Micro-projectors and wireless charging devices were two interesting developments from the CES event in Las Vegas recently. William Wright (@mrwilliam) on BBC Lincolnshire asked me to speak about this and other digital topics on his tech slot on 25th January. You can listen to a recording of the tech slot here.
It's barely been two days since the launch of Apple's new device, the iPad. The reactions to it are mixed. Publishers are very excited about it because they can see potential in it for selling their eBooks. Consumers appear to be unsure about whether it is any better than a netbook.
Will talking about post offices and technology Wed Dec 02 2009.mp3 (7464 KB)
Post Offices were once a major part of village life. They were usually in the village shop and provided postal services to the local population. As email and the internet have grown as people make decide to communicate with family, friends, colleagues, customers and suppliers, the demand for traditional services from the Post Office have diminished.
Will with William Wright multi-touch screens Nov 09.mp3 (8009 KB)
Print on Demand is not a new initiative. It has been around for a number of years. But recent news that more new titles are being printed through Print on Demand (PoD) than through traditional printing methods shows how the PoD industry has come of age. It allows out of print books to become available again. It allows authors of new books to publish them themselves without risk and for custom books to be printed quickly to respond to demand.
Digital photography is prolific and free software enables people to create panoramas and 3-D worlds easily by stitching their photographs together quickly and easily.
Will was recently on BBC Radio Linclonshire with William Wright talking about these technologies. To listen to the show, you canplay or download the podcast by clicking the link below.
Will speaking on BBC Radio – self publishing and photo stitching.mp3 (11897 KB)
The next time you are standing at a bus stop, or you are waiting for a train, take a look around at anything that interests you and take a photograph of it with the camera on your internet enabled phone. For instance, that poster advertising a film that you have heard good reviews about, or perhaps the advertisement for a chocolate bar. Chances are that you will just have photograph of an advertisement on your phone and a pretty shaky one at that unless you are a professional photograph specialising in photos taken through phones.
But wouldn’t it be useful if that photograph led to you finding out where you could see that film in the cinema nearest to you, at what time and buy tickets for it then and there? Or by photographing the chocolate bar on the poster you received a digital voucher which you could redeem in your local corner shop on one of those chocolate bars? Another useful application of your mobile phone could be when you are driving around an area looking for houses you might be interested in buying.
Currently, you have to get the details from an estate agent or an online service about houses and then plan a tour around the area to see which ones you want to view. But, if you see a house on your tour for which you had not printed off the details you would have to mess about calling the agent or logging onto the web to get the details. It’s frustrating and the speed at which you find details on the internet at home or at work makes it all the more so because you cannot find them so quickly when you are away from the web. It would very useful if you could take a snap of the outside of the house on your phone and see details about it immediately to see whether it is in your budget.
Well, this capability is now available through your Nokia mobile via their ‘Point and Find’ service. It allows you to find information like this now. All you need is the ‘Point and Find’ software on your internet enabled phone to get instant information. The service is quick and easy to use. For marketers, it gets around a major hurdle with mobile marketing which is the fact that people don’t like having to tap out more than basic messages on their phones. The three keys activities carried out on mobiles are search, social networking and photography. But search is limited by people’s reluctance to type on their keypads so Google is developing a voice driven mobile version of their search engine.
With services like ‘Point and Find‘ or ‘Amazon Remembers‘ you just need to photograph what you are interested in to get the information you want about the product or service you have seen. The possibilities are endless. And they both meet the ‘Want It Now!’ feeling that we all experience now. Consumers hate having to wait.
Marketers will be able to understand which of their off-line marketing collateral is most effective and which locations are most productive. Marketing investment can be targeted more effectively and efficiently. Mobile marketing will become more mainstream with the reality of instant gratification as the database of products and services are increased in these services.
Will speaking on BBC Radio – Rich Internet Application.mp3 (14658 KB)
