We Are Organized Chaos

What’s New in Mobile Marketing – 03/24/10

• mSpot’s Mobile Movie Streaming Service Expands To The Web
• Justin.tv Unveils Non-Broadcasting iPhone Application
• How the Tablet Will Change the World
• Some Crazy Postbellum Data From Foursquare And Gowalla (STATS)
• How the Fashion Industry Uses Location-Based Marketing
• You Can Now Gift iPhone Apps
• Flurry: iPhone Games Are A $500 Million Industry In The U.S. And Taking Share
• Average Price for iPhone Apps Keeps Falling
• DEMO: Google Still Advocating For Mobile Web Sites Over Apps
• MobiTV debuts offline storage features for mobile TV service
• VH1 “Smiles” on Mobile Marketing
• The iPad May Change Computing, Just Not Your Life
• Zillow Launches Android App To Browse Home Sales And Rental Listings On The Go
• iPhone vs Others: The Mobile OS Market
• Soon, There’ll Be More Mobile Web Users In China Than People In The United States
• Square Now Being Used For Mobile Payments At Political Fundraisers
• Apple Patents Reveal Plans for Mobile Social Networking App
• Android and Apple To Be The Big Winners In N America
• Don’t Let Your Website Ruin Your Magazine’s Tablet Edition
• Notifo Is A Simple Mobile Notifications Platform For Anything
• What Business Card? Just Scan My QR Code
• Chevy Adds QR Codes to Cars
• Has The Time For Mobile Marketing Sailed By?
• An ‘Unanswerable’ Question: Can The iPad Save Magazines?
• Check-In Fatigue. Or, Why I’m Rooting For An All-Out Location War.
• 5 Things You Need to Know About Location-Based Social Media
• Do Mobile Coupons Matter?
• Travelers Love the Mobile Web – But Most Don’t Use Travel Apps Yet
• Study: More Than Half Of Companies Are Primed For Mobile Advertising

What’s New in Interactive Video – 03/23/10

• Men Lead TV-Web Multitasking
• Panasonic Is Winning The First Round Of The 3DTV Wars
• YouTube Axes Its RealTime Toolbar Experiment
• Thousands Watch as Molly the Owl’s Babies Hatch on Ustream [VIDEO]
• MyChanceRomance Marries Chatroulette and Online Dating
• The Problem With Hulu, the iPad and Cheap TV
• Kylo Blocked By Hulu Already
• Meet YouTube’s 224 Million Girl
• DEMO: GlideTV launches What’s On Channel For Web Videos On TV
• Online TV-Watching Becomes Interactive Experience
• It’s Time to Get Video on Wikipedia
• NBP: FCC Proposes “Video.Gov” Public Archive
• Live Streaming Sites Beat YouTube in Video Hours Uploaded
• RandomDorm: Chatroulette for the College Set
• GM’s Awesome Augmented Reality Windshield [VIDEO]
• Why So Few TV Ads Are Viral Hits
• How SXSW Bands are Using Online Music Videos
• Studios and Cable Unite in Support of Video on Demand
• YouTube Launches Partner Program for Musicians
• Indie Band Holy F**k Debuts New Album on ChatRoulette, of All Places
• Study: Engagement Key for Rich Media Video Ads
• Inside a Virtual Reality Hamster Ball [VIDEO]
• Project Natal: The … Arcade Game?
• BBC iPlayer About to Go Social
• YouTube Users Upload 24 Hours of Video Every Minute

