in the next few years, and mobile will play a central part of it. In simple form, it’s about overlaying what you are looking at (like a mobile screen) with extra information, in near-real time (think Terminator, perhaps). Currently, this has been best used in simple form for innovative marketing (hold a basic printed up to your webcam and a product will pop out of the image, which moves as you move your simple image around), but future applications could see you putting on some glasses with and being able to change parts in your car with ease, or help trainees perform surgery. Plenty of examples of AR are on the internet for you to see, but its set to explode. One fascinating development has already happened. Layar, the world’s first augmented browser, has created a platform for visual search results from the internet. Simply move your phone around you and up will pop the latest property search results from Nestoria, with details and a simple click for more information or directions to the property integrated into Google Maps. There are plenty of other ‘Layers’ too, with lastminute.com, hotels.com, Barclays and more joining up with Samsung, in addition to all the other companies developing for the platform. Visual search will become second nature to mobile users very quickly, and it’s an exciting space to be in at the moment. 4. Before turning to mobile, you worked briefly in the classifieds industry for leading jobs sites like Monster & smartwork.com. What impacts do you predict from mobile innovation for the classifieds industry? There will be more of a shift to location-aware classified listings. I would expect to see some of the major players in classified general services, automobile and more move into displaying relevant listings and services based on accurately knowing where you are without you needed to do anything. There been too much talk about this sort of thing in the past, but 2010 onwards should finally be where we see this picking up. It’s about how it makes money the most that will really drive the services. Mobile is the instant, always on, two-way enabler. Not only can you get information and use it straight away, from shopping comparison on a product in store, to finding the nearest cash point/property to rent in your area, or viewing a photo of a prospective builder’s work, but you can review, find directions to, contact or meet other people who use such a service, immediately. And with Open platforms like the new Samsung Bada, the possibilities are endless (shameless plug!). Thanks Nick. 2010 is certain to be an exciting time for the mobile industry, and most of all for consumers. The technology has finally reached maturity in terms of usability and affordability, and we’re delighted that Nestoria can be a part of the innovation. For those interested in keeping up with what Nick’s up to, you can follow him on twitter @nickts. past Nestoria interviews: Josh Devins, Stoycho Vlaykov, and Mark KeatingArchive for the 'interviews' Category
Fellow Nestorphiles,
I’m very pleased that today we kick off the 2010 Nestoria interview series by speaking with Josh Devins, Software Architect in Nokia’s Map and Explore group, part of the team that is responsible for Ovi Maps. For those of you new to the blog, about once a month we try to put a few questions to a thought leader in the online geography or real estate space. Given the huge growth in mobile internet usage in the last year I’m particularly pleased that our first interview of the year is with someone from one of the biggest players in the “location” space. Josh joined Nokia Berlin in 2008 from Vancouver, Canada where he worked at a number of internet companies. He holds a BSc in Computer Science from Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada. Nokia in Berlin is focused primarily on location-based services. Josh, great that we get the chance to speak with you about the innovation happening at Nokia. 1. Over the last few years, Nokia has moved aggressively into the mapping space, acquiring Navteq, launching Ovi Maps, and basically redefining itself from the traditional role of handset manufacturer. Tell us a bit about the transition. About two years ago, Nokia set about creating the Services unit, providing value-added services to consumers. Making the move from being the leading handset maker to a service provider is, of course, a big transition, however Nokia is a company that thrives on reinventing itself. Once upon a time, Nokia even made rubber boots, so it knows a thing or two about transition. The acquisition of Navteq and the push into mapping have been reactions to the role that mobile devices are starting to have in people’s day-to-day lives. More and more, the device is becoming a gateway to a much broader world and we are pushing hard to be at the forefront of where the virtual world meets the physical world. Mapping and location in general are really the the ultimate realizations of a person in their world. It’s about bringing devices, mobility, and relationships back into peoples’ physical world. 2. We recently saw you speak at UK’s first Scale Camp. You mentioned that one of the hardest parts of building Ovi Maps is not technical but rather the internal transition to a new way of working. Can you explain? While there are definitely a lot of technical issues that are very non-trivial, one of the things that people notice about our group is that it is very atypical from what most people see as a device manufacturer. We try to run a very Agile shop with Scrum teams, a very flat hierarchy and openness with the rest of Nokia as well as the developer community as a whole. Being one of the newest “server side” groups in Nokia, we approach the situation by attempting to lead by example. Traditionally the device manufacturing process requires a high level of very strict control, process, planning, investment and foresight. On the services side, we need to live to the same exacting quality standards, but also live in the world of Internet-pace, frequent releases and delivery of functionality. This type of shift is something that happens organically from the inside out. However being who we are, we also have very urgent need to scale teams and functionality up and out fast. These sometimes opposing forces prove to be a huge challenge just to orchestrate and to find the right balance. 3. A few months ago Nokia acquired fellow London-based and geography focused start-up Dopplr, and some members of the team are now joining the Ovi Maps project. Can you give us any details? What I can tell you is that we are really excited to have this talented team joining us! I’ve been working with some of them daily for the past couple of months and they’re full of great ideas. Acquiring small companies like this with resourceful, inventive and outgoing people brings a very valuable, fresh look into what we do. We are obviously trying to leverage those talents as best we can. Luring them to Berlin was pretty easy too! 4. One thing we often mention here on the blog, yet are still continually amazed by, is the phenomenal pace of innovation in online cartography. Between Google Maps, Bing, Cloudmade, OpenStreetMap, and now Ovi more and more is being offered to users and developers. What do you think we’ll see in the coming years? I think we’re just hitting the tip of the iceberg and there’s two things that I see as leading the way forward. First, there is such a phenomenal amount of information out there that nobody has really figured out what to do with. From addresses, POI data, journey and routes to social context and community commentary. Some products take the grab-bag approach and throw everything at the user and let them figure it out. The acquisition of Navteq really shot us into the information race, allowing us to work very closely with a company that has people on the ground to verify POIs and provide very accurate data. When it comes to cartography and mapping on the device, simplicity and accuracy are paramount. If we can nail services that provide the consumer with the most accurate information then we become the go-to source on the device. With open APIs for devices and services we believe we can build and propagate the most usable location information anywhere and build a location-centric ecosystem around that. Second part I believe is discovery. We have pretty clear traditional ways to find places in the world — addresses, geo-coordinates, regions, etc. — but people need more. Whether it be “find me interesting new places that I might like” or location based games, we need to find a way to bring the fun and adventure back into place discovery. Services like Dopplr are really pushing people to get out there, share their lives and explore the world to discover new places. We’re doing our best to continue and build on these ideas and give people something that is both valuable and fun. Thanks Josh – great to see another big player innovating in the online cartography game. To learn more follow Josh on twitter @joshdevins. past Nestoria interviews: Stoycho Vlaykov, Mark Keating, and Jason TrostFor this month’s Nestoria interview we speak with internet entrepreneur Stoycho Vlaykov, co-founder of newly launched lifestyle/travel site 60by80. Prior to starting 60by80 Stoycho founded M Telecom, a Bulgarian mobile content provider he later sold to Velti Plc. Before that he headed up business development for Yahoo! Europe’s mobile efforts and worked at Austrian mobile operator Connect Austria (now part of Orange). He’s originally from Bulgaria and studied in Austria.
