Nestoria Interview - CASA's Andrew Hudson-Smith

Fellow Nestorelfling, Vuk, met some of the team from CASA, the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, at the latest Geomob, and seeing as we've been rapping a lot on data visualisation across at the Nestoria Australia blog, he thought I might like to be the one to pitch some questions to the Director of the Centre, Andrew Hudson-Smith. 

As well as being the CASA Director, Andrew is also elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, the Course Founder and Director of the MRes in Advanced Spatial Analysis and Visualisation at University College London, and the man behind the Digital Urban blog, which is where you can learn more about what they're up to at CASA without enrolling as a student – the blog is smart but not overly academic. 

You're the Director of the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) , can you give us a basic idea of what the centre is about, what CASA is primarily interested in and what sort of projects it's been involved in?

CASA is a uniquely multi-disciplinary centre with a focus on the functions, growth and operations of cities and the urban environment as a whole. The research is wide ranging from complexity, flows and simulation through to digital sensors, tagging, augmented reality, modelling and mass data collection via crowd sourcing. The phase Smart Cities is a tag that is currently used within industry, I would describe CASA’s research as Beyond Smart Cites.

I'm also interested in what field you'd say you primarily belong to?  
And what are the some of the fields the rest of your team would say they primarily belong to?

Personally I am a geographer and urban planner with a research outlook on all things digital and how digital technologies change the way we view and interact with the urban environment. CASA’s core strength is its research staff and PhD students from a wide range of fields. We are an open plan lab with a mix of mathematicians, physicists, archaeologists, architects, urban planners, computer scientists and geographers, arguably all the ingredients required to make sense, model and predict the future of the city.

New technology has made the science of mapping more accessible to everyone.  What are some of the things that have come from greater user access and participation?  
And do you have any predictions for what this could lead on to in the future?

The last five years have been game changing, we now take data for granted and the ability to zoom into any aspect of the earth in three dimensions, all from a location aware mobile device. Arguably this game change came from Google and the waves from Google Maps and Google Earth have radiated out to allow greater user access and participation. Digital geography is now in The Cloud with old school GIS playing catch up with citizen created mashups, community built open source applications and innovative developments from small start ups. The neogeography debate has been and gone, we are now in a era where anyone can make a map, collect, contribute and analyse data using any number of the millions of data sources online. It’s an exhilarating time to be in the field and access/participation are the key to our wider understanding of complex urban systems with the crowd playing an increasingly important role.

What are your thoughts on 'social-geo' and what inventions may spring from this pairing?

Location and more especially the link to social networks is an interesting pairing. The success of systems such as Facebook Places and Foursquare and linking social networks to location with the implications of knowing not only our thoughts and activities but also where we are. Of note is the rapid rise of these networks and developments through advances in mobile technologies and location aware smart phones linked into our natural response to be share and be social. We are looking at innovations in ‘hyper-local social location’ so its not only you checked into a general location, we can define social-geo down to object level, towards the ‘Geography of Everything’.

What other interesting things do you see happening in this sphere at the moment?
And are there any other fields you'd like to welcome into your fold at CASA?  (I saw that you've embraced history in your recent project with OXFAM for example.)

Personally I feel its important to look beyond ones research comfort zone, to branch out into new fields while linking in your current knowledge to develop new lines of research. As such, CASA is now leading the way in the development of technology around the Internet of Things for adding provenance to objects both in the charity and museum based sectors. We link this back into the urban realm by allowing architecture, street furniture and places to link into the network and act as portals for communication. In essence we are developing ‘Read/Write’ places linked to location, social interaction and augmented memories. We have recently tagged 4200 bus stops in Norway, these places can now tweet, collect and replay data via technology developed in CASA. As such for the future we welcome all fields, at the moment the thought process is turning to biology and the analogy of biocomplex systems within the city infrastructure.

CASA's Analogue Tweet-o-metre, currently at the British Library

Your team is interested in modelling landscapes and modelling pedestrian movements, so how far off are we, technologically, from modelling real life in real time?  

We have a new research project going live in 2012 looking at realtime feeds and simulation of the city. Integrating realtime data with modelling and simulation is a developing field and one in which I hope CASA will lead. Increasingly it is no longer about traditional datasets but what is happening in the city right now. From the next generation smart phones through to streams from urban remote drones we are on the edge of a new wave of city information systems.