What’s New in Mobile Marketing – 3/10/10

• Comcast’s iPhone App Adds Remote DVR Scheduling
• Air Video, the Best iPhone Video Streamer $3 Can Buy
• GDC 10: FreeAppADay.com Propels FingerZilla from Unknown to App Store Number One in 24 Hours
• Titanium 1.0 Launches: Build Native Apps for Desktop, Mobile & iPad
• Three Lessons From The Chipotle iPhone App
• The iPad Poses a Threat to Kindle’s Market Share [STATS]
• Foursquare and SPIN Magazine Turn SXSW Into Musical Scavenger Hunt
• 99 Apps Launches $99 iPhone App for Restauranteurs
• TwitCasting Lets You Stream Live Video And Tweet Simultaneously From Your iPhone
• Facebook’s iPhone Usage Jumps 20 Percent In Under A Week
• ARWire – Your AR News on the Move
• Macy’s, Domino’s, Unilever’s Dove Case Studies at Mobile Marketing Day
• Global Smartphone App Download Market Could Reach $15 Billion By 2013: Report
• What the iPad’s Lack of Flash Means To Marketers
• Google Gesture Search Is Great — If You Can Get It
• Twitter Sees 347% Growth in Mobile Browser Access
• Gartner: Touchscreen Mobile Device Sales will Grow 97% in 2010
• Mobile Augmented Reality Poised for Rapid Growth
• Hustler on the iPhone (How to get around iTunes approval process? Why just mobile optimize your site…)
• Indie Coder Proves Android Apps Can Make Money, Too
• Mobile Boarding Passes Take Off With 1200% Usage Increase In 2009
• Skype App Hits Ovi Store, And Potentially 200 Million Nokia Handsets Next
• The Importance of Touch on the Mobile Web
• Best Buy Names Top Six Trends in Mobile Marketing, Commerce
• Books Now Outnumber Games on the iPhone
• Y Combinator To Startups: “We think the iPad is meant to be a Windows killer”
• An iPhone app To Bypass Front Desks And Open Room Locks
• 26% of Americans Get News Via Their Mobiles
• Android and RIM Eat Into Apple’s Share Of Mobile Web
• Dropcam Gets an iPhone App
• An App for That, Too: How Mobile Is Changing Shopping
• How To Create an iPhone or Droid App For Your Business (good overview of the DIY apps out there)
• I Don’t Like The iPad Because…
• When It Comes To iPhone Games, What Sells Is Action, Adventure, and Arcade

What’s New in Interactive Video (Chatroulette Edition) – 2/23/10

• Hate ChatRoulette? Then You Hate The Internet
• Chatroulette Offers Random Webcam Titillation
• 5 Reasons Why Chatroulette Is Addictive, And Worth A Try
• TinyChat Launches Grouped Version Of Chatroulette
• Tufts Now Accepts YouTube Videos as Part of College Application
• Wal-Mart Is Buying Vudu
• With Video Pitches, ‘Show Don’t Tell’ Says Feld
• Half Of Netflix Streaming Viewers Are Watching On Their TVs (CHART)
• Auditude to Power Comcast Online Video Ads
• Philips Makes Another Movie Move
• Godfather of Video Blogging Tells All in New Book: Get Seen
• Digital Marketing Guide: Video
• Video Chat Coming To iPad And iPhone?
• “Alice in Wonderland” Live Stream Attracts 400,000 Viewers
• YouTube Expands Video Rental Program
• Tiger Woods Press Conference Draws 683,000 Views on Ustream
• YouTube: Queries For ‘Snickers’ Jumped 18,000% After Their Super Bowl Ad
• School Accused of Secretly Spying on Students Through Laptop Webcams
• Scaling Your Video Marketing Efforts
• Chat With an Integrated Webcam
• The Most Popular YouTube Videos and the Bloggers Who Embed Them
• How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Pre-roll Ad
• Skype Wants You to Step Outside
• A Trickle of Live Streams on the Web
• Audi Streams Video On Facebook During Olympics

What’s New in Mobile Marketing – 2/17/10

• Adobe’s Plan To Deliver Apps Across All Mobile Devices
• Brightcove Pushes Mobile Video With Flash 10.1 Support
• AT&T and Others Announcing Rival to Apple App Store….Great it’s 1999 all over again…
• 10 Pointless iPhone Apps
• Qik Teams With WeFi To Stream Video Using Free Stable WiFi Hotspots
• Facebook Mobile Now Has 100 Million Monthly Users
• Hulu Could Still Launch On The iPad …Not gonna happen…as article points out iPad needs Hulu more than Hulu needs the iPad…
• Detroit Red Wings Make Game Programs Interactive With QR Codes
• Shazam & Dockers Make TV A “Clickable Media” During Superbowl. YouTube Video Of Commercial Here.
• Why Is Mobile Marketing & Advertising So Hard To Measure?
• Bowlingual: iPhone App Translates What Your Dog Barks, Posts It To Twitter
• Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Issue Delivers Video from Page to Phone
• YouTube Will Kill Flat-Rate Mobile Broadband Pricing Forever
• What Google Buzz Means For Mobile
• From “Eraserhead” to MMS: David Lynch Goes Mobile
• Loopt’s Location-based Ads Hit the iPhone, ‘Minority Report’ Here We Come
• Apple Grabs 25% of the Smartphone Market, Android Doubles Market Share
• Teens Text 10 Times Per Hour: Nielsen (That’s it?!?)
• Stat Shot: How The iPhone Changed The Handset Market
• Mobile App or Browser-Based Site? Report Says The Browser Will Win on Mobile
• Will Optimization For Mobile Apps Soon Outweigh Search Engine Optimization?