1. Tell us about 60by80 and the niche it serves? What do you see as the market opportunity here and how are you meeting it? 60by80 is an online travel guide service for the modern gay traveller. The market opportunity is easy to see – according to one official study UK gay people spent GBP 4.8bn on travel and related services in 2008. The Montreal Tourist Board has data showing that the annual gay parade celebrations are the second largest revenue generating event for the city after the Formula 1 weekend. So we are focusing on serving this high end gay consumer segment – worth over $500 billion in disposable income by some measures. And we believe that it is probably one of the most undermarketed consumer groups because it’s difficult to identify, reach and keep satisfied. These are consumers who have high disposable income, travel frequently for business and leisure and are likely to read The Economist, Vanity Fair or Wallpaper as much as purely gay media. It’s a group that can be frustratingly difficult to target, but we believe that travel content is its common denominator. Our audience travels at least 3 times a year (some do easily 10 trips per year). When it comes to destination choices and service requirements, this segment has very high yet similar needs and that’s where 60by80 comes into the picture: providing high quality, up-to-date travel information not exclusively gay but written specifically with that audience in mind. For the users it’s a much needed and missed product, and for brands, marketers and travel businesses, it’s a tremendously attractive opportunity to connect with this audience in a targeted way. 2. The online travel space is obviously very crowded. How do you plan on standing out? The travel space is crowded but there is no quality global service, created specifically for our target segment. Big sites treat content for gay travellers as an afterthought. And local gay sites can be difficult to find or sometimes in the local language. We believe that providing one trusted and up-to-date source of travel information is something badly needed by professional gay men who have increasingly busy lifestyles. To get there, we’re investing heavily in creating original quality content, we will extend coverage to 20 cities over 12 months plus we will have regular contributions from both famous people showcasing their own city or their preferred destinations and holiday activities. And we have a few surprises for our members, like special offers, competitions and sweepstakes from selected hotel, airline or frequent traveler program partners plus special blog features on things like spa and yoga holidays, horse riding and adventure weekends. 3. You’re someone who has seen the full spectrum of the European internet: you’ve successfully launched a consumer brand in eastern Europe, you’ve worked for a major American internet brand, and now you’re doing a start up in London. How would you say the European internet scene has evolved, particularly in eastern Europe? A few years ago, most of the internet start-ups in Eastern Europe were of the “copy-paste” type, i.e. ideas which worked in the West were transplanted and modified to local tastes and market conditions. Despite of this the road for internet entrepreneurs in Eastern Europe was still very rocky, simply because of the very low internet penetration rates and the virtually non-existing access to initial capital. People not only needed to come up with a viable idea, but implement it and bring it to market and often turn a profit practically on their own. However lately there has been a resurgence in activity. Online advertising is becoming a viable business model as international firms shift part of their ad spending online also in Eastern Europe. Internet access and telecom infrastructure are rapidly improving. Plus there is a rising interest and investment by venture funds, driven by successful exit stories in the internet space in Eastern Europe. Some sectors, like e-commerce or online travel are still in their infancy because of the very limited penetration of credit cards or electronic payment systems. However local social media start-ups are successfully, cornering niche markets and are being much more aggressive in usage of the mobile internet and payment options. The real problem for local companies remains how to bring a successful local product idea to regional or global markets. 4. You have a lot of mobile experience, having worked for an operator and a mobile focused consumer service company. Has the mobile internet finally arrived? What’s next? Until the launch of the iPhone, the mobile internet always used to promise services and features which in reality were five years in the future. This led to massive frustration for customers and huge lost investment for mobile operators. It is little surprise that an industry outsider made a breakthrough with a device which focused on user needs rather than technology. The new smart phones are finally achieving things promised to consumers almost 10 years ago – browse the internet, download and upload photos, music and video. Sending a micro-update via mobile to Facebook or Twitter is not much different in terms of user motivation than sending a text message to your friends. However the new devices make it possible for users to connect via their preferred media channel, free from any operator limitations and often at lower or no cost. So indeed the mobile internet is finally living to the high expectations. It was logically unleashed by a wave of 3rd party innovation (both in handsets and applications) and hugely boosted by higher speed 3G networks, flatrate data plans and lifting of operator restrictions on browsing and services. This is just the start. The mobile phone has literally transformed the lives of billions of people by allowing instant calls and text messaging around the globe. Now its being used for always-on communication and entertainment in the developed world. In the future it will become a major financial tool for payments, storing cash and why not credit balances. It will help us control our house, car and even health. Lets just hope it does not take over our live completely. Many thanks Stoycho. While we don’t offer Nestoria users the glamour that they might find on 60by80, we can relate to the challenge of building a business to focus on one particular thing. Best of luck. For those interested in learning more about 60by80 I recommend subscribing to their travel blog. past Nestoria interviews: Mark Keating, Jason Trost, Christopher Parker.This month we have the pleasure of speaking with Mark Keating, lead organiser of the London Perl Workshop, which will be taking place on Saturday the 5th of December in London. Mark is also the Managing Director of Shadowcat Systems, Director/Secretary of the Enlightened Perl Organisation and co-leader of the North West England Perl Mongers.