Apart from my Big Brother-esque suggestion, what are some of the innovations your field is striving towards?

We are striving for a realtime sim-city with data and simulation running side by side. Tagging, tracking and collection of data by autonomous urban drones presents a big-brother view of the world. Yet the understanding we gain via a city and indeed global simulator with live data offering the potential to open up our understanding of urban phenomena. Keep an eye on CASA over the coming 12 months as this field starts to develop.

And how can someone interested in getting involved in these sorts of projects (and modes of world domination) best go about it.

There are many ways, ranging from enrolling in our new MRes course on Spatial Analysis and Visualisation, looking into a PhD in CASA or simply following our blogs and tutorials online. We publish our work via the CASA Blog network on a daily basis with a mix of thoughts, progress and tutorials, to allow anyone to gain an insight into our work. Its an online world with tutorials abound, if your interested in advanced spatial analysis from sensing, modeling, mashing, mapping and augmenting then now is the time as the work is just getting interesting….

Interview with Marc Wick of GeoNames

This month we have an interview with Marc Wick of GeoNames. We have been using GeoNames for a while, and have recently became one of its sponsors.

Hi Marc. Can you tell our readers little bit about GeoNames?

GeoNames is a global database of geographic entities that can be downloaded free of charge. The database contains 7.5 million entries - places such as cities, provinces, mountains, lakes, islands, postal codes, etc.

All entries have geographic coordinates and if available, other attributes such as population, elevation, administrative status, place name in different languages, or the time zone.

How did GeoNames came about? How many people work on the service today?

The idea for GeoNames came about from a project that tried to plot locations of holiday homes on a map. 

While working on this project, we have noted that geographic data is available in many countries, but only under commercial terms and at very high prices, with little or no low-cost alternatives. GeoNames, by contrast, gathers freely available data from around the world and places them within a single global data structure. 

Today as many as 10,000 people work on GeoNames on a voluntary basis. About 60 of those are so-called “ambassadors” - users responsible for GeoNames efforts within their respective country.

How do you ensure that the information in your database is correct? Is the information based mainly on contribution of local users or does GeoNames rely on other sources as well?

We mainly look for country-specific, or theme-specific datasets. These are then integrated into our global database.

An increasing number of governments around the world acknowledge that it is their task to make geographic datasets publicly available. 

This year England and Switzerland have taken a big step forward and opened up free access to many datasets that were up until recently available only under commercial terms. Unfortunately Germany is lagging behind, most of the data relating to Germany within GeoNames originates from the U.S. Army.

The importance of the accessible geographic data was highlighted by the recent incident between Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Navigation systems rely on geodata as well and traffic in cities could flow more freely and more efficiently if the authorities provided access to the relevant data. In fact this is as crucial for the transport sector today as putting up traffic signs.

Who uses GeoNames?

The spectrum of users ranges from large companies like Microsoft and Apple to countless small companies and projects. Applications are often found in tourism, real estate, jobs or media industries. We have also noticed a strong increase in smart phone applications, particularly since the advent of the current generation of smartphones, almost all of which are GPS-enabled.

Thank you for the interview and good luck with GeoNames!

 

Nestoria Interview - Adam DuVander - Mapping API expert/Author

This month I'm pleased to announce that we have the opportunity to chat with Adam DuVander, author of Map Scripting 101, a new book that explains how to add interactive maps to your website. He also serves as Executive Editor of ProgrammableWeb, the premier resource for open web APIs. Previously Adam dug deep into location data for BestPlaces. He's been a contributor to Wired and Webmonkey since 2000.

1.In the five years since Google Maps launched and started being "hacked", we've seen a tidal wave of innovation in online cartography. What are some of the highlights?

Mapping API highlights have to start at the beginning, with the great apps like Housing Maps and Chicago Crime that started everything. They showed the power of mapping APIs before the tools even existed. Those two sites unlocked data and found a way to display it that added a lot of value.

This biggest highlight for me is how mainstream those sorts of maps have become on the web. Can you imagine an event listing site, store locator, or yes, even a real estate site, that doesn't use a mapping API now? No way.

2. You're a regular contributor on one of our favorite open source projects - mapstraction. What's the current state of play with mapstraction?

