Wednesday, May 13, 2009

The hottest conference on mobile this summer is Open Mobile Summit

The conference scene has changed alot due to the recession and it looks like there is some focus on fewer and better events. One which I have great anticipations for is Open Mobile Summit. This conference is small, intimate and has managed to draw some of the most interesting people in the ecosystem together. I will be speaking on a topic related to media: Mobile: The next mass media? Amplifying weak signals, it is on day one at 2.00-2.30 I plan to share some insights we got from designing the BBC iPlayer and how we see content and communication fuse into new experiences. I will discuss how content can foster and stimulate conversation. I will try to mix a bit of vision with learning’s from the gutter. If you are thinking of attending, I suggest that you take advantage of this discount code ChrisL01, it should give you some nice benefit, if the code does not work, leave a comment and we can sort it out.

02:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Hurray for Google News Timeline user experience; hurray for Andy Herzfeld

Today Google announces the horisontal timeline for News. Like one could expect it works very well in the browser and is surprisingly fast. I am exceptionally happy to see a renaissance in horisontal timelines, as I have felt awfully lonely for many years not seeing any clones of horisontal timelines, which we developed for Nokia Lifeblog in 2004. The idea of a horisontal timeline seemed obvious once we came up with the idea, perfect as we expected screens on computers to grow from 4:3 to 16:9 and beyond, now a reality. What makes me exceptionally happy and proud is that Google's timeline was done by Andy Hertzfeld. Andy is in my book one of the greatest geniuses in the SW world as he understands all elements of a great user experience, making it work (Utilitias), making it beautiful (venustas) and making is tight (firmitas). Andy for example is said to have hired hired Susan Kare to Apple, who was responsible for the icons of the first Mac a longtime inspiration of mine. Andy did many key components what made computers what they are for example control panels

The timeline is simply one of the best ways to depict large amounts of data, I have more than 30000 of data items in my Lifeblog and it is still my preferred way to watch my own digital history. As Nokia killed Lifeblog last year, my history is fading fast as there are no new compatible handset made. Few days ago I got my N95 8GB back from service, the one Google Lattitude killed, I transferred all my sms back to the phone, 200 transferred eventhough I got a note that 2000 had transferred,what made the transfer amusing is that all landed on 21st of April, I guess it was an active day of texting. What can I say: metadata matters, content is nothing without its metadata.

To celebrate Andy's achivement I will start a club called Timeline fans, you can sign up on this blog and we take it from there. I certainly want to see more timelines otherwise I think we will become masked in bits hidden on disks in the cloud and we might actually never see the sun.

07:14 PM in Technology | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

Monday, April 06, 2009

All you can eat in the digital space - Amazon Prime

I have been an Amazon Prime user for some time now, and it struck me what a magnificent loyalty tool this is. For me there is some weird greed-maximize-my-saving-mechanism kicking off, much like going to one of those asian or italian all you can eat for €9.90 buffet places. Amazon Prime is the same thing in the digital space, except it does not come with tummy ache.

You pay to save on your shipping. I do love the concept, it has for me worked exactly like Amazon inteneded it, to drive loyalty. Amazon Prime drives me back to Amazon, much more than I went there in the past. Much more than any offer for discounts.

It is innovations like this that gradually turns Amazon into the digital global Wallmart. I would be curious to hear how it works for others Prime subscribers, what are your experiences?
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The next step would be to collect it to a mobile app, where one walks around in the physical world "shopmarking" things that one later can shop at Amazon with Prime delivery.

A terrible thought for all those retailers putting their products on display, but some clever retailer would quickly evolve into some kind of museum type retail experiences where people just browse and "shopmark" and then have the shippers compete for the business. Retail people would argue, people like getting things right away, but with Amazon Prime someone carries it home the next day, pretty darn nice for alot of stuff. I have not seen this kind of 'physical shopping catalogue' anywhere, it could be pretty darn space efficient way to do retailing.

10:10 AM in Technology | Permalink | Comments (1)

Saturday, April 04, 2009

Mobile Trends presentation at Fjord Helsinki today

If you are in Helsinki today and tired of the grey weather, why not stop by the Fjord Helsinki office where we are hosting 3rd Helsinki Barcamp. I will do a speech at 14:00 on Mobile trends of 2009. The speech is about 45min followed by a Q&A session. See you at Fjord, Keskuskatu 6G.

08:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Spring in London

Londoners enjoying the Heath on a Sunday afternoon. Here it is Mother's day.

04:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Want to play in mobile control your destiny, control your operating system

Reading about the profit warning and the giant loss in SonyEricsson sparked the following thought. We are witnessing an enormous transition on the mobile business from HW to SW and services.

For SonyEricsson matters are going to be worse as the mobile phone market has polarized into high-end and low-end. The financial difference between mid range and high end is not so significant that consumers care, if you shed more then spending the extra €200 is marginal, as you really get much more. If you want to pinch you go with a voice + sms only device or simply use the existing to death. The mid range where SonyEricson has excelled at past couple of years has vanished. It looks like they have given up on capturing the low-end, it is not easy to compete with Nokia and no brands.

Why I think matters will get much worse is that they do not own or control an operating system that enables creation of rich computing like experiences. I use the word computer more as a place holder of something new and different from phone. The iPhone is in my mind still, like my daughter calls it, a mini computer. I use my iPhone mostly as a connected computer; battery and RF quality is not good enough.

The lack of controlling a computer style operating system puts them in the same league as Motorola, not a place where one wants to be.

What makes matters grim for SonyEricsson is that they seem to want a divorce. Sony seems reluctant to share one of its last gems, the Playstation brand. As Apple is charging ahead with new business models of in app purchase of digital assets, which will massively successful, as we have seen it work in numerous services on the net. This model is great in gaming, where spending €0.99 in the heat of the game is nothing. The Playstation asset could become jeopardized, like the Walkman brand, who people say is something dad had, and it is hard to become less cool than that.

Looking forward to other players not having computer style operationg systems like LG and Samsung, I wonder how this will impact them. What I think could come to their rescue is Android, but the master question in that is who will control the UE, or ensure that the lives of the developers is decent. In the past this is something only the Americans have figured out how to do, but I am not absolutely convinced will Google have the motivation and dedication it takes, they have not figured out to make money in other ways than increase number of searches, but pouring down 1BN+ might be too steep a bet even for Google, which means we get more fragmentation. A €1bn+ reSearch project is big even for Google.

Nokia has two operating systems that enable rich app development, Symbian and the Linux stuff seen in the tablets. Symbian is more phone+ rather than computer like. The Linux one is still in the works. This should in my mind insulate Nokia from same risks facing the others. I do not get it why the market does not see them as a SW player, they are. I think their core problem is that their business model is too anchored in a B2B model selling to operators, which is needed if one wants to maintain big market share. I also think Nokia will suffer short term as mid range is evaporating, as they traditionally have ben strong there, but like so many times before the old mid range becomes the new low end.

11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Roca Tranquila Restaurant is full of light and culinary energy

 I had a power lunch at Roca Tranquila on the Costa del Sol last week-end and swore I would be back with lots of time and an empty stomach. This place is one of the best restaurants I have been to in a long time.

I loved the location high up in the hills, with stunning views of the Mediterranean sea. When one enters one stumbles into the Andalucían kitchen where the food is prepared in front of your eyes by the Danish chef Kasper Nielsen.

Kasper has been living on the Costa del Sol for several years and is passionate about Spanish food. But Spanish food for Kasper's comes with a twist, for example the scallop which was superbly fresh and perfectly cooked came surrounded by a vanilla flavoured olive oil, which provided a very interesting contrast. The flavour from a desert in a starter is a surprise anytime. I also had a wonderful salmon soup, where the soup part was so light, lean and tasty it was like tasting milk with massive amount of flavour, with perfectly cooked chunks of salmon. It was a superb soup.

 

What I loved most was the light, this was probably due to the fact I had been starving for it all winter and when I saw it coming through the big windows in the old farmhouse with 60cm think walls, breaking and creating shadows, I was sold. The place opened in the summer of 2008 and is being discovered by locals as well as visitors, I hope it soon will be discovered by the folks of Guide Michelin, as this one is worth a detour, with that I do not mean two stars, for that they still need to push, but it has potential.

If you are in the area, do stop by, and take lots of time, it will not be wasted.

08:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sunday, February 22, 2009

At Cinc sentist restaurant the 5th sense is family values.