As in past years Nestoria is very proud to be a sponsor of the London Perl Workshop and we invite any one with an interest in open source software to come along. More details about that in an upcoming post. Mark, thanks for making the time to tell us about LPW. 1. Why does London in particular have such an active perl community? What’s the essential ingredient in maintaining an active open source community?There are a combination of factors that make up London’s strong Perl community. The first to my mind is the steadfast support of its more senior, and I am not going to say mature, members who have been active in promoting the group. London held one of the very first YAPCs and the first YAPC::EU and has always encouraged strong involvement from its members in the wider community.
Another contributing factor is the manner of the social meetings, they always try to make newcomers feel welcome, will organise emergency socials at the drop of a hat for visitors to London and strive to make the socials as non-Perl specific as possible. No matter what your background you feel included by these people.Then there is the mailing list. At some times trivial, always busy and with great historical events such as the Willow vs Buffy trauma, the LPM mailing list is perhaps the most subscribed to list of any monger group and with good reason. These to me are a basis for the essential, and sometimes elusive, ingredients of maintaining a community. There is no silver bullet or single approach, it is a combination of factors and the inclusiveness, support and notion that one is working amongst equals (though I always feel surrounded by giants) is a strong factor in this. 2. The last few years have seen a renaissance in the perl community, with great new modules, an emphasis on testing and “enlightened” development techniques, more conferences, and a more vocal community (big thanks to blogs like perlbuzz). What’s responsible for this?Still going for the easy questions 
. That is a very complex situation to assess as there are many factors affecting the Renaissance/Enlightenment/Modern Perl that we have today. On a side note my personal preference to that is that Perl is in an Enlightenment that is the motion towards what we can know as Modern Perl, the Renaissance, for me, came and went around Perl 5.8.
As always the LPW seeks to bring new people through the doors, and these can be Perl developers with years of experience ‘under the belt’ as well as welcoming back old friends and stalwart community giants. The theme is broad and is intended to give the speakers and audience a chance to explore the notion of beginnings. This could be starting Perl for the first time, or a ‘How To’ for people not familiar with the language or a project, it can also be taken as a chance to present how something began, such as a piece of development. One could even go further and look at the great advances in Strawberry Perl, Raduko, Padre and see this as Beginning Perl and Perl 6 on Windows. But at the same time the current movement in Perl, the feeling that in Perl since 5.8 we have been passing versions instead of point releases, so that we currently stand at Perl 5 Version 10.1 and the changes in the projects and the core itself seem to reflect that. So Beginning Perl could be seen as truly that for all of us. I am hoping that a lot of people will come to the event and decide to begin something new in Perl.
There is a culture in UK Universities to teach Java in computer science degrees and this is going to be difficult to change without a level of investment and commitment. There is also the fact that there have been non-educational forces on the universities as well, on a business sense it is wise for them to push .net and Java to their students as it gives them a broader job market when they leave university which satisfies a governmental focus. Part of our task should be to educate universities as much as possible to the job market for Perl skills. At this year’s LPW we will be running a free ‘Skills in the Workplace’ seminar that will be initially offered to University students to help towards this issue. 4. As someone who started a business working with open source software, please describe your experiences. How has the level of acceptance of open source changed in the business community in the past few years?The movement towards open source becoming accepted has been slow, and in many cases quite tortuous. In the last few years though we have seen a big push inside some Governments for open standards and open document formats for the sharing of information and resources, particularly in the European Union, and OSS already works towards this. For most Small to Medium Enterprises though, there is a great deal of struggle to convince them that the software pre-installed is the best way forward, especially since their staff will have a great deal of experience in using it and this to them outweighs the cost of ownership versus OSS solutions. Where we have come forward has been in the acceptance of projects such as Firefox and the general awareness of the populace that many servers use Open Source to function. The pushes by Google to open source Android has given businesses faith in the idea that a business model can be built on OSS.
The transparency of Open Source, the ease of availability and the fact that we are a far more computer-orientated culture has also helped to strengthen acceptance of the possibilities of using it as an alternative. There is still a long way to go though. It has certainly helped that open source is reported and discussed in the general media, at one time we would spend the first hour or so of any meeting explaining what open source software was in comparison to proprietary/closed software, we no longer have to say as much. I still feel that there is a culture of treating it as a ‘ham radio’ or academic-orientated which is an uphill struggle. There are even deeper changes caused by the flow and availability of data, expertise, as to whether businesses can now rely on a closed-model of business focus if it seems to stymie innovation, and if using a proprietary route will mire you in the circumlocution of patents, intellectual property, copyright and trademarks but I think they are out of the scope of this answer. Certainly if we examine the last twenty years there has been a broader uptake of Open Source in the last five years, how much this has been influenced by the stronger computer-orientated culture is interesting. I hope that the future we will see more companies realising that OSS represents a real choice to a formerly dominant closed software system. Thanks Mark, and also big thanks to you and everyone else in the global perland open source community. Nestoria would not be possible without all of your work. As a result we’re very pleased to once again support this year’s LPW. Last year’s event was great and I have no doubt this year’s will be better. On a related note, we’re always on the lookout for talented people looking to get started in perl. Please contact us if interested, or say hello at the LPW. past Nestoria interviews: Jason Trost, Christopher Parker, and Ryan Notz.After a bit of a summer hiatus I’m very pleased to announce that today we resume our monthly Nestoria interview series – in which we speak with broad spectrum of innovators and thought leaders from the online world.