It's exciting times for Mapstraction, the multiple provider wrapper library! Developer interest has dramatically increased. Mapstraction V2 is now the one to use, supports a number of providers and is much better structured for additions to the library. Plus, there's a whole new book all about it now. :)

There's still work to be done to get full support up to a dozen APIs, but there's a growing community of contributors. I think Google's move from its V2 to V3 made developers notice that, even within a single company's API, there's good reason for a single interface to save yourself headache and updates.

3. More and more the web seems to be "closing" behind the walled gardens of Facebook, Apple's app store, etc. How is this trend playing out in the world of online mapping?

I'm not sure it's a pattern across the whole web, though certainly you've given two prime examples. Within mapping, I think we're seeing things become more open. For example, Google is making many of its services available via REST, outside of the shackles of JavaScript. That's, perhaps, fueled more by mobile, with native applications needing to have direct access to data. But it ends up benefiting web developers, as well.

MapQuest actually beat Google by almost a year on releasing its directions as a web service. Recently, MapQuest has become involved in the Open Street Map project, making an open version of MapQuest and APIs based on the open data. In many parts of the world, Open Street Map is now a viable source for map imagery. And a big company like MapQuest adopting it in any capacity is a big deal.

4. What's next in online mapping? What new innovations can we look for in the coming years?

I still think it's way too hard to store and query your own geographic data. And creating geo-referenced overlay images is outside most developers' map scripting abilities. I'd like to see a mapping provider take both of those on, bringing back-end features to front-end developers.

The biggest changes are bound to be centered around mobile. Many of us now have the web available wherever we are. And our location is also available on the web, even from most desktops, via the geolocation JavaScript standard. Some mapping APIs have discovered this (for example, Google Maps V3 started mobile-focused) and others have some catching up to do. Developers who are paying attention will be working to create some amazing mobile web apps.

5. Besides being an online mapping expert, you also write for ProgrammmableWeb, one of the first blogs to document the API revolution that made web2.0 possible. Tell us a bit about some of the trends you see happening there.

We're still seeing plenty happening in mapping. Of all the apps we've included in our directory (and that's over 5,000), more than a third are map apps. On the provider side, some of the most exciting trends are related to open government, with local and national agencies alike making their data available to developers. It's the people's data, after all. Mapping becomes a big part of that, since many times the data is geographic in nature. And this is also where making better tools available is important. We're going to have a whole new crop of people interested in creating something and they won't necessarily be programmers.

Telephony is another area that we're seeing expand, led by Twilio's API for creating phone and SMS-based applications. The phone is still a major part of our everyday lives, but it needs to be better integrated into our online lives. Developers are making that happen.

Finally, a personal interest of mine is public transportation. I've been following transit APIs and open transit data. There are very positive signs here, with major agencies opening up. New York and DC each held developer conferences this year, which means we've come a long way here.

Thanks so much Adam, great to learn your perspective. The pace of innovation in online maps is breathtaking, we look forward to seeing what comes next. Anyone who wants to keep their finger on the pulse should be following Adam on twitter.

past Nestoria interviews: Rob Jonas, Farhan Laljit, and Simon Wistow.

BTW - over on our twitter account we now have a list of all Nestoria interviewees. Enjoy!

Nestoria Interview - Rob Jonas - InMobi

This month we have the chance to speak with Rob Jonas, VP for Europe & Middle East at fast growing mobile ad network InMobi.

Rob joined InMobi in December 2009 as Head of Europe, with overall responsibility for building the business in Western and Eastern Europe. He brings deep experience of launching, building and scaling digital advertising businesses in Europe. Rob joins InMobi from Google, where he was Director of Strategic Partnerships for Europe, Middle East and Africa, with responsibility for some of Google’s largest commercial relationships in the region. Prior to Google, he was part of Yahoo! Europe, having joined through the acquisition of Overture Europe (formerly GoTo.com), which was acquired by Yahoo! in October 2003 for $1.6 billion. As an early employee of Overture Europe he was a key member of the European management team, contributing to the growth of the paid search industry in more than 13 markets in Europe over 2 years. Before Overture, he was an Executive Producer and founding team member of the European office of Bill Gross’ idealab!, which facilitated both US companies’ entry in Europe and executed local investments. Rob is a graduate of Oxford University in the UK and started his career in systems engineering and consulting at IBM Global Services in Europe and the US.