In the modern world of build, spin and flip the values of tradition is something I really appriciate. The fastest way to create tradition is to set up a family business, you instantly have family heritage. When I stepped into Cincsentist in Barcelona I knew I had come to place where people care. The material attention to detail was high, but here it was the human element that aired. Amèlie Artal greeted us in perfect english, slightly puzzled, we found out she was native of Canada and had worked at Netscape and was well versed in technology, she had joined her brother, the chef, Jordi Artal and their mother in a real family venture Cincsentits.

The place is a narrow, yet airy place, the mother (I who I did not catch the name of) said they had actually removed tables and one could feel the space. A brave move in a downturn, but I got the feeling they had decided to outlive bad times and create a culinary icon.

We decided follow Amèlie’s advice and have the 7 course tasting menu with their wines selection. It made things easy, we had after all had a super though week and wanted to unwind with good food, fun stories and lots of laughter. We laughed so much we almost fell off our chairs. The tasting menu was a great choice. Several of the dishes were really amazing. I was particularly fond of the foie gras on a crispy cracker with onion comfit and with a sweet glacing. It was simply perfect. I like the deep flavour of the oxtail, which had been cooked for 36hours. The Scallop was great. The mint sorbet on top of cubes of granny smith apples was super fresh and wonderful in colour. The beuty of this sampling menu is that each portion is small and one is not stuffed after the meal, only a bit tipsy after all that good wine, so if you only want a culinary experience you need to leave wine in the glass after each course ;-)

We had a great chat with Jordi, Amèlie and their lovely mother. Jordi is a self-taught chef, a massive talent, who clearly can progress further. It was great hearing their story of moving back to Spain and setting up a restaurant in Barcelona and aim for the highest standard. Guide Michelin recognised their effort and awarded the team a star in 2008.

08:33 PM in Restaurants | Permalink | Comments (0)

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Mobile Experiences - The new paradigm

After seeing the Palm Pre I realised something I kind of knew for sometime, but could not really express in words, now I think I can. The iPhone introduced a new paradigm in mobile user experiences, multi-touch and gestural navigation. This is obvious somehow, but I always had a small problem with the iPhone UI in that the control of it was quite basic, a sort of forward-back-up-down-in-out UI. I have referred to it as a pretty mess, it works but does not scale very far. When I first saw it this lack of scalability bothered me, on the other hand like many others I was totally mesmerised with the fluidity of touch, but I first somehow dismissed the multi-touch and gestures to be a gimmicky. I was wrong, it is the beginning of the touch paradigm.

Let me try to elaborate. There has been 3 paradigms of handhelds user experiences. The first was dedicated function keys, where each of the key functions had its dedicated key and leading to either too many keys (remote controls) or impossible to use user interfaces (Japanese Watches) phones with dedicated keys simply did not provide the function scalability needed. In 1994 Nokia introduced the first soft key phone, with the 2110 this became paradigm shift, and in about 15 years all phones with keys have followed this into its defacto standard 3 soft keys (OK, Menu and Back, of which OK is surrounded with 4-way navigation). Two years ago Apple brought out its iPhone. It introduced the first finger only operated touch user interface. The touch screen, its integration and responsiveness was at such a quality that it immediately laid the fundamental for a change in the mobile landscape. The fact that it was a paradigm shift, I only now discovered when I played with the Palm Pre. The Palm Pre was designed among other by Paul Mercer, a friend and brilliant UE designer. He had the good taste to recognize that multi-touch is a paradigm, and just copied what Apple did and then took it further, much further. The Palm Pre is the first touch UE offering a new UI style, which is essentially is a new way of handling core navigation, like navigating in list, across applications and in and out of applications.

Seeing this led me to mature my thinking. There is three layers in User Experience or a UI Style. The highest level I call Bling (this is because, it caters to the visual senses) it contains the visuals, colours, content density and partly motion. The next level below it is Control (This caters to the mind or rationale) This is where the efficiency is created, where one gets stuff done, one navigates into applications, within applications and between applications. It is where services should be integrated. It is much more than functionality, more than an application. The lowest level of a user experience is the Utility level. In this level one experiences such thing as application installation, network control, power management. It is where latency is managed. This level of user experience is almost totally provided by engineering, except when operating at world class level, when UE designers and Engineers co-operate deeply.

Now if we look at empiric's, my opinion is that the Asians, with Samsung, LG at the forefront have realised that they need to invest in user experience, but it has been exclusively done at Bling level. Companies like TAT has greatly helped to create this layer in experience, the motions are fluid, there is fun animations , things look good.