This month we’re lucky enough to chat with Jason Trost, CEO and co-founder of innovative new online betting site Smarkets. Prior to founding Smarkets, Jason was an application developer at UBS’s Global Asset Management (New York) where he developed web applications that streamlined the bank’s email and document processing, which are still in use at UBS today. Previously, Jason founded internet startup Descipher, a consumer medical website. Jason has also been an equities trader at Great Point Capital (Chicago), and holds a degree in Computer Science from Northwestern University. Jason, thanks for answering a few questions 1. What is Smarkets? Surely the world doesn’t need yet another betting site?Back in 2004 I was a stock trader in Chicago, and my co-workers introduced me to a few betting websites. However, even with a CS degree and professional trading experience, I had a lot of difficulty understanding how to bet online. Since 2004, not much has changed. Betting online is still a complicated and intimidating experience. For example, there are four common odds systems. Also, figuring out the potential payout often requires a calculator. Very few betting companies offer an API.
Smarkets makes betting simple by giving the member all of the market information up front (the implied probability, the odds and the payout). Smarkets also offers our members the full social experience – members can share betting tips, leave comments on teams and events, chat during the match or compare betting performance. 2. One of the points you emphasize is simplicity, just as we do here at Nestoria. We’re constantly reminded that keeping things simple can be very complex. What is your experience?Simple design is indeed a complex and lengthy process. Smarkets was in the idea phase for about two years and then under full-time development for the past two years. Over the four years, we kept designing and implementing new interfaces. Innovation is an on-going process. We will never stop innovating to make our interface the best in the industry.
Betting presents a lot of challenges to simplification. Firstly, you are dealing with real money, so there’s a level of trust that the user needs to have to use the interface. Also, betting is inherently numbers driven so you have to resist the temptation to overload the screen. 3. Because of the intense competition and the money to be made it’s often said that gambling is one of two categories at the very cutting edge of exploiting new technologies (the other being pornography). Can you go into detail on some of the tech behind Smarkets?We pride ourselves on the tech platform that we’ve built, which we believe stacks up with the best in the business. Our team includes top engineers from Yahoo!, Last.fm and Wolverine Trading.
The core application at Smarkets is a scalable transaction engine written in Erlang with most persistent data stored in CouchDB. Erlang has some very exciting features that transfer well to high volume, real time markets. Our front-end website is built using Python. The website and transaction engine communicate using a RESTful API. We will be releasing our open API to the public sometime in 2010 so that third party developers can make their own applications built on top of our back-end. Our CTO gave a great talk on our tech platform at the Erlang Factory. You can watch a video of his talk here. 4. Right now Smarkets is still invite only. When does the fun open up to everyone?As soon as possible! We’re invite at the moment so that we grow in a controlled manner. We don’t want our members ever to experience slow performance, even during big events such as Wimbledon finals or the Super Bowl.
Thanks Jason. And good luck (though I know for good gamblers luck has nothing to do with it). It’s great to see more start ups embracing the model of bringing simplification to the realm of complexity. For those readers interested in learning more I recommend both subscribing to the Smarkets blog and following them on twitter. past Nestoria interviews: Christopher Parker, Ryan Notz, and Lance Johnson.With this year’s State of the Map conference rapidly approaching, for this month’s Nestoria Interview we once again turn our attention to rapidly growing community mapping project OpenStreetMap (OSM).
Specifically we have the pleasure of interviewing Christopher J. Parker, who will be speaking at this year’s SOTM. Currently studying a PhD in human interaction at Loughborough University, focusing on the phenomenon of “Volunteered Geographic Information” (VGI). In July 2009, he will be presenting his current findings on “Value and How it Changes Everything” at State of the Map 2009. Christopher, thanks for talking with us. 1. Please tell us about your current work related to OSM.As said in my bio, I am researching Volunteered Geographic Information from a human factors point of view. Broadly speaking, this is where people share their information (photos, videos, locations etc) with the world by uploading it to the web and adding a geotag. The output from this can be as simple as displaying where everyone’s photos were taken on a map (as with sites such as Panorama and Flickr), or the map itself (as with OpenStreetMap) where the volunteered information is the collection of ‘nodes’ and polylines which make up the map you see. As anyone who follows social media will know, the idea of this is very recent, with the term VGI only being coined in 2007 by Prof. Michael Goodchild in 2007 (Citizens as Sensors: The world of Volunteered Geography).
So what does this mean? There are a lot of questions are floating around at the moment to do with how we perceive this Volunteered Information. Aside from the technical quality (a very contentious issue), how do we as users perceive volunteered information differently from professional information. How and why do we value a volunteered source higher than a technically more complete professional source of higher quality. What is even more interesting is the idea of an emotional interface (Roush, 2007, Second Earth. Technology Review. 2007. July/ August. P39-48) where the geospatial element (the map the data is overlaid onto) is just a medium through which to explorer the emotions generated by content such as holiday photos. OpenStreetMap, being a system almost entirely created, developed and edited by volunteers is an excellent example of Volunteered Geographic Information. Unlike allot of websites which may only cover one area of VGI (such as geotagging where a YouTube video was shot), OpenStreetMap provides a highly diverse range of features, so one may expect it to be a good representation of the human factors which run through the VGI community. Because of this, I am interviewing a wide range of OpenStreetMap users, contributors and developers about their experiences and feelings related to use of OpenStreetMap and why they see it differently to other map sources. The research is geared away from technical issues and OSM specific topics, and other VGI sources such as Google Map Maker are being considered as well. The result of this should be to provide some unique insight into the general perception of the VGI sources, applicable to a wide range of VGI uses and applications; not just one very fast developing website. 2. What made you think this was an interesting topic? And what has the response from the OSM community been?When I started my PhD at Loughborough I was asked to research anything I could link to the human factors of travel. After reading around the subject, the idea of people using GPS devices to ‘map’ their environment kept cropping up time and time again. I wanted to find a topic that was pretty sparse in research to date, was cutting edge and had allot of potential to move forward. The topic of Volunteered Geographic Information was probably the best find from this period as (at the time) it was only just over a year old in definition and all the research seemed to be either from a GIS technical slant or that of future speculation. I have always had an interest in technology with my background in product design, so reading about how this technology could potentially revolutionise the perception of our environment really got a fire lit under me. I suppose what sold it to me though was the lack of human factors research. One can see a new technology in many ways, but unless one understands why we perceive it the way we do, or why it diffuses the way it does, then it is hard to fully utilise it. I wanted to be able to provide that academic background that would give guidelines to developers and users so their products and services using this volunteered information would actually mean something to the consumers.