In conclusion, Rob has a wealth of online experience, particularly in the high growth digital advertising categories. On a more personal note - he was also my boss many years ago back at Overture. Oh the fun we had, back when the internet was a young, innocent thing.

Rob, thanks for taking the time to speak with us, particularly as you must be very busy following InMobi's funding announcement this week. So let's dive into the questions:

1. For years now those of in the internet industry have heard "Mobile is going to be huge". What made you decide now was the time to leave the pure web world to focus on mobile?

When I looked and the mobile advertising industry towards the end of 2009, I was also asking myself the same question: is 2010 finally going to be the year of mobile advertising? No one can (or should try to) answer this question, but the reality is that the key enablers for mobile advertising are coming together very quickly across many otherwise unrelated markets. We see these as: 1) 3G penetration - once this grows beyond 25% in a given market, we see a marked increase in Mobile Web usage; 2) handset sophistication - as high end handsets become increasingly mainstream in a specific market, this usage is further enhanced; and 3) mobile social networking penetration - as a driver of high volume Mobile Web usage, once these services achieve high penetration in a given market, they further catalyse the use of the Mobile Web. When these factors are aligned, we see explosive user growth which is quickly followed by advertisers looking to reach these users.

2. As someone who made a career at large American internet companies, and has now switched to a senior role for an Indian based company - is now the time we'll finally see major digital players enter the global stage from the developing world?

Indian companies are well known for their entrepreneurial approach and high quality software engineering talent; and InMobi is no exception to this. The aspect that many people miss is truly international approach that Indian high-tech companies take to product development. India has one of the largest mobile markets in the world and this could result in the temptation to focus efforts on the 'home market', to the detriment of the other regions in which a company operates. As a result, the combination of entrepreneurs, engineering talent and global aspirations, will see India continue to evolve as a powerhouse in the digital technology sector over the next decade.

3. Much is made about the current mobile battle between Google and Apple. As a third-party do you see this dynamic as good for the mobile industry or detrimental?

Competition results in innovation and this is always good! Apple's aspiration to innovate in mobile has resulted in some amazing products, such as the iPhone, the App Store and the iAd. Google's open approach to development has created the Android ecosystem, which tackles some of the same challenges from a different perspective. The winners however have been the users, the publishers and the advertisers, who have benefited from the services and products built on these platforms and devices. Predicting how this story will end is almost impossible, but for businesses such as ours who are part of the story, it's an exciting place to be.

4. You have extensive experience in the online search industry from your time at Overture (inventors of the paid search model). So far search hasn't been a great success on mobile? How do you see that evolving and specifically what roles do you see for vertical search players like Nestoria?

Mobile Search will continue to evolve for all the reasons discussed above - great devices, fast access, compelling content - as well as a whole new level of functionality that comes with mobile, not least around location. Already, the combination of location and search on mobile devices allows users to find products and services faster than ever and this will quickly extend into vertical search areas such as property. Nestoria has always been an innovator and we're looking forward to seeing what your team comes up with next to set the new standard for property search on the Mobile Web.

Rob, thanks for the insight and best of luck with InMobi. Thanks also for the kind words, we'll do our bes tto keep innovating.

past Nestoria interviews: Farhan Laljit, Simon Wistow, and Chris Osborne

Nestoria Interview - Farhan Lalji - Internet Entrepreneur

This month we get the chance to speak with entrepreneur and internet veteran Farhan Lalji.

Farhan started his career in online by accident when a friend emailed him a geocities page, from then on he was hooked. He left behind the glamourous world of health studies and Canada to work in the wonderful world of web in London. He started his career as a front end designer and developer before moving into product management and management consultancy. After completing his MBA at London Business School he joined Yahoo! where for three years he was European Marketing Operations Manager, managing display advertising campaigns across Europe. He left Yahoo! In April 2010 and is working on launching his own company later this year.

1. Tell us a bit about your new project. What made you say now is the time?

The projects really been going through some shifts, it started out as a display advertising platform but we're exploring some new technologies for interacting and viewing ads. The idea is that display advertising is useful but really poor right now, someone needs to change it, why not us?

