Progress in Mobile Payments as Starbucks leads the charge

Starbucks recently rolled out their mobile payment option for devices. Basically you can download a free app, add credit, and then display a barcode that will allow you to pay for your purchases using a third-party barcode reader at your point of purchase. This is a great step in the right direction by a major brand that will make a lot of consumers take notice of what mobile payments can mean, not to mention push the consumer goods industry toward further adoption. And Starbucks had a great case to try this out as 2/3rds of their customers are smartphone users. However, having downloaded and used it for a few weeks, there’s still a few issues from a customer experience standpoint where I’m not sold. Below are a few reasons:

• I still have to download and install a specific app – Sure it’s free and easy to install, but I still need to go get it to use it and I should (though I’m sure many have no problem making the rest of the line wait) get it ahead of time and not right as I’m paying.
• I have to have my device handy, charged, and ready – My device is habitually not charged all the way, out of my grasp, or not in hand, mostly because I’m with someone and yapping as I wait in line. I get the thinking here. Starbucks always involves waiting because their products are complicated and time-consuming to prepare, thus the downtime and propensity to pull out your phone. However, I rarely get coffee alone so that appeal isn’t there for me.
• I have to give my payment info to this specific app – I’m not particularly shy or paranoid about this but it’s sort of a pain to enter the info, even if it is just once.
• A gift card is just as functional – No secret to anyone, adding credit to a gift card at the register is easier, and then after that it’s a no thought transaction to pay. No waking up your device, finding the app, etc…

Don’t get me wrong, I like where this is going and Starbucks got a lot of PR out of it. But until a technology like NFC comes along to make this all a little easier I think I’ll probably go back to cash and cards when my credit runs out on the app.

Advertisement

Glad I was right about Chumby

Right in time for the holiday season, Chumby Industries released the Chumby 1, a newer and cheaper version of the original Chumby that came out a few years back. Like it’s predecessor, it offers a large amount of free widget content including access to web based services folks use on regular basis: Facebook, Pandora, and Gmail to name a few. So why does the new Chumby offer a glimmer of light to what could be the start of some mass appeal? Because (in my opinion) they did a few of the things I pointed out in my post from two years ago aptly named “The Chumby Dilemma”

First they made it cheaper. The original used to be $180 bucks, this new one is $120 shipped. I actually bought two of them on holiday promotion for $99. They’re right there on the price threshold now, $99-$120 is more than reasonable for all the great things the Chumby does.

Second, they changed the design of the enclosure making it seem like it belongs in rooms other than the bedroom (was never a fan of the pillowish enclosure). They put a battery case in it (battery sold separately) so you could take it around the house. Basically, they made it feel like a hell of a lot more than an internet alarm clock, which it is.

So while I’m sure this cuts into their margins a bit, they made the product more enticing and salable by changing the easiest things. The brilliance is truly in the software and Flash based channels and I hope they focus and continue to grow that. So go buy one, it’s a fantastic device that has a special place set aside on my kitchen counter.

By the way, people are doing some really cool things in hacking the Chumby. You can see a list of all sorts of mods and hacks here on this wiki page. A favorite is this one recently featured on Hackaday:

Ode to the Old School: Dial-up BBS’s

var FO = { movie:”rt_bbs.swf”, width:”500″, height:”400″, majorversion:”8″, build:”0″, bgcolor:”000000″, quality:”best” };
UFO.create(FO, “rt_bbs”);

Rob Toole.com requires the lastest version of the Flash Player. Please click the link to download the latest. Thank you.

I was cleaning out some of my old files from an archived hard-drive which is long gone with the computer it came with (original Apple G4 tower I think). This was in a folder called “Skunk-work” and was one of the first projects that I really started to get the hang of Actionscript. Coolest part is that it’s a throw back to my original computing experiences with my Commodore 64 and AT&T 386 PC.

I tell my 9 year old son how we used to use land-lines to dial in (we haven’t had one for half his life, no concept of the home phone number but he has had his own email address for a few years). We wouldn’t call in to an ISP to access the internet, but to a specific computer in someones house. We’d actually war-dial neighboring towns to discover these Bulletin Board Systems (BBS’) and play “games” that we’re all text and ASCII based. He’s both interested and incredulous at this concept, and I explain that we would spend just as much time (maybe more with the slow connection) then on the computer as we do now when there really wasn’t that much to do. I keep waiting for him to tell me how lame it must of been, but I think he gets it and would have been as interested as I was back then. It was all about the pursuit and it still is today even with a million times the resources.