The Real Reason That iPad and iPhone Won’t Have Flash

I used to hate Macs.  A work experience with a G3, that seemed to crash every ten minutes, turned me off to anything Apple for years.  Everything changed, though, when I got my first Intel based Mac in late 2008.  The user interface was flawless, the UNIX shell made it a cinch to do back-end tasks, and I never had to worry about the issues that plagued that old G3.  I haven’t bought a PC since (at least not without immediately wiping the hard drive with Linux) and I’m known around work as a hardcore Apple fanboy, but that might be changing really soon.

The vast majority of applications I write are for Flash (written in Flex).  I love the ease of Flash development and rarely have any issues with programs I write for it.  That’s why I’m particularly troubled with, what seems to be, Steve Jobs’ fevered desire to destroy the platform.  If you don’t know what I’m referring to, Jobs reportedly told a group of Apple employees that Adobe, the developers of Flash, are “lazy” and that the platform is “buggy.”

I call shenanigans.

There’s a common myth about Flash circulated by developers not familiar with the platform (also known as “my platform is better than your platform” developers).  They say that Flash causes most browser crashes when, in fact, it’s not Flash itself causing most of those crashes, but bad Flash coding by inexperienced developers.  To put that into perspective, I’ll pose a rhetorical question.  When an iPhone developer makes an app that crashes constantly or leaks so much memory that you have to restart the device, does anyone say that Apple should dump Objective C and Cocoa?

Since making the move to Flex, a while back, I haven’t gotten word of a single one of my applications ever causing a browser to crash.  This is after extensive use of these applications, not only by the public, but also by a quality assurance department as well.  Flash is a very stable platform when used correctly.

The iPad and Flash

Adobe has had a fully working version of Flash ready for all major mobile devices for a little while now.  Other mobile operating systems, like Android and Windows Mobile, are going to use it, so why not iPhone or iPad?  Steve Jobs, among others, would have you believe that it’s because the platform isn’t good enough for their devices, but that’s just a cheap cover-up.  The real reason is that it would take a massive chunk out of App Store profits.

If you own an iPhone or iPod Touch then you know that the majority of apps for those devices are – and I don’t say this lightly – complete crap.  The App Store is overrun with weekend projects by novice developers and rip-off products by companies re-skinning the same worthless app to get more 99-cent sales, and Apple is making a killing off of the suckers that buy them.  Don’t believe me?  Look at these screen caps from the App Store for latest releases in the Entertainment and Lifestyle categories, taken while I was writing this.

If Flash were allowed on these devices, almost all of those developers would opt to release their apps as “iPhone ready Flash,” raking in all the revenue from dozens of ads for enlargement pills and naked video chat, which they would surely cover the page in.  If Apple allowed Flash on iPad and iPhone, App Store profits would drop by a double-digit percentage practically overnight.

Why HTML5 won’t be a Flash killer

Because of this, Apple is publicly throwing their hat in the ring for HTML5, all while completely ignoring some of the glaring problems that come with it.  Mind you, HTML5 is a good advancement for the web, but it’s anything but a Flash killer, and here’s why:

1.  Video codecs aren’t free.  The reason that Flash works with all sorts of video codecs is because Adobe paid for them.  When that responsibility is moved to the browser, problems ensue, because not every browser supports all those codecs.  Mozilla has chosen Ogg, Apple is with h.264, since that’s what iTunes runs off of, and while Google is also currently with h.264, word is that they might be about to opt for a codec they just gained ownership of.  This means that not all HTML5 video players will work in all HTML5 capable browsers.  This is a huge headache for developers, since cross-browser is the name of the internet game.