To date, the reaction from the OSM community I have been studying has been very positive. At the end of my interviews I always ask if they have any questions, and invariably it is “what have you found in your research”, followed by at least ten minutes of me explaining the findings of user value to date. I think possibly because those involved in OSM tend to be flying the flag for Open Source software the people I speak to are very happy to share their ideas and thoughts with the world. 3. It’s often said that only 1% of internet users are content creators, the rest are content consumers. Does your research support this theory, or do you think more and more users will become content creators as familiarity grows and tools become better?Whether this statement is true or not is beyond my scope of research. Certainly there have been studies into this which show the producers in the traditional sense are outweighed by the consumers. However the maths seems to make perfect sense in that if you look at Second Life, which as of now (16:00, 17/06/2009, Second Life interface) has had 1,400,042 active users in the last 60 days. If only 1% of users produce content (in this case 3D objects) then you have 14,000 developers producing an interactive virtual world while receiving no income from Linden Lab who run the project. Now, how much of that is true is not for me to say, but even a 0.5% developer community would still be a very large contributor base.
I suppose the problem with this analogy is that it is based on the traditional view of the contributor as one who uses a relatively high degree of technical knowledge to produce something the average person either doesn’t want to or doesn’t know how; as in the case of Second Life objects. But here is the spanner in the works, what does content mean? I suppose this could be a whole area of research in itself, but one of the most exciting developments of the last few years has been the idea of putting a GPS tracker in your mobile devices. With user friendly software a child could upload their journey path from their phone to a map system, which in turn could work out the road network. Take a photograph of anything in the world, upload it to a site such as Flickr and the GPS tag that goes with it could place it on a map for anyone to explore. All of this is content in the VGI sense, where as Clay Shirky stated in his recent talk at TED (May 2009) “every time a new consumer joins this media landscape a new joins as well because the same equipment, phone, computers lets you consume and produce”. If we just geotag our information, potentially any information, it is VGI. From everything I have read and researched to date I can only state with reasonable comfort that what we are experiencing today is just the tip of the iceberg. I would strongly encourage everyone who reads this interview to watch the 17 minute lecture by Clay Shirky linked above to get a much better case put forward than I can, but when more data and information is volunteered by normal people, the data we use may not be a representation of activity, but the activity itself. I will close this point with a thought for everyone who has used Twitter (the 140 character long micro blog service). Type the name of any political party into search.twitter.com and you will see the personal and emotional feelings for that party come up across your screen not from any form of propaganda or media filter, but through the simple thoughts of you and me. Now consider what we would have if each micro blog post (or Tweet) came with the geo location of the writer. A map could be created of emotions towards political parties, or anything else you care to name, through the country and the world. I suppose this could be referred to Volunteered Emotional Geospatial Information (VEGI), and it may or may not follow the same human interaction issues as traditional VGI (If VGI can yet be referred to as traditional). However you could chose to look at this analogy, and the blurred role of the user and the, and in the words of Matrix not yet know “how far this rabbit hole really goes”. 4. Do you think your research findings will be applicable to all user generated content services (things like YouTube and Facebook)?At this stage of my research I honestly do not know. My focus is at the moment on users either creating maps or creating locations such as coffee shops or other amenities on maps. Even to ask what I have found out in this area and how it applies to other forms of map mashups would be too presumptuous. However, certain trends are starting to emerge which suggest the user perception of volunteer generated maps is not quite what we would have thought when we first looked at it. My presentation at State of the Map 2009 (which will also be on my research blog) should be the unveiling of my first analysis of this data.
I think it is highly unlikely that users would view the volunteered content of a map generated with the help of a GPS device as the same as the video posted on YouTube by the disgruntled employee of some Multinational Organisation. Yet at the same time both forms of media have similar traits in the form of geo-tagging the information, openness and volunteer generated, so I would imagine there may be some similarities. I think social media and its potential link with VGI is a very interesting topic and while, as I said before, my research may not directly influence the direction of Twitter, Facebook or other future sites, but it may influence the apps which run on them. I find it is better to see Facebook as a social operating system which allows apps to run, which in turn allow social networks to thrive; similar in a way to Microsoft Windows running Outlook which allows emails to be sent. 5. Based on your research what advice do you have for start-ups like Nestoria who are keen to benefit from the technological advancements and enthusiasm of the OSM community?Ultimately, I feel it is a little early to provide any concrete advice from my research as it is still early days and the direction and scope of my findings may change dramatically over the next couple of years. That said, there are a few pieces of research which may prove very relevant.