Professionally I felt I had learnt everything I needed to learn in my old role, and with new platforms (like the iPad) and mobile really gaining steam I thought it was the right time to start something.

There's never a right time to jump. The decision was one bit professional and one bit personal. Yahoo! Had moved its European HQ to Switzerland and after two years there I felt like it was time to come back to London. We (me, my wife and our 9 month old daughter) were in a situation where we could take some time and have an adventure.

2. Recently there's been a lot of commentary about how technically simple it has become to set up a start up. What once took 10 engineers is now doable by 1. As someone who just left an internet mega-brand, do you think the big companies will have trouble keeping employees given that the barrier to entry to online entrepreneurship seems to be falling?

 

The biggest barrier is still appetite for risk. Some people just have a higher risk tolerance than others. I know lots of engineers and product people who will never leave the comforts of a nice salary and a big brand no matter how easy it gets to start something. Sure the risk has gone down with lower capital costs but the opportunity cost of starting something is still there. Big companies will continue to recruit and retain people who care more about comfort and predictability.

Big companies need to worry about other big companies recruiting talent away before worrying about people leaving to be entrepreneurs. Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! Ebay, Amazon, Apple all need to worry about talent going to competitors as well as companies I like to call “New Bigs”, companies like Facebook and Twitter.

 

3. Why set up your start-up in the UK? Especially in the current environment of higher taxes (VAT, capital gains, etc) and reduced government spending?

Here's something controversial for you, I don't mind paying taxes. Especially for things like education and health care. As someone who grew up with a single mom who worked very hard, I had to take on a huge debt to go to University and then graduate school so I appreciate everything the state does and if that means that I take a little bit less home so be it.

At the same time London is one of the most active entrepreneurship and digital centres so anytime you can get a mix like that you'd be mad not to take advantage of it.

The capital gains tax hits entrepreneurs and investors hard, but I do believe the government won't take it higher than 40% which is what it was a couple of years ago. Hopefully, the government will include some breaks and exemptions for entrepreneurship.

Right now you have to be where your market is and where you can build a business, if you get to a point where you're worrying about how much of your profits are being taken by taxation you're going in the right direction. For me, the amount of connections, meetings, clients, advisors, investors you have in the UK and especially in London is phenomenal. People always talk about Silicon Valley and that's great if you're a tech company, but in places like London and New York you're closer to the real world, where most people look at you funny when you say you “tweet”.

4. What do you think are the key trends online that will be change the landscape in the coming years?

 

I think there are two major areas that are already established but are going to become monsters in the next few years.

A bit obvious I'll accept, but the impact of these trends is going to be really big in the next little while.

The trend of Mobile+social+location=fun will get bigger, better and more interactive. Check-ins plus status updates plus retail deals will have an impact on the take up of location based services and their wider adoption.

I also believe that touch technology is finally at the point where it can really change the way people interact with their device. Whether it's the iPad, Android, or some other operating system, people will no longer be tied to a keyboard and mouse. I think what the Wii did to the gaming consoles is going to happen for computing and interaction in the next few years.

 

You can read more of Farhan's thoughts on technology and business on his blog and by following him on twitter @farhanlalji.

Thanks Farhan, and best of luck. I know I'm not the only one who would welcome an improvement to display advertising technology.

 

past Nestoria interviews: Simon Wistow, Chris Osborne and Kevin Burke

Nestoria Interview - Simon Wistow - Scribd

This month we chat with long time friend of Nestoria Simon Wistow. Simon is Senior Search Engineer at Scribd - the world's largest social publishing and reading site. Previously he survived the first Dot.Com boom and bust cycle, was a Senior Search Engineer at Yahoo! Europe and worked at blogging company Six Apart on search and a variety of other open web and social technologies. He also spent several years working on R&D for a Visual Effects Company and once worked on a Cattle and Sheep farm in the Australian Outback - mostly because it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Simon thanks for speaking with us about the state of search.