2.  HTML5 can’t make the level of games that Flash can, or at least not with anything near the same ease of development.  Casual Flash gaming is a huge moneymaker, and no one is ready to drop it anytime soon.  Just for fun, ask just about any Flash game developer what he would think about dumping ActionScript to write a game in JavaScript and enjoy watching his head explode.

3.  Whatever HTML5 will do, Flash can already do it and then some.  As time goes on, and more functionality becomes available with HTML5, Adobe will, through their normal development cycle, give Flash more and more features that HTML5 won’t be able to compete with.  Two years from now, it might be that video players and simple rich internet applications are best done in HTML5, but, in order to do the latest things available, you’ll still need Flash.

4.  Flash has a dedicated user base.  99% of computers in the modernized world have Flash installed.  Safari and Chrome, which make up about 14% of total browser penetration, are the only browsers capable of running YouTube’s HTML5 video player.  Things might change for HTML5 penetration, but not soon.

The future of my Apple fanboy status

I’m struggling to remain an Apple fanboy, with their ridiculous practices regarding Flash and closed development.  The truth is, while I’m not happy with the direction their mobile division is going, I love OSX to death.  I guess, as a developer, I still admire the hard working people at Apple who, behind the scenes, actually do all the heavy lifting that results in great products.

On the other hand, Steve Jobs is starting to look less like an innovator to me and more like the delusional cult leader that so many Windows fanboys characterize him as – blindly saying that technologies that don’t conform to his wishes are buggy and that their developers are lazy.  I can’t help but think, at least for a while, that I won’t be drinking his special brand of Kool-Aid.

Oh, and he also reportedly trashed Google because they’re making competitive products.  When the Google Tablet mockup shows multitasking and multi-touch, the Chrome OS has open development, and the device will almost assuredly run Flash, it feels to me like nothing more than sour grapes.

Follow me on Twitter, @blakecallens

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the iPad

As a self-described Steve Jobs hater, it’s going to sting a little to say this, but here goes:

Steve Jobs is right, and the haters are wrong. iPad is amazingly great and will be a tremendous hit. He is right to go with the iPhone OS and not OSX or some other multitasking capable OS. He is right to eliminate built-in expansion ports like SD, HDMI or USB. It doesn’t do Flash, which supports many of the Web’s most popular and heralded Rich Internet Applications – and that’s okay. It’s just a big iPod Touch. And that’s what it needs to be, for now.

Now let me try to explain how I came to this excruciating conclusion. First, I will start with a fictional story to put you in the right frame of mind. Imagine that after months of rumors and speculation, Apple came out and said, “Look, we have just developed the best video game of all time.” Enthusiasts drool and the Press pants with anticipation. Finally, MacWorld arrives and they dramatically unveil… Bejeweled. “But it doesn’t have 3D graphics OR multiplayer, this game sucks! It isn’t even as good as the original Wolfenstein. I’ve lost my faith in Steve Jobs,” the fan boys howl. “It isn’t really designed for an XBOX controller,” the pundits muse. And Steve Jobs smugly grins as over the coming years Bejeweled emerges as the standard bearer for the multibillion dollar casual gaming industry.

In order to appreciate why the iPad is going to be so successful, you’re going to have to relinquish your “Me First” attitude. Just because it doesn’t do what you want it to do, doesn’t make it a bad device. It just makes it inappropriate for you, personally. Most people don’t try to leverage the maximum power out of their laptops and netbooks – they use them as tools for accomplishing specific tasks. Under normal circumstances, there’s a correlation between general system power and complexity of usage. But more complexity doesn’t necessarily mean something is better; for most people, when complexity exceeds what is needed to perform the task at hand, it leads to an inferior user experience. Most people prefer managed experiences based on forcing functions to the open ended sandboxes that Tech Professionals like us demand. Instead of figuring out how a power-user would make best use of it, think of another type of user. Imagine a usage profile that focuses on personal email, Google, Wikipedia, Facebook, online shopping, listening to a little music and casual gaming. The iPad excels in this scenario. And this scenario, while not pertinent to the fan boys and pixel pushers, represents a much larger swath of the population. For them, support for “Push” notifications is all the multitasking they want or need. For them, external ports are rarely used, if ever – who wants little holes getting gummed up with grime and food? For them, not doing Flash is no big deal (especially with HTML5 around the corner, although they are unconcerned with such nuances). For them, it’s just a big iPod Touch. And that’s what it needs to be.