Firstly I would say embrace the OSM community, but also look outside. There are probably more social networks existing than you can name, and they never stay the same in their constant and rapid evolution. I’m sure everyone can remember the first time they heard that strange word ‘Google’ uttered while they searched the information superhighway with the worlds #1 search engine of the day: Yahoo! As a more direct take from my research, understand why and how your user base values your product or your competitors’ product. These are your true unique selling points (and their unique selling points) as they engage at the emotional level of gains over sacrifices. Every user is different and will see things in a different way, and technological superiority doesn’t always mean higher value. Sometimes why we value something so highly is a mystery to ourselves; so this is an elusive quest, but value is the key to satisfaction. Even if there is a product we may not like on an ethical level (possibly Microsoft?), we still value it higher than the competitor we ethically prefer because of X, Y and Z (possibly Linux?). So understanding why the value is what it is allows you to tailor your product or service to capitalise on those “warm fuzzy feelings” your product gives your uses, increasing satisfaction and hopefully social diffusion. How relevant my findings on user perception of the value of Volunteered Geographic Information is unknown, but I would advise any developer or mashup creating working from OSM data to take these findings into consideration when deciding how to progress in a world where the consumers and increasingly becoming the producers. Thanks Christopher. We look forward to learning more at SOTM. For those interested, you can follow Christopher’s research on his blog and on twitter @Kyral210. If this interview has whetted your appetite for all things SOTM you may be interest in our coverage of SOTM 2008. past Nestoria interviews: Ryan Notz, Lance Johnson, and Peter Le Masurier.This month we once again dive into the London start-up scene with an interview of Ryan Notz, founder and CEO of MyBuilder.com, a site to help homeowners find and instruct builders. Prior to founding MyBuilder, Ryan worked as a stonemason, roofer, teacher and artist.
Ryan, thanks for chatting with us! 1. Tell us about MyBuilder. What problem does the service solve? It solves two problems really: the difficulty homeowners have in finding good builders; and the problems builders have in getting the right kind of work, when they need it. I was going through a dry spell with my stonemasonry, while trying to support my wife and two kids. That kind of pressure led to a lot of frustration, and I recognised a real problem in the industry. But for some reason, rather than seeking more security in a job, I went the other direction and started a web business. There must have been something wrong with my head… Anyway, the idea was to create a website where builders could create a profile that describes their skills and experience – and most importantly, have feedback history from homeowners who have hired them through the site. Homeowners in turn would be able to choose who to hire by comparing all this information, knowing that after their project is done, they can add to the builder’s reputation in a positive or negative way. There is an element of accountability with a system like that which I really liked. 2. Recently it seems all the hype is about pure online start-ups like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace. Your business goes in the other direction, it’s very much a tool for simplifying offline transactions. What are some of the challenges to introducing new ways of working to offline trades. That’s an interesting question. I very much think of MyBuilder as a technology company, though I can see how someone else could take a different view. We are trying to solve a real world problem, that’s for sure. Bricks and mortar make up the real world, but so do people – and this is the most important element. We’re trying to help bring people together who want to interact with each other, through a fantastic communication tool: the web. Facebook and Twitter are no different, actually. In terms of convincing builders that they should be looking online to find work, I don’t think that’s our job. We provide a tool for those who want to use it, and if it’s useful enough, that side of things takes care of itself. We’ve seen people learning how to use the web for the first time because they’ve been told they can get work through MyBuilder.com. The need to earn a living is so powerful, you can’t imagine what some people will do. And I can really relate to that. 3. Again and again I hear people talk about how much easier life is for start-ups in the US. Yet, you, an American, chose to start your business here in the UK. Why? And how have you found the business atmosphere versus the US? Well, to be fair, I was already living here when I started the business. My wife is English and my kids were all born here. But I could have easily moved to California or Austin, and my wife would happily have gone along. We even lived in Philadelphia for a while after having our first child. I guess I just fell in love with Britain and saw the need for MyBuilder here. It is a problem that is particularly acute in the UK. The business climate has certainly worked for me, I have no complaints. More importantly perhaps, was my decision to move from Bristol to London. I love Bristol, but that made all the difference. From fund-raising to building a team to meeting with potential partners, it’s so much easier in London. I think of other tech hotspots like Silicon Valley in the same way: the critical mass of people just makes it easier. 4. MyBuilder has wracked up some impressive awards and great press coverage. What’s the secret? What advice do you have for others contemplating starting their own business – especially those folks looking to bring new technology to bear on traditional industries? I’m tempted to say that there’s no special sauce. But maybe there is, and it’s just a combination of things. For me, it started by addressing a real problem and having a desire to make the world a better place. It may sound cheesy, but I think that’s important. It’s also about what you want to do with your life and finding a path that’s fulfilling. If starting a business becomes the right thing to do, then you have to do it and rise to the challenge. It’s certainly not easy. It takes a lot of courage and persistence and hard work. You give a lot of blood, sweat and tears along the way. If you’re not doing the right thing for yourself, you won’t last. If you are doing the right thing, people around you will recognise that. Ryan, thanks for the revealing chat. I can confirm that starting a company takes persistence and hard work. As we like to say, it’s a roller coaster – hang on and enjoy the ride. Keep up the great work! For any readers out there thinking about having some work done, check out MyBuilder.com past Nestoria interviews: Lance Johnson, Peter Le Masurier, Henry Yates.For our April Nestoria interview we have the pleasure of interviewing Lance Johnson, Global Head of Sales for Nokia Interactive Advertising. Nokia Interactive Advertising allows brands to create more valuable relationships with the world’s four billions mobile consumers.