1. Scribd is one of the largest document sets in the world. What are some of the technical challenges of searching it?

The most immediate problem is that the documents tend to be so much larger - our average document length is 10 pages long which translates to about 3000 words or 21,000 characters. This is much longer than most web pages and certainly more than the average blog post. This in turn makes our indexes much bigger and means that some of the standard tricks such as boosting the importance of the title have to be more finely calibrated. For example, if a user searches for "Alexander" then a one page document with one sentence and a title that exactly matches the search term isn't likely to be as good 'quality' as a 20-page document on Alexander the Great and the Macedonian empire. It's a slightly contrived example but we see the same class of problems a lot. The other problem we have is the fact that we index so many different types of documents. It can be quite tricky to index both a thesis in PDF format and a PowerPoint presentation since they have very different information densities. Density doesn't necessarily translate to quality. On top of that we have to handle documents in about 70 different languages and varying layers of privacy controls (private and public documents, offered for sale and for free). Because we have so much "long tail" content popularity based boosting in a style similar to Google's PageRank algorithm isn't an automatic win. Small companies like Scribd deal with the volume of data that only huge multi-national web companies were able to handle just a few years back. While the hardware has improved a lot I still think it's pretty amazing what we're doing on comparatively tiny budgets.

2. What are the interesting new trends you see in search?

If real estate is all about location, location, location then search is all about context, context context. And part of that context is location. If I search for "taqueria" then that's a very broad search term. But, if you happen to know that I'm searching on my mobile phone and that I'm currently standing in the Mission district in San Francisco, then suddenly you can give me much higher quality results. And, the more information you know about me then the better the results can be. If I search for "polish" then you can serve me up different results depending on whether I've just purchased a new table off eBay or whether I've just booked plane tickets to Krakow. As for more esoteric trends there are a few new technologies beyond the standard inverted index set up which I think are really interesting. Latent Semantic Indexing and Contextual Network Graphs give scarily good results - they return documents that are about the same concept that you're searching for rather than just documents with the exact terms. This means querying for "Kitty Litter" will return documents that refer to it as "Cat Toilet" as well because both those phrases are in the same conceptual locality. Classification algorithms like Support Vector Machines are pretty damn sexy as well.

3. One theory in the search world is that search (and information organization generally) will go "social" with Twitter, Facebook and others heralded as the future of information organisation. Your thoughts?

The other opportunity that sites like Facebook and Twitter represent is that it's a much faster moving world. At one point Google only re-indexed everything once every 40 days or so, now they're adding content in real-time from Twitter's fire hose. This leads to some interesting issues with index latency and replication but also allows for some interesting ranking based on timeliness, trending topics and ephemerality. Again, context is king here. If I'm searching for something and then one of my friends searches for similar terms soon after then it's a pretty good bet that she's looking for the same thing as I am. Based on that we can assume the results I clicked on would be more relevant to her. Using technologies like Multi Layer Perceptron Networks we can do some really interesting result time boosting based on what other users and, more importantly, your friends are doing. The flip side of this, of course, is privacy. If I'm logged out and I search for a phrase and get regular results but then log in andsearch for the same thing again and get more, shall we say, adult results then I know that's because of my friends. If I only have one friend then he's well and truly busted. Or, less cynically, if you're searching for a place to hold your birthday party and you're getting a lot of results for places that specialise in throwing surprise parties then it kind of undermines your friends' efforts. You could get around this by only using this data if the user has over a certain threshold number of friends. But incidents like the AOL search log leak and the extracted data from the Netflix challenge have shown that even if you try really really hard to scrub this stuff inevitably some information is still recoverable.

4. Before moving to California you were a long time member and organizer of London's Perl community (Perl of course being the main programming language used here at Nestoria) and worked at several internet/technology companies. How does the Silicon Valley scene differ from London?

Well, I live and work in San Francisco itself rather than down in the Valley, although I have lots of friends who do both. The vibe in the city is different from down there - you have to drive everywhere in the valley so it's a much less social atmosphere. That said, San Francisco and the whole Bay Area is different from London. Plenty of people have elaborated at length on the subject and, while I've rarely outright disagreed with what they've said, I've never totally agreed with them entirely either. I'm not entirely sure how to put my finger on it exactly to be honest. In general, there's a lot less stop energy here. If you tell people an idea then they will generally overwhelm you with enthusiasm whereas, to some extent, in London, they will patiently and non-maliciously tell you all the reasons why that's a stupid idea and what the obvious and gaping flaws are. Which can be enough to deflate you and knock all that crucial early momentum out of you. The flip side is that if you propose a stupid idea in San Francisco then you may not get that reality check you so sorely need, which is why you occasionally see proposed standards and protocols and products which just make you wonder what the hell the author was thinking. Sometimes it feels like there's a willful ignorance of the lessons learnt from history and of the greater world outside the rarefied echo-chamber bubble that we exist in. Also, while San Francisco has stuff like Maker Faire and Bacon and Cupcake Camp I think people are more likely to do start ups which involve something physical in the UK. I'm sure people can point out counter examples but places like Newspaper Club and Moo seem to be somehow a British thing.