At the control level we have more fundamental innovations, they are things like pinching, flicking, flipping into 'back' of application like in iPhone Weather or flipping below, like in the Maps app. In the PalmPre there are the cards and their shuffling, the Chucking, meaning closing the app. These are fundamental design solutions, solutions I call 'of course design' when invented it is the only reaction user have. They provide deep long lasting innovation, they are the gear shift and steering wheel type of innovations. They cannot be customised from customer to customer.

What now is going to be killer interesting is will there become a legal fight in the Control layer or not. It did not happen in the past paradigm 'soft keys', when Nokia let the others do soft keys, to the great benefit of humanity in my opinion. Apple clearly raised their voice with multi-touch gestures, when the Palm Pre was launched, which in some ways reduces their differentiation, but greatly expands the opportunity for people to be able to operate these new devices. At Fjord we spend alot of time innovationg in the control layer, it is hard work as coming up with 'of-course design' does not happen very often.

When I look at Google's Android it lacks Bling innovation, it lacks Control Innovations, but all innovation has gone into the Utility layer. This somehow fits with my impression of Google. They are a utility, and with utility I do not mean a commodity or anything negative, more in the direction of Air and Water, necessities for life. By focusing on utility in the beginning one can build a very solid user experience paradigm, Android somehow reminds me of the early days of GMail, just another e-mail service that just worked, now 4 years later it is becoming a cloud based content platform integrating core elements of your digital life. What makes the Google strategy powerful is its utility focus, as fragmentation is smaller further down, but it is still far more fragmented than on the PC or Web side, making progress slower, but I suspect Google is in no rush.

Now one can ask will there be new paradigms in mobile experience, the answer is of course, I for one believe we are going to see smarter keys. Text input on touch screens are simply too bad. People like moving keys and the sensory feeling they provide.

04:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Come and taste our Mobile World Congress Desert at the Fjord stand

Lots of people are hibernating in this recession, at Fjord, we decided to go fresh with a new desert at Mobile World Congress. With Freddie Raoult we designed a new desert that you can sample at our stand 1F07, Hall 1.  You can also meet the management of Fjord and hear about our plans for our New York office.

You can also meet our tech partner Futurice. If you are not in Barcelona next week do stop by our new website at www.fjordnet.com

12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Work posts

• My iPhone 3G is like a prototype
• In San Francisco for Mobile 2.0 Conference
• Going Deep on Mobile
• Joining Fjord - A hub of convergence
• 2007, a time for change. Leaving Yahoo
• This week is the annual bash at 3GSM in Barcelona.
• I have seen my Future. It’s at Yahoo!
• Juha Pinomaa should be good for Suunto
• As Nokia Lifeblog transfers from Nokia Ventures Organization to Multimedia Business Group it is time for me to look for the next big thing.
• Speaking at Nokia's Destination Multimedia event in Amsterdam

Play posts

• Hotel Cornavin, Tintin's and my hotel of choice in Geneva
• The bespoke Brompton folding bike is here. What a moving experience.
• Our Little Legoland is sprawling with life.
• Still life
• Do not litter the world with wind power
• The SUV of shoes.
• La Cinquecento would be ready for a renaissance!
• On top of Google - As me as an editor
• Radio sailing - a truly moving experience
• Calm before the storm...

Restaurant posts

• At Cinc sentist restaurant the 5th sense is family values.
• L'Autre Pied restaurant does not come with foot in the mouth
• Comerç 24 restaurant in Barcelona is a full sensory reconstruction.
• Restaurant Loft is a urban oasis in the centre of Helsinki
• Kyoto restaurant is a small hidden pearl in Soho.
• Restaurant Christophe generation shift of a star
• Neal Street Restaurant is a piece of Italy in Covent Gardens
• World Food Café is a lunch sanctuary
• Klaus K is the coolest hotel in Helsinki
• Restaurant Lehtovaara in the press

Most read posts

• Themes for Nokia Series 60
• Search turned Find with launch of the A9 Beta
• Getting most out of Series 60 - My selected gems
• Blogging via Atom API on Nokia 6600

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• TypePad
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• Nokia

Friends

• Russell Beattie
  One of the premier mobile bloggers
• Matt Jones
  Matt is the first persons blog I visited...seemed amazing...Matt is a veteran in UI design and allways loaded with some ideas.
• Minus Björkstam
  Minus is a fantastic magician and wonderful person.

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