Wonder what things will be like for his kids in 20 years?

Submit your mobile app to the MAX Awards

So your a mobile software developer/publisher working in Flash Lite and want to go to Adobe MAX, the leading conference in rich internet applications, creative and design solutions, and killer parties. But you live really far away and need a little help and incentive to get there. Well guess what? If you submit your mobile application you have a chance to be selected as a finalist and get a free conference pass!

I’m an industry judge for mobile and devices and expect to see some high-quality offerings like I have and years past. Please enter your app, all entries will be considered so don’t hold back, deadline is July 31st. I’ve heard on the Twitter-verse there are going to some game-changing announcements concerning mobile so this is not one to miss.

Don’t miss the party! Enter your app here.

MBA Symposium – Gary Hamel

I attended BU’s MBA Symposium this past Saturday. It was a well organized event with some great speakers and break-outs. One that stuck out was Dr. Gary Hamel (beaming in from the silicon valley, very big-brotherish). It was an inspiring speech to say the least but here are some of the points that really stood out for me:

Accountability should go up the org chart as well as down: Hamel described companies where reviews and complaints were placed in tickets and opened up publicly for all the company to see. Management had to respond to these tickets and close them other wise it affected their compensation. Talk about flipping management on it’s head.

Leadership is a privilege, not a right: In the said company, there were no titles or hierarchy. No one was given a leadership based on tenure. Instead teams would agree and ask someone to be a leader based on their demonstrated abilities. A good indicator if someone was in a leadership role was if people responded to meeting invites.

There were just a few of an hour-long brilliant speech. You can read Dr Hamel’s article at the Wall Street Journal.

Adobe Community Expert

Some great news. I’ve recently been designated as an Adobe Community Expert for Mobile and Devices. This is a real motivator and after holding the torch for Flash Lite for a number years and it really demonstrates Adobe’s willingness to reward and recognize folks who contribute to the community. There are some great perks that go along with this and I’d encourage any lurkers out there to contribute since it does reap rewards at times. One easy way to get started is go register yourself in the Adobe Groups section and look for stuff in your area. One thing to note, the community aspect of Adobe’s offerings is much improved thanks to the efforts of Rachel Luxemburg.

There’s some exciting things going on with Flash Lite these days at Mobile World Congress, I’ll be covering them with some future posts. But in general look for some spirited content coming from me focusing specifically on Flash Lite and Open Screen Project in the near future.

I’m Speaking at Mobile Connect Conference on Nokia WRT

For those who are interested or in the Bay Area, I just found out that I’ve been chosen to speak on Nokia Web RunTime at a new convention that is colocated with SDWest next month called Mobile Connect. Details are here:

SESSION TYPE:

90-minute Conference Session, to be held Thursday, March 12th, 2009, 11:15am in the Santa Clara Convention Center

SESSION TRACK:

Mobile Development & Technologies
You know what your stakeholders want; now it’s time to implement it. Whether you need to determine coding standards or choose technology, this track will help you navigate the last few phases of the mobile software development lifecycle. With courses on programming styles, updates on the latest languages, core build and release techniques, maintenance guidelines and more, you’ll find advice and information on building, deploying and maintaining mobile software in the real world.

SESSION DESCRIPTION:

Nokia Web Runtime Widgets
This session will cover an overview of the benefits and features of Nokia’s Web Runtime technology including the recently announced platform services allowing for device specific access to features including the calendar, contacts, messaging, audio, video, images, GPS, and camera, via JavaScript APIs. The session will feature both best practices in widget development as well as an end-to-end solution demonstration in creating a real functional widget.

SESSION SPEAKER:

Rob Toole
Rob Toole has over a decade of experience in bringing rich and engaging experiences to both the desktop and mobile space with companies including, ESPN, Medtronic, and Fidelity Investments. As a recognized community expert in the mobile technology space, Rob has led sessions, product demos, and seminars as a guest for high-profile event organizers such as Adobe, Nokia, and Mobile Monday Boston.

Very excited about this opportunity and hope to see you there!

360|iDev – I’m totally there!

I’m really excited about attending a great community driven conference at Ebay’s headquarters in San Jose next month called 360|iDev. I really saw this as a tremendous opportunity to gain some business insight and network as well as well a pick up some general iPhone development skills in the red-hot iPhone developer market. The price is unbeatable when compared with some 3-day workshops I’ve seen recently at over $2000. Click the banner above or to the right for details and get registered before the price goes up.