Other than that they're actually remarkably similar. Hell, there's such a flow of people back and forth across the Atlantic that I see some friends more often here than I did back in London.

Simon, thanks for the detailed insights. Couldn't agree more that it's amazing what small companies are technically able to do these days. Likewise we can confirm that different types of data require totally different search thinking. To learn more, or to try to understand what sort of twisted thinking would lead a perfectly normal British man to go work on an Australian sheep farm, I invite all readers to follow Simon over on twitter where he goes by the moniker @deflatermouse

past Nestoria interviews: Chris Osborne, Kevin Burke, and Nick Turner-Samuels.

Nestoria Interview - Chris Osborne - WhereCampEU

Fellow Nestors!

 

I know lately we've been on an interview tear, but today we had the chance to speak with Chris Osborne - one of the lead organisers of this week's WhereCampEU to be held here in London.

 

Many of you will remember Chris from past Nestoria posts - he's the man behind the regular #geomob events, and he worked with us last year on our Where Can I Live project. Chris thus officially becomes the first Nestoria team member to move up into the lofty realms of Nestoria interviewee. (And to think I knew him back when.... ). By day he hangs his hat at ITO World, which both fights the good fight to improve public transport for all of us and creates mindblowingly cool data visualisations.

 

WhereCampEU is sure to be a great event, showcasing the cutting edge of what's happening in the European online geography space. We're very pleased that Nestoria is a sponsor (along with geo upstarts like the Ordnance Survey, Google, Bing and Yahoo! amongst many other forward looking oranisations). We'll hopefully be announcing a little geo-innovation of our own before the event (watch this space). We look forward to meeting any Nestoria blog readers at the event. Please say hello!.

 

Chris, thanks very much for making the time to chat with us.

 

1. You are organising the first WhereCamp in Europe. Can you explain what a WhereCamp is and what made you want to organise one?

 

I went to my first WhereCamp last year in Silicon Valley, right after the Where2.0 conference (editor's note: Chris was kind enough to guest post a summary of Where2.0 with us last summer), and loved the participative nature of the event. Its an unstructured conference, or unconference as the kids say, with a blank timetable that the attendees create themselves by running sessions or doing a lightning talk. As the name implies, its all about geography, place and location technology. As something of a geography geek, I had so much fun that I just had to organise the first WhereCamp in the EU.

 

2. Who do you expect will attend the event?

 

I've worked hard to attract a wide cross section of attendees, a quick glance at the ticket list shows over 13 different countries represented from diverse backgrounds - government, web2.0 startups, National Mapping Agencies, OpenStreetMap people, academics, bloggers and your good selves at Nestoria.

 

3. You say you are passionate about "neogeography". What is neogeography and what's so exciting about it?

 

Neogeography is about community map-making, people generated maps where we remove the separation of the map maker from the map consumer. I'm really excited about the opportunities for an enhanced democracy that comes from people having more knowledge about their environment and being able to participate in decision making. At ITO World, we work on visualising complex transport networks so that communities can view how planning decisions will affect them. In my local community, Clapton, residents have already rejected one new housing development this month partly due to a lack of transport planning.

 

4. What's the most exciting development in internet technology in the past few years to you?

 

Right now, I'm mostly interested in how people are interacting with technology. I have been focused on technology for too long now and am taking a step back and looking at user interaction. I think the touch screen is actually what is going to drive more and more IT/internet usage as it provides a natural interface that we haven't seen before. The greatest trick Apple ever pulled was convincing people that the iPhone wasn't a computer but a mobile phone. I expect to see much more embedded, touch-screen computing devices in all manner of places we haven't seen before.

 

What's something that you're still waiting for, an app, service etc. that you'd like to see in the future?

 

WhereOnEarthIsMyBus.com

 

Thanks Chris for the chat, and also for organising the event. We're looking forward to it!