A regular speaker at industry events, Lance worked as a consultant for numerous startups before joining Nokia. Before that he was GM of Mobile Media for Yahoo!, rising through the ranks there from his original role in Yahoo!’s Munich office where he was responsible for various media products. Orignially from Colorado in the US, Lance was a Fulbright Scholar studying economics in Freiburg, Germany. Lance, thanks for speaking with us. A few questions: 1. The one area the economic downturn doesn’t seem to have dented is innovation in the mobile space. The last few years have seen an amazing amount of new development, from the traditional heavyweights like Nokia but also new entrants like Apple and Google. For those of us not in the industry, can you briefly summarise the current state of affairs in the mobile world? Services are really what’s driving innovation in mobile at the moment, with the top end devices but also with low and mid range devices. Nokia has a 37% market share globally and we’re really looking to create sticky services and content that consumers love as it helps us to strengthen our connection to the consumer. This is the reason we’ve launched Ovi, which includes services such as Nokia Maps that come bundled on device. If services are what’s driving innovation, then advertising is what’s going to drive revenues. Increasingly consumers want something for nothing (or not much), and they have high expectations. By linking up with brands, we’re ensuring quality content for consumers through a sustainable business model, and matching up brands with consumers that are likely to be interested in their products. What I think is interesting for mobile advertising and for digital advertising in general is that the lines between advertising and good service are blurring. When an ad campaign is executed well, it can be indistinguishable from direct customer communication. 2. Mobile advertising has long been heralded as “the next big thing”. How will the current economic climate effect that? What are some of the innovations you’re seeing (or even developing). The advertising industry is undoubtedly having a difficult year. Most analysts see advertising spend shrinking by 15-25% this year. The fact that mobile and likely interactive are predicted to grow (if only slightly) is testament to their effectiveness, and to the growing importance of the mobile device to the consumer. Technology that ensures relevance of marketing is key, not only for better brand returns, but also for the future of advertising. We’ve lived in a world where the amount of noise from different media channels has continued to grow. Digital mediums can reverse this trend and put the consumer back in control. If you’re a brand and you want to engage a target demographic you need to meet consumers on their turf. Mobile advertising that uses location data is going to be a really interesting play. 3. Here at Nestoria we love all things geo. Nokia recently dove headfirst into the mapping game with the acquisition of major geo datasource and technology firm NAVTEQ. Likewise we’ve seen the big online players maneuver into the location space, be it Googe’s Latitude or Yahoo!’s FireEagle (to name just a few of many). Why’s everyone so hot on location? Despite the many advances we’ve made at Nokia and as an industry, we firmly believe that the mobile phone can still be far more useful. By leveraging data based on your past behaviour, what your friends like, where you are and where you’ve been, the mobile device will become even more useful at pre-empting your needs, and providing useful services, and sometimes brand messages to help you on your way. The better the targeting and results, the higher premiums advertisers will be willing to pay. Location will be our emphasis in the 2H of 2009 and we will work every more closely with our subsidiary business NAVTEQ. 4. What chances does the mobile space hold for vertical search engines like Nestoria? I think it’s an opportunity to differentiate your offering and innovate. In regions like North America and Europe, convergence matters. Both PC and Mobile penetration rates are extremely high. Consumers are using services on their mobiles and on their PCs that should offer useful ways to connect the two. Whether it’s researching a property online on a PC and then going mobile or capturing information while on the go and then making that information useful, there are lots of use cases. These ideas are no longer on the drawing board. Convergence is coming and the successful verticals will make use of mobile’s unique characteristics. Thanks Lance! Interesting times ahead. For those interested in keeping up with Lance and the bleeding edge of mobile innovation he’s @lancej on twitter. past Nestoria interviews: Peter Le Masurier, Henry Yates, Andy Allan.This month we have the pleasure of chatting with Peter Le Masurier, the man behind UK property social network Juicy Red Apple. He is a serial entrepreneur, has just joined forces with regional property portal (and Nestoria partner) Southern Property Finder and looks after property software provider Property Owl.
Peter, thanks for speaking with us. 1. The intersection of technology and the property industry isn’t always as smooth as everyone might like. What’s your opinion of the current state of play? How has the downturn affected things?When I ventured into this industry I thought it was crying out for technological change. One of my first published articles was titled ‘the online revolution’. That was 18 months ago and sadly it has not moved on as much as I anticipated.
I recently sat on an advisory panel for technology in real estate and we discussed a number of issues, concluding with two overriding themes, namely, acceptance and education. Agents need to first accept that they need technology, websites, online marketing and then they need to be educated in what best suits their practice. With reference to acceptance, I believe the continuing downturn is forcing agents to begin to accept that they need to consider the ‘technology’ issue. The herculean task will be once they have accepted it, how best to educate them. I have come to realise that perhaps technology has moved too quickly for agents who were not required to understand it in the good old days when property sold itself. The landscape has now changed dramatically and exposed technology to agents and they simply don’t understand half of it. We all talk about measuring statistics, but a huge proportion of agents don’t understand the basic fundamentals of a website. So here we are with technology that is arguably too advanced for agents at the moment and too much of it. 2. Explain your recently launched projected JRA. What role do you envision it playing in the industry, and how are things going?I set up JRA to be an online community where like minded industry professionals could come and interact. I have long been an admirer of Active Rain in the USA and its powerhouse of circa 140,000 members. I see JRA as a similar tool, an essential conduit that every industry professional will have access to and where all can interact and communicate with one another. As Active Rain say ‘… our goal is to “Empower the real estate professional‘ and as an extension empower the consumer…” which I tend to agree with.
It is going very well. JRA has a solid membership, but needs more agents to start to embrace the concept. I heard from one agent recently who said he wouldn’t want to talk to his competitor down the road. This attitude still exists in this space and will be a challenge (not just for an online community), but for every such agent there are more willing to give it a go and get involved. The bottom line is that it works, advice is being sought, discussions are being had and business is being conducted. Given my earlier comments I am not expecting a stampede. The innovators are on JRA, the early adopters are coming and I believe over this year we will see the early majority take it on. My ambition for JRA is to see it as part of agents stable diet of online resources in the future and in every educators handbook of what an agent should be doing when embracing this space. Indeed, I believe eventually it will be a ‘necessity’ to be involved in this space. 3. Given your role at Southern Property Finder, how do you see regional portals competing with the large national (or even international) brands?I have for a long time moaned that there are too many portals so it may seem somewhat hypocritical to become involved in yet another portal. That said, Southern Property Finder has been around for a while and had built up a decent following of local agents (South Coast). It was this local following that attracted me. Indeed, I had just written an article on niche portals which indicated that perhaps a more locally focused portal could offer an additional service to agents and users alike.