Some other folks from Beantown will be out there as well, both Scott Janousek and Keith Peters will be presenting which means after hours mayhem for sure. See you at the hotel bar.

Race against Runkeeper and Sports Tracker

In starting to get acquainted with my new iPhone, I’ve been testing out some of the new location aware apps offered on the App store. One that caught my eye was Runkeeper. RunKeeper tracks workouts and tracks data such as time and location allowing you to build a diary and share your progress with your friends. I had been using Nokia Sports Tracker on and off for the last year and had been pretty happy with it so I decided to put my Nokia N95 in one pocket and my iPhone 3G in another and see how they matched up. Let the battle begin 🙂

RunKeeper – My Tracked Workout

Newcomer first…. RunKeeper is pretty sweet. It does a great job allowing you to see your stored workouts on the device itself and even will leverage maps so you can see your mile markers and route. This is far beyond what Sports Tracker offers in the device, though ST does offer a lot more general data points. The RunKeeper online portal is a little primative but cool allowing you to post your workouts into social platforms such as Facebook and the like. From what I hear they are improving this as we speak.



Cons include some known issues that are being worked out. First, the touch interface makes it pretty easy to press something by accident when you’re stowing the handset, not their fault but a usability issue nonetheless. I did experience one bug (pictured above) that somehow had me running to Burlington, MA and back (40 something miles!) in under 20 minutes. I think this was caused by the low battery message. This is a killer since you simply can’t just do your run over and disappointing to find that after all that work you don’t have your data. But other than this anomoly it has worked for everytime since.

Nokia Sports Tracker – My Tracked Workout

Sports Tracker is still a great application that you can use with your compatible Nokia device. The socialization piece on the website is top notch allowing you to look at a world map and see other workouts in your area as well as post pictures from your workout. It also allows you to share your progress via widgets into other platforms.

Now the bad. In the same run head to head you can see that my N95 did not pick up the GPS till I was well into my run. This is not a software issue so to say since the built in GPS on this devices takes a notoriously long time to pick up location, but still not cool. Also the visualization on handset is terrible compared to RunKeeper. Strange that they are strong on the desktop and weak on the device here.

In closing, it’s important to note that Sportstracker is free while RunKeeper is not, at least for the premium version which is $9.99. You can also use a free version of RunKeeper which I used for the demo, but you’ll get hit with ads. I did end up buying the full version, but I think there needs to be a few more differentiators other than ads to justify the price here. As for Sports Tracker, it’s hard to tell if it’s more than skunkwork for Nokia as it’s been in beta for a while. It’s a great offering however and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them evolve it someday as they roll out more devices and maybe roll it into their Ovi strategy.

Who wins? They are both great and both specific to the handset, so depending on what you own (Nokia, iPhone) give them a try, you won’t be disappointed.

Blame the iPhone: ESPN.com dumps almost all Flash

I bet some of you are sports fans and have already seen ESPN.com’s new layout for their website. Design wise, a huge leap forward, still very rich and engaging and much easier to navigate. But there is something markedly different here. What you ask? Well the only thing left on it that’s still Flash based are the banner ads and video players. This is a huge departure from the old design which heavily relied on all sorts of widgets and small rich applications to visualize everything from real-time data such as game scores, to player stats. Now they seem to have replaced most of this with DHtml and Ajax. And it works beautifully.

In some ways this is a win for Adobe since if ESPN still picks them to ditribute their enomormous ammount of programming they clearly still have a firm grip on video distribution online (The video does look stunning). Yet interactive features that used to live inside flash such as search, comments, and stuff like star ratings are all outside the swf, just as other video rich sites like Hulu does. ESPN.com used to be a real mantle piece for Flash, and I really think the iPhone’s lack of support has had some hand in leading them to this approach. It’s smart in a lot of ways because you’re not plug-in dependent and only rely on the browser to render the bulk of your content. One thing I have to note as well is that now I get faster load times and less spinning beach balls on my Mac which points to better all around performance.

I love Flash and Adobe gained a lot of ground with MX 2004 in getting it to be looked at as a real application solution rather than an animation toy. Unless they continue to innovate, make Flash even more ubiquitous on even more platforms, and get performance better than ever, they may become a banner ad and artists tool for good someday.