 

On a final note: For anyone who needs a reminder of the current age of online cartography awesomeness that we live in, check this sweetness out (made with OSM data, free and open geodata FTW!)

 

past Nestoria interviews: Kevin Burke, Nick Turner-Samuels, and Josh Devins.

Nestoria Interview - Kevin Burke - Smarta

This month we chat with Kevin Burke, COO of Smarta.com and social media enthusiast. Prior to joining Smarta, Kevin ran European business development for Pluck, and is also a Yahoo! veteran. He has a BA in history from Williams College and an MBA from INSEAD.

 

Kevin, thanks for speaking with us.

 

1. What is Smarta and what problem does it solve?

 

Smarta is an online resource for people thinking about starting a business or running a small business. We are backed by some of the UK's most successful entrepreneurs including Bebo's Michael Birch as well as Dragons Theo Paphitis and Deborah Meaden. Approximately 15% of all 16-64 year olds in the UK are thinking about starting a business and being an entrepreneur has become the number one career aspiration for university students. The current market for business startup advice is dominated by professional service firms who provide expensive, and often mediocre advice, and by government organisations like Business Link, which are staffed by people who have no practical business experience. Smarta offers free, practical and actionable advice from real entrepreneurs in the form of how to articles, video interviews and an online network. It is a place where people can get inspiration, learn from the mistakes of others and connect with people who can help.

 

2. What are the common mistakes entrepreneurs typically make?

 

We recently wrote a guide called "40 schoolboy errors made by entrepreneurs" and I think that does a good job of summarizing many of the key mistakes.

 

3. 2009 was a brutal year for the UK economy. What opportunities does the recession hold for entrepreneurs and start-ups in general, and web based start-ups specifically?

 

It may sound trite, but there has never been a better time to start a business. Although investment capital is difficult to come by, the cost of website development and hosting has gone down, and web based start-ups can run with very little overhead. To quote Doug Richard "We are entering a land grab of expertise. Each individual has the opportunity to be the brand or nexus around something." The key is capturing mindshare around a particular topic, and listening to the buzz in social networks to stay on top of the fast changing appetites of customers.

 

4. Two weeks ago Google announced their most recent foray into social with the launch of Buzz - and promptly suffered a PR disaster as it became clear that not everyone wants to "socialize" with all of their e-mail contacts. As an online veteran, how do you see the contrast and interplay between broad social networks from the internet giants like Facebook - with 350M+ users all around the world - and niche vertical networks like Smarta?

 

Broad social networks, with their ease of use, have done a great job of spurring mass adoption of social media, and introducing people to the benefits and power of online social networking. Facebook and Twitter have enabled a whole new form of communication. But as we have seen in other sectors of the web, there is a natural point at which fragmentation occurs. If people are passionate about golf, or blues bands, or politics, they will want to interact with communities of like minded individuals, rather than broad communities. If I want to ask for advice about setting up VAT, I won't ask my Facebook friends, I will ask the Smarta community. A key difference is that broad social networks espouse networking for networking's sake, whereas the vertical networks tend to be content and topic led - those that do the best job of facilitating conversation and debate among members will be the most successful.

 

 

The broad social networks and the vertical communities will develop a symbiotic relationship. Currently, individuals have multiple identities at multiple sites. A key trend for the future is to bridge these identities together into a single, portable profile that can be transported across the web. We are starting to see this with Facebook connect. The barriers to entry to joining vertical social networks and inviting friends will continue to decrease, spurring greater adoption. At the same time, individuals' activity feeds and identities will become more robust, reflecting their participation across the web. We will gradually see a move away from anonymous posting and will see robust profiles as the way people build reputation and trust within and across social networks.

 

 

 

Kevin, thanks for your time and insight. As a niche vertical search engine. We know the dilemma, but also the power, of being very focused. For anyone considering making the plunge and starting their own business (go for it!) we recommend checking out Smarta. Learn more about Smarta via their blog or by following smartahq on twitter.

 

past Nestoria interviews: Nick Turner-Samuels, Josh Devins, and Stoycho Vlaykov

Nestoria Interview - Nick Turner-Samuels - Samsung Mobile UK

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 Keating

Nestoria Interview - Josh Devins - Nokia

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 Trost