I was involved in the online travel industry a while back and saw how niche products developed in that space and also saw how ‘local’ search developed. If we can get the SEO right then a local portal ought to be able to offer its agents the attractive proposition of good quality, relevant leads at a reasonable price. Can it compete with the large national portals? I see it as complementing them and offering the agent a reasonably priced marketing channel that the larger portals sometimes struggle to fill, i.e. local. The Brand is strong and can grow stronger and will offer local agents more of an opportunity to promote their local area. With reference to my responses to your first question, I would like to point out that the technology aspect of the continuing development has been a headache and dealing with near on 300 agents all using different software providers continues to be a royal pain. I do take from this a small positive however in that agents are at least now more focussed on where/how their property is being displayed online. 4. As a regular and often very entertaining blogger, what is your advice to estate agents contemplating making the plunge and embracing the online dialog?Thanks Ed, I am still deeply humbled that anyone reads my stuff.
My first advice would be start a blog. Commit yourself and a few people to write anything they like, but make sure you get at least three posts up a week. Research the many good blogs that are out there and just start writing. Commitment is key and as much as I enjoy writing there are times where I have to force myself to write. There are many sites in this space that report on the daily news in the property industry. Pick one story and give your opinion, simple as that. You don’t have to disagree with it. People often ask me what makes a good blog? To be honest I have no idea, I have written blogs I thought were good and no one has read them and then the one I wrote at midnight because I had to gets rave reviews. It is probably easier to say what not to do. Do not write for search engines, stuffing your content with keywords will not read well. The relevant keywords will be in there if you just write as it is. Do not self promote, you are not there to say how your product will change the world. Always give credit to other authors and link to sources, references. Perhaps in this industry the one piece of useful advice I would say take heed of is: Be Honest!! The industry suffers enough in the opinion polls and agents embracing this space should bear that in mind! Your readers are a clever bunch and will spot a blagger a mile off. Second, open a twitter account – yes it is the darling of the moment and may not be as popular in 12 months time, but 6 months is a long time in this space and you are already 6 months behind your competitors who are on there. It is hugely popular at the moment and will continue to be so for a while. So what you don’t get it, get on there and play. Half the people on there don’t get it and this is part of the fun. You will learn what works, what doesn’t, but simply interacting in this space will increase your brand awareness. It now has SEO value as well. I will of course say join JRA, not only will this increase your knowledge and open up endless possibilities but it will help give you ideas of what to write for your blog. Anyway, many agents now have time on their hands and blogging is an excellent way to inform potential customers what is happening in the local area, additional content, and therefore additional opportunity to be found through organic search. But this leads back to my first point, they have to accept they need this and then be educated as many have no idea of the real benefit of a website and what organic search may be. Thanks Ed Thanks very much Peter for the insightful and comprehensive response, and for your ground breaking work as a pioneer in moving the industry forward. You can keep up to date on Peter’s many projects by joining Juicy Red Apple, subscribing to the PropertyOwl blog, or following @propertyowl on twitter. past Nestoria interviews: Henry Yates, Andy Allan, and Stephan Uhrenbacher.This month we speak with Henry Yates, founder and CEO of recently launched start-up estatecreate, a service designed to make it simple to create a single property website and distribute it. Henry has a long history in the UK internet start up scene; prior to estatecreate he co-founded Face the Youth planning agency and Univillage, a social network for students.
Henry, a few questions: 1. What is estatecreate? What problem does it solve? Estatecreate.com allows property owners to easily create their own website for their property and then automatically distribute their content to property classified sites and portals via feeds. We give property owners all the tools they need to market their own property. Estatecreate enables owners to differentiate the presentation of their property by having their own look and feel, a stand alone website and their own URL. We also make it easy to list their property on multiple sites without having to register and re-upload all the details separately on each site. 2. How do you see the economic downturn effecting the private seller space? Everyone is looking for opportunities to save money so I think sellers will increasingly look into promoting their own property alongside using an agent. Sellers that go down this route may still ask an agent to handle their enquiries in return for reduced commission. 3. In most European countries private sales make up a significant percentage of the market, but in the UK the percentage has traditionally been very small. Why? Do you see this changing? I think this is primarily due to the differences in the way portals operate. In most of Europe the property portals offer private sales as well as agency listings, giving home owners the choice of marketing their own property or using an agent. The main portals in the UK have not historically allowed consumers to list their own properties making it difficult for home owners to easily reach a decent size audience. I do see this changing for two reasons. The first is that we are offering UK home owners an effective way of marketing their own property. Estatecreate allows home owners to reach a large audience of buyers by aggregating lots of classified sites where you can list your property privately. The second is that new entrants to the portal market such as Globrix, Zoomf and Zoopla! will force the market to start to move away from annual subscriptions to a performance based model, fragmenting the market. A more fragmented portal market will make it easier for portals to take on private listings. 4. To what extent has the change in consumer internet technology, be it mass market sites like Facebook or YouTube, or specialist sites like Nestoria changed the way people search for and market classifieds? Great question. I think sites like these have had a huge impact on consumer behaviour. In terms of search, people no longer start their search for a property with an agent. Instead, they start their search using sites, such as Nestoria, that allow consumers to easily search for property knowing that they are seeing the majority of properties for sale on the market. Sites such as Facebook and YouTube have made people much more comfortable using web applications and publishing on the web. We believe that these sites have paved the way for consumers to embrace web applications such as estatecreate to market classifieds. Thanks Henry, it’s great to see the pace of online innovation in classifieds pushed forward. We agree with you that as users become more used not only to always-on high speed bandwidth, but also with the shift from being merely consumers to becoming participants in the media process, the potential exists for radical changes in behaviour – and thus also in business models. past Nestoria interviews: Andy Allan, Stephan Uhrenbacher, and Gary Gale.