So to all the techno-geeks that feel let down, don’t. This device isn’t for you and it never was. Stop worrying about it and get on with your lives.

Why I Won’t Be Buying A First Gen iPad

I haven’t seen anything hyped this much only be such a disappointment on release since Crystal Pepsi. That’s what the iPad is, the Crystal Pepsi of computing (no John Scully jokes, I promise).
We were all hoping for something to lead us into the next generation of mobile computing, but what we got was a giant iPhone with a couple new features – the kind of features that should be in iPhone OS 4.0 anyway. Steve Jobs opened up the media event by saying, “…netbooks aren’t better at anything,” but I can’t help but be glad that I bought a netbook and put Ubuntu Linux on it last month instead of saving up for the iPad, and here’s why:

My netbook has a faster processor

Most netbooks run on a 1.6Ghz Intel Atom processor, while iPad runs an A4 1Ghz processor. To put that into perspective, the iPhone 3GS runs an 833Mhz processor, so this is not anywhere near a huge jump up in processing for a device four times the size of its predecessor. The A4 processor gives the iPad about 10 hours of battery life, which is impressive, but you’re not going to be able to do the level of processing available in most netbooks.

My netbook has a camera

This is a WTF non-feature for me. Apple had a chance to make the iPad the premier Augmented Reality device of 2010, but instead they’ve left every AR developer scratching their head. It’s not as if there isn’t enough room to put two cameras, one facing each way, in the device. How many more iPads would Apple sell if you could use Skype with it?

My netbook runs Flash

Apple’s continued cognitive dissonance when it comes to Flash on their mobile devices is getting rather annoying to me, and not just because I develop on the platform. Flash pretty much runs the interactive web nowadays, and it’s exclusion makes the iPad a “web-lite” device, unable to run Vimeo, Hulu, and any media embeds on social networking sites and blogs other than YouTube.
Apple has a good reason for not allowing Flash, which, believe it or not, is actually ready for the device – it will hurt AppStore profits significantly. Yet, when 90% of apps in the store are complete crap, who cares if their developers move to Flash. The real moneymaking apps will still be iPad and iPhone native.

My netbook runs a full OS

I have full install of Ubuntu 9.10 running on my Acer Aspire 1, giving my netbook the full functionality of a normal laptop. I can multitask on multiple, switchable workspaces, using fully functional applications, and I can engineer and compile new applications. I can browse through folders and files. I can do full network administration on a device that is taller than the iPad, but smaller in width and height.
I can do everything on my netbook that is capable with the iPad and then some, minus the slick user interface. To be fair, one of my favorite things about Apple products are the interfaces, but my MacBook and iMac back up the beautiful interface with tons of under the hood functionality. The iPad offers less than I can already do between my MacBook and iPhone.

My netbook cost half the price of the cheapest iPad

I bought my netbook at Fry’s Electronics for $250. It has a 160Gb hard drive, while the most expensive iPad model only has 64Gb for $829. The cheapest iPad only has 16Gb, or half of the storage of my iPhone 3GS, and costs $499. This is unacceptable for a ten inch device when you can get a 16Gb Micro SD card on Amazon for less than $50. Also, my netbook has two SD card slots on it, allowing me to expand it’s storage capabilities.

What Improvements would get me to buy the iPad

I have hope for future generations of the iPad if Apple integrates the following:

• Front and back facing cameras
• An OS that is less like the iPhone and more like OSX
• Allow Flash 10.1 on the device
• Make a slightly thicker version with a full hard drive and USB and SD ports
• Swap out the A4 processor with an Intel chip
• Stop hyping the current model like its something more than a big iPhone

I don’t expect these changes anytime soon, making this the biggest opportunity for Microsoft and Google to outdo Apple in years. A Windows, Android, or other Linux kernel iPad clone that has all the features serious computer people are looking for would deal a huge blow to the folks in Cupertino.